Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #20 – “The Nation Rises”! Maybe this one is actually the Viagra commercial issue. Oh me oh my. In the previous installment, Babylon spends quite a bit of time murdering warthogs and pigs in the woods under Balloon Orb’s direction.

He is being told now to murder his enemies before he even knows that they’re enemies! Sounds like it’s really going to be Balloon’s enemies. I wonder if he has a list like Richard Nixon.

East of West, Issue #20 [August, 2015]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Nation Rises”

Hey, we haven’t seen many of the goings-on at the White Tower lately. Madame LeVay and her trusty BDSM lackey Doma Lux are discussing their frustrating misfortunes with respect to sending their diplomatic messengers to the Endless Nation. Three envoys sent, three heads in boxes sent back.

Actually, Lux tells LeVay that it’s not all heads. One of them might contain a torso and/or a butt! It’s so mutilated it’s hard to tell for sure. At any rate, one of these days the Endless Nation is going to have to talk to the Union. Keep sending the lambs to the slaughter, Lux. Keep going down the list! Maybe the 865th time will be the charm, but we’ll never know unless we keep pushing it! Chop chop, now.

Nah, they’ve already sent a slew of people already. They’re running out of the peskier individuals: political enemies, minor donors, and Donald Trump Jr. Jr. Jr.

“I need to think outside the box,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“What I need is someone I can trust,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“It would also have to be someone higher up,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“Someone whose very presence brings a certain amount of gravity,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“Someone extremely close to me,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.

WHOOPS! You just over-agreed yourself into a suicide mission. Next time try slinking away quietly.

Hey, Lux! Look what an endless cycle of yes-manning and lickspittling has gone for you! Get your jacket, it’s time to visit the Endless Nation!

“Pay close attention. Your enemies are everywhere.”

“What are you really, Child?”

House of Mao flashback. I know this because Daddy Mao has not yet been decapitated. Not that I can see. I can’t tell. He is walking and talking.

“If I told you that your were nothing, some of you – most of you, perhaps – would believe me… As to be something, one must have value.”

Mao is addressing his army, except they’re sitting in rows cross-legged and wearing Dalai Lama robes. He chides them all, calling them useless and wasteful and broken and weak. It’s for no other reason but they have failed to lift themselves up. By their bootstraps! Let’s git ‘er done!

Perhaps they’re all failures because their homelands are failures. They’re just no good. Does Mao’s army comprise recruits from other areas of the Divided States of America? Are these people that defected, or are refugees, or are defected refugees??

Mao is looking to right the wrongs. He’s their savior! “Among you, the observant will have noticed that all of you are a certain age. This is intentional, as with the passing of time the lies you have lived become unwavering truths. The cornerstones of a personal religion based on doubt, fear and defeat. But you, you can still be SAVED.”

Yap yap yap yap yap. Yada yada, from this day forward they are all Widowmakers. While Mao flaps his gums, we see a large jet barrelling its way through the sky. Over the desert lands, into Endless Nation territory. Between two guards standing on top of pedestals. Weaving around the sparsely distributed, creepy futuristic high-rises. Heading toward a terrifying urban landscape at the bottom of the canyon, complete with this awful head in the middle of it all.

Hey, I wanted to visit Toronto. But NOOOOOOOO…

It’s the Machine City, and the large jet contains the diplomatic representatives of the Endless Nation who tried to strike up an alliance deal with Xiaolian. “It’s done. The PRA has agreed to support us.”

However, Chief, there are terms. Certainly there are terms. Xiaolian demands all the Lucky Charms that we have in our reserves, AND a couple of tickets to see “Donald Trump Jr. Jr. on Ice” live in November. He’s going on the “my son was murdered by the Endless Nation” tour.

Chief is neutral about the news and suspects that arrangements were made beyond his instructions. It ends up being true. Shaman backpedals. I mean, things were tough. Xiaolian drove a hard bargain! Lots of tense deliberation and nineteen-dimensional chess here. And she really wanted those tickets and–

The Chief grips his head in exasperation, but he takes his Chief helmet off. Shaman has with him a couple of PRA mofos with the hand tattoos on their faces. “I’m sure the sanctity of our city is something our guests naturally recognize, Shaman,” Chief withholds any wrist-slappings (this time), “As the PRA are… relocated people just as we are. They do not need the importance of borders explained to them,” he says as the two PRA mofos make themselves at home.

We have so much in common! We even finish each other’s sandwiches.

“Welcome friends,” Chief says, welcoming the friends, “I suppose you have a message for me.”

Yes, they certainly do have a message. Ahem! Ahem hem hem! Cough! Basically it’s this: you should consider yourselves lucky that Xiaolian’s “sphere” of goals and expectations align nicely with the Endless Nation’s “sphere” at the moment. This alignment won’t last forever, be warned. BUT, it might, with some… er… uh… cooperation. Yes, yes. Until the end of time, please.

Aha, well, that’s bold of you. But he respects that! Too many leaders of this splintered Former United States just beat around the bush and lie and cheat and steal and commit blatant murders right in front of everyone’s eyes.

“It’s good to know where one stands, isn’t it Shaman?” Chief puffs his cigarette.
“It is a gift… The knowledge of who is on your side…” Shaman agrees blankly, “And who is your enemy.”
“Yes it is. And we should celebrate that contrast. Come with me… and I’ll show you the difference.”

This is the part where Doma Lux’s ugly ship lands in the Endless Nation’s Machine City. She is flanked by two of her armed guards while she holds a box, hunched over like Quasimodo.

Two alarming Endless Nation spheres appear in front of them. “Okay. Easy boys…” Lux hazards a few phrases of timid reassurance, “We’re going to get through this just fine.”

Or not.

Come on, men. This is not the time to lose your heads here!

Freshly decapitated armed guards notwithstanding, Lux continues forward. Terrified. For the first time in 20 issues, she legitimately looks in over her head.

“Ah. Such generosity… The Great Union offers of yet another ambassador,” Chief comments wryly from his Chief Throne, surrounded by his people, “We keep sending them back… but the message implied seems to get muddled on the journey home.”

I speak quite freely and often about comic book characters pooping their pants, but no one has pooped their pants in any instance quite like Lux has right now. She starts gibbering, frightened as all get-out. “Seriously? President LeVay believes that if she keeps sending envoys, eventually you’ll open a dialogue.”

“And there are gifts,” she adds meekly.

Pffft, go to hell with your gifts! Go to hell and say hi to the devil and stay there.

Please, sir. LeVay comes in peace! No foolin’! She doesn’t want war! Only peace! And she wants you there, Chief! She has other pressing matters, not bombs and tanks and warships and DEFCON 1s!

Bombs and tanks and warships and DEFCON 1s… I like the sound of that. Give me one of each with extra mayo.

Listen, lady. Your president may not want war, but the Endless Nation wants war. They’re savoring this. They have no interest in cooperating with the stinky Union. Off with you! You get to live today, Lux, because you’ll continue to be a necessary plot vehicle. BUT, relay this message to your president: go to hell and say hi to the devil and etc.

Lux drops the box. It contains blood and guts? That’s not a cool gift. Chief is going to be an Indian giver! Yuck, I’m really sorry about that one. Anyway, she won’t get off that easily. Quadraplegic time! Lux owes the Endless Nation her arms and legs. It’s only fair. “Do you require an anesthetic?” one of the giant, android-esque guards asks the quivering woman politely.

“Go to hell,” she says, beefing up her gumption once again. The throws a punch at the android. It goes “DONK”. She hurts her hand something terrible!

Android returns the favor with an unrelenting punch right in the kisser.

She coughs and falls to the floor and she’s bleeding everywhere and her face is all banged up and she smiles and grunts out a “that’s all you got?”

“My father hit harder than that,” Lux tells the robot boldly.

Another punch to the face causes a PRA guy to demand a halt to this brutality. He unsheaths and unfolds his cute compact sword.

“Look at me, girl. You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Yuh-yes… you are a Maoist… from the House of Mao.”
“Yes, and you have been disposed of, abandoned here to your fate. But I look at you and wonder… do you still have value?”

Yeah, she sure looks useful. She looks like a million bucks.

“What is the meaning of this?” growls Sir-Chiefs-a-Lot. Why, it’s simple. The meaning of this is that Lux, too, has been relocated. Just like the Maoists. Just like the Endless nation. Diaspora and all that jazz.

Welcome, Widowmaker! You will make widows now. Flashback to Mr. Mao teaching his people what it actually means to be a Widowmaker. “Some of you – the very best – will stay here with me as my personal guard. An illusion that this is all that your are, but the rest…”

“…I send you back out into the world. I send you back from where you came.”

“You will return to the ones who abandoned you, and to the nations who cast you out.”

“And there you will work in secret for our great state.”

We see this particular Maoist, sitting among the several thousand other Maoists, grasp the pale hand of the short-haired, dark-haired, dark-eyed person behind him.

“My Widowmaker… lying in wait.”

Final Thoughts

What the FUCK is going on? Are they implying that Lux is a Maoist who has been maintaining the illusion of loyalty and spying on the Union? To what end? The Union is barely even a key player in all this business! The Union is barely even a state! The Union looks worse than Detroit! Well, almost worse.