DC New 52 Issue Zeroes Reviews

Does anyone still have fresh memories of the time Hal Jordan broke from character, went ostensibly insane, and attempted to revamp the DC Universe with the maxi-crossover Zero Hour? It was  a means to extend the aging franchise of various half-century old properties, revitalize storylines, and pique interests anew in the 1990's... coming out of the era which stated "Change is Necessity" the origins of the various characters did not shift considerably, whereas the troublesome Golden Age heroes either died or underwent an apotheosis. The one-billionth incarnation of the Legion of Super Heroes emerged.  

During the Q and A a few months ago, there came the question of whether or not DC would commit to issue zeroes for the DC New 52, and sure enough, that was just what they had in store.

Some of the ones that came out this Wednesday are noted below in a "Top 5 of the Week" format. 

BATMAN AND ROBIN #0

Written by: 

Peter J. Tomasi

Art by: 

Patrick Gleason

Mick Gray

Cover by: 

Patrick Gleason

Mick Gray

Since the arrival of Damian, Batman's son by way of Ra's Al Ghul's daughter, we've seen the tumultuous ride unfold in topsy-turvy plot collisions and a terribly disappointing resurrection deflation.  The titles all warped once more with the arrival of The New 52, but interestingly, outside of the retconning of Batgirl/woman and the addition of Talons and Owls into the Dark Knight's mythos, the main series remained fundamentally intact.  What Batman and Robin #0 provides is a perspective into the oft-referenced training that Damian Wayne received practically from birth.  We see the role of his father as symbol of worth, and his troubling relationship with his mother.  This issue is executed flawlessly, giving it a perfect score, nearly impossible in this neck of the woods.

10/10

Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0

Writer: Matt Kindt

Artist: Alberto Ponticelli

Inker: Wayne Faucher

Letterer: Patrick Brosseau

Colorist: Jose Villarrubia

Editor: Joey Cavalieri

Publisher: DC Comics

When Frankenstein was first conceived as a miniseries during the Seven Soldiers of Victory esoterica during DC's "Let Grant Morrison steer a bizarre vessel through the mainstream" days, it was by far the most successful and strictly speaking stand-out title of the bunch.  A lumbering behemoth of science, the ill-gotten monster of a Modern Prometheus, taking his creator's name as his own, spouting parables from the Bible and Shakespeare while cleaving monsters in twain, was a brilliant concept.  When Flashpoint ran through stores to make way for The New 52, Frankenstein was again given a limited series, this time with his fellow Scary Movie Golden Age Archetypes, textured versions of the Wolfman, Vampire, Black Lagoon Monster, etc. all given reign of the classic World War 2 Squadron motif.  This carried over into the new universe, but established within the framework of Father Time's S.H.A.D.E. operation (hearkening to an interesting time when Uncle Sam was pertinent to the DCU Mainstream with his Freedom Fighters).  For Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0, we get a straightforward origin story, crafted to fill in details of the monster's life and describe his motivations within the organization that he has served for so long.  It delivers precisely what it claims to, and a little more to boot, with (un)naturalized characters and fittingly descriptive art. 

9.5/10

RESURRECTION MAN #0

Written by: 

Dan Abnett

Andy Lanning

Art by: 

Jesús Saíz

Cover by: 

Francesco Francavilla

One of the certainties of the Resurrection Man series was always that it would never get very far.  A certain apathy comes to casual readers with a character like Mitch Shelley, though admirably the story laid out in the series was linear and catchy enough to snag some loyalists, myself included.  Announcements regarding the cancellation of the series are sad enough. With Issue #0, our hero, who resurrects with new powers every time he dies, discovers the truth of who he is, who he was, and who he will be.  The plot-threads playing themselves out up to this point seem less slap-dash now that certain pieces have been put into place, although some knots didn't need as much unraveling as they received.  The series as a whole has had a Fugitive feel to it, and it's understandable that without that driving force, the series could have gone stale much more quickly.  It's been a long strange trip with only a few bumps and snags, but this issue answers a lot of questions and is a microcosm testament to the strengths and weaknesses of the series as a whole.

8.5/10

STORMWATCH #0

Written by: 

Peter Milligan

Art by: 

Ignacio Calero

Sean Parsons

Cover by: 

Tyler Kirkham

Batt

From Stormwatch came The Authority (and from that the Monarchy and Meritocracy and Establishment and Planetary) and from The Authority came Stormwatch.  The New 52 proposes Stormwatch as a centuries-old organization of superhumans of all sorts coming together with the common cause of warding off alien menaces.  Integrated into the calling is our teenage Century Baby (The Doctor meets Cultural/Industrial Zeitgeist personafied) Jenny Quantum, being trained by Adam One (former leader of Stormwatch, stuck in a Death Hole or somesuch now) in this issue #0, ostensibly situated within the current order of events of the standard plot.  Perhaps owing the most of its existence to the merging of properties out of all New 52 titles, it has shown the most competent superhero team on the planet, and also the most secretive.  Peter Milligan has smartly adopted the history of this expansive and ancient organization to reveal only a bit at a time.  This issue seems a tad heavy on the exposition, which lags some areas, but is essential to hints of Jenny's "history" with the group throughout the ages.         

8.5/10

DEMON KNIGHTS #0

Written by:
Paul Cornell
Art by:
Bernard Chang
Cover by:
Bernard Chang

Another title that seems to owe its existence to the propositions of those that seek to add an actual air of historicity to the New 52 Universe. Demon Knights #0 is another example of a take on the origin story motif, though this one focuses exclusively on the dichotomy of Jason Blood and Etrigan the demon, both upstarts reaching for ambitions well beyond their grasps, leading to their ultimately being bound together, though they never precisely overlap.  Therein lies the intrigue, with Merlin and Arthur playing as prominent roles in young hotheaded Jason Blood's life as Lucifer does in Etrigan's, entertaining petty and pointless rebellions to stave off the boredom.  Pacing is a mild problem with this issue, and in certain places feels pinched or rushed, but to be fair, it is an origin story, and stands in interesting contrast to the Demon #0 released after Zero Hour, so long ago, hitting buttons of the oddest nostalgia, yet not quite fulfilling expectations.  However, intrigue and interest has been triggered, as this is a solid and serviceable read, especially next to releases so dreadful they shall not be reviewed or even named here.

8.5/10

Manhattan Projects proves Jonathan Hickman is an American Comic Book God

Perhaps there are those that feel that the World War Two genre or subgenre or whatever you want to call it has been played out, that no new territory can be worn in the grooves of the many that came before.  Better to launch into neo-futurist tirades of tomorrow, perhaps, cast off the offensive caul of Hitler and be free of the smirking decrepit racists that comprise what some fabled newscaster once dubbed "The Greatest Generation".

Yet with the new Image Comics title The Manhattan Projects, Jonathan Hickman (FF, Fantastic Four, The Nightly News, Secret, upcoming: New Avengers) proposes to visit a world where superscience of the future takes a toehold in the past, giving him free room to range between the Supermax-Scifi epic arcs and individual character subplots, a strong suit he has tailor made to his areas of interest, quite clearly. Superscience World War Two's cast of loose alt/historical figures is presented with one-line bios, shown here, but really no amount of sneak peeks can spoil the actual content of the work, immensely fun and perfectly paced.  It's simple. What if the Manhattan Project of our world was expanded and amplified and continued in other projects, limited only by the expansive imaginations of a fantastical military-funded think tank?  Would the atomic bomb then be a mere incidental in the shadow of such amazing discoveries made?

Taking real historical figures and adapting them into comic books is of course as old as product endorsement for fruit pies so far as comics are concerned.  Einstein has appeared as Uncle and Robot alike in the flatland, as consultant and as hero and as villain. Likewise, Hitler, who so far in The Manhattan Project has had but one cameo, is mutable along various mediums, the message of course most always derisive, or at the very least chiding.  But what precident does Oppenheimer have in the comic book universes? A brief appearance in one panel of The Invisibles and perhaps a scattered shot here and there in a flashback sequence elsewhere. 

In The Manhattan Projects, Hickman takes Oppenheimer, with his famous quotation "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds", and delves into the core of his tangent twin, revealing a nesting doll with more parts than even Schrodinger could calculate.  The theme of The Manhattan Projects is scale applied to pseudohistory.  

The fixed idea of this series can be found on the grand tour/briefing in the first issue. 

And the root of this, as it always is with comics, is the art.  Nick Pitarra was fated to work on this comic book. The man is a master of the form, installing high-grade perspective into each panel, pulling out and zooming into amazing pages that hearken to Geoff Darrow streamlined, Seth Fisher refined, and a certain something else, an economy of line in some places akin to a third-generation Moebius. His sense of composition demands repeated examination, and it stands up to that and more.  The demands of expression are delivered in a fashion that even Frank Quitely could only capture on a decent day. A Where's Waldo luxury comes out of such styles, but the real money is between the panels. And it works perfectly.

The Japanese have of course refined the fine art of Robotic Samurai. What's that turtle doing there?

The potential for the series is critically influenced by a number of things Hickman's found along his career path.  When working on The Fantastic Four, revitalizing the title to such status that it got a spin-off, he took Reed Richards to the next level of achievement, and juggled subplots for months at a time without dropping any too catastrophically.  But with this title, none of the restrictions of the Marvel Line-up are in place and these characters, plucked from history and suspended in alt/real fluid, can play out their experiments and provide a chuckle at the surprising bits.

We find our potential central protagonist (although with such an ensemble cast it's hard to say if that's possible) after initial introductions in young Richard Feynman, supergenius with daily mirror affirmations down pat.  It feels as if Hickman's work with S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us a tone for our soldier Leslie Groves that sounds like a Nick Fury tuning fork before he broke up with the Howling Commandos.  Albrecht Einstein is a whiskey-shooting troublemaking rebel.  Enrico Fermi is an inhuman and Harry Dhaglian is an irradiated skull in a bottle.  Zen Death Buddhist Gate invasion marks our introduction to the series and a key to the first arc overall.  Hickman's script calls for the ghost of FDR trapped in a supercomputer to play a pivotal part.  There is in this title a sense of capturing that giddy thrill of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but tapping history rather than literature to draw forth the fun.  We see the Pandora's Box of Hickman's plot constructed like a Operatic leitmotif echoing, for some reason, the scope of The Dune Saga, all intrigue and adventure, perhaps a coming of age thrown in, a splash of humor, hateful heroes, sympathetic villains, perhaps a few parallel reality twists, maybe even a betrayal or two.   

An explosive title, totally underhyped because I don't see it being overhyped, the clean design of the cover and introduction, with critical quotes from The Recorded Feynman, show the echoes of reality come to play best in the medium of comic books when there is a proper sense of wonder and discovery captured.  Thanks to the path leading to this point, that is Hickman's strongest case for status as god (or demigod, Tony Stark might say) of comic books.

Oh yeah, and they nuke Hiroshima.

Secret Avengers: The Remender Redemption

It was upon first appraisal of Rick Remender that I recognized his style felt like Morrison in the same sense that Morrison felt like Moore.  It has to be recognized that nearly each and every character in a Rick Remender storyline has more depth and emotional complexity than most superhero books can hope to achieve, and it unfolds without too-oft repeated contrivances (or as-yet unexplored facets on those contrivances, or tropes, if you like) and ill-suited demographics-pandering that are built into the structure of Comic Books: the Entity, as a whole, both at this time and (let's admit it) most of its existence.

Could be that Rick Remender's a new breed of comic book writer, the metaspawn emerging around the Age that Morrison made Weird, altering the scope of the world with the destruction of Genosha and wide-screen life-tampering and near-cosmic grounded in adventure proper, writ large with neon signs and snappy dialogue.  He's not John Byrne and he's not Chris Claremont, thank Christ.  He's the type of fellow who knows the nuance of nerd like the palm of his hand, yet walks through the socially-crippling flames unscathed, with a quip or quirk that you'll need to reread, a hook that you can explain in two sentences, and cliffhangers that aren't simply driven by virtue of being the final page.  He kills characters with all the mercy of a slaughterhouse manager. This makes him very dangerous for the entities within Marvel 616, resilient as they are.

Rick Remender could turn the Marvel Universe into a graveyard and make it matter as he did so.

Secret Avengers, your surprise of the week is a newly reformed Masters of Evil. Have some.

Mind you, this is supposed to be a professionally structured review of The Secret Avengers storyline currently occurring (post Status Quo Disrupting Revamp? Pre?) but it will likely degenerate into gushing fandom for the man's work.  He made a comic book with a joke title (Uncanny X-Force) into one of the freshest and most surprising titles in the Marvel Universe, and has mined the veins of the mountains that came before with an aplomb as graceful as a swan and as ruthless as a badger.

Remender was no doubt raised on Bruce Campbell  dark physical comedy and likely when he saw the dystopian hodge podge future burned away by the Phoenix in Here Comes Tomorrow he liked what he saw.  Twisted variants on all the old themes, fresh and remastered as villains or heroes, morally grey issues greeted with enthusiasm rather than trepidation.

Currently two of his titles, the effective Uncanny X-Force and The Secret Avengers, involve his rehashing of two groups that seemed silly by title in the morally ambiguous quagmire attempting grand declarative statements: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and The Masters of Evil.  Elements of The Venture Brother's Guild of Calamitous Intent are called forth: Who would want to join an organization called Evil right in its title?  How many demented souls would actually want to carry such a title? Plenty, it turns out, and not all of them from what we would call reality.

Remender alters the Marvel Universe landscape as he murders innocents and guilty alike... the mythos of place is conjured up and handed off to other writers, friends every one, to explore and adventure in.  The key to any Remender storyline is simple.  It's fun, see.  A comic book is supposed to be fun.

The activity of reading a comic book is a leisurely one. A novice, unschooled, must be entertained, but a certain gravitas (to greater or lesser extents) must always be given to the auteur providing the imagery.  Remender's eye for artists from his time in Fear Agent on has served his work well, a complimentary matter of fast motion and stillness incorporated to suit the events of the story.   Matteo Scalera's one of the latest in a line of artists whose ample abilities seem to suit the activity of Rick Remender's script, with motion and perspective driving the story at a steady pace.

Small moments like this mean so much. Pun intended.

So what is the story, at least with the Secret Avenger's corner of the Universe? Seems that Nick Fury has had this habit, since a very long time ago, to have life model decoy androids of himself all over the globe to keep from getting assassinated and to foster a sense of confusion, since he's the ultimate Cold Warrior.  One of his life model decoys went a little bonkers, calls himself Max, and is assembling a new Masters of Evil in a supervillain bar-pit formed by a Molecule Man battle (remember the landscape shifts mentioned before?)... and he's been collecting crowns of power (calling back to the first missions of the Secret Avengers series, led by Steve Rogers, Supercop)... to become Lord of the Abyss.  And the Abyss, from what we the reader can easily gather, is a darkness beyond demonic, reminiscent, in fact of the Qlippoth explored in Alan Moore's Promethea (the 11th gate in the Tree of Life, the Beggar, the Fountain).

This makes for entertainment, people.  A comic is supposed to be a good time.  And so long as this procession of entertainment continues to keep up in quality, we should pile great heaps of our money at the base of its altar, the serial, and its throne, the graphic novel.  Long may the King, Comic Books: the Entity reign. Long may it be held to a higher standard, with examples set by quality writers and extremely talented artists.

Max Fury, that's like Max Power or Lance Uppercut right?

Penultimate Impressions to Avengers vs. X-Men (with Spoilers)

So, imagine for a moment that you're a nanoscout in an editorial bullpen at Marvel Comics. It's somewhere around the mid to late 1970's and you're dealing with a fellow that used to be a gofer but can call himself a writer now, really and truly.  This sparkly fellow, who lives and breathes these mutants through and through, is Chris Claremont, the originator of The Phoenix Saga, at his absolute prime. It's the prime of Miss Jean Grey as The Phoenix, as well, coming out of the darkness. Immense forty-foot tall avatars of Len Wein and Bob Harras are breathing down everyone's neck over the death of the Broccoli People, whose tiny fictional solar system was snuffed out by that fiery telekinetic redhead in shockingly descriptive detail not too long ago.  Claremont, glowing with all the vim and vinegar allotted to him in his contract (Stan Lee sits in an immense hot tub on the next level up in the building, charging outrageous parties to the petty cash box and using such contracts to light his expensive imported cigars) explains how the rehabilitation of Jean Grey will occur.

The sevenfold veil of Marvel editorial eidolons parts, and a booming voice issues forth, shaking everyone present to the rims of their bellbottoms, as a three-faced robed figure emerges in hard-light hologram.

SHE KILLED BILLIONS, the Living Tribunal states in precise monotone, SHE MUST BE PUT IN JAIL FOREVER OR KILLED. THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY IS EXPLICIT IN THIS REGARD.

Claremont, crushed, rushes into his tiny office cave and hastily works out the final outfit Jean Grey will wear. It'll be the Shiar that pass judgment on her, yes, those pristine imperial scum.  She deserves a second chance.  He imbued her with powers after a creature that had resurrection built into its function, for crying out loud.  As ever, Claremont knows, the important bit is to approach these characters as if they were well established actors providing an excellent play. He had to have the motivations down, or it would fall flat.

Suicide by laser on the Blue Area of the Moon. Cyclops, crushed, to be consoled soon by a clone who he would have a son with.  That son would be thrust into a dark future where Apocalypse, genetic supremacist mutant, is destined to rule.  That son would return older than his father, much later, after Jean Grey's return ("Hey guys? She was on the bottom of this river! In an energy cocoon! Nyah.") to raise the first mutant born since M Day, when almost all the mutants lost their powers. That mutant's name would be Hope and the Phoenix would come for her.

But not without the process being drawn out among multiple titles for nearly a year.

These guys see Xavier rollin'. They hatin'.

It should be said, the maximized cross-over super-event Avengers vs. X-Men has gone directions that not all that many readers predicted (unless, of course, they proceed in that joyless endeavor of "reading ahead" in the various teasers and previews) but in more recent issues has come to the dilemma of all such major universe-rattling plots, the diffusion of tension.

Captain Britain, eternally upstaged by his betters

After the Phoenix is splintered by Iron Man's Phoenix Buster, five mutants are chosen to live in a Utopia and have their authority questioned by the entrenched power structures.  Find out what happens when heroes stop being polite, and start posturing in angry ideologies that shape the world.  The Real World: Marvel 616.

If you're just joining us, Emma Frost gently pushed Namor into attacking Wakanda to rescue Hope (and, um, drown thousands of innocent civilians in the process), and the Avengers did their best and take the fellow down.  Succeeding, Namor's portion of the Phoenix Force was transferred to the remaining four.  When, during a rescue mission, Spider-Man taunts Magik and Colossus into cancelling each other out ("I'll stop you... with the power of laughter!" or something to that effect), Cyclops and a newly rekindled (no pun intended) homicidal megalomaniac Emma Frost are the last... um, Phoenixes standing.

And that's the real shame of the matter.  The Phoenix has always embodied a fusion of opposites. The message that comes across in this crossover is that the pathway to hell is always paved with good intentions. With good must come bad, and with life, death.  To imagine that the powers would corrupt these noble heroes (who, admittedly, have been shifting more and more into a morally gray area) is to discount the efforts of Charles Xavier, for decades reiterating that peace and reason are the solution to the turmoil and murk that the 616 Universe often finds itself grappling with. And that's just the murk that results from convolutions of plot since Claremont started the Phoenix rollercoaster/death of Jean Grey/clone/future storylines that ground most plots into dust until more recent efforts gave the teams and characters new and more energized focus. Like a laser. Ahem.

The idea of Cyclops being a myopic self-centered god-like being is about as fun as it sounds.

Where does Xavier really stand in all this?  He's been shuffled into the background of each and every X-Men title (notable exception being his visit to Wolverine's new school) for quite some time. Prior to the maddeningly and surprisingly dull Skrull Invasion, he had a place at the seat of the Marvel Illuminati, but perhaps, without crippling him again, or outright killing him (remember Bishop? How he shot Professor X once? How he's nowhere to be seen for any of this?), the creative teams have seen fit to stomp his dream of peaceful coexistence, the Utopia that the Phoenix Five would have had, if they'd been able to maintain control (insert What If? issue HERE), into so much dust.

There's a moment, and maybe you'll catch it. Here...

The only other time I've seen Cap cry is that time Red Skull gouged his eyes out on the steps of Capitol Hill.

Remember, Cyclops was Xavier's star pupil from teen years, and Wolverine the dangerous Giant-Size-come-lately rogue (much older than Captain America, even). For all the posturing done, it's been nearly but not completely subtle, the shift that those two characters have undergone in recent years, Cyclops the militant edge in league with Magneto, thrice-time reformed supervillain (himself plagued with legions of hackneyed clones), and Wolverine, the immortal-by-way-of-popularity, the killer with a soft streak, rebuilding the school and adding a Baby Krakoa.      

So, after so many years of Danger Rooms and such, when imbued with the Phoenix Force, Cyclops is corrupted.  So it goes. Emma Frost is to blame, perhaps.  Or perhaps these years since Jean Grey's final death, at the hands of a faux Magneto that ripped New York apart, had changed Scott Summers too much, and his investment in Hope was too great. Or perhaps the Phoenix Force is too much for oldboy. It works. It works on multiple levels. And for that, we have the current authors involved to thank.

What nobody mentions is, Hope's been listening to Wu Tang Clan during her training sessions.

Each issue of Avengers vs. X-Men is plotted by the same five writers that have taken turns scripting, issue by issue.  Jason Aaron's turn at scripting provided ample comfort with the mutants, and clean dialogue. Brian Michael Bendis took a more action-based "cinematic" set-piece for the scripts he ran on, which is his strength.  Ed Brubaker writes a mixed bag of events, zeroing in on key moments of characterization and domino toppling. Matt Fraction's comfort with the Avenger's end of the spectrum, especially Thor and Tony Stark, gives girth to his portion of the story. Jonathan Hickman, of course gives an intelligent weight to his scripts, packing in information that drives the story with a scale and complexity not unlike a decent Dune novel.

It's a unique opportunity provided by each writer to play to their own strengths, no doubt assessed and analyzed by editors (Jake, Lauren, Nick, Tom and Axel) prior to the plot points being anchored and assigned.  Of course, the rotating artists, the second generation powerhouses such as the Adam Kubert and John Romita Jr, even Oliver Copiel in conjunction with Mark Morales, transition less jarringly than one might expect, as the story unfolds, and it seems that in this project a good time was had by all.  Laura Martin and Larry Molinar do a fine service to color duties.  Overall, everyone did their job well and should expect a dump truck filled with money to be backed up to their brand new empty heart-shaped pools, hollowed out by fanboys that vainly wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that the X-Men, the eternal underdogs and demagogues, stood a chance against the mega-noble hardcases that raked in more billions than some counties (or countries) will ever even see.  If only this sort of care and attention was invested in so many titles as AvX houses (only a few dozen, modest by superhero crossover terms), then surely a new golden age, blessed by the ghost of Jack Kirby himself, would ring out over the dusty bins of bagged and sealed promotional materials and movies waiting to happen, in comic book shops throughout the country.

But.

This is all a build-up to the next big thing.

Dammit, why did Nick Fury's son have to look exactly like Ultimate Nick Fury, again? Really, people. C'mon.

There is always a follow-up to major cross-over events, no matter how the drab tangential storylines play out. Nevermind the plotholes and inconsistencies and linear gaps and Xavier mind-wiping everyone at one point, nevermind the characters in jail or out, or who got beaten up by whom or what dialogue did or did not happen when Gambit fought Captain America, briefly, for the rod of relevance.  There is more time travel yet to come. And more shifts in writing duties. Comfort zones shifting.  Golden ages packing their bags and awaiting the Silver Aeon, overseen by Rocket Raccoon and Groot for some reason, maybe a movie, maybe the recently shark-jumped and all pervasive trend of remaking and remaking and remaking until the whole mess is meta-regurgitation/vomit/feces.

Prepare yourselves for Marvel, now (sorry, I mean Marvel NOW!). It's recommended, if you are a diehard fan, that you insinuate yourself into a comfortable seat, and remember that it's been done before.  If you're invested in the stories, good, that means that the writers are doing their job.  If you're angry about creative team swaps, or ambivalent, don't flinch, not yet.  Be prepared to. This is the answer to New 52. If not, now, never. Avengers vs. X-Men merely paved the way. The appearance of a game-plan being in place is reassuring, even in the unlikely event of a catastrophic cosmic prolapse.

The story has not yet fully resolved itself. The proverbial "suicide shot on the Blue Area of the Moon" has not come. Yet. The Living Tribunal has not yet spoken the last words of the day.  The Watcher's patented "disapproving look" has not reached peak sadness. Yet.

It's coming. The next "Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men" will be the last.

Sponsored by Rocket Raccoon.

Rocket Raccoon being the cornerstone of the Marvel Multiverse, after all.

One-Line Reviews for Recent Marvel Comics Publications (all mutant-based)

UNCANNY X-FORCE 27
9/10

Rick Remender almost seems to enjoy killing characters in his charge, and this corner of the Marvel Universe folds around the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the consequences of preemptive vengeance ... it's a shame about Fantomex, but Phil Noto's solid art structure carries the content well.

UNCANNY X-MEN 16

9/10

The Phoenix Five confront Mr. Sinister's clone nation... the mining of older and newer storylines is delivered by writer Kieron Gillen and penciler Daniel Acuna, whose respective methods of approach compliment each other, and have made recent issues of Uncanny X-Men a surprising treat.

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN 14
8/10

The use of a situation report for the Ultimate United States really helps these days.

Brian Wood and the rest of the Ultimates writers seem to be having a blast reformatting the Ultimate Universe into a true alternative to the standard 616 format, and this issue carries that theme right along, with art provided by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco, and Terry Pallot, depicting the slow start of Kitty Pride's underground mutant revolution. 

Mainstream Reviews for Recent DC Releases

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN

8/10

Not sure if Meta or simply well-played nose-thumbing.

Here we have a dilemma.  There are poignant ways to go about the process of homage, and it's a rare and delicate thing that DC Staffers or Corporate Masters have in mind for the controversial Before Watchmen series.  True, characters and plot-points in Watchmen were themselves derivative from previously created characters, and thus beholden to similar strictures of critique, but that is not to say that they are beholden to the exact same strictures as this series, indicative as it is of a more common malaise in this day and age: prequelitis.  

It's a polarizing issue.  On one hand, it seems like DC is cashing in, and some fearful pundits point to the injustice of Moore's (if not Gibbons) legacy being besmirched by inferior product. Another argument goes something like: "If the creator or creators of the project don't like it, they should look to how bad their predecessors had it. Besides, DC owns the characters, they can do as they like."  On yet another hand, there is admittedly rich territory to mine in the mythos that Moore laid out, perfect and self-contained as it is.  

This series was inevitable, however dubious it seems.  

I recently passed a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen to someone that had never read it before.  Our conversations concerning plot and character were in depth and appreciative of the aesthetics inherent in the comic's structure.  It's still a classic and deserves a classic's respect.  It's interesting to note that Alan Moore's manner of approach was then and in many ways still is a righteous example of the medium's potential unleashed. Pacing, segue, and breathtaking detail combine to create effects no camera could hope to capture, and no future savant could properly match.  This new reader asked about the movie, and then I told him about the Before Watchmen project, as magnanimously as possible. He then made the next logical cognitive leap and likened the project to Lucasfilm's dreadful prequel trilogy.  To an extent, he has a point, but the qualifier from the project, ambitious as it is, is this.  Each of the series are self-aware to a fault, and their style is distinct to each creator.  

The talent called out for these projects is solid.  The characters are familiar enough to the legions of fanboys turned pro calling the shots that a justifiable love becomes apparent, even if it can't match the stark intensity that Moore's project possessed.  There is plenty more to be said, but for the sake of some sense of brevity and in the interests of keeping from straying into either malignant critique or sycophantic praise, I'll give that the best example of the potential for the various series (thus far) is Before Watchmen: Minutemen, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke.  Cooke's style is best suited for this particular trip back in history, with DC: New Frontier preparing him quite well for bygone idealism gone sour.   

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 11

7/10

Justice League of America, still in-fighting after years of teamwork and struggle. I'm falling asleep now.

Tedious splash pages and uncharacteristic actions lend a hot-headed spin for the whole team in Justice League of America (JLA).  The more I read JLA the more distant I feel from the characters I had become accustomed to for so many years, and more frustrated with their less charming simulacra.  My first true JLA experience was the first issue of Grant Morrison's supremely refined run, which took in all running plotlines at DC whole cloth and spun a series that lasted through multiple cosmic crises, without missing a beat on who these characters are.

More than archetypes or stereotypes, the heroes of this particular group need to personify the super aspects of their superhumanity, with their years of experience backing up their every action, while embodying the human side in as elegantly as possible.  Stories with the universe's big guns need to reach far and they need to matter.  Instead, the plots plod along with no sense of potential as a crew of people that still don't seem to know each other at all simply deal with and react to matters that possess no sense of history or weight.  There's no drawing out of tension in the story, feeling like an overproduced jog through styles.  It often seems an excuse to needlessly splash-page, and smacks of Jim Lee's influence far more than the minutiae macro-scripting usually provided by Geoff Johns.  The first part of the series involved an invasion from Apokalips that occurred "Five Years Ago"... but what's actually happened in the time between then and now? Blackest Night? Brightest Day? Final Crisis, certainly not. Final Night? Zero Hour, perhaps, but Crisis on Infinite Worlds? Has Superman died? Did anyone even care? Who knows? I understand the draw to "here and now" the New 52 seems dead-set on, but what's happened in the past five years in the New DC Universe?

It seems the new reader gets less bang but more importantly the years-long loyal fan hasn't got much to go on, either. The entire team bickers and plays out their roles like rusty parodies of themselves.  There seems to be no breathing room for personalities in the larger-than-life splashpage world, so each character degenerates into their roles as near-stereotypes fused with near-archetypes.  Flash seems overly timid, while Green Lantern seems little more than a jock with a ring, whereas Superman is more like a quiet boy-powerhouse than a force of nature, and Wonder Woman is an unapproachable too-foreign hothead.  Batman? Oh, he just slinks around commenting on what useless twats he's working with, not much use or insight.  Cyborg practically runs the show in terms of being a linchpin of the team's dynamic, their teleporter, their go-to guy, but even that feels forced.  Perhaps Geoff Johns (and even a fan or two) remembers that the real linchpin of the team was and always will be the Martian Manhunter (we get only a brief glimpse of the one time the JLA attempted to recruit him, a two page firefight, but maybe since he's recently ditched Stormwatch he may yet show up again).

Recent arcs are general and truncated awkwardly. There's a "new" villain with a vendetta against the team, but the vendetta is vague and silly, his powers emotionally manipulating but ultimately empty, because the punch they're supposed to pack relies on content that no reader of this series actually has (yet, I know, yet).  This is the fundamental flaw and underpinning critique I have for the series (at this time).  Perhaps one sticks with this series in part out of a pouty nostalgia and partly in vain hope that the comic might accomplish a difficult task: feeling something for these newly-minted replicas of characters that knew and understood one another in a discarded universe and have had years, decades, almost a century of history together, up in a puff of comic fluff.  Perhaps what I want out of this series will take years to get to, or perhaps in the attempt to please everyone punches are pulled by editorial restrictions.  Johns is a long-haul writer and a capable scribe, so perhaps forthcoming events will shape/round out the missing back-stories, or maybe, just maybe, issue zero won't seem like filler.

DIAL H 3
9/10

It's all a conspiracy. No, really. Kinda. Mostly.

Complex, quirky, and variable, we have a comic here in many ways like a strange gem with a spirit of Bosch inhabiting it. Dial H is one of the more fascinating new series to emerge from DC's stables.  When a fat chain-smoking schlub named Nelson Jent uses an alleyway pay phone to get help for his friend (who fell in with a real bad crowd), he accidentally dials up powers from a vast array of quirky characters.  Bitten by a radioactive concept originating from the 60's wash of surreal characters (the original Dial H for H.E.R.O), the series has a bent to it that reminds one of Morrison's old Doom Patrol run, while simultaneously owning the bits of backstory that new readers and even some old readers are likely ignorant of.  The story by China Miéville explores a ground-level classic format, that unfolds like Japanese origami to reveal layers quite unexpected.  The protagonist, Nelson, plays out a perfect down-on-their-luck fool, and we root for him against all opposition, which itself truncates and expands and gains texture as the story plays itself out, in simple and complex strokes.  The art by Mateus Santolouco is a perfect compliment to the progress of the plot, intriguing and complex enough to revisit again and again.  Each character presented is so weirdly bent and surreal you have a giddy expectation of the next transformation. A fun read, and self-aware enough to pull off what seems at first blush to be silly and atonal in nature.

Cerebral Superhero Movie Undercut by Tragedy and Political Farce

When blowhard weight-watcher Rush Limbaugh made the bold declarative statement a few days back that there was a liberal conspiracy tying Bane, the villain in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, to Bain Industries, the company that presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney retroactively retired from, those people capable of analytic thought and comic book historians all had a hearty chuckle.  But to postulate such a ludicrous decades-long-in-the-making conspiracy out loud is par for the course where people such as Rush are concerned, speaking without thinking, again and again.  He's since backed off of that assertion and now likens Batman to Romney, while Bane is an Occupy Wall Street villain.  This, again, is a crass distraction tactic grossly misrepresenting the intent of the film's creators, but acutely points out the major thrust of the film's message, nonetheless.  Batman as benevolent billionaire (an image that Romney would prefer to project, minus the Howard Hughes overtones gossiped about in the film's first act) and Bane, a genius terrorist displaying talking points of "power to the people" while holding a city hostage under threat of destruction via neutron bomb (very much a fever dream version of what the Occupy Movement ostensibly stands for in the mind of paranoid delusional neoconservative shills).

Then, on opening night, at a Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, a gas-masked young man named James Holmes allegedly opened fire on a crowd of movie-goers, killing a dozen and injuring dozens.  News reports were murky and details were erratic surrounding this, the death toll and numbers injured rising and falling.  Hints at an MKULTRA or Manchurian Candidate-style implementation of psychotic outsourcing.  Rumors and politicization occurred immediately, mostly by ultraconservatives, raving about values systems without a hint of irony (or perhaps forgetting the automatic weapons they promote decent God-fearing Americans as having a right to bear, even if mentally unstable).  The suspect didn't shoot himself, as so many mass murdering lone gunmen are wont to do.  People say he calls himself The Joker, and his house, a booby-trapped mess of firearms and explosives, will likely be a rich resource of speculation for the weeks and months to come.  Sadly, out of all the confused news reports, attempts at aggrandizing oneself on the shoulders of senseless murder or pointing fingers in tearful anger, only The Onion actually nailed it on the head.  

This tragedy and the embarrassment of the aforementioned Limbaugh Flip-Flop (let's coin that, see if we can get a gif of a whale with Rush's face, beached and flopping, circulating throughout tumblr) unfortunately overshadow a film that stands at this point in time as one of the most cerebral superhero films to grace the silver screen.  

We all had a good time with The Avengers, though perhaps our misgivings about Nick Fury's secret shadow masters (remember, the ones that tried to nuke New York?) might have been directly addressed if the universe there operated as it does in Dark Knight Rises.  Bane's introduction is immediately engaging.  The cast of characters is introduced to us at a sane pace, their stories emerging more organically than many standard billing dramatic films.  The spice peppering the film is a simultaneous resentment and endorsement of entrenched power structures.  

The Dark Knight Rises is "a thinking man's" blockbuster cinema done right.  Bane's "Goatse" mask synths his voice into perfect Vaderesque villainy without immediate cries of shenanigans coming to mind.  "I am a necessary evil," he tells the nefarious industrialist before snuffing out his life.  Tom Hardy sells the role without the aid of facial expressions, getting a chuckle from the audience in the midst of outright carnage. Christian Bale does justice to Bruce Wayne, as was expected, and Michael Caine portrays his textured concern as Alfred Pennyworth with exceptional depth.  In fact, every single actor in this film (with one exception, catch phrase: "hothead") bring their roles to life quite skillfully. 

The movie goes through the checklist of superhero set-up but does not in any way seem rushed or slap-dashed together.  Nolan's choice of scenes inter-cutting throughout the movie make this a film about the subjectivity of each character's reality and the assumptions they make about the nature and circumstances of their reality, being acted upon. These are expressed continuously throughout the film, from Bane's constant nonchalant murders to Selina Kyle's most quotable potable whispered into Bruce Wayne's ear as she picks the valet ticket out of his dinner jacket: "There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. … When it hits, you're all going to wonder how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

The class warfare promised by Bane's scheme is only blinked across the screen at certain intervals.  The idea of icons and symbols are tossed around nimbly, the old themes of fear and the brilliant undermining of realism and fantasy alike play themselves out in grander and more minute scales throughout.  It's a controlled game, with nary a chink in its armor.  Pacing is the watchword of this film. There's no lag or pause that was not well-timed or carefully planned.  What could have been an awkward clustering of special effects and villains (see: Spider-Man 3) instead hits home with a real sense of character and, more importantly for this film, palpable pathos.  

There's a bitter irony surrounding the fact that this movie, hardly an open advocate for gun violence despite the near-constant gun-play (remember, Batman hates guns), became the target of a gun-toting madman's murder spree, and there's an even more bitter irony played out in the doublespeak of the villain Bane being mirrored by pundits, politicians, and philistine pigs to serve their own dubious agenda.  These facts, and the facts surrounding the haul of critical accolades and worthy praise already resting at its feet (and that of the trilogy as a whole) secure this film not just as a fitting portrait for the cultural zeitgeist of America today, but quite possibly the high-water mark of superhero film-making as a whole. 

The San Diego Comic Convention is Virtuous and Good

Doczeitgeist: Reports from a being whose powers are able to warp reality as a lucid dreamer alters a dream. Doc Zeitgeist, the Parapersona Prime of the new and terrible aeon, tweeting live via astral projection from the San Diego Comic Convention International 2012. RVM interface/Begin feed:

1:
I'm in a small alcove in the San Diego Comic Con's shadiest section, selling bootleg copies of an inferior episode of The Dukes of Hazzard.

2:
LIVE UPDATE: My digital streaming reading of "Cagney & Lacey meet Simon & Simon" fanfiction has been cancelled. Meet me on the veranda.

3:
Met a guy at #CCI who gave me his business card, then wrote his real # on the back. "Motivational minute"? Looks like a used car salesman.

4:
CCI UPDATE: saw @warrenellis put a cigarette out in an ashtray made of Desolation Jones back issues. Four for a dollar. Supplies are limited.

5:
CCI update: Smoking bathsalts before entering the costume contest as Dr. Doom is NOT advisable. Attacked @reedrichards, attempted face-nom.

6:
CCI UPDATE: @mattfraction and @reggiewatts just gave a keynote speech in the sub-basement of Hard Rock Hotel San Diego. Topic: churros&soap

7:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Dana on Mission Bay may be 7 miles away from ‪#CCI‬, BUT they have no qualms about me building a campfire in my room.

8:
CCI‬ UPDATE: belay that last tweet. The fire has spread. Gonna run down the hall screaming "I will show you the life of the mind!" w/shotgun

9:
I knew felony charges would come with this ‪CCI‬ trip. When I saw Bradbury and Harryhausen in 2006 I bonked their heads together

10:
CCI‬ UPDATE: hotels in San Diego charge a Transient Occupancy tax of 10.565%. Bum bathing in a fountain told me this can be avoided

11:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Drank Old Crow with a guy that told me he was@tonymillionaire... I asked for an autograph and he tattooed the name OTTO on me

12:
Marvel panel will include extended sneak peek version of@Avengers 2 where Iron Man's actuary spends a half-hour weeping and drinking rum.

13:
SDCC‬ LIVE UPDATE: Just arrived at @TheLordDarkseidAFTERPARTY, found myself facing a wall.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

14:
AFTERPARTY‬ HAS TWO PARTIES, One Real, one fake!@TV IN A FISH TANK!! Kickstarting a ‪#hernia‬ and liver shutdown!

15:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Woke up in Barstow with new tattoo & quart of absinthe resting on my forehead. How? Caught ride back with migrant workers

16:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Patrolling panels: 10-4 You can't spell patrolling without "troll". You can't spell Saturday without "turd".

17:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Stumbled into room 25ABC thinking it was Scott McCould's CAC panel, discovered Q's about Zot! somehow still apply to Groo

18:
CCI‬ LIVE UPDATE: Preparing for an informative orientation session, complete with slideshow & condescension. THANK YOU RONALD REAGAN!

19:
SDCC‬:most disturbing event I'm scheduled to appear at is Twilight Fan Fiction group, 12-1. Sweetlolapops will oil me down with sparklejuice

20:
CCI‬: Dressed up as Danger Mouse to attend the Eisner Awards. Nobody got it until MetaMouse won one. I yelled BOOYAHWEH, then ran out.

21:
CCI‬ 2-3 @ImageComics Experience: Hope it tops the 2006 "Todd McFarlane talking about the time he hit Jim Lee in the Nuts" Symposium..

22:
SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬: It's sad to watch the many tweets of people that aren't here scroll by, as I sit atop a pile of fangirls sipping from my chalice

23:
CCI‬: It seems like the @marveluniverse is always hinging on Cyclops' love life. That and resurrections. Lotsofem

24:
Axioms taken from ‪#SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬ "The Tree of Comics must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of mainstream and independent failures"

25:
SDCC‬ When I get to Tromatize Yourself Panel, I'm gonna re-enact the old Mayor-disemboweling scene with the fattest ‪#Troma‬ fan in the room.

26:
CCI‬ LIVE UPDATE: ‪#Tarintino‬ crashed a ‪#BeforeWatchmen‬Panel, Twitter splodes.. I crash a ‪#HelloKitty‬ Panel (room 8AB) and nary a peep

27:
SDCC‬ I mistook the @Gameofthrones Panel for the @SkyrimPanel and started screaming DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN / NAAL OK ZIN LOS VAHRIIN!!

28:
How is comic formed? They need do way instain editors who kill their comics, because these comics can't frigth back?

29:
Creator's rights? HA! In my day we got paid in bumblebee nickels and had to draw with onions tied to our belts. ‪#Comics‬

30:
Note to self: Clothesline entire room at Kickstarter Event, room 26AB. Hug the competition. Hug them until they beg for mercy.‪#notes‬

31:
SDCC‬ 3-4pm, Indiana Jones Fan Group, wherein grown men will openly weep, confess the trauma that was Indiana Jones & Crystal Skull crapfest

32:
CCI‬: I swear to God I am going to headbutt that Iron Man Extremis statue, just as soon as the crowd taking Instagrams disperses. ‪#Fun‬

33:
New Superman movie. Alienated and ... well, yeah. Alienated.

34:
CCI‬ 2012: Das Bosoms what wake me. Weak sauce:unstable particle symbiote suit. I milk cows on a farm. For justice. ‪#DrWho‬ panel. ‪#wah‬

35:
CCI‬ Axel Alonso did a breakdown for that reboot revamp jumpstart kickback for post ‪#AvX‬ continuity, @MARVEL NOW:http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/v …

36:
CCI‬ Update: Nothing better than sloppy wet pizza sitting on the tracks in front o the convention center. Free WiFi connected to‪#bums‬

37:
SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬ 2012: To review, Neil Gaiman's writing‪#BEFORESANDMAN‬ but nobody is calling it that. ‪#DjangoUnleashed‬looks good. Godzilla's back

38:
SDCC‬ UPDATE: Ben Kingley has played a foul mouthed mobster, Gandhi, and now, the Mandarin. ‪#IronMan3‬ is gonna be glitterbombing cosmicstyle

39:
CCI2012‬ Gonna crash "Where do Ideas Come From? Banishing the Blank Page" and pass out rolls of butcher paper, pencils, and lead paint

40:
SDCC‬ 2012: Final @Marvel panel involves @DanSlott and it's happening forthwith. I'm going to ask about Rocket Racer. Where he at? Yeesh.

41:
SDCC‬ Somewhere in @Marvel offices someone loves that freakin' raccoon so much he's become a cornerstone of continuity.

42:
@doczeitgeist
Men who are comfortable with powerful women are more powerful men. — Joss Whedon ‪#Firefly‬ ‪#SDCC‬ quotes ‪#QnA‬ @NathanFillion

All-New Uncanny Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men.

As discussed in prior installments, the megacrossover world shaker Avengers vs. X-Men is still in full gear, with the arrival of the Phoenix (and its subsequent fracturing) literally remaking the dynamic of the world as a whole.  Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Magik and Namor each share a fraction of the Phoenix's infinite energy (call them the Phoenix Five), and rather than prove the Avengers right (that is, destroy the world), they issue a declaration of Pax Utopia. The entire world receives free energy, ample food, clean water, and the annihilation of weapons of mass destruction. All military conflicts come to a halt. Deserts are irrigated. Sentinels are annihilated.  Food is plentiful.  The status quo so firmly established as a matter of course in the Marvel Universe 616 is deviated from strongly, and ably, thanks in no small part to the squad of extremely talented writers collaborating on this particular blockbuster.   

The various tie-in titles do a fairly good service to not upsetting the dynamic of reality and accenting the storyline (unlike, say, the truncated battle sequence depicted in "brawl title" AvX between Captain America and Gambit).  We see Emma Frost come into opposition with Avengers Academy, Rachel Summers (formerly Phoenix in her own right) calling her loyalty to the new world order into question, and Rogue scuffling with Ms. Marvel, who sows the seeds of doubt before being tossed into a Limbo prison.  Magneto serves as a John the Baptist.  Hope Summers trains in a mystical cityspace with the masters of Iron Fist and takes lessons from Spider-Man to prepare for confronting the Phoenix once more.

This twist has taken the Marvel Universe in a new and interesting direction and polarized fans in a fashion that simple slugfests never could.  Do you believe that the Phoenix Five's intentions are as pure as they seem, and that true peace can be established in a world where garishly costumed superhumans shatter concrete with wrist flicks?  Do you agree with the Avengers that such drastic changes always come with a cost, a backlash is inevitable, and that the more these mutants embrace their new powers, the more distant they will become from their core codes of morality?

There is also the notable issue of the Scarlet Witch at hand as well.  Her role in House of M (remaking the entire world to be one where everyone gets their heart's desire in a Magneto-run "utopia") has apparently been redeemed since, well, since for some reason every single Avenger has forgotten how badly she upset them and how dangerous her powers are, and oh yeah, she dismissed an entire race of beings with a fragment of a sentence.  Perhaps it's because she slept with Hawkeye that she gets a free pass.  It could also be that she alone seems capable of taking the Phoenix Five to task, and her connection to the Life Force (as established in Young Avengers: the Children's Crusade) is that common bond with the Phoenix that may prove interesting in the upcoming remaking of reality itself, not just the world, in a recently announced universal relaunch called Marvel: Now!

In more recent issues of the main title, we see the stark divide between the forces and note that the grey area (ha! as in, um, Jean) is vast on both sides.  In the most recent issue, Emma Frost nearly kills Hawkeye in a fit of anger (but don't worry, he's getting his own series soon, plus he'll completely forgive her once they have sex).  Internal strife among the Five will no doubt disassemble them (and Colossus is still the Juggernaut, in case you were curious). Charles Xavier's marginalization continues to expand and contract.  Captain America seems to have a born soldier's need for constant battle, his irrelevance in a world of perpetual peace perhaps an unspoken catalyst to his continually antagonizing the Phoenix Five.  Iron Fist's established ret-conned history with the Phoenix Force will grant him a +5 to his relevance.  Then again, maybe everything that's happened for the past ten-plus years in Marvel is about to be erased.  Or perhaps Hickman will simply set the Avengers out to "solve everything".

In terms of scripting duties, it's very interesting to note the emergent variations of style with each issue, and as every section of the story unfolds, the shift in artists seems fitting to the content.  Marvel, all foibles and wisecracks aside, is clearly bringing their A game.  Regardless of the final outcome, readers that have cared for and enjoyed each of the titular teams involved in this conflict are in capable hands.

What comes next, however, remains to be seen.  After years of established wetworks, continuity and character building, a relaunch (restart? reboot? revamp? remake?) of the Marvel Universe titles (Marvel NOW! NOW! NOW!) may cause fans to cry foul, or even worse, call "mimic", since as most comic readers are well aware, about a year ago the DC Universe erased its elaborately decorated chalkboard and started fresh (but in some spots shaky) with The New 52.

Regardless of outcome, the story continues to be intriguing and this reviewer, for one, will continue to buy it, if only to see where the trail leads.  If the end result proves ridiculous, then the purifying flame of my caustic wit will burn it away.