Dc x dp idea 18

Ghost are the embodiment of what they represent. An example skulker is the embodiment of hunting. Without skulker no one could hunt. It just doesn’t exist anymore.

In this a dc villain captures amorpho in order to find out hero’s identities. The villain has to figure out how to utilize amorpho. He’s only managed to trap him using tech from the fentons.

Danny cannot find him amorpho in time. The villain manages to take away disguise from everyone but himself. For Danny it’s not as big of a problem as it is for every other hero.

Danny has two whole separate identities not so much a disguise. (He transforms not just throws on a mask. Same would apply to captain marvel)

This leads to a pre teen and a teenager both pretending to be mature trying to find amorpho. They both have no idea what there doing.

After a bunch of nonsense they free amorpho. Disguises now exist again.

Hi! For the ask game, can i have any of the dc ou dcxdp please? 🌺

I will get to both but just for now DC x DP bc it is late and I don't have a lot of time. Sorry loves!

We can start off with DC X DP

The Cryptid of Gotham Academy!

A personal fav of mine. (Though I love all my ideas) I will give you the og idea I had written and then a little excerpt from what I do have done.

---

After his family passed away Vlad had taken custody of Danny. Danny transferred to Gotham Academy and he becomes kinda like the 'cryptid' of the school. No one can seem to find him when they want to. He says the craziest things at times which later come true. ice cold to the touch and eyes that glow. He shows no fear of the Ice prince of Gotham. When people do catch a glimpse of him he is either always sleeping or hiding. , He has slept through villain attacks. Word is that his uncle is just as creepy as Danny. Damian is convinced that if Danny isn't already working with the Rogues of Gotham, he will become the next Rogue himself. So he takes it upon himself to investigate Danny Fenton. He didn't expect to get a new brother out of it. Although with Bruce's track record maybe he should have.

A little snippet as a treat.

---

When the dust had finally settled, and Batman had taken Two-face off to the police, most of the school crawled out of their hiding spots. Parents and staff slowly one by one came to collect their children. Many of the elite of Gotham sent others out to collect their kids. Not all of them, however. Vlad came out of the woodwork. Damian didn't know Masters had a child. Let alone that they were attending the same school. Although Masters had been in the game a long while he was new to Gotham. He had yet to meet the man. The teacher must have also noticed him because seconds after he showed, the teacher called out.

"Has anyone seen Daniel?" Murmurs broke out amongst the class. No one had seen the boy since second period by the sound of it.

"He's over here!" A student called out, and sure enough in the cabinet sat an unconscious Danny.

"Is he alive?!" Someone called out,

From where he stood in the room he could still hear Masters sigh. Vlad just stepped forward cutting through the students and teachers surrounding Danny. When he reached the boy he crouched down and shook the boy awake. "Come on Danny. It's time to leave."

"It's not 3 yet." The effects of sleep lingered in his voice.

"There was an attack, we are leaving early. "

With a nod, Danny shimmered out of the cabinet and left with Vlad. The second he left, there was an outburst.

"HE SLEPT THROUGH AN ATTACK?"

"Is he fucking crazy?"

"He did WHAT?"

Damian could agree with the sentiments of his classmates ( he would rather die than say that out loud) what concerned him the most was that he didn't know Danny was there. Perhaps it was time he looked into Gotham Academy's newest student.

Note: Not edited or polished much, it's a WIP for a reason!

Are you into my hero academia? What about an AU or crossover with tua?

UHHHH I am technically, like, peripherally? I watched some seasons of the show like two or three years ago and since then have simply absorbed all content through osmosis, reading fanfiction that has canon events, and my sister telling me about the arcs of her fav characters lmao

so a crossover hmmm

First of all you'd have to like, establish whether bnha is an alternate universe or just The Future If No Apocalypse with quirks being traced back to the descendants of the kids born without mothers

So let's say it's that - the glowing baby was the "first quirk" but the truth is people had powers before that. But - well, the Umbrella Academy was obviously a marketing gimmick to those in the future! There were even comics based on them

In the future, you might find some of those comics in museum exhibits dedicated to depictions of powers in the pre-quirk era, but they're just fun depictions and much less popular than, oh, DC or MCU comics which are also in the exhibits!

End of s2 doesn't happen I guess in this au?? No sparrow academy at least lmao. So, the Umbrella Academy stop the apocalypse (again) and the Commission threat is? Neutralized? Whatever. They decide to jump back to the future

Five warns them that time travel is a crapshoot, that he has no fucking idea when they'll land beyond some nebulous "future" because Five can at least control the direction if not exactly how long

Also, Five is like. Super tired. Incredibly tired. Homeboy still has a healing gut wound, time traveled twice, has been jumping all over the place, gotten even more injured, experienced paradox psychosis, and managed to undo time all in the space of like, two weeks. There actually more than that but we don't have time to get into how fucking tired Five is from his ~Month of Hell

Like genuinely this is like putting someone almost delirious from lack of sleep in the driver's seat of a car and expecting to get to your destination in one piece

But hey, the siblings are like "do it uwu" and Five has sacrificed everything for them already so why not get behind the wheel again

So Five jumps them, and of course something goes wrong because Five has pushed his powers like a great big rubber band and honestly it was only a matter of time before he lost his grip and it snapped back to hit him

So here be the umbrella academy: spilled out into the future like a cup of bad coffee.

Five probably isn't in too good of shape tbh, like they're hundreds of years in the future (but hey at least confirmation of no apocalypse am I right) in a world full of superpowers and Five is like. bleeding from his ears and nose probably idk

Let's handwave a little bit - Reginald made them all polyglots so the squad all speak varying levels of Japanese. Allison is the best at it, Five is second best but tends to use more archaic words bc he had missions in Japan back when he was with the commission, and Klaus is third best.

(Ben is the worst bc he decided when he was 16-and-dead that he didn't have to do anything regarding lessons and maintenance and hasn't given a shit since - but also he's dead so)

So you have a bunch of weird adults with a bleeding child in like, an alley who have appeared from nowhere

so of course heroes get involved

Anyway, the squad get taken in and Five is conscious but like, barely? And he's not going to let himself get separated from his siblings again fuck-you-officer and there is a lot of confusion

anyway detective tsukauchi ends up getting involved and ends up having to hear this batshit story and be like "...truth." which sends all kinds of people scrambling because fucking time travel? Like yeah, it's been theorized to be a possible quirk but there's no recorded cases of any sort of time travel that is for more than 24 hours let alone hundreds of years

"I'm an adult." Five says sourly, "I just happened to be returned to my 13 year old body when I time traveled one time."

"True." Tsukauchi says, feeling his soul leave his body, but like. absently. the way he does when he's called in at 2am after getting off of work at midnight.

"I'm 58." Five says.

"Lie." Tsukauchi says, because this is a headcanon hill I will die on.

"I'm probably 58, but it was hard to keep track. I'm at least 50." Five corrects.

"True." Tsukauchi sighs like these six (seven? they keep referring to another sibling and Klaus said 'ghost' like that was fine and it registered as true and Tsukauchi is not nearly paid enough for this) are not giving him a migraine by just existing

on the bright side there's like, probably protocols in place for individuals who are Legally Chronologically Adults but thanks to quirks are Not Physically Or Not Mentally Adults with tests to determine if the individual needs a guardian or not

though i'm gonna be honest idk if Five would pass the test bc he literally cannot take care of himself at all, has never paid taxes or understands how to exist legally, and also his emotional maturity is stunted as all hell. also like. we don't actually know how much being in his thirteen-year-old body affects his mental state but yeAH Five is vibing

anyway Tsukauchi probably phones a friend on this bullshit because Time Travel Child alone is probably enough for the Hero Commission to be like "find a way to control and use it or nuke it from orbit" and that's not even touching whatever the fuck Klaus is doing (shit gets real once 'dead men tell no tales' stops being true) let ALONE Allison's whole deal

on the bright side like, at least Vanya isn't getting side-eyed that much bc Big Destructive Quirks aren't exactly unknown? if vanya wanted to i guess quirk suppressors exist for that until extensive training on how to control a super powerful quirk happens

Tsukauchi in the group chat: Aizawa please I am literally begging you to take this bullshit on

Aizawa: in this economy? with my class?

RatGod: lol we'll take them ;3c

Aizawa: no

Anyway they probably end up having to live at UA while Five insists on trying to get them home still and everyone else is like "oh hey we used to be child soldiers as well! (:" and Aizawa is like "i hate everything about this and everything about all of you but also like nedzu is making me interact with you so :/"

nedzu is out here vibing like "lol i just don't want the hero commission to get their little paws on these time traveling fuckers, i think you should make then teaching assistants or something"

honestly the siblings are probably like. figuring out how to function in the bnha universe and getting like, legally registered and stuff while Five ferally refuses bc that's like saying he's giving up on getting them home and he can do this

Recovery girl tries to heal him a little when he arrives and he passes out for two weeks like, immediately bc homeboy is running on fumes and spite at this point

also i think on principle it would be REALLY FUNNY if the squad got to tag along with the class bc like. Five is thirteen and the class are all 15. this does not sound like a large age gap. anyone who has interacted with teenagers know that the class would squint at Five and be like "who is this sassy lost middle schooler."

I feel like when I was a sophomore we were still like "freshman... babie" even though we were literally only one year older.

i think the difference between the umbrella academy and school kids would be pretty funny like. objectively the bnha kids are lowkey child soldiers?? like they're 15 and fighting villains but like, there's all this red tape and laws and stuff but,,, deku still be breaking his limbs in a child fighting ring against equally superpowered children for like. entertainment and sponsorships sooo

but also like Five would be like "oh cool when is the experimentation class"

"the what"

"you know, when your powers are pushed real hard by putting you in different terrible situations while your dad and sibling stand by with clipboards writing down the exact voltage it takes before you can't use your powers anymore when being electrocuted"

"hound dog's office is right there. therapy is available to you at any time. i need you to know this."

all might calls Luther "my boy" like one (1) time and Luther just breaks down crying probably because he is starved for positive attention

klaus and midnight get along like a literal house on fire, aizawa tried his best to keep them apart for as long as possible but god damn

(klaus: your name is shimura nana??

all might: immediately dies choking on blood)

i feel it absolutely necessary to point out that aizawa, present mic, and midnight are all like, 30? and the umbrella academy are all between 29-early 30s? they are PEERS but like. the umbrella academy are more chaotic due to childhood trauma

the umbrella academy probably get offered to like. also train to be heroes. i mean,, there HAS to be some sort of track for people who change careers right?? you don't have to cement your future as a hero when you're 15 i'm sure there must be something and the squad already have experience if they want to go be legal heroes

diego probably does at least?? diego just vibes honestly. diego gets momo to make knives during a team exercise and they just go feral on everyone else and it ends with diego highfiving momo and someone getting way to close to being stabbed for comfort

Five might just be. legally enrolled as an Actual Student? But also i think it's funny to picture the entire squad just. all in the back of the classroom with luther trying to fit into a high school desk as they take notes on the laws of The Future surrounding heroics

every word out of the umbrella academy's mouths just make everyone more concerned on principal but like, five and klaus are probably the worst offenders. Klaus just says whatever comes to mind with no filter and Five doesn't get what people would consider to be abnormal anymore like

Five: yeah our dad bought us when we were babies and experimented on us throughout our childhood in order to make an elite team of child soldiers superheroes, it happens

Todoroki: ...have you heard of quirk marriages?

izuku probably has an aneurism bc he's is the only person who might recognize them from the comics because you know ya boy extensively researched the idea of heroics in pre-quirk eras (batman was an inspiration alright???) and might dredge up a memory of a less popular comic series

Five: I can time travel but it is very hard, which is why we are hundreds of years in the future. And why I look like a child.

Kaminari: so are you a kid or not?

Five, serenely: whatever is most convenient for me at any given moment

Mina: hell yeah game the system

they have a brief lesson on astronomy and Luther raises his hand like "ooh! i was isolated on the moon for four years and did SO MUCH research" and then just gets up and starts infodumping like way too much information on the moon

Izuku sitting there like "damn if quirks hadn't popped up we could have achieved so much in terms of space travel. please tell me more giant man who lived in pre-quirk era."

Vanya finds out about the quirkless and is like "oh mood that genuinely sounds like my childhood, being ordinary in a house full of extraordinary people, and then i found out that i did have powers but only much later in life after i had already been emotionally scarred by the experience"

deku: vanya we have so much in common

iida and uraraka: concerned noises

aizawa: hound dog. therapy with hound dog for all of you.

there's probably some conflict with like, the hero commission wanting to get their hands on the time travelers?? but probably especially five and klaus as a) time travel and b) ghosts (the hc def has bodies they would like to stay buried)

five has a pavlovian reaction to anything with 'commission' in the name and hates them on site, probably plays into his age in order to become a ward of UA or something to protect him from the commission a little bit.

(this makes nedzu Five's legal guardian. aizawa has his resignation papers all prepped in a drawer marked 'in case of emergency' but let's be real, if nedzu wants to take over the world aizawa should probably be on the rat-bear's side of things :/)

five: ah, i do recall the inhumane experimentation that we were subjected to

nedzu, who was experimented on: haha same hat! want me to dig up the location of reginald hargreeves's remains so you can spit on them?

klaus: nah no worries we dumped them out in the courtyard unceremoniously like, a while back. how long ago varies for each of us because of time travel!

luther: you said hound dog's office was down the hall and to the right?

on the bright side, Luther probably feels like. way less self conscious about his body, partially bc of his fighting and all that in the 60s but also bc !! now he genuinely doesn't feel like a freak. no one even gives him a second glance. one of the teachers looks like a slab of cement with a face. gang orca looks Like That. there is literally a student with an entire bird head and goth aesthetic. Luther does not stick out at all

allison and shinso bond over having "villainous" voice-based quirks

allison and shinso having worn muzzles at some point in their youth as punishment 🤝

aizawa probably helps train vanya as well with the whole, being able to erase a world ending quirk safely thing he's got going on which makes for a very nice safety net

i don't think vanya would want to be a hero at the end of things though. maybe the assistant teacher in the music class or something?? all vanya wants is to be able to not end the world

i feel like as time goes by, five brings up trying to get home less and less. part of that is because like,,, genuinely what do they have to go back to?? Allison has Claire, but like. I'm 100% sure the first thing she did in the future was try track down Claire's records and found out Claire was like. fine. became an adult, had a family, probably became the ancestor of the first "quirked" kids who officially popped up after light baby. had a good life, died at an old age etc. etc.

they start settling into the bnha world with like, "we can always hop aboard the five express into where the fuck ever" as a plan Z if things go completely pear shaped (again)

i'mma be real, five himself doesn't give a fuck as long as there is a) no apocalypse and b) his family is alive. Like that's it. His bar is so incredibly low and yet his life keeps fucking trying to limbo under it

i just think it would be funny to have like, Five trying to get along with his "peers" and make friends while the siblings do the same but like, in the staff room

also think it would be funny for five to just walk into the staff room and get coffee occasionally.

a teacher: why is a student in here -

Five, sipping coffee: i'm an adult

nedzu like "what kind of guardian would i be if i didn't teach my new son all the tunnels around ua so he can pop out wherever"

five like "hey new dad can i put stashes of supplies all around ua of weapons, money, food, and other assorted things that might be useful if one needed to fight or make a run for it" and nedzu is like "haha just put your list of what supplies you want in your go bags on my desk and i'll critique it later!"

anyway a bnha/tua crossover would be incredibly chaotic but probably very funny

I Can’t Pet Force You To Read This One, But...

Hey there, high school crushes. Well, it's finally here. Can you believe it? Yes, counting from the original Xanga site (which, yes, still counts. It's like our own Golden Age publication or apocryphia), this is our 10th anniversary of reviewing comics. That's fantastic. I'm excited, can't you tell? I can tell, since I'm writing this preamble a good two months before the actual anniverary~

So, last year we reviewed the absolute pile of dreck that is Heroes in Crisis. And while that was worth ripping into, I'd rather not spend the 10th anniversary hating on something. I'd like to do something actually meaningful to me. I've teased about this one for many years, probably for as long as I've been doing this blog, and I think it's time we stopped pussyfooting around and reviewed some Garfield. But not just any Garfield. It's finally time, my friends. This... is Garfield's Pet Force.

I dunno how many people will remember this one. Maybe you recall the direct-to-DVD movie adaptation from 2009, or at least advertising for it. I never saw it, but apparently it differs a bit. They also appeared a few times in those Garfield comics from back in the day. We even reviewed a couple (some were on the Xanga blog). But what we're looking at here are the original novellas published between 1997 and 1999. So yeah, these really are from my childhood. And since I've long espoused that Garfield was always funnier 20 years ago, this must be actual premium Garfield content, yeah? By golly, I hope so, because we got five whole books here today. So we should probably get into them~

Book 1: The Outrageous Origin

This is a classic sort of superhero cover. Standard team shot of poses, and that's fine for a first volume. In fact, that's great. Later editions of this would replace the lightning-filled gradient background with a pure white one, but I have this original version. We'll get to specifics about these characters in the meat of the story, but let's talk about the costumes for a bit. Very classic early-'90s sort of look, before the Dark Age kicked in. Reminds me a lot of Jim Lee's X-Men designs, actually. Making all your characters visually distinct is important in a team book. The heavy lean into secondary colours is unusual for heroic characters, but not unwelcome.

So we actually start with a cold open in the superhero universe. This is pretty much to introduce us to the characters as soon as possible, and thus I'll do the same for you here.

*Garzooka, team leader, super strong, has a razor-sharp claw, and can shoot radioactive hairballs from his mouth. That's... at least a unique power, I don't think anyone on the Justice League can do that~ *Odious, the dumb muscle with the accent on the "dumb". Possibly even stronger than Garzooka, and possessing a "super-stretchy stun tongue", an elastic tongue that can scramble the minds of whoever it adheres to. *Starlena, the team girl. She can fly, and she has a siren song that can put those who hear it into a hypnotic trance. Garzooka is the only one immune to its effects, for reasons that are never explained. *Abnermal, the kid-appeal character. He has ice powers, forcefields, and an ill-defined "pester power" that means he can annoy people on a greater scale than normal folks. It's pretty much only used for comic relief, but that could be a brilliant power in the right hands. *Compooky, the brains of the operation. Other than flight, his powers are limited to super intelligence, which means he's usually the exposition guy. There's probably a reason they left him out of the movie adaptation~

You got all that? Don't worry, we'll introduce you again later in the book. What actually happens in the intro chapter isn't really important, it's just setting up the universe. In fact, it's all taking place within Pet Force #99, a comic just enjoyed by Nermal. Yes, we quickly cut over to the main Garfield universe ("our universe", the narrator calls it), where Pet Force is just a comic book. The Garfield gang is all outside, enjoying a cookout prepared by Jon Arbuckle. Nermal is extremely enthused by his comic book, and brags about how he has all 98 previous issues sealed and polybagged, and this one will soon join them. Sorry, Nermal, this came out in 1997, the speculator boom already went bust~

Garfield dismisses comic books as stupid because you can't eat them or use them as a blanket, and declares that none of the stuff that happens in the comic could possibly happen in real life. Uh oh, irony! Because these things can happen, and do! It's a parallel universe, baby! This might be one of my earliest introductions to a "parallel worlds" concept. Much like Earths 1 and 2 in pre-Crisis DC, the events of the comic are essentially the real life adventures of their super-powered counterparts in another dimension. Most of the action in these stories will take place there~

So here's the setup: Vetvix (the parallel equivalent to Liz the veternarian) is an evil sorceress and scientist, who essentially wants to experiment on animals in peace, and possibly subjugate the universe while she's at it. You could argue that Liz is an odd choice for villain, since our universe's Liz isn't particularly evil. But then, our universe's Garfield isn't particularly heroic either. She operates out of a deadly space station called the Orbiting Clinic of Chaos, and at present she's waiting for the arrival of her henchman, Space Pie-Rat, who is a six-foot-tall anthropomorphic rat dressed in stereotypical pirate getup. Vetvix has just finished inventing a levitation ray, and she'd like Pie-Rat to go out and use it to steal all the food in the universe. Vetvix doesn't think small, is what I'm saying.

The counter to Vetvix is Emperor Jon, ruler of the planet Polyester. He's kind and benevolent, even if he's a little dippy and his fashion sense atrocious. Having gotten wind of Vetvix's latest plan, he contacts Pet Force in their ship, the Lightspeed Lasagna. Upon learning the problem, Pet Force gives chase to Pie-Rat. They eventually corner him on some desolate planet, landing and entering an abandoned factory. Unfortunately, they're not safe amongst the dangerous machinery, because this turns out to be a trap. Vetvix has been busy as hell, because she's also invented a metal that's impervious to their powers. And that's not all, because she's also basically invented the Phantom Zone, where she traps Pet Force forever. It specifically mentions it doesn’t kill them, because it wouldn't be kosher to murder the heroes in a Garfield book~

The Lightspeed Lasagna has both onboard cameras connected to the heroes' belts as well as automatic return protocols, so within two days, Emperor Jon knows exactly what's happened to Pet Force. He needs help, so he calls upon his most trusted and powerful advisor: Binky the Sorceror. Binky's just as loud and obnoxious as in the main universe, but he's also a powerful magician. He conjures up a spell for Emperor Jon that lets him pierce the veil between universes. It's basically Equestria Girls rules: parallel universes have similar characters between them. So to replace Pet Force, they need the nearest genetic equivalents from another universe. And that's the versions of Garfield, Odie, Arlene, Nermal, and Pooky that we know and love~

Back in the main universe, it's another day entirely. Another cookout is taking place, and Nermal has received his special anniversary issue of Pet Force #100. The cover's really special, dripping with '90s cover gimmicks like glow-in-the-dark and embossing. A rarely used one, though, was "portal to another universe". That was pretty expensive to print, so you won't find many comics like Nermal's. Maybe he had something there with the collecting after all. The cover glows, and while Jon is distracted by the grill, Garfield and Friends disappear~

They reappear in Emperor Jon's wood-paneled throne room, now transformed into Pet Force. Emperor Jon and Sorceror Binky try to explain the situation, but Garfield--now Garzooka--is disbelieving of the whole thing. In fact, even the idea that Jon can now hear him talk absolutely floors him. Since he's about to deliver the exposition for everyone, can we talk about Compooky for a minute? This spell has just granted sapience to Garfield's teddy bear. I don't expect deep philosophy from a children's novella, but the ramifications of this are really under-explored. Like, never mind the whole idea of a teddy bear having the same genetic makeup as an alternate universe equivalent. He goes from inanimate object to fully conscious being, and he just rolls with it.

Anyways, once everybody gets caught up on what's going on and accepts the new reality, a training montage ensues so the group can all learn to use their powers without killing each other. Once at least reasonably trained, the reborn Pet Force is sent out to stop Pie-Rat. He's gotten sloppy in the times with Pet Force dead, so they track him down easily. After a brief scuffle where Garzooka takes his eyepatch, Pie-Rat flees in his ship. They follow Pie-Rat back to the Orbital Clinic of Chaos, but they can't go in the front. That led the original Pet Force into a trap. Finding an unguarded maintenance hatch--standard on any big space station--they enter Vetvix's lair for a final confrontation!

After dealing with the Waiting Room of Doom, which slowly fills with outdated magazines, they enter Vetvix's inner sanctum. Frustrated with Pie-Rat's failure, she uses her magic to turn him into an ordinary mouse. Vetvix then attempts to use her same weapon on this new Pet Force, but thanks to story contrivance, it only works on beings born in this universe. As other dimensional visitors already, they can't be banished to another dimension. She then pulls a Dr. Claw and runs off cursing Pet Force's name while her base self-destructs. Vetvix is a very "discard and draw" sort of villain, it seems. Pet Force, of course, makes a harrowing escape just in the nick of time.

Returning to Emperor Jon, they vow to be ready to return whenever they're called on, since evil never stays dormant for long. Odious even gifts Emperor Jon with the mouse-ified Pie-Rat as proof of their victory. Well, I'm glad they remember that, so they didn't accidentally murder a major villain in their first superhero outing. They're returned to their own universe, and the time differential between them places them back with Jon having not had time to even look up from the grill. Garfield begins to doubt the adventure even happened--until that night, when he finds Pie-Rat's eyepatch still on his person. Ah, definitive proof of... eyepatches, I guess~

Book 2: Pie-Rat's Revenge!

You have to wonder where, in a space-faring superhero setting, Pie-Rat got the inspiration for his classic pirate motif. It's a little incongruous is all I'm saying. And hey, remember when I said earlier that Garzooka's purple-and-green colour scheme was odd for a hero? Well, here he is as a villain! That'll catch your eye. This would be a terrific comic cover, which is what you want in a series like this.

The book opens with a brief recap of the previous story's events, then moves into the new plot. See, Emperor Jon has opted to keep the polymorphed Pie-Rat as his pet. How very Ron Weasley of him. That's pretty apt, actually, because similarly Pie-Rat has maintained his intelligence in his new mousey form. Pie-Rat gets sick of being Emperor Jon's pet and plans a daring escape, exploiting the emperor's dimwitted and loving personality against him. Pie-Rat jams the lock with a food pellet and makes his escape that night.

Once free from his cage, he encounters Binky's cauldron, still left in the throne room from when the sorceror summoned Pet Force from Garfield's universe. Figuring he has nothing to lose, Pie-Rat jumps in the leftover brew. Suddenly he finds himself growing. He returns to his original anthropomorphic state--but with a twist. He's now twice his original height, a staggering twelve feet tall. He scoops up the rest of the remaining potion for later, and sneaks out of the palace as best as a 12-foot rat can sneak. Desiring revenge on both his former employer and his longtime foes, he steals Pet Force's ship and makes his escape from the planet, headed for Vetvix's newest base.

After his guards help Emperor Jon put the pieces of the problem together, they decide they must once again call upon the powers of Pet Force to recover their missing vehicle and stop the newly embiggened Pie-Rat. Fortunately, Garfield and friends have been watching movies all weekend, so Jon doesn't notice when his pets disappear from the living room in a bright flash. Of course, once returned to the alternate universe and the situation explained, they still have a problem: how do they give chase to Pie-Rat when he's got their ship?

And speaking of Pie-Rat in their ship, he's followed the trail of a mysterious energy output, and it's led him right to Vetvix's new base, the Menacing Moon of Mayhem. See, this is why you don't blow up your base: the backup base is never as good. if it was, it wouldn't be the backup. Given that it's such a shoddy base, Pie-Rat is easily able to get inside and get close to Vetvix. She's expecting a technological attack, so she's unprepared when he pulls out that vial of magic potion and sprinkles her with it. And naturally, the potion that made him grow 12 feet tall makes Vetvix shrink to 5 inches. It's magic, we don't have to explain it!

Pie-Rat takes the magic crystal that Vetvix uses to fuel her powers, which of course didn't shrink because magic is just bullshit. See previous paragraph's last sentence. And while Pie-Rat takes over the base and begins plotting a further revenge against Pet Force, we cut over to them. They're at Sorceror Binky's own castle, and it's clear he's a bit of a hoarder. This is to their advantage, though, as they eventually piece together a working spaceship out of old car parts and other things, all patched together between Compooky's know-how and Binky's magic. This seems like the sort of book where I could use that "it's magic" quote every other paragraph. But craft a new--if small--ship they do, and speed off in the newly christened Planetary Pizza.

The rickety little ship does eventually find its way to Pie-Rat's base, saving him the trouble of being proactive as a villain. The magic thing keeps happening, and Pie-Rat basically becomes Discord for a bit while he fights them, doing things like turning Starlena's siren song into actual living music notes. One by one, the members of Pet Force are taken out, with only Garzooka is left. He and Pie-Rat struggle, while Pie-Rat tries to aim the magic crystal at Garzooka. Garzooka uses his claw to rip the crystal from Pie-Rat and defeat him.

Unfortunately, here's where the cover comes in. It seems the moments Pie-Rat was focusing the crystal during the struggle affected Garzooka's mind. He puts the crystal around his own neck. which turns him evil. He helps Pie-Rat to his feet, and the pair escape in the Lightspeed Lasagna. While Pet Force pursues them in their ramshackle ship, the new criminal duo strikes the storage planet of Deli to steal their food. Pet Force manages to catch up as the villains celebrate their spoils, and use a magic blast from the systems Binky installed to short out the Lightspeed Lasagna. This enables them to dock with the ship and climb aboard for a contfrontation.

The group fights, and once again the bearer of a bullshit magic crystal subdues the heroes easily. Annoyed now, Garzooka takes hold of Starlena and prepares to kill her or something. She taps into the one thing she has left: she's not fighting just Garzooka, but Garfield in his body. She drops some heavy put-downs, which resonate with Garfield, and he hesitates long enough for her to cut the crystal off him. The crystal hits the floor and shatters, undoing its evil magics on Garzooka's mind as well as on all his teammates. With Pet Force reunited, Pie-Rat is easily subdued and locked up.

The group waits for the ship to power back up, then speed off to apologise to the planet Deli. Following that, they head back towards Vetvix's moonbase. That night, though, the magic that was making Pie-Rat 12 feet tall wears off, and he escapes from his cell. He steals the remaining shards of the crystal, climbs into the Planetary Pizza, and makes a getaway. As a bonus, he also repeats the power-down spell against the bigger ship, giving him ample time to escape. And he's not the only one. Over on the Menacing Moon of Mayhem, Vetvix also returns to her proper size, and abandons this base as well. And when Pet Force fails to find her, they simply return to their own universe, ready to be called on once again in the future~

Book 3: K-Niner: Dog of Doom!

Another very basic comic book-style cover. K-Niner is a much more typical villain in style. This one's actually a wrap-around, and features the rest of Pet Force reacting to K-Niner on the back cover. Which is good because, other than the first cover, the covers all have a heavy Garzooka focus. Which makes sense for a book series, I suppose, you wanna assure the kiddos that Garfield's gonna be in the book. But as a comic book series, this would be a bad look for a team book~

So after our standard introduction and recap, we start off with Vetvix in yet another new base, the Floating Fortress of Fear. I'm sure it's very intimidating, if she can keep hold of it for more than a single book. She's picking up from the epilogue and putting the last touches on K-Niner, mostly enhancing his intelligence. Now, you look at the cover and tell me what kind of voice you'd expect. Some sort of German or Austrian accent, like the doberman on Road Rovers? Does anyone remember Road Rovers~? Anyways, but no: he speaks with a posh British accent. You know, the "I say, good chaps, looks like we're in a bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot?" type. Trust me, you can tell. But just because he sounds refined doesn't mean he's not evil.

I also love that after the initial "trapped them in the Phantom Zone" bit, the villains just go whole ham. K-Niner here demonstrates that he is indeed evil by threatening to rip out Vetvix's throat. Let your villains be villainous is all I'm saying. She's pleased he's so vicious, but feels he needs to learn his place as well. She force-chokes him until he complies. She then gives him his assignment: she thinks dogs should be liberated. The Boy Mayor of Second Life would approve, and so does K-Niner. Turning pets on their masters is just his style.

K-Niner takes a portable evolution gun, and immediately sets off. He begins on the planet Kennel. Isn't it neat how every planet is named after an English word that describes its function? K-Niner quickly takes over the dog population and turns them against their masters, because boosting their intelligence also makes them evil, of course. They use enslavement collars on their former owners, and within a few days, the dogs now run the planet. We cut over to Emperor Jon on Polyester, where a man has crash-landed a ship. He's an escapee from Kennel, and he's here to report the events so we can get the plot moving and once more summon Pet Force!

And summoned once more they are, Garfield and Friends once more conveniently disappearing in a split second while Jon's back is turned (this time they're outside playing volleyball). And once back in the parallel universe, Emperor Jon fills them all in on K-Niner's dastardly doings. Garzooka, naturally, takes great offense to dogs being in charge, and takes his duties as a hero completely seriously for once. Pet Force takes off for a confrontation with K-Niner in the Lightspeed Lasagna. And speaking of Pet Force's ships...

The Planetary Pizza, piloted by Pie-Rat, plants its pads down on polar planet Glacia. Pie-Rat is here seeking a way to restore his magic crystal and regain his mighty magic powers. He's sought out the home of a legendary evil wizard, who's known by the name of... Barfo. I see why Barfo keeps his location a secret. But anyway, Barfo is the one who made the crystal, so naturally Pie-Rat reasons he can restore it as well. Suprisingly once on Glacia, Barfo's evil lair is pretty easy to find. His manservant, Hobart the Gnome, brings Pie-Rat before the wizard, and within moments the crystal is restored! Pie-Rat turns to thank Hobart, but Hobart suddenly turns into Vetvix!

Yes, Vetvix knew all along that Pie-Rat's quest would lead him here. And as she was once Barfo's student in the ways of evil magic, she knew she could get the old coot to go along with her plan. Barfo returns the crystal to Vetvix, restoring her powers. And so Pie-Rat, a recurring villain in three whole books, is unceremoniously done away with, as Vetvix teleports him inside an asteroid, trapping him in solid rock. Even if the asteroid were hollow or he displaced the interior when he teleported in, no doubt he'll suffocate within moments. That's pretty harsh.

With that over, we rejoin Pet Force as they approach Kennel. K-Niner's battle cruiser spots them incoming, and shoots the ship down, even in spite of Abnermal's forcefields. Pet Force bail out of the ship, and Abnermal uses his powers to make snow to cushion their fall. Upon landing, a contingent of mutant animals attack. The mooks aren't much, but K-Niner himself puts up an impressive fight. However, one of the mooks pulls a gun and points it at Compooky. This is why Compooky usually stays aboard the ship, but that wasn't an option. Rather than let their friend get hurt, Pet Force surrenders.

Pet Force is held prisoner separately from Compooky, with both the cell's technology making it freeze-proof and threats of "don't break out, or we'll shoot your compatriot". Their imprisonment is not long, though, as suddenly the power goes out. Pet Force takes advantage of the situation and make their escape, quickly running into Compooky. K-Niner didn't think the hyper-intelligent teddy bear needed a high security cell, and just locked him in the basement. It was easy for him to then break out and shut down the local power grid. This also has the side effect of turning off the control collars the humans were wearing. How convenient!

With control of the planet now tilted in their favour, Pet Force now has time to both fix their ship and reverse the polarity of the brain-boosting weapons, turning the dog population of Kennel back to their normal selves. Though the experience did change the pet owners of Kennel. Having experienced life in their pets' shoes (so to speak) for a bit, they've resolved to treat their canine companions a bit more equally. More being allowed on the furniture, less stupid tricks for treats. Still, Pet Force can't stay long, and they head off in pursuit of K-Niner's battle cruiser. This is why most superheroes don't have spaceships (Jedis don't count): if your enemy also has one, they can flee way more easily than on foot.

Not willing to let another place go to the dogs, as it were, Pet Force catches up with K-Niner. With his previous success, Vetvix has stepped up the timetable and sent him after Polyester right away. Emperor Jon is in danger! They enter the planet's atmosphere, and are attacked by fighter craft. They fend them off, but their weapons system is damaged in the fight, so they can't simply use the reverse brain-rays and solve it quickly. The team splits up instead: Garzooka and Abnermal will go after K-Niner, while the other three will find the planet's power source and knock out the collars, since that worked so well the last time.

The two heroes quickly make short work of K-Niner's guards, and then turn the battle to deal with the Dog of Doom himself. While the struggle goes on, the rest of Pet Force reach the planet's power grid. Using a clever tactic, Compooky overloads the power and causes and electrical storm that simultaneously undoes the brain-boosting effect and shorts out the enslavement collars. There's only a few pages left, after all, and we have to wrap this up.  K-Niner is reverted back into an ordinary dog, and the emperor is reverted to an ordinary non-enslaved person. The day is saved!

And now once again, Pet Force prepares to return to their own universe. However... when the spell clears, the five heroes are still standing there. Something is blocking the passage between dimensions, and Pet Force is trapped. And while Pet Force's adventures have taken place between mere moments in their own universe, they have always returned quickly enough that Jon didn't notice a thing. But this time, as Jon retrieves the volleyball and turns around to his pets, he's surprised to find they've all vanished into thin air...

Book 4: Menace of the Mutanator

This one's very striking because of its more painted look compared to the heavy black outlines the rest of the covers have. Does this one count as having the whole team on the cover? Because, spoilers, that's what the Mutanator is: the rest of Pet Force mashed up into a villain. Again, though, that's definitely a striking image that'd draw in readers to a comic cover. In fact, while Garzooka may be over-used as a cover focus, several of these also show him imperiled in some way, and that's nice for character stuff. That helps balace it a bit~

I wanna say, before we start, that I'm impressed by the continuity for the series as a whole. They could've just written each story as a standalone, but for a series of 100-page children's novellas starring Garfield characters as superheroes, things happen in these books. Like, maybe not sweeping status quo changes, but events affect the plot of each next book down the line. And that's where we pick up! Right where the last book left off, with Pet Force now stuck in the alternate universe, unable to return home to Jon. But if they can't go home to Jon, well, maybe then events will conspire to bring Jon to them~

Yep, because Jon happens to wander into the room where they keep the copy of Pet Force #100 that acts as a portal to their universe, he gets transported into the Pet Force universe. And since Emperor Jon is still an extant entity, there's just two Jons now. Jon, of course, is a bit freaked out, and it takes several pages to explain the whole deal to him, and also have a showcase of all their powers to pad out the book some more. Eventually, they decide to call in Sorceror Binky to examine the problem. When he has a go of it, a sudden tornado emerges from the cauldron and whisks away Pet Force--save for Garzooka, whose prodigious strength keeps him anchored.

Garzooka heads out in the Lightspeed Lasagna to track Pet Force's signature, glad to get away from a double trouble Jon. And while he's searching, the scene cuts to Vetvix's Floating Fortress of Fear. Hey, one of her bases actually lasted more than one book! This is where Pet Force has been transported to, once more in a power-proof cell. Vetvix monologues to the heroes, as she is wont to do, explaining that she's the one who cast the spell to keep them from returning home. And further, she's brought them here to mutate them into her servants.

While Emperor Jon exposits about his backstory (turns out he is not of royal blood, and has about as much legitimate claim to the throne as you or I do), the search continues. Sorceror Binky detects Pet Force, giving them all a view of what happens next. The trapped members of Pet Force are literally broken apart and reassembled: Odious' body, Compooky's brain inserted into the chest, Abnermal's hands, and Starlena's head. She christens this beast "Mutanator", and it is soullessly obedient. I also wanna say, Mutanator's kind of a non-binary icon, aren't they? (The comic uses "it", but it was 1998 and alternative pronouns weren't really a thing yet.) Muscular, masculine body, but confident enough to still wear lipstick. It's a look, is all I'm saying~

Mutanator continues to possess the combined powers of Pet Force as well. Vetvix sends them to attack the planet Armory to gear up before attempting to conquer Polyester. And meanwhile, thanks to the convenience of being able to scan all of Compooky's memories now that his brain is part of Mutanator, Vetvix has the perfect trap to spring on Garzooka--or should she say Garfield. Yes, she really knows the whole origin for Pet Force now, and now she knows all Garfield's weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and probably blood type and other dating profile stats~

Thus, when Garzooka receives the coordinates from Emperor Jon and arrives at the Floating Fortress, he finds himself menaced by giant spiders. Vetvix couldn't think of a way to get Mondays to attack him, so the Giant Spider Invasion will do. Spiders are apparently very formiddable foes, Garzooka's personal fears aside. They can swat gamma hairballs out of the air, they can construct webs as quickly as certain Marvel heroes, and their hairy exoskeletons are resistant to both claw and strength. But despite his fear and Abnermal's running commentary, Garzooka manages to trounce the spiders with a carefully applied flame--taking Vetvix's blueprints with them.

Garzooka heads out once again to track down the Mutanator, leaving his less-than-all-together friends in the safety of their forcefield prison. While he's off, we return to the perspective of his target. Using their combined powers, the Mutanator swiftly conquers the planet Armory and sets their sights on Polyester next. It's not a bad plan, honestly. With the stockpile from Armory, not only will the Mutanator be more powerful, Polyester won't be able to use the planet for backup. Fortunately for the two Jons, though, Garzooka intercepts the Mutanator before they can leave Armory.

The fight's actually pretty good. Very back and forth. But even despite Garzooka's great strength, the Mutanator wins in the end. Thankfully, Vetvix puts her conquest of Polyester on hold to take the time to retrieve Garzooka and add his power to the Mutanator. This, of course will be her undoing--in a completely ridiculous way, of course. For back in the palace, our universe's Jon is watching Pet Force's struggles with the scrying cauldron. And he leans in a bit too close. Sowhile Vetvix is prepping the machine to divide Garzooka's body like she did the rest of Pet Force, Jon suddenly tumbles through the dimensional warp caused by the cauldron and lands on Vetvix, which causes her to put the machine in reverse. A real Jonnus ex cauldrona there, eh?

The Mutanator disappears, their existance as a unique being wiped out as their pieces return to their proper Pet Force owners. With Pet Force reassembled, Garzooka takes out Vetvix with one of his gamma-radiated hairballs while she's distracted by Jon. Pet Force decides that the vile veternarian should have a taste of her own medicine, and stick her in the body-splicing machine with some of her guards. This divides them all up and mixes them into bizarre combinations. It also has the side effect of disabling Vetvix's magic, so they can return to their own universe now.

The book wraps up here. Pet Force first returns to Armory to both return the stolen weapons and also make repairs on the buildings that were damaged in Garzooka's fight with the Mutanator. That's the sort of thing I'd like to see in more superhero stories in general. The two Jons part ways, with the Emperor believing the other Jon's heroism to have been deliberate. And thus are Garfield and friends returned home. And just like the end of their first adventure, where Garfield couldn't be sure if it really happened, so too is Jon's memory fading. Had he really witnessed all that? Only his pets know for sure--and in this universe, they can't talk~

Book 5: Attack of the Lethal Lizards

This one's another wrap-around, showing the rest of Pet Force engaging the remaining Lethal Lizards on the back cover. This is one advantage books have over comics: a front and back cover you can use for your story-telling. The Lizard designs are pretty good for a villain group too. Like Pet Force, they don't adhere to a particular theme, but they do look good individually. Garzooka roasting a hot dog on a stick might be a bit too comedic for a superhero story, though. It sets the tone wrong. How "lethal" can they possibly be if Garzooka is out here roasting hot dogs in the middle of battle?

So here we go, last book. After the usual recap, we open with Jon explaining to Garfield and friends his latest plans: they're going to WackyWorld, a theme park dedicated to Jon's favourite cartoon, The Wackies. Both Garfield and Nermal think the show is lame, and if those two agree on something, you know it must be so. In less lame universes, however, trouble is once more a-brewing. So it turns out Vetvix's Floating Fortress of Fear has been orbiting the swamp planet Reptilius this whole time. And her various experiments in the last two books have been radiating the planet in magical energy...

From that magical power, three reptiles find themselves uplifted in intelligence and granted fantastic powers. Please say hello to our three main villains for this book: Snake, an enormous snake (the only one without an anthro design) with stretching powers; Chameleon, who can shapeshift; and Dragon, a komodo dragon with fire breath and the bad attitude to match. While Snake and Chameleon figure out their powers, Dragon declares himself the leader as he's clearly the smartest, strongest, and most powerful. They name themselves the Lethal Lizards and start plotting how to rule the planet.

After that exciting intro, though, the book kind of slows down. First we get a whole chapter of Emperor Jon also deciding to go on vacation, to planet Funlandia. With Vetvix out of commission for a while, there's no better time. In short, he's out of the castle and Sorceror Binky is in charge. This is followed by a chapter of Jon and his pets at WackyWorld. It's certainly an accommodating amusement park to allow pets on its grounds. Garfield at least gets along with the food, but if you know anything about amusement park food prices, the amount Garfield eats will make your wallet weep. Jon takes his mind off it by dragging the pets along to a ride. Surely they have to be under the height restriction~

Fortunately, we get back to the actual stars of this book, and we see a bit more of their dynamic. Snake is the sort who sucks up to whoever's calling themselves "Boss" at the moment. Dragon is power-hungry, and it's clear he'll sell out his allies at the drop of a hat. Chameleon is Starscream. Anyway, they trek through the jungles of Reptilius until they find a downed spaceship. Reviewing the logs reveals it was a scout ship from Vetvix, and they also learn of Vetvix and her mission. However, they don't know where Emperor Jon lives, so they crowd into the the newly christened Rapacious Reptile and set course for the stars.

The first planet they come across is a world called Klod. Quickly the Lethal Lizards beat up the populace and find the local government. Chameleon shapeshifts into a dignitary, pretending to be an advance entourage for Emperor Jon, schmoozing with the governor until he learns both what Jon looks like and the name of his planet. With this information secure, Chameleon nips out suddenly, and the trio sets forth towards Polyester. Governer Klutz calls up the palace as soon as the reptiles depart, and reports the incident to Sorceror Binky.

Binky wastes no time, and he dials up Pet Force. Since all five are in one place, he's able to pull them through even without them being near the gateway through issue #100's cover. Convenient! Pet Force, however, does waste time, as a lengthy comedy scene eats up several pages before we just get on with it. Eventually, the situation is conveyed, and they figure it's safer to keep Emperor Jon on Funlandia for the time being. Compooky stays behind to help plan some strategies, while the rest of Pet Force boards the Lightspeed Lasagna to intercept the Lethal Lizards before they even arrive.

Pet Force spends the next few minutes both scanning for incoming ships and bickering with each other, so I'm very glad when the Rapacious Reptile appears on their detectors before too long. Dragon threatens the ship, telling them to move or he'll knock them aside. It's a spaceship, dude, you can move in three dimensions. The ships trade shots, and while Chameleon's piloting is actually pretty good due to his independently-rotating eyeballs, eventually both ships crash land on whatever planet is nearby.

Both ships crash right next to each other, which is improbable but less ridiculous than some of the contrivances in these books, so I'm okay with it. Now you'd think what with the enemies being reptiles and Abnermal having freezing powers that this battle would be over really easily, but no. In fact, Garzooka and Dragon are pretty evenly matched. Snake turns out to be immune to Starlena's siren song because snakes don't have external ears. See, now there's a contrivance I find a bit weird. Snake swallows Abnermal whole, and Chameleon and Odious get literally tongue-tied. The Lethal Lizards actually live up to their name pretty well.

As the fight continues, half of both sides are laid out when Compooky comes rushing up, saying he has an urgent message from the emperor. And that's when he sucker-punches the team. It was actually Chameleon in disguise, having gotten knocked away when he and Odious separated. So yeah, round one goes to the Lizards, and they make their escape first. Pet Force regroups, and they give chase. The Lizards have enough head start to really lay siege to Polyester before Pet Force arrives, though. They even get access to the palace using Chameleon's shapeshifting, leading to Sorceror Binky letting slip the real location of the emperor just as Pet Force arrives.

Another fight ensues--see, now it's really a superhero story--and the Lizards leave again 2 and 0. This time Snake uses his venomous fangs to attack Starlena. This leads to the weirdest contrivance yet. Maybe not the worst, but definitely the weirdest. They have only minutes to save Starlena. So how do they do it? Well, they notice that Odious drools quite a lot. It's very "fluid output". So they have Binky magically reverse Odious' drooling, so that he has "fluid input" on his tongue instead. It becomes a big suction sponge and sucks the poison out of Starlena. They then restore the drooling, and he just harmlessly drools out the poison. What.

With their teammate saved, Pet Force pursues the Lethal Lizards to Funlandia. They get there just in time to rescue Emperor Jon from their clutches, with Garzooka and Odious combining their strength to literally rip a kiddie ride out of the ground. Starlena corners Chameleon in a hall of mirrors, turning his own trick against him. Snake is undone by Odious' strength. And Garzooka fights Dragon to a standstill, finally trapping all three on a roller coaster still operating. When the ride comes to an end, Abnermal freezes them all until the authorities can retrieve them.

Naturally, Emperor Jon thinks it's all part of the show (because Jon is dimwitted in any universe). The Lizards are sent to a lizard-proof prison (seriously, it specifies this), and Pet Force returns to their own universe. As usual, Jon didn't notice his pets go missing during the dark amusement park ride. The book concludes on an ominous note, however, as the ship carrying the Lethal Lizards makes its jump to lightspeed just as it passes the Floating Fortress of Fear. The shockwave knocks over some debris that reactivates the combining machine, restoring Vetvix to her full evil might once more!

The end!

No, really. Those five books are all there was. I hear it may have continued into the comics, but I don’t know how accurate that is. I didn’t really look into it.

But boy, what a ride, huh? Let’s dissect the books one at a time, since it only seems fair to take them as individual stories.

The Outrageous Origin: It’s a fairly basic origin story, I’d say. It kind of has to be. I guess my main gripe is that, like Rita Repulsa’s entire run on Power Rangers, the heroes never fight the main villain directly. In fact, there’s barely even an evil plot in this one. You have henchmen and some traps, and that’s about it for the menace.

Pie-Rat’s Revenge: A cautionary tale about why you treat your minions with respect. This one’s pretty good, but the events depicted on the cover make up such a small part of the book. Wouldn’t it have been more fun if Garzooka was turned at the beginning of the story? Book 4 would at least do the reverse of that, so it’s not a major complaint~

K-Niner, Dog of Doom: I think this one’s about as middle of the road as you can get. What a coincidence that it’s also the middle of the series! Like I said in the recap portion, it’s a shame that Pie-Rat’s story ended here. This one definitely feels more “villain of the week” than most.

Menace of the Mutanator: This one might be the best book in the series. Garzooka, alone, battling against the best parts of his team? That’s gripping stuff. I guess the main problem is that the Mutanator isn’t really a character in and of themselves. Like, K-Niner, he may have been a generic rent-a-villain type, but he had a personality. Mutanator is little more than an extention of Vetvix’s will.

Attack of the Lethal Lizards: I’m a bit split on this one. The bits with the titular Lizards are great. They steal the show! But the parts where it focuses on either Jon kind of drag, and Pet Force is a bit too jokey here. Like, I get the point is that they’ve relaxed into their roles now, and there’s not much point of doing it as a Garfield story if they don’t actually use the character personalities, but... I dunno. It’s good, but it could have been better~

And that’s it! Like, I dunno how to wrap this up. Pet Force was neither my first exposure to superheroes nor my first introduction to the Garfield brand (you can thank Saturday morning cartoons for both of those). But for some reason, maybe just the absurdly goofy premise, it always kinda stuck with me. And I think that’s a good enough reason to make it my 10th anniversary review, don’t you~?

Just Another Morning at Wayne Manor

This is an excerpt from chapter 29 of my DC animated universe fic, The Villain Wrangler.

You can read the rest of the chapter here, or start from the beginning of the story here. This is an AO3 link if you prefer, but be aware that not all chapters are uploaded there.

“Is that another case, Master Bruce?"

Bruce looked up from his tablet as Alfred set down several mugs of coffee and tea on the table in front of him. He gave a small smile in thanks as he lifted the black mug to his lips, pausing to inhale the rich scent of dark coffee before taking a sip. "Yes. Another one was submitted to me for final clearance yesterday afternoon." He glanced down at the dimming screen, tapping again so it'd stay awake. "Take a look." He handed the tablet to Alfred. Bruce knew he was sure to get a kick out of who had been requested.

"Oh dear," Alfred said after a moment, a wry smile slipping onto his face as Bruce leaned back in his chair. "Have you informed him yet?"

Bruce quirked an eyebrow in response and took another drink of his black coffee. "I thought it'd be a nice surprise."

He and Alfred both turned towards the entryway as they heard a loud yawn come from the kitchen. "What'd be a nice surprise?" Tim asked as he shuffled in, one hand ruffling his hair into an even further fluffy mess while the other belatedly raised to block a second yawn.

"Good morning, Master Tim." Amusement colored Alfred's tone as Tim slouched into a seat next to Bruce. He blearily accepted the red mug of chai tea that was pushed in front of him.

"Oh. Is this mine?" He took the cup and stared at it suspiciously before taking a cautious sip. His eyes closed in bliss and he leaned back in his chair. "Ah, espresso shots. Man's greatest invention."

"One of these days, I swear you're going to get an espresso-induced heart attack," Stephanie muttered as she came into the dining room from the foyer, rubbing tiredly at her eyes.

Bruce frowned, counting at the number of filled mugs that Alfred had brought out as Stephanie picked up the deep purple one. There were five left, and only four of the kids still lived in the manor full-time, including Tim and Steph. Had that many of them come back to the manor after patrol last night? Maybe he needed a few espresso shots in his drink too.

"Hey Steph," Tim muttered, sounding a bit more awake than before. He turned to look at Bruce. "What's the surprise you were talking about?"

"Oooh! A surprise?" Steph sat in the chair next to Bruce and leaned over to try and read off of his tablet. She pouted when he angled it away from her, so Bruce handed it to her with a roll of his eyes.

"Jason's been requested," he explained for Tim's sake since he couldn't see the case file.

"Jason's been requested for what?" Dick's voice cheerily called out despite how exhausted he sounded as he walked in with his arm wrapped around Cassandra's shoulders. Bruce knew Cass wasn't very fond of being touched, but by how tired she looked, he had a feeling Dick was the main reason she was on her feet. The two sat down in adjacent seats and eagerly accepted the coffees that Alfred handed them.

"I didn't realize you were planning to stay over, Dick," Bruce commented first. That at least solved the puzzle of one of the three extra overnight guests.

Dick shrugged. "There was an impromptu movie night. Harry Potter– couldn't miss out on that. Babs is here too, she'll be down in a minute."

"A sick kid asked the Villain Wrangler if he could meet Jason," Steph interrupted before they could go further as she informed the two new arrivals, knowing they both were curious but trying not to show it. The laughter from Dick had been expected, but the quiet giggle from Cass was a welcome surprise as she accepted the tablet from the blonde.

A scoff came from the doorway, and Bruce didn't even have to look to know it came from his youngest. "So Todd's finally gone rogue enough to be classed as a villain?"

Even Alfred rolled his eyes at that. "Try and have a good morning, Master Damian," he admonished as he handed the boy a mug of tea when he walked past. They all knew Damian was not a morning person.

"Thanks, Alfred," he muttered before sitting down. Despite his mood, everyone knew he wouldn't be rude directly towards the butler.

"Wow, is everyone up already?" Barbara strolled in, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. "Didn't realize I was so slow– thanks, Alfred!" She stopped to thank the man as he handed her a pink mug full of coffee. "Did I miss anything important?"

"Jason's been requested by World of Wishes so Danny'll have to convince him to go," Tim said with a sigh, annoyed from hearing the same news repeatedly. He'd finished his espresso shot-filled tea and now had some color to his face.

Babs stared at Tim for a second before Cass held up the tablet in her hands and Babs walked to stand behind her chair so she could read it. "Oh, Danny's gonna love this," she said with a grin.

Bruce hid his smirk at her words. Danny Johnson had certainly proved to be entertaining when he ignored the security threat that the man's work still posed. He was curious as to how Johnson would convince Jason to go– he didn't have doubt that Johnson would find a way after all of the more difficult individuals he had tracked down.

His gaze turned towards the final mug left on the table. It seemed Babs was the last of the kids that had been over, seeing as conversation around the table had turned towards which of the Hogwarts houses was best (Bruce was in favor of Slytherin– but he digressed).

Steph beat him to asking about it. "Alfred, is the last coffee yours?"

Alfred shot Bruce's longest ward with a knowing smile. "No, Miss Stephanie. I prepared it for a guest who called ahead."

Bruce's eyebrows furrowed at that, especially after his butler sent an amused glance his way.

And it seemed he wasn't the only confused one. "Wait, which one of us would've called ahead? I didn't think any of us did that."

"That is correct, Master Richard," Alfred agreed with a long-suffering sigh that Bruce knew would have all the kids soon letting the butler know when they'd be at the manor. "I never said it was one of you children."

Bruce's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he finally deciphered the meaning behind Alfred's smug smirk. "You don't mean–"

"Goooood morning, little birdies!" A voice called from the entrance hall and moments later Selina Kyle waltzed in, her heels clacking against the hardwood floor as she walked. Several voices said hello in response as Bruce rose to greet her.

"Selina," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek as she wrapped an arm around his waist and reached out with her other hand to fist bump Steph. "I wasn't expecting to see you this morning."

She smiled slyly back at him. "The best surprises are the ones you don't expect," she teased, nudging him with her hip. "Ooh, is that coffee? Alfred, you're a dear." She blew the man a kiss as he passed her the final mug and then slipped around Bruce so she was sitting in his chair. Bruce gave her an unimpressed stare which she returned with a wink.

Yes, it was shaping up to be just another normal day in the life of Bruce Wayne.

dick's backstory gets so frequently gets brushed under the rug and sterilized into "parents died, adopted by a rich dude" and subsequently ignored because then it's assumed his life is then perfect. this is a boy who watched his family die gruesomely. who was then removed from the only home he'd ever known and put in juvenile detention. who then became a vigilante before he ever turned 10. who was never adopted. who was fired and kicked out and hurt by bruce. no trauma there! perfectly happy!

Preaching to the choir my friend!

One of my greatest frustrations in DC comics fandom for yeeeeears was always how often Dick and Jason get pitted against each other in trauma olympics, and other assorted wtf-ery. Because just like Bruce ended up pitting them against each other like I described in that post, the comics did too, at least in the beginning. Not AS much since Jason came back with his own clearly defined niche, more…holdovers from that original time. And so there’s this tendency with a lot of Dick fans and a lot of Jason fans to act like its gotta be one or the other, that its impossible to stan for both. And I’m just sitting over here like NOPE, I stan them both and always will, every single one of their problems and any and all canon shitty things they’ve done to each other were really the result of dumbass writers and dumbass characters forcing them into situations where like….they did what they did. I very much reject the idea that they HAVE to always be at odds, and that one HAS to be better than the other (Dick) or have had it harder than the other (Jason). Its just like…..why tho?

So for me, that tends to manifest a lot as in, when focusing on Dick, I really push back against the myth of him as the ‘pure/too light/too good to kill’ golden boy of the Batfamily, because….no. He’s not. He is who he is because of circumstance and as a result of growing up in an emotional minefield of a house where he felt pushed to perfection. With perfection having clearly defined parameters, as established by Bruce and his expectations. Not because he’s innately incapable of killing or just on some core level ‘too good to lower himself to that’, which is unfortunately something that’s also put forth a lot. But the thing is, putting Dick on that kind of pedestal unintentionally says some pretty shitty things about Jason, as well as Damian and even Cass, and I don’t think people fully realize they’re doing that when they talk about Dick “Too Good to Kill” Grayson. Implying that he is such a thing, that there IS such a thing, at the same time implicitly states that his brothers and sister who HAVE killed, even when they were children and it wasn’t their fault, they were coerced…..this basically suggests that there HAS to be something innately….’worse’ about Jason, and Damian, and Cass, or else they never would’ve been able to do that at all.

Like, I read a fic awhile back where a big theme was the rest of the family talking about this idea that like….Dick couldn’t handle it if he did end up killing someone, that it would break him, tarnish him in some irrevocable way. Like they were saying it in a way meant to be complimentary to Dick and his character, even as Jason and the others were the ones putting forth this idea, the impression was meant to be they wanted to protect Dick from this, preserve that ‘goodness’ about him, but I was just like….No. God no. Hard pass. Because the idea that Dick would lose something fundamental to him, like he’d be forever lessened as a character and a person if for whatever reason he ended up killing…..like, there’s really no way to look at that without reading into it the implication that Jason and the others are damaged goods, forever tainted. And like…no thank you. I really really have issues with that line of thought, especially when it includes Cass and Damian who were forced into being child assassins. Like, whether you mean to or not, when you apply that logic you end up writing them off before they were even like, ten. Beyond saving, even then. I find that very troubling and insidious, even. And thus I push back heavily against this take on Dick, but really, its more in defense of Jason, Damian and Cass.

Like, of course he’d be forever affected by something that huge, just like they are and always will be, but to clarify I mean - its this idea that Dick could never be HAPPY again, even if he was forced to kill someone, or put in a position where he made that choice…that’s what I really objected to. Because that’s the part that suggests that Damian and Cass will never TRULY know happiness as a result of their childhoods, and that’s very destructive thinking, to my mind. The reality of someone forced to grow up too fast, having their innocence stolen, being pushed into doing something no one should have to live with….these are harsh, stark realities, they have merit, they have weight - but they do not mean, and should never be assumed to mean, that a child, or even that a character, who fits these circumstances is somehow beyond repair, or salvaging, or just being happy someday.

And then the flipside of that is I equally push back on takes that crown Jason the King of Trauma, not because he hasn’t endured a ridiculous amount, but because in defense of Dick, Tim and the others, I object to playing into the idea of ranking the Batkids’ traumas at all. The stuff Jason’s been through is horrific, but its not negated, or watered down or lessened by acknowledging that Dick and the others have been through extremely fucked up stuff too. And similarly, I’m very bothered by pointing to how much rougher and more aggressive and ‘darker’ Jason is as a character than Dick, as a way to kinda backdoor prove that Jason’s been through more shit than him, because that again leads to a very troubling implicit line of thought that like, there’s only ONE right way to respond to trauma. That if you aren’t visibly hardened by it, darkened by it, the way Jason has been by his, then whatever you’ve been through obviously couldn’t have been THAT bad, or as bad as someone like Jason has had it. And again, I gotta just give a big HARD PASS to that, because that’s just not how it works.

The fact that Dick is for the most part a far more light-hearted character than Jason isn’t proof he’s had it easier or hasn’t been through as much or seen as much bad stuff - that last bit is especially laughable. You can’t entertain the idea of a guy who’s been fighting the worst kinds of criminals since he was ten, in the most notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden city in the DC universe, and honestly believe that there’s anything he hasn’t seen or been exposed to. It just doesn’t track. BUT, that kind of awareness of the darkness Gotham is mired in isn’t as easily reconciled with the bright, cheerful personality Dick usually sports…unless you acknowledge that Dick WORKS at being that person. This is his reaction to the trauma he’s lived and been surrounded by, not because its just innately who he is, but its because its who he CHOOSES to be, its the response he’s DECIDED on. 

Jason copes with stuff with anger and outbursts. Dick copes with stuff with laughter and mockery. Neither is better or worse, more right or wrong than the other, they’re just DIFFERENT. Different coping mechanisms, trauma responses, for different people. Like I’ve always said, I see Dick and Jason as very similar people at their core. Their differences are largely superficial. But both of them respond to trauma with defiance. By refusing to be beaten down by it. The only difference, is with Jason, that defiance looks like swearing and spitting and cursing, even when faced with an opponent much bigger or tougher than him, a situation that should be too much to survive. Whereas with Dick, that defiance looks like laughing and smiling and joking, even when faced with an opponent or a situation about which there’s nothing actually funny, nothing naturally bright or cheerful. Dick has to conjure that appearance of brightness as an act of defiance, just like Jason has to conjure that appearance of strength.

And once you stop trying to compare Jason and Dick’s traumas, stop trying to rank one as more or less than the others, and just acknowledge and accept hey, they’ve both been through fucked up shit, they’ve both been traumatized - then you can look just at the stuff Dick’s been through, isolated and independent from everything else, and then you can see just how shitty it actually is, and thus what an act of defiance, what a testament of strength it is, that he is able to go through life acting as cheerfully and bubbly as he often does. And yeah, like you said, its his parents being murdered when he was eight, its being thrown in juvie because of a corrupt system when he’d done nothing wrong, its being beaten nearly to death and shot by Two-Face and Joker and dozens of other villains throughout Dick’s childhood, its the time he was tortured by Brother Blood trying to break him in every way possible and its the shit with Mirage and with Tarantula….and a ton of other stuff that never really gets acknowledged for how bad it actually was, because comics are notoriously bad at actually LOOKING at the trauma they heap on superheroes, and what it actually MEANS and what the realistic fallout would be from it, the emotional toll actually taken.

One of the biggest instances of this IMO is with Blockbuster. Like lots of people know the basics about Blockbuster’s death in the comics, and how it ties into what happened with Tarantula….and because that’s so ‘visibly’ traumatic, because that’s an event that’s easy to associate with a trauma that most people have a ready made image and RANKING in mind already when they think of it - like they think of what happened with Tarantula and they’re like oh yeah, okay, that’s a type of trauma I recognize as TRAUMA, thus I get just from the mention of it that was definitely bad and traumatic and had an impact on Dick….so that becomes the go-to when people talk about the stuff with Blockbuster. That’s what people hone in on….so focused on what pings their radar as Obviously Traumatic, they forget to look around at everything else involved and look at the possible impact and potential fallout.

And thus people forget that what happened with Tarantula happened when Dick was ALREADY at the lowest point in his life, and WHY that was so. Like, they acknowledge it, but in a cursory way, like okay yeah, that’s the buildup, now let’s get to the actual trauma and talk about that. Which ignores like….the trauma that was the REASON he was already in such a state to begin with. Like, Blockbuster systematically hunted down every connection he could find to Dick Grayson’s civilian life, and murdered them and burned all traces of them to the ground…JUST because they knew him. Just as a way to hurt HIM, Dick Grayson.

And because that doesn’t ping on our Preconceived Trauma Scales as immediately as something like Jason’s death or Dick’s parents’ murder or similar iconic traumas….we tend to gloss over that, but like….think about it. Think about what something like that would mean for a character that’s known for both his sense of responsibility, and for being one of the most openly empathetic superheroes out there, an emotional caretaker whose entire reputation is built on how much he FEELS for other people and how deeply.

Imagine the kid who was orphaned at age eight, watching his parents fall to their deaths and in the immediate aftermath taken away from everything else he’d ever known or found comfort in - the circus…..and now imagine that same kid fifteen years later watching that same circus burn to the ground, the last memory of his treasured childhood, when things were GOOD, when he was unconditionally happy, the last connection he had to his parents and all the extended circus family he’d grown up happy among…..all of them now dead too, all of those memories physically burned to the ground until nothing was left. All of it gone, for good. And with this villain saying - that happened because of you. I didn’t care about them, I only killed them, only did all of that, because I KNEW how much it would hurt you. And then that same guy did it AGAIN - blowing up Dick’s apartment building and everyone in it….just because he lived there. Having a sniper kill a reporter he was talking to, while he was sitting across the table from her…JUST because she was talking to him.

Like, that’s trauma on top of trauma, that’s trauma on an unimaginable scale. There’s a reason in that infamous scene with Tarantula, Dick was mumbling about being poison….because he honestly, truly believed it at that point, because it was TRUE. Because Blockbuster had made it his personal mission to make that true, to make it a reality that anyone close to Dick Grayson would die. Because of him. Dick was entirely right in feeling that way, he was simply acknowledging what Blockbuster had very deliberately set out to do..it wasn’t Dick’s FAULT that everyone around him was dying, because of their connection to him….but that didn’t mean it wasn’t TRUE.

And that’s just….mind boggling to contemplate, to picture the toll that has to take, but the thing is - it barely ever gets contemplated! Purely because there’s not a simple, neat, easy way to sum it up and label what Trauma specifically it is. The way we can with his parents’ murder, or his rape, or various things that have happened to Jason or their other brothers and sister. And so it gets swept under the rug because we’re in a hurry to get back to the traumas we DO have an easy vocabulary for, with ready-made pictures all queued up in our heads. And then on top of all these traumas (because there’s more too, like think about the impact of realizing that the circus owner you regarded as a grandfather was someday planning on handing you over to people who were going to turn you into an assassin, make you everything you hate, like imagine the BETRAYAL of that discovery and how it would shake your entire view of reality and everything you knew and believed in about your childhood and the time you spent around that man). But yeah, like, on top of these traumas that don’t have a neat and easy logline to describe them, or that don’t quite look like we expect a REALLY traumatic trauma to look like….then add on top of that a trauma response that doesn’t look like our preconceived notions of what trauma response looks like, a guy laughing and joking and SMILING in the aftermath, rather than growling and shooting and drinking.

And you wind up with the idea that nothing THAT bad has ever happened to this character, not like the stuff that’s happened to this other character who ACTS the way we expect someone to act after they’ve been Through Some Real Shit. Even though nothing could be further than the truth. But that’s what happens when we try and boil things down to easy and simple and quick ways of thinking and processing stories and events and traumas. We end up skipping right over the evidence of trauma that falls outside our initial assumptions, and drawing the conclusion that means no trauma was actually ever there…..instead of the proper conclusion which is just we weren’t looking in the right places. Or were just in too much of a rush or too busy looking elsewhere or for something more obvious, and thus missed acknowledging what was actually there.

Anyway, lol. Lots to unpack there, obviously, but yeah, my point being, this tendency we all tend to have in society, this need to artificially impose ranks and hierarchies and award gold, silver and bronze medals even to something as arbitrary as the kinds of traumas we’ve endured - its fucked up, and self-defeating, and does nobody any good. Because its like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Trying to FORCE comparisons that aren’t possible, because no two traumas are alike, no two traumas are interchangeable, and thus they inherently CAN’T be measured against each other, ranked, because….there’s no actual measurement system for trauma! There’s no way to actually JUDGE ‘this event was worse, this had more of an impact’, and yet we always try anyway, instead of just accepting….an impact was had. Instead of just worrying about the RESULT, focusing on THAT - which in this case is the person left behind in the aftermath of the trauma, the one actually traumatized….instead of spending so much time and energy focusing on the TRAUMA itself, as though that’s what matters and is important.

Amazons Attack! - part 10

PREVIOUSLY! Supergirl and Wonder Girl smashed up an internment camp for women associated with Amazons (where ‘associated’ can mean anything from ‘known acquaintance of Wonder Woman’ to ‘looks a bit feminist’), succeeding only in getting Cassie’s mother injured and the rest of the Teen Titans arrested for the crime of collaboration with subversives (where ‘collaboration’ means ‘trying to stop’).

For their next trick, the Girls Super and Wonder successfully helped to crash Air Force One, get a bunch of people killed and almost murder the damn President of the United States, before Superman came and gave them a stern talking-to.

This time: the Teen Titans teach us that the right way to resist oppression is to look quietly disapproving until the system gets embarrassed and sorts itself out, and Supergirl is an actual monster.

Part 10: Teen Titans #49 — Adam Beechen (writer) and Al Barrionuevo (artist), and Supergirl #20 — Tony Bedard (writer) and Renato Guedes (artist)

The Teen Titans’ “arrest” is immediately revealed to be a fakeout — the colonel in command of the camp swiftly marches over, orders her men to stand down  and asks the team to help relocate the detainees from the half-destroyed camp.

(Colonel Wallace, who is cast as a good soldier in a bad situation, is a white woman. Major Hanratty — the aggressive, over-zealous, sexist soldier who tried to arrest the Titans — is a black man. The implications of this become increasingly Unfortunate as the issue unfolds.)

Ravager is outraged, comparing the situation to the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, but Robin insists that “going against the government won’t help this situation. We just have to make sure things don’t get any worse”.  So that’s what they do, because according to Beechen the only two options in this situation are to violently attack the soldiers like Cassie did or to reluctantly aid the government’s wrongful detention of innocent women and trust the system to work itself out.

Am I reading too much into this to think that this sends kind of a dodgy message to the reader? I mean, bearing in mind that this crossover is a (clumsy) analogy for the War on Terror and was written in the context of ongoing US atrocities — the fact that Beechen appears to dismiss all forms of protest and resistance as irresponsible and detrimental… really sucks?

The women are loaded onto a train and the Titans fly alongside as escorts, until they’re waylaid by a squadron of Amazons led by oh fuck me please don’t drag Artemis into this craphole

“CHILDREN, HOLD! ARTEMIS COMMANDS YOU!”

Artemis explains that she is looking for Cassie, who undertook a mission for Hippolyta to down Air Force One and take the President captive, only to abandon her mission and flee.

Let me list all the things that are wrong with this.

Cassie and Kara were not sent to bring down Air Force One (they managed that through their own incompetence)

Artemis couldn’t possibly know that Cassie and Kara “abandoned” their mission, because none of the Amazons sent to attack Air Force One returned

All Artemis knows is that the Amazons’ mounts returned riderless and bloody, implying that the mission went horribly wrong

Artemis cannot physically be here right now because there’s a big fuck-off forcefield trapping her in DC

The Titans politely explain that they have not seen Cassie or Kara, and Artemis is like, ‘I trust you guys, but unfortunately that doesn’t help me, so I’mma take you all hostage to lure your friends to me, k?’

The Amazons attack, the Titans land heavily on top of the train, which barely avoids derailing. We get of shot of Helena Sandsmark inside the train exclaiming, “Cassie—?”, which cracks me the hell up. ‘Violence? Property damage? Endangerment of bystanders? It must be my daughter!’

Outside, everybody yells at Artemis to mind the innocent civilians. And Artemis, who thus far has been one of the few voices of reason among the Amazons, and a consistent opponent of attacking bystanders, is suddenly flippant about the idea of mass civilian casualties. “Such is war … they are our enemies”.

Then she glimpses the train’s passengers and gasps theatrically.

“—Eh? Women? Under armed guard? WHAT MANNER OF TRAIN IS THIS?!”

So, what, you’re allowed to commit despicable crimes against innocents but nobody else is? Because you were perfectly at peace with murdering everybody on the train a second ago.

Pegging Colonel Wallace as the leader, Artemis yells at her that she’s a traitor to all women.

“Much in this war puzzles me, but these things I know: Women should not shackle their own kind and this will not stand! AMAZONS… ATTACK!”

Yes, let’s attack the fast-moving train full of innocent hostages, that’s sure to go well for all involved.

One rando Amazon is taking Cassie and Kara’s potential betrayal super hard.

“I can’t believe Supergirl would abandon our cause for these… these cowards, hiding behind their guns! She’s our friend! Friends don’t take different sides in a war!”

So, I take it you’re new to comics crossovers, then.

Rando Amazon continues to obsess over Supergirl until Kid Devil pushes her into a lake a few pages later.

It goes on like this for a few pages. More fighting, more poorly-written trading of insults. Ravager declares, “I don’t know who’s worse… the Army for bringing back internment, one of America’s worst memories… or you Amazons, for making ‘em feel like it was necessary!”, which… eeeeeeeeeeeeeeno.

Leaving aside the tortured dialogue, of all the crimes that can be laid at the Amazons feet in this story, internment is not one of them. They didn’t “make” the US government feel that wrongfully detaining innocent people was necessary, any more than the Japanese military “made” the real US government wrongfully segregate, arrest and incarcerate over a hundred thousand innocent Japanese Americans. The Amazons committed an act of war, and pre-existing American bigotry and hatred and ignorance led the government to punish their own citizens despite a lack of evidence of any national security threat.

By implication, here, Adam Beechen is absolving the US government of responsibility for the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Meanwhile, Colonel Wallace isn’t jumping to indiscriminate slaughter fast enough for Major Hanratty, who threatens mutiny.

“Listen, I know that witch with the sword got to you. But you are a soldier first. And if you can’t do what needs to be done, I will.”

The fight causes the train to jump the tracks. M’gann is able to stop it and prevent a crash, just as Superman arrives with Wonder Girl and Supergirl.

Artemis calls on Cassie and Kara to stand with the Amazons; they, of course, refuse.

Artemis: And you, Cassandra? Have you forgotten where your loyalties lie? Cassie: The gods gave me my powers, Artemis, but I’m not a god. And I’m not an Amazon. I’m a woman. And I’m a daughter. My loyalties lie with my family… and with doing what’s right. Tim: What about us, Cassie, are we still— Cassie: Not now, Robin, just… not now.

Way to step on somebody else’s moment, Timbo. And yeah, middle of a live battlefield, maybe not the best time to work out where your friendship stands.

As for Cassie, she is a god (well, demigod, by way of an admittedly crappy retcon), she is an Amazon (not by birth, sure, but she’s earned the right to call herself one), and when she says ‘I’m not an Amazon, I’m a woman’, I can’t help but hear, ‘I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist’.

Superman pressures Colonel Wallace to let the women go, because it’s the right thing to do. This, again, goes exactly as you’d expect: Colonel Wallace agrees that the orders she’s following are unjust and decides to release everyone; Major Hanratty responds by declaring that he’s assuming command and absolutely nobody will be released.

A few of women decide to make a break for it while they have the chance, leading to this piece of white feminist nonsense:

Woman: Now’s our chance, while they’re sorting all this out… Helena: What—? No, don’t! Let them talk it over, this will all resolve itself peacefully...! Woman: We’re getting out of here. We’ll never have a better chance…

White woman telling a black woman not to make any waves and trust the authorities to sort things out. Cool feminism you got there.

The soldiers see a group of women fleeing. Hanratty mistakes Helena for the ringleader and orders everyone to shoot her. Of course, the Titans save her, and Superman destroys all the soldiers’ equipment. The Amazons hug and make up with Cassie and Kara, then return to DC (you know, the city they’re supposed to be trapped in with no means of getting out) to continuing raining death on America.

Cassie apologies to the Titans, smooches Robin, and good lord this art is appalling.

So that’s it for the Teen Titans in this crossover. Supergirl #20 picks up where this issue leaves off, and it’s so unbelievably dull that I’m not even going to give it a separate post.

The issue opens with a flashback to the attack on Air Force One. With the plane rapidly losing altitude, a terrified flight attendant called Ranay phones her husband — Greg, a DC accountant — to say what might be her final goodbye. She’s talking to him when the plane crashes and the phone is flung out of her hand, leaving Greg believing that his wife is dead and Supergirl is to blame.

That’s page one. If y’all think you know where the rest of this issue is going, you’re probably right.

Still in the flashback, we see Kara and Cassie rushing to help the injured crew and passengers as if they’re not the villains in this story.

Kara: Is everyone okay? I tried to soften the impact… Man: You shot us down in the first place! Kara [VO]: Actually, it was the Amazons, but why argue? It sure felt like my fault.

THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS YOUR FAULT, YOU INSUFFERABLE TWIT. You agreed to kidnap the president. You threatened to bring the plane down. You punched through the GODDAMN FUSELAGE. And all of that happened before the Amazons even arrived on the scene.

In the present, Superman has left Supergirl and Wonder Girl with the Teen Titans. Kara tells Cassie says that she’s going to be in huge trouble when all of this has wrapped up:

“Trust me, this war with the Amazons is nothing compared to the verbal beat-down I’ll get once things die down.”

Oh, I’m sure. Thousands of Americans are dead and the entire state of Kansas is a smoking ruin, but that’s nothing compared to the stern words that Kara’s going to cop.

To ease her hurt feelings, Kara decides to help the rescue efforts in DC (which, again, is supposed to be SEALED OFF FROM THE WORLD).

Meanwhile, Greg’s office is being evacuated, with four heavily armed military personnel guarding the civilians’ escape. It takes two Amazons in a primitive horse-drawn chariot all of five seconds to cut them down, which even for this crossover is ridiculous. Fortunately, grieving-husband-with-a-vendetta Greg is also an ex-Marine! He scoops up a rocket launcher and incinerates the charioteers, then grabs a gun and begins firing.

More Amazons descend on the civilians, which is when Supergirl joins the fight. She defeats them, but only after they’ve shot her in the side with an enchanted arrow.

Greg pulls the arrow out of her with more violence than is strictly necessary and, after an oblivious Kara explains that she’s vulnerable to magic, surreptitiously pockets the arrow in case he needs to indulge in some light revenge murder later on.

Kara’s just happy to have people fawning over her again.

Civilian 1: Can you stand? Civilian 2: If you hadn’t shown up when you did… Kara [VO] The relief in their faces, the gratitude in their voices — this is why I needed to come here. Just to know I’m doing some good, to know that I’m wanted…

That’s why she needed to come here. Not to use her abilities to help people in imminent danger — to get a quick ego boost.

Greg confronts Kara about the Air Force One attack and demands to know if Kara killed his wife. And that’s when the giant Cyclops attacks.

Battling the monster, Kara engages in some more historical revisionism.

“Just this morning, I’d hoped the Amazons could accept me as one of their own. Then they unleashed these monstrosities on innocent people. I guess you never really know somebody until you meet their pets.”

Bull. Fucking. Shit. The Cyclopes were in the very first wave of attacks. Right before the Amazons got to mass-slaughtering civilians and setting literally all of Kansas on fire — all of which you knew about when you agreed to kidnap the president.

Greg grabs his gun and begins firing at the Cyclops while the others run for cover.

“And then there’s this guy, who has every reason to hate me. No way am I letting him die without getting a chance to tell him I’m sorry.”

So what I’m hearing is, you’re not protecting him because you care about humanity and believe passionately in using your extraordinary gifts to help others, you’re protecting him so you can feel better about yourself.

Kara saves Greg and catches the brunt of the Cyclops’ attack. She’s flung through the air, crashing through the wall of a childcare centre.

Kara [VO]: Oh, boy. They must’ve hidden here since the invasion started. Kara: Hey, is everybody okay? I didn’t mean to crash in like that, but I promise I’ll keep you safe. [pause] Hello? [pause] Doesn’t anybody have anything to say? Everyone: AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

The self-absorbed jerk is so busy fishing for some validation that she completely forgets about the huge fuck-off Cyclops advancing on the building.

Resolving that she won’t let innocents get hurt again, Kara tries to draw the Cyclops away, but the fight’s not going well. Greg mutters that it would “serve her right” if she got smashed to bits, then sighs and decides to help. He hands her the enchanted arrow and tells her to go for the eye, which works.

Kara thanks Greg, and he admits he was holding onto the arrow to kill her.

Greg: I… I was on the phone with her… You should’ve heard the fear in her voice… and Ranay, she’s not scared of anything… and then the plane crashes… and the line goes dead… Kara: I’m sooo sorry.

I know it’s intended to be for emphasis, but that elongated ‘so’ just reads as sarcastic.

They talk it out — blah blah wanted to fix things, blah blah the world is more complicated, blah blah that reminds me of my tour of duty in Somalia — and then Greg gets a phone call from his wife and she’s fine. All the while, Superman watches Kara paternalistically from above.

Next time: Catwoman infiltrates Lady ISIS!

New Comic Book Day!

October 11, 2017

Trying something new here, and i’m gonna start reviewing comics that I pick up at my local comic store, which may or not be Nightwing related. I figured this is something different, gives me something to do, and I just think it’d be fun. But enough about the why, let’s get into the comics!

Spoiler Alert

1. Action Comics #989

Part three of the Oz Effect! I figure this is gonna be weird starting a review right in the middle of so many comics, but recapping is a real thing. Anyways, this comic kept the action flowing, not so much of a one-on-one dialogue anymore, and we get to see Jor-El in action! The ending was a giant cliff-hanger and I can’t tell if they are supposed to be the LoSH or not. But this interaction between Jor-El and Jon, heck even with Lois are remarkable, and is something I never knew I wanted to see in a comic until now. Though, thus far this story-arc has been very dialogue heavy, and not very action packed. This biggest reveal isn't even the fact that Oz was Jor-El, but the fact that Oz wasn’t Ozymandias, which in retrospect was a little far-fetched and too on the nose. Anyways, I’m excited for the next issue, and excited for the ramifications of this story.

2. Wonder Woman #32

Part two of the Children of the Gods! The previous issue was mainly from Hercules point of view, serving as the primary narrator of the story, and of his death. This time around, Wonder Woman was front and center. I wasn’t expecting too much from his comic to be honest, ever since Rucka left my excitement has dwindled. But Robinson isn’t a bad writer, and I trust the guy to do these comics well. Jason was revealed at the end of the issue, which i was actually very surprised of, and I thought he was gonna be saved till later. But he’s here, very cut like David’s Michelangelo’s. I’m curious to see how his story unfolds, and what kind of role he’ll play in the future of Wonder Woman comics, if he survives this story that is.

3. Mister Miracle #3

This was probably my most excited new comic that came out this week. If you do not know, I love Tom King’s writing. It’s a slow burn type of writing that excels in large overarching stories, like a novel. The way this story is unfolding is getting me excited. Because you KNOW there is something more going on in the story than what is stated. The way it started, how quickly things went downhill, the way the characters talk to each other. Conspiracy theory is that whatever pills he took is actually making him hallucinate this whole thing. But I feel like that is too simple of an answer, and I feel like King will play into the Jesus = Mister Miracle symbolism, with Highfather = God and Darkseid = the Devil. The way Kirby intended it. I’ve also really enjoy the flow of the comic, with the action sequences and the more down-time. In this kind of comic, it’s strange, which plays perfectly with the outlandish nature of the Fourth World. I’m really excited for the next issue, and the rest of the series.

4. Detective Comics #966

Part two of A Lonely Place of Living! I honestly did not see this comic unraveling the way it did, and I’m actually really excited for it. It’s a mix of the Geoff Johns “Titans of Tomorrow” storyline with a Back to the Future kind of vibe. The reveal of “Who the hell is Conner” was so heartbreaking. I’ve wrote a dream pitch for how I’d bring Conner, and the rest of the Young Justice team, back into the mainstay DC Universe, and thus far, it can still go through. Future Tim plays into Present Tim’s thoughts, and addresses them how Tim would probably address himself. I love when time paradoxes play out in the “I know what you’re thinking, because I thought the same things when I was you listening to me.” way. It gives the audience the idea that time is a fixed predetermined path that can’t be wavered from. But we all know that not to be true. We know Present Tim will somehow find a way to beat himself, even though Past-Future Tim couldn’t beat Future Tim. That didn’t make sense. Oh well. I’ve enjoyed this story, and series really so far, and I’m glad Tynion is on this series, being the 90s fan he is, bringing in all those fascinating characters back into the fold, arguably the best time to be a Batman Fan.

5. Red Hood and the Outlaws #15

Part two of Bizarro Reborn! So I haven’t actually read the first part of this comic, with the last RHatO comic I read, besides the annual, was issue 11. So I’m behind. But I can extrapolate the idea that Bizarro came back due to Lex Luther, granting him super intelligence, much to the dismay of his teammates. But it seems to be a temporary thing. I don’t know why the Belfry team thought it was some kind of an attack, or why they are fighting Red Hood at all, but they are. I would have thought Bruce would have told everyone that Jason was on their side. But I just remembered that Jason has to work outside the family on a normal basis, to “infiltrate the bad guys” for Bruce. I think Jason is the last member of Batman Inc, which is very ironic. Artemis is in the story, still great chemistry with the team, and I still really like the idea of this Dark Trinity, it’s execution has been so awesome since day one, and I can’t believe I’m actually excited for the next issue.

6. Batgirls and the Birds of Prey #15

Part one of Manslaughter! Finally a comic that is just beginning it’s story arc. Whew. The Benson sisters have been doing a great job in this comic thus far, giving us great characterization for the main three, and most of their guest stars. This story serves as a “gathering of the troops” setup. We address the problem, identify it, and then gather some people to counter it. The problem is that there is some disease that can potentially kill all the men, which is something, as a man myself, find hilarious and fitting for this comic. Every character has their own reason for trying to fight the disease, with Dinah having Ollie, Babs having her Dad, Helena with Dick, Selina with Bruce, Harley with the Joker (so she can kill him herself), and Poison Ivy just because she wanted to (basically), the rest of the Gotham squad, which includes Batwoman, Spoiler, Orphan and Gotham Girl (whom I’m glad is getting screen time), and last but not least Wonder Woman herself. I think this story is going to be a fun girl-power story, and I’m curious to see who is behind this dastardly attack, and what their motive is.

7. Dark Knights: Metal #3

If Mister Miracle was my most excited story, this is my second. Metal and all of it’s tie ins have been such a treat. It’s a Batman centric story, without shoving in a Bat-God into our face. The threats are on the planetary level, and it’s gonna take everyone to save the world, even bringing in people who haven't been seen in comics in ages. Dick, Clark and Damian have a moment together, that is very in character for everyone, something I respect Snyder for doing so far. The subtly in this comic is mind boggling , how many hints were left behind in Snyder’s past comics, and just in the series alone. I don’t really care too much about the other Batmen though, and am only really curious about what the heck The Batman Who Laughs deal is. Snyder and Capullo are literal Rock-stars in this series, and I’m cheering for an encore -- which may come when this is all over.

8. The Amazing Spider-Man #789

The Fall of Parker! Spinning out from Marvel Legacy and Secret Empire is a more status quo Spider-Man, but with a twist. People love Spider-Man, as much as New Yorkers can, but hate Peter Parker. It’s an interesting twist on such a simple and main staple in the Spider-Man mythos. I’ve always been a fan of the “Down on his luck, penny to his name” Parker, who was street level but with the drive and passion for the big league. With the previous run, I felt like it was just Ironman with a Spider-Man costume on, but now this is some good old fashion comics. I like his relationship with Bobbi, and I think the two are cute together, but I hope Harry and MJ make their return to the supporting cast. The art is also phenomenal, but what can you expect when Stuart Immonen is providing. Even though there wasn’t much of a villain, or a story being told. It kind of seemed like a one-shot to me, with dangling threads that can be picked up later.

9. Daredevil #27

Part two of the Land of the Blind! Not get caught up with Marvel Legacy, Charles Soule continues his fantastic run of Daredevil. Last we saw, Matt was tracking down his once partner, once blinded and once friend, Blindspot. It was all a trap! This story serves as a “secret origins” of Blindspot, as we see his transition from the farm lifestyle in China, to moving to the city, to the United States. This story takes place over days, weeks, and we can see the passage of time from the look on Matt’s face, and his ever growing beard. I really like this twist, and that it was Charles himself to do the twist, and I’m very curious to know if this was his plan all along, or if it was just something he came up with in recent times. Whatever it is, the main thing I can say about this comic is that I love that the red costume is back, and the fact that Ron Garney is providing art. His style compliments the story of daredevil so well, I’d love to see him do a Nightwing book. I’m hoping that Charles continues this fantastic run when he makes the transition to the Legacy side of Marvel.

10.  Runaways #2

When they announced that they were making a show about the runaways, I was very curious on many things. One of the things though, was not who the hell are the runaways. I actually read the original series, and I was up to the moon when they announced that this series was coming back. The story, thus far, has been very dialogue heavy, with action sequences being either in flashbacks or just not present. I don’t mind it too much, since they really have to explain a lot to all the new readers who are jumping on due to the announcement of the show, I just hope it picks up soon with the action, and it seems it will with the glowy cat eyes following Molly. And I was a little curious on why we didn’t get a shot of Molly’s grandma, maybe there is something up with that too. Whatever the case is, I’m enjoying this series so far, and hope the next issue fills the action void that I crave.

11. Defenders #6

Part One of Kingpins of New York! Technically this is part of Marvel Legacy, but it’s weird since Matt is still wearing his black suit, when he has already switched to the red one in his main series, which takes place before Daredevil legacy does. But this issue itself is really just the end of the previous arc, so it doesn’t really seem like the beginning of a new arc. I enjoyed the court scene, and the banter between Daredevil and Luke Cage, especially Luke’s comment that “he knows a thing or two about the law” to DD. I hope he reveals his identity to the team again soon, as I think it gives the team a much more grounded approach. Less flashy superheroes, and more of just street vigilantes. Men and women. I don’t really know why Black Cat is so heavily featured, when I feel like she doesn’t serve too much to the story, but she’s there. I just think BMB likes writing her ever since his Superior Spider-Man run. But that can be brushed aside with his characterization of the main team, something I look at with these team books. I like the idea of the Kingpin being a “Defenders” bad guy, with the addition to Spider-Man of course. Maybe in season 2 of the Defenders? Anyone? Anyone?

The Saturday Review is back! I know, I need to keep up better with this but my reviews keep piling up instead. What have you been reading lately bookdragons? Escape from Asylum by Madeleine Roux Publisher: HaperCollins Release Date: June 14, 2016 Genre: Young adult, Horror Blurb In this terrifying prequel novel to the New York Times bestselling Asylum series, a teen is wrongfully committed to the Brookline psychiatric hospital and must find a way out—before he becomes the next victim of the evil warden’s experiments. With the page-turning suspense and unsettling found photographs from real asylums that led Publishers Weekly to call Asylum “a strong YA debut,” Escape from Asylum is perfect for fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.The nightmare is just beginning.Ricky Desmond has been through this all before. If he could just get through to his mother, he could convince her that he doesn’t belong at Brookline. From the man who thinks he can fly to the woman who killed her husband, the other patients are nothing like him; all he did was lose his temper just a little bit, just the once. But when Ricky is selected by the sinister Warden Crawford for a very special program—a program that the warden claims will not cure him but perfect him—Ricky realizes that he may not be able to wait for his mom a second longer. With the help of a sympathetic nurse and a fellow patient, Ricky needs to escape now.Set long before Dan, Abby, and Jordan ever walked the hallways of the Brookline asylum—back when it was still a functioning psych ward and not a dorm—Escape from Asylum is a mind-bending and scary installment in the Asylum series that can stand on its own for new readers or provide missing puzzle pieces for series fans. Cover: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 The one thing I've consistently liked about this series is the covers. They're eerie and dark and eye-catching. Summary/Tagline: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 “The Nightmare Is Just Beginning." - Yes please, this boasts the set up of a great scare. Unfortunately it didn't deliver for me. Characters: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 The main thing I did like is the diverse characters in this book. Ricky is bisexual and Kay is transgender. I was not expecting that going into this book and I thought the author did both reps justice. Of course we see The Warden in living breathing color instead of memories and hauntings in this one and he's every bit the psychopath he is described as in the other books.  Worldbuilding: 🌟🌟🌟 I'm not sure what to give this for worldbuilding. In Escape from Asylum Brookline is still a working mental institution but as for originality it's not far off from I don't know... Shutter Island with less of an isolated setting. This particular book is set in the 60s but did I really feel like it was the 60s? Eh, not really. Other than the medical practices that were banned years and years ago. Story: 🌟 Forget the year and this book is basically Asylum with a different title and different characters with the same lack of personality. I feel like I read this book before and I basically did when I read the original Asylum. Prequels are usually supposed to add something to a series or uncover a hidden truth or connection that the reader won't see coming but I feel this book failed to do that.  Overall: 🌟🌟 2 of 5 Stars! My Rating: 🌟🌟  2 of 5 Stars! Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia Published by: DC Ink On: July 2, 2019 Genre: Graphic Novel Blurb: When a tragic accident takes the life of 17-year-old Raven Roth's foster mom--and Raven's memory--she moves to New Orleans to recover and finish her senior year of high school.Starting over isn't easy. Raven remembers everyday stuff like how to solve math equations and make pasta, but she can't remember her favorite song or who she was before the accident. And when impossible things start happening, Raven begins to think it might even be better not to know who she was before.But as she grows closer to her new friends, her foster sister, Max, and Tommy Torres, a guy who accepts her for who she is now, Raven has to decide if she's ready to face what's buried in the past...and the darkness building inside her.From #1 New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia and first-time graphic novel artist Gabriel Picolo comes this riveting tale of finding the strength to face who you are and learning to trust others--and yourself. Review: Cover: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 I love the cover of this graphic novel and the illustrations inside are really cool. Summary/Tagline: N/A Characters: 🌟🌟🌟 I'm not familiar with who Raven is in the DC world because I'm not usually into comic book stuff but I liked her as a character struggling to remember who she is after losing her memory. I also liked the side characters. Worldbuilding: 🌟🌟🌟 Again, maybe if I was familiar with who this character is I could tell you how closely it works with her backstory, but I don't. I do love anything set in New Orleans though and I thought it was well portrayed. Story: 🌟🌟 I have trouble rating this because the eARC I got from the publisher through Edleweiss was pretty screwed up. One page was chapter one then the next was chapter 18 and it kept jumping like that making it nearly impossible to read. I felt like I was going crazy trying to figure it out. The only reason I can give it 2 stars is because perhaps, if it had been set in the right order, I might have enjoyed it.  Overall: 🌟🌟🌟 3 of 5 Stars! My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 3 of 5 Stars! Aurora Rising  by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff Published by: Knopf Books For Young Readers On: May 7, 2019 Genre: YA, Sci-Fi Blurb: From the internationally bestselling authors of THE ILLUMINAE FILES comes an epic new science fiction adventure.The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasmA sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmatesA smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulderAn alien warrior with anger management issuesA tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wonderingAnd Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic. Review: Cover: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Oooh Yes! Come to me my prettiness! I like this cover more than the Illuminae Files for sure! I only regret not getting the pink one from Illumicrate! Summary/Tagline: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 “They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find."  - I like it! It tells me that there's going to be some humor in this book.  Characters: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 I can truly say I loved Squad 312.. with one exception. I couldn't force myself to like Cat. I just couldn't do it. I felt like she let her feelings for Ty cloud her judgment where everything else was concerned. Otherwise I adored the rest of the character; especially Aurora and Kal! And Scarlett and Zila and Ty and Fin.  Worldbuilding: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Aurora Rising is set way before the Illuminae Files so we're dealing with a fresh new world and new species of characters. This world is so vibrant and different and I felt like I could see it so well in my mind. Story: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 I could not put this book down. I started listening to it as an audiobook which I usually listen to before bed but then I started reading from the physical book during the day and before I knew it I was at the end dying for the next book.  Overall: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 4.4 of 5 Stars! My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 4.4 of 5 Stars! Warcross by Marie Lu Published by: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books For Young Readers On: September 12, 2017 Genre: YA, Sci-Fi Blurb: For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down Warcross players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. To make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire. Review: Cover: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 For a cover this simplistic it is so colorful and eye-grabbing. I love the three dimensional quality to the title. Summary/Tagline: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 “Player. Hunter. Hacker. Pawn."  - Yes, Emika Chen ends up being all of these things and I loved watching her arc through all the different jobs and lies she had to tell during this book. Yes she was a player in the Warcross championships, but she's also a spy.  Characters: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Emika is a really cool main character and I love how she got into coding and hacking then got into trouble for trying to right a wrong done to a classmate and how that has shaped who she now is in her late teens. Then there's Hideo Tanaka and his mercurial moods. Is he a shy tech geek? A guy with a tragic past who turned it into a successful career? A villain? A visionary? A madman? Worldbuilding: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 At times I felt like I had stepped into one of my favorite video games as I read about Emika being inside the game. I also liked how the dark-web version of  Warcross was described. The worldbuilding as a whole was very unique and I loved it.  Story: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 I can't believe it took me this long to read this book! I had started it once before and not given it a chance for some reason but this time I found myself quickly hooked on the story and invested in the characters. I can't wait to read the second book and see how it ends! Overall: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 4.4 of 5 Stars! My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 4.4 of 5 Stars!

http://taylorfenner.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-saturday-review-6-july-2019.html

The Top 10 Superhero Games Of All Time These days, box offices are dominated by comic-book and superhero movies from Marvel and DC. Unfortunately, while superhero movies have improved dramatically over the last decade, superheroes haven’t been as powerful in the realm of video games. In fact, nearly 40 years after the first superhero video game, many developers still struggle to create worthwhile experiences using some of the biggest names in entertainment today. While not all superhero games are monumental duds like Superman on Nintendo 64, many tend to deliver middling, forgettable experiences. However, a select few that defy the stereotype to become superb titles we still look back on fondly as not only great superhero games, but terrific video games in their own rights. While the superhero films of today are often critically acclaimed and feature a wide array of faces, our list of the best superhero games is substantially less diverse, with half of the list focused on two heroes. This speaks to the drastically different levels of quality these games have featured over the years. Check out our list of the 10 best superhero games of all time and be sure to let us know your favorites in the comments below. 10. Infamous PS3 • 2009 As the sole non-licensed entry on this list, Infamous delivers a compelling, original story starring Cole MacGrath, a bike messenger given the power of electrokinesis after being caught in an explosion. Cole must face off against other superhuman conduits and track down Kessler, a mysterious man with similar powers as him. Sucker Punch’s morality-based superhero debut was a terrific exclusive for the PlayStation 3 library and kicked off a great series for the studio. 9. Spider-Man 2 PS2, Xbox, GameCube • 2004 Treyarch’s game loosely based on the second Tobey Maguire film was fun for its open world and its large stable of Spider-Man villains to fight. However, it was revolutionary for how it nailed the feeling of swinging through New York City. While Insomniac’s 2018 title finally surpassed Treyarch’s 2004 experience, Spider-Man 2 was the best game starring the wallcrawler for a long time. 8. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction PS2, Xbox, GameCube • 2005 Everyone knows that Hulk is at his best when he’s unleashed and smashing everything in his path, so it stands to reason that his best video game appearance would be the one that lets him do that nearly unimpeded. Hulk can run up walls, smash cars to use as weapons, and annihilate anything foolish enough to get in his way. 7. Marvel Ultimate Alliance PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP • 2006 Marvel has an incredible lineup of heroes and villains, and Ultimate Alliance allows you to assemble a dream team and dungeon crawl through several well-known locations in the Marvel universe. Crafting your own custom superhero team made from the star-studded Marvel stable is beyond satisfying, and blasting through waves of enemies lives up to expectations. 6. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Vita • 2011 The Marvel universe is no stranger to crossover events either, but Capcom took things to the next level. In 1994, Capcom released its first fighting game starring Marvel characters in X-Men: Children of Atom. In the 17 years following, Capcom expanded to feature characters from the entire Marvel universe, as well as its own. That crossover vision reached its pinnacle in 2011 with Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and its Ultimate expansion improved the experience with a ton of new characters, as well as refined and reworked gameplay mechanics later that year. 5. Injustice 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC • 2017 Ed Boon and his Mortal Kombat team have a long history with DC Comics. After creating Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe at Midway in 2008, Boon founded NetherRealm Studios and successfully rebooted the Mortal Kombat universe in 2011. Following the well-received reinvention of that series, Boon’s team released DC Comics fighter Injustice: Gods Among Us in 2013 using similar mechanics. After making marked improvements to the formula with 2015’s Mortal Kombat X, NetherRealm created the ultimate DC Comics fighting game: Injustice 2. Not satisfied with simply continuing the robust story mode and adding new characters, NetherRealm added a gear-customization system, daily live events, and improved fighting mechanics. 4. Batman: Arkham Knight PS4, Xbox One, PC • 2015 With Rocksteady’s third (and to this point final) entry in its Arkham series, the studio weaves a fascinating story surrounding Batman, his fiercest rivals, and a mysterious new threat known as the Arkham Knight. Exploring an open Gotham City under attack from Scarecrow is thrilling, and while the Batmobile may be a sore spot for some, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the rest of Arkham Knight is Rocksteady at the top of its game. 3. Batman: Arkham Asylum PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 • 2009 Perhaps the most revolutionary superhero game of all time, Batman: Arkham Asylum didn’t just demonstrate how to make a great comic-book game, it influenced several games with its perfected rhythmic combat, as well as its approach to predatorial stealth gameplay. Before Arkham Asylum, no game ever made you truly embody a comic-book character like Rocksteady’s inaugural entry in the stellar series. 2. Spider-Man PS4 • 2018 By bringing a studio known for its ability to craft imaginative gadgets and deliver supremely fun traversal to the Spider-Man franchise, Sony found a match made in heaven. Spider-Man excels in its web swinging and combat, but it truly sets itself apart in its storytelling. Insomniac delivers a narrative that’s as focused on Peter Parker and those around him as it is his alter ego, while also nailing the feel of those beloved characters. Not just that, but just like in the comics, Insomniac’s interpretation of Spider-Man is at its best when the life of Peter intersects with the duties of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is not only the best Marvel game ever released, but it’s an exciting jumping off point for what could become an enormous and promising universe. 1. Batman: Arkham City PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 • 2011 It may be strange to see three of the top four entries on this list dominated by DC’s Dark Knight, but it’s hard to argue Rocksteady doesn’t deserve it. Following the runaway success of Batman: Arkham Asylum, many wondered if lightning could strike twice for Rocksteady. Thankfully, Rocksteady’s gamble to move the action from the compact hallways and confined courtyards of Arkham Asylum to a wide-open portion of Gotham City paid massive dividends. Not only did this allow greater player freedom in determining how to experience the story, but it truly let Rocksteady flex its muscles with regards to Batman’s various traversal options. Grappling through Arkham City is a pure delight, but the true thrill comes in perching high above a group of thugs, plotting how you’re going to take them down. In addition, the stellar combat of Arkham Asylum received some improvements, and the open nature of Arkham City allowed Rocksteady to cram loads of Easter eggs for comic fans to discover. Source by [author_name] #games #gamer #gaming #game #play #koragame #freegames #onlinegames

5 People Who Ruled At Things They Had No Right to Even Try

If we were to tell you the person who performed your emergency appendectomy wasn’t an actual surgeon — just some guy who happened to be giving a sing telegram to the hospital that day, and figured he was good with knives, so why not? — you might be a bit miffed. But what if he is not simply saved your life, he included a few inches there while he was at it. Yes, there . Suddenly you’re not mad; you’re simply amazed. He had no business doing it at all, yet he altogether exceeded. Just like …

5

A 61 -Year-Old Hillbilly Reigns His Very First Ultramarathon

If marathons exist for beings to prove that they’re intrinsically better than you, ultra marathons exist to reproach you for describing the same air as their players. And Australia’s Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon is the steeple. The occurrence consisted of a 544 -mile run — we’d give up on driving that — across merciles and unforgiving area. So imagine everyone’s bombshell back in 1983, when a 61 -year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young lined up right alongside the strapping young deities and goddesses that are commonly go in for this sort of situation. Literally toothless, dressed in gumboots and long trousers, he ran in a creepy old-man shuffle. Cliff further been demonstrated that he was a virgin who still lived with his mom — as though that needed elaborating.

By the end of day 2, Cliff was not only markedly less dead than everyone expected, but had a sizeable lead on his contestants. This was largely due to his coach-and-four/ insane friend Wally Zeuschner who, after an wearying first day of ranging, inadvertently determined Cliff’s alarm clock for 2AM. For the rest of the hasten, Wally “ve been there”, informing Cliff that sleep was for pussies, and hacking off foot cysts with a rabbit spear. When Cliff shuffled his route into Melbourne, he wasn’t merely ahead of his competitors — he was miles and miles onward, having knocked a good two goddamned epoches off the previous evidence for the course.

Cliff passed away at persons under the age of 81, but his influence on the play is still evident today. In tell to eke out the maximum possible execution, ultramarathoners now go to bed afterwards, get up earlier, and run in an odd gait that attains them look like fitness zombies.

4

Nigel Richards Acquires A French Scrabble Tournament Despite Not Expressing A Word Of French

This is Nigel Richards, a Scrabble World Champion and Undefeated Beardmaster.

A native New Zealander, Nigel acquired his national entitle before going on to land European, North American, and macrocosm designations as well. And that’s no aim feat, considering the first time he played the game, he was 28 years old. So where does a World Champion drive, formerly he’s entirely reigned the English-speaking Scrabble scene? Why, he moves on to another language, of course. Even if he doesn’t speak it .

In 2015, Nigel easily took the French macrocosm title with a tally of 565-434 over the Scrabble-nightmare-named Schelick Ilagou Rekawe, and he did it without knowing a lick of French .

How is that even possible? Simply set: Nigel is a mutant. That’s … that’s actually the only rationale. In part of the preparations for the tournament, he just picked up the French Scrabble dictionary and memorized the words. All of them . He may not have had a clue what the vast majority of them intended, but he could play ’em. And he did. And he won. And that’s not humanly possible, so Sentinels are already on the best way of his house.

3

Ray Stanford Finds Just … All Of The Dinosaur Fossils( Where Experts Said There Were None )

Anybody with a scourge and a fedora to their refer knew that Washington DC was an archaeological dead zone, due to its iron-rich geology. Unfortunately, College Park, Maryland native and self-taught paleontologist Ray Stanford only had math-teacher glasses and a bolo tie. He didn’t know DC was devoid of dinosaurs. So there was nothing to stop him from going there, and finding some.

Smithsonian Institute Well, besides geology .

Since 1994, Ray has spent his free time stomping through streambeds and accumulating dinosaur tracks — tracks which, prior to Ray’s discovery, had never been found in the area. He then lends the fogies to his collection at the Stanford Museum … AKA his living room, which examines “like a stone quarry exploded.” When Robert Bakker, readily the most famous paleontologist of the past century, toured Ray’s collection in person, he said, “My jaw abode dropped for the purposes of an hour.”

Marvin Joseph/ The Washington Post Dr. Alan Grant, however, abode thoroughly unimpressed .

The ornaments of Ray’s collection are a pterosaur track so large that it collapses the previously consented sizing of the beasts, and the teensy hatchling footprints of a species Ray personally dubbed Hypsiloichnus marylandicus . That’s just one of various fossils in his collection that the Smithsonian doesn’t even have bones for yet.

So why hasn’t some foundation gifted Ray an honorary doctorate, and applied his skills to official implement? Possibly because all this paleontology business is just a surface gig to his true fury: spy UFOs.

Yep, that’ll do it .

2

An Undertaker Revolutionized Telecommunications To Spite A Rival

In Kansas City, 1878, Almon Strowger’s initiating business was booming. This was 1878: Life was inexpensive, but apparently extinction wasn’t. A new mortician opened up store only down the road, and before you knew it, Strowger’s customer base dried up. Possibly literally.

This was back in the working day when, in order to make a telephone call, a caller firstly “ve spoken to” business operators, who in turn connected them to their defendant. As it turns out, the upstart undertaker was married to an operator at the local phone company. When callers rang up and asked to be connected to Strowger’s Crematorium Emporium, she’d simply connect them to her husband’s place instead. Plainly, this villainous programme involved a mixture, and for that, Strowger had to tap his flavour animal: Wile E. Coyote.

As a child, Strowger was quite the discoverer, whipping up complicated gizmoes to get out of doing chores. So he decided that the telecommunications industry certainly required a road for callers to immediately connect to one another, thereby eliminating the middleman( and pitching any particular asshole hustler straight out onto the street ), and got to work.

With some help from his nephew, and backing from a few business partners, Strowger developed a operating prototype of the Strowger switch. He patented the fabrication in 1891. In 1892, he built his very own phone company in La Porte, Indiana. Though Strowger was ultimately return to the undertaking biz in 1902, his invention would change telecommunications eternally. And that, boys and girls, is how the minds of the retaliation developed your iPhone.

1

John Corcoran Was A College Graduate, A Beloved High School Teacher, And A Real Estate Wizard( All While Totally Illiterate )

After breezing through both college and grad school, John Corcoran became a highly regarded teacher, before eventually transitioning to the field of real estate, where, by the age of 48, he applied 200 parties, was a multimillionaire, and lived in the lap of luxury in a $ 600,000 villa overlooking the Pacific.

John Corcoran Foundation via NPR “I’m carrying this book exclusively for self-defense! ”

John’s inability to read was clear in elementary school. In his paroles, trying to read characters was like “looking at Chinese, at scribbles.” Of trend, this being 1940 s America, his schoolteachers simply called him lazy and encouraged him to “smart harder.” Left to his own designs, John became a genuinely colossal crook. He convinced others to do his work for him and, in high school, even dated the valedictorian — so she could do his homework for him.

He chiselled his way into a teaching gig, where he was well-loved by his high school students — for them, social-studies class meant tossing the textbook aside and participating in an impromptu debate, what’s suspicious about that ?! — and he generally “re going away” with it. Then one darknes, the jig was up. As John “read” a children’s story to his minors, his wife listened in. She realized he was just stimulating shit up as he went along, and announced him out on it. He has since haunted tutoring, and acted through his illiteracy. Hell, he’s even authored two books on the subject. Truly, it’s an inspiring narrative. You can cheat your behavior through anything!

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Secret Empire #9

I’m honestly just tired of this story at this point. This is, like, the third issue of just spinning tires.

With the shield down and New York back in this dimension, the world’s heroes, united, takes the fight to Steve Rogers, aided by the mutant nation of New Tian.

And there are some cool moments in the book: Magneto finally getting into the frey, refusing to bow to Hydra; Odinson finally doing a thing; Black Ant and Taskmaster switching sides and releasing the younger heroes. Individual panels and pages are enjoyable, but the issue itself is boring. Nothing new happens. It’s another issue of the villains overpowering the heroes until the heroes unite to overpower the villains until a last scene twist where Steve reveals a superweapon. The story has stalled, and, having given up trying to be about anything in particular, has nothing to do or say anymore besides big fight scenes spread too thin across all of Marvel’s characters.

  Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #3

Can Zdarksy write a spin-off series that follows Jameson around as he tries to scandalize everything Spider-Man does and also get his career back? I want that sooo bad after the two pages of this issue he’s in.

The rest of the issue sees Spider-Man, the Human Torch, and Teresa confronting the Kingpin to find out what nefarious scheme he’s planning that involves the encrypted Stark phones. The issue is light on plot, heavy on character humor, including a cameo by a really young-looking Karnak, who reveals Spider-Man’s greatest weakness.

  The Flash #29

Flash’s new powers don’t include his usual healing factor, leaving Barry exhausted after his fight with Shrapnel. Luckily, Kramer’s been pulling enough weight at the office for both of them on the department’s investigation into possible police corruption. But with Barry too cautious to use his powers to help him with his CSI work, he begins to wonder how useful he really is to the force.

This issue reads a lot like a hangover after last issue’s power trip. Barry feels awful – emotionally and physically – after his encounter with Shrapnel and his inability to contribute at work without his usual powers; and it feels as though he resents needing other people’s help to do his job. It’s not quite the “black suit” type story I was expecting going off last issue, but I’m enjoying this twist on Barry’s normal self-loathing.

  Batgirl #14

I haven’t picked this series up in a while, but seeing that this issue began an arc with Nightwing and flashbacks, I had a feeling it’d be right up my alley…and it is!

Batgirl and Nightwing both receive a text from an unknown source, and find a couple of henchman who remind them of someone they knew for a summer back when they were younger. The henchmen tell them that blood is on their hands before committing suicide. They both agree that only one other person would know about that summer, and track down the Mad Hatter.

And in flashback, we find out who that person was – a woman named Ainsley who substitute taught Barbara’s computer science class during her first semester in Gotham. The flashbacks also show us some of the earliest moments in Barbara and Dick’s relationship.

Man do I love me some DickBabs. The flashback scenes make this book worth it for me; seeing tiny Robin trying to flirt with Batgirl…and it slowly working as she realizes he’s actually kind of cute and has his own depth. It’s what I want from my comics, truly. I generally hate teen drama, but throw in some superheroes or murders or whatever – a splash of camp and color – and I am there!

  Nightwing: The New Order #1

One issue in and I can already tell that DC is drinking Marvel’s milkshake with this one. Using the same conceit of Secret Empire, only doing it as an out-of-canon story, setting up that it actually plans to show how a hero could slide into fascistic behavior instead of just having it come from a magic cube, and also limiting it to only six issues.

In 2028, Nightwing is forced to use a device that depowers 90% of the metahuman population on Earth, and in 2040, leads “the Crusaders” in an effort to depower the remaining 10%. His secret identity now public knowledge, Dick is a celebrity, widely applauded for saving the world and doing what’s necessary to keep the peace. And though Dick believes he is doing the right thing, and the hard thing, he’s finding it harder to live with the knowledge that he’s disappointing those closest to him, like Alfred Pennyworth; and refuses to talk about what happened to his son, Jake.

As of this first issue, this story is already doing a number of things better than Secret Empire. Besides what I already noted above, one big thing is that the story makes Dick a tool of a fascist government rather than its leader. Dick is an enforcer and a conduit for the anti-meta laws; but as far as we know, he didn’t make them. They were a reaction to a choice he made in the past – a choice that apparently saved the world – and he’s still trying to save it by doing what he still believes to be the best course of action by catching and depowering supers. The book is already exploring how fascism rewards it’s participants by making them believe that they’re doing what’s best for the world by fighting a force that would mean their end. We can still sympathize with Dick, not just because he believes what he’s doing is right, but because he’s being told by everyone around him that it is, even when he has his own doubts.

  Shipwreck #4 and #5

Dr. Shipwright meets an engineer in the wasteland attempting to build her own trans-dimensional apporter, and we discover the final moments of the Janus experiment that caused him to be stranded on another Earth. Then, the Engineer reveals that she has a piece of Janus, a piece that has a chance of helping Shipwright return home; but he’ll have to make a deal with someone from his past before he can use it.

Neither issue feels like enough of the story on their own, so I’m glad that I managed to pick both up together after forgetting I hadn’t read issue #4 when it came out. Also, unlike the previous issues, there’s no time-skip between these two, making them feel even more like a pair. Being the penultimate two issues, it also makes sense that these finally fill us in on almost all of the missing pieces of Shipwright’s past. But, as close as we are to leaving this world – presumably – issue #5 in particular provides enough out-there imagery of it, such as children wearing brown paper bags on their head using a telephone pole as a maypole outside a burning church, that kind of makes me wish we had more room to explore.

Comic Reviews for 8/23/17 Secret Empire #9 I'm honestly just tired of this story at this point. This is, like, the third issue of just spinning tires.

15 Best Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series

When “Batman: The Animated Series” was first announced, many people assumed it was just a grab for popularity from the movies, but it was much more. First airing in 1992, the TV series was a groundbreaking show that ran for 86 episodes and achieved critical acclaim for its dark tone, film noir visual style, complex writing and faithfulness to the comics.

RELATED: The 15 Best Villains in “Batman: The Animated Series”

It had a lasting impact, launching the DC animated universe, leading directly to “Superman: The Animated Series,” “Justice League” and others. It also set a new tone for children’s television, showing how an action series could be exciting and well-written while pushing boundaries. It was also just a lot of fun. Here at CBR, we decided it was long overdue to run down the 15 best episodes of the groundbreaking series.

THE DEMON’S QUEST

Written by the legendary Dennis O’Neil and Len Wein, and directed by Kevin Altieri, “The Demon’s Quest” was a two-part episode that first aired in May 1993. When Robin was kidnapped, Batman was confronted by Ra’s Al Ghul, who had figured out his secret identity as Bruce Wayne. Ra’s claimed he needed Batman’s help to track down his daughter, Talia. When Batman agreed, they were led on a global chase that leads to dark secrets.

“The Demon’s Quest” introduced Ra’s Al Ghul, a legendary villain in the comics but not well-known in any other adaptations, and showed the great intelligence and power he wielded that made him a threat to the Great Detective. It took the Dark Knight to other countries and made him a more global hero, and also showed how the series was dedicated to bringing the comic book world to life, not just showing Batman in an animated form. Besides all that, it was just plain awesome.

I AM THE NIGHT

“I Am The Night” (written by Michael Reaves, and directed by Boyd Kirkland) aired in November 1992, and focused on the motives behind Batman. Set on the anniversary of his parents’ death, the escape of the Penguin left Batman struggling with whether he had actually done any good in his fight against crime, especially when he tried to stop an escaped mob boss known as Jazzman. Along the way, he came across a young boy who scorned Batman, but later came to understand and appreciate his influence.

“I Am The Night” was one of a long line of surprisingly emotional episodes for the series, which wasn’t afraid to explore the psychological tone of Batman. His constant struggle against crime took its toll on him and he was plagued with uncertainty over his motives, but it also worked as a fun and exciting story. “I Am The Night” was a haunting and moving episode, unlike anything we expected to see in children’s television at the time.

ROBIN’S RECKONING

In February 1993, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired the two-part episode “Robin’s Reckoning,” written by Randy Rogel and directed by Dick Sebast. In the episode, Robin came across a mobster named Tony Zucco, the man who caused the death of his circus-performer parents, leaving him an orphan. Despite Batman’s efforts to stop him, Robin set out to get Zucco, and was forced to confront the man and see whether he would kill for his revenge.

“Robin’s Reckoning” was a surprisingly powerful and dark episode, exploring Robin’s grief, his origin and the price of revenge. It also tied into Batman’s own grief and pursuit of revenge for his own parents’ death. The episode has been critically acclaimed, earning the animated series an Emmy award for “Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour).” It’s also just a great treatment of Robin and one of the few Robin-focused episodes of the series.

IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AREN’T YOU RICH?

Written by David Wise and directed by Eric Radomski, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich” aired in November 1992 and introduced the Riddler to the series. When the frustrated computer game designer Edward Nygma was fired by his company, he was taunted by his boss with the title phrase. Nygma returned as the puzzle-obsessed criminal the Riddler, determined to punish his old boss for stealing from him. It was then up to Batman to match wits with him.

The Riddler had become known as a chaotic and hyperactive villain in the 1960s Batman TV series, but the animated series made him a much more deadly and stable enemy. Instead of a series of bad jokes, the Riddler used a wide variety of puzzles and games to exact his revenge, and the riddles were much more sophisticated and clever than the ’60s version. It was another great villain made better by the animated show.

READ MY LIPS

Written by Joe R. Lansdale, Alan Burnett and Michael Reaves, and directed by Boyd Kirkland, “Read My Lips” brought Scarface and the Ventriloquist into the animated series. In the May 1993 episode, Batman is fighting a crime spree led by a mysterious man known as Scarface, who turns out to be a ventriloquist’s dummy. Yes, in this episode, Batman’s nemesis is a wooden dummy or at least the meek man who controls the dummy and treats Scarface as if he’s alive.

The writers on the animated series did a great job on the big bads like Hugo Strange, but also had an amazing gift to take some of the worst and least interesting characters in Batman’s rogues gallery and make them the best. The Ventriloquist is a perfect example, a bizarre and demented villain who shines in this episode. When Batman stumbles across Scarface lying in bed, alone, there’s a moment where he watches it as if waiting for the doll to come to life. In a world of human crocodiles and evil clowns, a living doll kind of made sense.

JOKER’S FAVOR

The seventh episode of the animated series was “Joker’s Favor,” written by Paul Dini, directed by Boyd Kirkland, and airing in September 1992. In the episode, an average guy named Charlie Collins cursed out a car in traffic, only to discover the driver was the Joker himself. When Charlie begged for his life, the Joker made him promise to do him a favor. Years later, even though Charlie changed his name and left Gotham, the Joker tracked him down to collect.

The idea of a road rage incident making someone a target of the Joker is funny enough, but the Joker’s dogged pursuit of a normal man makes this one of the strangest things he’s ever done. The episode is also noteworthy as the first appearance of the Joker on the show, and also the first appearance of Harley Quinn in any medium. It’s a great episode and one of the Joker’s best on the series.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM

Directed by Boyd Kirkland and written by Laren Bright, Michael Reaves and Joe R. Lansdale, “Perchance to Dream” aired on October 19, 1992. In the episode, Batman was knocked out and woke up in a world where his parents never died, and he never became Batman. He’s engaged to Selina Kyle (who never became Catwoman), and seems to be a happy man. While it seems like his fondest wishes have come true, Bruce began to suspect something was horribly wrong and finds the disturbing truth.

For an action series, this was a bold move for the show, since there really wasn’t a villain in most of it. This is also a particularly emotional episode, showing how Bruce Wayne would trade all his skills and power for a happy life, and shows how much he lost in his pursuit of his war on crime. It’s a favorite among fans and even Kevin Conroy (who voiced Batman in the series) called it his favorite episode of the entire series.

NOTHING TO FEAR

“Nothing to Fear” aired in 1992, and was the 10th episode to air overall on the animated series. Written by Henry Gilroy and Sean Catherine Derek, and directed by Boyd Kirkland, “Nothing to Fear” introduced one of Batman’s most feared enemies, the Scarecrow. When a university in Gotham went through seemingly horrific attacks, Batman discovered a madman dressed like a scarecrow was behind them. A former professor who specialized in the study of fear, the Scarecrow was trying to get revenge on the university for firing him. When Batman was exposed to the Scarecrow’s gas, he began having hallucinations of his own greatest fear: his parents being disappointed in him.

Like many other episodes on the animated series, “Nothing to Fear” nailed and brought to life a villain from the comics. The Scarecrow’s origin was really good and his hallucinations scary. Batman’s hallucinations also really took a dramatic twist to the story, showing what the man who brings fear to evildoers actually fears himself.

HARLEY AND IVY

Written by Paul Dini and directed by Boyd Kirkland, the episode “Harley and Ivy” aired in 1993 and made a huge impact. In it, Joker’s sidekick girlfriend, Harley Quinn, broke up with the Joker and decided to strike out on her own. When she met Poison Ivy, the two went on a crime spree. As they proved to be surprisingly effective, the Joker tried to get her back with Batman set to take them both down.

This episode teamed up Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the first time, a pairing that’s proved so popular that they continued to be partners in the show, and even in the comic book continuity. The two will probably also be partnered on the pending “Gotham City Sirens” movie coming soon. The episode was also fun on its own and way more female-centric than others with a moment where they blew up a car full of catcalling men, making female viewers everywhere cheer.

FEAT OF CLAY

Written by Marv Wolfman and Michael Reaves, and directed by Dick Sebast (Part 1) and Kevin Altieri (Part 2), the two-part episode “Feat of Clay” aired in 1992, introducing Clayface. When the actor Matt Hagen is attacked by mobsters, he is forced to drink an experimental drug that turns him into a clay-like creature, able to change his shape and appearance at will. Calling himself Clayface, he set out to get revenge on the mobster, while fighting Batman who was trying to stop him from going too far.

Once again, the animated series showed a surprising range for action shows at the time with a dark and mature tone, even while staying safe for kids. The scene of Hagen being held down while the thugs poured the Renuyu into his mouth, even in silhouette, stood out as a horrifying scene for any show. The episode also made Clayface a sympathetic villain, reminding us of how the series reached for compassion even in criminals.

TWO-FACE

In 1992, the series aired another two-part episode, “Two-Face.” Written by Randy Rogel and Alan Burnett, and directed by Kevin Altieri, the episodes introduced the villain Two-Face, formerly known as district attorney Harvey Dent. Successful and well-respected by Gotham City, Dent’s face was scarred by acid, which caused his personality to warp. Originally a beacon of justice, he now was a man who flipped a coin to make all his decisions. He used his skills and knowledge to get revenge on the mobster who disfigured him.

Brilliantly voiced by Richard Moll, the episode took the time to introduce the villain Two-Face in two episodes, and also introduced the idea that Dent was schizophrenic before his accident. Setting Bruce Wayne and Dent as friends, it’s more tragic when Two-Face tears them apart. The episode has drama and emotion on a level we had rarely seen in children’s television, let alone a Batman show. Just like the Riddler, the animated series was able to take a classic villain and make him even better.

BEWARE THE GRAY GHOST

In 1992, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired “Beware the Gray Ghost,” an episode (written by Dennis O’Flaherty and Tom Ruegger, and directed by Boyd Kirkland) about an aging actor who once played the superhero known as the Gray Ghost on TV, but was now long forgotten. His life changes when he gets a visit from Batman, who’s trying to track down an old episode because someone is copying a crime committed in it. Along the way, Batman gives the old man his dignity and his heroism back.

The episode delved deeper into Batman’s origin, revealing how his love of a pulp character inspired him to become Batman, something that had never been a part of his past in the comics, arguably but should have been. At his heart, Batman was just a fanboy like all of us. As if that weren’t enough, the episode had the 1960s’ Batman, Adam West, voice the Gray Ghost, bringing him full-circle into the Batman franchise.

THE LAUGHING FISH

In 1993, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired “The Laughing Fish,” where the Joker used a toxin to deform Gotham’s fish with hideous smiles and threatened the patent office to try to copyright them. Written by Paul Dini and directed by Bruce Timm, Batman had to protect the people whom the villain targeted while trying to track down the clown, and the episode ended with Batman fighting a giant shark. It really had everything we wanted from a Joker and Batman story.

“The Laughing Fish” was actually based on three different Batman comics; “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” from “Batman” #251 (from 1973 by Denny O’Neil with art by Neal Adams), “The Laughing Fish” from “Detective Comics” #475 and “Sign of the Joker” from “Detective Comics” #476 (1978, both by writer Steve Englehart with art by Marshall Rogers). It was funny and scary with great action sequences, and stands above all other Joker stories in the series, of which there were many.

ALMOST GOT ‘IM

In 1992, “Almost Got ‘Im” first aired, written by Paul Dini and directed by Eric Radomski. The episode was a frame story with five of Batman’s villains (Killer Croc, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and the Joker) all playing a poker game and telling a story of how close they came to killing Batman. The stories they tell range from funny (Killer Croc’s “I threw a rock at ‘im”) to the bizarre (Penguin covering him in nectar so hummingbirds would peck him to death), but all are very entertaining. The episode even had a twist ending.

“Almost Got ‘Im” was like five episodes in one with a wide variety of concepts and tone, giving each villain a chance to shine. The episode even managed to give the origin to the Batcave’s famous giant penny. It was a wonderful chance to show how the “BTAS” was willing to explore different story structures, not just “Batman meets villains and fights them.” No, this show tried to keep it fresh and interesting, and it succeeded in doing exactly that.

HEART OF ICE

Written by Paul Dini, and directed by Bruce Timm, “Heart of Ice” aired in 1992, and was about the origin of the ice-powered villain Mister Freeze. When a series of thefts go down in Gotham City, Batman discovered they were pulled off by Mister Freeze, a man with a gun that instantly freezes anything and is forced to wear a suit that keeps him in sub-zero temperatures. As Batman tried to fight Mister Freeze, he discovered the tragic origin of his enemy.

Throughout his incarnations prior to this episode, Mister Freeze was always a minor villain in Batman’s rogues’ gallery, a gimmick who was overshadowed by more popular villains like the Joker. “Heart of Ice” changed all that with a backstory involving his lost wife who was cryogenically frozen and an accident that gave Freeze his new icy curse while trying to save her. The origin was so moving that it was copied shot-for-shot in the 1997 movie, “Batman and Robin.” It was also a game-changer for “Batman: TAS,” an episode that won the show an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.”

What did you think of “Batman: The Animated Series?” Let us know in the comments which episodes were your favorites!

The post 15 Best Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series appeared first on CBR.com.

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5 People Who Ruled At Things They Had No Right to Even Try

If we were to tell you the person who performed your emergency appendectomy wasn’t an actual surgeon — just some guy who happened to be giving a sing telegram to the hospital that day, and figured he was good with knives, so why not? — you might be a bit miffed. But what if he is not simply saved your life, he included a few inches there while he was at it. Yes, there . Suddenly you’re not mad; you’re simply amazed. He had no business doing it at all, yet he altogether exceeded. Just like …

5

A 61 -Year-Old Hillbilly Reigns His Very First Ultramarathon

If marathons exist for beings to prove that they’re intrinsically better than you, ultra marathons exist to reproach you for describing the same air as their players. And Australia’s Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon is the steeple. The occurrence consisted of a 544 -mile run — we’d give up on driving that — across merciles and unforgiving area. So imagine everyone’s bombshell back in 1983, when a 61 -year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young lined up right alongside the strapping young deities and goddesses that are commonly go in for this sort of situation. Literally toothless, dressed in gumboots and long trousers, he ran in a creepy old-man shuffle. Cliff further been demonstrated that he was a virgin who still lived with his mom — as though that needed elaborating.

By the end of day 2, Cliff was not only markedly less dead than everyone expected, but had a sizeable lead on his contestants. This was largely due to his coach-and-four/ insane friend Wally Zeuschner who, after an wearying first day of ranging, inadvertently determined Cliff’s alarm clock for 2AM. For the rest of the hasten, Wally “ve been there”, informing Cliff that sleep was for pussies, and hacking off foot cysts with a rabbit spear. When Cliff shuffled his route into Melbourne, he wasn’t merely ahead of his competitors — he was miles and miles onward, having knocked a good two goddamned epoches off the previous evidence for the course.

Cliff passed away at persons under the age of 81, but his influence on the play is still evident today. In tell to eke out the maximum possible execution, ultramarathoners now go to bed afterwards, get up earlier, and run in an odd gait that attains them look like fitness zombies.

4

Nigel Richards Acquires A French Scrabble Tournament Despite Not Expressing A Word Of French

This is Nigel Richards, a Scrabble World Champion and Undefeated Beardmaster.

A native New Zealander, Nigel acquired his national entitle before going on to land European, North American, and macrocosm designations as well. And that’s no aim feat, considering the first time he played the game, he was 28 years old. So where does a World Champion drive, formerly he’s entirely reigned the English-speaking Scrabble scene? Why, he moves on to another language, of course. Even if he doesn’t speak it .

In 2015, Nigel easily took the French macrocosm title with a tally of 565-434 over the Scrabble-nightmare-named Schelick Ilagou Rekawe, and he did it without knowing a lick of French .

How is that even possible? Simply set: Nigel is a mutant. That’s … that’s actually the only rationale. In part of the preparations for the tournament, he just picked up the French Scrabble dictionary and memorized the words. All of them . He may not have had a clue what the vast majority of them intended, but he could play ’em. And he did. And he won. And that’s not humanly possible, so Sentinels are already on the best way of his house.

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Ray Stanford Finds Just … All Of The Dinosaur Fossils( Where Experts Said There Were None )

Anybody with a scourge and a fedora to their refer knew that Washington DC was an archaeological dead zone, due to its iron-rich geology. Unfortunately, College Park, Maryland native and self-taught paleontologist Ray Stanford only had math-teacher glasses and a bolo tie. He didn’t know DC was devoid of dinosaurs. So there was nothing to stop him from going there, and finding some.

Smithsonian Institute Well, besides geology .

Since 1994, Ray has spent his free time stomping through streambeds and accumulating dinosaur tracks — tracks which, prior to Ray’s discovery, had never been found in the area. He then lends the fogies to his collection at the Stanford Museum … AKA his living room, which examines “like a stone quarry exploded.” When Robert Bakker, readily the most famous paleontologist of the past century, toured Ray’s collection in person, he said, “My jaw abode dropped for the purposes of an hour.”

Marvin Joseph/ The Washington Post Dr. Alan Grant, however, abode thoroughly unimpressed .

The ornaments of Ray’s collection are a pterosaur track so large that it collapses the previously consented sizing of the beasts, and the teensy hatchling footprints of a species Ray personally dubbed Hypsiloichnus marylandicus . That’s just one of various fossils in his collection that the Smithsonian doesn’t even have bones for yet.

So why hasn’t some foundation gifted Ray an honorary doctorate, and applied his skills to official implement? Possibly because all this paleontology business is just a surface gig to his true fury: spy UFOs.

Yep, that’ll do it .

2

An Undertaker Revolutionized Telecommunications To Spite A Rival

In Kansas City, 1878, Almon Strowger’s initiating business was booming. This was 1878: Life was inexpensive, but apparently extinction wasn’t. A new mortician opened up store only down the road, and before you knew it, Strowger’s customer base dried up. Possibly literally.

This was back in the working day when, in order to make a telephone call, a caller firstly “ve spoken to” business operators, who in turn connected them to their defendant. As it turns out, the upstart undertaker was married to an operator at the local phone company. When callers rang up and asked to be connected to Strowger’s Crematorium Emporium, she’d simply connect them to her husband’s place instead. Plainly, this villainous programme involved a mixture, and for that, Strowger had to tap his flavour animal: Wile E. Coyote.

As a child, Strowger was quite the discoverer, whipping up complicated gizmoes to get out of doing chores. So he decided that the telecommunications industry certainly required a road for callers to immediately connect to one another, thereby eliminating the middleman( and pitching any particular asshole hustler straight out onto the street ), and got to work.

With some help from his nephew, and backing from a few business partners, Strowger developed a operating prototype of the Strowger switch. He patented the fabrication in 1891. In 1892, he built his very own phone company in La Porte, Indiana. Though Strowger was ultimately return to the undertaking biz in 1902, his invention would change telecommunications eternally. And that, boys and girls, is how the minds of the retaliation developed your iPhone.

1

John Corcoran Was A College Graduate, A Beloved High School Teacher, And A Real Estate Wizard( All While Totally Illiterate )

After breezing through both college and grad school, John Corcoran became a highly regarded teacher, before eventually transitioning to the field of real estate, where, by the age of 48, he applied 200 parties, was a multimillionaire, and lived in the lap of luxury in a $ 600,000 villa overlooking the Pacific.

John Corcoran Foundation via NPR “I’m carrying this book exclusively for self-defense! ”

John’s inability to read was clear in elementary school. In his paroles, trying to read characters was like “looking at Chinese, at scribbles.” Of trend, this being 1940 s America, his schoolteachers simply called him lazy and encouraged him to “smart harder.” Left to his own designs, John became a genuinely colossal crook. He convinced others to do his work for him and, in high school, even dated the valedictorian — so she could do his homework for him.

He chiselled his way into a teaching gig, where he was well-loved by his high school students — for them, social-studies class meant tossing the textbook aside and participating in an impromptu debate, what’s suspicious about that ?! — and he generally “re going away” with it. Then one darknes, the jig was up. As John “read” a children’s story to his minors, his wife listened in. She realized he was just stimulating shit up as he went along, and announced him out on it. He has since haunted tutoring, and acted through his illiteracy. Hell, he’s even authored two books on the subject. Truly, it’s an inspiring narrative. You can cheat your behavior through anything!

It’s Happiness Week here at Cracked, so make sure to check back every day for content that’ll concede you respite from a hard period. And don’t annoy, if you missed a period, they are able to check out everything we’ve done here . For more heroes missing their capes, check out The 20 Most Amazing Beings You’ve Ever heard Of and 18 Beings Who Are Incredible At Everyday Jobs . Subscribe to our YouTube path, and check out 5 Beings Who Are Way Too Good At Crappy Jobs, and other videos you won’t witness on the locate !

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5 People Who Ruled At Things They Had No Right to Even Try

If we were to tell you the person who performed your emergency appendectomy wasn’t an actual surgeon — just some guy who happened to be giving a sing telegram to the hospital that day, and figured he was good with knives, so why not? — you might be a bit miffed. But what if he is not simply saved your life, he included a few inches there while he was at it. Yes, there . Suddenly you’re not mad; you’re simply amazed. He had no business doing it at all, yet he altogether exceeded. Just like …

5

A 61 -Year-Old Hillbilly Reigns His Very First Ultramarathon

If marathons exist for beings to prove that they’re intrinsically better than you, ultra marathons exist to reproach you for describing the same air as their players. And Australia’s Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon is the steeple. The occurrence consisted of a 544 -mile run — we’d give up on driving that — across merciles and unforgiving area. So imagine everyone’s bombshell back in 1983, when a 61 -year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young lined up right alongside the strapping young deities and goddesses that are commonly go in for this sort of situation. Literally toothless, dressed in gumboots and long trousers, he ran in a creepy old-man shuffle. Cliff further been demonstrated that he was a virgin who still lived with his mom — as though that needed elaborating.

By the end of day 2, Cliff was not only markedly less dead than everyone expected, but had a sizeable lead on his contestants. This was largely due to his coach-and-four/ insane friend Wally Zeuschner who, after an wearying first day of ranging, inadvertently determined Cliff’s alarm clock for 2AM. For the rest of the hasten, Wally “ve been there”, informing Cliff that sleep was for pussies, and hacking off foot cysts with a rabbit spear. When Cliff shuffled his route into Melbourne, he wasn’t merely ahead of his competitors — he was miles and miles onward, having knocked a good two goddamned epoches off the previous evidence for the course.

Cliff passed away at persons under the age of 81, but his influence on the play is still evident today. In tell to eke out the maximum possible execution, ultramarathoners now go to bed afterwards, get up earlier, and run in an odd gait that attains them look like fitness zombies.

4

Nigel Richards Acquires A French Scrabble Tournament Despite Not Expressing A Word Of French

This is Nigel Richards, a Scrabble World Champion and Undefeated Beardmaster.

A native New Zealander, Nigel acquired his national entitle before going on to land European, North American, and macrocosm designations as well. And that’s no aim feat, considering the first time he played the game, he was 28 years old. So where does a World Champion drive, formerly he’s entirely reigned the English-speaking Scrabble scene? Why, he moves on to another language, of course. Even if he doesn’t speak it .

In 2015, Nigel easily took the French macrocosm title with a tally of 565-434 over the Scrabble-nightmare-named Schelick Ilagou Rekawe, and he did it without knowing a lick of French .

How is that even possible? Simply set: Nigel is a mutant. That’s … that’s actually the only rationale. In part of the preparations for the tournament, he just picked up the French Scrabble dictionary and memorized the words. All of them . He may not have had a clue what the vast majority of them intended, but he could play ’em. And he did. And he won. And that’s not humanly possible, so Sentinels are already on the best way of his house.

3

Ray Stanford Finds Just … All Of The Dinosaur Fossils( Where Experts Said There Were None )

Anybody with a scourge and a fedora to their refer knew that Washington DC was an archaeological dead zone, due to its iron-rich geology. Unfortunately, College Park, Maryland native and self-taught paleontologist Ray Stanford only had math-teacher glasses and a bolo tie. He didn’t know DC was devoid of dinosaurs. So there was nothing to stop him from going there, and finding some.

Smithsonian Institute Well, besides geology .

Since 1994, Ray has spent his free time stomping through streambeds and accumulating dinosaur tracks — tracks which, prior to Ray’s discovery, had never been found in the area. He then lends the fogies to his collection at the Stanford Museum … AKA his living room, which examines “like a stone quarry exploded.” When Robert Bakker, readily the most famous paleontologist of the past century, toured Ray’s collection in person, he said, “My jaw abode dropped for the purposes of an hour.”

Marvin Joseph/ The Washington Post Dr. Alan Grant, however, abode thoroughly unimpressed .

The ornaments of Ray’s collection are a pterosaur track so large that it collapses the previously consented sizing of the beasts, and the teensy hatchling footprints of a species Ray personally dubbed Hypsiloichnus marylandicus . That’s just one of various fossils in his collection that the Smithsonian doesn’t even have bones for yet.

So why hasn’t some foundation gifted Ray an honorary doctorate, and applied his skills to official implement? Possibly because all this paleontology business is just a surface gig to his true fury: spy UFOs.

Yep, that’ll do it .

2

An Undertaker Revolutionized Telecommunications To Spite A Rival

In Kansas City, 1878, Almon Strowger’s initiating business was booming. This was 1878: Life was inexpensive, but apparently extinction wasn’t. A new mortician opened up store only down the road, and before you knew it, Strowger’s customer base dried up. Possibly literally.

This was back in the working day when, in order to make a telephone call, a caller firstly “ve spoken to” business operators, who in turn connected them to their defendant. As it turns out, the upstart undertaker was married to an operator at the local phone company. When callers rang up and asked to be connected to Strowger’s Crematorium Emporium, she’d simply connect them to her husband’s place instead. Plainly, this villainous programme involved a mixture, and for that, Strowger had to tap his flavour animal: Wile E. Coyote.

As a child, Strowger was quite the discoverer, whipping up complicated gizmoes to get out of doing chores. So he decided that the telecommunications industry certainly required a road for callers to immediately connect to one another, thereby eliminating the middleman( and pitching any particular asshole hustler straight out onto the street ), and got to work.

With some help from his nephew, and backing from a few business partners, Strowger developed a operating prototype of the Strowger switch. He patented the fabrication in 1891. In 1892, he built his very own phone company in La Porte, Indiana. Though Strowger was ultimately return to the undertaking biz in 1902, his invention would change telecommunications eternally. And that, boys and girls, is how the minds of the retaliation developed your iPhone.

1

John Corcoran Was A College Graduate, A Beloved High School Teacher, And A Real Estate Wizard( All While Totally Illiterate )

After breezing through both college and grad school, John Corcoran became a highly regarded teacher, before eventually transitioning to the field of real estate, where, by the age of 48, he applied 200 parties, was a multimillionaire, and lived in the lap of luxury in a $ 600,000 villa overlooking the Pacific.

John Corcoran Foundation via NPR “I’m carrying this book exclusively for self-defense! ”

John’s inability to read was clear in elementary school. In his paroles, trying to read characters was like “looking at Chinese, at scribbles.” Of trend, this being 1940 s America, his schoolteachers simply called him lazy and encouraged him to “smart harder.” Left to his own designs, John became a genuinely colossal crook. He convinced others to do his work for him and, in high school, even dated the valedictorian — so she could do his homework for him.

He chiselled his way into a teaching gig, where he was well-loved by his high school students — for them, social-studies class meant tossing the textbook aside and participating in an impromptu debate, what’s suspicious about that ?! — and he generally “re going away” with it. Then one darknes, the jig was up. As John “read” a children’s story to his minors, his wife listened in. She realized he was just stimulating shit up as he went along, and announced him out on it. He has since haunted tutoring, and acted through his illiteracy. Hell, he’s even authored two books on the subject. Truly, it’s an inspiring narrative. You can cheat your behavior through anything!

It’s Happiness Week here at Cracked, so make sure to check back every day for content that’ll concede you respite from a hard period. And don’t annoy, if you missed a period, they are able to check out everything we’ve done here . For more heroes missing their capes, check out The 20 Most Amazing Beings You’ve Ever heard Of and 18 Beings Who Are Incredible At Everyday Jobs . Subscribe to our YouTube path, and check out 5 Beings Who Are Way Too Good At Crappy Jobs, and other videos you won’t witness on the locate !

Follow us on Facebook, and we’ll follow you everywhere .

The post 5 People Who Ruled At Things They Had No Right to Even Try appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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