Paper Girls, Issue #30

* Part 5 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 6 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #30! The whole series comes to a close with the double-length issue, and I’m INCONSOLABLY sad that I have be finished. I would have hung onto the series for another 200 issues, but such is life. It’s not fair.

In the previous installment, the girls all converge in Stony Stream, circa 1831 where they will finally be returned to their own time, blissfully unaware that any of their time travel adventures had happened. Jahpo gets tendrilled by an Editrix and sees visions of his young life as Wari’s son in 11,706 BCE.

A brief, tender moment of goodbyes gets rudely interrupted by 19 Erin and Duplicate Erin, who zaps the four of them back to their time. This last issue will show the aftermath, I imagine. And perhaps what the four of them actually did after their route on November 1, 1988.

It’s been a great ride.

Paper Girls, Issue #30 [July, 2019]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #30

“If you laugh at me, I’m gonna punch you in the boob.”

KJ is “enjoying” her bat mitzvah. Mac has shown up in her usual Mac garb. “Jesus. KJ, you look… I mean, I didn’t know this was gonna be so… dressy.”

Erin pops in with a tattered skirt. “Sorry I’m late! This stupid thing got stuck in my spokes!”

It’s 1989, almost one year after that fateful day. They keep calling Erin “new kid” because they literally don’t remember her name.

Tiff walks in with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a gun, looking literally like the Terminator. She fucking shoots Erin right through the torso with a big, rainbow-y blast.

“ERIN!” screams KJ.

“That was her name,” says Mac.

Tiff: “I have a message.”

KJ: “Please. You have to dance with me.”

Mac: “Like, slow dance?”

Tiff: “Remember. We’re not just papergirls. We’re–”

KJ: “Mac, you love me.”

Mac: “I do?”

Then Mac wakes up in her shithole of a bedroom. “You overslept, stupid.”

It’s Hell Morning. Mac’s brother is wearing a creepy mask. “And my boys are still out there, so I hope you’re ready to get egged in the face.”

He rummages through the pigsty of their living room looking for his Walkman, which Mac stole. Next, she’s seen biking down the street with the music cranked and a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

KJ wakes up in her nice rich-girl bedroom. “Karina? Aren’t you late for your little job, sweetheart?”

It’s Hell Morning. KJ’s mother sips coffee with their poodle at her feet. KJ is trying to remember her kickass dream, but it fades. She looks quite miserable.

Tiff wakes up on her couch in front of the glowing TV screen. “…not… just… paper…”

PRESS START TO CONTINUE. Round 36. She’s in the last level of Arkanoid! Maybe just another 15 minutes… and…

“What’s wrong with you?” asks a visage from the TV screen. Unphased, Tiff slowly moves her finger toward the power button of the Nintendo and…

Erin wakes Missy up after crashing a lamp on the floor.

Paper Girls, Issue #30

Oh, that? That’s just a… uhm… it’s a tattoo of… you ever see that Kurt Vonnegut drawing of the butthole?

Huh? That mark on Erin’s stomach must be a rash or something. Very curious. Wonder if she travelled through time, got shot in the stomach, and had a pile of bugs repair the wound? Occam’s Razor, man.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Missy scowls, staring at the scar.

“Yeah, well you don’t even know what puberty is,” says Erin. I loled.

After Missy threatens to tell their mother, Erin begs her not to say WORD ONE about it or she’ll die of heart attack syndrome. She’ll force Erin to stay home and the Cleveland Preserver will fire her. And this job is important! She doesn’t know why, but it’s important!

“Mac! How’s it going?” Tiff rolls up next to Mac. “Don’t know if you remember, but we delivered together last year.”

“Tonya, right?”

“Tiffany.”

Mac asks if Tiff’s seen KJ around. Nope, but there’s some new kid named Erin. You may have heard of her? Her older self died sending them back to 11,706 BCE? “Erin with an ‘E’? For real? How many of us are working Stony Stream now?” Mac asks, taking a puff of her cigarette. “Guess you started a fad,” Tiff answers.

Anyway, Tiff gave Erin a walkie-talkie so that she can radio if she needs any–

Paper Girls, Issue #30

I bet this new kid eats vaseline on her toast.

*kzzt* “Um, calling Tiffany?” *kzzt*

This is the part where Erin tells Tiff that she spotted three teenage jerks trying to corner KJ down a cul-de-sac. The three show up to save the day. Mac calls the Freddy Krueger kid a “fart-mouth”, which his two friends agree with! “Why don’t you mind your business, Coyle?” he yells.

“My brother told me you got fired from Friendly’s for dipping your hairy balls in the Fribble machine.”

Yuck, Fribble balls? This kid flips the bird and tells her good luck getting home alive. Then they fuck off into the night.

“I could have handled them on my own, you know,” KJ grumbles. More douchebags on the prowl, so Erin suggests sticking together. Good plan, maybe they’ll find a time capsule and–

So the four ride down the street and get to know each other. “Back in ‘83, I dressed up as Robin. From Batman?” Erin says. “But I got scared looking out the window at all the neighborhood kids and went to hide under my parents’ bed. I ended up getting a fever. I didn’t go out, and that was pretty much it for my mom and dad, so I never went out on Halloween again.”

…

“That is the single saddest story I’ve heard in my entire life,” KJ replies, shooting Erin a look of unbridled pity.

A station wagon honks and blares its lights behind the girls. Tiff recognizes it as a woman who keeps bothering her on her route, thinking she’s following her. The car suddenly accelerates and brakes right in front of Erin, who crashes and falls before she has a chance to avoid it.

About two seconds later, a car full of hooligans wearing skeleton costumes blaze past the stop sign crossing the intersection. Surely, one or more of the girls would’ve been killed…

Then the car speeds off again.

“WAIT! Who are you?” Tiff screams trying to run after the woman.

Paper Girls, Issue #30

.♪ ♫ ♬ ♪ Born to be wiiiiiiillld! .♪ ♫ ♪

Tiff wonders if this was some sort of guardian angel who purposely stopped them all from getting fucked up in the intersection, but I don’t think most guardian angels have tribal tattoos.

Still on the ground after beefin’ it, Erin asks Mac for a cigarette! Of all things!

You know what? Cigarettes for everyone!

The four of them share a moment smoking at a playground. Erin takes a puff. “With all the warnings and stuff, I didn’t think it was gonna taste so great.” Ahh, preteen rebellion. The most I ever did was sneak downstairs at midnight to use the internet.

Tiff fiddles with her cigarette a bit and declares that she’s going to quit paper-girling. It’s all about the money, man, and she’s tired of it. Tired of stuff. Tired of capitalism. “And most of whatever I think I’ll like is just some slightly different version of crap that made me happy as a kid.” She glares at her expensive walkie-talkie. “I mean, maybe I need to grow up a little.”

Are we already on the path to Double-Oh Tiff? A life of meaningless Bohemianism and dating Marilyn Manson lookalikes?

The other three girls agree to take Tiff’s customers. She flicks her cigarette in the river and heads to her final four houses. “A paperboy always finishes strong,” says KJ, taking a line from the Paperboy Handbook (5th edition with the glossy cover).

A few more panels of idle chit chat and the four start turning in. “Well, this has been real, but I should be getting home,” Mac says, and Tiff shares the sentiment. “Catch you freaks later.” And Mac rides home.

Then KJ takes off too.

Then Tiff.

“Bye,” Erin waves sadly. Then there’s a montage of the view zooming out. Intersection to neighborhood to city to state to country to Earth to the Milk Way and– “WAIT!”

“You guys! Hold up!”

The other three come back to the interesction.

“Hey. Um, I’m not sure about you, but I don’t have to start getting ready for school for, like, another hour. Want to ride together a little longer?”

…

“…sure.”

“Why not?”
“Yeah, I’m in.”

Paper Girls, Issue #30

Final Thoughts

Beautiful. What a fantastic fucking series. I like the part where there were 28 issues of no paper deliveries.

This was the best series I’ve ever read, although I admittedly still haven’t read much. Now what am I gonna read next? More Superman? Go fuck yourself, Superman. I need more Brian K. Vaughan in my life. Either Saga or Runaways, I suppose. I heard good things about both!

Or I could read more Fuckface Superman.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39 – “Therapy”

* Part 7 of 7 of the Venom storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39 – “Therapy”! Wrapping up the storyline with an issue that will, I assume, be all about Peter Parker talking to a school counselor about why he sucks so damn much! In the previous installment, Venom Eddie Brock faces off against Peter Parker. Parker tries to help him the whole time, proving that he was the good guy in this whole scenario. In case you couldn’t tell. Eventually, the police get involved and they shoot Brock seventy-two times right in the dick, killing him dead.

Parker’s dad had a lot of words of wisdom in his video message. Some people are just the way they are, and you’ll never know why they are the way they are. You can go mad trying to figure it out! And then you can die in a plane crash, leaving your child orphaned and forced to live with his smelly Aunt May.

Onward to the aftermath.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39 [June, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Therapy”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39

Nicholas Aloysius Silverstein Wulfric Brian Fury is having a lovely meal at a restaurant. Outdoor seating. His fancy wrist watch goes “GLEEK” and he makes a face that looks like if gleek could make a face. “One eye eagle,” radios in a S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier, “we are receiving a recurring energy flux in your immediate area.”

Cool beenus. Fury tells him that he’ll take care of it, over and out, and no questions. “Keep online, await my command.”

Fury slowly walks to a nearby alley and flashes a light out of his watch that makes a bulky mass suddenly fall with an “OOF!” into a dumpster. Temporary genetic paralysis. Sounds useful.

“Peter Parker, why are you following me?…” Fury asks with a demeanor opposite that of his surname. “…Where’s your little Spider-Man costume?”

It’s in the shop! Er… what costume?? Heh. Uh… my dog ate it.

Parker has been following Nick Fury ever since he left his S.H.I.E.L.D. House of Donuts, and he didn’t even notice! As the leader of the top espionage organization on the entire planet, he’s impressed! Enough with that, though. Parker has a request of Fury: take away his powers. “I don’t want them. I don’t want to be Spider-Man and I don’t want my powers.”

Sounds to me like Peter Parker misses some of that MJ fuckin’. He asks fury to inject him with something or spray him or immerse him in vile liquid or something. Just do it.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39

This Aaron Sorkin production coming soon to a comic book near you.

Fury doesn’t wanna. Parker explains the whole Eddie Brock situation, which is something S.H.I.E.L.D. has actually been keeping an eye on. Good work, lad. Fury radios Agent Carter and tells her that Parker took care of it. “Finish up and get out of there,” he tells her before GLEEKing out. “So what happened?” he goes back to Parker. “Where’s the creep now? Did you kill him?”

He thinks so? Hard to say. There’s no body. He just disappeared. “Kid. There’s not too many actual rules to this game of ours, but one of the big ones is: If there’s no corpse… the guy’s alive.”

Solid information.

“Best you could hope for is that you scared him into never trying any stupid crap like that again. (But sadly, one of the other rules is that you probably didn’t.)”

He’s like the dad he never had die in a plane crash or get bulleted in the chest by a scoundrel.

“Are you listening to me?!! I think I killed someone. I want you to do the right thing.”

With great power comes great responsibility, kiddo.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39

Want what? That facial expression? Because, buddy, I don’t want you to have it either.

Fury tells the sniveling whiner that he needs to ask himself if anybody’s life is better because of what he did today. Yes? Then keep at it. No? Do better tomorrow. Don’t forget, Fury has his eye on you, buckaroo. You’re prime S.H.I.E.L.D. material! There are a lot of janitorial services that need to be done around the office. Maria Hill pukes everywhere. “You’ll work alongside Tony Stark. Doctor Bruce Banner. Captain America…” and he lists other people no one would ever want to spend time with. “You don’t want to be Spider-Man anymore? Fine. What else you doing to do? Work at Burger King? I have. You don’t want to.”

lol that Fury tells the school nerd that he’ll work at Burger King if he doesn’t want to be Spider-Man. Nothing in between here, it appears. Fury does have some good advice, though: take some time off. “Just because you’re Spider-Man doesn’t mean you have to be Spider-Man every single second of every single day.”

Parker asks Fury how his parents died. Fury doesn’t know. Seriously, he doesn’t. Seriously, stop asking. Seriously. Parker frowns, not really believing him. I’m not sure what he thinks Fury might know. That their plane was shot down? That Eddie Brock murdered them? That they ate too many delicious Burger King burgers that Nick Fury prepared for them and fell asleep at the wheel? Meh.

They shake hands and Fury sends him off on his merry little way. “It’s all right. But next time you want to talk to me – make an appointment. Or I’ll shoot you.”

The best advice yet! Parker leaps around town unsatisfied. He needs to know what happened to Eddie Brock. He can’t leave it open-ended like this, even though he should. He should just go home and play Mario Kart and jerk off to Princess Peach like a normal 15-year-old. But no, he wants to clean up his own mess this time. Not the police or S.H.I.E.L.D. or Nick Fury or the Jonas Brothers or anybody like that.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39

Yuck. Face the responsibility of looking like dogshit first.

Parker travels to Empire State University to see if Brock is in his dorm room. He ain’t. “You missed him,” Brock’s roommate tells him while cleaning up the trash heap that comprises 96% of the living space. “But if you see him, tell him he still owes me $750 for that thing that time.”

Brock must have returned because all his stuff is gone. “Left his garbage for me to clean up, which is so entirely like him.” So Brock is gone. Without a trace… except for the garbage, I suppose. When Parker asks the roommate why he hates Brock so much, he responds that Eddie was so full of shit all the fucking time that you knew he was lying almost all the time. He also constantly went psycho when every girl turned him down. It was getting old.

Next, Parker travels to the science lab and finds a man drinking at a table. “My name is Doctor Curt Connors… Who might you be?” He looks like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine drinking as much as Wolverine and snarling like Wolverine if he found out he was to be played by Hugh Jackman. “Are you Peter Parker?”

GULP! GLEEK! “It was you, wasn’t it?” he continues, pouring another glass. “I saw you on TV, wearing the suit your father invented. The suit in phase two. Form-fitting. Strength-enhancing. You seemed to really be enjoying yourself.”

This guy is a huge windbag. He says about 80 more sentences that amounts to this: “I finally put two and two together that Ray Parker’s son is Spider-Man. Cool.”

Once upon a time, Spider-Man saved Connors’ life. He saved his family. I don’t remember this at all! Did this happen? I don’t fucking remember that shit. But Parker never told anyone, and CUNT Connors seems satisfied with that.

“Your father’s project is gone. Gone, gone. And with it another year of my life wasted.” Connors takes another swig. He looks healthy.

Parker thinks he might finally get the answers he wants, like “what happened” and “why’d it do dat?” and “where’s muh underpants?” But Connors doesn’t know much more than he does about any of this stuff, not really. Everything in the lab is gone, and he was hoping Parker could be the one to shed light on this for him. Alas, the kid doesn’t even know where his underpants are.

Connors has a lot of drunk ramblings that don’t seem that important. Something about mutants and God punishing everyone, I guess. “We seem dead set on turning ourselves into little monsters, don’t we? Wonder why that is. It’s all the rage. All of a sudden.”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #39

My life is full of tulips, asshole.

“And all of us, everyone one of us, is sooo busy running around, trying to beat each other to the finish line – that no one notices the big sign from God that says: Stop messing with my stuff.”

OK, sir, you’ve had enough to drink I reckon. Give me the glass. Just give me the glass. Give me the– give me the glass! Give it! Give it to me! No, stop it! Stop it! Give it to me!

Connors apologizes to Parker for his dad accidentally being “the architect, the pioneer, of this horrible decade of genetic nightmares”, which really ticks him off. But, hey, Einstein wasn’t trying to invent the atomic bomb, but things beget other things in this stupid-ass world we live in.

Then Connors falls asleep in a drunken torpor and leaves Parker with nothing but angst. So angsty that he leaps through a glass window on his way out! Dumb laboratory full of drunk scientists and evil goo! Science is dumb. No more science for a while.

On the rooftop, Parker’s Spidey-Sense starts vibrating up a storm. Thinking it might be Eddie Brock, he starts yelling on and on like a lunatic. He still feels responsible for what happened, he still wants to help, oh god can you please let him help you? For the love of “God”.

And no. It’s not Eddie. Eddie’s not around. Parker is all alone.

Final Thoughts

WITH

GREAT

POWER

COMES

GREAT

SANDWICHES


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The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

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 Hell’s Library series

The library of the Unwritten

Welcome to the Book Bonfire! I am your Book Club Organizer, Thomas V. [REDACTED]. Today we will be (sort of) discussing The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith. Feel free to remove your copy from the garbage can if you feel so inclined. If you don’t want to bother, then I can’t blame you!

In a nutshell, the Library of the Unwritten‘s Library of the Unwritten is a wing in Hell where all the books on Earth whose authors have never gotten around to writing are stored. The books are unwritten. Like, some dude has an idea for a book, but he never actually wrote it. That book is in the library. Got me? Good. The story follows an ensemble cast of kooky characters! Claire is the Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing. She’s been in charge for about three decades, which is a fraction of the time of the tenure of other librarians before her. You got Leto, some naive teenage demon with greasy hair who is used as a plot device for Claire to share knowledge that the reader needs to know. There’s a lot of that. You’ve got Brevity, a “muse” who is Claire’s library assistant. You’ve got Ramiel, the fallen angel trying to get back into God’s good graces by thwarting the Hell clan. You’ve got Hero, a character who has escaped from his unwritten book. There are other characters too, I suppose…

I’m going to cut to the chase: I bailed on this book about 2/3 through. I spent about 150 pages reading on autopilot before I decided to finally give up, which is not something I typically do. It sends me into an OCD conniption fit to leave a book unfinished. This book should’ve been titled The Library of the Unfinished! Ha! Whatever. A. J. Hackwith had a trilogy published, and here I am stroking my dick pretending that I have a coherent blog.

“We have to find this book! I don’t care if we need to crawl through every sewer in Miami with our tongues scraping against the floor! We’re going to find it! And I don’t know about you guys, but I want to get those sewers right away.”
– Claire

I was totally on board with this concept at the beginning. A book about books? That’s right up my alley! I like books! A book about books sounded fun, especially if the books are in some magical fantasy land like Hell. I like Hell! A book about books in Hell sounded fun! The first 40 pages or so were intriguing enough, but then I started getting this sinking feeling that the book became a complete chore to read. Hackwith’s prose appears to be influenced by Terry Pratchett — almost channeling him at times — but Pratchett’s works are more engaging. After a while, the prose becomes frustratingly overwrought and the pictures they paint seem abstract and muddy. I couldn’t get a good sense of any of the locations outside of the Unwritten Wing. Valhalla seemed like a nightclub. Mdina, Malta seemed woefully boring. Characters always felt like they were talking amongst each other in a big nebulous blob.

The characters weren’t necessarily one-dimensional, but I realized about halfway through the book that I didn’t care about a single one of them. Not one. Claire had no personality to save her life, unless you count dry, no-nonsense plot-forwarding determination as a personality. Leto was a precocious demon who worked in the story as an ignorant figure representing the audience with whom Claire would provide some worldbuilding (which, in its own right, was ham-fisted), but he soon became, by all appearances, dispensable. Andras’ relationship with Claire was supposed to be tense, with an air of mutual respect for one another, but he was condescending. Is condescending a primary personality trait? Brevity, Hero, Ramiel, Uriel, who gives a shit? They all felt like cardboard cutouts.

“Don’t you think the sewer comment was a little bit strange, Leto? If even a molecule of my tongue touches a sewer floor, I’m going to hack it off with a fish scaler.”
– Brevity

I couldn’t connect to the plot either. The whole premise revolves around finding the pages of the Codex, a book written by Lucifer, that Heaven wants but believes Hell has. Hell doesn’t have it, but they want it too. Misunderstandings ensue. Tons, and I mean TONS, of pointless, aimless wandering from location to location. Remember Season 6 of Lost when Not-Locke just dragged the characters around the island back and forth for no reason. It’s like that.

Positivity? Fine. The written passages from various Unwritten Wing librarians at the beginning of each chapter were legitimately fascinating, thought-provoking, well-written, and by far the most interesting parts of the book. You’ll find a few examples sprinkled throughout this post in the quote boxes! lol

So, yeah, I don’t know how this ends. I got to page 240 or so. It’s too bad, because I already own the second book and now it’ll sit on my shelf collecting dust! The Library of the Unread! Ha! There’s that joke again!

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Would you like to be a librarian in Hell?
I’d like to be a librarian anywhere as long as I get paid $100,000 dollars a year and I don’t actually need to interface with any patrons. I don’t want to check out anyone’s books, I don’t want to re-shelve books, and I definitely don’t want to chase around books that happen to fly everywhere! Along with every book that will ever be written and unwritten, I’ll also need every album, video game, movie, TV show, comic book that will ever be made and not made. THEN I’ll enjoy my time in hell. Oh, and a mini-fridge.

“IF ANYONE IS GOING TO LICK A SEWER PIPE TODAY IT’S GOING TO BE ME!”
– Ramiel

Did you like the ending? Did everything wrap up the way you thought it would?
I’ll make up my own ending! Claire takes a bite of a hot turkey sub and cracks her tooth on the cheese. “THIS REALLY IS HELL!” she cries, forgetting that she was supposed to be chasing down a book in the first place. Then they all do a little dance number.

What are your thoughts on the revelations about the different characters throughout the book? Did any of them surprise you? Did you like how the characters developed during their quest?
I’m sorry, but not only did the characters not develop during their quest, but they actually became less developed as the story went on until they shrank into oblivion and I had to wake up from my lengthy snooze.

Did you enjoy the worldbuilding? Was there something that stood out to you in particular?
Yeah right.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I bought the second book before I started reading the first book, and I regret this decision immensely. I’m going to have to buy the third book just to round out the collection. It can be a constant reminder that I’m simultaneous avoiding reading Hackwith’s work and supporting her career.

See, I can be a nice guy when I sort of feel like it, I guess.


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Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “Flight Delay”

* Part 3 of 6 of the No Fear storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “Flight Delay”! In the previous installment, Hal Jordan gets used to having his old powers back and it feels like a WELL-OILED GLOVE! Gross!

We learn about an ancient race of space cops, basically, called the Manhunters. The Air Force is transporting an obsolete version that is 3.3 billion years old for some reason, but the one walking around blowing up diners and buses is a new version that’s designed to do two things: 1) find the obsolete versions and destroy them, and 2) kill anything else in its path.

So here’s the enemy that Hal has to beat, and I bet somewhere along the line Sinestro will show up to be like “I HATE YOU HAL JORDAN, BUT GRRRRR WE NEED TO TEAM UP”. Calling it now.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3 [September, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Flight Delay”

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Cover art suggests a really boring fight is afoot. Someone’s going to hand Manhunter ver. 2.0 his own butt on a platter.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE. HANGAR 44. New Manhunter is giving Old Manhunter the business. “YOUR SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE MUST BE ACTIVIATED. DO YOU COMPLY?”

No, bitch, he doesn’t comply. He tries shooting Old Manhunter, but then Hal Jordan touches his butt with the talking green ring. “You are in violation of Section Six-Five-Two of the Book of Oa. Endangering innocent life within an authorized military installation. Dismantling procedures have been approved and encouraged.”

Fat chance. The Manhunter Union Local 289 doesn’t recognize Green Lantern shenanigans as an official authority on anything. Not even breakfast. “GREEN LANTERN 2814.1 — YOUR DEATH IS WELL-DOCUMENTED. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE. YOU ARE OUTDATED. YOU ARE OBSOLETE.”

Well… that’s quite true, actually. Hal Jordan should be dead and buried in the ground, turning more and more into bones as each day passes.

Manhunter shoots his little missile at Hal, which flies across the room like a paper airplane and whacks him on the side of the head. It does literally nothing. Manhunter then grabs Hal’s ringed hand and tries to crush it. While he does this, Manhunter lifts open his face cover, revealing a green battery. Egads! He’s draining the power from the ring!

“Power levels at 65.4%.”

“Power levels at 24.8%.”

Egads! It’s draining faster than the batteries in a Sega Game Gear! Manhunter’s steel grip is impossible to wrest from! Egads! Is… this… the end… of… Hal… “Poopypants”… Jor–

Old Manhunter suddenly propels himself sky high from the building, which redirects New Manhunter’s attention. He blasts off to follow, and Hal recovers. These two lovebirds are headed west toward Coast City (“The City on the Coast”), and Hal only has 1.2% of juice left in his ring. Not enough to fly, call John Stewart, or authorize breakfast. He needs to borrow a jet before the Manhunter decides to explode. When a Manhunter explodes, it’s like seven Hiroshimas and three Nagasakis. It’s like a bunch of 9/11s and an insurrection.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3

My hero!

General Stone rides up to the scene and immediately tries to shove Hal Jordan along on his merry way. “We’re tracking the object,” he says. He tells him that the military has it under control, that it’s classified, that he shouldn’t get involved, and also he looks very pretty today in his green uniform. Hal returns the favor by punching the teeth out of his head.

Military personnel cock their guns and aim at Hal’s face. “I could have you arrested,” Stone grumbles, rubbing his flabby jaw. But… since he did, you know… save everyone’s lives… grumble grumble… he can borrow a jet. But just this once. If people in the base catch wind, they’ll all want to fly jets.

Coast City construction crews will need to evacuate the city, if they’re even there. Half the workers are playing Pokemon Omega Ruby in their underpants right now while their hotplates are heating up Salisbury steak TV dinners. I don’t know why I wrote that. It was funny to me.

Back in Sacramento, Jim Jordan with his happy wife and, therefore, happy life, is discussing his son’s desire to play football at school. Jim says NO! His wife Susan says HE LIEKS FOOTBALLZ! Jim says WAIT UNTIL HE IS EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE! Susan says YOU CAN’T PROTECT HIM FOREVER!

“Yeah,” says Jim and Susan’s meek, rather corpulent son. “All the other kids get to play.” STFU, kid. Who told you that you get a say in this matter?

The TV is turned to the news with a report of the Green Lantern returning to Coast City, and the subsequent halting of the city’s rebuilding project.

“Warning. Power levels 0.7%.” Meanwhile, Hal’s ring keeps using all its battery life warning him that it’s running out of battery life. Safely up in the sky where General Stone can’t punch him back, Hal requests (curtly) for Stone to be straight with him. Straight as an arrow, sir. Was that jet that Captain Pearlman was flying reverse engineered by a Manhunter?? No more bullshit, chief. The ring may be running out of power, but he can still make a large dent in his head with it.

“The development of the projects in Hangar 44 started long before the skies were crowded with ‘super-heroes’,” Stone says (curtly) over the phone. Butt out. “We picked up what pieces we could find and we started rebuilding the ship from the ground up. But we could never replicate its engine.”

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3

They spent hours upon hours of smug frowning, but in the end it just couldn’t be done.

When the Manhunters showed up to attack Earth, they were able to pull a defeated one out of a Louisiana swamp. They couldn’t crack the A.I., but they could at least replicate the propulsion system. Thus, the jet.

Because they couldn’t figure out the computer motherboard CPU RAM Intel Pentium 4 400 MHz graphics card 1TB SSHD processor mouse clicks, they sent the robot back to Edwards Air Force Base. It reactivated itself seven weeks ago, and it must’ve sent a distress signal to the new one that we all know and love. “This was strictly for engine and computer development. No one was supposed to get hurt,” Stone adds unhelpfully.

Hal ambushes the Manhunter in the air, who immediately senses the threat and tries to neutralize it. KRRAAKKSHH! A punch right through the windshield. Well fuck, I guess Hal’s going to return a destroyed aircraft. What a piece of shit.

Manhunter lifts Hal with so much force that his arm almost pops out of his socket, which would have been hilarious! Arm all flopping around. At this point the engine fails at the same time his power ring reaches 0.0%. A winning combination of certain, fiery death! Let’s hope, for his sake, that it’s swift. Or slow. Whichever is funnier.

“SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.” That’s the old Manhunter after the new Manhunter throws his metal missile thing right through the back of its head and through the eyeball. Old Manhunter shoots like a bullet right in the middle of a Coast City construction site. “DETONATION IN FORTY SECONDS.”

Hal is plummeting toward Earth, jet completely out of control despite his best efforts to not be completely, utterly screwed. Now that the old Manhunter has been taken care of, new Manhunter redirects his murdering efforts back toward Hal.

It’s unclear what happens next, but it looks like Manhunter blows up the jet and the flying debris knocks its face shield off, exposing his internal green battery face. Hal, now falling un-Green Lanternly, grapples onto the robot and sticks his ring right in its face. In an impossibly improbably unlikely turn of events, Hal charges up his ring immediately and gets Green Lantern-y again. He throws Manhunter’s head away, beams the falling jet away and prevents it from crashing into the city, and tends to the old Manhunter ticking timebomb. “Detonation in 30 seconds,” his ring says. “Estimated damage: Complete destruction within 25 miles.”

Well, oh snap and whatnot. Now what? If I were Hal I’d launch that fucker into outer space, OR, better yet, use magic Green Lantern powers to stop the bomb. Isn’t that something he can do?

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Twenty-five mile radius, man. This shouldn’t be hard. Send him to Jupiter.

While these two saunter through space, Manhunter starts admitting that he’s afraid. Afraid of what happens after self-destruction. After dying. Is there a Manhunter heaven? Does he worship a Manhunter Allah? Did Manhunter Jesus die for his Manhunter sins?

Moot! The robot blows up. Shrapnel and robot parts fly everywhere. Hal is like “buh” and heads back toward good ol’ Earth. Hal Jordan thinks that he accidentally summoned the new Manhunter for some reason. Something about having his ring fully powered up again. Not sure. I thought the old Manhunter sent out a distress signal. I thought that was already established. Continuity! Hal’s gonna check in with the cute and cuddly Kilowog, and then inform the Guardians, those useless, awful Smurfs.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3

You want competition? I will kick your tight little ass at Monopoly.

Back at the base, Capt. Pearlman has passed her checkup and is ready to fly again! Whoosh! She bumps into Hal on the way out of the office and puts her hand up to his chest seductively… almost… like she knows… that maybe… the guy with the identical hair and identical face structure might POSSIBLY be Green Lantern? A stretch, certainly. “Hope you’re as good as Stone says,” she says after telling Hal that she has heard all about him from Col. Sellers. “’cause I’ve been missin’ something. Competition.”

Hal Jordan looks salty! Ain’t no WOMAN gonna show him what-for, y’heard? But that’s for another time, right now he needs to crawl his way into General Stone’s office and kiss his ass. After apologizing for his past transgressions, Stone agrees to let him back into the test flight program. “It’s be a great honor to have Green Lantern in the U.S.A.F.”

BUH-WHAT? HUH? MOI, THE GREEN LANTERN? SIR, ARE YOU HIGH ON MARIJUANA CIGARETTES? Nope! Stone recognized the signature Hal Jordan punch in the face! They shake hands, and Hal regrets this decision to rejoin the Force immediately.

Hal’s been ruminating upon Old Manhunter’s last words. The fear he had about being destroyed. “It ‘lived’ for over three billion years and it never felt a damn shred of emotion. And then – in its last moment of existence – it finally figures one out.” Three billion years and fear, of all things, is the dominate emotion. “Is this what I’m coming back to? Is this the strongest emotion in the universe? Is fear what controls everyone and everything?”

Then he decides to be fearless and fly around the Ghost Coast City having some Green Lantern fun! His brother’s family, driving around Coast City, gets to see the brilliant beam of green light as if Harry Potter himself is shooting out the Avada Kedavra final blow!

Elsewhere…

THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET OF BIOT. SPACE SECTOR: UNKNOWN

The Committee of Manhunters is having a meeting! The last recorded message from Old Manhunter before he exploded into 999 quadrillion pieces verified contact with the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.1. There is no doubt that the Corps is attempting reformation.

“Let them, my Manhunters,” speaks a mysterious hooded figure. “Your former leader lacked the personal investment in his program. I do not. We need the rings back online… and nothing will escape us… not even Hal Jordan.”

Pan to a bunch of unconscious Green Lanterns from other sectors strung up like puppets.

The End.

Final Thoughts

All right, so now we have the mysterious hooded figure trope in play here. One can only imagine who it is, and I’m sure it’ll be someone that everyone knows except for me! Like “Dorthar of Xyxus” or “Brown Lantern”.


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Caroline Polachek, The New Pornographers, and Black Country, New Road

Second time in one year! I’m on a roll! Here are reviews of albums by Caroline Polachek, the New Pornographers, and Black Country, New Road. It was right there in the title, man. I don’t like repeating myself.

Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
(February 14, 2023)

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

Polachek’s 2019 album Pang remains unplayed on my iPhone. I lump her in with the sleepy female singer-songwriters who I tend to unfairly dislike: Julian Holter, Faye Webster, Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Half Waif, Phoebe Bridgers, Weyes Blood, Angel Olsen… Is that even accurate? Was Polachek’s music ever similar to any of these guys’? Am I an idiot?

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You fell within my radar after Pitchfork gave it a 8.7, and since I still get swayed by the publication like a pimple-faced hipster teenager thumbing through his mom’s record collection, I decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t impressed at first, honestly. I’m still not impressed, but I do like a fair bit of it. Some of these hooks are delicious, and Polachek’s range as a vocalist is a few steps above any of the previously mentioned artists. If I had to compare her vocal decisions to anyone, it would be Danny Elfman. There is a lot of wordless singing, naturally and fluidly moving between disparate pitches with ease. Occasionally bordering on yodeling. I don’t mind yodeling! Yodeling is hard to do!

Overall, this is a pure pop experience with electronic percussion, breathy singing, and strong melodies. Highlights include “Bunny is a Rider”, which I listened to about a thousand times on SiriusXMU because fuckin’ Josiah wouldn’t stop playing it. Within the context of the album, though, I learned to appreciate the song. Also my favorite, “Sunset”, features flamenco bounciness and a really cool vocal trill during the chorus. Then there are the little things, like those boops on beats 2 and 4 in “I Believe” and the overly happy bagpipes in “Blood and Butter”.

The final few tracks somewhat lose me. “Hopedrunk Everasking” is beautiful, yet sleepy (and Polachek needs to change the battery in her smoke alarm, Jesus Christ), as is “Butterfly Net”. And speaking of smoke alarm, “Smoke” is essentially a refrain of “Pretty In Possible”, which is cheating. And “Billions” has been floating around the radio since early 2022 so I’m sick of that one too.

I can see the hype! Desire… is a very enjoyable album. Here’s a fun fact: I was all like “wow, Polachek sounds like Grimes on ‘Fly to You'”, and then I saw who was featured on the song and then I was all like “lol”.

Early Verdict:

The New Pornographers – Continue as a Guest
(March 21, 2023)

The New Pornographers - Continue as a Guest

I’m happy to be gifted with a new new new New Pornographers album, having shamefully only been a fan since 2019’s In the Morse Code of Brake Lights but spent a great majority of the last 3.5 years absorbing and memorizing much of their whole amazing catalog. If I may be bold for a moment, I stand firmly with the opinion that Neko Case has the best voice in all of indie rock. It would be the hill I want to die on, but I already have many hills to die on queued up.

I greatly respect the New Pornos’ ability to craft some of the catchiest twee-adjacent melodies this side of Belle & Sebastian, which is why I must declare, with a heavy heart, that Continue as a Guest didn’t entirely grab me. Oh sure, “Really Really Light” is a memorable opener with its hazy, smoky harmonies. And try to get the chorus of “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies” out of your head once you hear it. You’ll be singing “Now you’re clearing the room just like Pontius Pilate/When he showed all his home movies/All of his friends yelling/’Pilate! Too soon!’” for the rest of the day! After that, there’s not too much to write home about. It’s disappointing how much most of the tracks feel like throwaways, maybe B-sides from …Brake Lights. You get another uptick with the gorgeous chorus of “Marie and the Undersea”, but then it peters out for the rest of the album, culminating in a low effort melodic refrain track at the end. Repeated listens don’t bring out many hidden nuances or revelations. Three really good tracks amid a collection of songs of moderate quality at best and at worst.

So, of course, you can look to the lyrics. They’re as smart as a whip as ever. The Pontius Pilate song has my takeaway line: “The sun kept on rising ’til it floated away“. “Bottle Episodes” likens life to a low-budget TV show filler episode and repeats that “There should be a word for this/With our command of all the romantic languages“. “Firework in the Falling Snow” likens life to a big, loud, conspicuous blast that fizzles out just as quickly.

Having written most of the songs during COVID, the band loses it’s playful edge and mires itself in moody melancholy. Perhaps this is what I find unsettling about a band that has been nothing but playful for the last 25 years. Maybe I think it just doesn’t suit them very well.

Early Verdict:

Black Country, New Road – Live at Bush Hall
(February 20, 2023)

Black Country, New Road - Live at Bush Hall

Ugh. It’s frustrating. My favorite band of the 2020s has strayed from the path since their debut and they’re weaving in a direction that doesn’t satisfy my particular musical needs. I fell head over heels in love with For the first time. I wasn’t in love with Ants from Up There, but about half the tracks pack a cathartic punch. Now that de facto frontman and vocalist Isaac Wood had decided to quit his music career and bake cakes for a living, a new direction was mandatory. We have three vocalists now, presumably as insurance in case one of them follows Wood’s suit and has a nervous breakdown. Other than that, the band continues its foray into lavish proggy arrangements with the best damn virtuosity you’ll find in indie rock today. And it drives me nuts, because this isn’t what I want from the band. I want PALPABLE TENSION. I want PAIN AND SUFFERING. I want SKRONKY SAXOPHONES and WOMEN SAWING THEIR VIOLINS IN HALF. This stuff is too nice for me.

I love exactly two tracks. There’s the upbeat opener “Up Sound” with Jerry Lee Lewis piano-bangin’ that I THOUGHT was going to set the mood for the rest of the record. It doesn’t. I also like the only Lewis Evans-fronted track “Across the Pond Friend” because of its similarly upbeat nature. The rest of the live album is very forgettable melody-wise, which is the most important part of music to not be forgettable about.

I’m not going to take a complete dump all over this, because what Live at Bush Hall does to right is showcase an incredible band’s live sound, and it’s so close to their immaculately polished studio albums that you would not even believe that this was all recorded live if it weren’t for the clapping and cheering. The production is crisp, and not one of the band’s 45 members flubs a line, a note, a drum fill. I knew this band was impressive, but this is pretty fucking impressive even by the standards of impressiveness.

So this gets a big “Oh Well” face from me. I no longer look forward to the band’s direction, but at least I can look forward to the best playing you can hope for from a young rock band.

Early Verdict:


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