The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 49: “The Dark One Stirs”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

Time to get up! It’s morning in the Blight and there’s a lot of lovely Blight ground to cover!

They keep traversing the awful landscape where the trees are gnarled and dead-looking. When they witness a tree literally reach over to an animal and kill it, I would’ve literally NOPE’d my way out of there. Moirane tells the group to stay close, which goes without saying. A tree that eats animals. What the fuck is the world coming to?

Most of the rest of the chapter is an action sequence where various horrifying creatures start attacking and the group counters and defends themselves. Mat does that thing where he screams his warcries in the ancient language that he himself doesn’t know he can do until he does it! Then they talk about Worms, which are able to scare all the other Blight creatures, but the Worms themselves are scary, and the Worms are also scared of what’s in the mountains, and all this is pretty fucked up.

When it seems like they’re all gonna die horribly, the land suddenly becomes a verdant meadow of non-gross flora and fauna. It’s where the Green Man lives. If you excuse the Harry Potter reference, the Green Man’s oasis is like the Room of Requirement. It shows up when you need it. Or, rather, you show up to it when you need it. The location of it never actually changes, I suppose.

The Green Man seems like a giant piles of weeds to me. He’s twice as tall as Loial, and he’s a biggun’. He has hazelnut eyes, which sounds frightening. He has long grass hair, so he can become a member of Whitesnake. I’m sorry, how about Blightsnake? Now that’s a bit of humor for you. Only one feature mars his otherwise perfect visage: a scar of dead, withered, brown vines running up his cheek.

Come with the Green Man, children. He will take you to the Eye of the World!

Just between you and me, I wouldn’t go anywhere with this creep.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 – “The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”

* Part 4 of 6 of the Dead Presidents storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 – “The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”! In the previous installment, Deadpool kicks some zombie president ass and takes some names with the help of everyone’s favorite Marvel sorcerer Jeff Bridges! I mean, Stephen King. Strange. Stephen Strange.

Strange enchants a sword that will help eradicate the zombies and sends them back to the other side. The necromancer is choosing to cooperate because, in all honesty, he seems like a really nice guy anyway. Preston has been briefed that an army of the undead is being raised to take over the country, so they have to deal with that now.

Deadpool makes a lot of jokes! I wonder if a comedian is writing his material.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 [March, 2013]
Written by: Brian Posehn / Gerry Duggan
“The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

In South Florida, Undead Marylin Monroe is singing to Undead JFK from the back of a truck. JFK and a couple of alive cronies are loading the truck up with guns and ammo. “Hi there, Baby Girl… we’re, ah, reinvading Cuba.”

Marylin Monroe comes out into the light looking scabby and gross, much to JFK’s disgust. “Yeesh,” Kennedy recoils. “The years have not been kind, Marylin.”

The “Marylin” flashes her dick and pulls out a big sorcery-enhanced sword. “SURPRISE! Say hello to my little Wade!”

Slash, burn, fizzle. Kill. Kill kill kill. Everyone dies. Deadpool removes the blonde wig and grins wickedly. “Don’t go anywhere, boys and girls. The show’s not over. There are so many other undead presidents for me to send back to Hell.” I’m looking forward to that. I haven’t seen much of Jimmy Carter milling about… … …yeah, well, he might not be dead, but he will be by the time you actually read this! Let me know in the comments if it happens.

Anyway, up on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Deadpool chomps an oversized burrito while thumbing through a history book looking for his next victims. “Can I just kill Nixon again, please?”

Agent Preston tells this guy to make haste! James K. Polk and John Tyler are terrorizing San Francisco right now with a couple of other who-cares presidents from the 1800s. Rutherford B. Hayes? Rutherford B. Giving Us a Hard Time! Ha! That’s MY joke and I’m not letting anyone take credit for it. Why would they? It’s awful!

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

They didn’t have burritos in the 18th century? It’s a wonder why everyone didn’t just kill themselves back then.

Ghost Ben Franklin wants Deadpool’s burrito. And then he calls Deadpool’s Marylin Monroe impersonation “strangely enchanting”. Get it? Because Franklin was a horny boy.

Deadpool and Franklin plummet from the helicarrier right onto the Golden Gate Bridge, where a big group of patriots are defending the existence of the zombie presidents with picket signs like “PARTY LIKE IT’S 1776” and “SAVE OUR DOOMED COUNTRY, FOUNDING FATHERS”. Sounds cultish to me, but that wouldn’t happen in America! Don’t be silly. Ghost Franklin likes their tri-corner hats.

These freaks want to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge! Why? For America, of course. Other reasons and readily apparent, but these folks want Pol, Tyler, and Co. to follow through with it. Deadpool says NO MAS. “So, I have about six pages to kill ten presidents and their henchmen. I say it’s montage time.”

Montage time it is, although montages, to me, imply wordlessness. There are certainly words here.

“Hey, obscure presidents, call out your names as I kill you!” Deadpool says as he leaps toward the group. Zachary Taylor takes offense to the appellation of “obscure president”, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He gets re-killed pretty quickly. Then Polk. Then Tyler. Then Fillmore. STAB. SLASH. GUT. GORE. A nearby tourist boat gets rained upon by presidential zombie guts, those lucky so-and-sos!

Time to head back! Deadpool leaps off the bridge, assuming that the helicarrier will catch him, but he doesn’t seem to mind too much one way or the other. “I always thought if I jumped off a bridge it would be over a girl and I’d be nude and listening to the Smiths,” he says to himself pensively. Then he does land on the helicarrier as a miserable pile of blood and guts, successfully finishing his suicide like so many Gold Gate Bridge jumpers before him.

Check San Francisco off the list! Next, the Hoover Dam, where Herbert Hoover (naturally) leads his platoon: Coolidge, Harding, and Buchanan. A meta-note tells us that they should’ve stuck Buchanan with the other guys, and he looks understandably perplexed next to these early 20th century stalwarts of… something. These guys weren’t that great either, actually.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

DYN-O-MITE!!

These guys fight over who gets to blow up the Dam even though damn Hoover has damn well earned the right to blow up the damned Dam himself. It’s like Hoover, Damn. Deadpool shows up, scares the presidents, causes them to swerve their car off the bridge (which gets blown up feet from the dam) and that takes care of that! Next!

Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Franklin Pierce are at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. They’re gonna meet up with Lincoln and then the Adams Family and do some attempted nuclear blastin’. Grab your sunglasses.

Once again, though, Deadpool makes incredibly short work of this batch. Sword’s a-flingin’ and a-slashin’. “YOU’RE GONNA DIIIIIEEEEE!!!”

Lincoln puts up a fight, though, avoiding the sword and punching Deadpool in the mouth. “Be wise and stay down this time.” Then Dead-Honest Abe hops on his own aircraft and skedaddles. This guy is going to be the final showdown for sure. Too bad they already made a shot-in-the-head joke.

Then Deadpool throws his iPhone onto the roof. I don’t know why yet! I don’t even have a joke for that!

Back at the helicarrier, Michael the Necromancer has been detained and he looks rather forlorn in his brig. Preston’s boss, Agent Mustache, doesn’t want her wasting time with the Facepaint Sorcerer. Make with the President Killing or else Maria Hill’s gonna come over here and take a giant shit on the floor. Move!

Ben Franklin ghosts his way through the glass into the brig and introduces himself to Michael. They’re going to have a nice chat. I’m getting a snack.

Michael wants to speak to Tango, which is a codename for Agent Gorman, who is Agent Mustache, and the plot thickens (I guess). Ah, it’s because Gorman was “one of the handlers on Nick Fury’s secret magic school”. Michael studied at that school! Connections are happening! (I guess)

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

Ah yes, Abraham Lincoln, famous for actively befriending slave owners.

Abe Lincoln is headed to Vegas, baby. Viva! A UFC fight has just ended, with reigning champion Adrian Van Lundgren taking it all! If that’s what you get in wrestling when you win: the “all”. Since this is comedian Brian Posehn’s script, he namedrops Scott Aukerman as Van Lungren’s trainer! What’s up, Hot Dog?!

Van Lundgren barely finishes talking before Lincoln strolls in, takes over, and starts talking smack! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP! Then Lincoln starts laying down the smack! By that I mean he knocks this guy down with one blow. Then Lincoln starts shootin’ up smack! I kid you not, folks!

The S.H.I.E.L.D. show up a little too late. Ben Franklin thinks they’ve traveled to Hell, but Deadpool corrects him. All the debauchery is Heaven, baby! Viva!

Much to Lincoln’s utter distaste, Deadpool ain’t dead yet, and he’s going to challenge him to a few rounds in the cage! WOOP WOOP! So they work on kicking each other’s asses, which buys Agent Preston time to order an evacuation of the premises. Lincoln is fucking ripped, man. Jacked as fuck. Deadpool asks for advice on the fight from his corner. “You lack the physical prowess for a straightforward confrontation,” Franklin responds congenially, “so stay mobile.”

In Lincoln’s corner, you got Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrsion, and William McKinley. You know… them. Meanwhile, Franklin goggles at some young hotties sitting near the cage.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

Do you think Ben Franklin can transmit ghost syphilis?

Lincoln really fucks Deadpool up. Bouncing around, knocking down lights, he’s not really having a good time. Some scaffolding comes down and crushes Franklin’s hotties, which is devestating to say the least. “DEADPOOL, KILL THAT MAN NOW!!!” he snarls.

“Ugh, hey Abe, after you got murdered we invented something called a ‘bath’.”

“SHUT UP!!!” Then he slams the bouncy bastard against the cage and reigns blows into his abdomen. “You don’t seem to do anything well except heal yourself, and appear everywhere! I don’t understand your appeal! I hate you. These people hate you. Tell me, what is it that you’re good at? What do you do?”

“I don’t give up…” he wheezes and he reaches for the magic sword of magic killing. Franklin is unable to pick it up for him. Lincoln continues punching the omnipresent, unappealing bastard. Van Lundgren grabs it and hands it to our hero! And I don’t mean David Duchovny, although that would be pretty choice, king.

Deadpool slices Abe’s head off. Then he tears through the cage and slices the other four presidents’ heads off. Taft rolls into the venue in his floating bathtub. “Oh dearie… Abe, I hope I’m not too late for you. Have you gone and died in another theater?” The he grabs Lincoln’s severed head and floats away. Deadpool has won! The crowd woops it up! Tears are in my eyes! Oh wait, that’s because of the mace.

Meanwhile, in a Russian rocket ship, Ronald Reagan has infiltrated and taken over command with violence and mayhem!

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4

Was it, perhaps, a big ol’ bowl full of jelly beans?

“I’m finally going to get to play Star Wars, Mommy!!!”

Final Thoughts

Oh dear, Reagan’s gonna be the Big Bad! Who woulda thunk it? My parents are gonna be devastated.


Click here to ridicule this post!

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

The Book Bonfire Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this book and you haven’t read it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned. Also, this is a feature about reading. You came here to read about books, so pictures in these posts will be scarce. Be an adult.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Hello all, and welcome to the Book Bonfire! Before we toast some s’mores, sing kumbaya, and throw all those loathsome Harry Potter books into the firepit while praying to the Lord that our souls be cleansed, we will be discussing I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez! I hope everyone brought their dog-eared, highlighted, well-loved copies, because I’m not going to fucking hold your hand through our discussion. Go back to the mess hall and jerk your dick if you’re not going to take this shit seriously.

Now then, now that 45 of you just left, the rest of us can continue! I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter follows 15-year-old Julia Reyes’ first-person point of view as she navigates her miserable, cloistered teenage existence following the gruesome, sudden death of her older sister Olga. Her overbearing mother and emotionally absent father contribute to Julia’s mental unravelling as she feels permanently stuck in her shitty apartment in a shitty part of Chicago on a day-to-day basis, yearning to be free to pursue her ambitions of writing and poetry instead of following the suffocating go-nowhere path her family has already mapped out for her. We watch the miserable and angry Julia slowly fall into a depression so deep that she attempts suicide. Things work out in the end, though!

Throughout, Julia slowly discovers that Olga might not have been as pure and innocent and boring as her parents always thought. After finding some weird, uh, trinkets in Olga’s bedroom, Julia becomes obsessed with understanding more about her sister than she ever bothered to before while she was still alive. Some real shady stuff, man. Some real in-love-with-a-50-year-old-married-man-stuff. But hey, I’ll let you read and find out for yourself! Ha! I warned you about spoilers.

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Julia has taken to sleeping in Olga’s bed at night after her parents have gone to sleep. As she lies in her sister’s bed, restless, Julia sifts through the pillowcase and finds a folded piece of paper… On the back, it says “I love you”. Confused, yet intrigued, Julia quietly goes through Olga’s bedroom and finds skimpy lingerie and a hotel key. How does Julia’s discovery shape or reshape your impressions of Olga? How is it possible two sisters lived under the same roof, yet didn’t really know each other? How do family dynamics affect relationships between members of the family?
A note that says “I love you”? Skimpy lingerie? A hotel key? This can only mean one thing… Olga was working evenings as the best and most expensive call girl this side of the Chicago River!

“I am not your perfect Mexican daughter! I’m not your perfect Colombian daughter! I am not your perfect Puerto Rican daughter, Guatemalan daughter, Norwegian daughter, Chinese daughter, or even Papua New Guinean daughter! Now make me a sandwich before I call the dang cops!”
– Julia Reyes

Or, she was an affair partner! That last part is true. Julia confronted the guy in question and he was all like “A BLOO BLOO BLOO I’M SORRY YOUR SISTER WAS SQUISHED BY A SEMI-TRUCK, BUT I LOVED HER AND HERE’S A COOKIE.” Now, the thing about Olga is that her parents thought she was the Perfect Mexican Daughter because they were both under the impression that she stayed home locked in her room all day eating stale tortillas and knitting and never argued or complained. She helped around the house and had one boring friend and maybe some day she’ll marry some convenience store clerk and have seventeen children.

I never liked Olga anyway. Based on all descriptions she seemed woefully dull. The affair made her more interesting, honestly. Like, that’s a bombshell of a secret to keep and she took that secret with her to the grave. But then Julia exhumed that metaphorical corpse and now she has to deal with the knowledge?

I don’t think I answered any of those questions at all! Sorry.

In Chapter 9, we start to see Julia unravel: “I’ve always had trouble being happy, but now it feels impossible.” “Sometimes I feel so lonely and hopeless that I don’t know what to do.” Though she thinks of herself as strong, Julia acknowledges that “I’m missing something… but I can’t figure it out.” In Mexican culture, seeking mental help is taboo, a sign of weakness. Do you think she knows she needs support? Does Julia seek help or tough it out?
I can relate with this as someone who isn’t shy to let the whole internet know that I tried a whole meth lab full of prescription drugs and finally found one that actually worked after about six months. Julia had to slit her wrists to get some of that good medication. All I did was sleep and bitch and moan.

Julia kind of knows she needs support, but she gets mad at everyone who tries to support her. She just didn’t know what kind of support she needed until it was too late. Obviously, she needs to get the hell out of that damn apartment and away from her suffocating mother, but college is too far away in the future to just tough it out. A LITTLE BIT OF BOTH, THEN.

I suppose her best bet, unfortunately, was her rich, white boyfriend Connor. He could see outside the perspective of Mexican culture and he seemed to have his head on well enough to goad Julia into seeking help. She just didn’t really let it happen, and their long-distance relationship makes it very hard to really give her whole trust into him. Plus, he’s rich and white, and part of her didn’t like that. I didn’t like it! Fuck rich white guys.

Julia’s character is complicated. On one hand she is a feisty feminist with a sharp tongue, quick wit, and intellectual curiosity. Yet Julia is mean, spiteful, belligerent, and intolerant, and feels life is unfair to her. What do you think about Julia? Is it hard to like her? Do you feel she’s truly the victim in this story?
I thought it was very easy to like her. I think it’s because she is a feisty feminist with a sharp tongue, quick wit, and intellectual curiosity, yet she is mean, spiteful, belligerent, and intolerant! Call me crazy. I suppose your own mileage may vary.

“OK, let me level with you, Mom. For the right price, I can be your perfect Mexican daughter. All I need is two bottles of Absolut vodka, a hella pile of fireworks, and a trip to Black Rock City for Burning Man 2023! Also a big bag of peanut butter M&Ms. And a gun.”
– Julia Reyes

By the end, of course, Julia realizes not everything is in black and white. Sure, she may be selfish, but she has a reason to be. She’s 15 years old for fuck’s sake. Plus, her older sister was crushed by a truck, in case you forgot about the thing I already mentioned. I would imagine that it’s hard to keep your cool under the circumstances.

Obviously, Amá and Apá are the downplayed victims of the story. Since everything is from Julia’s point of view, it’s not obvious from her perspective and one wonders if it was even going to get addressed in depth. And it does, at the end, after Julia’s mini Mexico sabbatical. Amá finally softens up and backs off, and Apá says more to her than he had in years. The trip to her father’s childhood home gave her some perspective, and after learning that her mother was raped trying to cross the border, well, Julia backs off a little bit. This backing off brings them closer together! Irony!

Julia wakes up in a hospital bed at the beginning of Chapter 17. “I’ve never been very good at life, but, man, was this a stupid thing to do,” she thinks. How evident was it to you that this would be the answer to her pain and hopelessness? Do you think Julia truly believes what she did was a stupid thing?
Julia’s descent into depression was believably gradual, and her feelings of suffocation and helplessness did come to a head. I was surprised when she tried to kill herself, though. Cut down, not across, Julia! You didn’t really mean it.

“You know what, Mom? I’m not gonna try to be your perfect Mexican daughter anymore. Go fuck yourself.”
– Julia Reyes

She knows she did a stupid thing, but you can tell it was for the attention. She was desperate for ANY evidence that showed that her parents actually cared about her, and something as drastic as a suicide attempt would be pretty damning evidence in either direction.

But it worked! You can’t say it didn’t work! She got happier from that moment forward! What is the lesson that we learned, kids?

FINAL THOUGHTS

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter was a fun read! I’m about as white-bread as they come, and my older sister wasn’t killed by a truck at the age of 22, but I was able to empathize with Julia all the same. Part of that was our shared cravings to be a writer. Also, Chicago, I suppose. I live in Humboldt Park, though. She lived in Bullshittown.

Also, I was constantly laughing at her snarky grumpiness. That was exactly me at her age, and it’s a good look when you’re a teenager. Not so much at 35, but I’m still learning.


Click here to ridicule this post!

The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 48: “The Blight”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

Moiraine and Co. get to have dozens of armed men escort them to the edge of the Borderlands. Ingtar, their leader, is DEEPLY SADDENED that he can’t go any further once they reach the border, but he HAS to go back to Tarwin’s Gap to SLAY A BUNCH OF TROLLOCS which he DEFINITELY DOESN’T WANT TO DO AT ALL. *sarcasm*

Anyway, with that business out of the way, the group makes their way across the land and head toward the Blight proper. As they move, the landscape slowly shifts to this extremely gross, foul-smelling, disease-ridden, decaying, swampy hot land where the moldy fruits on the trees smell like rotting meat and there are thousands of different bug-like creatures that can kill you if you so much as a look at them funny or talk about their mothers in an unseemly manner. Mat throws up. Egwene just about passes out. Everyone is affected except for Lan and Perrin, because the former is a badass and the latter is some kind of wolfman now.

Eventually, and it takes a while, they come across some putrid lakes that have giant centipede creatures in them. They set up camp and Moiraine puts a magic spell around it to ward off potential baddies and mean, ugly bugs. Egwene is excited because Moiraine says that she’s almost strong enough to be able to do this magic spell herself. Maybe Egwene will go to Tar Valon sooner rather than later! Maybe Nynaeve wants to join her! Maybe Rand can be Egwene’s Warder! All sorts of positivity for roughly half a page before everyone tries to go to bed in the 900% humidity.

Rand pretends to be asleep while eavesdropping on a conversation between Lan and Nynaeve. The conversation can be boiled down to this: Nynaeve is in love with Lan and actually, to the best of her abilities, lays some cards out on the table. Lan is all “I have a duty to yada yada yada” and tells her that it ain’t ever happenin’, sister.

Rand REALLY tries to sleep because Nynaeve’s crying really starts harshing his buzz.

The next chapter will be a lot more Blight travelling. More stinky fruit and more Mat puking. Good times will be had by all!


Click here to ridicule this post!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 – “All I Want for Christmas”

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 – “All I Want for Christmas”!

This is a standalone issue not packaged with any collection that I can find! In the previous issue of Action Comics Vol. 1, Superman and Wonder Woman spend about 100,000,000 years fighting demons in Valhalla while never changing their clothes. Lois is jealous that he’s with Wonder Woman and then gets all insecure about whether or not she’s a good wife.

The answer is… she’s not. Get a divorce!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 [February, 2000]
Written by: Joe Kelly
“All I Want for Christmas”

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

“This season there will be no cheer, for Demon is bringing loads of fear!”

Oh snap! Demon flying around on his own sleigh with his own sacks of fear?? What will Superman do?? We can’t be giving the children any fear for Christmas, Christianity already does a good job of that anyway, why compound it?

lol, there’s an ad in this comic for Sega Dreamcast’s Toy Commander. There’s a screenshot of a biplane shooting at a balloon shaped like an octagon. State of the art graphics!

“Metropolis, New Year’s Day, 2000. Shortly after midnight. Shortly after the world stopped.”

Yes, yes, Y2K hysteria. People screaming in the streets, running around car fires and derailed trains. We all lived through it and came out almost unscathed! Some of us still have 400 cans of beans in our basements. I know my aunt does.

“The screams build and the fires spread and the nightmare things that have entrenched themselves throughout our world spread terror and darkness… and five thousand years of Man’s progress come to an end.

Sounds like the Demon is bringing fear! I hope Superman’s puffy jawline can save the day again!

Flashback. Lois Lane is hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree. It’s cool that she’s not spending Christmas alone eating Kraft’s mac and cheese like she thought she was going to. Lois tells Clark she doesn’t want any presents this year, and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Don’t even think about it or she’ll kick his ass. And his ass is very big.

Clark argues that Christmas is in Lois’ blood! She loves tinsel and eggnog and Jesus and capitalism and white supremacy! And with Christmas comes Christmas presents, so get off Clark’s nuts. He got you a $3 gallon of Eau de Dog Bowl by Kellyanne Conway’s new line of perfumes, so receive it and appreciate it.

Yeah, Lois doesn’t want anything. No fuss, please. It’s always something like the blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or some exotic, poisonous fish from the bottom of Marianas Trench. It’s never, like, normal earrings or one of the new Bill O’Reilly books! It’s always some crazy bullshit.

Look, lady. It’s not even hard to get any of that stuff. Clark can travel to Jupiter in three seconds and scoop up the entire Giant Red Spot into a Coke bottle. It’s no big fucking deal. Still, though, Lois thinks she doesn’t deserve such gifts this year. She makes a sneer like someone took a super dump right on her face.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

Look, Honey, I’ll buy some stupid trinket at Hallmark just like you will for me, you cheap little whore :]

Clark agrees to get her a normal gift that a normal guy will give her wife, like a bowling ball. Or sass. Lois is pleased with this arrangement. Clark heads to the mall, which is more harrowing than any space villain he has ever faced! The average Christmas shopper is way more violent and unstoppable. If he isn’t careful, he might get jabbed in the ribs and his toes rolled over with a shopping cart containing 750 pounds of Hickory Farms smoked sausage.

“Hey fellas, ‘tis the season, right?” Clark says to a couple of rowdy men while looking like a concerned suburban dad. “What say you two shake hands and try to work this out?”

“‘Work it out?’ Mister, you don’t got kids, do ya? THEN SHADDUP!!!” they both spit at Clark simultaneously. Talk about setting aside differences! LMAO!

Clark is very uncomfortable. “Not like back home… is it, son? Small-town boy, right?” pipes in a little old lady. She’s got his number! She hands him a candy cane of good tidings and agrees with him that people should be nice on Christmas! Unless you’re speaking to a Jew. She doesn’t say that, but she certainly has that look in her eye…

Elsewhere, Lois feels bad for making Clark go the harder route. She especially feels bad because she made a deal with Lex Luthor behind his back, but that’s ok. It happens! Lois stares at a giant display of Superman merchandise, including cardboard cutouts (to fornicate with), t-shirts, dolls, hats, and mugs (to fornicate with).

A woman in a huge fur coat and pink smoke wisping out of her, aka the dreaded Encantadora, moves through the mall shopping for expensive knick-knacks and tasteless baubles. She spots the Superman display. “Superhombre!?! Change of plans, niños! Impulse buy!”

Encantadora looks at Lois. “My little brother simply adores Superman. He’ll want all of this…” She talks about how much of a hunk o’ man this dude is, totally rippling with muscles and full of super semen. It would be a tragedy if someone slipped Kryptonite in his glass of rice milk. *wink*

Lois finds it oddly comforting.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

TELL SANTA WHAT YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS, LITTLE BOY. I HAVE VARIOUS VIALS OF PUNGENT OILY LIQUIDS…

A crowd is gathered around the mall santa, who has been replaced by Demon who brings fear, aka Satan Claus! Clark pushes his way to the front of the crowd to probably say something like “hey, you!” and “let’s be nice!” to it.

“Bah! I left beloved Dis for this?” Demon says while grabbing the kid by the scruff. “A waste of time, yon idle tryst. No closer to the truth, am I – and Child has made mine leg not dry!”

While children continue peeing on Rhyming Demon Santa, Clark has already turned into the Super Man and snatches the kid off his lap. The demon is named Etrigan, and he’s been a bad boy this year! “I’m going to tell you this once, Etrigan… drop the Santa cap and back away from the reindeer before someone gets hurt.”

Then Superman punches the imp right in the mouth, knocking him around and increasing the likelihood of someone getting hurt twenty-fold.

“You’re not allowed unsupervised, Etrigan. What gives?” Superman asks as Etrian tries picking his jaw up off the floor. Etrigan rhymes some more, telling Superman to back off, man. He ain’t got a beef with him. BUT, since you got involved like a real asshole, Etrigan will return the favor!

FWASSSSH! This Hell Monster breathes fire! Cool! I hope Superman gets fried to a crunchy crisp. Shoppers disperse in all directions, which really should’ve happened five minutes ago. “That thing baked Superman!” yells a kid as he runs by Lois. She’s petrified, forgetting that Superman can swim down to the bottom of an active volcano and enjoy a tender penis-stroking session without harm.

“Today I walk the plane of Man. The way, the how, my secret plan!” booms the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Superman doesn’t like Etrigan’s secret plans. They usually involve death and destruction and smuggling and looting and eating too many sweets. Superman flies at the beast, but he gets uppercutted through the roof and straight to the Oort Cloud. Look that up, friends. It’s far away!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

I will not rest! Surely you jest! Come say that to my face! I’ll spray you with mace!

Encantadora shows up dressed like Sexy Santa Claus. She’s got boobs that look like they’re killing her back, fishnet stockings, and, of course, some of that alluring crimson smoke. “Superman is my boy toy, Señor Diablo, and I don’t want him broken… not by you, anyway.”

So many women trying to lure Superman away from his shitty wife who doesn’t even want presents! Not even the pinkest sand from the most faraway beach of the most remote planet of the most remote galaxy on Mars!

Etrigan doesn’t know who the fuck this woman is, but he goads her into coming close so that he can wring her neck. She says “no!” and tries to waft some of that stenchy perfume over toward him.

“The ‘perfume’, as you call it, is Mist of Ibella… and with it, you’ve just made me one jolly fella,” Etrigan smiles. Keep it in your pants, dork. Shitty writing abounds, heads up.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

Oh you men. We can all take turns laying eggs!

Meanwhile, at Justice League America HQ on the moon (since only America owns the moon, apparently), a couple of heroes I don’t know are trimming a tree. An elastic Mr. Fantastic ripoff, and some guy in a green mask. A big crash indicates that Superman got uppercutted all the way to that giant stupid rock revolving around the Earth. Do you smell what the rock is cooking? …nevermind, sorry, that was just me…

These two lovebirds ask if Superman is all right. He blames his sudden arrival on Christmas shopping and books it back to Earth. “ETRIGAN!!!” he screams zooming toward the ground at 1,000,000,000 mph. For those of you outside of the United States, that’s roughly a whole lot of km/h. At least two or three.

Superman is stunned – STUNNED – to see what he missed while he was gone for four nanoseconds. “I tried to stop him… but… he was too strong,” squeaks Encantadora, who has shrunk down and now appears to be a child. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Etrigan knows more about the mist than even Encantadora, and he took it from her! He took the mist! The mist! THE MIST! THHHEEEE MIIIIIIISSSSSTT!! And she’s not the only one he fucked all up. The whole store is full of women who are now fat, turned into witches… uh, harassed by giant cigarettes. “Everyone in the store is beset upon by – Lois,” concludes Superman, whatever this happens to mean. Lois has insecurities that she’s projecting all over the place? Join the club.

Lois runs through the store huffing and puffing, looking for a phone. Whatever happened, she wasn’t affected. Get a grip, gurl. Help Superman the only way you know how (sucking his bone).

“YOU OWE LI’L LEX SOME OF THAT JUICY YOU!!!” screams the leaping figure of a childlike Lex. Suited up. Eyes aglow. Looking like Demonic Mini-Me. Saying really stupid stuff like “juicy you”.

Elsewhere, Etrigan enjoys his victory and his control of the mist. “Most loaded of magic, just there for the taking, ‘round the neck of some floozy, just there for the breaking!” Yes yes, keep flexing that songwriting. Lennon and McCartney all rolled into one, this one. Etrigan waits for Superman to come find him so he can complete his mission of world domination or something to that effect.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

He may be made of steel / But alchemy isn’t real / So get up off Superman’s nuts / Before he kicks you in the… well… uhm…

Time to fight. Lots of fighting. Etrigan mocks in rhyme. Superman tells him to stop terrorizing these poor shoppers. Blah blah blah. Superman is actually able to be hurt and wonders what kind of powers the Etrigan fellow wields. Magic, my dear Watson! Sorcery! Rabbits out of hats!

Oh great, creepy Mini-Lex is trying to hug and kiss and rape Lois. Encantadora has become meek and self-doubting. Everything is out of whack. And we’re in the final quarter of the issue, so things are gonna get wrapped up quick I reckon.

Etrigan says he brought with him a gift for the people this holiday season. Superman clocks him and asks WHAT gift? The gift of help! Through terror and fear, he’s helping people by making them confront the fear! It’s altruistic, you see, and–

PUNCH! Etrigan doesn’t have time to talk anymore! It’s not really helping people! One day a year, Etrigan thrives. And, today, he’s going to destroy Jason Blood! Whoever that is. I guess the human inside Etrigan. I dunno. I had to look that up.

“Is it true? What’s he’s done with your mist, ‘Dora?” Superman asks, all concerned because he clearly has been wanting to fuck ‘Dora but he can’t because she looks like she’s 10-years-old. Also, he can’t because he loves Locust Lane and would rather fuck her any day of the week than this weird Mist Lady. I’m going on a tangent again, but that’s part of the deal when you read this shit.

Anyway, yes, it’s true. It’s true what’s he’s done with her mist. “How do I shut that cauldron down?” Superman asks her, referring to a cauldron of mist, apparently. Encantadora tells her that there’s nothing he can do. As long as it’s full, the power remains…

Well slap me sideways, Encantadora! There’s nothing that can be done? Wanna go get a burger, then? Red Robin has a kid’s menu!

OK, scratch that then. Maybe there’s a way to deplete its contents! Capital idea. Maybe he can drink it like that time Dumbledore drank stuff and hooted and hollered. Remember that? No? Me neither.

“You sop! You mop! You righteous fool! You’ve no strength o’er my magical tool!”

I was about to make fun of the sop/mop stuff, but “magical tool” is the real business here! That’s real rich. Superman decides to hover above the cauldron and start inhaling the mist deeply. Like so much lovely weed.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

Shuck that corn, Clark! That’ll learn ‘em!

The mist confuses me. Without it, Encantadora is a 10-year-old girl, and Superman comments that this must be how she sees herself. However, WITH the mist, Superman sees himself as some hick? Why is this a two-way street?

Etrigan is literally in awe over Superman’s transformation and starts rhyming with reverence over Farmboy’s overalls. “A farming man, at home with the soil, the salt of the earth, knows endless toil. And what’s his reward for life on the range? He’s blessed with great power… the power to change.”

For reasons that are probably stupid, Superman carries a giant sack with people in it and starts flying across town. Everyone on the street looks up and smiles like pod people. Etrigan continues his flowery poetry like Superman is a god to be worshiped instead of a man who is wearing smelly farm clothes.

Superman flies to outer space and exhales all the mist into the vacuum.

“Well?” Superman addresses Etrigan after returning to Earth, “Any other stocking stuffers you’re looking to share, or can we call it a night?”

Etrigan is like, no sir. Everything is in order here. Spell is broken. Bye bye.

There’s some parallel about inner demons and change and triumph and self-actualization, but it doesn’t land. He advises the ugly motherfucker to channel his human host, Jason Blood, and get some perspective. Etrigan is like “ok” and prepares to go back to Hell where he verily belongs! “But I go with a smile and a song in my heart… ‘cause next year, I promise… I’ll tear you apart!”

Yes, whatever, very sexual. Go away, now.

Encantadora is back to her old sultry self. Superman thanks her for attempting to help. She complains about her lost mist, and also it’s snowing and it’s cold. Superman wraps his cape around her. She smiles. They got the ol’ fuck-me eyes.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762

Um… yeah, no thank you. I only like men today.

Here’s her thank you: some cryptic information. “…a change is coming. …Beware the enemies inside.” That’s all he gets. Have fun deciphering that nonsense.

Suddenly, her mist comes back in full-force! That’s her cue to am-scray. Thank you, Superb Man, for all your help to get rid of that demonic mall Santa! Fare thee well!

*poof*

“Why do I have a feeling… that I’m going to be seeing a lot more of that woman?” Superman says, downtrodden, at the prospect of seeing a lot more of women in general.

With that, Clark goes home to see Lois. They hug in front of the Christmas tree. No kissing, though. That’s rated PG-13.

The comic ends with Etrigan cackling gleefully. He will bide his time, because the year 2000 is going to a memorable one for Superman. Heh heh heh heh… heh hehheheh… hahah ha hah ah… hah hahahaha… HAHA HAHA… AAHHHHH HA HA HAHA HAAAAAA!!”

The end.

Final Thoughts

This Etrigan fellow is the worst villain I’ve ever seen, good god. Someone take away his rhyming dictionary before we all voluntarily shove bullets into our brains gun-style.


Click here to ridicule this post!