Captain America Week! Day Three: Basebomb

Yesterday, the evil-doer behind "Death Loads the Bases" was introduced: the Black Toad. He's the guy Marvel Central Casting sends out only when Matador, Leap-Frog, the Owl, the Orb, and Mister Fish are all busy elsewhere in other comics. And that's not often.


Naturally, Cap and Bucky locate him almost immediately. After all, he's right there in the park (though he doesn't need be), wearing an absurdly vespertilionine costume (particularly for some named the Black Toad), and peering at the game with glowing raccoon eyes (at least, that's what the caption said). Why not just sit in the stands in a business suit, like everyone else?

Anyway, like most of the kids reading this comic in 1941, Bucky can't take this Black Toad seriously as villain.

Whoa. Bucky took the full brunt of a baseball bat at the apex of a 270 degree swing by Toad's hired muscle. No wonder they said Bucky would never come back from the dead. Obviously, Bucky's skull is cracked like an eggshell and his brains are now splattered all over the place like Black Hand's at Easter dinner. Somebody get that understudy girl, Betsy Whatsername, into costuming pronto; the show must go on!


WHAT TH--?!?!! Who is this kid, the Hal Jordan of Earth-616?! Your head shouldn't feel like balloon, kid; it should feel like oatmeal. And not to you; to the coroner. A half-hour nap is what you need to recover from, say, a pomegranate cosmo (um..l mean... that's what they tell me). Getting bashed in the head with a baseball bat requires at least 24 hours of surgery by a rotating team of 9 brain surgeons, 3 months in ICU, and another 2 years in an institution learning to feed yourself again.

Whatever; this is Marvel, after all, where characters eat tragedy for breakfast and shit drama for the rest of the day. Cap and Bucky not only shake it off, but volunteer to take the places of the stricken (dead, really) ballplayers. Because, yeah, the game is still going to go on, because, yeah, ESPN's lawyers are that good.

But Cap will play only on one condition:

"I want Bucky for my catcher."
I am so sure, Mary.

This kind of child abuse is almost beyond the morals of even a baseball team owner. But the owner capitulates, particularly, since, ya know, Bucky's really into it:

Kids. Where do they get the energy? Sigh.

Anyway, all this is followed by what feels like 47 pages of Cap and Bucky being Really Good At Baseball, which I prefer to think of as 47 pages of Cap looking Really Ridiculous in a Baseball Uniform.

Once Cap and Bucky have duly impressed the kiddies with their baseballetic prowess, the Black Toad, who's still lurking around the stadium despite almost getting captured by a 15 year old boy, makes his move:

Wait... what? How on earth (even Earth-616) could Cap discern that a baseball is actually a bomb...?!

Oh. Um. Okay, then.

Captain America Week! Day Two: The Raccoon of Doom!

When we left Captain America in "Death Loads the Bases", Badgers' star player Diraggio had just keeled over DEAD at Home Plate, so naturally the game is called on account of dead people.

NOTHING TO BE ALARMED ABOUT --
THE GAME WILL GO ON!

WHAT TH--??!?!?! Someone DIED on the field, and the game goes on? Who the heck's running this joint... Fay Vincent?!

Well, maybe there's a rule for when someone dies that says whether the game should continue and under what circumstances. This being baseball, there probably is such a rule. Baseball has a rule for everything, including mid-game universal re-boots. You should see the stats for the DCU's 1986 and 1994 World Series.

I guess it's okay. Just because Diraggio dropped dead for no apparent reason, it's not like anyone else is in danger. Play ball!

Well, at least Adams got to second base.
Call a replacement victim from the bench!

Gods, how many people are going to die in this game? It's like watching the Teen Titans play baseball against Geoff Johns. Anyway, note that baseball players are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Nowadays, we'd be more likely to suspect a terrorist sarin attack than "t-t-the t-thirteen jinx".

But it's neither. It's...


Two mad glowing eyes, peering out of the darkness? It's a raccoon...?

No, it's ...

The Black Toad!

Ye gods, he's all black, with pointy ears, a triangle nose,almond eyes, sharp fangs, and a winglike cape...

JUST LIKE A TOAD!!!!!

Captain America Week! Day Two: Death Loads the Bases

So this Captain America story (which is called "Death Loads the Bases", by the way), is a Scooby-Doo style mystery about a spooky character trying to spoil victory for the Badgers baseball team which is on a twelve-game winning streak.

Here's the bad guy, which should come as no surprise, since he's vaguely threatening the team's owner with injury to his star players:

The bad guys, they just love the purple and the orange.

I just thought I'd spoil that for you. Since you never find out who this man is or why he's threatening the team owner until the big reveal at the end, you have no reasonable way of deducing who the villain is or what his motive is. Apparently Brad Meltzer originally wrote for Timely.

And, per Brad's usual style, here's the red herring, Pop Grimes:

Yeah. Sure. This guy has 'criminal mastermind' written all over him, Daphne!

Dude; you have a job with the team, when, in fact, you shouldn't be anywhere near the stadium; shut up. In my day, people who are barred from baseball become announcers on ESPN8, covering the World Extreme Ironing Championships in Denmark. So count yer lucky stars and get me some fresh towels, grampa.

In the stands for Game Thirteen in the Badgers' streak sit Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, Steve's, um, friend. Really really young friend. In dress uniforms. They are enlisted men. Even though Bucky is, what, 14? Did the Army just pick up truckloads of pubescent A1s from the state orphanage to use as cannon fodder? I don't ... well, I'm not going to think about, because it's giving me a headache. I'll just accept it as is.


Sure enough, Buck's hunch is roughly correct: this will be an unlucky thirteenth for the Badgers. For some more than others:

"He was tagged out by the Grim Reaper himself!"
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world's most inappropriately poetic shortstop.

Captain America Week! Day One

As you know, I own (among other things) a comic book store. So, naturally, NOTHING comics-related escapes my notice. Mine is the eye of the hawk on matters comics-book-sy.

As a result, I followed up immediately on rumors I'd heard about someone doing a Shield knock-off. A Shield knock-off? Scandalous! Being his greatest and perhaps only fan, I resolved to unearth the truth, no matter how many chits I had to cash in to do so.

After just a few calls to some my industry insider friends, I got someone to sneak me an advance copy of an issue from some upstart pub house called "Timely" (thanks, Stan!). Timely, as well, is my intervention, since I intend to expose this group for their shameless usurpation of the Shield's schtick (phew; try to say that three times quickly).

So, the character, who acquired his superstrength and toughness from an obscure biochemical 'vita-ray' treatment (sound familiar, Shield-lovers?), is named "Captain America". Snort; like a name that hokey going to catch on. Is it too much to hope they're going to do something remotely cool with him?

Yikes; apparently it is too much to hope...

He's playing baseball?! With Nekron from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #2 (1981)?!?! WTF?!!!??! What kind of stupid comic book company wastes our time showing heroes playing baseball... with villains? What's next? The X-dead shall rise?

Okay, though; this is cool:

Bases replaced by tombstones? Very cool; very "Tales from the Crypt". Maybe this won't be too bad to read, after all. I wonder who the villain is...?

The...
"Black Toad"?
Gods help me, this is going to be a LONG week...

Master of... what was that again...?

Just a brief note, which should be of particular interest to certain supervillains who like to imagine themselves to be bloggers...

I've been playing a solitaire game of Heroclix that honors the first issue of the new Doom Patrol series, with my DP-themed team of 750 points against a team of villains associated with Oolong Island. I'm playing on my Big Monkey Store Map, which naturally breaks the action up into different theaters of war.

While the Doom Patrol has been busy fighting Giganta, Dr. Domino, and Angle Man, (and getting nowhere),

the Metal Men (who are the, ahem, 'co-feature' in the back of Doom Patrol) successfully took out Egg Fu (that's Chang Tzu to you kiddies) and then...

wait for it...

they kicked Dr. Polaris's patootie.

Yes, you heard right. Dr. Polaris, the *snicker* "master of magnetism", was handed his funny-looking hat by ... the Metal Men.

OH, the comic book irony.

AND, Iron wasn't even helping out. He was elsewhere, casually holding his own against BIZARRO.

Sure, the Metal Men had a little help from Beast Boy, but, you know, how much of a difference is that? The Metal Men pwned DOCTOR POLARIS with one metal tied behind their backs.

Metal Men rocked, and Dr. Polaris rolled. *Snort*!

Things That Made Me Happy...

in my comics this week.

• Okay, I'll admit it: I didn't know who Charles Bukowski was either.
• Only Cliff Steele would say, "Typical" at that point.
• Yes... what is a human life, balanced against a perfectly cooked omelette?
• Batman discovers that Moscow ain't Gotham.
• "At least they're about how fairness and justice still prevail in the world, and that's important these days." Hear, hear.
• Really, it surprisingly anyone is allowed to build a Ferris wheel or a roller coaster in the DCU anymore, because it's always just a matter of time... .
• Eddie's sex-change shortcut.
• I'm amazed that I've been made to care so much about Kryptonian politics.
• Heh. Now THAT is Artemis.
• The Human Flame versus Miss Army Knife. Guess who wins?
• Whoa. DP kicks butt.
• The Gotham laws about important conversations.
• Lookalikes. In flavors.
• Free will override? Heh. That's the Chief's work alright.
• Alura does her job.
• It's good that someone remembered Jay's friends. But that was a cheap and unnecessary way to do so. I officially disapprove.
• "I eat impossible for breakfast and crap out unicorns!" is my new signature saying.
• Rita and Karen as friends. That makes perfect sense!
• Black holes that negotiate.
• Really, of all the sentences I've read lately, "C'est le chlore, un element chimique gazeux!" was among the least likely.
• Mr. Polka Dot's ironic fate.
• Wow. A riot of Kryptonians is not a pretty thing. Unless it's drawn really really well.
• Kanigher Street, indeed.
• Zummazumma, the Living Doll. Priceless.
• Ah. Banshee. That's makes perfect sense.
• Wow. James Robinson remembers how Ray and Freddy know each other. Impressive.
• Mr. Bateman. Lord, I nearly fell out of my chairing laughing at that.
• I LOVE Copper.
• Say, what you like; it's good to see Congo Bill again.
• I actually had to look up 'furikake'.
• That's from Dante's Inferno, by the way. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter."
• 26-th dimensional hypergriffins. Really, want more do you want?
• I, too, am still unhappy with my fricatives.
• Skelecopter. Priceless.
• "This a job for Superman." If you are not reading World of New Krypton, I call thee fool.

Pep 30: Violating the Fourth Wall AND Madonna

Now this is some Pep-style Detective-Action-Adventure!!! Which, in case you hadn't noticed, takes place in AUGUST, and apparently in the Skull Cave.

The Shield is back where he belongs, on Stage Right, with his hair well-inked and sporting a kicky new blue sequin cinch belt, just like my Aunt Susie used to wear to the Sock Hop; slimming! I think Hangman took him shopping to freshen his look... .

The Shield is practically bursting off the page to a degree that must have made 25 year-old Jack Kirby's nipples hard. Not just zhoompfing in like he usually does, the Shield is left-hooking Herr Zoeller there through the Fourth Wall so hard, I almost ducked, just like my Aunt Susie seeing "House on Haunted Hill" for the first time in the theater. And the gorilla downstage left is nearly petrified by it!

Meanwhile, the Hangman, still borrowing Dusty's cape starch while the kid's away at Archie Re-Education Camp, is strangling what looks like Eclipso's grandpa, just as he was about to employ an electricified marital aid ("The new five-speed Whoopie Rotor (tm)!" as endorsed by William Moulton Marston) on young Madonna, who's taking a break from her work on the set of the Republic Serial version of Evita to get chained to a stump for her usual lunchtime shenanigans, much like my Aunt Susie in the woods after the big Homecoming game. At least, that's how my mother tells it.

A New Bookmark from Big Monkey

Black Hand Week 3: Black Hand's REAL power

Well, this is where we left Black Hand last time, looking straight out from the page and talking to someone named "Reader". What is that all about?

In addition to his awesome power of cliches, Olympic-level note-taking skills, and an 89-cent pen flashlight ("Flashlight? Flashlight! FLASHLIGHT!!!" see at 4:18) with which he sucked up morsels of Green Lantern energy like a leather-tanned old man searching for nickels with a metal detector on the beach, he had one other power. An amazing power. The most rare and unusual in all comics. The power of...

TRANSQUARTOMURALISM!


Yes, Black Hand was not only aware of his status as a literary character, he perceived the Fourth Wall and YOU ... AND he read your mind through it. Eat your heart out, Grant Morrison.

"The usual things. You know. Like villainizing in a business suit, in my personal LEGO shop."

Creepier than Alan Moore, weirder than Grant Morrison, able to violate the fourth wall in a single balloon... it's Black Hand.



I'll forgo the obvious "closet joke" below...

Mothers of Coast City: heed the warning signs of corruption. If your child hangs its clothes with the hangers facing the wrong way, kill it immediately. Society will thank you.

Even in defeat, he still had the power to violate the Fourth Wall, and what's even creepier...


He still does.

And the Absorbascon Award for Gayest Comic Book Cover Goes to...

Things That Made Me Happy

... in my comics this week.

• I always said Todd was well-rounded.
• Superman is full, of, well, action. And lots of scenes.
• I'm impressed she took the time to have the razor blade personalized.
• Wonder Woman is a racist who only talks to white animals. What about Mammals of Color, huh?
• Crabby King Chimera; has he met Zatara?
• Zatara's suprising new old assistant.
• "How do you think I'd look in a trenchcoat?"
  
• Alice goes Demosthenes one better!
• Roulette's opponent at cards.
• The Mad Mod's makeover!
• Can't wrap... head ... around ... Dr. Light + Guardian...!
• Detective is so beautiful, I'd buy it even if I couldn't read English.
• That's Atlas's boss? Uh-oh.
• Miss Martian's three-inch heels.
• "These boots seem completely impractical in a combat situation."
• All-American Kid.
• Heh. Steel must have learned that one from the Joker.
• Wow; finally, a team the JSA doesn't simply overwhelm.
• Atlas is evil... but really hot.
• Kids; they always wind up stabbing you in the back.
• Black Canary's Fun Closet. Yeah, I am so sure that stuff is for "undercover" work. More like "under covers".
• Aquagirl to the rescue!
  
• Tellus and Sodam.
• I could watch Batwoman kick ass all day.
• Zatara's big hat.
• Abe Lincoln gets take-out.
• I very much enjoy the swoopy thing, too.
• Wait, did Black Canary just call Wonder Woman a lesbian? Snort.
• Steel getting punched through not one, but two panel borders.
• I love the fact that Alice is basically a nut with a gun. I just love Gotham City.
• The Royal Flush Gang. Really, it doesn't matter what they're doing, because they are the Royal Flush Gang. But they are doing just what they are supposed to.
• Dog versus Question.
• Mark Merlin!?

Pep 29: Work the Runway!

Now THIS is more like it! Party at the Chinese Communist Party platform!

Oh, wait;this being in World War II, those are probably Japanese, aren't they? Darn. Well, in ten years, they'll be Chinese, and probably drawn the same way; you know what they say, "They're all drawn alike".

Judging from the layout of this melee, I can only assume that our heroes have decided to crash the catwalk at the opening of Rei Kawakubo's spring line.

Finally, the Hangman is doing something remotely useful, like feeling up Captain Swastika. Actually that's not the original Captain S; you can tell because he's not wearing the hideous color scheme from the previous Pep cover. It appears to be a black man with better fashion sense, replacing the original. Very progressive, those Nazis. Or perhaps by this point they were jealous of Jesse Owens... . Or maybe Captain Swastika is just being played by Morgan Freeman (who'll do anything for a buck).

The Shield, meanwhile, is making a highly uncharacteristic stage left entrance from above. Must be Dusty's day off. Explains why the Hangman stole his cape starch.

What th==?! It's the same lady in red from the cover of Pep 25. Who do you think you are, sweetie, Lois Lane? Well, Lo-lo knows better than to wear a red low-cut dress to dangerous places like prison yards and Japanese fashion shows. Might as well paint a bull's-eye on your forehead.

EVEN VIBE

"Are you planning on bringing back some of the '40s heroes who have died, like Sandman or Starman?" Johns: "Yes."

"Even Vibe is going to come back." Johns said.

EVEN VIBE IS GOING TO COME BACK.

Thanks, Ryan!

Black Hand Week 2

Part Two of Black Hand Week, where I show that the creepiest villain around today was originally the biggest goober in comics.

"I hear Death calling my name. I have for as long as I can remember."

Really? Well, Black Hand, then your memory is not as long or as good as mine...! Because I remember that your original obsession wasn't death but...

cliches.

Oh, you younguns probably don't believe me, eh? Well, you know what they say, seeing is believing.

See? I told you.

You may believe in seeing; but Black Hand believes in the wisdom of cliches.

So, basically, if your grandmother were a supervillain, she'd be Black Hand.

Making a costume out of a body bag is odd. Making a supervillain costume of whatever you have lying around from representing the Mid-Atlantic Leather Convention at the last Gay Pride Parade is even odder. Oh, wait; darn those black and white Showcase Volumes; let me fix that for you:
Anyway, before being revamped by Johns, Black Hand didn't get his "power absorber" from an alien; he invented himself. That's what villain used to do. They used to invent inventions that would have made them millionaires if they had patented them. But villains have no patience for the plodding patent process, so they use these inventions to rob jewelry stores.

So, while the original Black Hand was a goober, he was a brilliantly inventive goober, one who was both forewarned and forearmed.



Uh... what? Did Black Hand just talk to ... me? What the==?! More on that little eccentricity in the next segment of Black Hand Week.

Black Hand Week 1

OOOOooo, Black Hand is SO creepy!

But that's a credit to Geoff Johns and what he does best (the reinvention and revitalization of characters). Since most of you have probably never read a Black Hand story before his recent reappearance, you may not realize what a staggeringly impressive accomplishment this is.

Why? Well, it's one thing to make Hal Jordan cool again. Okay... cool for the first time. Hal was never cool. Hal was always a moron. But he did have a rockhard Ryan Reynolds body, a hotshot job as a pilot, and a nearly omnipotent power ring that could do or make anything his tiny little mind could come up with. Even young Scipio liked Hal "Rockhead" Jordan. I can remember being a lad and pretending to be Green Lantern in my little green Garanimals suit, pretending the swing set was a rocket ship. My parents put a stop to that after the third trip to Children's Hospital to patch up the head injuries.

But Black Hand...?

Black Hand was a total goober.

His shtick was perfecting the art of crime. He was the Crook Who Couldn't Fail. Why?

Because he wrote down everything he learned in a little notebook. I bet you think I'm making that up. I'm not... .

Goober!

One wonders how many mistakes and trips up the river Black Hand had to take before he filled his Criminal Trapper Keeper with enough hard-won info to dodge the bulls. I'm guessing he's at least a ninety-seven time loser.

Hey, Black Hand, newsflash: real supervillains don't use Cliff Notes. Real supervillains commit crimes that spell out their names or form some kind of a pattern on a map of the city. Real supervillains have cars with their faces on them and thematic weaponry. Real supervillains rob trains on the fly using nothing but a paper clip, stolen chopsticks, and some Teaberry gum. You're a squinty-eyed, Gil-Kane-uglified accountant with a terrible barber. You're just a supervillain manque, a poseur, and a total tool.

See? I told you it was a Trapper Keeper.

So, what's with the "penny saved" nonsense? Where did he get that pointless costume?

Why is he going on about his family? And who on Earth-1 is he talking to...?

You'll soon find out, in part 2 of Black Hand Week!

Pep 28: The Very Talky Quiet Revolution

Revolution is not a pretty thing and the cover of Pep 28 is no exception to the rule.

We've already seen hints of what Pep scholars call the 'Quiet Revolution', that is, the Shield's slow loss of dominance over the comic book he made famous. But issue 28 is a watershed... .

It is the first time the Shield does not appear on the cover of Pep. At least, not in the main illustration. The Shield is relegated to the circular ghetto of a character imprimatur in upper right hand corner, displacing the usual promise of Pep's unique brand of Action Detective Adventure.

And indeed the symbolism is accurate, for instead of classic Pep-brand Action Detective Adventure, we are served schoolyard posturing and bluster. Talking?!?! Why is there talking on a Pep cover? When there's talking on a Pep cover, people, the terrorists win.

Responsible is none other than that odious poseur, Hangman, and *snicker* 'Captain Swastika', a villain so lame he wears chinos, sketchers, and a timex into battle.

Well, not battle, really. More like two dogs barking at each other through a fence. Two snitty, horribly dressed partisans, squatting like bears in the woods, hurling weak invectives in the form of failed haiku that appear to have been translated from Japanese, vying for position on a novelty sumo mat shaped like the contiguous U.S. Less focused on Action Detective Adventure than on his own appearance, Hangman made sure to bribe the lighting crew to get his signature silhouette on the backdrop of, um, well, space, or whatever that would be.

Oh, and for those who are wondering whether "Hangman can stop America's greatest menace?", the answer is clearly "NO"....

because Archie is still being published today.

Negra Linterna

Usually, I pride myself on confining myself to discussing the inane (e.g., Dazzler), the irrelevant (Aqualad), and the unpopular (e.g., Vibe). But even I cannot resist the urge to discuss, well, the only thing anyone's discussing: Blackest Night.

I should hate it. I mean, really: zombies? [Of course, they're actually revenants, not zombies in the classical voodoo sense, but thanks to all those movies, everyone calls revenants 'zombies' nowadays.]

Yet I do not hate it. I love it. Why?

1. The proper groundwork has been laid. Lordy, the roots of this story are deep within the DCU's history (including elements that I can't mention because they would be spoilers for some inevitable reveals about the Black Lantern). Plus, writers (well, Johns) have built this story brick by brick out of recent year's developments and intentional additions (the death of the Dibnys and many others, the Spectre's punishment of Black Hand, Parallax, the 'emotional color spectrum', the Sinestro War, "Engine City", Xanshi, JLI, the trouble between the Hawks... really, just about everything). This doesn't feel like some external "event'' imposed upon the DCU by editorial fiat that doesn't jibe with anything else. Quite the opposite; it pulls together many loose threads in the DCU and puts them in a overall context that helps it all make more sense and seem more cohesive.

2. The metatextual element. I appreciate when DC takes advantage of an 'event' to do more than simply tell a story. Legends, for example, made complex points about heroism. Blackest Night is a commentary (criticism?) of comic books' Revolving Door of Death. As longtime readers may remember, I am an admirer of the Ivory Soap Method of marketing. "Blackest Night" is an astonishingly bold example. DC has said, "Let's take out two most damning criticisms == that we violently kill off our characters with foolish abandon and that we keep bringing people back from the dead == and make those the central issues in our coolest company-wide story of all time." That's sheer genius.

3. It's not zombies; it's zombies with power rings. Which is, um, totally different. Somehow. It makes you wonder: what side is Driq on?

4. The possibly of fixing, well, almost everything. Ever since 1985, I've been waiting for DC to "fix everything". Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first time DC told me they were going to give themselves a chance to fix everything that needed fixing. I remember being very excited by the idea that DC would "fix everything" by eliminating everything dumb (which is to say, Things That Didn't Make Me Happy in My Comics) and reorganizing and reemphasizing everthing cool. They didn't, of course. Like any legislative body (such as Congress), DC's editors focused too much on changing the situation they didn't like (accumulated Bronze Age continuity) and too little on the new situation they'd be replacing it with (post-Crisis continuity). They gave themselves another chance during Zero Hour (but didn't really fix everything). They gave themselves yet another chance with Infinite Crisis (other than bringing back Barry and Bart Allen, no one has any idea what happened there).

Now, in Blackest Night they have a chance to fix, well, not everything, but almost everything (since most things that "needed fixed" are the pointlessly sensational killings off of characters). I continue to hope that DC will use this opportunity to fix things, much as a battered wife returns to her abusive husband confident that he's sorry, he's changed, and this time it's going to be different. However, this time, I have some evidence on my side: certain things pretty much have to be fixed. Specifically, the currently-dead status of Bruce Wayne and Arthur Curry.

I'm not going to get into an argument here about whether these characters should remain dead and whether DC heroes are really legacies, blah blah blah, and neither are you. Because, frankly, our chatter doesn't really matter. It's just a fact: Bruce Wayne and Arthur Curry aren't going to remain dead, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just being naive. Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Green Arrow didn't stay dead and neither will their two colleagues (J'onn Jonnz? Him I'm not so sure about...).

So, some characters are going to come back from the dead as a result of Blackest Night. That means, in theory, that ANYONE can. Which means, of course...

5. Vibe is comin' back, meng!

Things That Made Me Happy...

in my comics this week.

• Really, I can't remember the last time I saw Aquaman say, "YIPPEE!"
• Lek lokok nak.
• Matt Bensen's ingenious out of the box solution.
• Wally versus George Washington.
• Walker finds what he's looking for... in himself.
• The Heroes' Holiday.
• ... versus mailmen? OMG, when I figured it out, I nearly laughed my fool head off.
• The helpfulness of Dr. Arkham.
• The return of Bruce Wayne, billionaire philanthropist.
• Tempest's argument with Mera; sorry, I think Mera wins.
• The Wonder Woman and John Stewart discuss equal rights with the Founding Fathers.
  
• In case any one ever needs to check for any reason, I, too, only have 28 teeth.
• Hal updates Barry, in 3D.
• Even dead, the Elongated Man is still a jerk.
• The Flash versus Barry Allen. Absolutely priceless...!
• Yeah, Carol looks really safe, LOL...
• I finally have some real respect for Thomas Elliot. Great move.
• "Sounds like flies".
• Element Dog. I just keeping saying it, again and again: Element Dog. And I smile each time.
• Hey, she really is an investigative report, isn't she? You go, Lo-lo!
• Oh, no. Not Bzzzt!
• Chronos's Washington Monument. Nearly laughed my fool head off.
• Carter and Kendra have new jobs!
• "I'm sure anywhere you go in the universe, you'll find stupid people."

Vol. 2 of Martian Madness

Okay, as previously mentioned, the Martian Manhunter went from weird to weirder when he left Detective Comics for House of Mystery.

Now, I know you all think I'm INSANE ("Mad! So, my colleagues think me mad, eh...?!") for harping on the insidious evil of SURREALISM lurking with comic books, yet surrealism is exactly the new foe that J'onn was pitted against.

There was a certain bizarre logic to it. No one ever had any idea what to do with this ridiculous Martian character they'd cobbled together out of breakfast martinis, deadlines, and old pulp sci fi mags. For that matter, no one ever has. Might as well have him fight equally bizarre and ridiculous 'foes', in a symbolic struggle of classic art versus surrealism, or as a metaphor for humanity's never-ending efforts to impose meaning on a chaotic world. Who better to thrust in unknown and nonsensical territory?


J'onn was no longer fighting crooks in ties or even crooks in stupid costumes.

Even for comic books, that's a stand-out sentence.

Now he fought things like...

evil sentient orchestras.

Pity J'onn's career in Zydeco never took off.

Or bank-robbing genies.


Or really peevish, bioelectric Fruit Loops

Thank H'Ronmeer they didn't join forces with the Sinister Spaghetti-o People.

Or presidential candidate Pat Paulsen.



But it was all a battle against SURREALISM, in a vain attempt to keep its madness confined to the canvas...


See? And you think I make these things up...!