Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #25! Last issue in the storyline, folks! In the previous installment, Wari tells the story of how Dr. Qanta Braunstein brought her and Jahpo to the future. Braunstein raises Jahpo as her own, and Wari was sworn to secrecy.

Mac finds out that she does not nor will ever have leukemia. She WILL, however, have a rare type of cancer that only affects time travelers. She and KJ get attacked by the doctor, but high-tail out of there after he renders KJ sedated. Mac has to carry her dead weight around town.

Jahpo’s planning taking his whole 10 football field-sized airship with him through a Folding to 1988. That already happened in the first storyline and Jahpo was very unsuccessful at preventing the girls from starting their time travel adventure.

All the pieces are finally coming together! Oh yeah, Erin now has a map to the widget that will take them all back to 1988. Maybe we’ll see that happen as well.

Paper Girls, Issue #25 [October, 2018]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

It’s exciting, isn’t it? This fucking comic book is the bee’s knees.

Yeah, that’s right. Guess who finally kisses. It’s about time. It’s fucking adorable.

KJ is completely passed out on the roof. Mac is waiting for the two Tiffanys, but they are nowhere to be seen from Mac’s vantage point. Erin tells Mac through the walkie-talkie that there’s no need for any of them to get back to her once they meet up. “Can you see the skyscraper with the glow-y thing above it?”

Mac looks at the skyscraper with the glow-y thing above it. “Kinda hard to miss,” she says. The glow-y thing is a large violet Folding. Erin’s got the map, as you recall, and she knows that there’s something called a “service entrance” in the alley behind the building “and you guys all need to meet me there, like, immediately.”

Erin says it’s their last chance. Then Mac loses the signal.

By now KJ has regained consciousness and feels like a million bucks! Nothing like a good power nap, kids. Now then, w–

!

KJ recognizes the spot immediately… but then shuts up before she says too much. “This place, it’s… it’s… it’s nothing,” she looks down sullen. “All of this has been completely pointless. No matter what we do, you’re still gonna die.”

Yeesh. Way to kill the buzz again. “Are you seriously crying?” Mac says, getting mad and uncomfortable. “Knock it off, dweeb.”

GRRAAGGHHG!! RRAARRGG!! HRRRNNNN!! “It’s bullshit, Mac! Why did we get suckered into this stupid adventure? Just so you could get some kind of time travel cancer?”

It’s all so futile. Whatever happened happened. Whatever is supposed to happen is going to happen. Nothing can be changed. And the only thing I don’t like is that neither Older Erin nor Older Tiff remember being twelve and going through this crazy adventure. That’s the only time travel inconsistency, and I hope it gets addressed.

Digression aside, Mac has a realization. “Like, this rooftop. This is where you had your vision of us kissing… isn’t it?”

KJ doesn’t answer. She just gives Mac the ol’ side-eye.

Mac keeps it going. “Then I guess we do.”

And I guess they do.

About time, nerds.

They embrace, they kiss, it’s cute, then they look to see the two Tiffs staring at them completely shocked. Well, Young Tiff is shocked. Older Tiff just seems kind of tired.

“Sorry to… Um,” Young Tiff is at a loss for words.

“Congratulations?” Older Tiff strains a big smile, eyes dead.

“U4! HANDS!” yells one of those terrible BlueLifes, aiming a gun at their faces. Lock and load, asshole.

Erin pores over her map and realizes that everything is written in her handwriting. Wari is like “of course it is, idiot. You were here a few days ago”, and Eyeball Caretaker is like “you told us to take care of it the first time you were here!” Erin is floored that there’s all these directions about secret elevators and access codes, and Wari assumes she helped… but her memory sucks lately. “This looks just like my boy’s old clubhouse,” she says, looking at the map and sipping some of that good Future Coffee.

“This map supposedly shows me how to get back to 1988. If it really works, how do I end up back here in the future – I mean, your past – to give it to you?” Erin wonders. Look, kid, asking questions is how you got in this mess in the first place! Maybe. Or perhaps you didn’t ask enough questions? It’s unclear.

“…who are you again?” Wari asks, eyes vacant. That settles that!

This is such a Back to the Future nod. Erin and her team have to get to the top of the tower by the crack of 7:17am or they lose their chance to get back to the past. The Folding must now be open to 1988. According to Wari, the WATCH always closes for realignment at roughly 7:15am, so it all makes sense! Right? Yes. And then Erin starts booking it.

This isn’t a traffic stop, man. Stop trying to kill people!

Meanwhile, the rooftop girls are under arrest! Or at least they will be if they stop resisting so hard by putting their hands up in the air like they just don’t care. The cop shoots his gun on the roof, which KABANGs and ricochets right in front of Mac’s feet. “Last warn.”

“You fired a fucking gun. At children?” Double-Oh Tiff glares. Now he’s gone and done it. “Take care of your friends,” she tells her younger self. “And whatever you do, don’t settle.”

Then she takes a running leap at the motherfucker, which catches him off guard. She lands on his car and starts manhandling him. “GO!” she yells to the girls while the cop grunts and grumbles. He ends up shooting his own tires, which sends the floating cop car into a tailspin.

Then the car explodes in a giant fireball, in mid-air, right in front of the rest of them.

Mac goes fucking insane. She grabs her radio: “Please help! Oh, Christ, she’s dead! She’s really–”

Ah, Mac’s distress signal from Issue #22. However, how did she broadcast it to her own walkie-talkie in the past? Curious.

Almost as if feedback prevented her from continuing the transmission, she gets cut off. “Dammit!”

Ok, time to boogie before more fucking cops come. “That bang’s only gonna bring more of those assholes, and if we get nabbed now…” Mac says as Tiff looks completely despondent, “…what did Tiff die for?”

Grand Father “Pops” Jahpo successfully made it to 1988, as we knew he would. Cardinal reports that those who killed both Prioress and Alister are probably dead, but it’s true that the four girls are “timelined”.

Tardigrade fight!

That Tardigrade fight is the year 2016, eh? Man, these kids are really FUCKING the SHIT up. The sky is violet with out-of-control time-related energy. Jahpo is nervous. “Cardinal, if we don’t find those four children and bring them back here alive, this entire year is going to bend inside itself.” I think it already has! George H.W. Bush was elected, after all.

The good news is, if the girls aren’t found, it won’t be the end of time! The bad news is that it will be the end of the world. So, uh, your mileage may vary on these two bits of news. I’d rather deal with the end of time, myself. That way I won’t have to be reincarnated on some other shit world.

The three girls made it successfully to Erin’s meeting point. Here’s some more bad news: Double-Oh Tiff is dead as a doornail. “I think I just watched myself die,” Tiff says, looking like she’s about to puke all over Erin.

“Whatever happened, we… we can fix it,” Erin says with cautious optimism.

“Trust us, we can’t,” Mac replies, looking quite defeated. “I hate to say it, but you were right about me. About death. When we go is when we go.”

Erin is still not backing off! Since she will obviously show up soon to draw this map for herself, she can add a note to her past self to warn the Tiffanies! Right? Right? Nope! “If you’re the one who’s eventually going to draw that thing, why doesn’t it say all this stuff already?” Tiff asks, glaring at Erin like she’s dumb.

Suddenly, another Erin pops into the scene. “Holy cow! I can’t believe that worked!”

Yeah, cut it out with the C-word, KJ.

“But nice to see the crew again. Been stalking you for ages, literally,” Not-Erin says. Last we saw here, she was trying to push the four of them into the future. Looks like it happened anyway. “Thankfully, you left behind plenty of clues on this pitstop, so once I figured out what you were up to, I dropped in first to start laying some groundwork.”

Uh-huh. Sounds like dork speak to me. Erin doesn’t like what she’s hearing. “The map. You drew it for Wari.”

Yes indeedily-doodily! But why? Why?? WHY?? Why was Not-Erin spending so much time getting these girls to the skyscraper? What’s the deal? WHY???

Not-Erin pulls off her backpack-thing, revealing it to be a bomb. “I need this to end, all right? But if I let you four go back to ‘88 together, the old-timers have won.”

The girls try to bargain their way out of kablooie, but it’s too late. Too late. Not-Erin clicks the detonator…

…

…

…

!

Tiff ends up on some cliff overlooking these weird pod high-rises over an ocean. I’m guessing she’s in the far, far future.

KJ ends up in front of a newspaper building. The headlines of the current day report Iraq becoming a republic. 1958.

Mac ends up in some desolate wasteland, about to be attacked by terrifyingly large creature with sharp teeth and no eyes. I’m guessing she’s even farther ahead than Tiff.

Erin ends up on Halloween, 2016. A boy in a Trump costume approaches. “Hey, lady. You okay?”

Final Thoughts

Jesus shit! One storyline left, and the girls are hopelessly separated! How’s this going to wrap itself up? Is it even going too? I’m erect with anticipation!

I’m going keep going. Stay tuned next week for the beginning of the thrilling conclusion!