Or However Many I Feel Like, And They Might Not All Be Facts
Welcome back to By The Numbers, the column where I count things in this week’s new comics from DC! This column will contain spoilers, but I’ll keep them as vague as possible while still amusing myself.
Halloween in coming! Every night is Halloween! In honor of the most important holiday of the year, we have an extra-spooky edition of By The Numbers: One of these books is dead to me. We have THIRTEEN titles this week! Plus six more and one that’s dead to me. Oh! There are 13 Main Ongoing titles, so boom. There. Spookified! But, like, this issue of Scooby Doo Team-Up has even fewer than the normal number of ghosts, and the scariest thing in Batman Beyond is how little coherence there is to the plot. Wait, no. 12. I need a counting intern.
So, let’s count the ways in which DC continues to disappoint me.
Main Ongoing Titles
Action Comics #990
Number of times Lois’s father-in-law interferes with her relationship with her son in this issue: 5, and I gotta admit, in-laws messing with your kid’s head is pretty scary.
Batgirl #16
Number of walls written on IN BLOOD: 2…Wait, no, 0. It’s just red paint. Way less scary.
Batman Beyond #13
Number of women written as completely irrational and insane for no clear reason: 1, which perpetuates a very SCAAAAARY characterization of women and reinforces the pattern of gaslighting and abuse.
Blue Beetle #14
Number of times Brenda and Paco hide the fact they’ve been hooking up all summer: 3, which is more than enough to mark them for death in a horror movie.
Detective Comics #967
Number of blue roses in Alfred’s greenhouse: 9.
The Flash #33
Number of heroes trapped in the dark, which is I guess a little spooky: 4.
Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #31
Number of invisible mind-gremlins: 6.
The Hellblazer #15
Number of wildly inaccurate etymologies: 1.
Justice League of America #17
Number of Null’s plans that came to fruition: 0, get it?
Suicide Squad #28
Number of zombies in this issue: 18, but they’re “zombie” robots, which are less spooky.
Teen Titans #13
Number of murderous ghost/hologram doppelgangers of Teen Titans: 4, but they’re only trying to kill Damian, and that’s not scary because everyone wants to kill Damian.
Wonder Woman #33
Number of pages featuring Diana in this issue: 0.
Number of panels featuring even her likeness: 5.
Number of issues thus far in which James Robinson has “treated her right”: 0 out of 3.
Other Titles
Batman: The Merciless #1
Number of people killed by Bruce Wayne, God of War: 8.
Number of people killed by people trying to stop Bruce Wayne, God of War: 53,673. (That’s a lot of ghosts! Ghosts are scary. Unless that weird sci-fi bomb destroys ghosts. That’s scary, too!)
DC House of Horror #1
Number of stories in this special-edition Halloween anthology not plotted by Keith Giffen: 0.
Number of articles the amazing Doris Sutherland is going to write about it anyway: 1!
Gotham City Garage #2
Number of spooooky monsters in this issue: Is it just a thing now to put Clayface in everything? Why?
The Kamandi Challenge #10
Number of arms per shark: 2, which is more silly than scary, really.
Mother Panic #12
Number of graveyards in this issue: 1.
Nightwing: The New Order #3
Number of superheroes in dark, edgy versions of their costumes: 2.
The Ruff and Reddy Show #1
is dead to me, and yet here is its baleful spectre.
Scooby Doo Team-Up #31
Number of times The Atom assures Shaggy and Scooby that ghost particles aren’t spooky: 1, but they totally are spooky.
