Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16 – “The Underneath (Part 1)”

* Part 1 of 6 of the Underneath storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16 – “The Underneath (Part 1)”! In the previous storyline, Jessica Jones was on a missing girl case in a podunk town. The missing girl in question ran away from home because she was too doggoned liberal for her shitty, racist, hick town. In the end, the girl’s dad gets stabbed and her possibly adult girlfriend picks her up to run away again. I just copied and pasted that from my Issue #15 rundown! It’s called saving precious time.

Anyway, here’s another Alias story.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16 [February, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Underneath (Part 1)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16

Jessica Jones looks at a women’s magazine at a store and loudly swears at advice like “show more cleavage” and “swallow that cum”. Luckily she’s there, because someone tries to rob the cashier at gunpoint. “Oh shit!! Shit shit shit!” is all she can say about it at the moment. “Oh man! This is like that movie with Harrison Ford. Fuck – what do I do? What did Harrison Ford do?”

Jones wonders if she should just go ahead and be a superhero for two seconds while the perpetrator screams at the cashier with words like “gimme all your money” and “swallow that cum”. Jones wants to intervene, but she also promised herself that she wasn’t going to do this stuff anymore. She picks up a soup can. “I’ll just clock him on the head and that will be that.”

Well, that won’t be that, as it turns out. Jones misses and almost hits the cashier. She admonishes herself quietly. “Wow, I suck. He’s ten feet away.”

The robber turns around and starts firing multiple rounds in Jones’ direction. If this weren’t a comic book, she would be riddled with bullets! This is a comic book, though, unfortunately, and Jones is able to run right up to him and tackle him to the ground. Success! Now the easy part: getting the cashier to pick up the gun, aim it at the guy, and hold it there until the cops come. However…

“You bastard! You pig!! You dog!! I will kill you and then find your family – and kill them…” the cashier shrieks while Jones is like “whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, calm down dude, oh my god, just call the police.” Everyone lives happily ever after.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16

Too rich for my blood! I’ll just smoke a rolled up newspaper with some dried leaves in it.

Jones returns home to her dark, but relatively clean and well-organized apartment. She reflects on her occasional desire to do the superhero thing, but fuck that. Armed robberies suck and nobody acted right and it’s just a big pain in the ass in the end. “It’s the same thing with dancing,” she says. “Once a year I end up at a dance club – and all it does is remind me why I never go dancing.”

Then she outwardly calls the cashier a dick for having the audacity to charge her for cigarettes after saving his store. It’s like, come on dude, at least give her free cigarettes for, like, a year, or something.

Jones is about ready to settle down for a nice episode of Trailer Park Boys when she notices her curtain fluttering by her open window. Then she sees the light on in the closed bathroom. Not afraid of a probable rape, she approaches the door. A figure steps out of the bathroom… and it’s… it’s…

A woman dressed as Spider-Man. She has short cropped hair and some dang ol’ titties. “Jessica? Is that you?” she says. Then “You’re not Jessica…” Then “They — they lied to me! Those fuckers lied to me!”

Jones has no idea who this woman is or why she’s parading around her apartment in Spider-Man jammies. Before Jones really has a chance to get information out of the woman, she leaps out of the window (breaking all sorts of glass) and swings away (slamming into the side of a building ungracefully, of course). Jones was able to snag her mask before she took off. A mystery is on our hands! Time for some detective work!

*pulls out the ol’ magnifying glass*

Ant-Man aka Scott Something Who Cares, a man whom Jones went out on a date with, arrives at her apartment to help flesh out this mystery!

“And what did she look like?” he asks.

“Like Spider-Man with little tits,” she responds. “It was creepy, Scott.”

“I hate those female versions of already established male–”

“Ugh — I know. Like She-Hulk.”

“Jennifer’s cool.”

“Whatever.”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #16

Basically, subconsciously, I’m dtf, and if you too are dtf then we should both probably just f.

Scott asks Jones if she called the police. She goes “nnnn…” Calling the police is for dipfucks. Besides, they don’t do shit. Cops are bastards. No, no, here’s what’s going to happen: Jones is going to apologize for dragging Scott’s ass over here at 3am and here’s some coffee and yes I’m on the pill.

Scott thinks nothing of it! It was cool that she thought to call him, and it was cool for him to come over. Both parties are incredibly cool!

“You got something we can board up this window with?”

“I dunno.”

“You feel safe sleeping here tonight?”

“Not really.”

“You want to sleep over?”

Oooooooooooooooo!!

Here’s what sleeping over looks like: Scott splayed out on the full bed, and Jones smoking in her underwear at the dinner table searching for Spider-Ladies on her garbage early-2000s laptop. She wants to call an Agent Quartermain, who answers the phone a) knowing who she is, and b) knowing she’s at Scott Lang’s apartment. “ARE YOU SHTUPPING ANT-MAN?” Quartermain asks. “DID YOU CALL ME AT FOUR IN THE MORNING TO TELL ME YOU’RE SHTUPPING–”

Jones tells Quartermain to cork the fuck up and listen to what she has to say. Some teenager girl in a Spider-Man costume broke into her house and then broke out of her house. Quartermain looks something up for fifteen nanoseconds and tells Jones that the girl is named Mattie Franklin. “She did a short run as Spider-Woman,” Quartermain says. Cool info. So what the fuck was she doing in Jessica Jones’ house? Quartermain sends her an email with all the info he has, disparages Ant-Man one more time, and hangs up. Fuckin’ S.H.I.E.L.D.

We end with J. Jonah Jameson walking out to his car after a long day of putting boots up everyone’s asses in the office. Jessica Jones lurks in the shadows, tells Jameson that he’s not returning any of her calls. “I thought you’d take the hint,” he tells her.

“We need to talk. Mattie…”

Jameson looks shifty as he chomps on his disgusting cigar, looking like a pile of shit. “Get in the car,” he says.

Final Thoughts

INTRIGUING! I wonder how far J. Jonah Jameson’s hate-boner stretches out in his pants for Spider-Woman. If it’s anything like my hate-boner for Jason Schwartzman, then it’s a pretty big hate-boner.


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Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8 – “Attack on Wayne Manor”

* Part 2 of 6 of the City of Owls storyline *
* Part 2 of 15 of the Night of the Owls crossover event *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8 – “Attack on Wayne Manor”! In the previous installment, Bruce Wayne is using the dead Talon named William Cobb to figure out how the Owls synthesized a compound that can help reanimate his cells, i.e. bringing him back from the dead over and over. Dick Grayson learns that the man is his great-grandfather, which makes Dick so angry at Bruce that he yells at him for about six panels before Bruce cracks him across the jaw with a brass-knuckled fist.

The Court of Owls prepares to kill their enemy (Batman) and take over the city (Gotham) so they can celebrate (with TV dinners). Let’s see how that pans out.

It’s the Night of the Owls! *hoot*

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8 [June, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Attack on Wayne Manor”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8

Bruce soliloquoys about how you can spend your whole life understanding your stupid city and yet know nothing about it. Case in point: Gotham = Owls.

Bruce stares at a miniature replica of Gotham City in one of his many useless mansion rooms. This room is for the Gotham replica. Duh. Alfred turns on lights that illuminate some of the miniature buildings, causing Bruce to recoil in eye pain. Alfred tells him to stop being such a pussy.

“You want a metaphor old friend?” Bruce says to the guy who doesn’t want metaphors right now. “Here’s one… I’m a man standing over a toy city he made himself while the real one, the one that matters, operates behind his back.”

Sweet-ass metaphor, sir. Here’s your doctorate from Metaphor Tech. “You’ve been sitting in the dark for hours,” sniffs Alfred. “And you have inflammation in most of the tissue around your eyes…”

Bruce certainly does look like warmed-over shit, no one can deny that. He stares out the window at a sunrise, calling himself an arrogant fool. Alfred tries to sooth Bruce’s frazzled nerves with more snarky assholery, but a loud THUMP brings Bruce’s attention back to saving the world. “Get to the cave,” he instructs Alfred. “I’ll take care of the intruder.” Bruce runs while Alfred is hot on his heels going “Sir! Sir! I can take care of it! Sir! Your health!”

But to the cave he goes, and Alfred determines that the intruder signals all over the manor aren’t making sense! Then he stops cold and tells Bruce to get down to the cave ASAP.

A man wearing Owl Ninja Gear busts through the railing of a wooden staircase and tries to snap at Bruce with a mechanical hand claw thing. “Bruce Wayne…” it says, “…the Court of Owls… has sentenced you to–”

Bruce cracks off a piece of staircase and smacks the Owl with it. The Owl laughs it away, amused by Bruce’s moves! He’s got moves, too, and it’s like how the Queen has moves. Bruce is more of a Rook, you see. Then Bruce uses his Rook leg to kick the Owl right through a door and knocking him unconscious.

Three more sets of yellow mask eyes peer out from the darkness of the next room…

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8

Master Bruce, sir, this is no time for sex.

Alfred looks frantic and hopeless and he informs Bruce that he’s pretty much surrounded. They’re getting into the house from all sides. One is even coming down the stairs of the Batcave, literally hooting. And then Alfred’s line is disconnected.

Bruce does his best to run away from and/or knock out and/or murder the Owls, but one man can only do so much, I always say. He makes his way to the top of the roof. “Go ahead, Bruce! Try to run away! We’ll follow you wherever you go!” the Owl screeches.

Bruce has now snapped off a weathervane and is attempting to bludgeon the Owl with the “N” side. Then he jabs the pole end into the Owl’s chest. Then he scurries down the chimney where he gets stuck in an uncomfortable position until he dies. “We’ll get you, Bruce Wayne!” another Owl says, thwarted. “We’re coming for you!”

Now that the Owls have been stymied forever, Bruce heads down to the Batcave to find Alfred. He finds nobody but yet another Fucking Owl.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8

THAT DRAWER OF WOMEN’S PANTIES ARE FOR MY RECREATIONAL ENJOYMENT! I HAVE NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF!

Alfred shoves a giant coin onto the Owl. And when I say “giant” I really mean “giant”. Like, the Owl has probably been crushed to death. “Your lucky penny, sir,” Alfred says morbidly.

Bruce takes the mask off the not-dead Owl and reveals a creepy, pale, veiny face. Bruce screams “HOW MANY ARE COMING FOR US!” and the Owl tells him “Enough”, and not just for him. He’ll find that out very soon.

This is the part where Bruce breaks the guy’s arm, much to his chagrin. Then another swarm of Owls descends into the cave, so Bruce and Alfred-With-an-Ax run to a vault to lock themselves inside. The armory, as it were. “That’s okay, Bruce. We’ll find a way in. We always do,” an Owl sneers. Alfred agrees – the doors won’t hold forever.

Bruce hands Alfred a tiny little SD card that he found in the Owl’s gauntlet after breaking his arm. Take it and then turn up the air conditioning in the Batcave to full-blast! We’ll cold them out!

The Owls, meanwhile, look stupid bashing and clawing at the armory door. “You can’t hide forever, Bruce!”

Then one of them uses what the artwork seems to convey as telekinetic powers to unscrew bolts from the armory door. Bruce comes out in a full-body iron Batsuit. “Get the HELL out of my house!” he says intimidatingly. “Look at this, friends. Bruce came out to play!” taunts an Owl. “You know what we do to bats, Bruce? We eat them whole. Bones and all.”

Gross!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #8

I’m so fucking high right now!

Meanwhile, Alfred gibbers at what he has found out from the SD card. “It’s a list of targets. And… nearly every public figure in Gotham is on it. Everyone who shapes the city.”

“The city comptroller… Betty Park…” Ol’ Betty gets accosted by Owls in her house.

“Gotham City deputy sheriff… Michael D. Davis…” Ol’ Michael gets snuck up on in his bathtub.

One by one Alfred lists names and see Owls fuck their shit up. All of them sentenced to die by the Court of Owls. And who else is on the list? Commissioner Jimmy Gordie. Mayor Hady too, but who gives a shit about him?

Anyway, Bruce tells Alfred to put a call out. Batman’s going to need his team assembled. Nightwing. Robin. Batgirl, Red Face. Emo Kid. Floozy. All of ‘em.

“To all the allies of the Bat presently in Gotham… I send this with the greatest urgency. Tonight, the Court of Owls has sent their assassins to kill nearly forty people across the city. The Court’s targets are all Gotham leaders. People who shape this city. I have uploaded a list of the targets’ names, here. The Court’s assassins – the ‘Talons’ — are already en route to their targets. They are highly trained killers with extraordinary regenerative abilities.”

BANG BANG!

Alfred says he’ll keep the line open as long as possible.

BANG BANG!

The Owls draw their knives out at Metal Batsuit-Man

BANG BANG!

And they try to get through the door to Alfred.

BANG BANG!

“We’re coming for you too, old man! Going to tear the skin off your back!”

This is getting serious! And – oh wait, the issue’s over.

Final Thoughts

I really want to see these Owls win. Bruce has been so arrogant about Gotham being HIS city that I want to see Gotham’s Illuminati-style society tear his ass to pieces.

But we can’t always get what we want in life, can we?


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All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6

* Part 6 of 6 of the Four Sisters storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6! In the previous installment, Laura Kinney enlists the help of Janet Van Der Snoot (aka the Wasp) for the purposes of shrinking down and beatin’ up nanites in Zelda’s brain. It’s all for naught, because Captain Mooney shoots her dead anyway, rendering the issue pointless.

Another Sister has been killed, so now the clones are doing to pull out all the stops to get their revenge. It’s Chinatown, baby.

All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6 [May, 2016]
Written by: Tom Taylor

All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6

A car trespasses upon the location of the Alchemax super secret underground bunker. Personnel with automatic rifles points them at the car all “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!” The car keeps moving forward. One guy is like “I MEAN IT, OH DEAR GOD DO I EVER MEAN IT!” The car keeps moving forward, then stops. The passenger door opens and an injured Captain Mooney thumps out of it to the ground like a fat boulder of shit.

Later, in the infirmary, he tells Robert Chandler that he killed a Sister, but Wolverine and Wasp served his butt on a butt-shaped platter. Chandler sighs and leaves the room, pointing out that Wolverine obviously let Mooney go since he’s still alive and whatnot. Now she’s going to hunt Mooney down, so get the fuck out of their Hitler bunker before she bombs it with bombs.

Too late. Wolverine and her gang have found the facility. The bunker has only one entrance, which means it only has one escape route. Wolverine hands her sisters some guns from an armored tank. “Non-lethal shots for the guards. Legs. Arms. Non-vital parts. Hurt them. Incapacitate them. Try not to kill.”

Aim for the dick. Got it.

“Let’s go,” says Wolverine as the other two don their masks and stand at the ready. It makes a kickass panel that I should post here, but I won’t! Oh well!

They barrel down the facility in their armored car, which causes the guards to open fire all sorts of RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-TAT. Nothing works until the buff, shirtless Mooney fires a rocket launcher at it, blowing it to cinders. “Make sure Wolverine is down,” he says to the guards, but they find no one in the car.

That’s because the Sisters were behind the car ready to jump out from behind the car and open fire on the guards! Now there’s a panel!

All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6

See? I almost wasted this space on some other bullshit.

Bellona is so mad at Mooney that she abandons the original plan and chases after him with her gun. A guard shoots Bellona in the side of the head. This = Dead Bellona. The best Sister. Gabby is distraught, but Wolverine tells her to keep moving before she gets killed too.

Deep underground, the guards have dragged Bellona to the infirmary where Scientist Doctor #1 wants to find the cause of death. “She has, like, twenty-five bullet holes in her,” Scientist Doctor #2 points out. But no, Chandler wants to know exactly what killed her. Nanites, remember?

Right before the first incision is made in the corpse, Scientist Doctor Surgeon Professor #2 looks closer at Bellona’s white hair. “Hmmm. This is weird,” he says before tugging on the hair, revealing a wig hiding her real dark hair. Bellona opens her eyes and SNIKTs! Is this Bellona or not? What’s going on?

The Scientist Geneticist Zoologists cower in the corner and explain that not all the scientists died in the blast. Just the senior scientists, the ones who understood everything. These two don’t understand anything, no sir! Just a couple’a rubes!

Bellona(?) snips a square off of one of the geneticist’s lab coat and sniffs it. “I have your scent now. I will always be able to find you. Do you believe me?” she says. It sounds like bullshit to me! But the geneticists believe her, and they get the option to either a) right their wrongs, or b) go down with the ship. The geneticists opt for Option A, so Bellona(?) asks for all their information, data, files, footage, notes, scrawlings, cave paintings, and microfilm that shows what they did to the Sisters, how they treated them during captivity, how the nanites are killing them, and, if you have time, when they took their sexy showers.

Bellona(?) (who turns out the be Kinney—she and Bellona swapped uniforms somehow at some point and who cares) leaves the room and deliberately sets off the alarm, sending all the guards into the facility where she takes them all down in half a panel. She lets the other two Sisters into the facility through the steel door. She reports that the scientists are uploading all their information and sending it to WolverinesRUs@gmail.co.fr tout suite. Then she calls Maria Hill to tell her about what they all did and where she can find them. Everything has wrapped up nicely.

Final Thoughts

Oh wait, we’re only half done!

All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6

It’s the newest fashion! You can get them at Abercrombie & Fitch.

Wolverine overhears soft footsteps. Mooney is coming. Time to kill a bitch. Wolverine is in charge of finding Chandler while the other two go tear Mooney a new b-hole. They do a pretty good job smacking him around, wailing about how he hurt them and how they wouldn’t be capable of kicking his ass if it weren’t for him, ironically. “If you didn’t hate us so much for all those years in our cage, maybe we would have just walked away. Bellona aims her gun at Mooney’s face and tells Gabby to wait around the corner. “I don’t want you to see this.”

BLAM BLAM

Mission accomplished! Time to go their separate ways! Bellona says goodbye and Gabby says “wait, huh?” Then Bellona’s all like “yeah”, so Gabby is like “Will I see you again?” and Bellona is like “not really.” Then they hug it out.

Meanwhile, Robert Chandler is trying to pack up all his stuff and get the hell out of dodge, but Wolverine enters the room. “You don’t get to walk away from this, Chandler,” she says, and Chandler says “Could you be any more wrong?” Ha! Good joke, Tom.

“What we’re working on here is worth a lot of money to a lot of powerful people. The ends will be seen to justify the means. Of course I get to walk away.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Wolverine says, then she claws the back of his knees. Chandler screams and tumbles to the floor. “See, you can’t walk away without hamstrings.”

Chandler puts on his “oh shit” face and attempts to drag his feeble little body away until Wolverine steps on his face with her giant boot. “Right now, I own you. What happens to you is entirely up to me. You’re not a person. You’re my property.” She brings a razor sharp claw within in a centimeter of his eyeball and tells him that now he knows how it feels.

Gabby interrupts the happy moment to tell Wolverine that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on their way. Wolverine tells her, good, they can question Chandler for the next 56 hours.

“Where’s Bellona?” asks Wolverine.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Just… gone. Can we leave it at that for now?”

All-New Wolverine (Vol. 1), Issue #6

Eat my metal middle finger, Baldy.

Before they go, Gabby wants to speak with Chandler alone. “I really want to hurt you,” she says to the sweating man. “But Wolverine wants me to be a good person. Zelda wanted me to be a good person, too. Despite everything you did to us, I want to be a good person.”

Then she almost stabs him in the eyeball. “But I want you to know… this is how close you came.”

Then she leaves the room while Chandler lies there, bleeds out, turns into a desiccated corpse, and skeletonizes all before 60 Minutes comes on TV that night.

With Gabby’s task completed, Wolverine tells her that they should probably leave before the feds come. Besides the nanites, Gabby is now a free woman. And when asked if she killed Chandler (no, unfortunately), Wolverine calls her the worst at what they all designed her to be! Backhanded compliment, but hey! Beggars can’t be choosers.

Later, Bellona is in a helicopter with an unknown person. She is told that Robert Chandler will spend the rest of his life in prison—Alchemax is done. “They stole from me, and now they’re gone,” says the unknown figure. “There’s nothing better than a well-planned revenge. Regardless, I delivered. I took out the lab. I freed you and your sisters. I gave you the means to hurt them. You took them down. So, you deliver your end now. I get the tech inside you.”

The woman in the helicopter with her is a smiling, smug Kimura. I’m supposed to know who Kimura is, but I don’t. Therefore, this story ends on a very underwhelming note! Good job, Marvel.

Final Thoughts

OK, according to the Online Marvel Wiki Nerd Page, Kimura is X-23’s handler. She pulled the puppet strings, abused her, bullied her, and even took a shit on her face!

Still underwhelming. I could kick this lady’s ass right now. Just let me at her.


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Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Trial by Ordeal”

* Part 1 of 5 of the There Is No Fear storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Trial by Ordeal”!

I’ve read Light of the Jedi! I’ve read The Rising Storm! I’ve read The Fallen Star! I’ve endured all that so you don’t have to, and logic dictates that the next course of action right now is to read some Star Wars: The High Republic comics. The one thing that I will appreciate is putting a species to a name. Every time they mention Twi’leks and Aloxians and Tholothians in the books I go “buhhhhh” and imagine humans anyway. Like, every single Jedi Master in my head is just Qui-Gon Jinn.

And why is it called the “High” Republic? Don’t ask, man.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [March, 2021]
Written by: Cavan Scott
“Trial by Ordeal”

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1

”The galaxy is at peace, ruled by the glorious Republic and protected by the noble and wise Jedi Knights. As a symbol of all that is good, the Republic is about to launch Starlight Beacon into the far reaches of the Outer Rim. This new space station will serve as a ray of hope for all to see. But just as a magnificent renaissance spreads throughout the Republic, so does a frightening new adversary. Now the guardians of peace and justice must face a threat to themselves, the galaxy, and the Force itself…”

Final Thoughts

Just kidding! Now that we’re up to speed on just how high the High Republic is, we can begin our story. On Shuraden (the Republic Frontier), a creepy little tiny troll with wings pesters a Jedi by asking her if she is indeed a Jedi. “You have the shiny sword thing. Are you going to light it? The Ximpi have heard your signal, yes, we have. You do great things. Great, great things.”

The little Ximpi asks the Jedi if she’ll protect them; if all the Jedi will protect them. The Jedi woman is visibly annoyed (YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE THEY DREW HER THAT WAY) as she keeps moving forward among what looks like exotic plants and mountains. After a spell, she asks the Ximpi’s its name. Kanrii. She introduces herself. Keeve. Then she tells Kanrii to get the fuck away from her. She’s not that mean about it, but she basically says, yeah, fuck off.

BECAUSE A BIG SCALY LIZARD MONSTER CREATURE WEARING JEDI ROBES JUMPS OUT OF THE BUSHES WITH A BLUE LIGHTSABER! EGAD! RUN! DEATH IS NIGH!

Keeve busts out her out double-ended green lightsaber and starts fighting the thing. The lizard accuses Keeve of being distracted and open to attack. Keeve answers by lifting her hand and blasting the lizard guy with Force juice, sending him flying back 900 feet.

This is the part where I noticed that the lizard guy only has one arm. “What are you doing? Don’t just stand there!” cries Kanrii it what I assume is a whiny Urkel voice. “Lop off his other arm!”

Of course she’s not going to do that. Do you know why? Because this lizard guy, Sskeer, is Keeve’s fuckin’ Master. Can you get that through your lumpy prune of a brain, Kanrii?

Keeve hands Sskeer back his lightsaber and asks what they’re even doing here on this shithole planet with the annoying fairies from the Legend of Zelda. “You should be recuperating after your accident, and I should be preparing for my trials.”

Then Keeve realizes that Sskeer doesn’t think she’s ready yet. Fuckin’ lizard. She’ll lop off your other arm, you piece of sh–

“I have two things to sssay,” begins Sskeer. “First of all… if you are to be knighted, you need to watch your language. And sssecond… when it comes to your trials–”

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1

If we’re not here to eat pussy, then I don’t want to be here at all!

*opening credits*

Sskeer takes this Keeve sad sack over to these giant spires. “The Needles have stood for millennia,” he tells her. “Many have tried to climb them. Many have failed.”

So what is it, Pops? You need her to climb up some fuckin’ giant stalagmites? No kriffing fucking problem. OK, great! Sskeer had hung a Tythonian pendant atop one of the peaks. Fetch. Don’t fall. Don’t give up until you have it or so help him, Keeve, he’ll spank your ass ruddy.

“They’re so tall,” Keeve says in a small voice. Sskeer mocks her for being scared. “There is no fear,” she recites like a good little Jedi. “Only certainty.” Even Sskeer is like “yeah, that’s just rhetoric you little brat.”

But, soon enough, Keeve starts climbing a spire. Kanrii buzzes around her ear like a pesky gnat and asks if she’s really not scared. She barely answers before the spire cracks in half, sending her tumbling to a most assured death!

She plunges her lightsaber into an adjacent spire and stops herself cantilever-style.

“Phew. That was close. You could have died,” observes Kanrii.

“But I didn’t. And I’d rather not. Which is why I need to focus.”

Kanrii is self-aware enough to know that he’s being a giant buzzing fly in Keeve’s face and excuses himself. But another little Ximpi (Lekaki) shows up to ask Kanrii what the kriff he’s fucking doing. Why, he’s hanging out with his new best friend Keeve is what he’s doing! Hee hee hee! *buzz buzzzzzz*

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Come on over, Lekaki! Keeve and I are gonna find some pussy!

Suddenly, a deafening HZZZZZZZZ deafens even the most undeafenable. It’s a swarm of really, really, really big bugs (50 times larger than Keeve) who plow through all the ancient spires and knock Keeve tumbling to a most assured death!

It’s not a pretty sight.

Meanwhile, on the Starlight Beacon, which looks like this shitty little top spinning in space, Jedi Avar Kriss is chewing out Master Maru for not know where Sskeer is. First of all, Master Maru knows everything. Second of all, Sskeer should be here on the Starlight Beacon where we can all make fun of his missing arm.

Maru tells Kriss they are but nine hours from the dedication of the Starlight Beacon. He has to organize the arrival of hundreds of delegates. He has to test the damn beacon. He cannot keep track of every rogue Jedi Master. Now away with you!

Kriss is just worried about Sskeer, is all. He hasn’t been the same since the Nihil battle at Kur where he lost his penis… I mean, arm. Maybe he blames himself for the death of Master Malli (who ate himself to death gorging on spaghetti). Whatever it is, Kriss can’t “hear his song” within the Force and it’s getting her itchy.

Grandmaster Veter and Yoda arrive on the station with no other reason but to look grumpy. They have a boring meeting with the chancellor to discuss bacta manufacturing after the Hetzel disaster. Kriss is amazed at this “they” and “we” business, because that means that Yoda has returned to the Council! At least I think he does; he says something in Yoda-speak and he’s not very clear about it. Something like this: “Wash my butthole, I will!”

Veter has a gift for Avar Kriss! She’s going to be in charge of the Starlight Beacon! Isn’t that a lovely, wonderful gift? Being in charge of something instead of going out in the field and whipping your lightsaber at fiends and degenerates? “Starlight needs a marshal… and that marshal is you.”

Elsewhere, Keeve is falling from 9,000,000 feet as she avoids these giant flying bug things. “There goes my trial,” she thinks. “What’re the odds the drukking pendant is still where Sskeer left it?” The bugs head for Shuraden. Keeve decides, amidst the chaos, that she should still look for the pendant even though Sskeer is like “where are you going, doofus?” She boards a vector ship with Kanrii and flies off with Sskeer yelling and shaking his fist.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1

No, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a fleet of bombers piloted by Nicolas Cage clones. Yes, I’m sure, damnit!

Keeve decides it’s her duty to find out where the bugs came from. She gets the Starlight Beacon on the horn and advises them to do something the swarm of giant insects ravaging Shuraden.

Maru thinks on this. “It could be the ridadi, a species of star-locust that migrate through that area of space once a generation–” he suggests, “–but according to our records, they instinctively avoid inhabited worlds.”

Thanks for the help, Captain No-Help. Maru also suggests that Keeve ask them what’s up, which seems like a very good use of time. Keeve goes into full-page Force trance and becomes one with the bugs, as it were. She learns that they’re all flying at once toward “home”… toward… toward… “NO!” Keeve screams.

“Master Maru, how to the ridadi navigate?” she asks as she runs back toward the vector. Well, ma’am, they follow the magnetic pulse of the nearest star in the system, you silly goose you.

Except now something is interfering with the pule of the nearest star in the system. Ever heard of the Starlight Beacon? Yeah. That shit is in the way.

But they can get them back on track! Here’s how! *blows station up to smithereens*

Keeve stays ahead of the flying bugs as she sets her ship to replicate the Beacon’s pulse. Meanwhile, Maru will recalibrate the beacon with scissors and masking tape to change its pulse frequency (so that some other bugs somewhere will be drawn to it, most likely).

Next thing you know, Keeve sets the vector on auto-pilot and leaps out of the fucking thing. Everyone is saved!

“Padawan…” speaks an ominous voice behind Keeve. She gulps in terror like she’s about to be flayed and flogged. “You took the vector. And where is it now.”

GULP! “Um. Up there. Somewhere.”

Sskeer harumphs and calls the Beacon for another vector to take them home.

“Are you in trouble, Friend Keeve?” asks Kanrii.

“I don’t know,” Keeve responds. “Maybe.”

As Sskeer tromps across the Beacon with a fucking attitude, Keeve is hot on his heels trying to plead her case. “SIR, THE BUGS! THE XIMPI CITY! SIR!” Doors open up and reveal the haughty figure of Jedi Master Avar Kriss, who leaves Keeve starstruck. “Wow! I heard what you did at Hetzal! You’re… you’re crikking amazing!”

That’s enough cussing for one afternoon, little lady. Keeve hunches and shrinks about seven feet, worried about how much trouble she’s in. “Look, I know I didn’t finish my trial, but the Ximpi were in danger.”

Avar Kriss makes a face like she’s mad as hell. But it’s a total fakeout asshole move.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #1

Now clean the Beacon toilets. Your hazing has officially begun.

Kriss uses the lightsaber to chop off Keeve’s padawan braid and almost decapitates her in the process, and it would have been deserved. Did you see how she stole that vector?? Inexcusable!

Later, at the Starlight Beacon dedication ceremony, Kriss stands up in front of all the padawans, knights, delegates, and members of the United States Republican Party and gives her speech about hope and peace. All the while, Keeve stands there like “Am I really here? Someone pinch me!”

“Am I ready? No,” she thinks. “Will I ever be ready? Same answer – but I’m gonna try. After all, Sskeer believed in me. That’s why he took me to Shuraden. He knew what would happen. The Ximpi. The ridadi. All of it.”

Kriss continues yapping about the Force this and the Force that. For light and for life and whatever.

“It was all a test. A test he planned through the Force. A test I passed. I won’t let them down, Sskeer. Avar. The Order itself. Not now. Not ever.”

A shadowy, hooded figure emerges through the doors. Sskeer looks up to the heavens and screams “NOOOOOO!”

And that’s the sudden end of the issue.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, whatever. Here’s another one for the Star Wars nerds who want to keep up with everything canon they can possibly get their hands on. Let’s see if the story improves as we go. Those Ximpi would probably be tasty all barbecued up.


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Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “The Talons Strike!”

* Part 1 of 6 of the City of Owls storyline *
* Part 1 of 15 of the Night of the Owls crossover event *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “The Talons Strike!”! In the previous storyline… you know what? I don’t remember anything about it anymore. After all, it was only the very first fucking DC story I’ve ever read! So forget about it for now. I’m finally getting to the Night of the Owls event! And not four years too late!

So, enjoy the ride that will assuredly take years due to all the tie-ins I don’t really want to deal with right now. Nightwing Vol. 3? Red Hood and the Outlaws? Bleeeeccccch. Someone jam a stick up my peehole.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7 [May, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“The Talons Strike!”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7

“Some ancients believed that the moment of death brought with it visions. Not just visions of one’s past, or of things known to the dying… but visions of one’s self as one truly existed in life…”

The pages are dolloped with this narration while we see a flashback of Bruce Wayne deciding that he will become that Bat that we oh-so know and “love”. As you recall, he was sitting in a lavish chair in his dad’s lavish study when a fucking diseased flying rat crashed through one of the windows. Bruce didn’t even miss a beat during his jerkoff session.

Some strong symbolism happens: the wounded bat flies away and gets grabbed in the talons of a healthy owl! Write that one down, it’s assuredly going to come up later.

“They believed, the ancients, that these final visions often went beyond what was known to the dying man in life… that they constituted secret truths about his life, revealed.”

The owl eviscerates the bat and eats it’s delicious, delicious innards.

“Some truths were comforting. Some were heart-shattering.”

The owl stares out of the page with its scary ink-on-paper yellow and black eyes!

“Either way, these visions were meant to offer a sense of closure so that he may leave the world in peace, knowing all there was to know about himself. A vision of himself as he truly was. Reflected in the burning eyes of his god.”

A woman crudely jumpstart’s Batman’s heart in the back of a van with jumper cables and a battery. He is so overcome with gratitude that he shoves her out of the way and runs out of the vehicle hootin’ and hollerin’ about leaving him alone. Her name is Harper and I have no fucking clue who she is.

“And you—you who stand before us now—will certainly find yourself changed… when you open your eyes. Which you will do now…”

A figure opens his eyes revealing, from his point of view, a whole slew of creepy individuals wearing masks. The Court of Owls, as it were. The awoken man is veiny and you can see his nipples. There’s a really good nipple shot coming up, I swear it. The man has been “restored” and improved upon: stronger, faster, immortal. Battle wounds will heal instantly. Diarrhea will no longer affect your life as profoundly as it had before!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7

Titty!

Huzzah for the Court of Owls! They will take over Gotham a restore order to the fair city. And offer free ice cream to all the burliest men. No children.

Batman slinks through the sewer, as he does. But he’s not in good shape. He ends up at a gate that says “No Trespassing” on it, which I believe means exactly what it says on the label. A man sticks his double-barreled shotgun through the gate. “Identify yourself!”

“It’s… me,” Batman says weakly. Not very heroic, honestly.

“MASTER BRUCE!” says the bald, thinly-mustachioed gun-wielder. “MY GOD…”

Alfred, with tears in his eyes, drags Batman through the corridor that presumably connects this part of the sewer system to Wayne Manor’s fanciest toilet. Or the Batcave, I suppose. Batman is terrified to see the dead body of an Owl propped up like Hannibal Lecter. “We discovered his body in the frozen water,” Alfred says, “near the spot we detected the short beacon from your suit.”

“I moved the body here to the Batcave for examination,” Alfred continues. “Let’s get you to the medical station.”

“No.”

Batman wants the dead guy in the medical station instead. You know, for funsies.

Meanwhile, the lavishly-dressed Owls are continuing to indoctrinate Mr. Man-Titties by showing him slides of Batman and going “HE IS YOUR ENEMY”. They replace the man’s armor. “Tonight, we will strike down our enemy. Not just strike him down, but tear him apart. Limb from limb. And eat his bones.”

Egad! Not the bones!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7

Not now, son! Daddy’s using his BDSM chair!

Robin – or Red Robin, not sure – comes downstairs to bug Bruce even though the tired sack of crap has told the old man repeatedly to keep the riff-raff out. “Geez, Bruce, what did they do to you?” Red Robin asks. Bruce looks like someone dragged his face across a cactus that someone defecated on.

He tells Red Robin that the dead Owl was named Talon. An assassin for the Court of Owls. He may be dead, but the Owls seemed to have synthesized a compound found in his body that can reanimate his dead cells if they want to. Bruce found a significant amount of electrum lodged in the man’s anus! Or in his cells, actually, and all this electrum can bring him back from the dead. Bruce read about it once in a copy of Scientific American. Or maybe it was Hustler, and it was a naked woman. Hard to remember.

Anyway, he had a tooth shaped like an owl that deposited the electrum into his body for decades. The Owls woke him up like an ignition spark for the sole purpose of killing. Once this electrum compound bonds with the cells, they’re capable of getting reactivated over and over.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7

“I took a tissue sample, Dick” sounds dirtier than it should.

So how do you take a guy down that can come back to life ad nauseam? Well, first of all, try burning the body, stupid. Or cutting off the head. Do I really need to answer this question for you? Bruce decides that cold is the way to go, so he’s pumping him full of very expensive freezing solution to keep him at bay.

Oh by the way, Red Robin: his name is William Cobb and he’s your great-grandfather! lol

This is Dick Grayson, by the way, so it’s actually Nightwing. Sorry. How confusing for all of you.

“You know, Bruce, I get that you think you’re protecting me by keeping your secrets. Or rather, I get that you want to think that’s why you keep secrets like this. But since we’re being so honest and up front – right? Let’s just admit that both of us know the person you’re really protecting is yourself. From needing to have a damn human emotion!”

Ooouch, tough talk there, Dick. He’s going to growl at you for sure now.

Dick pushes it and pushes it until, finally, Bruce cracks him across the jaw, sending blood flying everywhere. Then he picks up a gold tooth with an owl on it. “You were supposed to be one, too, Dick,” he says, pocketing the gold for later bartering! You see, all the circus stuff? Training! Training to be a Talon. To be a killer, Dick. A killer.

His blood gushing all over the place, Dick asks Bruce how he knows all this. And Bruce blah-blah-blahs about how every decade brought a new crop of child athletes from the circus, and how one was picked by the Court to become their newest Secret Assassin! It all makes sense! *fart*

This the part where Bruce complains that “his city” is actually overrun by these Owl fucks who think they run the place. “And I’ll tell you, Dick, if someone could have protected me from that truth, I’d have been grateful.”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #7

Quit bleeding in my cave, kid.

We end with the Court of Owls inviting a slew of ne’er-do-well-lookin’ assassins into their mansion headquarters overlooking the fine city of Gotham City (the City!) “Yes, this way! Come see! For tonight, we will not only kill our enemy, but we will take back our city! WE WILL TAKE BACK OUR KINGDOM!”

Final Thoughts

What kind of milquetoast shit is this? Let the Owls take over, see if I give a shit. They’ve obviously been running things for centuries; Bruce Wayne is just some nobody who’s getting in the way. So, yeah. Ax that motherfucker. Let the Owls reign supreme.

That’s the correct opinion, right?


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