Me writing this post? I thought you were writing this post!

Unconfirmed Report:  Flavio Bolsonaro Flees Brazil – Crossed Border and Fled to US
October 27, 2026

Troy Jackson Campaign Mailer Features Woman From a Maine Town That Doesn't Exist
October 24, 2026

Pentagon Approves Use of Military Heat Ray at the Border, Invisible Beam Creates Oven-Like Burning Sensation
October 23, 2026

Nigerian Muslim Bandits Raid, Loot, Murder in Binnari, Benue North-East and Birnin Tudu
October 26, 2026

United Airlines Flight to Newark Makes U-Turn After Passenger Caught Texting About Hijacking Plane
October 26, 2026

I received the collection of Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing, bringing us the full 'time travel' arc after 37 years.  I wasn't expecting to be that gripped by it but stayed up all night to find out how it ends.  Still not sure what to say about the actual quality but safe to say it's been part of my life so this is the end of the road at one level.

One thing I hadn't thought about was how much connection to the DC universe there was.  Virtually every issue has some other character show up to inform Abby that Swampy is gone forever, not to mention all the characters in the past that Swampy runs into.  Some of them I've only heard of because of this storyline, others I can only make a guess about because they come off as standard superhero/villains, and some I would just assume Veitch made up for this story.  Turns out the DNAliens were created by Jack Kirby back in 1971.  I did not know that.

I would say that becomes a weakness, especially by the end of the story.  I've never known all that much about the Spectre and making him a big deal seems out-of-nowhere.  His secret identity is part of the last several issues and a reader who doesn't have the context could easily be confused.  Why does he have a haircut like Jason Blood who is a much more relevant part of the storyline?  The art in the last few issues does actually try to be helpful but it still comes off as "modern."  Then there's the "how* the Spectre gets involved via his secret id.  He and John Constantine apparently enjoy having a three-way with (I'm guessing) a random whore.  This is why Vertigo Comics was created.

In fact the whole ending comes across as showing that the old style of comics isn't always a good thing.  There's the return of Swampy's main enemy, Anton Arcane, which is nice.  There's the finishing off of Abby's pregnancy which really had been the storyline for Veitch's entire run.  There's Veitch's part in the DC "Invasion" crossover which I suspect he didn't want to be part of so he used it as a way to start sending Swampy back in time.

Then there's the establishment of the multiverse.  There are multiple references to Crisis on Infinite Earths which ended the multiverse, even as Swamp Thing says he doesn't remember exactly what happened.  But by the end, it's clear the multiverse existed *in the past* so it's used as a way to end the story.  Abby and Swampy and their son can go off and be happy, replaced by an alternate version which is presumably the ones in the post-Veitch Swamp Thing.  Specifically they have a daughter instead of a son.

[Note:  Getting Abby pregnant and leading up to the birth started with #65 in October 1987.  This may be the second realistic pregnancy in comic books, after Veitch drew Alan Moore's Miracleman, where Liz gave birth in July 1986.  And Warner Bros was getting ready to release the Little Shop of Horrors movie in December, "Don't Feed the Plants" would make a good theme song for this book.]

That kind of contradicts the whole point of Crisis and I thought the point here was to get Veitch to write the story he had intended at the time.  Even before I read it, I was wondering if there were any discussions with DC on including more modern continuity.  As an end to Veitch's run, a vastly-underrated series in the late-80s, it's fine.  As an examination of the DC universe, it's interesting but I'm not sure it works, or if we even needed one.  That said, I might have had a different reaction if this came out 37 years ago.

As a time-travel story, it was certainly fun.  I liked the way long-lasting characters remembered earlier encounters with the time traveler.  As a plot device, the "claw of aelkund" was quite well done, no idea how obvious it was when I originally read it but I looked forward to seeing it resolved here.  That said, I'm not really sure it was as effective as it could have been.  No great dramatic scene where it was originally created.  For that matter, another clue, a very old member of the Parliament of Trees saying "see you soon," I'd have to look it up but I'm not sure that was ever resolved.

All that said, I do feel some contentment that this has finally been brought to an end.  In some ways it's been a long almost-40 years run, in other ways it's just a blink.  I am glad that DC finally decided to get this finished.  It's also nice that they're showing more attention to the other creators of the book, artist Michael Zulli and colorist Tatjana Wood each get a page of tribute for their accomplishments.  Comics is a visual medium and has never worked out the right amount of attention to give each part of the creative team.  The artists do the actual work people look at, the writers should be invisible because you're focusing on the characters and the stories.  Veitch has obviously handled both parts of that in his career and has followed earlier examples, Alan Moore and Joe Kubert.  This is how history is built and keeps growing from a seed to a plant, but it takes a lot of time.

October 26, 2026 Susan Saint James, actress, Kate & Allie, age 80
FBI Raids Beverly Hills Mansion as Part of Investigation into Former Congressman Eric Swalwell
October 27, 2026

□ [“Trump to Visit Venezuela Oil Tanker Today 'Oil Prices Are Going to Be Dropping Very Sharply, Very Soon'”]

Yeah, sure, great, uh-huh.  I believe that he'll visit and I'm sure the prices are going to drop.  It's been over a year and a half since he began to help oil companies 'drill, baby, drill.'  The executive branch has done what it can to make the whole process easier, we certainly saw those benefits with gas prices seven months ago.  I'm deliberately not looking up when he said it but he did say gas prices would be going down in about 90 days a lot more than 90 days ago.

That's just a major blow to his track record.  Even if the prices drop to $2/gallon tomorrow, it looks like a trick.  If they had done it a month ago, it would help the consumer, it would have shown the US has control over its fuel resources and it wouldn't look tied up to Iran.  Just the fact that it took this long to get oil from Venezuela comes off as a scheme to win votes and I say this as someone who is fine with profit being the goal when it comes to making people's lives easier.  This is just a more competent version of the Biden administration trying to do it in mid-2024.

So I really don't think a sudden drop in gas prices will help the election, at least not by much.  Even if the Iranian mullahs give up tomorrow, there's just not enough time for that impact.  There's no way to know if Trump actually believes this will win votes, I'd say it's 50-50.  This might just be the goal he's been working for and doesn't really care if his party wins the elections or not, who knows?  He still has veto and the Democrats will have trapped themselves in other ways.

In fact that might be the real target here.  If gas prices go down tomorrow, I don't think it would win Republicans many votes but the left might break apart in their response and repulse even more people than they already have.  That's some thing that could change very quickly.  I would like to see that but I don't expect it to happen.  Even there it would have been better if this happened a month ago.  I do expect gas prices to start dropping big but even that won't count as a "win" for Trump and there's a reason we're not remotely tired of winning.

Minnesota Official Tells Somalis How to Vote With No ID and Same-Day Registration
October 27, 2026

□ [“Obama Tries to Rescue El-Sayed, Exposes Dems' Failures and Comes Up Short"]

As usual, it doesn't sound like Obama is helping anybody he endorses.  Obamacare has to be ignored because it turns out requiring everybody to purchase government-controlled insurance wasn't actually helpful.  Paying off Muslim terrorists wasn't helpful either.  I'm sure he still has a large fanbase who will come out to watch him but they aren't going to obey and he can just go back to his many mansions.

But endorsing El-Sayed seems to be revealing some voting problems and not just that Obama is out-of-touch with normal people.  Blacks and Arabs don't get along so that's already a tough problem to overcome.  El-Sayed says everything you'd expect from a socialist but, other than wanting welfare, blacks don't really support socialism.  They need to be kept in line but we already saw that in 2024 when they supported Kamala Harris.  El-Sayed opposed Harris so which one was right?

This is made worse that Harris endorses El-Sayed.  If he was right about not voting for you then we shouldn't listen to you.  If he was wrong then you're wrong for endorsing him.  It might be possible to explain this in a coherent way but Harris certainly isn't capable of that and Obama and El-Sayed will both ignore it entirely.  "Orange Man Bad" isn't a good argument because Harris was running on that platform so the guy who opposed her helped Orange Man regain power and now she supports that?

Democrats are desperately reliant on blacks, if any percentage of them don't vote for the D, the election is almost guaranteed to lose.  There are similar issues with hispanics or gays but this is why blacks are untouchable for the party and it's still failing.  It's still not clear why they're so focused on El-Sayed over every other candidate - I have a few guesses but nothing to go with - but that's why they're sending Obama and Harris to beg or bribe as many votes as possible.  But what they can't do is actually help with their own efforts.  If they're not supported by government elites, they have nothing else to offer.

Hakeem Jeffries Nods Yes When Asked If Democrats Would Bring Back Illegals Deported to Africa
October 27, 2026

Judge Tosses Out Charges Against FBI in Hunter Biden Laptop Investigation “Running a Shadow Government”
October 27, 2026