Jayson > Recent Status Updates

Notes:
(1) There's a USSR stand-in called "The People's Democracy."
- I guess it's based on how China's often just called "The People's Republic."
(2) Did every villain just leap to their supposed deaths in the '70s? It's been happening a lot!
(3) Crucial to the plot, there's an advertising banner that reads: "Chew Double-Chew Gum."
- Regrettably, the G looks more like a C.

Notes:
(1) I'm not saying Batman's detective reasoning is farfetched—it makes perfect sense—but there's no eureka moment.
- Answers are instant, and that's no fun.
(2) Catwoman and Batman make sense as a couple. Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne don't, especially since she doesn't know he's Batman.
- How do they know each other again? It's all been very quick and out of the blue.

Notes:
(1) This is an interesting spin on Calendar Man. Rather than commit calendar-based crimes, he dresses up as namesakes for the days of the week and commits crimes based on the costumes.
- I guess it's still technically coloring within the lines of the gimmick... just seems more like cosplay crimes to me.
(2) The Whirly-Bat gets totaled... hopefully it's gone for good!

Notes:
(1) The English accents here are insane! It's like Dick Van Dyke levels of Cockney!
- While I do enjoy a good phonetically-spelled accent, this borders on parody if not mockery.
(2) While usually real-world and gritty, Len Wein will occasionally pump out something half-baked and silly.
- SPOILER: This is ultimately about high-class squatting and crimes of decoration.

Notes:
(1) This is sort of a cross between Frankenstein and King Kong.
- A seemingly revivified, seemingly benevolent brute absconds with a pretty young woman.
(2) Batman's Christmas gift for Gordon is some pipe tobacco.
- It's funny, today Batman can outright kill people, in comics and on the big screen, but I can't ever imagine Batman (even tacitly) endorsing tobacco use.

Notes:
(1) Mister Freeze calls his ice zombies the "Ice Pack."
- Which would be fine for regular henchmen, but they're ice zombies.
(2) We finally learn the identity of the mystery woman from "Detective Comics #479."
- Though, I should have guessed it right away... she had a cat and wore leopard print.
- Supposedly, it's been a few days, but the books are four months apart.

Notes:
(1) "'Dermot, you’ve met Mustapha Khan before. Eric's daytime guy.' I thought it more tactful not to bring up the fact that Mustapha's real name was KeShawn Johnson."
- For a second, I thought Mustapha might actually be former NFLer Keyshawn Johnson, but the spelling's different.
(2) "The guy who drove the truck, Duff McClure..."
- Presumably, a mashup of Duff Beer and Troy McClure. Someone's a "Simpsons" fan.

Notes:
(1) "The other [strippers] were more of the same. The angel, 'Gabriel,' was anything but angelic … he was in wonderful shape and apparently well endowed."
- "Apparently"? Possibly the uncertainty's because he's not… tumescent.
(2) "I don’t have sex with relatives … Sex between relatives is not something humans condone…"
- Well... sex with the dead isn't something humans condone either, and she sure loves that.

Notes:
(1) This had a lot of potential to be a sort of Jack the Ripper whodunit, but ended up pretty wishy-washy.
- It just lacks resoluteness.
(2) I counted and, interestingly, there's only one period punctuation in the whole book—on the very last page!
- For whatever reason, everything else ends in exclamation marks, question marks, double hyphens (em dashes) or ellipses!

Notes:
(1) By the numbers, I have this listed as the 7th worst book I've ever read.
- So, I'm pretty much in get it over with mode.
(2) Frankly, my decision to re-read this series has thrown a serious monkey wrench into my reading goals.
- I always mean to listen to at least 10 audiobooks per year and, going into the last third of 2026, this would only be #6.
- The last few Sookie books have been a total drag!

Notes:
(1) This ends with two fight scenes, neither of which are set up as much more than to-do list items.
- Maybe I would have cared about the plot to kill Victor if it wasn't just because he's being a jerk.
- Maybe I would have cared about Sandra Pelt as a looming threat if she wasn't just infrequently annoying.
(2) In sum: this fails the What is this about? test.
- Not anything in particular, it turns out.

Notes:
(1) In the opening pages, Joker literally shrinks his psychiatrist with some chemical spray.
- I get the joke, but this is just stupid. Joker is not a sci-fi villain!
(2) We see someone dressed as a costume-accurate Thor (Marvel's Thor!) at the charity costume carnival.
- DC and Marvel were probably super chummy back in the day.
- I mean, that would never happen now!

Notes:
(1) "Dark-skinned vampires undergo an interesting change ... If they were a very dark shade in life, they become a light brown, sort of a milk chocolate. Those who were lighter skinned become a sort of creamy ecru."
- Huh? I wonder if this is how dark-skinned corpses look after they've gone cold?
- Sounds like someone's been busy matching paint swatches... "creamy ecru" is oddly specific for just making it up.

Notes:
(1) "I can't ignore a signed document,” [Eric] said, almost angrily."
- Yeah, it's not a good sign when the heated relationship drama hinges on how binding legal documents are.
(2) The fairy idea of a fun "joke" is impersonating someone in order to fool a human into having sex.
- It's very Greek mythology... this was Zeus' go-to play, if I recall.
- Suddenly, the "Gift Wrap" short story makes a lot more sense.

Notes:
(1) Sookie totally flips out when she finds Alcide naked in her bed. The next chapter, she shows up naked in Bill's bed… he doesn't seem to mind so much.
- I wonder if that's irony, hypocrisy or out-of-context mirroring?
(2) "I was getting pretty damn sick of coping with the huge shawl ... I wondered briefly how Indian women coped..."
- I wonder what "Indian women" she's referring to? Both sorts are plausible.

Notes:
(1) "[Hunter] smiled to himself and picked up another book, this one a Dr. Seuss about dogs."
- I've read every Dr. Seuss book and, albeit a lot of dogs and dog-looking people, there isn't one "about dogs."
(2) "The ice pack had done all the good it was going to, and I removed it from my yahoo palace and put it on the table."
- This being post-coitus, I can only assume "yahoo palace" means vulva and/or vagina.

Notes:
(1) See, the problem with plaguing the whole city with memory loss is people don't remember enough to care.
- So, why should I?
(2) I wonder why we never see Tzin-Tzin anymore?
- From what I've seen, he was quite regular back in the day.
- Probably it's because he's an Oriental stereotype... but then, so are the Dominators, and they still come back from time to time.

Notes:
(1) After a really solid previous issue, this ended up being a fairly big disappointment.
- The villain's a one-and-done and, much like Black Spider, I don't really care.
- My only question is whether he buys his canes the same place Penguin gets umbrellas?
(2) SPOILER: The whole "Mrs. Batman" angle was just a way to lure Batman to Maine to be blackmailed... I think.

Notes:
(1) I feel the same way about this as I did the last Black Spider issue: one big whatever.
- Former drug addict, fueled by rage, wages war on drug dealers. Boring!
(2) DC did this sort of character right when they made Jason Todd a killer crimefighter.
- The difference? Jason returned like aged wine: darker and more complex, with a deeper raison d'etre.

Notes:
(1) I've not been the biggest fan of Bob Rozakis' Batman backups, but this is good stuff.
- Batman's always best when stories are colorful but grounded in reality.
- There may not be any supervillains here, but it's got a heck of a hook: Who is "Mrs. Batman"?
(2) Apparently Batman walked into the J section of the cemetery.
- Jane Doe, John Clark, Jay Wilson...

Notes:
(1) So, this follows the long-held Batman tradition of fighting with or on top of giant (functional) versions of things.
- In this case, against anti-capitalist terrorists via a giant roulette wheel and a giant slot machine.
- Of course, everyone knows about the giant Batcave penny, but it wasn't too long before this that Batman fought Deadshot on a giant typewriter.

Notes:
(1) The most notable thing about this is how it's, seemingly, the return of Murphy Anderson to DC Comics.
- I guess he must have been hitherto retired, since his art style looks distinctly Silver Age... possibly even Golden Age.
(2) Not much of a story here, it's one of those where the villain has a fancy gadget and the hero negates it with a fancy gadget of his own.

Notes:
(1) So, what we have here is Batman getting badly whooped in a fight, followed by the backstory to why that is.
- Primarily, it's because he's fighting a medically-enhanced super soldier.
- He's also recovering from a severe illness, which I could have done without. It's overkill.
(2) It's not the most exciting fight, and the opponent isn't very visually interesting.

Notes:
(1) This is the culmination of the previous five issues' backup stories.
- The Calculator tangles with Batman at the start, for what amounts to its own backup-sized story.
(2) We get the standard "stronger together" trope where the heroes, having failed individually, team up to work as one.
- Ironically, they suck as a team, and Batman takes down The Calculator solo.

Notes:
(1) Here's my main problem with this book: it's not really about anything.
- From the blurb, you'd think it's about Merlotte's being firebombed.
- While that does happen, it's just a thing that happens at the start. Everyone moves on, and it's already resolved halfway through the book. Not by any investigation, we're just told.
- Everything here is just stuff that happens. There's no focus or direction.

Notes:
(1) There wasn't much to this story, just a single action scene where Hawkman's momentarily imperiled but otherwise easily brings The Calculator to justice.
- The amount of story here is understandably shorter than the other Calculator backups, since this one's framed within Hawkman relating the story to Batman and warning him that he's next on The Calculator's list.

Notes:
(1) This isn't so much a story as it is an interactive guessing game between the narrator and the reader.
- Which would be fine, except the answers you're meant to guess aren't really discernable from the events being told.
- I suppose it's possible to guess who the gambling ring's pick-up man is, but I'd rather read an entertaining story than scrutinize story beats.

Notes:
(1) I'm all for silliness, but The Calculator shooting baseball bats out of, what is effectively, a computer screen hat is just dumb.
- They're not even energy constructs (re: Green Lantern), they're actual baseball bats.
- Presumably, this is a Star Trek style replicator he's wearing.
(2) Ollie using Ralph as a human slingshot is the best part of this.

Notes:
(1) This features a supervillain I wasn't familiar with: Signalman.
- He commits symbol-based crimes. Not necessarily symbolic, but crimes based on common iconography: street signs, playing card suits, etc.
- I'm sure today he'd be called Emojiman or the like.
(2) As goofy as this is, Len Wein treats him pretty seriously.
- At the same time, leaning into the gimmick.

Notes:
(1) So, I knew comic conventions were a thing in the '70s, but I didn't know superhero cosplay was as ubiquitous as it's depicted here.
- I always thought it was a fairly recent thing.
(2) At this point, I'm beginning to think The Calculator's powers are kind of ridiculous.
- It's more powerful than even a Green Lantern's, he can give people Elongated Man physiology.