DAMN DIRTY ZOMBIES 14: Approved by the Comics Code Authority

Now that we’ve successfully locked Superboy Prime back in his parents’ basement, the column is safely back in the hands of your humble hosts, Troy and Lucas. We’ve got 4 new tie-ins for you, so let’s get right to it, shall we?

Outsiders #25: When last we saw the Outsiders, they were the next crew to get harassed by undead Tara “Terra” the terrible Teen Titan Traitor. She’s alleging that her soul is there and begging her brother Geo Force to find a way to kill her again. After having him help her rip out her own heart, she reveals that she was really just trying to make the boys of the Outsiders feel as much hope and love as possible.

Meanwhile, Tatsu continues to do sword battle with her Black Lantern husband. When she stabs him with her mystical sword, she gets an inside look at Nekron and his plans for the universe, which is basically to eat everyone. Tatsu’s undead children nearly kill halo before Killer Croc and The Creeper come to her rescue, wherein the Creeper gets to live up to his name, tearing out organs and riffing with Croc on how small to tear up the children. Finally, Halo wakes up and steps up, shining a bright white light that severs the connection of all three, destroying those Black Lanterns.

Back at HQ, Terra has Owlman, Metamorpho, Black Lightning, and Geoforce pinned amongst a bunch of rocks. For some reason, Metamorpho doesn’t use his powers at all to get out as she taunts them. Owlman ejects the ears from his cowl in either the silliest or coolest costume-related attack ever. After a little skirmishing, Terra breaks out some black energy/rock golems, which the Outsiders make short work of. She launches an all-out assault, taking down all four, just as Halo arrives. Violet destroys the black ring, then feels the light calling to her and disappears, in what is sure to be an actual important plot point in the main series.

Superman/Batman #67: I contemplated writing this entire recap in Bizarro speak, but just reading it alone was painful enough to my brain grapes. We jump right back into the fight between Bizarro and BL Solomon Grundy, and by “fight” I mean “Grundy beating the unholy snot out of Bizarro.” Frankenstein cuts off Grundy’s arm with the Sword of Michael, only to watch it grow back, of course. Continuing to ignore recent developments to the character of Man-Bat in other Batman books, Francine Langstrom tries again to give Kirk a cure.

Grundy tricks Bizarro into helping him, after allowing his head to be chopped off by Frank. Kirk, now human again, tries to take the cure, but goes through a Jekyll/Hyde sequence instead, when suddenly a bullet ricochets off Bizarro and into Francine, making him “Bat-out”.

Grundy goes after Bride of Frankenstein, just to elicit a response of love from the big monster, then spins around and tears out Frank’s heart, killing him. Simultaneously, Grant Morrison wept into piles of Seven Soldiers. Bride’s tears elicit one heck of a response from Bizarro, who flies around the world, then grabs Grundy with his momentum and flies him all the way into the sun.

Surprise! Frank’s alive! He has two hearts! Duh! Aaaand, that’s all for this tie-in folks.

Green Lantern Corps #43:  The conclusion of last issue and the subsequent fan outrage (was it an outrage?  Perhaps it was more like mild upset; did anyone really believe that Kyle was DEAD dead?) get reversed before this one’s all over.  That was probably to be expected.  The slightly bigger news is that Guy Gardner, who apparently hasn’t read that many crossovers wherein characters “die” at the end of one issue only to return in another, lost his frickin’ mind and got turned into a Red Lantern.

Much of the issue was divided between Guy joining the purveyors of napalm vomit and dealing destruction, Sooranik Natu’s efforts to revive Kyle, and Star Sapphire Miri’s role in the conflict.  Natu got a big hand from Indigo Tribesman Munk and the surviving GLs rallied by Kilowog.  At the same time, Miri ended up battling Sinestro Corpswomen Kryb, who was freaking out over the fact that her stolen babies had wound up as Black Lanterns.

The threads ended up collapsing onto one another as Guy destroyed the BL Babies, pulling Kryb into mortal combat, while Miri turned her attention to saving Kyle.  In the Amazingly Egregious Violence Department, Guy ended up ripping Kryb’s arm off and shoving it down her throat, which is, on the Playground Threat Scale, one step below ripping her head off and s#!+ing down her neck, but several rungs under ripping her eyes out and skullf@#%ing her brain.

By the time this one was over, we had an Indigo and a Star Sapphire teaming up with the GLs (including Kyle, back for more), Guy clubbing opponents with Kryb’s SPINE, and the arrival of Mogo.  For the record, this issue was not approved by the Comics Code Authority.

Justice League of America #40: On the other hand, this issue WAS approved by the Comics Code Authority, which means that spinal flogging is out with the CCA, but pervasive suggestions and threats of rape are in.  The upside of that is that if you ran cabling to Wertham’s grave, his spinning corpse could power the West Coast.  At any rate, this issue concludes the recent ignominious run of JLA as what remains of the team gets their asses handed back to them by the ghosts of a previous ignominious run: BLs Vibe and Steel.

Things pick up from last issue, with BL Vibe and Steel doling out flashbacks and rage at Gypsy and Vixen while Red Tornado and Plastic Man twitch.  Zatanna and BL Zatara are nowhere to be seen for many, many pages, leaving BL Dr. Light 1 plenty of time to sexually harass Dr. Light 2. 

In the grand scheme of things, nothing much of consequence happens.  You already knew that the Robinson/Bagley reboot team kicks in next issue.  You already knew that the current pseudo line-up was doomed to fail.  And you probably guessed that, at some point, as the last three or so years of covers would suggest, the JLA would wind up in a defeated heap.  The BLs get defeated, Reddy is basically inoperative, Plas is a puddle of goo (AGAIN!), Zatanna will head off to her solo ongoing eventually, and Gypsy, Dr. Light 2, and Vixen will probably wind up on the shelf (AGAIN!).