TGH: And now, another tale well-calculated to keep you in…Suspense! Last time we met, our hero, who usually fights crime with a magic space ring, went to South America to find some magic Earth water to give him new powers. Unfortunately, he ran into a slight snag in his plan, in the form of a dinosaur-riding suicide-bomber Nazi. I hate when that happens!

QP: Always have suicide bomber Nazi dinosaur riders covered on your travel insurance!

TGH: As we saw last issue, our Nazi enemy hit the button on his explosive vest, immediately blowing up the bar and everyone in it. So, how is Guy getting out of this one? By entirely rewriting the sequence of events to match an idea you came up with since last month, that’s how!

QP: It’s trying to do something kind of cinematic, which would be neat if this were a well-crafted comic. But since it’s not, and we’ve grown accustomed to just having the plot fucked with issue to issue, it’s just eye-roll worthy.

TGH: This issue, entitled “Wet Dreams” (eww), starts with Nazi bomber not even saying the same thing he said at the end of the last issue, so that’s a great start. Since he now did not hit the button at all, and instead opened his arms as far away from the button as possible, Tiger Guy has plenty of time to smack him in the face and make a stupid quip.

QP: Also, I’m beginning to think Mitch Byrd has never actually seen how jean shorts work on a woman’s ass, because they definitely do not work the way he draws them.

TGH: I thought they just rode further and further up forever towards infinity.

QP: We should really be thankful he drew her leg over her crotch area as she dives down the trap door.

TGH: So Esperanza finds some sort of secret door out of there in this run down shack bar, and she and Guy just cannot help making nonsense one-liners at each other. These last two issues have just somehow been the worst for dialogue. I guess one Guy was bad enough, but now there’s like six Guys, since none of them have a distinct voice.

QP: Well, they are all pretty bad ass. That’s distinct, right?

TGH: She fires some bullets into the Nazi as he hits the button, just like last issue! Bleeding and screaming in German.

QP: Somehow she does not also get blown up, despite the fact that the explosion, as we saw, wrecks the shit out of that building. I don’t think standing just below a thin wooden floor counts as protection.

TGH: She’s being fired out of the building in the panel where it explodes. I didn’t know that was an option for everyone.

QP: Sometimes this book is like reading a Cracked article. “6 Myths About Explosions You Believe After Reading Guy Gardner.”

TGH:  Next we get to see the three(?) factions gunning for this Warrior Water. I guess the Egyptian-looking dude from before also has a zombie army we’re learning about right now.

QP: I think you were right last time when you said this was just Beau Smith doing whatever he wanted. If only they were, like, zombie pirates or something. Then it would feel more like something an 11-year-old wrote.

TGH: Then of course there’s the Dino Nazis. Last, but not least, are the rapey locals.

QP:  It’s a confusing page altogether. When I first read it I thought all these groups were working together. There’s no real indication that we’re jumping between locations.

TGH: Maybe they are working together. Who the hell even knows? Does Beau Smith even know to this day?

QP: Probably not.

TGH: Meanwhile Guy and his crew are driving around the jungle on the way to somewhere, where they get jumped by the rapey locals, who get right to the rapey business.

QP: Well, they at least decide to put off the raping until after they kill Guy, which does not work out in their favor for a variety of reasons, most of which having nothing to do with Guy himself.

TGH: Yeah, I don’t know what happens, but Esperanza loses her shit apparently, so things do not go so well for the rape crew. Might have used that strength back at the bar.

QP: Yeah, she gets a bad case of snake face and then there’s blood everywhere.

TGH: Guy, on the other hand, is getting the crap kicked out of him and crying about how he doesn’t have his ring. You know, like pretty much every other issue up to this point. I guess some things never change.

QP: He finally snaps out of it at least, and flips two guys over his shoulder after delivering a nut kick to the guy that keeps threatening to skin him.

TGH: Yeah, that was oddly easy to pull off considering all the drama that lead up to it.

QP: You’d think he could’ve done it earlier if he hadn’t had his head so far up his ass. Guy finds Esperanza, and the rapey rapists she shoved into a tree. Somehow he doesn’t question this at all.

TGH: Guy can’t even.

QP: “That looks painful.” The man is clearly dead, Guy, you are the worst superhero.

TGH: I feel like these guys have a higher death count than the Suicide Squad at this point, and they’re just a bunch of eccentric millionaire genius assholes.

QP: And none of them have died yet. Amanda Waller needs to get them on the horn.

TGH: If all of these guys aren’t working together then they’re all just on the same wavelength, because now the zombie army is attacking.

QP: Fez man wants all of them dead except Buck Wargo for some reason.

TGH: He keeps saying it, so it must be important.

QP: While he’s yelling at the zombie hordes, Guy sneaks up behind him with a club and knocks his hat off.

TGH: “Taste the lumber!” Guy decides to yell out loud for everyone to hear.

QP: And since I think Beau Smith must’ve been reading Animorphs while he wrote this, Fez guy turns into a giant viper.

TGH: I guess this is just a thing now. Everyone is an animal.

QP: Guy needs animorph powers. His spirit animal is clearly a donkey.

TGH: Tiger Man comes to help, but is intercepted by…I guess the other guy’s lackey? Who also turned into…something?

QP: A gorillagator from the looks of it.

TGH: Tiger Guy points out how dumb it is that everyone can turn into an animal which makes it okay to do now.

QP: Thankfully a tribe of sexy indigenous ladies show up to stop the fight.

TGH: One of them is luckily a spunky wiseass like the entire rest of the cast.

QP: There’s always one.

TGH: I love that Tiger Guy gets a random “fuck you” punch in the back of the one panel. The sexy natives give Snake Man some of the Warrior Water in exchange for leaving Guy alone. This seems like a great trade that will not go poorly for him.

QP: Certainly not. I’m sure he wanted to make his head explode like that.

TGH: The water was not made for him. It was made for Guy Gardner: Warrior, who is the warrior of legend, so it’s a good thing he recently added :Warrior to his name to indicate that!

QP: Yeah, convenient, that.

TGH: There’s not even some tribal word that translates to Warrior or anything. They just all start chanting “warrior.”

QP: Of course, then they show the giant carving of his head on one of their temple walls and I guess there is no free will in the DC Universe or anything.

TGH: Is that supposed to look like a crappy line drawing in their universe, or a perfectly-rendered duplicate of Guy’s head? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

QP: I mean, if it’s not a perfectly rendered duplicate, I think that face also looks pretty similar to that Nazi that blew up earlier.

TGH: “It must be me. They got the five lines that define my face perfectly.”

QP: “Eyes, nose, mouth…yep, that’s me!”

TGH: This happens every time someone without a mustache wanders too closely to their village.

QP: Alas, then they are interrupted by more goddamn Nazi dinosaurs.

TGH: I’m surprised they even let them put those little dino earmuffs on them.

QP: They’re probably transmitting Nazi brainwashing waves into their tiny lizard brains. Or they just hammer home that they’re Nazi dinos. I doubt the creators of this book put that much thought into it.

TGH: Guy falls down a hole somehow and runs into Sand Darkseid, who is carrying the Thundercats sword.

QP: But Guy’s safe, since he’s the chosen one. I guess the sand golem said so, so it must be true.

TGH: His reward is falling down another hole.

QP: And gets shot back out of a sand pit into the jungle.

TGH: Guy starts complaining to himself about how he has no powers and no idea how to get out of there. Jesus, Guy, are you even paying attention to your own comic?

QP: As he sits next to a glowing altar made of skulls. I’m sure if he looks around he’ll get an idea.

TGH: The altar talks to him, so maybe Guy can ask how he can get out of there and grab a burger.

QP: Meanwhile, back at the action, Esperanza gets attacked again, and really for real turns into a giant snake monster. Guy doesn’t need to drink the Warrior Water, he just needs to hang out in this jungle long enough to get animal powers by osmosis.

TGH: Seriously, Guy’s kind of a freak at this point.

QP: Buck sees what Esperanza has turned into and seems somehow upset. I guess he’s not used to seeing animal/human hybrids or something.

TGH: He brings up the cult of El Garto while skulking behind her, which I am pretty sure never comes up again, either before this issue or maybe even after.

QP: I think it was written in blood on the tree Esperanza stuffed that guy into, but that’s…yeah that’s it.

TGH: What a stupid clue for her to have left for no reason.

QP: Seriously. It’s so lazy. They didn’t want to explain that she was in a cult, or what the cult was, or any way you might’ve known she was in the cult, so instead just have her write the cult’s name in blood on a tree.

TGH: Some fine world-building going on in this issue. I almost feel like people live in it.

QP: Almost. Snake men, mostly.

TGH: Guy finds the water, then makes a shitty joke about dishware, then makes a poop joke. The hero of legend.

QP: Depending on the page, this book either is or is not for children.

TGH: Once he drinks the water…something happens, so he ends up taking…something with him?

QP: I think he took the skull mug?

TGH: The art really doesn’t do much of a job telling us what the relationship is between anything happening in those last two panels. Something is spinning, but is the pink stuff a platform or motion lines or what? Then he carries something of a completely different shape in his left hand as he leaves.

QP: Presumably that’ll matter at some point?

TGH: Maybe!

QP: Meanwhile, Buck is confronting Esperanza about being a snake woman cultist, because being a shape shifter is one thing, but being a shape shifter in this completely never-before discussed cult is just a bridge too far.

TGH: He’s mad because apparently the cult wants the water for themselves, even though he already said his group didn’t care about the water, just the adventure, so why does it even matter? Also, every single person you’ve run into wants that water!

QP: She makes an argument that the water belongs to the cult, which is presumably the creative team’s best attempt to show that there are complicated socio-political ramifications of a bunch of first-worlders invading a sacred temple in a pristine rainforest to steal shit for their own benefit. It also clearly means that she’s just straight up evil for no reason.

TGH: She discusses these ramifications by throwing a really big rock at Buck.

QP: Guy jumps in front of the rock like that’s gonna somehow stop it from squishing both of them.

TGH: He does somehow manage to push Buck out of the way while falling.

QP: Ok, well it was still a stupid idea.

TGH: Guy is of course completely crushed though.

QP: Oh yeah, totally dead.

TGH: But then suddenly his amazing Warrior powers kick in!

QP: Apparently this means he’s magically back in the effing robosuit, except now it’s pink instead of yellow.

TGH: It’s the same damn suit! Whyyyy? What would Blue Beetle think if he knew that he accidentally copied a robosuit of ancient legend?

QP: He’d probably sigh at his dumb luck.

TGH: Guy shows off his new powers by kicking Esperanza into a pit with some Gila Monsters and making shitty comments about how hot she is with Buck while they eat her.

QP: She’s a giant snake monster now, but at least her ass is still perfectly-formed.

TGH: “Too bad we killed her, I totally would’ve fucked her!”

QP: While they’re broing the bro seas, the Nazis and their dinosaurs start disappearing.

TGH: A portal opens up over the temple, which I guess is some kind of time rip, if Buck is to be believed.

QP: Deus ex time portal.

TGH: Looks like we’re completely out of time for this story. DC Editorial demands that it is now time for Zero Hour, so fuck this entire character development arc.

QP: I was gonna say, if this isn’t Zero Hour fuckery, I am really shaking my head at the creative team.

TGH: I don’t know what it is with Guy Gardner getting all of his important moments cut off by shitty events. Remember that time he had a brother but then it was time for Emerald Fallout?

QP: It’s especially annoying since he doesn’t seem to have anything important to do with these events. I’m sure Zero Hour will be no different.

TGH: I don’t think anyone has anything important to do with Zero Hour. It’s like Crisis in that it’s an exercise in how many heroes you can draw on each page for 100 pages. But I guess we’ll find out soon enough (no we are not reading Zero Hour).

QP: Thank God.

TGH: Now that Guy gained some new powers, a portal to a stupid crossover has appeared. Will Guy’s new abilities be enough to get him through this new editorial nightmare? Will he even have the same powers after the inevitable reboot that follows this kind of thing? Tune in next time!

QP: The letters column is incredibly short this month, possibly because they’ve completely run out of complimentary letters.

TGH: Yeah, really. There’s like three fans, and that’s it.

QP: After last issue, they decided just to skip all the letters telling them they’re shit. And even one of the letters this month straight up tells them they’ll stop reading after Emerald Twilight.

TGH: If you’re going to write to one comic, why be the one you’re not going to read anymore? So weird.

QP: I like that they chide you for maybe not knowing what Zero Hour is when this is the first book that’s had ads for it inside. Unless you count the bullshit teaser last issue that didn’t even mention it by name.

TGH: I’m glad we’re not dealing with Zero Hour, because we’d need at least three issues before we even got to GG:W 24. I swear they’ve been advertising it for months but maybe they were just teasers and I knew what it was for.

QP: Maybe I just have a mental block then. Or have willfully forgotten.

TGH: Probably for the best.

’90s Ad Showcase:

TGH: I don’t know what the hell this Batman comic is.

QP: Me neither. Looks like weird medieval Batman vs. Joker? The art is just terrible.

TGH: According to Wikipedia it’s an Elseworlds. Joker is a wizard called Dark Joker. Good one.

QP: Oh, clever.

TGH: No idea why he would still look exactly like the Joker, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.

QP: The Death of Superman video game ad is really compelling. I feel like I need to run out now and go track it down.

TGH: I’m sure they just don’t want to spoil how great the game is by showing it.

QP: That must be it.

TGH: They re-used the DC Universe page this month. That’s a first, I think.

QP: That video slideshow wall ain’t gonna pay for itself, buddy.

TGH: People better show up! “We’ve got bumper stickers! $12 each! It’s for the wall.”

QP: DC has to have a bake sale to pay for the wall.

TGH: Editorial changed their mind halfway through so they’re selling a half-cupcake, half-cookie abomination (that I would absolutely eat).

QP: Someone mentioned the bake sale to Alan Moore and he brought the absinthe brownies.

TGH: How is there still a 12-issue Knightfall arc? Dear God. Azrael versus Robin and one of the guys from Kiss

QP: It’s Knightall Part Nine.

TGH: Is it Knightfall Part 9 or Knights End Part 9? How many parts must there be? They had the BBC radio drama already. I thought that was the final stage.

QP: It looks like maybe Knights End was part 9 of Knightfall? I don’t know, the wiki page is unintelligible.

TGH: I’m sure we’ll be seeing ads for it for the rest of our lives in any case.

QP: I’m sure.

Next Time:

TGH: Next time, Zero Hour reboots the entire Guy Gardner storyline, starting us back at Guy Gardner Reborn #1, except now he has that stupid robosuit.

QP: The Draal die laughing at the robosuit, meaning that we never find out anything interesting about Guy’s backstory.

TGH: Guy has a flashback of his dad, a talking robosuit. DC hires interns to scour comic shops across the globe, painting robosuits on every appearance of Guy Gardner ever.

QP: There is a slight uptick in sales, leading DC to put every hero in a robosuit for time immemorial.