Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 4), Issue #7 – “The Road to War”! In the previous storyline, balancing home, school, and superhero time is tough, so Bruno helps make clones to put her in three places at once. However, the clones sucked ass. Also, the clones kept right on cloning until the city was overrun with Kamala Khans! It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Captain Marvel was able to come save the day, recognizing that Ms. Marvel was in over her head and she should focus more on home and school and worry about Ms. Marvelling when her home and school duties are less critical. It’s a lesson we all could learn! No superhero time until your homework is done, I always say.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 4), Issue #7 [June, 2016]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“The Road to War”

This story ties into the Civil War event, so there might be some goings-on that aren’t entirely clear. I guess we’ll just have to roll with it, eh?

The Tri-State Ultra Mega Science Fair is going on at Madison Square Garden, and let me tell you, it’s fuckin’ hopping! “Nerds of New Jersey!” declares Bruno loudly and embarrassingly in public. “Only one thing matters today. It isn’t winning first prize. It isn’t the year’s supply of duct tape that comes with it.” He narrows his eyes. “It’s beating the pants off those smirking sneakerheads from New York.”

The New York kids are like “HEEEYY, I’M FROM NEW YORK! WHO WANTS A BROOKYLN-STYLE PIZZA PIE, EH?” The New York team captain is Miles Morales, who may or may not be Spider-Man right now. Their whole goal is to crush Jersey, so these two factions have a lot more in common than they think! They really need to just hug it out.

New York has a robot, I presume, that they call “the Re-aktron”. It’s ready and fully assembled and it will do anything you ask, wink wink.

“You have one hour to prepare your entries for the first round of judging,” says the referee. The nerds put on their ready faces. “Ready, set… SCIENCE!”

The nerds hustle and bustle. New Jersey has an exhibit they’re calling the Skyshark – a real (?) shark suspended in water bubble by a thin membrane. While they get this prepared, Kamala plans on taking a quick peek into what New York is doing. Probably JERKING OFF HA HA HA HA! But seriously folks, they’re JERKING OFF HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!! But really, she small-ifies herself and moseys on over.

Ms. Marvel knows who Miles Morales is! Spoder-Maan. But he doesn’t know who she is. And that’s an advantage, right? She doesn’t really take it that way. “If I’d known Miles was going to be here, I would’ve come down with sudden flu-like symptoms and stayed home.”

Walking around the size of a squirrel she finds New York and Morales immediately senses something. Fuck! Kamala scurries off.

Come on, don’t worry, Kamala. The kid can’t even sense when his dick is stuck in a pickle jar. And it happens a lot.

She runs to a closet and big-ifies, thinking the coast is quite clear. The coast was not at all clear. Morales creeps up above her on the ceiling all spider-like and WHOMP! Lands on the floor, scaring the bejeebus out of her. “AAAAAH!” she is known to scream.

“What are you doing back here, New Jersey?” he sniffs.

“What are you doing back here, Brain-from-Brooklyn?” Kamala retorts.

“Scoping the perimeter. Making sure a certain team isn’t spying on the competition.”

They bicker for about three panels before they do some teenage fuckin’ on the floor. Just kidding! They hate each other! And judging will start on the floor in about five minutes, so places, people!

Kamala returns to her group with nothing to report except, “That Miles Morales guy cornered me and accused us of spying!” And Bruno is shocked. “Everyone spies! It’s tradition!”

It’s weird that he knew Kamala was there, though. Something fishy is going on, and it’s not tonight’s tuna tartare. Or is it?

Time for New Jersey to present their first-round project! “The world’s oceans face great threats from climate change, dumping of plastics, and acidification. Some of the planet’s most majestic marine animals are now under threat. Unable to survive outside the water, they faced certain extinction. Until now.

Booooo!!

A total Karen in the audience accuses the kids of animal cruelty and sentences them to five months in the salt mines. Also, disqualification. The kids argue that it’s an adopted ASPCA rescue shark, so stuff it. The shark looks happy enough to me, so who am I to complain either? Let’s just give these kids a blue ribbon so we can start the pie-eating contest.

The referee allows it! Whew! So now it’s New York’s turn. “Pressurized environments for endangered marine animals,” says Morales. “Going for the sympathy vote as usual, Jersey. If that’s how you want to play it, fine. Let’s see you top this.” He puts on some fucking sunglasses. “Hit it, guys!”

Meet the Re-aktron! It pleasures your dick in a way that pickle jars can only dream about. “The world’s first portable electricity upcycling plant. Static cling? Those little zaps you get from your cell phone after you’ve dropped it a couple times? The Re-aktron harvests it all over the air and turns it into usable electricity.”

And what do we have? A shark in a bubble? Well, that’s a kick in the ol’ nards…

“Hold on a minute,” yells Kamala, bum-rushing Morales. “You say the Re-aktron collects this stuff through the air? How do you know that’s safe?”

“Tesla proved it was safe,” replies Morales, sunglasses aplenty.

“You don’t get to randomly invoke Tesla for something like this,” Kamala gripes. “It’s like Godwin’s Law, but for science.”

Morales is smug as shit; calls Kamala a sore loser. She makes fun of his sweater vest and stomps away, vowing to trample him in the next round when they unveil the Pickle Jar 2.0. And Bruno has an idea, too…

Mike, Bruno’s girlfriend, tells Bruno to stop taking things so personally. Bruno retorts that if he and Kamala don’t get noticed at this stupid science fair by recruiters, they won’t be going to college. It’s that simple, lady. And don’t give me that “maybe Morales is in the same situation” because FUCK YOU that guy is from NEW YORK. Have you ever even BEEN THERE?? BLEEECCCCCHHHH!!!!!!

Here’s Bruno’s big gambit: a little device called the Fusionmaster 2000. “The world’s first miniature nuclear power generator!” he boasts, holding the likely dangerous, radioactive thing in his hand.

“What?!” says a kid from the New York team of New York fucks. “You guys want to make a fuss over whether our submission is safe, then you whip out a pocket fusion reactor? What happens if that thing melts down?”

Bruno is like “a banana is more radioactive than this teeny tiny little–” and then it blows the hell up all over everyone. Now kids may be critically injured. Now there’s a fire in Madison Square Garden. Bruno’s not dead, but he should be so ashamed of himself that he may as well be. “We’ve got to get everybody out of here, fast,” Kamala says, going into that annoying superhero mode.

Sounds good, kid. Let me know when you see one.

Kamala has the same idea as both Spider-Man and Nova, two other heroes in the room that decided to costume up and save various teenagers from inhaling radioactive smoke.

“So, this is one of those moments,” Kamala thinks as the awkwardness permeates the room. “Those moments when somebody could say something. State the obvious. But when you’re on a team of superheroes, you learn not to see the things your friends aren’t ready for you to see. So you let the moment pass. And you do your job.”

Very profound. The three heroes save the day. Bruno and other members of Team Jersey slump on the curb outside of the venue, dejected and miserable. At least nobody won the fair, but a nice scholarship would’ve been the bee’s knees for real.

Kids from the New York team share the curb and apologize for trying to turn a simple science fair into a stupid war. Morales sits down next to Kamala, apologizes, and yearns for a fresh start! They introduce themselves to each other, starting what I imagine will be a long and fruitful friendship! *trumpet fart*

The news that night covers the explosion at Madison Square Garden. The story features a picture of Bruno making a “YAAAARRGHHH!!” face. “The culprit was a miniature fusion reactor created by Jersey City high schooler Bruno Carrelli, a local boy genius. More on this story as events unfold.

And then, meanwhile, in New Attilan, Medusa and a kid named Ulysses are watching the Jersey City local news. I don’t know who Ulysses is, but the kid has premonitions, and that shitty picture of Bruno looking like shit makes him feel like something big is about to happen.

Something big…

And also… big…

Final Thoughts

Science fairs are for virgins.