the vynsane asylum

Barry Allen's origin gets re-re-re-re-retconned.

Congratulations! They went from Barry being a boring tool...to Barry being a boring tool. Some of the retconned highlights include: Barry moved to Central City at a different time! Barry started dating Iris at a different time! His boss became his boss...at a different time!! Are you on the edge of your seats yet?!

Wally fans continue to suffer.

From Newsarama:

As readers found out in Red Hood and the Outlaws #0, Jason Todd is more closely connected to The Joker than her realizes. Joker claims that he orchestrated most of the major events in Jason's life, from his father going to jail to his mother's OD on a drug laced with a chemical that simulates death. It appears that The Joker built Jason up, just so he could tear him down.

What. The. Fuck?

He manipulated the life of some random kid in the hopes that he might become Robin one day? That's just fucking stupid.

So, in the DCnU, Tim Drake isn't really Tim Drake and never was Robin, Dick Grayson's circus was a training ground for undead ninjas and he just lucked into not becoming one himself, Stephanie Brown never existed, Damian Wayne is a tween despite no possible way he could be more than three, and now Jason Todd has been manipulated by a villain that it really makes no logical sense to do so.

In the future, Carrie Kelly is Terry McGinnis's daughter whom he forced into prostitution on a dare.

Since its been revealed that Tim Drake is his adopted name, many people are speculating that he's really a Todd and Jason's brother.

I bet the Joker traumatized Jason on a dare from Thomas Wayne Jr and they've been in cahoots since day one!!

And TWJr will be revealed as Jason and Tims real father!!!!!!!!1!!1:

A friend of mine sent me a box with comics he no longer wants. I got

Action 1-12, 0
Superman 1-12
Teen Titans 1-10
Red Lanterns 1-10
Green Arrow 1-7

For free! Which is what they're worth IMO. Eventually I'll get around to reading them and let you know what I think.

I got a free Action #1 at Comic-Con. Never read it. Not in a hurry to do so.

DC announced 52 Variant Covers for its upcoming Justic League of America comic. One for each State, as well as DC and Puerto Rico.

Dan Didio said if you don't buy all 52 covers you're not a true fan.
When asked if the actual story inside was any good he replied "Eh. I dunno. Maybe. We don't actually check anymore. Buy the covers!"

After I finished that long Flash run I was reading, I switched gears and read the rest of the first run of The Authority by Warren Ellis and later runs by Millar and Tom Peyer. Millar is a head case. Anyway, after that I sat down with the first years worth of Morrison's Action Comics from the New52.

As usual, Morrison is a shizophrenic writer. Action was billed as the new Supes "first" appearances and the Superman title was going to be his "modern" appearances five years later. This title is actually both and neither. Because apparently Morrison gives not a shit and just writes whatever pops in his skull at any given moment.
The first two issues introduce the already active hobo-Superman beating up dirty businessmen and the army kidnaps him.
Issues 3-4 deal with John Corben becoming "Metallo" and some alien collector shrinking Metropolis into a glass jar.
Then instead of concluding that story arc, issues 5 and 6 are a story of the Legion and the "modern" Superman visiting Clark as a child and stopping some time traveling bad guys from putting a tesseract in his head. It's as if Grant decided to write his own fill-in issue.
7-8 get back to the bottled Metropolis problem. Clark gets his "modern" armor suit. Fights what is now or will be Brainiac.
Issue 9 is about an alternate Superman from another dimension who is black and is also President. Why? Because Grant loves shrooms, that's why.
10-12 are about some guy who lived on the farm next to Clark's also being a super powered guy called Captain Comet or some shit. And some guy called Nimrod is trying to kill Superman so Superman "kills" Clark Kent and becomes a firefighter named Johnny Clark.

Also, Clark's landlady is Mr. Mxypytlyk's aunt or something. Jimmy Olsen is now Clark's frat-bro BFF instead of a Superman Sycophant. And Lois is their beard. Ma and Pa died before Clark ever left for Metropolis. Now, this may just be Grant Morrison's ADD type storytelling, but none of this feels like the DCU. It's all like a longform Elseworlds story that refuses to die.

Since this is a $3.99 book, theres a back up story in each issue by Sholly Fisch. Some were decent.

I might read George Perez's Superman next to see if that makes things clearer. But I doubt it. It sounds like they weren't even clear to Perez and he was writing the damn thing.

Got another batch of free comics from my friend. This one included

Supergirl 1-12
Green Lantern: New Guardians 1-12, 0
and Deathstroke 9, 10(Liefeld's first two shitty issues)

Also
Ultimates 1-18(the newest run by Hickman)
X-Sanction 1-4
Secret Avengers 22-32
and an issue of Thief of Thieves and Hardcore.

All kidding aside, did anyone give enough of a shit about the Wildstorm stuff, disregarding maybe The Authority and some of the quasi-Vertigo stuff that's not in the same universe, to warrant merging it into the DCU?

It's really not different from, say, Rob Liefeld rebooting the Marvel Universe to give Badrock a founding spot on the Avengers.

It helps if the Wildstorm guy is now Publisher at DC. He can shoehorn his bullshit in wherever he wants. It's ironic that The Authority was created as a deconstructionist pastiche of Superman, Batman, etc. And now they're C-List wannabes sharing the same universe.

Of course, if Liefeld ever became Publisher of Marvel, I'd drive to NYC and commit myrders. Lots and lots of myrders.

Yeah, I know it was Jim Lee engaging in what boils down to creative masturbation. He "created" all these shitty X-Men ripoffs when he left Marvel, and now they're starring in the DC[n]U! Just kinda bizarre.

Maybe a more realistic analogy would be Kevin Eastman inserting Casey Jones into every Heavy Metal story once he took over that publisher. But he's smart enough to know they don't play well together.

I quickly read those two Deathstroke issues. Absolute shit. The first thing Rob does is surround Slade with a team of generic, cocky Youngblood rejects. Tigorr, the alien cat guy! Primus, the telekinetic! Kalista, the magician babe!
His art still and always look likes balloon animals tied together. The man is also allergic to any kind of background in his panels. Unless you count wafting smoke and shit.

Rob. Buddy. Thanks for the hotdog and everything. But seriously, stop doing comics. Open up a used furniture store or something. Become an assistant manager at your local GameStop. Whatever. Just quit wrecking the comics profession. You clown.

Primus? Was he ripping off Transformers or Les Claypool?

It occurs to me that while I'm reading Liefeld I'm trying very hard to give him the benefit of the doubt and perhaps find some small amount of anything decent in the book. As if I'm aware of my own bias against him and I'm overcompensating to be objective when I read it.

But at the end of it, it's still utter shite.

I swear, I don't think he'd be willing to do it, but I'd love nothing more (okay, maybe a lot of stuff more, but bear the fuck with me) than for him to hide from the public eye for a year or two, examine every criticism everyone has of him, work on his craft (maybe even taking an anatomy class--I'm dead serious; you know he's never had one and I'm not saying that to be mean or anything), put together some amazing comic book, and not solicit it until he has five issues in the bag so that it won't be late. The man loves what he does, if he had the discipline to do it, he could be pretty kickass.

He just won't ever do that. He'll keep soliciting half-finished suck-ass Youngblood bullshit and being the brunt of all our jokes until he dies, wondering why he's not more respected than Kirby or Eisner.