GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #725: WHY THE PUNISHER?

Yeah, I agree. It looks kinda stupid.

 

I doubt I have any Trump supporters reading these, but on the off chance that I do, I have a question. The rest of you may leave if you wish. This is only directed to those who would use their throats as cock holsters for Trump. So: why do Trump cucks worship the Punisher? It's to the point where they have stupid shit like this going around:

This doesn't look "kinda" stupid. It *is* fucking stupid.

This bullshit got so bad that Marvel had to change the Punisher's logo to the one at the top of this column to distance themselves from this fuckwittery. I don't get it. I mean, sure, the Punisher is cool. His logo is cool. That's fine. But I don't get why the Trump cucks are so rah-rah about this fucking thing. Not when Batman is right there and makes so much more sense for you.

I hear you say law and order, but that is nuttier than a freshly shat fruitcake. The last thing on the Punisher's mind is law and order. Every time he suits up and blows away some criminal, he's wiping his ass on the very concept of law and order. So no, I'm not buying it. Unless you mean law and order for everyone else *except* yourself. That I can see. You're all walking hard-ons when it comes to applying rules to others that you would never apply to yourself.

Think about it. Batman's a rich dude, and I know that makes your balls tingle. He goes out every night and beats the shit out of the mentally ill. Another thing I'm sure you jerk off to. And Batman really is about law and order. The only law he ignores is the one that would require him to turn himself in as a vigilante. All the others, he's good with. Is it because he doesn't kill his targets, and the Punisher does? Or maybe it's the fact that today Batman doesn't use guns, and the Punisher does. But remember when Batman started, he loved him some guns. So maybe that's not it.

Maybe it's not the Punisher you want to emulate. I'm thinking you just want to take all the people you can't stand and execute them on the spot. No arrest, no trial, no nothing. Just see a guy you don't like, no matter the reason, and just shoot the poor bastard. So maybe you should really be worshipping school shooters.

Oh shit.

Maybe you do. It just occurred to me that this would be a very good reason why no one does anything ever about school shootings. The guys who kill children are your heroes. Is that it? Can that be it?

I knew you were a piece of shit, but my God. MY GOD.

If that's the case? You're the kind of person the Punisher would kill on principle.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #352: WHAT IF . . . BRUCE WAYNE DESERVED HAVING HIS PARENTS KILLED?

 

Comics like to ask the what-if question often. So do I. I sometimes find myself in a position where I take what seems like an obvious course of action and come up with the least obvious explanation and still have it make a degree of sense. Tonight I'm wondering if maybe Bruce Wayne should have had his parents killed.

Yes, I know. Not a popular train of thought, but let's ride it to the terminus.

I'm not the first person to wonder what the fuck the wealthy Wayne family was doing walking down Crime Alley in the first place. It's a thought that has crossed many fans' minds, so I won't bother going too far into that one.

Picture if you will. The Wayne family. Happy couple Thomas and Martha (why did you say that name?) with their son Bruce decide to take in a movie for the night. They head out to the theater, back when that was a special occasion, so they're all dressed up. Martha has her finest pearls around her neck. They watch a Zorro wannabe movie, and Bruce loves it.

But even a mugger (or possible hitman) like Joe Chill likes going to the show every once in a while. Maybe he likes the Zorro wannabes out there. So he sits near the Wayne family, having no idea who they are. And all of a sudden, their kid starts making faces at Joe. He ignores the kid, but then the kid gives him the middle finger and makes quiet laughing gestures throughout the entire picture. Joe's pretty steamed up. What's the best revenge you can get against a child?

You kill his parents. Joe waits for them in Crime Alley, his home away from home (or possibly just his home), and then he murders them. But while he's here, that looks like a lovely pearl necklace. It'll keep him in beer money for quite some time. Why not rob the obviously wealthy family?

And yeah. Let's leave li'l Bruce alive so he can remember the time he made fun of a man, and the man killed his parents to give him what-for. Snot-nosed brat. He had it coming.

It could have ended there, Bruce. You should have taken your licks and stayed down. But oh no, you had to become a sociopathic lunatic dressed in a bat suit, beating the shit out of people left and right, driving a vehicle that is obviously not street legal, to say nothing of the plane and the chopper and whatever the fuck else you have poor put-upon Lucius Fox building for you.

Alfred, you son of a bitch. You could have nipped this in the bud a long time ago, but you didn't live up to your guardianship of young Master Bruce. I blame you, Alfred. You let the Batman get out of line. WAY OUT OF LINE. You've got a lot of growing up to do, I'll tell you that. Ridiculous.

Maybe Joe should have just shot Bruce in that alley instead of his parents. I like that version from Flashpoint, where Thomas Wayne is Batman and Martha Wayne is the Joker. Good times.

I'd say that I'm available to write for DC, but that's a gig that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. But hey, at least my bullshit would be a lot more interesting than 95% of what DC is putting out these days.

Check that. DC, give me a gig writing Section Eight. That's the only title you have that's worth getting fucked over by you guys. Oh, the things I could do with Bueno Excellente . . .

C2E2 2013: THE NEW 52 PANEL

All right, this was the panel I was least interested in.  I don’t care much for DC (just like I don’t care much for Marvel).  I only read their books when it’s a character I love (which is rare), or if a book is written by a writer I respect.  Not surprisingly, it was the most overcrowded panel I attended at the con.  Standing room only.

You know why I went there.  I have only 2 DC interests, and believe you me, these days they are waning.  I didn’t even know who most of the panelists were.  I recognized Peter Tomasi, Bob Harras, and Doug Mahnke, but I had to resort to the internet to identify the others as Bobbie Chase, Charles Soule, Sterling Gates, Kyle Higgins, Aaron Kuder, and Patrick Gleason.

(Before I go any further, I should mention a pretty decent thing the DC folks are doing:  We Can Be Heroes.  It’s an Indiegogo charity to fight hunger.  They’ve raised more than 2 million so far.  You can get some pretty cool stuff, like exclusives, special editions, extras, all sorts of stuff.  If you buy these things, DC matches your donation.  Not bad, eh?)

Anyway, I didn’t really care much about what their topics, for the most part.  They say there are no plans for a new Robin just yet, but then they hinted that there might be a new Robin soon.  You know, the usual Big Two bullshit.  In the meantime, they’re portraying Batman going through the five stages of grief, and at the same time, it looks like Nightwing has moved to Chicago.  That got a cheer out of the room.  It would seem that the guy who killed Dick Grayson’s parents is still alive and living under an assumed name.  Nightwing is in Chicago hunting him down.  The villain sounds like a SAW ripoff.  That could be cool, but ultimately, it’s not a thing for me.  Oh yeah, and the new Batwing is the son of Lucius Fox.  They also talked about SUPERMAN UNCHAINED, which is coming out the Wedneday just before the new Superman movie is released.  Scott Snyder is writing that one, but hell.  It’s Superman.  I can’t bring myself to care.

The stuff I was there for:  John Constantine and Jonah Hex, of course.  It would seem that the DC writers have been planning something called the Trinity War in the Justice League books from the start of the New 52, and that includes JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, for some reason.  It involves Pandora and the Phantom Stranger.  I kind of like the Phantom Stranger, but he does not need his own book.  Am I the only one saying that?  Guys like him can’t have their own books.  They need to be enigmatic, showing up in other people’s books from time to time.  If you give him his own book, he loses all of that shit.  Besides, constant exposure to him will eventually wear thin.

ANYWAY . . . the new SWAMP THING writer has a few plans for John Constantine outside of the Trinity War.  He goes to a small town in Scotland that has grown something called a Whiskey Tree (and I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like I might be reading that issue of SWAMP THING).

And then there’s ALL-STAR WESTERN.  You know how recently I was gleeful that we were finally getting Hex back to his western roots?  And then he teamed up with Booster fucking Gold?  Well, I’m about to get even more disappointed with the series.  Coming soon, Hex will be TIME TRAVELING TO MODERN TIMES.  Oh yeah, and while he’s in the 21^st Century, he’ll be GOING BACK TO GOTHAM CITY.  Motherfucker!  Are you shitting me?  Do you remember the last time Hex time traveled?  We got stuck with fucking HEX.  How well did that work out?  It was canceled after 18 issues (which was 18 too many, if you ask me).  I can only assume that we’ll be losing this book pretty soon.

One of the last things they talked about was a free guide that will be coming out at the end of the month in comic book stores everywhere.  It’s a list of all the DC graphic novels and the suggested order you should read them in.

I didn’t have the stomach to stick around for the Q&A session, I was that disgusted.  At least they gave me a copy of BATMAN #701 for free.  It was actually a pretty good read, but since it was written by Grant Morrison, I wasn’t that surprised.

EVERYONE'S GOT ONE #16: HITMAN

[NOTE: As much as I wanted to make this one a Forgotten Comic Books column, I just couldn’t. Far too many people remember this one, even if it was brutally murdered by bad sales when it should have been elevated beyond measure as the greatest DC book ever. Still and all, if you have ANY ambitions of reading Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s HITMAN series, you might not want to read this. Here there be spoilers. Ye’ve been warned. Eh, what the hell. I’ll warn you before we get to the big spoilers. Read on.]



Do you know what I would do if I ever found myself in a position of power in the world? If my name is ever big enough to hold clout in the creative industries, I hereby pledge to make a TV series out of the greatest DC comic book ever published (even better than JONAH HEX, and I hold that title in high regards): HITMAN. You see, I’ve long stated that my favorite comic book of all time is PREACHER, but I miss HITMAN so much more. It ended long before it had to. This book, well, it couldn’t go on forever, but it could have gone on a lot longer than it did. It’s just that not enough people were reading it, which makes no sense to me. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, they’re all unworthy of their readership. Well, maybe not Batman, but the rest can go fuck themselves.


You know the best part? I could probably make this TV series on network channels. Sure, there’s a lot of violence, drinking, smoking, and people acting far below an acceptable moral level, but there’s no cursing. There’s no nudity. Writer Garth Ennis even figured out how to make the no-cursing thing seem realistic: the guy who curses the most swore to his dying mother that he’d stop. Therefore, “fuck” and “shit” doesn’t exist in these pages.


I wouldn’t get any big names for the main characters, but I know the series inside and out. I know the characters. I know what makes this a great series. I would make this right, and you would all love it. I’m willing to bet that if I count you among people I would honestly call a friend, you would LOVE this book. Love it like no other. Because if I don’t think you would like this book, I would deem you unworthy of friendship.

Fuck it. The real reason I’m writing this is because I miss HITMAN more than ever, and I want to talk about it. If you’ve never come upon Tommy Monaghan before, I’d like to introduce you. If you’re familiar with Tommy and the boys at Noonan’s, it’s time to reminisce.


Once upon a time, a newcomer to American comics named Garth Ennis, who was only known for writing HELLBLAZER at the time, and his close friend and longtime artistic collaborator, John McCrea, took over the helm of THE DEMON from Alan Grant. The timing was perfect, because shortly after they started, they got the chance to take part in DC’s crossover at the time, Bloodlines. You might remember that this was when a bunch of aliens came to our planet and attacked a bunch of humans. Most of the victims died, but some of them developed superpowers and thus became the new generation of DC superheroes.

The future writer of THE BOYS, Ennis knew even then that he didn’t care for superheroes, so he took the opportunity, in the second DEMON annual, to introduce the world to the hitman with a heart of gold, Tommy Monaghan. While getting ready to take out a big-time mobster via sniper rifle, a Bloodlines alien named Glonth attacks his target. Unfortunately, Glonth notices Monaghan and attacks him.


The mobster is unlucky and dies. Tommy is . . . well, more fortunate. Instead, he wakes up in a hospital with x-ray vision and the ability to read people’s minds. It’s a bit hard for him to control (he wears a pair of sunglasses, even at night, to give him that extra layer so he doesn’t have to spend his life looking at people as skeletons all the time), and it hurts like a bitch (so he spends a lot of his time drinking to kill the pain). But with these newfound abilities, he adopts the name Hitman (although he never uses it himself ever again) and exclusively takes on metahuman jobs. Well, okay, he still takes on mobsters for pizza and beer money. But mostly, if you’ve got a pesky supervillain hanging around, he’ll take the job.


In Tommy’s first adventure as Hitman, he goes to the wake of the mobster Glonth killed, mostly to kill the mobster’s sons, a set of conjoined twins who have put a contract out on Monaghan’s head. In an orgy of blood and violence, Tommy kills one of the twins (which leads to a pretty funny story later on in his life) and meets Etrigan for the first time (also something that will lead to more hilarity down the line).


I don’t know if Ennis meant for Tommy to be a recurring character, but the fans spoke, and he became very popular. He made a couple more appearances in THE DEMON before Ennis ended the book. [HERE’S THAT SPOILER WARNING] In Tommy’s last appearance in the book, he took part in one of the awesomest story arc conclusions ever. He helps Jason Blood, Etrigan’s human host, steal the Demon’s heart. Etrigan, ever popular for his rhyming speech patterns, suddenly loses his playful nature and starts speaking straightforwardly for the first time ever. Now, Tommy’s a pretty questionable sort, but let’s face facts, Etrigan is actually evil. So it’s only natural that Tommy would want to help put the Demon down. However, when he sees just how helpless Etrigan is, he can’t help but add insult to injury . . . BY PINCHING THE DEMON’S CHEEK AND CALLING HIM A BIG PUSSYCAT. (Oh yes, that move does indeed lead to more insanity later. Tommy has made himself an enemy for life with that little move.) [END OF SPOILERS . . . FOR NOW.]

Shortly after the demise of THE DEMON, Ennis and McCrea were given the chance to let Tommy have his own monthly book. In April 1996, HITMAN #1 was unleashed on the world, and the DCU was never the same. It begins simply, with these words: “My name’s Tommy Monaghan, and I kill people for money. It’s a living.” He then goes on to kick off his first story arc by puking on Batman, accepting a job to break into Arkham Asylum and kill the Joker, and battling with a multi-armed Nazi monster called the Mawzir. Hot shit! And over the course of the next few years, SHIT JUST KEPT GETTING BETTER!


Welcome to the Cauldron, which is essentially Gotham City’s version of Hell’s Kitchen. On a particularly dingy street corner squats Noonan’s bar, proprietor Sean Noonan. This is where Tommy Monaghan and all of his friends hang out. We learn over the course of the years that Tommy was an orphan left on Sean’s doorstep as a baby. The bartender then raised young Tommy up alongside his own son, Pat. Sean, a retired hitman himself, pretty much caters to other hitmen. Pat doesn’t go down that path, but he’s more than happy to help “manage” Tommy’s business. Also present are Ringo, Tommy’s main competition and also one of his closest friends, and Hacken, who talks a good game but is ultimately Gotham’s biggest moron. Later on, an old friend from Tommy’s days in the Marines joins the cast, Natt the Hatt, who also, it turns out, is a hitman.


Let’s not forget about Sixpack, the resident drunkard. He believes that he’s a superhero, and he certainly dresses like one, but to give you an idea of what he’s like, he once got drunk and passed out in an alley in the winter, pissing himself. Later, he thought he’d been in a battle with Mr. Freeze. Yeah, he’s like that.


And he’s not alone. He’s the leader of Section Eight, the greatest superhero team to ever grace a comic book page. For example, among their ranks is the Defenestrator, who carries a window with him for the express purpose of throwing evildoers through it. Then there’s Flem Gem, who spits radioactive gunk at bad guys. And how about Dog Welder, who welds dogs to criminals’ faces? But my favorite of all is Bueno Excellente, who fights crime with the power of perversion. Meaning, he sneaks up on the bad guys and rapes them.

With such an august cast, how can you ignore this book? It’s so batshit crazy and off the wall that it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever get bored with this book. And to top it all off, none of these characters are safe. Guess how many of these guys are still alive at the end of the series. Go on. Guess. I’ll tell you a bit later on.


The adventures these guys share are incredible. Remember the time Tommy went up against Nightfist? Yeah, you know the guy. He’s the vigilante who takes on drug dealers . . . so he can steal their drugs . . . so he can do them. Or how about when the Green Lantern stopped by Noonan’s and revealed himself to be a cheapskate? I’ll never forget the Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium. Who would? A mad scientist decides to make a bunch of fish and penguins and walruses into zombies?! But I really hold dear the Ace of Killers story arc, when Etrigan returned to Gotham. Catwoman was in on that one. Tommy was real fuckin’ glad to have x-ray vision for that one. [SPOILERS AGAIN] Remember when I said that Tommy had made an enemy for life with that face-pinching incident? Etrigan came back and bargained hard. Some of you may recall that was how he got his heart back. Of course, his grand scheme of betrayal almost got Tommy and Natt killed, but it gave us one of the more memorable characters back from the world of THE DEMON: Baytor. Come on, you know Baytor. Everyone knows Baytor. He goes on to become the back-up bartender at Noonan’s, where the only thing he will ever say is I AM BAYTOR! [END OF SPOILERS]


Tommy and the boys even managed to get in on some of the bigger DC crossovers, like the Final Night, when all the hitmen were stuck in Noonan’s, discussing the time they came closest to getting killed. Shit, Ennis even managed to get Tommy in on the 1,000,000 crossover. Remember that one? Where all of DC’s creators tried to envision what the millionth issue of each book would be like? Seeing as how Tommy is a mere mortal, there is no way in hell he’d be still alive for the millionth issue, so . . . Ennis came up with this time travel thing which has to be read to be believed. (Best part about this one? Look at the cover below. TOMMY IS LIGHTING HIS CIGARETTE WITH A LIGHT SABER!)

I’m not going to talk about every storyline they went through. They’re all awesome, and if you haven’t read them, you need to. It isn’t always about humorous violence and blood orgies. Some of them are pretty serious, like when Tommy finds out who his real father is and, in response to his sister being murdered by the old man, he goes to Ireland to kill the bastard. Or when Tommy goes up against bloodthirsty SAS soldiers, and in the aftermath, he becomes so ashamed of his lifestyle that he and the boys hire themselves out to what they believe is a good cause: a war in another country that turns out to be royally fucked. Or the time when Sixpack actually does save the world.


But for each of those times, something ridiculous happens, like Tommy going back in time and facing off against a T-rex.

And it all leads up to the final storyline, “Closing Time.” [SPOILERS HERE, AND THIS TIME, I FUCKING WELL MEAN IT.] Readership of this book was so low near the end that DC had no choice but to cancel it. However, they were gracious enough to let Ennis bring it to a logical conclusion. Boy, did he ever. Remember how I said very few of these guys are still alive by the end of the book? Only a handful make it. Tommy is not among them. Of Noonan’s boys, only Hacken remains standing at the end. Well, Baytor, too. He’s still tending bar in Sean’s absence. Of Section Eight, only Bueno Excellente still roams the earth.


When it comes down to it, all who remain are Tommy and Natt, trying their best to save a poor pregnant woman who has been targeted by a metahuman regulatory committee. Pinned down by sniper fire, Tommy gets his hand blown off, and as he and Natt run away, trying to escape, Natt gets shot in the chest. They run for the helicopter that’s going to get them out of here, but Natt falls down, unable to continue. Tommy could have easily gotten away. No problem.


But he’s a loyal guy. He goes back, guns blazing, intent on saving his best friend’s life . . . and he gets gunned down for it. The final panel of issue 60 shows Tommy and Natt, blown to shit, breathing out their last.


[END OF SPOILERS]


So, what does it take to make a good Tommy Monaghan? Quick wit. A lot of charm. A healthy dose of devil-may-care with a pinch of heart-of-gold. A lot of love, but a good reserve of hate on call, just in case. And loyalty. A lot of that.

Six years later, Garth Ennis and John McCrae gave us a gift. You see, a while ago, Ennis was supposed to write a JLA special in which Tommy guest starred, but it never happened. DC condensed it to two special issues, and we got the pleasant surprise of seeing Tommy in action once again. In November and December of 2007, we got the JLA/HITMAN crossover, in which Superman tells a reporter the story of how Tommy Monaghan saved his life and the lives of Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the Flash when a new strain of Bloodlines aliens came to their moon base. The final five pages of issue two are the perfect epilogue to Tommy Monaghan’s story. Read it and see for yourselves.


Here’s my gift to you: a list of all of Tommy Monaghan’s appearances. Not all of them are written by Garth Ennis (as Tommy is owned by DC, not by his creators), but I think you’ll enjoy them all.


THE DEMON ANNUAL #2
THE DEMON #43-45 and 52-54
HITMAN #1-60 (obviously)
HITMAN ANNUAL #1
HITMAN #1,000,000
HITMAN VS. LOBO #1
JLA/HITMAN #1-2
THE BATMAN CHRONICLES #4
JLA #5
SOVEREIGN SEVEN #26
AZRAEL #35
RESURRECTION MAN #9-10
SUPERMAN 80-PAGE GIANT #1

Happy reading! I leave you with this final word on HITMAN:

SHIT SHIT 6-23-11

BRIGHTEST DAY AFTERMATH:  THE SEARCH FOR SWAMP THING #1:  I hate what DC is doing.  I hate it, hate it, hate it.  John Constantine has found his niche in the Vertigo world.  Why do you have to drag him into your stupid summer mega-epic crossover?  Yes, I know, JC started out in the DCU, but those were different times.  Alan Moore was writing SWAMP THING back then, remember?  DC horror books were pretty fucking edgy in those days.  You could do things back then that you just can't get away with now.  So what we're stuck with is a defanged Constantine.  What better way to kill off interest in him?  How about get him to go to Gotham so he can find Batman, so they can hunt down the missing Swamp Thing.  Because Batman's the greatest detective ever, right?  He can find anyone, even if he's hiding out in the Green.  Jesus, why am I reading this crap?  Jonathan Vankin doesn't know how to write this character.  I'm certain he just read ABOUT Constantine.  There's no balls to this book.  Imagine Woody Allen playing Darth Vader.  That's how this feels.  But at least Vankin did his homework.  He knows that Swamp Thing actually is NOT Alec Holland (which escapes a lot of people), and he knows that Constantine had a fling with Zatana.  So the facts are in place.  The attitude?  Nowhere in sight.  Fuck this book.

SHIT SHIT 1-13-11

Sorry folks, but nothing interesting came out this week. In fact, it was such a small week, I’m surprised. I can actually afford tonight’s outing at Shark City. Weird.



However, since it’s the new year, I thought I would take this opportunity to mention a few things that are bothering me about the world of comics these days. Grab a helmet and buckle in. I’m kind of angry.


DC, you are my first target. Don’t worry, it’s not about the content of your books. It’s always been bad with very few exceptions. (All right, I’m still pissed off that HITMAN got canceled. It was the best book you put out since the original JONAH HEX. Fuckers.) No, my gripe is with the presentation of your new books. It’s a nice design, and it jumps off the racks, so I guess it does its job. Maybe it’s a bit plain, but that’s just my opinion. The problem, though, is the lack of identification of those who worked on the title. Where are the writer and artist’s names? I will always buy JONAH HEX, even if you send him to the future again. However, the only time I’ll read, say, BATMAN or SUPERMAN is if they are written by people I admire. I followed BATMAN when Ed Brubaker helmed the title. I read Brian Azzarello’s SUPERMAN. I would never have read GREEN ARROW if not for Kevin Smith. When their runs ended, I stopped reading. So if Garth Ennis starts writing TEEN TITANS (for whatever ungodly reason), it will benefit your company to put his name on the cover. I, for one, will buy it.


Next up: alternate takes on the G.I. JOE and/or TRANSFORMERS universe. The main story lines for these books are good enough for me. The occasional mini-series is awesome. But I don’t give a fuck about what’s going on in a parallel universe to these characters. 100% of the time, it’s lame. It’s worse than lame. I hear you say, “If you don’t like them so much, don’t read them.” Fair enough. However, there is always the danger of the alternate world crossing over with the main storyline, and nothing would piss me off more. The TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED books are horrible, by the way. I tried them, and they made me want to jab a heated sewing needle into my asshole. And while we’re at it, can we kill the TRANSFORMERS MOVIE line of books? And if G.I. JOE NOIR comes back for more issues, I will take hostages.

To a lesser extent, I hope the resurrection of the original G.I. JOE Marvel series doesn’t last long. The idea is cool. Get Larry Hama to continue the series that captivated me when I was a kid. But the new Joe books kick the shit out of this relic from the past. In fact, the book kind of comes off as naïve. Let the old continuity die. It soldiered its way through many years in the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties; it has earned its rest.

One more thing: Nice Stargate, TRANSFORMERS PRIME. Who are you going to rip off next?


Here’s some praise: thank you, Vertigo, for seeing the wisdom in dumping JACK OF FABLES. It was an awesome book for a long time, but the last year or so has sucked a donkey dick. This is a smart move. That is all.