East of West, Issue #42 – “Risk”

* Part 13 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #42 – “Risk”! In the previous installment, we catch up with all the remaining Chosen. John Freeman VIII is not dead, but his King Dad thinks he is, so he’ll ride out his remaining days with Wolf in the Endless Nation. Archibald is willing to trade his niece’s life for victory in his war (and she was awake to hear it…). Mao’s army marches to the battlefield. Archibald’s much, much, much, much bigger and more well-equipped army will meet them head on while Bel Solomon watches the Confederacy’s most assured victory.

And here I am sitting here with a pants full of poop! What’s next? Let’s continue!

East of West, Issue #42 [April, 2019]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Risk”

East of West, Issue #42

“This is how it ends, where it all began.“

War reiterates that, while Death trapises around trying to get his kid back from the other two Horsemen, he’ll be waiting. “Just name the place,” Death grimaces, covered in blood. “I’ll be there.”

HOW ABOUT THE MCDONALD’S PLAYPLACE?! HA HA HA! FUN!

“How’s the Valley of the Gods sound?” War says. “Can you pay the toll to walk that road, old man?”

“You think I won’t?”

“Oh I hope you do. It’s perfect really… the last time we left things so unfinished.”

Flashback time, yet again. The Chosen, alive and well, all stand together on a giant desert bluff. The Horsemen, genders reversed, yell up at them. “YOU GODDAMNED ANIMALS!” yells Death (Death is still a man, btw). War, full of butts and boobs, holds a bloody sack. Death betrayed the three of them, somehow. I don’t know how. But Death betrayed them! And it’s not looking good.

“Where’s my wife?” Death yells.

“Oh, that tasty bitch has slipped this mortal coil,” says Conquest, looking quite ravishing in her skull face.

War throws the bloody bag toward Death. “Saved you some.”

Out of the bag rolls an arm, hand to elbow. Xiaolian’s old meat appendage.

Death has some fond memories of that arm.

East of West, Issue #42

Ah yes, the good times.

Death picks up the arm and glares murderously. “There he is,” smiles War as Death perks up. Death promises to gun War down, but Famine is like “guns, sir? That’s dumb”.

“Look how far you’ve fallen,” Famine adds, brandishing his weird double-sword.

“Fair enough.” Death grabs his own sheathed sword. “The old way, then.”

Stab. Slice. Stab. Crash. Stab. Stab. Slice. Dice. Splut. Flump.

“NO!” screams Conquest as Death chops Famine in half right at the torso.

I forgot all about the Chosen! They’re just fucking watching the scene. Bel Solomon grabs a gun. The old Union president tells him not to waste a bullet. Only a Horseman can kill another Horseman. It’s the law. Or a weapon made by one of them. That’s the loophole. “That gun just ain’t gonna cut it, son,” says Hu Mao.

Bel doesn’t care, he wants to try. Sounds fun in any case. BLAM! Nothing happens. War and Death are still punching each other around. Conquest breaks out her Mickey Rourke Iron Man 2 whip. “There was a time when I feared you more than anything…” she says, whipping the thing around Death. It doesn’t seem to do anything. “But I see you now for what you are… And all that fear is gone.”

Death is like “yeah, well” and then slices Conquest right through her torso as well. Up on the bluff, Ezra Orion cries for his dearly departed Horseman Mommy. A bullet falls out of Conquest’s head. Take that, Bel.

Then a Hell Beast erupts out of her body.

East of West, Issue #42

You’re looking so cute today, Conquest.

The Hell Beast wraps its weird tendrils around Death, aiming to suck him into its gaping maw. Death throws his dagger at its head, and that does the trick.

Orion continues crying and screaming and thrashing.

And then there was War. She lets out a barrage of missiles. “Let’s see how you do with this,” she cries triumphantly. Death does a little skeet shooting and is able to get rid of each one. War compliments his gun prowess and then stabs him through the chest with a fire sword! Because why not?!

“You think it doesn’t hurt me to see you like this? It does,” War says, probably lying her ass off. “I would have loved you until the universe expanded into nothing – until the very end of all that is… But instead you loved her.”

Ahh, the plot thickens like shitty gravy! This is about love! Horseman love! The most pure kind of love there is!

“Why?” War yells. “WHY!?!”

“You act like I had a choice.”

War lifts her sword up for the finishing blow. Death picks up Bel’s bullet and fires it with his fingers – right through War’s forehead. She thumps down to the ground, dead.

By now, the Chosen have airshipped their way down to the ground while Death coughs and wheezes and crawls across the dirt. Ezra Orion runs to his dead, ugly mother and sobs. Archibald sees it for the embarrassing display that it is.

The rest start taunting Death. He glares up at the lot of them. Bel Solomon, for one, is fucking livid.

East of West, Issue #42

TEXAS JUSTICE!

Then Bel stabs Famine’s sword, loophole style, right through Death’s chest. Death’s face is twisted into a mask of horrible, immense pain.

Hu snorts. Union Guy asks, mildly, what Bel has done. Cheveyo chides silently. “Now… ain’t that something,” says Archibald. Orion is still crying, not paying much attention.

“We’re leaving,” Bel says, walking away from Dead Death. “It’s over.”

We end with the continuation of present War’s monologue: “I will see you there, Death. I will see you, and you will see me. And we will settle this once and for all.”

Final Thoughts

Kind of bittersweet, isn’t it? War’s unrequited love. Death loving some Chinese chick instead. Just like in real life. Really makes you think!

Well, it really makes somebody think! I’m going to get some Doritos.


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Archie (Vol. 1), Issue #429

Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Archie (Vol. 1), Issue #429!

I’m starting my classic Archie adventure with, arguably, the most well-known multi-issue crossover story in its history. Who will Archie choose?! Betty, the blonde girl who smells like diesel? Or Veronica, the raven-haired girl who smells like diesel. What a conundrum!

Anyway,

Archie (Vol. 1) , Issue #429 [November, 1994]

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

”Love Showdown (Part 1)” – Dan Parent

So, per the cover art, Betty and Veronica are working on dismembering a hapless Archie. I hope they succeed!

“Oh boy, it looks like Archie’s fallen under the Lodge spell,” jubilates a crown-wearing Jughead.

“Oh no, not again!” Betty looks (fake?) worried. She slaps her forehead in exasperation!

Archie is wandering drunkenly down the street, hearts a-flutter around his head. He’s worse for wear, this kid. It’s not even 8am and already he’s creaming his stupid ginger pants over Veronica. Betty is pretty fucking angry. She gets right up in Veronica’s face and is all like “look basic bitch, Archie is my boy toy. You feel me?”

Veronica laughs! Surely you jest! “I’d like to take credit, but I haven’t seen him today.”

Buh-what? Oh yeah, Veronica usually gives Archie the ol’ blowjob eyes during lunchtime. This is someone else who has captivated Archie’s meandering attention! Betty and Veronica won’t stand for this! Time to go cunt killing!

“Archie, we demand to know why you are acting this way!”

“Tell us so we can eliminate her from the human race!”

Archie is still under the spell. He vaguely waves an envelope in the air. “Some floozie has written to our Archie!” Veronica blurts. The envelope leaves Archie’s hands and starts blowing away in the wind.

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

Puff! Puff! The postal service ain’t what it used to be! Wakka wakka!

Veronica tries to catch it, but then falls down a dang open manhole. And dies! And then Betty tries to grab Veronica’s arm, but she falls into the manhole and dies too! R.I.P. Betty and Veronica, Archie Comics Issue #429. We hardly knew ye. Well, I hardly knew ye at any rate, if that helps.

A man with a purple hard hat pushes Veronica’s butt up with her head. He calls the girls silly before they call the cops on him and land him in prison for the rest of his natural life. The envelope keeps flying away hilariously, and the girls end up at the beach where Veronica runs off a dock like a squawking goose and lands in the water. Betty is an inch away from grabbing the envelope before it burns up in a flaming barrel. The kind I see at the beach every day, no doubt.

Anyway, they failed. After all that running around, Betty has a pretty good idea: “Let’s just ask him straight about it.” Fantastic idea, kiddos. He won’t lie at all about who he’s fucking behind your backs.

They find Archie at his house, and he’s about to happily tell him who wrote the letter until his fat dad comes out to holler at the redhead to clean out the garage before he sticks his dick down his throat. Archie bids the girls farewell. Betty and Veronica are exploding with frustration. So am I. This comic is brutal.

Archie’s dad is waiting in the garage with a big smile. “Thanks, Dad!” Archie says jubilantly. “You came through!”

Dad’s a sly one, eh?

“You’re welcome! But why did you want me to take you away with that ‘cleaning the garage’ story?”

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

The “fun”.

Archie’s a sly one, eh?

The next day, presumably, Jughead visits his best friend Ol’ Arch Ma-larch. He laughs about how nuts B & V are going about the stupid letter which is probably just a request for a Highlights Magazine subscription. Archie finds it flattering, at any rate, these two girls who have been fawning over him for the last five decades.

“Wait ‘til they find out who sent the letter.”

“Yeah! They’ll really flip!”

Jughead’s a sly one, eh?

Archie decides that he’ll tell them tomorrow. Until then, they can stew unhealthily. Later, Reggie has caught wind of the letter debacle! Time to have a little fun. He goes to Veronica outside of someplace called “Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe” and says something to the effect of “did you see that letter that Betty wrote to Archie WHOOPS I LET IT SLIP!!!” It was very slick.

“So that’s why she burned up the letter!” Veronica says, turning red. “She didn’t want me to see it!”

Hoo boy, Betty’s in hot water now! And I think you can guess what happens next. Reggie hangs out under a tree waiting for six hours for Betty to walk on by. And when she does, he says something to the effect of “did you see that letter that Veronica wrote to Archie OH FIGS I HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!!!” Again, very slick.

“And he had that Lodge look in his eyes!” Betty says, turning red. “I’ve been had by that socialite!”

Reggie laughs it up.

Betty and Veronica meet up and have a very heated 1920’s-style argument. All “I’ll box your ears!” and “of all the nerve!” They almost erupt into a hail of fisticuffs before a smiling Archie shows up to reveal the secret before the girls kill each other.

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

Have you girls ever heard of a snazzy gal named “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”???

“It doesn’t matter, Archie…” says Veronica.

“We already know…” says Betty.

“And we think it stinks!”

“With a capital ‘S’!”

“Aw, c’mon! It’s no big deal,” Archie claims. But he’s losing them fast.

“Easy for you to say!” says Veronica, and then points right at Betty’s face. “But I’m officially ending our friendship!”

“It ended minutes ago, traitor!” snaps Betty. Archie grabs his head like the universe has just imploded in a big fart. The girls walk away in opposite directions. Archie has a big “?” bubble over his auburn head. Women be stupid, right? You misogynist piece of shit.

Betty and Veronica return to their respective homes muttering like lunatics. They retire to their bedrooms and pull up their personal copies of jerkoff material: a smiling photo of Archie Andrews himself!

“I’m going to get Archie for myself,” they both think in unison. “Once and for all… no holds barred!”

Uh oh! Woozle wuzzle! See you next time in Betty, Issue #19! Later, hosers!

“Singin’ in the Rain” – Frank Doyle

Archie puts on his rubbers. His mom is concerned about him going on in the rain, but Archie isn’t going to squander the last few days of summer vacation by staying inside during a massive Category 5 hurricane! You worry too much, Mother. Now go in the kitchen and make Archie a sandwich. The gang’s gonna be at Pop’s and they’re all gonna share a round of malts. Riverdale High School football rules!

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

Hey, “Ol’ Ron” is the name of my vibrator!

Archie happily finds it intriguing that Veronica would miss all the sad-sacks hanging out at the diner, but Pop points out that Veronica is heading into the establishment as we speak! She’s wearing a one-piece bathing suit and rain boots, looking all curvy and making the boys pop their squelchy little boners. “Hey! Pop was right! That’s an entrance!” Reggie says, frothing at the mouth as he stares at dem titties. Veronica sits her wet butt on the counter and soaks up the attention.

“It just seemed appropriate for a late summer shower!” Veronica says of her outfit. Reggie continues quivering like an ill virgin. Archie decides to start stripping too. “Why swelter in this heavy rainwear!!?”

Betty thinks it’s also a fantabulous idea. “Right! I’m with you!”

Veronica looks on wryly.

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

I NEED TO GO GET NAKED AT THE RESTAURANT!!!

The boys and girls all run home to get their skivvies. Archie’s dad turns purple with anger, but Archie doesn’t care! He’s, like, 12 years old and no one is going to tell him what to do.

“Every generation gets wackier and wackier!” Archie’s dad, who was probably born in 1885, sighs.

“And I used to think we were the silliest teenagers ever!” says Archie’s mom, whose idea of “silly” was probably related to putting a red ribbon on her hoop skirt.

Archie finds the rest of the kids splashing around outside, scantily clad as the fashion dictates. Having a gay ol’ time, these kids. Splashing and dancing and singing and dancing and singing and splashing!

Then they all get colds and miss the first day of school. The end.

“Pain in the Neck!” – Mike Pellowski

It’s a beautiful summer day and Archie has to go to the dang doctor! His neck hurts and he doesn’t know why! Waaah!

Well, Doctor Dobson is perplexed. He doesn’t feel any cancer lumps! This is very suspicious, son. Are you sure you aren’t fucking faking it?

Archie describes the sequence of events that has led him to this point in his miserable life. He had a great day at the beach wearing his bright purple swim shorts. He blasted Agoraphobic Nosebleed from his radio. There were so many pretty ladies that he got whiplash from trying to stare at all of them. And—oh.

Archie (Vol. 1), Issue 429

Gee whiz! There sure are a lot of mammalian protuberances here!

Doc doesn’t get it yet that Archie was eyefucking the girls. He asks Archie if he hurt it playing volleyball or something. Archie wasn’t playing the game, but he was twisting his head into a pretzel watching four girls jump and flop around. What about surfing? No way, Doc! Archie wasn’t surfing, but he was flapping his stupid neck around watching girls on boards gyrate seductively. Maybe a wave hit him? No chance, sir! Archie didn’t go swimming, but the horny boy wrenched his noggin off his shoulders mentally undressing every single girl that crossed into his eyesight.

The doctor gives Archie a prescription of fentanyl and sends him away. “What caused the injury will just remain a mystery!” he says importantly.

Archie gives his head one last twist as the next patient, Jenny Smith, walks by him. The doctor is making an “OOHHHH OK YEAH DUH UH-HUH OF COURSE THIS WAS THE REASON YOU STUPID DUMB FUCKING IDIOT” face.

Final Thoughts

Archie likes to fuck. Here’s hoping the Betty/Veronica fiasco sorts itself out soon! Or not.


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Annihilation (2018)

Tagline:
Fear What’s Inside

Wide Release Date:
February 23, 2018

Directed by:
Alex Garland
Screenplay by:
Alex Garland
Based on the novel by:
Jeff VanderMeer
Produced by:
Scott Rudin, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Eli Bush

Starring:
Natalie Portman
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Gina Rodriguez
Tessa Thompson
Tuva Novotny
Oscar Isaac

Annihilation

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I watched and sorta liked Devs. I watched and loved Ex Machina. It was time to plumb the psyche of Alex Garland further and try out Annihilation. I read nothing about the movie before going into it. It could be about dancing ponies for all I know! I don’t even know who stars in it. Jeff Bridges? Ken Jennings? My 12th grade physics teacher Mr. Morrison? I can’t wait to find out.

THE 700(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The film begins with Lena (Natalie Portman) undergoing an interrogation. A professor and a former army soldier, Lena volunteered to be part of an operation to investigate a region known as “the Shimmer”. It was created from a meteor that landed on a lighthouse! The area of the Shimmer is gradually and persistently expanding. Lena was the only member of her troop to return from the Shimmer, as was her husband Kane (Óscar Isaac) from his own troop after disappearing for a year.

Annihilation

THEY USED TO BE SO HAPPY. SOME OF THEM HAPPY AND WITH A TERRIBLE TATTOO.

Lena can’t answer much of the interrogator’s questions. Kane, similarly, before Lena embarks on her own Shimmer journey, does not know what happened to him or how he came back. When Kane starts coughing up blood for some reason, Lena calls for an ambulance and they get intercepted by people who take them to a secret facility. Kane goes into intensive care while Lena talks to Dr. No-First-Name Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who hella wants to investigate the Shimmer herself. Lena agrees to join her on the expedition, along with a team of three other science-type women: Anya (Gina Rodriguez), Josie (Tessa Thompson), and Cassie (Tuva Novotny). They’re all gonna get pretty fucked.

Crazy stuff happens in the Shimmer. For one thing, they all wake up with two days worth of missing memories. Eventually, they discover mutated plants and animals, such as what appears to be strangely cross-bred flowers and giant alligators with many extra rows of teeth. Eventually, the group happens upon an abandoned military base that Kane’s group had also stayed at during their own expedition. There, the women discover a camera with a video showing Kane cutting open an awake fellow soldier’s abdomen, revealing intestines that are moving around disgustingly within. They also discover a skeletonized body against a wall that appears to have been mutated with algae. Although thoroughly unsettled, the group decides to stay at the base that night and take turns keeping watch. It doesn’t work. Cassie gets dragged off and killed by a mutant bear. Whoops!

The next morning, the troop presses on. They discover a bunch of weird bushes that have grown into humanoid shapes. Tessa has realized that the Shimmer is distorting and spreading DNA like a prism distorts and spreads light. And they are caught within the phenomenon.

Annihilation

Wanna bone those sexy trees…

Anya starts getting paranoid and weird and, in the middle of the night while sleeping in a little village house, she ties Lena, Ventress, and Josie to chairs and threatens to kill them. In the most tense and creepy scene of the movie, a mutant bear that appears to have absorbed Cassie’s voice enters the house and moseys around sinisterly. The bear ends up killing Anya while Josie breaks free from the chair and shoots the bear. Like, far out, man.

This write-up is already getting kind of long. Josie somehow deliberately refracts her DNA through that of a plant and slips off into the woods to die or turn into a tree or something, leaving Lena and Ventress alone to discover and enter the ground zero lighthouse. Ventress slips away into a hole created by the meteor while Lena discovers a burned skeleton against a wall and a videotape showing Kane killing himself with a phosphorus grenade (with another Kane stepping into the frame). Lena then finds Ventress in the hole raving about the Shimmer and how it’s going to take over everything before she explodes in a weird burst of light and turns into some floating fractal eyeball. I’m serious about this.

Annihilation

Ugh, blugh, …fucking Taco Bell…

The fractal eyeball absorbs a drop of Lena’s blood, and soon a humanoid copy of Lena appears that mimics almost every one of her movements like a mirror image. This scene literally lasts forever until Lena gives up and tricks the mime into blowing itself up with one of Kane’s leftover grenades while it almost transforms into a complete Lena copy. The lighthouse begins burning down, and original Lena flees.

Interrogation is done for now! Lena visits Kane in the intensive care unit and asks if he’s really Kane. Kane doesn’t know. He asks if she’s Lena. She doesn’t answer. They hug. Both their eyes flicker.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

I was pretty disappointed with this one. A lot of it felt like a Stargate SG-1 episode where the team investigates some weird, otherworldly planet and find some weird, otherworldly bullshit and put themselves in weird, otherworldly (and dangerous) situations. The difference here is that everyone dies! No one dies in Stargate SG-1, they just ascend to higher planes of existence like assholes.

At its core, the movie is about exactly what Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character talks about during that one monologue: self-destruction. Busted relationships, self-harm, taking unnecessary risks. Depression. Grief. Loss. Nothing positive, that’s for sure! The “shimmer” and everything about it is a metaphor for change. People are self-destructive and usually die in the shimmer. Those who return from the shimmer are changed and don’t know how to process the change. They don’t know if they’re the same person anymore. Kane returns as if shell-shocked from war. Lena returns without any sense of self. In the case of Annihilation, though, it’s both figurative and literal. In this way, the story is pretty clever.

But, also, some of it was stupid. The means to make the self-destruction theme literal involved plot devices like “the light refracting in the shimmer is mixing up all the genetic material” — a metaphor for the notion that we are not just an entity of ourselves, but an amalgam of the bits and pieces we take from other people. This is also literally presented by the tattoo that keeps jumping from arm to arm, ending up on Lena’s by the end. Also, the whole scene where Dr. Ventress explodes into a weird fractal that absorbs Lena’s blood, creating a miming copy of her body, was bizarre. Lena’s whole encounter with it and blowing it up with a phosphorus grenade, plus the aftermath, dragged on for far, far too long. Much of the movie was enjoyable, but this last half hour was a real slog. I’ll give my interpretations in Topic 2.

Annihilation

WHAT’S UP, SLENDERMAN!

TOPIC 2 — The Ending

Oh, here we are already! I’m going to try to make sense of the ending based on my own interpretations and smatterings of other people’s mental spewings that I’ve read online.

Let’s start with Dr. Ventress, who has cancer. If she’s terminal, and it’s implied that she is, that makes her change irrevocable. She can’t come out of the shimmer a different person because she’s destined to die anyway. Therefore, obviously, for very clear reasons, she explodes in a supernova of light and turns into a weird fractal eyeball. Next, we see the fractal eyeball absorb a bit of Lena’s blood — the DNA necessary to create some weird Charlie Kelly Green Man that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to Lena. They spend quite a bit of time getting to know one another before the entity morphs into a Lena copy. Then one of them blows the other up in a mess of fire and light and burns down the lighthouse with it. But since the movie ends with Lena’s eyes flickering a different color, we don’t know who actually survives this explosion.

Yes, I just rewrote the ending. Throughout the movie you see the characters struggle with their inner demons. Lena’s cheating, Kane’s military expeditions, Ventress’ cancer.

How did I do? Did I understand any of the movie?

No?

Very well, then. As you were.

Annihilation

I understood the terrifying mutant bears, though!

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Director Alex Garland decided not to reread the novel “Annihilation.” Instead, he decided to adapt it “like a dream of the book.”
This is a nicer way of saying that he didn’t want to put any effort into more research for his movie adaptation. My dream of the book involved elves and kicking down the Slurpee machines at 7-Eleven while my children screamed occult nonsense at me. Here’s my movie about it!

Prior to its release, the film drew some criticism for the casting of Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as characters who are, in the books, described as Asian and half-Native American. Alex Garland explained that none of the five female characters’ ethnicity is revealed in the first book, which is the only one of the trilogy he has read, and that the script was actually complete before the second book was published.
A convenient sequence of events for Alex Garland! Kudos! How would he know that none of the characters’ ethnicity is revealed in the first book when he barely remembers it? In my dream of the book, the characters’ ethnicities are mentioned every twenty-two words over the course of the book’s 9,115 pages.

Annihilation

Another bit of trivia: The last time Natalie Portman held a gun was in Léon the Professional. Maybe. I made that up!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

I think this is one of those movies where your mileage may vary heavily. I personally didn’t like it as much as Ex Machina, not even close. But maybe you will! Maybe I’m too dumb to really, and I mean really, grasp all the nuances and metaphors that dwell within Annihilation‘s creamy goodness.

What’s the next Alex Garland film? Looks like it’s Men, whatever that is. I wonder if it has any women in it.


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Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2 – “The Vagabond Code”

* Part 2 of 5 of the My Life as a Weapon storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2 – “The Vagabond Code”! In the previous installment, we see Clint Barton being kind of a douchebag. His shitty Russian mob landlord raises the rent of his whole building, so Barton brandishes a sack of money to buy everyone’s rent. And then the building itself!

A dog gets hurt in traffic during a scuffle. Barton takes the dog to the vet and opts to take him home once he’s fixed up.

What will become of this story? Who can say. But slightly fucked-up and flawed heroes are my bread and butter, sir. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this. Or do I?

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2 [November, 2012]
Written by: Matt Fraction
“The Vagabond Code”

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2

“Okay…” Hawkeye says, jumping into what looks like a hotel swimming pool while some big bad guys shoot their big bad guns at him and some other gal. “This looks bad.”

That’s how Issue #1 started. Something looking bad. We’ll get back to that later. Kate Bishop, whom I barely know from Young Avengers, is hanging out in Barton’s apartment. They’re fucking, I assume. Bishop reads the paper and busts Barton’s balls.

“Kate took over for me as Hawkeye once upon a time when I was… well, dressing up like a ninja, sort of, is the short version. She is without a doubt the finest and most gifted bowman I’ve ever met but she’s like nine years old and spoiled rotten.”

There goes my theory about the fucking. CLEARLY she’s not nine, but Barton doesn’t like the idea of fucking nine-year-olds (I hope). At any rate, Barton spaces out and Bishop asks if he’s ok. Everything’s fine and dandy! Like sour candy! Heh. George Bush.

Hawkeye practices at arrows.

“Y’know,” says Bishop, “they say the Roman Emperor Domitan could fire four arrows at once between his fingers.”

“Showoff.”

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2

It’s a bunch of big ol’ titties I saw at Burning Man 2009.

Bishop rifles through a few polaroids and asks what these are. Without seeing them, I’m guessing dick pics. Other people’s dick pics. “Vagabond code,” Barton answers cryptically. Barton starts talking about hobo drawings and their meanings and… look, you saw that episode of Mad Men, right? Well, these drawings of a circle with two arrows on the right side have been springing up around town and Barton is worried that some shit’s going to start happening. “Shady people are warning folks to get out of town if they don’t like the heat… because after, the cops are gonna start tearing things up.”

Bishop makes fun of the hobo code. Barton drinks his coffee straight from the pot. These two knuckleheads, I tell ya.

LATER, Barton and Bishop dress to the nines and appear at a Cirque du Nuit six-star hotel opening event. Some guy named Gunn is expected to show up (with a gunn, no less), so let’s keep an eye out for suspicious-looking assholes with brass knuckles and mittens pinned to their jackets. Bishop tells him that Bernie Gunn is an old family friend. He bought her a pony when she was eight. He has always been a suspicious-looking asshole. Barton still has a five-o’clock shadow and looks like trash.

Barton and Bishop mosey around the banquet hall and try to look inconspicuous. They amble to the stairway while Barton keeps saying things like “careful…slowly…casually…quitely…”, drawing the attention of literally every single frowny patron. “Lots of guns, rich people, and scumbags in that room down there.”

Bishop hands Barton a pair of sunglasses with special lenses that, I assume, can see skin through clothes. Lots of dangling, floppy penises in the room ripe for polaroids.

Some complete creep in a top hat, named the Ringmaster, steps up on a stage and commands everyone’s attention. Maynard Tiboldt, the Cirque du Nuit guy. Barton thinks he’s as French as apple pie! Suddenly, some Cirque du Soleil shit happens (except this is Cirque du Nuit, which is later in the day! Ha!) and Barton continues to talk at me. “There’s a thing that happens when a pro is around the work of another pro. You spot the style – even without a signature.”

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2

Yeah, steal my breath away. Hubba hubba. Love the mustache.

A blindfolded man throws knives at a woman spinning on a board. “I know before the knives hit the boards the face of the man that taught this guy. This guy – and me – we share the same mentor. The same man that taught this guy how to throw… taught me how to be a living weapon.”

SNORE! SNOOZE! BORING! YOU’RE BORING ME, CLINT BARTON!

This Student of the Swordsman guy, “The Student of the Swordsman” as it were, thanks the audience with a humble “merci beaucoup.” Clint Barton leans over to Kate Bishop and calls all these fantastic performers a bunch of fucking thieves, which seems rude and harsh to me. These Cirque du Nuit performers? Thieves? Mais non! Je suis consterné! C’EST LA PIRE INSULTE!!! PUTAIN! PUTAIN!

Barton continues to call them phonies working a long con. All of them. Meanwhile, goth-looking large adults sneak around the audience stealing expensive watches and jewelry and, uh, 70” TVs. The audience has been completely hypnotized by the performance. Literally! They’re all in a grand stupor! Just like me reading this comic book.

Barton and Bishop take their leave and notice a bunch of bad guys stealing from other bad guys. Once Barton says he has it all figured out, fighting ensues. People get hit in the face with fire extingusihers. Barton gets hit with a crowbar. It’s really a sad state of affairs is what it is.

“Wake up, cretin,” says Mr. Student of the Swordsman, brandishing a sword. Like, an old-timey muskateer sword. “What a disappointment you are.”

Clint Barton is NOT a disappointment! He may be a wisecracker, a terrible son, an arsonist, and an unapologetic pedophile, but his NOT a disappointment! He happens to be very good at those things. Barton calls the Student of the Swordsman a phony. Phonies, the lot of them! *spit*

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2

Fuckin’ Holden Caulfield-ass cracker.

“You’re going to die soon,” the Student of the Swordsman continues. I wish I knew his goddamned name. “I hope being pedantic in your final moments brings you some form of comfort.”

I don’t know what this dude’s problem is, but he wants his cronies to tie Barton up and put him on a boat! I guess. And stay on top of him! I guess. “We cannot have a dead Avenger in the middle of our operation!” he says, swinging his sword around flamboyantly. So kill him somewhere off shore and throw him to the fishes before the end of Act II! Chop chop, people.

While they’re dragging Clint Barton’s fat ass across the platforms leading off to the observation deck, Kate Bishop shows up to fling a bunch of arrows through everyone’s neck. An arrow flings through Barton’s wrist ties, and he starts beating some thugs up while Bishop continues to literally kill people.

This is the part where the RINGMASTER shows up. “KILL ‘EM ALL!” he screams. Now the guns go off and we’re at the beginning of the issue all over again. Do I really need to cover it again? No.

Barton begs Bishop not to die as they fall through the glass and down toward the pool.

“GAHHHHHHHHHH that sucked,” Barton says. Bishop is assuredly not dead, but ready to fling more arrows at more mofos. “Suck it, Domitan.”

FWIP FWIP BOOM BAM MOO MOO BLEAT. Arrows right through their eyeballs. “See?” Barton thinks. “She’s perfect.”

“Did I get him?”

“In the eyes, Kate.”

“They’re not dead, they’re just blinded now. For life probably.”

“Yeah, no, I know. Still. It’s grim.”

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #2

Hey, that was what I was gonna say! “FFLLLLRRRRRGG!” Stop copying me!

After they share this moment, the still unnamed Student of the Swordsman taps his way over. “BARTON! You dumbass cornpone son of a bitch. You have absolutely ruined everything for us. We’re thieves stealing from thieves. People like us – we’re supposed to have a code.”

Barton grabs Bishop’s bow and looses an arrow. It clips this guy’s ear. He “pfffts” and advances, but the arrow ricochets off of the wall and sinks itself in the back of his neck. Not dead, but he collapses all the same. Have a nice life, quadriplegic.

Anyhoo, with this nameless Student of the Swordsman threat eliminated, Barton and Bishop hobble their way out of there. Bishop can’t drive a boat, but Barton can. “I’M GREAT AT BOATS!” he exclaims.

“And that’s how we robbed the robbers who were robbing robbers.”

“They’ll be back, of course. The circus always comes back. Fine. Let ‘em come. Let ‘em bring every crook and clown after me.”

Back at the hotel, a menacing bald man announces to his group of well-dressed cronies that an Avenger fucking robbed them! Clint Barton! Can you believe it? That hoser! “I suggest we begin workshopping solutions…” he says. Dun dun dunnnnn!!

“Why me?” Kate Bishop asks.

“Because you’re good,” Clint Barton responds.

“Cap is good. Spider-Man is good. Why me?”

“You’re smart.”

“So’s Iron Man. So’s — everyone at your day-job. Why me?”

“You’re rich?”

“So are you now. Why–”

“–because I don’t want to sleep with you?”

Fair enough.

“Katie, I look at you and think you’re a lot like me. There are – I have these things I have to do. Not want but have, y’know? I can do them alone but I bet that whatever it is that’s in me is maybe in you and… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Bishop says she’s a big girl who can handle her own. And she wants to help him. He says ok. They hang up. She is sad that he doesn’t want to sleep with her. Gross.

Barton looks at a giant bulletin board of the world and all the Avengers shit he has to do around the world. Of course he needs help! He’s got a lot of Avengers shit he has to do around the world!

His dog is named “Lucky”.

Barton smiles, knowingly. Time to kick some names and take some ass!

Final Thoughts

I’d rather this be a Kate Bishop Hawkeye series. This Clint Barton guy can eat a bag of rocks.


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Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8 – “Chapter Eight: Mother’s Day”

* Part 8 of 13 of the Batman: The Long Halloween limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8 – “Chapter Eight: Mother’s Day”! In the previous installment, Carmine Falcone apparently hired the Riddler to give him answers as to the identity and whereabouts of Holiday, but the Riddler is so damn useless that he just goes “RIDDLE ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE” and other inanities, so Falcone kicks him out of his building. He almost gets killed by Holiday, but Holiday either misses on purpose or he really fucking sucks at shooting people, as it turns out.

Meanwhile, Batman’s faithful lackey Alfred tells him to start taking a closer look at Harvey Dent…

Oh yeah, have a good Mother’s Day, Bruce Wayne. She’s fucking dead you know lmao and also lol.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8 [July, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Eight: Mother’s Day”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8

Batman meets up with The Calendar Man back at Arkham Asylum. “It’s May,” Mr. Calendar says, smiling wryly. “You said you would have caught her by February.”

“I know what we said,” Batman growls.

Calendar Man insists it’s a woman, and Batman is skeptical. And anyway, why didn’t she kill anyone on April Fool’s Day? Hmm? THAT was a holiday, now wasn’t it?! The Calendar Man says what I was thinking at the time. “April Fools! No killing today!”

Batman asks this crazy motherfucker what he knows about Harvey Dent. Well, he knows he put him in the slammer, that’s one thing. He has a birthday coming up. *wink* Listen, Batty. Let out the freak and he’ll stop Holiday. He promises!

Before Batman can get any more out of this guy, a guard slumps on the floor behind him and begs for his help. There’s an escape on level 4, and that really sounds to me like the guard’s job to deal with. And he done fucked it up, of course. Why would there ever be competence in Gotham City?

Batman runs. The other guards say the man, Jonathan Crane, is gone. His mother came to visit him, and now he’s gone. Batman looks through the bars into an empty brick cage. He finds a little piece of straw, which tells me that Scarecrow is coming to visit now! Batman: The Long Halloween has really been a cavalcade of favorite villains, hasn’t it! Looking forward to Danny DeVito.

“Jonathan Crane strangled his mother years ago. On Mother’s Day. Someone else had a hand in this. Someone else brought him the straw. Unleashing the Scarecrow.”

OH BOY! I haven’t seen the Scarecrow yet in my Batman-reading adventures! I wonder if he needs a brain…

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8

I hate it when scarecrows try to run away. It’s, like, you’re supposed to be scaring the crows!

Jonathan Scarecrow Crane didn’t get far, because Batman leaves the asylum and tackles the guy off of his horse. “Who helped you? Who set this up? Give me a name or I’ll–”

“Scarecrow” crumbles into a pile of dang ol’ hay, unleashing a cloud of toxins and nerve agents and smoke and mirrors and confetti. “A ruse,” Batman thinks before he starts doubling over coughing. He dies and we never see him again.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Jammy Gordon makes a stopover at Wayne Manor again. Alfred kindly tells him that Bruce Wayne is off fucking some broad again, and then asks Gordon why Bruce is even a suspect. He has no connection to Falcone, right? Right? Huh? Hmm? Yes.

Gordon says, yeah, well, if he cooperates then we can clear this all up and go home to our Kid Cuisines. Alfred must make it clear that it’s Mother’s Day, and Bruce is a mother-lover, and he’s probably at the cemetery humping her gravestone. Go find him there, would ya? *slams door*

Elsewhere, specifically the Gotham River Bridge (‘cause there’s only one, of course), Sofia Falcone holds a man by his neck over the edge. She wants a name and the man gives her a name: “Gunsmith”. He’s packing .22s and you can find him in Chinatown. Chong’s Tea House. Tommy Chong, I hope. That guy’s tea will give you a good buzz, that’s for certain!

He asks Sofia to let him go and she does! Right over the bridge! We all had a good laugh at that one.

At Chong’s Tea House, Sofia is too late. A murder occurred. A grisly, gruesome murder. A gun murder. And she looks mad that she didn’t get to do the gun murder herself.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #8

Someone stole my goddamn kill!

Bruce walks along Crime Alley, famously named for its various crimes. He basically spends a few panels going “wah, my mother” until Gordon shows up. Bruce has a flashback of the guy with the gun that put bullets into his parents and then runs away like a baby. A baby who can run, not one of those dumb babies.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” yells Gordon as Bruce runs and sweats. “Bruce… running will only make things worse…”

“We made it mother,” Bruce says to his own decrepit brain as he leaps onto the top of a moving bus. “We made it.”

Gordon and his backup will ambush Bruce Wayne at the cemetery where he is currently crying at his mother’s grave.

End of story.

Final Thoughts

Man, these are short issues. I’m plowing through these.

I didn’t much care for this one! Mother issues and Scarecrows? Not my cup of Chong’s tea, I say. Let’s see if next is Memorial Day where Bruce cries at the Vietnam Veterans Wall o’ Names. And then waves a flag in their honor. Like a dick.


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