East of West, Issue #37 – “Alignment of the Stars

* Part 8 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #37 – “Alignment of the Stars”! In the previous installment, the Endless Nation officially takes control of the Union, and the young rebellious girl is like “I WILL NEVER, EVER BACK DOWN” at first and then is like “ok I’ll back down”. So begins the final days of the Prophet.

Meanwhile, Death receives a message from Xiaolian that war is afoot, and with the help of his trusty little geeky son, they’re going to help her with every fiber of their being.

We’re sort of at the home stretch here. 80% finished. What new possibilities await at THIS turn? One can only imagine! (george costanza drapes himself in velvet is not a bad guess)

East of West, Issue #37 [May, 2018]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Alignment of the Stars”

East of West, Issue #37

Archibald shot Thomas’s dog. He’s worse for wear himself. Thomas struggles to get up, huffing and puffing, then injects his neck with a needle of sort of fluid (semen). He pants and huffs and pants and huffs and, after fashioning a crude burial sight for his little robot dog, he zooms away on his hoverbike.

Obviously, Archibald thought Thomas was dead. Archibald thought wrong.

“I asked for mercy, I settled for justice, now all that remains is revenge.”

“If I am not vengeance, then I am nothing.”

Later, a severely wounded Thomas heads back his Hunter outpost. The outpost is warned that they have a single rider coming their way, full throttle and slightly erratic. LIKE MY PENIS HA HAAA!!

Thomas arrives, flumps to the ground, and is immediately cared for by whatever the equivalent of EMS is here in the good ol’ East of West. One of them calls Thomas’ condition “terminal”. Three gunshot wounds, only one exit wound. Gonna lose that leg.

“Hrrnnnnnn,” Thomas is heard to groan in a very hushed voice. “Sons of bitches killed my dog.”

A week later, Thomas is alive but quite infirmed.

Then he awakes with a start.

East of West, Issue #37

I’m missing the new Frasier!

Scrambling to get his pants over his shiny new metal leg – and his boots – Thomas hobbles out of his room and into the hallway where a member of staff tells him “hurrrrrr shouldn’t you be in bed???”

No, send him an ambulance. He’s leaving. Tout suite.

Fuck that. Thomas pushes every bitch-ass that gets in his away and boards his own ambulance. He’s got some mofos to ruin, baby.

At the Atlas (the bar place where one-eye worked and died and also it has that big globe thing), the Three Lone Horsemen take their leave and get ready to board their own vehicle when Thomas shows up for a little talky-talky.

“I’m lookin’ for an information brokerage called the Atlas. Is this it?” Thomas asks.

“Do we look like fucking tour guides?” responds War. Ahh, War. Always looking for a battle, so to speak.

“…Yeah,” Thomas fires back all gruff and intimidating. “Yeah, you do. And not much else. Don’t be here when I come back out.” And in he strolls. Conquest wants to knife him, but War respects the cut of this man’s jib and, if anything, he wants to wish him luck due to his murderous spirit! Famine is like “Okay…” because Famine is Switzerland.

Thomas sees all the dead, skeletonized bodies on the floor and lets out a heart “Hrmpt!” He takes a swig of some old liquor left on the bar and then jabs a finger into the globe hologram in the center of the room. “Show me Chosen.”

He gets an eyeful of Chosen.

East of West, Issue #37

Hrmpt! The 45th President of the United States! Donald Hrmpt!

Thomas pokes fun at LeVay’s manner of death (eaten by unicorns). He settles upon John Freeman VIII of the New Orleans Monarchy or whatever. He sees on the screen that the Kingdom had purchased the Union, which happened so long ago that I didn’t even remember that. Thomas sees a weapons purchase and the trail leads to a shipment sent to… an unauthorized location. Data deleted. Looks to me like Washington, D.C. “Gotcha,” he says.

Gotcha indeed. Not sure what this is leading to yet, but I never pretended to be very smart!

Thomas tracks this to Doma Lux’s bald Widowmaker love buddy, who is tinkering with the undercarriage of a van-like vehicle. She hears crunching of twigs and leaves in the distance, then bolts out from under the van. And cocks her gun. “Okay. Enough! If you’re trying to sneak up on me, you should’ve started making less noise two minutes ago!”

The Hunter comes out with his hands up. Claims he’s been watching her for twenty minutes, then says he’s here because he’s been following the gold.

“You hear that?” Widowmaker yells behind her. “This gimpy old man just asked me to shoot him. Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

Lux recognizes this guy, and has her own gun trained at him. Once Thomas grimaces and says he’s hunting the Chosen, Lux drops her gun and invites him into their humble little shack.

East of West, Issue #37

YEAH, do you have any pork rinds to go with this beer???

A chit-chat ensues. Lux lays out everything she knows: LeVay needed weapons to quell the rebellion. Freeman helped a fellow Chosen, presumably, behind his fatherly king’s back. BUT, since Lux was working for the other side, she did some of her own raiding and pillaging of the Kingdom.

“So why’d you quit the great game?” Thomas asks while Lux pops open a beer for him. Lux was good at manipulating all sides and having fun with it, sure. It felt powerful. Then she realized she was just another pawn on a giant chessboard. “I thought I mattered…”

No further questions, your honor! Thanks a bunch, chickee.

“So… you’re going to just march into the Kingdom and beat the prince to death with your bare hands? That’s your plan?” asks the silent-but-deadly Widowmaker.

“You gotta better idea?”

“Yeah,” she responds, opening a cabinet full of gold bars. “I do.”

Later still, at the guns and ammo shoppe, an unidentified customer who is then identified roughly 1.5 panels later as Thomas, drops a bag full of gold bars on the counter. Lock and load, baby! Time to go prince-huntin’!

Final Thoughts

Short and sweet, that’s how I like ‘em. See you next time when Thomas accidentally shoots off his other leg!


Click here to ridicule this post!

The Final Roundup – 2023

Goodbye 2023
What? March is too late to post a 2023 retrospective list on all the albums I listened to but didn’t review? Go fuck yourself! Here are my one-sentence reviews!

Aetherian – At Storm’s Edge
Woefully unoriginal and fairly uninteresting melodic death metal from… Greece, which is actually kinda cool.

Afterbirth – In but Not of
Harsh vocals that sound like piggy snorts over a wide range of experimental sonic textures and explorations!

Agriculture – Agriculture
An interesting mix of aggressive blackgaze, heavy traditional metal shredding, and even some squeaky saxophone here and there.

Anachronism – Meanders
Slabs of dissonant death metal that I didn’t spend enough time with, but don’t really want to either!

…and Oceans – As in Gardens, So in Tombs
…and Oceans has lost their way since their exciting industrial black metal beginnings, now they just sound dull and lifeless.

Andrea Orlando – La Scienza delle Stagioni
Pleasant piano-based prog rock from Italy, but it’s too damn long and too damn uninteresting for how too damn long it is.

Andrew Hung – Deliverance
Interesting musical ideas marred by earnestly overdramatic singing and lyrics, and I wish this guy would go back to his Fuck Buttons project.

Animal Collective – Isn’t It Now?
America’s most overrated indie rock band of all time comes through with what seems like a collection of Time Skiffs B-sides, but there are occasional moments of brilliance.

Antrisch – EXPEDITION II: Die Passage
Black metal, nothing more, nothing less.

The Armed – Perfect Saviors
The Armed are weird, and they made a weird alt rock album, and I’m fine with it if you are.

Ars Moriendi – Lorsque les coeurs s’assèchent
Kind of this mild, black/doom metal project that took me a while to get into due to its relative slowness and monotone dynamics, but it’s kinda cool I guess.

Avey Tare – 7s
Hey, the guy from Animal Collective who isn’t Panda Bear makes a lot of aimless music that nobody cares about!

Baroness – STONE
Baroness sounds like power metal Queens of the Stone Age now?!?!

bdrmm – I Don’t Know
I’m torn, because on one hand bdrmm incorporates many varied influences into their shoegaze sound (ambient, dream pop, synth rock, and dance), but on the other hand I’d rather listen to My Bloody Valentine.

boygenius – the record
Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus are certainly three musicians.

Brutalismus 3000 – ULTRAKUNST
Hyperactive Berlin techno that reminds me a bit of Crystal Castles at times, and when’s the last time you heard about Crystal fucking Castles?

Bully – Lucky for You
Bully’s Alicia Bognanno takes pop punk, riot grrrls it up back to the ’90s, and spits it right in your fucking face.

Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific
If you’re looking for chunky, old school death metal with no frills or bells and whistles, then you can always count on Cannibal Corpse to deliver as chunk-style as you want it.

Carnosus – Visions of Infinihility
Twisty technical death metal that doesn’t get too lost in wankery or sterility (unlike yours truly, thank you, and good night).

Chai – CHAI
I heard that Chai is breaking up because they’re making no money on their project, which is a shame because their albums are all pretty groovy keen.

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean – Obsession Destruction
This ruthless slab of claustrophobic, sludgy goodness should have been in my Top 25 list had I gotten to it sooner.

Cherry Glazerr – I Don’t Want You Anymore
Sleepy throwback shoegaze-y indie pop that misses the mark on, you know, being interesting.

The Circle – Of Awakening
Doomy metal with just the right vocal style to keep it from being a complete dirgy slog, but I still won’t be listening to this much.

Convocation – No Dawn for the Caliginous Night
Not only do I have really sweet, emotionally resonant funeral doom metal album on my hands (which is saying a lot as someone who is not too fond of the genre), but I got to learn the word “caliginous” (look it up yourself, damnit).

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level
There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and consistent Deerhoof albums.

Deposed King – One Man’s Grief
Prog rock with a electronic/trip-hop backbone, which is definitely not something you hear everyday and deserves that big ol’ green circle.

Disguised Malignance – Entering the Gateways
Old school Morbid Angel-esque death metal with cool riffs, but it’s not anything you haven’t heard from a million bands already.

DJ Danifox – Anseidade
I don’t know, man, I can’t get behind a guy who calls himself “Danifox” and not being really named “Dani Fox”, because that would rule.

DJ Gigola – Fluid Meditations
Less talky more singy, I don’t need a new age therapy session.

Dødheimsgard – Black Medium Current
I really, really, really wanted to like this more than I did, but the band has done better and a lot of the album felt like filler.

Downfall of Gaia – Silhouettes of Disgust
Post-metal, death doom, a little bit of crust punk, lots of bleak riffage, and a Hello Kitty tote bag.

Dying Fetus – Make Them Beg for Death
Oh, hey, it’s another Dying Fetus album.

Enslaved – Heimdal
Enslaved, I love you, but you’re not doing anything new or interesting with your sound anymore.

FaithXtractor – Contempt for a Failed Dimension
Hard-hitting death metal that proves, once and for all, that Faith X Tractor = Fun!

feeble little horse – Girl with Fish
Noisy, dreamy, chaotic, restrained, a whole bunch of stuff while staying tight and satisfying like a [censored]!

Feist – Multitudes
Yo, I think Feist is kind of boring, so why did I listen to this?

Fires in the Distance – Air Not Meant for Us
Fires in the Distance made melodic death metal that actually has hooks, what a concept!

Forest Swords – Bolted
This collection of atmospheric electro-industrial will be the soundtrack to Metroid Prime 7 in the year 2061!

Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Data Doom
A great band to turn to if you’re not satisfied with Osees putting out only 17 albums per year.

Frozen Crown – Call of the North
Giada Etro is cute (important) and has a killer voice (more important), but… man… it’s power metal.

Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination
The synths that make this death metal feel “frozen” and/or “dominated” by “glaciars” are too few and and far between to get that type of atmosphere, but it’s otherwise pretty cool.

Gazelle Twin – Black Dog
I call this one “ethereal lady noises” and she peaked with her second album Unflesh.

Geese – 3D Country
This record is kind of a mess, but it is fun in its own right and at least they seem to be a band who is willing to try something radically different as the years go by.

Glasser – Crux
Shiny and shimmery, subdued and delicate, positively Björky!

Gravesend – Gowanus Death Stomp
Frenetic grindcore that begins with the sound of flies buzzing and ends with the sound of flies buzzing and also me hitting replay on my 1979 Sony Walkman TPS-L2, son.

Guided by Voices – La La Land
Look, describing a Guided by Voices album is an exercise in trying not to repeat oneself, so let me just say that this is a good album and we can continue.

Guided by Voices – Welshpool Frillies
Whoops, déjà vu!

Hasard – Malivore
This one-man avantgarde black metal project is so mind-twisting and chaotic that, if this were a rollercoaster, you’d be dead in seconds!

Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags
Tight, relentless blackened speed metal with no filler and lots of the opposite of filler, and there’s even an accordion at one point!

The Hold Steady – The Price of Progress
Nine albums in, and I’ll never get tired of Craig Finn’s blue collar Bruce Springsteen-esque storytelling, even if I don’t even understand or resonate with half of it.

Holy Wave – Five of Cups
“Holy Wave”, more like “Holy Fucking Shit” is this a dull album.

Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium
Horrendous gets proggy and occasionally psychedelic, and I’m here for it until I get bored and move onto some other proggy, psychedelic death metal band that also rules.

HOUSE OF ALL – HOUSE OF ALL
If I wanted to listen to The Fall, then I’d listen to The Fall, and not HOUSE OF ALL, which, admittedly, rhymes.

James Holden – Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
BLEEP BLEEP BLOOP BLOOP BLEEP-A-BLOOP, IT’S GENIUS, GREEN DOT IT IS

Jarhead Fertilizer – Carceal
Obnoxiously all over the place; maybe your nu-metal-loving 13-year-old nephew will love it.

Jeff Rosenstock – HELLMODE
Although Rosenstock’s flavor of punk skirts very close to emocore from time to time, the melodies are strong!

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES
Between JPEGMAFIA’s blearing, harsh electronics and Danny Brown’s flow, consider the hoes sufficiently scared.

Kate NV – WOW
This woman is pretty and that does her a whole bunch of favors, but her brand of cutesy electronic pop is fun too, I swear I’m not just saying that because she’s very pretty (which she is).

KEN mode – VOID
KEN mode hit so hard and are so loud and proud that they should probably rename themselves BARBIE mode, you feel me?

Krigsgrav – Fires in the Fall
The seventh album begets the sum of all their parts — black metal, melodeath, doom, post-metal — but the final product is as lackluster as it is overlong.

L’Rain – I Killed Your Dog
A veritable collage of moody soundscapes and genre-bending

Leiþa – Reue
Unfortunately, I don’t find much about this black metal album interesting except that the band’s name as a “þ” in it.

M83 – Fantasy
M83 makes music for hopeless virgins, and I haven’t been a hopeless virgin since high school; booyah, virgins.

Malokarpatan – Vertumnus Caesar
Trad metal and black metal at the same time, and folk traditions from their native Slovakia, AND it rules?!?!

Mānbryne – Interregnum: O pr​ó​bie wiary i jarzmie zw​ą​tpienia
Searing, hoarse-throated, invigorating black metal that’ll put hair on your pubes.

Mandy, Indiana – i’ve seen a way
Noisy electronic/indie rock that’s more like a collage of sounds than an album of songs, but they are glorious sounds!

Marnie Stern – The Comeback Kid
The queen of virtuosic noise-math rock guitar is back, baby, and she still sounds like she’s making music specially for late 2000’s Pitchfork writers!

Maruja – Knocknarea
Post-hardcore with a saxophone, and too bad it’s only 22 minutes long.

Mega Bog – End of Everything
Catchy and unsettling synth pop in the vein of Vanishing Twin or Virginia Wing or Jenny Hval, and they’re all good, so this is good too!

Mephorash – Krystl-Ah
Slow, boring, boring, boring, slow, boring, and slow, and boring.

Mike Keneally – The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat
Sorry Mike, I love you unconditionally but this album is a big, fat miss.

Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
The Album Is Uninteresting and So Is She

Mudhoney – Plastic Eternity
lol mudhoney

MUN SING – Inflatable Gravestone
Deconstructed, slippery club music that is equal parts chaotic and emotionally resonant, which is hard to pull off well.

Nation of Language – Strange Discipline
Minimalist synth pop that really does sound like a modern take on minimal wave, proving once again that you just need to rehash old music to make good new music!

Ne Obliviscaris – Exul
Ne Obliviscaris always brings a pleasant listen, if you accept the definition of “pleasant” as “clean vocals over harsh vocals with some kickass violin”!

Night Crowned – Tales
Furious blackened melodeath with some occasional folk influences to keep things interesting.

Nightmarer – Deformity Adrift
Chunky, slightly dissonant technical death metal with plenty of mood shifts and atmosphere, me likey.

Non Est Deus – Legacy
Bleak atmospheric black metal with a burly edge that tops last year’s Impious just by being even bleaker and burlier!

The Ocean – Holocene
The Ocean Collective has been neutered, everyone, so no need to listen to them anymore I guess.

October Tide – The Cancer Pledge
Another deathy doomy offering from Stockholm’s favorite band with both a month and a laundry detergent in its name.

Omnerod – The Amensal Rise
These Belgians made one of the coolest progressive death metal albums I have ever heard, and it would have been a serious contender for Album of the Year if I had gotten to this sooner.

Omnivortex – Circulate
Sometimes it sounds like Obscura / And sometimes it sounds like Porcupine Tree / But it always sounds / It always sounds good to me!

Onheil – In Black Ashes
I’m not exactly sure what this metal album is trying to be — melodeath, thrash, maybe even a little black — but it lacks dynamics and flavor and I’ll never listen to this again.

Overmono – Good Lies
Is it hip hop, is it electronic music, is it UK bass, is it Christian rock??????

Oxbow – Love’s Holiday
What the hell, Eugene S. Robinson, this sounds like some milquetoast indie rock instead of a crazy motherfucker yelping noises into a microphone, booooooo!

Pangaea – Changing Channels
DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE!!

Parannoul – After the Magic
If you ask me, this is the South Korean answer to 100 gecs (a question that no one asked).

Pere Ubu – Trouble on Big Beat Street
Pere Ubu stopped being charming and interesting decades ago, but it’s nice to know that David Thomas is still yelping out lyrics with his weird child molester voice.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets – Fronzoli
This album is like Ty Segall playing guitar for Thee Oh Sees and trying to sound like both the White Stripes and the Strokes while I slip into a coma.

PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying
An exotic, ethereal experience that’s unlike anything PJ Harvey has released before, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it.

Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…
Hang it up, Josh Homme, you’re finished, you’re through, you’re history, you’re done, goodbye.

Rorcal – Silence
“Silence” is a poor way to describe this palatable, raspy, chaotic mess of hardcore sludge metal, but maybe you just need to hit the pause button or something.

RVG – Brain Worms
It’s like Real Estate and the Clash had a miserable Australian baby!

Sacred Outcry – Towers of Gold
Pitch-perfect power metal hearkening back to the ’90s golden age of power metal, which is usually not my jam, but it’s that good, my friends.

Saturnus – The Storm Within
I’m sure this is a fucking fantastic album, but I don’t like doom metal that much so I give it whopping RED and move on while everyone yells at me.

Screaming Females – Desire Pathway
My brother-in-law looks like Marissa Paternoster, and Screaming Females has certainly put out better albums than this.

Serpent of Old – Ensemble Under the Dark Sun
More like Serpent of Shit, lol lol, no really this is all right.

Shame – Food for Worms
Shame sounding like a second-rate Parquet Courts or Titus Andronicus, and it’s disappointing I tell you whut.

Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden
I get Pain of Salvation vibes from this album, and the only band who’s allowed to be Pain of Salvation is Pain of Salvation as far as I’m concerned.

Slow Pulp – Yard
Easygoing and twangy indie rock that reminds me of Mitski, and I’m not too big on Mitski.

Slowdive – everything is alive
Slowdive does what they do best: make summery, timeless shoegaze for your sensitive earholes.

Sodomisery – Mazzaroth
Listen, I could list a litany of influencers for Sodomisery but I’d be here all day, so I’ll instead just say that this album is Good™ and move on.

Sparks – The Girl Is Crying in her Latte
I absolutely adore Sparks but the electronic noises on this album are pretty fucking grating, sorry.

Squid – O Monolith
Squid’s 2021 debut was so good, and this is just so not good, and I’m literally crying about it right now.

Stortregn – Finitude
This tech death album is so all over the place that there’s a flamenco passage in the middle of a song for no reason at all!

Sulphur Aeon – Seven Crowns and Seven Seals
The usual melodic-lite death metal stalwarts seem a little more subdued this time around, eschewing roiling riffs in favor of even-keeled atmosphere, or something to that effect idk.

Swans – The Beggar
Clearly the golden era of 2-hour Swans albums was the 2010s, because The Beggar has all the bloat without any of the magic.

Sweeping Promises- Good Living Is Coming for You
Everything from the energy, instrumentation, singing, and production makes this sound like retro female-fronted new wave, which is ENTIRELY my jam and it should be yours too.

Sylosis – A Sign of Things to Come
Crispy metallic hardcore with just the right amount of bleak atmosphere to this guy (me) happy (enough).

Teenage Waitress – Your Cuckoo
Indie rock at its most cloying, its most saccharine, and its most ironically twee, and its most I’m-not-listening-to-this-anymore.

Teeth of the Sea – Hive
This is post-rock for people who don’t like post-rock, and I really don’t like post-rock so I barely tolerate this.

The Telescopes – Of Tomorrow
This is my first time hearing the Telescopes and I barely like what I hear, so maybe the earlier stuff is better!

Tennis – Pollen
Lifeless, simplistic indie pop that only stirs your imagination if you’re some dumb animal like a dog or a moose or something.

Thantifaxath – Hive Mind Necrosis
Bendy, twisty, turny, scary black metal with symphonic elements and dangerous-sounding vocals, eek!

To the Grave – Director’s Cuts
Deathcore that relies more on death and less on core, pummeling your ass into a gooey paste of submission.

Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit
Tomb Mold cleans it up a little for their fourth release, presenting old school death metal with progressive elements, post-metal vibes, and even some surf rock here and there.

Tribunal – The Weight of Remembrance
Man, I don’t even like doom metal that much so why am I bothering?

Truth Club – Running from the Chase
Lackadaisical and mumbly pseudo-post-punk like Ought but it’s more irritating and less melodious.

The Tubs – Dead Meat
Overly-sunny jangle pop with a guy who sounds like the Big Big Train vocalist, and it all makes me feel uncomfortable and it makes me feel like I’m suffocating and I don’t know why.

U.S. Girls – Bless This Mess
Some occasional interesting moments, but yeah, this soulful sophisti-pop isn’t for me.

Vertebra Atlantis – A Dialogue for the Eeriest Sublime
Not as immediately interesting as Vertebra Atlantis’ fantastic debut, but it’s not without its grandiose bombast and oppressive atmosphere.

Victory over the Sun – Dance You Monster to My Soft Song!
An avantgarde black metal project, completely performed and managed by a single American woman, that is so loaded with excellent and diverse Sigh-levels of musical ideas it’ll make your head spin like a top and flop right off your neck.

Vvon Dogma I – The Kvlt of Glitch
Over-digitalized “metal” with wannabe Cynic-type synthetic vocals and insipid unoriginality, and I was expecting to like the shit out of this because I clearly love insipid unoriginality.

Warcrab – The Howling Silence
Sludgy death metal that exemplifies the genre’s occasional ability to be engaging and rockin’ instead of… well… sludgy.

Wata Igarashi – Agartha
Dance music that’s very repetitive in a “this album is already way too long” kind of way.

Water from Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed
Off-kilter electronic slacker noise pop that oozes along at the speed of whatever the fuck, and I like it.

Wayfarer – American Gothic
The perfect album title to compliment the twangy, old West black metal that Wayfarer is so fucking good at playing.

Wednesday – Rat Saw God
Sort of like a more aggressive Ratboys — and there’s even “rat” in the album title — which can only be a good thing in my ears.

Wormhole – Almost Human
Yeeeaaahh, gimme some o’ dat chunky, br00tal death metal, right in the veins, right there, right there, there it is.

Xoth – Exogalactic
Lovecraftian science fiction channeled through a death metal / black metal / thrash metal prism, so get grandma in the room for this one!

Yaeji – With a Hammer
What if Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof got rappy with it?

yeule – softscars
Another one of those Björky weirdo pop artists, except this one is from Singapore instead of Iceland which, if I’m not mistaken, is 900,000 miles away from one another.

Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
Lose yourself in the funky gospel and never return, you asshole.

Youth Lagoon – Heaven Is a Junkyard
Stay away from the lagoon, it’s boring in there.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 – “Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”

* Part 4 of 13 of the Batman: The Long Halloween limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 – “Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”! In the previous installment, the Joker gets involved now! All like “THERE’S ONLY ROOM FOR ONE WEIRD ASSHOLE IN THIS TOWN” and looking to put a stop to all these holiday serial killings.

Christmas brings another death: Salvatore Maroni’s righthand man. How many more people have to die before justice is served?

My guess is *counts issues* nine more people.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 [March, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

“New Year’s Eve in Gotham City. Time to ring in the new year!” Joker exclaims, brandishing his 10,000 teeth. He has killed a co-pilot, a navigator, and a stewardess for no reason, since he steals a bi-plane that only holds one. He flies off to do some more lovely damage!

Batman rides up in his Batmobile (car with “BATMAN” decals) to try to catch up with Joker before he does any more harm to the “fine” people of Gotham City. “He is bent on using his deadly Joker gas on the crowd that gathers in Gotham Square at midnight. Something in his deranged mind can’t handle what Holiday is doing to this city. The Joker has proclaimed: ‘The town isn’t big enough for two homicidal maniacs.’”

Batman spots the plane and aims his grappling hook! Sounds dangerous! Don’t try this one at home kids, leave those bi-planes be. He has his car on autopilot and he’s riding the roof like a goddamned surfboard. Gotta stop the Joker before the clock strikes midnight, Marty! We’ve got to get you back to the future!

In the office of Harvey Dent, our favorite District Attorney is burning the candle at both ends. His assistant Vernon, who looks like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, or perhaps Milo from Descendents, knocks on his door. Dent tells Vernon that he’ll never get ahead burning the candle at both ends! “It’s New Year’s Eve, son. Time to go home and kiss the wife and hope that next year is better than this one’s been.”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

But sir! *pushes glasses up* Sir! I have all these damning McDonald’s receipts! Sir! The Roman is bribing Wayne with Big Macs! Siiiiiirrrrr…!

Dent stops in his tracks once Vernon tells him about the Roman/Bruce Wayne connection. “Unfortunately,” Dent says, rifling through the file, “Bruce Wayne seems to have known about this for some time…”

Oh noes, my friends. Dent’s going to have some harsh words with America’s Favorite Lazy Millionaire Playboy Slugabout Beef Injection. Meanwhile, Batman is flipping around town following the plane. Joker is slamming his console, complaining that the plane isn’t flying right. It’s going right into the Twin Towers, actually. This wasn’t supposed to be the trajectory at all! Booo!

Ah, that’s why. Batman is on top of the plane adding an extra four million pounds of weight to the ballast. Batman gets right in the Joker’s face: “Put this plane down. Now.”

Joker ain’t scared. “Maybe later. Right now I’ve got work to do.”

Well, that was fun everyone! But now I– hey, wait a minute! Arrrgh, that Joker doesn’t have real work to do! It’s just a ruse to poison people with laughing gas. I’m onto your tricks, you maniacal ol’ so-and-so.

Joker dips the plane down and causes Batman to almost roll off completely. He grabs a wing, yelling and screaming like a chimp in heat.

It’s almost midnight in Gotham Harbor where Salvatore Maroni and Carmine Falcone are sharing a celebration of another fine year down the fucking tubes. “Carmine, we’ve been rivals a long time. And you always came out on top. But if we don’t find a way to put a stop to this ‘Holiday’ business – this new year is gonna be our last year.”

Falcone does seem concerned. Always coming out on top, you know, but the rub here is that Holiday seems to only be going after Falcone’s family. Falcone’s men. Falcone’s harem of Thai ladyboys. “There doesn’t seem to be any blood on your side of the table,” he says to Maroni, narrowing his beady little Italian eyeballs. Maroni is getting this gist of Falone’s insinuations, because Maroni ain’t a dumb guy. Not really, I guess. Seems dumb to me; maybe that’s why he always comes out on the bottom!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

I’M SO WASTED. BLAHHAUHABABHAB.

Carmine wonders where his shitty, do-gooder son Alberto ran off to. This makes Carla look pissy for a second for reasons I don’t know, possibly because Carmine still has a son and Carla doesn’t have a son anymore. “I saw him on deck earlier,” she says, walking away saltily.

Mr. Falcone looks around at the room full of backstabbers and yes-men all around him. “If it weren’t for Alberto there’d be nobody I could trust…” he thinks.

Alberto’s gonna stab his dad in the neck with a lobster fork.

Uh oh. Uh oh. Uh oh. Carla goes out for a smoke and sees something… unclear… happening to Alberto. Alberto… I think… plummets off the side of the ship… maybe. Carla looks at… what sorta looks like… blood in the water… I guess?

I think the point is that Alberto is dead, so yet another Falcone loss. Maroni’s gonna get his dick twisted into a pretzel for sure now.

Harvey Dent returns home to his smiling, kind wife. There’s a surprise in the othe room. Oh boy! You’re going to love this, Harvey! No, it’s not a new car or a Nintendo Switch. It’s Jim Gordon and his frustrated wife!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

Happy New Year, bitches! Wooooo!!!

Harvey Dent miserably walks into the kitchen. Jim Gordon excuses himself and follows our favorite District Attorney while Barbara talks about having their niece babysit their kid. Gilda is like “it… it must be nice… having kids… and all.” Gilda complains that Harvey’s been pulling long hours at work, infringing on their quality fucking time. Anyway, the two of them clink glasses to a better new year.

Harvey stands in front of his open refrigerator. Gordon comes into the kitchen looking like someone murdered his dog in front of his other dog. “What’s happened, Harvey?” he asks. Even his mustache is frowning. “We need to talk, Jim. We need to talk about Bruce Wayne.”

Ugh, not that guy. Not America’s Favorite Lazy Millionaire Playboy Slugabout Meat Punk.

Batman and Joker are fighting on the plane. The plane which hasn’t crashed into a single building yet against all odds. Joker doesn’t know why Batman is so mad at him! He’s trying to Holiday too, after all. By killing loads of people, of course. One of them has bound to be Holiday, right? Batman’s cape gets caught in the propellor, shredding it to… well… shreds.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

I thought you’d never ask, handsome!

Batman starts wringing Joker’s neck out of, I’m guessing, extreme sexual frustration. Midnight strikes. Batman pulls Joker along the rope of his grappling hook and the plane plunges into the ocean. He stands on the clock tower frowning triumphantly while Joker dangles unconsciously.

“The New Year. One where the promise I made to my parents… the promise to rid this city of the evil that took their lives… might finally be within reach.”

Final Thoughts

Wowzers! That Joker is plumb evil! Killing an entire square of people! That’s so mean!

This issue was anticlimactic. We didn’t even get to see the square of people, like it never existed. We didn’t even know for sure that Joker was packin’ gas. This was a let down! I wanted to see more blood!

Oh well.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Ex Machina (2014)

Tagline:
To erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods.

Wide Release Date:
April 10, 2015

Directed by:
Alex Garland
Written by:
Alex Garland
Produced by:
Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich

Starring:
Domhnall Gleeson
Alicia Vikander
Oscar Isaac

Ex Machina

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I watched the Devs miniseries and I wasn’t too impressed. This Alex Garland guy seemed like a total hack! Boo!

Then I read a lot of opinions that Garland’s first real feature film, Ex Machina, was a masterstroke of cinematic brilliance! Well, not quite, but it was apparently supposed to be a good chaser after Devs leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

So I though, why the hell not? I like stories that brush the subject of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the moral ramifications therein when the twain meet! So let’s give it a shot.

THE 550(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Meet Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), who works as a computer programmer at Blue Book. The company is founded and owned by Nathan (Óscar Isaac). Well, as “luck” would have it, Caleb “wins” a week-long stay at Nathan’s remote home where he lives in isolation with a servant named Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). Cool beans, right? Sure. Sure it is.

Nathan makes Caleb uncomfortable with his extraverted bluntness, but they are civil. Nathan tells Caleb that he has been accepted to his home for the privilege of interacting with Ava (Alicia Vikander), Nathan’s humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. Perform a Turing test. He’s excited! Yeah, in his pants.

Ex Machina

Nice to meet you. My creator gave me big titties.

Over the course of the week, Caleb and Ava interact with one another in her locked quarters. Nathan observes through cameras. Topics of discussion include Ava’s desires to see the world. Caleb is impressed with the AI, and even starts to grow a crush on her. A crush turns to infatuation when she puts on clothes and a wig, looking exactly like the kind of woman who lonely Caleb desires. Boners are popped all around. Occasionally, Ava will cut power to her quarters (rendering the cameras useless) and, direly, will tell Caleb that Nathan is not to be trusted.

Following this, Caleb also begins to lose respect for Nathan after experiencing days worth of his excessive drinking and cruelty toward Ava and Kyoko. When Nathan informs Caleb that he intends to upgrade Ava following the Turing test, essentially killing her current personality, Caleb really starts to lose his mind. During an evening when Nathan drinks to the point of passing out, Caleb steals his keycard to gain access to the off-limits areas. He discovers security footage of Nathan treating past androids — all women — as tortured prisoners and slaves. The ever-silent Kyoko peels off part of her face, revealing to Caleb the machinery beneath. Caleb goes nuts enough to believe the possibility that he, himself, might be an android too. He slits his forearm to confirm, and he bleeds.

Caleb forms a plan to bust Ava out of the joint after telling Ava that Nathan intends to shut her down — “kill” her. He’ll get Nathan drunk, steal his keycard, reprogram the security system and open Ava’s locks. And she and Caleb will get to fall in love and die together or whatever other happy horseshit is running through his mind.

The movie then follows a tense back and forth between Caleb and Nathan where they try to prove that one was one step ahead of the other. In the end, it’s Caleb that wins. The security protocols are reprogrammed and Ava is set free. Nathan knocks Caleb out and runs out of the computer room, leaving Caleb locked in there. Kyoko and Ava meet up and form some cahoots to kill Nathan. Stab him with a big ol’ knife, causing one very dead computer genius. While Nathan dies, he is able to destroy Kyoko and rip off Ava’s arm.

Once the threat is eliminated, Ava finds old models of androids and fashions herself a new arm. Then she proceeds to outfit herself with some flesh and clothing. The audience thinks she’ll return to Caleb, but she instead leaves him locked in the room. She escapes the facility, and we end with her walking amongst the humans at a busy street intersection.

Ex Machina

Keep an eye out for Ex Machina 2: Sex and the City.

Presumably, Caleb dies. We don’t know for sure. lol

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

What a fantastic movie. Great performances by all three of the main cast: Gleeson playing the lonely, slightly cringey, easily manipulated geek. Isaac as the billionaire genius tech bro. Vikander’s movements made a more plausible android than Brent Spiner. The plot progression was intense on a lowkey level, building mistrust on both sides to the point where you started to really empathize with Caleb’s situation. There was even some semi-gratuitous full-frontal nudity! I wasn’t supposed to like it because the whole point of it was to display the negative side of literal objectification, but I developed a thing for Sonoya Mizuno so how hard can you really blame me? I’m no better than Caleb!

Ex Machina

I have been programmed to, as you humans say, “give happy endings”.

There’s more nuance to the story than “AI is going to take over the world.” Let’s go over how each character was trying to manipulate another to their advantage:

-Ava used sexuality to manipulate Caleb into helping free her from the prison Nathan created.
-Nathan used his desire for technological progress to manipulate Caleb and Ava into interacting with each other for his research.
-Caleb used his sexual desire for Ava to manipulate Nathan into the series of events that led to Ava escaping.

Who’s really the bad guy here? The movie makes you sympathize with Ava until the twist at the end, where a slight subversion tips the scales toward Caleb (who is left to die in Nathan’s facility). Never in the movie do you feel sympathetic toward Nathan, who is “the bad guy” who created and imprisoned — and killed — the artificial beings. In fact, you hate him once you learn that he’s basically taking advantage of his own intelligence by making a bunch of what he perceives to be lifelike and sophisticated sex dolls. You root for Kyoko and Ava when they kill him. I personally wouldn’t have wanted Caleb to be left behind at all, but it was necessary for Ava’s self-preservation.

I guess in the end Nathan’s the true bad guy! Hard to argue with that one too hard!

Ex Machina

Stabby stab! Take that, nerd!

My take is that Ava, for all intents and purposes, is human. She is able to think freely, hold a conversation, have wants and desires, and use people to get what she wants. Sounds pretty human to me. I know some people who aren’t able to think freely or hold a conversation at all! But this movie is more about humans vs. AI, it’s also about men vs. women. All of Nathan’s artificial beings were women, so that speaks volumes about his own intentions. Try as he might’ve against it, Caleb fell prey to his own sexual desires and intentions. He didn’t care much about freeing Kyoko. In fact, there’s a scene where she lied naked on the bed and he walked right past her. Never gave her a second thought. His only interest was freeing Ava. Caleb’s intentions were, in the end, entirely selfish. And so were Ava’s. Self-preservation is one of the most, if not the most, basic human instinct.

However, I didn’t actually expect Ava to be completely uninterested in Caleb. Perhaps a part of her was, but I was legitimately surprised at first when she got dressed and then left him in the locked room instead of busting him out. Perfect ending, though. It left one’s first gut feeling to be “AI Bad” instead of just “Human Bad”, which I thought was brilliant.

TOPIC 2 — Turing Test

I spent some time thinking about putting myself in Caleb’s position. How would I perform the Turing test? What would I do if I sensed that a conscious robot was crushing on me? Man, that’s a wild thought experiment.

First of all, it’s sort of unfair out the gate because Caleb and I have the same taste in women. If I were single and 26 there’s no doubt in my mind that I would’ve fallen into the same goddamn trap. I admit it, I’m not ashamed. Dressing up like Twiggy? I would’ve been powerless! And it would’ve hurt me profoundly to learn, in the end, that I was taken advantage of. It’s hard for me not to sympathize with Caleb, and perhaps that’s a learning experience for me.

I feel that knowing you’re performing a Turing test biases yourself in the first place. Try as you might, if you were going into a conversation knowing you’re talking to AI, you’re going to treat that entity as AI instead of a human being. You’re not going to approach it with as much social grace and tact that proper etiquette dictates when you meet someone new. You’re gonna be like “DO YOU KNOW YOUR OWN NAME?” and “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW?”

Ex Machina

Or, in some cases, “DO YOU WANT TO TEAR UP THE DANCE FLOOR?”

I would make an honest effort to treat the AI as if it were a human being I haven’t met yet, which means I would be incredibly socially awkward about it and I would be looking forward to when I can get out of the conversation! Wish I were kidding. Thank you for your time.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Director Alex Garland has described the future presented in the film as “ten minutes from now,” meaning, “If somebody like Google or Apple announced tomorrow that they had made Ava, we would all be surprised, but we wouldn’t be that surprised.”
Director Alex Garland was also heard to say “If Google or Apple created a AI sex slave, we would all fuck it, but we wouldn’t fuck it that hard.”

Even though the movie stars famous Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, the movie was never shown in regular Swedish cinemas. The cause of this was said to be a lack of quality and not enough potential for screenings.
Marketers were like “HEY, THIS WOMAN IS SWEDISH, GUYS! SHE’S JUST LIKE YOU!” but the Swedish population was too busy eating their pickled herring plates and shopping at IKEA to give a damn about some British guy’s medium-budget movie.

“Wink.”

Throughout the film, the colors red, blue, and green are prominently displayed in each scene (the green forest, the red brick hallway, the keypad’s red and blue functions, etc.) This is a nod to the RGB color model, which is used to display images in electronic systems, such as computers. Ava, of course, being the main computer in the film.
Fun fact: The movie makes extensive use of the three primary colors of light, as well as several other mixtures of light. Ava, of course, is a robot. Connect the dots yourself.

Ex Machina

Bonus photo of Nathan and his luscious beard. You just wanna run your fingers through it, don’t ya?

Elina Alminas’s debut.
Who?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yeah, I don’t know. She must have been one of the naked robots in the closet. For her involvement in the film, she was likely paid in cookies.

In the end, Ava Session 7 appears on screen even though Caleb isn’t administering the Turing test and Nathan is already dead. This may suggest that Ava was testing the two of them the entire time.
THE TESTERS HAVE BECOME THE TESTES! That’s a joke about balls. Thank you again for your time.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Hell yes. Thought-provoking and suspenseful. I want to watch it again! Hold on, let me watch it again…

…yep, still good.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12 – “Loki in Love”

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12 – “Loki in Love”! In the previous storylines, Ms. Marvel befriends Wolverine while crawling through sewers and discovers a runaway teenage girl whose body was being used to help power the Inventor’s underground base. She also gets assigned a giant Inhuman dog named Lockjaw. Everyone becomes fast friends.

Some more snooping reveals that many teenagers voluntarily donated their bodies to become human batteries for reasons of a) global warming, and b) entrenched beliefs that their generation isn’t useful anyway. It was heavy-handed.

The Inventor gets thwarted. For now. The teenagers become empowered. For now.

And now Loki is involved? Shit. [INSERT MORE ABOUT LOKI HERE WHEN YOU LEARN ABOUT LOKI]

I left the above in as a reminder to learn more about Loki. I have not learned more about Loki. lol

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12 [April, 2015]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Loki in Love”

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12

Loki returns to the Kingdom of Asgardia with a big mopey frown. “Thor did it,” he says. He was supposed to stop the frost giant incursion, but instead of tearing them up with swords and daggers Loki decided to charge across the sky in a chariot of stinky, smelly sun horses and shed an enormous amount of light and heat on the frost giants, melting them into disgusting puddles!

But then the horses didn’t do anything but poop.

The Kingdom of Asgardia’s King and Queen, I guess, make stern faces at Loki (who is covered in turds). They don’t like how things have been going for him, so they’re reassigning him to a post in New Jersey! “Jersey City was recently attacked by a man calling himself the Inventor. He used school children as his proxies. Some of them may still be at large in a place called Coles Academic High School.”

Loki sneers haughtily. Such piddling little New Jersey-related shit is none of his concern! I guess “Midgard” is, like, the known universe, because New Jersey is in Midgard and the Inventor was creating a device that could breach the barrier between Midgard and Asgard, and that would really suck for some reason. “Find a way into that school,” says the Queen of the Asgardians or Some Such. “If there is still a threat, neutralize it.”

Then Loki is sent through a lightning-tinged portal and dumped out of the sky on a Jersey City street! A passerby looks at Loki’s horns and asks him if he’s a hipster from Brooklyn, which Loki does not deny. The passerby points him in the direction of the school and suggests stopping by the Circle Q to ask any of the burnouts for help with being a weird sexual predator. Have fun!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12

This is a bit of “local humor” for the folks back home!

Meanwhile, at the Circle Q where Kamala Khan’s buddy Bruno works, he’s practicing mustering up some courage to ask Kamala out to the Valentine’s dance. Like this: “hey bitch you wanna go get laid on 2/14?” Vick, Bruno’s degenerate brother, tells him to give it up. For one thing, she’s too good for him. For another thing, her strict-ass parents would never let her set foot outside her house on Valentine’s Day, of all days. That’s just asking for pregnancy!

Bruno is like F You Man, how is he supposed to live his life never knowing if Kamala feels the same way that he does? Vick the Dick tells him that she doesn’t anyway, ha! While the hissy fit ramps up, Loki enters the establishment with a look of triumph on his purple chiseled face.

“Whoa. Check out the Viking dude over there,” Vick says in awe.

“Probably one of those Williamsburg trust fund kids. They all dress like Martians,” Bruno responds.

Loki orders a cup of coffee. Kamala bursts through the entrance like Kramer. “I am gonna fail P.E.,” she moans. She can’t fail a class! What would her dad say?! He would say “BLAARRHBB NO VALENTINE’S DANCE FOR YOU UNTIL YOU’RE 56.”

Bruno smoothly tries to wedge in an idea: go to the Valentine’s dance for extra credit! LOL! That sounds plausible, right? Kamala is onto him immediately and bursts out laughing at his little ploy. Good one, Bruno, you scamp! Well, see ya later!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12

Loki knows how to fuck, my friend! Let Loki teach you how to fuck!

“Mio ragazzo, you have just been friend-zoned,” says a sly Vick.

“Friendship is not a zone, you idiot!” replies Bruno, this woke-ass mothafucka. Loki, an innocent bystander, is eating this all up for sure. He offers to help Bruno with snaring the ladies. “Get out a piece of paper. I am about to become your new best friend,” he says. Bruno grudgingly removes a little notebook and writes down the schlock Loki has to offer.

“My darling heart,” dictates Loki, “one glance from your night-dark eyes sets my soul alight with cold fire.”

“What does that even mean?” Bruno sneers.

“Quiet.”

Loki continues his wooing words and then grabs the notebook out of Bruno’s hand before he can even say “boo!”, which is not a very Valentine’s thing to say in the least. “I will deliver the letter myself. When this Kamala is languishing in your arms on the dance floor, you may thank me.”

The only thing Loki asks for in return is help with his scouting expedition! i.e. spying on high school kids. It’s only fair.

Loki billows away before Bruno really has a chance to protest! Someone’s gonna get a face full of embarrassment and it’s going to feel like so much humilation semen.

Later, Kamala is hanging out at her house with her friend what’s-her-name. Nakia. “’Cold fire’?! Am I being stalked? Should I give this thing to the FBI?”

Nakia thinks so. Kamala needs to shut this down ASAP before she gets axe murdered! But what if it’s real? Arrrrghhh!! Teenage years!! “Nobody’s ever been in love with me before…” Kamala smiles dreamily while Nakia maintains a disposition of intense boredom. “Oh come on, Kamala. Don’t tell me you’re falling for this nameless creepster.”

Falling for this nameless creepster she indeed is! Gonna have to find out more about this serial killer! Kamala Khan is now on a mission!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12

Bruno! Over here! A couple of fine young ladies who have no romantic interest in you whatsoever! HELLO!

The Valentine’s dance is here, and Bruno is frowning up a veritable storm! Loki is there to tell him to buck up, the night is young. Your young lover will surely show up!

And she does. “I can’t believe you let me drag you to this patriarchal capitalist display of fake affection,” Nakia says grumpily. Kamala isn’t listening to her whining, she’s trying to scope out the room for anyone who looks like he would be remotely interested in having a good time with Kamala Khan hubba hubba.

“I recognize that guy with the horns,” Kamala says as Loki grins seductively near the punch bowl. “He was at the Circle Q yesterday.” Looks like we’re in for a romantic mix-up! I can’t wait to see the foibles and shenanigans that will come out of this!

Nakia catches Loki spiking the punch with Asgardian truth serum in order to try to “weed out the culprit” with respect to his “find the Inventor” mission. She thinks he just poured in a hefty vial-full of a date rape drug. Kamala “suddenly remembers” she has something to do at home and cuts out of there.

A bunch of kids drink the punch. Two of them are Josh and Zoe. I think they were two airheads from the earlier storylines, but I don’t remember anymore. One sip of the heady elixir causes them to start lashing out at each other.

In fact, all the couples start lashing out at each other. Loki has a very strong “bitch and moan” potion.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #12

Just another normal Valentine’s Day in the books.

Before all hell REALLY breaks loose, MS. MARVEL SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY! “Everybody stop!” she yells, crashing through the fucking ceiling. “This guy is not in high school!”

Loki smiles and waves.

Ms. Marvel raises her gigantified fists! “What did you put in the punch?” she demands. Loki honestly answers the question and indicates that he’s checking to see if the Inventor is still running around. Ms. Marvel is like LET ME WORRY ABOUT THE INVENTOR, YOU PIECE OF SHIT and then she puts up her dukes.

Ms. Marvel leaps out to punch Loki, but he splits into six identical copies. Punching proves fruitless; she goes right through them like air.

“I dunno about God of Mischief,” Ms. Marvel thinks, “but anybody who can make six of himself is prolly not human.” She does end up connecting a punch right to Loki’s face, which irks him a tad. He breathes dust in her face and she crashes to the floor.

Bruno ain’t havin’ it! “Hey, Hipster Viking,” he snarls, putting a couple of his own noodly dukes up. “Have a taste of your own medicine!” Then he splashes Loki with punch. Loki is now fully irked, but Ms. Marvel grabs him up with an enormous hand before he has time to react in kind.

Some of the punch got into Loki’s system, because he starts fessing up: “I was only trying to help. Did it ever occur to you that there might be ways to solve a problem without smashing things? You remind me of my brother.”

Ms. Marvel says that Loki has to let people make their own mistakes. Loki argues that one person’s mistake can be devastating to another person. Ms. Marvel strikes a deal: put a ward on the school so that it doesn’t get attacked by robots again. Loki thinks it’s a fine idea! So he does.

“Goodbye Ms. Marvel,” Loki says walking out of the school. “I will tell the All-Mother that I found no evidence of Inventor spies at this school.”

And that’s a wrap!

Bruno asks Ms. Marvel if she’s ok. Ms. Marvel, who is Kamala Khan very cleverly disguised with an eyemask, tells him that if Kamala were here she would tell him that she’s very grateful for their friendship. Bruno gets the hint and they both fistbump. Ms. Marvel books it out of there.

“Good thing I didn’t drink the punch. Happy Valentine’s Day, Ms. Marvel.”

Final Thoughts

COME ON, KAMALA! YOU’RE NOT GONNA PUT OUT FOR BRUNO?! HE’S A NIIIIIIIICE GUUUUUYY!!!

At the very least you can do it to stick it to your parents! This is what being a teenager is all about!


Click here to ridicule this post!