The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) – Chapter 44: “Hunted”

The Wheel of Time - Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

The Forsaken in question is Sammael, not to be confused with Samael (but you can confuse them if you want, they sound pretty close). And if Perrin wants to dance a jig with him for some reason, by all means stay at the inn. Moiraine and the rest are gonna hightail it out of there post haste. This is Zarine’s last chance to back out. Moiraine gets right in her face about it, too. Like “just try and follow us now”. Zarine gulps and swears, but remains steadfast in her pursuit of the Horn of Valere. So let’s continue adventuring! Moiraine tries to convince Neida to leave Illian, but Neida is staying put. FINE! Have fun dying.

The Darkhound was likely sent by Sammael, but the Gray Men were probably someone else. This whole Gray Man thing has been a mystery since Gray Man one! What the f is going on? Perrin is getting upset! He gets so irate that he forgets to think before he speaks, and loudly proclaims Rand to be the Dragon Reborn! Moiraine gets super quiet and pissed off about this outburst. Now Zarine really can never leave. And Neida, get the fuck out of Illian. Don’t be an idiot.

Not long after they set off on their horses are they hounded, SO TO SPEAK, by Darkhounds. They fight the Darkhounds. Moiraine balefires the Darkhounds, which is apparently like the Avada Kedavra of the Aes Sedai. She could be stilled if anyone knew she even knows about it! After destroying the Darkhounds, Lan and Moiraine both surmise the Sammael is after Rand now. Or even Mat since he blew that Horn (Zarine gibbers at this revealed knowledge). Off to Tear. Let’s get there before sundown. I hope everyone packed their MREs.

The chapter shifts focus to Mat and Thom, who are resting by a campfire. Mat decides to be stupid and split open one of the fireworks, which causes Thom to just about piss his pants. Pebbles and dust, though. That’s all there is in the tube. He throws it in the fire, which causes Thom to just about shit his pants. No explosion though. Mat must be lucky! Hint hint.

Four people show up to the campsite on their horses. A woman, most likely a merchant, with three male guards. For some reason they try to kill Mat and Thom, so Mat and Thom kill them all instead. Mat gets frustrated at all these attempted murders. That bland letter of Elayne’s must be something special.

They press on, and so do I.

Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Let the Good Times Roll”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Red Shadow storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Let the Good Times Roll”! In the previous installment, the Avengers successfully stop Red Skull, and by “stop” I mean that let him do all the damage he wants to do in that moment and then lets him get away! Why even have the Avengers around if they’re just going to dick everything up?

Something happened at the end of the issue that was so goddamn stupid that it gave me a heart attack, so don’t expect me to revisit it here. Comics book suck so fucking much, you guys.


Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [May, 2013]
Written by: Rick Remender
“Let the Good Times Roll”

Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Look at these dopey motherfuckers on the cover. Go get laid.

There’s a two-page exposition on some details that I cannot even begin to understand. Apocalypse twins, Uriel and Eimin. New caretakers of the revolution. They are born from Pestilence in Akkaba City under the North Pole. One is red with black eyes, the other is black with red eyes! And some guy named Kang wants to stop these babies in their apocalypse-causing tracks! And for no one’s benefit but his own, of course! Why would a bad guy do something for the good of other people? Have you even met Rupert Murdock?

Back in New York, Wonder Man and Wasp are discussing rejoining the Avengers team (even though Wonder Man was putting his efforts into disbanding the team for reasons possibly related to low bowling scores or fist fights at the public library). Wonder Man is only doing this because he owes Scarlet Witch his life (and his voluptuous penis, as the case seems to be).

They both fly to Avengers Mansion and are rather hesitant to enter the premises at the moment. Wasp reminds Wonder Man that Scarlet Witch is facing a lot of mistrust from both the mutants and the Avengers. Good thing she still has the Mormons on her side! Wonder Man reminds Wasp that most of the Avengers thinks he sucks and he’s not going to win Scarlet Witch anymore friends. Wasp agrees with this without much argument.

 Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Mostly because Captain America barely knows how to hold a pen.

The two of them expect monumental amounts drama as they finally walk into the building. They find Rogue hanging up a painting of a very serious-looking Charles McNugget Xavier. It’s replacing a picture of some of the Avengers, including but not limited to Iron Man and… ugh, you know the rest.

A smiley Alex Havok comes downstairs to great their new guests! Sorry that things seem to be tense around the house. Heh heh. And you two must be the Avengers’ new public relations team, eh? Good fucking luck, idiots. You have your work cut out for you considering that everyone hates each other now and the press is picking up on it.

Wonder Man advises that everyone in the manor makes nice with each other before they can even think about changing minds outside the manor. M’kay?

Steve Rogers is shirtlessly performing flips and cartwheels in the gym while watching a news report about Red Skull’s influence on the city’s overall distaste of the mutants. Three new dead this week with red skulls painted on their faces! Sounds like a coincidence to me! But I’m also dumb as a brick. And Honest John – the guy who turned Thor into a blubbering pile of anti-mutant goo – has this to say about everything: “You can blame the riots on the Red Skull if you think it helps sell the lies. Since the Skull’s appearance in New York, more and more people are responding to his message and taking matters into their own hands. If humanity fails to defend itself, we are surely doomed.”

The Avengers will have a live press event scheduled later from the mansion, where they will most assuredly all take off their pants and have a furious masturbation session in front of the cameras. It would certainly do less damage.

Scarlet Witch walks into the gym. Steve asks if Simon Wonder Man and Janet Wasp have arrived. Scarlet Witch tells him that not only are they here, but they’re selling Alex Havok on the idea of starting a clothing line based on their stinky uniforms! Madness! Steve thinks it’s a good idea, actually. Let the masses buy some Hulk underpants! It will bring the country together! Trust Alex, he’s been doing a bang-up job so far and he’s roughly 5,000,000,000,000 times better than his brother Scott “Diarrhea Pants” Summers. You can take that to the bank and smoke it!

 Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

But right now you really need to help me get this shirt on before it chokes me to death.

We jump suddenly to Tokyo where Shiro “Sunfire” Yoshida is nursing a drink. Once the greatest hero of Japan, he has been surpassed by the game director of Nintendo. Apparently, he is one to serve the newly-born Apocalypse Twins after signing a contract to be a Horseman of the Apocalpyse! Such is life, I guess.

Wolverine is incognito in Tokyo as a man in a cowboy hat. Very inconspicuous, sir. You do good work. He’s got something to say to Shiro. “Sunfire is retired,” Shiro tells Wolverine. “Why do you people continue to invite me into your club no matter how often I express to you my contempt of it?”

Good question, actually! Let Wolverine check his notes really quick to see if he’s got a response to this… ho hum… ah yes. It’s something to the effect of “we want a rude-ass atomic bomb guy on our team again”. *drops mic*

Plus, Xavier thought that Sunfire was something special, so that has to account for something. That bald bastard sure did have an eye for special! So fight for his ideals, if nothing else. They also have a ton of Pizza Rolls in the community kitchen freezer…

Shiro is starting to come around, especially after hearing about the Pizza Rolls.

Back in Avengers Mansion, Captain America holds a meeting in the conference room where papers are scattered across the table for no readily apparent reason. He wants to discuss a few concerns before the big press conference. First of all, Rogue and Scarlet Witch? You’re stinking up the place with your “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” affiliation. Get out.

Alex Havok overrules this, saying that they just helped save New York in a very public fashion! “I want complete transparency. People should always be trusted with the truth.”

 Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Fuck off, Steve. As a side note, your blemishes are oozy and festering. Go see a doctor.

After the meeting, Rogue congratulates Alex on a ballsy display of ballsy balls. Balls right out on the table. “He clearly isn’t a fan of being given orders,” she says of Cap. But he’s just going to have to deal with it. He appointed Alex after all. If wanted submissiveness he would have appointed Ron DeSantis.

Rogue asks Alex if he even knows why he’s doing all this. And, yeah, sure, it’s to prove to Scott how wrong he is about Xavier’s ideals. To give up on the dream. Rogue tells him that Xavier would be proud of him if maggots weren’t eating his flesh as we speak.

Speaking of maggots, the Avengers gather around the dais at the press conference. Captain America yaps about how Red Skull failed to divide the humans and the mutants and announces the “Avengers Unity Division” (pun obviously not intended). He welcomes Havok to the dais where he freezes up and starts getting preoccupied by Cyclops yelling at him about something, I dunno, losing all the pieces to their Clue game when they were kids.

Havok removes his mask and starts talking. Full transparency!

 Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

That means you, Nazis and Jews. Time to hug it out!

Alex yaps about how shitty his brother has been to the cause. Alex sees the word “mutant” as divisive, as something that further drives home the idea that they’re not all human at the core. He urges the crowd not to call them mutants anymore. It hurts their feelings!

“Well…” begins a member of the crowd. “If you don’t want to be called ‘mutant’, what should we call you?”

Great question, sir! How about “bunnies”?

“How about Alex?” Alex smiles. Dumb.

IMMEDIATELY, A BAD GUY WITH A THOR-SHAPED HELMET AND A SKULL-AND-CROSSBONES MOTIF NAMED “GRIM REAPER” STANDS UP AND CONDEMNS SCARLET WITCH AND THEN BLASTS PURPLE LIGHT AT HER!

No time to react. But Wonder Man is there and he absorbs the blast. Whew.

Alex calls for the Avengers to assemble, as they are apt to do. They try fighting Grim Reaper while he blowhards around the premises. This douchebag is Wonder Man’s brother, and he’s beaten the Avengers before. He will surely do it again. Like, right now for example. Even Sunfire shows up, but his presence is neither acknowledged nor welcome by any of them.

Grim Reaper blasts his purple light at Wonder Man, who screams. Grim Reaper begins his soliloquy. “You refuse to fight because you know we shouldn’t be alive, Simon. We’re undead – inhuman mockeries! I’ve tried to kill myself, but nothing works. That witch you worship must die to let us return to our eternal rest.”

 Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Take it like a man, bitch!

Oh, is this what this is about? Wanted to be dead again? How about you just put up with life like the rest of us, you sniveling little weasel-face?

Grim Reaper walks over to Scarlet Witch, who lies on the ground looking quite unconscious. Unconscious enough that only an idiot would start talking to her! “It’s mercy I bring you, Wanda,” Grim Reaper says. “Mercy I bring poor and lovelorn Simon. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed having him as your doting admirer, a puppy at your beck and call. Using his desire for you.”

Wonder Simon Man can’t move on account of bad purple energy. Rogue takes some of this purple energy, absorbs Grim Reaper’s powers, then punches him across the mug so hard that he looks fucking dead. “I barely hit him–” she says while everyone stares at her. “I barely hit him–” she says again, looking small.

Bad PR, dude.

Final Thoughts

HOW ARE THE HUMANS AND THE MUTANTS EVER GOING TO COME TOGETHER IT ROGUE-ASS X-MEN ARE KILLING PEOPLE IN FRONT OF CIVILIANS?

This is a story I’m heavily invested in (yawn). See you next time, you uncanny fans you.

Season 9, Episode 6 – “The Cartridge Family”

The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 6 - The Cartridge Family

“The Cartridge Family”

Original Air Date:
November 2, 1997
Directed by:
Pete Michaels
Written by:

John Swartzwelder

QUICK SYNOPSIS

After a massive soccer riot, Homer purchases a gun to protect the family.

POINTLESS GUEST STAR(S)

Clint Eastwood, Charlton Heston, and Soupy Sales. Just kidding, there were no guest stars!

WHY THIS EPISODE SUCKS

No suckiness here. We’re still in the early days of Zombie Simpsons where the punchlines are still smart, the first act either sets up the story or is directly related to the story, and Flanderization is at a minimum. We see Homer acting like a complete idiot, but he doesn’t learn anything at the end like he usually does. Instead, we see Marge do a 180° turn on the gun. I’m not sure if this ending would’ve flown with classic Simpsons. There would have been a lot less guns and a lot more hugging! Bleh. At any rate, this episode is an early example of social commentary about the availability of guns in America to people who shouldn’t have them, whether or not it was intentional. It sure can be about that in today’s environment, and the episode doesn’t even feel dated because the only gun glorification is performed by the town idiot. Honestly, it holds up a lot better than I expected. But maybe that’s because I am an America and I’ve been desensitized to every gun-related death that has been reported on the news every day since 2006.

One gripe! I don’t know how early this started in the series, but eventually crowd scenes would have nothing but recognizable characters. Back in the day you would find random stock nobody characters among crowds. But nowadays any time there’s a scene at, say, a soccer match or an NRA meeting, you’re going to find Chief Wiggum, Jimbo Jones, Mr. Burns, and Duffman among the throngs. It makes the town seem extra small to see the same 60 characters over and over again at every location.

BUT “THE CARTRIDGE FAMILY” HAS GOOD JOKES! “I don’t have to be careful, I got a gun!” is a line no one would have thought of in the last 15 years. The reference to the original ending of “Who Shot Mr. Burns” where Lisa says it “would have made a lot more sense” if it were Smithers instead of Maggie harkens back to the good old self-aware meta days of yore (mentioning Dustin Hoffman and Michael Jackson as guest stars that didn’t use their real names from “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie” comes to mind). And all the gun misuse and reckless aiming? Does this episode still air in syndication? It feels just as insensitive as all those times Homer choked Bart, and that’s not a complaint!

The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 6 - The Cartridge Family

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Tom Petty rarely granted permission for his music to be used on television. He allowed the use of his song “The Waiting”, because he was a fan of the show.
Tom Petty’s dead while The Simpsons lives on? A case against God if I’ve ever heard one.

The censors at Fox Network were initially nervous about certain moments in this episode, such as Homer pointing the gun at Marge’s face, and Bart aiming the gun at Milhouse to shoot an apple in his mouth. However, they eventually allowed the show to leave the scenes in.
Who the hell gets a job as a TV censor anyway? They always sound like a gaggle of nerds that I’d like to beat the shit out of.

In 1998, Sky One decided not to broadcast this episode alongside the rest of the season in the UK because they felt it was “too strong, even for a late slot.” Instead it was released exclusively on the VHS release “The Simpsons: Too Hot for TV” and was not otherwise available until it was broadcast on BBC2 in 2001.
In the alternate British version of the episode, Homer buys a baton. That’s a joke about the lack of guns in Britain, you see. Feel free to use that joke yourself at your next dinner party.


FINAL GRADE
A-

The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) – Chapter 43: “Shadowbrothers”

The Wheel of Time - Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

When the hubbub dies down a bit, Lan comes over to Perrin and asks him how he knew that there were Gray Men in the inn when neither he nor Moiraine could sense it. Perrin tries to keep his voice down so that Zarine doesn’t hear, and then tells Lan that he smelled them. They smelled like old cheese and rancid Funyuns, and that really isn’t as good as it sounds, sir.

Lan scouts outside, asking Loial and Perrin to join him. This makes Perrin uneasy; Lan never asks for help. Zarine joins much to Lan’s exasperation. They discover paw prints in a stone block, similar to paw prints in stone that Perrin saw at an earlier date. These are Darkhound prints. Darkhounds can run through mud and dirt without leaving a trace, but stone is a horse of another color altogether! Lan also says that they usually don’t travel south of the Mountains of Dhoom, which are about a million miles north of Illian, so ha ha isn’t that a corker? Anyway, uh, go to bed! Lan will go find Moiraine now to tell her the awful, terrible news…

GET READY FOR MORE FUCKING DREAMS. Perrin yells for Hopper, but Hopper is nowhere in sight. He dreams of Mat playing dice with Ba’alzamon. He dreams of Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne getting trapped in a cage. Then Hopper shows up to tell Perrin “he’s too young to be here”, and Perrin informs Hopper of the Darkhounds. And the Gray Men. And Hopper is like “oh hellshits, son, those are Shadowbrothers! Get out of here post haste! Out! Out out out!

Perrin wakes up to find Zarine staring at him from across his room. She ticks off all the crazy things going on around Perrin: he’s ta’veren, he’s got yellow eyes, he’s attracting Gray Men, he travels with an Aes Sedai, he travels with a Warder, he travels with an Ogier, he kills Whitecloaks for godsake. She wants to bone him so badly, but Perrin grumbles and remembers that Min told him to stay away from a beautiful woman. At first he thought it was Lanfear, but now he’s not so sure…

Enter Moiraine. She looks grim and is all like “THE FORSAKEN ARE LOOSE”. Killing the mood like she always does. And then the chapter is over! What’s the point? The scene is just going to pick up exactly where it left off! Pah.

The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) – Chapter 42: “Easing the Badger”

The Wheel of Time - Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

Perrin’s group rides through Illian. Last time they entered Illian, and this time they are riding through Illian. These are the two things you can do in Illian and not much more because there are no video games in Illian.

Loial gets weird again, afraid of getting discovered by other Ogier and forced to skedaddle back to his stedding. Illian is a hotbed for other Ogier, apparently. Perrin reassures the Goat Guy that Moiraine finds him too useful to let him go, being an expert of the Ways.

Moiraine and Lan agree that there’s something off about the city, but Perrin can’t sense what they’re feeling. They go to an inn called “Easing the Badger” (not “Edging the Badger”, which I almost accidentally wrote the first time). In the common room is a beautiful girl dancing on a table surrounded by workmen and sailors, singing very lewd songs. Songs so lewd that it makes Perrin blush in front of Zarine, who laughs at him. Just imagine what Perrin might be thinking! Low-cut dresses and girls without braids! For shame!

The innkeeper is a fat woman named Neida who knows Moiraine as “Mistress Mari”. Moiraine asks her if there is any news, and there’s something about Lord Brend’s appointment to the Council of Nine (who cares). Neida has weird dreams about Lord Brend, just like Bili over there *points to Bili*. Something about walking on bridges suspended in the air. It sounds pretty innocuous to me, but Moiraine freaks out. Perrin has never seen her so frightened before. She looks like this —> 😮

When Moiraine asks Neida if there are any ships heading for Tear soon, Neida gives a hearty “NO”. There are no ships moving between Illian and Tear since, per the Council, a war with Tear might be inevitable. Anyway, unpack in your rooms and come down for a disgusting meal of fish and yellow mush! During dinner, Perrin smells something disgusting — that same smell he smelled in Jarra and again in Remen. Suddenly, across the room, he notices a small group of men looking right at him. Then they brandish knives secretly, but not secretly enough it seems. “THEY HAVE KNIVES!” screams Perrin, starting a whole ruckus.

After a fight, the men are down. Gray Men, as it were. And they were after Perrin specifically for unknown reasons. Out of nowhere, Moiraine decides that she must now go on an adventure alone — even without Lan. Lan protests, but Moiraine protests harder and walks out the door. I, the reader, am perplexed! So is Perrin. And Lan, actually. Everyone’s confused. Let’s all forget this unpleasantness and continue watching the hot girl sing the raunchy songs, m’kay?