Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #6 – “Zodiac (Part 6)”

* Part 6 of 8 of the Zodiac storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6 – “Zodiac (Part 6)”! In the previous installment, the Guardians of the Galaxy show up on Earth because the Avengers are too incompetent to work on this Thanos problem by themselves and they need to be bailed out. There’s a bit of fighting and bickering about what Thanos wants and why he’s employing 12 idiots to do his bidding.

The object that was stolen from the army convoy was a Cosmic Cube. Thanos has a Cosmic Cube now. I don’t know what that means, but I recommend exchanging it for a Cosmic Sphere so that he can go Cosmic Bowling.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #6 [October, 2012]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Zodiac (Part 6)”

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #6

Yeah, whatever. The cover is filled with nerds. Go get laid, nerds.

Maria “Cobie Smulders” “Robin Scherbatsky” Hill asks the “Avengers” to “assemble”. It looks like a veritable Who’s Who of all the members who weren’t good enough to be involved in this story. I recognize, like, four. Reed Richards is there looking important and neutered. Spider-Man poses up front with his good side sticking out. Wolverine is crouching like he’s taking the biggest dump of his life.

Maria Hill is running things while Captain America is away. The members look concerned. Captain America is never away! He’s always everywhere at once! Something must be up if Cap is tied up for more than 45 minutes.

“We have been the victims of a cosmic level breach,” Hill explains, “A being called Thanos entered Earth atmosphere less than two hours ago and left here with an item we must retrieve–”

Everyone already knows Thanos. I’ve even heard of Thanos and I can’t even name six characters on Archer. Let’s see, there’s Archer. Chris Parnell. Aisha Tyler. Bob Burgers. Rickon Morty.

The whole room is like “oh damn” and “what”. Hill can’t give much more info than that, but just know that the item is very dangerous and expensive and cube-shaped. Stop asking questions and find the item that she can’t even tell you anything about. Hill then tells them to hold on while she gets a call in the middle of sentence. A sentence that would’ve ended with something like “planet go boom, kablooey, flush, bubble, glub”.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6

We recruited the good Avengers for this mission. None of the shitty ones. No offense, shitty ones.

The call is from Tony Stark and the rest of the dream team; they want to speak to the Z-List Avengers through a Stargate portal. Hill chides the drunkard about relaying information without Security Clearance Level 9,000,000 (Tony Stark is Clearance Level -12), but he doesn’t care and he says more secret stuff about it. Stuff like “the army had the cube first”.

Spider-Man points out that Hulk is behind them. Did they know that Hulk was behind them. The answer is a resounding “oh, hey there Hulk”. Also, per Stark, Hulk is there to “shove the Cosmic Cube up Thanos’ butt”. I actually didn’t make that one up, surprisingly.

Reed Richards wants to be involved! “You’re going to need more of a team than that,” he states, trying wedge himself into the situation like a self-important, neutered dingus. Stark tells him they have the Guardians of the Galaxy, so shove off. What they need from him, and all the other shiftless Avengers, to “batten down the hatches” on Earth. In other words, stay out of everyone’s way.

When Stark asks them all if they need anything at the moment when they’re available, someone who I think might possibly be Captain Marvel asks “What does a Thanos with a Cosmic Cube do?”

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6

YES! What a terribly absurd statement! Real bonehead stuff!

GREAT QUESTION! If you didn’t think of “fuck everything up forever” then maybe you shouldn’t be on any Avengers team for the rest of your ignorant life.

Thanos is on PLANET MOORD (lol), HOME OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BADOON (lolol). He is preparing for the inevitable mission from the Avengers of trying to steal the Cube from him. He kindly lifts a Badoon leader up by the neck and kindly asks him to have his people stop the Avengers before they arrive or else they’re all dead Badoon meat. AND IF THEY DO ACTUALLY STOP THEM, and they had better, then Thanos promises them that they will become so powerful in the galaxy that even the Skrull and the Kree will bow to them. Even the SKRULL! Even the KREE!!

The “good” Avengers team is flying toward, uh, Planet Moord in their quinjet. All except Thor, who opts to fly outside of the jet. He’s two feet away from it, holding his hammer in front of him in a foolishly non-aerodynamic manner. One little slip and that fucker is going to pound its way right through an engine! And I’ll laugh, and oh I will laugh!

Tony Stark loves visiting space. So many things to do and see! Lots of science stuff. Hawkeye hates visiting space. He’s not a man of science, just a man of bows and arrows.

Hulk doesn’t like it either. He’s crammed in the corner like luggage, ready to SMASH! at any moment.

Black Widow doesn’t really trust the Guardians. Tony Stark is optimistic.

In their own ship, Rocket Raccoon doesn’t really trust the Avengers. The rest are optimistic. Plus, with both a Hulk and a Thor, you can’t go wrong! *a loose hammer smashes into the cockpit window*

A bug-type Guardian asks Gamora what was going on between her and Thor back in the Avengers Tower. It was awkward and weird. Gamora insists that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about whatsoever and also shut the fuck up.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6

Yeah… if the Egg McMuffin is the best case for Earth then it really should be destroyed.

Chris Pratt Quill tells Rocket to keep his Earthling bigotry to himself for once in his filthy raccoon life. “We need Earth in one piece, and I think the Earth heroes need to see why,” Quill says, implying, in my opinion, that Earth heroes aren’t convinced that Earth is all it’s cracked up to be?

Stark pops in rudely with his portal thing. “Hey, guys, how much longer? I have a vaguely claustrophobic Hulk on board.”

Well, good thing Thor’s hammer slipped out of his hands and struck the cabin, causing explosive decompression and sucking Hawkeye right out the plane! He fell to his death, but at least Hulk is getting some fresh air.

Hawkeye is actually fine I guess, and the plane isn’t actually destroyed (unfortunately), but they get ambushed mid-flight by a Badoon warship! They’re all like “what da hell is goin’ on derr”. They’ve been tracking them with their oh-so sophisticated technology. Technology such as one of those pirate telescopes and an astrolabe. And a digital watch.

“We’re trapped in a stasis field,” Quill complains, “They’re going to pull us on to their ship and execute us.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Stark jumps in, always so goddamned helpful, “Guardians stand down. Thor, can you hear me?”

Thor can’t hear anything because, as a god, he has no time to dedicate his ears to Earthling pipsqueaks like Tony Stark. The dude is already flipping his hammer around read to pound Badoon faces into ugly ground beef. Iron Man joins him. Time to really fuck these guys up. Yeehaw. Woop woop. Come to Poppa.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6

OK, yeah, I see now. These Guardians think they’re hilarious. That’s not obnoxious at all. They should start a blog.

Of course, the Guardians were told to stay put, but do they listen? No. They never listen, do they? And the Guardians tell the Avengers to lighten up. This is what they do. They Guard the Galaxy. What do you do? Avenge? Avenge what? Exactly.

Iron Man is peeved, and his arrogant companions really are getting in the way here. The Badoon outnumber them. The Badoon are outsmarting them. There are a lot of actiony panels that are really not worth describing. Lots of things exploding and lots of Avengers whining. That is, of course, until Hulk decides to bust through Kool-Aid style and starts slapping these guys around with his big ol’ titties.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #6

Got what? Your own butt in your mouth, Citizen?

“Banner gone! Hulk smash!” Yes, yes, very threatening.

Captain America hits one of them with his flying shield. It barely mattered. But you’ve gone and done it. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GUY IS GOING TO GIVE THE GUARDIANS OF AN ENTIRE GALAXY A STERN LECTURE NOW. They. Told. All. Of. You. To. STAND! DOWN! THE AVENGERS ARE HANDLING THIS!!!!

Iron Man whines at them. He had a plan! He didn’t bother telling any of them ABOUT the plan, which was completely foolhardy and not very cool at all, honestly, but it was a plan nonetheless. Something about Trojan Horsing around. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t a very good plan anyway.

The funny thing here is that, plan or no plan, Hawkeye hits one of these Badoon guys in the wrist with an arrow, which causes him to accidentally bump this giant red button that opens the airlock. Just this enormous zit of a button on the control panel that could be easily pressed by accident constantly. It’s the largest button on the control panel by a very large margin. Easy to hit too. Just sucking every single individual out into the cold vacuum of space.

Now hear me out on this one: lmao

They’re all gripping their throats and flailing. What a sad display this is. Not so super after all, huh? Can’t even withstand outer space. Just a bunch of cucks.

And, meanwhile, Thanos’ Cube starts glowing! It starts glowing! Yes! YES! YES!

Final Thoughts

Thanos’ Cosmic Cube has been activated and every single atom of oxygen is leaving Captain America’s body (or molecule of dioxygen, if you will). Today is a good day.


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Simpsons Comics and Stories

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Welcome to the Bongo Comics Box!

I may have only been reading real comics, so to speak, for a year and a half now. But almost 30 years ago, when my Simpsons obsession was in full force, I was collecting Simpsons Comics religiously. My dad would take me to the comic book store on a monthly basis for years, and among the dozens of shelves and boxes of X-Men, Superman, Avengers, Spider-Man, Batman, and Wonder Wonder, I gravitated ONLY toward the Bongo Comics titles. Everything else was invisible to me.

I bailed on the comics shortly after the Simpsons TV show started getting really, intolerably shitty, circa 2002 or so, because the comics happened to start getting shitty around the same time as well. The first eight years are where it’s at, son. That being said, I’m going to try my damnedest to make it through everything. EVERYTHING! The wheat. The chaff. All of it.

I’m excited! This is going to be fabulously nostalgic. Most likely not for you, though! But this isn’t your blog, loser!

Bongo Nostalgia Corner

I bought Simpsons Comics and Stories along with Simpsons Comics #1, making them my sixth and seventh Bongo Comics to be added to my burgeoning collection. I was eight years old at the time. I remember feeling like I owned something important. A collector’s item that was going to become increasingly rare as the years went on. And maybe that’s true, but my copy isn’t preserved in a plastic sleeve and the many, many read-throughs have rendered the issue horribly ratty. And possibly stained with ketchup, much like Bart’s shirt in the second story!

This particular issue always felt outside the main line of Simpsons Comics to me, and technically it is, but even symbolically. It was its own contained artifact. I don’t think I’ve read it in over 20 years, but I guarantee that each and every panel will come flooding back to me like so many horrible tsunamis that destroy entire villages in over a dozen countries! But let’s not get macabre here.

Here we go!

Simpsons Comics and Stories [January, 1993]

Simpsons Comics and Stories

”Lo, There Shall Come… a Bartman!!”
Written by: Steve Vance

Simpsons Comics and Stories was a one-shot comic book born out of Simpsons Illustrated, a VERY short-lived magazine which only had 10 issues in two years. Needless to say, the various comic series were vastly more popular. At the time, no one on the magazine’s staff thought this was going to continue. They were fucking wrong. Excuse my fucking language.

The first story out of three was titled “Lo, There Shall Come… a Bartman!!”, telling the origin story of Bart’s barely-alter ego. We begin with the spiky-haired one reading an issue of Radioactive Man, Issue #456 – “By My Sidekick Betrayed!”

“Fallout Boy– Help!” yells Radioactive Man himself, squirming on the ground, “This particle beam is draining my superpowers!”
“Sorry, Chump! I’m Dr. Crab’s pal now!” Fallout Boy sneers with his new evil crustacean pal. I’m laughing already! Are you laughing already?! I’m laughing already!

Kent Brockman is on the living room TV yammering about a comic book convention coming to Springfield! Perhaps one might have very valuable items within their own collections that they could sell for bookoo bucks.

“Featured at the convention will be Arnold Leach, the man responsible for the Radioactive Man comic book. On Sunday he’ll be receiving the coveted ‘Good Guy’ Award in recognition of his achievements in raising the public’s perception of this lowbrow entertainment medium,” Brockman drawls while Bart listens with rapt attention.

Simpsons Comics and Stories

Kids in 1993 loved Flip Wilson too!

After Marge “I have cookies!” Simpson informs the two male members of her awful family that they are already planning on heading over Grampa’s shitty nursing home, they both SLAP THEIR FOREHEADS IN FRUSTRATION! AYE CARUMBA! D’OH!

So at Grampa’s they are! And he’s regaling them all with a splendid little rant about having the same opponent in both the mah-jongg tournament and the Parcheesi tournament, which sounds like Hell on Earth to me. Relatable character, that Abe Simpson. A real voice of his generation. He was probably born in 1910, isn’t that nutso cuckoo?

Bart notices a comic book flopped over Grampa’s dresser. Radioactive Man, Issue #27! “Radioactive Man’s last battle with Dr. Crab– before Dr. Crab mutated,” Bart gapes.

“Where’d you get this, Grampa?”
“My new neighbor gave it to me. He’s got a pile of that crap– he won’t shut up about it.”

Oh Grampa, you card you. Why does he have this particular issue in his dorm room, or hovel, or whatever you call a nursing home permanent motel room? It’s because there’s a published letter of complaint he wrote back in, I don’t know, the FDR administration.

Grampa’s new neighbor, Morton Mankiewicz, enters the room. Marge encourages this old stranger to allow her only son into his place so he can show him his, ahem… “collection”. In my line of work that means paraphernalia, and you all know what my line of work is, don’t ya? *wink*

And, verily, Mr. Manischewitz has a giant collection of comic books in his closet. Stacks and stacks of old, unprotected issues of various series. You know the ones. Squid Man. The Superior Squadron. Plasmo the Mystic. All your favorites.

Simpsons Comics and Stories

Wow! It’s just like Stan Lee, just without all the various sexual harrassment allegations.

Why does this guy have a bunch of comic books? Because he wrote a bunch of comic books! He’s a goddamn NERD, son. Feast your eyes.

On the way home the family discusses a topic that we, the reading audience, weren’t privy to: Morty “The Man” “Manfred” Mann is broke and degenerate and needs to sell the whole comic book collection off so he can pay his bills and buy a Ron Popeil Pocket Fisherman and whatever else old people spent their money on in the early ‘90s. It’s too bad, too. What a shame.

Kent Brockman gives updates about the first day of Springfield’s Comic Convention. Bart and Milhouse listen with rapt attention as Arnold Leach, the current chief editor of the Radioactive Man run. Sales are down, so he announces the release of a giant-size issue that will shake things up! First of all, they’re going to kill off Radioactive Man! Sales will skyrocket! Second of all, that’s it!

Bart and Milhouse are stunned and bojangled! “It’s an epic!” explains a smiling Leach, “From Chapter 1, ‘If a Foe Doth Slay Me!’ to Chapter 8, ‘The Reading of…the Will!’ Kids will love it.”

Kids will NOT love it. Bart is wide awake in the middle of the night ruminating on the ramifications of a dead Radioactive Man. I, Tom, have only had a little over a year of comic book reading experience, but don’t superheroes die and come back to life all the time? Superman died about 600 times, right? “I still can’t believe it. They’re murdering my hero!” Bart thinks, eyes the size of dinner plates, “Years from now, this is probably the moment I’ll be telling my parole board about.”

Pfft. I guess there’s no sleeping now. Bart flicks on the lights and indulges in a tried-and-true issue of Radioactive Man.

Simpsons Comics and Stories

This is probably how Trump slept in the White House, except with a big, sloppy hamburger in lieu of a cigar.

Bart is inspired. Radioactive Man just broke into this king dude’s penthouse apartment and roughed him up until he promised to stop criming! Hmmm, maybe the likes of a 10-year-old boy can do some of the same kind of roughing up…if you catch my drift…

I know! Throw a Molotov cocktail through his living room window!

Or, better yet, become a superhero himself! That sounds a little less dangerous.

“If there’s one thing I learned from comic books, it’s that criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. To strike terror into their hearts, maybe all you need is a disguise. A creature of the night– dark– terrible.”

Simpsons Comics and Stories

Superman’s mom had to make him his costume. Bart made his costume all by himself! There’s a good lad.

Bart immediately tries to ape Radioactive Man’s actions from the issue: staking out the roof, jumping on the balcony of King Man’s apartment, and letting himself in. Bart is less than graceful: he stakes out the roof of a hotel, flops onto the balcony of the hotel room (landing on his face) and then struggles to open the locked door. Well, that’s that! Time to give up!

COMIC CONVENTION DAY TWO! Kent Brockman is on the scene reporting the GROIN-TINGLING ANNOUNCEMENT of Arnold Leach’s “Good Guy Award” ceremony. “We interrupt the Super Bowl to bring you this special live coverage of the Springfield Comic Convention.”

Backstage, Leach is going over his award acceptance speech. Bartman isn’t having any of it.

In a considerably large, wide, and deep plothole, Bartman has discovered that Arnold Leach stole the idea of Radioactive Man from Morty Mann. Which is interesting, because Leach used to be Mann’s boss and, if I’m not mistaken, superhero creations are the intellectual property of the comic book publisher or, in most cases, the publisher’s parent company. Did I get that right? Hello? Anyone? Morty Mann emerges.

“And all this time I thought you were dead,” Leach smiles smugly, puffing on his cigar.
“I might as well be, for all you care” Mann calmly responds. He’s wearing a bowtie. I imagine his voice is similar to Garrison Keillor but without the ugly, Sorkin-y face to match. “I gave you Radioactive Man – the foundation of your whole company – and you tossed me aside! You fired me off my own strip!”

Simpsons Comics and Stories

I can even take away his radioactivity! I’ll make him work at a grocery store.

Yeah, it’s called business, Morty? Boffo Comics owns the character? You signed the contracts? The company can do anything they want? What part of all this is lost on you, 66-year-old man? Boffo has the right to stick vegetables up his ass if they want to. They can make him drink Draino and slam his dick in a car door. They can give him COVID and slime him on Nickelodeon. And fuck you, sir, Leach is gonna kill the bastard.

“It’s been swell, Morty,” says Leach as he prepares to take the stage, “but I guess it’s time to face those moronic little fanboy geeks.”

Well, here’s ONE moronic little fanboy geek who just pulled a fast one on ya. Bartman used his Spymaster Jr. tape recorder (purchased from the back of a comic book) to record the whole conversation! So do you want to get a Good Guy Award or do you want to get slimed on Nickelodeon? Ha! Or do you want to get your career fucked? Up the butt. With vegetables.

So Leach approaches the dais. The fans are watching him. Brockman’s got his cameras on him. A bead of sweat drips down Leach’s fivehead. Bartman is like “grr”. Morty is like “hrmph”.

“I’m touched by the outpouring of support for our beloved atomic avenger,” Leach says after a lengthy description of the praise and accolades he’s received ahead of the “Death of Radioactiveman” giant-size, “so I’m pleased to announce a special new limited series, to be called… “The Return of Radioactive Man!”

And that old dude Morty Mann’s gonna write it! Yay! Radioactive Man is going to eat plenty of fruit pies and rant about his Watergate opinions!

“It will be followed by the reappearance of Radioactive Man’s own continuing series– re-numbered starting with all-new issue number 1!” Leach yells, throwing his hands up in the air.

Oh wow, what a completely unfathomable idea! Keep your most popular comic book character from being dead forever and you’ll keep your fans! That’s probably even better than your original idea, Leach. I wonder.

Later, Bart and Lisa read a giant stack of comic books in front of the TV. “Arnold Leach showed the world what good guys are really made of… and gave a certain radioactive hero’s tragic tale a happy ending… leaving this reporter with just one unanswered question… WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?”

Oh, the kid whose purple cape conformed perfectly with every spike on his head? I guess we’ll never know!

Simpsons Comics and Stories

Thanks for forcibly pulling my 70-year-old ass out of retirement, you little pisser.

Hey! We’re not done! There are two more stories! Click for Page 2!

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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 8: “A Place of Safety”

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

We last left Rand leading the way to his dying father at the Emond’s Field inn. Lan, the Warder, is emotionless, yet impatient. Moiraine, the Aes Sedai, is emotionless, yet patient. They make quite a team.

Rand is bossy and pushy enough to be on thin ice with this people, all like “MY DAD IS DYING” and “HELP MY DAD, YOU CUNTS”. However, we come to find out that there might be more to Tam than meets the eye. And the ear. Not the nose, though, that much is abundantly clear. They do not have showers on their farm. But Lan notices Tam’s sword. It has a heron on the hilt, and this makes it special. Curious that a stinky sheepherder just happens to have one of these whiz-bang swords. Very curious. Very. Curious.

Rand learns much about Trollocs and Myrddraal from these two strangers from a strange land, and one thing is for certain: this was not a random raid just for killing and funsies. This was a targeted attack. As it turns out, only three places in the entire Two Rivers metropolitan area were directly hit. The al’Thor farm (Rand). The Ayabara farm (Perrin). And the Cauthon household in Emond’s Field (Mat). These three whipper-snappers are nearly the exact same age, down to the week. Moiraine tells Rand that there is clearly something in these three that the Dark One fears and wants to eradicate.

Needless to say, their presence in the Two Rivers area is going to be very dangerous for all their loved ones, the sheep, and the various rocks and stones that are strewn about the land. The three boys are going to be leaving with the Aes Sedai and the Warder to Tar Valon, the breeding ground for Aes Sedai or something to that effect. It’s the titular “place of safety”, but the town/village/city/hovel is literally hundreds of miles away. And the bullet train hasn’t been working for years. A journey awaits.

Oh yeah, and Moiraine does her thing and Tam recovers, although she did say that his superficial wound was actually serious because Trolloc weapons are magical. They can taint the wounded with horrible magical miasma that can lead to unhealable maladies, severe fevers, hallucinations, diarrhea out the mouth, and an affinity for anime girls. Luckily, Moiraine removed Tam’s taint! I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

ALSO SOMETHING TO NOTE: When Moiraine and Lan arrived at the inn, the gleeman was like “HURDY DURR WELL, IT’S GOOD PIPE WEATHER AND I’M GONNA GO SMOKE MY PIPE OUTSIDE NOW HEH HEH DON’T FOLLOW ME PLEASE AND DON’T WAIT UP! *run* BYEEEE!” I want to know what history this gleeman has with Moiraine and Lan. Perhaps a threesome didn’t go well at all for him. Some of those scars will never go away. Physical, mental, emotional, all of them. His butt will never be the same.


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Calvin and Hobbes – March, 1986

Welcome to March, 1986! Metallica releases Master of Puppets! Beatles albums are finally available to buy in Russia! Georgia O’Keeffe dies along with her vagina flower paintings.

Calvin doesn’t buy Metallica or Beatles records, nor does he paint vagina flowers. Not yet, anyway.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 1, 1986

March 1, 1986 – Dad’s juking the stats.

Much to Calvin’s chagrin, Dad is starting to wise up to the political game and he’s fighting dirty. Behind the scenes, Mom and Dad packed the courts and now they’re overturning every case they can get their hands on, including, but not limited to, Dad v. Calvin. You can’t spoil a baby, they always say, but now the little shit’s spoiling days are over!

Dad doesn’t write the rules, he just enforces them. He also writes the rules! Sorry for that red herring.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 5, 1986

March 5, 1986 – Rent a VCR? How much does Dad make in 1986 that he can’t afford a fucking VCR? Buy a fucking VCR.

First there was The Cuisinart Murderer of Central High, then there was Vampire Sorority Babes, and now it’s Attack of the Coed Cannibals. Calvin and Hobbes sure like their family-friendly coming-of-age teen films, don’t they. There’s a lot to learn from these works of educational fiction. I wish I could’ve had such movies during my own tender childhood. Calvin’s a lucky little lad.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 9, 1986

March 9, 1986 – Calvin is going them a favor selling that hunk of shit. Get a grenade launcher AND a fucking VCR.

I’ve always wondered what Mom does for a living. Dad is clearly a patent lawyer, and obviously not a very good one, but Mom works at home. Long before COVID, Mom was doing it right! She always seems to be writing things down on pieces of paper. Perhaps she’s like Andy Fox from Foxtrot and writes a regular column for the newspaper! Or, perhaps, she’s really the Unabomber and she’s perfecting her manifesto. Either way, it’s productive work.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 15, 1986

March 15, 1986 – Topical! Looking forward to what the funny papers have to say about Halley’s Comet in 2061 when I’m hopefully long dead.

There’s no topic more humorous in the Sunday Funnies than the topic of existential dread! I’m not sure of there was any creepy cult shenanigans going on with the 1986 Halley’s Comet approach like there was with the Hale-Bopp Comet, but I’m sure many people had the same thing on their mind about harbingers of doom. Imagine some 16-year-old depressed kid, terrified of the world ending in his mushy little skull, trying to seek solace in his favorite comic strip on March 15, 1986, and he gets a face full of this macabre shit. He probably slit his wrists before 60 Minutes came on that night.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 20, 1986

March 20, 1986 – Dad’s Panel 2 smug satisfaction didn’t last nearly as long as it took you to read this very sentence.

Calvin’s muppet mouth in Panel 3 makes this for me. Dad might weigh 45 pounds, but you can tell he had no problem getting out of his car, rolling the sleeves up on his noodly arms, and hoisting the fruit of his loons by the scruff and throwing his ass into his bedroom.

It’s Calvin who will get the last laugh, though, when he turns on the fireplace with the flue closed at 2am and then books it to Alberta.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 25, 1986

March 25, 1986 – Getting your ass kicked by a girl is the 1st Grade equivalent to third base.

Hey Calvin, wanna see a magic trick? Double-cross Susie Derkins and you’ll be at the hospital for the next three weeks pooping out your teeth.

Calvin and Hobbes - March 30, 1986

March 30, 1986 – RIP Calvin Whatshislastname. 11/18/85 – 3/30/86. He died doing what he loved: ruining the rose bushes.

Talk about hitting the reset button and returning to status quo after every strip. Calvin obviously died here pretty violently, bleeding out among the thorny thickets of Mom’s treasured rose bushes after leaping from his second story bedroom window. You hate to see it.

This won’t be the last time Calvin dies! I recall a story arc where Hobbes ties Calvin to a chair as part of a Houdini magic trick and he ends up splitting his head wide open on the floor. Look forward to that and more in the next edition of Attack of the Coed Cannibals! I mean, Cruisin’ Thru Calvin and Hobbes!


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Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5 – “Lourdes”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Blood storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5 – “Lourdes”! In the previous installment, Wonder Woman is having a gay old time in London, far far away from Paradise Island, but she realizes she can’t run away from her problems like this. She returns back to Paradise Island to find her mother turned to stone. That bitch Hera did it. Did you know that she’s the sister AND wife of Zeus?? Yuck, man. No wonder half their children are little inbred mutants. Ares. Eris. Jabroni. Geronimo. Gorsuch. All of ‘em.

So there’s that. Also, Apollo meets up with his brother War in Darfur, where a lot of blood was spilled. Gallons of blood. Someone tore through the blood section of the grocery store and now it’s all over the aisle. It’s not Zeus’ blood though, that is something War can promise. Since Zeus can be killed by his own blood, apparently (what the fuck do I know, it’s all Greek to me), their family might think something hinky is going on! Apollo asks War for an alliance. War tells him to fuck off.

Tense stuff! This series is pretty good so far, I gotta say. Better than Nightwing cavorting around a circus. Goddamn I’ll never get over that.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Brian Azzarello
“Blood”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

Time for Diana to start stabbing some tentacles with a trident! Did she steal that from Neptune? Wait, that’s Rome. Poseidon? Yes! That’s the guy with the Adventure.

In London, a couple of boat men are boating around late at night talking about soccer (football) and boats (boats). They’re rollicking in the waves not too far at all from shore when they come up to a large creature floating dead in the water. Looks to be a horse. A mutilated horse. Little old horse got mutilated late last night! Werewolves in London! Aaah-hooooooo!!

Oh shit, dude. It’s not a horse at all! It’s a mythical creature with a horse head and a dragon-y serpent-y body! It’s a… hold on, let me peruse my local library. I’ll be back in about two hours…

…hippocampus? Yeah fucking right. That’s in the brain, douchebags.

Well, we’ll need to table that one for now. Diana, Zola, and Hermes are enjoying a pleasant lunch outside at a café. A man walks by with a newspaper. The headline: “MONSTER PULLED FROM THAMES”.

Diana’s going to have to rough up Hera a little bit after she turned Hippolyta to stone. Hippolyta, hippocampus, it’s hippos all the way down. Zola and Hermes are going to have to lay low, because Wonder Woman ain’t gonna be so wonderful at protecting anyone if Hera catches wind of…well, young blonde human women carrying the babies of Zeus all over the place.

Zola and Hermes grit their teeth all determined. That sort of “rawr, we’re all in this together” disposition. The folly of hubris! Diana hears them out, though, maybe they have a better idea that may not result in the three of them becoming large lawn ornaments. “Hera knows you’re Zeus’ daughter,” Hermes pipes in, “Keeping Zola close may actually make her more vulnerable.”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

Stop whining, you two. It’s called “culture”. Now eat your flavorless vegetables or you’ll be sent to your room.

“Color’s a bit off, in’nit? Not sanguine enough for you, Messenger? I imagine yer used to wine, breakfast, lunch, an’ supper.”

This is a MAN speaking, butting into breakfast like he owns the breakfast. He asks the waitress to bring a pint and he scooches in to join the other three.

“Who are you?” Diana asks the guy with the broken fingers and the broken nose and all the bandages.
“Me? A man with the advantage… see, I know who you are.”

Well good! Now that we all know who everyone sort of is, we can get down to business!

Diana is peeved; tells the man that he’s invading a private conversation. Well, t’ hell wit’ yer private conversation, guv’nor. “The wind, noise to must, sure. ‘Cause every word that’s spoken, she carries. But words can be sussed out, if one cares to give a listen…”

“…daughter of Zeus,” he smiles, lighting a cigarette. Diana grabs it, extinguishes it with her bare hand, and drops it into the ashtray. “She’s pregnant,” she growls, motioning to the pregnant lady who sits there pregnant in the next seat.

This unknown man is fine with that and grabs a sausage. “It must be something, to learn yea has a dad the same day he’s scarpened off the… let’s call it the immortal coil?”

This is bullshit, man. Who is this guy with all the knowledge and the hunger for sausages? He finally introduces himself as Lennox, or at least he says “Lennox works”.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

…the wind tells me… do you hear it? It’s saying “WHOOOOOSH!” lol

What this Lennox guy is getting at is that, with Zeus out of the picture, Zeus’ rowdy brothers are going to start fighting over the stuff he has left behind. Antiques, record collections, fetuses, that sort of thing. And they will likely be rather relentless about it too. Not much relenting going on with that family.

Diana isn’t phased. This isn’t new shit at all. Don’t forget, she’s 5,000 years old or something. She basically invented Greek mythology! Heh heh. And, now that she thinks about it… she looks at Lennox. “Am I dealing with [evil] now?”

Lennox wants to level with the lot of them. In his day, he has meddled quite extensively in the affairs of men. Stupid, mortal, stinky men. But today, against his own better judgment, he has decided to meddle in the affairs of stupid, immortal, stinky gods. He claims to be Diana’s older brother. We’ll see if that holds up in court! A food court!

This family stuff is getting really twisty turny, ain’t it? Later, when Diana and Zola are walking together in the rain, Diana comments that Zola is her aunt! Hey Auntie, what’s shakin’?

“It’s so weird. You being older than me, and I’m gonna give birth– to your… I think it’s a boy,” Zola smiles. Well there you go! Younger brother, older brother, gods and goddesses and Greek Life and paddling-related hazing rituals! Welcome to the family!

Diana believes this Lennox bloke. For now. And that’s all there is to it. For now.

“I believe what he said may be true,” Diana says, still thinking about the conversation they had without us, the loyal readers, like we’re all chopped liver or something, “That he learned who he was… what did he call it?… Baptism by Blitzkrieg? Something like that. And that to me is something. Coming to an understanding of who you are… in the midst of discovering… who you aren’t. And then going to war for them with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Good against evil. Winner take all. That’s something I believe in… or want to… it’s kinda cool.”

What the FUCK is this lady talking about? While she yammers, we see some panels of Lennox rising out of the rubble of a building in a freshly bombed town. Then he’s fighting Nazis, I think.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

Yeehaw! Kill dem Nazis!

“Um, Wonder Woman, I think you’re some of the other things Lennox said,” warns Zola. Hey, what’s with that buzzkill attitude, huh?
“Like what?” Diana asks, her buzz dwindling as we speak.
“Like that all Winner took was the day.”

Oh, I thought it was going to be more of an epiphany than that!

Elsewhere, Lennox leads Hermes to what looks like a culvert drainage ditch thing. “I’m not going in there,” Hermes complains. That’s a sound idea. Plus, he’s all hobbled like a three-legged dog. Except he has two legs already, so that analogy isn’t exactly accurate. Lennox asks how that happened to a strapping young “god” such as himself. “We’re immortal, not invulnerable,” he explains. That’s good to know later so that Lennox can try capping that bitch right in the knees Tonya Harding-style. Lennox bids his blue friend a temporary farewell and enters the culvert. “Be ready for what I deliver, messenger.”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

For starters, getting knocked up by Zeus didn’t prove to be very relaxing.

“Look, you’re perfect–” Zola begins.
“Me? I’m not even close,” responds Diana.

Lennox had instructed Diana to stand on a particular bridge at six o’clock or she’d be in a world of hurt! So she’s standing on the bridge now, and Big Ben bongs its bells over the course of about four pages while the following happens:

-A gang of wild horse-fish hippocampus creatures angrily splash around the river.
-Diana gears up as Wonder Woman, bummed that Lennox “was right”. She instructs Zola to stay put or else she’ll be in a world of hurt!
-Wonder Woman stands in a river that has either been slightly parted to allow her to stand up, OR it’s so shallow that the water doesn’t even reach past the soles of her boots.
-She speaks at a large entity emerging from the water. “My name is Diana. My mother is… was– Hippolyta. I request an audience.”
-An audience she gets. A gigantic, fuck-ugly fish creature with menacing, milky fish eyes stares down at the Amazon woman. It’s Poseidon. All hail Poseidon. Get him a bucket of worms.
-Poseidon speaks! “MMMHUUH. HHHMMPH.” fucking lmao

Poseidon’s gonna lay down some facts, Jack. Zeus is gone. Dead. Off the worldly plane or whatever flowery language that the god-kids are speaking these days with their jive talk. So get out of his sight before he calls the cops! “I have no quarrel with you…MONGREL,” the big fish grunts.

On the other side of town, Lennox traverses the large culvert. A cascading waterfall is at the end of his path.

“My brother Zeus was a monster who cared about nothing other than himself,” Poseidon continues, “Ergo, I’m not interested in anything you have to say. And now that the heavens are without a lord… I mean to claim them as mine… to rectify the mistake it was ceding them to him… and no one will stand in my way.”

Three large pairs of red eyes are seen in the waterfall. A three-headed dog leaps out and attacks Lennox! Snarl! Woof! It doesn’t last long, because Hades (I assume) emerges and tells his three-headed dog to cut it out.

Hades looks like a several tiny atomic bombs went off on top of his head and it melted his wax crown all over his face.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #5

BEHOLD, THE GOD OF MELTED BUTTER.

Back at Poseidon’s Lazy River, Wonder Woman respectfully understands his concern and then respectfully tells him to go fuck himself because Hera also lays claims to the heavens. He’s going to have to fight her for them. And he’s not happy about that.

“WHAT?!” he bellows, lacking what’s left of any dignity a giant, gross fish had in the first place.

Poseidon then grabs Wonder Woman with a few slimy tentacles like it’s all her fault. “SHE DARES?! he yells. The bridge is swarming with horrified lookie-loos taking photos of the bizarre spectacle to post on their Vines and TikToks and AIM chat rooms.

Now those two angry, demonic centaurs from Issue #1 enter into the mix. It’s all getting quite tiresome, isn’t it?

“SHE DOES,” Wonder Woman growls back at the stupid, slimy fish. Like, I thought you were supposed to be a shirtless man with abs. Where’s your trident? You look like Lord Jabu-Jabu from Ocarina of Time.

Hera shows up looking drunk as shit.

“WHAT?!”

Cliffhanger? I guess.

Final Thoughts

A Battle of the Gods? How exhilarating! I hope they all choke on their own buttholes. What an insufferable pile of narcissists.


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