Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 – “Rings”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Green Lantern: Rebirth limited Series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 – “Rings”! In the previous installment, the big fights ensue! Parallax vs. Spectre and Parallax vs. Hal Jordan and Sinestro vs. Kyle Rayner and Parallax vs. Ganthet and Hal Jordan vs. Sinestro and Sinestro vs. Green Arrow and the Justice League stands there looking extremely incompetant and useless! There were like 76 of them and they were all pointless! They can go fuck themselves.

Hal Jordan is alive! He got his ring now and he’s alive and he’s going to kick some butt and I’m excited and I’m 12 years old and let’s go!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 [April, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Rings”

CHECK OUT THAT COVER! HAL JORDAN IS GOING TO KNOCK SINESTRO’S DICK IN THE DIRT! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!

We’re in the Watchtower, the Justice League HQ, where Kyle Rayner is bleeding all over the place while Sinestro tears shit up. Hal Jordan has his ring pointed right at the yellow dude for serious. “I told you Sinestro, get the hell away from them.”

Rayner is staring up in slightly-horny awe. The uniform looks majestic. The ring fits a glove. You know, like the kind of glove that fits. And the glow! Oh, the glow! What a glow!

“When I was first recruited, I was told ‘do not challenge those more powerful than you’,” muses Hal. “Funny stuff.”

Sinestro is NOT afraid. He’s gonna fight his yellow fight, and with barely any effort he blasts Hal right through the wall of the Watchtower… which I guess is on the moon? Hal bounces about 17 times on the ground before he stops. He must be halfway around the moon. He looks out of the page at the reader shoots a rather dashing smile. This ain’t nuthin’.

Sinestro launches himself across the moon to go after Hal. It’s like, this guy sucks ass showing his face around here again! Foiling my yellow plans! Well, no mas! Not today!

As Sinestro gets closer, Hal checks his ring’s stats. 99.4% charged, good, good. There’s nothing in his head that’s scrambling his brains. No Spectre. No Parallax. Just Hal Jordan and all of his nasty little thoughts. We’re good to go.

Oh baby, keep those nasty little thoughts coming!

Sinestro leaps at Hal with the power of 45 mega-locomotives! Hands wrapped around the Green Lantern’s throat, they both spiral through space as streaks of green and yellow. A couple of buddies, these two. They hug and fight in the middle of outer space. “You took the oath too seriously,” Sinestro stammers as Hal has an arm wrapped around his neck. “You abandoned it,” Hal responds as Sinestro grabs Hal’s jaw. So cute.

After a spell, Hal decides that his ring is charged up enough to give it all he’s got. BAM! That yellow bitch gets sent a couple thousand miles in the other direction! He revs up the ring again and chases Sinestro down.

“The oath abandoned me,” Sinestro retorts. “You all did. When you ripped Korugar from my hands, you left it in chaos. Under the care of a naive child.”

Yes, yes, this is all about how Sinestro is butthurt that he isn’t in charge of his smelly hellhole of a planet anymore. He’s so butthurt, in fact, that he sends a thousand yellow shards flying in Hal’s face.

“You wanted vengeance against me and the Corps,” Hal says, fighting back the shards. “I don’t believe in vengeance.” And here’s the thing, though. Are you ready for the thing, Hal? “You were vengeance. Pure vengeance. And you are a murderer.”

Sinestro brings the tough love, wouldn’t you say? The poor boy just wants to have a little control, that’s all.

You can’t control your cat, Sinestro. You gonna kill your cat?

Hal Jordan remembers his first encounter with Sinestro while he was flying one of Ferris’ jets, helping R&D some new tracking devices. His radar detected something straight ahead. “I thought I was alone up here,” he radioed the control tower. They confirmed nothing on their own screen.

His eyes widen in the universal behavior of “oh shit” as he sees a Green Lantern Sinestro hovering above the clouds, arms crossed and staring straight at the jet.

BOOOOM. Sinestro destroys the jet and captures Hal in a green bubble. “Green Lantern of Sector 2814. You are wasting time.” Hal doesn’t know who the FUCK this douche is, but he is Sinestro! Sinestro of Sector 1417! Don’t you forget it!

Sector 1417. The most orderly sector in the universe. Hal is kind of impressed, and obviously Sinestro’s reputation precedes. He keeps things spic and span over in 1417. He bought a lot of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Those things are a godsend!

Sinestro is here to help Hal continue his training. Being the best dang Green Lantern of all the Green Lanterns has its perks! Perks such as… helping Hal continue his training? What a drag, man. “Only a select few have been honored,” Sinestro drawls as he name drops a few nerds that mean nothing to Hal nor I. Who the hell is Arkkis Chummuck? Some kind of groundhog?

What about the jet? That was a $20,000,00 jet! Use your special best-Green-Lantern-ever powers and cough up some dough before Hal gets whiny and wheezy! Sinestro says no and tells him to fall in line. Don’t talk to your superior officer in this manner. He’ll get his belt, don’t test him.

Pffft. Hal goes by the beat of his own drum. “Own-Drum Hal” they call him.

And tensions have been high ever since!

Now get on the floor and lick my boots, you worthless scum. Go on, now.

Back in the present, these two lovebirds are fighting within Saturn’s rings now. Bashing each other around the rocks and ice.

“Your mind is like a muscle. Unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring,” Sinestro sneers while Hal sneers back. “I can see it, Jordan. You’re sweating. Working too hard. You’re working too slow.”

Sinestro claims that he has contacted the Parallax to return to Earth and consume it. He controls the Parallax as he controls Hal. He controls everything, or he destroys it! I think that point was made clear earlier. Then he’ll kill Kyle Rayner because that kid looks like he eats bugs.

Yeah, well, Kyle’s the man. He stepped up! Respect him! You’ll eat the bugs, Sinestro! You’ll eat the bugs!

“Green Arrow says hi,” Hal proclaims calmly as a dozen green arrows piece through Sinestro’s torso. Then he fashions some chains and shackles and crushes his wrist to keep Sinestro’s willpower down.

It doesn’t work very well. He returns the attack. But Hal is ready.

Thank you for turning me into a disintegrating skeleton, young man! Your training is complete!

Hal fights back so hard that Sinestro’s ring cracks. Then it shatters. Then Sinestro is fucked, but he’s happy. Everyone wins.

Rayner floats up out of nowhere and asks if Sinestro is dead. Hal calls up his ring’s Alexa and the answer is a resounding NO. He escaped into an extra-dimensional vortex! Duh! It’s the anti-matter universe where Sinestro was first banished, like, last Tuesday or something. Being able to track him now will be impossible even though, from my understanding, these power rings can literally do anything. Hold it at your crotch and it’ll suck your dick.

OK, well, don’t worry about Sinestro for now. Let’s do the important thing FIRST…

Hal sticks out his hand. “Hal Jordan.”

Kyle shakes Hal’s hand. “Kyle. Kyle Rayner.”

Beautiful! The handshake creates a nice orb of friendly, green light. It looks just like the usual angry green light, though. It’s hard to tell the difference, and one needn’t. Don’t worry about the various emotions and the dispositions of the green light, we’ll let Geoff Johns take care of that.

Rayner confirms that everyone is ok. Ollie Green Arrow Man is fine. The other who-cares Justice League members are fine, maybe, who cares. Then he looks glum. “You already know, I’m not like the other Lanterns, Jordan. I’m not… I’m not a guy that can overcome great fear or whatever.”

Hal laughs! HA HA HA! HA! Look, son, you have the heart and you care and yada yada yada. Touching moment alert. You know how these go already. Plus, being able to confront Sinestro and living to tell the tale is a pretty cool story! You can tell your friends, if you even have any!

Hal flies away while Rayner smiles like a starstruck little bitch.

I want some corn, mac & cheese, bananas, lemons, pineapples, a dang stick of butter, lots of cheddar cheese, potato chips, and, ooooh, French fries! With mustard! And some piss.

Something very scary has happened to Ganthet. An inconvenient possession by the Parallax, it seems? Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

So now Ganthet the big powerful Guardian is compromised. What are Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kilowog going to do?!

NEVER FEAR, THE UNDERDOGS ARE HERE! DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOOOO!! Hal and Rayner arrive, get hearty hellos, and they all ready their stupid rings. “Remember fear and you can shake off Parallax,” Hal advises vaguely. Even Guy Gardner doesn’t like that advice. Sounds like wankery, sir.

It don’t matter anyway. A batarang cuts through the scene. “Jordan,” says an unhappy Batman surrounded by his fellow unhappy Justice League buddies, “as long as I’m standing – you’re not doing anything.”

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts? FINAL THOUGHTS?! Here’s a final thought for you: there’s one issue left before the Geoff Johns run kicks off proper! Hoo boy, what a yarn this is turning out to be. I hope Hal glues Superman’s butt to Batman’s face.

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Derry Girls, Season 1 – ’90s Northern Irish Tomfooleries

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.

Discussion Subject: Derry Girls, Season 1 (2018) (Channel 4)

My wife has been wanting to watch this! I thought the premise sounded interesting, plus it’s one of those tune-in-and-zone-out sitcoms that I probably needed in my life at the moment.

The Premise

Derry Girls follows five friends living their daily lives in Derry, Northern Ireland in the 1990s during the Northern Ireland Conflict. The main characters are Catholic, and therefore on the side of the conflict that wanted Northern Ireland to be unified with Ireland. We all know how that turned out, but hey, this isn’t about history! This is about Derry Girls, and the Northern Ireland Conflict is just the backdrop of the show. It’s not really about that, sorta kinda.

Saoirse-Monica Jackson is the ambitious Erin, who I would consider the de facto lead in the ensemble cast. Jamie-Lee O’Donnell is Michelle, the boisterous and wild one! Nicola Coughlan is Clare, the anxious, prim and proper one! Orla, (Louisa Harland), Erin’s cousin, is the weird one! There’s also James (Dylan Llewellyn), who isn’t a Derry Girl at all, but rather an English Boy who becomes the only male student at the Catholic school. He gets shit on constantly by Michelle. They’re cousins.

Antics and hilarity ensue!

We’re not going to milk that cow. Who do you think we are, the Dairy Girls?

My Half-Baked Thoughts

I may be biased because I spent exactly 100% of my viewing time enraptured by the Irish accents, but this show is pretty good! It’s certainly a fresh perspective, gearing more toward “I’m accidently complicit in attempting to smuggle this Irish Republican Army guy across the border” type storylines, and not so much the American “muh face is fat” storylines. Other storylines include the families hosting Ukrainian students as part of the Chernobyl Children International exchange program; a dog peeing on an upper floor of the church, leading to what looks like tears coming from a Virgin Mary statue; the group (including James) developing a crush on the hot, young priest who is vaguely, second-guessing his life of God dedication; many, many more! A finite amount. Maybe lose one “many”.

The Hot Priest is just one of the many zany characters you’ll find packing each episode of Derry Girls!

I was floored to learn the ages of these five people playing teenagers. In 2018, the “kids” were the following ages:

Saoirse-Monica Jackson – 25
Louisa Harland – 25
Dylan Llewellyn – 26
Nicola Coughlan – 31
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell – 31

Who doesn’t love watching 30+ year olds play teenagers? That shit never goes out of style. 31! Two of these women, approved and cast in a TV show about teenagers at a Catholic school, were 31! I remember being completely beside myself when I learned Alan Ruck was 30 years old when he played Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But 31? That means when the show ended, they were both 35. Is that a record? If someone knows if anyone older played a teenager, please let me know. That’s fucking nuts.

Yes, this is pretty much the default temperament of the group.

Anyway, being exactly .0000005% Northern Irish myself (I’m barely exaggerating), I’ve been interested in Derry Girls‘ existence. This show prompted me to look up details about Northern Ireland Conflict, and let me tell you, they were pretty boring! First of all, only 3,500 people were killed in 30 years? That’s only 1/3 of a person per day! Almost as many people get struck by lightning per year. Alec Baldwin has shot more people in the face! Allegedly. Second of all, have I mentioned the age of these Catholic school students? I know that has nothing to do with the conflict, but that seems to be the bigger atrocity. Sorry, I don’t have much to say about the Northern Ireland Conflict. I’m not very good at reading large pages of words!

Who are the best characters? None of the main five! The best characters are, in reverse order, the following two: Joe McCool, Erin’s acerbic grandfather, who lives with the family and hates Gerry Quinn (Erin’s father) with a passion. He will often tell his daughter to get a divorce and find someone else right in front of Gerry. He’s great.

Then there’s Sister George Michael, the nun headmistress of the school. She is constantly annoyed by the children, she shows no respect for the priests, and she says every blunt thought that’s on her mind. You can count the number of times she rolls her eyes on about 10 hands!

Bonus option: Saoirse-Monica Jackson makes the best faces.

“I’d love to go to prom with you. Hyuk hyuk.”

Back to the Irish accents for a moment, I’m obsessed with the way they pronounce the word “now”. It’s like the band Neu! (as in, “noy”). They’re all like “I have to go to the loo roight noy.” It’s incredible.

Worth the Watch?

Yes indeed. There are three total seasons (or “series”, if you’re not a filthy American like I am), each only six episodes. I haven’t continued, but normal people without lives and jobs can bang this whole thing out in a weekend. I look forward to continuing.

Perhaps I’ll do it right noy.

Now with 80% more Derry Non-Girls.

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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 40: “The Web Tightens”

We last left Rand toppling over a wall after a girl startles him. He gets up, dusts himself off, and sees two regally dressed young people, a boy and a girl, who are similar in appearance and very attractive. Almost as if they are the children of the beautiful Queen herself! Because they are! The boy is unfortunately named Gawyn. The girl is more fortunately named Elayne. Their absent gazes and vacant speaking styles make it seem like they’re from Mars.

Elayne treats Rand’s wounds while Gawyn is worried that they’ll be in trouble with their mother. These two betray surprise when Rand asks who they are who their mother is, but they take it in stride. They both seem very nice and not at all like that bitch Joffrey Baratheon!

This news makes Rand poop his ugly Two Rivers pants, and Elayne realizes that Rand genuinely didn’t know that he was in the presence of royalty. Gawyn tells Rand that Elayne should marry a man from Two Rivers (more poop in the pants), and then an incredible douchebag named Galad shows up to tell Gawyn and Elayne to step away from the Two Rivers kid as if he were a bomb. Not the bomb, mind you. There’s nothing about Rand that suggests that he is the bomb.

It’s obvious that Elayne has the hots for Rand, so she insists to Galad that he is under her protection and that he should kindly fuck off. He kindly fucks off. Elayne intends to rush Rand out of there before he gets tortured or decapitated or whatever the punishment is for falling into the castle grounds, but armed guards swoop in. The head guard, Tallanvor, is all like “GET OUT OF THE WAY” but Elayne is like “NO, HE IS UNDER MY PROTECTION, DON’T MAKE ME TELL MY MOM ON YOU”. Tallanvor doesn’t back off, and per the Queen’s direct standing orders, he needs to bring the three of them to her. GULP! GUUULP! Off they go to take their licks.

Queen Morgase is flanked by Gareth, her bodyguard, and Elaida, her Aes Sedai. Rand’s original intention was to seek her out when he arrived in Caemlyn, but she’s a bit of a bitch to him and he’s glad he never followed through on his intention.

Elaida comments upon Rand’s heron-hilt sword, which makes the entire room stiffen and lose composure. Surely Rand is too young to possess this mysterious sword that no one yet has explained its true significance! That would be ridiculous! But no, he assures the people in the room that this sword was owned by his Two Rivers shepherd father. It is commented upon that Rand doesn’t have the Two Rivers look to him, to which he explains that his mother was an outlander.

In the end, the room doesn’t believe most of his story, but the Queen lets him slide because, among other things, no one would admit to being from Two Rivers unless they were really from Two Rivers. It must be a complete shithole compared to the rest of the land. He orders him to leave and never come back!

On the way out, Elayne admits to Rand, in way more eloquent words than my own, that she’d love to really ride that dick. Then Rand learns from Gawyn that no one believed his origin from Two Rivers because he’s the spitting image of an Aielman.

You know. Those people everyone seems to be afraid of and/or hate.

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Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #10 “The End”

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #10 – “The End”!

This is a standalone, so there’s no point in recapping the previous issue or storyline. I’ll do that next time. There was something about Rick Jones. It’s not important.

Enjoy this isolated issue sandwiched in between syrupy layers of Jessica Jones goodness. Whatever that means. It’s 1:00 in the morning and I have to get up for work in five hours. Clearly I’m delirious.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #10 [August, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The End”

Standalone story, different artwork. Special guest star J. Jonah Jameson! That’s always a sexy time. Jessica Jones is in the office of the Daily Bugle! The receptionist tells her that Jameson will be with her shortly, and no, she doesn’t know why Jamesson called her in.

She looks at the various framed front pages on the wall.

“SPIDER-MAN MENACE?”

“CAPTAIN AMERICA FOUND!”

“KREE-SKRULL WAR ENDS!”

Jameson comes out to the lobby all smokey, looking ravishing as usual! He’s going to get to Jones in a minute, but right now he must loudly berate Betty Brant in front of her. “What the hell is this?” he demands, referring a column where some conservative asshole gunks up the space on his newspaper! None of that anymore, you hear me Betty Brant?!

There’s also a bunch of other things she needs her to do. Now that Jessica Jones is here, a whole slew of people need to get their tight, little asses over here. Some guy named Hendrickson! Some guy named Robbie! Dennis Franz! Jerry Seinfeld! William Hurt! Adolph Hitler! Whatshisface, Ed Begley Jr.! Robert Downey Jr.! Morton Downey Jr.! Give me all the Downey Jrs. you can find!

And Ben Urich.

And does my hair look all right? Please be honest! I need it to be a perfect trapezoid.

“Do you have any employees, Ms. Jones?” Jameson asks Jones.

“No sir.”

“Count yourself a lucky woman.”

Jameson leans over looking like he smells really badly. He looks like he smells like a garbage dump of ashtrays and also garbage. He looks like he smells like garbage. “I have to be honest with you,” he tells the still-confused Jessica Jones. “I haven’t found many people in your line of work that I would say were strong of character.”

Is this a compliment yet? Better hold off, there could be FURTHER BERATEMENT than just the ones thrown at his employees. “I’m sorry?” she responds.

“I’ve worked with some investigators – hired some. Haven’t found one I would let babysit my grandson.”

Robbie Robertson enters the room. I think I know him, sort of. Jameson introduces him as the Editor in Chief. Jameson introduces Jones as someone “who used to dress up as a superhero”. She went by Jewel, you see. She doesn’t do that shit anymore, but she used to do that shit, and that’s kind of hilarious, isn’t it? “Not much to write home about – no offense, Ms. Jones.”

Later she cavorted around town as the “Knightress”, but not many people know about that one. Jameson does though. “Knightress” was just about the only name that wasn’t taken.

“Though I despise your chosen profession, I do admire your going public with your questionable past,” Jameson says rather bluntly, just like he says everything else. About as sharp as a plunger, this one. About his bluntness, of course. Not his intelligence, although that’s up for discussion as well!

Time for Jones to be blunt: what the fuck is this meeting about, anyway? Do you want her to kick Peter Parker’s ass or something? Do you want her to find you pictures of Spider-Man? She’s good at finding pictures of things. “It’s about secret identities of things,” he says. “I thought Robbie would find your background a little interesting considering what I’m about to offer you.”

Jameson splays out a few newspaper clippings about Jessica Jones. Photos of her dressed in tights. Photos of her not dressed in tights. He’s got it all! She didn’t even know she was in the newspaper that many times.

You’re pretty good at being in the newspaper, lady. That’s gonna help us tremendously for, uh, reasons.

Jameson yells for Brant again and asks her to make copies of these clippings for the still-confused Jones to keep. “Make yourself a little scrapbook,” he tells her, and then asks if her fees that are shown on her website are still up to date.

“You want to hire me?” she asks, boggling. Yes, he wants to hire her. He wants to hire her to let a reporter follow her around. Hey look, Ben Urich just showed up! Hey, Ben, did everything come out all right? Heh heh heh! I mean on the toilet, buddy. Did everything come out all right? *nudge* I’m talking about the poop, son. Did you have a good time pushing all that poop out of your butt?

“Jessica is a private investigator,” James tells Urich, who already may know her anyway. “The Daily Bugle is hiring her to find out who Spider-Man really is.”

Brrrt! Hold the phone, dingleberry. That sounds like a public investigator’s job! She’s just here to catch people fucking who shouldn’t be fucking each other! “What we’re hoping for is a series of articles. A real conversation piece to spread over days – but hey! If all it is is a big red headline – then all it is is a big red headline.”

Then Jameson pulls out some material from the Daily Globe, a tabloid rag with headlines like “Osama bin Laden is a Woman!” and “Pulp Hero of Hell’s Kitchen is Blind Lawyer”. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?… Osama bin Laden did like high heels, and–

“That Murdock guy pretending he’s a blind shyster? The Globe had that story and they screwed it up,” Jameson continues. “Well, I want to show the world how to crack one of these guys in half.”

Jones is like BUT MATT MURDOCK ISN’T DAREDEVIL, HA HA HA, ARE YOU NUTSO CUCKOO BANANAS? and Urich tells her that Jameson is in denial about that. “I don’t care who that liar sues or what TV show he goes crying to – I know in my gut it’s a fact. Murdock is Daredevil.”

Yeah right, buddy. Take your medicine. Matt Murdock is Jessica Jones’ lawyer and not once has he snapped on that tight, tight spandex while he was in the courtroom.

Anyway, whatever, blah blah blah. Agree to disagree. “I thought that you of all people – someone who crashed and burned so miserably at it – would understand the need to rip that world apart from the inside – to expose those capes for the two-faced, morally corrupt vigilantes that they are!!”

“Uh huh…” is Jones’ only irritated response.

Looking quite dashing, sir, as usual!

“It’s this Spider-Man that should’ve gotten the public spanking,” froths J. Jonah Jerkass Jameson. “It’s Spider-Man that has this coming to him.”

When asked why, Newspaper Hitler merely says “That’s what you’re going to tell me.” So there you go. The Bugle is going to hire Jones to look for Spider-Man and have Urich write about the efforts. “We’ll follow you as you pull the layers, follow the leads, turn over the rocks. How great will this be? Not only will it be killer journalism – but money will actually start shooting out of my ass faster than we can print papers.”

Wow, that sounds nifty, my man! She loves helping guys like you *sniffs the garbage* make a bunch of Ass Money, but she needs some time to think about it.

“Listen, I don’t have time to change your tampons for you. I need an answer.”

“I’m sorry?”

When Jones tries to explain that she wouldn’t even know where to begin, Jameson yells for Brant to fetch him the “Spider-Man map”. “We’ve taken the liberty of compiling a list and a chart of frequent Spider-Man sightings. Places where he is repeatedly seen. See? Empire State University. Queens…”

Ha, yeah. Aunt May and Peter Parker’s house. Mary-Jane Watson’s house. The Osborn house. That school Parker goes to. The Daily Bugle building. We have our finger on it, but we just can’t figure it out!

Jameson promises fame and fortune by successfully pulling this off. So, have you thought about it yet? Remember what he said about the tampons? Are you in or out, kiddo?

“Sure, I’ll do it,” Jones smiles. “But there is the matter of an advance.”

It’s a deal, then! She’s gonna go browse Facebook and see if Spider-Man has been tagged in anyone’s bat mitzvah parties.

TWO MONTHS LATER. Jameson is perusing a piece of paper that is not, in fact, a newspaper! “Ms. Brant, will you tell that useless piece of garbage to get his overpaid butt into my office before I go to his cubicle and light it on fire!”

The useless piece of garbage enters Jameson’s office. His name is Ben Urich and he’s about as useful as a piece of garbage. Jameson yells at the poor sucker about Jessica Jones’ invoices for the last three weeks.

Yo, I’m seein’ double here! Two assholes! Ahhhh ha ha ha hah haaaa!!

Jones has been working at Mercy’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen in Hell’s Kitchen for about three kitchens. Er, weeks. Three weeks. “Said she had it on a good source that one of the regulars at the kitchen is Spider-Man,” Urich explains. “She said–”

So she serves them lunch? She serves these people lunch for hours and hours? And what do you do, Benny? Well, J. Jonah-y, Jamesy, Ben Urich watches and helps! And, uh, buses the tables. And all on the Daily Bugle’s dime! Isn’t that interesting, sir?

“I’m holding a bill for six hundred dollars for tapioca pudding!!” Jameson rages, likely bending that trapezoid head all out of whack. “She’s buying pudding from drunks and trying to get me to pay for it.”

“Well, she did say expenses,” Urich offers helpfully. It’s not very helpful.

“Two hundred dollars an hour, all day every day!! For her to serve pudding to meth addicts–” Jameson continues, obviously preoccupied with his one-track thought.

Here’s Urich’s report so far: they visited about 79 orphanages. They asked around the superhero community for info, and the superhero community said he was an orphan. Bingo bango. Did he mention that Jones has been reading books to the orphans. She’s a nice gal, this one.

“How does reading books to a bunch of unwanted brats help her find out about Spider-Man?” Jameson spits, taking a swig of Jameson and twitching his mustache seductively. And it’s that familiarity breeds trust, dingbat. Don’t you work in a newspaper?

There’s a lot in the report. Jones volunteered in the hospital’s AIDS ward. Soup kitchen. Orphanages. Homeless. AIDS ward. Orphanages. AIDS kitchen. Soup ward. “Damn it, Urich! She’s scamming us!! She’s scamming me!!” J. Jonah J. J. Walker screams. Lots of double exclamation points from this guy. Elaine Benes would NOT approve.

Oh no… my cigar is running out of cigar juice! Start talking faster, Urich!

“Were you ever there when she got one of her little ‘tips’ of hers?” asks Jimmy Jam-Jam ever so pointedly. “Did you ever see any of her so called superhero pals?”

“Uh– no.”

“No?”

“No.”

Benny’s going to get fucking fired. Robbie Robertson is there with his insufferable double name and ready to defend Urich. It’s Jameson’s fault for mocking everything about her to her face. Of course she was going to rob them all blind! Couldn’t you see that from the very beginning, ya dingus? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, IDIOT.

Jonah Jammies gets defensive and, knowing that he’s bound by a contract, tells Urich to write down everything this conniving liar has dragged them all through.

“That she what? Fed the homeless, read to orphans, and cared for AIDS patients?”

Uhhh… yeah. Do that. Heh.

“Wow, you know,” Urich rubs his chin, I imagine, “…I actually didn’t see it – it’s a pretty decent scam.”

“You are the worst investigative reporter on the planet Earth.” Jay Joe wants to get his lawyer on the horn. Robbie tells him to drop it. Last thing he needs is PR about the Daily Bugle suing a woman for reading to orphans.

Jameson knows he’s been defeated at this point. BUT, he has one more thing he needs to do: call this woman up and yell in her earhole. “Ms. Jones, this is J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle. I just want you to know that your services are no longer required. I know who you are and I know what you tried to pull. You think you’re all clever? Well, let me tell you something, Missy. You aren’t clever… and I pray – I get down on my hands and knees and I pray for the day that you screw up somewhere because my paper will be so far up your nose that – that – that – arrgghhh! I hate you!”

Another satisfied customer!

Final Thoughts

lol. One of the best issues of a comic book I’ve read so far in my miniscule journey. This is the one to top.

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Five Feet Apart (2019)

Tagline:
When life keeps you apart, fight for every inch.

Wide Release Date:
March 15, 2019

Directed by:
Justin Baldoni
Written by:
Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis
Produced by:
Cathy Schulman, Justin Baldoni, Christopher H. Warner

Starring:
Haley Lu Richardson
Cole Sprouse
Moisés Arias
Kimberly Hébert Gregory
Parminder Nagra
Claire Forlani

PREGAME THOUGHTS

As you can tell by now, I like to watch movies about females leads with physical or mental issues. What can I say, my white male ass finds it relatable and empathetic. Perhaps I should’ve been born with a vagina. I hear you can get surgery for that now, but I don’t wanna do that for about 900 million reasons. So I’ll just watch these kinds of movies instead and call it good.

Gender is a social construct. Don’t forget that, my cis male friends. Watch your rom coms with pride.

THE 800(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic condition wherein your organs are prone to failure and your body is prone to infections, which are in turn very hard to fight. Two people with cystic fibrosis should not be closer to each other than six feet, since their immunocompromised bodies contain way more nasty organisms than a healthy individual, and therefore cross-contamination is an even more serious risk. So, certainly, we have a love story that takes place at a hospital where two kids fall in love and can’t touch each other without risking death.

Patient #1 is Stella Grant (Haley Lu Richardson). Her sister, Abby, was an adventurous daredevil who had decided to live twice as hard to help make up for Stella’s inability to do so herself. Abby broke her neck during a stunt gone awry one year ago. Stricken with grief and guilt, Stella spends a lot of her time and energy meticulously scheduling her medications, performing her exercises, eating correctly, and cooperating with all her procedures. Her parents already lost one daughter, she would hate for them to lose the other. She operates a very popular YouTube channel as an awareness campaign of the daily life of a CF teenager.

Five Feet Apart - Stella's Youtube Channel

Check back again after 10pm. Gotta be over 18 years old. I’m gonnna… take the tube off…

Patient #2 is Will Newman (Cole Sprouse, who is either Zack or Cody but you can decide that one for yourself). He’s kind of a jerk and isn’t taking his condition too seriously, and this pisses Stella off. Will contracts a virus that renders him ineligible for a lung transplant, but Stella is totally eligible for a lung transplant because she totally didn’t contract a virus. After finding him annoying for about 15 movie minutes, she gets involved in helping him maintain his regimen. He begrudgingly accepts under the condition that he’ll get to draw her at some point. Like Titanic without the titties. Dealing with Will starts off difficult, but he eventually lightens up. Probably because he’s watching a lot of her YouTube videos and falling in love with her! Surprise! But they can’t come within six feet of one another.

Once Will learns that Abby died last year and Stella will be alone during her feeding tube replacement surgery, he tries to be as present as possible. The wind is taken out of his sails when Barb, a nurse, (Kimberly Hébert Gregory) confronts him about the dangers of CF relationships. Years ago, she allowed some slack on the six-foot rule with a CF couple and they died. She won’t let it happen again on her watch! So shove off, kid from Big Daddy with Adam “I Kind of Suck” Sandler.

They respect the six-foot rule while doing relationship stuff that doesn’t involve kissing or hugging or fucking, which hits hard once in a while as they keep spending so much time together. Taking Barb’s advice to heart, Will decides that he loves Stella too much to risk endangering her further with each other’s company. Stella loses her mind about this. Lots of crying fits. Lots of sadness. EVENTUALLY, though, he can’t stand it anymore and they agree to meet up again. Stella comes with an idea.

Their next date involves a five-foot pool cue. In an act of defiance and taking power over the CF that has taken so much away from them, it is agreed to take back one foot. They both hold ends of the pool cue while moseying around the hospital and its grounds. The most intimate moment of the movie happens at the pool, where they abandon insecurities, strip down to their underwear and reveal each other’s various wounds and surgery scars.

I’ll show you my emaciated body if you show me your emaciated body.

TRAGEDY STRIKES when Stella’s best hospital friend Poe (Moisés Arias) dies of CF complications. Too much death. Too many people that Stella cares about are dying. Stella loses her mind again. Lots of crying fits. Lots of sadness. EVENTUALLY, though, in another act of defiance, she decides to run away from the hospital in the freezing cold and try to visit the city, and all its lights, that she can see from the hospital room two miles away. Will comes along hesitantly.

This is getting long! Sorry! Stella gets calls that her lung transplant is ready, but she ignores them as she continues on. Stella and Will play on a frozen pond, but she falls through the ice and almost dies. Now here’s the emotional climax of the movie: after a minute’s equivocation, he decides to risk their lives and perform CPR. It works.

Luckily, they both get back to the hospital alive. Stella didn’t contract Will’s virus, Will survives, and Stella’s lung transplant is a success. Will’s treatments for his virus do not work, and fearing that any further contact would definitely be a problem, Will says a final goodbye and gifts Stella with a sketchbook of his drawings.

Girl, you need to transfer to a hospital where the doctors don’t breathe fire.

Oh yeah, somewhere in the middle of the movie Stella allows Will to sketch her as agreed upon. I forgot to mention that. I’ll stop writing this now. These keep getting longer and longer.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Cystic Fibrosis

Five Feet Apart taught me what this is! It’s a genetic condition, you’re born with it, you spend your whole life not knowing anything but the disease, you live every day as if you might get an infection and suddenly die, you cough up a lot of mucus, and you can’t come in close contact with anyone who also has it. This is precisely why you don’t fall in love with someone with CF if you also have CF! This is a no-brainer, and these kids fucked up royally.

Topic over.

TOPIC 2 — Yes, This Is a Romantic Drama

Because I’m unabashedly a woman with woman feelings and woman thoughts and woman sensibilities (and none of that actually exists, let’s be clear here), I found this stupid teen movie immensely enjoyable and emotional. A roller coaster of emotion! Ups and downs and ups and lefts and rights and downs and downs and downs and oh god I’m falling.

The snow angel contest has a clear winner.

There’s so much that was done right that it makes up for the immense pile of shit that was done wrong. I found the plot device that the two chronically sick teenagers literally can’t touch each other for VERY realistic reasons that are actually compelling. Like, usually there’s long distance or there’s some dumbass supernatural shit, but this is something real that can, and probably does, actually happen. The way they occasionally make it so crushing and sad was visceral. They can’t touch each other. They’re in the same room having a conversation, falling in love as they spend each day together stuck in the hospital, and they can’t kiss or hug or touch or anything. You can sense the frustration and the fear, choosing to avoid risking it in favor of, you know, keeping them both alive.

And that makes the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation all the more vital. It’s the only time they do the very dangerous saliva contact thing and Stella wasn’t even conscious to know it was happening. And Will took the risk even though he knew it might kill him. That’s love, baby.

TOPIC 3 — COVID-19

I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this movie more after the stupid pandemic harshed everyone’s buzz pretty much exactly a year later. The idea of keeping six feet apart became such an omnipresent part of everyone’s lives that I would’ve thought that a movie that covers this exact theme would’ve been just as discussed as Contagion was.

During the early months of that pandemic, when no one knew how much it could really fuck you up — like melt your eyeballs or turn your penis into jelly — I suppose we all knew what it was like to keep such a distance from the ones we loved. Not me, though. I got to involuntarily lockdown, which is all I ever wanted in my life! Except I had to go into work every day anyway, which blew chunks. Unfortunately, I can’t look through microscopes at home, now can I?

Isn’t it romantic watching all the preemies in the NICU? Really is something special…

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Claire Wineland worked closely with the leads to perfect the roles of cystic fibrosis patients. Claire died of a stroke in September 2018, right after a successful lung transplant.
What’s to know? Cough cough, laugh, cough, fall in love, be sad, be angry, cough cough, be sad.

The balloons Stella uses for Will’s birthday are purple. Purple is the official color of CF patients.
Is this like how AT&T and Capital One are the official sponsors of the NCAA?

Only a year after the movie’s release, the “six foot rule” would become a universal guideline, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and would be commonly referred to as ‘social distancing’.
I don’t think a single person saw this movie after the pandemic started and didn’t think of that immediately. I sure did! Grrrrr, don’t get me started again on that “Dr.” Fauci!

The director Justin Baldoni guest starred in The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody season 3 episode 17 Foiled Again as Diego the fencing instructor. The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody starred Cole Sprouse as Cody Martin.
Oh God, yes, that’s the stuff. There’s nothing that gets me all hot and bothered quite like some Zack and Cody overlap! Right into my veins, as the kids say.

When Stella and Poe are eating donuts in the atrium they are wearing gloves but touching the donuts. The reason you wear gloves is so that the germs from the outside world do not get in your system.
Congratulations, IMDb trivia contributor! I, too, watched the movie.

A toast to being young, fucked up, and in the hospital!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Sure, I think so. If nothing else, both Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse (ESPECIALLY Richardson) did a phenomenal job with their respective roles. Not once did any of their wide range of emotions feel forced or inadequate, and I didn’t expect that from Mr. Suite Life with Zack and/or Cody. Whichever one he is, I don’t fucking know. I’m an adult.

It does get pretty sappy a couple of times, though. If you think you’re too much of a man to deal with that, then go whittle a stake and stab yourself in the testicles. If you think you’re too smart of a woman to deal with that too, then yeah I don’t blame you. I don’t know where I stand, but I don’t want to harm my testicles.

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