It all started with the Big Bang! Part 14 (Issue #25)

It's the silver monthiversary at Big Bang Comics, and there's even a cover to that effect.

Isn't this an RTA gathering? The Badge and Trooper are crashing the party and hope nobody notices, I guess. They aren't even in this issue, the stories are Knight Watchman, Thunder Girl, and the Hummingbird.

Ever since he first appeared in Big Bang #22, almost every Knight Watchman story has the Pink Flamingo as its villain. As well it should; I mean, up until then his arch-enemy was probably Grandfather Clock for crying out loud. Of course, I did some skipping around during that Savage Dragon crossover -- don't get it twisted, he has other villains, like Faulty Towers, Mr. Mask, and our old pal the Quizmaster.

Anyway, this issue's plot isn't that much like the splash page (because when is anything?) -- it's more of a classic Flintstones "sudden bonk on the head causes identity amnesia". Instead of thinking himself a famous racecar driver, Jerry "Kid Galahad" Randall simply forgets his name and every personal detail after taking a nasty spill off his bike. He fights off some toughs, who like his fire and want him to come see their boss.

The Pink Flamingo (whose real name turns out to be, are you ready for this, 'Pinkerton Flemming') is basically acting the part of Fagin to these urchins, teaching them to do his dirty work and paying them in nothing but feigned affection. He doesn't recognize Jerry, because shut up you can explain that a million ways. 

Reid Randall, the Knight Watchman, however, looks for his missing nephew, only to see him fleeing the scene of a crime with his new pals. Jerry hangs back and creates a distraction to cover the others' escape, and is treated like a hero when he gets back to the pillow factory. And that's when...

Amnesia is absolutely like this, kids. If your friend isn't acting like himself, head trauma is the way to go. 

After regaining his memory, Jerry helps the Knight Watchman round the kids up as soon as he arrives on the scene. It's never mentioned whether the Knight Watchman actually put together the amnesia thing; I'm betting he thinks Jerry went undercover intentionally, a story that Jerry will go along with because it's obviously much less embarrassing.

Now, I think that's technically battery and 100% unprovoked, but get real, this is the Pink Flamingo. I'm sure arresting officers got a few licks in at Al Capone and John Hinckley, too. If you're wondering what'll happen to Brick and the other street kids, the Knight Watchman promises to find them homes. Everybody wins!

The Thunder Girl story has art that's a little outta whack, I'm not going to bother you with it. Also, it doesn't even have Binana in it, just some generic bug-eyed aliens. 

On to Hummingbird -- the Hummingbird and his pal Edgar the raven are chilling in the forest when they see a strange group of people in the infamous 'Devil's Field' area. They've, uh, been hypnotized by a fairy queen, who wants his help taking her throne back from a mad tyrant.

The Hummingbird seems to buy into all this pretty easily, although I guess the mention of science might have been enough. He hops down a hole to the fairy realm, which is sadly much too small for Edgar, and meets a bunch of pixies on the other side. They turn out to be quite small compared to the Hummingbird's six-inch frame, and I bet it must feel pretty cool to be the huge guy for once.

It's not long before he meets the crazed ruler of fairyworld or whatever, Garlon. While Garlon's goons pose no threat, the man himself is a different story, as he has tons of scientific tricks up his sleeve.

In this case, "anything" includes a noose. Luckily the Hummingbird can shrink, which allows him to escape -- and at pint size he's too small and too fast for Garlon to hit with anything. You know when a big guy can't hit a smaller, faster guy, and he's like "AAUGH STAND STILL"? That's basically what happens; Garlon also whines like a child and says this development isn't fair.

I'm almost positive he really killed that guy. 

Freed from Garlon's mind control, the citizens implore Hummingbird to stay as their new king. He lets them down gently and instead. He notices a statue of Pellinore, the queen who started all this -- apparently she died thousands of years ago. He doesn't mention meeting her because he doesn't want to look weird, and upon returning to our world, can't find any evidence that this adventure actually happened.

That's a cute ending. I like how the whole 'woah these fairies use science, bro, far out' thing gets pointed out, sort of. I have to say I'm kind of into the Hummingbird; I love Jeff Weigel's art on his stories, especially.

Okay, for real DC, what the Hell is up with Forever Evil #1?

Hey, for the first time ever I'm gonna take a look at a comic that came out this year, this month, just a week ago! I read Forever Evil #1 and just couldn't get behind any facet of it; there's so little to like here in my opinion that I had to talk about it.

That's an oddly random assortment of villains. Oh, sure, the big arches are all there, but Humpty Dumpty and the White Rabbit in the back? I don't even know the one with wings on the far left. And Bizarro hasn't even really appeared yet at all, has he? His villain month issue was about a failed prototype.

Lex Luthor is threatening some guy in a helicopter for no real reason and it's really edgy and dark oh god Luthor you're so cool because you're so ruthless and hateful

That's when a sonic boom caused by what appears to be Superman causes the chopper to crash into Luthor's building. Meanwhile, prisons housing supervillains are being broken into and thereafter out of. By bad guys who remind you of some good guys you may know. They're given coins and told to come to a gathering

 Lex Luthor sees Ultraman break into a safe, crush the kryptonite inside, and snort it. See, it's the source of his powers. I've mentioned before that the original Ultraman got stronger when exposed to anti-kryptonite, even gaining new powers, but as you'll remember, Ultiman also gets his powers from exposure to an alien rock. And yes, I was just dying to bring up the Ultraman-Ultiman connection.

Basically every villain of note to appear so far in the new DC universe shows up at the  ruins of the JL's Watchtower satellite off the coast of Maine. There's a lot of "ha ha ha are you for real" attendees, with the standouts in my opinion being Black Adam, Hector Hammond, and freaking Starro (by way of a human host); I don't buy that any of those guys would be interested in a huge group of villains where they aren't in charge, or in Starro's case, in the affairs of humans at all.

Everyone at the gathering is doing that Contest of Champions, "[a regular sentence], [name of the person I'm talking to]" thing. What the crap is that about, isn't that a device for clumsily introducing a lot of characters at once? These guys have all appeared before, even the Crime Syndicate. And does the Cheetah even know Grodd, for instance? Oh, and even though I saw something about this on Siskoid's blog a few months ago, I was still surprised to see the Black Bison, Plastique, Hyena, and Multiplex were here. 

And let's be honest -- who wasn't chosen for this? They got basically every villain they possibly could, even Starro. They aren't exactly discriminating employers, being picked by these guys isn't a huge accomplishment.

Then the evil Justice League shows up and says they killed the Justice League. 

There's also an evil Cyborg named Grid, who is fully robotic and works behind the scenes. Oh, and I kind of hate these guys as characters, they're either flatly eeeevil or annoying as hell. Anyway, the Syndicate presents trophies such as Aquaman's trident and Superman's cape as proof of their conquest, then introduces themselves before a worldwide audience via the classic "hijacking literally all the airwaves and running on every screen" supervillain trope.

I think it's pretty stupid that there are Earth-3 versions of Firestorm and the Atom but not Aquaman. Well, I heard there was one, with the beard, long hair, and a crab-like claw, who died almost instantly. Still, Arthur's a member of the Justice League, he should be represented in this story arc - Johns is writing this guy's title, for crying out loud. Power Ring can eat me so much -- he's a cringing fearful wimp because that's the opposite of what being a Green Lantern is, so clever. I know the Crime Syndicate never had much characterization besides "crazed tyrants", but look at this. Johnny Quick said it was "cray-cray time" a few pages ago. A tiny woman ruled the world and she introduces herself saying "What is up, y'all?" The only cool thing about these characterizations is that at least Hal won't be the center of the universe for once.

Of the villains assembled, Monocle doesn't buy that these guys aren't just the Justice League in slightly different costumes. So Ultraman proves he isn't Superman by killing him with his eye beams. Oh, man, the real Superman would never do that... which is what we were saying a few months ago when he did that in a Johns-penned issue of JLA. 

Even though I'm reading Nightwing, I can't really bring myself to care too much about the "Syndicate captured Nightwing, exposed his identity to the whole world" thing. Especially since his arch-enemy the Prankster seems to have no goddamn reaction to this development. Metallo and Parasite came to blows over who got to keep Superman's cape, I guess Nightwing's only villain isn't that into him.

The sun starts to come up, weakening Ultraman. He decided to do something (idiotic) about it. Note: this wasn't written by a 6th grader. That's a disclaimer that should go on a lot of Johns' material.

That's another great example of 'cute' Johns dialogue that I can't stand. And eclipses last for a few seconds to a minute or two, since the moon and the Earth both revolve and rotate. Ultraman has the exact same evil plot as Mr. Burns -- to block out the sun -- except here we're actually supposed to take that seriously and pretend like that makes any sense.

It's just, this is so stupid. He snorts kryptonite and is allergic to the sun. 

And Luthor sincerely wants Superman to save him. That's how the issue ends. Freaking...