Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #15! Another day, another wrapped-up storyline. In the previous installment, the girls save Dr. Qanta from the cavemen. KJ baits them into chasing her, but now she’s lost again somewhere in the forest.
Qanta sheds more light on her era (the 2050s or thereabouts) and the nature of the upside-down pyramid (a 4D object allowing parts of itself to be seen in the 3D world). In short, she sheds no additional light on anything.
They’re about to arrange some time traveling to Qanta’s era, but Wari emerges from the forest sans baby. It was stolen by the cavemen.
The thrilling conclusion!
Paper Girls, Issue #15 [June, 2017]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“You guys! I’m alive!” KJ runs toward her bestie Mac, no longer lost again somewhere in the forest. She’s wearing those kickass hover boots that she found in Qanta’s time-traveling vessel.
“Congrats,” Mac says in a barely congratulatory fashion, arms crossed, lips pursed, hair red, etc. KJ is excited and Mac is aloof. Probably related to some of that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and/or burgeoning, confusing pre-pubescent feelings and/or one got her period and the other didn’t get her period. I don’t know, I’ve never been a 12-year-old girl. At least I don’t think I was??
As it turns out, Mac is pretty pissed off that KJ went and got herself chased by cavemen and almost-possibly-raped. KJ admits that she didn’t really think twice about it, she just did what seemed right. Then they both look at each other, faces inches away, and then they’re interrupted by Wari’s pained screams elsewhere.
“Yeah, here’s how that turned out,” Mac tells KJ, leading the way to the 3D representation of the 4D pyramid where the 2D comic book representation of a 3D cavelady is sobbing on the ground.
Erin says they’re gonna go get Jahpo back from those cavemen! Qanta begs to differ.
In short, don’t almost accidentally fuck your mother, Marty McFly.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to that girl, but history is a tragedy we can only observe,” Qanta says with as much empathy as a sackful of rocks to the face. Erin starts pushing back like the assertive little whippersnapper that she will definitely not-really grow up to be, but KJ interrupts: “Hey, I recognize her!” she exclaims, referring to Dr. Qanta. “When I touched that thing, I saw an image of your face. I saw your face covered in blood.”
Eep. Well, that doesn’t sound very rad. “I thought you said the future vision that thing showed you were all wrong,” Tiff says, looking hazily concerned.
“Maybe not all of them.”
Qanta waves this off. Don’t fuck with getting involved in the past, end of story. She checks out a timer implanted in the palm of her glove. “In less than two hours, my capsule will automatically return to the twenty-first century, with or without any of us aboard.”
Eep. Well, that doesn’t sound very rad either. Erin stands her ground, though. They are not leaving until Mac and KJ get their bone on! I mean, uh, until Wari gets her baby back. Priorities, of course. And Dr. Qanta is incredulous at this point! How are four dumb little 1988 girls who can’t do shit and have no weapons or abilities or skill points or powerups or maxed HP going to take on three burly, sexy cavemen?? Madness!
Tiff has an idea, though. They should use Erin’s little iPad Touch to communicate straight to the cavemen’s minds. Remember when it showed Old Erin visions of maps and stuff? They can send them some scary, spooky images. Scramble their feeble little brains!
Dr. Qanta scoffs, SCOFFS, at this notion. You need technology that’s hundreds of millions of billions of thousands of TRILLIONS of years in the future to be able to tinker with such a device and do such a thing. Madness!
RadioShack? MacGuyver? Oh ho ho ho, how very quaint indeed.
Wari lifts up her necklace of electronic devices and desperately says “Elo denach ar!”, which I think means “Be Kind, Rewind”. Maybe she has the key to help them through all this nonsense, but Qanta just looks sad. Like she has to say, yet another time, “Madness”! Erin pleads for the Good Doctor’s help again; perhaps Wari and Jahpo are important to some future event that they may be preventing by not taking any action! Like the shooting of John Lennon or the Year 2031 Sorta-Apocalypse Zombie Invasion of Waco, Texas.
I think if Dr. Qanta knew jack shit, she would know that whatever happened happened and it doesn’t matter what they do, because it was always the correct choice! Maybe she should read a book once in a while.
“Not saving this kid could be condemning generations of people to death,” KJ argues, “…or at least to not existing.”
“You really want all that blood on your hands,” Erin delivers the final blow to the now exhausted Dr. Qanta, who is going to let four preteens dictate her prehistoric actions! Madness?
Meanwhile, Jahpo is sleeping soundly upon a rock with a pile of soft twigs and leaves. Caveman #3 with the space helmet lifts his tomahawk in the air and, perhaps in a coincidental happenstance, a giant violet portal opens up in the sky. On the other side, one can see a large airplane flying by.
“Ba. Eldago. Eldago sha. Eldago sha zaku.” Caveman #3 points to the portal, then to the baby.
Elsewhere, Wari leads the others through the forest. “Dunwahl giru,” she says, and Tiff takes this to mean that they’re getting closer.
I realized just at this moment that Wari can no longer be understood by the others. Did her little Babel fish choker get stolen? I was too distracted by the baby getting stolen to notice.
Whoa whoa whoa, no F words in front of the little ones!
Qanta tries to get her device hooked up, which is supposed to render anyone within a ten-meter radius unconscious by a “spectroscopic loop”, which sounds too scientific for my own scientific brain to handle. The only loops I pay attention to are Froot Loops! Hahaha, dad jokes! Anyway, it should give Wari enough time to grab her baby somehow. It’s hard to do some baby-grabbing when you’re also unconscious, but I suppose everyone will figure that out once they regain consciousness. Crossing that bridge when they come to it and so forth.
It is at this time that something called “The Last Folding” pops up on Qanta’s brain map. On the current path, they’re heading right toward it. Just in time to wrap up yet another storyline! What are the odds??
Qanta is surprised that these girls even know what a folding is, then she’s double-surprised to learn that they went through one unprotected! Madness! At least with a time travel capsule you can control where you land in a certain time period, but an unprotected folding entrance could land you on the moon or in the middle of Earth’s core or the Oort Cloud or Andy Dick’s apartment! All unsafe! It’s a miracle that they didn’t end up even 15 feet above the ground and break their skinny necks.
This makes it sound like someone is deliberately setting up these portals to, as KJ puts it, “pinball them through time”. Qanta’s theory is that it’s whomever the iPod Touch belonged to. She confirms that it’s registered so a person named “Frankie Tomatah”, which she waves off as an alias. Erin has heard it before, though. It sounds familiar… Frankie Tomato, eh? Someone Italian.
My guess is that it’s going to be a woman. My guess is that it’s going to be future Tiff! Wouldn’t that be fun?
Sorry, toots. El Jahpo tunneled his way outta here.
They arrive at the site of interest. The Last Folding. The three cavemen. Jahpo on the rock. Stars in the sky. Splendid.
“STAY BACK!” Qanta screams as she launches her incapacitation device. GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX GRX. That’s the sound of two cavemen falling conscious. I have always wondered what that sounds like! The third one, Helmet Magoo, is still standing. Of course he’s still standing. It cannot be so easy, can it?
Wari doesn’t give a flying cuntfuck. She runs over to Jahpo’s rock while the rest of them scream for her to stop. “BUCHADA!” Conscious Caveman shouts as he readies his tomahawk.
Qanta zooms over on her hovery boots just in time to push Wari/Jahpo out of the way and get herself a backful of pointy rock. She’s all bleeding now. As Caveman Jones draws the gun he stole earlier, KJ bashes him right through the helmet’s faceguard with her own makeshift tomahawk! Through the shatter guard, he looks like a dang mess. She whacks him again in the back of the head, knocking off the helmet. Then she delivers a homicidal slew of finishing blows and beyond! Blood splatters everywhere. Fuck yeah!
Erin looks like she’s about to puke her organs out. Mac yells at KJ to stop. “I… I think you got him,” she mutters, horrified as well.
Tiff moseys over to the prostrated Qanta and asks if She can walk. “I can’t even stand,” she wheezes.
“Then we’ll carry you.”
HA! With what? Your 12-year-old noodle arms. Lift some weights, nerd. No. No no no. That won’t do it all. You gotta leave Qanta there to die, just like how you left Old Erin and Old Missy to die too! Just leave everyone in your wake to die. Real cool.
You don’t have to tell me twice, scary lady. Jesus…
The demands are simple and are as follows: 1) go to Qanta’s capsule, 2) travel to 2055, 3) tell her colleagues that they have to send the “Beta Model”, 4) it’s the only chance that they can all repair the damage, 5) go do it, 6) now.
So they book it. Running through the forest, KJ finally grasps the murderous murder than she performed. Ha, I picked a strange choice of word. “Performed”. She performed a murder! “He’s dead. I – I killed a man,” KJ frowns. Yes, I just went over that. Keep up.
Tiff and Erin assure their young menstrual friend that she killed a monster to save a woman’s life. JUSTIFIED! Like Timothy Elephant. And KJ is like, yeah, but, we’re leaving her to die too, you know. And furthermore, w–
Shut up for a minute! Qanta’s capsule has already closed itself and it’s counting down from five seconds! Shit! “Maybe we can pry it open,” Tiff suggests, planning on using those noodle arms again. No. No no no. That won’t do at all. There’s no time. And then Erin’s like “we got to get out of here” because don’t these kinds of things cause a giant–
VOOP VOOP VOOP VOOP VOOP! Those are my own sound effects. VOOP VOOP! The capsule becomes a giant white orb with swirling arms of green, blue, and red… light? I think? I’m picturing an atom model with looping electrons. The four of them get scooped by the colorful, swirling arms and get whisked away along with it! That’s lucky!
Erin and Tiff are scooped up by blue.
KJ is scooped up by red.
Mac is scooped up by green.
Tiff lands in front of a CompUSA, so you know immediately that this can’t be 2055. A nearby Applebee’s is on fire! Did one of the cooks try deep-frying a wedding cake again?! lol!
“Hands where I can see them,” shouts an cop. A fucking pig-ass cop. He shines a light on the scared Tiffany. “Don’t shoot, please!”
You’re a little black girl, Tiff. Of course he’s going to fucking shoot you.
“Central, I’m taking another looter into custody,” the cop radios in to COP HEDQUARTERS where they take turns jerking each other off while wearing each other’s handcuffs.
“I’m not looting, sir! I just want to find my friends! I… I have no idea what’s happening!”
The cop looks despondent. “You didn’t see? Right when the ball dropped?”
“Ball?”
“Total blackout. And not just here.”
And boy, does he have some news for her…
Those damned nerds have done it again.
And behind Tiff is an ENORMOUS Transformers-type automaton stomping around town.
Final Thoughts
Just when I thought the series was starting to lose a bit of steam, we ramp it back up to 1000 and now I’m on a fucking cliffhanger again! Frustrating?
Should I continue with Paper Girls? Should I move onto the Invincible comic series? I’ve heard good things!
Arrgh! Ooof! GRRRB!!
“Time” will tell, folks. As it were.
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