Here’s a picture I made in under five minutes. I hope it makes you laugh.
Dragon Con was a blast and I felt like the DC Comics and Cultural Studies panel went well. I’ve had a few requests so I’ve posted my paper “Discipline & Punish: Michel Foucault & the Suicide Squad” here. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting my paper from last year some time soon, but until then, enjoy this one.
After weeks of ambiguity regarding the fates of their titles after moving their offices from New York to California, DC Comics cleared things up somewhat with a statement this week. The simple answer: The New 52 is dead! Long live the New 52! The truth: DC Comics is removing the label New 52 and making continuity less of a concern if favor of greater diversity in story-telling. DC is not simply shedding the label, but also an ideological commitment to an experiment. The experiment? A new (err..rebooted) and thoroughly connected (err…though filled with holes) universe (err…multiverse)! Originally planned as 52 titles a month published in sync, following a universal timeline, the New 52 was a lofty ambition. For the experiment to work, creators had to work within a tight framework not only in narrative, but in artistic style- prompting the oft-used terms “DC house-style” or “Jim Lee house style.” These rules allowed a pretty cohesive fictional universe to thrive, but also alienated many creators and readers who wanted stories outside the framework of the larger experiment. By abandoning the New 52 and their ideological commitment to the New 52 experiment, DC Comics will be opening itself up to new, smaller experiments. The publisher’s lineup will be more chaotic this June not only because many titles will leave and many new titles will arrive, but those new titles and even the continuing titles will draw from a larger creative arsenal- new creators, new styles, new impressions on the characters, and new impressions on what super-hero comic books can do. To be fair, DC Comics continued to publish an assortment of books outside of the New 52 such as Lil Gotham and all those video game-related titles. Now new books like Bat-Mite and Bizarro promise to approach comics without the baggage of the New 52 experiment. The official word from DC suggests the end of the New 52 is motivated purely by creative ambitions, but it’s obvious to most readers that DC has found an awkward but workable solution to several concerns: 1) the move to California 2) the stress of managing the big continuity 3) the desire to attract more casual comics readers (the ones reading Image titles) 4) the New 52 is destroying itself.
That 4th one can be broken down to specific problems within the New 52. I believe the beginning of the end came when the original creative team of J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman left Batwoman over creative differences on whether or not Batwoman would marry. While this was not the first dispute-driven departure of a respected creator during the New 52, this departure, unlike George Perez leaving Superman, shook up something that most people believed the New 52 was doing right. Fans and critics alike couldn’t say enough nice things about the work being done on that book. The rush to replace Williams and Blackman with not only a talented creator, but one with a little LGBT cred to ease PR concerns, left Batwoman in the hands of Marc Andreyko and the book got noticeably worse. After Geoff Johns and associates completed their run on the Green Lantern titles, DC found a new creative team, but things fell apart and they again found themselves scrambling the fill some roles. Luckily they found a sort of dream team to take over those titles. Most problematic about the Green Lantern creative team shift, Geoff Johns wrote an epilogue in his final issue of Green Lantern, an epilogue whose authenticity would come immediately into question as the new creative team found ways to destroy all the love stories in that blossomed in that epilogue. Other books saw transitions. The success and failures of titles in transition were surprising. I really expected Chew’s John Layman to write a better Detective Comics while Jeff Lemire wrote a Green Arrow story unlike anything else he’d ever written, reinforcing what his run on Animal Man had suggested- the guy who draws those creepy picture book also has a visionary take on the super-hero model. Another reason why I see the Batwoman shift as the beginning of the end can be seen in the fifth collected volume of the title- an inconsistency that runs along the spine, singling out the volume among all other New 52 titles as the unmentionable yet obvious stain on the whole endeavor.
Look at that tiny little five! How embarrassing that must be for Batwoman Vol. 5: Webs! The other book that sticks out in a complete New 52 collection is Batman Vol. 3: Death of the Family because it’s white instead of black. While it may still drive the obsessive and compulsive a bit mad to look at, the change is obviously intentional. The tiny 5 on Batwoman Vol. 5 appears to be a Freudian slip, a subconscious expression of shame in ruining one of the New 52’s best titles.
Since the official announcement of the New 52’s end, I’ve tried to figure what the New 52 really has been. Despite all the Convergence hype, it feels like the experiment is going out with more a whimper than a bang. There’s no real story to tie up as far as I can figure. So the question remains what was the New 52?
Here are 52 things I think made the New 52:
1) The Court of Owls
2) Wonder Woman’s new origin story
3) introduction (and reintroduction) of Vertigo characters into the DC universe
4) Superman-Wonder Woman love story
5) Triumphant revitalization of Aquaman (Throne of Atlantis arc)
6) Titles created just to foster the continuity experiment (Blackhawks, Team 7, OMAC, Threshhold)
7) Crime Syndicate and Forever Evil
8) Darkseid’s destruction of Earth-2 and Superman’s subsequent reign
9) Death of Damian Wayne
10) Skinny Lobo
11) Rotworld arc
12) Justice League Dark formation
13) Central role for The Phantom Stranger
14) Central role for Pandora
15) Future’s End
16) Joker cut off his face
17) Muslim Green Lantern
18) Gay Green Lantern
19) Young Green Arrow
20) Walking Barbara Gordon
21) Brother-killing Batgirl
22) Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham
23) Penguin takes control and loses control and regains control of Gotham criminal underworld
24) Catwoman takes control of Gotham criminal underworld
25) The Riddler brings Gotham to its knees
26) Batman Eternal and Jim Gordon’s blues
27) The most sophisticated Mr. Mxyzptlk story in DC history
28) Guy Gardner became a Red Lantern
29) The Guardians of the Universe were replaced by new Guardians of the Universe after proving themselves fascist tyrants one too many times
30) Kyle Rayner continued to become more messianic
31) Hal Jordan became the leader of the Green Lantern Corps
32) Superboy was a clone of Superman’s wicked son Jonathan Lane Kent from the future and also there were other Superboys
33) Cyborg Superman is… Supergirl’s father?
34) Lucius Fox’s son becomes Batwing
35) Harley Quinn did it with Deadshot
36) H’el on Earth (and Krypton)
37) The Culling of Teen Titans and Ravagers and a general feeling that Scott Lobdell was going to end up writing every title in the DC universe
38) Short lives of good titles (I, Vampire; Voodoo; Mr. Terrific; Captain Atom; Dial H)
39) Huntress and Power Girl, the World’s Finest of Earth-2, arrived on the primary Earth
40) Daniel West is the Reverse-Flash
41) Bad futures depicted in Justice League 3000, Future’s End, Superboy, Teen Titans, and the Legion of Super-heroes
42) Aimless movement from the Legion of the Super-heroes
43) Two heavy-handed comics nobody liked (The Green Team and The Movement)
44) Martian Manhunter with Stormwatch, Martian Manhunter without Stormwatch
45) The return of Lyssa Drak and a Sinestro-led Sinestro Corps
46) Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE and other Dark titles
47) Trinity War
48) Lights Out, Relic, and the draining of the emotional spectrum
49) Trying to figure out what to do with Darkseid
50) Trying to figure out what to do with Deathstroke
51) The Rogues with super-powers
52) Company-wide campaigns particularly in Septmember- 3D covers, MAD variants, Scribblenauts, Robot Chickens, Zero Year, etc.
A few weeks ago I reviewed the LEGO Marvel video game. While I enjoyed playing it, I’m not a Marvel Comics reader and imagine a faithful Marvel reader would have enjoyed the game more than I did. Alternately I’m a very loyal DC Comics reader and a pretty big Green Lantern fan. After playing through most of Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, I’d say that this game is the best non-comic book piece of Green Lantern media available. While Batman is the major hero and the major villain is traditionally a Superman enemy, the various Lantern Corps provide the props, setting, and support cast for the game. The game is littered with little treats for the GL fan- my favorite of which is when Sinestro utters a relatively new classic from the end of the Geoff Johns run- “That’s the tragedy of all this, we’ll always be friends.”
While the Green Lantern elements are strong, the creators put a twist on the Blackest Night storyline where all sorts of classic characters end up with Lantern rings. In the comics, Lex Luthor ends up with an orange ring, Wonder Woman with a violet ring, The Flash with a blue ring while in LEGO Batman 3, Lex Luthor ends up filled with feelings of compassion while Wonder Woman is filled with rage and the Flash is driven by the insatiable greed associated with Larfleeze. As the LEGO Batman world is already a caricature of the DC Universe, the emotional spectrum of the Lanterns provides a good bit of fodder for humor.
Rather than an open world Gotham like LEGO Batman 2 (or New York City as in LEGO Marvel), LEGO Batman 3 has a pretty divided open world with menu stages in the Batcave, Watchtower, and Hall of Justice as well as worlds corresponding with each of the Lantern corps, a Moon Base, and a Hall of Doom. As this walking around takes a bit of time, especially the teleporting, one can become nostalgic for the single city worlds that functioned more smoothly in earlier LEGO superhero games.
The game also looks heavily towards the old Batman ’66 television program for material. More surprising is the representation of characters from the Dark family- Zatanna, Frankenstein, Swamp Thing, Etrigan- and the absence of Constantine, a fellow who may soon very well be absent from television screens as well. There’s a ton of content shoved into this game and the downloadable content looks like it will be coming for a while. After a month of playing both LEGO Marvel and LEGO Batman 3, my interest is fading a bit, but they’re both far superior to the cheesey freemium games so popular among people too cowardly to become addicted to heroin or sports betting. I recommend this game to DC Comics fans of all ages.
Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre will be presenting Carson Kreitzer’s Lasso of Truth, a play about Wonder Woman and her creator William Moulton Marston. The play will run from September 26-October 19, 2014 at the Synchronicity Theatre’s new location at Peachtree Pointe 1545 Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia. The World’s Second Greatest Detective asked Matt Myers, one of the actors performing in the production.
WXL: Briefly describe your role in Lasso of Truth.
MATT MYERS: I play Guy, who is the owner of a comic store in the 90s. He’s an artist himself, having learned to draw partially from reading Wonder Woman comics, and partially from going to the Rhode Island School of Design. He’s minding his own business one day, when in walks a girl bent on owning the first appearance of Wonder Woman (All-Star Comics #8), and thus his life is changed forever.
It’s a really interesting take on Wonder Woman’s origins and some pretty cool storytelling elements in there. And I get to play a comic shop owner who is not like Comic-Book Guy on the Simpsons.
WXL: What are some of the differences between theatre and comic books as story-telling mediums?
MATT: The luxury of comic books is that you can accentuate things with closeups and angles and using the visual language of comics to convey information very quickly. No closeups in theatre, unless we run at the audience suddenly, or angle changes unless we move the stage. I’m only half joking on that. But theatre has its own conventions to fall back on. Music, sound design, lighting; that can make it a more visceral experience. Both mediums have their own ways of letting you into the minds of the characters, thought-bubbles versus soliloquy. Comics are (generally) a one reader at a time experience, while everyone is experiencing theatre together, so both offer there own types of intimacy with an audience. Honestly, I think they’re more similar than different, though, just from pacing and the types of stories we tell and the types of people who are drawn to them.
WXL: Personally I’ve grown very attached to Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s work on Wonder Woman and feel nervous about the Finches taking over the title. Azzarello and Chiang had Wonder Woman standing nearly outside of the DC universe and the Finches intend to tie the title more closely with events with the DC universe as whole. Likewise Wonder Woman will make her first appearance on the silver screen in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Do you prefer Wonder Woman as a stand alone character or as part of the larger DC universe? How do you see her involvement with the larger DC universe affect her and her strength as a character?
MATT: For total transparency, I haven’t really read Wonder Woman since John Byrne rebooted her, and before that, George Perez. Guess I’m dating myself there.
We were discussing at rehearsal the other night why Wonder Woman is a difficult character to write. She’s not only Iconic, but Symbolic. So you can tinker around with the iconic characters (and Lord knows they have) but her symbolism and significance makes it hard to do as much with her. Folks get ticky when you deviate too far from form with her. Look no further than David Finch saying they weren’t focusing on the feminism of Wonder Woman. Folks get upset. Even folks who may not have read Wonder Woman recently or ever. She’s that important, Symbolically. And someone has to keep that torch lit.
So all of that to say, I think it’s important that there’s a Wonder Woman in the DC universe and that the other characters show her reverence. It’s a small but important thing. If Batman and Superman treat her as their equal and not like an equivalent to Aquaman (sorry, Aquaman fans) or the JLA admin (sorry, Flash fans), it’s better for the character. There is no other female character in comics with her kind of cache and power. Still, I understand wanting to give her some distance from the rest of the universe because that frees her up from some of that baggage.
WXL: When the New 52 launched in September 2011, Azzarello and Chiang received a lot of flack for changing Wonder Woman’s origin from daughter of clay to daughter of Zeus. Many critics felt a certain degree of her essence came from her fatherless origins. Having worked with the character’s real life origins and Marston’s own challenges to gender meaning for Lasso of Truth, how important is this detail of Wonder Woman’s origin to you?
MATT: Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Never really thought about it. But you know, since you brought it up, I think it is important to the character that she didn’t have a male authority figure. It keeps her from having to kowtow to a man, for anyone to have sovereign over her. Zeus is the big boss and all the mythological guys have to bow to him, but Hippolyta seemed a bit more of a guiding force, rather than a vindictive one. In theory, I preferred their relationship. Granted, all of these characters could be much different now than I’m remembering them, as the characters continue to evolve whether I read them or don’t, but I imagine they’ve stayed similar. Wonder Woman bows to no man.
WXL: Do you believe Marston’s ideas are still present in the character of Wonder Woman?
MATT: Absolutely. She is the standard-bearer for female superheroes. In any incarnation of her, they always have her strength, fortitude and force of will. These are key to her. He wanted to show that strength and femininity are not at odds with each other and she does that.
WXL: Which DC Comics superhero do you believe is best suited to play Hamlet?
MATT: I guess the obvious answer is Batman. The death of a loved one causes them to become single-mindedly focused on vengeance, taking their own sanity into doubt at times, and using cunning to defeat the wrongdoers. Maybe Green Arrow? Both of those guys can dwell in the dark places that Hamlet has to go. I guess that makes Claudius Ra’s Al Ghul.
Ooh, I would add that Essential Theatre did a show called Bat-Hamlet a few years ago, that focused on exactly that.It seemed to lend itself more to the Adam West Batman but it followed the train of thought you’re talking about.
WXL: What are you reading?
MATT: I’m reading She-Hulk, Nightcrawler, Afterlife with Archie, Astro City, and Saga. I go in and out of reading Walking Dead and Invincible and have lately mulled over catching back up on Fables. It’s hard for me to keep up with single issues so I mostly do trades these days.
So Dragon Con is finally over and I’m too tired to type too much. I had a ton of fun volunteering at the Art Show- a great gang of volunteers- much better experience than when I volunteered with Security last year. I think my panel went well- I was amazed how many people showed up despite the parade going on outside. Anyway, I promised some folks I post some pictures of costumes I saw over the weekend. My friend printed me a bunch of stickers of my drawings (mostly images that I’ve posted here) and he asked I take a picture of the people to whom I gave stickers. Unfortunately because I spent over 20 hours in the Art Show where photography is prohibited, most of the people you got stickers are not posted here and a few of these pictures are from Friday and the stickers didn’t arrive until Saturday. SO… enjoy these pictures.
Green Arrow (New 52)
Marko (from Saga, the best comic on the shelves) & Alan (Zach Galifianakis’s character from The Hangover). This was my favorite cosplay I saw all weekend.
Psylocke
Black Canary
Macho Man Randy Savage (there was a lot of wrestling cosplay this year)
The Penguin
Greendale Human Being (Go Greendale. Lower your standards. Six seasons and a movie.)
I don’t know, but I dig it. The tail is especially creepy.
Raven
Princess Daisy
Harley Quinn After Hours
Huntress
Sinestro
Static Shock
To my pictures from last year, click here but I should warn you that not all of the images are suitable for all audiences- you could say that are not safe for work, if that’s your lingo.
As some of you may know, my 2014 New Year’s Resolution has been to read at least one book without pictures every month. In January, I read Kay Larson’s Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, which was a Christmas gift from a fellow ethnic Jew. In February, I reread Neil Postman’s Technolopoly, a book that one of my dearest friends had recommended to me back in 2003, a decade after it was written, and a book that remains relevant in 2014. In March, one of my friends from WonderRoot lent me James Baldwin’s Notes of A Native Son. I hope to continue this tradition of reading recommended books as the forces of chaos and friendship seem to putting the exact book I need to be reading into my hands.
Notes of A Native Son is largely a book about traveling. Baldwin relays his experiences exploring the United States and Europe while confronting the frustrating and rewarding struggle to understand the American identity. Baldwin’s working definition of what it means to be an American is something like an imaginary number, practical in certain cases but somewhat impossible. Unlike other noted writers who detail the American experience like Tocqueville or Baudrillard, Baldwin is, as stated clearly in the title of the book, a native son. My own experiences as an American may appear very differently from Baldwin’s; some obvious differences relate to time, space, and race, but there is also a kinship I feel with this man from the past that stems from shared alienations as writers, expats, outsiders, and Americans. While being an American of any race in the United States can be alienating, I’d like to discuss Notes of A Native Son‘s final essay, “Stranger in the Village,” which details his experience visiting a remote Swiss village and encountering the locals who have never met a black man before. These villagers were not unaware of the existence of black people. They simply hadn’t met one before. These villagers had, however, contributed funds to “buy” some Africans- this “buy” terminology is taken from Baldwin who takes it from the villagers themselves. This practice does not involve purchasing slaves in the literal sense, but providing the monetary resources required to bring Christ into the life of an unsuspecting African. Baldwin is an eloquent critic of the church and shares his astute observations about how missionary work has impacted senses of identity for both African and African-American alike. With evangelicalism comes an unavoidable insult- before you knew me, you were hell fodder (and it’s larger implication- your entire civilization, its history and every one who lived before you, is unholy rubbish).
With this in mind, I’d like to share Baldwin’s words on the difference being the first black person that white people meet and being the first white person that black people meet. Remember that more specifically he is comparing the experience of an African-American intellectual in the 1950s visiting a rural Swiss village and a European missionary visiting a remote African village.
“I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my existence. The astonishment with which I might have greeted them, should they have stumbled into my African village a few hundred years ago, might have rejoiced their hearts. But the astonishment with which they greet me today can only poison mine.”
I’ve never been to Africa and I don’t remember the black person I met, but there is something about this passage that relates somewhat to my own experiences. I was among the first white people that many people in China ever met and consequentially I have received the astonishment of the natives. Of course, the astonishment came with some entirely different baggage than the experience of a white missionary in Africa. Examples include the Cold War, China’s current economic status, the U.S. involvement in China’s political affairs over the past century, China’s established 5,000 years of history, the internet, John Denver, and Deng Xiaoping- the list could go on and on, but I’d rather address the similarities. As a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer drunk on the ego-swelling nectar of White Man’s Burden, I surely exhibited a sense of superiority over the Chinese people I met. Luckily my experiences offered many opportunities to embarrass myself and learn humility, but I was never free of the arrogance and elitism instilled in me by my own American background and the functioning of the larger world-system. Unlike the European missionary in Africa, I had no interest in marketing for Jesus, but I consciously desired to influence the way the people I met thought not only about the United States, but also about their own country, culture, and lives. At the invitation of the government of China, I was teaching university students, so my cultural imports were less forced than requested. Still I functioned as a propagandist for the Western ideals that I hold dear- not necessarily the ideals of the US State Department or anyone else, but the ideals that my experiences have compelled me to extoll in my daily life and as an educator. In fact, I believe my rejection of many Western ideas and acceptance of many Chinese and Marxist sentiments allowed me to make so many friends and enjoy my life there as much I did. I also arrived in China with little faith in the prejudices and condemnations by which Western society had tried to define China with during my lifetime. The irrelevance of Cold War propaganda and hefty evidence of the Chinese people’s extraordinary capabilities certainly watered down any sense of superiority that I carried with me, but I took the astonishment at tribute to rejoice my heart more often than I let the astonishment poison my heart, to borrow Baldwin’s words.
After finishing the essay, I quickly moved onto a book with pictures…
Anxious to read Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints, I waited until my wife finished reading it as I had purchased it for her and I’d feel like a bit of heel reading it before she did. Yang made an excellent choice in choosing the Boxer Rebellion as a period in Chinese history to turn into a comic book because the Boxers believed they had magical powers and Catholics believe they are visited are saintly ghosts. In Boxers, the first volume, the Boxers have magical powers and in Saints, the second volume, stars a young girl who converts after being visited by ghost of Joan of Arc. One central theme of the text and the Boxer rebellion in general is the effect that the newly arrived European missionaries had on China. The foreigners who arrived in China at the end of the 19th century definitely arrived with a sense of superiority- not only missionaries, not only Europeans. The simultaneous import of Christianity and opium, reinforced by advanced weaponry, is a pretty strong strategy to take advantage of a trusting country and seems like an obvious plot to subjugate them. The response of local Chinese to either resist these invaders or align themselves with them is a bit of a classic dilemma- neither a particularly attractive coping mechanism, but resistance is generally regarded as more noble and collaboration is generally regarded with contempt. Yang himself is a Chinese-American Catholic, but his sympathies for the Boxers cannot be denied. By telling the story through the perspective of two different characters, Yang shows two methods to reconcile an infestation of foreigners- neither of which are ultimately successful. Yang finds subtle ways to bring perspectives to his comics, providing a noteworthy voice to women during this period both in the Red Lanterns in Boxers and in the major characters of Saints. One voice that is either absent or demonized, perhaps rightly so, is the voice of foreigner. I certainly feel more kinship with James Baldwin visiting a Swiss village in the 1950s than I do with a European soldier or American missionary arriving in late 19th Century China- it’s a bit of an apple-orange comparison, but the experience of reading both texts reminded me of two contradictory truths that fight each other to make us forget them- our experiences are similar and our experiences are different, not usually, but always at the same time- and this message, its simultaneity and inherent contradiction, is at the heart of both texts.
Post-script footnote: I think Ann Nocenti’s run on Green Arrow is one of the most under-rated chapters of DC’s New 52. She portrays Oliver Queen as one of an Ugly American while propelling the narrative and bringing our attention to misunderstandings between China and the West. I think her work is unfairly clumped in with the poor start led by Dan Jurgens and J.T. Krul. Unfortunately Jeff Lemire’s amazing work with the character will only further overshadow Nocenti’s contributions to the title.
As frequenters of this site know, crosswords of varying difficulty have appeared sporadically since the site began. The empire was built on those little boxes, penciled in between our slings and arrows, our ups and downs. Yesterday a small start up tech firm known as The Google brought attention to the 100th anniversary of the versatile medium. Those nerds celebrated with an animated doodle. The World’s Second Greatest Detective , refusing to be outdone by a bunch of coder and cooties, decided to massacre two birds with one stone by simultaneously commemorating the 100th anniversary of the crossword with the publication of DC Comics New 52 Villains Omnibus, a mammoth tome featuring each of DC Comics Villains Month issues from this past September, with a DC Villains Crossword. The answers are all titles taken from the New 52 Villains Omnibus, so don’t go looking for Catwoman, Hush, Amazo, Gentleman Ghost, etc. If you need a list of those titles, click here. If you click on the puzzle, it gets much bigger too.
Across
5. what’s cooler than cool? ice cold
7. classic teen tightener
8. makes lions cowardly with gas
9. say hello to their little friend
10. pointed the Flash to Flashpoint
11. more badass than Duane Chapman
16. rules Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime
17. the blackest night’s blackest knight
22. rough in a diamond
23. lives in the worst part of Gotham City
25. if dialing h gets you preparation e, this is how you get preparation h
29. Jordan’s friend, Natu’s father
30. Aquaman’s brother
32. Can be usually be found at the Iceberg
33. Solomon Grundy died on Saturday, but Superman died on this one
34. Born in the dark, molded by it
35. I make a point of never being clueless, who am I?
36. One of the Jor-El’s best buddies if only in his mind
38. faster pussycat kill kill
39. So Raven
43. Played poorly by Kevin Spacey
44. big bad harv
45. Has a cooler collection of bottles than any frat boy you know
47. Of all of Darkseid’s minions, he probably finds the most sexual gratification from spanking
Down
1. Coast City’s least favorite Superman
2. Not the handsomest villain but possibly the hungriest
3. one of the few female characters to put on more clothes in the New 52
4. his scientific discoveries were vital to Talia’s war on Batman, Inc.
6. Wonder Woman’s brother
8. whether male or female, a problem for hawkman
10. looking to put Green Lanterns’ lights out
12. A failure for Lex Luthor, especially compared to Superboy
13. One of Jor-El’s best buddies
14. hair like the Joker
15. Inspired the pornographic thespian Jack Napier
16. poison ivy planted seeds in him
17. gave Aquaman’s dad a heart attack
18. one bullet minimalist
19. Gems of the Gem Cities
20. digs lysistrata and wearing other people’s faces
21. most wtf character choice in Injustice video game
24. Grandfather to Thomas Wayne’s grandson
26. of Super Villains
27. just another clever beat inventing knowing
28. put the rot in rot world
31. The man with a kryptonite heart
37. aims to make aiming arrows difficult
40. once wore a lot of Sinestro Corps rings
41. christened Cyrus Gold, possibly on a Tuesday
42. iconic cosplay favorite who appeared in an animated series before appearing in a comic
45. subject of the best storyline in 52
46. kisses with his Apokolips
Above you can see what Google’s doodle looked like while below you can find the correct responses to the crossword clues.