Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #6 – “Justice”! In the previous installment, we get a backstory on how Xiaolian and Death met, why the prophecy foretold their betrothment, what happened between them, why Death still has a boner, and why their son (presumed dead by Xiaolian) is still alive! And Death’s gonna go find him! And Xiaolian’s like “see that you do, bitch”.

Elsewhere, at the “Lair of the Beast” Xiaolian and Death’s son is being held captive by the Matrix and is being fed all sorts of knowledge by a machine. To prepare for what, exactly, I’m not sure yet, but Bel Solomon is sad and angry about it while Andrew Archibald Chamberlain remains serene and amused by all the shit going down.

Read on, nerds.

East of West, Issue #6 [September, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Justice”

Remember the Armistice? The meeting place of the Chosen from Issue #2? There’s a giant obelisk shaped like the Triforce? Such a blatant Zelda ripoff yet again? Anyway, at the Armistice, Baldy Pointy Nose (Ezra Orion, Premier of Armistice, Keeper of the Message, Pussy Champion) announces to the rest of the congregation that there is a traitor among them. He knows this because he stuck his head in a hat and the Message told him that one of the Chosen would CHOOSE to betray them.

Bel Solomon is sweating bullets, whispering to his good buddy Chamberlain that they shouldn’t have returned to the Armistice. Chamberlain tells him to sack up, cowboy. He’s got an ace up his sleeve! In front of everyone, Chamberlain calls bullshit on Baldy Message Guru’s claim and asks for some proof.

“You want proof?” Orion snarls, and then presents a dismembered hand clutching a sword hilt. “Here is your proof. Would you like more?” he snarls again, and then presents a second dismembered hand clutching a flower.

Pretty gross, dude. Wear some gloves if you’re gonna handle chopped-up corpse parts.

Chamberlain, of course, gets cute. “I swear is there no one that keeps a hold of their extremities these days?” Ha ha, this guy. Now what do these severed hands have to do with anything, he continues to nudge. But Ezra Orion, Keeper of the Message, the Mother of Dragons, he dusts his hands off and simply responds that the Message told him! It is not he who makes the accusations! He only snarls about them!

Now Lenny Kravitz (Crown Prince John Freeman of the Kingdom of New Orleans, Snappy Dresser) sides with Chamberlain on this one. He asks Orion why the fresh hell he didn’t tell anyone before. “What good is the Message if it fails to reveal itself in time? What good are you as its keeper?” And it’s at this point that the President of the United States (Antonia LeVay, Secretary of the Interior, Former 456th in Line of Succession or Some Such Shit) butts in and drops some Message facts. Prophecy and all that. Things don’t reveal themselves until previous events occur. In short, cool it Kravitz.

Then she explains the facts, Jack: “That bitch, Xiaolian, has rebuffed our overtures directly, and it was she who sent the hands. They belonged to her sister, Hu, and in her message to us…we now see the Message.”

“Well, sounds like bullshit to me, Bel. How about you?” Chamberlain haughtily asks his buddy, the Skeptic, who is naturally going to be skeptical too! So, Bel plays it cool, and agrees that Ezra Orion should really provide more substantial proof than just the words in a dumb Message! Chamberlain then accuses Orion that he’s just waiting for someone to confess to make it easier on him.

Ha, look at this guy’s ears. Nerd alert!

Au contraire, farty pants! He has more than just the words in the dumb Message! Ezra Orion has a weird box with a weird Hell creature in it! “A gift from the Horsemen…” he explains. The monster will takes turns chewing on each of the Chosen for a bit, then, after swallowing some flesh, it can determine where everyone’s loyalties lie! Sounds like fun, no?

Chamberlain is like, FUCK that. “Bel is the traitor.” he announces, and beside him Bel goes “BRRRTT!!”

“This slippery-tongued devil tried to convince me to join him in his shenanigans.” Chamberlain explains without a hint of shame. That Bel Solomon, he has a way with words! But, oho, Chamberlain was narrowly able to side-step all his shifty advances! Can’t you all tell? Don’t be a victim like he was!

The old man can run!

Orion sics the creature on Bel while the rest watch with frowny validation. Bel tries to quickly draw his gun, but Crown Prince John “Morgan” Freeman is quicker on the draw! Freeman shoots Bel in the shoulder, Bel shoots the Hell Demon. Bel starts running away, but Frowny White Pigtail Man (Cheveyo, “big magic” of the Endless Nation, Lunchables Enthusiast) revives the creature with some magic dust and it sprints off after Bel.

Bel calls for his ship using his fancy Year 2064 Apple Watch, but the demon grows pretty big and starts gaining on him. He tries to shoot the demon more, but now it’s too big and impervious to be greatly affected by the bullets.

Bel crashes through a window and starts falling from a few dozen stories high; his ship waits directly below. The demon spits out some ropey tendrils, which successfully nooses that fucker on his way down! But Bel shoots the tendril clean through and continues his fall straight to his ship.

He gets away.

Atop the giant Triforce Obelisk, Cheveyo comments to Chamberlain as they stare out the broken window that it was interesting that he let Bel get away. And Chamberlain simply says that he was unarmed…as everyone should have been at these meetings. Cheveyo asks if Chamberlain agrees that no one should be trusted among the Chosen. And Chamberlain, that sneaky bastard, tells him that no one should be trusted among the Chosen but Chamberlain. “Best you remember that.”

“The old magic stays with you forever. If you have been marked, there is no erasing that stain.”

“All lies die in the desert.”

That was just the intro?! Man, I’m already bushed! I already wrote, like, 1000 words!

So, in the desert (where all lies die, apparently), a robot hound scopes out the wreckage of Bel Solomon’s ship. The hound uses his torch-cutting powers to cut a square hole in the ship’s side. “I’m injured…and I need to see him.” Solomon says, injured, but in need of seeing someone! I’m great at these commentaries!

We’re hit with a flashback montage and some narration. “True as any true thing ever spoken, back then there was a saying: The only thing more corrupt than a politician was a judge.” The flashback montage shows a man, with his robot dog, racing in a ship toward a destroyed ranch-house of sorts. He discovers a woman, dead, hanging from a noose. There are many others hanging from nooses, but this particular woman is important to him! He cradles her body in his arms as he sits on his knees on the floor.

Sounds like every American presidential election.

The politician/judge sidebar continues by saying that the two are essentially the same. “Both had long lost their souls. Both were totally corrupt. And both were always for sale… The judges were just cheaper.”

Next, we see another flashback scene of Bel Solomon THE LAWYER lawyering in the court like a real bonafide Law Boy! The judge floats above the courtroom on a hovering chair. He’s about a trillion pounds and he looks like he smells like all the poop that he can’t reach that’s still stuck to him every time he has to go shit in the toilet. Which is probably every seven minutes.

This judge announces that he dismissed the jury because he will be issuing his own verdict, as is customary for any trial where the prosecution has failed to make a case. BEL SOLOMON OBJECTS!

I will not be silenced by Jabba the Hut!

The judge kindly reminds him that he should dollop his objections over a spiked club and then fuck himself with it (my words), but Solomon needs to make his peace! And here it is: the defendant, Phillip Hollingsworth, sucks! He sucks, Your Honor. When he was arrested, he had about nine murder weapons on him and he was covered in about a gallon of other peoples’ blood. So bite me, Judge. Bite my butt! How’s this for “failed to make a case”? *grabs dick*

Bel Solomon also must point out that the Hollingsworths are rich, and they paid for almost all of the judge’s re-election costs. So suck it. Sir.

“We have asked you repeatedly to recuse yourself, sir. With all the respect I can muster…we ask again.” Solomon concludes. And this hovering whale-sized tub of jizz is like “yeah, w/e, moving on…anyone else want to speak up before I finish this and go grab another lunch?”

And yes, someone does: the victim. The man in the flashback, the one who discovered his dead family. He asks for mercy. And then he yells for mercy. And then he screams for mercy. And then he starts wankin’ it for mercy! “Mercy from the corrupt so I can sleep at night.” he yells, among other things. The judge yells to have this man thrown out of his courtroom, then he swings his gavel down and declares the defendant NOT GUILTY!

And Mr. Victim, who is being hurried away by a pair of guards, is somehow able to grab one of their guns and shoot them both in their legs. He wastes no moment of hesitation to gut the fatass with a crater-sized hole.

With that out of the way, judge, NOW it looks like you’re ready to have a conversation!

The judge drops to the floor with a monstrous THUMP!

“JUSTICE!” yells the guy who just shot up a courtroom. He walks over to the judge and removes his weird facemask thing, puts it on, and saunters over to Hollingsworth. The defendant cowers in horror. “Didn’t you hear – weren’t you listenin’ – I’m now a free man. Not. Guilty.” he stammers unconvincingly. “You say that like it’s supposed to matter.” says the victim, and he blows his head off.

Lots of people losing their heads in this comic book series! In more ways than one.

From that day forward, no more judges. No more juries. Just lawmen. Rangers. Chuck Norris style. Shoot ‘em up, yeehaw.

“When the rangers had finished with the judges, they turned on the politicians. No thieves, no liars, and no whores were left alive. Amen.”

I don’t know, I always make sure I have it with my keys and wallet.

So Bel Solomon and this guy who shot the judge, they’re buddies now. The weird demon tendril is still wrapped around Solomon’s neck, at least what’s left of it. But it’s still moving! And Judge-Killer helps unravel the sucker and throw it into a fire.

Bel needs this guy’s help to assassinate every single one of the Chosen. Baldy Pointy Nose, Lenny Kravitz, and especially that shithead Chamberlain! “They’re working to bring about the end of the world. They are twisted…evil… I want justice without mercy.” Solomon croaks. And this Judge-Killer, this Ranger, he tells Solomon that the Rangers all hung up their stars because they finished the job they set out to do in the first place. Plus, if they kept at it, then they would become that which they hate. PLUS, he is apt to point out, Solomon is one of the Chosen too. Nitwit.

And Solomon doesn’t have much to defend. It’s like cutting out of work early! It gets easier every time you do it. Eventually, you do it so often that you become a shell of your former self. I guess the point Solomon tries to make here is that, fuck you dude, just kill these bastards. Aight?

And this still-unnamed judge-killing Ranger dude, he agrees to do it. He owes Bel Solomon a favor or two anyway, you know, for all that lawyerin’ and standing up to Judge Fatty and all that.

“I owe you. So I want to promise you somethin’… When the time comes… I’ll kill you last.”

Final Thoughts

Shit’s getting better and better! I feel like there’s a connection between the Rangers and the way Death carries himself. There’s a similar “fuck the judges and the juries, I’M the judge and the jury” vibe. I wonder if it’ll mean anything later. AH WELL, I’ll probably forget that I even thought about that in about three seconds. Bye.