Invincible, Issue #4

* Part 4 of 4 of the Family Matters storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Invincible, Issue #4! In the previous installment, Mark gets to hang out with his dad doing superhero stuff! They find a platoon of aliens emerging from a portal, which they fight for a little bit before the aliens get old and wither before their eyes. They retreat. Easy stuff, very anticlimactic.

Later, when Omni-Man flies to the mall and throws a kid with a bomb strapped to his chest up into the air. He explodes and harms no one, except for himself, but that’s the price to pay for having a bomb strapped to your chest. It’s not a moment later when a portal opens behind Omni-Man and aliens steal him through to another dimension!

So what’s next for Mark “Invincible” Grayson? Saving his father? Fondling his genitals? Choose your own adventure!

Invincible, Issue #4 [May, 2003]
Written by: Robert Kirkman

Invincible, Issue #4Robot is marveling at the technological handiwork of the robots with the video game console chips. Supremely advanced. Very impressive. Invincible interrupts his good time with a question with respect to his pulsating boner: “I’m trying to find Eve… do you know where she is?” Well, sonny, Eve and Rex are out on a “mission”, if you catch my drift. When Rex is done with his “mission” after 45 seconds, they’ll come back and you can see her then.

Invincible really really REALLY needs to talk to her, though. It’s super urgent. It’s, like, pants-wetting levels of urgency here. Someone is turning high school kids into human bombs for, you know, nefarious reasons. It’s spooky and awful. Robot already knows this because he’s perceptive and smart! Unlike Invincible, who is unobservant and dumb! Invincible is taken aback, but Robot had deduced this revelation by blah blah blahblah blahblahblah blah. He has a very lengthy explanation that I didn’t read because I have better things to do than read comics and write 2,000 words about them. I just… uh… I don’t wanna.

Eve and Rex have returned from their evening of “mission”ary-ing. “I think the mall bombings are connected to missing kids at our school,” Invincible blurts. After Eve asks who might be behind it, Robot tells them no and shut up and just go to bed and then go to school in the morning.

So they do, because Robot is the boss around here I guess. They should spray him with a dang hose.

Mark goes home to find his mother sadly watching TV at whatever ungodly hour it is. Mark’s all “what are you doing up?” and his mother is all “what are you doing up?” It’s a stalemate. “Just because you’re wearing tights doesn’t mean you don’t have a curfew,” she rebukes. Checkmate.

Of course, Mom is worried about Dad. Being whisked away to another dimension is always anxiety-riddled territory. Who knows what kind of otherworldly harems he might be missionary-ing in? “It’s going to be okay, Mom,” Mark tells her with a sincere side hug. “Don’t worry about Dad. He’ll be back…”

Yeah. In a casket.

Invincible, Issue #4

Who can think about mall bombings at a time like this? The chicken has been boiled! Like an egg. What came first? We’ll never know.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Mark says of the mall bombings while holding a forkful of mushy chicken. Eve is less than happy about this deliberate avoidance. It’s unbecoming of a superhero, honestly. Mark argues that they have no leads. Eve agrees and puts a sock in it.

“I wish it were just a monster we could punch,” Mark sighs as they get up and dump their shitty cafeteria food in the trash. Eve agrees again. Thinking is hard!

Speaking of thinking, Mark goes to a boring class about Mayan mythology. Something about severed heads and spitting in hands to make women pregnant. Mark falls so asleep it’s so damn dull. He told Eve he was going to keep an eye on anything suspicious during class, but it’s hard to do that during some shut-eye. Mark is proving to be quite useless for this team. They should throw him down a well. Robot too after they’re done spraying him with that hose.

Mark and Eve’s talking has upset their teacher, who tells Eve that she needs to put a sock in it. He calls the two of them lovebirds, which I find rather inappropriate and is grounds for getting sprayed with the hose. In my opinion. The whole class laughs. Mark is grumpy. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he sneers. Doth protest too much, Marcus? Professor Dipshit is slightly apologetic, but he still says “muh class was interrupted”. Mark is salty. Grumpy and salty. Like Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

Great, now things are awkward. Mark and Eve walk together in the hall with 1,000-yard stares and are likely contemplating taking each other down to the Bone Zone. Mark attempts to break the silence with uncomfortable banter, which thankfully doesn’t last long for all of our sakes! Eve gets a phone call from Robot.

Invincible, Issue #4

What’s uncomfortable? The weird warts y’all got on your noses?

“I have been using secondary operating systems to run checks on all employees of your high school. Teachers, custodians, bus drivers, everyone, and I– hold on.”

Oh boy, the SECONDARY OPERATING SYSTEMS are in use! Nerd alert!

Robot is in the middle of kicking some bad guy ass and he’s handling himself quite swimmingly. He launches back into his explanation of what he was doing, which boils down to “which adults at the school have the capacity to build a bomb?”

“Surprisingly, your physics teacher, David Hiles, is a former weapons engineer for Globaltech, a military sanctioned research firm. It’s not definitive evidence of his guilt, but I’m 99.8% sure that he’s who you’re looking for.”

DAVID HILES IT IS! Bombing kids is his modus operandi! Robot’s gonna call some cops! Mark and Eve, you two break into his house! Let’s do this thing! And after about 20 panels of them running around starting to do this thing, they finally get around to putting on their superhero jammies and doing this thing.

Invincible, Issue #4

Geek Patrol is here with our retainers and inhalers! Stand down, sir!

“What should we do now?” Invincible asks as they fly away.

“Ask him questions, I guess… according to Robot the police should be on the way. How dangerous could he be?”

They fly to David Hiles’ house. A completely egregious continuity error occurs, because Hiles is the same teacher who was explaining Mayan mythology. Apparently, physics teachers teach Mayan mythology at Carl Winslow High School.

“Well, I didn’t expect to get caught quite this early, and I certainly expected… more conventional authorities when the time did come,” Hiles drawls as he invites them in. He calls them by their Christian god-given names, which surprises them even though Eve doesn’t even wear a mask and Mark looks like a Mark-shaped bug. “Follow me,” he says, leading them into the basement, “I’ll show you the fourth missing student. I assure you, I have no intention of resisting.”

Well ain’t that ducky? “You see…” Hiles begins his sob story, “…it was the constant pestering and belittling from things like what you see before you that caused my son to commit suicide. My son’s suicide resulting in my divorce… and my divorce led me to losing my job.”

There’s an unconscious kid strapped with a bomb in the basement. His name is Derek. I know this because Invincible screams “DEREK!”.

Hiles just keeps talking and talking like one of those dumb villains. His sad little life was destroyed and he’s, apparently, taking it out on children. “Children that spend too much time at the mall… attend parties… consume alcohol… and play sports, when they should be studying and doing homework.” Wow, what a wet blanket. Wet with piss, no less.

Invincible, Issue #4

Gimme a kiss!!

So he turned these kids into bombs. A disproportionate response, but hey? Kids suck, what can we say? They deserve to have their guts exploded all over other kids who will also explode soon. It’s poetic if you think about it really, really, REALLY hard.

“I can’t think of a more appropriate end to my crusade…” Hiles rips open his shirt, revealing the Superman logo! Or a bomb. “…than the death of two superheroes!”

39 seconds left, but Invincible is tired of all the blithering and blathering from Unabomber Jones! He grabs the guy and flies through the roof, and we are exactly where we began at the top of Issue #1. “Y’know you really ruined my afternoon,” Invincible tells this wretched motherfucker as he flies all the way to some polar region and throws the guy like a… well, like a bomb. CHA-THOOM! We’re done here. Hiles is dead. Serves him right for calling him and Eve lovebirds. Spray him with the hose!

Invincible flies back over the Hiles’ house where Derek is getting loaded into an ambulance. “So… is it over?” he asks Eve. Whatever Eve’s superhero name is. I don’t remember. And yeah, it’s over. Robot’s gonna come by and do a sweep, the police are done. Time to go home, I guess.

Mark’s mom is still sad because her husband has probably been murdered by alternate dimension creepy crawleys.

“Hey, is Dad back yet?” Mark asks as he enters the kitchen.

“Not yet,” Mom replies glumly. “Go upstairs and clean up so we can eat. I thought I was going to have dinner alone tonight.” Pile that guilt on, Momma. It’s not like your son just saved a bunch more kids from getting killed or anything of that fashion.

Dad comes back. That’s anticlimactic. He looks sad. Mom looks sad. Everyone looks sad. It’s pretty sad.

Invincible, Issue #4

One big happy family!

“So…” Mom says at the table, breaking the hella awkward silence. “Anything interesting happen to either of you today?”

Mark speaks first: “I found out one of my teachers was turning my classmates into organic bombs in order to take revenge on kids he felt were like the ones who led his son to commit suicide. Apparently he turned himself into a bomb also, and tried to kill me and a friend of mine, but I flew him to Antarctica before he blew up so that he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Dad’s next: “I spent the last eight months enslaved by an army from an alternate dimension, although it seems much less time passed here. About a week ago I led a revolt against my captors and regained control of my powers. Today, a team of scientists from the rebellion found a way to get me home.”

…

“That’s nice,” Mom smiles vaguely. “Who’s ready for dessert?”

Final Thoughts

I’m a little bit torn on this series so far. On one hand, the story is interesting. On the other hand, the dialogue is dry and the art sucks.

That’s all you get from me.


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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 44: “The Dark Along the Ways”

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

This write-up is going to be shorter than usual because the group spends most of the time travelling through some Ways. The descriptions of this aren’t very entertaining.

Loial senses a Waygate in the basement of a shop, and Moiraine removes the wall to reveal the gate. Once upon a time, Waygates were vibrant and mirrorlike. This one is dim and dull. When Rand passes through the gate, he notices through the portal that those who haven’t yet travelled through the gate are moving very, very slowly. Time passes faster in the Ways. Or, rather, “the Wheel turns faster”.

They travel up and down and all around the Ways, going through passages and traversing bridges and going up and down various ramps. Loial leads the way. Eventually, they come to an impasse: A big, jagged break in the path that descends into nothingness. Everyone is sad. The end.


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Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 10 – “Confluence”

* Part 2 of 9 of Vol. 2 – “Confluence” *

Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 10: “Confluence”! In the previous installment, Raito’s dad spills the beans about his involvement with the dangerous Kira, and that’s probably gonna be some foreshadowing with respect to his eventual, untimely, gruesome death!

The rest of the pages are filled with Raito’s scheme to milk Raye Penber with all the information that he needs to kill an entire group of American FBI agents. One of them was named Knick Staek. I immediately went downtown and changed my name to this and I’m drowning in an unprecedented amount of pussy as we speak.

So with the entire FBI squad out of the picture, Raito is certainly safe now, right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right?

Right-O! Tee hee.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Confluence”

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

Look at the sultry lady on the cover, complete with a kickass leather jacket and a can-do attitude! “For love…she treads on.” Could this be Raye Penber’s fiancée, out for revenge? Wearing her revenge jacket? Keep in treadin’, ma’am. Keep on treadin’.

A woman speaks to a bus driver outside the front of a bus. She shows the bus driver the photo of the young couple. “Yeah, that’s him,” the bus driver confirms…sorta, “The other passengers… I really don’t remember. I’m not positive, but it’s probably him.”

Awesome testimony sir! I can jot these notes down and wipe my butthole with it, as it will be put to better use.

“He boarded alone and yelled ‘Get down!’” he claims. Yeah, get down with your bad self. The bus driver then, honestly, tells the woman that he has no fucking idea who anyone was and what anyone did. He was too busy peeing his pants to take a look at anything. He wouldn’t even know any of them if he saw any of them. Does that help?

Great. Thanks. The woman walks away. “If I’m right, Kira was one of those passengers. And if that’s the case, that may mean that on this bus route…”

Revenge it is! A dish best served cold, they say. Penber’s unnamed fiancée is doing her own little snoopy investigation. Why doesn’t this woman have a name? Gotta be kidding me here.

While Unnamed Woman is on her mission, Raito reads a newspaper at his kitchen table. He’s probably enjoying the latest Garfield strip! That crazy cat! He loves the lasagna! “Raito, Sayu, help me with the winter cleaning,” his mom says while vacuuming.

I’m sorry, the “winter cleaning”, Mother? While Jon Arbuckle is falling down on the treadmill? Go entirely fuck yourself with your less-important business.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

Oh no, not Kouhaku! You can’t go up against Kouhaku! That would be Kou-razy!

It must be New Year’s Eve, because that’s when Kouhaku airs. I looked it up and it sounds like Japanese Idol, only it happens for a few hours before midnight and the winner gets to *squints* be launched into the sun with a very expensive rocket. And other stations are trying to compete with it? Utter nonsense!

Sayu wants to watch the Sun-Launching Japanese Idol Super Show. Raito tells him to tape the Kira broadcast for him. Dad’s not home because the Kira business is making him work all night at the office. Boning secretaries and eating pizza and watching singers burn up in the glowing orb in the sky

Here he is now! “We may be killed by Kira,” he says to his men. Why is this moron doing actual work right now? “The fact that members of the FBI were killed means that he will murder anyone who opposes him, in addition to criminals.”

Yeah, we know. It’s been like nine weeks of this. We know already. What are you even getting paid for?

Mr. Director Raito’s Dad allows anyone who doesn’t want to work on the case anymore to get reassigned. No penalties. No demotions. If you have family and friends BUT you’d rather be dead, stick around! I don’t blame ya.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

My meeting will be about firing everyone who doesn’t want to work on the case! Ha ha ha! That’s called power!

Director Yagami walks silently, alone, to his meeting. Something is fishy here. It smells like fish and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. And I like fish. That’s how fishy this is.

Ok, it’s not fishy. It’s just a regular meeting. He returns to his “Get Reassigned if You Want To” room and there are only five people left. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde, and… Jonesy.

“Only five men,” Director Yagami furrows his brow meanly, “…no, five men who are willing to put their lives on the line to confront evil.”

Yeah, whatever man. This shit’s in the bag. I ain’t afraid of no psycho killer who can kill anyone automatically without even being there! Let’s get to work. Who wants some Hungry Man dinners? I’m buyin’!

“Including me, that makes six,” Yagami says, making it about him all of a sudden. But how are they going to do anything with only six people? How are the going to fudge all the paperwork? That’s an eight-man job!

Some smiley guy chimes in. “Director, if you include L and Watari, that makes eight.”

GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! WHO SAID YOU CAN TALK?! OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!!!

But yeah, you’re right.

“Hold on a minute,” pipes in Frowny Guy; he looks like Tony Shaloub, “L says that he trusts us, but we don’t trust him!”

Yeah, who’s this “we” business? Oh, the whole room. I mean, they’re all on board with trying to catch Kira. They’re all on board with doing what it takes to get him. They’re all on board with the grim fact that they might DIE in this pursuit. But where do they draw the line? L ordering them around without even showing his face!

And hey, I don’t know if L noticed, but there’s blood of 12 FBI agents on his hands. Not a good track record in the *checks watch* six days since this investigation began! He’s a real slut.

Director Yagami thinks his irate, incel men have a fair point. After all, L was the one who ordered the FBI here in the first place. Only he, around these parts, would’ve known who they were before they snuffed in Death Note-style! Ergo, L is a person of interest (implying that he’s at all interesting, which I do not condone).

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

Moe, Larry, and Curly are starting to finally wise up a little bit.

Yagami gives L an ultimatum: get the fuck out of your mother’s basement and come help them in person, or take your Doritos and Mountain Dew elsewhere! There will be no trust long distance like this. Those relationships never work!

Time for L to play his hand. He has many hands. He’s going to play one now. Here it goes! Watari, turn the laptop around. No, that’s too far. Look, man, who taught you how to spin a laptop? Does L have to go there and do it himself? Jesus.

Instead of talking, L pulls up his AOL Instant Messenger window and chats with the room: “what happens from now on must be kept between the eight of us.”

OOOOOOOOHHH, SECRETS! No one can resist a good secret! Let’s have it! Spill! The detectives in the room are simply rapt with glistening attention! Even Director Yagami is agape with anticipation, conjuring up a thought balloon with a large “?” in it.

L types out a whole novel for them to read. It boils down to this: fuck you all, I’m not showing any of you my ravishing mug unless you earn it. Keep your family and friends out of our business forever. That also means the rest of your doughnut-eating colleagues. If you can’t handle that shit, then leave. For the rest of you, let’s move on.

Later, the Stupendous Six hold their own meeting in the hallway. “I’d rather forget partnering with L and just continue the investigation independently,” says one. “Given the way he works, we may end up meeting a double instead of the real L.”

Yeah, because the real L is a goddamned 14-year-old. He’s communicating to you all through his Xbox Series X.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

Because he’s in over his head on this one. A goddamned 17-year-old is besting a goddamned 14-year-old! Why are you all so dumb about this?

One dissenter believes that L is vital to their investigation. L should be involved at all costs, even if he’s on a couch jerkin’ it to episodes of Sailor Moon instead of paying attention to the lives of FBI agents, let alone pissant Japanese police detectives.

Yagami thinks and paces and hems and haws. “L has said since the start that he needs our assistance for the case,” he ponders. In fact, you might say that he orchestrated this whole situation! Just the eight of us and our little love-in, singing Kumbaya and eating S’mores. All the naysayers defected. One by one, they left. Now the TRUE BELIEVERS are left! The Chosen! The cool kids!

They all shuffle silent in either shame or boredom.

“In any case, if we’re going to work with L then I’m gone,” says one nameless loser. He walks away. Gone. And then there were seven. Sort of. Counting Watari and L. “But don’t worry. I’m not going to follow you guys or try to figure out L’s true identity,” he adds, exposing a little too much of his own hand. He’s got trip sevens. Not a very good hand at all.

The rest of the loyal team does an about-face and returns to the laptop full of juicy secret messages. It reads, missed capitalization and all, “Right now i’m in a room at the Teito hotel.”

Ooooh, sexy!

“I’ll be moving from hotel to hotel every few days.”

Ooooh, sneaky!

“From now on, the police building is only a headquarters in name.”

Ooooh, uncompromising!

“Instead, the true headquarters will be my hotel room.”

Ooooh, sexy!

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

It’s orgy time, gentlemen. Pack a lunch.

Here’s the final set of instructions: split into two groups and meet by midnight, before the dang ball drops. Get the room number from Watari. Precautions must be taken so that Kira doesn’t see L’s ugly, pimply face. So they mustn’t be all together at the same time. You dig?

L, meanwhile, stares wistfully out his hotel room window. Nice view. Must be a penthouse suite. Stole money out of dad’s wallet again.

“Kira… for now we’ll just say we’re getting closer to each other,” L says to no one in particular. The window, I suppose. “Only now I have a clue about you given to me by the noble lives of the twelve FBI agents you sacrificed. Fine. For the first time I will reveal myself as L.”

Yeah, ok, for the first time you’ll reveal yourself as L. Sure. You should probably check as far back as Chapter 2, nerd.

L knows Kira can’t kill him if he doesn’t know his name. He says it out loud again. We’ve been through this 100 million fucking times already. No wonder this series is 108 chapters, it’s overflowing with clutter. You could trim this down to four chapters and still be annoyed by its repetitiveness.

And, of course, L can’t convict Kira if there’s no shred of physical evidence to prove anything. An impasse!

In the Yagami household, Ryuuku is watching the Kira news reports on a really tiny TV. The TV is making sounds like “CHEER” and “ROAR” so that you know the Kira news reports are a real ruckus.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10

Ridiculous. This “humans are interesting” opinion is the least believable part of this whole notebook-kills-people story!

Raito thinks about inanities such as “why am I thinking of myself as a suspect these days?” and “how do I corner L into a corner?” and “what should I do next?” It’s like, do your homework you little delinquent.

“This is where the real fight begins,” he says ominously in a shadow. Oh good, I’m looking forward to a real fight. Raito will snap like a twig.

Two detectives, including Yagami, enter L’s hotel and make their way to his hotel room (where I imagine petals are being strewn about the bed as we speak). They rap on the door.

“L is on the other side of this door,” Yagami thinks, in case you forgot the path of the plot from three pages ago.

“I’ve been expecting you. Please come in,” L says, in case you forgot the path of the plot from three pages ago.

“AT LAST, THE FACE OF L!?”

Final Thoughts

Oh jumping Jesus, I can’t wait to see who it could be! I hope it’s George Foreman. That guy fucks.


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Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2 – “We Fought a Zoo”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Dead Presidents storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2 – “We Fought a Zoo”! In the previous installment, a necromancer has raised all the presidents from the dead (except for the ones who aren’t dead yet, although Jimmy Carter has been looking pretty warmed-over lately). Captain America decapitates Zombie Harry S. Truman, which brings some very bad press about S.H.I.E.L.D. Luckily, Deadpool gets involved because nobody thinks of him as a hero! Agent Emily Preston has tasked Deadpool with eradicating the Zombie President problem, which he happily accepts because he’ll be getting paid a couple million dollars.

At Liberty Hall in Philadelphia, the presidents have convened for a meeting and have decided to destroy America and start over! Eek!

Frankly, I think that’s a really good idea.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2 [January, 2013]
Written by: Brian Posehn / Gerry Duggan
“We Fought a Zoo”

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

“We Fought a Zoo” indeed. How is an elephant going to shoot a gun with a trunk? How is he going to shoot a trunk with a gun? I’m just asking questions here!

I like 2nd-issue recap pages for heroes I barely know, because then I can barely learn more about them! “Possibly the world’s most skilled mercenary, definitely the world’s most annoying, Wade Wilson was chosen for a top-secret government program that gave him a healing factor allowing him to heal from any wound. Now, Wade makes his way as a gun for hire, shooting his prey’s faces off while talking his friends’ ears off. Call him the Merc with the Mouth… call him the Regeneratin’ Degenerate… …call him… DEADPOOL!”

Very good. Our favorite moldy old half-deceased superhero lounges on the beach in his very revealing thong. He is flanked by the Invisible Woman (Susan Storm) and Emma Frost (Emma Frost), both wearing their own skimpy beach-going outfits. Deadpool’s head hurts. “I’m not surprised,” says Sue, offering the guy with the fucked-up wounds a can of beer, “Abe Lincoln gave you quite a shot to your handsome melon.”

“Get rid of that see-through soccer mom,” growls Frost. Now they both exchange barbs and start fighting in the sand. “Hey, Emma, Suzy – there’s more than enough Wade Wilson to go around. Hair gets pulled. Faces get shoved. Fighting gets dirty.

“Who invited you?” snarls Emma Frost.

“What are you – the world’s worst telepath? This great hero did.”

“Ladies,” Deadpool interjects, sipping his cold one, “I want a nice, clean but slow and enjoyable fight.”

While the two of them are preoccupied, a third woman arrives. Deadpool calls her Roller-Girl, but I don’t know who she is! Doesn’t matter, she quickly gets booted a mile into the ocean by She-Hulk. “You’re better than this, Wade. Look at these pathetic, over-sexualized fantasies falling over each other. This is gross,” she says, holding the guy up seven feet into the air by his shoulders.

Then she kisses him, which he happily doesn’t resist. Then it’s revealed that it’s a dream and he was actually kissing something else entirely!

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

Ghost Ben Franklin crotch isn’t really that bad once you get used to it! It’s an acquired taste.

“Huzzah! My ‘respitaroy message’ was successful!” Franklin jubilates while Deadpool sits up. He has a big hole through the head, exit wound at the left eyeball.

“I know you! You’re the president on that money I can never afford,” he says before stabbing the ghostly Founding Father through the chest with his katana. Franklin looks sad about this. “I was never a president. Nor am I undead. Just dead, I’m afraid.”

Deadpool is angry at yet another old dude walking around and talking when he should be very dead and not doing either. Franklin begs Deadpool to hear him out: his discoveries and experiments with electricity allowed him to develop a way to exist after death as a being of pure electricity! Electrons buzzing around! Usually, Franklin likes to stop by Liberty Hall once in a while to reflect and was DISMAYED to learn that his colleagues were being just a real barrel of sumbitches. He’s here to help! He swears on his mother’s dead son’s grave!

“My boy, the key to stopping the corrupted executives lies in corralling whatever misguided magic has brought them back,” Franklin tells him, smartly.

THIS IS WHAT I CALL A SMOOTH SEGUE! That necromancer dude is at a military graveyard getting bullied by George Washington and JFK to raise an army for them. “Make with the, ah… hocus pocus,” JFK demands, pushing the guy’s head to the ground. The necromancer doesn’t wanna! This has all been a very big mistake! He will never fool around with this monkey business again, pinky promise. Then he says some more rune-language and throws Kennedy to the ground. Then he burps fire into Washington’s face! “Damn you!” he shrieks, burning. “My teef are wood!”

Now’s the necromancer’s chance. He bolts, finds his large occult tome, and continues running out of the graveyard. He finds the spell of invisibility and starts tongue-twisting his way through it. The presidents catch up and detain an elderly couple.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

The Kennedys are good for that. Remember when Ted Kennedy killed a woman?

“Have it, ah, your way, Magician. Looks like I can knock two elderly voters off Medicaid!” JFK yells as the necromancer hides behind a tree, invisible and frightened. “Damn,” he concedes and makes himself visible. He’ll do whatever they want him to do, ok? Just… just stop hurting the old people. I mean, come on. They’re old.

“I once fought for this country so that it might be free from tyranny. Now centuries later you’ve called upon us to fix what ails this country… and I shall once again wage war.” Washington draws a sword. “America’s greatest problem – is Americans.”

HERE HERE! I am with you 100% on that one, Chief! The worst! The WORST!

“That’s not true,” the necromancer responds meekly. The people are divided, but they will rise up against your aggression.”

Yeah, we’ll see about that, chowderhead. The spell is cast, the ground starts trembling and breaking. Washington’s army is rising, as is his wooden dick!

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

Hells yeah. Just take a look at these handsome veterans! Amen!

Back at Liberty Hall, Deadpool wrings out his bloody mask and dons it once more. His eyeball has already regenerated. Back to business. Ben Franklin hates to see his esteemed colleagues act like a bunch of nogoodniks, so he’ll help out the best he can. “How do I know you’re even really here? You could be a hallucination,” Deadpool says to the smelly old ghost, pointedly. “I’ve been prone to delusions, paranoid thoughts, hearing voices…”

“What does it matter?” Franklin throws up his hands. “Either I am helping you, or you’re helping you by imagining me.” And that’s a very fair point. Deadpool tells him to hold his horses, pulls out his iPhone 5s and contacts S.H.I.E.L.D. Here’s an update for those fine folks down at the HQ: a bullet in the head later and Deadpool lost the whole kit and kaboodle! All the presidents gone! Ben Franklin is here, though. He’s a buddy.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

Uh huh… uh huh… welp, we’re all fucked.

“Damn it, Deadpool. The longer this goes on, the worse it is for everyone,” Agent Preston says, brow furrowed and gripping the bridge of her nose in the universal sign for “this Deadpool guy is annoying me and it’s not looking good right now”.

“Deadpool, stand by for transport. We’re coming to get you. Teddy Roosevelt’s resuming his career as a big game hunter,” Preston tells him. And, verily, Roosevelt’s garbed up at the Los Angeles Zoo like he’s traipsing through the safari.

“ROARRRWR!” growls a large black bear.

“Indeed, Bear,” Roosevelt frowns. “I can hear the pain of captivity in your wounded bellow.”

The bear takes a swipe at the president, who throws down his gun and puts up his dukes. “Finally, a bit of a sport!”

This guy uppercuts the fuck out of this bear. One-hit knockout. Now onto the flamingos!…

S.H.I.E.L.D. is flying above the zoo in their S.H.I.E.L.D. jet, whatever it’s called. Deadpool leaps out and lands face-first on the ground within the lemur exhibit. Pffft, that’s nothing. Deadpool has landed face-first in many a snake pit and has lived to tell the tale! Obviously! Because he can’t die, right? Not even if he gets decapitated and his head kicked into the sun?

“Hi, watcha doin’? Deadpool asks Roosevelt, standing behind him while the Rough Rider aims at a group of camels and alpacas. Deadpool tells him to cut it out, you silly goose! Then he pops him in the head with this own gun. Roosevelt goes “AEEEERGH!” Then he calls Deadpool a scoundrel and challenges him to a Duel of Fists!

Teddy Roosevelt punches this guy right in front of an elephant. Ben Franklin encourages the weird deadish guy to harness the power of electricity to stop “the wraiths of the presidents”, but that’s not as urgent right now as the horrible goring that just happened! Intestines everywhere! How’s Deadpool getting out of this one alive?

“Bad elephant!” he says, very much still alive and spunky. Roosevelt busts a gat in the elephant’s ear, narrowly missing Deadpool’s head as he sits there impaled upon a mighty tusk.

Deadpool attempts to pump Roosevelt full of semi-automatic rifle bullets, but it serves to only make the guy angrier. Bully for him!

Meanwhile, the Pool of the Dead extracts himself from the tusk with a “SPLOORP”. “Gross,” he comments, “my body’s never gone ‘sploorp’ before.”

He kicks Roosy in the face. Before Roosy gets a chance to retaliate, the elephant wraps a trunk around his neck and hoists him up. Deadpool punches him in the balls, or as Roosevelt calls it, “the President’s Cabinet”. No time to waste now admiring double entendres! Deadpool finds a high voltage transformer box and unhooks the large, active cable. “Ben was right. This situation needs juicing!”

And lo’, he electrocutes Teddy right in the chest. He is reduced to a charred skeleton. The elephant, unfortunately, is collateral damage.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #2

Hell yeah, animal cruelty!

“Should we talk about the elephant in the room? ‘Cause it’s on fire,” Deadpool quips, obviously uninterested in the creature’s immense pain, suffering, and gruesome death! The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are only sort of alarmed at the blazing elephant inferno two feet away. They need more help from Deadpool now, he’s obviously very good at solving these problems with grace and poise. But they need to involve someone else at this point…

The agents escort Deadpool back to Manhattan (and Franklin, too, who hitched a ride). Approaching a giant door with a giant knocker, Preston sulks and already anticipates getting no help from the only other person who can help. Deadpool is like “relax”.

Behind the door is Doctor Strange. Let’s get Benedict Cumberbatch in on the action!

Final Thoughts

What better to stop a bunch of sorcery than with more sorcery, I always say! It must not go well, since there’s four issues of the story left. Methinks Doctor Strange is gonna get gored up the ass himself. And it’s not gonna be from an elephant.


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The X-Files – Season 1, Episode 6 – “Shadows”

The X-Files

“Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths of two men believed to have been killed by a powerful psychokinetic force“

Scully’s gonna be all “there’s a perfectly good explanation for this!” and Mulder’s gonna be all “you’re right, Scully, it’s the work of sentient, conscious, vibrating butt plugs and the government isn’t going to get away with this.”

Howard Graves is a man about to get killed by a powerful psychokinetic force! Oh wait, he’s already dead. A woman is rummaging through Graves’ office, presumably his secretary, and she’s very sad to be cleaning up the office of a man who “killed himself”. And by “killed himself” and mean “killed himself by means of a powerful, psychokinetic-type force maybe?”

That evening, the same woman gets attacked by two men as she tries to deposit her paycheck at an ATM. She goes *squirm* and *yell* while they go *punch* and *attempted rape*. But then something happens! Something mysterious. And powerful. And psychokinetic. Radical, man.

Two hours later, two young teenagers are looking for a place to fuck. They try to scale the ladder of a building’s fire escape and discover the dead bodies of the two attacky, rapey men. Cue intro.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

NICE TO SEE YOU HANGING OUT! HA HA HA HAAA!!

Scully and Mulder have been summoned to the Bethesda Naval Hospital’s autopsy room in the dead of night to get their X-Files expertise! The two dead bodies, you see, they’re still kind of twitchin’ and floppin’ and their body temperatures have not dropped below 98.3°F in the six hours they’ve been dead. Agent Angry Mulder gets impatient after three minutes because the room full of government personnel aren’t coughing up answers to questions like “how were these bodies transported?” or “can I have some sex with that one?”

“The most troubling aspect of the death is the throat area,” explains the hospital’s resident autopsy-performing lady. The throats have been crushed, but there’s no evidence of bruising or tissue damaged. Like they’ve been crushed from the inside! Like thousands of tiny little Atom Ants have done some real work on these hapless dudes.

“How can an esophagus be crushed without the neck ever being touched?” Scully asks Mr. Supernatural Know-It-All after they leave the room.
“Psychokinetic manipulation,” Mulder whispers coyly. Scully smirks like she’s not used to this shit by now.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

Come on, Scully. I need someone to share with. These eyeglasses aren’t gonna eat themselves!

Howard Graves’ secretary, Lauren, does some shady stuff at the office the next day. She makes a secretary spill her coffee when she doesn’t Lauren her speak to her boss. Lauren tries to quit but he won’t let him. He considers her family. “The company needs you. Especially now,” he grabs her chin creepily. Then his bracelet tightens hard around his wrist and he goes “agrgh” and “aaugh” and “rrrgh” for a minute. Lauren’s not doing it on purpose, but I think she may some of that psycho-whatsits!

After doing some research on 1993 internet, they discover that one of the murdered victims belongs to an Islamic terrorist group. After reviewing the ATM surveillance tape, they discover the two men attacking Lauren and wonder why a couple of terrorist hooligans are robbing a woman at an ATM machine (probably because they need money to fund their terror bombs and their highly decadent orgies). The surveillance tape also shows a very strange blur in the background at the time of the attack. Perhaps it’s another individual. OR MAYBE *DUN DUN DUNNNN* IT’S NOT.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

Wait a minute, this isn’t the Yankees game I taped last night!

Without any other leads, they go find Lauren in Philadelphia, where it’s always sunny. Mulder rudely invites himself into her house, proving he’s not a vampire. Lauren doesn’t recognize the mugshots of the two assailants (liar), so they show her a snapshot of the attack which makes Lauren go “oh”. She acts like she sort of recognizes the blur, but doesn’t want to cough up any info. Mulder hands her his phone number and winks, tells the lass to give him a ring-a-ding-ding if she’s feeling gossipy.

Then they leave. Lauren looks out of the window and makes their car drive in reverse, out of their control. Scully yells while Mulder maintains his usual poorly-acted stoicism. They crash into another car full-speed at an intersection and leave without a scratch (proving that they actually ARE vampires). Mulder makes a big ol’ HUH? face with his pouty lips, which I find quite alluring.

They mechanic sends the car home with a clean bill of health! No severed wires, no leaked brake fluid. However, the headlights are on even though the car isn’t. Residual electrostatic charges in the filaments! Aliens and psychokinesis! Lauren did it! Lauren did it! And Scully is getting skeptical yet again. Then the headlights flicker off with a little buzz and Scully makes a big ol’ BUH? face with her pouty lips. Not as alluring.

Now it’s time to hella spy on Lauren outside her building. They catch her throwing a fit while a maintenance man tries to remove Howard Graves’ name from his assigned parking spot. Now some guy named Howard Graves is involved?! Way too many people man, this case blows chunks.

Scanning some old newspapers reveals a headline about Graves’ suicide and his connection with Lauren. Lauren’s the center of all this. Lauren’s the hub. Lauren’s the big cheese. They spy on her some more and discover her mourning at the gravy grave of Grave’s three-year-old daughter. A groundskeeper tells them that she drowned in a pool on Graves’ watch in 1969. They find it VERY suspicious that Lauren gives a shit about any of this. Mulder mentions that the daughter would be Lauren’s age if she had lived.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

How many graves can a Graves’s grave grave if Grave’s grave could… grave grave?

Scully’s report includes speculations that Lauren and Graves’ connection might be a motivation for his suicide, and that perhaps Lauren is indeed at the center of all these deaths.

Mulder develops a photo he took staking out Lauren’s house. They enhance the photo of her through the window and find an ethereal visage of Howard Graves’ face. Scully claims he’s alive! Mulder claims maybe not! Who’s to say who’s alive and who isn’t?! Certainly not the Federal Bureau of Investigations! They have no business investigating this kind of thing.

Lauren hears ghostly voices in her bathroom in the middle of the night and discovers a tub full of blood. It drains itself. Lauren gasps and blubbers.

The dynamic FBI duo visit the hospital where Graves’ autopsy was performed. “Four out of six liters of blood down the drain,” the doctor relays dryly.

“I don’t suppose you ran any dental confirmations?” Mulder asks.
“What for, it was him,” the doctor responds.
“How did you know?” Scully defends Mulder here.
“…it said so on the toe tag,” smirks the doctor.

Welp, we’re done here! But — BUT — Scully discovers that Lauren was the one who identified the body, which continues the suspicion! Even though this poor bastard was cremated, Graves’ organs were donated. Time to do an identification check! We’ll come to that later, don’t forget, ok?

It’s quittin’ time. Lauren packs up her stuff during her going-away party and returns to Graves’ office to fondly look around for a bit more time. Her weird boss enters and confronts her about Graves’ death. There is an exchange that reveals Lauren knew that her boss “had Howard Graves killed”. And why does Lauren know that? Because Graves told her. From beyond the Graves!

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

Your chin is so soft, Lauren. Do you use special chin lotion?

Identification comes back positive on Howard Graves. He’s a very dead man.

Lauren knows too much! Her creepy boss hires a couple of assassins to take care of Lauren at her house. However, when they arrive, ghostly Howard-Beyond-the-Graves kicks their fucking asses and kills them. He busts lightbulbs while doing it, which seems extremely unnecessary to me. But hey! I didn’t write this! Someone smarter than me did!

Mulder shows up to the house to find one of the assassins hanging in the air getting his throat squeezed by the Invisible Man. The dude gets dropped once he’s definitely dead. Scully, of course, misses all of this and comes into the house too late. Just once, JUST ONCE, she should show up somewhere before Mulder does goddamnit.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

Oh man, this is totally kicking rad! I’m soooooo high right now, Scully!

The government personnel from earlier in the episode start confronting our favorite resident FBI agents for interfering with the case, but both Mulder and Scully get saucy and claim that the other agents are withholding information from THEM. They look guilty about this. Cornered, they explain that the business Lauren works at are supplying parts to the terrorist group. How is Lauren involved? Hard to say. Fuckin’ Mulder and Fuckin’ Scully are interfering! So knock it off, they got some terrorists to bust. What’s this about psychokinesis? Step off with that nonsense, son!

This is the part where Empathic Mulder comes out and asks a scared Lauren, who feels like she can’t go back to her house, if Graves is still around her. Still around trying to protect her. Lauren starts spilling the beans about her company’s involvement with selling parts to the terrorists. Creepy Boss had Graves killed because he couldn’t trust him to keep quiet, and now he’s still around. Even Scully believes her. She asks Lauren to tell Graves that she loves him so he can move on to the other realm, which is always something ghosts need to do and can’t because no one tells them they love them.

Scully later reveals that she DIDN’T believe Lauren (what a twist!) and that she just wanted to do what is needed to do to keep pushing this case forward and stop the terrorist stuff. That seems a lot more real than, like, ghosts. Seriously.

Warrant in hand, the FBI moves out to try to bust the company and find evidence somewhere in the building. Creepy Boss tries to stay calm as Lauren helps them ransack the place, and Mulder notices that the guy “isn’t even breaking a sweat”. It’s a failure! Everyone’s going to go home and cry.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 6 - Shadows

You can tell that we’re even more special than your typical special agent because of the intensity in our eyeballs.

Certainly, even after most of the FBI leaves, Lauren still tries to tear up the place looking for evidence, which prompts Creepy Boss to call her a “stupid bitch”. If there’s one thing ghosts don’t like, it’s hearing other men call their loved ones stupid bitches. He invisibly starts choking Mr. Boss Man while only Mulder is there and not Scully. The door is locked, Scully can’t get in, papers are flying all over the room, a letter opener hovers in front of the boss guy like it’s Macbeth. Then no one dies, but the letter opener flies into the wall. It splits the wallpaper and reveals secret documents lodged in the wall. Busted!

We all have a hearty laugh! Everyone wins! Lauren leaves forever and never comes back.

EPILOGUE. At a new job, Lauren walks around happily. But, when a woman pisses her off a little bit, a cup of coffee starts trembling on the desk. A truck passing by outside? The ghost of Howard Graves? Bugs Bunny under the desk with a giant magnet?

We’ll never know. We’ll just never know.

Next Time on the X-Files

Season 1, Episode 7 — “Ghost in the Machine”
Mulder and Scully eat so much KFC that Scully starts hallucinating about aliens and Mulder starts hallucinating about dressing up as a woman in Twin Peaks.


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