Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #6 – “Zen and the Art of Cosmology”! In the previous installment, Smasher gets upgraded from Subguardian to Superguardian after successfully (with the help of the Avengers) stopping an invasion attempt on Chandilar, the Shi’ar Empire’s homeworld. Does that make sense? Good!

We see Izzy’s origin story from farm girl to Smasher. That was a humdinger.

Oh yeah, the invasion attempt wasn’t actually an invasion. They were trying to run away from something else. So we’ll get to see what that was. At least we should, this is the last issue of the first storyline. So buckle up, hot dogs.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #6 [April, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Zen and the Art of Cosmology”

Looks like this issue is going to focus on Universe Lady, who appeared on Mars during the ruckus with the Avengers and then she told Ex Nihilo and his cronies to go home!

“There was nothing. Followed by everything.” This is how Issue #1 began. It seems like a lifetime ago, huh? Simpler times, for sure.

The reveal is that Universe Lady is telling this story. “That is your story…and therefore my story.” She’s sitting cross-legged across from some dude in a Japanese House of Etiquette and Learning and Sitting on the Floor with Your Shoes Off While You Contemplate Philosophy. The dude looks like Tom Welling as Superman, but he’s wearing a martial arts uniform of sorts? My guess is that this butthead is Shang-Chi, who really hasn’t done much at all yet with the Avengers.

Shang-Chi was told by Stark and Rogers to go see the Universe Lady and spend some time with her to go over some “delicate issues”, so shut the hell up about philosophy! “Personal illumination is not a path I wish to travel today.”

And Universe Lady is like “But why? That’s my bag, son!” And then Shang-Chi tells her that he needs to see “her”, whoever “her” is. And he has pie for her! So bring her in here now! For pie!

Immediately, without missing a goddamned beat, a young humanoid woman kind of fills into the space-and-stars aesthetic that the Universe Lady was going for. “Oh! Where…where am I? I blacked out again…lost time…who…who are you? Is that for me?” and she perks right up when she realizes that Shang-Chi is holding a delicious, scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth, buttery, crispy, gooey, salty, kind of pepperminty, kind of sticky and greasy, kind of an oily, flaky, hard-as-a-rock, kind of a pickley, to-die-for pie!

Throw the placenta in the trash next time.

And Shang-Chi gives her a big ol’ warm smile to compliment the big ol’ warm pie. “I am going to help you find out who you are.” he tells her, and the pie is a good start! She’s a lady who likes pie. She can’t remember anything else at all, but we can move forward from here. Shang-Chi tells her that her name is “Tamara Devoux” and she’s going to want a fork for her tasty, tasty pie.

She digs into the pie and looks at him skeptically. “How do you know that? Tamara. Doesn’t feel right. You sure?” And yes, he’s sure, but he’s not surprised that it doesn’t feel right. These things take time, you know, after something wipes away your identity. Shang-Chi needs Tamara to try to think hard about everything she used to be, starting with her earliest memory. All she remembers is a light, then a crash, then shaking, then violence, then nothing.

Actually, technically, it says “SAM!”, so let’s just agree to disagree here.

Enough of that for now! Back at the Real World: Avengers House Edition, Spider-Man is scarfing down a container of food with “SAM!” written on it. But then two guys, Sunspot and Cannonball, come into the kitchen to yell at him. Spider-Man doesn’t give two shits! He doesn’t even give one.

And then Sunspot, in defense of SAM!, tries to tell him that he has a bunch of meals professionally prepared by specialists, nutritionists, chefs, yoga gurus, and militant atheists! And then Cannonball, who is SAM!, is like “fuck you Spider-Man”.

Spider-Man throws Cannonball the rest of his food. “Here. It’s disgusting anyway.” he says and walks away pouting. We have all made new enemies today, lots of tension in the Avengers Pad!

Back in Shang-Chi’s International House of Pie, he’s like “A light and a crash? That’s it? That’s fucking it? Nothing else, you horrible skank?!” And I’m like WHOA MAN, calm down! Heh heh.

“That’s ok…that’s fine.” Shang-Chi says with an attitude that suggests that nothing is fine. Now he wants to do some associative memory recall to see if we can’t shake up that brain of hers! He tells her to close her eyes and focus on the feeling that she’s floating in water…then he tells her to think of her earliest memory again, lock that first image she sees, and try to step outside of it.

Yeah…I’m not gonna use the word “failure” specifically, but…

Now she doesn’t just remember one light. She remembers two: the headlights of an oncoming car. Now she remembers tires squealing! OH GOD, WE’RE GONNA CRASH! HELP! HELP ME, DR. SHANG-CHI THE HOLISTIC PIE-TOTING THERAPIST!

After assuring her that there will be no harm to her, since she’s sitting in a room and all, she tries to stay in the moment and remember other things. She remembers crying, but it’s possibly coming from behind her. All Tamara can see are bright headlights. After being prodded further, Tamara remembers her young daughter in the backseat.

God, I hate you, Dad!

We leave this tense moment again, for now, to revel in some more Avengers House hijinks! Spider-Man barges into Tony Stark’s giant computer lab to complain about “Bomb Boy and Solar Flare”. “You’re going to have to do something about those children, Stark.” Spider-Man tells him with a thimble-full of watered-down authority. He continues to bug him about the two happy boys being “rather rude” to him in the kitchen. And Tony Stark tells him to stop eating their food and you’ll be left alone, kiddo. The Builder in the room speaks to Spider-Man with disdain, and Spider-Man responds with “And gibberish gibberish to you as well, Spaceman.” After asking Stark if Adam, Blackveil, whatever his name is, can hear him, Stark tells Spider-Man that he’s working on it but it’s unlikely. Spider-Man calls the alien a super freak. Adam/Blackveil mutters with understanding. Probably a “fuck you, spidercunt”.

Back in the A-Story, Shang-Chi nudges Tamara further to get her to spill about her daughter. Her name is Ella, 6-years-old, father left the family right away, she likes milkshakes, her favorite color is blue, it’s all coming back to her! Fantastic! Bad news, though, is that no one knows where she is. Tamara was hurt in the car crash, fine, yada yada, get over it. But Ella? No one knows.

Also, Tamara was in a coma for ten years, and she somehow became the Universe Lady in the hospital! There’s that too. Don’t cry! It’s cool. Why are you crying, Tamara? Everything’s cool, bud! HEY! STOP!

Yo, I’ve seen The Exorcist. This lady is chock full of the Devil!

Her crying causes a burst of blue light to emit from her being. She turns back into Universe Lady. She repeats her whole “First there was nothing. Then there was everything.” shtick, and then she repeats something she said earlier in the comic. She said it when Shang-Chi asked to see Tamara the first time. She says “The host is broken. Everything is broken.” Shang-Chi asks for an explanation, and he doesn’t get a very good one, but then he asks why the universe chose Tamara in the first place.

“Because she is broken. Because she is dying… Just as I am.”

Back at House Stark, Tony is scratching his head trying to decode some more of the Builders gobbledygook. Shang-Chi shows up with Miss Universe and tries to get Stark’s attention, but Stark is too wrapped-up in this current puzzle. While he stares at his whiteboard, Adam/Blackveil and Miss Universe strike up a conversation. Stark jumps out of his tighty-whities when he realizes she knows what he’s saying, and asks her to repeat the word. “Right. That’s it. You understand him…Blackveil. You know his name. Right. Blackveil.”

And Miss Universe tells Stark that it doesn’t translate to “Blackveil”, it translates to “Nightmask”. And then she does some magic on Nightmask’s sexy mouth to make his words sound like English to the rest of the room.

“The system is broken. It’s coming! It’s here… the White Event. The White Event.”

“The White Event.”

Final Thoughts

The White Event! Must be Trump’s inauguration in 2016! Bleh!

So, the last couple panels showed a giant ball of brilliant pinkish white light way high into outer space, with a lighting blast appearing to hit Earth! Excellent!

But I’ll read about that stuff later, gotta move on for now to something else. This is Tom signing off with: “The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event. The White Event.”