funniest and most out of touch thing i’ve seen all day is some instragran comments being like “why does dc hate the batfam so much they treat them so bad 😭” like my dude where are you living. they only like the batfam.

What does the Doctor Keep in his pockets?

Context: Damian has fallen through the Doctor's pockets after an attempt was made to grab the sonic screwdriver to play with Alfred the Cat. Unfortunately, the Doctor's trenchcoat pockets are deeper than they look and Damian falls inside and right into a warzone of Daleks and Cybermen. (all of this will be added at some point to a later post, I just need to post this now so I can not think about it for a hot minute)

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Only cowards run. A young man in a red and green suit held a sword in a defensive stance. Damian Al Ghul-Wayne is no coward.

“Dami! What are you doing?” 

Damian jumped as he started slashing through the overgrown moving pieces of iron with his upgraded sabre that he had forged from some materials in the trenchcoat pockets. It cut through easily, like a lightsaber in a Star Wars comic book. 

“Ex-term-in-ate-” 

These tin cans were no match for a small eleven-year-old that runs on spite and red bull. 

“I’m trying to save your life here. The least you could do is cooperate.” 

“As you can see, I am more than in my element here, Doctor.” 

What kind of name was Doctor anyway? It seemed senseless. So far, the only thing he’d done was create more problems and wave a sonic screwdriver (whatever that was), and he didn’t seem to have a PhD. 

“You’re not tho-” There was a clashing and cleaning behind him; Damian turned around just long enough to see one of the tin cans spinning into another three. “Damian, you’re underestimating them.” 

“You haven’t given us a straight answer once since we came here.”  Damian said. “Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

“Your father and grandfather trust me.” The Doctor replied. “Is that not enough for you? They traveled with me throughout the ends of the universe, and still, they came home safe and sound.” Damian gripped his sword harder, jumping towards the Doctor. “You’ll want to duck.”

The Doctor dutifully rolled out of the way as Dami crashed into another tin can, decapitating its eye before it had a chance to fire an electrical shock.

“See? They’re gone.” Damian refrained from adding under his breath No thanks to you. 

“For now. Til the simulation resets.” the doctor shrugged. “I came to grab you. You’re still in my pocket.”

Damian huffed. They were standing in Gotham plaza. Rulli’s was right across the street, the Batburger was around the corner, and Red Robin right behind him. The ground felt solid underneath his feet. This wasn’t a simulation. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them again. He muttered curses under his breath. 

“Look up.”  Trenchcoat behind him said. 

Used to following orders, Damian allowed his eyes to flash upward for one second to see a banner he hadn’t noticed before: “Round 3. Record score: 213300/500000 EXP” 

The hell is that supposed to be?

“You’re in my pocket dimension, Damian. Quite literally, you haven’t left my pocket. I came to grab you, but if you’re having too much fun fighting daleks, well, I won’t stop you. Looks like you’re having fun.”

“How long have I been here?” Damian suddenly crouched to avoid two incoming shots from the Daleks.

“Couldn’t tell you. Time passes differently here than in the proper universe.”  Doctor shrugged. “Besides, what is time besides a human concept to measure moment-to-moment-”

“I don’t need a philosophy lesson right now!” Damian shouted. “You could help me out with this, you know.”  The new guy was worse than Dick at this sometimes. 

“Nope. They can’t hurt me. I’m a simulation too. Just like them. Except I’m programmed to help you get out.” Damian’s glowing sword cut decommissioned two more Daleks, and then he thought he saw numbers rising from the corner of his eye. 2000?  1500?  

“That’s the amount of experience points you’re getting, Damian.” The doctor grinned. “Kill enough Daleks and you get to level up.” 

Then Damian noticed that every time the sword struck against the metal, a long red bar would decrease in size, first by halves, and then by smaller increments. 

“What is this.” 

“I told you. It’s a game.” The Doctor’s voice came from behind him. And Tag, your It.” 

Damian turned around to yell at the Doctor when he felt something hit him from behind. As he vibrated and writhed with pain, collapsing to the ground, he heard the sound of glass. 

“That’ll be your heart containers, Damian. Might want to make sure those don’t break. You know each level gets harder than the rest. The Daleks get stronger. Faster. Better.” 

As soon as Damian got control of his arms back, he swung just in time to reflect one of the dalek’s blows back harmlessly away from himself. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit the Dalek, but all things considered, it looked cool. 

“If I level up. Will you get me out of here?” 

“You could just quit. I can take you out now.” Only cowards quit. Damian grimaced. He was not a coward. 

He did wish he had paid slightly more attention to when his brothers were gaming instead of training. Perhaps there were many different kinds of training. 

Round 4 was not difficult. Not only were there Daleks, but they also brought friends that exploded if you came too close to them. This ended up working not to their advantage when Damian found a way to set it off in their vicinity but outside of their range

Round 5 was worse. Another heart container shattered, leaving Damian with two left. He had been facing against two kinds of enemies. Dalek and an enemy that seemed to hate Daleks, but it also wasn’t sentient enough to be friends with him either. But this thing had some kind of tracking aim, so any projectiles would be coming right at Damian no matter where he could run. He could only try to put in some amount of distance between them before they exploded.

Round six got a bigger, translucent banner popdown. LEVEL UP! Please allocate your stats points.

What.

The name at the heading was “Damian Al Ghul-Wayne, 5th Robin of his name, prince of darkness--” the titles carried on past the spacing of the header would allow. 

Underneath, there were six boxes, numbers sandwiched by a plus or minus sign. 

Strength: 7, Constitution: 9, Dexterity: 9 I ntellect: 6, Wisdom: 5, Charisma: 4

“What happens if I change the numbers?” Damian asked the Doctor, using the moment of peace to turn to face him.

“Do it and find out.” Damian only received a shrug. “Will warn you, the effects after you hit the ‘submit’ button are permanent.”

“How do I leave the simulation?” Damian sheathed his makeshift sword letting his arm rest.

“Well, you have to leave the pocket.” The Doctor stood up and started walking towards him. “Which means you have to keep playing the game.” 

Damian exhaled and turned back to the popup. This is ridiculous. These numbers are perfectly arbitrary; what does a 4 in Charisma even mean?

He squared back his shoulders. Whatever these numbers signified, they must have affected the game somewhat. Well, Charisma has not been helpful to this encounter, so not that one. Besides, I’d probably just turn out more like Richard. The thought wasn’t that unpleasant to him, but in the interest of exiting the pocket dimension as soon as possible-.

Jason was strong. Damian idly started pressing the plus button to see how high it would go. A seven turned to fifteen, and it wouldn’t let him toggle any of the other numbers until he returned it to its original state. 

As the strength numbers increased, so did his muscles tighten and grow before they were almost bursting out of the suit. Interesting. 

Dexterity could be a good one as well- he would be able to match Richard in his flamboyant acrobatics stunts. But why were his intellect and wisdom so low? Damian was top of his class in school, he didn’t deserve a 6 and a 5 respectively. 

Damian just took one of each of the traits that interested him (constitution seemed boring and high enough anyway) and having two left, he added one to strength and wisdom each. 

Strength: 9, Constitution: 9, Dexterity: 10, Intellect: 7, Wisdom: 7, Charisma: 4

Damian felt his muscles increase again - although not to the same extent as before. However, he also felt sparks fly off in his brain when he increased his intellect and wisdom scores. This is…strange to say the least. 

Then part of him realized how funny it would be if he could stay like this in the real world outside the pocket dimension. He debated splurging all six of his points to get charisma up to 10 to unnerve the rest of his siblings. I still need to get out of here though. 

“I imagine the levels will only increase in difficulty rank from here?” 

“But of course. Same as with any game.” The Doctor replied. 

“But there should be a way to force quit.” Damian followed up. 

“You could- but where’s the fun in that?” The doctor grinned leaving Damian to simply tsk in disapproval. 

He clicked the submit button before realizing that he had only put all of his skill points in Charisma, making the final scores

Strength: 7, Constitution: 9, Dexterity: 9, Intellect: 6, Wisdom: 5, Charisma: 10

Damian growled. I didn’t mean that- but the popup vanished as quickly as it came. Great.

The floods of enemies did indeed increase in great number and in variety. Some of them were easy to deal with, but as expected his Charisma boost was only a dead weight. 

“You’re not thinking outside the box enough, Damian!” The Doctor shouted from somewhere behind a barrel. “I believe in you; If Bruce could do it, than so could you.” Father did this as well? Damian didn’t really have time to process this information.d

Then it hit him. What’s Tim saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? He could turn them all against each other. Gaslight. Gatekeep. And Girlboss. 

“HEY. Metal Trashcans.” Damian shouted. “I am not the one constantly shooting at you. People who shoot at you are your enemy. Therefore , I am not your enemy and you should be fighting the Metal Men.” 

Ex-Term-In-Ate. The metal trashcans screamed and turned around, allowing Damian space to breathe in an old tower as things began fighting each other. 

I can not believe that worked. 

Damian came to the realization that if bamboozling them had worked, he then could then stealth behind them and just convince them to attack each other. 

“Did you know that the big metal men are trying to quote unquote upgrade you?” He whispered behind the ranks of the Daleks. “Do you really think they’re going to stop at just the human race? There will be consequences-.”

As the Daleks began to turn and panic, Damian had moved out of sight as the Daleks approached their new enemy. “I am the superior being. Take out the metal trashcans first.” Damian whispered to one cyberman and then disappeared as the hunk of metal turned to look at the voice. 

Tim was right, Damian reflected. Psychological warfare was fun sometimes. Perhaps 

What if he could also use this to leave. He crept around the simulation grounds until he was next to where the Doctor was perched, crunching away on an apple. 

“I wanna go home, Doctor.” Damian leaned his head against the older man’s arm, like he did to Richard when he craved attention. “I miss my family and I’m tired-”

“I can see through you. Your right eye twitches when you lie. Same as your old man.” The Doctor sighed. “Besides, it’s your fault for messing in with my pockets and falling in.” 

“I just wanted to use your sonic screwdriver to play with Alfred.” Damian looked up as his lower lip trembled slightly. 

The Doctor furrowed his brow slightly as he looked down in Damian’s face. “Somehow I don’t think Alfie’s going to approve of a glorified laser pointer as a pet.”

“No. Not Alfred the Butler. Alfred the cat.” 

“Alfred can turn into a cat?” The doctor stood up suddenly, accidentally shoving Damian aside. “This I have to see.” 

Damian wasn’t going to correct this assumption until they got home. The Doctor grabbed his hand and pulled out a different glowing gadget- how many did one man need?

Then the simulation faded into Darkness and Damian saw a bunch of stars zooming past him until it turned into soft darkness before he was in the Wayne Manor theater with everyone looking at him.

“Did you have fun?” Father was looking at him with a bemused smile for a second behind a mug. 

Damian blinked. “You’re strange . But you’re interesting.” 

The Doctor laughed. “He did better than you did, Bruce, you should have seen him rizz up robots like it was nothing-” The Doctor stopped as he laid eyes on Alfred. “Alfie, how have I been roommates with you for multiple centuries and I have not seen you turn into a cat once .” 

Alfred looked towards Damian who just shrugged. “I believe there’s been a miscommunication, Doctor-” 

Damian slipped out to go check out the TARDIS while the adults were all distracted. There was still time. There was all the time in the world. 

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tagging @walkthruthewords and @igotthisaccountunderduress

Also I post on Ao3 as brb_on_a_quest! You'll see repeats of all of these fics posted here but hopefully some more original content if I can get more of my editing act together. :P

Batman Loves Superman #2

Hey DC! Stop portraying people who laugh as pure evil!

I don't know what genius centrist character speaks first in this comic book but fuck them.

People love to make statements that make them sound above it all. Statements that let them get away with sounding like a logical and rational person while really exposing the terrible things they believe. "Weapons are only tools." The "only" in that statement speaks volumes. They're defending weapons. Weapons are neutral. They're beyond blame. They're innocuous. Their follow-up statement providing evidence to bolster the first statement, "means to an end," shows that they don't give a fuck about context. What "end" are you trying to reach if your tools are weapons? Silverware are only tools as well, a means to an end, but we know that the end reached by silverware almost certainly is simply an empty tub of ice cream as opposed to a school full of murdered children. Oh no! Look at me bringing up murdered children to play on the emotions of the audience! How dare I bring in a real world example of an end that the means of these mere tools brings about! If your defense of weapons are that they're simply tools to be used to reach a particular end, you can't just ignore that the "end" you're discussing in the most general terms is violence. Weird that people who can't wait to be attacked so they can kill somebody and prove that their choice to carry a weapon was the right one often try to distance themselves from the inherent violence of their beloved weapon. The person speaking is Commissioner Gordon who laughed last issue so he's obviously a monster. I guess he's trying to point out that the real evil has been locked away at Arkham and the tools the evil people used aren't dangerous on their own which is why they've been locked in an armory outside Gotham City. He's come to liberate them with the help of a mystery person who has a sort of claw hand (Black Condor?!). A good writer would reveal who it was because they know that would get the reader really excited about Batman and Superman's confrontation with them. A good writer continually gives up surprising information. A mediocre writer hides as much as possible from the reader because it's the only way they can make a story suspenseful. Meanwhile, Shazam has begun calling himself "Earth's Mightiest Nightmare." See, he usually calls himself "Earth's Mightiest Mortal" so you can see how hilarious his wordplay is. But don't laugh because you don't want to appear wicked to the people around you.

Bullshit. Batman absolutely wants to fight him.

Shazam uses his magic lightning to try to destroy Batman but Batman just dodges because he probably trained with Himalayan Lightning Dodgers years ago. When Shazam uses his magic for evil, The Phantom Stranger's nose bleeds and Zatanna gets severe cramps. I guess magic in the DC Universe is like the Force in Star Wars. It's disturbing and shit. Superman almost gets the upper hand but, as I pointed out how the exciting battle might go last issue, Shazam turns back into Billy Batson to remind Superman he's fighting a child. So Superman is all, "Aw, shucks! I didn't mean nothing! You can fight it, Billy! Stop finding things funny!" But then Shazam is all, "SHAZAM! Fooled you!", and Superman is all, "D'oh!", and Batman is all, "SMDH." But remember! Batman is the king of the DC Universe! So he's definitely got a way to stop Shazam. I bet he's got a Bat-Monkey's Paw in his belt with two wishes left on it. Batman doesn't like to talk about the first wish and why Alfred now has to care for that tiny pianist living in the terrarium in the study. Batman doesn't use his Bat-Monkey's Paw to save the day but if you thought that idea was completely ludicrous, you'd better prepare your mind for Joshua Williamson's solution.

Batman finds the Batman Who Laughs Batwing, flies it up in the sky where Superman and Shazam are battling, and then, um, I don't know. He launches himself out the cockpit window against the g-forces of the accelerating Batwing? I suppose Batman learned to do this while training with the Sheep Hoppers of Aberdeen?

Um. Wait a second. Is Batman the greatest detective or am I because I think I just solved the mystery of the six heroes turned into Heroes Who Laugh.

The poison batarangs all have the symbols of the hero they're meant to infect on them! Just look more closely at the molds you found, idiots!

Shazam escapes because Superman held back and because Superman had to save Batman after Batman thought he could beat Shazam by crashing through the sturdy glass of a jet's cockpit while it was accelerating while only having a boomerang as a weapon. I guess Batman is only as smart as the writer writing him. He should have used his fucking Bat-Monkey's Paw. Later at the Bermuda Triangle Fortress of Solitude, Batman and Superman note that each Batarang Who Laughs has been infused with a specific Batman Who Laughs Juice based on the DNA of the intended victim. What they don't notice is that the Shazam one was a lightning bolt on it and the Superman one has the Kryponian symbol for hope (I know. Lame back story on the "S" on Supe's chest) on it and that they found the fucking molds for six Batarangs Who Laugh. Which means the answer to who else has been infected is in their stupid hands! Unless I'm supposed to believe that the symbols were carved onto the Batarangs Who Laugh after the fact. Which I totally don't even though that would probably be the way to do it seeing as how you're probably going to want to eventually make more than just six heroes laugh. My real opinion on this situation is that Joshua Williamson didn't actually think it through very well. Batman and Superman don't know what to do so they decide to pretend Superman was infected by Shazam. Shazam knows he didn't infect Superman but I'm sure he won't say anything to the Good Guys Who Laugh and ruin Batman and Superman's surprise when Superman goes undercover to work with the Batman Who Laughs. I'm sure failing to infect Superman so that Superman would have to pretend he's the Superman Who Laughs and thus free the Batman Who Laughs so he can find out the Batman Who Laughs plans is totally the Batman Who Laughs' plan. Because whatever the heroes do to stop the bad guys in the beginning of a story is always exactly what the bad guy knew the good guy would do. They're evil geniuses, remember! And Batman and Superman fell for it! Batman Loves Superman #2 Rating: C. If you didn't read this comic book yourself for a real world example, let me tell you how a mediocre writer writes a comic book: first, the bad guy attacks the heroes rather than doing something criminal or evil while trying to avoid the attention of the heroes. That's because a mediocre writer doesn't know how to write heroes discovering crimes being committed and instead need the villain to wave a lot and shout and say, "Hey! Jerks! I'm doing crime!" Or, better yet, have the criminal's entire plan simply be "I will antagonize the heroes for petty vengeance!" After that, the heroes will fail to stop the criminal. Depending on how long the story is, the heroes will either have to redouble their efforts and super believe in themselves to rally and win the day or the heroes will begin plans to defeat the villain. If they begin plans which make them seem like they're getting the upper hand, those plans will always be exactly what the villain wanted to happen in the first place. The heroes will then be defeated again just when they thought they were going to win! At that point, they'll probably need to do the rallying thing where they just fight a little bit harder than they did before and believe a little bit more than they believed before to show their strength of character and will. Because good always has stronger will and greater strength of character than evil! I really wish a writer would simply come up with a genius plan by the villain that isn't simply the villain saying, "They're falling right into my plans," after whatever the fuck bullshit the writer wrote. How these evil geniuses can plan such complicated and intricate plans that rely on knowing exactly what every hero is going to do is beyond my limited comprehension. I might even say it's contrived bullshit!

Doomsday Clock #5

Nostalgia's branding efforts might be a little off the rails.

Dammit. I had almost forgotten how everybody blamed and mistrusted superheroes!

Of course there's always been a long history of Gotham Police mistrusting and hating Batman (if only because he does their job better than they do and obviously has way better pay and benefits). But DC really fucked up when they decided that level of mistrust should be applied more broadly so that every citizen suddenly turned against even Superman, the universally acknowledged boy scout. I'm not a comic book historian so I don't know when that attitude began but I think it's generally acknowledged that it was a byproduct of Watchmen and similar comic books of the time. "Look at how more realistic this is! Why should a world embrace and trust masked heroes?! And Watchmen was so popular, that aspect of it must be what made so much money!" But, of course, that's the kind of thing people who didn't read Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans believe. Because if I had to pick a starting point for when the mistrust of heroes seriously got rolling (I'm not saying it wasn't there before! It just wasn't the standard reaction of the public), I'd point to Wolfman's work trying to adapt The X-men feel to DC's superheroes. In the X-men, the "heroes" were actually mutants enrolled in a school where they could feel safe and learn to control their powers. They were hated by the public due to bigotry and a misunderstanding of what they represented to humanity's future. They were constantly attacked by "evil mutants" due to a disagreement on what mutants meant to the world. This worked as a plot point because of the bigotry aspect and the underlying difference between mutants and superheroes. But translating that to DC's world where mutants don't exist completely missed the mark. Wolfman's world became a place where The New Titans formed to help the world but never actually did. They simply created a headquarters in New York where they were constantly attacked by family members. Of course the people of New York would begin hating them for bringing danger and destruction to the city. Because they were actually doing that! And since The New Titans became DC's biggest seller for quite some time, every comic book writer on Earth learned that Wolfman's model was acceptable to readers. Instead of having heroes exist for saving the world, they could just exist to be targeted by super villains. And if that's all super villains seemed interested in then isn't it true that heroes are the root cause of all the problems with super villains? It's one thing to comment on bigotry in America by portraying people's hatred of mutants. It's a totally stupid other thing to have people hate heroes because of the destruction caused by the heroes attempting to simply save themselves from their enemies. In the first one, you side with the mutants because the people hate them for irrational reasons. In the second one, you have to side with the citizens because who wouldn't be upset if their house was destroyed and their dog was killed because The Joker was trying to kill Batman? I've said all of that before. Sometimes, I feel that's all I have left to say about DC. At least when Priest recently had the public hating the Justice League, it was because the Justice League was racist! Not in the regular racist way where Batman is using slurs and Superman is flying around in blackface and a sombrero but in the systemic way where they don't realize they're being racist but they just are. That was at least different (even if I still wasn't happy about it). I don't understand people who prefer heroes who are mistrusted and hated over heroes who are inspiring, loved, and embraced by the public. Wasn't the latter version the whole point of them in the first place?

Dammit! I should really read ahead before I go on a rant! Although, technically, I think this somehow proves my point about how this is all supposed to fix what went wrong with The New 52.

This issue is called "There is no God." I'm guessing at the capitalization because the font actually reads "THERE IS NO GOD". But it doesn't end in an exclamation point (or any other kind of punctuation, being a title and all) so I'm assuming it isn't meant to be yelled and it's just DC's perverse avoidance of lower case letters. Anyway, "There is no God" is the perfect title to ruffle religious feathers. But I bet it's a set-up! I bet Geoff Johns is going to write a story about how God does exist, even if only in a metaphorical way that gives hope to people who need more than a few decades of random, chaotic life! I mean, I would like more than a few decades of life too! But I wouldn't mind if it remained meaningless. Who needs a purpose? That's just adding obligation to this precious gift! Why do people want that?! I think that's why "being inspiring" has become such a huge achievement for so many people. Because it seems to give meaning to your life without you having to actually do anything except exactly the thing you want to do. So, say, I was coming up with a completely hypothetical situation where a guy I know survived an IED attack in Iraq but the four other people in his Humvee were killed, he might want to find meaning in why only he survived. He might feel somehow responsible for carrying on in a meaningful way to make their deaths less random and nonsensical. He might also become religious because it's too painful to believe that those four other guys simply winked out of existence in a meaningless war that didn't do anything for anybody (aside from some people making a lot of money (and aside from opening up the country to more chaos and instability)). And the meaning he might find in his life is becoming the center of attention just like he always wanted but could never attain. He became a comedian who also inspires people because he's so badly burnt and disfigured, how can he tell jokes?! Now his life has meaning even if his jokes and his poetry never get any better because the people who hear and read them are Christian and patriotic supporters who can't be critical of anything he does. So if he says in a poem that his daughter is crying "alligator tears," nobody tells him that they're "crocodile tears" and that if his daughter is crying them, it means she doesn't actually care that he's off in Iraq. And when his only joke is that he was blown up and set on fire, nobody minds because he was blown up and set on fire and—look at that!—he can still stand up and tell jokes! So inspiring! Now if my thought process were better than it is, I would delete all of that so that I don't sound like a jealous and bitter friend. But I explained my thought process earlier so you can judge me but I've got my Oreos ready to go after you misunderstand the hyperbole and facetiousness. Also, I'm not jealous and bitter. I'm supportive but critical! Which is why I didn't post what I just wrote on his wall. Because he can take supportive but I don't think he's up for critical. Especially hyperbolic and super truthful critical. Hypothetically, I mean! Back to how this comic book is doing its part to reset the DC Universe into the Post-Zero-Hour, Pre-New 52, Post and Pre a bunch of other stuff I can hardly guess at because DC Continuity is super fucked, a news report on a hospital television reports on Hawk, Dove, Red Star, and the Rocket Reds. So maybe I was wrong about Post-Zero-Hour! Maybe this reboot is post-Crisis only? And I might be wrong about that too! Isn't the current Superman from the Crisis timeline where they actually beat the Anti-Monitor? It's hard to remember Convergence because it was super boring and terribly written. It rated 5 Flaccid Penises out of 5. Unless you're totally into flaccid penises and then it rated zero of them. Along with the Rocket Reds and Red Star gearing up for an anti-west battle, Pozhar has stepped up to the plate as well. Or whatever you step up to in Russian baseball. Do they have something akin to baseball in Russia? Maybe cement-block-call? If we're going by themes, it's beginning to look like we're headed back to the eighties cold war, so a reboot to pre-Crisis levels of continuity isn't completely off the table! If I didn't know Geoff Johns was writing this, I'd be tempted to guess it was Dan Jurgens. The Cold War of this ear isn't about nuclear superiority but about metahuman superiority. But that's just a superficial difference, really! What's actually happening in Watchmen 2: Doomsday Clocks is identical to what was happening in Watchmen. Which means everybody will get along at the end not when Mister Terrific teleports a fake space creature into the middle of New York but when an actual cosmic threat attacks Earth and all the American and Russian metahumans have to team up to save the day. Then everybody will be inspired and begin fucking. Right on panel! I hope. In Moore's Watchmen, there was a thread with that kid reading the pirate book. I wasn't smart enough to know what that was about. Maybe it had something to do with how, to survive, the lead turned himself into a monster the way Ozymandias did. Or maybe it was just about the kinds of things media used to distract the populace. Who can tell?! Not me! Anyway, this series has Nathaniel Dusk stories as the story within a story. I guess it's the only way DC could get people to read them. So boring! You can tell they were boring if you read them in 1984. Also because an old man really loves them in this comic book. That old man is Johnny Thunder! His name makes him sound exciting but you'd be wrong! More boring! And he's trying to get the Justice Society back into continuity. Most boring of all! Some of you might be bristling at my description of the Justice Society as "most boring of all." But you've forgotten about the hyperbole and facetiousness! There's a twenty-five percent chance that I actually liked the Justice Society and own a bunch of their comic books! The Superman Theory states that the American government is in the business of making metahumans to make sure they retain control on the world stage. Most of the heroes deny that they were made by the government because they were actually made when they were exposed to Nth Metal. Duh. Everybody who believes The Superman Theory must not have read Metal. How did they miss it? It was the biggest and longest blockbuster ever produced! Anyway, Lois thinks Lex Luthor is the one behind this propaganda. But Lex denies it. In fact, he says somebody in the government is creating metahumans and that person was once a member of the Justice League! So, um, like Lex? Hopefully the reveal of the person behind The Superman Theory doesn't wind up being somebody like Commander Steel. With a twist like this, it's got to be somebody you generally associate with the League, like Martian Manhunter or Gleek.

Here Ozymandias lectures Batman thanks to years of terrible comic book writers.

By the end of this issue, Rorschach and Saturn Girl have caught up with Johnny Thunder who finally found Alan Scott's lantern. Batman has been captured by The Joker. And Geoff Johns is well on his way to telling comic book fans how dumb they've been accepting the bullshit narrative they've been fed for years that super villains only exist because super heroes exist. Rating: This issue was called "There is no God" and it had nothing to do with the story inside. But it was used because it was part of the Eugene O'Neill quote that closes the issue: "When men make Gods, there is no God!" Is that how every issue has been titled so far? Using a bit of the quote at the end? I haven't been paying close enough attention to know. Anyway, I have a few issues with that quote. First off, you shouldn't capitalize "Gods." I suppose you can argue that you would capitalize "Johns" but if you choose to do that, I probably don't like you and would discount your argument on that basis alone. I mean, the point is that men are making little gods which kills the proper noun God. Second, why does it end in an exclamation point? Is the second half of that statement such a huge twist that it needed the surprise element of the exclamation point? Maybe Eugene knew it was a fairly week turn to the phrase and thought the exclamation point would bolster the sentiment. I know that trick! The third problem I have with it is that I don't understand it in the context of this story. Is Johns saying that super heroes have replaced God? Are fans now supposed to feel reprimanded for being blasphemous monsters?! Am I supposed to believe that if we rely on heroes, we have lost our faith in God? Is Johns saying inaction through faith is better than relying on super heroes? Or is he saying that we lose our own motivation and free will when we expect heroes to save the day? How is that any different than expecting God to save the day? I guess in that context, I understand the quote! "When we come up with something more entertaining that still doesn't actually help or save humanity, we've forgotten the original concept we came up with that doesn't actually help or save humanity!" Hmm, good quote! I've won myself over! Five out of five stars! Not for this issue but for my twisted logic! For more of this sweet, sweet writing, subscribe to my newsletter: E!TACT the Newsletter.