Honestly, I could have switched this entry with Injustice. This series is better written, but Injustice is just so massive and the world so fully-realized. Eventually I just had to say "**** it" and not worry about banging my head against the wall trying to rank them.

I already did an in-depth review of the first series, so I'm just going to post a link to that out of laziness and a lack of desire to be redundant. Unfortunately I'm only about halfway through the second series, so I'll refrain from reviewing that... also partially out of laziness. There's also a third Ultimates series, but I've heard nothing but terrible things about it.


Link to The Ultimates 1 review.

I feel like a terrible person for putting this series at #8. This is one of my most eagerly awaited titles every month, and I've been in love with it since issue #1 -- not to mention I've been a Harley fan since I was knee-high to a midget guy. But, here it is... far lower than I would've thought it would be... ah well. I guess that's just a testament to how ****ing awesome comic books are. Hell, this series beat out Batman: Court of Owls, Thor: God of Thunder, and Punisher MAX, so that's some heavy ****. I still feel bad, though.

I covered this series way back on page 1 of this journal, but it's been so long that I'm more than happy to ramble on some more about one of the greatest comic book characters of all time.

This series is just bizarre. Basically, Harley inherits an apartment building populated by a literal freak show, and must maintain it by getting a job -- both as a psychiatrist at an old folks home and as a member of a roller derby team. Her adventures include, but are not limited to: uncovering an elderly team of former Soviet spies with a cybernetic geriatric for an ally, going into space, making out with both Batman AND Bruce Wayne separately (surprisingly/unsurprisingly, he didn't seem to object), becoming besties with Power Girl, saving a small child's Christmas, fighting a Popeye knock-off, making a love connection with a homicidal stalker, and using a catapult to indiscriminately fling dog feces all across New York City. And no, none of it makes any more sense than it did in that paragraph.

Harley's transition into DC's grim 'n' gritty New 52 reboot has been dubious, but in this series she is as adorable and lovable as she ever was in Batman: The Animated Series, with the added bonus of being a charmingly homicidal psychopath. (This is one of the most legitimately violent titles in DC at the moment.) It's simply impossible not to have fun reading every single page of this journey into the heart of idiosyncratic weirdness, and anyone who can is a joyless bastard.

Quite simply, Harley Quinn is everything that is great about Harley. Read it. Now. **** off. Seriously. If you haven't already read every issue of this comic book then you are not fit to read this journal anyway.

Please don't get mad at me for putting this at #8, Harley. You know I love you.


Link to the first Harley Quinn entry.


P.S. And the best thing is that there is now a Harley Quinn and Power Girl mini-series, and the same team behind Harley Quinn just started writing a Starfire solo series that promises to be almost as fantastic as this book.

*jacks off*

Just FYI, haven't flaked. Gonna do an addendum to #8, and I've had to finish some stuff I've been meaning to get to for a while.

Dude, seriously, Eric Lehnsherr is quite possibly the only comic book villain whose philosophy is superior to his enemies. We all like to believe in the vision of Charles Xavier -- his principles speak to a sense of optimism we would like to nurture and aspire to toward humankind and its potential, and we just plain think it would be cool to live in a world with something as cool as mutants, but without the more uncomfortable "realities" of the X-Men universe -- but human history belies the likelihood of such a utopian future.

Magneto's past as a Holocaust survivor is a lesson that we don't even need as an example of man's capability to give in to prejudice and irrational fear of "the other". History is too full of similar examples to ignore (pogroms, the Red Scare, slavery/Jim Crow/segregation, etc, etc, et-****ing-c). Sure, the Holocaust and assination of Martin Luther King Jr. were effective wake up calls to the evils of prejudice, and Joseph McCarthy's reign of terror came to an end when he went "too far" by targeting the army, but racial tensions and genocides in America and all over the world still exist, as does the fear of socialism, and Jews are far from accepted in many places on Earth.

The end of slavery is a poor example as well of our ability to evolve our social narrative. Even aside from the practical rather than moral motivations of the North to abolish that "peculiar institution" in the South. The practice was only eradicated during the rise of the Industrial Revolution, when slavery was becoming economically obsolete (practicality > morality). One related historical truth that is also glossed over is that when the Spanish began enslaving Native Americans and Africans was that there were intense moral debates over it, which were ultimately decided by practical reasons due to Spain's "need" to compete economically with Britain, Holland, and France. This suggests that human morality is not simply evolving bit by bit, but is perfectly capable in any era of being subverted according to the perceived dictates of pragmatism, only reverting to something resembling "goodness" when events no longer require rationalizations.

But Jews and blacks are potentially a "threat" to white, Christian interests at a far less fundamental level than mutants. How many of you could honestly claim to maintain your beliefs in understanding and inclusiveness when confronted with beings capable of firing lasers from their eyes, stopping time, and even invading your very mind? Such people would be a threat to the safety of both individuals and countries that no real-world race ever could. What's to stop a man who can teleport from infiltrating at will the White House, the Pentagon, the Kremlin, the Headquarters of the UN, or any other parliament or government building in the world? How can you counter a woman capable of controlling the weather from bringing down the wrath of a hurricane, a blizzard, or a flood upon any city on Earth?

Absolutely nothing. Nothing but genocide or the permanent eradication of the mutant gene.

And really, in the face of such threats, would it not in fact be in homo sapiens' best interest to wipe homo superior from the world, or at least to control them genetically and/or legislatively? Would not letting them go unchecked be negligent? No matter how unpalatable such policies and actions would be, might our very survival demand these moral sacrifices? After all, could you continue to support mutant rights after a nuclear strike perpetrated by the Master of Magnetism?

Even if the human race decided for integration rather than conflict, the interbreeding of human and mutant would lead to an ever greater ratio of powered to unpowered individuals, and human history again teaches us that the the powerful will always dominate the powerless. In the interim, racial tensions would still exist, exacerbating resentments between "us" and "them", and embittering mutants against their human counterparts. The growing homo superior population would infiltrate government and the military, making resistance against the eventual mutant revolution impossible as our society would no longer be capable of a unified response. We would become second-class citizens in a de facto mutant tyranny, destined to the same repression we might have inflicted on them in the past, but without the military and technological superiority to counteract their powers (anti-human Sentinels, anyone?).

Magneto is undoubtedly aware of all of this, and therefore has come to the only logical conclusion: get them before they get us. Comic book moral logic may artificially marginalize his beliefs, but in the real world his is the only pragmatic solution.

We may criticize the actions of the PLO, and rightfully so concerning the targeting of civilian targets by individual terrorists, but the practical considerations of the conflict between their greater movement and Israel and the West necessitate unconventional tactics. They cannot meet the superior Israeli military in a pitched battle, so when conventional victory is impossible what else can they do but resort to morally dubious military operations designed to sap their enemies' will to fight?

This is exponentially more true for Magneto and his people. You simply can't segregate mutantkind considering their abilities, and even more importantly that they can be born to any normal humans (regardless of race, creed, or nationality) so any actions by human governments must be proportionally more extreme. It's easy to condemn Magneto's actions as terrorist war crimes, but what is the alternative? Given the stakes, defeat is almost certainly tantamount to extinction, making victory the only option, no matter the cost.

If the only two choices are the death of either human- or mutantkind, what as a mutant would you choose?

Ultimately, the conflict between Xavier and Magneto is one of self-indulgent utopianism vs. realistic practicality, and in a world of realistic practicality, the conclusion is obvious: Magneto was right.


For further reading I would recommend the following sites and comic books (but I'm sure this list is in no way exhaustive given the fifty-year history of the X-Men).

Magneto Was Right - Magneto Was Right: a Magneto fan-site which provides intellectually in-depth articles on Magneto's beliefs and character which are far more exhaustive, insightful, and well-researched than this post. Highly recommended for comic book fans and students of philosophy and psychology alike.

Magneto: Testament: A comic book mini-series recounting Magneto's history from child- to adulthood under the Nazis and the Holocaust. Possibly the most important and terribly horrific account of the prejudice that mutants would later endure. One particular scene in issue #1 is the entire story of the X-Men distilled in no more than a few pages. Don't read if you like people and wish to continue to do so.

Uncanny X-Men #150 - I, Magneto: The moment when Magneto went from "a poor man's Dr. Doom", spouting cheesy speeches of world domination, to complex, mutants' rights crusader. If you want to know where his modern incarnation and world view were first articulated, then this is the issue you need to read.

Reposted from my other journal.

Awhile ago i saw one of the X-men movies with my family. the one where Jean grey turns into the Dark phoenix. (it was a rerun) and my cousin said. "Why is Magneto such a bad guy?" and i told her he wasn't a bad guy, he's just looking out for his ppl. i told her that if i was a mutant i would side with him. Profesor X is a great leader but he's an a idealistic leader but Magneto is a realistic leader. all the sh*t you said is true, Mutants and humans simply cannot co exist without the mutants being a notch above in the hierarchy of power and humans would never allow that.

Okay, so this was inspired by an issue of New X-Men by one of the grand ****ing masters of comic books, Grant god damn Morrison. Don't know him? Kill yourself. Or just read Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth for one of the most "bat****" crazy comic stories of all-time. Anyway, I tried finding the specific Xavier speech that I wanted to post a picture of, but couldn't, so you'll just have to hope I can remain coherent as I write this/drink beer.

My previous post, Magneto Was Right, thoroughly put me in the Magneto camp, and in a realistic world with realistic human nature I stand by that 100%. Two different races with one having such genetic advantages, and the other having the benefit of power and numbers, would never in a million years end in anything but genocide by one or both factions. Magneto is right, make no mistake.

But a speech by Xavier in New X-Men has given me pause so far as the Marvel universe and it's comic book morals are concerned. Magneto's interpretation of human nature is based entirely on observation and skewed, if realistically accurate, logic. But Professor X, at the age of eleven or twelve was subjected to his mutant awakening as the world's greatest telepath. I've never really "grokked" the magnitude of what this must have entailed and I suspect the vast majority of people haven't either.

At an extremely impressionable age Charles Xavier discovered his powers, but had no control over them. The entirety of humankind and their thoughts, emotions, desires, hatreds, loves, fears, hopes, etc were revealed to him in all of their horror and glory as he unwillingly plunged into the depths of their psyches. Personally, the idea seems destined to leave any person a gibbering wreck, unable to deal with the extreme nature of such an experience. But not Charles Xavier.

Charles Xavier is a man of strength and conviction the like of which is usually seen but once in a generation. And what conclusion did he come to about the nature of man during this traumatic experience of being able to understand all of the human race to their very core, past all of their lies and rationalizations, past their delusions and knee jerk reactions? What conclusion did a child come to? That man, while fearful of the unknown, was at heart good.

How powerful is that? Who among us would be willing to bare the core of our soul to another in a way that even we cannot with ourselves? Who among us would be confident enough in our own virtue to take that chance? Yet Charles Xavier saw us for what we are and decided to love us. Perhaps even unconditionally.

While I might not believe in such utopian ideas about the nature of man in the real world, in the comic book world this beautifully silly notion can ring true. And apparently it's quite possibly the truth. No matter how dubious I might be about the real world applications of this outlook, people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world with the same ideas, so maybe I'm just a cynical *******. Either way, no matter how much of a hateful bastard I might be, Professor X represents the side of humanity which I would strive to be like if I wasn't the aforementioned hateful bastard, and there is a tangible power in that.

So I raise a toast (with my Steel Reserve) to Professor Charles Xavier, a better man than you or I, in the hope that he's right, not just in his own world, but ours as well.

I am starting this review before I have even read this comic. Why? Isn't that unfair? No. It is not. I know Rob Liefeld, the creator of this... thing. I have read his run on X-Force and it is an abomination of art and writing that ****s on the entire medium of comic books and I hope he feels bad.

But just look at this cover. Woof doesn't not even begin... I can't even. That black guy in the center I know is named Chapel, and while I don't know all that much about him I'm almost certain that he does not fly. Wouldn't know it from that pic though.

What's with the guy on the left? Did a witch doctor shrink his head? It's just kind of sitting in the middle of his general shoulder area and if you spun his head around 180° he wouldn't be able to see his own ass. Wikipedia tells me that the medical term for being a hunchback is "kyphosis" and I think that dude qualifies. I'm calling him Kyphoid from now on. It's probably waaaay better than whatever ****ty name Rob gave him.

I could go on, but I should probably read this thing before ripping on it anymore.

According to the introductory page the team's names are Brahma (Kyphoid), Riptide, Photon, Psi-Fire, Sentinel (I thought that was Chapel... huh), and Cougar. So we are officially shit deep in the 90s.


Oh my god this is going to go on forever. One page in and we have some Middle Eastern dictator called "Hassan Kussein" who could not possibly be mistaken for anyone other than Saddam. The pic of him looks a bit younger, but that mustache is pure Butcherer of Baghdad. Stupid, yes, but combined with the broken bits of broadcasts from various news outlets straight from a generic action movie about terrorists and/or communist meanies, this first page is just... I just... **** it. I'd be done if I wasn't intent on getting to at least page two.


Holy ****. Pages two and three. A splash page is when they take up a page or two whole pages with a single image to highlight something that's supposed to be dramatic or whatever. Splash pages can be used effectively if done right, but when used by Rob Liefeld they are reduced to making **** look cool, but in such a way that nobody above Irish drinking age could do anything but cringe.

This is a trope that is sadly still prevalent in comics today. A bunch of people jump out of some aircraft with no parachutes or ziplines (as people do) with arms held behind them in readiness for an impending act of badassness that will never be shown, mouths agape in bloodlust cause people do that. Look at that. LOOK AT IT! How in god's name will any of these people not break every bone in their body upon landing? And how will I continue reading this comic without mocking every single page in sheer exasperation and incredulousness?






My favorite bit is that the previous page was supposed to be ramping up tension with all of the myriad news broadcast snippets showing an impending and uninteresting war, while this splash page tries to be clever by switching to what is presumably the POV of one of the participants in the jump-to-death with dialogue that dashes tension's brains against a brick wall of uninteresting. This page is in no way shocking to me given my previous experience with X-Force, but it still bears mentioning.

And what the **** is that dude with the helmet on the right? Is he even in the shot or is he somewhere else and confusingly interposed on the page? Are his shoulder pads connected to his... lower shoulder pads? Why does he have a bucket with triangles on his head? Is that even a gun?

But I digress. Sentinel does have an impressive buttocks though. Alright, I'm done.


Oh wait, that guy was in the shot. His name is "Combat". Nice? Why wasn't he listed with the rest of the team? Oh, he's probably going to die. Or quit. Subtle. I'd say his ****ty name would be a dead giveaway that he's not destined for issue #2 but that would be giving credit to the rest of the team's names, and I would never do that.

OMG art so bad. If I were to post every abortion in this issue than I'd have to make at least four posts to cover this since I'm limited to ten pics per entry. There's a panel where the perspective is so horrendous that Combat looks at least three times the size of Cougar (who is so blatant a ripoff of Sabretooth from X-Men that I'm surprised Marvel didn't sue) and the only reason I know this isn't so is because... well it can't be so. I guess they might have a giant on the team though, and it shouldn't surprise me that if that is the case that Rob Liefeld wouldn't have made it in any way clear until a panel that looked like perspective had put a gun in its mouth. At this point there is absolutely no way to ascertain Combat's size.

Apparently "War is just a game" to Combat. Cause 90's.


And it gets "Coug" "pumped". Nice.


Combat still may or may not be a giant without a face, apparently Sentinel really can fly, and this is the most boring action scene since the last issue Rob Liefeld drew of X-Force.


Brahma's shoulders are officially taller than his head, none of the defending soldiers have guns for no apparent reason, and I just realized I have no idea what Youngblood (that's the team's name) are actually doing, but I've read enough Liefeld to know that attacking random bases for reasons vaguely stated in the first page to think to much about that.


Brahma and Riptide (the designated chick) also have nice asses, Sentinel's prominent crotch is way too crosshatched for my liking, and those are some tiny tanks.


If they're in a desert then why is the crosshatched background green?

Oh hey, giant robots. Just like the real Gulf War.


On the plus side the giant robots have made me suspect that combat is not in fact the size of a bus, but I have no idea why there are two curtains hanging in midair in the middle of the desert. I think it's the desert. But those are ****ing curtains hanging in midair when there have been absolutely no curtains anywhere else in the book.






I'm serious. Nobody in this comic has a cape. Nobody. There is absolutely no reason for those curtains.


**** me. I don't know whether I want to mock Combat's assertion that "I'm built for this! I'm built for combat!" or the fact that he now appears to be the same size as the giant robots. What the **** is perspective in this comic?!

But seriously, a character named "Combat" just said he was "built for combat". What the **** is that ****ing ****?


LOL. Combat is now my favorite character in this series. "I want the satisfaction of kill-" and then he interrupts himself. And both he and Cougar have pointy ears like Vulcans. Cougar I get, cause I guess he's a cat dude cause his name's Cougar, but why does Combat have pointy ears? It takes away from the majesty of Cougar's pointy ears.

And this comic is now almost half over and aside from the first page with all the news reports about not-Saddam Hussein there is absolutely no context or story to this comic. I know that Youngblood is attacking some enemy of America (there's a single panel in the beginning that implies that the team is an arm of the US military) but not yet have I been given a reason to care. This is just one, long, unbroken action scene that gives absolutely no scale as to the size of the engagement.

Just realized this issue isn't even half over. FML.


One thing I'd like to point out is that Rob Liefeld doesn't draw eyes. He's famous for being iffy on feet, but the man does not do eyes. Occasionally he'll show the whites of someone's eyes, but almost never their pupils. There are two extreme closeups of two guys' faces and only one has even a hint of pupils.

And Psi-Fire apparently appreciates a good dictatorship, but not as much as moolah. Cause anti-hero. I'm not even really leaving any plot out cause so far what I've described is the entirety of the plot. Big Middle Eastern meanie meets American superhuman dudes (and dudette) and unintentional hilarity ensues.


I have no idea what Psi-Fire's powers are, but they should come with a seizure warning.




I guess his powers include producing spaghetti sauce from your eyeballs or some **** with his glowy, green eyes, but whatever the case Rob's attempt to make Psi-Fire look like a psychopath who enjoys killing people is just goofy. And we also see Rob's propensity for adding way too many same-sized teeth to somebody screaming. Another of his trademarks.

For some reason screaming face also tends to be unconscious face, which is one of two of Rob's stock faces, and has the same amount of teeth sans comically gaping maw.


Oh look, Combat and Cougar, previously shown to be battle fiends, are grossed out by Psi-Fire's spaghetti powers. That's how you know Psi-Fire is not to be trifled with.


And now the rest of the team weighs in on Psi-Fire turning not-Saddam Hussein's brains into marinara sauce and we see that though they are grossed out it's all routine and Rob Liefeld's version of quips are exchanged, so that you know it's all good. I only know that these are quips because I have read other Rob Liefeld comics. If you didn't pick up on them then don't feel ashamed; that's for Rob Liefeld alone.

The real ****show is that Psi-Fire previously stated (in the curtains panel) that he could have done this "from the states". So unless the US government is unaware of his range then they knowingly spent the money on a pointless strike force to dispatch a threat that could have been dealt with without any of this. The first half of this issue is therefore entirely pointless. WTF?

Such was Liefeld and Image Comics in the 90's.


"US Today" article about Hussein's apparent suicide. I guess Youngblood is public but their activities are classified? Makes sense. And apparently there's some guy called "Battlestone" at large. Should make for good comics.


And now we're apparently in a shopping mall with two people whose hair is so feathered I'm surprised they don't also fly. Rob Liefeld doesn't know how to draw hair either. Holy ****, the chick has eyes! They look like unintentional robot eyes, but she ****ing has pupils. Progress. Unfortunately I also forgot that his wimin only ever have blowup doll lips. Good god. The guy's eyes are black blobs however, even though we have the same closeup of him. Like, why? Are eyes really that hard?

They're boyfriend and girlfriend too btw.


First thing's first. Guy decides to chase some guy who is presumably a thief and we have a shot of him vaulting over something or other, which gives us yet another of Rob Liefeld's calling cards: asterisk crotch.






Secondly, just from the brilliant internal dialogue I'm going to assume that this dude is participating in a staged event to make him look like a hero. I know from previous research into this series that these heroes are also marketable celebrities, so I'm guessing that this is all a publicity stunt. I could be wrong but I'm calling it.


Nope. Wrong. Just some asshat on a balcony trying to trick "Shaft" into... letting his guard down by putting him on guard so he could kill him? Or something? Either way Shaft threw a pen at him. Got him good too. I'm not sure if he's a ripoff of Hawkeye or Green Arrow (he's apparently an archer) or Bullseye (who can use any object as a projectile weapon cause comics), but I'm assuming it's all of the above.


Damn. Pens are lethal weapons in the hands of a trained archer. The press is eating this **** up. I guess throwing a pen at a guy and killing him in a mall is actually pretty newsworthy though.

"No I.D. No pulse. No answers." is a pretty amazing line, btw. I'm surprised David Caruso didn't put his sunglasses on.


"eepBeep" calls Shaft to HQ while we see some grey dude who I know to be "Badrock" eating something prepared by his lily white "mom". Even his eyebrows are a ripoff of the Thing. If he doesn't mention Yancy St. or say "It's clobberin' time" I'll be flummoxed.

As much as I know I'm still confused but vaguely interested how the grey Thing has a cracker for a mom.


Apparently Hannah Barbara has not yet sued Image as his name is still "Bedrock", there's some generic superhero with a full-body leotard, and we finally see Chapel, who looks exactly like Sentinel, making me think that Wesley Snipes is the only black person that Rob Liefeld has ever seen.

I'd make more fun of the scene with Chapel but somebody else has already done it way better than I ever could, so read that. It's the very first entry and it's the best article on Rob Liefeld ever created and I'm merely a tryhard trying to mimic it.

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, Part 2 Of 4

I suppose it's worth mentioning that Shaft, Bedrock, and nameless leotard dude were not mentioned in the opening Youngblood member rollcall. Not cool.


Uninteresting page introducing an unnamed chick member of Youngblood fighting some other chick who looks exactly like her and I suspect that's more out of artistic laziness than any foreshadowing about an evil twin enemy.

There are still way too many pages of this crap.


Group shot of new members who are apparently also a Youngblood team. Don't know if they're a separate team or if all of these yahoos are just the guys who got stuck at home while the other dudes were killing not-Sadam. There's some sort of ruckus but who cares.

Oh hey, Shaft has blues eyes.


Boring page of what I assume to be boring supervillains robbing something or other. I ain't even got **** to say other than that there's a random foot that isn't even worth posting a pic of to mock. Just know there's an incongruous foot.

I guess the other Youngblood team is gonna fight these dudes in the next few pages. Apparently their names are Cage, Strongarm, Deadlock, and Starbright. I know this was the 90's, but is "Starbright" really necessary?


What the **** even is this shot? Like, the baddies are rescuing a Wolverine wannabe with a ten-foot-long topknot, but then that leotard dude who's name I don't know/don't remember does this...







It's pretty much the perfect Rob Liefeld action shot. Notice the obnoxious movement lines on leotard dude, how his legs are clearly in an anatomically impossible position, and the dude getting hit's mouth is gaping open ridiculously. That's Rob Liefeld. Assuming he has a wife she married this picture.


Same ****. Who cares.


Oh... that's it. Issue ends on leotard dude pummeling that dude. So, Youngblood kills Saddam Hussein and then some other Youngblood dudes try to foil an escape attempt by some supervillains. That's it. No character drama whatsoever. Even the action scenes are boring. Like, as in totally uninteresting and I'm not being mean, they just suck, every last panel is lame.

If I continue this there is no way I am putting this much time and effort into this ****. This sucked. Hard. And I still don't know why two characters have pointy ears.

What's with the girl surfing at the top of the page on the cover? And what is she surfing on? Did someone get very excited about this being the "first explosive issue"? Note the use of the adjective there, kids! ;)

Great to see you back journal-ling, Bat! :thumb: (And before you say it, I know "journal" is not a verb, but it is now...)

That's Riptide and she shoots water at you while posing her crotch, boobs, or ass.

It's been forever and a day since I updated this journal but I'm bored and feel like being a dickbag to innocent writers and artists who are just trying to feed their kids. A couple years ago I found this series on a comic piracy site while scrolling through the new uploads and stopped at this. Extreme Justice. 1995. Have to have it. There was simply no way any comic from the early-mid 90s with "Extreme" in the title wasn't going to be a Sunny D commercial with angry eyebrows, and while I never ended up reading it, everything I've heard backs up my assumption. So I bring to you, the Justice League that time probably forgot...






Still haven't read it, I just wanted to take a minute to cringe at the cover, where Extreme Justice are I guess busting down the wall to your room and you better believe they're gonna bring down the house. Going clockwise from the 12 o'clock position we have Captain Atom, a silver guy who shoots, like, radiation or the sun or something. I know he's one of those big whammy superheroes like Superman or Thor, who can punch buildings and then make them apologize for getting in their way, but I've read almost nothing with him in it so I'm not too clear on his power set. I really like how they tried to make him as shiny and detailed as possible, but he just ends up looking like he has chicken pox.

Next we have Maxima, a character I only know from an episode of Superman: The Animated Series and from hearing about this series. As far as I know the entirety of her character is that she wants to bang superheroes (Superman most of all) and have their superbabies. And then she reformed her sleazy ways and joined the Justice League apparently, which gives me hope that if I ever gain superpowers and join a team that I might not be the most annoying twat in the room. And if you look at where her right arm is in relation to her crotch you'll notice that HER TORSO IS AT A 90° ****ING ANGLE FROM HER LOWER BODY! I've seen some ****, but I don't know that I've ever seen that kinda ****. (And yes, I totally just tried to do that, and no I couldn't, and you should be glad you weren't here to see it.)

Below her we have Booster Gold and what even the ****? This is Booster Gold when he's not looking like a SWAT team gladiator with 80s Madonna hair.


Simple, fun, and memorable. I like Booster Gold's character design. But **** whatever the hell '95 Booster is supposed to be.

Moving on to Blue Beetle. Blue Beetle is a gadget guy who I think has some fighting ability of his own, but is most certainly not Spider-Man and can not leap nimbly from building to building while contorted like a literal pretzel. You totally thought that was Spider-Man with a costume change before you remembered that this was a DC book, didn't you?

And finally there's "Amazing-Man" whose name made me literally cringe when I looked him up just now cause I sure as **** don't know who the hell Amazing-Man is. "Superman" sounds dumb but it still has a ring to it. "Amazing-Man" has all the stupid of "Superman" but without working despite itself. What even does Amazing-Man do, besides sporting pointless headgear that lines up perfectly with his eraser cut? I don't even wanna think about the rest of his green and gold wardrobe malfunction.

And don't even ask me why the series starts with issue #0 cause I don't even care to know. Now I'm actually going to read this thing and then... well I guess I'll probably go bite something.


Okay, so, first thing's first. This isn't as terribad as I was hoping, just really bland and uninteresting and ****ty. I was assuming that with a name like "Extreme Justice" this would be DC's answer to X-Force: a team of antiheroes with 'tude who don't play by the rules and like to sneer at the things they blow up. Extreme Justice (merely called the Justice League in this book) are just kind of a team who could have been in any series, but I guess DC wanted them to be EXTREME so they put it on the cover.

This inconsistency of approach dominates Extreme Justice #0. The artwork is a perfect example of this; much of the art looks straight from the 80s, with the detailed realism that had not yet been infected with the over-the-top, ugly grittiness of the Image Comics era. The pencilling can be more than a little busy, and the colors are painfully drab (pure 90s, right there), but as a fan of 80s comic art I was somewhat pleasantly surprised... all things considered.

And then you get to the shiny things. I have no idea why artist Marc Campos decided to add so much pointless detail to absolutely everything metal, but combined with the Pollock-esque coloring it's an optometrist's wet dream. Just look at this pile of what-the-**** ON THE FIRST TWO PAGES.






Don't Captain Atom (middle) and Booster Gold (bottom left) look completely out of place? The background is, while being a bit busy and amorphous for my liking, rather subdued and "normal" looking, with the rest of the team looking positively funereal by comparison. But **** me if my eyes aren't actually hurting just a bit from looking at those two for too long. I'd say the only good thing about this "style" is Maxima, whose simple, dark purple costume actually contrasts nicely with the gold of her shoulder pads, gloves, and boots. (They could still be 50% less shiny, but so long as I don't have to look directly at Captain Atom then I'll count my blessings.) Also her hair is pretty and probably smells nice. And don't ask me why they seem to be flying through the inside of a giant pair of pajama bottoms.

Side note: in case you didn't know that the people who made this comic don't give any more of a **** about Amazing-Man (bottom right) than I do then just check how he's clearly been crammed into the edge of the page in such a way that he doesn't cover up Blue Beetle, even if he has to look like he's about to anally fist him.

That's not even the worst Captain Atom image either. I'm spoiled for choices, but I'm going with this one... ugh.




This issue definitely has its problems with art, but in general it's really not too terrible, and even works at times. But Captain Atom looks like absolute dog **** in every single panel. He looks like somebody ran over a zombie with a floor buffer. He looks like T-1000 melting. He looks like somebody asked a genie to make his lucky nickel into a real boy and it went horribly, horribly wrong. He looks like my grandmother got jizzed on by a tank. He looks like a ghost sending a warning to the living through a puddle of mercury.

But enough of that. This issue supposedly had a plot as well. The tone of the issue might not quite be bog standard 90s drek, but the first few pages couldn't be anything but: already assembled team attacks base with little introduction or explanation as to why these people all flying in the same direction are even working together in the first place, and you're just kind of expected to care cause you're twelve, like explosions, and don't know anything about proper storytelling. This time it's a base in Colorado that's been taken over by a rogue US general intent on launching nukes at Russia in order to force Washington to launch a preemptive nuclear strike because freedom. Extreme Justice (I'm not ****ing calling them the Justice League) fights a bunch of erroneous mechwarrior robots that apparently the general shouldn't have, a missile gets launched, Captain Atom chases after it, the missile blows up but Captain Atom is too boss to let a little thing like a thermonuclear explosion get to him, and end scene.

The only thing that makes this sequence even remotely interesting is Blue Beetle, who is the only character with any personality at this point, which is balls, cause Booster Gold is usually delightful (and I guess he's dressed like a Megazord because it powers his pacemaker?). After that is one of the most baffling plot progressions I've ever seen and I still don't know what it means or how it's stupid. The team now decides that they need a headquarters, so where do they go? Some abandoned military base in Nevada (remember, they were just in Colorado) where they find the same robots from the other base defending this base from the people who fought the robots at the other base who are the people now fighting the robots at this base. There is no indication that they were followed (and later in the book it's clear that they weren't), and Extreme Justice didn't go to the second base because of any link to the first base, they just sorta randomly found more robots as if killer robots are hiding behind trees and in trash cans all over your neighborhood.

Then there's some crooked general who's somehow involved with the second base who doesn't want Extreme Justice there, then some doctor tells some guy he has cancer, and then some dudes look like they're about to fight Extreme Justice and the issue ends. Oh yeah and some shadowy guy in 90s armor doesn't like Captain Atom for some reason. See how many "some"'s I put in the paragraph? I even went back and added one to illustrate how uninteresting this **** is. There is literally a scene where an unnamed person is told he has leukemia and only six months to a year and should go on vacation, and none of it even hints that it is any way superhero-related other than the insinuation that the leukemia is weird.

This is quite simply one of the most phoned in first issues I've ever read. I imagine that this was an assignment given to a middling creative team who could not possibly have been less interested in reinventing the Justice League for the grim and gritty 90s and so they just put in the minimum amount of effort to collect a paycheck. But as bad as it is it's not even good-bad like Youngblood or X-Force where I can laugh long and hard at how stupid it is. I just want to read something else and/or drink myself into a stupor.

Does anyone remember Marvel 2099? That series of titles based on quasi-futuristic versions of existing superheroes set a hundred years from now (or at least in 1992) in an angsty, dystopian world with a disproportionate amount of spikes and lack of sunlight? No? Well then you're in for a ****ing treat. There aren't many characters in comics more suited to a 90s overhaul than the Punisher, as he was pretty much the 90s back in the 70s, so this is a very good fit all things considered. I think I've read this issue at some point, but I remember nothing about it other than Punisher 2099 being one of the great pinnacles of ridiculous 90s excess. Grit? Check. Guns? Check. Hideous costume redesign? Check, mate.






Good lord in heaven just look at that. Apparently the new and improved Punisher did not trust himself to design his own costume, so he just had the dude from Voivod do it. I really like all that red, to be honest. Really brings out the bulky fugliness of the rest of his costume. Look at those gun... lasers (?), the first of which, according to the current placement of his hands, must have been fired from a 45° angle at the ground. And is that a book with the Punisher logo on the cover that has no bullet holes but is expelling pages that do in a sort of magical dance to pay homage to the Punisher's supreme manliness? **** me I don't even know where to begin with that ****.

That goes triple for the comic book itself. You know how a good cyberpunk story uses a dystopian future world to make commentary on the nature of humanity by focusing on something like the widening gap between rich and poor, or the difference or lack thereof between humans and androids? This book wants to be all the things, and pretty much everything about everything is a cyberpunk nightmare to make George Orwell dry heave into an evil cyber trash can. There are simply so many panels and pages I want to post that I'd basically have to commit copyright infringement to try. So let's just look at the first page and count the ways in which the future is a big meanie.






Right off the bat the first two sentences makes me glad I have the privilege of living in Trump's glorious America. Apparently all you need to do to incur the wrath of this brave blue world is not be half-dead. I first assumed the dude in wrist sweatbands and combat boots was running from a cholera epidemic down the street, but the second panel informs us that he's worried about "Street Surgeons". The two-way police terminal, complete with unnerving eye logo and bootleg 1984 slogan, from which he seeks help is not impressed however, as it ain't messin' wit no broke niggas. And so... wait, holy ****! "Street Surgeons" isn't some bull**** name! Not at all! THEY GOT MEDICAL EQUIPMENT!!! Or at least I think that's medical equipment, although I don't know what a real surgeon would do with serrated scalpels. I guess that's what they use on people without health insurance in this world. Maybe this is Trump's America and he's a head in a jar on top of a robot ruling the country with a literal iron fist?

I so want to post the next page too, but I guess I should hold off since there are so many panels that require ogling throughout this artifact of deathification. The Street Surgeons are in fact black market organ harvesters (assuming of course that this isn't just how hospitals work now, and I'm not assuming anything at this point) who target people who can't afford police protection and then cut out their "pump" (don't worry, they mean heart) without using any anaesthesia.

Enter the ****ing Punisher, bitch, clad in "high density plasto-armor" and toting what I assume is a sub-machine gun, an "antique" .54 caliber Magnum hand cannon from 2015 complete with its own ammo belt that disappears somewhere behind the Punisher's back, and three "grenazers". Apparently his shoes are also of note for some reason. Ah **** it, ya'll need to see this ****.






The kneepads really make the outfit as far as I'm concerned. Note the last word bubble from one of the Street Surgeons. It forms the beginning of the greatest witty repartee between hero and villain I have ever had the fortune of reading...

"Who are you? You're no strolling citizen packing that hardware..."

"I'm the Punisher... and you're deadware!"

"I see you went to the butt-face school of charm!"

After which the Punisher blows the reprobate straight to hell with a .54 caliber message from God's own arsenal of righteousness. How do you even write such genius? Is it skill? Practice? A concussion? And I'm not entirely sure the artist consulted the writer before drawing the dude with a smoking hole in his head, because on the next page the man is alive and clutching his smoking gun hand... huh. In any case, the Punisher doesn't seem to mind as he has something more hands-on with which to dispense street justice. Bat power! Excuse me, a power bat.






There's so ****ing much to love about this literary equivalent to hairy testicles, but that last panel with the angry eyes is one of the high points. "I've never used the lower settings." Lulz. Obviously he kills the **** out of all of them, cause Punisher, and next we find ourself at a "police" station, where the corporate racketeers who pass for law enforcement are none too pleased with our man Skully, and call in "'special operations' agent Jake Gallows" (snort) to help. And guess who Mr. Gallows is?






Alright, before I get into the meat of this scene, WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH THE PUNISHER'S ****ING HEAD?! It's only marginally bigger than his fist and appears to be sprouting from his right shoulder, which is big enough to house at least twelve more heads. Nobody at Marvel caught that? Really? Anyways, as much as I love droppin' deuces on this comic there's a part of me that wonders if the writer isn't actually in on the joke. Punisher 2099 is just so outlandish that there are only so many people on Earth who could have written it seriously, and the reasoning behind the police pursuing the Punisher shows some small amount of cleverness. He didn't attack a cop and now they're getting revenge for one of their own, and they aren't being ordered to put him down by any presumed corporate masters, they're going after him of their own volition for threatening their business in a way that comes off like how any modern police force would. I'm not saying it's genius, but it does feel a little bit more intelligent than I would otherwise give this book credit for.

But that Punisher brand hoverbike amiright?

There's also a short conversation between Jake "Punisher" Gallows and Fatty McPornstache the police boss a few pages later after they've watched footage of the Punisher pouring some kind of flammable liquid on an arsonist and forcing him to transfer all of his money to charity.






Tell me that joke doesn't sound at all self-aware? I'm not jumping to any conclusions, but there are enough ridiculous things going on in this issue to make me open to the idea that the writer is actually being ironic to secretly lampoon 90s grim 'n' gritty comic trash. I honestly wouldn't be surprised, but either way Punisher 2099 is too delightful for me to hate. Seriously though, there's no way that the Punisher's brain is large enough to properly operate his terrifyingly gigantic body.

To further show that these phony cops are just corrupt thugs they don't seem able to comprehend why a vigilante would want to take the law into his own hands in an effectively lawless society where the police will happily mock a brokeass as he is about to have his heart removed by people with shark teeth knives. Is the Punisher a corporate lackey? An agent from a rival racketeer organization? A mob hitman? A serial killer? Jake knows, though, and is perfectly willing to arouse suspicion by suggesting that he "simply believes in justice", which confuses his associates as much as it does me. But they seem willing to chalk it up to his inevitable origin story of his family being killed in front of him.

Cue flashback!

Now, as much absurdity as has already happened, nothing can prepare a sane person for what now foists itself upon the page. Not-yet-the-Punisher is spending time with his mother, brother, and sister-in-law as they celebrate his brother passing what I guess is the police academy exam. I'm honestly sitting here thinking how best to present this scene. Do I post a page and let you bask in its glory? Or do I take the time to describe everything that's ludicrous and then post something? I guess I'll go with both because it'll be more fun for me.

You know how the original Punisher's, Frank Castle's, family was caught in the middle of a mob hit? Simple, but effective. But that's too bitch for the Punisher who parties like it's 2099. Frank Castle's wife and son were in a park when they were shot. Do you know where Jake Gallows' is? I'll give you three guesses. I'll wait...

Give up? Well if you guessed "dinosaur zoo" then congratulations, you're a freak, but also correct. That's right, folks! The new Punisher's family was murdered while surrounded by sauropods.






And no, you aren't having a seizure. The Punisher's family were members of the Church of Thor and it's exactly what it sounds like. Odin's beard wtf. It couldn't possibly get any more retarded you're probably saying. Think again! Instead of a botched mob hit his family are killed because they're just so happy and loving that some guy with a gun and goons simply goes nuts. He hates happy families. Can't stand 'em. Has to shoot 'em. That's literally the entire reason. All of it. I swear I'm not leaving out any motivation and that's Mjolnir's own truth. You're also probably assuming that this love-deprived psycho shot them with a laser gun or something. Wrong! It was a microwave gun. The Punisher's family were literally cooked like Hot Pockets.






Now you might be asking why the Punisher is wearing armor and carrying a gun with twelve barrels that don't even shoot when he's not even yet the Punisher, but that would be asking questions, and we best not do that here. In any case he tries saving his family but gets his kneecaps microwaved and has to watch as "Kron" nukes his mother and sister-in-law on high for one second. Then he begs Kron to kill him too, but now that he's no longer a member of a family the electromagnetic radiation happy lunatic couldn't be more polite and leaves him to presumably throw peanuts at velociraptors.

This entire scene is simply too stupid for me to wholly believe that the writer wasn't drunk and laughing his ass off at his own inspired idiocy. A dinosaur park. Microwave guns. Kron. That beret. Am I the only one willing to believe that this is all intentional?

Moving on. Now that the Punisher is laid up in "Midgard Hospital" with unevenly heated knees a friend visits to inform him that Kron has been apprehended and will soon stand trial. Jake attends the trial, only to see Kron quickly released after paying a possibly hefty fine of "2.2 million mega dollars" with his "black card", which is sort of like a get out of jail free card for those who can afford to be above the law. The Punisher is not pleased.






No offense, Jake ol' buddy, but I have to call your sense of outrage over injustice into question. You happily served in a police force whose business model explicitly allows for the deaths of the poor and protection of the rich, and yet you simply can't believe that justice could be so horrifically subverted? And it's not like this is a secret to anybody. The police even seem proud to be bootlickers for their corporate masters. In this world the very act of applying to a police academy is nothing less than betraying your fellow man. Obviously I understand why watching your family be cooked alive in an off brand Jurassic Park would be traumatic, but you're just as complicit as anyone else. **** you kind of.

But this is the ten-ton straw that breaks the dystopian camel's cybernetically-enhanced back. Having previously discovered the original Punisher's equipment and journal in police custody and stolen them I guess, Jake has been agonizing over a decision to become the new Punisher. That decision has now been made with extreme prejudice.






Gotta love that last journal entry with the blood stains and trailing "k". So evocative. So subtle. And so we leave this issue on the declaration that, "I am the Punisher now", ushering in a new age of cracked out adventures that we will sadly never get to see in our lifetimes. Although I definitely wouldn't be able to afford police protection, so it's probably for the best.

It would be easy to simply mock this mess, regardless of the writer's intent. Strip away all the charming nonsense and this is a very pedestrian Punisher origin issue: he pops some caps in some suckers, is shown to be a loose cannon, and we see his family killed before his eyes. I'm sure there are at least five hundred comics featuring the Punisher that are no different and many of them are likely far better written. But that would be joyless and lame, as all those bat **** crazy moments are what make this so entertaining. That's right, I am legitimately entertained and while I am happy to poke fun at this... this, I also very much want to read more and this will likely not be the last entry for Punisher 2099. So I implore you, if you have any love for cringey, 90s comic bull****, or you just like corny action movies, then you should really pick this up. It's a lot of ****ing fun.

You're making this my favourite journal. Now don't disappoint me like with The Return of the Kings of Metal and just leave it hanging...

I kind of have three entries going at the same time and I was up till almost 5 in the morning last night reading Punisher 2099, so I guess I'm back for the moment.

https://i.makeagif.com/media/7-17-2015/vl4h9k.gif

Seriously: this is great fun. Some of your best work to date. :thumb:

TBH it's kinda hard to stay motivated with this journal since I'm always writing stupid long posts, so today I'm just gonna briefly mention the **** I'm currently nerding out on.






Was disappointed by the Suicide Squad movie, so seeing the exact same characters in the new series worried me, but it's fixed SO MUCH that was mediocre or just plain awful about the previous volume: the characters are more engaging and likeable, the writing isn't a toilet, and the art (especially the first two arcs) doesn't look like a cheap Jim Lee knockoff (because Jim Lee is the actual artist this time).

The previous series also gave you a lot of forgettable characters who either never died (a revolving door of constantly dying characters being one of the hallmarks of the original, 80s Suicide Squad) or came back from death in a stupid fashion. This one is just as committed to not killing people off for the most part, but it also develops its cast as an ensemble so that you don't actually want any of them to die: Harley is the heart of the team rather than a juggalette, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang are ****ing hilarious, Killer Croc and Enchantress' wtf romance is surprisingly adorable, Rick Flag is pretty ****ing cool, and Katana... okay she doesn't have much personality but god damn is she pretty and badass.

Definitely buy this book. Just make sure it's got "Rebirth" on the cover and not "New 52".






I'm only about 24 issues into this series, but it's pretty awesome so far. Basically the Thunderbolts are Marvel's rather creative answer to DC's Suicide Squad: they're C-list villains playing superhero, but in this case they're operating under aliases to trick the public into trusting them in a plot to take over the world, until some of the team decide they actually like being real heroes. I wouldn't say it's quite swept me off my feet, as it's got that awkward kind of throwback camp style that still tries to be modern (as of the late 90s) that didn't quite do either particularly well, which as far as I can tell seemed to be a hallmark of the years immediately following the mid-90s comic mega-slump that ended the boom years of the grim 'n' gritty era. But this series still does that style admirably, with some cringey character designs and obsolete comic conventions offset by relatively excellent characterization and writing.

And Moonstone (hero alias "Meteor") is one of my new favorite characters. She's one of the members of the team who couldn't care less about doing good, concerned only with her own benefit. A cold, calculating, manipulative, sociopathic, amoral ultra-bitch who is one of those villains who is just a joy to watch being deliciously evil. She's also the only truly evil member of the team who... *spoiler* sticks with her more ambivalent teammates due to her picking their faction in a power struggle, making for a fascinating dynamic between her and the remaining Thunderbolts *spoiler*

So far the Thunderbolts journey from fake heroes to conflicted anti-heroes has been serpentine and highly interesting, so I'm very much going to keep up with this series.






I honestly don't know much about Captain Marvel aside from the basics, but I've been highly interested in her for a while. Marvel is highly pushing her into the spotlight after decades of neglect, probably because she's one of the few female heroes they can put in a movie whose rights aren't owned by Fox, but I'm coming to the realization that I'm okay with that. Her characterization in this series didn't immediately win me over, as she's one of those heroes who doesn't have a larger-than-life personality that's easy to digest, or some glaring character flaw or trauma in their life that defines their journey. She's just kind of a normal person with superpowers. Except she also has a believable, likeable, and engaging personality that makes her a Superman analog (most of her powers are clearly a copy) who doesn't feel like a Superman analog. It's easy to tell that she's brash, impulsive, and even reckless at times, while also being brave and driven, but it's when you start seeing the more subtle traits that operate just beneath the surface that you start to really care about Carol Danvers.

First of all, her drive to constantly be the best she can be and test her limits, combined with somewhat of an inferiority complex that further drives her to prove herself, makes her highly relatable. She's not angsty, never that, as she's always ready with pep, quips, and oddly enough a rather sizeable ego that she expresses with tongue firmly in cheek. But seriously she'd probably battle you to the death at tiddly wings just so she could rub your cold, dead nose in it for the next month. I think my favorite thing about her at the moment though, is that she doesn't see her powers as a burden, in fact seeing them as a gift with which to discharge her duty to her country and planet. But going even further, though she is far too responsible to ever use them as such, I think she kind of sees her ability to fly, shoot energy blasts, and punch things real good as almost a toy. Not a toy to abuse at her whim, but one with which to achieve even greater goals than she ever could as a normal human.

All of this fleshes out a swashbuckling adventurer who has the time of her life being Superman, even if things aren't always so fun. Officially now waiting for her movie next summer. And OMG I love her new costume. Makes her look like a total badass, and I don't mean badass for a female superhero, I just mean badass in general.






After falling in love with the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood movie I became highly interested in Red Hood. If you don't know he's a former Robin who kind of went off the deep end and became the best Punisher knockoff ever. I then read the newest volume of Red Hood & the Outlaws, which was fantastic, and decided I'd give this previous series a try even with all the bad press it had received. I got halfway through the first issue before giving up in disgust. If you're unaware of the viral ****storm surrounding this book then it all centers around the portrayal of Starfire (the designated chick). Basically they turned her into a pandering sex doll with no personality to get the randy fanboys masturbating. I avoided this series for the longest because of this, but eventually figured it can't be all bad. I was wrong.

The first issue begins with a decent fight scene involving Red Hood and Red Arrow (Green Arrow's former sidekick), but then they literally introduce Starfire with a ginormous tit joke and a page featuring her highly prominent chest that looks like a cheap, pornstar boob job, and a costume that would make a seasoned stripper blush. And then they just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. On the next few pages Red Hood takes the most awkward "opportunity" ever conceived to tell Red Arrow that he's hittin' that. A lot. And she's totally about his dick, yo. It's honestly flabbergasting that a modern comic book could be so bro-ish and degrading to women, but Red Hood & the Outlaws goes even one step further after the scene is over by switching to a beach where Starfire is wearing a skimpy bikini and insinuating that she ****s so many dudes that she can't even tell them apart. And did I mention that her origin had been rejiggered so that she was an escaped sex slave? I went and read something else after that. I'm not easily offended, but the sheer disrespect to Starfire's character was making me gag.

I'll try finishing the first issue, as I've heard the series gets better (presumably after the firestorm over Starfire's portrayal changed DC's mind about the series' direction), and since this volume is written by the same guy who wrote the current one that I dig so much then I guess it may very well redeem itself in my eyes. But seriously issue #1 feels like the kind of original sin that will forever taint the rest of the run.


Well, that went on longer than I expected, but it was still way less time consuming than a lot of my other entries, so I'm happy. Stay tuned, as I'll hopefully be continuing this as I read new comics.

Grant Morrison simply writes amazing Batman. He does so with creative subtext while writing vastly entertaining scenes and stories that are great without the subtext but brilliant with it considered. One of my favorite scenes from his first issue is a scene that might seem like a throwaway joke, and while it is hilarious on a surface level, it also explores both the character of the Batman and his history in comics.

As issue #655 begins we are in the middle of a confrontation with the Joker that is vastly fantastic but we'll move on to the aftermath. Commissioner Gordon had been dosed with the Joker venom, which causes the victim to literally laugh themselves to death, but is now recovering in a hospital while still in the reduced throes of the affliction, which insinuates that he is at least partly in the mindset of the Joker.

Gordon is reading a newspaper article about a live beheading and giggling exactly as one might expect the Joker to respond to a fat man being decapitated.


Please take note of the line "How did they manage to find his neck?"

The nurse is obviously none too responsive to this black humor. On the next page Batman pops in through Gordon's hospital room window to talk about the case, but in the last two panels we get this...


On its face this is simply a throwaway joke (that got a pretty good chuckle from me, mother****er) but it's absolutely not throwaway. On a very easy-to-read subtextual level it compares the Joker's worldview to Batman's, implying that no matter how different they may be there is an uncomfortable level of anti-social similarity in how they view the world. What this means for just how similar their views are is left, and should always be left, unclear.

They are two sides of the same coin but just what that means is too uncomfortable and inscrutable in just what that says about the human race for the audience to ever know. The Nazis didn't rise to power because the German people, or even a segment, were evil. They rose to power because the division between those who would support the Nazis and those who wouldn't isn't simply grey but abstract to a level that must be approached academically.

This relationship between Batman and the Joker in this scene is especially interesting when you consider the scene in Alan Moore's The Killing Joke which this scene is most likely referencing (Grant Morrison's Batman run references much of Batman lore throughout the years so I am not simply grasping at straws). If you've never read it or don't have a clear remembrance of it then let me remind you of what is relevant to this discussion.

In The Killing Joke there is a scene where Barbara Gordon and her father Jim Gordon are having a conversation in his house when there is a knock at the door. Barbara opens the door to reveal the Joker.


Joker shoots her in the stomach, incapacitating her, and then kidnaps Jim Gordon. He also undresses Barbara and takes pictures (insinuating that he may have raped her because Alan Moore has a thing that may or may not be unseemly about that kind of thing) that he later uses to torture Jim Gordon for the sake of driving him insane to show that all you need to drive someone to madness is one bad day. At the end of this comic Batman and the Joker have an altercation and chase scene that ends with Batman trying one last time to reason with the Joker to convince him to seek help. The Joker's response is quite possibly his only lucid, human moment in all of comics: a joke to imply that both he and Batman are equally insane and therefore Bat's attempts to lead Joker to sanity are as ridiculous as the Joker's attempts to lead him to insanity (in context it's ludicrous for Batman to show such compassion for the Joker after having done what he's just done, but Batman's boner for saving the unsaveable is such that he may be willing to ignore his feelings for those who have been wronged to treat the victimizer with the same level of understanding that he wishes himself to be given... in other words they're both too obsessed with their own pain to see the world realistically and consequently can only ever truly relate to each other).



One important thing to keep in mind to bring this into ultimate context is that there is a theory about the last page. When Batman is laughing at this joke and seemingly resting his hand on Joker's shoulder to support himself because he is incapacitated by this joke, he is in fact strangling the Joker to death because he has finally realized that Joker is beyond saving, and by extension that Batman is beyond saving and so loses all hope, finally understanding the joke that he was never able or willing to get. This comic wasn't originally supposed to be canon, but due to its popularity was included in canon, making the idea that Batman had finally given in to madness to commit murder obviously not canon, but at the time this was potentially non-canon.

To bring this back to Morrison's comic, Batman's laughing at a beheading joke originally made by Jim Gordon high on Joker venom implicates him as being just like the Joker, which due to the possible reference to the above scene justifies the interpretation that Batman killed the Joker even if it isn't truly canon. It is a throwaway joke, but one that has implications for Morrison's interpretation of Batman. Perhaps not one that will have the repercussions of Moore's story had the possible interpretation been made canon, but one that calls in to question just how Morrison views Batman.

I suppose at this point I myself am questioning what this post means to me. I originally thought this was a post about a funny joke with a potential subtext worth exploring, but at this point now I'm treating it as an exploration of Alan Moore's story through the lens of Morrison's, making this really about The Killing Joke. I suppose I don't care. I just had fun writing and contemplating this. The Killing Joke was flawed but the ending was spectacular, and Morrison's little joke was still just a joke, even if it had greater meaning, so we're talking about the culmination of a Batman-defining story and the beginning of a Batman-defining story and this is why I ****ing love both Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Moore is God, Morrison is Jesus, and the Holy Ghost wishes he could live up to either.

Dwn's Diary - Day 1

Batlord was kind of a dick to me today and it made me sad. I kind of want to hurt his feelings, but I'd feel awful.

-Dwn

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