Odds, Ends, and Podcast

Radio Noir Appearance!
Was waiting a day or two after the episode before I posted this up. I sadly don't have time to post up the video of it (not that it really makes much difference, just basically the same thing but in video form) since I'm actually working on three reviews at once - Ultimates 3 #5 and the double feature for the following week.

Still, enjoy this interview with the awesometastic Radio Noir peeps!


Revolution of The Mask
Yeah, many people have been asking me what's up with the next issue of Revolution of the Mask, so full disclosure: I can't find my artist.

Yeah, Leonardo Hector Freites, my artist for ROTM, has stopped answering my e-mails and I haven't heard from him since November, where he wished me a Happy Thanksgiving and I conveyed the same to him, so I doubt it's a matter of me pissing him off. He had expressed some health problems in the past, but I really hope they weren't anything serious enough to incapacitate him.

My attempts at contacting him have failed, so I may have little choice at some point but to move forward without him. I may need to explore the legal options of that since we were both entered into contract with Brain Scan to do the book, but if I can't find him or contact him, I don't know what to do.

The best case scenario is that I find him, he's okay and that something just went wrong or that he was just far too busy working on far-better-paying projects. The worst case is that I never find him and the book dies after only two issues with no further answers given or expansion of what's happening.

What's most likely going to occur is a medium ground. If I can't get in touch with him and Brain Scan is willing to enter into a new contract, I'll go on an artist hunt for someone to take the reigns, hopefully someone with a similar enough style so that the book has artistic consistency.

If that is what it comes to, I'll make an announcement around March or April.

Upcoming Episodes
Here are the upcoming episodes through April:
2/22 – The Wanderers #5
3/1 – Doom’s IV #1/2
3/8 – X-Men #1
3/15 – Darker Image #1
3/22 – The Dark Knight Strikes Again Part 2
3/29 – Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #2
4/5 – Star Trek/X-Men #1
4/12 – Athena #1
4/19 – JLA: Act of God Part 1
4/26 – JLA: Act of God Part 2
5/3 – JLA: Act of God Part 3



Anything else just ask away! ‎ Read more!

Uncanny X-Men #423

I have to say, the people who paid 25 cents for this comic were profoundly ripped off.


This review’s going to be a little different than other reviews and perhaps a little more difficult to pull off. See, it’s easy to make fun of #1 issues since they’re intended to indoctrinate the reader (be they old or new) into the new individual story arc that’s occurring within the book. But when you have a series that’s been going for 400+ issues, one would have to assume that there has been some sort of consistent quality that’s allowed it to last 35 years. Some could say that it’s just tradition, wanting to keep the book alive out of faith for the characters, but if that’s the case, they wouldn’t have started an entire new book for the Avengers after a 500+ issue run. I admit there’s an economic factor to that since #1 issues sell better than a book that’s on its 423rd issue. However, if you are picking up a book that has creative teams frequently leaving the book after a storyline or after a few story arcs, you want to make the stories consistently good so that new readers to the series won’t have any problem wanting to pick it up again.

Of course, the problem with this is that there are naturally going to be stinkers in a book and this one’s no different. Chuck Austen’s run on Uncanny X-Men caused a bit of controversy due to accusations of Mary Sue characters, retcons to established characters, poor characterization, and ridiculous plot points. I admit, I’m not familiar with a lot of Austen’s work, mostly because I don’t pick up much of his work, be it WorldWatch or Action Comics. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s unfair of me to think this comic sucks.

In preparation for setting up this site, I asked several message boards for recommendations for bad comics to review and Uncanny X-Men #424 was given as a candidate. I perused my local store’s back-issues for it, but sadly could not find it. However, since the story in question was a two-parter, I did manage to get my hands on #423. Eventually, I do plan on getting #424 because of what I’ve heard about it. I’m almost deadly-determined to do it for one specific reason that was cited for the contempt of it: disintegration communion wafers. Intrigued? So am I.

Before we begin, a minor rant – what is it with the propensity for some comics to include adjectives into their title? Amazing, Uncanny, Astonishing, Sensational, Irredeemable... shouldn’t just being a mainstream superhero or team be enough to justify its worth? Why do we need to feel that the book is special by having this description? Of course, this comic is special, just not in the way they wanted.



The cover makes no sense. It’s a token shot of Wolverine coming out at the camera all badass-like and all with broken chains behind him. However, while Wolverine is in the issue, at no point is he chained up (or is there even chains featured, for that matter). And a note on the artwork: his outfit is apparently so tight that we can see every sinew of muscle on his body, even in places I didn’t realize there were smaller muscles. Oh, and when did Wolvie pick up the anchored goatee? It just makes him look like a thinly-disguised villain and certainly not one of the most popular characters in comics. Also surprisingly, this comic is priced at 25 cents, possibly an indicator of how much faith Marvel editorial had in the issue. Joking aside, I’m not sure for what reason it was given a 25-cent price except as a possible promotion, but I’d think that Marvel would want to promote better material than this.

The first page is a recap of recent events and I have to say it’s refreshing to see that Marvel wants to let new readers be caught up on recent events, but they throw four paragraphs worth of material that could have been explained away in one sentence: teenagers have really complicated and crappy soap opera-like lives. Just to give a quick sum-up: Havok is out of a coma and in love with a nurse named Annie, but he accepted a marriage proposal from Polaris (which makes me happy to see a woman proposing to a man, but why the hell did he accept a marriage proposal from her if he didn’t love her?!), Nightcrawler recently stepped down as leader of the X-Men and encountered a “mysterious organization” known as the Church of Humanity, and a mutant named Chamber returned to the X-Men to find his girlfriend Husk now involved with Archangel. “But all these trying times at the Xavier mansion are only a small hint of the horrors to come...” Oh no, it’s a plague of carjackings!

We open the actual story with a montage of various scenes across the world, including a group of silhouetted soldiers along three crosses, a battle of Christian soldiers versus an unknown foe (which I can only presume to be part of the Crusades), a group of unidentified black people (some of whom seem rather overweight) wearing islander wear and holding books [??] while the background shows mountains and palm trees, a concentration camp, and an unidentified scene of a mass, open grave with several dead individuals within it while soldiers approach it, an unknown flag (featuring red and white stripes and some sort of grey shield on it) implanted next to the grave. And on their own, these could have been somber scenes (except for the odd scene of the islanders holding books. What the hell was that about?), but the narration captions ruin it all, right from the start:

“More people have died in the name of religion than have ever died of cancer. And we try to cure cancer.” Okay, how many stupid things can I count about just those lines? First of all, while it’s certainly true that religious fanaticism in one form or another is responsible for deaths spanning millennia, trying to compare it the amount of cancer deaths is just plain ridiculous. I’m not trying to underplay the seriousness of cancer, but the reason fewer people have died of cancer is partly because cancer is a disease that’s caused usually by factors outside of the control of individuals and because we have treatments for cancer, it’s more likely that people will live through it. There isn’t really a surgical procedure at the moment for ‘being blown into several million pieces by a suicide bomber’ or ‘getting stabbed in the face during the Crusades.’ Furthermore, trying to compare premeditated murder with a horrible disease and making it sound like religious fanaticism is worse than cancer is just horribly insensitive. “Gee, Billy, I’m sorry you have a tumor, but at least you weren’t made an example of by the whacko religious fanatics!”

On top of that, “And we try to cure cancer” is the height of terrible writing. Is the guy advocating that we try to cure religious extremism? Forgive my squirrelly ignorance, but again it’s trying to say that a disease and a murderous belief system are somehow on an even keel. But anyway, we haven’t even got to the actual story yet, so let’s continue: “What is it about our specific belief in God and his wishes that makes us so angry at the specific beliefs in another?” Um... It isn’t belief in God that does it; it’s believing that God doesn’t like other people’s beliefs that does it. Get your facts straight. Some of us believe in God and don’t have a problem with other people’s beliefs (unless those beliefs are the ones that say you should kill people for your beliefs, but I digress).



“What makes us take up arms against those who pray to the same God with different words -- and make “Holy War” against them?” And again, he’s making a general assumption. I can assure you that the general beliefs of Christians tend to not match the general beliefs of Muslims nor do they match the general beliefs of Hindi, Buddhists, Shintoists, and etc. Saying that they’re “the same God with different words” is unbelievably offensive to those who hold their beliefs and ignorant of all the tenets and differences among the world’s religion. Anywho, we switch to a two-page spread featuring a group of X-Men at their school looking in shock as they see several members of their team quite literally crucified on their front lawn. The one closest to them has a sign on him that says, “Evolution is not the will of God.” I could also point out that it’s not his will to nail people up on crosses, but I’m sure I’ll understanding things with the ‘ironic’ quote from Deuteronomy that’s featured on the bottom talking about only the one true God and all.

Oh, and the crucifixions themselves? The artist screwed up big time. Each X-Man that’s nailed up has the spikes being driven through his palm and his feet and they’re hanging limply from the crosses. This is quite impossible. The weight of the body can’t be supported just from the palms – it’d rip the hands clean through. The only way this would work is if they had some sort of stool or something for their feet to stand on, otherwise the Romans would traditionally either tie the hands around the cross by the wrist or simply stab the nails through the wrists. Or maybe these X-Men have ‘super-weight-reduction’ as part of their mutations.

On the next page, the narrator (now revealed to be Nightcrawler) gives a breakdown of the members of the team. First is Jean Grey, who by now must have Frequent Flier Miles with as many times as she’s died. She announces that she’s not picking up any thoughts or heartbeats, declaring them all dead. Next is Logan, whom Nightcrawler says is, “Often called Wolverine because he’s short, tough, and has these hundred-inch claws that shoot out of each hand.” Just like a real Wolverine! Wolverine yells at the group to get them down as we’re introduced to Chamber and Husk. Chamber, according to Nightcrawler, is “A walking ad for how mutant gifts can ruin a good jawline.” I think I saw a public service announcement like that once.

As for Husk, he’d “explain her mutant power, but it disturbs me too much.” This from a guy who once appeared on a painted cover of a comic butt-naked in front of Wolverine without any intended comedy about the situation. For those wondering, Husk’s ability is to shed her skin into a different element, which really isn’t that disturbing compared to the guy with energy coming out of his mouth or the telepath with a cosmic bird for a soul. To make a long story short (too late), Cyclops concurs with Wolverine to get them down and Iceman objects, thinking the police will want to see it. In turn, Cyclops has what we call an ‘heroic spaz attack’ around here, once again yelling to take them down. By the by, the X-Men tend to go through a lot of uniforms and right now they’re wearing their worst – matching blue and yellow ensembles and Cyclops in particular has it worst with a huge-ass ‘X’ across his torso.

Cyclops tells Jean to contact the new nurse, Annie, and she complies, sending a telepathic call to her: “Annie? Annie, it’s me, Jean. I need -- Annie, please stop screaming, it’s just telepathy, it’s not going to hurt -- well, when you pull yourself together, can you join us in front of the school?” You know, if this is how they treat a regular human who’s rightfully panicking when she’s hearing a voice in her head communicating with her, I’ve got to say I understand why Homo sapiens are afraid of these guys.



Nightcrawler makes the comment that the police are going to be unhappy that they’re tampering with a crime scene and Wolverine just rolls his eyes at this and proclaims that, “When it comes to mutants -- we are the police.” I certainly agree with Wolverine on this one, but it makes me scratch my head as to why Nightcrawler is so adamant about such a thing, since we know that the X-Men have more advanced technology available to them than local law enforcement. The others see that Jubilee has also been crucified and Wolverine runs to her. Iceman, in this stunning bit of revelation, says these words: “Right here, Logan. My God, it is her!” No kidding, Einstein – that yellow raincoat can be spotted a mile away. Wolverine and Iceman pull her down while Wolverine screams for help: “Where’s a healer?!” We need to travel into an Instance! “Where’s Xorn?! Where’s Worthington?! Where the hell is Worthington?!”

All of a sudden, Nightcrawler has his own heroic spaz attack, looking up at the sky and screaming, “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” Beep! This is God – your call is very important to us... “Or cry to you “violence!” And you will not save?” While some people have crises of faith like this, Nightcrawler just two seconds ago didn’t seem too put off that a bunch of his friends were nailed to a bunch of crosses, caring more about upsetting the possible police investigation.

Jean telekinetically carries two bodies back into the school as Nurse Annie asks who could do such a horrible thing to them. Iceman responds that it was by people who don’t like mutants, saying her name sanctimoniously to make her feel bad about her own prejudices. Nightcrawler’s narration pipes in with: “Annie the human. Annie the “enemy.”” Erm, maybe I haven’t read any X-Men books in a while, but I was under the impression that Professor Xavier thought that humans and mutants weren’t supposed to be enemies? Once again being a flip-flopper, Nightcrawler on the next page says in narration, “Don’t go there, Bobby” and then spouts off what I can only presume is a Bible quote since he says it with quotation marks in his narration captions.

In the next scene, Angel is lying in the middle of the medical bay with wires hooked up to him and all of the dead X-Men. With the time I’m sure it took them to set up this little display, I’m sure the bodies of all of them must have started to decay (at least the brain would due to lack of oxygen) so I don’t know what they’re hoping to accomplish with their little transfusion of Angel’s ‘healing blood.’ Wolverine, still screaming, asks how long it’s going to take. Angel tells him to calm down and reassures Husk that he’ll be fine. “You go worry about Jubilee and Angelo.” And, you know, the four or five other dead friends of yours, too, perhaps?



Cyclops pulls Nightcrawler aside, starting to give him instructions about assembling his squad when Nightcrawler interrupts, saying it’s not just his team anymore. Cyclops states that: “It is your team, Kurt. You wanted more responsibility and Xavier gave you the second squad. Whether you choose to follow up on the responsibility given to you is your business -- but you are the team leader.” So, wait, he’s the team leader, but he doesn’t have to follow up on the responsibility of it if he doesn’t want to and yet you’re barking out orders to him? Is anyone following this logic? Nightcrawler states that he split his leadership responsibility with Angel (and in case you haven’t noticed, blue boy, Angel’s not exactly in a position to be giving orders at the moment). Cyclops interrupts him by saying that he “found it easier to be liked if you didn’t have to make the unpopular decisions. So you left those to Warren in order to continue being everyone’s happy-go-lucky best friend.”

He continues by giving a lecture on leadership: “Being a leader isn’t about being a friend, or being liked.” Well, I guess that explains why everyone thinks Cyclops is a stuck-up asshole – he is. “It’s about making the right decisions no matter how tough they are -- or how unpopular they make you. So get your team to the conference room -- and do it now.” Okay, I do actually agree with Cyclops on his description of leadership, but seriously, is now the best time to be giving lectures? Just take charge yourself, Cyclops – you’re still the overall field leader and you don’t want a conflict in the chain-of-command from Nightcrawler if he disagrees with you about something, do you? Jeez, he really is a dick.

Annie warns Angel that they’re getting close to a pint of Angel’s blood and he tells her to keep going. Husk tries to convince him to stop and Nightcrawler asks her to accompany him to meet with Cyclops and the others. Husk refuses, but Angel tells her to go with Nightcrawler, saying, “You’re really wasting your time here, anyway.” On its face, this may seem heartless, but seriously, it’s true – I mean, what’s Husk going to do to be helpful? Wilt away next to Angel while staring at him, perhaps? Husk and Nightcrawler react with shocked looks on their faces to this perfectly legitimate statement and walk off. Annie scolds Angel for his statement, defending Husk and saying that she suspects that she likes him a lot. Angel responds that he knows, but that she loves Chamber. Annie, reacting with a wonderful beside manner, responds, “What? The kid without a mouth? Please! There’s nothing to kiss!” Wow, such a sensitive nurse, isn’t she? “If you knew anything about women, handsome, you’d know there’s nothing more important than a man who can kiss.” Yes, because his personality has nothing to do with what a woman likes in a guy. Honestly, where did this woman get her nursing license, from the Gary Brodsky School for Women?



Switching scenes over to “The War Room,” we once again find Nightcrawler reciting Bible lines. I’m not including them here because these few lines of good writing weren’t written by the comic’s author. Cyclops wants to know who’s responsible for the attack and that he wants “hints, clues, rumors, psychic impressions, whatever you’ve got -- and then we’re going to find these monsters!” Um... Cyclops? You see all that technology around you? How about you punch up some camera footage or something that might have shown who the people were who did it? Havok brings up the idea that with the crosses and religious symbols, it’s likely that it was the Church of Humanity that attacked them. Cyclops doesn’t know what he’s talking about and Nightcrawler explains that they’re “a bunch of clowns who think mutantkind is against God. Our team has faced them a few times in differing circumstances.”

Cyclops quickly asks several questions at once: “How many times? What’s their background? Where are they located and why weren’t we briefed on them?” Nightcrawler starts to answer and as soon as he brings up how he assumed Angel had briefed him, Cyclops goes nuts, yelling at him: “Dammit(sic), Kurt, are you brain-dead?! Did you or did you not ask Xavier for more responsibility at this school?!” Is this really the best time to be giving Nightcrawler a lecture about the finer points of command? Some of your teammates may have just died and it was due to a terrorist attack; worry about that kind of crap after you’ve captured the killers! But no, Cyclops rants about how it’s Nightcrawler’s responsibility to keep the other teams apprised of potential threats, “Especially if your team has failed to effectively deal with them.” Gee, Cyclops, you’re right. Say, how’s the Hellfire Club these days? Or Apocalypse? Or Mister Sinister? Or- well, you get the idea.

The others concur with my opinion of Cyclops being a dick, telling him he should calm down and we do get this humorous exchange of dialogue between Havok and Cyclops, mostly because Havok is so right:

“With all due respect, Alex, this doesn’t concern you.”
“With all due respect, Scottie -- this is no time to be a tightwad.”

Meanwhile, back in the medical bay, Angel is getting light-headed from all the blood being drained from him (or maybe it’s just his confusion about why Wolverine’s still in the room when he told Husk she was wasting her time). Annie tells Angel that there’s no change in the conditions of the others and Wolverine confirms this, sadly ordering Annie to cut off the feed. Angel objects, trying to get them to hold off a little longer. “Warren, I can’t. Your healing thingie[!] isn’t replacing your blood as fast as I’m draining it.” 'Healing thingie?!' Okay, seriously, this character could not have been a Mary Sue. There’s no way Chuck Austen would make his wife this stupid.

Wolverine once again tells Angel he needs to pull it and that they don’t need any more dead today. Jubilee suddenly asks who died in a weak voice, shocking the others. Wolverine goes down and grumbles to her that she had just died. Jubilee, in a bit of ‘humor,’ responds, “Dude. You ever hear the words “Mouth. Wash?”” Ever hear the words ‘Fashion. Disaster,’ Jubilee? But I kid Jubilee. I actually don’t hate her outfit that much, since it’s fairly original, it’s just that she needs a serious power upgrade other than simply shooting fireworks from her hands.

Back in the War Room (which is now tilted at odd angles for some reason), Cyclops wonders why the Church of Humanity, in its previous encounters, at first didn’t want to fight with the team but then began engaging them in combat. When asking what changed between the circumstances about Nightcrawler specifically (huh?!), Nightcrawler says that the “only major thing is that I renounced my priesthood...” Havok is shocked to discover that he was a Priest and Nightcrawler wonders why it’s so hard to believe. “Well, no offense, but look at you, pal. How would that work? Are you talking about being a priest to mutants?” Nice work paving the way for a peaceful future between mutants and humans, Havok. Real smooth. Iceman’s more surprised by the idea that he finally became a Priest and is confused about why the X-Men weren’t invited to the ceremony. Nightcrawler says they were invited and that they all attended. The group all stares at him in disbelief.



Back in the Infirmary, most of the others who had been dead are getting up, possibly indicating the shortest time for the Revolving Door of Death to turn (a single issue and 13 pages). However, all is not well, as Angelo is still dead. However, on the last panel of the page, you can see his eye partly open, which made me think at first that they were going to do a ‘humorous’ thing of him getting up then and laughing at the others, but alas, there is nothing but somberness. For some reason we have a single panel of Nightcrawler holding his head as Havok asks him what the Church could gain by making him think he was a Priest, with Nightcrawler answering that he doesn’t know. The scene switches to St. Michael’s Church in Brooklyn and from the looks of the page, the X-Men landed the Blackbird right in the middle of the flippin’ street. Word to the wise – just because your plane is a stealth plane doesn’t mean people can’t still walk into it, especially if it’s not cloaked or camouflaged in any way!

Nightcrawler explains that this is the place where he thought he was doing his priestly duties under a man named Father Whitney. It was also where he remembers his ordination ceremony took place. The others confirm that they don’t recall ever being here and Jean informs us that “there is some psychic residue of someone tampering with your mind, Kurt.” Oh, gee, THANKS, Jean, for telling us this rather useful bit of information NOW! Honestly, would it have been that difficult to clue Nightcrawler into the fact that it was likely his brain was getting screwed around with? Following the incident with you practically yelling at Annie about the telepathy, I can only assume that flaming bird in you must have laid an egg on your brain, jeez...

Nightcrawler states, “In a way, I’m almost relieved to hear you say that, Jean. I’d begun to question Father Whitney recently, in spite of his warmth and friendship toward me. It’s funny how kindness is often more truly just a pleasant act of selfishness, isn’t it?” Wow. Real deep, Kurt. Ladies and gentlemen, there you have the reason why so many superheroes were assholes during the Dark Age of comics: kindness = selfishness. Oh, and he also narrates another Bible quote, this time actually saying that it’s Proverbs 26:23. Why this one and not any of the previous ones? I refer thee to the book of Lewis, chapter 7, verse 3: poor writing and/or poor editing.

Cyclops, in a strategic maneuver worthy of Patton or Napoleon, tells Wolverine to cover their backside and for Polaris to go in from the back. Let’s see: guy who can regenerate from any injury and girl who can control metal (like, you know, the stuff that tends to be in a lot of churches) cool their heels while a group that isn’t exactly indestructible goes head-first into an unknown area with the potential of multiple engagements against forces that can tamper psychically with your brain. Remind me again why Cyclops is the leader? Oh yeah, he has to make those “unpopular, but necessary” moves that nobody else likes to do. Maybe they’re so unpopular because they’re downright stupid?

In any case, the group enters and finds the Church empty. Nightcrawler believes that he was indeed at the Church since he knew people saw him leave the mansion and that he never made a secret of the fact that he was training to be a Priest. Havok, once again demonstrating how Xavier’s lessons of tolerance and sensitivity are not wasted, says “But how, Kurt? I mean, come on. Look at you. You’re a devil in a house of God.” No, he’s a mutant in a house of God who somewhat resembles a demon. Sorry, you’re confusing him with Blue Devil. Wrong company, but an easy mistake to make.

After a smattering of irrelevant dialogue that reveals that Havok knows the book of Revelations (undoubtedly as foreshadowing for the second part of this book), Jean indicates that there’s blood on the floor. She even identifies it as mutant blood. And before I can make the joke about how in the heck she knew it was mutant blood, someone asks her that question. She indicates that she cal tell a lot of things about the place that they’re not going to like and instructs them all to stand back.



Jean suddenly has her Phoenix bird thing come out of her and wreck up the floorboards beneath them as Nightcrawler’s narration, for one last time, recites a Bible quote (sans explaining where the quote came from this time), with this one making even less sense than before as it references God making humanity in his own image and that they should fill the earth and subdue it. And the ‘shocking’ reveal at the end? We have the “and subdue it” end of the quote and then a double-page spread of a laboratory beneath the floorboards, where dozens of dead mutants are in various positions, be they in tubes, on beds, in wheelchairs[??], or shackled to walls. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you need to check every square inch of the house you want to buy before purchase.

The final panel is a confusing shot of a blue entity, supposedly still alive, with a tube going into its nose while its eyes are wide open. GASP! How will the X-Men survive this terrifying encounter with dead bodies?! Will Cyclops continue to be a moronic asshole to his teammates?! Will Nightcrawler act like a rookie when we know he’s been on the team for years?! Will Polaris actually get to say a line?! Will Nurse Annie read a medical textbook and learn that ‘thingie’ is not something a licensed caregiver should be saying?! Wow, isn’t it all just uncanny?!

Well, tune in for whenever I get a copy of Uncanny X-Men #424! In the meantime, I think YouTube has got some of the old X-Men animated series up.
‎ Read more!

Atop the Fourth Wall Story Recap

Don't want to sift through 130 episodes of the show to figure out the story bits? Well, you're in luck! Here's the entire story so far condensed into 4 very quick minutes.

Here is the full list of episodes that contain story elements featured in this video.
-Godzilla vs. Barkley
-Neutro #1
-Wolverine: Adamantium Rage
-Warrior #1
-Superman vs. the Terminator #1
-Countdown Prologue
-Countdown Part 1
-Countdown Part 2
-Top 15 Worst Moments of Countdown
-Cable #1
-Zero Patrol #1
-Blackest Night Special
-Silent Hill: Dying Inside #1-2
-Silent Hill: Dying Inside #3-4
-Silent Hill: Dying Inside #5
-Silent Hill: Dying Inside Alternate Endings
-Doom #1
-Ultimates 3 #1-2
-Ultimates 3 #3-4
-Ultimates 3 #5
-Youngblood #2 and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers #1
-Strange Adventures #136
-Doom's IV #1/2
-The Dark Knight Strikes Again Part 2
-Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #2
-Athena #1
-JLA: Act of God Part 1
-JLA: Act of God Part 2
-JLA: Act of God Part 3
-The Spirit
-Warrior #2-3
-Tandy Computer Whiz-Kids: Fit to Win
-Anita Blake: The Laughing Corpse #1-2
-Freak Force #1
-Chain Gang War #1
-Ewoks #9
-Cable #2
-Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
-Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #1-2
-Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #3-4
-Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #5
-The X-Men #1 (For the beginning)
-Power Rangers Zeo #1
-Justice League: Cry for Justice #1-2
-Justice League: Cry for Justice #3-4
-Justice League: Cry for Justice #5-7
-Care Bears #13
-Superman: Distant Fires
-Youngblood #3 and Doctor Who Classics #7 ‎ Read more!

Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #1

Kind of self-explanatory, isn't it?

The title really says it all, doesn’t it?

Oh, but it gets sooo much better, folks. Solson Publications is a now-out of business comics company in the ‘80s that had such stellar titles as Codename: Assassin, Reagan’s Raiders (a comic, of all things, featuring our former president as part of a commando superhero team), Daffy Qadaffi, other various titles, and of course the subject of today’s burning. And while certainly members of the team just for this book are worthy of scorn, the former President of Solson comics, Gary Brodsky, deserves the most.

He is scum.

He is John Norman level of scum. He is the-oppressive-laws-against-women-in-Saudi Arabia-level scum. While it would be one thing to simply approve of this book (cheesecake for the sake of cheesecake exists even in Marvel), but what is the good Mr. Brodsky up to these days? Here is a selection of book titles from his site: How to dominate women, The Castration of the American Male, Dogs are like men, Cats are like women, How to use Black Magic to get women, Get any Woman to do Anything... Are we seeing a pattern here? The man is a misogynistic pile of crap and I don’t feel any shame in calling him that. I’m not going to link to his site, since I sure as hell don’t want people to give this bastard any more attention than my spittle and rage.

There are tenets of feminist philosophy (I’m disassociating with feminism itself here, since the definition of feminism is simply thinking that men and women should be treated equally) that I do not agree with, but man-oh-man it’s comics and individuals like this and him that make me want to.

Moving on away from the scumbag, I’m sad to say I don’t know much about the other individuals involved in this tripe. From what I’ve read, much like Greg Land of today, artist and creator of Sultry Teenage Super Foxes (hereafter to be referred to as STSF) Rich Buckler has a history of tracing behind him, but it’s lesser-known than more recent ones and from what I can tell from the limited research I’ve done, it wasn’t an extensive and common practice for him. Currently he’s doing surreal paintings and selling them from his site. The credits say that the script was by David George, but I can find no proof of this person’s existence so I’ll have to assume it’s a pen name for one of the other individuals involved in this fine work.

The other artist I can find very little about either is Chuck Wojkiewicz, albeit it seems that he has worked for DC before. Scott Nickel is still around, though, and apparently once joked about making a modern version of STSF or even Reagan’s Raiders using the current Republican President.

As for Solson comics itself, it was born out of the late ‘80s in the desire to mimic the success that black-and-white publishers had been having in the recently-budding direct-sales market. As such, this will also be the site’s first black and white comic.

And here we have the cover to Supreme Power #6- erm, I mean to our subject today (although that issue has a strikingly similar cover to this...). Unsurprisingly for the title, we have our heroines all wearing bathing suits of some sort. The woman in blue’s outfit, while looking nice stylistically, is still swim-wear if ever I saw it and does have the problem of really, REALLY huge boots. To make matters more confusing, one heroine isn’t even looking out at us like a group shot should, instead waving towards a jet that is, for some reason, on the cover. The woman in yellow has a boob window, of course, and the woman in green is... hell, I don’t know WHAT to call that outfit. It’s not helping that I can see her nipples poking through, but needless to say I’m just shaking my head here.

And before anyone cries out that these kind of outfits, “distract the enemy,” allow me to point out the fact that any villain worth his money isn’t going to give a rat’s ass if they’re in body armor, much less these outfits – they’re going to be running like hell and shooting back at whoever’s pursuing them because they don’t want to get CAUGHT. They’ll shoot at a superhero whether she’s starkers or fully-covered because they know what’ll happen if they don’t.

We open our story to an Air Force base where four women are waving goodbye to a group of pilots in their jets. The narration captions begin: “July. It means summer heat and clear blue skies here at Rutgers Air Force Base.” Really? I thought it meant giving, not stealing. “To Jasmine, Sheena, Amelia and Candy it means vacation - away from boarding school... and here on base, where their fathers work year round for Uncle Sam. Oh! It also means pilot watching.” Wait, their fathers work as pilots and these girls watch them? If it’s in a ‘oh-my-god-they’re-hot’ fashion, then eew. If any other fashion... well, sorry but that just sounds boring as hell. At least Hal Jordan’s group has interesting crap happen, like the occasional spaceship crashing into them. The narrator continues: “July is spent gazing dreamily at the cream of American manhood.” Okay, don’t EVER say ‘cream’ or ‘manhood’ again, okay? Ugh, I can just feel the oily touch of Gary Brodsky on this crap even if he didn’t write it.

“Today, alas, the girls are watching the pilots leave base on a five day mission. Five days is a long time in July – with no pilots around especially!” Yeah, I can remember back when I was a kid and I just kicked myself in July because there were no pilots around to watch. I mean, what’s not to like, eh? Mid-air refueling, sonic booms that shatter your eardrums... On that subject, five days on a single mission DOES seem like an awful long time to be away. Are they planning on staying up there the whole time or will they actually be stopping at other air force bases?

And already we see the real flaw behind black and white books – while stylistically they can work for something like Maus or something with a hint of color like AntiBunny, in a superhero book (intended mostly for action), it can get really difficult to keep track of which characters are which judging primarily on the hair style.

In any case, Amelia sighs and proclaims she misses one of the guy’s already. Jasmine rolls her eyes at her and says, “That is so high school! And you look like someone just shot your poodle! Play hard to get – for a change.” Nothing like being independent and not requiring a relationship, eh? “I thought we were in high school, Jasmine.” Ah, yes, nothing says high school quite like women who look like they’re in their mid-twenties. Two of the women wave at some mechanics nearby and Jasmine is unimpressed. “And just look at you two! Waving at mere mechanics! My God, they’re enlisted men!” GASP! Oh my God, what’ll the girls in baking class think?!

Jasmine proclaims that she’ll settle for no less than “An officer! A pilot!” Much like the narrator of Thunderstrike, Jasmine seems to have a problem with sentence fragments. One of the mechanics leers at the women and asks how a guy is supposed to work when the women are so distracting. Oh, I don’t know, perhaps by focusing on the task at hand instead of thinking with your other head? An MP stops the women, proclaiming them to be in a restricted area. As they turn to leave, the women wave to the mechanics, one of whom stupidly smacks his buddy across the back of the head as he turns.



The women manage to sneak away from the MP into a hangar and Candy is surprised by a jet that’s covered in tarps (USELESS FORESHADOWING!). The others drag her back along so they can escape and Sheena leads them along like a general. Speaking of which, when they get out of the hangar, somehow her father (a General at the base), is suddenly standing right behind her in a car that anyone could’ve seen coming a mile away. The others remark ‘humorously’: “Yowsa! Yowsa!”[??] “Ha-Ha! Sheena, you sound just like your father!” “Yeah, Sheena, and umm... Speaking of your father...” The narrator informs us quite casually, “Oh, well. Looks like they’re out of the frying pan...” Oh, those crazy wimmins – what sorta trouble will they get into next! Hahahaha- someone please kill me.

Sheena’s father reads her the riot act while the other women snicker. When he’s finished, Sheena makes a ‘sad puppy-eyes’ face at him and says, “I’m awful sorry, daddy. I was just showing the girls around. I didn’t want to be any trouble...” Yes, ladies, when men aren’t lusting after you, you should use your soft, submissive faces to try to calm those raging guys down! What’s particularly stupid about this panel is that the word balloon she’s using is dripping down like she was saying something scary, so any effect for ‘cute’ they were trying to go for is lost. The General isn’t buying her sad face, but instead of rightfully carting the women down to a less-restricted zone and punished for trespassing, he instructs her to guide his new aide, Barry, around the base. Barry is a dorky guy with glasses whose first panel appearance has him bonking his head against a car roof. The women all think about what a nerd or geek he looks like, except for one who has the image of a number two pencil for the guy’s head, which I presume is the artist’s way of drawing ‘pencil-neck,’ even though it would’ve just been simpler to write the words out.

The narrator informs us in a new establishing shot that the unimpressive building before them is, “The Air Force Advanced Aerial Combat Training Center – the most advanced facility of its kind on Earth! “C.T.C.” for short.” Um... shouldn’t that be AFAACTC if that was really its full name? Barry says he’d better get used to living in the area since he’s working on Project Valkyrie. When they ask him about it, Barry informs them on what Project Valkyrie is: “It’s a plan to give women advanced aerial training – in case the country should ever need female pilots.” Well, that makes sense, I suppose, given that-

Wait, WHAT THE FUCK?! I have made it my deliberate goal to ensure I don’t swear a lot in these reviews, but seriously, that statement deserves a complete Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot. There already are female pilots, you jackasses! And what the hell is it about women that prevents them from being perfectly acceptable as pilots in cases other than emergencies?! I’m sure Grace Trout, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lilya Litvyak, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton can rest easy knowing how much their work is appreciated today.

Admittedly (after doing a little research), while there were female air force pilots at the time this comic was made, female aviators were not allowed to fly in actual combat. They did anyway (and participated in Panama, Grenada, and Desert Storm), but combat records excluded them. In 1993, this law was repealed and women were rightfully allowed to fly combat missions. However, the wording of the dialogue above makes it sound like there aren’t any female pilots at all and that they’d only need them in an emergency!

As Barry is shown around the building (and I must ask why civilians are showing him around), one of the women reveals for no explicable reason that Jasmine’s got a photographic memory (USEFUL FORESHADOWING!). The women play around with him, taking his I.D. badge and clip it to the back of his jacket. They get away by proclaiming, “Oh, gee! Look at the time! We gotta go and, uh... do our homework!” Barry protests that it’s July and Candy responds, “Well, we’re sorta(sic) slow. We need a real heard-start!” Tee-hee! It’s like they’re smart but they’re not! Tee-hee! ...somebody PLEASE KILL ME. Barry takes off his glasses and, shockingly, he’s a dead ringer for the recently-deceased Maxwell Lord from DC comics.



Cut to “New Orleans, Louisiana. July 14.” My name’s Friday – I’m a cop. The narrator pipes in about the sweltering heat of the city and that some sections have less tourist attractions than others, showing a street that features signs like, “Topless & Bottomless,” (A rather fitting description of this comic...) “French Style Entertainment,” (Jerry Lewis? This IS a backwater place...) and “Discoteque(sic) Upstairs.” Wow, who knew Discotheques were such a hotbed of drugs and prostitution? We switch to a sign that reads “Madame Rotunda (oh, that’s subtle)” and inside there’s a woman with the standard trappings of a palm reader’s house – crystal balls, candles on skulls, and incense. Madame Rotunda herself is practicing magic while wearing a ridiculous skull helmet on her head.

And it seems my sentiments are the same as her’s, because as we flip the page she thinks, “This ridiculous headdress is about to kill me! And the heat! None of this is working... I should- No! I mustn’t! I must not give up! For the sake of my baby, my sweet Audrey, I must not give up!” The narrator exposits that Rotunda’s daughter died two years ago and now she’s seeking a way to summon the dead. She finally managed to “pierce the veil” and her spirit rises to... well, I’m really not sure. Another problem of black and white comics is that it’s hard to tell what it is we’re looking at in more detailed settings. What I can see is a weird building with a cross-symbol at its top and a bonfire going on in a lake. Rotunda realizes that something has gone wrong and something explodes out of the building. It appears in the visage of a flaming skull as the narrator explains, “The freed thing bridges the intervening gulfs of inner and outer space[??], following the silver thread of Madame’s Spirit... to New Orleans. To Madame (is her first name Madame or something?). Home.” And for some reason that just baffles the mind, the narrator then asks, “Mommy, it followed me home. Can I keep it? [?!?!]”

As Rotunda tries to fight the demon in her head, the demon proclaims that it can give her anything she wants, including vengeance. After she agrees to this, Rotunda transforms into a skinny, hawt version of herself with odd barbed boots, arm warmers, bra, and panties. Oh, and the panties have a cape running down the backside ala the Princess Leia gold bikini. Since she had to take off her robes in order to reveal this ensemble, I can only presume she was wearing this outfit before she was attacked by the demon, so eeewww on so many levels. To add to this wonderful imagery of turning a woman into a sex object is this wonderfully subtle dialogue from the narrator: “The invader wins dominance. Free at last, after so long. Let the universe tremble again.”



Cut back to the Air Force base. The narrator informs us that this is the lab of Dr. Francis Hobble and where the General and Barry are now wanting to see a demonstration of his work. The sample that they’re using is- ugh. It’s four ounces of dog feces. Folks, I don’t know what is more disgusting – the sexism or the attempts at humor. The doctor gives them goggles (“The goggles, they do nothing!” joke in 5...4...3...) and the narrator informs us, “Switches are thrown... and beams of dazzling brilliance lance down onto the sample...” I was unaware that dazzling brilliance had been harnessed into an energy form. “...Bathing it in Eldritch fire[??]... Altering it at the fundamental level!”

Barry is shocked to discover that the dog feces have become gold[!!!]! Barry speculates that it must require lots of power, to which Dr. Hobble affirms, “When we operate the device, every light is dimmed by the power drain[!!!]!” WHAT?! An alchemy device, something that alters dog turds into friggin’ gold, something that changes the atomic structure of one completely different item into another only drains enough power to dim some lights?!?! It gets better, folks.

We get a cost breakdown for the machine, that the apparatus itself cost “millions” and that converting the sample cost around $65,000. “It’s not a cost-effective source for gold, of course, but the theoretical ramifications are enormous!” Not cost-effective?! Once you HAVE the machine, getting the back pay for it is simple once you make gold of equal value! And where does the cost of actually converting the material come from?! Is it the power drain?! Now, I’m not a scientist, but it seems to me that if you hooked it up something that produced an awful lot of energy, say a nuclear power planet or a geothermal plant, the power cost would be minimal at best! Now, there is an economics problem of making more gold and thereby flooding the market with it, but a device of this power has other uses.

Even if garbage itself is not a big issue in the United States thanks to the fact that landfills are plowed over and converted into methane power plants, wasteful material like feces, polluted water, or chemical byproducts of other industrial manufacturing could be converted into whatever materials you need at any moment and subsequently sold to anyone who needed them! And what does Barry have to say about such possibilities? “No way they’ll fund it this year[!!]. It’s just too theoretical[!!!].” Too theoretical?! They made friggin’ dog poop into GOLD!

Jasmine comes in, apparently the daughter of Dr. Hobble. He vents that his grant for the alchemy machine won’t get renewed. He talks about the possibilities of such a machine: “I mean, consider the transmutation of living tissue! Men into supermen! The power of creation could be in our grasp!” We could even turn a manwich into a meal! Oh, and by the way, that “power of creation” doesn’t make you sound megalomaniacal. Nope. Not one bit. Jasmine tries to reassure him that everything will work out while at the same time thinking, “This gives me an idea!” Why do I get the feeling this idea involves costumes that make no sense and sultry looks at readers?

Back in New Orleans, we have a full page of narration talking about homeless people that Rotunda (“Or whatever is now calling herself by that name” as the narrator says) is picking up the homeless and prostitutes to be possessed by other demons. Naturally, these new women are also wearing ‘80s bikerwear and supervillain outfits as Rotunda teaches them to read. One of them has a Bizarro moment as she proclaims, “It are simple! I are figure in wordglyphs already! Me is ready to go out!” Woman = dumb, apparently, otherwise why wouldn’t these demons already have knowledge of speech and reading like the spirit who possessed Madame Rotunda?



Rotunda sells all of her possessions in order to obtain all the materials she needs, including a computer (and making me sigh in nostalgia for the old days of Vic 20s and Commodore 64s. Ah, the good old days...) which she uses to gain access to Project Valkyrie. The password for project Valkyrie? Valhalla. You know, that ‘military intelligence’ oxymoron is looking more bleak every day...

Back at the Air Force base again, the women are sneaking around and go into a storage closet using Jasmine’s father’s I.D. card. Barry tries to follow them, but the door shuts and locks before he can reach it. Jasmine explains to the others about the transmutation device, and now I can only recognize three of the women because they’ve changed their hair styles. And the only one I can recognize is because she’s the only one with black hair. They identify themselves through their dialogue to one another and Amelia expresses concern about the prospect of using the device to transmute themselves into superbeings. Jasmine replies, “Oh, Amelia, don’t be such a wet blanket! This is my big chance to become a superior being, and you are not going to ruin it for me!” Jeez, I can’t tell if this is unintentional misogyny for implying that women need devices to make them into equals/superior to men or just Nazism for implying a superior being at all.

Sheena pipes up with this gem of wisdom: “It occurs to me, ladies, that a superior being would stand an awfully good chance of getting a date with a pilot!” Yes, because God forbid these unnamed pilots might want to date you for your personalities. Oh, wait, you don’t have any. You’re just dolls meant for the enjoyment of men who only care about scoring dates with me. I remember now. I’m serious, someone knock me out or something. Outside, Barry struggles to get the control panel for the door off so he can break in, rewiring it.

Jasmine explains that “Jack” (whoever the hell that might be) showed her how to use the device (FORESHADOWING JUSTIFIED!). Okay, that might explain how it’ll turn you into gold, but how in the heck do you know how to turn yourself into a superpowered being? The others pressure Amelia into getting onto the platform with them and one of them gives this bit of sage advice: “Come on, Amelia! Do you want to sleep alone for the rest of your life?” AGH, THE SEXISM! The goggles, they do nothing! See? Told you it was coming up.

Amelia thinks for a moment that it’s likely to toast them, but since they’re her friends, she’s got to stick by them (yeah, because it’s okay to give into peer pressure when it’s your friends). “Okay, I’m coming... but if this kills us, Jasmine, so help me, I’ll kill you!” Hahahaha, oh, my sides are splitting! Oh, wait, that’s actually my wrist. I’m trying to cut myself on the pages.

Barry manages to get in, but it’s too late. The device activates and all the electronic devices in the area start to short out and explode. The roof explodes and the four women ascend as Barry beholds a woman standing over them with yin-yang symbols all over her. Barry looks up in shock and thinks, “What was that thing I saw standing over it all? It looked like a woman, but... fifty feet tall!?” Quick, someone call Allison Hayes!



On the next page, we reveal the women in all of their new outfits (two of which sport huge boob windows, one a glorified bathing suit (as mentioned above), and the other with multiple holes going down the center). The narrator explains that, “The warm night breeze breathes its approval over them. They are gifted with a bond that reaches in and grasps their hearts. Tonight, they have been made into earth’s avatars.” Jeez, and now I want Aang to show up and slap the writers around for this trash...

The narrator continues: “The planet, from its core to the ozone – is alive, and it smiles on them, for it is theirs and they belong to it!” So, wait, the women belong to the Earth, or the Earth to the women? I’m confused. And hungry. The narrator explains the new powers of each of the women:

“Sheena is gifted with incredible strength, drawn from contact with the mother planet. While she touches the Earth, her blood and body sing with power!” As long as she’s not singing like Yani, I’ll be happy.

“Amelia is joined to the water. Joyfully, it comes to her call – eager to caress – or to strike!” Ah, sexy, sexy violence. Joy. “The waters of the world are hers to shape as she will. They cry out for her touch.” And I’m crying out for an end to this crap.

“Jasmine is now the bride of fire.” Because, you know, women can’t be independent, they have to be brides of something. “Her body is a channel for the power and heat locked inside the Earth. Sweltering, locked away from the light...it seeks release through her!” Jeez, how many double entendres can they fit into a single comic?

“Candy rides the winds tonight. They wrap around her soaring form, at once like silks, like a powerful steed, like a lover’s touch (THREE sexual images in one sentence. I don’t drink, but man do I need a beer). From the frigid winds that whip around mountain peaks, to the slow smoke-laden air that roils through dimly lit city hollows to the air scirocco that rides the desert dunes... She knows them all now. They call to her: “Come. Ride. Soar.” She nods and smiles and promises: “Later.” Then she hastens back to the scene and her friends.” You know, suddenly a walking stick that turns a guy into Thor isn’t such a bad idea, after all.

Barry makes himself scarce as the women practice their new abilities, setting down to talk for a minute. And what do the ladies want to do with their newfound abilities, powers, and responsibilities the likes of which no person on Earth has ever seen before? Why, get men, of course. “I say we meet those hotshots tomorrow right as they land – then wham! Show our stuff!” You could’ve done that just by NOT getting superpowers and lifting your tops.

The next day, the General is understandably peeved about all the damage to the lab. And what does Barry have to say on the matter? “I had no idea that what we are doing would be of interest to saboteurs.” Guys, it’s a machine that can turn anything into something else. Did you really think that this wouldn’t be the least bit enticing to thieves, spies, terrorists, etc.?! The eponymous Jack mentioned earlier says that most of the damage was superficial and that nothing was wrecked permanently. Dr. Hobble worries that they won’t be able to repair any of the damage without funding, but Barry states that now that the Russians are interested in it, that they’ll get more funding. He does say that it’s unlikely that the Russians themselves did it (but that doesn’t prevent you from lying about it...) because they would’ve taken information and destroyed the lab more efficiently. Because Soviet operations in the late ‘80s were going soooo well.

Barry requests to be in charge of investigating and informs the General that Project Valkyrie will be landing shortly. Wait, I thought we only gave them womenfolk jobs in an emergency! The STSF wait outside as the pilots land, ready to reveal their new abilities, but then Project Valkyrie lands and the female pilots all leave the plane and, of course, immediately hook up with the male pilots, much to the chagrin of the STSF. The ladies all grumble about this development as Major Burns, the female commander of Project Valkyrie, reports for duty to the General. And had this been a porn comic, I’m sure we’d see a bulge coming from the General’s pants right now as he grins stupidly and says to her, “Welcome to Rutgers. And please, call me “Hal”!”



Ha-ha! Oh, men ogling women is funny! And women only talk about men when they’re in groups! Yeah, part of me is laughing – the part of me that likes to blow stuff up in first-person shooters. Anyway, that’s the end of the comic, with a blurb for next issue that raises these thought-provoking questions: “What are the sinister plans of Madame Rotunda? Who are the Vampires of Venus[??]? How can I join[???]? What will Candy, Jasmine, Amelia, and Sheena do?” And who are the Overlords of the UFO?!

And just to cap off the stupidity, there’s an ad on the next page for this very comic, with a picture of the jackass Gary Brodsky proclaiming, “From the comics company that dares to have a personality!” Yeah, and that personality is one that thinks women are objects to be owned and dominated and that their only thoughts are for getting dates.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch some Buffy.

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Isaac Asimov's Ibots #1

And Apple Computers lawsuit in 5...4...3...


While I could give a long and detailed history of Isaac Asimov, there’s really no need to do so. Most people are probably aware of the science-fiction writer’s extensive list of material (be it fiction novels or not).

Tekno Comix was an independent comic publisher in the Mid-90s who specialized in having big-name creators write up a two-page outline for a comic series and then hand it off to their own stable of writers and artists to work from it. Some of the names included Leonard Nimoy, Mickey Spillane, Neil Gaiman, and even an idea by Gene Roddenberry. The company folded in 1997 after only two years of publishing, but during their lifetime they loved to splash the names of their initial creator across the top of their books in order to get some attention from the comic readers.

But things are a bit murky with today’s subject. While some of the other creators listed I can find proof positive of their involvement with the projects they did, I can find no evidence that Isaac Asimov had any ideas of what we’re seeing here, be they for a comic book or not. It’s not even mentioned on his Wikipedia page (whereas both Neil Gaiman and Gene Roddenberry’s contributions have been listed on their pages). As such, I’m afraid it makes me fearful that while the creators of the comic may have had the best of intentions of honoring the memory of the late Isaac Asimov, it just comes off either as plagiarism (if he really had ideas about this) or just plain exploitive of the dead.

Admittedly, the comic itself isn’t as bad as others that we’ve seen on this site. It’s even penciled by George Pérez (yes, Crisis on Infinite Earths George Pérez). It’s sure as hell no All-Star Batman and Robin, but it just seems goofy in its embrace of THE FUTURE! and there are plenty of small dumb things abounding. Like most #1 issues of comics, it tends to fail in its aspects of really wanting to draw the reader back, since we learn very little about the world of the book or about the characters besides for a vague inkling of their personalities.



As with all team books, this one’s cover is a group shot, albeit in this one they’re actually posing for the camera. As if in another dimension, the paparazzi that are photographing the Ibots are all colored purple... just like the mechanical junk they’re standing in! My God, they’re alive! Run, Ibots! Run as fast as you can! Okay, admittedly the cover isn’t really that bad. This is due solely to George Perez’s fantastic pencils but I’m afraid the designs themselves could still use some work. If you’re going to be starting a new superhero team, you’ve got to give us some sense of iconography – these are supposed to be superheroes after all. Even with changes in artists and even giving Superman a mullet, the thing that most people tend to draw their eyes to is that big shiny red ‘S’ on his chest.

Instead, the heroes here all have pretty generic outfits, with the best one being Radiant (the woman with white hair), but like I said, it’s pretty standard fare... besides for the fact that her eyes are covered by her mask. And what’s the deal with Killaine’s (the woman in green) costume?! Apparently Sheena got a new agent after Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes bombed.

We open on the middle some sort of political debate viewed through a high-tech lens. We know it’s high-tech because it’s got little text lines around it like “Mode: Seek” and “Vertical Align” over the screen. The person on the left states emphatically, “--absolutely vital that we fully support new technology development, with tax dollars if necessary.” Damn it, Senator Hutchison, we get that you like NASA! His opponent, throwing out all rules of a televised debate, responds with, “So high tech can be controlled by the government instead of those independent researchers who develop it? No, thanks.” So essentially he wants new technology in the hands of either scientists who have no personal use for it or in the hands of mad scientists who would use new technology to conquer the planet. Also, forgive my squirrelly ignorance, but isn’t the majority of scientific research funded by the government in some capacity, anyway?

Oh and by the way, there are robots on the platform with them. A heavily-armored terrorist shoots something at one of the robots, causing it to explode along with the other robot guard. One of the politicians informs us that it’s an “EMP slug” and that without the robots, they’re unprotected. The terrorists, wearing green and yellow (and subsequently resembling members of the Marvel terrorist group HYDRA) swing down on ropes while brandishing futuristic-looking guns. The lead terrorist orders the group to shut up, so of course, like an idiot, Senator ‘raise your taxes in the name of science’ demands to know, “Who are you? EMP Slugs are restricted to cops and milit --” And he’s subsequently shot. This has been a public service announcement paid for by the Tax-Payers League of the Future.



The terrorist jokes, “Think of this as a favor, Senator --” Yeah, because making him bleed half to death from a bullet to the shoulder is really such a nice thing to do. “-- You don’t want the mouth there taking your cushy job away come November, do you?” Yeah, the mouth can be such a pain, sometimes. I much prefer the finger. The terrorist warns the next shot goes through the heart and that he has “smartbullets,” which apparently are designed to lock onto a heartbeat and “nothing stop them! They always go for your heart! That means if we shoot, you’re dead! Got it?” Well, considering you gave us essentially the same idea three times, I’d hope so.

“When we leave, someone call whoever’s in charge of Silver’s money and tell him we’ll be in touch, okay?” Wait, how are you going to be in touch with someone if you don’t know who they are? The leader opens up the studio door with his gun [!!], pushing the barrel into the button. A silhouetted figure appears on the other end of the opening door with, confusingly, a Photoshop lens flare effect superimposed over the head of the person. She reaches in and grabs the guns of the nearest two, crushing them in their hands, channeling Johnny Five from Short Circuit. I half expected her to say the “play-doh” line from that movie, but instead we get this bit of superhero negotiating: “Make that “When” and “If,” and you’ve got a deal.” I don’t think that contract’s going to hold up in court.

Cut to the next page where we see Killaine herself (by the by, what the hell kind of a superhero name is Killaine?!) in all her impractical outfit glory as she grabs the two guys whose guns she smashed and promptly bonks their heads together. In a bit of grammatical error, one of the terrorists proclaims in shock, “What’s(sic) she?!” Well she seems to be a person with super-strength who is a woman; that’s what. Another terrorist, unconcerned, opens fire while proclaiming, “Big and strong, Brainfry -- some kind of augment. EMP her jumpers, then hamburger[!!] her.” “Hamburger” her? What, are they going to add lettuce and tomatoes with a side of fries?

The other guy, still panicking, shouts out, “How’d she know we were here? No one’s supposed to know.” Even though they’ve got those “smartbullets” that are supposed to track her heart, Killaine dodges out of the way and nimbly tosses the two terrorists she had in her hands at the others, somehow causing them all to roll around at confusing angles instead of just knocking them over.



There’s a small blast and we see Psy-4 (the guy in red and orange on the cover) and Stonewall (the guy in the back on the cover with curly bowl cut hair) crawling out of a hole under the stage [!!!]. What, were they hiding out in there during the debate or something?! Psy-4 shouts out orders: “Killaine! Protocol One! Make sure the people are safe first! Stonewall?” It’s your line, Stonewall! “We know what to do, Psy-4. You don’t have to keep reminding us.”

The terrorists, in a complete panic and spazzing all over the place, open fire and start shouting, “You’re all dead! Everyone’s dead!” “We told you!” Come on, I call you’re dead, you meanies! Most of the bullets slam into Stonewall’s body with no damage (so much for the “nothing stops them” theory), but a few zip around him and Stonewall shouts, “Smart bullets, Psy-4! I can’t stop them all!” Psy-4 shouts back, “Work on your maneuverability and response speed!” Oh, wait, too late – the people are dead. Maybe you two shouldn’t have been yacking back and forth while the bullets were flying at people! Well, that’s what should’ve happened, anyway. Actually, smartbullets move at only 2 miles an hour, since Psy-4 then demonstrates his own power:

“Fortunately, I can handle it. Those slugs are chip-driven--” Lays or Pringles? “--And reprogramming chips is no trick -- for me.” All the bullets explode in mid-air and the terrorists are shocked that their plan of slow-moving bullets didn’t work. They decide to make a run for it, but Killaine’s still in the way. Killaine taunts them: “Exit’s this way, boys. If you can make it, welcome to[??].” Once again acting like a jaded eight year-old, a terrorist responds, “Stop it! We’re not playing here!”

And in the next panel, we have our third Shocking Superhero Tactic! The first was, of course, Diehard’s Crotch attack. The second was the Batmobile driving through a car and completely slicing it in half. And here? Killaine grabs a terrorist’s neck and it knocks him unconscious. That’s right, even confirmed by the dialogue, “A swerve, a nerve, no damage and you’re down”, Killaine has just performed the Vulcan neck pinch from Star Trek!



Radiant, appearing for the first time in the comic, apologizes for Killaine: “You have to excuse Killaine, she lets enthusiasm run away with her. You can call me Radiant!” Using her powers, two of the terrorists proclaim that they’re blind. Radiant explains that she’s actually “canceling out light so it can’t hit your eyes.” I’ve got to admit, that’s actually a pretty creative use of light-based powers for a superhero, but why the heck didn’t she just do that from the start instead of having Killaine pull the neck pinch?

The final terrorist grabs Senator Silver and continues the terrorist temper tantrum: “You don’t decide that! You don’t decide that! I decide that! I walk out of here and you do nothing -- or his brains go for a walk! Got it?” Well, considering you’re actually holding your gun against the side of his chin it’s more likely his lower jaw will be going for the walk, but I get you. The final member of the Ibots leaps down onto the terrorist, quipping, “Politicians need brains? That’s a new one on me!” Ah, not since Much Ado About Nothing has their been such witty repartee!

The person (dressed in the worst Wolverine rip-off costume since Cougar from Youngblood) takes off the terrorist’s helmet and states, “Maybe we should have a look at your brains!” Psy-4 grabs the guy and tells him to knock it off: “Easy, Itazura! Remember the protocols!” Okay, forget Killaine – what sort of a lame-ass superhero name is “Itazura?!” Senator Silver proclaims how amazing the heroes are, but the blonde Senator, still clutching his bleeding arm, walks over and yells at their saviors: “You’re not human! You can’t be! What are you?! How did you know what was going on here?!” Well, they were actually just hanging around the TV studio, from what we can tell. Probably rejects from the set of Justice League Unlimited.

Radiant’s eyes suddenly glow and upon a close-up we see the head of a fat bearded guy in them [!!!]. A ghostly voice answers Senator Tax-For-Science, “I told them, Kevin. They’re with me.” A spectral image of said fat guy suddenly appears with a glowing aura around him, so I suppose it’s a hologram. Senator Tax-And-Spend-Democrat, AKA “Kevin,” identities the man as “Zac Robillard?! But you died You’re dead!” Actually he’s about a 250, give or take. Bah-dum-ching!



Zac Robillard (who must’ve had really cruel parents to name him that) states that, “These things don’t mean quite what they used to.” The two confusingly argue for a bit about people we don’t know about and implying that Senator Kevin may have played a part in his death. An explosion suddenly happens from a roof entrance, making Radiant terminate the hologram. Policemen (OF THE FUTURE!) run down and order everyone to freeze. Senator Silver leaps in front of the Ibots and explains that “These fine specimins(sic) saved my life -- and I’m offering them my hospitality and thanks.” The police, skeptical of why they should trust a team of losers that include a guy with hair that KISS would be ashamed to see, a tall guy with a bowl cut hairdo and a Star Wars padawan ponytail, and a scantily-dressed redhead with huge yellow earrings and random straps around her arms and legs, demand to get names and addresses.

Senator Silver replies, “Contact them through me -- tell terrorists and criminals there’s a new law in town -- its voice will soon be Gregson Silver -- and the new long arm of the law is -- THE AMAZINGS!” You see, in the future, good superhero team names have all been taken. Still, could be worse – they could call themselves Secret Defenders or Youngblood or something idiotic like that.

A news reporter brings his own thoughts in on the situation: “And so a moment of horror apparently becomes a promise of hope -- while America wonders if this was all a clever political machination -- or whether, as with computers and the atom bomb, we have been thrust, unawares -- into a strange and unknown future.” So, in the future, reporters will still speak blandly and over-dramatically about situations instead of reporting the news?



The woman watching the news report is Annabelle, mentioned briefly during the scene earlier with Zac Robillard and now I must laugh my ass off. Behold the fashions... OF THE FUTURE! as we see Annabelle wearing a cleavage-exposing brown top with a huge collar. Furthermore, the sleeves of the outfit are colored green and not actually connected to the top – instead they just somehow cling to her upper arms and have a huge shoulder area with a pointed tip at the top. Just as Annabelle is about to make a call, Senator Tax-My-Ride comes barging in wearing an arm sling as robots try to stop him. The two get into an argument as the Senator warns Annabelle that if she had something to do with the assault earlier, there’ll be hell to pay. Eventually it devolves into an exposition fest where we learn that the two are cousins and that Annabelle had originally wanted to get into politics and the Senator the business world, but their grandfather elected for her father to be President of the company and, well, it’s really all pretty dull since we don’t know anything about Annabelle except for the last panel of the scene where she contacts one Major Blicero – who is no doubt EEEEEVIL because of the weird-ass moustache he’s sporting.

Switch over to the terrorists from before being carted off in a prison van... OF THE FUTURE! They’re rolling through a forest and one of the cops expresses confusion about why this would be the pickup point and asks if he’s sure it’s the right place. His partner is less concerned: “Of course I’m sure. It’s on the printout.” It’s on a printed piece of paper?! That’d be IMPOSSIBLE to fake! I don’t suppose anyone thought of radioing into headquarters and confirming the location? The cops shuffle the terrorists out and they’re all wearing manacles... OF THE FUTURE! No, I won’t stop doing that. Said manacles are painted gold just like parts of the terrorists’ armor (why are they still in those, again?) and according to the officers are called “Shockcuffs,” designed to paralyze them if there are any sudden moves on the part of the prisoners. How it distinguishes between sudden moves and slow moves isn’t exactly described, but...

The concerned cop points out that it just doesn’t add up: “Why are we in the middle of nowhere? Where’s the pickup crew? This stinks!” It certainly does. Apparently convinced by this logic, the other cop orders the terrorists to get back into the van. Our ever-panicky terrorists, however, point out that, “It’s too late! Don’t you hear it?!” Callin’ me the way it used to? Sorry to say I can’t. Anywho, the police robots blow up thanks to helicopters above, completely vaporizing the entire group as the terrorists scream for the choppers not to shoot them. The chopper pilot reports in to Annabelle, identifying himself as Blicero even though he looks nothing like the Blicero of a few pages ago.

To make matters more confusing, they’re apparently part of the military, yet they’re wearing similar outfits to those of the terrorists earlier. They are apparently leading a group of differently-designed robots along too, who were apparently responsible for the carnage of the previous page. We never learn exactly why the terrorists needed to be so harshly eradicated along with their two police escorts but damn if those robots don’t look spiffy.



Cut to the home of Senator Silver, where he proposes to use his own home for their crimefighting activities. Damn, I know we’re using comic book logic when we have a rich politician offering his own house as a base of operations for a superhero team. Radiant responds that they don’t fight crime, they help people. And then we get some speculation on what exactly the difference is between the two:

“But isn’t fighting crime the best way to help the largest number quickest?”
“Arguably. But widescale crime involves property, which is hardly our concern[?!]. Bring it down to the individual, and crime is only one of many ills that must be dealt with.”

Okay, how exactly does Radiant plan to use her superpowers in other uses besides crimefighting? ‘Hey, kids! It’s time to play We’re All Blind again!’ Furthermore, isn’t combating other kinds of problems Senator Silver’s job, not yours? Silver asks for Psy-4’s opinion on the matter since he’s the leader, but Psy-4 responds that he’s not the leader, “I’m only first among equals.” Psy-4 then asks them to drop the conversation since he’s “busy wave-surfing. I’d rather not discuss this now.” Silver looks to Radiant because Psy-4 looks completely insane for making such a statement (rightfully), but Radiant just puts her finger to her lips in a ‘hush!’ gesture.

As they continue their walk, Radiant informs Silver that Psy-4 wants to add that they won’t be calling themselves the Amazings. Silver expresses shock not that he rejected his lame team name, but for that the fact that he didn’t hear him say that. Radiant just looks back- er, well, she doesn’t really look because she has no eyes, but her face is turned in his direction and responds, “No. You didn’t. You couldn’t.” And with that bit of foreshadowing, it’s time to switch back to the EEEEVIL helicopters.



The helicopter pilot notes that they’ve found the Ibots and Silver’s mansion and Annabelle yells at them: “And you found them how? Eighty million dollars worth of satellite tracking They announced it on SATCAST, Blicero! Silver’s called a press conference for tomorrow. I want them gone today.” You know, as a boss, she should be building up her employees, not making them feel worse. I don’t see how she could be such a successful businesswoman and not understand that.

Switch to a television news studio that’s reporting on a deal between the Japanese and the French on “International Cybernetic Control Standards” (since it’s the future and all). Suddenly, the graphic next to the reporter’s face fizzes out, replaced by an image of Rick Olney! Oh my God, Rick Olney is Big Brother! Well, okay, it’s actually the head of Zac Robillard, who says, “If it’s a war you want[??], I know where there’s going to be one... right now...” Any minute now... Yep... War... Yeah...

But we switch over not to a war, but back to the estate of Senator Silver, where the military are attacking. Apparently the Ibots are expecting them as bullets fly and hit Stonewall, who proclaims, “This is it! Go!” Radiant tells the Senator to stay with Stonewall and they start fighting the helicopters. Psy-4 suddenly flies up to Stonewall and shouts, “What are you standing around for? Do I have to do it for you?” Well, gee, Psy, could it be he’s protecting the non-superpowered person from harm? Psy-4 suddenly has an Heroic Spaz Attack as he shouts, “Timing’s everything now! EVERYTHING!” So it’s EVERYTHING, then? Still a yelling jumble, he shouts at Itazura for no particular reason.

Itazura tells him, “You’ve got to learn to relax. We’re not robots, you know.” Yeah, with a comic called Ibots, does anyone buy that even for a second? I didn’t think so. Itazura continues to act super-confident, laughing about how easy it is to destroy the robots. Psy-4 once again berates him and I have to wonder what with him being all pissy about this that he was actually looking at porn when he was “wave-surfing.”



The military realize something’s wrong when Itazura of all people is managing to kick their asses. “That security breach! If the control code’s been compromised... It’s a set-up! We’ve been set-up!” Jeez, everyone want to take a chill pill for five seconds? Even Itazura starts panicking when a robot manages to get through him and heads right for Stonewall (who is still standing in front of Senator Silver). Itazura yells for someone to stop it, but the robot just slams right into Stonewall and explodes, leaving him unfazed. Stonewall: the hero who bravely stands there!

The battle is over and Johnny Turbo (AKA Zac Robillard) speaks to them, talking about how things are going to change now that their existence is so public. Meanwhile, back in the helicopter, Blicero looks like he’s on the verge of tears as he shouts: “I’ll kill them! I’ll destroy them!” Isn’t destroying them presupposed by the killing? “I’ll have this place sanitized! Flies won’t be able to live on it!” Holy Hannah – he plans to put bug zappers and cleaning agents on the estate! His underling informs him that news helicopters are arriving and he panics even more:

“The Press? Please, not the Press! The Press ask questions.” They do? I thought they just gave biased accounts of their interpretation of what they consider ‘newsworthy,’ but if they ask questions, then they must be a serious threat to the military! Whole government quake in fear of -- The Press! The EEEVIL plans have been foiled by -- The Press! No, Tom Brokaw, please don’t hurt us! And seriously, the helicopter flies in retreat while a speech bubble proclaims, word for word here, “Get out get out get out get out get out get out.”

The reporters land and start flashing pictures of the team and Psy-4 proudly announces, “We’re stars now, stuck in the public eye...” Then someone should get some Clear Eyes – call Ben Stein! “...right where our enemies don’t dare come for us...” Yeah, because no celebrities have been assassinated by their enemies before.

We cut back over to Annabelle, who’s having a migraine while she speculates on whether the Ibots are working on their own: “They weren’t built for it.” Her video monitor flashes on and three figures appear, one an old man, one a silhouetted figure, and one guy with a poorly-tied tie and a goatee. They tell her that “There are new players on the board!” “And they don’t belong to us.” They order her to find out what they are and get rid of them, but the issue ends with Annabelle lighting a cigarette and saying, “They’re Ibots. They belong to me. Let me explain...”



Foundation, eat your heart out – there’s a new greatest Isaac Asimov work! And he didn’t even write it!

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All-Star Batman and Robin #5

Frank Miller once again proving that just because you CAN write doesn't mean you SHOULD write.


(Just want to apologize again for the lack of updates lately. My other projects have been keeping me busy. Plus, in a way, it kind of parallels Frank Miller’s own delay on this title, wouldn’t you say?)

This’ll be the shortest lead time from a comic’s release to the time I review it, but considering the subject matter, it’s understandable. Yes, to the surprise of everyone on the planet, Frank Miller managed to churn out Issue 5 of All-Star Batman and Robin. I’m not going to link to the previous ones because honestly, if you’re reading THIS review, you must have some idea of what to expect from this title. Every single one of them has been cut from sheer, raw insanity as the classic idea of Batman has been pumped and purged, replaced with some foul creature we like to refer to as BINO (Batman in Name Only) around here.

Also, while I don’t want to provide so much material for my readers as to go insane, a poster at Girl-Wonder.org posted an essay they had wrote on their livejournal account about Frank Miller’s worldview. It’s available here, and it does provide a fascinating examination of the writer and provides us with a new way to look at ASBAR – in that we know it’s not a deliberate satire, but really the product of a really, really messed up brain.



While I have the Jim Lee version, which features a static, dull shot of batman looking insane with blood splattered everywhere (no doubt from the policeman he just beat to death), I decided to show the sexist Frank Miller-drawn cover, instead. Not only is it a pointless ass-shot of Wonder Woman, it’s an inaccurate pointless ass-shot of Wonder Woman. One, she does not wear a skirt, not in any previous incarnation (even her very first appearances were a kind of shorts whose name escapes me at the moment). Two, the girdle does not lace up. It is a solid piece. Three, the top is not a corset, and particularly not one that exposes her stomach. While Wonder Woman’s outfit may be rather flawed in the sense that it’s essentially a bathing suit, it’s still a one-piece outfit. Heck, that doesn’t even look like the top of the Wonder Woman outfit! The real kicker is the way it’s poorly drawn, though. Her rib cage is apparently a prism, because the angle at which this is shot shows quite a sharp turn. And, of course, it’s turned so we can see her breast, as well, because sexualizing her ass for our enjoyment wasn’t enough for the good Mr. Miller.

We open to “Five Hours Ago...” Five hours ago from what? From when I actually had joy in my life since I was done reading this comic? The shot is of Wonder Woman walking down a dark street holding a newspaper (don’t worry; this is NOT IMPORTANT AT ALL). The real surprise here with the art is two-fold: one, her tiara has been modified so it has a nose guard. I admit, I actually like this change since it makes her look more like a warrior and not so much a Princess to be coddled. The second surprise is the fact that she’s wearing a trench coat. The only reason I can think of for wearing the trench coat would be to conceal her outfit, but if that’s the reason then she does a pretty crappy job of it, since wide areas of her costume are perfectly viewable if you just look at her (plus the tiara is a dead giveaway).

Anyway, Wonder Woman is walking down a street and a drunken guy asks her to marry him, but instead of rightfully shoving the guy out of the way, instead she speaks to the terrified-looking businessman holding a briefcase on her other side. And as such, never in the annuls of history has one book produced so many internet memes – Goddamn Batman, Dick Grayson, Age Twelve; and now we behold Frank Miller’s masterful new phrase to us: “Out of my way, sperm bank.” I think I’m going to start yelling that to people who are annoying me; it sounds like fun.

And of course, it wouldn’t be an issue of ASBAR without the frantic narration that only Frank Miller can produce with a straight face. “Metropolis. The city of dreams. Men’s dreams.” And, you know, the few hundred-thousand women who probably live in it, too. “It stinks of men. Of doorways abandoned, obsolete phone booths used as urinals.” Oh, Frank, you really know how to paint a picture. “It leaves a bad taste, this world of men. Men.” I’m sorry, are you talking about women? “They can’t do anything right.” So, what are you doing in Man’s World, then, if you hate it so much?



Wonder Woman slams through a chained door and proclaims in her narration, “Men always make a mess out of everything.” Hey, lady, you’re the one who’s smashing up property when there was a perfectly good side entrance. Inexplicably, Wonder Woman takes off her coat like she’s strutting down a hallway in a lingerie commercial and continues rambling to herself about how men suck and Bat-Man is the worst of them. While I certainly agree that BINO needs to be dealt with somehow, what exactly is it that’s upsetting you? You’re not exactly helping your case for wanting to bring in the murderous Bat-Man (by the by, why does everyone else call him by the hyphenated name?) when you talk about killing him, yourself.

Further making this reader roll his eyes is the fact that Wonder Woman is sporting like the biggest freaking heels on the planet. They make little tank tank noises as she walks and I imagine they can’t be comfortable, especially for someone who’s supposed to be a warrior (albeit it makes a slightly better amount of sense considering she’s got super strength and all, but still...). She walks into a room where Superman, Green Lantern, and Plastic Man are all located and arguing about BINO.

“I told you, Diana. I told you all. From the first moment I heard of that maniac, I knew his methods would make us all look like monsters.” Superman went to a program to learn how to emphasize his words. “And now he’s kidnapped a little boy. He’ll be the excuse they’ve been looking for -- to destroy us.” Yes, because when the little boy has been kidnapped by the psychotic murderer, it’s your reputation as a superhero that you should be worrying about, you dick. Shouldn’t you be saying “Damn!” or something?

Green Lantern tries to act rationally since they don’t know for certain that BINO kidnapped anybody while Plastic Man states: “I vote we bring him on board. I think the B-Man is cool. He’d make us look edgier.” He even starts flirting with Wonder Woman and actually, I’ve got to say, Miller seems to get Plastic Man’s zany personality down, even if he is using it in such a bloody stupid fashion. Wonder Woman, since she seems to be some sort of bizarre parody of a Feminist, promptly says, “Shut up. You call yourselves men?” So, wait, you were the one who was going on and on about how men suck and are weak and blah blah blah, yet you have an expectation of men to be strong and correct or something?



Wonder Woman continues to berate the others for wanting to be so ‘nice’ about it, obviously Millar’s way of trying to pave the way for his future Dark Knight Strikes Again story by putting herself and the others on the level of Gods. Wonder Woman makes Green Lantern her bitch by ordering him to make himself useful and take her coat, which he of course does right away. Superman keeps playing it cool, trying to make it seem like she needs to calm down when it’s obvious he wants to play ‘Burn the front page of the newspaper’ with her. Wonder Woman responds:

“You want cooler, farm boy? I’ll give you cooler. I’ll give you cold. Cold and simple. We hunt down this Bat-Man (Again with the hyphens!) like a rabid dog. We kill him. We chop off his head and plant it on a stake and present it to your “authorities” -- as their first gift from the Justice League.” Yeah, that’ll make ‘em trust you.

All of a sudden the entire prose style changes as Miller tries to wax philosophical and compare these guys with the Greek Gods. Superman gets all pissy and punches a metal column as the narration box reads: “It starts with a bellow worthy of Zeus. Then a wind that Boreas might envy.” I’m sorry, what was that about boring me? “She’s a fragile twig -- a blade of grass -- tossed aside in the wake of an angry God.” And she doesn’t even know how to order coffee or use a credit card!

“Damn you, Diana! Damn you and your Amazon arrogance!” Damn it all to hell, you damn dirty apes! You blew it up! “This is my world. These are my people. These are my rules. If you commit murder on my land -- you’ll pay for it with your own precious Amazon blood!” So, wait, if she kills someone on his land (from California to the New York Island), he’ll kill her back? Way to really take the moral high ground there, Supes.



Plastic Man, obviously mistaking himself to be in Grant Morrison’s JLA, suddenly shouts out for no reason, “Eat floor, Queen Bee.” Wonder Woman shouts back, “You bastard! You bastard. I hate your guts. your guts. You make me sick. You make me sick.” Aaaah, there’s that Torgo-like repetition that I’ve been missing! Now we’re in full Miller mode, folks! Abandon all sanity, ye who enters here!

Oh, and then Superman and Wonder Woman kiss. Yeah. “Then Zeus stabs the world of man with thunderbolts (Curse you, Eric Masterson!) and somewhere Poseidon roars with laughter. The thunderbolts. They stab them both.” Zee thunderbolts, zey do notheeng! After that completely nonsensical sequence, Wonder Woman leaves and says that if they fail, she’ll handle it herself. Green Lantern just stares at Superman in a ‘Dude, what the hell was THAT’ look as Superman replies, “She’s really a very nice girl.” Oh, Frank Miller, you kill me. Seriously. Ow.

But enough of that totally unnecessary stuff! Now it’s back to the Goddamn Batman! How do we know it’s him? Well, he’s laughing in satanic glee and his narration caption is, “I love being the goddamn BATMAN.” Folks, we have some good old-fashioned nightmare fuel here. BINO’s running across a rooftop in a completely wasted two-page spread as Frank Miller gets to spout off his insane, disjointed writing. I’ll spare you most of it except for the opening lines, which continue to make us wonder if any of DC’s editorial staff is keeping track of how much time this series is supposed to be going through:

“I should be EXHAUSTED. I haven’t slept in DAYS. But I CAN’T GET TIRED. No matter how hard I TRY. Not on a night like THIS. Not with my PULSE pounding my EARS and dear GOTHAM calling to me like a sultry SIREN.” Okay - one, you haven’t slept in DAYS?! You went out to the circus as Bruce Wayne without ever having slept?! Two – it doesn’t matter how much natural adrenaline he’s got pumping into him. We now know why BINO’s so flippin’ nuts: without sleep, anyone’ll be bonkers. Three – a sultry siren?! For the love of Pete, you were the one who compared her to Edgar Allen Poe’s Lenore!



“A woman screams. What the HELL.” Flag on the moon. How did it get there? “I give with the LAUGH. That ALWAYS works.” Oh, well that explains it – Frank doesn’t realize he’s writing Batman, he think he’s writing the Creeper! Creeper’s the one who laughs insanely to scare criminals while being totally friggin’ nuts. Batman’s the one who uses darkness to terrify criminals. BINO leaps down towards a group of thugs assaulting a woman with HUGE knives in their hands. I’m talking Crocodile Dundee “THIS is a knife!”-sized knives. BINO beats the snot out of the would-be rapists, even giving a compound fracture to one guy.

Now, one would assume I’d be chalking this up to more psychotic behavior on BINO’s part, but considering he murdered a bunch of police officers in previous issues, this is pretty tame by his standards. Also, it doesn’t help that I really don’t feel extensive damage like that to criminals is that bad as long as they’re still alive. Of course, then BINO starts pounding away on one guy who keeps asking “What?” in confusion as the woman who was going to be a victim watches and then gets as manic a grin as BINO has in the previous issues. ““What”? You’re asking me “What”?” “What?” “What? This.” No, no, no – what’s on second, you idiot! THIRD BASE!

This woman, also wearing high heels (albeit more sensible ones than the superhero), walks over to one of her injured rapists, who asks for help. The woman just kicks him in the groin and says, “I’ve got Batman watching after me.” No, you’ve got some very pale imitation of Batman watching over you. Oh, look! There’s an ad on the left for a Darwyn Cooke Batman series! That must be what she means, since it’s above her and watching down in her general direction.

BINO tells her to, “Go home, now. Catch a cab on Novick. It’s well lit. Call your shrink, if you’ve got one. But don’t call any cops about all this. They’re useless. They’re worse than useless.” And of course, since this is a woman in a Frank Miller story, she suddenly gets all submissive and obedient, saying, “Y-Yes, sir.” And why would she need a shrink, exactly? She seemed to get herself together pretty quickly and developed a real taste for blood there. Or maybe she needs a shrink because she survived an encounter with you. BINO swings away and the woman says, “Thank you. I love you.” To which our intrepid hero thinks in his narration boxes, “Nobody loves anybody, my darling. We just survive.” DEEP.



BINO continues to swing away as his narration boxes once again make us all collectively tilt our heads. “The WIND goes BERSERK. ELECTRICITY tingles my SKIN and rattles my WHISKERS.” ...The hell? “Another STORM. Cool.” BATMAN DOES NOT SAY COOL, FRANK! “A perfect night. A hunter’s night.” Well, since I’ve seen the words used no less than half a dozen times in this comic already, I think they bear repeating here: Shut up!

Swing back to Wayne Manor and our old pal Alfred Pennyworth and- Oh my lord. He’s punching a punching bag and looking all muscular! Okay, I can sort of believe that he’d want to stay in good shape, but give me a break here – the guy’s in his sixties at least and I think he’d be doing other exercises besides a punching bag. And furthermore, isn’t he a butler? Doesn’t he have things to clean or, say, a frightened twelve year-old in the basement of his psychotic employer to take care of? Oh, boy, the narration boxes don’t make this scene any better, folks. It’s all the creepier:

“How many a day -- how many hundreds, THOUSANDS a time -- day or night, did my black-eyed angel come home from his frolics in the WOOD -- BLOOD streaming his smiling, fearless face?” His “black-eyed angel?!” You know, I know I joked about him being a pervert in the last issue, but seriously... “He was always an ADVENTURER, Bruce was. Always JUMPING and RUNNING and giving himself a proper BANGING.” Oh, sweet merciful GOD! This comic has provided like six different explanations why BINO is so insane, but really it’s probably ALL of them!

“And now my DEMON -- my black-eyed, brilliant, willful ANGEL -- has grown to MANHOOD.” Don’t you ever say manhood again, you maniac. “I pray this child will SURVIVE this.” I think I’m going to go throw up all over myself now.



Meanwhile, we can check in on Dick Grayson, Age Twelve. “BATMAN works out of a REALLY BIG CAVE. It’s full of STUFF.” BINO really knows how to pick the sharp ones to be his sidekicks, doesn’t he? “It’s like a MUSEUM would be IF a MUSEUM could BREATHE.” Quick, someone call Ben Stiller! “It’s full of STUFF.” So, wait, is it full of stuff? “And all the STUFF is CLEAN and SHARPENED and POLISHED and ready to USE.” So, what does Dick immediately do? He reaches for the sharp, bladed edge of an axe. And thus the issue that we waited a whole year for ends on Dick Grayson, Age Twelve picking up a huge freakin’ battle axe and saying “Cool.” Folks, I can’t make this stuff up if I wanted to.

And there you have it. Was it worth the wait, both on my end and from Frankie-boy? I don’t know, I just know I’m a little more stupid from having to read this.
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