I’ve been avoiding James Robinson’s “Cry for Justice” series — I read the first issue or two, didn’t like them, and decided not to waste my money on any more of them. I haven’t regretted it for a second.

And, well, we now know how it ended. Spoiler warning? Nah, who cares, I’m saving you from having to read it for yourself. Roy Harper, better known to DC readers as Speedy, Arsenal, and Red Arrow, gets an arm cut off by Prometheus, who later blows up a few cities and kills Roy’s five-year-old daughter Lian. Green Arrow kills Prometheus in retaliation.

Quite aside from Robinson’s increasingly hacktastic writing, this is an absolute giant metal vat of toxic, chemically-enhanced, acid-based crap.

As we’ve said multiple times before, DC wants to embrace its golden and silver ages, so we get Hal Jordan and Barry Allen returned to life, as well as promises of the “Brightest Day” series, but at the same time, they want everyone to think they’re hardcore tough guys. And because they’re immature morons, they think adult comics have to be drenched in gory violence and gratuitous sex.

I’m all in favor of sex and violence in comics. I’m in favor of sex and violence in all fiction, because they’re some of the prime motivators of human existence, and you’re completely mad if you try to bleed those out entirely.

But Robinson’s and DC’s creepy obsessions are quite a bit more than I want to read in a comic. I’m tired of reading superhero comics where the writers slaughter people and destroy cities to prove that their villains are unusually evil. I’m tired of comic writers who kill really awesome, cool, fun characters like Lian for the sake of cheap shock value. Lian’s death didn’t mean anything to Robinson — he needed something “shocking,” and his writing skills are apparently weak enough that the only way he knows how to shock or to motivate a character is with the tired, hoary cliche of killing off a supporting cast member.

Robinson’s “Starman” and “The Golden Age” are still some of the very best comics of the ’90s. But since then? Nothing but crap. Right now, if you pick up one of his comics on the strength of his past work on “Starman,” you’re going to get suckered into reading a bad comic book.

So here’s what I’m gonna do for you. From now on, everyone can safely consider everything that happened in “Cry for Justice” to be non-continuity. It never happened. Future writers may feel free to write stories in which Red Arrow has both arms, in which Lian Harper is still alive, in which Prometheus is still available to use as a character. “Cry for Justice” never happened, Robinson’s runs on “Justice League” or any other comic series never happened. Ignore everything he said, ’cause it never happened.

How can I do that, you may ask. How can I do that when I’m not a comic writer, when I’m not running DC, when I’m lucky to muster a hundred hits a day on the blog?

Here’s how I can do that: Because it’s the only answer that makes sense. In “Cry for Justice,” Ray “The Atom” Palmer tortures a guy by jumping around in his brain. In the mainstream DC Universe, he’s just been picked as an Indigo Tribe member because he’s compassionate. In “Cry for Justice,” Green Arrow gets the drop on Prometheus and plants an arrow between his eyes. In the mainstream DCU, Prometheus spanks Batman without that much effort. How do you reconcile “Cry for Justice” with everything else in the DCU? Pick the one that makes sense and decree that the other was just badly written fan-fiction. It’s a happy accident that picking the one with the non-jerkwad Ray Palmer and the non-inept Prometheus is also the one with the two-armed Red Arrow and the not-pointlessly-killed five-year-old moppet.

That, and it looks pretty likely that I’m a better writer than the current non-Starman version of James Robinson. At this point, we’re ALL better writers than the non-Starman James Robinson.

And that’s all there is to it, y’all. “Cry for Justice” never existed. Lian’s fine, Roy is fine. Go forward from that point from now on, and never pick up another comic by that hack James Robinson again.

We’re gonna make this short and sweet tonight, just so we can get straight into our old favorite: FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s fight comes from 1999’s JLA: Foreign Bodies by Len Kaminski, Val Semeiks, and Prentis Rollins. Our set-up: It’s Batman vs. Kobra!

But wait, that’s not who our players really are — the Justice League’s minds have gotten swapped around, so actually, that’s Kobra in Batman’s body, and it’s Superman in Kobra’s body. Confusing? Well, yeah, it is a bit mad.

I always enjoyed this story — I’m a sucker for a good mindswap tale. I reckon I’m lucky to have gotten my mitts on this one — I doubt it’ll ever get reprinted…

Crossed #9

It’s the final issue of this epic pseudo-zombie series by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. Stan and Cindy bury Cindy’s son, Patrick, while Kitrick, Thomas, and Kelly find themselves being stalked by the gang of Crossed who have been after them for the last few hundred miles. And I’m gonna stop describing the story right there — if you’ve been reading and enjoying this series the way I have, I reckon you deserve to find out the final twists and turns on your own. For some of the characters, it’s not a happy ending, and for others, it’s at least not a sad ending.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great ending to one of the more enjoyable and brutal horror series I’ve read in a while. As I’ve said repeatedly, this isn’t a story for kids — it’s an extremely violent, terrifying comic, designed for grownups who can handle blood, guts, cussin’, and really awful, unromanticized violence. If you’ve been reading “Crossed,” you sure won’t want to miss this last issue. If you haven’t been reading it, and you want to give it a shot, keep your eyes open for the collected edition whenever they put it out.

Jonah Hex #53

Jonah Hex, the meanest, rottenest bounty hunter in the Wild West, hires a dance hall girl — and not for the usual purposes. He’s after the train-robbing Hager brothers and needs her to help him sneak aboard a train in preparation for ambushing the gang. Things go fairly smooth, other than having to kill most of the gang members — until the inevitable double-cross.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Short, simple, clever, and brutal, just like the best Jonah Hex stories.

Chew #9

Tony Chu is a secret agent for the FDA with the unusual ability to retrieve pscyhic impressions from anything he eats. He’s traveled to the small island nation of Yamapalu on the trail of a mysterious fruit that tastes just like chicken, but he’s stumbled onto something much bigger, with corrupt cops, corrupt governors, secret conspiracies, and multiple murders. The culprit? Well, Tony takes a few bites out of the corpses in the morgue and finds out that it’s… a vampire? Wait, surely there can’t be vampires in a perfectly logical world of psychic cannibal FDA agents, chicken fruits, cyborg cops, and other normal stuff like that, right? Well, the vampire is planning to attack the governor’s compound. No problem for Tony, right? Nope, his brother, a famous but disgraced chef, is there. The girl he loves, an impossibly talented food writer, is there. And there’s another chef, a guy who communicates entirely through cooking, is there, too. Can Tony save them all in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m really enjoying this, ’cause we’ve got all these wonderful oddball characters, all thrown into the mix together. It’s a lot like a stew — a really weird cannibal-cyborg-vampire-tropical-cop-foodie stew. Aaaaand I think I’ve hopelessly killed the metaphor, so let’s move along.

Wonder Woman #41

A bunch of evil mind-controlling schoolboys have turned Power Girl against Wonder Woman. There’s quite a bit of slugfesting that goes on before Wondy is finally able to break PeeGee free of the spell, and then they’ve got a couple problems to worry about — Power Girl has to try to be diplomatic and convince a whole lot of people not to riot and kill each other, and Wondy has to track down the evil schoolkids, resist their spells, and dish out a proper punishment. And is anyone going to be able to save Etta Candy and Steve Trevor from killing themselves?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A pretty good slugfest combined with good characterization for both Wondy and Power Girl. We also get a nice moment with Achilles at the beginning and a neat callback for anyone who remembers their history of the Trojan War…

Madame Xanadu #20

Our flashback to Britain’s earliest history continues, through the eyes of Nimue, the future Madame Xanadu. The Romans have invaded, and Morgana is amusing herself by meddling in human affairs, in more ways than one. Nimue generally disapproves of everything she does, because that’s what she seems to do best. The sisters meet up with a young Merlin, who’s better at fortunetelling than Nimue is, and Morgana tries to destroy Camelot before it’s even begun.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Really just wildly not thrilled with this particular story — it sure makes Nimue sound like the original Miss Disapproval. She’s always sticking her nose in Morgana’s business and whining about whatever she’s doing. And I’m getting a bit frustrated that we’ve got a whole huge storyarc stuffed inside another storyarc. Can we please finish up one storyarc at a time?

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #13

Billy and Mary Batson are visiting the museum for a school field trip — complicated by the fact that Captain Marvel is supposed to make an appearance, so Billy has to somehow get away from his teacher and classmates so he can make the switch. Complicating things even more: Theo Adam, the amnesiac alter-ego of Black Adam, is in attendance, and he is suspicious of why Billy and Mary seem strangely familiar to him. And complicating things even more than that: a kid named Freddy Freeman who’s stuck in a wheelchair because Captain Marvel wasn’t able to keep his apartment building from collapsing, so he hates the Marvels. What’s it all lead to? Even more complications.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mike Norton is the new artist on this one, and his style is really wonderful. As for the story, it’s great fun. We get the introduction of Freddy Freeman, we get a nice new storyline featuring crazy Theo Adam, we get Captain Marvel checking to see if his fly is open, we get Mary getting stuck inside a giant hourglass. It’s crazy and chaotic and an excellent read.

Blackest Night: JSA #3

The bad news for everyone is that the Earth-2 Superman’s zombie is up and running again. The good news is… well, there’s not a lot of good news. Mr. Terrific has a plan to beat the Black Lantern, but it’ll require most of the Justice Society to charge into a hopeless battle against an undead demigod. Is everyone doomed or what?

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. I don’t mind a big slugfest sometimes, but this one just wasn’t entertaining enough to hold my interest.

Justice Society of America #36

We’ve got a tale told in flashback from 20 years in the future — Mr. Terrific is in prison and due to be executed soon, so the new Nazi masters of the world want him to record some of his history for their records. He remembers Liberty Belle getting taken down by a Nazi speedster, Green Lantern getting killed by a bomb in a wooden crate (the Golden Age Green Lantern has a vulnerability to anything made of wood, which is the type of thing that turns a bunch of high-velocity splinters into lethal shrapnel), and the rest of the team has to deal with a large team of evil Nazi supervillains.

Verdict: Thumbs up, at least for now. It’s been a while since the JSA had a good time-travel story to deal with, and frankly, it’s always fun to see superheroes stomp Nazis into puddles. Something about the story, however, is bugging me. I can’t really say for sure what the problem is, but it’s making me a bit nervous about how the rest of the story is going to play out.

It’s been a while since I unloaded some of my stored-up links, ain’t it? Spend some time clicking on these while you try to recover from your weekend…

• Monday morning seems like a good time to review a list of the worst bosses ever. See? Even your boss can’t be that bad…
• Via A-J entertainment editor William Kerns: Lubbock fiddler Amanda Shires of the Thrift Store Cowboys recently scored a guest appearance in a “Hi & Lois” comic strip.
• A tale of an auto-appendectomy by the toughest Russian surgeon in the Antarctic.
• Things the media loves to pretend are news.
• Gorgeous office buildings
• Unused Plastic Man cartoon pilot.
• Really interesting example of D&D being played on a tabletop device called the Surface.
• Speaking of roleplaying games, did you know it’s Read an RPG in Public Week?
• No more whining about bloggers, please. Our awesomeness cannot be contained. (For additional lolz, here’s a Newsweek article from 1995 declaring that this upstart Intarwebz thing will never catch on.)

Merry clicking, and here’s hoping you survive your Monday…