Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Tagline:
The saga is complete.

Wide Release Date:
May 19, 2005

Directed by:
George Lucas
Written by:
George Lucas
Produced by:
Rick McCallum

Starring:
Ewan McGregor
Natalie Portman
Hayden Christensen
Ian McDiarmid
Samuel L. Jackson
Christopher Lee
Anthony Daniels
Kenny Baker
Frank Oz

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

PREGAME THOUGHTS

It was 2005. I was going through major senioritis as my final year of high school was drawing to a close. May 25th was a half day, and the Boys wanted to go see this new Star Wars movie that they had been salivating over for almost a week. I less than politely declined. Fuck Star Wars.

I’ve finally reached the end of my pre-Disney-acquisition Star Wars movie adventure. Some day I’ll hit the sequels and standalones, but that day is not today. Not even close. I’m moving onto bigger and better things! Not really, but those MCU movies are calling to me…

THE 700(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

It’s three years or so after the events of Attack of the Clones. Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) has become even whinier, if you can believe it. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) still trusts him like a fool-ass loony, but the rest of the Jedi Council hates this kid’s guts and are merely trusting Obi-Wan’s fool-ass loony judgment.

Obi-Wan and Anakin are on a mission to save Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) from some robot named General Grievous. Grievous gets away during the scuffle, and Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) gets killed by Anakin after getting pressured by Palpatine. Anakin regrets this, saying that killing their enemies “is not the Jedi way”, but Palpatine is like “the Jedi suck and you’re better than that, so give me a kiss”.

Anakin meets up with Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) back at Coruscant, where she tells him she’s pregnant! Exciting news! I hope they’re twins who don’t know they’re twins and there’s some weird sexual tension between them. Too bad Anakin starts worrying about Padmé dying during childbirth. It seems weird that such a technologically advanced society has this problem, but I’m not here to poke holes into the worldbuilding.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

I fear that your two children will want to bone each other, Padmé. But only for a brief spell.

Palpatine decides to appoint Anakin to the Jedi Council, which results in many concerned, furrowed brows from the rest of the Council. They begrudgingly agree the let the kid on, but he is not to have the designation of “Master”. Anakin doesn’t like that shit at all, and his trust in the Jedi dwindles. Anakin is also tasked with spying on Palpatine since he’s in Palpatine’s good graces. All this time spent with Palpatine becomes a big ol’ lesson in the allure of the dark side of the Force. He promises Anakin that knowledge of the dark side will prevent Padmé’s death. Since Anakin is weak and useless, he starts getting swayed, but not before threatening Palpatine’s life on account of him being a Sith Lord masterminding the Clone Wars.

Anakin later reports this to Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), who, after a battle, is an inch away from killing Palpatine. All the energy Windu shoots at him causes his skin to go sallow and gross like the later Emperor Palpatine we all know and love! Anakin intervenes at the last minute by severing Windu’s hand, allowing Palpatine the opportunity to fight back and send Windu flying out of a window to his death. Anakin pledges complete fealty to Palpatine, and in return he knights him as Darth Vader on the spot with as much thought and consideration as John Belushi giving nicknames during frat initiation in Animal House.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Noooo, I’m weak against electric Pokémon! Stop it!

Shit hits the fan when Palpatine orders a top-secret protocol to assassinate all Jedi leaders and commanders, which the clone troopers carry out, effectively ending the Republic and forming the Empire. Everyone dies except Obi-Wan and Yoda, so they take it upon themselves to find and destroy Anakin Vader and Palpatine respectively. En route to confront Anakin Vader, Obi-Wan informs Padmé that her dear husband is a jerkface and has officially toppled over into dark side territory. Padmé doesn’t believe him, so she travels with him to some lava planet where Anakin Vader was hanging out killing Separatists. Just whacking the daylights out of ’em. Padmé tries to talk Anakin Vader out of being a dark side jerk, but when he spots Obi-Wan along with her he is paranoid that they are conspiring to kill him. Anakin Vader uses the Force to choke out Padmé. Obi-Wan doesn’t take too kindly to this instance of domestic abuse and starts fighting him lightsaber-style! Master vs. Apprentice! Guess what? Master wins, and Apprentice is left for dead getting burned up by lava. All hell of missing three limbs.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

FUCK YOU, OBI-WAN! YOU GAVE ME PINK EYE!!!

Palpatine finds Anakin Vader barely alive. He whisks him away back to Coruscant where he outfits him with new limbs and a shiny black suit. He asks where Padmé is. Palpatine says he killed her. Vader is like “NOOOOOOO!”, which turned into a famous meme. The “NOOOOOO!” was just as dumb as I had ever hoped.

This is getting long! Padmé gives birth to Luke and Leia and then dies swiftly. Jimmy Smits will take Leia and raise her as his own. Obi-Wan is going to fuck off to Tatooine so that Luke can grow up in the shitty desert. We all know what happens next!

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

This one is the obvious winner of the prequel trilogy. I wasn’t expecting most of the movie to document the lead-in to A New Hope, what with Anakin’s literal transition to Darth Vader, Padmé giving birth to Luke and Leia, and Obi-Wan fucking off to Tatooine to watch over the boy. In fact, I didn’t really know what this movie was about at all going in. I had no idea that I was going to see Anakin whine his way into the full-on dark side. It’s funny seeing the similarities in Luke. Petulance runs in the family

It’s fascinating to see Palpatine groom Anakin as his protégé. Their father/son relationship is more compelling than Anakin and Padmé’s cheesy, annoying marriage. And I never believed for a second that Obi-Wan and Anakin had much of a bond anyway, as much as Obi-Wan would tell you otherwise. “I LOVED YOU, ANAKIN! WAAHH!” Give me a fucking break, nerd.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

We were bros, man! We played darts and shit!

A movie like this suffers by being a movie, though. With the right writing and pacing, a lot of this could have been fleshed out as a six-episode miniseries. I want to see more of Anakin’s ever-growing mistrust of the Jedi. I want to see more conflict that leads him to make his decisions. Killing Samuel L. Jackson is all well and good, but there wasn’t enough lead up to this moment. I wanted to get more inside Anakin’s head. I wanted to know what really motivated him beyond something as shallow as “save muh Padmé”, which, by the way, obviously wasn’t important to him anymore by the movie’s end. I wanted to see exactly why Obi-Wan actually cared about this kid. I never understood what Obi-Wan saw in him. I was on the Jedi Council’s side the whole time with this!

Back to Palpatine, though. That guy’s a real cocksucker. In the original trilogy, you see Darth Vader command an intimidating presence and be a completely submissive loser around Emperor Palpatine. To me, that submission always undermined the intimidation. In the prequels, you see Anakin slowly get swayed by Palpatine. He plays him like a fiddle. He takes advantage of his many, many, many, many weaknesses as a human being and barely needs to put much effort into it. I never had much sympathy for the kid, mostly because both Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen were punchable, but to see how pathetic his decline was in real time is almost funny. It’s actually really funny. It makes you really wonder what both Obi-Wan and Padmé saw in him at all.

In the end, Anakin wasn’t the great Jedi ever known. He was just the most easily manipulated. Not a good look, sir.

TOPIC 2 — And Another Thing…

Seriously, though. Fuck Anakin Skywalker. Elevating him above a pissant Tatooine slave was all Qui-Gon Jinn’s fault, and the dead guy isn’t even not-dead enough to stick around to see how much havoc he caused the Republic.

Topic over.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Exasperated Yoda strikes back!

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

The images of the volcanic eruption on Mustafar is real footage of Mt. Etna in Italy, which was erupting at the time of production.
900 interns died during shooting, as George Lucas would send these kids to the volcano in droves with nothing but camcorders and little handheld fans.

The volcanic world of Mustafar was designed to look like George Lucas’s vision of hell.
My vision of hell is having to do arts and crafts for sixteen hours every single day. My vision of hell wouldn’t make a good movie.

Hayden Christensen gained twenty-four pounds for this movie. He did so by eating six meals a day.
Can’t go full-on Vader without fattening up, I always say. The Dark Lord likes his Quarter Pounders.

All shots of C-3PO had the entire greenscreen set reflecting in his shiny gold armor, so digital effects artists, in post-production, had to digitally repaint C-3PO’s armor frame by frame to remove any traces of the set.
Never mind. Being the part of the team involved with this is my vision of hell.

Total number of screen wipes: 40.
Yeah, no shit. It was getting distracting. They did every shape that’s available on my Spider-Man Cartoon Maker CD Rom from 1994.

The second highest-grossing movie of 2005.
Narrowly beat out, of course, by Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.

George Lucas initially said that no characters from the original movies would appear in this movie apart from a baby Luke and Leia. However, the final movie also has Yoda, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, Palpatine, Chewbacca, Grand Moff Tarkin, Mon Mothma, R2-D2, C-3PO, Owen Lars, and Beru Whitesun/Lars.
Dingus.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Oh Anakin, I will never forgive you for becoming Darth Vader, helping Palpatine create the Empire, blowing up the Death Star, cutting off Luke Skywalker’s hand, and turning into a weird egg-faced man.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Yes. A fine wrap-up to the prequel trilogy, and I enjoy how it nicely ties everything up as a proper lead-in to the original trilogy. Anybody who suggests watching the prequels first is a dummy who should not be listened to. Revenge of the Sith is more interesting going in with original trilogy knowledge.

I hear the the novelization of the movie is even better. Maybe if I start reading the books I’ll have to look into that. Someday. In another lifetime. And that’s my two cents. Live long and prosper.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37 – “Still”

* Part 5 of 7 of the Venom storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37 – “Still”! In the previous installment, not much happens. Brock makes a move on verified minor Gwen Stacy and pisses her off. Peter Parker returns to the Empire State University science lab to steal the flask and destroy the substance, but Brock catches him in the act and doesn’t get over it.

Gwen later tells Peter about her encounter with Brock and how he’s not a good guy. Then Brock does a not-good-guy thing and pulls out another container of the black substance. He dips his hand into it…

And then…

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37 [May, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Today”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37

AND THEN…

RAWR! LOOK AT THOSE TEETH!

Peter Parker has a nightmare about his encounter with the guy who killed his uncle. Not much extra happens in the dream that didn’t happen in real life. He doesn’t even get to kill the guy there either!

He wakes up shaken and stirred. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, man!” It’s all very eloquent. Rain is pouring down outside in the middle of the night, but Parker decides to put on his not-rainproof hoodie and knock on MJ’s bedroom window. He frowns at her. Then they meet in her garage.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

“Well, uh, yeah…”

They smile at each other. She asks if he’s okay. He looks pitiful as a response instead of saying something like “kinda no” or “I’m 15, of course I’m not okay.”

“Did you make a new costume?” she asks. “I saw you on TV with this whole black costume thing.”

“Yeah – no. That was just a temporary thing. BIG mistake.”

He asks her if she misses him. She responds by staring at him and then eventually answering with a “yes”. She asks if he’s within Gwen. He asks if she’s with anyone. They share more smiles.

I’m glad I can provide hilarious commentary on this issue! Here, have a panel:

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37

LMAO!

MJ doesn’t know what to say to Parker after he admitted to almost killing a guy. She might as well have just said “wowzers!” He reiterates that he misses her, that he’ll be there for her if she needs him, that he’s in love with her, that he loves his Xbox more, and also nothing is going on between him and Gwen Stacy. How’s that grab ya, MJ? All good?

No! Not all good, you insufferable doofus! Stop the Spider-Man thing! She’s tired of worrying about you dying and being shot by the police and being swatted by newspapers! He doesn’t have much to say about that, so he walks away sulkily instead of stopping the Spider-Man thing. This kid is an idiot.

At the Reed Richards Laboratory of Science Fair Baking Soda and Vinegar Volcanoes, a janitor spots a big, ugly, black blob on the floor which currently contains Eddie Brock, Jr. “Oh, my God – oh my! Is someone in there? Wh – what happened? What’s wrong with you?”

What’s wrong with you indeed, Brock. He’s gurgling and burbling in this black mass that he has voluntarily encased himself within. The janitor is about to touch the blob, but then the blob wraps the woman with greasy black tentacles and, presumably, chomps her to death with sharp teeth! Add that to the list of Bad Things the Black Liquid Does.

Brock bursts forth from the blob – at least partly – and rambles about how no one told him how painful and terrible this whole ordeal is. Rambling about how he’ll kill Peter Parker. He sounds like the Green Goblin after injecting himself with his own DNA. Just a lot of “Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. So hungry. Cold. Spiders! Hungry. My heart isn’t beating. I heard a voice. Radio. Peter. Peter. Lady. Peter! Spider-Man. Eating me!! Aggh!!!” and so on and so forth for about ten hours. Peter Parker was able to survive this bullshit, he can too! Sure, the kid may have spidery super-powers and superhuman metabolisms and abilities, but Eddie Brock almost scored with a minor! He can do anything!

He gets encased in that skin-tight dark purple Spidey suit. “Suit’s breathing for me. Suit’s breathing for me. Just let it. Just let it. Just hold it – hungry. The woman. Oh my God – I hurt the woman –”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37

Nothing to see here, fellows. It’s just a young man going through changes. Life is so beautiful that way.

Then he screams and cries all over again. It’s gotten to the point where the security guards are tired of hearing all this moaning and groaning and check up on the lab. Brock is totally Venomed out now. Huge and terrifying! Call the cops, because they’ll be able to help! They’ll just shoot a black guy out of nowhere about it. Then the security guards die!

The next morning in math class, Parker zones out while the teacher talks about circles and Euclidean principles and polygons and counting on fingers when, suddenly, his Spidey-Sense starts tingling! Not the teacher’s. Parker’s.

There’s nothing around for Parker to be tensed up about. He starts getting anxious while MJ stares at him worried. “Oh, my God – I’m losing control of my powers,” he thinks. “The buzzing – Aggh! I knew it! I knew this would happen eventually! $%^@!! They’re going to have to lock me away. Nick Fury’s gonna come get me. That’s what’s going to happen! Aggh! The buzzing!”

Shut the fuck up and look out the window. There’s a big creature jumping toward the school! It has spiky tendrils and razor-sharp teeth, man, and it’s comin’ to getcha! Parker doesn’t know that Brock had another batch of this magic potion. He thinks the suit took on a sentient form and lept out of the smokestack where he thought he had destroyed it.. “I deserve this. I did this to myself. I created this out of my own damn arrogance. I make a mess and don’t even clean it up right. I deserve this.”

Later, after school, Parker faces off with the beast.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #37

It’s like looking in a mirror!

“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LIED PETER,” growls the Venomous creature, snakey tongue flicking about, razor-sharp teeth bared, still mad that Gwen wouldn’t give it up.

…

…

“Eddie?”

Yes! Ding ding ding! Eddie allows his face to break through the suit, but he continues to speak in that scary back speech balloon. “OUR FATHERS DIED TO CREATE ME – AND NOW YOU WILL, TOO.”

Final Thoughts

What a short issue! I liked the parts where Parker talked to MJ and then Brock was having trouble with the Venom suit and then later he threatens Parker. The rest of it was subpar, but those parts were great!


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Paper Girls, Issue #28

* Part 3 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 6 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #28! In the previous installment…

KJ hides in the bushes while a teenage Charlotte Spachefski fawns over her childhood love, the homosexual Teenage Mutant Jude. He and KJ team up to do whatever they’re gonna do. Fight some crime. w/e

Mac is gettin help from Dr. Braunstein to find her time travel capsule before the gamma ray burst destroys the world. Braunstein’s story may be over, but Mac’s ain’t.

Tiff is going to send messages in her friends’ dreams with the help of a duplicate 19-year-old Erin, and duplicate adult KJ, and her actual elderly self. It’s less complicated than it sounds.

Erin Folds her way into Jahpo’s airship. So, good news, she is back in 1988! The bad news is that this Bad News Motherfucker is pointing a gun at her head. It’s like, Erin is no stranger to being shot! She eats bullets for breakfast!

Without further ado…

Paper Girls, Issue #28 [May, 2019]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #28

This looks like it’s going to be a fucking excellent issue. Each girl gets her own panel on each page, from top to bottom. Tiff, Mac, KJ, and Erin, in that order. Due to the unorthodox storytelling, I’ll focus on one girl at a time.

Tiff

“Why are we here?”

“Now there’s a question old as time,” Old Tiff responds. Here’s what “here” is anyway: Stony Stream. Her old neighborhood. “Though these days, it’s way more ‘stream’ than ‘stony’,” says 19-year-old Erin, hereby referred to as “19 Erin”. The group straps Tiff into the chair and explains that this particular spot is a good hub for four-dimensional communication. Why? Because we said so, that’s why, you little punk.

Tiff can’t believe that this contraption is going to let her communicate with the other three girls, anywhere between the beginning and end of time, wherever they all are right now. “And the message you need to deliver is this: return to the beginning.” When asked what that means, it means go to the house where they found that time capsule. At least one girl needs to do that, and Tiff needs to keep the message simple since the dreams tend to twist and turn the phrasing all dreamlike. It might, for example, be delivered as “If you want to get back home, you have to moonwalk.”

Younger Erin suggests starting with Erin. The real Erin. Erin Prime. Tiff tries, and…

…suddenly the reality around them splits in two…

Paper Girls, Issue #28

You go gurl! Keep on busting this fucking place up. Kill us all and bury us in a pile of rubble.

“But we accidentally just blew chunks of the future into that time hole. You recognize where it opened to, right?” Tiff says incredulously as she takes her VR helmet off.

The rip in reality showed a flash of the giant hill with the cropped out demon holding an apple from prehistory. “You people must be who Wari thought was sending her stuff!” Tiff realizes. The Dreamwomen. 19 Erin doesn’t even know who Wari is, but Old Tiff facepalms and remembers the old version of Wari from 2171. Why she doesn’t remember younger prehistoric Wari is explained as follows, and will forever explain why older versions of the kids can’t remember shit about their own pasts.

“Tiffany, your older self doesn’t remember any of your extra-temporal exploits before she encountered you as an adult in the year 2000.”

“Because all of this trauma will be erased before you and your friends are returned home safely.”

PLOT HOLE! BRIAN K. VAUGHAN AND HIS “OH SHIT, I GOTTA FIGURE THIS ONE OUT” PLOT HOLE! THERE IT IS!

“So my friends and I are getting our brains washed by the bad guys as part of your surrender?” Tiff asks, still rather incredulous. She is told it’s not a surrender, it’s a truce. Know the difference? One involves surrendering, and the other is a full on surrender! Heh heh.

Tiff doesn’t want to forget everything the four of them have been through together. She doesn’t want to forget everything that made them friends. But, the bottom line is this: things happened because they happened. There’s no changing what happened. Get back in the fucking chair.

“I guess we all grow up to be Old-Timers, huh?” Tiff sneers. The rest of the group kind of sneers back. Then a yellow square Folding appears behind them.

“Is it finally happening?” asks 19 Erin.

“Yep,” replies Old Tiff. “The final domino has been tipped.”

Tiff sees KJ and Jude through the portal. KJ reaches forward. “NOOOO! It’s a trap!” Tiff screams.

Then silence.

Mac

“Why are we here?”

“I like to think it’s fate,” Braunstein responds. Mac says that sounds hella unscientific. I’m inclined to agree. I’m so inclined that I’m falling backwards on my ass.

Braunstein looks tired. “Sure, maybe you and your friends happened to stumble onto that time machine, but I like to think the universe needed it to happen.” She continues to get philosophical, saying something I’ve read dozens of times during my own fun existential crises: the Earth came and went in the blink of an eye with respect to the lifespan of the universe, and we sentient beings got to be part of it for a short while against astronomically impossible odds.

The two climb a big ol’ rock and Braunstein grabs her head in pain halfway up. “Doc? You ok?”

…suddenly the reality around them splits in two…

Paper Girls, Issue #28

The end of the world is getting interrupted by the end of the world! Run for your life!

Braunstein’s nose starts bleeding and she seems to be somewhere else entirely. “Her and her precious boy. I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.” She topples backward into Mac’s arms. “Don’t… be afraid,” Braunstein continues, dying. “It’s not… as scary… as you think.”

Mac loses her shit a little bit.

“I promise… it doesn’t even… hurt. Almost feels… exciting? Like… something wonderful… is about to…”

That’s it. Mac lays her down gently on the ground, takes her cane, and heads to the time capsule at the top of the big ol’ rock. “Welcome, authorized guest!” it chirps. “Destination?”

“Back home,” Mac says, strapping into the chair. “Ass-crack of the morning on November 1, 1988. Make it snappy.”

Then an explosion.

Then silence.

KJ

“Why are we here?”

“Who gives a shit?” Jude responds. “Philosophers don’t last long in my line of work.”

No, not that, jerkoff. “I mean, why did you drag me to Edgewater, where the acne crowd goes to lock braces?”

Ah, yes. Sorry. It’s because Jude’s craft crashed in the nearby lake, so they set up camp in this spot. The unfortunately location of all the pimply, macking teenagers is just something that she’ll need to overlook. “Heck and Naldo are probably still out scavenging for parts, but they should be back soon.”

“Cool, it’d be good to see some familiar faces,” KJ says, trailing Jude on the beach. Jude asks why she only met them and not him, but KJ doesn’t want to say. It’s hard to tell someone that they died prematurely, you know? Like so much ejaculate.

She apologizes and then tells him.

…and then the reality around them splits in two…

Paper Girls, Issue #28

Hey, the 20th century wasn’t bad. There was the Summer of Love! And Pong!

KJ wishes she could help in some way, but Jude knows that when you die is when you die. “Not like I was destined for a long life anyway.” Heeeyyyy, buddy. Don’t say that! You’re… uhm… you’ve got… like, you’re all right! Y’know?

“You have the same disease as my… my girlfriend. The one some time travelers get?”

“Most travelers by the time my generation rolls around,” Jude says. Not much to do about it. No cure and all that.

“If time travel is pretty much a death sentence, why do you guys do it?”

“For all the kids who come after us.” It’s like, why does anyone do anything? For future generations! Unless you’re a republican, then you just look out for #1 and take everything you can for yourself. Whoops, I didn’t mean to get political! Or did I?

So Jude steals some old technology from the past if it helps the poor saps in the future. He looks sad for a minute, then asks KJ to promise not to say anything about his death to his boyfriend. Anyway, time to boogie before time continues ripping them new assholes.

“Can I ask one last thing? Do my boys at least get revenge on whatever asshole eventually does me in?”

“The Old-Timer who murders you, he… he gets shot,” she says. Ha, yeah! By her! Say something! You avenged Jude’s death and you didn’t even know it! SAY SOMETHING!

She doesn’t. She’s seen too much death in the last few days, she doesn’t want to dwell on it.

Jude continues forward, but KJ spots a roundish violet Folding opening next to her. “Um, Jude?”

The Folding opens wide. Super wide. The other side is Tiff screaming and holding her head.

“KJ, don’t!” Jude yells.

“It’s all right,” KJ responds, remembering all her future flashes. “I’ve seen this before.”

KJ reaches toward the portal.

Then silence.

Erin

“Why are we here?”

“I was rather hoping you could tell us why we’ve ended up in this great beyond,” Jahpo responds, lowering his gun. “Miss…?”

Erin doesn’t give her name. Old-Timers are bad news! Pleading the fifth from now on! Lawyer time!

“Grand Father,” Cardinal yells, pointing her Stargate Jaffa staff at Erin, “she’s carrying the same satchel as the young ones who attacked me in 001988!”

Ah well, that’s a fly in the ointment. Jahpo can tell Erin’s just an innocent bystander caught up in this mess by accident… right?… well?…

“Please, I just want to see my friends again,” Erin says meekly, gripping her bag. Jahpo assures her that they’ll try their best. “For now,” he motions toward a curtain, “would you like to see our dinosaurs?”

Pffft. F that! Old-Timers are bad news!

Jahpo doesn’t want to hurt her. Heck, he’s not that militant about preserving the past! That got all blown out of proportion! Over time, the Old-Timers learned that you can rescue past species from extinction without significantly altering the future anyway. Here, check out these cool ass dinosaurs they’re keeping on the ship for some reason. They look happy, and–

…suddenly the reality around them splits in two…

Paper Girls, Issue #28

Looks like this was the best of the post-reality splitting panels! Thank you and good night.

The rift appears to have cracked open a holding cell of various pyramid monsters and Editrixes and other lovely creatures that we’ve seen before that are shaped like 3D polygons. They don’t work for the Old-Timers, as Erin originally thought. They work alongside them… but they seem pissed, so Jahpo tries to squirrel Erin away to somewhere else.

“Our four-dimensional guests first revealed themselves to the world when I was about your age, on the day we all discovered that time travel was possible,” Jahpo explains. “What we call the Editrixes helped us understand the awesome responsibilties that come with–”

“Bullshit!” Erin interjects. “Time travel wasn’t ‘discovered’, it was invented… by the woman who raised you!”

This really takes Jahpo aback. “What the hell did you just say?” he says, looking slightly angry. Erin claims that she barely understands whatever stupid war they’ve been fighting for years, “but I still seem to know way more than you.”

After claiming that Erin isn’t making any sense, he’s about to say that his mother wasn’t an inventor – that she was something else – but he is interrupted by Cardinal’s scream. One of dem pyramid monsters that made KJ see the future has grabbed hold of her.

“Don’t shoot!” Erin yells. “It’s not trying to hurt her!”

“We don’t know what it’s doing!” Jahpo yells back, readying his gun. He pushes Erin back and starts unloading bullets into this floating upside-down pyramid. That’s probably not a good idea. The bullet hole starts oozing some black fluid and little triangles, circles, and squares made out of light start swirling out from within, forming a helix pattern.

Both Jahpo and Erin utter the same thing: “Oh crap…”

Then an explosion.

Then silence.

Final Thoughts

Holy fuck my balls, dude. Does it get better than this? Two issues left. I’m gonna miss this series like damn when it’s all over…


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Phil Hartman Was Murdered

Phil Hartman Was Murdered

RIPin’ since 1998.

Guys, something has been brought to my attention. I’m not sure if any of you already knew this, so please sit down. No, really, sit down. You’re going to need to sit down. SIT THE FUCK DOWN. Jesus Christ, I’m trying to tell you something serious here. OK, are you ready for this? You’re not going to believe it.

On May 28th, 1998, at around 3am, Phil Hartman’s wife shot him in the head with a .38 caliber revolver while he was sleeping. She was on Zoloft, alcohol, and cocaine. She drove to a friend’s house and confessed. Her friend, Ron Douglas, didn’t believe her. They both drove back to the house, where Douglas saw Phil Hartman’s body still in the bed. Douglas called the police, the police removed their children from the house first, but when they came back into the house they had discovered Phil’s wife dead in the bedroom with a self-inflicted gunshot wound through her right eyeball.

Her name was Brynn Omdahl. She was a bitch.

Funny stuff, I know! I like to keep it light-hearted once in a while. I think about Phil Hartman’s murder a lot. I mean, not a lot. It’s not like I wake up in the morning, eat my Wheaties, think “Phil Hartman was fucking shot!”, and then brush my teeth. But this happened 25 fucking years ago now, so it feels important to write about it.

But I won’t! I will instead spend the remainder of this post that’s supposed to be observing the 25th anniversary of Phil Hartman’s murder by talking about some other celebrities who were murdered.

Here’s to you, Phil!

John Lennon

Phil Hartman Was Murdered

John Lennon – Murdered

John Lennon! On December 8th, 1980, Lennon got those glasses blasted right off his face by Catcher in the Rye-loving Mark David Chapman. How do you like them apples, Johnny? Serves you right for beating the shit out of Cynthia Powell. I HATE PHONIES! BAM!

I kid, I kid. Like all smarmy musicians, Lennon didn’t really deserve to die. But he did die, and now we all have to suffer with Beatlemania retrospectives and, uh, martyrdom. Listen, this Chapman guy was motivated by two major things: his aforementioned obsession with Catcher in the Rye, and his anger at Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” statement. Among other statements. He even wanted to kill Elizabeth Taylor, Ronald Reagan, Paul McCartney, and Johnny Carson! But he only had time to kill John Lennon. He was too busy stroking his pud insanely to remember to do it.

John Lennon is mostly remembered today for his dumb haircuts and his decisions to record audio of himself and Yoko Ono fucking and breathing hard. You can see Lennon’s penis and balls on the cover of that one album. It’s quite majestic, and by “majestic” I mean “really majestic”.

Selena

Phil Hartman Was Murdered

Selena – Murdered

If you’re a Texan-Mexican man in your 50s, chances are about 99.99% that you have covered your pick-up truck with decals as a commemoration to Selena Quintanilla, aka Selena Quintanilla Pérez, Selena Quintanilla Pérez Hilton, aka Selena.

There’s a lot of backstory behind Selena’s murder, so if you like long novels with hundreds of thousands of details that culminate into a woman getting shot with a gun, then Selena’s story is for you! To be brief, Selena hired Yolanda Saldívar to run a couple of stores. Saldívar sucked hard at running the stores and lost business. About 500 people told Selena to cut this woman loose, but she refused to entertain any possibility that Saldívar sucked hard at helping and doing her job correctly. Selena’s dad discovered that Saldívar embezzled thousands of dollars from the company. After several attempts to discuss the inconsistencies with the numbers and for Saldívar to hand over the financial papers, Saldívar took this opportunity to instead kill Selena with a gun she was carrying around. You know, just in case a Selena-killing situation arose.

So what became of Yolanda Saldívar? Last I heard, she was attempting to run a prison store and she’s sucking hard at it. The warden asked for financial papers and she shot him in the back! Now she’s in mega prison, and you can take that to the bank.

Christina Grimmie

Phil Hartman Was Murdered

Christina Grimmie – Murdered

I didn’t know who Christina Grimmie was until about two hours ago. She was pretty! She was also murdered!

She got her start on YouTube and then ended up on The Voice, and those are two reasons right there why I’ve never heard of her before and why I will never think about her again after I hit the ol’ “Submit” button on this blog post! Grimmie was killed on June 10th, 2016 at a concert venue in Orlando, Florida. She was signing autographs after her show, then 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl approached her as a fan and shot her three times at point-blank range. Perhaps he was mad that he was missing a vowel in his last name? Police reports indicate that Loibl had an “unrealistic and unhealthy infatuation” with Grimmie, and you know that when you love someone enough you have to murder them in cold blood in front of dozens of witnesses! When questioned about his Grimmie obsession, Loibl would get “angry and defensive” and that he was “tired and ready to ascend”, which is exactly how I described myself at my last job interviews with Home Depot and Pet Supplies Plus.

Thankfully, this is the last murder with a gun that ever happened in America going forward.

Wasn’t that fun, kids?! The moral of the story here is: don’t become famous or you’ll get extremely murdered!

Until next time, ladies and gentlemen. Keep an eye out for crazies with guns!


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Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “Airborne”

* Part 1 of 6 of the No Fear storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “Airborne”!

Hot off the heels of the Green Lantern: Rebirth limited series, Geoff Johns continues his epic tale with Issue #1 of a brand new Green Lantern reboot! In the Rebirth storyline, we see Hal go from being possessed by an evil entity known as the Parallax to eradicating it with the help of a few Green Lantern buddies: Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kilowog. Plus Green Arrow. Sinestro shows up for an issue or two for no reason to try to kick Hal’s ass, but Hal gets rid of him too. For now. We haven’t seen the last of him.

Now that Hal Jordan is back from being dead or whatever the hell was wrong with him, he intends to start living a normal life. A normal life with some Green Lantern powers.

But there’s some vegetable in prison who has a giant head and a Salvadore Dali mustache. He appears to be the next bad guy, but we’ll have to see what we get. Oh boy, are you excited? I’m excited! Let’s crack this bad boy wide open!

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1 [July, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Airborne”

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“You mean, do I know what he did? Hell. Everyone does.”

A couple of schmoes at the Ferris Airfield are talking about Hal Jordan. He did some insane maneuvers with the jet and “he’s lucky he wasn’t arrested”. Maybe he flew into the World Trade Center and died! That would certainly be cause for a slap on the ol’ wrist.

“They say Hal Jordan was an ace. But there’s no way Ferris will let him fly again.”

Meanwhile, Hal Jordan is doing maintenance on one of the jets. I know this because he is holding up a wrench and frowning! SUDDENLY, a beam of green light hits him like a UFO abduction. “Hal Jordan. You have been chosen.”

Jordan literally gets beamed up. “I am Abin Sur. Green Lantern of your space sector. Sector 2814. I am dying. The brightest day becomes the blackest night…” yada yada yada. Here’s your ring. Don’t fuck up.

Abin Sur, still manifested as a beam of green light, transports Jordan to another part of Earth where a plane has crashed in the desert. All the while, he reads him the instruction manual for the ring. It’s fueled by willpower. You need to charge it with a green battery. Don’t get it wet. Keep it at room temperature. “But there is a flaw in the battery. An impurity located within your visual spectrum. The power is ineffectual against yellow.”

The crashed plane contains a beefy red, bald man. He presents the ring in his hand, the battery close by. “Hal Jordan of Earth. Do you accept this duty?”

Long story short, Hal Jordan accepts this duty.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Can the ring conjure up a couple of hamburgers to celebrate the occasion proper?

Then the plane fades away and disappears…

I suppose this was all a flashback! The nerve of these people hella blindsiding me like this! Well, now let’s catch up to the present day. Hal Jordan and another pilot are flying around the very same desert. One flies upside down right over the other one, flashing a card hand at each other through their cockpit windows.

“Two pair, high ball,” says Shane, flashing Q Q 10 10 7.

“Jack high, Colonel,” says Hal, flashing Q Q 10 10 J.

POKER! The Cool Man’s Game.

It’s Edwards Air Force base. Hal had signed up the day he turned 18, and he met Shane Sellers the very same night. They fought over a redhead at the bar. Fingers were broken. They never fought again since. Some lieutenant colonel fucked the redhead.

Anyway, everyone had thought Hal Jordan died the day Coast City was razed to the ground, but no. He was “on the road”, and now he wants to just fly again. I suppose this is all part of the not wanting to be a Green Lantern anymore thing. “Do you know how many strings I had to pull today?” Shane tells him. “This wasn’t a requal flight. It was a favor.” Hal needs to run through training again. Test pilot school. And Jordan’s ok with all of this. More than ok. Things are getting back to normal.

“Why’d you do it anyway, Jordan? What happened that day?”

“I couldn’t quit.”

Flashback again! I think. This must be right after he received the ring from Mr. Beef? Or later? Or earlier? Or before? Or after? Oh, this is after the poker game in the present day. He takes it out of his locker at the airbase. It rings like a telephone. “Jordan. Hey, I’ve got a zero-zero.” That means an abandoned spacecraft! Not to be confused with a zero-zero-zero, which is a zipper caught on the penis like in There’s Something About Mary. “In a geosynchronous orbit over northern Nevada.”

I believe this is John Stewart talking, who is one of Jordan’s Green Lantern buddies! Hal Jordan wastes no time conjuring up his Green Lantern suit and flying to, where was it again? Northern Nevada? Yeechhh.

In Bartsow, California, an Air Force guy is hitting on the cashier at a diner. The jeep out front has a large tarp over the back, hiding something. The cashier finds it fascinating, but the Air Force guy won’t tell her what it is. “It’s top secret,” he says, handing her money and rubbing her palm with his finger.”

“Hey, Private. That’s my girl you’re trying to recruit,” approaches one of these trucker hat motherfuckers. A real MAGA-asshole looking tall drink of water. The Air Force guy remains calm, thanks the woman for the coffee, and leaves without another word.

The Air Force guy is named Johnson. When asked by another soldier what the weird moaning sounds are under the tarp, Johnson tells him to shut his trap. Suspicious stuff! I hope it’s Jabba the Hutt.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Good to know that all it takes is a little fisting to get in Hal Jordan’s good graces.

Hal Jordan and John Stewart didn’t really get along until they realized they had a mutual goal: challenging authority. Of course, as we know from Rebirth, John Stewart is a pussy. All that “challenging authority” is in the form of crying in his bed.

They discuss the lack of activity in the Green Lantern Corps. Only five officers, all operating in the same sector. Well, maybe it’s not even five anymore. Stewart wants to try restarting the Corps, but Hal Jordan is like “eh”.

They come across the abandoned spacecraft: a big, glowing yellow monstrosity. A real eyesore of a thing. “And I’d guess whoever built this thing wanted to keep Green Lanterns out.” No shit, sir. Green and yellow don’t mix. Keep your mustard out of your salad.

The impurity is trapped in the power battery again. Huff! But this time they know how to beat it. They use their rings to drill a large hole in the side of the craft…

There’s no life support system. No navigational computer. Not even a chair! No life signs! No signs of organic anything. Empty fuel cells. That can all only mean ONE thing: It’s a GHOST ship! Barring that, whoever flew here had no intention whatsoever of flying back.

Back over in Barstow, California, Mr. Big Guy is giving his fiancee the business about hitting on Air Force dudes. While this happens, a big, bald alien-looking man has locked in on “trace radiation” and flies himself to the diner. “Who the hell is this?” Mr. Big Guy yells as the bald alien stares menacingly. “This another one of your boyfriends from the base, Kristy?”

He picks up a large pipe, intending to bash Mr. Bald Guy’s head in. “SYSTEMS THREATENED” says a robotic voice, and Mr. Bald Guy turns Mr. Big Guy into Mr. Skeleton Guy.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Oh man, that hurt. How bad does it look? Is it going to leave a scar?

Kristy cries in the corner and begs for her life. “PRIMARY DIRECTIVE. LOCATE PREDECESSOR. SECONDARY DIRECTIVE. TERMINATE ALL LIFE.”

*skeleton*

Without any real leads, John Stewart heads back to Justice League HQ aka a Giant Toilet. Hal Jordan heads back to what’s left of Coast City. Located between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Coast City boasts the largest population of disease-ridden seagulls and heroin-addicted muskrats. It where Jordan grew up after his dad died. He lived there almost all his life… until Mongul destroyed it. Two million people were killed, but who’s counting? The government was supposed to build it back up, but fuck the government.

Hal is about to enter his apartment when a smiley sunglasses man named Jim shows up to say the ol’ hello. “Bro? I thought you were dead.”

Jim Jordan, eh? Not to be confused with the loathsome politician? Jim lives in Sacramento now with the wife and the kids. Coast City is the pits. For one thing, it was destroyed. Second of all, he hates getting bitten by muskrats suffering withdrawal symptoms. They’re slowly building the place back up, sure, but less than 1,000 people currently live there. “And I doubt it’s going to grow.” The ghost town vibe gives him the willies!

“Dad would’ve moved back,” Hal says like a sourpuss.

“Mom wouldn’t have.”

Jim cuts to the chase! “Are you still a Green Lantern or what?” A bold question! Hal checks his pockets for his Green Lantern Diners Club Card, but before he can answer at all they are rattled by a couple of large BOOOMs! Well, a BOOOM and a SHOOOM, to be more precise.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #1

I’m gonna punch the shit out of this thing.

An out-of-control jet blasts across town. The wing is on fire. The BOOOM/SHOOOM has shattered windows. Hal Jordan powers up his Secret Decoder Ring and Green Lanterns his ass up! Flying after the jet, he instructs the ring to tell him to scan the radio frequencies to hear the distress calls. “…abort, Captain. Engine’s stalled. Systems are shorted out and offline…”

The pilot’s jet is breaking apart, and he is kindly advised to eject from the fireball that is the aircraft. Luckily, a Green Lantern – the best Green Lantern – uses his magic ring to grapple onto the jet and help land it safely. The fire department has already arrived to put out the flames. Hal hopes the pilot is ok as… SHE exits the plane?!? “Thanks for the save, superhero,” the beautiful blonde woman smiles at him.

“Yellow,” Hal Jordan smirks. “My one weakness.” KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS, HORNY BOY. There’s not even a scratch on this woman, by the way. She just exited a flaming airplane. She should be dead of smoke inhalation, leaving behind a sexy corpse!

“You would’ve blown past Mach 7 if you kept the wing.”

“They say the X-2020’s gonna do 10 by the time we’re done.”

“Sorry I had to intervene.”

She smiles like she didn’t almost die fourteen seconds ago. “Funny. Ya don’t look sorry.”

Disgusting. They’re giving each other the ol’ fuck-eyes and I’m not interested. Keep it out of my my burly, manly comic books.

Her name is Captain Jillian Pearlman, and, like everyone else on the planet, she thought Hal Jordan was dead. Very much alive, baby. That’s how Hal Jordan operates!

A crowd starts gathering around the plane, where broken areas of the fuselage expose the engine. “Whatever kind of engine is inside this monster,” Jordan thinks, “it isn’t from Earth.”

Oh boy! Space engines! What a hook! *fart*

We end at Edwards Air Force Base, where the truck with the tarp has been dropped off. Glowing red eyeballs appear in the darkness under the tarp. Slowly, a bright light fills the area. “NN. NN-NO. M-M-MAN. …ESCAPESSS…

Final Thoughts

Sounds like an epic doozy of a storyline is underway! I can’t wait to see Hal Jordan bone the new lady and then John Stewart gets into a pissing match with Batman and then I want to see Carol Ferris throw acid in Hal’s face. Then I wanna see Kyle Rayner get a cucumber stuck in his butt and then Edwards Air Force Base get hit with an asteroid.

All this and more awaits!


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