Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #35 – “Things Fathers Do With Their Sons”! In the previous installment, in a nutshell, Archibald and his Confederacy do a massive attack on Xiaolian Mao’s palace and reduces the People’s Republic armies down to nothing.

Xiaolian is still alive, and her meager resistance team will still stand by her side.

I predict that Xiaolian’s little army will thoroughly fuck up Archibald’s shit. He’s winning the battles, but he’s going to handily lose the war. Take that to the spank bank.

East of West, Issue #35 [November, 2017]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Things Fathers Do with Their Sons”

“If you choose, choose now. Or soon that decision will be taken from you.“

So what could possible happen next, you ask? Well, the Three Horsemen walk along an empty plain toward a hidden sniper. They’re all excited that they can feel the violence and the impending doom in the air. Like when the air is all misty and/or foggy? Except with doom.

“I think we’re running out of time,” says the yellow one. Famine, right? The skeleton. War agrees that shit’s coming up very quickly. “This should be our time, but we’re rudderless and without purpose. Adrift on a bloody sea.”

Conquest is extremely optimistic, but he’s also the one that has the biggest boner for war. Even War’s boner isn’t as boney for war, and he’s War! “We need to find the boy, Babylon, and serve him.”

Serve him what? A steak sandwich? I could use one right now for sure.

“I’m not so sure,” War mumbles.

“I am.” Conquest smiles smugly. “Mankind is waiting for him. And he is waiting for us.”

Do you know what else is waiting for you, Bluey? A fucking shot in the mouth.

Oh dear. That’s going to sting for about a day.

The bullets keep flying.

“What the hell?” Conquest says, surprised and missing a tooth out of his blue head. “Someone shot me!”

War tells him that his missing tooth makes him look like an idiot. I agree, but he looked like an idiot anyway. For the most part, the bullets seem to be bouncing off these mopes. Conquest whips out an enormous sword, whips it around with all his might, and slices it into the ground toward the location of the shooter. The makeshift bunker explodes into nothing, the shooter starts hobbling away.

“No, no… There’s not going to be any running tonight… There’s not going to be an escape… Not for any of you. Because you’re right where you wanted to be. You made a choice… And these are the consequences.”

Conquest pulls out a 900-ft whip and flings it toward the assailant, wrapping it around his neck. In one quick motion, Conquest pulls the fucker right to himself. Neck buldging, tongue a-floppin’, the gunner starts begging all while the whip chokes the breath out of him.

The Three Horsemen give the guy their best autistic sociopathic child stares and tell him that there’s no begging, no pleading, no praying. No mercy, no forgiveness. “You have earned what is coming to you,” War says.

AND WHAT MIGHT THAT BE? I DUNNO!

“Here’s what I know to be true: Before it all comes crashing down, the people will wake up. It will just be too late to do anything about it.”

Balloon’s gonna sit this one out, Chatty Cathy.

What’s up with Death and Son? Palling around, that’s what’s up. Death rides his robot horse. Babylon rides his giant piggy.

Death asks his boy which way he wants to go. Not a hard decision. Just a matter o’ turnin’ right or left. East or west. Spit it out, son. Let’s get on with it. And Babylon crunches the numbers and analyzes his options like Young Sheldon, possibly annoying his big, white father. Every decision matters! This is why Babylon and Balloon spent so much time running simulations! “’Cause bad decisions will get you killed every time, and let me tell you, Dad, I’ve died around one point seven million times. It is definitely not cool.”

When Death asks him what the hell he means by that, Babylon explains that Balloon taught the child how to survive. Death thinks this is weird, being Death and all. Balloon says that going east is 16.3% more safe than going west, based on weather and rocks and bugs and stalling airplanes and viruses and Republicans. Babylon’s feelin’ lucky tonight, though! Let’s go west!

Later, Death teaches his son how to skip some stones in the lake. Balloon tells the kid to consider kinematics and vector angles and all sorts of other nerdy factors. Babylon deliberately throws his rock right at a fish with a WAK. Balloon praises his effort. Death is exasperated.

Death takes this opportunity to teach the boy fishing, since we’ve moved on to dead fish and the like!

“And we just stand here and wait?”

“Yep. Practicin’ patience until we a get a… nibble.”

Death gets one hooked almost immediately. After putting a ton of strain into reeling it in, it’s the size of a chub. “Good news is we got all day, son.”

I think all this is so family friendly that it’s making me “laugh” and “grin”. In fact, the smiles will keep on going, because Babylon’s got a joke to tell!

A touching Kodak moment :>

Balloon interrupts the laugh fest by being a downer about the spot they picked. Saying there’s more fish over there *points with no fingers*. Death is good where he is, but Babylon wants to actually eat for once so he moseys over to the better spot. While behind a rock, blocked from Death’s view, there’s a sudden ZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZ of electricity. Death panics, runs over and discovers… Balloon zapping fish after fish dead in quick succession. “Look Dad!” Babylon yells happily, raising up two enormous fish with each hand. “I have defeated all the fish. Tonight we eat like kings!”

Babylon asks Death to help him carry all these fish back to camp. Death stares quite despondently. “… Sure.”

Two weeks of trekking pass, and our two favorite White Characters happen upon some exposed underground ruins. Death calls it a monument to the impermanence of man. Perhaps a giant flood washed out the city, and when the water receded all that was left were the half-collapsed buildings. Perhaps it was a plague? Maybe it was some vengeful god. “BUT ALL OF THAT IS WRONG,” Death says. “What happened here was much worse.”

Oh boy. Aliens? Space aliens?

Babylon thinks Death is crazy bones, because from his point of view the desolate, crumbling ruins looks like an awesome carnival! “I’m going to go see if I can find some cool stuff,” he says, running through a hole in the side of one of the old buildings. Death grimaces, annoyed.

Babylon observes what looks to him like a teddy bear. “It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

It’s a human skull. “I just love it,” he continues. “Can I keep it?”

“What?”

Death looks at his happy son and just stares silently. I bet dollars to donuts that Death is going to give this kid the boot and move on with his own damn lonesome self. After 35 issues, he’s going to learn that he hates his kid! LOL!

Later that night, while Babylon is asleep with his new skull, Death sits and looks on in the far distance.

“So…” he looks to Balloon. “Is he really asleep?”

“I understand your trepidation, Death. Babylon is more than capable of achieving a dormant regenerative state without lapsing into unconsciousness.”

“And?”

“And yes. He is asleep.”

“So he won’t hear us talkin’? Not a word that’s bein’ said?”

“No. He will not. Is there something on your mind, Horseman?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with him?”

Relationships are tensing up! Death has noticed that he doesn’t see the world for how it is. That something’s wrong with the way his eyes are hooked up. Balloon agrees, but argues that Babylon sees something better: What it can be. How it should be. What he can make it.

Balloon’s gettin’ the business from the Grim Reaper Cowboy.

One week later, Death catches word from his and Xiaolian’s one-way walkie-talkie. Xiaolian’s army is going to march off to war, or what’s left of it. Death drops to his knees. “Your mother… she’s in peril.”

“…We should help her, Dad.”

“Don’t worry, son. Nothin’ in this world… And nothin’ from any other could stop me from doin’ that.”

Death gets that famous angry grimace of his back on his mug.

“It’s time for you to see what your old man is made of.”

Final Thoughts

This was a real bottle episode, for sure. Not much more progresses in the relationship between Death and Babylon besides “kid’s weird”.

And now Death is going to fight the good fight. Or the bad fight. Or whatever. Gray areas and all that!