Secret Wars #4- What is a superhero?

Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Esad Ribic
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 1st July 2015



Go to a comic book shop, pick up a new superhero comic book, read it, and ask yourself the following question:

What is a contemporary mainstream comic book superhero?

Grant Morrison thinks that they are stand-ins for soldiers.

I agree.

They are soldiers, and what do soldiers do?

They follow orders.

Who TODAY is in charge, and who is giving the orders?

According to the mainstream media it’s the Clintons, Blairs, Obamas, Camerons and all of the other blue and red puppets.

Puppets?

Yes, puppets.

But if they are puppets, who is controlling their strings?

The neoliberal corporate/banking elites.

Who are they?

They are the people who run the privately owned banks and corporations that fund governments. They are the globalists, the western elites, the new world order.

Back to comics, back to superheroes.

A superhero is a soldier, soldiers take orders from political puppets, the new world order is a corporate entity, and mainstream comic books are a part of that corporate entity. Therefore, a superhero appearing in a mainstream comic book is a soldier working for the new world order.

Did that truth taste bad? I hope so, because truth is a bitter pill to swallow, and that is why people don’t like it, and get upset when you try to force it down their throats. I understand, but I want to talk about more than the art and panel designs in comic books. I want to talk about the world, and comic books are the platform that I use to do that.

So what does the new world order want?

They want one world government, and total control of the entire planet.

What is the role of a soldier/superhero in the new world order?

Their role is to eliminate all opposition to the new world order.

Therefore, all ‘villains’ in contemporary comic books have to represent a threat to the new world order.

The villain in Secret Wars #4 is Doctor Doom, a crazed dictator type.

It’s always a crazed dictator type, in comic books, and in the real world.

The crazed dictator will sit on a throne, scare people, act like a villain, and cause problems until he is finally defeated by the soldiers/superheroes.

In Secret Wars #4 that process is progressing towards its inevitable conclusion. Doom fights the soldiers, and he acts like a power-crazed delusional madman. He wins a battle, but in the long run he will lose the war.

That’s how contemporary corporate entity comic books work. A dictator threatens the status quo, soldiers/superheroes are sent in, cue battles and some character stuff, the dictator is defeated, and it’s back to the beginning again.

In comic books it’s The Joker, Doctor Doom, Magneto, The Red Skull and Lex Luthor.

In the real world it’s Hussein, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, Assad and Putin.

Comic books villains exist to serve the narrative, to sell comic books.

Real world villains exist to serve the narrative, to sell the new world order.

Secret Wars #4 is a comic book about superheroes/soldiers fighting against the latest dictator, the latest threat to the new world order.

It’s a comic book that people will read and enjoy. They will discuss the art, the characters, the fights and the plot. Deeper issues and socio-political assumptions that are made within the text will not be discussed.

I will be ignored, or criticised, more of the former, a little of the later, if I’m lucky. That’s okay. The new world order relies on the consent of the governed. If the people want it, then they’ll get it. That’s the world that we live in, that’s the world that we want, that’s the world that we deserve.


Rating: 7/10 (Starts better than it ends, and it’s all about the characters now)

Monday Night Raw 11th May 2015: WWE television programming and why it sucks

What I am about to say about WWE television programming has undoubtedly been said many times before, but after watching Monday Night Raw on 11th May 2015 I feel like it needs to be said again, as the message is evidentially not getting through.

On WWE’s two main flagship television shows (Raw and Smackdown) the wrestlers are portrayed not as tough independent fighters, but as employees of the McMahon family. Their role is to entertain, and the winning or losing of their matches is secondary. If they entertain the fans then they are kept on as employees, but if they fail to entertain then they are fired.

The employees

The WWE makes it very clear that their employees/wrestlers are expendable and lucky to have a job. If they fail to entertain the fans they will be fired, and if they fail to do exactly what the McMahon family tells them to do they will also be fired. Here is the message that is constantly reinforced on their television programming:

Our employees/wrestlers are utterly worthless and would be unable to make a living if they were fired from their jobs here at WWE. 

This attitude is very depressing, very insulting and very dehumanising. It makes the wrestlers look like fools. The WWE (McMahon family) sees people as commodities. If you make money for the McMahon family then you are valuable and respected, if you don’t then you are worthless. It’s all about the McMahon family you see, and this message is the one constant of the show.

All of this is played out on weekly television, by a cast of overly muscled young men who were not quite athletic enough to make it in legitimate sports, where the pay, health benefits, holidays and everything else are 100% better than what you get as a WWE ‘superstar.’

Emasculation time

WWE performers have no health benefits, no job security, no holidays, and no pensions. They are not even employees. The WWE uses the Orwellian legalise term, ‘Independent contractors’ in order to really screw them over. This term allows WWE to treat them not as employees (who need insurance and rights, and all of those other pesky things) but as expendable lumps of meat. You work until your body is broken, and if you don’t like the conditions, tough. There’s no unions, no representatives, no way for you to complain, no way for you to improve your working conditions. Oil up, and work, or oil down and get out, that’s the WWE way.

And what about the pretty young females who appear on their television shows? If you are a young bikini model prepared to do everything that you are told to do, then you might be lucky enough to have a short career with the corporation. Your role will be to wiggle your butt and to do some reality television ‘acting.’ No athletic ability will be needed.  As you get into your 30’s though you’ll need to look for another job. You might be one of the lucky few and get to date George Clooney or do some straight to DVD movies, but for the vast majority the long-term prospects are about as bright as the ex male employees of the WWE ‘family.’

I’m talking addiction, unemployment, jail, homelessness and death. I could do an entire article about the people who worked for the WWE and ended up prematurely dead, but we all know about those all too common tales, don’t we?

The Corporate champion

That’s how disgusting the WWE actually is. Nothing is hidden, everything is out there, it’s on display, and yet, who cares? It’s just pro wrestling, right? It doesn’t matter because it’s fake. Okay, so it’s fake, but the people on the show are not fake. They are real human beings that are being horrendously exploited by a corporate vulture, yet nobody cares.

Here is a television show, aimed at children, that is full to the brim with horrifically anti-human corporate poisons, and still nobody cares.

Look at what the show is saying to children. It’s telling them that they have to be shallow, ruthless, manipulative, greedy, selfish, vain and violent to get what they want in life, and that they can get away with this disgusting behaviour just as long as they work within a corporate structure.

The hero of the show is John Cena, a man who epitomises this corporate attitude of selfishness and oozes it from every pore of his cartoonishly bloated body. 'Hustle, loyalty and respect' is his catch phrase, but hustle, loyalty and respect to what?

To the corporation of course, everything is for the corporation. Be loyal to the corporation and you will become a bloated star who gets to salute the troops and send them off to the latest war. Humanity be damned, we have money to make.

The message is clear: Be ruthless, be evil, be greedy, be selfish, be vain, but do it all within the safety of a corporate structure. All is allowable here, just as long as you are loyal to the corporation. Corporations are people, but people without need of a conscience. There is no morality here. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

If you think that I’m being a bit harsh here just watch the first ten minutes of this week’s Monday Night Raw. Watch how McMahon family leader HHH emasculates his employees, referring to himself as the ‘Daddy’ as he disciplines his unruly children. These unruly children are grown men in their thirties and older by the way. Watch how he mocks two wrestlers for being shorter than himself, belittles a seven foot supposed monster, and talks down to the champion of the organisation like he’s a naughty little boy.

This isn’t about wrestling. It’s not even about entertainment. This is about the worshipping of corporate authority, of bowing to the awesome power of the McMahon family. The wrestling isn’t even important anymore, this is nothing more than one giant vanity project, and I don’t know how much longer it can continue if this is all it has to offer.

I used to enjoy pro wrestling, but how can I enjoy the WWE in 2015 when all of the wrestlers are portrayed as sad sack losers who are lucky to have a job?

I used to idolise wrestlers. They used to be real-life superheroes, substitute Gods for our atheist age, but not anymore. Today when I watch WWE television programming all I see is failed athletes who if not for the generosity of the McMahon family would be working at minimum wage neo-liberal McJobs. I look at the wrestlers on my television set and I don’t admire them. I feel sorry for them.

Loyalty, but only to the corporate brand

I don’t want to feel sorry for the wrestlers. I used to like wrestling, and I want to like it again. I don’t want to hear about drug overdoses, heart attacks, suicides and deaths, and I don’t want to see them being emasculated on my television set before their corporate overlords.

I want wrestlers to get unionised, to start standing up for themselves, to demand change in their working environment. They need to be the heroes that they are supposed to be. They need to stand up to the McMahon family. They need to get organised. They need to take a risk, to do something that needs to be done. They need to be strong and brave, not just in body, but in mind and deed as well.

I remember watching wrestling when I was a kid and the wrestlers were heroes, not employees. What kid watching WWE programming today wants to see a show where all of the wrestlers are portrayed as loser employees? It makes no sense to me, and as WWE continue to lose viewers and ratings go down the toilet somebody out there has to point out these flaws to them.

The McMahon family's real life adoration of morality free neo-liberal corporatism is bleeding through to their television programming and what is being produced is a near unwatchable show that is dripping with satanic corporate anti-human ideology.

They need to make the show about the wrestlers competing against each other to see who is the best. They need to start telling us that their wrestlers are the best athletes in the world, and that they can do things that other professional athletes cannot do. They need to make us believe that this is unique competition between the toughest men in the world, because that is what pro-wrestling is supposed to be.

What the WWE is doing at the moment is putting a group of emasculated losers on our television sets, telling us over and over again that they are interchangeable and lucky to have a job. It’s not working, and they need to change things whilst they still have the chance.

Comic review: Punisher #17- The inevitable come-down after a rare moment of truth in Marvel comics

Writer: Nathan Edmondson
Artists: Mitch Gerads & Brent Schoonover
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 1st April 2015


If you kidnap a top US politician, get him to confess that he’s a criminal, and then run around Washington DC with every uniformed order follower in the city hot on your trail, how do you get away? How do you make your escape when you have helicopters featuring the very latest in high tech thermal, night vision equipment tracking your every move?

Easy, you throw a Dictaphone (circa 1986) at the nearest soldier, tell him that it will prove you are innocent, then hide in a bush for half a minute and wait for everybody to fly off. You can then calmly stroll out and have a moment to yourself, right in the open, sitting alongside the Washington Monument and all of that other creepy occult architecture that is in the middle of Washington DC. Don’t worry about CCTV or anything like that, and don’t worry about security guards, soldiers, cops or any of the other people who are looking for you. They’ve flown away now, so take your time and enjoy the scenery.

Next scene it’s daytime and you are in a small town meeting your old army buddy. How did you get there when the entire military and police forces of the USA are looking for you and would have put up roadblocks all over town? Don’t worry about it, you just got there, let’s not get bogged down in details, okay?

From there you can saunter off to Mexico and beat up a top drug lord, blowing up his car and somehow tracking him and getting past all of the special forces trained security guards that would be protecting him 24/7 night and day.

Ahh, it’s easy being the Puinisher in 2015, isn’t it? Don’t worry about the high tech Police state of 2015 that has been exposed by numerous whistle-blowers recently. Just do your thing; pretend that it’s 1980 and that all of the new spy technology doesn’t exist. Oh, and if you are ever in big trouble just remember those two special weapons in your arsenal, the Dictaphone and the bush.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What the Hell happened to this book? It was pretty decent last month, but it’s fallen apart now and what I’ve just read is so completely stooopid that I’m almost lost for words in describing it. It even had one panel with a US superhero criticising the Punisher because he killed somebody without ‘Due process,’ like that’s even a thing in the US today where they kill people all of the time with no regards to due process whatsoever. What the Hell do you think those drones in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan are doing every day? Perhaps they are just looking for evidence for an upcoming trial, and accidentally killing women and children because of some design fault?

Goddamn it, this is too stupid for me to take in. Punisher #16 hinted at some kind of connection to reality in 2015, but Punisher #17 has just gone and reigned itself in by being as wilfully ignorant and as stupid as possible. Perhaps the last issue was a bit too radical, a bit too dangerous, a bit too close to the truth?  We can’t have that in Marvel comics now, can we? Punisher #17 has rectified that problem, and has promised to be a good boy, promised to be just another silly little comic, and promised not to reflect reality in a way that would be uncomfortable for anybody with power and/or money.

Writer Nathan Edmondson has kissed corporate ass this week, and put out a comic that will please his masters very much indeed. Don’t worry boss, issue #16 was just a one off. Issue #17 will be a good little boy, and I’ll get back to talking about rotten apples, Mexican drug cartels and how there is nothing wrong with the actual system itself. No, there’s no problem there. Land of the free and all that. Well, free as long as you can pay, obviously. Now get back to voting, back to serving the system, back to the rat-race, back to striving for that movie contract, back to the greasy corporate career pole, back to statist slavery and back to a comic book fantasy land that still acts like it’s 1986.


Rating: 2/10 (Just for the comedy value of seeing a US superhero talk about ‘Due Process’ in 2015 with no sense of irony whatsoever).











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Comic review: Ant-Man #3- Be a Man, not an Ant-Man

Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Cover artist: Mark Brooks
Publisher: Marvel (Disney) Comics
Released: 11th March 2015

I only bought this book for the cool looking front cover. As for the inside story, I already knew what I would be getting.

I read issue #1 of Ant-man, so I knew that the story was going to be about an emasculated loser getting bossed around by his ex-wife. I knew that the dialogue was going to be soft, cosy, and full of quips with self-deprecating interior monologues from the titular dork. I knew that everything would be treated like a joke, that nothing would feel real, and that there would be no dealing with any of the issues that I always talk about on my blog.

I knew all of this before buying the book, so I’m not going to complain about it here, well not very much. Ant-Man, as written by Nick Spencer, is a very modern feminist liberal apology of a man. He exists to be bossed around by alpha females, and is domesticated, pathetic, desperate, lonely and weak. In other words, he's the perfect embodiment of the modern man in 2015, as programmed by the new world order friendly corporate whore mainstream media. Hey comic book fans; here's a depressing truth-

THIS GUY IS SUPPOSED TO BE YOU. 

Don’t be Ant-Man kids. Self deprecating jokes and getting bossed around by women doesn’t make you a nice guy. It makes you a loser, the kind of guy who women secretly despise. Ant-Man is the kind of guy who cries himself to sleep (alone) every night as he ties himself in feminist liberal knots trying to understand why all of the ‘jerks’ get the girls, and all he gets for his ‘niceness’ is friendship zoned.

Don’t be that guy. Be a man, not an Ant-Man.

I didn’t like the artwork in this book. It was flat, the colours were dull and it lacked detail. The narrative structure was very good, but the story didn’t interest me, and it wasn’t saying anything about the world that I live in.

Ant-Man #3 has a great front cover by Mark Brooks, but the story inside ‘features’ an emasculated comic book reader type as the protagonist. The story is about him trying to keep out of trouble with his ex-wife, lest she takes his daughter away from him for good. That’s a bit depressing really, seeing a ‘superhero’ going through the same crap that men have to put up with in the real world, dominated as it is with female friendly courts and a man-hating culture that is deliberately trying to emasculate men.

I bought this book only for the cover, so I’m not angry about it. That cover is great, and it’s going up on my wall, but the rest of the comic is pretty useless to me, other than to use it as an example of mainstream anti-male propaganda that unfortunately contaminates contemporary comic books today.

Rating: 4/10 (Great cover, interior story is well structured, but Ant-Man is no hero to me)

Comic review: Batman Detective Comics #40- Slavery is freedom

Corporate drone writers- Francis (Pay me) Manapal & Brian (Show me the money) Buccellato 
Artist: Francis Manapal
Corporate Pay Master: DC Comics
Released: 4th March 2015

The front cover of Batman Detective Comics #40 features the anarchist A symbol. That hooked me, and so I purchased the book in order to see how anarchy was being portrayed in a 2015 mainstream comic book.

My fear (and expectation) was that anarchists would be portrayed as violent rioters. That’s what I expected, so what did I get?

I got a book where anarchists were portrayed as victims of mind control, led by a deceptive leader who had personal issues, not deep ideological issues with the current slavery system known as the state.

Cops were portrayed as ‘Just doing their job’ heroes and they acted with integrity and restraint against the mindless anarchist rioters.

 Batman was (obviously) a cop, and a brave hero who just wanted to help the poor innocent mind controlled slaves/citizen/suspects. The Anarky character was defeated (he was deluded anyway, so pay no attention to him) and the status quo was maintained, end of book.

I’m not going to go on a prolonged rant about this. There’s really no point in wasting my time on a deeper analysis of this book.

I was fully expecting Anarchy to be portrayed not as freedom from centralised control systems, but as mindless rioters burning down buildings and attacking brave Police officers, and that's exactly what I got.

Whenever ‘anarchy’ is portrayed in the mainstream media it is demonised. It is demonised because the mainstream media has a role to play in pacifying any true rebellion to statism and the corporate/state control system. Anarchy means freedom from centralised control, so it is always going to be misrepresented within the mainstream media. Of course it is. It’s a threat, so it is attacked, simple as that.

Writers Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato have certainly earned their corporate paycheques on this one. Being the good little corporate tools that they are, they have portrayed freedom from state slavery as rioting and mind control. Trust in the Police, trust in your leaders, and trust in those who exist to enslave you. Freedom is reading comics, having an Iphone and voting away your power every four years or so to a cartel of psycopathic billionaires. That’s freedom, and you are a lucky person indeed if you get the chance to write a comic book where you can portray slavery as freedom and freedom as rioting.

Well done Francis. Well done Brian. Enjoy your DC money, enjoy the status that comes with being a ‘writer’ and keep on keeping on. The slavery system known as statism relies on good little pawns like you two, and you do your jobs so willingly.

Rating: 3/10 (For the very nice main cover)

Perhaps they just want to help?

The mainstream consensus corporate/political media elites have their collective (and yes, it is very collective) arm around certain ‘victim’ groups, crouching to support the weak, or so it seems.

How benevolent of them, don’t you think?

Would those in a position of power help people, knowing that by doing so it would threaten their own positions?

It seems unlikely.

So why would they do it?

Why would they support social justice groups if these same social justice groups threatened their centralised control system?

Answer: Social justice groups supported by the mainstream consensus corporate/political/media elites are useful, not detrimental to the agenda of the control system.

Or, perhaps the psychopathic murderous scum in charge of the slave system known as western democracy just have a soft side?

Perhaps they just want to help people?

What do you think?

Comic review: Green Lantern #40- Corporate neo-liberal brainwashing 101

Writer: Robert Venditti
Artist: Billy Tan
Publisher: DC Comics
Date of publication: 4th March 2015


I couldn’t help but read this book as the corporate mainstream whore satanic system trying to make excuses for itself, it’s actions and the fact that the alternative media is destroying its credibility on an hourly basis.

What makes me say that? Just reading the book and seeing how the Green Lantern character (Hal Jordan) is acknowledging that the system that he represents is now seen as ‘Cops, and everywhere we go, people don’t want us.’

Soldiers are not ‘cops,’ they are not peacemakers, they are not flying around the world to save and help poor innocent victim/civilians. They are told that they are the heroes, but that is a lie. We know it is a lie, everybody knows it’s a lie, so let’s start pointing it out. Uniformed order followers of the state operate as the private mercenary army of powerful banking and corporate interests, the 1% that the Occupy movement has been talking about, and ridiculed for it’s truth telling in the corporate whore mainstream media.

Green Lantern #40 is the story of one individual order following soldier. He defends the system that he is a part of, leaving it in order to personally shoulder the blame for it’s recent abuses, all of which are characterised as ‘mistakes’ rather than anything that is inherently wrong with the system itself. He acknowledges that he is not to blame, but he is prepared to shoulder that blame in order to prop up a system that he has religious faith in.

Hal Jordan has deliberately turned himself into a villain in order to back up a discredited control system. The system itself will use this sacrifice to carry on with business as usual. He’s sacrificed himself, just like a good soldier would sacrifice himself for the benefit of his comrades on a battlefield. This is a standard technique used by control systems, and the best thing about it is that no coercion is required, as the indoctrinated individuals willingly sacrifice themselves for what they see as the greater good.

Green Lantern #40 is reflecting the religious faith system of mainstream western ideology. That faith system is an unquestioning belief in neo liberal capitalism, centralised, corporate statism and with an army of order following mercenary soldiers to back it up with violence. The act of sacrifice, of having faith in a system that is rotten to the core, is presented as a heroic thing for a soldier to do.

Sacrifice yourself to the gods of the corporations.

Sacrifice yourself to the gods of the banking sector.

Sacrifice yourself to the gods of the mainstream media.

Sacrifice yourself to neo-liberal crony capitalism.

Sacrifice yourself to wars based on lies.

That’s how it works, hundreds of thousands of Hal Jordan’s pumped up with false pride, indoctrinated, propagandised since birth, sacrificing themselves to the centralised control system, the borg collective hive mind that helps the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the entire planet enslaved…forever.


Rating: 4/10 (Subconscious mind-set of a neo liberal corporate slave)



*Lead Image on this review is the excellent movie cover variant front cover to Green Lantern #40 by Tony Harris

Comic review: Darth Vader #1- The Glorification of a Psychopath

Writer bot: Keiron Gillen
Artist: Salvador Larroca
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 11th February 2015



I’m not going to slaughter this book, as I knew exactly what I was going to get before I read it.

Here’s a Marvel (Disney) mainstream corporate whore comic book written by a writer (Kieron Gillen) who is so unmemorable that I cannot recall any of his previous work, even though he’s been writing mainstream comic books for many years now.

Gillen, Bendis, Fraction, Waid, Snyder, Slott, Aaron, Parker, Lemire, Hickman and all the rest of them working in the mainstream are pretty much the same. They concentrate on characters and plot, conform to the politically correct norms that the neo-liberal globalist consensus dictates, and pump out unit shifter after unit shifter without offending, and without saying a single useful thing about the state of the world as it is today. That’s okay, they have every right to do that, but I also have every right to not buy their books, and that is what I do, with the odd exception of course.

So when I get Darth Vader #1 by writer bot no 24445 Gillen I don’t exactly expect it to be subtly dealing with geo-political issues. I don’t expect clever references to contemporary surveillance state concerns, privacy issues, corporate crime, illegal foreign wars based on lies, the funding of international terrorism and all of the other sick things that democratic western elites are getting up to today.

What I do expect from a corporation like Marvel/Disney is a book that ignores all of the things that an intelligent, brave, moral and truth centred writer would discuss, and instead to focus the reader’s attention on trivial personality issues involving the cult of personality toybox stars that were created a long, long time ago, and maximised for corporate profit ever since.

That’s exactly what I get in Darth Vader #1, so no surprises. We follow Vader as he interacts with some of the more successful villains of the franchise (Boba Fett, Jabba the Hutt, the Emperor) and I guess the enjoyment to be had is the ‘Wow, that was cool’ factor as we see large panels of him standing in Jabba's palace and deftly avoiding the trap-door that leads to that big lizard monster thing that Jabba feeds his victims to. Is it fun? Kind of, on a surface level, but let’s delve a bit deeper here.

Who are we supposed to be empathising with here? It’s Darth Vader, right? He’s the name on the cover, and it’s his story that the book is following as he attempts to salvage his career in the evil empire after the right balls up he made with the Death star being blown to bits. Is he supposed to be a sympathetic character though? In this book he is a psychopath in a black uniform randomly murdering people in a stylised ‘cool’ manner in order to get his career moving again, and to settle old personal scores.

That’s the worst kind of person, right? That is the kind of person who has no problems machine gunning civilians or leading naked prisoners into gas chambers. It’s the kind of person who happily follows orders, thinking only of himself and perhaps a possible promotion if he gets the job of mass murder done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That is who Darth Vader is, and that is exactly how he is written in this book, so writer bot 24445 Gillen has to be congratulated on that point. What he needs to be called out on however is that he makes Vader’s actions look cool, he makes them look like they are the actions of a strong, powerful individual and not what they actually are, the actions of a weak, order following snivelling coward.

The impression that what Vader is doing here is super cool, awesome man, high five dude is helped along by the artwork where order following Darth is portrayed in the most flattering light possible. He’s big, he’s heroic, and he’s a super cool badass.

Yeah, and he’s also a cold, callous, in it only for himself secondary (made, not born) psychopath, so perhaps we shouldn’t be glorifying the guy, right?

So that’s the book. More glorification of the worst kind of person, the kind of person that the corporate elite’s rely upon to maintain the status quo in the world as it is today. A world owned and controlled by a tiny number of corporate/banking elites, and kept in murderous disorder by their bought and paid for gangs of order following mass murdering career obsessed psychopaths in black uniforms.

All of this will of course fly over the heads of the majority of comic book readers (and fanboy writer bots) as they act like children and praise the book for being cool, and Boba Fett is in it, and wow, that was like totally awesome, yawn. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Take a step back, take a deep breath of air, look at the world, and then read the book again. It’s the glorification of a Police state psychopath, and the plot is the same old stuff that Dark Horse was doing with a browbeaten and angry Vader trying to prove his worth to the Emperor, it’s not good, not good at all.

Rating: 4/10 (Slightly below average corporate, neo-liberal, police state comic book) 

Comic book review: Sinestro #9- Evil Christians, drugs, police and dictators

Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Brad Walker
Colourist: Jason Wright
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 28th January 2015



For the first time in it’s nine issue run this comic book, as written by Cullen Bunn, reads like just another matrix dwelling mainstream slice of deception and disinformation.

It’s a shame, because I expected better than this, but after reading this new direction (after the New Gods crossover books) all I can do is call it out for what it is, and unfortunately it’s extremely derivative stuff.

The book begins with an attack on religion. Not the religions that are actually causing all of the troubles in the world today, but the religion that it’s politically safe to attack, that being good old Christianity.

I can envision people arguing that ‘The Pale Vicars’ or ‘The Sallow Priests’ are not Christians, they are ‘aliens’ but let’s be honest here. A vicar? A priest? It’s Christianity, so let’s stop pretending.

I don’t see any Rabbi’s or Imams being referenced in mainstream comic books, it’s always religious leaders that are connected to Christianity.

Comic book writers do this because they are allowed to criticise Christianity. If they criticise Islam or Judaism then they’ll lose their jobs. In other words, they are cowards who only criticise the religious organisations that they are allowed to criticise. I don’t respect that, at all. If you are going to criticise religion then criticise them all, and if you are too afraid to do that, if you value your career more than your integrity then I’m not going to read your comic books anymore.

After Sinestro #9 lamely attacks Christianity it goes on to tell the readers that drugs are bad, and that we have to rely on a third party (the Police) to save us from the evil people who want to give us poor helpless suspect-civilians something that is bad for us. Wow, the book really is scraping the barrel this month. Christians baaaaaaad. Drugs baaaaaad. World Police goooooood. What’s next, a power crazed dictator who wants to get revenge on Sinestro?

Yep, that’s exactly what we get next. The good old power crazed dictator. A mainstream media generated villain, and the perfect justification for another ‘humanitarian intervention,’ another bombing campaign, another war waged for resources where the lives of innocent human beings count for absolutely nothing.

Forget about the reality on planet Earth 2015 where western ‘democracies’ have been waging war, raping, pillaging and torturing all over the planet for over a decade now (and that’s just recent history). I can’t believe that people living in 2015 are still pushing this fairytale that the number one threat to world peace is power crazed dictators, and not the centralised, top-down, corporate/banking interests that control western governments.

I’m standing back now, looking at what is on offer here in this comic book, and I just can’t read it anymore. It’s too simplistic, too lazy, too ignorant of reality, and it’s just not making any sort of connection to the real world realities that have taken place in the world post September 2001.

I can’t be buying this book and pointing out this stuff every month on my blog. I don’t enjoy it you know. It bugs me, annoying me big time that I’ve wasted so much of my time (and money) on a book that has given me absolutely nothing.

Writer Cullen Bunn has revealed himself here, and his mindset is worryingly stuck in generations passed. If he thinks that the most important issues in 2015 are Christian fanatics, dictators and the need for a Police state to save citizen-suspects from the evil of drugs then he is just the right kind of ignorant that the comic book industry wants. And when I say ignorant I don’t mean that he is stupid. I mean that he has chosen to ignore the world, and to push out a mainstream media version of reality that in no way whatsoever corresponds with what is actually going on in the world today.

I feel terrible now. I don’t want to put up these reviews where all I do is complain, insult the poor writer and go on about the mainstream media, the corporate matrix, etc, etc, etc, but what can I do? I buy a book, it insults me, and so I have to call it out. Sinestro is off my pull-list, so no more reviews of the book here on my blog. My search for awakened, independent, free-thinking writers working in the mainstream comic book industry continues. Wish me luck, it’s a bloody desert out there.

Rating: 3/10 (I enjoyed the colouring by Jason Wright)

Comic review: Ant Man #1- Emasculated comic book reader meet emasculated comic book ‘hero’

Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Ramon Rosanos
Publisher: Marvel (Disney) Entertainment
Released: 7th January 2015


Ant-Man #1 is an utterly depressing read, from beginning to end.

Our very contemporary super hero is powerless, emasculated, weak and pathetic. Everything about him screams loser. He is an unemployed part-time father, a desperate nobody who lives to see his young daughter, when his ex-wife allows it, of course. There is nothing aspirational about his life. If a young kid read this book the last thing he would want to happen in his life would be to grow up and be anything like Ant Man. Nobody would want to be Ant Man, not even Ant Man himself.

That’s what puzzles me. Who is this book aimed at? Not kids, that’s for sure. Perhaps it’s going for the middle aged male who is bossed around by his ex-wife and told that he’s not allowed to see his kids anymore, but still has to pay for them, obviously?

But why would this victimised and downtrodden section of our broken western society want to read a comic book that reminds them of just how much they are being screwed over? Does a depressed middle aged man really want to spend his ‘escapist’ free time reading comic books where so-called ‘heroes’ have lives that are just as imprisoned as their own?

Scott (Ant-Man) Lang begs for employment, gets arrested because he’s a sucker for empty consumerism, gets divorced from his perfect wife, has to care for his sick daughter, fails at his career as superhero, begs for employment again, gets nagged at by his cropped haired feminist ex-wife, gets mocked by teenage superheroes, ends up stalking Tony Stark as he makes out with a hot young girl, gets a pity job and ends up living in a box, the only thing that a pathetic loser like Ant Man can afford to live in.

Seriously, I’ve never read anything more depressing in my entire life, and it’s all done in a jokey, carefree tone with Ant Man himself acting as the most pathetic narrator imaginable.

It’s a celebration of powerlessness, of being a man completely and utterly without balls, without pride, without dignity, without anything other than the sense of duty that he has to do what his ex-wife tells him to do and to look after his sick daughter, but only when she allows him the privilege of doing so.

I guess you could say that Ant Man is the comic book personification of the feminised liberal man of 2015. He’s a loser, knows that he’s a loser, and he’s happy to remain a loser.

This is not a superhero, it’s Marvel comics looking at its readers, and reflecting that image of their readers into their comic books. Writer Nick Spencer obviously thinks that his readers will identify with Ant Man, and that tells me that he sees his readers as middle aged, emasculated, unemployed, part time Dad’s with visitation hours and desperation dominating their utterly depressing lives. Hey, it’s the liberal dream I guess. So, in the final equation, this book wasn’t completely useless. It was illustrative, and told me everything I needed to know about how Marvel Comics views it’s remaining readership base.


Rating: 2/10 (flat art, depressing story and character)

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #8- Individualism versus corporate collectivism

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 26th November 2014


I always go back to my old Conan comics, reading them again and again to remind myself that comics can be good, if done properly. I need the reassurance every now and then, especially after reading bloody awful, intelligence insulting mainstream comic books that obsess over race, sexuality and gender politics, whilst deliberately ignoring the important issues of our times.

Break down their centres of control

You know what I’m talking about here, right? I’m talking about corporate/banking criminality, endless wars against media generated villains, a lack of political representation for the 99% of ordinary people, unthinking statism and the worship of order following abusers in positions of lawless state authority. These are the pressing concerns of today, not skin colour, race, religion or sexuality. These are the issues that comic books should be addressing. They are not doing so, and you don’t have to be a genius to understand why.

A good Conan comic is about individuality, and standing up for yourself whilst sticking to a strict set of moral codes, punishing the corrupt and being kind to the weak. Conan is not a government agent; he’s not an uniformed enforcer, he’s not an order follower, he’s not a good corporate slave. He would be completely out of place in the Marvel comic book universe of 2014 where order following state slaves are portrayed as heroes and true individual, independent masculine heroes no longer exist. It’s not a ‘conspiracy,’ it’s a corporate thing.

Marvel/Disney is a corporation that relies on consumer slave culture, and so it pumps out consumer slave heroes. It’s only natural for them to do so. They can turn Captain America black, or turn Thor into a woman because that is perfectly allowable within a corporate culture that sees humans not as individuals, but as passive consumers. How do you double your consumers? You get women to buy your crap as well as the men. Marvel doesn’t turn Thor into a woman because it cares about women’s rights. They turn Thor into a woman because they care about female consumers. It’s not about morality. It’s about business. What Marvel cannot do is push stories where the hero is an individual; a man who works outside of the collectivised, government sponsored Avenger/Corporate status quo. Pushing individualism is bad business for a corporation that relies on herd mentality consumer repeaters.

Conan the Avenger #8 is a good old fashioned Conan tale. It’s lacking an element of magic and sorcery at the moment, but it has political intrigue, a gorgeous slave girl for our hero to rescue and a despicable villain who is suppressing the people through threats of violence. It’s what all villains do. Threatening people with order following goons and bureaucrats is at the heart of what government is all about. It’s what your government is doing to you and your family right now. It’s what all governments do, and that’s why we need to get rid of them, all of them.

Conan ends up as King Conan at the end of his life, so he’s not perfect. But he’s always a sad King, a reluctant King who doesn’t really enjoy the position that he has attained. He’s not the power tripping type. He’s melancholic, a bit confused, and a bit in need of a book about anarchy if you ask me, because that’s what all of his adventures are about. They are about fighting against control systems, against kings, governments, wizards and every other kind of scumbag who has set himself up in a big White House on the hill. That’s why I like him, and that’s why he’s my comic book hero.

This particular Conan book is very well drawn, it has some gruesome battle scenes, it has a good villain and it closes on a cliff-hanger where Conan is staring down a wall of archers. Oh no, he looks in trouble this time. How is he going to get out of this one? I like that in my comics. Give me a cliff-hanger, give me a reason to look forward to the next issue, don’t rush things and have some fun with it all.

So far Conan the Avenger is a pretty decent Conan book. Conan is young, he’s not that talkative, he’s taking things in, learning and strategizing as the adventure progresses. It’s good stuff, far better than the cops and government agent crap you get from DC and Marvel. If like myself you get fed up with corporate Police state propaganda then you’ll get a kick out of it. Conan is still Conan in Dark Horse comics. They haven’t turned him into a girl. Not yet anyway.  He’s still fighting against control systems, and he’s still the main man, the number one hero in the comic book world of 2014, just as he was in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s and 2000’s. All hail King Conan, the melancholic, anarchist hero who doesn’t want to be a King.

Rating: 8/10