THE DEATH OF BATMAN

I read, and review comic books, and if there’s one term that succinctly sums up what going on with the entire mainstream comic book industry today, it is the term ‘Global-Homo.’


Here me out. Don’t get triggered. I have something to say. You can call me a bigot later, and I will get to Batman, but I need to define my term first. ‘Global-Homo’ is a term used to categorise, broadly speaking, the mainstream progressive entertainment and news propaganda complex.

It is not about hating on homosexuality. It’s about triggering the mainstream institutionalised, establishment left, and calling them out for what they are actually doing.

So, what are they doing on Global-Homo? Lots of things, and they’re all degenerate, and none of it is good for you, your family, and most importantly, your children.

One of the major projects of Global-Homo is to subvert traditional male/female gender roles. This is being done under the guise of equality, but is actually about lowering the birth rates of people of European ancestry. The propaganda of Global-Homo pushes the cucking of white males, turning them into beta-male losers, and advocates for the career advancement of non-breeding white females. The men will have their computer games and porn, and the women will have their precious careers. Homosexuality alone cannot lower the birth-rate enough because homosexuality itself is not quite as common as Global-Homo likes to make out, so it’s the cucking of males and empowerment of masculine femininity that’s the key here.

Convince the men to play second fiddle to their women, and convince the women that they don’t need men at all, that a career can replace the joys of motherhood and traditional family life. This is Global-Homo, and it’s a genetic attack on the future of white, western civilisation. If there are no children, no families, no husbands and wives, there is no future.

Why are they doing this, and what is the end-goal here?

It’s about control. White men are a problem, because an increasingly large number of them are stubbornly rejecting Global-Homo programming. It appears that the supposed patriarchal oppressors (aka working class, blue collar white men) just won’t go along with the propaganda, and that’s a real problem to the hidden masters of the world. So, how do you sort out the stubborn individuals that refuse to accept open-border (not for Israel, obviously) multicultural, race-mixed utopianism?

Simply put, if they can’t be convinced to go along with the programme, then you just have to get rid of them, which leads me to the death of Batman.

Batman is a problem because Bruce Wayne wins with smarts, determination, training and toughness. He wins because he works harder, thinks harder, fights harder. That kind of guy, yeah he’s rich, but he’s just a guy with no super-powers, might encourage the little white boys to strive, to be better, to be a hero and to do things for themselves. Independence, self-determination and an ethos of hard graft, pain and toil has to be nipped at the bud. Global-Homo is about the communist adherence to universalism over meritocracy, about mediocrity over excellence, so the hard-working, tough guy Batman is a huge problem. Bruce Wayne, like Wolverine, a character who Marvel is currently (reluctantly) resuscitating from the dead, is simply put, too independently masculine to be allowed on the comic book plantation today.

But how do you destroy a character like Batman? The fans wouldn’t like it, and no, they wouldn’t. That’s why Marvel has been forced to bring Wolverine back, they demanded it. Apparently his replacement, a teenage girl called Laura, just wasn’t cutting it. DC, perhaps learning from Marvel’s policy of replacing the straight white men with Mary-Sue female characters, has been a lot smarter than their rivals. You don’t kill off the independent masculine striver. You just kill off his character instead. Add soy, as Ethan Van Sciver would say, and the masculine man becomes somewhat less masculine than he used to be.

Buy any DC Batman book today, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You’ll see a man who looks like Batman, but is anything but.

Bruce ‘Batman’ Wayne, as written today, is a limp, weak, angst ridden, pathetic, progressive, soy boy, lost-boy, beta-male cuck who wants nothing more than to fade into the shadows, and hand over the reigns of control.

Read a Batman story, any of them, and you will see, that no matter who the writer is, from Tom King, to Scott Snyder, to James Tynion IV, to Bryan Hill, or even Sean Murphy, that Batman is the least important character in every single book.

Global-Homo Batman has become a passenger in his own life story, and he will consistently stand-down, and allow the heroic victim groups on Global-Homo, to do the work that he used to do.

Bruce Wayne has become a stand-in for the progressive writers’ view of themselves. Their role, as they see it, is to act as facilitators of a new, non-white, non-masculine future. They write Batman as a shell of what he used to be, because he is the past, obviously, well, he’s a straight white man, isn’t he? Why write about the past? Why write about old white guys? Write about the future, a future that looks just the city that we live in. It’s great. It’s progressive. Don’t forget to double lock the front door, and don’t walk alone late at night.

Batman is dead, and DC killed him, deliberately, because he is white, because he is male, because he’s the past.

How can we change this? How can we breathe new life into Bruce Wayne, and make Batman great again?

I’ve got some bad news for you. We cannot change this. Batman is on the Global-Homo plantation, and he is going to stay there for the rest of his undead-life. DC has hired many different writers to portray him, and in the vast majority of the books he’s a cucked beta male loser, the past, yesterday’s news, anachronistic, a facilitator for the diverse replacements that will progressively, and rightfully take his place.

Just look at the last issue of Tom King’s Batman #49. It barely featured Bruce Wayne at all. The book, which is duplicating the emasculation of the male character as seen in his Mister Miracle title, relegated Batman to a defeated, castrated, whimpering voice underneath a pile of bricks as Catwoman (his wife to be) did all of the fighting for him.

What woman would marry a man so pathetic that she has to engage in physical combat to protect him from his enemies? Protection is the masculine role, and is the reason that men have approximately 40% more muscle-mass than the fairer sex. And remember, this is Batman we are talking about, a man who is supposed to be a hero for young boys, a man that a boy would want to be, when he’s all grown up.

Tom King’s Batman is not Batman. He is a pathetic, laughable, beta-male loser.

Don’t think that this will change when King finally leaves the book, because it won’t. He will be replaced by another Trump hating progressive, and the agenda will remain the same. Cucking the males is the norm in mainstream comics. This is the message that the progressive comic book writers want to send to young boys, and girls living in America, and what remains of Europe today, and they are proud of it. Go on twitter, and you’ll see them boasting about it every single day.

Batman is no longer Batman.

Batman is dead.

Luke Skywalker is dead.

Han Solo is dead.

I could add more names to the list, but you get the picture.

Our childhood heroes have been murdered by Global-Homo, and they are not coming back, but that doesn’t mean that the fight is over.

The fight is never over.

Global-Homo owns the heroes of our past, and they have cucked, and murdered them with glee. That is a fact, and we need to move on from it.

Each and every one of us has a spark of creativity within us, and we need to start creating new narratives, and original heroes of our own. I have done just that, and I have two new heroes to offer you, right here and right now.

My novel, ‘Invasion of the Red Light Spiders,’ is available on Amazon right now, in paperback and Kindle, and features independent, courageous, autonomous, heroic strivers who are fighting against the same (((nameless))) enemies that we all face today.

Batman is dead, but there are new heroes waiting to be discovered. I offer you my new heroes, and look forward to reading your own creations.

You can stay in the past, hoping for useless change, but the future really is undecided, and you can make it what you want it to be. All you need to do is leave the old heroes behind, reach out, grab the future, in tough, hardened, callused masculine hands, and make it better than the dead progressive dust that lingers, acrid and stale in the deserted hallways of today.


Links to my novel:

'INVASION OF THE RED LIGHT SPIDERS'


UK (Kindle):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D9MPNXN/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1527272592&sr=1-1&keywords=Invasion+of+the+Red+Light+Spiders

U.K. (Paperback):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1982995467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527272627&sr=1-1&keywords=Invasion+of+the+Red+Light+Spiders

US (Kindle):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9MPNXN/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1527272506&sr=1-1&keywords=Invasion+of+the+red+light+spiders

US (Paperback):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982995467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527272550&sr=1-1&keywords=Invasion+of+the+Red+Light+Spiders

Comic review: Robin War #1- Way to ignore the world guys

Writer: Tom King
Artists: Various (they get worse as the narrative progresses)
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: 2nd December 2015




One of the biggest social concerns in the western world today is the growing number of young vigilantes taking to the streets. Every day we read story after story about costume wearing youngsters interfering in bank robberies/muggings and generally getting in the way of the police.

How do we stop this epidemic of reckless youngsters taking the law into their own hands? They are not trained, and all they are doing is putting themselves and the public in danger. This is a terrible problem, and it must be stopped immediately. Heck, we should even pass new laws against vigilantism to stop it.

Oh, it’s not a problem, at all? It’s just nonsense made up for a comic book that is saying NOTHING WHATSOVER about the world that we are living in today, and that in actuality we have NO problem whatsoever with vigilantes taking over the role of the police?

Oh, okay then. So, what’s the point that this comic book is trying to make? Perhaps the ‘vigilante’ thing is code word for something else? Perhaps it’s a clever metaphor or allegory for something that actually is an issue? Hang on. Let me have a good think on this one….

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Nope.

Nothing yet.

Hang on, more thinking time needed………..

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Dammit, I got nothing.

Ahhhhh, I know.

Err, is it about racism, or something?

No, no no, no, it’s sexism, right?

It’s got to be one of the two, right?

It usually is in comic books today, battering us over the head with that two pronged Cultural Marxist attack.

Oh, it’s neither of the two?

Crud, so it’s about err, nothing, then?

Oh, it is.

It’s just a comic book, and it’s about personalities and petty conflicts, not issues or subject matters that have any resonance with contemporary, real-world concerns?

Oh, so it’s that’s kind of book?

I see now.

Well, thanks for that then.

Cheers guys.

Great quip on page sixteen, panel four from Robin #5 by the way.

That was really cool, man.

I like totally love quips and fight scenes in bars dude.

This book was so, like totally cool.

I can’t wait for next month.

I hope like Robin #2 like totally flips out on Robin #5 man.

Yeah, man, cool, cool, cool and on and on it goes, for infinity……………………………..

Was that supposed to be a review?

No, not really, but it’s all that Robin War #1 deserves. Sod it, I’ll give a little bit more..

You could argue that the book is encouraging youngsters to take a more active role in society rather than being passive slaves to their isurveillance devices. You could, but that would be a stretch. I really don’t see how Robin War #1 is trying to say anything. It’s trying to entertain, that’s all.

So, did it entertain? No, it didn’t particularly entertain me. It annoyed me because it was so far removed from reality that I couldn’t connect with it on any level, and when that happens in a comic book I get really irritated, really quickly.

I don’t understand why people spend all day writing and don’t even want to say anything about the world around them. That both annoys, and confuses the heck out of me.

Perhaps I just need to accept the fact that life for the vast majority (including comic book writers) is always going to be about finding a comfortable bed, career, food, partner and way to spend their leisure time? That’s probably the hard truth of the matter, and that’s why the slave masters of our world (government) find it so bloody easy to control us.

Bread and circus, if that’s all that we want, that’s all that we are going to get. Oh well, another slice of comic book bread that was a complete waste of my time. I should be getting used to it by now, right? BIG SIGH. Okay, that’s enough.  I have better things to do with my time now. See ya Robin, I got some Ayn Rand to read, have fun in toyland, us grownups have some learning to do……..boring…….later.


Rating: 1/10 (Cool front cover)

Reality Cat is worried about: New Comic Book Day (A webcomic about new comic book day)

Marvel Comics: New releases-2nd December 2015


1: All New All Different Avengers #2 (Threat book with the separated superheroes needing to get together in order to beat the outside threat. Umm, sounds like a western style ‘intervention’ is needed. )

2: All New Inhumans #1 (Superhero girl has the task of helping people out after a comic book catastrophe. Does she work for a NGO? Hey perhaps she can help out in Syria or the Ukraine as well?)

3: All New X-Men (2015) #1 (Brave teenage heroes fight against the prejudices of society. What year is this again? Perhaps it’s set in Saudi Arabia?)

4: Daredevil (2015) #1 (Daredevil is a district attorney now. Hey, perhaps he can investigate some real criminals for a change and not just cartoon gangsters? Nah, just kidding. I know that’s not going to happen. It’s the Kingpin again isn’t it?)

5: Doctor Strange (2015) #3 (Issue #1 was like a 1990’s Constantine comic book, but with all of the non PC edge taking out of it. If you want something safe and with Doctor Strange acting like a playboy professor, then this is the book for you.)

6: Extraordinary X-Men (2015) #3 (More humanity versus the mutants guff again. Something new, please?)

7: Guardians Of Infinity #1 (Friendly characters go on chucklesome adventures around the galaxy. Quips, puns and one-liners guaranteed.)

8: Howard The Duck (2015) #2 (Howard the bloody Duck? What year is this again?)

9: Invincible Iron Man (2015) #4 (Tony Stark has relationship issues. Lucky old Tony.)

10: Miracleman #5 (Do you like the 1980’s? If so, this is the book for you.)

11: Nova (2015) #2 (Nova has to save the world from an earthquake cause by a monster. Fracking?)

12: Red Wolf (2015) #1 (It’s about a cop, in samurai get up. Next…)

13: Spidey #1 (Young Spiderman worries about girls. One for the pre-teens.)

14: Star Wars 2015 #13 (Princess Leia against Darth Vader. You go girl.)

15: Totally Awesome Hulk #1 (Asian Hulk, no really.)

16: Vision (2015) #2 (A book about the vision family. Sounds intensely uninteresting.)

50-Word (Comic) Review: Dark Knight III- The Master Race- Book One: The New Batman book by Frank Miller- Don’t worry, it’s bloody awesome

Writer: Frank Miller & Brian Azzarello
Art: Andy Kubert & Klaus Janson
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 25th November 2015


Female protagonists dominate the comic book industry. How to make them resonate? Portray dead masculinity in decaying west. Cops prey on citizens. Vigilantes are villains, not heroes. The enemy of western governments is not ISIS. The enemy is masculine individualism, and those that refuse to be collectivised. Frank gets it.



Rating: 10/10

A short review for a fantastic comic book. There will be no spoilers here. Read the book for yourself. I loved it.

50-Word (comic) Review: Art Ops #1- Dead art illustrates book where art comes alive

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Mike Allred
Publisher: Vertigo/DC
Released: 28th October 2015



Art portraits are real, the subject lives within the frame, can be stolen, protected by ‘Art-Ops.’ The Mona Lisa is a physical lady, not oil on canvas. Creative idea from Shaun Simon, but I dislike the art. Comic book about art being alive has unimpressive art, ends up defeating itself?


Rating: 5/10

I really enjoyed ‘Neverboy’ from Shaun Simon. It had a great central idea, and the art (By Tyler Jenkins) was perfect for what the book was trying to convey. It was a book about creativity, and the art was very creative, so it was the perfect marriage between narrative and art. ‘Art-Ops’ features another creative concept from writer Shaun Simon, with the idea being that art is alive within the frame, and that what is drawn can come out of the frame and interact with the physical world. The ‘Art-Ops’ (who they work for, or how they are funded, is not specified) work to protect the people living in the portraits (how does it work with things like mountains and landscape portraits?) from art thieves. Are the art thieves purely interested in money, or is something more interesting going on? I’m not sure, but I’m sure we’ll find out later as I am unsure about any of the motivations here. The main protagonists are a punk haired boy (makes a change from a punk haired girl I guess, but what is it with the punk haircuts in comic books?) and his Mum. His Mum worked for the art-ops, but goes missing, and it’s up to him to take her place, but he’s reluctant, as is to be expected. He has no Dad by the way, which is a theme that I’m really starting to notice now in all forms of mainstream cultural programming. If you’ve read anything on my blog you’ll know what I think about that, and how the state wants fathers out of the lives of children, leaving children easy pray for the father substitute that is the state. I hope that the father turns up in this book, and I hope that he’s a good guy, as that will make a nice change from the norm and will be sending out a strong message about the importance of fathers, but we’ll see. The main problem I had with this book however was that I disliked Mike Allred’s art. I found it to be borderline bad, lacking in detail, lacking in intensity, lacking in emotion, blocky, static, amateurish, basic, and just not very good at all. What more can I say? I didn't like it, at all. That’s a huge disappointment to me because I really enjoyed the art in Neverboy, and the art here (for me) is nowhere near as good. I wanted to be impressed by this book, but the art just isn’t doing it for me, and I don’t know if there’s enough here plot/character/idea wise for me to hang around for too long. Because of the good-will I still retain from my enjoyment of Neverboy I’ll give it one more issue before making up my mind about it, but sad as it is for me to type out these words, I’m feeling very much underwhelmed by this book at the moment.

50-Word (Comic) Review: We Are Robin #5: Indoctrinating Children into Government Mandated ‘Diversity’

Writer: Lee Bermejo
Artist: Jorge Corona
Publisher: DC
Released: 28th October 2015


Introduce fatherless young diversity tropes, a cackling villain, a philanthropic Bat-friend. Daddy-state needs children, reinforces violent coercion with paper law justification, always needing young recruits. Can’t portray ‘controversial’ truth in DC, reduced to politically correct diversity programming. Push female emancipation. It’s the 1950's. Don’t mention statism. I see patterns here.


Rating: 3/10 


Did that ‘review’ make any sense? Probably not, so I’ll explain. ‘We are Robin #5’ is a book about young superhero types. As is to be expected in mainstream comic books of 2015, these young superheroes are very diverse, and largely female. The story follows them as they beat up a sexist male, and argue about a mystery bloke who wants to fund their crime-fighting comic book escapades. The book concludes with a cackling villain trying to recruit them into his evil gang of murderous miscreants. Will they join him, or will they accept an offer of help from the mysteriously minted (Bat) bloke? Why should we care about them, and why should we care about their choice of future employer/benefactor? I don’t know. I couldn’t get anything out of these characters. I guess if you’ve read the previous four issues (I haven’t) then you’ll give a damn? This is my first look at the title, and what I’m reading here is a book that’s pushing the usual youth diversity message that you get in pretty much all mainstream/corporate/statist programming vehicles. The kids are shown as vulnerable, as needing a ‘father’ as they are out on the streets alone, so why isn’t the real life father substitute (the state) given a role within the narrative? The state doesn’t exist in this book. Why is that? I find that to be very weird. Is this a Batman book thing? Did the state collapse at the end of the Endgame arc? Does that mean that there is no longer any collectivist in a suit who is pretending to represent the people of Gotham? Does that mean that the people are finally free from the collectivised violence of top down state control? Does that mean that we don’t have to sigh at the television as creepy would-be controllers go through their tired routines of offering bribes to their increasingly disenfranchised fool voters? If so, if the world of Batman is now an ‘anarchist’ world, then the absence of the state within this narrative would make sense. Is that’s what’s happening here, or is it just a case of a comic book writer not thinking about the state at all, and how it recruits traumatised children into their control system of human enslavement? If you write a comic book about kids looking for a father substitute, and don’t include the NUMBER ONE father substitute in the entire world (the state) you are either not paying attention to reality, or you are deliberately ignoring uncomfortable truths about the nature of the world as it is today. I’ll give writer Lee Bermejo the benefit of the doubt and assume that he hasn’t really thought about the violently coercive nature of the modern state and just wants to write a PC comic book about ‘diverse’ characters. If that’s what you are after, then buy the book, but for anybody interested in reality, you’re not going to get a lot out of this one. 


* If the world portrayed within this book is in a state of anarchy (freedom from state control) please let me know, and I’ll happily take back everything that I’ve just written. 

Action Comics #45- Fifty Word Review- Break out the Purple Hair Dye, it’s SJW Time

Writer: Greg Pak & Aaron Kuder
Art: Scott Kolins
Publisher: DC
Released: 7th October 2015


Awesome retro cover necessitated purchase. Interior art washed out, lacks bright colouring. Narrative has too many PC social justice ‘progressive’ clichés. White man is bad, a sexist. All female characters are saints, as are people of colour. Computer geek friend for Superman. Villains called ‘supremacists, they are white men, obviously.


Rating: 4/10

It’s not terrible. The Monster month variant cover by Dave Johnson is great, and the narrative idea of a Superman on the run from various groups working within the violently coercive machine that is governmental authority, has potential. Don’t expect anything truly rebellious though. Superman is all about social justice these days, and the book quickly becomes a case study in how mainstream comic book writers have to bow, prostrate and give offerings to the weird cult of progressive, political correctness. Do they see it? Probably not, and that’s what makes it so damn creepy. They obsess over it, cradle it, worship it, live for it, and pretend that it’s not even there. Weird man, but that’s progressives for you.

Comic review- Constantine: The HellBlazer #4- Sad John Goes On a Bender

Writers: Ming Doyle & James Tynion IV
Artists: Vanesa Del Ray & Chris Visions
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 16th September 2015



If you’ve read any of my previous reviews then you’ll be aware that I reserve my best ratings for comic books that deal with real world concerns. Constantine ‘The Hellblazer’#4 doesn’t do that, but it’s a decent enough distraction for those uninterested in the world around them.

I can understand why people would want to hide, at least for a while, and this book gives you ample opportunity to do just that. The story is about the individual, not the world around him. John Constantine is on a bender, drinks and magic, and he’s doing what a lot of people do on benders, going around at night, annoying people and being all smart-arse with it, thinking that everything is funny when inside he is screaming with loneliness and self-hatred.

The book is a decent portrayal of a man alone, drinking too much, and refusing to address the issues from his past that have caused him so much emotional distress. The book has wonky, whirly, messy, disorganised art, and it’s perfect for a book about a man on a bender.

The story zips between now and then, and is set in comic book nowhere land. There are no mobile phones, no computers, no recognisable landmarks and the clothes that people are wearing don’t really connect it to any particularly time or place either. John is seen, bottle in hand, annoying a clerk in a record shop, the kind of shop that hasn’t existed in my own town for over ten years now. From there he goes to a generic ‘club,’ and onto a Gothic looking library.

It’s supposed to be England, but I live in England, and it could be anywhere. I saw nothing in the book that gave it any relevance to the world of 2015, it was nowhere, it was about John, it is a distraction book that is all about his personality, and everything else is secondary.

In that sense Constantine #4 is your typical DC comic book. It’s all about personalities, and has nothing to say about reality. The book is refreshingly free of identity politics issues, so it has that going for it, and for a personality book, a book about a man unable to deal with the mistakes of his past, it makes for a slightly above average ten-minute distraction from real world concerns.

I enjoyed the book, but don’t expect anything particularly memorable or game changing from it. I like the character of John Constantine, but he needs to be updated in order to make him relevant to the post 9/11, surveillance state world.

John as a ‘conspiracy’ guy would be fun, it would be controversial, and it would be relevant, but would it be allowed in a mainstream comic book? Probably not, so for the time being all you are going to get is John on a bender. It’s not bad, but is it saying anything about the world that we live in? No, it’s not even trying to.


Rating: 6/10 (Bloke on a bender, with a bit of magic thrown in)

Comic review: Midnighter #4- Starring (or not) Cecil, the Vampire Lion

Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Stephen Mooney
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 2nd September 2015



If you’ve read any of my previous reviews you’ll know that I’m a bit of a reality junkie. I like my comic books to be controversial, to be edgy, and to say something about the world as it is today.

'Yo man, where's that vampire lion at?'

DC and Marvel are brilliant at avoiding reality, and mainstream corporate consensus is writ large all over the pages of their books. These comic books help to prop up the legitimacy of the corporations and governments that own the western world.

Their writers are not brave, or edgy, or controversial. They might be talented, but truth-tellers they are most certainly not. They write what they are allowed to write, and the best and most celebrated comic book writers of our times push mainstream programming narratives without even realising it.

I’ve taken it upon myself to buy these books, these neoliberal vehicles of New World Order consensus, and to talk about the programming they are feeding into the minds of their readers. This doesn’t make me very popular, but that’s okay.

If you want to read a review that talks about how good the stories and art are, go somewhere else. My reviews are not about how ‘cool’ the characters are, or how ‘cool’ the art is, or how ‘cool’ the plot twists are, or how ‘cool’ the references to previous books are. I talk about the socio-political assumptions that the books are making. That’s what I do, and that is the only reason why I review daft comic books like Midnighter #4.

I haven’t read the book before, and I’m not familiar with the characters. Before purchasing the book all I knew was that the story involved Russia, and that it has vampires in it.

The book begins with a sub-heading- Moscow, the Forty-Forties.’ That’s already confusing. Does it mean the real world 1940’s or some comic book time period that never existed? By the end of the book I was still unsure about that. Anyway, the plot is a comic book critique of those rich people that go on Big Game hunting safaris. In the real world there was controversy over some dentist bloke shooting a lion called Cecil. He thought that he was allowed to shoot it, so he did. However, he wasn’t actually allowed to shoot poor old Cecil, the tour guide had deceived him, and now he’s a figure of worldwide hate. Humans are very odd. Shoot a lion and they get very upset, kill a million cows, and the same people couldn’t give a s***. Oh well, that’s the madness of our times.

Midnighter #4 replaces animals with vampires, with the rich people paying to kill a vampire, as opposed to a big cat. The book shows a group of men partying, killing a chained up vampire and feeling all macho about themselves for doing so. The heroes in this tale are two pretty boys who are going to give those evil vampire killers what they deserve. One is the Midnighter, and the other is Grayson. I couldn’t tell them apart, as they look the same, have the same physiques, and both engage in the same quips and smart-ass action hero banter.

Here come the tough guy heroes.

The book follows these two heroes as they beat up the cowardly vampire killers, and the people who set the vampire kill up for them. The two heroes are extremely violent, use torture like it’s cool, and have a great time quipping and high kicking as they inevitably defeat the evildoers and end up having a celebratory drink in that big creepy UN building in New York.

Do they work for the UN? Probably, because as we all know, the United Nations are the good guys, cough Rockefeller funded Zionism. Err, aren’t they? Of course they are. Don’t question the programming, enjoy the book, wow, it was so cool, did you see that punch and quip, and oh yeah, hunting is bad, eating meat is okay.

The book concludes, as all good comic books conclude, with a seeming defeat for the villains, and with the evil mastermind behind it all laughing and declaring that his plan is going just as he envisioned, and that the heroes don’t know what’s in store for them next, ha ha ha ha ha.

So yep, Midnighter #4 is just another comic book. The brave and daring libtard message is that hunting is bad, and that you shouldn’t kill defenceless animals. It’s a comic book that you can safely enjoy at McDonald’s with a Big McCancer burger whilst feeling good about yourself. If the two heroes were either vegetarian or animal welfare workers then it would have helped to clarify the meaning in the book, and it would also have given it all a sense of moral legitimacy, but there was no mention of vegetarianism or animal welfare anywhere within the narrative. Hey man, the message is confused, of course it is, that’s DC for you. They are parroting the popular lies of our times, and as lies are always contradictory, that’s what you get in books such as this.


Rating: 4/10 (Stupid quips and punches comic book that replaces Cecil the Lion with pretend vampires, oops was that a spoiler?)

Comic review: Gotham by Midnight #8- Television, Cops and the State

Writer: Ray Fawkes
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 26th August 2015



Gotham by Midnight #8 is an unpleasant, unimportant and depressingly stuck within the matrix little comic book, so I won’t waste too much time in reviewing it.

The tv gets us at each other's throats, no **** Sherlock

The story is perfunctory, nothing happening, statist drivel. The protagonists are cops and a couple of television hosts. The two hosts are well-worn-out clichés (ruthless and ambitious) and the cops are divided into the usual two categories, good and bad.

There is no underlying understanding of the immoral nature of order following, not that I would ever expect that in a DC comic book. The cops are either ambitious (bad) or trying to do the right thing (good).

Comic book writers still fail to understand that the state is violent coercion, that it is a control system of human enslavement backed up by order following goons. It always has been, and what do they do? They still play the game that the television plays, the game that the politicians play, the game that the newspapers play.

The game is this: You have a choice, but all of your choices are evil. Choose one evil over the other, and that means that you are free, and that evil now has your consent to rule over you.

But what if you don’t want the evil that is violent state coercion? Tough luck, you’re getting it anyway, slave.

I’m fed up with the game now. I’m fed up with comic book writers not understanding it, and I’m fed up of books like Gotham by Midnight #8.

Don't worry, the diverse agents of the state are here to save us.

There was one thing of note in the book. The two hero cops are smart, young and attractive, as they always are in cop shows. One of the cops is an attractive young girl with short hair, a Goth type that you might have seen in a 1990’s comic book by Neil Gaimen.

I’ve met real cops, female cops. Sorry, but they are not cool, comic book style Goths. Real life cops are simple-minded rule followers. They do what they are told, and are happy to do so.  I feel sorry for them. They are lost children in a world of predatory adults.

Anyway, the fantasy Goth Cop in Gotham by Midnight has a boyfriend. He’s a tribal tattooed pretty boy with long hair and a fondness for cooking. In other words, he’s playing the role of the female in their relationship. It’s all about equality now you see. The woman gets to work for the evil that is the state, and the boyfriend gets to stay at home and do her housework and cooking for her.

Yep, it’s that kind of book. That’s how lame it is, and I kind of hate myself for wasting my money on it. Yuck, what a piece of crap that was. Tame, lame and pushing a version of reality that comes from the wet dreams of a viewer of the Daily Show. I wasted my money again, didn’t I? Crap.



Rating: (More cop show disinformation from the liberal mainstream)

Comic review: Batman- Arkham Knight #7- Are you taking the pi**?

Writer: Peter. J Tomasi
Art: Viktor Bogdanovic
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 19th August 2015



Okay, let’s make this a quick one. Writer Peter J. Tomasi hasn’t put much thought or effort into writing the book, so why should I waste my time reviewing what is evidentially just a piece of throw-away, unit shifter irrelevance?

I prefer 'Skipman.'

Rhetorical that one, but onto the book. Batman Arkham Knight #7 consists of two stories, both are flimsy, and both have the impact of a soft sheet of tissue paper being ripped to shreds in a roaring thunderstorm tornado super-powered torrential downpouring storm.

The first story is about a saint. This saint is very poor, and he finds Batman in a skip. No joke, this is what actually happens. Anyway, this saintly man takes Bat/Skipman home, makes him soup and talks about his ex-wife. Whilst Skipman enjoys his soup a couple of lily-white bodybuilding thugs come to shake down the saintly man for rent or something. Skipman beats them up, and the story finishes up with Skipman and the saint watching the sunrise and having a nice cup of tea. Ha, how lovely it all is, reminiscing about the good old days with the one and only, dark night of the trash-bags, the slightly pongy Skipman himself.

What the donkey doharrr was that supposed to be Mr. Tomasi? Put some effort in mate, or don’t bother at all.

'Yo man, where's the toilet at?'

The second story has the epic and cutting edge paradigm shifting idea of having some villains trying to murder Bruce Wayne. Why do they want to murder Bruce Wayne? Because Penguin asked them to, and why not, it’s something to do, right? The highlight of this story is a villain taking a leak off the side of the building:

Harley Quinn- ‘What the **** are you doing?’ 

Deadshot- ‘Nine hours is a long time.’

Hope you enjoyed that one kids. He’s having a p***, but the writer doesn’t really give one. Thanks for coming, now bugger off and read one of the three versions of Wonder Woman available from DC this week.

Yes, it's a pretty stupid comic book.

Man, what can you say? I could complain about how it was set in no time and thus has no relevance whatsoever to, well, anything. I could complain that the art was a bit ropey in the second story and that Harley Quinn looked like a builder in a dress. I could complain that the tone was as throwaway as last week’s mouldy pizza crusts. I could moan and complain until the cows come home, but what’s the point?

Like I said in the first paragraph, Tomasi very obviously doesn’t care, so why should I? One thing happens in this book, one thing. That one thing is Deadshot taking a comedy leak off of the top of a building. That’s the highlight of the book, an indifferent pi** over the side of a very tall building.

I’ll conclude this review by doing more work than Tomasi did. I’m going to leave you with an image. Think of Donald Trump in a muscled-up Batman costume. Think of him going to the poor areas of the city. Think of him acting like he’s their great saviour, that he alone can make their lives better. Do you have the image in your head? It’s pretty ridiculous isn’t it? Now take that image, store it, have a laugh with it, and forget about this book. Have a bloody brilliant day with Donald ‘The Batman’ Trump dancing away in your head, and let’s pretend that Batman Arkham Knight #7 didn’t just turn up, take a leak, and waste everybody’s time and money.

Rating: 3/10 (Purely for the pi**)


SJW Watch:
For those keeping tabs on social justice warrior/ identity politics/ cultural Marxism themes in contemporary corporate comic books, this truly forgettable book includes a wonderfully ‘progressive’ panel featuring a muscled up woman working as a construction labourer. Nice job Peter. Women just love working on building sites. They can’t get enough of the low pay, hard physical work and dangerous environment. Extra ‘head in the clouds’ SWJ brownie points for that one mate.

.

Comic review: Batman #43- Starring Bad Haircut Batman

Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Greg Capullo
Publisher: DC
Released: 12th August 2015



Ah Batman, my old childhood friend, it’s been so long. How have you been buddy? I haven’t read about your adventures since the Joker was messing around with your mate’s faces. That little event ended with a whimper, with the realisation that the Joker was, well, just joking, but how have you been? Seriously, you tireless black uniformed upholder of the corporate/statist totalitarian status quo, how have you been my old bat mate?

Check out that haircut on the new Batman

Okay, I’ll stop being silly. I haven’t read the main Batman title for a while. I stopped because it wasn’t doing anything. It was neither hot, nor cold. It was lukewarm, leaving me feeling nonplussed and a little bit wet.

I picked up this issue just to see if it was doing anything that resonates with contemporary concerns, and in short, off the Bat (gettit?) it ain’t doing any of that. Oh crap, come on Scott mate. At least try.

So what is it doing?

It’s doing character stuff. Here’s the story- Bruce Wayne died, came back to life (as he always does) but this time he’s come back with memory loss, and the trauma that made him Batman in the first place didn’t happen, at least in his mind.

The abbreviated impact of this memory loss basically means that Batman is now Commissioner Gordon with a daft haircut, and Bruce Wayne is just plain old Bruce Wayne, a bit of a drip hanging out with his girlfriend and going to charity events.

The gist of the action in Batman #43 is that there’s a new villain in town (Mr. Bloom) and he has Gordon/Bad Haircut Batman trapped in a hot box. He’s going to kill him, but probably not. Plus, he’s messing around with established villains like Penguin, and I guess we need Bruce to snap back into being Batman again to sort out these two problems.

So, it’s a character book. It’s a book that is looking into the psychological reasons behind why Bruce became Batman. There is no connection to any real world concerns of 2015, and the very fact that the villain is a drug pusher means that it’s supporting the current situation in western countries where governments openly declare that they own our bodies, and can legally lock us up and ruin our lives if we partake in a substance that they do not want us to partake in.

Drug laws create crime. Drug laws create criminals, because of supply (dealers) and demand (users). Governments love prohibition, because prohibition means control, and that’s what governments want. They want control, and because of the drug laws being the way that they are, that’s exactly what they have right now.

Superman is concerned, and not just about the haircut.

Batman #43 does not question contemporary drug laws that have destroyed the lives and families of millions of people. It does not question whether or not government owns your body, and thus has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. Instead, it reinforces the status quo, portraying drug dealers as evil sociopathic villains, and the cops as heroic, morally upstanding heroes. In that sense, it’s a piece of crap that needs to be flung in the nearest bin, as it pushes a lie, and endorses human enslavement to a centralised control system.

Get the book if you don’t care about human slavery to centralised control systems. Get it if you want to read about the psychological motivations of Bruce, psychological motivations that have been looked at in so much detail already that there’s a veritable library of it out there if you want to spend your life studying the fictional brain of a man dressed up as a Bat.

Get the book if you read this review and it annoys you. Get the book if you just want to chill out, forget reality and read a stupid, childish comic book that supports everything that is wrong about the world as it is today.

I’ll be the weird guy, and I’ll dip in, and dip straight out again. The water is still lukewarm in Batman. It’s not saying anything, and it’s not even trying to say anything either. I can’t be bothered with that, sorry, but I have better things to do with my time.


Rating: 5/10 (Another look into the mind of Bruce, yawn.)

Comic review: Gotham by Midnight (Annual) #1- One for the Goths

Writer: Ray Fawkes
Artist: Christian Duce
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 29th July 2015


I intensely dislike comic book narratives that feature order following dogs of the state (soldiers and cops) as the heroic protagonists, and this comic book had two of them in feature roles.

These two ‘heroes’ could have wrecked the book for me, but thankfully there was a third character in the narrative, a ‘Gentleman Ghost’ who was so interesting and charming that he saved, and redeemed, the entire book for me.

I haven’t read ‘Gotham by Midnight’ before, and if all it has to offer is a fiesty, punk comic book cliché young girl detective and her gay partner (who turns into some kind of Christian moral crusader when angry) then I wouldn’t bother with it. I’m not interested in these two characters. The girl is the kind of young girl that you will encounter in just about every DC comic book today, and the guy still struggling with his homosexuality needs to wake up and realise that it’s 2015, and that being gay is no big deal these days.

Thankfully, the book’s main focus was on the villain, and not the two boring cop protagonists. Jim Craddock ‘The Gentleman Ghost’ is an old fashioned, charming, jewel thief, who will steal the girl’s hearts and their jewels as well. It’s all very old fashioned and quaint, I know, and the only reference to modernity was a quick use of a computer (as opposed to a library) when the detectives are doing a bit of homework on their foe.

Gotham by Midnight #1 is one of those comic books that could be set in 1950, or 1970, or 1990, or 2015. It doesn’t reflect anything about the world today, and it’s not even trying to. That’s okay. I can read the occasional comic book that is going for fun rather than trying to say something, and for pure fun this was an enjoyable book. It offers a mildly pleasant diversion to everyday reality, and as a gentle tonic to soothe my soul against corporate neo-liberal hegemony and celebrity culture ignorance of 2015, I found it to be an effective, if temporary balm.

Get the book if you enjoy old fashioned Ghost tales involving romance, train-top chases lit by the full moon and intriguing, villainous rogues that women will always find far more interesting and exciting than their feminised boyfriends who are waiting patiently at home for them like 1950’s housewives.

I enjoyed the book, the art has a nice ‘Gothic’ feel about it, and it left me wanting to read more about Jim Craddock, the very intriguing, charming, and roguishly handsome Gentleman Ghost.

I hope that’s not the last I hear about him, and if he returns to the DC Universe in his own title, sign me up for that one. Craddock is a fascinating character with a bucket load of narrative potential, and with a bit of updating (give the bloke a mobile phone at least) then he would be far more interesting than a lot of the other drippy, dreary, drossy, dismally PC characters that DC are unsuccessful trying to force down it’s readers throats these days.


Rating: 7/10 (Old fashioned and fun)

Comic review: Justice League- Gods and Monsters- Superman #1- SuperMex Vs. Evil White Racists

Writers: J.M DeMatteis & Bruce Timm
Art: Moritat
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 29th July 2015

I really enjoyed this comic book. Not because it is any good, but because it is the perfect encapsulation of the politically correct, left leaning, ‘progressive’ cult of mind-control and censorship that is the US comic book industry today.

Have you noticed that the mainstream corporate whore media is a bit ‘liberal’ these days? Sure, you still get Fox news blasting out its nonsense to it’s scared an elderly audience, but Fox is for ‘old’ people. Cool, hip, progressive youngsters are all about the rainbows, feminism, Marxism, atheism and tolerance these days. There is a consensus collectivist mind-set that is being broadcast to young people today from the mainstream corporate media outlets, and it consists of the following:

1- Abortion is about equality and women’s rights, and has nothing to do with murdering babies.

2- Immigration is good, and if you complain about it you are a racist.

3- Men are troublesome. We need women to take over in order to make the world a better place.

4- The only people that need to have guns are the Police, and those with government approved authority. The Police (and the government) are our friends, and it’s their job to protect us from bad guys.

5- Opposing gay marriage is morally wrong. People need to get with the times and stop being so homophobic.

6- Christians are like gullible children. You can tolerate them, but they must be taken away from all decision making.

7- Islam is a religion of peace, and if you criticise suicide bombers or the latest massacre you are Islamaphobic.

8- The State is legitimate, and we are ‘free’ because we are allowed to vote between two pre-selected corporate parties.

9- Order followers are heroes, even though they operate with no regards to personal responsibility or morality.

10- Racism means white people hating black people. There is no such thing as a black racist.

11- Feminism is about empowering women and defending them against a big conspiracy by evil white men called ‘Patriarchy.’

There are more, but I think that I nailed the most important ones here. Now, bearing all of the above liberal assumptions in mind, what would you expect to see in a DC Comic book about a Mexican superman?

That’s what Justice League- Gods and Monsters- Superman #1 is by the way. It’s a book about a Mexican Superman growing up with his immigrant family in America. Stop reading this review now, and write down some of the things that you would expect to see in a corporate whore liberal PC comic book in 2015 about a brave and heroic Mexican Superman.

Are you still here? Stop reading, go on, do the list, and then come back to this review.

Okay then. I hope you’ve done your list. I’ve also done a list. Here is my list of the PC cliches that make up this story about SuperMex:

1- An unrealistically perfect young female is the heroine of the narrative.

2- The young SuperMex is troubled, and needs to be corrected by positive female influences, as opposed to positive male role models.

3- Immigrants are honest, hard working and downtrodden.

4- The white (male) locals are bigoted, idiotic, violent racists.

5- SuperMex is going to change the world, but only because he listened to his perfect young sister.

6- It’s okay to murder people, but only if they are criminals.

7- The people that need to be eliminated are those who operate outside the law, not the Government, banks and corporations who are the real slave owners of the world.

The book has a drug cartel as it’s main villains, and if you are wondering how they make that fit into the PC narrative then I’ll tell you. They make the leader of the cartel a young man with blonde hair. He’s a (very) white Mexican, but let’s be honest here. He’s a white man, so he’s the obvious bad guy of the narrative.

At the end of this book SuperMex has become a class warrior for the downtrodden Mexican immigrant females. These females are perfect, obviously, because they are women, but even better than that, they are women with a tint to their complexion. They are women, and not white. Wow, that’s a two in one there.

Men still suck of course, but if they listen to the great, innate wisdom coming from these perfect embodiments of wisdom and compassion (young females) they might have a chance to bring some good into the world. Men, if left alone, are only going to be selfish, stupid, aggressive and self-destructive. Why? Because, that’s just what men do, isn’t it?

In other words- Masculinity is inherently bad, whilst femininity is inherently good.

I’m not joking here. This is seriously how the comic book goes. It’s not an aberration by the way. This is how all of the DC and Marvel comic books read today. There’s a consensus, and if you go against it you are opening yourself up to charges of sexism, misogyny and bigotry. Thanks for coming kid, but your career ends here, unless we get a brand new attitude from you where all of your female characters are young, feisty, strong, independent, brave, in charge (preferable wearing a government badge or uniform) and kicking plenty of male buttocks.

That’s how big a joke it’s all becoming now within mainstream US comic books. Liberal types like to mock Fox news (and I’m not a fan of it myself) but they need to look in the mirror and see what they have become. What they have become is a big old circle jerk that congratulates itself on how ‘tolerant’ and ‘progressive’ they all are, when all they are really doing is creating a new corporate status quo that is every bit as dangerous as the right-wing nonsense coming from Fox news.

This new corporate consensus is not really about human rights and equality. If liberals really cared about human rights and equality then their number one target would be the religion of Islam, the most violent and backwards looking, female and gay hating cult in the world today. But do you ever hear liberals say anything to criticise Islam? Of course not, because they don’t really give a damn about equality and freedom at all.

What they do actually care about is acting like moral crusaders whilst telling people what they can and cannot think and say. They are totalitarian fascists and a comic book like JL-Gods and Monsters- Superman #1 is supporting this PC/Progressive/New World Order cult of mind control and censorship. Get the book if you are a student writing an essay on the new totalitarian left, but for anybody else, for anybody interested in liberty, free speech and individualism, there is nothing here for you.



Rating: 3/10 (For its insights into the cult of progressivism and its unintentional comedy value)

Comic review: JL- Gods and Monsters- Batman #1- Dangerously Stupid

Writers: J.M DeMatteis & Bruce Timm
Artist: Matthew Dow Smith
Colours: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 22nd July 2015



Justice League- Gods and Monsters- Batman #1 is a very dangerous comic book.

Why is it dangerous?

It’s dangerous because of the following assumptions that it makes:

1- Villains are those who break the law.
2- Following the law makes you a moral person.
3- Breaking the law makes you an immoral person.
4- Villains are those who operate outside of the corporate/state control system.
5- Villains carry out their immoral actions within ‘organised crime.’
6- Murder is justified, along as you are murdering the ‘villains’ who operate within organised crime.

These assumptions give the woefully ignorant and anachronistic impression that there are two sides to society:

A- The respectable, law and order side, with morally decent people working within the system to make the world a better place for everybody.
B- The criminal underworld, down the docks, where immoral gangsters operate their criminal empires, working outside of the system, and making the world a worse place for everybody.

The superhero (Batman) in this contemporary comic book targets group B. Of course he does, why wouldn’t he?

Do you see the problem here?

After all that has happened over the past ten years, with the illegal wars, surveillance, banker bailouts, and government authorised criminality, you’d think that comic books would start to point out that the real big-shot criminals of our era operate within the law, not outside of it, wouldn’t you?

Real world criminal gangsters don’t hang out down the docks, they operate within corporate and banking boardrooms, doing perfectly legal business, not breaking any laws, because they made the laws in the first place.

Nice colours, bad art.

JL- Gods and Monsters #1 gives readers the impression that criminal masterminds work outside of the structures that have been erected to accommodate rampant corporate criminality. What kind of an idiot would do that?

What kind of an idiot criminal would work outside the law and allow himself to be arrested like a common, petty criminal? It doesn’t happen. The top criminals of our era are the most respected men in town. They operate within government, within banks, within corporations, and the entire neoliberal consensus structure is designed to let them get away with their criminality, and to be rewarded and lauded whilst doing so. That’s how it works, and we all know it by now.

The narrative in this book doesn’t really care about all of that pesky real world reality stuff. Instead it features a vampire (bat) who needs to drink blood to live, and because he’s a nice vampire (bat) he hangs around the docks looking for old movie villains (Circa Humphrey Bogart) to have a nibble on.

This hero/villain bat/vampire-thing has a temper tantrum in a restaurant, and finds a new best friend through talking to a stranger in a public art gallery. Yeah, that’s how you meet best new friends, by hanging out in art galleries. I should try that one out myself.

The book features a ‘twist’ at the end that’s not very surprising, and does nothing but further empathise the comedic stupidity of the main protagonist. All of the dialogue is heavy laden with exposition, and none of it reads like real people talking to each other. The art is very loosely pencilled, and the heavy inking and colouring attempts to disguise the lack of detail throughout. It’s a one shot story that you will have read many times before, and this time next week you’ll have completely forgotten about the entire book. If that’s what you are after, get the book. Have fun with it, if you can.

What I am reading here is a deliberately stupid comic. It reads like something designed for children, in the 1930’s. There are no mobile devices, no izombies walking down the street, head down, oblivious to those around them, no references to the Internet and no references to anything contemporary actually.

The protagonist is a laughable Cartman-esque clown who tells his story first person, loading every sentence with a bucket load of exposition as he plods through his ridiculously inconsequential adventures.

The entire book is completely laughable, even more so because it’s written with a pofaced seriousness and inability to recognise just how babyish and stupid it all is.

The art looks rushed, the facials are lacking in expression or movement and it’s all washed in a thick pallet of heavy colouring in an attempt to put some life into the dead and rushed pencil work.

It’s the seriousness of the book that really kills it. If it was scripted with a wink, nod and a sense of irony, then it could have been fun, it could have been a laugh, and it could have been worthwhile. But no, it’s as serious as cancer, and about as much fun as staying up all night and watching the latest suicide inducing election results.

This is a really, really stupid book, and the underlying assumptions that it makes about criminality and morality make it a very dangerous book as well. I wouldn’t want a young kid to read something as dangerously stupid as this comic book. It’s going to do nothing for a delicate young mind other than to lead him into a slave job working within the corporate system, thinking that he’s a good person just because he is following orders and obeying corporate laws.

That’s not good, all it’s doing is preparing the next generation of compliant worker slave drones for the corporate/banking ‘elites’ prison camps.

JL- Gods and Monsters #1 won’t be read by many kids. The majority of it’s readers are going to be adult statists, stuck in the matrix, hiding from reality, not because they are unable to look at reality, but because they don’t want to look at reality.

It’s a comic book for people who want to forget the world and read something stupid that will distract them from the mundane horrors of the everyday, uneventful lives. If stupid and ignorant is what the writers were going for then they’ve succeeded with this one. Well done lads, you’ve done it again. Poop out the story, extract the money, poop into the minds, poop into the landfill. Hey man, it’s the American way.


Rating: 2/10 (For the colours. Nothing else about the book has any merit)

Comic review: Martian Manhunter #1- Real world hints, then back to comic book unreality

Writer: Rob Williams
Art: Eddy Barrows
Publisher: DC
Released: 15th July 2015



There are hints at real world realities in this book:

‘Multiple terrorist attacks. I want to know who you can trust these days.’

Hints.

‘This terrorist attacks around the world the television talks of, the calls for a worldwide war in response. I know who is really behind it.’

The book also criticises Dubai:

‘I’m just an orphan thief from the mess and ugly and vomit of hope that is Dubai harbour.’

The hint is that terrorism is not what it appears to be, and that the obscenely wealthy corporate elites of all countries are working together and playing us off against each other.

However, this is a comic book published by a massive corporation, so that’s as far as it can go. There will be no revolution in comic books.

Islam is not mentioned.

Intelligence agencies are not mentioned.

Terrorism is portrayed not as a religious or sociological problem, but as an alien threat from Mars.

The Dubai angle is just a reason to get a young female protagonist into the story, and to push her as a new hope, a representative of the people, just like they do with all of the other mainstream corporate comic books of today. In the middle of issue #2 this young girl leaves Dubai, and is now on a ship to the US to join all of the other heroes. Her back-story over, she’s just another DC feminist girl hero now.

What is happening within the pages of this book is a good example of a writer using real world concerns to give an air of contemporary legitimacy to his narrative. That’s not a criticism, it’s a compliment. But having used these concerns to frame the narrative, the book is now turning into just another character based, corporate friendly superhero narrative.

Mr. Biscuits, the best thing about the book.

The ‘terrorism’ word will become background now, and religion will not be a feature of this book. Linking terrorism with Islam is something that mainstream comic books will not do. They’ll link Christianity with terrorism of course, but never Islam.

The one person who criticised Islam in a comic book was Frank Miller. He did it in a book called ‘Holy Terror,’ a book that was supposed to be a Batman DC book. They refused to publish the book, so he had to self publish. That’s how much of a taboo it is at the moment. Terrorist attacks in the real world are predominantly linked to Islamic fundamentalists (with an ideology coming from the western friendly Hellhole that is Saudi Arabia) but you will not see this being represented in mainstream corporate comic books.

That’s okay. I don’t expect anything else from a DC comic book, and it was nice of writer Rob Williams to sprinkle a couple of hints at reality before he got back to paying his bills and knocking out another corporate friendly superhero narrative.

Is the book worth getting? Yeah, it features a character called Mr. Biscuits, and he’s a lot of fun. The art is pretty nice as well, and I quite enjoyed reading along whilst looking for nuggets of real world truth within the daft aliens are invading story. I didn’t hate the book. It’s better than most of the other lame comic books out there at the moment, but there’s nothing particular special or revolutionary happening here, so although it might be fun, in all honesty, it's just another corporate friendly comic book, and not something to get too excited about.


Rating: 6/10 (Hints at reality, then back to a standard alien threat narrative)