Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20 – “The Underneath (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Underneath storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20 – “The Underneath (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Jessica Jones learns that Denny and his friends are drugging Mattie Franklin and using her to extract superhero guts from her body to smoke it and get real fuckin’ high man. Isn’t that gross?

Jones gets punched in the face and sent to the emergency room. Before that though, Ben Urich was sent by Jameson to spy on her. He’s looking for Mattie Franklin, too. Let him know if you see her.

At the end, Jones gets attacked by Jessica Drew in her apartment. She’s the original Spider-Woman, and she’s looking for Mattie Franklin, too.

So, everyone is looking for Mattie Franklin! It’s a real Mattie Franklin search party! The excitement never wanes!

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20 [June, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Underneath (Part 5)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Jessica Drew knows that Jessica Jones is the last person to see Mattie. So, cough it up. Where is the little bitch? And do you know what Jessica Jones has to say about that? “Yiiiiaarrggh!! Gggsshh… Aagh!” Oh yeah, she’s getting electrocuted or something. That’s not helping the talking.

With the stoicism of a psychopath, Drew asks one more time where Mattie is. Or else she’ll really ramp up the voltage. Finally able to talk again, Jones is like “look, cunt, I tried to call you.” And she did, that’s true! Drew doesn’t know that, though, and Jones advises the kind woman to check her fucking answering machine once in a while.

So she gets out her phone and checks her answering machine, which is what you still did back in 2004.

“You called me.”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Now that that awkwardness is behind us forever, let’s get down to brass tacks. Oh wait, brass tacks can wait. Jones socks Drew in the face and tackles her over the kitchen table. While Drew is out cold, Jones answers her phone – a call from Ben Urich. Jameson would like to see her, please. “Okay… but tell him I’m not coming alone.”

Urich, Jones, and Drew sit on one couch. Jameson and his wife sit on the other. The silence is deafening. Jameson doesn’t know what to say, so he gets up and starts pacing the room a little bit. “Please forgive my husband,” says Mrs. Jameson. “They warned us. Everybody warned us that that taking in an orphan was going to be trouble.”

Mrs. Jameson badmouths orphans for a spell before Jones admits she’s an orphan. Without missing a beat, Mrs. Jameson says something to the effect of “NO, YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO SAW MATTIE LAST!”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Sorry I webbed all over your couch, ma’am. I got excited.

Urich had told the Jamesons what Denny and his lovely friends are doing with Mattie. They are besides themselves with outrage, sadness, fear, and some ennui, actually. So then they get into it a little bit. Mattie’s father was J. Jonah’s closest friend. They took Mattie in when her father died, and he treated her like his own daughter. WHO KNEW, RIGHT? THE MAN HAS A HEART! And he’s getting older, right? So there’s that, of course. Uhm…

Jonah didn’t know that Mattie has abilities, but Mrs. Jameson knew a little bit. They hid this from Jonah because he “has issues with the concept of a masked vigilante”. And now that she’s dressing like Spider-Man, of all superheroes! That’s an lol.

The Jamesons don’t know exactly how long she’s been missing because they’ve been busy, ok? Jesus, enough with the third degree. And no, the police aren’t involved because “they’re Jonah’s enemies”. Besides, they’ll just kill her. (?)

So please help, Jessica Jones. Please. Please. Please. Please! Please?

Yeah, sure. So, back in Jones’ office, Jones uses the internet to scope out clues which Drew calls cheating. “People hired you to find someone, they want you to go out and find someone. Not look it up online and cash the check.”

She sees a picture of Jones with Carol Danvers, floored that she knows her too. This causes Drew to finally soften up a little bit, and she apologizes for almost killing Jones in her own apartment.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Right? The Avengers are a pile of sluts and I have the sultry photos to prove it.

They shoot the shit a little bit, nothing that’s worth repeating here. Eventually, Jones finds what they’re looking for and they head out to scope Denny’s place of residence.

“How do you want to handle this?” Drew asks.

“I say grab her and run, and fuck the rest of it.”

“Yeah me too.”

So we have a plan! I like it! They mosey on up to the front door of the apartment building and bust the fuck in. Then they strut up to Denny’s unit and bust the fuck in. Then they —

No one’s there, but he left his phone. At least it seems like no one’s there. They check under the bed and in the closet. It’s making Jones tense and anxious, like he’s going to leap out from somewhere all naked, dick flapping in the breeze, and strangle her to death.

Speaking of death, Jones is worried that they’re going to kill this poor, wretched, high-all-the-time girl. Drew calls an Agent Jeff Hunt for information on Denny – credit cards, plane tickets, sexual proclivities, favorite hamburger toppings, anything. Oh, a hotel? Fantastic! The Matador in Manhattan? Rit-zy!

They goad the concierge at the desk to give them Denny’s room number by looking giggly and sexy. Room 755. That’s, let’s see, on the seventh floor? 55 rooms from the elevator? Sounds fishy, but ok.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Nothing to see here in ol’ room seven-five-five. Business as usual. Completely normal and good.

“Mattie, wake your dumb ass up! Bitch, get up!!! Fuck, is she dead? If she’s dead, I am so screwed.” All this and more comes from the other side of the door. Drew uses her electric powers to open the door and finds a room full of mooks with Mattie passed out on the bed.

And then the shit goes down.

Final Thoughts

TO BE CONCLUDED. Will Mattie wake her dumb ass up? Will Jones even get paid for this nonsense? Probably not on both counts. Sorry.


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Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft

The Book Bonfire Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this book and you haven’t read it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned. Also, this is a feature about reading. You came here to read about books, so pictures in these posts will be scarce. Be an adult.
Book 1 of the Books of Babel series

Senlin Ascends

Fire it up! Get that bonfire roaring! Today I discuss Senlin Ascends, the first in a four-book series by relative newcomer Josiah Bancroft, who looks like an incredible Mormon based on any of his pictures online. Just this plaid shirt and a Republican Dad haircut. He looks like me! Yeesh!

Senlin Ascends was such a joy to read. It took a couple dozen pages to get used to his old-timey writing style (think 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), but there is so much charm in the light prose that I couldn’t help but be rather chuffed and endeared by the 19th-century era steampunk themes. The story follows Thomas Senlin, a small town school headmaster. What should have been a honeymoon trip to the Tower of Babel with his newly betrothed Marya becomes a harrowing journey of lost wives, disillusionment, betrayal, and forced adventure! The Tower itself is of an unknown height — too tall to be seen through the clouds — with each level representing a city-sized “ringdom” with its own civilization, rules, culture, and political climate. With a guidebook to the Tower in hand, Senlin quickly learns that all the information within it is garbage. The Tower is basically an anarchist state, and once you enter it’s nearly impossible to leave.

“Dare I say, Marya, a trip to the Tower of Babel sounds simply smashing!”
– Thomas Senlin, Optimistic Tourist

What makes this a page-turner is the Tower itself. A sprawling megalopolis, it has way more character and personality than the meek, noodle-armed Thomas Senlin. Full of mystery and intrigue from the ground up, most of the fun comes from exploring the first four ringdoms of the Tower along with Senlin. Outside the Tower itself are the Markets and the Skirts, where one can lose a friend or family member immediately if they aren’t properly tethered *wink*. Level 1 is the Basement, which is just a filthy slum with merry-go-rounds that give away free watered-down beer. Level 2 is the Parlor, where visitors must play roles in a shitty, trite play for no audience while they need to keep the fires in the fireplaces stoked. Level 3 are the Baths, the first non-shitty ringdom, which is a resort town overseen by a very peculiar man who calls himself the Commissioner (and the Red Hand, his maniacal and inhuman bodyguard). Level 4 is New Babel, a thriving port ringdom supplied with electricity. And from there, your imagination will run wild! Eventually, Senlin finds a long metal rod with etchings to represent 30+ (at the very least) ringdoms of the Tower, some with names and some unknown. I want to know all the ringdoms! The Harem Ringdom! The ’90s Shopping Mall Ringdom! The Pinball Arcade Machine Ringdom! The Ringdom of Earthly Delights! The Ringdom of Black Holes Tearing the Fabric in the Space-Time Continuum! They all sound super fun.

“Dare I say, Adam, that a trip to the Tower’s Salt Mines sounds simply dreadful!”
– Thomas Senlin, Pessimistic Captive

The last section of the book peters out a little bit once Senlin gets a job on New Babel. He spins his wheels while concocting an impossible plan of escape by stealing an airship, culminating in a long action sequence that I completely glazed over while finishing. It’s too bad, too, because I found the whole book thrilling up until the very. Ah well, there are still three books to go and I hear the fourth one at least stays decent until the final quarter when Bancroft fumbles the ball on the 25-yard line while the defense takes turns shitting in his mouth. Haha, what?!

Let’s discuss further, shall we?

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Tower Theories?
Oh man!… I got nothing!

So, spoiler alert, we know that the first four floors make, respectively, water, fire, steam, and that new-fangled electricity. Based on the map at the beginning of the book, we know that Ringdom 5 is “Pelphia” and Ringdom 6 is “The Silk Gardens”, but neither of these two ringdoms are explored. They sound pretty ritzy, though. Since the trend seems to be that the people are better off the higher you go, it would stand to reason that you’ve got the CEO of Tower of Babel hanging out on his gold throne on Ringdom 760 while his harem of consenting men and women give him sloppy blowjobs and all the McDonald’s hamburgers that he can eat! Just imagine!

“Dare I say, Iren, that a trip to your fist with my face sounds simply harrowing!”
– Thomas Senlin, Restless Blue Collar Worker

That’s probably the red herring, though. I’m sure there are dips in quality of life as you ascend the Tower. I’m sure someone is mining diamonds and ore on Ringdom 24 so that people can buy fancy jewelry on Ringdom 27. Children are working in Ringdom 82’s sweatshops to make wallets for Ringdom 89’s businessmen, who work shitty 9 to 5 jobs keeping their bosses on Ringdom 91 happy just so that they don’t go home and beat the wives they mail-ordered from Ringdom 8.

My best actual theory about the Tower is that technology continues to advance as you move up. What may be beer-me-go-rounds on Ringdom 1 and electricity on Ringdom 4 might become modern medicine on Ringdom 20, primitive computers on Ringdom 30, high-speed internet on Ringdom 40, streaming services and grocery delivery on Ringdom 45, and pitch-perfect AI on Ringdom 50. The story feels like it takes place some time in the early 1900s at the very latest, so it would be very interesting to see modern technology and beyond at higher levels of the Tower.

Other than that, TIME WILL TELL.

Hods?
I don’t know what the fuck the deal is with the hods. Sorry.

“Fuck this place.”
– Thomas Senlin, Resigned Sad-Sack

Those who are delinquent in any way, i.e. criming and/or in debt up to their eyeballs, get tracked down to become hods. Shaved heads and sent to toil in the walls of the Tower, it seems. Senlin Ascends only scratches the surface of the concept, and since the third book is called The Hod King I’m certain I’ll hear more about these wretched individuals! Perhaps The CEO on Ringdom 760 enslaves hods for his many blowjob-related endeavors? I hope to read 500 pages about this in the future.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Absolutely. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun reading a story. Mysterious and intriguing, Senlin Ascends is an effervescent tale of being trapped in a weird fucking Tower and the hilarious antics that might ensue! Read this instead of 50 Shades of Grey, which probably sucks ass and is likely not about ascending a tower at all.


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Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12 – “Ghost in the Machine”

* Part 6 of 6 of the City of Owls storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12 – “Ghost in the Machine”! In the previous installment, one of the most boring comics books I’ve ever read, Batman defeats Lincoln March Owlman Brother Wayne by collapsing a building on top of him (OR DOES HE??) and realizes, after about 20 broken bones, that Gotham isn’t his city. It’s everyone’s city. Then he and Dick Grayson share a luxurious hug.

The story of Jarvis Pennyworth is concluded by Jarvis warning his son never to go to Wayne Manor, then Jarvis getting killed, then Alfred going to Wayne Manor anyway. So fuck you, dad.

Anyway, let’s get this piece of shit over with.

*groan*

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12 [October, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Ghost in the Machine”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12

“Sometimes all it takes is a few words to change your life. For me it took seven. Seven words, spoken in the dark.”

*leans up really close to her ear* “Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.”

This woman with a septum ring is working sixty feet below Gotham City on the eastern section of the old power grid. Then she heard those words. Those seven delectable words: “Harper, phonecall! Your brother – he sounds pissed!”

Now, far be it from me to be pedantic, but I do believe “phone call” is TWO words. Two words.

Those weren’t the words, though. The real words came later. Harper’s still nervous about talking to her brother, at any rate. But we don’t get to that yet. We flashback to a few weeks ago in the “Narrows” of Gotham City, wherever that is. Harper’s brother, Cullen, brushes her hair while she stands there petulantly in a beautiful red dress. She starts pulling off her fancy gloves, saying that this whole thing is beyond stupid. “I feel ridiculous. I’m going in my own clothes or I’m not going at all.”

But the Wayne Gala is fancy and rather schmancy! Harper has to look like a prostitute or Bruce will get hella mad, even though Harper is only going because they’re tearing down their building (to build a better one, though, according to Cullen). Plus, how is she going to win the heart of TIM DRAKE (loser) dressed like a flannel carpet-muncher? (Cullen’s words, not mine, I swear. I swear! I mean it! Stop looking at me like that!)

While Cullen talks and talks, Harper notices a large bandage on his arm. He quickly pulls his sleeve up, saying that “they” are messing with him and that they’ll get bored soon enough. And, finally, Cullen pushes Harper out the door to the waiting cab, but only after he promises that they’ll take care of this situation when she gets home. He begrudgingly agrees.

Who are these fucks? Why am I reading about them? Where’s my handsome, manly hunk of a man Bruce Wayne at?

AH, THERE HE IS! He’s addressing the patrons of his fancy gala, running his spiel of a bigger and brighter Gotham. Harper tries to steal a bunch of desserts off the table to stuff into her purse until she’s caught by Alfred.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12

WE’VE POISONED THE COOKIES! YOU HAVE 45 MINUTES TO LIVE! BAH HA HA HA HA HAAA!

“You’re making a serious error, young lady…” Alfred says menacingly, “…if you leave the dessert table without tasting the brownies.”

Oh man, does that dude ever fuck.

Harper asks the beloved butler for a way out of this popsicle stand. So she can blow it, you see. Alfred recognizes her as the young woman who won a raffle to be at the gala. She corrects him; her landlady gave Harper the ticket after she rewired her apartment. She doesn’t want to be at this bullshit event.

Alfred asks her what she thinks of Bruce’s new plans to transform her neighborhood. Harper is skeptical that a rich guy like Bruce Aloysius Wayne, who has never set penis inside the Narrows before, can fix up her shitty neighborhood. Alfred winks and tells her that she might be surprised. Then he winks again, and then a third time. Then he appears on the sex offender registry.

Harper thanks the butler for the brownies and fucks off into the night. She returns home to find Cullen sobbing on the floor of their apartment. He’s all banged up half to death. You see, while Harper was gone, “they” came. “I thought they were going to kill me, Harper… but they just wanted to hear me scream… they just kept kicking me.” Cullen’s all bloody and gross and I’m surprised that Harper even wants to touch that mess, but she hugs him all the same.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12

No cussing.

“They” keep kicking Cullen’s ass because he’s gay, and in the year 2011 that’s a felony. And perhaps it’s a flashback, or perhaps it’s the next day, but Cullen and his boyfriend walk through the school grounds (college, presumably, where Cullen majors in TV/VCR repair) while everyone stares at them. Harper does a little soliloquy about how she’s always trying to fix things. Mostly because their dad was always breaking things! In fits of anger! Eventually, Harper got good at fixing anything. That’s why she works on Gotham’s old eastern power grid. ‘Cause it needs to be fixed, you see.

Later, Cullen walks down the street late at night with Harper when a group of toughs try to kick his ass. After a few clocks to the mug, Harper ain’t having it anymore. She brandishes a homemade taser and zaps Tough #1 right in the gut. “Come on! I dare you!” she cries to the other jerkass jerkbag. “It’s not just a taser. I powered it up, you scum. You come near my brother again and I’ll fry you, you hear me?”

About six more guys come out of the shadows. “Heh, you can’t fry us all, baby.”

So now Harper starts getting punched and almost knifed and it’s a real sorry state of affairs. Good thing BATMAN shows up with his various smoke bombs and starts kicking some real gay-bashing ass. He gets right up into this dude’s face, close enough for a passionate smooch, and tells him that shit will get super real if he and his gang hurt Cullen and Harper again. The gang runs away while Batman grapples the top of a building and swings away.

Harper looks positively thrilled! The coolest thing ever just happened and it had nothing to do with Steven Seagal or Prince! She smiles like she just got an idea, but the idea seems to be “look up Batman on the internet”. Even Cullen is getting annoyed with Harper showing him a hundred videos of Batman dancing and prancing.

“The last few days I’ve been able to walk home without having to worry about anyone giving me crap. I love Batman… but you’ve been on your computer watching every little scrap of video you can find. Don’t you think it’s time to… I don’t know… give it a rest?”

Harper’s not listening. Give it a what? Give what a rest? What what a what? Check this out! She found security footage from her employer’s cameras. After a little illegal password cracking, she was able to watch this short video of Batman not appearing at all because the feed cuts out for four seconds. Eh? Eh?

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12

Any Bat-like Man could’ve knocked down that trash can! Doesn’t prove nuthin’!

Cullen has to admit that it’s pretty cool that he’s able to scramble a camera feed. Harper finds it curious because the Gotham grid can’t be accessed remotely. Batman must have his own secret grid! Like a ghost grid, heh heh, boo! And something he can access remotely, to boot. Harper asked her boss what it would take to build a private grid like that, and her boss was like “WHAT KIND OF DUMBASS QUESTION IS THAT? GET BACK TO WORK.”

Also, it would take a lot of power. And somewhere along the real grid, Batman is siphoning power to use to scramble cameras and… what’s this now? Power the real grid further? Now we’re talking nonsense. “He actually saps power secretly from Wayne Industries buildings, like Robin Hood, to power these boxes he keeps at the hubs. They’re amplifiers – Bat-Boxes.

And if that isn’t boring enough, Harper starts tinkering and she cobbles together something that will give wider range to the signals hitting the Bat-Boxes in case something happens. “It’s just a thank-you, I guess. For everything.”

And not only that, but Harper can track Batman using these Bat-Boxes! And one just went offline, punching a hole in the ghost grid and making Batman visible to everyone at this very moment. Harper has to go save him!

So she drops down into the stinky sewer and fixes a Bat-Box to get Batman back off the grid. And just as she finishes up, a fucking boat cruises through the tunnels at 506mph with Batman hot on its heels. This stupid thing happens where Batman catches him and calls him an Owl, then the guy denies it and unleashes a tiger from below the deck to gnaw on Batman for a bit. The Not-Owl guy laughs sinisterly as the boat drives away (with Batman and the tiger still on it).

Little Harper wants to help! But how?!

She turns off the run-off valve, which lowers the water level in the tunnels and brings the boat to a screeching halt. The tiger is incapacitated. Batman grabs Mr. Not-Owl and gets ready to fuck his butt… until he notices that some mysterious so-and-so shut off the valve and ran away before being detected. “Hrm…” Batman says with conviction!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #12

That’s Eau de Sewer and it was expensive, thank you very much!

Harper revels in her success to help Batman! Cullen says he has to now wash the sheets 50 times to get the poop smell out of it.

Lying down reflecting, Harper remembers those seven words again. The real seven words this time, not some bullshit seven words about Cullen being pissed.

“Whatever you think you’re doing, you’re finished.”

Batman shows up in the sewer to speak to Harper, who is working on the grid. She claims she was just trying to help, but Batman disagrees. Fuck off, kid.

He disappears and she smiles, because here are the real words, spoken to herself:

“Harper Row, you’re not finished. No way.”

Final Thoughts

WHAT A WEIRD ISSUE, RIGHT? Who cares about Harper and Cullen Row and their slice-of-life bullshit story. If we did an exposé on every citizen of Gotham City, we’d have 400 issues of bedwetting children, plumbers, charlatans, and bedwetting grandmas.

Let’s keep it to Batman from now on, Scott Snyder, or you’re fired.


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Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19 – “The Underneath (Part 4)”

* Part 4 of 6 of the Underneath storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19 – “The Underneath (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, Jessica Jones gets a lead! Some drug dealer named Denny is shacking up with Spider-Woman, so Jones visits the club that Denny frequents to try to find him. And she does! And here we are now.

I’d like to say that the intrigue is settling in nicely, but I’d be a filthy fucking no-good fucking filthy liar. So I won’t.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19 [May, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Underneath (Part 4)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19

Jessica Jones monologues about finding Mattie Franklin in the back room of this seedy fucking club. “It’s her and she looks right at me.” Jones didn’t expect her to be here, naturally, since she’s a kid and kids don’t go clubbin’ (unless it’s baby seals, of course). She must be on the drugs again, especially since she’s costumed up like a loser. “I don’t know what to do.” She contemplates grabbing the girl and running, but that might put them at risk, including the Jamesons. “Jesus, she looks even worse than she did in my apartment a couple of days ago. What is she on? Heroin?”

Jones makes up the name Madeleine when she is introduced to Denny. He thinks he recognizes her. “This is it,” Jones thinks. “This is what that psychic bitch Madame Web was babbling about.” She described this exact scene, and this is it. And what else did she say? Oh yeah, someone was gonna die. Ha ha ha! Um.

“You a cop?” Denny asks. It’s entrapment if Jones is a cop and she doesn’t tell him, you know. It’s in all the law books. Jones thinks, fuck it, just get out of here and regroup. Wait for them outside and then grab the girl and run when they leave. So she tries a little “fuck you asshole I’m actually leaving right now, byeee” but Denny goads her to stay with this sleazy-ass smile on his dumb face.

She asks Denny what they’re doing that he’s worried about cops. He says that they’s just partyin’ is all. Want a brick of heroin, doll?

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19

Like a kite, sir! Does crushing up and snorting Tylenol Cold & Flu count?

Jones settles down with a glass of vodka while Denny attempts to wake up the addled Mattie. “Hey, baaaby, what’s goin’ on?” she says in a weak voice.

“She a little young for you?” Jones says, staring daggers.

“No,” Denny responds.

“What’s with the costume?”

“She likes to wear it. It makes her feel special.”

Now there’s this whole weird sequence where it looks like Denny extracts blood and tissue from a gross, gaping wound just below the back of the nape of Mattie’s neck. And at this point Jones realizes that she’s been drugged as she slowly fades out.

Enough of this! “You fucking animals!!” Jones screams and she punches Denny right in the face. Denny’s friend calls Jones a cunt and knocks her lights out.

She comes to however many minutes later with Denny yelling to “get this crack whore out of here!! Last thing we need is another OD on the premises.”

Jones gets bounced out of there tout suite and thrown in the alley, where she lays prone for what I want to assume is 137 hours. But instead of cutting her arm off, she is approached by Ben Urich of the Daily Bugle! He likes to prowl around alleys in the middle of the night, no big deal. Just lookin’ for stories.

Jones realizes that Jameson has sent Urich to spy on her. “He thinks you have this girl, Mattie… but I know you don’t. I just want to figure out exactly what happened.” And Jones growls and clenches her fist. “I fucking had her. I had her.”

She tells Urich everything about her night. Urich asks if Denny and his gang had protruded foreheads, which is not something I noticed at all and I’m an astute and detail-oriented comic book reader! They’re taking MGN – Mutant Growth Hormone, an expensive drug where apparently “hormone” starts with an N. They get it from the blood and tissue of someone with superpowers and then they freebase that shit. Wild, huh? Cannibalistic, you might even say! “There’s been rumblings about a couple of B-level superheroes – no offense – selling parts of themselves, or trading it for who-knows-what.”

Anyway, nice chat. Jones heads to the emergency room to tend to her broken nose.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19

I’m positively happy to say I’m not! Heh heh. That’s an AIDS joke for ya.

The information that she needs to divulge is that she used to be a superhero. Not a mutant. So, uh, is there anyone on the staff that can… like… withstand my superblood? Or something?

Yes! You get Dr. Cirello! He’s a man who says “That’s quite a bonk to the beezer you took, Jessica,” so you know that he’s an insufferable virgin. By now her nose has stopped bleeding and she feels stupid for coming to the emergency room.

A couple of nurses whisper outside the room.

“She says she’s a superhero.”

“Oh yeaaah. She’s the Scarlet Witch. I recognize her.”

“She looks like shit.”

“She’s on something. They’re all on something. Their bodies can’t take the stress.”

“I wonder if she knows Captain America.”

“Honey, look at her. She doesn’t even know Quasar.”

The cops show up to the room looking quite coppish. Interrogation time! Denny’s gonna get so busted! Bonk to the beezer, son!

“I enjoyed every bullshit lie I told them about how I was mugged,” Jones thinks later as she walks home. That’s right, lady. ACAB! “Fuckers. Fuck them! Eff you, little-dick, badge-wearing assholes.”

She hopes Urich finds out information about Mattie, and then tells Jameson to leave her the hell alone. She turns the key to her apartment door and stumbles inside.

Jones is not met with a warm welcome.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19

Oh no, not Elektro-Man, Mr. Human Lightning! My one weakness!

“Listen up, Bitchcakes,” says the assailant. “My name is Jessica Drew. I’m the original Spider-Woman, and what you just got was a face-full of my spider bite. Where the fuck is Mattie Franklin?”

The long night has just gotten longer. Yowza!

Final Thoughts

Well that’s a real bonk to the beezer, innit? Just try fighting Jessica Drew, you B-level superhero. Ass on a platter.


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Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11 – “My Brother’s Keeper”

* Part 5 of 6 of the City of Owls storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11 – “My Brother’s Keeper”! In the previous installment, Bruce Wayne has a long lost brother that he never knew he had, apparently. And he’s an Owl. An accident caused him to be born early and sickly and the Waynes hid him in the awful Willowwood Home for Children. If this sounds stupid, it’s because it is. It’s stupid and I hate everything about it.

Also, for some unfathomable reason, Bruce’s brother blames Bruce for the deaths of his parents, so now he seeks revenge! Wayne against Wayne! Brother against Brother! Owl against Bat!

*groan*

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11 [August, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“My Brother’s Keeper”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11

There’s a full-page shot of Batman punching Owlman and barely connecting with it. “That all you got, brother?” Owlman asks in his best Hulk Hogan impression. “Or are you just playing nice?”

“You’re not my brother,” Batman growls, throwing another punch. “You’re a lunatic in a bird suit… and I was done playing nice… A LONG TIME AGO!”

Very poetic, Bruce. Your banter leaves a lot to be desired. A few more punches later and Owlman isn’t addled or hurt at all. “Is it my turn now?” he says, a fiery glint in his eyes. “Good.”

So Owlman bashes Batman against a wall and starts naming brothers. Romulus and Remus. Eteocles and Polynices. GOB and Buster. “But one brother always gets greedy and takes it all in those stories, doesn’t he? He takes the city for his own and forgets his kin. Leaves his fallen brother to rot. Just like you did.” Owlman shakes his poop-stained finger at Batman, who suddenly gets thrown the fuck through a brick wall, killing him instantaneously. Or, rather, making him fall 40 stories to the street below.

Batman launches his grappling hook and pulls Owlman down with him. Good thing Owlman has some sort of whiz-bang flying suit! With Batman hanging by a string below, Owlman decides to fly Batman around town to show him what he remembers from his view at Willowwood. There’s the Crowne Tower where all the starlets got murdered. Also, Owlman could see the reflection of Wayne Industries within its shiny, shiny windows.

Batman tries to let go of his grappling hook, but Owlman grapples him with his own hook. The tour shall continue!

Like a tour right in the side of the fucking building.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11

Seven years of bad luck. Congrats, you’re now a quadriplegic!

And the only thing that happens is maybe Batman is bleeding from his mouth a little bit. A big bowl of who cares? No stakes when the guy can’t get seriously hurt being flung into the side of a goddamned building. Comic books are stupid.

Owlman spouts off a ton of speech balloons filled with pointless lunacy that I will not repeat here. Just understand that the guy is loony toons and rather vindictive. Also, the Owls will help cleanse the city. Also, Bruce gets smashed right into the bell of a church tower. Like, we’re talking 190 broken bones. But no. Barely a scratch.

Then Owlman flies him up to an airplane cruising along the sky. “And so ends our tour, brother! I’ll watch the pieces of you come out the other side, scattered over the city you thought you knew so well… but didn’t know at all!”

And yes, Batman doesn’t so much as grimace as he’s inches away from being sucked into the jet engine. It’s so fucking stupid that I’m taking a shit on a glass table right now.

“It’s okay, Bruce! You can let go now!” screams Owlman as Batman less-than-desperately hangs on to the engine cover. “Your brother is watching over you. Just as he always has.”

I don’t know why Owlman keeps talking. Batman is dealing with a 180 dB engine right now, he can’t hear your loquacious ranting about brothers and the like. Luckily, Batman somehow at some point had placed a detonation device on Owlman’s back! And it blows him up to smithereens, scaring the everloving shit out of everyone on the plane.

A man watches as Batman pulls himself up from the engine cover and onto the wing. Then he just… lets go. He lets go from a flying airplane.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11

Uhhhh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’re going to proceed with an emergency landing because some clown is fucking around on my airplane.

Batman plummets to the ground at escape velocity and, at the last minute, latches onto a building with his high-velocity Bat-rope. He, again, crashes right through a brick wall and lands on a pile of nails and razor blades and exploding mines with nary a wound.

“You just won’t stay dead—will you, brother?” says the very much alive Owlman, who picks Batman up by the scruff and leads him to what will now be BATMAN’S TOMB! Ha! They’ll be brothers buried together for a wee bit of time before Owlman comes back from the dead due to that one thing that’s in their blood that they brought up, like, six issues ago. I don’t remember.

Owlman’s verbosity continues. When Bruce was traipsing around the world training, the Court had said he died somewhere in the Himalayas or the back alleys of Paris, since he disappeared and all. It was Brother Owlman’s time to shine at that point, but noOOOoooOOoOoOOOO, Bruce had to come back. Out of nowhere! And the Owls decided “meh, you can be Lincoln March or something instead”. Disrespect! He wanted the city! It was his time!

In short, Batman’s going to be a blip on Gotham’s radar while Owlman will be Gotham’s history!

Then Batman sticks his thumbs in Owlman’s eyeballs and runs away. “Run like you always have,” Owlman says, clearly barely addled by thumb-in-the-eye syndrome, “but when you feel the prickling on the back of your neck, know that I’m coming for you! Reaching for you from the other side of your reflection!”

All this time, the tower has been exploding and on fire and the like for reasons that are not at all discernable to me. Owlman is trapped inside while the building completely collapses 9/11-style, but Batman says that he found no evidence of a body when he later investigated the rubble…

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11

You’re like the petulant son I may or may not have!

Back at home, Bruce sits in a wheelchair with a few broken-ass limbs. Dick Grayson comes into the room ready to kick Batman’s ass for punching him back in Issue #7. But now that he’s wheelchair-bound, I guess he gets a pass.

Bruce tells Grayson that the Owls have set up a real labyrinthian trail, and their resources are staggering. He can’t make heads or tails of this whole operation. All the Owls he has found are stuck in cryogenic chambers, and those who got away, well… he’ll find them soon enough. Mark his words with a pen, sir.

Now Grayson gets to hear all about Lincoln March from Bruce, a story no one asked for! Bruce found out that his mother was pregnant when Bruce was three years old, and a car accident that Bruce doesn’t remember caused a premature birth. He died in 12 hours. For one night, Bruce had a brother. BUT, is it possible that the child survived and the Waynes squirreled him away to Willowwood for treatment? And that the records were falsified? To what end? That sounds like a lot of work for literally no reason.

Grayson seems content with the conclusion that the records were not falsified, but Bruce isn’t fucking done you little shit. *punches Grayson again* According to records, Willowwood admitted a John Doe baby a week after his brother supposedly died. Now, what isn’t to say that the Court knew about this and used it to convince Bruce he has an alive brother? This is where DNA evidence comes in, and there’s not enough sperm splashed around during the fight to make any realizations. But Bruce will not rest until he gets the evidence he wants! The no-resting continues, as usual.

But what of Bruce’s parents? Why would they keep such a secret from him? They wouldn’t have! Anyway…

Bruce apologizes to Grayson for him finding out he should have been a Talon. Grayson decides that he can’t punch Bruce anymore. Leave it to me, then!

Grayson asks if Bruce will rebuild the tower. Taller! With plenty of windows! “Lately, right up until all this with the Court, I’d come to think of the city as mine. As Batman’s… but I see now that I was wrong. Because Gotham isn’t Batman. Gotham isn’t the Owls. Gotham is… Gotham is all of us.

*sheds a single, salty tear*

BUT, the city is still Batman’s and the Owls better watch their fucking backs. The end.

Continuing the Jarvis Pennyworth side story…

“Screeching metal, burning rubber,and fire… followed by perfect blackness.”

As you recall, Martha Wayne fucking crashed her car like an idiot with Bruce inside. So much blood, oh my god. It looked like a slaughterhouse. And that’s how Martha Wayne died! Wait.

The trauma of the accident caused Martha to lose her baby. Martha was beside herself with sadness and grief, so Thomas decided to whisk the family away for a summer out of the country. To get away from Wayne Manor. To get away from Gotham. To get away from stinky Jarvis, honestly.

When the phone rang earlier, it was some mope who wanted to kill Martha down by the docks. Well, the phone is ringing again and Jarvis has this “brrrrt!!” look in his eyes.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11

It’s starting to get ugly for the frothing, feral butler.

Jarvis does not succeed in escaping from the Owl. At the manor’s gates, the Owl drags his ass back to his flaming house where he apparently dies. His last dying thoughts and wishes are for Alfred to never, ever, not in a million years, visit Gotham City. Ever. Or he’ll be so haunted.

In the “present day”, a younger, mustachioed Alfred pays his respects at his father’s grave. Bruce approaches him with a “we’re going to fuck up these Owls” attitude, but Alfred isn’t so sure. “I remember the cloud of darkness when I first came to this place,” says Alfred. “At the time, I truly felt that the manor was cursed.” And Bruce agrees that it is cursed in some way, and oh well because it’s the only home he knows. Alfred poops on Bruce’s face and tells him that this is the first time he has ever visited his father’s grave. He, in fact, didn’t really even know him!

“And yet, in those early years, I felt him hovering over me. Like a force trying to impart something. But there was nothing I could to but try to live up to the man he wanted me to be.” Alfred looks vaguely into the distance.

Bruce and Alfred say a few more pleasantries that mean literally nothing, and the comic book is over.

Final Thoughts

This was one of the most boring issues of a comic book that I’ve ever read! It took me, like, three hours to get through. Fuck this Batman story, man. I want to see Bruce Wayne wrestle a polar bear or something.


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