The Hodge and the Podge and the barely contained rage:

1. Starting with three seconds of enjoying myself, which is about as much as you can hope for these days.

Jada Toys had these little "Nano Hollywood Rides," which are non-transforming and diecast; but roughly in scale with the World's Smallest Transformers. Very roughly, but you'll make do. With a little luck, you could maybe find both at Target right now!

I probably should've put a quarter or something in the picture for scale. The World's Smallest is smaller than the Dollar Store PVC's from earlier this year, and has three points of articulation.

I like wee little Transformers, although it'd be swell if they did more than Optimus and Bumblebee every time. Rarely get super deep down the roster...

There was a little blind-box Masters of the Universe mini-figure at Wal-Mart, and I got Jitsu I think? But I really wanted it for the container, a miniature Castle Greyskull! I thought it would be ballpark close to action figure scale, and I know there are World's Smallest MotU figures out there as well. Which makes me wish I'd picked up the Hot Wheels Wind Raider...which I did!

2. On Twitter, Dustin Davis posted a head's-up that GameStop had their Power Rangers in Space Psycho Blue Ranger on sale for $2.99 early Thursday; so I grabbed that for pickup.

I'm a casual Power Rangers fan, but for the price, yeah!

3. School starts soon for my Youngest, and I think they're doing a couple days in-school, couple days at-home. So you can get good and COVID'd up and then take it home...I don't know if it's a good idea, and he's going to a different school district as well now. I think he had been doing a good job, but thought a lot of the online learning portion thus far had been pointless; although honestly that maybe could apply to the rest of it. Otherwise, locally a lot of stuff is almost what's going to pass for normal right now: wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance. I sure as fun wouldn't chance going to a movie, though. It's up in the air as to whether I miss the movies themselves, or proper movie popcorn. I probably wouldn't have paid full price to see Tenet, though.

4. I'd better remember to get a flu shot this year; even if I'm finally tired of hitting Walgreens for figures.

Their website swears one store locally has Moon Knight. They specifically don't. Some folks are already finding the Silver Centurion Iron Man. I honestly don't really need the MK since I have the Mezco One:12, but I'd hate to break my streak.

5. I also mailed my Christmas cards last week! You know, while we still have a post office. I'm originally from Montana, and I have no idea why everyone in the state isn't throwing a goddamn fit: without the USPS, who's going to get letters or packages anywhere in-state? UPS and FedEx use the postal service a lot for the last leg of deliveries there; if they had to carry it the whole way themselves it's going to be a massive increase in price, or a hard 'nah' to delivering everywhere.

Has anyone's mail been slow? I may have had a couple eBay items take a day or two longer; and some items ordered from overseas are taking forever. The latter could be COVID related, I guess.

6. In case it's been unclear here: Black Lives Matter. Trump is a worthless, weak, petty grifter AT BEST, that's about the nicest thing I could say about him; he's also a lying sack of crap. The Republican party is garbage, willing to turn a blind eye to his crimes and covertly encourage racism in order to keep corporate interests happy. The post office is an incredibly important service, voting by mail is fine, and the police absolutely should be defunded. Cops are asked to do a lot of jobs and are almost across the board terrible at all of them: listen to any random true-crime podcast, and I can almost guarantee there's at least an episode about how the police botched the investigation, if not outright ignored it. Cops and cop bootlickers often say if you don't believe in cops, don't call them when you're in trouble; which isn't the threat they think it is, and oh, isn't how doing the job you're paid for works, but okay.

I saw something on Twitter recently--and, kind of wish I could find it for credit--that guns in video games or TV shows? Awesome. Guns in real life? Absolutely unnecessary; they should be as science-fiction as a lightsaber. I'm not quite 100% of that feeling for guns, but I may be 110% that for cops.

If any of that offends your delicate sensibilities, well, there's the door, spaceman. I don't have a lot of readers, but by this point it should be pretty obvious I don't care, I do this for me.

7. Back to our usual brand of nonsense, I did order the Haslabs Marvel Legends Sentinel! Which should show up sometime next year. Fear of missing out twisted my arm on that one; I was afraid I'd have an idea for a joke that needed one if I didn't. Like the Sentinel teabagging Wolverine or something, I don't know. I guess I've got a year to see if anything occurs to me.

8. Partly the way I've set up my stupid house, and partly out of depression/inertia, I have not watched much of anything besides Star Trek reruns for...honestly, decades, but more so lately. Like I don't have the energy to pick something out, start it, pay a bit of attention to it; but Trek can just run like background noise for hours. I did finish watching the few new shows I followed: Stargirl, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Bulletproof. Feels like it might be a hundred years before any scripted TV comes back? That's probably not right; and I could probably cough up for CBS All Access for still more Trek, but not yet.

I did just pick up the John Wick movies on DVD, I hadn't seen any of them. Soon, maybe. And I found a good double fistful of crappy horror movies from the Dollar Store, just in time for Halloween! A couple were Wal-Mart overstock with fancy covers, Child's Play and Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Both of which, I'm now not positive I've ever watched all the way through? Well, I guess I can now.

9. Ooh, right, comics. Well, Humble Bundle has had a bunch lately; there's a Dredd/2000 AD one and a Hasbro/IDW crossover bundle still going as of now. You could get that whole Rom and the Micronauts mini-series for like a buck, with some others! Nothing wrong with that.

I think I mentioned getting a couple of X-Men: Empyre (no cover there on the GCD; even though I like Kyle Hotz somebody else can post the damn thing, Wolverine isn't even in this damn issue) and not liking it much. 31 story pages, a recap page, two-page title card, closing page for the next batch of X-books, for $4.99. The latter four pages always feel like a waste to me. Nightcrawler shows up, briefly, for the last two issues; even if he doesn't have a helluva lot to do: large chunks of the last issue are Dr. Strange being a bit of a dick to set a ticking clock for the rest of the story, and a new character who may or may not ever show up anywhere again. There is one pretty solid bit with Magik that I can't spoil; though I'm still not sure when everyone decided she was the X-girl. I swear she's gotten more page time and covers than, say, Storm or Rogue? (Story by Jonathan Hickman, pencils by Jorge Molina and Lucas Werneck, inks by Adriano Di Benedetto and Werneck.)

Savage Avengers had an Empyre tie-in issue as well; that worked about as well as any of the others I've read: not especially? I think it threw away a perfectly good opening, too: catching a fight in Mexico City, Conan badmouths wrestling as fake, and starts a brawl. That could've maybe carried an issue by itself, but aliens invade, and Venom shows up to help Conan fight them off. Okay. But the premise of Empyre is that the Cotati, the plant aliens, are such a threat to everything the Kree and the Skrulls have put aside millennia of war to team-up against them. And the Cotati are suddenly bad now; this issue they seem pretty enthusiastic about mulching the entire population of Mexico City. That's more than a bit of a reversal, they were always peaceful plant guys before; but honestly it just feels like an excuse to have bad guys the heroes can mow into compost en masse. Not unlike the X-Men issue, there's at least one joke that lands, as Venom tosses Conan a weapon, but...well, the regular Savage Avengers title hasn't really been what I wanted either, so...By the way, I wouldn't expect the writer or editor to have read every Conan appearance, and his continuity is shifting sand anyway; but back in Savage Sword #146 there was an extended storyline with Conan as a gladiator, in largely staged fights! So I felt like Conan might not have been as openly disparaging of wrasslin', but that's super nitpicky and just 'cause I read that Savage Sword again pretty recently.

The last issue of the Question was late as I write this; I need to read the first three again or maybe the lot at once. (And I did!) Other than that, I'd largely checked out on DC: Death Metal, Three Jokers, Bendis's stuff; if I find it for a dollar a pop sometime next year obviously I'll read it, otherwise life goes on. I will say McFarlane seems to be doing an admirable job of getting figures out based on recent-ish books; even if I haven't the slightest bit of interest in them. That and the scale: I think I saw the movie Wonder Woman the other day, but she would tower over most everything else.

10. Man, I wrote all this before the news broke about Chadwick Boseman. He did so much, while fighting cancer. Anything you want to do, make it happen while you can. Even if it's just for you.

Not paying attention to them kills a lot of monsters. I'm hoping, anyway.

I've enjoyed a number of the kid-friendly, low-continuity Marvel Adventures books, and mistakenly thought this was in the same vein: close! From 2005, Marvel Age: Fantastic Four #11, "Here Is: the Impossible Man!" Plot by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, written by Marc Sumerak, pencils by Joseph Dodd, inks by Justin Holman.

Instead of brand-new stories, I think this whole series was adaptations/modernizations of classic Fantastic Four issues, in this case Fantastic Four #11. The Impossible Man arrives on earth near a hobo camp, who won't share their chili without a little donation, which of course leads to Impy robbing a bank. Later confronted by the FF, who are called in by the befuddled cops, Impy explains how Poppupians "evolutionary processes are so swift (they) can spontaneously change into anything," which an off-puttingly young-looking Reed seems to find, well, impossible.

After largely walking all over the team, Impy realizes regular earthlings maybe don't have powers, so he might be "the most powerful man on earth!" Cue reign of terror, or at least reign of annoyance, until Reed realizes attention is what Impy really wants, and getting ignored is his Kryptonite. News reports advise the general populace to do the same, until the Impossible Man gets so bored he leaves earth. The final page montage of regular people not giving him the time of day was kind of the best of the book! Marvel does these every so often; I wonder how many times they've put a new coat of paint on this one...

I've been doing this a while, and I feel like I know a bit about comics, right? But two things outside of my wheelhouse: proper care of loose fancy cover books, since this one has curled up like a Frito; and Titans continuity. From 2018, Titans #27, "One Life" Written by Dan Abnett, pencils by Brent Peeples, inks by Matt Santorelli. Shiny cover by Clayton Henry, for some reason. Sure, somebody might be dead, but c'mon.

The issue opens with a woman--I think that's Donna Troy, but you're gonna have to give me a hint, comic--visiting Roy Harper's grave; but that was "days ago." I couldn't even hazard a guess as to how dead Roy was; I feel like he faked his death on occasion, but I'm probably thinking of Arrow. Today, Beast Boy discovers everyone's pretty depressed at the Hall of Justice (really! I expected the big T-tower) because news just broke that Nightwing had been shot. (Circa Batman #55, if that does anything for you; it gets a full page here that makes it seem like he should be extra-dead.) Raven is worried that with the damage, Dick may never be the same; Donna tells the group he'll be fine, guys like them come back all the time. True, but there's a sense she's trying to put on a brave face, and later we see her knocking back shots while the injured and emotionless Raven envies her pain.

Beast Boy had more bad news for what was left of the team: Tyler Baines was dying. He had been exposed to Source energy and had been in a coma for some time, and was circling the drain. Desperate, Steel (Natasha Irons) comes up with a possibility: exposing Tyler to more Source energy, in the hopes of stabilizing him. Miss Martian doesn't think they can experiment on a live subject, but Raven and Donna argue they can only try to help. The treatment fails, and Tyler passes; leaving the team at their lowest and wondering how they could go on, as an underwater swimmer is presumably making his way to them. The next issue blurb teases the return of Tempest; but I wasn't familiar with his look, if this was him...

I don't know that this issue did a good job explaining who Tyler Baines was or why his death guts the heroes; but his death was going to stick and Roy and Dick were of course going to be back. I don't envy Titans/Teen Titans creative teams, since it seems to be deeper in the same fix the X-Men are in: does anyone have any idea what that fanbase wants? Teen Titans Go-style silliness? Grimdark meat-and-potatoes superhero work? Shipping, shipping, shipping? It doesn't help when Roy and Dick both get taken out in other comics; that has to throw a wrench in long-term plotting.

"Stab."

So I've read a bit of Hickman's Krakoa X-stuff; and like most of you I have questions. In fact, it's like it was designed for you to have questions; maybe in the hopes of stringing the reader along? Also, in that X-thing with swords (X of Swords, which also appears to run a ton of crossover issues) I'm betting that Nightcrawler gets Worf'ed: he's going to be the one to get beat, to establish the bad guy as hardcore. Or at least good with swords. Feh!

Gwenpool was, at the end of her last limited series, on Krakoa as a mutant. She probably wasn't, but allowed everyone to believe she was. Hopefully her and Jeff are doing just fine; although I don't know if I'd want Hickman to do anything with them: it doesn't seem like Gwen would be in his wheelhouse. (Also, I still hate hate hate the design heavy text pages that seem to come three an issue here.) I recently read Emprye: X-Men #1 and hated it: there were some interesting character bits, along with some stupid, stupid crap. (If you liked it, enjoy; I did not.) Yet I still bought the third and fourth issues because Nightcrawler shows up: there's at least one fun bit in the last issue, but still a lot I didn't care for.

Can you just claim a found car like that? I've been paying for them like a chump!

We last saw the Autobot Skids like five years back, and I don't think he fared well all the way through Lost Light, so maybe today will do better for him. Except he's now a van, which seems like a downgrade. From 1986, the Transformers #20, "Showdown!" Written by Bob Budiansky, pencils by Herb Trimpe, inks by Ian Akin and Brian Garvey.

Ravage is trailing Donny Finkleberg, unemployed comic-book writer and Robot-Master. Huh, we actually blogged the previous issue like ten years ago, and while I remember Omega Supreme, I have no recollection of Donny; who got caught up in some kind of scam, presenting himself as "the weirdo, super-terrorist behind the Transformers." (Takara?) Donny ditches his costume, which Ravage later attacks, but realizes he hasn't destroyed the meaty bits. Donny passes and Ravage doesn't seem to notice the injured, overturned Skids; but when the passing Charlene sees him, he plays his radio to convince her he wasn't a wreck. And Charlene did need a new car; so...

Charlene's co-worker Wendell is obviously into her, and has Skids brought to town and patched up at his cousin's garage. Skids opts to play-act as Charlene's car for a while, figuring it to be safer than getting shot at by Decepticons all day; but he hadn't counted on a road-rage driver still holding a grudge from the previous issue, which I also don't recall! This blog's supposed to be a hedge against senility, not a reminder of it! Taking evasive action to save them both, Skids has to reveal himself to Charlene...but it doesn't seem to be a dealbreaker. They settle into a pleasant domestic routine; but while Charlene watches a western, Skids wonders if he's being a coward. Still, he does enjoy seeing earth's sights with her, as well as...um...

Their idyll is interrupted by first Donny, then Ravage, then the road-rager! The latter does the most damage, taking a tire iron to Skids, who then has a seeming concussion and resulting nightmare about getting gunned down by Megatron! Still, Ravage is the real threat here; and it takes all of them to trick him into falling down a mineshaft. A downfallen Skids knows he has to go back to the Autobots and his war, sadly suggesting that Charlene might give Wendell a call. (It seems obvious that Skids can't bear the thought of Charlene getting hurt.) Charlene does have to admit, Skids came out better than her last car, which she junked!

I think this plot was used in the animated series as well; and possibly more than once? Autobots that were burnt out after four million years of war and wanted out; then are almost immediately sucked back in. And girls that like Transformers. I don't know if Hasbro or Marvel thought there were female Transformers fans, but I wonder.

I found the last new Flash comic I read a bit charmless, so why not try another? Well, if there's one thing DC loves as much as ripping off Alan Moore, it's taking an idea and running it into the ground. From 2018, Flash #54, "Grips of Strength, conclusion" Written by Joshua Williamson, art by Christian Duce.

Although Flash mentions previously having been turned into a puppet and growing a giant head, neither of which I think happened in the New 52 era; today he's facing a new body horror: bulking up! He and the Trickster are both currently Hulk-sized courtesy of the recently discovered...ugh...Strength Force. Yes, now in addition to the Speed Force that just about every goddamn Flash comic for the last twenty years has been about, there were also Strength and Sage Forces, possibly amongst others. Ooh, sounds great! Ah, sorry there, I think I discovered the Sarcasm Force...

Feeling the Strength Force was too dangerous, Warden Wolfe of Iron Heights tries to encourage the new Commander Cold (from the future, or some damn thing) to "put the worthless brat out of his misery!" For his part, the Trickster wants revenge on Wolfe for abusing him, allegedly above and beyond the normal amount of abuse a warden would deliver, the punishment not fitting the crime. Using his head instead of his muscles, Flash realizes he can control local gravity, and that the Strength Force must need an outlet. He manages to break their connection to the force, but that leaves several unconscious Rogues and the rapidly weakening Trickster the only thing from keeping the roof from collapsing on them. Flash saves the Rogues, but the Trickster is seemingly crushed, with only his stone left arm remaining. (No idea what that was about.)

In the aftermath, Commander Cold is pissed at just about everything, particularly that changes in the present were going to alter the 25th century he called home. Iris shows up, also a bit pissed that Barry's not talking about Cold or the Forces or anything; but why should Barry be left out in getting pissy? He's noticed Iris clamming up about something in her life prior to their relationship, something involving a wedding. Meanwhile, the Trickster, Axel, wakes up somewhere, greeted by...James Jesse, the original Trickster! There to "lend you a hand...pun intended." I don't think I have that issue, but I remember the cover introducing the new Trickster, since Jesse was at least partially reformed. But that was pre-New 52, and we're back to two Tricksters again already?

Does anyone remember the Justice League Unlimited episodes with the Flash, where Central City was a nice place, maybe a bit more spread out than Metropolis, but way better than that craphole Gotham? Had a museum people actually went to, and the Flash's life wasn't constantly like running up a slaughterhouse sluice? I feel like that's also because editorially speaking, they want Barry and Iris together, but they don't want them happy in the least little way with each other; because anything resembling a good relationship would lead to dowdy, bland stories like Flash's old comics. That's absolutely not the case; but it might be a tough bias to shake. Anyway, these issues haven't been to my taste, which is probably why I only buy them on the cheap.

We have five parts of this eight-chapter serial. Part 2 three times and part 3 twice...

Hmm. We blogged the next issue a bit ago, and I know I have the one before the first chapter, but not the first chapter? Wait, let me start again. From 1992, Marvel Comics Presents #110.

So of course I bought MCP #101 to #108, because that was the Wolverine/Nightcrawler serial with the Sam Kieth covers, Gene Colan art. I don't know that I've ever had #109, which would've had the first chapter of "Typhoid's Kiss" and the last chapter of a Young Gods serial...that I would've been eight chapters into by that point. Guessing I wasn't as invested in that one. (EDIT: Actually, I did have #101-107, #109, and multiple copies of this one up at my parent's house! Need to bring a #108 up there, as well as the last half of Infinity Gauntlet...) This chapter, a programmed killer's musings are juxtaposed with Mary and Logan's first meeting: the killer wonders if putting them together "...wasn't a bit like throwing a live grenade at a time bomb and yelling 'catch!'" Mary is trying to figure out the holes in her memory, the odd gaps, and Logan seems to identify with her. In fact, they're supposed to be doing this to help someone else, whom Logan seems to have forgotten about already, as he kisses Mary in her apartment. ("A Killer's Rights" Written by Ann Nocenti, art by Steve Lightle.)

Even though he had been in the main feature just recently, Nightcrawler gets an 8-pager here: I think this was his last appearance in the series, though. In London, a modern-day Jack the Ripper was killing pimps--wait, killing pimps? And...that's bad? Kurt puts a stop to that, also scaring a pimp into honest work, but he also seems resigned to "people will always exploit other people for money." Meh. ("Night of the Ripper" Written by Barry Dutter, pencils by Mark Runyan, inks by Tim Tuchy.)

The rest of this issue is the Ghost Rider/Werewolf and Thanos serials; they were okay.

A slightly better idea I had a couple days ago:

The belt from the new pirate Deadpool figure comes off, and can go a bit further to finishing Nightcrawler's limited series look! He's already stolen Night Thrasher's bandanna, he's not giving it back.

Hasbro could double-dip with a pirate Kurt and an Age of Apocalypse version; I'd be all in.

"Shiklah."

Given the timeframe, I think I'm safe in assuming Shiklah heard "That's what she said!" about four million times during her brief marriage to Deadpool. In the comics, Nightcrawler actually performed the ceremony; although around here I write Kurt as having moved past faith or religion: dude was dead and came back, he still knows there's an afterlife, but doesn't really get into it. Like maybe multiple faiths are right--or wrong--so he doesn't want to get bogged down in who should be doing what.

Anyway, back to Shiklah: her little feet in heels weren't especially stable, so I did not mind her sitting here. Her cape is light--she'd never stand in a million years if it had been plastic--and I'm pretty sure the upcoming first appearance Storm is going to have some of these pieces. Her skin color is probably accurate, but weird, a bit more pink than the usual. The purple parts of her outfit have a nice pattern that must have been applied by tampo, but just on the front side! The back would be covered by her cape, anyway.

A really dumb idea I had yesterday.

I was looking at the guys' wavemate, Shiklah, who also has gold bracelets, in a girl size! So there's like three different sizes of bracelets, with that, Captain Mar-Vell and Sunspot's, and Warpath's big boys. You could probably put all three on Shiklah if you wanted, and her little cape isn't attached to the bracelets.

I'm positive somebody's rent or credit card payment was late because of this. Nice one, Parker.

From 2004, MARVEL KNIGHTS: SPIDER-MAN #1, "Down among the Dead Men, Part One" Written by Mark Millar, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Rachel Dodson. I think I've said on occasion this was the last thing Millar did that I really liked...at all; but was it the last Spidey title I read new off the racks? And it was 2004? Seems a million years gone by.

Anyway, I woke up too early Sunday, so I hadda get my X-Mas cards ready to go out. While we, y'know, still have mail. Can't take anything for granted anymore, huh?

Apparently, I don't read at home; which may be because I'll stay up way too late reading. But last week I was on vacation, and had time to read a ton, which was kind of nice. It may have helped that my cell reception was markedly intermittent, which prevented me from reading too much Twitter. Despite having read about 98% of Stephen King's work (and I say 98% because I know there's two new ones in the last year or so) I hadn't read any from his sons. Joe Hill's Strange Weather was pretty good, though. Dan Abnett has been mentioned on the blog more than a few times, and Everybody Wants to Rule the World has a ton of villains all in the middle of their own things, splitting the Avengers up for most of the book: a fun read. I've read more than a bit of Max Allan Collins; although I think he also has a ton of books: Quarry was enjoyable, although I particularly liked his description at the end, that he would have Quarry do something terrible at the start of the book, to give the reader a chance to bail out, then have him do something else terrible maybe three-quarters in to remind the reader who they're pulling for there. A Man Called Ove isn't my usual fare; my mom had it handy: an aging Swedish man just wants to kill himself in peace, but gets sucked into the lives of his neighbors. Heartwarming, even for someone mildly dead inside like me! Solo was a decent James Bond story, set mostly in Africa, 1969; a change from most Bond stories. The Iron Man novel Femme Fatales was a bit of an update of classic S.H.I.E.L.D. continuity, and features both the Viper and Madame Masque: Tony sleeps with one of them, and you just guessed the wrong one. Despite a lengthy career at NASA and a brief one in the NFL, Leland Melvin is probably best known for his astronaut photo with his dogs, which is also the cover of his autobiography. Lastly, I read the Prisoner before, which felt like less an adaptation of the classic show than its own thing. There's also a Shakespeare play performed as a distraction towards the end, that I kind of need to read the play as well. Some later vacation, I suppose: I've already set aside four more books for my next one...

Somehow, I don't think the Satin Satan ended up on the Suicide Squad with the rest of the Firestorm villains.

Because I grabbed it out of the quarter bin again, I nearly just re-blogged an old issue of the Shadow that I blogged back in 2011, so instead I had to go through the increasingly inaccurate Firestorm tag to make sure we hadn't seen this one before: from 1980, Justice League of America #179, "The Siren Song of the Satin Satan!" Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Dick Dillin, inks by Frank McLaughlin.

Firestorm joins the JLA: he would be the last new member of the classic "satellite era" and possibly when Alex Ross stopped reading the book. He's thrilled to death, maybe a bit over-enthusiastic; but Superman thinks his "innocence and joy" would be good for the team. On the other hand, Green Arrow thinks he may be self-centered and spacey; when he's really just conversing with the unseen Professor Stein. Observing them, Red Tornado suspects Arrow feels he should be doing more on the streets, like Black Lightning, who recently passed on membership.

After a pleasant induction--and tedious orientation from Batman, that apparently the whole team sat through?--Firestorm returns home to Manhattan and changes back to Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein: Stein still didn't remember anything that happened when they were Firestorm, because he had been unconscious when they first formed! Ronnie puts the dazed Stein in a cab and sends him home--upstate, which couldn't have been a cheap fare! Dick move, Ronnie. Surprisingly, Ronnie's supporting cast makes an appearance, namely his girlfriend Doreen and bully/future villain Cliff Carmichael. A friend's brother had vanished at a disco downtown, so they decide to go see. Carmichael reluctantly joins them, saying "somebody's got to keep your noses clean," which I'm hoping isn't a cocaine reference. They quickly discover the missing brother, an avid dancer, had been invited to the swanky penthouse of supermodel Sabrina Sultress, known as the Satin Satan. Weird nom de plume for a model, isn't it? It's not even great for a supervillain.

Right after Professor Stein pays the cab driver, Ronnie summons him back into Firestorm again to investigate! God, you dick! Firestorm is immediately mesmerized by Satin, but manages to activate his JLA signal device...to be continued! "So, what do I do for an encore?" Get captured immediately? Maybe next issue Ronnie can leave the Professor at a homeless shelter or something.