Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #7 – “The Quest”! In the previous installment, we get some Bel Solomon backstory after he narrowly escapes death via Horsemen-provided Hell Demon, sicced by Ezra Orion at the Armistice Chosen Meeting Place of Fun. Bel used to be a lawyer, and he was involved in a murder trial in which the Big Fat Judge was rubbin’ penises with the defendant. The judge got shot! It was a whole thing.

We also see an era of judgelessness and jury-lessness with the formation of the Rangers. One of these Rangers is buddies with Solomon, since the murder trial involved this guy’s family and Solomon was trying really hard to win for the prosecution. So he’s going to help Solomon kill every member of the Chosen. One at a time.

And he promises Bel Solomon that he will kill him last.

What a guy!

East of West, Issue #7 [November, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Quest”

Let’s see what those adorable and cuddly little Horsemen imps are up to! They’re at the Armistice, all looking grim, poring over what I imagine is an unseen victim. “I warned you about this, didn’t I?” War says through gritted teeth. “Be wary. Only wild things come from the abyss. Yes, it’s truth, but also hunger.”

They’re talking to Ezra Orion, who is rather…preoccupied at the moment. The Hell Demon appears to have engulfed his entire right arm (and not with its mouth-end), and part of it is phased through his neck. Madam President Antonia LeVay is there too, unharmed but a large demon tendril is wrapped around her legs.

Ezra is whining and crying like a little bitch. “Whu-when it wants to cause pain…the pain is un-unbearable.” he moans, tears streaming down his cheeks. Also, when it wants to cause pleasure, it’s a weird feeling even worse than pain! A BLOO BLOO BLOO. You know what you signed up for, ol’ nasty ass.

Conquest actually looks concerned (likely more for the well-being of his pet demon), and asks how this happened. LeVay explains that Bel Solomon’s bullet hit both the Demon and Ezra, and the two kinda sorta fused together! Heh heh! Wild stuff, eh? War suggests cutting off Ezra’s arm, but then the Demon hisses at him. “HSSSSSSSS! Pedicabo vos, Horseman!” it snarls at him. In Esperanto! Is that Esperanto?! Neat!

This is just like how the Burr-Hamilton duel began!

War brandishes his fiery sword of arm-cutting fury, but LeVay stops him and reminds him that the Message forbids aggravated mayhem! “The hand of the Keeper is the hand of the Beast, inseparable until the very last days.” But Ezra Orion, that happy little trooper, is desperate to get this thing off of him. The Horsemen just stare at him.

“Are you an agent of the end times?”

NO! Not me, but that guy is! *points to a lamp and runs away while they’re distracted*

“Have you become what the Message demands?”

Buddy, if the Message demanded that I’m some nerd who spends whatever little free time he has during the day writing about comics and jerkin’ off, then absolutely fucking yes!

Another piece of the Triforce??

Now we’re at a place called “the Mirrors”, which I don’t think I know about yet. It’s pretty woodsy. Death and his entourage are traipsing through. Crow announces that the scent led them here, and she thinks this is where they want to be. It looks like the Japanese suicide forest. Doesn’t anyone have any FUN in East of West?

The “where they want to be” is a lake. A lake to look at and talk to and ask questions and maybe it’ll answer back. The Mirrors. Neat, you can do that anywhere. You can do that in your bathtub.

Wolf wants to know what question Death is going to ask the lake, and Death says “HARUMPH! Fuck questions, I ain’t askin’ this stupid lake any dang question.” and asks Crow to wake “it” up. Whatever “it” is.

Crow does some visually pleasing voodoo magic and spreads a large ethereal beam of blue light across the lake. The lake isn’t pleased! It’s positively agitated! Waves start building up and crashing over a loud rumble. Finally, a large wave with a face emerges and speaks in fancy “I’ve been around for 7 million years” font: “Whoooo disturbssss my ssssslumber?” it demands, not one to be fucked with. And Death ain’t scared. “Open your eyes, Old Man. It’s the one person that’ll put you to sleep forever.”

The the Old Man of the Lake, he’s like “HA! HA! WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO, OLD CHUM? WANNA GO BOWLING? WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Death asks to see “the Lady”, and the Old Man allows it once Death confirms that the cost will be paid. The Old Man opens up a stone spiral stairway leading down under the lake, and Death and his troupe advance. It looks bottomless.

A flashback sequence starts discussing the Pilgrims and their arrival at the dawn of the second millennium. It happened almost every year from that point on, the pilgrimage to the Armistice. The Pilgrims came to worship, always following a prophet who claimed to have the Word, and the same thing happened every time: the Pilgrims would all suddenly disappear one day while they were there. Some say it was the rapture for the true believers. Others say they were smited for following a false prophet, swallowed by the earth and sent to Hell. No one knows. I say, they heard about a Grand Slam Breakfast deal at the nearby Denny’s and decided to fuck off to home after a good morning meal. My theory is way more legit. No one can resist a deal at Denny’s.

Past versions of the Horsemen arrive on their weird robot Hell Horses at the Armistice. The real versions of themselves, not the ones from episodes of Horsemen Babies. The older, gender-swapped incarnations. War and Conquest are women. Famine is a man. Death is still Death. He’s probably horny.

They snarl and scoff at the stupid Pilgrims kneeling before some withered old man speaking nonsense from atop a stump! Well, not a stump, it’s a rock formation. Stump rock.

We’re gonna give these pilgrims a Thanksgiving they won’t soon forget.

As this prophet guy is thumping his bible, hootin’ and hollerin’ about being judged in the afterlife, he gets picked off by Death’s gun. The Pilgrims are befuddled by the sudden sniping of their Stump Prophet. The Horsemen get closer to the Armistice and start killing the Pilgrims. “They can’t help themselves…the humans. They want something to worship – something to believe in… And if they can’t find it, they’ll manufacture it.”

After the bloodbath, the Horsebuddies walk around inside the giant crater that they made in the ground, chatting about the good ol’ days, like the Dark Ages. “Fear yielded respect….remember? Disappear an entire village and the apes would salt the earth as a sign.”

Only one person is still alive: a crying baby. War is about to cut this kid in half with her sword, but Conquest stops her and cradles the child in her own arms. She scoops up a fingerful of blood from the ground and feeds it to the now calm baby. “No more milk for you…only blood.”

Conquest dubs the child “Orion” and she takes him with them. Blood is nourishment, as is the Word, and the Word is the Message.

Oh sure, when I try to feed my baby blood I get a visit from Child Protective Services.

And that explains why Conquest seemed concerned about Ezra Orion. Because he/she actually was, I guess.

There’s a montage of Conquest raising the child from infancy with genuine nurturing care. She teaches him from an early age all about the Message. He takes it all in with earnest interest.

Later, when he’s much older, Ezra asks his mother if he pleases her. “That depends…are you an agent of the end times? Are you what the message demands?” And Ezra admits that he isn’t yet, but he can prove himself in time.

“The Message has structure. All structures have a foundation.” At the crater where the Horsemen murdered a bunch of jobbers, a large Triforce-shaped pillar slowly becomes erected in the center. Yeah baby.

“Ezra Orion raised a spire unsullied by the hands of man.” Oh yeah, keep talkin’ to me.

“It was a monument. It was a temple. It was perfect.” OHHHH YEAH BABY.

So this stupid Washington Monument Penis, the pillar of the Armistice, it’s complete. This is how he proves himself to be what the Message demands.

Nerd!

Conquest asks if he bothered to think about how to keep out the Pilgrims. “We have an army of automatons located at the base of the spire that responds to any activity within a one hundred mile radius,” Ezra responds, “There will be no more pilgrimages.”

And Conquest is pleased. There’s a good lad.

And this tired, gaunt, bald sack of shit, he asks again if he makes his mother proud. And, once again, like a bullshit Aesop’s fable, she repeats these questions: “Are you an agent of the end of times? Are you what the Message demands?” Ezra McSadEyes, this Jeff Bezos-lookin’ butthole, he goes “UH BUH HUH HUHHHB BUHH”.

Returning to the present, the Horsemen are little multicolored, gender-swapped children, Ezra and the Hell Demon are all entwined, and he’s begging to have his arm cut off.

Conquest cradles Ezra’s head in his arms. And he asks him again if he’s an agent of the end of times. He asks him if he is what the Message demands.

And he meekly answers “Yes…but I don’t want this…it’s too much. Puh-please cut it off.”

“No, Ezra… You’ll wear it until you die.”

“I see it now…” Conquest continues, “This is what you are. This is what you were always going to be… And you have made me so very, very proud.”

Ezra’s a big ol’ fucked-up lump on the ground. lol

Final Thoughts

This is really good. It makes all the Marvel and DC stuff I’m reading look like TERRIBLE POOP-STAINED CHILDREN’S BOOKS BY COMPARISON!

This issue really makes you feel bad for that bald apocalypse-bringing asshole. Conquest never really loved you, moron! Horseman, remember?!

Get it together, Orion.