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.


Click here to ridicule this post!

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.


Click here to ridicule this post!

The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 43: “Decisions and Apparitions”

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

The previous chapter ended with Loial going “oh dear God we’ll all die if travel along the Ways!”, so now Loial spends a good chunk of time explaining exactly why this is. It amounts to the following: the Breaking of the World was happening because all the male Aes Sedai were losing their marbles. The Ogier set up these steddings to contain these insane men so that they couldn’t tap into the True Source. However, since Aes Sedai feel empty and depressed within these steddings, they didn’t want to stay. Even so, as a token of their appreciation, the male Aes Sedai created “the Ways”. Passages between steddings that avoid the broken world altogether! They’re like wormholes, as I understand it. Time and space is bent and folded over, some real far out shit.

These Ways have degraded over time, though, and people started disappearing along the paths like it was the Bermuda Triangle. Loial doesn’t want to disappear either, no sir! Sometimes they did come out, but insane, like that one Stephen King story The Jaunt! Also not an attractive fate! The Ogier closed off the Ways and forbid anyone from using them, so Loial sees no reason to use them either.

Moiraine, as a response, naturally, starts spouting off some of that “the Pattern brought us here” nonsense. The answer she has to literally every question or complaint. Everyone agrees to go with Moiraine and Lan, which forces Loial’s hand. He agrees, grudgingly, to go too.

Rand has another Ba’alzamon dream. It’s uninteresting, but this time Rand grows a pair and starts confronting the demon directly. “What do you want from me?” he asks. Fealty, that’s what! Then there’s some in-dream torture and Rand falls out of bed. A splinter that stabbed his hand in the dream remains. Without a word, Moiraine heals the wound and declares that time is running out.

Do you what’s good? Veggie chips. I recommend Veggie Chips.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6 – “Brightest Day”

* Part 6 of 6 of the Green Lantern: Rebirth limited Series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6 – “Brightest Day”! In the previous installment, Hal Jordan beats up Sinestro for a bit and then wins the fight.

Ganthet becomes Parallax’s new victim, and everyone else thinks they’re fucked. When Hal rounds up his fellow Green Lanterns with the intention of rendering the beast incapacitated, Batman and the other Justice League members are like “oh no you don’t”.

ONE ISSUE LEFT OF THIS LIMITED SERIES! Will Hal get that Salisbury steak TV dinner that he’s been wanting so badly? Time will tell, my friends!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6 [May, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Brightest Day”

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6

Nice cover. The Green Lanterns all think they’re so cool with the matching uniforms and magic decoder rings. Nothing that you can’t find in a cereal box, goddamnit. I keep buying all that cereal though and I haven’t found one yet. I don’t want to be in their club anyway.

“Batman believes in everything I don’t. Darkness and fear.”

The Dark Knight stands there demanding answers like he’s in charge of anything.

“I live off other things. Light and courage.”

Ganthet’s over there somewhere continuing to get painfully possessed by the Parallax, looking like a giant yellow mutant bug. It is determined that “everyone is getting infected but them”, but how they know this just standing there is beyond my meager-brained understanding.

Hal Jordan puts on his serious face. “Riots are breaking out in Los Angeles. Panicked cops are trigger-happy in Star City. Images are flickering in front of my eyes like a subliminal slideshow.”

Batman comes over to him like HEY, HAL JORDAN, COME INTO MY OFFICE. GO TO YOUR BEDROOM. MEET MY BY THE FLAGPOLE AT 3PM.

Then Jordan cracks him in the fucking face. Asshole deserved it.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6

Eat shit, Bruce Wayne! They should make more Alfred comics! THEY SHOULD MAKE MORE ALFRED COMICS!

After clocking Batman right in his handsome, cowled face, Jordan declares that he doesn’t have time to deal with this Justice League interference and instructs his fellow Lanterns to come hither.

“Did you see that?” Guy Gardner jubilates. “One punch. Y’know, Hal. I’ve always liked you.”

Jordan tells him to stuff it as they leave. Superman and Wonder Woman make sure their buddy is ok. “Arrogant as ever,” Batman croaks, hoisting himself up. “We need to regroup and take Parallax on oursel–”

BWOOSSH. That’s the sound of an explosion of green light right before all of their eyes! Superman! Wonder Woman! Shirtless guy! Supergirl! Batman with his 900 square inch cape. They all see two individuals emerge from the green light. I’m wondering if I should know who they are. I’m also wondering if I saw them already! Maybe I should start paying attention to what I’m reading, huh?

It’s a man and a woman. “Hal knows what he’s doing. Let the Corps handle this one.”

Yes, sir!

The Green Lanterns are flying around in formation as if they were drawn by a comic book artist for a comic book, if you know what I mean. “We can’t just rush in without a plan, Hal,” says a rather grumpy John Stewart. “I’ll have one by the time we get there,” says Hal with a grimaced twinge of “I got this *croak*”. Hal asks John if he trusts him.

YEAH, BUT–

Great! So that Ganthet guy mentioned that “preparations” were made on Oa for Parallax, but does anyone know what the fuck that means? Did they have a nice candlelit dinner all ready to go? Did they draw a nice, sexy bath? Maybe! But here’s a better theory that Hal cooked up: all their rings have a connection to the central battery, and this is how Parallax got to him in the first place. Open that connection back up and send him back to the battery! Sounds easy, right? Right? What do you mean I’m talking out of my ass? That’s a good plan! Rings, batteries, don’t you all get it? Never mind, ugh. You are all a buncha dummies.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6

My soul is spitty enough already, thanks.

“It’s gonna be like putting a tornado in a beer bottle!” says Guy Gardner, getting it. I guess. Everyone is at the ready for this tornado beer bottle thing. All they have to do is wait for Hal’s direction…

Huh? Oh… how about now? Now would be good.

So they all start doing their ring thing

-John Stewart’s constructs are “built from the inside out”. Nothing is hollow.

-Guy Gardner’s ring is like a “leaky water faucet”. His willpower can’t wait to be free.

-Kilowog’s ring is the only one that makes sound. “Like a cannon exploding.”

-Kyle Rayner’s constructs are like sketches that take form as he continues to fine-tune everything. “Kyle’s never satisfied. He’s an artist.”

Ah, ok, so everyone’s personalities come out in their own ring usage. I see. So Guy Gardner’s “leaky water faucet” sounds like someone is constantly jerking off. My own ring would have me sitting on my ass playing video games and writing a bunch of lengthy bullshit blog posts about comic books.

Let’s not forget Hal Jordan! His constructs are all about precision. Concentrated power. Focused ambitions. Get in, do the thing he needs to do, and get out. No flairs, no blares, no fuss, no muss. Bing bang boom. “Tangible glory.”

All five of them are shooting Green Lantern spooge right into Ganthet/Parallax’s huge, open mouth. Tangible glory.

They all chant their cute Green Lantern “Brightest Day/Blackest Night” poem while Ganthet continues leaking Sunny Delight all over everything.

“The air freezes around us. The vacuum of space opens up. I can feel the rings creating a pathway to the center of the universe.”

Wow, it sounds like these rings are pretty incredible, aren’t they? I wasn’t sold before, but I think I might be now? Green’s not my color, though. Gimme some Black Lanterns. Now there’s a color of light I can get behind!

“I WILL NOT BE IMPRISONED AGAIN,” Parallax shouts from within the blue little gnome Guardian, “NOT BY YOU.”

Then Yellow Fever unleashes some good old-fashioned wrath upon these Green Dorks.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

Well, maybe y’all should’ve stayed home if you wanted to keep your insides and your eyeballs.

Also, Kyle Rayner goes deaf and Kilowog “falls”, which means Kilowog lucked out in that he only falls down. Guy Gardner over here has his organs cooked at 2300°F and Kilowog merely trips. How fair is that?

Hal is left standing, pointing his ring at the beast and contorting his features into a “nnffgg” face, so to speak. “Give up,” sneers the Parallax. “You failed once. You’ll fail again. Lay down and die. You’re weak. You’re scared. Give up now. Give up. Give up damn you!”

“I don’t know how.”

Ooooh, menacing. So positively badass. Terrifying.

Hal focuses his green beam at Parallax Ganthet’s cheek and yells for his team to snap out of it and help fight, god fucking damn it.

So they do, like they were never incapacitated in the first place. All these panels are lousy with green and yellow swirls of confusing shapes. I’m guessing that they’re handing Parallax’s ass to him. Ganthet/Parallax appears to breaking up, and the yellow light starts swirling into a giant green battery as if someone flushed a toilet. Which, who knows, maybe someone did! There’s certainly a turd involved, that’s for sure.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6

Kiss the ring, bitch.

“Brothers and Sisters,” speaks a member of the Guardians, surrounded by other fellow members of the Guardians. “It is time.”

Ganthet looks like a little baby slumbering at his mother’s TEAT. “Ganthet, can you hear me?” Hal nudges the sleepy little blue man. A bright green light (of course) begins radiating from the sleepy little blue baby. “…you…you have all done well.”

The group is like “yeah baby”. And, against what he said earlier, Guy Gardner really did miss the ring! How sweet. He tongues it for a bit.

No point in celebrating. The buzzkill Justice League is here again. The standoff is led by Batman. He scowls at Hal. Hal scowls right back.

“Do you expect me to believe this? That you were influenced? Possessed? Is that what Parallax was? An outside force that–”

Hal cuts the batty man off. “I don’t expect you to believe anything. And quite honestly, I don’t care.”

WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP! Take that, Batman! You don’t need to control everything all the time, you arrogant sack of dog bones. Go slap Robin around if you want to release some of that pent-up aggression! He will just tell everyone he fell down the stairs again.

“Is that a problem,” John asks the Bat, stepping in.

Awkward silence.

Awkward silence.

Grab a snack. More awkward silence.

“Not right now, John. I suppose… I suppose this universe needs a little more light anyway,” Batman concedes. They all have a happy, tearful hug. The Green Lantern group smiles at each other like Batman is the Pope and they just got his much-needed blessing.

TERREBONNE PARISH, LOUISIANA. BELLE REVE PRISON. We haven’t seen this since Issue #1. The prisoner, a drooling huge-headed baby with a Salvador Dali mustache, who is for all intents and purposes a vegetable, thinks some thoughts. Some real lowdown thoughts, man.

“Congratulations, my friends. What a wonderful tale of the human condition. I know it well, yes. I’ve listened to all of them across the globe. Rage. Sorrow. Depression. Fear. Though I never knew you had it in you, Mr. Rayner. And Captain Jordan. My precious, precious Jordan. You’ve found your way here. And won’t it be ever so delicious and exciting – when they find their way back, too. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.”

Sounds like we got another bad guy on the horizon! He looks like Hal Jordan could punt him across town like a little drooling football, though, but maybe he can think some really mean thoughts that will make Hal cry a lot. Maybe something along the lines of “your dad is dead, you insufferable pussy”.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #6

I’m gonna write a book about my epic adventures and get on Dr. Phil!

Looks like everything has been wrapped up in a nice package, except for this prison guy, but Hal catches up with Carol Ferris at the airfield. Carol asks him if he remembers anything while he was some weird, possessed spirit of a man. He claims that it felt like an out-of-body experience. He wasn’t in control, he was like an observer. Sorry about that and everything.

OK, well, at least we all closed the book on that chapter. Glad you’re not dead, Hal, because Carol needs someone to fly some planes for her. There isn’t a single pilot worth a damn in all of Northern California. This Gil guy that Carol was talking to on the phone at the beginning of this miniseries, she and he are going to try settling down. Rebuy this ramshackle airfield. Start a family. Go on adventures like little scamps. She tells Hal to take care of himself and they hug.

They’re going to bone later. OR, are these one of those “will they won’t they” couples where the answer is always, always, ALWAYS “won’t”? Oh wait, I know the answer!: I don’t care.

We end in Star City, the home of Ollie “Green Arrow” McFadden O’Reilly McGillicuddy Schweinhorst. Hal makes a visit to his dear friend who also has “Green” in his superhero name.

“So, after all this, what’s next?” Ollie asks. And next? Next, Hal starts living his life again. A much needed respite from not living his life is a great idea, isn’t it? He’s going to start doing some of that.

Ollie finds what he’s looking for. The lantern that he grabbed from the Ferris Airfield shortly after Hal got possessed. Hal’s lantern. Hal’s power battery.

Hal powers up his ring. Ah yes, that’s the stuff right there.

“You know,” Ollie says, looking completely banged up and near death, “I still can’t remember that damn oath.”

Hal chuckles. “I’ll never forget it.”

Final Thoughts

Yeah, I like this. I’m looking forward to digging into more of Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern arc. It’s likely going to be the only Green Lantern I’ll be reading for a long while, so if you hate Geoff Johns and his Green Lantern stories then I suggest clicking that X button at the top of your browser and– heh heh, PLEASE don’t do that. I need all the webpage hits I can get. My family is trying to live off of rain water and styrofoam packing peanuts.


Click here to ridicule this post!

All the Bright Places (2020)

Tagline:
Live life at full brightness.

Wide Release Date:
February 28, 2020

Directed by:
Brett Haley
Screenplay by:
Jennifer Niven, Liz Hannah
Based on the novel by:
Jennifer Niven
Produced by:
Paula Mazur, Mitchell Kaplan, Elle Fanning, Brittany Kahan-Ward, Doug Mankoff, Andrew Spaulding

Starring:
Elle Fanning
Justice Smith
Alexandra Shipp
Kelli O’Hara
Lamar Johnson
Virginia Gardner
Felix Mallard
Sofia Hasmik
Keegan-Michael Key
Luke Wilson

All the Bright Places

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I’m on some sort of weird teen romantic drama kick right now. Maybe I’m missing something in my life! Maybe I have more X chromosomes than I initially thought! lol! Sexist jokes, always fucking hilarious. Right everyone?? Haha!

I was recommended this movie on Netflix after watching Five Feet Apart, so I went for it. The Fanning sisters are good actors. I had no other information going in. I hope it doesn’t suck.

THE 700(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Welcome to lovely, shitty Indiana. Elle Fanning is Violet Markey, a teenage girl who was a passenger in a car crash that killed her sister, Eleanor, nine months ago. Justice Smith is Theodore Finch, a teenage boy labelled a freak by many of his classmates. They go to same school, are in the same grade, even in the same class, but, somehow, they don’t even know each other.

All the Bright Places - Suicide Time!

I hear it’s the best time of year to hop off the bridge. The water is stupendous.

While running on a crisp autumn morning, Finch spots Violet standing on the ledge of the bridge near the crash site. He talks her down, but not before jumping on himself and happily fooling around. Violet is not amused, but nonetheless starts noticing Finch’s eccentricities at school. Finch spends a lot of time in Counselor Keegan-Michael Key‘s office… sorry, Richard Embry… taking absolutely nothing seriously. Violet spends a lot of time being sad. They’re a match made in heaven!

Their class is assigned a project involved travelling around Indiana and documenting their explorations. Finch picks Violet as a partner. Since Violet is terrified of cars, the two of them bike to various underwhelming Indiana landmarks. One after another. Finch is not discouraged by Violet’s depression and unwillingness to be enthusiastic. If nothing else, he works harder on lifting her spirits.

After many excursions, she builds a trust. Finch eventually convinces her to get in his car to visit farther Indiana attractions, including some guy’s homemade mini roller coaster. As time goes on, Violet lightens up more and more until she realizes that he has fallen in love with Finch. They do kisses and teenage banging.

All the Bright Places - Shitty Roller Coaster

Not responsible for blunt force trauma and and/or certain death.

The movie shifts gears about halfway through. Finch starts acting strange. He’s already strange, but this is something different. He disappears for days at a time, he doesn’t return texts, he’s unengaged. His closest friends wave this off as normal, that he does this all the time, that he always comes back. Violet becomes wary. Eventually, Finch comes back acting like his old self.

During a trip to the Blue Hole lake, the two swim around and Finch disappears underwater long enough to scare the shit out of Violet. Not havin’ it anymore, Violet demands to know what’s going on with him and what the hell his problem is and what the fuck is his fucking problem ad infinitum and etc. He explains, vaguely, that he was severely abused by his father during when he got into his “dark moods”. Finch also experiences these dark moods. Surprise! Bipolar disorder!

A couple of events during his manic episode causes Finch to briefly sway the other way. Violet’s ex-boyfriend calls him a freak in the hallway and Finch starts kicking his ass in front of the whole student body. Violet and Finch accidentally stay out all night, which terrifies her parents and spurs mistrust. He loses his mind about both of these situations and slips back into Sad Finch. He tries group counseling, but it doesn’t work. He tries talking to his sister Kate (Alexandra Shipp) about their father and why he may have felt the way he felt and did what he did, but she’s very adamant against talking about their father in any capacity. So that doesn’t work either.

A completely distraught Violet visits Finch’s house and checks out his weird sticky-noted room. He comes back while she’s there and explains his own “dark moods” and his attempts to snap out of it during these hard times (what he calls “staying awake”). It’s not working this time. It’s worse than it’s ever been before. He knows Violet can’t help him, and he rudely yells at her to get out of his house.

All the Bright Places - Staying Awake with Sticky Note

Why do I have “call mom” written down 800 times? Mom is dead!

When Finch disappears again, Violet returns to the Blue Hole lake and discovers his clothes, wallet, and phone all lying on the cliff. She breaks down in tears knowing that he deliberately drowned. They had one last location to visit: the Traveler’s Prayers Chapel. There she finds that he had signed the guestbook with the very phrase that Violet had decided she wanted as her own epitaph.

Violet presents their project alone, reminiscing about all the life lessons that Finch had taught her in the few weeks they had together and coming out of it a more fulfilled person.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Manic Pixie Dream Boy

The first half of the movie made me very nervous for two reasons: 1) everything was so positive and happy-go-lucky that it seemed like this was going to be nothing more than some fantastical over-optimistic, shallow love story, and 2) everything was so positive and happy-go-lucky that I was expecting something really fucked up to happen out of nowhere. Maybe because it had an MA rating and that means anything could happen.

All the Bright Places - Highest Point in Indiana

PRETEND TO BE HAPPY.

Luckily, neither case was true. The second half of the movie isn’t positive, and nothing totally fucked up happens… except maybe a suicide, but I saw it coming once the depression side of Finch kicked in full force.

Once we were in the clear and the movie became something more than just a weird, selfless kid being completely uninhibited and helping a young woman feel better about her life, I enjoyed the subversion of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Usually it’s the girl that serves as nothing more than a plot vehicle to help the depressed boy (*cough Garden State  *cough*), but not only is it the other way around in All the Bright Places, it’s subverted even further by making the Manic Pixie Dream Boy riddled with bigger problems than everybody else.

The caveat is that the movie eventually seems to become entirely about Finch’s struggles instead of Violet’s, but by the end it’s always been about Violet. Finch helped her become a better person, or at least a person with a better outlook, at his own expense. Violet could be helped, and Finch was a lost cause. At least he made a mark on the world before he left even if he wasn’t able to, as he puts it, “stay awake”.

All the Bright Places - I WAS HERE

Thanks for ruining the guestbook, Mr. Sharpie.

TOPIC 2 — Leaving an Impact on Someone

Yeah, this is really the big theme. The important takeaway at the end is that, even though Finch is gone, Violet has all the good times to remember him by. Not to mention all the tremendous help his involvement in her life gave her to move through her trauma. Finch’s suicide was like the final test! And she passed!

Violet’s progression from completely detached and miserable to warily trusting to actually happy was realistic and, in my opinion, an incredible performance by Fanning. I preferred her vastly over Smith’s performance as Finch, who didn’t necessary suck, but there wasn’t enough depth to the character beyond “my dad was abusive and also bipolar”. HOWEVER, their chemistry is great, and some of the laughs they share seem so genuine that they may not have been acting. And perhaps Finch is just thrilled to be helping someone else instead of trying to help himself. Maybe he has more optimism about Violet than he does for his own damn self.

One might say that Violet didn’t leave an impact on Finch if the conclusion was straight-up suicide. I think that’s prime baloney, sir. She drove him to suicide! No, sorry. It’s actually tragic! Violet, this person Finch ended up loving so much, became terrified at his erratic behavior. The very same type of erratic behavior from his own father that terrified him! Of course it tore him up to pieces. And when Finch TOLD her that he “is the freak” and is “fucked up”, she didn’t deny it. She didn’t deny it!

So yeah, it’s Violet’s fault! Analysis over.

All the Bright Places - Violet Crying

OK, fine. It’s only about 95% your fault, Violet. Happier?

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Elle Fanning was cast for the lead five months prior to the release of the book.
Well shit, that’s a little optimistic. What if she drove her car straight into a wall next to a bridge? Then they would be shit out of luck, wouldn’t they? They would’ve had cast Mario Van Peebles for the role as Violet.

The book is written in dual perspective of both Finch and Violet.
Yes, yes, that is very interesting. Hey, just like the movie! Isn’t it nice how things like that JUST HAPPEN?

All the Bright Places - Before I Die...

Before I die I want to… try every Jelly Belly jelly bean flavor.

Author Jennifer Niven had stated that she had dreamed of Nicholas Hoult playing Finch.
And then what happened? Did they decide that they needed a light-skinned black kid instead because people would more readily believe the abusive father angle? That’s racist, man. Should’ve cast the ghostly, pasty white Hoult kid.

On July 23rd 2018, author Jennifer Niven announced that Justice Smith had been cast for the role of Finch, causing controversy with fans due to his lack of similarity with the character that was portrayed in the book.
Oh, I see. More racism! It never ends, does it? They should’ve really gone with the book portrayal: a Danny DeVito-type.

In the book All The Bright Places the story takes place in the state of Indiana.
THANKS FOR PAYING ATTENTION, IMDb TRIVIA CONTRIBUTOR.

Both Violet and Finch are seventeen.
Nope! Upon the movie’s release, Elle Fanning was 21 and Justice Smith was 25. Do you know what I hate about teen movies? Not enough OLD PEOPLE cast as teenagers.

When, near the end of the movie, Violet is browsing through the guest book in a church, you can see that a special guest visited earlier: Mick Jagger, from England.
Why? So he can suck some pussy in the Traveler’s Prayers Chapel? Hell yeah.

All the Bright Places - Luke Wilson!

Luke Wilson, you scamp! What are you doing here, you silly goose?!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

It’s ok. People seem to love the book, which I didn’t know existed until after I watched the movie. General consensus is that the movie botched some of the characterization and some interpersonal relationship nuances. I thought the movie was kind of fluffy, even with respect to the serious subject matter, and I wouldn’t see it again. Not terrible, though. Just forgettable. I keep forgetting the name of the movie! Something about All the Small Things.


Click here to ridicule this post!