Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154 – “Whatever Happened to the City of Tomorrow?”

* Part 2 of 5 of the Superman: Endgame collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154 – “Whatever Happened to the City of Tomorrow?”!

In the previous issue of the Superman: Endgame collection, the Superman: Y2K one-shot, it’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 1999 in Metropolis. The first half of the story is this very interesting lead-up to the New Year with Lex Luthor’s gala event and flashbacks to various other New Year’s Eves in the far past featuring other members of the once-altruistic Luthor family. The second half is a trainwreck of a turd with Brainiac taking over the city as the world is blacked out. It was awful. I’ll never read it again!

In the previous issue of Superman (Vol. 2), Superman and Mongul beat up a guy who is supposed to be Imperiex but he only answers to Imperiex, who is even bigger than Fake-Imperiex! Also, Mongul betrays Superman for roughly 45 nanoseconds before Superman turns the tables.

I hope there’s no more Mongul stuff! Mongul is not very subtle!

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154 [March, 2000]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Whatever Happened to the City of Tomorrow?”

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154

Ah, the cover indicates “Y2K Two of 5”, which means there will continuity. I love me some continuity, but I don’t love me the end of Superman: Y2K. Let’s see if Jeph Loeb can turn this sucker around.

“It all happened so fast,” Clark thinks as he, in an irate fashion, asks Perry White why the FUCK his parents aren’t at the Daily Planet? After all, the city was just taken over by Brainiac and there’s no electricity anywhere. Those dumb hicks wanted to come to Metroplis and now they’re eating shit because of it. And you’re telling Clark that his parents AREN’T here? *slaps Perry White on the mouth* Give him his parents you piece of shit! *slaps Perry White on the ass*

Lois offers to help Clark find his parents, but he’s going to do this alone. “I’m sorry,” butts in Perry White, “I was under the impression that we were still trying to get a newspaper out, and whatever is happening to Metropolis – it certainly qualifies as news!”

Yes yes yes, everything qualifies as news. Death and destruction. Dogs playing basketball. What isn’t news these days?

“One second, we were celebrating the New Year–” Lois narrates as Clark rips off his very expensive suit to reveal his very cheap costume. “–and the next… Metropolis started changing. Erupting with all this… this tech. People were stranded… separated from their loved ones. And somewhere out there, Ma and Pa Kent got lost.”

“What a way to start the millennium!”

*Cheers music starts playing; opening credits start rolling*

“UP, UP AND AWAY!” shouts Superman in big, blocky letters. Awful lumpy muscles, lookin’ like complete dogshit. Impossibly huge wrist muscles, just these ugly bulbous lumps from lengthy sessions of jerking off.

The sun is rising, which means the Daily Planet is already too fucking late with their January 1st, 2000 edition of the daily news. Superman doesn’t get to look at the sunrise for long, since a big PHTOOM from behind indicates Brainiac’s presence. The PHTOOM in question is Brainiac’s blue light blast ray! A very pleasant hue, not at all unkind to the eyes. Superman doesn’t like it, though. He likes only one color of blue.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154

You see? Even when he’s fighting big, bad guys there’s always a FAP right around the corner.

Lois’ narration continues fellating Superman’s private parts… in a verbal way. “Metropolis and Superman kind of mirror each other. Proud, tall – forever reaching into the sky. It’s sort of like Gotham City and Batman. Dark, foreboding – wrapped in shadows.”

Yeah yeah. Superman tries to beat Brainiac up, but he’s like a hologram. You can pass right through him. “Intangible. Wonderful. You’ve got to become solid again sometime,” Superman says, frustrated. I didn’t know Superman even knew the word “intangible”. Inconsistent characterization of Jeph Loeb’s part to be sure.

“I’m proud of what Metropolis has done to my husband. And I know it sounds crazy, but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t feel just a hint of… envy.”

Lois is kind of a boring gal when you really boil it down. It’s like her only role in the comics is “wife”. WHERE’S THE SMACK-TALKING AMBITIOUS GO-GETTER FROM SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT?? This lady is more like “Wonder Woman, waaaah”.

Through all this, Superman fights Brainiac. It’s exciting! Kicks and punches and punches and kicks, it’s got everything!

And now guess who shows up? Fuckin’ Metallo, whom I barely know, and he’s the size of a skyscraper! Tall as the dickens! “Yeah, and I been upgraded, y’know. Just like Brainiac 13 is gonna do to this city – and even the whole world.”

That doesn’t seem to be a single through strung together, but I get the jist. “So it’s Brainiac 13 now?” Superman asks, and like Shania Twain, that don’t impress him much. Oh oh oh-whoa. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve got planned – it’s all about to fall apart!”

Punch kick slam clang boom.

“‘The City of Tomorrow’. Luthor coined that phrase,” Lois continues. “And in one of those rare times that he and Perry agreed on anything – the Daily Planet picked it up and it stuck.”

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154

Baboons? No. Howler monkeys? Yes!

I still don’t know this woman’s name, but she’s Lena Luthor’s caretaker. Lex grabs her and jumps out of the way just as one of Metallo’s giant digits comes crashing down to the ground. After deciding that Superman almost killed him on purpose, and that safety is of the essence, they attempt to get into Lexcorp Tower.

He starts punching in his security clearance code. “One inside, Lena, we’ll–”

“Access denied.”

“Denied,” Lex repeats, defeated. “My own building has been molested.”

Yes, Lex, show me on the LEGO tower where the bad man touched the building. He tries a manual override – no luck.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen zooms in to 30x magnification on Superman’s crotch. I wish I were kidding about that. He starts talking to Lois about how he’s been hacking into his work computer lately and all those conduits and junction boxes remind him of what’s going on in Metropolis. Just this big fuck of a thing, y’know? “It’s like Metropolis is turning into one big PC!”

Yeah, I’m not seeing much of that from a reader’s perspective. I just see Superman fighting a Brainiac and all the people around them trying to flee like it’s Godzilla vs. Mothra.

“You’ve got no idea what you’re up against, Superman. Brainiac’s got all the energy of this whole planet zappin’ into Metropolis – and he’s jacked me up so I can tap into all kinds of frequencies and light spectrums and stuff – makin’ me the MAN WITH THE KRYPTONITE HEART like you’ve never seen!”

Well ain’t that just ducky. Metallo is now unstoppable because Superman gets a tummyache from glowing green rocks. This wimp just keels over and plummets to the ground below. “NNGGGNNN!” Disgusting.

Suddenly, a team of blowjobs known as the METAL MEN are here to help Superman, whoever they are. They each pep each other up. “You’ve got this, Tin!” “Let’s go, Mercury!” “Do you think you can handle it, Platinum?!” “You’re doing a good job, Dave!”

Superman recovers and calls his buddy Lead over. He’s got a great idea! He makes Lead wrap his sexy body all over Superman’s sexy body. LEAD ARMOR! Toxicity through the roof! Kryptonite scrambles this guy’s circuits, but he can eat lead for breakfast. Comic books, man. Remarkable.

Metallo is frightened now. Is this the end of the fun? I hope so, because I want to go home.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154

Remember that time that we weren’t in Kansas anymore, Martha? That was loads of fun. Those munchkins were delicious!

Ma and Pa Kent are definitely not murdered, at least. Pa’s even kind of cheery! Hey, Martha, isn’t it fun to be in the middle of an apocalyptic disaster? Where’s muh camera?

They’re underground waiting for a Metropolis bullet train. The sucker’s gotta be three stories high, this thing. Elon Musk, you’ve outdone yourself yet again! Since the city is developing these incredible technological advancements in real time, the train’s tracks actually build themselves right in front of the speeding train! Remarkable! Stay away from one of those fake tunnels that Wile E. Coyote paints on a rock.

Lois continues to narrate, but it’s less than interesting and half as essential. Lois helps an old bearded man who fell down on the street. That seems pointless. Narration talks about Clark’s New Year’s resolutions being all about spending more quality time with Lois. That seems inane. This old bearded man looks like he’s about to do something nefarious. That seems unimportant. Jimmy and Lois run to Superman to discuss some matters. That seems trivial. My dinner is ready. That seems topical.

“Have you two learned anything?” Superman asks, eyes clenched shut and chin jutting out stupidly. I thought at first that he was scolding these two, but he’s actually asking if they’ve learned anything. Lois doesn’t allow Jimmy to speak for himself. “Jimmy’s got this crazy idea that Brainiac’s turning [Metropolis] into a super computer–”

That doesn’t sound so dumb! This is the year 2000 now, anything is possible! Clean energy, terrorist attacks, iPhones, stolen elections, pandemics, Kobe Bryant helicopter crashes, and gay people having rights!

Jimmy doesn’t do a very good job of explaining himself, so maybe Lois needs to speak for him again. “I don’t do science, Superman, but I do know something about this computer stuff, y’know? And looking around at all this cable and how the city’s being turned into digital material – I mean, to me it looks like modem lines being used to carry digital through the bit stream.”

What the fuck is this kid talking about? He looks all serious too, like he’s not 14 years old. Superman’s going to go off of this information and try to “sever the energy flow” with respect to bit streams and KaZaA torrents and Grateful Dead concerts on archive.org. Pressure’s on, Jim. Don’t be wrong or your head will be crushed between Superman’s thighs like a walnut in a nutcracker.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #154

BZZZOTT

Superman severs the energy flow. He does this by finding a random tube somewhere and blowing it with his laser vision. This, in turn, causes Brainiac to become solid and perfect for beat-’em-ups. OR, now that I look again, Superman seems to have become absorbed within the machine. That’s gonna make it difficult to perform marital relations with Lois for 90 seconds tonight.

“Instead of cutting off the power… Brainiac actually sucked him into it,” Jimmy explains. Poorly. Superman’s been digitized and this will actually energize Brainiac. The situation is much worse, I guess. It’s probably going to up to John Henry “Mr. Steel Guy” Irons to sort this all out, and you know how much I love that second-rate superhero (I don’t).

“With Superman gone, who’s going to stop that lunatic?” Lois asks with a look that evokes mild interest instead of desperation.

“ME. I’M BACK,” booms a Superman/Brainiac hybrid? I think? Who cares.

Final Thoughts

This story is dumb! I don’t like it! I have no vested interest in a DIGITIZED METROPOLIS or whatever the hell the freckle-face is saying.

Next up is Adventures of Superman, my favorite of the Superman series that is running concurrently at this time. Don’t botch it, please.


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Paper Girls, Issue #22

* Part 2 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 5 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #22! In the previous installment, the girls spend very little time in the future before a future-speak street peddler gets gunned down by the police (or the other way around, the aftermath was unclear). Mac takes them to the local library, where they discover the Tree of Knowledge. This very same Tree of Knowledge was mentioned in the very first few panels of the very first issue! How’s that for forward thinking?

The Tree of Knowledge tells them two bits of important information:

1) It’s the year 2171.

2) Cancer has been eradicated.

Good news for Mac. Too bad the cure for cancer involves a very invasive anal probe. I’m making that part up right now, but you never know.

Paper Girls, Issue #22 [July, 2018]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #22

“Good evening, Wari.”

Ahh, so the old woman looking out the window in the previous issue is, as it turns out, Wari from dinosaur times.

“I am happy to share that a visitor is here to see you,” announces her hovering eyeball robot. Wari wants the visitor to go away, but the visitor will not go away. He bursts into the suite like Kramer. Giddy-up!

“Take a break, Caregiver,” says the visitor. Jahpo, Grand Father, the dude with the Wu-Tang shirt. “My sister and I need to speak in private.”

SISTER?! This wasn’t known to me! I thought Jahpo was Wari’s son! Maybe we all thought that. The Paper Girls certainly thought that. “What do you want, Jahpo?” Wari asks sourly. Jahpo wants to know why she’s refusing her meds lately. “I’m older than dirt, kid. Now let me run out the clock in peace.”

Jahpo sits down and stretches in exasperation; tells her that he’s not in the mood for this shit today. Work was tough down at the salt mines, but she wouldn’t understand.

NOT UNDERSTAND?! Pah! “You’re the one who’s never had a clue about the truth, ‘baby brother’,” she spits at him, then yells something in her old tongue. Jahpo says she’s speaking gibberish again. Take your fucking medicine, grandma.

The old ruby-studded rotary phone starts ringing on the other side of the room. “The only person who calls me on that contraption is you,” Wari says as Jahpo traverses the room. It’s Alister the lackey! Did I know his name was Alister? Do I care? Both have the same answer. Anyway, it’s an emergency, sir. They found the girls. The “invaders”. They’re up your butt! HA HA HA HA!! But seriously, let’s go get them.

Paper Girls, Issue #22

FOUND WHAT? HELLO? MUH TEETH? HELLO? DID YOU FIND MUH TEETH?

“I can’t believe it,” Mac with a look of calm reverence. “I’m not gonna die.”

“Um, not to be a total wet blanket, Mac… but we don’t know that for sure,” says Wet Blanket Erin. Piss-soaked blanket. Dang ol’ Wet Piss-Soaked Blanket. Erin thinks that the tree might be lying. It’s not the first time they were lied to. For instance, remember when Old Mac told the kids that she was dead from cancer? Was that true? Exactly.

Nope! Mac’s gonna find a doctor. They are under the Hippopotamus Oath to help. Do no harm, man. Curing cancer is the opposite of harming as far she is concerned.

“I’m just saying, we shouldn’t, you know… get our hopes up,” Erin says solemnly. “Heck and Naldo told us that our fate is our fate, and there’s no changing when we die.”

“Oh, you mean the same two guys who used some future crap to save your life?” Mac yells.

“Yeah, fate can go fuck itself,” KJ adds with a big “fate can go fuck itself” sneer.

Paper Girls, Issue #22

Eww, not 100. You poop yourself when you’re 100.

Double-Oh Tiff doesn’t want to break up this happy-go-lucky movie moment, but they first need to focus on how to get the fuck back to the past.

“Hey Tree,” Young Tiff grabs an apple. “How do my friends and I get home to 1988?”

BLEEP BLOOP. “Only those who have been ordained by WATCH are permitted to traverse space and/or time.”

“And how do we do whatever the heck it is you just said?”

SNEEP SNOOP. “All four-dimensional itineraries must be approved by the organization’s current leader, Jahpo Thāpā.”

BRRRT!! Jahpo, huh? Good! He and they go way back!

Double-Oh Tiff gets angry at being out of the loop, which is weird to me because wouldn’t she remember all this shit she did at 12? The time travel rules don’t work that way, damnit. Whatever happened, happened!

“Cards, please?” asks the librarian entering the room. The librarian is a giant mummy/rocky The Thing hybrid. “Valid cards are required to visit the branches.” The girls freak out at this. Tiff tries to take the zapping stick she stole from 2000 and incapacitate the robot mummy librarian, but it doesn’t work at all. “That antique does not belong to you. That antique must be cataloged.”

Next, Tiff tries to slice the robot open with the sharp edge of the stick, and that works! The robot turns red hot, then explodes into a small blast of hot liquid.

Then the orbs hanging from the Tree of Knowledge burst. That’s probably not good at all.

Jahpo has met up with Alister to discuss the wherebouts of these time-travelling whipper snappers. It’s becoming apparent to Alister that the girls aren’t hiding from their sensors, but they just keep leaving the various time periods. Jahpo is skeptical, considering that “exploiting one of the smaller tears beyond Earth’s atmosphere” would cause them to “drown in most unpleasant waters”. But Alister shows him a hologram of the type of time-travelling craft that Heck and Naldo had always used.

Alister had his people comb through all sorts of data going back as far 1760. They found a record of that particular object entering the atmosphere in Stony Stream in the fall of 1988! Hotcha! A lead!

“And you’re sure these are the same monsters who killed Prioress?” Jahpo asks, arms behind his back in a posture of wary optimism. And Alister is pretty sure, although more scouting for physical evidence is needed. Take out your magnifying glasses and fine-tooth combs, gentlemen!

Paper Girls, Issue #22

Hey, I’m also looking for the Spice Girls!

In downtown Future Cleveland, the girls are planning their next moves. Erin wants to find Wari and Jahpo. Mac thinks that’s loony, considering they were born 14,000 years ago. Erin isn’t detered by this because, as Mac may be aware, there’s a lot of time travel happening ‘round these parts.

Tiff likes the idea. “If Wari found some way to bring her kid here, she probably also knows how we can leave.”

KJ doesn’t care. She’s in love with Mac, obviously, and she wants to go find some of those over-the-counter cancer relief tablets. Mac declines, they can worry about her later. She wants everyone to stick together. Double-Oh Tiff wants to split up because they’re not very inconspicuous in their current situation. Tiff thinks splitting up is not a tubular idea at all.

Erin is on board with splitting up. She still has Tiff’s walkie-talkies in casr they need to communicate! Look, it even has that Morse code button. See? -… ..- – – …

Set a frequency and let’s a get a move on. Don’t use your real names over the radio, though. I suggest Baby, Ginger, Sporty, Scary, and Posh. Let’s go go go!

“Good luck assholes,” Mac says wryly through one.

“Stay safe, dummies,” Tiff says wryly through the other.

Even things go south, they’ll meet up at the library at dawn. For now, it’s KJ and Mac on one team, Erin and the Two Tiffs on the other. KJ and Mac start by following an ambulance, or what they think is an ambulance, to a hospital, or what they think is a hospital. “With our luck, it’s gonna turn out to be a snake store,” KJ complains. A snake store sounds cute.

…so… uh… better now than never… “Mac, wait. Before we do this… there’s something I have to tell you.”

Oh fuckshit. Mac gets worried. “It’s about that thing from another dimension. The… the one that touched me.” Oh fucking fuckshit. Shut up, shut up.

“And it made you hallucinate about the future?”

“It wasn’t a hallucination, Mac.”

“Isn’t that what all crazy people say?”

“Listen to me, goddamnit!” KJ grabs Mac’s arms desperately. She saw Dr. Braunstein’s face covered in blood. She saw the futuristic skyline. That stuff happened! “And I also saw something about us.”

Oh fucking fuckshitting fuckshit. Shut the fuck up.

Paper Girls, Issue #22

Pucker up, buttercup.

KJ admits that it wasn’t exactly here. It was somewhere in the futuristic city. No, it has nothing to do with the cancer cure. No, not that at all. Listen, Mac. This is very important, so she’s just going to say it. Here it goes. One two three. OK, ahem. So, uh… so, uh, it’s unclear what it means exactly… heh heh, uhhmmm… but… ok… are you ready? … She saw the two of them k–

*kzzt* “ease help!” *kzzt*

Saved by the bell! “Those guys are already in trouble?” Mac says, looking annoyed, as she gets her radio out.

*kzzt* “Please help! Oh, Christ, she’s dead! She’s really” *kzzt*

“Who… who was that?” Mac asks, squinting at the radio.

“How do you not recognize that voice?” KJ says, eyes huge. “It was you.”

BRRRTTT!!

Final Thoughts

This is probably the most exciting volume of Paper Girls yet! Who’s dead?! Who’s dead?! Is it Mac’s girlfriend KJ? I hope not!


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Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “The Art of Saving the World”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Style > Substance storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “The Art of Saving the World”! In the previous installment, parents are coming back from the dead to scold their young, alive superhero children and, as it turns out, to also eat their souls. The Young Avengers certainly don’t want this to happen, but Loki has an idea! He just needs Wiccan’s powers for 10 minutes, that’s it! That’s all! Ready?

*poof*

Then Loki disappears and everyone’s pissed. Don’t worry, though, he’ll be back. He’ll follow through with the plan. He’s not a complete dickhead. Well, he is a complete dickhead, but even he knows where to draw the line. And hopefully soon, because there’s a whole zombie parent horde coming after them, and that business ain’t A+ at all.

This is the final issue of the storyline. It’s been a good run, and I hope to return sooner rather than later.

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5 [July, 2013]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“The Art of Saving the World”

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5This is all happening in Central Park, location of Avengers Mansion where no real Avengers are going to get involved because this is KIDS ONLY. Billy watches the fight and gets sad-sackey. “I’m the one to blame. I find myself thinking if I had my powers… if Loki hadn’t stolen them… if I could cast one last spell, I know what it’d be…”

“IWISHIWASSOMEONEBETTER”

Ugh. Whatever, dingus. Want some streamers for your pity party? Billy sneaks into the downed spacecraft while no one is looking and finds the ARMORY. If that’s what you call it. It’s the ship’s weapons closet. “If I die, the spell ends. The Mother parasite is banished. This all ends.

So Billy finds a nice gun. One of them top of the line guns. A laser-like gun. The kind of gun with a trigger dealie and an end where stuff shoots out. Usually it’s bullets, but since this is a laser-like gun I wouldn’t expect any bullets to come out of it. They could, of course, be laser bullets, but what do I know? I don’t know about laser bullets! But what I do know is that Billy finds a nice gun. One of them top of the line guns. He looks at it and places the business end right under his jaw.

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5

IWISHIWASSOMEONEDEAD IWISHIWASSOMEONEDEAD IWISHIWASSOMEONEDEAD

Suicide isn’t the answer to anything, even if suicide actually is the answer in this case. A sticky situation, to be sure. “I’m sorry, Teddy?” he says as he braces himself.

JUMP CUT! WHAT’S THAT SCAMP LOKI UP TO?! WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB! “Loki’s the bad guy!” he yells with jazz hands. “Sauron multiplied by that anti-Dumbledore guy cubed! His alignment is totally chaotic evil! He sends misogynist abuse for the lulz!”

OK, well I’m annoyed. Loki is sitting in the middle of a pentagram like a true Wiccan. He talks about how he died and how he was resurrected as a boy, and he strove to change his evil ways. “And then, just when he proved Loki didn’t have to be a bad guy… a phantom copy of his dead self annihilated his soul and took over his body. Honestly, it was really tragic. Everyone was crying.”

Yes, yes. So now, Loki “thinks he can steal a chunk of that Wiccan guy for good, as he thinks he can get what he wants with it.”

This is a devil-on-the-shoulder situation. A Loki hologram is trying to distract real Loki while he sits cross-legged on the floor. “Shut up. You’re not real,” Loki says out loud, mouth a-twist. He will not shut up. He will keep on talking. “You’re a loathsome murderer in stolen suit of skin, aren’t you?”

These two argue for quite some time. Fighting amongst themselves, as it were. Then, once he’s alone again, he “regains focus”. By that I mean he doesn’t regain focus.

“Oh, I miss it so. I know what I want. But my wants have proved a poor master.”

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Probably shouldn’t say things like that while you’re in a situation where saying things makes them happen.

Billy is about four microseconds away from pulling the trigger. A bright beam of blue light bursts vertically from Loki’s sitting spot. Then suddenly it’s REMR>

In the fray, Teddy just now realized that Billy took a powder. Flew the coop. “Left the fight” to go “kill himself”. Then his hands turn blue. He leveled up! Teddy punches a dude and he explodes in a torrent of goo bubbles! The rest have the same increased power: Miss America flies through a conga line of gooey parasites. Marvel Boy blasts a bunch in a row with his gun. Hawkeye’s arrow tears through a real slew of jerkfaces. “What’s happening?” she asks, more perplexed than empowered.

“I’m happening,” Loki says amidst a floating blue pentagram that is feeding its electric blue energy into his lucky superhero family. “Famously so.”

“Okay, chico. You’ve got a plan. Share it,” America glares, ready to finally accept that this puny twerp isn’t going to try to fuck them over. Not anymore, at least. Probably. And here’s the plan: Loki powers you guys up and you keep right on doing what you’re doing! How’s that for a plan? Good.

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5

You’re all breaking curfew! Get out of here before you worry your deader-than-dead parents any further!

All five – Wiccan, Hulkling, Miss America, Marvel Boy, and Hawkeye – position themselves at points around the pentagram and feed on the sweet, sweet, heroin-like energy. They absorb as much as they can and then START REIGNING BLOWS upon these parental parasites! Punching and kicking and wailing and slurping and kissing and fondling and… uh… just punching and kicking, actually. Sorry.

Loki’s having trouble at this point sustaining all this power. It won’t be long before he explodes like a ticking time b- oooooh, a pretty bright blue light… then Loki faints. America thinks he’s faking it, and he may very well be, but she supposes they should carry on as if he weren’t faking it. For a change.

The group returns to the ship, which, as we remember, runs on ”Kirby engines” that are powered by imagination and sparked by belief! Rainbows and unicorns and bald eagles and Fabergé eggs. All it takes is Teddy and Billy holding hands to get that motor a-hummin’! Plot hole!

“So let me get this straight! This machine is powered by teenage delusions! Great! Metaphor!” Hawkeye exclaims incredulously. Marvel Boy tells her to put a sock in it before she ruins the engines with her skepticism.

Teddy’s fake mom fades into nothingness, and I’m not really sure why but I’ll go with it. This causes all the alive parents in Central Park to kind of snap out of it and start ambling home. Everything’s going to be A-OK, but I think I’d rather a guy kill a bunch of dead presidents over watching a group of teenagers kill a group of dead parents so that the alive parents can go home. That’s just a preference.

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5

That’s right, Smiley Boy! Count your blessings like they were all the broken teeth on the ground after America punches you in the mouth.

“Evil mischief god is awake. Can we get back in my spaceship now?” Marvel Boy asks politely. “We need to be gone.”

Loki is like no way Jose. He’s figured something out, so pipe down and listen for once in your goddamned lives, you whippersnappers. #1: Where was Laufey in all this? Where was Kate’s mom? Huh? HUH? #2: The spell seems to only activate based on proximity to the deceased. ERGO, and therefore, we’re too far right now for certain animated corpses and whatnot. #3: The parents involved, for the most part – Noh-Varr, America – they died across the entire multiverse, so they’re everywhere at once anyway! Eh? #4: For anyone whose dead parents are grounded on Earth, stay away from those locations forever! That means no Boulder, Colorado, Hawkeye. I’m sure you can manage.

Right now, Loki’s energy is all tapped now. No more fighting! They have to lay low now or else Teddy’s Fake Mom will go right back to fucking everyone’s shit way up.

Billy has to at least let his parents know that he can never see them again for some reason! So he goes and does just that. Again, this is all his fault and he should have killed himself a while ago!

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Gonna follow the Dead for a few months. Rite of passage and all that, I don’t think anyone would understand more than you.

“Come home, Billy. Whatever it is, we can talk it through,” Pa says as Ma cries on the couch.

“You’ve been infected by an interdimensional parasite, and if I’m anywhere near you, it’s risking universal doom.”

Well, why didn’t you say so, son! Get out of our lives, y’hear? Don’t forget all the things we taught you, which was nothing! Beat it.

That’s that. Remember that whole thing about not being superheroes anymore. They’re going to keep being superheroes for a while.

Final Thoughts

Meh. Not too engaging. A lot of this story reeked of “what if your parents were literally monsters, dear readers? As if your teenage years weren’t already bad enough!” Kieron Gillen is 47 years old. Come on, now.

Ms. Marvel is better as far as coming-of-age series go. I’ll keep going with this, though, but young Avengers ain’t got nothing on young X-Men. Those kids are freaks.


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Matriarch (2022)

Tagline:
The mother of all evil.

Wide Release Date:
October 21, 2022

Directed by:
Ben Steiner
Written by:
Ben Steiner
Produced by:
David Brooks, Jenna Cavelle, Kate Dain, Eoin O’Faolain, Arbi Pedrossian, Ian Sharp

Starring:
Jemima Rooper
Kate Dickie
Sarah Paul
Simon Meacock
Nick Haverson

Matriarch

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I was looking to find a new-ish horror title while scanning through Hulu. It’s always fun seeing adults fight with their parents as if they were still children! What does that have to do with horror? Well, there’s some black stuff coming out of the woman’s eye, that seems pretty horrific to me.

THE 650(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Laura (Jemima Rooper) is approaching middle age and is becoming stressed to the point of falling apart, focusing too much of her energy on parties and cocaine and not enough on work and making money and being an actual adult. Even her friend is like “yeah, you’re a mess” after she snorts a line in the middle of the night before going to work in a few hours. This comes to a head when she gets catty with her boss/friend and storms out quitting. That night, she collapses of an overdose in the bathroom. While she is, for all intents and purposes, dead on the floor, a mysterious black liquid creeps across the room and sucks itself up into her body. She is revived.

Matriarch - Black Ooze

Man, I love it when I die and then some creepy black gunk brings me back to life.

The next day, Laura’s mother Celia (Kate Dickie) calls her out of nowhere and tells her that she’s dying. They haven’t seen or talked in 20 years, but Celia would like her daughter to come back home. With nothing else better to do, and with an opportunity to confront her mother about all her various turmoils, bugaboos, and inner demons, she obliges and returns to her childhood home.

Things are awkward. Celia bounces between sweet-as-sugar and sour-as-lemons while Laura fights with her at every opportunity. Along the way, mysterious black liquid intermittently drips out of each other’s faces, which they both attempt to hide from each other. Laura’s childhood friend, Abi, is unforgiving that Laura just up and left her for so many years. Townsfolk are passive-aggressive. Yada yada yada.

Slowly, Laura begins to realize that something is very eerie and wrong in her small, dismal little town. We, the audience, see at least two instances of Celia trying to unsuccessfully sedate and/or kill her own daughter for unknown reasons. There are two old people fucking in a car that seem to be scared while fucking, which is funny. She discovers Celia’s own personal Kama Sutra diary full of doodled sex position diagrams and ratings of how good of a lay everyone is in the village. That, plus all the black ooze dripping out of the orifices. That stuff is eerie as well.

Matriarch - Dripping Black Ooze

Oh man, the scat fetish thing is not going well.

As the movie nears the end, some of the jumbled pieces start coming together. Laura’s father had walked into what I’m going to describe as a “magic swamp” to sacrifice himself to create whatever horrible god (the titular “Matriarch”) is running the show in town. This also allowed Celia to have a baby. Laura was birthed by this creature and the creature bestowed upon both of them this weird, black blood replacement that keeps them young and scrappy. Celia started using this blood-like liquid to sell to the townsfolk for money and esteem, but everyone has become dependent upon it. Laura witnesses a very creepy ritual at the church involving Celia’s black fluid lactations, some titty sucking, and a naked orgy. The only people not involved with any of this unpleasantness was Abi and her family. They refused to sell their souls to this brand of spooky dark magic!

Here’s the twist: Abi had cancer and decided a few years ago to give into the healing powers of the almighty, creepy, worm-spewing Matriarch. Celia has been running low on juice and is trying to sacrifice her daughter to the god. And because Laura’s actually the daughter of the Matriarch, the Matriarch doesn’t kill her. It just cradles her in its arms.

Laura ends up freeing the Matriarch from the town and confronts Celia back at the church. The townsfolk are old and crying for more of that sweet, sweet black juice, but the freed Matriarch means the well has dried up! Celia still tries to keep everyone at her mercy, but then Laura bashes her fucking skull in with the butt of her shotgun. Just fucking wails on this lady.

Matriarch - Laura's Gun

THE BLACK GUNK ENDS NOW, MA’AM!!

In the aftermath, Laura inexplicably drowns herself in the same magic swamp that her father had killed himself in. What becomes of this is not at all addressed.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — I Have No Idea if I Liked It

This movie is absolutely out-of-control nuts. It starts off very slow, and the only truly supernatural thing to happen within the first hour is the black goo entering Laura’s face. But if she was already the daughter of the Matriarch, why did this goo have to enter her body in the first place?

I digress already. It takes until almost the end of the movie before any real horror elements are introduced, and it seems so out of left field compared to the tone of the rest of the movie that I sat there bewildered that it was even happening. Perhaps I haven’t watched enough horror movies. The sudden CGI worm-spewing demon, and the weird church orgy with everyone sucking Kate Dickey’s black gunk lactating nipples, it was all so jarring after all that narcissistic mother narrative. It does make sense, though, that Celia’s actions were motivated by selfishness in such an extreme manner.

Matriarch - Matriarch

Ahh, mother. So warm and kind.

I would benefit with a re-watch which I am ABSOLUTELY NOT going to do, ha! But I’ve been expending some of my brain energy piecing together all the threads and mythology behind whatever the fuck this all is, and it at least there’s consistency to character actions and what it takes to appease the Matriarch demon and what appeasing the Matriarch demon actually does. I only find the existence of the magic swamp to be the only unexplained element to the story, and why Laura’s father knew to drown himself in order to appease a Matriarch into spawning a child, but hey! I’m not here to criticize movies! I’m just here to pound my knuckles against my keyboard until I accidntally brak a fw of my mor important lttrs.

As you can plainly see, my equivocating ramblings prove that I don’t hold a strong opinion in either direction. I cannot answer whether or not I personally think this is a good movie or a bad movie.

The shitty CGI sure skews my opinion in one direction, though.

TOPIC 2 — Narcissism

I read a bit about how Celia’s behavior triggered a lot of people who grew up with a narcissistic parent. Without divulging too much, my life was also surrounded by such people, but not to extremely toxic levels. For a while, I thought Laura was being unreasonably combative with Celia, but maybe that speaks to my own experiences. I always learned that being combative makes me feel worse in the long-run. That’s how they really get you.

Matriarch - Celia and Laura

I do so much for you, and you never show me any appreciation for it!

It’s interesting to see the justification for Celia’s behavior toward Laura… well, “justification” in her eyes. Wasting away without replenishment of the nourishing black gunk is as good a reason as any to try bashing your daughter over the head with a large object and sacrificing her to some terrifying entity. The narcissism stuff is just the red herring!

I have to say that the very best part of Matriarch was Laura bashing Celia’s head in with the butt of her gun. This was brutal, graphic skull-smashing. Her ruined mess of a head was just an awful pile of black gunk. Here’s the best line of the film: “You’re not my mother, you’re just the cunt I came out of.”

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

During the first week of shooting Director Ben Steiner’s son contracted Covid and so Ben had to direct the first few days from his car.
Hilarious! Something like this is too dumb to be made up. I’m imagining Ben Steiner trying to yell through fogged up windows and beeping his horn whenever someone screws up. Driving around the sets, running over the crew’s chairs, knocking down camera stands. Now there’s a movie.

Filming was originally meant to finish in November 2021 but was shutdown due to lead actress Jemima Rooper contracting Covid 19. Filming restarted in January 2022.
Ben Steiner’s son was running around the sets coughing on everyone, I guess. Steiner should’ve hit him with his car.

The film’s original title was “Wormeater”, but was changed to “Matriarch” after network executives felt it would put off the female audience.
Hmm, fair enough. As a member of the male audience, I would’ve shoved babies and pregnant women out of the away while running to the theater for a movie called “Wormeater”.

Matriarch - Laura and Abi

Movie’s kinda fucked up, innit?

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Meh. Not really, I guess. At best I can recommend to watch it if you’re curious. I’ll never watch this movie again, though! Most of my problem is that it was really slow-going for the first 3/4 of the movie, than it ran off the rails so hard it knocked my dick in the dirt!

If you want your dick in the dirt, go for it.


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Superman: Y2K – “The End”

* DC Comics One Shot *
* Part 1 of 5 of the Superman: Endgame collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Y2K – “The End”!

This one-shot issue kicks off the Superman: Endgame collection. Only five issues in this one, but I’m happy to sink my pointy teeth into it.

Without further ado, because why bother with ado? Ado is overrated.

Superman: Y2K [February, 2000]
Written by: Ed Brubaker
“The End”

Superman: Y2K

Man, remember Y2K? Maybe you don’t. Full fledged adults were born after the ‘90s now. I remember Y2K, and I vividly remember my aunt stockpiling canned food and water because she thought that aliens were going to zap us with moon lasers or a giant volcano was going to rise up from the ground like a Dr. Evil plot. I wonder if she ended up eventually eating all that food. There were a lot of cans. Sorry, I bothered with ado anyway.

This issue is pretty fucking long, so buckle up for a fucking long post. Feel free to enjoy the pretty pictures. And don’t forget that, if the cover is correct, TOMORROW DIES TODAY! Whatever that means!

Back on December 31, 1620, before Metropolis existed, a pile of shitty Pilgrims showed up to North America to defile the land, rape women, eat babies, and all sorts of other white person bullshit. The Indigenous Peoples are scared and pissed and will prepare for war if they must! One guy in particular screeches to the heavens and fire starts raining down upon the land, which, by all appearances, does more to damage the land than to protect it! I’m no fire expert, though.

Men run! Women scream! Children burn! I go to the fridge and get some leftover brisket!

In short, this one guy was evil for covering the land with fire, so the Pilgrims and Indigenous Peoples band together to fight the evil. Evil is quashed. The red guy shakes hands with the white guy, and a bond is formed!

See, that’s exactly how it happened! Thank you, fellow white guy Joe Kelly, for revising history in an even worse manner than before.

We now turn to a jacked, bald man fighting with swords against two jacked women, also with swords, while some bean-counter in a suit takes notes in the corner. It’s December 31, 1999. They are in what I assume is a banquet hall with the lights off. “If one mongoloid in catering doles out even a single potato puff… someone dies,” the bald man warns.

The jacked, bald man is Lex Luthor. This is impossible, because Lex Luthor is supposed to weigh 45 pounds of sinew and yesterday’s oatmeal. “The hors d’oeuvres shall remain unsullied by lesser tubers this evening,” the suit says. “Your millennium gala will be perfection.”

Cool. Cool cool cool. Perry White of the Daily Planet will receive a special gift of Cuban cigars with a note “Here’s to your continued good health”. Ha!

Superman: Y2K

First of all, Lex Luthor does not know how to fight. Second of all, who the hell is “Superma”?! I don’t like the sound of that!

Lois Lane will be getting three dozen roses and Luthor’s penis through a box of popcorn.

One mention of Superman causes Luthor to falter, opening up for finishing blows from the two ladies. Business ends of both swords are half an inch from his back when Luthor shouts “Waterloo! Or if you prefer… ‘Uncle’.” He thanks the women for their services and welcomes criticism! OK, here it goes: you’re bald. AND…

“Your form was pathetic. Your strikes random and undisciplined. You wield the hatchet like an overfed infant. Most shameful. Your concentration was broken – with the utterance of a name. You give the enemy too much power. Take it back. Fight better, or you will die, sir.”

Thank you, thank you. That will be quite enough. Throw these two to the pit of wolves! I will NOT let a woman talk to me this way!

Lex Luthor is actually grateful for the honesty. Pennington, Luthor’s assistant, fears for his life for allowing these two callous women to talk to the Great One in such a manner, but Luthor insists that is nonsense! He’ll die another time! For now, let’s just focus on the gala. “Now run along and put that Harvard degree to use drawing me a bath. The gala begins in three hours.” YES SIR, RIGHT AWAY SIR, AND I’LL HAVE THE RUBBER DUCKY READY AS WELL, SIR.

Lex Luthor has to snap out of it. Metropolis is his city, and tonight will be all about that. “Tonight, the alien does not exist in my world.”

Let’s see what Superman is up to… ah, he’s on a ship outside the Florida Keys beating up a ridiculously-costumed villain. El Piton, a smuggler/wrestler extraordinaire who is attempting to be a dictator of an unnamed nation “outside the Florida Keys”. My guess is Billings, Montana.

“What are you going to do, Superman?!? We have them under complete control!” El Piton cries, speaking of the civilians on the ship. “A word and they drown themselves! You can do nothing to us!!” His extravagant use of exclamation points betrays his nervousness.

El Piton had promised a life of freedom and prosperity in this new world he’s taking his people to… and then wiped their minds with his fancy-schmancy mind-wiping powers and tools. Like a clock on a chain or one of those spinning black and white spiral wheels. Superman calls his bluff and tells him that, sure, let’s kill these people! Then he punches El Piton through the ship, busting holes all the way through the deck and the bottom of the ship’s hull. Ship starts sinking. Nice going.

Superman: Y2K

Nothing like a Titanic reenactment to snap people out of their stupor.

Of course, though, this is all part of the plan! The civilians on the ship are all like “whuzzah” and “where am I” and “hubba wut”. Then they realize that they’re sinking and are all “oh god oh no” and “we’re going to drown” and “hubba wut”.

It’s all good, though. Superman lifts this 220,000 ton ship with one hand like it was his own little dick. Everyone is saved. Happy New Millennium. *clocks go haywire*

Back in Metropolis, the people are “partying like it’s 1999” for 10 days now. Ah yes, that Prince reference! I miss hearing that every day for two years!

“Y2K!!! BRING IT ON!!!”

“The end is here! The end is here…!”

The streets have a mix of drunk frat boys and millennium doomers. Perry White walks in a trench coat and a fedora and catches Jimmy Olsen singing his lungs out. “Olsen, what in the name of good taste are you doing butchering ‘Auld Lang Syne’? You soused?”

Jimmy slurs his way through an apology. “Uh… no sir!” he stammers, telling his boss that he’s here to do some of that photo-journalism that he has been, uh, hired to do, sir! Perry White accepts this for now, because what the fuck is he really going to do about it? This scene is superfluous and I’m sorry that I wrote about it.

Superman: Y2K

No lip from you or else it’ll be curtains, see? Curtains. Lovely floral curtains.

Clark Kent travels to his snowy Smallville farm where is 30-year-old ass is positively trembling with excitement over spending New Year’s Eve with his old, boring parents instead of his sexy wife. Something about new beginnings and unwritten futures and other such happy horseshit that people get all weird about at the turn of the year. I wonder if Jon and Martha Kent stocked 400 pounds worth of kidney beans and tuna fish.

Clark walks in and sees Lois pouring tea! Jon Kent reclines in his chair obesely. Martha pulls a pie out of the oven. Clark walks over and nuzzles her ear. Lois’, not his mother’s, although that may happen off-panel for all I know. Lois wonders how some smart guy smartypants McDummy like her husband didn’t know she was in the house, the guy with x-ray vision. He answers with a confident “hubba wut”.

Jon is worried about the dang ol’ Y2K draining his retirement fund. Clark reminds him that it’s New Year’s Eve, not Armageddon, but Jon won’t hear any of this city boy talk. Poppa needs his farm pension. Martha reminds him that half the world has already gone into the new year without nanorobot dogs munching motherboards from bank computers. So cork it and relax.

While Clark bends over the pie and inhales it up his nose, the other three murmur about spilling some beans to Clark about something. Spilling 400 pounds worth of kidney beans, that is. “We were talking while you were gone…” Lois begins with a sheepish smile, hands up in the air, “and, let me throw a phrase out at you, and let’s see where it takes us, okay? ‘Change of pace’.”

Hot damn! Lois is gonna let him put it in her butt tonight! Heh heh. I’m still making jokes like this at 35-years-old, please put me out of my misery.

I don’t get to read about what this “change of pace” is right now, because the story wants me to go to some secret basement floor of LexCorp where two scientists are chatting about making all the computer systems Y2K compliant and, also, flipping some switches to cause a blackout in the building at midnight for lol reasons. One scientist notices a blip on one of those machines with a constant sine wave flickering across the screen. “Satellite 356… oh God! No!”

Red herring! The “oh God! No!” is the scientist spilling his coffee all over the computer console, successfully transferring $700 billion dollars to 8-year-old Per Kristiansen in Trondheim, Norway. “The satellite spike has passed, so it must have been a glitch.” Well, that’s good. Let’s put it out of our minds forever.

Is it time for another pointless New Year’s flashback?? December 31, 1847, Hob’s Bay in Metropolis. Back then it was a tiny town. The merchant center isn’t making much profit these days. Hard times, plus an Irish invasion stealing all the jobs from honest, hard-working Metropolish-ipolitans.

Superman: Y2K

Taste my delicious Molotov cocktail, bog-hoppers! I will burn your Irish asses back to, uh, the Blarney Stone!

The Irish aren’t welcome! Go eat a potato, you Micks! Grrr!!

“STOP!” yells a 1847 ball gown-looking dressed lady with a hat and everything. The kind of lady who fans herself going “oh me oh my” about her vapors. Edna Luthor speaks up! She stands in her horse carriage ready to address the mob. “I have never been more frightened in my entire life,” she thinks, “…but the Luthors do not run from a fight. Ever.”

“Lads!” announces a fat guy with a cigar. “Whatever this trollop is up to, she’s in with the aliens–!”

Well, I didn’t expect that. Neither did some other members of the unruly crowd. One guy in particular gets pissed off, saying that Dame Luthor is an ally. She ain’t Irish, nitwit! She’s also hot, so let’s listen to what she has to say!

The dame has prepared remarks! “Two hundred years ago, aliens came to this land…” OK, well, I’m siding with the fat guy with the cigar already. Aliens. Preposterous! Oh wait, she’s talking about Metropolis immigrants, the ones everyone standing there descended from. Let’s keep listening. “Tonight, outsiders came to our fair city again, yet instead of welcoming the Irish as our own, we take up rods and stones against them.”

It’s like, yeah lady, they’re the filthy, stinking Irish! Dame Edna Luthor makes a good point, though. And, thus, New Year’s Eve, 1847 was saved!

In the present, Lex is talking to his toddler daughter about how the strong are strong and the weak are, in contrast, not strong. The weak die alone! The weak can’t lift rocks! The weak pull a muscle jerking off! The strong build robots and sleep with hundreds of sultry women and throw shade about town. Don’t forget that, youngling. Now enough with ye! Lex Luthor doesn’t have all night to have you sit on his lap with your poopy pants butt.

Superman: Y2K

I’ll flip you to zero, you little shit.

Clark Kent is grumpy! Here was the change of pace: everyone wanted to spend New Year’s in Metropolis instead of Smallville. Surprise! No more cozy country vacations. Enjoy the big rape and murder city as the ball drops.

Lois tells her hubby to stuff it. Just enjoy, and maybe next year they can spend New Year’s in Cancun before 9/11 ruins the next New Year’s.

Near the moon hovers Lexcorp Satellite 365. There’s a glitch again! That makes two. Seems like it might be the Justice League’s own technological interferences jamming the signals? That would explain that. *dusts off hands*

Something that looks like a giant robot spider leaps from the satellite and falls to Earth. I’m looking forward to 40 pages of a big spider rampaging Earth that’s not Dr. Octopus. Oh wait… he’s an octopus.

Clark can hardly believe that his dear beloved Pa would agree to spending his time in the city, but, per Lois, Jon Kent’s exact words were “I’d sew a sweater on a swine to get a look at them Metropolis city loons on New Year’s.” Did you hear that click? That’s the sound of me pulling back the hammer on my gun while I aim it directly at Jon Kent’s temple.

That settles it. Ma, Pa, and Lois pile into the family pick-up truck and Superman flies their ass to Metropolis. Pa’s trying to give him directions like he’s not Superman. Bitch, he’s Superman.

Perry White walks around Metropolis speaking of it the way Batman speaks of Gotham. MY city, this is MY city, check out MY city. People are going nuts. Stores are completely empty of champagne and canned goods. Meanwhile, he maintains his Incognito Mode as he makes his way to Luthor’s gala event.

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