Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #3 – “Zodiac (Part 3)”

* Part 3 of 8 of the Zodiac storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3 – “Zodiac (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, a few Avengers try to beat up Taurus with very little success. They discover what’s in the time capsule: a nullifier! A thing that erases reality! Why are the Zodiacs playing around with such a thing, are they nuts? YES!

The Zodiacs think the Avengers stole the nullifier from them, which is technically true actually. The Zodiacs showed up to kick their asses. I hope they succeed, this Avengers team is bush league.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #3 [July, 2012]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Zodiac (Part 3)”

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2), Issue #3

Look at the cover, the Avengers are ready to fight! For their right! To party! Meh.

So these Zodiac dudes hover menacingly over the Avengers. Thor takes the reigns, six feet shorter than any member of the Zodiac clan. “Hear me, Zodiac. I am Thor, son of Odin. You will stand down and surrender. Or you will feel the mighty wrath of the Avengers assembled.”

Yeah, that’s going to do it. A few Zodiacs kindly remind these blowjobs that it only took one of them to almost kill a whole lot of ya. So can it. Leo is starstruck by the Hulk, but then flings him right out of a window of their starship with a sickening “KRABOOM”. You know it’s sickening because the O’s are bigger than the rest of the letters! That’s my interpretation.

Ah, ok, the sky craft is called a helicarrier, which isn’t a real thing according to the red squiggly line under my unnamed word processing software that I use to write this stuff up (and I’m not going to namedrop the company because I don’t want Bill Gates to get anymore publicity! whoops). The commander instructs her officers to do what it takes to keep this hunk of metal aloft and hope that the Avengers don’t suck ass.

Black Widow carries the lunchbox that contains the Ultimate Nullifier. It seems like she’s planning to leap out of the helicarrier? What’s her super power again? Not flying? Okay!

The Zodiacs wake up and take action!

“Did I miss the part where they told us who they are and what they are up to?” Hawkeye asks himself while leaping toward Leo with a dagger, which I didn’t think bow-and-arrow man would have on his person. But, if I learned anything from Skyrim, it’s that… yeah, you get it.
“Just die!” yells Leo, “That would be plenty!”
“Dude, you’re hurting my feelings,” says Hawkeye, always the cutup.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3

huff puff oh god oh god gotta get out of here gotta get out of here huff puff puff

Black Widow is booking it through the empty corridor, probably smug in her aloneness. BUT NOT FOR LONG, because Aquarius pops in to send a million gallons of water flooding through the corridor. Black Widow hangs onto the box tightly while getting swept up in the torrent.

Tony Stark, shirtless and definitely not in his Iron Man costume, tries to reason with the assailants. “Guys, guys, guys…come on,” he whines feebly. Then he starts trying to bribe them, lol. Kind of neutered when you don’t have your suit, huh?

But, hey, they do stop in their tracks with mild interest. Money, huh?

“I want you off this ship. What will it take?” Stark asks, confidence building.

Captain America takes advantage of the sudden respite by smacking a Zodiac lady right in the fucking kisser with his shield.

Ha ha, though. Tony Stark was just goofing around! He just needed to stall so that his Iron Man suit could go online! Hahahaha! The wifi is connected, bitches! Google THIS: *punch*

The battle is heated now. Avengers punching Zodiacs! A to Z, as it were! A full-page spread of this cockamamie pissing contest. “HAVE AT THEE!” Thor yells, then a FAKOOM of a hammer hitting a lion face, then an “ARGH!” Go get ‘em, heroes! WOOP WOOP WOOP!

Uh huh. And even Hawkeye breaks the fourth wall by saying “Faboom” before he shoots off a bottle rocket, or something, and hits another Zodiac in the face! FABOOMM!

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3

Yeah yeah yeah, what else is new?

Hulk, as you can see, somehow makes it back into the helicarrier. Perhaps he landed on a carefully placed trampoline and bounced his ass back up? Well, he goes down again, and this time he takes Leo with him. “What are you doing?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Leo screams as they both plummet.

They land in the water near a beach, and they’re close enough to the beach that there’s no way that water is any more than five feet deep. No broken bones here, though, this is a comic book! For children! Hulk grips a terrified Leo by the neck while underwater and launches him on the beach, scaring the hell out of a group of innocent bonfire enjoyers. Possibly killing a handful like Putin just struck another Ukrainian grocery store.

Hulk continues to really pummel the unholy crap out of this lion while demanding answers for the following: who are you, what do you want, have you watched the fourth season of Stranger Things, and why are you people attacking them? Leo is probably like “what do you mean YOU people, but he holds his tongue as now is probably not the time.

Aquarius has stopped the flood for now, but he’s lost Black Widow. That’s because she found a small vent to sexily crawl through.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3

Yeah, well, your charms may work on Daredevil’s blind ass, but not the likes of me. That’ll learn ya.

Captain America is getting tired. They need a better plan fast. The Zodiac has *counts on fingers, gets to ten and starts drooling* …more than ten of them!

Iron Man says duh.

The guy with the Libra symbol is wondering why Aquarius is taking so long to steal the big lunchbox from the one lady. “Let’s just crash this whole ship!” he suggests. I think that idea is capital, personally. You can crash it right into Professor Xavier’s stupid X-Men school!

Uh oh, that sounds like bad news bears, sir. Captain America radios the helicarrier commander to abandon the ship, but the commander is like “no fucking way, dummy”. The craft is staying in the air where it belongs! It’s going to stay in the air for 47 years if she has her way!

Thor, meanwhile, is getting nervous. He’s a GOD! How are these dudes putting up such a fight? “That’s the thing,” responds Libra Man, “we know everything about you and you don’t know a damn thing about us.” BUT, Thor saves face by pointing out that the Zodiacs have the power, but he can see the fear on their faces. They lack the skill. So give up while you still can, and your mercy will be generous. Something to that effect; it sounds like a bluff to me.

Then stuff explodes on the helicarrier. Stuff also explodes outside of the helicarrier! A menagerie of explosions. A veritable cavalcade of blow-’em-ups.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3

♫♩ Whooooo are you? Who who? Who who? ♫♬♩ ♫♩

There’s still some more Hulk/Lion fighting on the beach. Leo’s getting his ass handed to him, to the point where he clutches his chest and yells “muh heart!”, then collapses. He returns to his original, ugly semi-human form. The possession entity flows out of him as bright golden wisps, ascending to the heavens! Hulk looks up with placid confusion. In other words, he looks up as normal.

Iron Man has been found through another helicarrier window, leaving maybe two windows still intact. He passes through the wisps of shiny goldenness and asks his Metroid suit what it is. “Scanning. Unidentified.”

Well, what good are you, you dumb suit? Tony Stark is going to crush it into a cube when he gets home, make no mistake.

Other Avengers are still beating up other Zodiacs. Yawn. Oooh! Ok, the helicarrier officers are making their way down the scary red corridor. Acting Commander Maria Hill has security clearance to access the armory… but so does someone else! That would be Black “Natasha” “Moose and Squirrel” Widow “Romanoff” already hanging out in the armory being volatile and weird.

Avengers Assemble (Vol. 2) Issue #3

That’s right, bitches. I gots me a bigger gun.

The officers ask Black Widow to assess the situation for them. Here’s an assessment for you: shit sucks. The officers want to call for backup. Some real military troops. Black Widow says that Captain America doesn’t wanna. He wants to find out more about these Zodiacs first. And why should anyone listen to him? The dude can’t even tie his own shoes.

Iron Man pops in with some information. The 4-1-1. The skinny. The infoglut. The dirt. The spiel. “It’s unidentifiable,” he mutters. Well that’s just FUCKING great, Mr. Useless. Go be useless somewhere else, you useless bum.

Oh, the unidentifiable power source is currently being transmitted and examined as we speak? Ok… well… uh… yeah, good job. Thank you. Sorry. But hurry up!

They walk toward Nick Fury’s old car, which happens to be parked on the helicarrier I guess. That will surely be explained soon.

Hulk returns to the fray, as Thor puts it, “sans opponent”. This is a good sign! The bad guys aren’t going to win today! HA HA HA HAAAA!! *hammer*

Hawkeye suggests that Hulk can make short work of all the Zodiacs while he takes a nap.

Aquarius also returns to the fray, as I will put it, “sans Nullifier”. Waterboy just assumed Black Widow would’ve circled back to the fight with the lunchbox. That seems like a dumb thing to do, though. That’s probably why it didn’t happen!

“AVENGERS, DISASSEMBLE,” commands Black Widow as she and a couple officers fly into the scene with Nick Fury’s Back to the Future II futuristic flying car. Then there’s an unexplained inferno swirling around the vicinity. The Zodiacs smile within the flames devilishly. The Avengers stare stunned. “Where’re the powers?” Black Widow asks.

Iron Man knows what’s going on! And even after he explains it, the rest of them still don’t know what’s going on. Basically, Iron Man confirms that none of these Zodiacs are pulling the strings. Someone else is in command here…

A bright blue ball of light descends from the sky. Great, more stuff happening. Why is there always stuff happening around here? But, with a big-ass FRAKABOOM, the ball of light smashes into the helicarrier and shakes, rattles, and rolls that sucker.

The blue ball of light takes the form of stupid-looking X-Man-looking villain-looking kind of guy. He’s blue, has an overbite, and skimpy armor covering, among a short list of other areas, his genitals.

“You Earthers have stumbled into the affairs of THANOS, Warrior of Death. You have angered me and brought me to you. Because of that, I will end your world.”

It’s Thanos. It’s Josh Brolin.

Final Thoughts

Fuckin’ Thanos, always getting angered and involved and threatening to destroy Earth. What a broken record.


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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Prologue: “Dragonmount”

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

I’ve owned this book for over ten years! Time to crack open this bad boy and see what all the fuss is about!

Two characters are introduced: Lews Therin, Kinslayer, a sad shell of a man who used to be a notorious bigwig, but now he shambles around a castle during what seems to be the middle of a supernatural earthquake… but instead a mountain is created out of nowhere. I think. It seems weird.

Elan Morin, some sort of anti-Lews who is clad in black and appears in the prologue only to ridicule and get angry at the sad shell of a man. From what I gather, he appeared in a mirror. Perhaps he is some sort of literal reflection of Lews Therin?

Lews is looking for his wife Ilyena Sunhair, a golden-haired woman with Hair like the Sun, as it were. She lies dead next to Lews and it takes him about 45 minutes to notice.

Good thing there’s a glossary in the back, because there is already a barrage of unknown phrases and titles thrown at me:

  • Elan Morin uses the name Shai’tan in vain — “Dark One“. Directly saying his name draws his attention. It invites “ill fortune”, meaning he’ll cause you to spill coffee all over yourself. Most people say other things instead. Kinda like calling Voldemort “You-Know-Who”, I suppose. There, that’s my first Harry Potter reference already. God, I suck.
  • Lews Therin draws power from the True Source — The driving force of the universe that powers the Wheel of Time. There’s a male half, with a penis, called “saidin”. There’s a female half, with a vagina, called “saidar”. They work simulateneously against each other, just like in real life! Ha! Only men can draw upon saidin, since they have penises. Women for saidar. However, since the beginning of time, saidin has been tainted by the Dark One (Shai’tan! See, I remembered something!). I’ll obviously find out why in about six more books.

There are other things to know, I guess. Lews was once the wearer of the Ring of of Tamyrlin. He sat in the High Seat, first among the servants. He once summoned the Nine Rods of Dominion. He defeated Elan Morin at the Hall of Servants and Gates of Paaran Disen! He was the Dragon, man! The Dragon.

Elan tries to heal Lews of his obvious demented Alzheimer’s, but this causes Lews immense pain. He returns the favor by hiding himself in a giant mountain. If any of this sounds horribly misinterpreted, go fuck yourself. I have 54 actual chapters to read of this shit and I have a job and life, you know.

And you just read the first installment of my giant Wheel of Time read. It’s going to be pretty much like this every time. If you find that at all enjoyable, then I pity you immensely! Haha. But seriously, please come back for more.


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Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “The Visitation”

* Part 1 of 6 of the Blood storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “The Visitation”!

Enough Batman. Enough Superman. Enough men for now, for reals. I’ve ignored Wonder Woman for far too long. She is arguably just as important to DC’s history as either of the other two aforementioned blowjobs. She made her official comic book debut in 1941 and got her own title in 1942, and this was a time when women were basically still considered personal property somewhere on the tier between a refrigerator and a lawnmower.

I barely know anything about Wonder Woman except for her magic truth lasso, her Xena Warrior Princess Amazonian roots, and that Gal Gadot might be slightly racist. I hope to rectify this by digging into the highly-acclaimed New 52 reboot. By that I mean rectify my knowledge gaps, not Gal Gadot’s racist leanings. I won’t be able to solve that by sitting on my ass reading comic books.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1 [November, 2011]
Written by: Brian Azzarello
“The Visitation”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Fuckin’ A, man! Look at that cover! Raw fucking feminity! Blood-spattered aggression! Jumping straight into a barrage of arrows! Uppercutting one into splinters! This is more like it!

Singapore. The issue begins in Singapore. That’s not very Amazonian. Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m no scholar of world geography, but Singapore is in a whole different continent altogether! Three women are on a balcony of a very tall building that overlooks the bustling, urban sprawl of the capital city. “How did you get this room?” one asks. “My job,” answers the thus far unseen man, “Calls for me to be on top of the world.”

Already sounds like an asshole! An asshole that’s going to murder three women in Singore. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it EXCEPT shut this comic book forever… Let’s keep reading.

When asked what this man does, he tells the women that he’s the “sun of a King”. This dude, now visible, looks like he’s made of steel. He has eerie glowing eyes and equally eerie glowing mouth. These women must all be trashed, perhaps roofied, perhaps on fentanyl. They’re all on fentanyl.

Glowey’s dad gets around. He appreciates faithfulness, sure, but the dog gets around. He has fucked many women, which are my words of course, but the implication is that Glowey is just one of very many. “Like I said, he gets around. And where he’s gotten to now, I need to find out. See, he’s missing.”

He claims that they’re all on top of the tallest building in the world! And even in 2011 that’s a complete fucking lie, but I’m not here to split hairs. No building in Singapore even came close! But I’m not here to split hairs! But Jesus Christ, I’m already mad! Someone could have looked that shit up, man!

Anyway, yada yada yada, he grabs the three of them all at once and does something menacing and scary off-panel. MOVING ON.

Now we’re in Virginia, a place that’s fractionally as exotic as Singapore, in a barn no less, where a glowing woman wearing a hooded robe made out of peacock feathers ambles through and scares the cows. She leaves behind several weapons on the floor: bow and arrow, knife, sword, spiked mace, stuff we all carry with us from time to time.

After kindly petting a horse, she grabs a scythe down from the wall.

She feels the sharpness of the blade. It seems to be of adequate sharpness for her pursuits.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Ah yes, this will replace my Slap Chop nicely.

This lady swings that fucker right at the horse’s neck, lopping it off completely. The head falls near the abandoned weapons.

From the horse’s neck stump, a creature emerges looking like an H. R. Giger alien. It’s weird and gross. Definitely more exotic here than Singapore, as it turns out.

Presumably, on the same farm, a very bony man wearing what looks like either Vietnam war gear OR African elephant hunter garb steps into a farmhouse. He finds a young, short-haired blonde woman, in her underwear, pointing a shotgun at his face.

“Zola, we must leave now,” he says.
“We? Make that you, Mister. I don’t know how you got in here–”
“–Listen to me, girl– They’ve come for you and your child.”
“Who?”
“Assassins.”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

“House” is being a little too generous, honestly.

Nuts to this! Who wants some weirdo barging in and telling you that assassins are gonna come getcha?

The sound of approaching horse hooves clomp-clomping is worrisome! Vietnam War Elephant Hunter shoves the young woman out of the way of the open front door just in time to catch a bellyful of loosed arrow with a sickening “THUK”. This dude has bird feet. This bird dude got thukked.

His body slams on the floor in front of the terrified young woman. He looks to be still alive, possibly grasping at the arrow to pull it out, but I can’t tell! Comic book pictures aren’t animated! This ain’t Harry Fuckface Potter!

We catch a full-page glimpse of the assailants rushing into the house. Two of them, one male and one female. They look like angry, demonic centaurs! The kind you’d find in Harry Fuckface Potter. They’re wearing armor that look like chastity belts. They’ve got a bunch of scary weapons, and they’re gonna split this lady in half with a giant sword.

“ZOLA!” yells Vietnam War Elephant Hunter Bird and tosses her an ordinary key. But it’s no ordinary key! Sorry for leading you on like that. It’s a magical glowing key that fills the room with a bright, blue light. Zola holds it up above her…and then disappears. The sword hits the empty ground with a CHOK. As in, CHOK full of fantastic sound effects.

Zola has been transported! She appears, or apparates, if you will (harry fuckface potter), into an apartment or a hotel room in London. Still sitting on the floor, bewildered, she stares at a bed with a depressed-looking naked woman. Zola thinks she’s sleeping. Zola gets that part wrong.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

WONDER WOMAN TO THE RESCUE!!

This wonderful woman, a wonder of a woman, I don’t know who she is yet! I wonder what kind of woman she is? She calms down once she realizes this 80-pound woman isn’t going to hurt her, and she assures Zola that she won’t kill her. That’s polite.

After Zola stammers and stutters nonsense about “a man with eyes”, she is asked how she got in here. “The man threw me this key,” she responds, displaying the extraordinary object. The woman with the dark, flowing hair goes “?” and then demands that Zola relinquish the key.

Fuck that, lady! They saved her life! She’s not gonna give it up now, goddamnit! There’s all sorts of situations where it would be useful to be suddenly transported to strangers’ homes in other parts of the world in the middle of the night!

The woman introduces herself as Diana, and she wants to help, but she doesn’t really look to me like she wants to help that much. “I can take that key right out of your hand,” she says, hefting her nude body over to a cabinet full of Wonder Woman clothes and accessories, “but I’d prefer if you gave it to me willingly.”

Zola starts looking kind of shifty. Maybe she thinks she could kick this lady’s ass if the opportunity presented itself. That thought is quashed quickly as Wonder Woman puts on her Wonder Woman outfit. “YOU’RE WONDER WOMAN?” she exclaims to Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman tells her to call her Diana, and now that she has gotten all these clothes on in order to prove that she’s wonder woman, please hand over the fucking key.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Wonder Woman appears to be 9’8” tall. That’s two stacked Danny DeVitos!

So Zola hands over the fucking key, but Wonder Woman makes sure to hold onto Zola’s arm first. With a flash, they’re transported back to Zola’s farmhouse. ”YEEAARGH!” screams an individual within the house, possibly Birdguy Jones, the “man with the eyes” as it were.

The two women slowly approach the house. A bloody feather wafts through the doorway…followed by a speedy arrow. The cover lied to me! I was promised a veritable HAILSTORM of arrows! Not one piddling arrow! Wonder Woman leaps in front of it and blocks it with her steel wristbands, splintering it into pieces. My hero!

“You want us to tell you what we see?”
“Dear ladies, you are my oracles, my eyes that gaze on what is yet to be… Please tell me…what you see.”
“There is a storm gathering just beyond the horizon and the one responsible shall rule in fire…Sorry about that.”
“Who is it?”
“Too much smoke.”
“What?”
“We can’t see clearly.”
“It wears a crown of horns. And a cape of blood flowing from its shoulders onto a naked woman at its feet.”
“The feet?”
“They’re bare, like the woman.”
“Then it is my family.”
“Your family… is broken, beated, and betrayed. By blood.”
“Tell me something I don’t know…”
“Well, your father has abandoned fate to someone who can blow away the smoke if they choose to. Seriously, this is mental.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“We mean that what your father wants is nothing anyone should. It’s dirty. It’s irredeemable. And it won’t end good for you.”

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Where do you think Ted Lasso learned everything he knows! Ha! That’s a pun that works on half a level.

That previous exchange? Alternating dialogue boxes, one green and one black, that bounce between flowery poetry and casual conversation. I don’t know yet who these two are. During this dialogue, the two angry, demonic, Harry Fuckface Potter centaur-like creatures ambush the two women. Zola runs the hell away while Wonder Woman does all manner of neck thigh-crushin’ on the male centaur. The female centaur chases Zola down with a knife and hungry look on her face. Wonderful Wondrous Woman bends up, KRAKs the male with a headbutt, and steals his sword. The female grabs Zola by the scruff and starts running off with her. Wonder Woman flings the sword from 20 yards away and dismembers the female centaur’s arm, thereby releasing Zola from her grasp. Zola, on ground, watches the two centaurs book it on out of there.

That’s when she gets lassoed! And so ends the LEAST dull action sequence I’ve come across in over a year of reading comic books. Huge compliment. That was fun.

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

Whoops, you want Jeff Bezos. Look up in the sky, someone launched the fucker into space.

“I thought I told you to stay close,” Wonder Woman chides with the wryest of grins! What a cut-up. This young woman has been irreversibly traumatized in only the last 15 minutes and Wonder Woman thinks she’s fucking hilarious!

I forgot all about this guy! Birdbeak the Mighty. He’s not dead even though it seems like he should be, taking an arrow in the gut and all. It’s still in his gut, too. He lumbers out of the house. “You shouldn’t be here,” he huffs and pants and puffs and rants, “Take the girl and run to the end of the Earth.” Uh-huh, Earth is a sphere, nimrod. You’re not one of those people, are you?

Birdman removes the arrow from his stomach. It’s covered in blood. You’re not supposed to do that. Leave it in and go to a dang emergency room, ya turkey.

“HERMES!?” Wonder Woman yells at the bird. The bird is named Hermes.
“Diana…” he responds, dying of arrow gut perforation, “Protect her…or the queen will see her dead.”

Hermes asks what they’ve done to him. Wonder Woman says the impossible has been done to him. Right now, if I were Zola, I’d be slowly sneaking away from all this drama. Rent a hotel room or something.

I looked up “Hermes” on Google and got a lot of herpes-related information, which is fantastic to have on my work laptop’s search history. Basically, he moves fast. He’s like the Roman god Mercury, except he’s Hermes. I hope that cleared things up.

Anywho, Hermes is dying but he’s also not. Zola is important to protect even if she doesn’t know it yet. The “baby” that Hermes referred to about ninety pages ago and Zola didn’t really give another thought? Well, Hermes has her attention now so he drops the big ol’ bomb on her: she’s pregnant with Zeus’ baby! Ohhhhh snap! Ha ha ha looool.

Back in Singapore, where Mr. Glowey possessed these three lovely ladies (presumably to get information out of them), it is learned that NOT only will “she kill one of them”, whatever that means, but also…well, here’s the panel:

Wonder Woman (Vol. 4), Issue #1

One of your father’s brother’s cousin’s daughter’s cousin’s aunt’s nephew’s cousins will also get his penis caught in a Venus flytrap.

So Father’s pulling the strings again, is he? Where is the deadbeat these days?

“He doesn’t exist.”
“Yet.”

Glowey starts emanating flames from his person, catching the three floating women on fire. They char up nicely into three burning skeletons.

“Fascinating,” says Glowey as he burns a bright yellow and flies up into the sky.

The three women become a flaming pile of falling bones.

Final Thoughts

Well that’s pretty fucked up, innit? Lots of setup, lots of intrigue, lots of…mythology? BORING!

Here’s what I noticed in this issue: there’s about 60 goddamned panels with women’s bare feet. Looks like I know what artist Cliff Chiang is into. Great. That’s great.


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East of West, Issue #27 – “Finding Babylon”

* Part 12 of 14 of the The Apocalypse: Year Two storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #27 – “Finding Babylon”! In the previous installment, the bulk of the story is spent dealing with each member of the Chosen (and their plus-ones) showing up one at a time to the party. Lots of daggers stared at one another. Lots of scornful words of derision and contempt. Lots of pent-up sexual energy. By the end everyone shows up.

…except for Xiaolian Mao, who chose to decline her invitation. The invitation that was tattooed on greasy skin. I mean, who could blame her at all? The rest are there, though, all accounted for. Call me crazy, though, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that we won’t be dealing with any of them here in Issue #27, and we’ll instead be focusing on Young Sheldon and his stupid Balloon. PROVE ME WRONG, HICKMAN.

East of West, Issue #27 [June, 2016]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Finding Babylon”

East of West, Issue #27

“LOOK AT THIS! At all of you fools… go on, if you have the stomach for it. LOOK!” exclaims the easily angered Prophet Orion. I’m sick of looking at this guy’s lumpy skull. That demon should’ve just devoured him, killed him, and spared the rest of us the constant turmoil.

So what does everyone need to look at? Everyone else, of course. He instructs them to all take a look at who is in attendance at this real General Assembly of the United Nations over here. It’s just a bunch of really broken and pathetic individuals, and yet they were all Chosen! Somebody up there really has their finger on the pulse of who the cool kids are in the year 2065. Several of them are still pointing guns at each other. Even Archibald looks paranoid.

“The Message will not rectify your flaws, or temper your hate – nor will it erase your sins…or theirs. We are all too far gone,” Orion goes on, yelling furiously like some insane preacher screaming about the Jesus outside of a Wal-Mart. This is the End of Times, yada yada. Tell me something I don’t know, you extremely off-putting little man.

This area, as we’ve seen already, is completely surrounded by the depressing cult followers. Outside, there are millions. Inside, every nook and cranny of the cave is packed with people looking down on the Chosen. The Chosen, each and every one, even the unflappable ones, look up in awed disbelief.

“And all of the fallen of man have gathered here – into an army of fate,” continues Orion, addressing only the Chosen as he shakes around his arm stump. “There is no escape from what is coming. All that is left… is doing what you were born to do.”

Oh boy!

“This is a funeral for the free man.”

Ha, is that foreshadowing? A funeral for the Freeman? Hrmpt!

“It is tomorrow we bury here today.”

East of West, Issue #27

Hey now. These people cattle? Yes. No army at all? Correct. The End of Times. Not a chance. BUT… BUT… uh, what was that fourth thing you said?

Madame LeVay recaptures her skeptical composure and argues with Prophet OhRyan. Like, yo, old man, are you dumb or something? THIS is the End of Times right here? Lame. Call me back you find some real End of Times.

“The Message is a living word, Antonia,” Orion says, actually looking passive and somber. “It has changed. It has evolved.”

Yeah, like a Wartortle into a Blastoise, am I right fellow millennials?

“Pfft, people do not change. They just die and pull their decaying societies down with them,” LeVay argues back, brow furrowed like her time is being hella wasted here in this stinkin’ cavern. She’s all, why haven’t you been around lately? No one’s seen or heard from you in an age! And what’s the answer? He’s been busy eating paper and now he thinks he’s the shit. And he hates being questioned like this. You can tell because his neck gets more sinewy and his yellow eyes bug out again. It’s disgusting.

Archibald can’t believe this! What a moron, eating the Word. Sounds unbelievably brainless. Freeman can’t believe this! Does Orion now think he’s better than his equals?

The short answer is: yeah, sure. Chosen are Chosen, but HE has become something even more rare. He has become the guy with paper clogging up his bowels. But he doesn’t actually specify what he has become, and Freeman and Bel Solomon get super impatient and catty about this.

East of West, Issue #27

Now look what you’ve gone and done, Orion. You’ve made the skeptic skeptical! For shame.

Solomon’s outburst about THIS MAN IS BONKERS doesn’t sit well with Freeman. Freeman thinks, indeed, that it is YOU, sir, *points at Bel Solomon*, who is, *points at Bel Solomon*, …the foolish one.

Freeman aims his gun at Solomon’s face. “Showing your face again when you should be hiding it. And don’t worry,” he says, turning to Orion, “it ain’t the void that’s gonna get you.”

Orion tells this punk to show some respect. Everyone here is Chosen. Respect the sanctity of everyone being Chosen, k?

Heh. Fine. Freeman will keep the peace now, here in this peaceful, diplomatic meeting, but the second they step outside he’ll be sticking the business end of his gun up Solomon’s butt and then it gets stuck and he’ll have to leave it there while he punches him in the face.

Wolf leans in to his best buddy Freeman’s ear. Pssst! Hey, buddy! “The man with him is who killed Cheveyo,” he says, nudging toward Thomas the Hunter. And Thomas the Hunter, he stands by what he did. He is the Hunter! And lest you forget, he is hired to kill every single member of the Chosen. So watch your tongue, because he spent 400 days on the job so far and has only killed one. At this rate, Freeman’s turn will be in 16 years. THEN he’ll know the meaning of the word JUSTICE.

Freeman likes him. He’s got moxie!

Fuck moxie! Like me all you want, Thomas says, for Freeman is on his LIST.

It’s like, list of what? Wolf knows. And Wolf tells Freeman. And Freeman tells him that, then, he’s on the list too. And Wolf tells Freeman ‘fraid not. And Freeman tells Wolf ‘fraid so. And Wolf tells Freeman that he can shoot Thomas first. And Freeman tells Wolf that he agrees.

And Cheveyo’s spirit appears to tell them both that it’s quite a treat to see them like this. Just like old times! And this display of ethereal monologuing, of course, contorts Solomon’s face into a series of schizophrenically pained expressions. Like >:-S

It’s funny, because Freeman all but asks him what his fucking problem is.

East of West, Issue #27

I’m not usually a betting man. But if I were to be a betting man, I bet I’d make a ton of bets!

Archibald steps in to remind Freeman that there are more lucid and aware members of the Chosen that deserve more time right now than the rest. It’s time to go all in again, and LeVay is totally in! Let’s not stray too far from the path of the Message. Reign it back in. We’re all believers here, let’s start making believe again.

And who better to make-believe than Uncle Ezra Prophet-Face Orion? He will show you all the way, so don’t fret my pet.

Now it’s Narsimha’s turn to be annoyed. As Wolf’s companion, he wants to know what the HELL kind of freak show he was dragged into. Wolf gets touchy, tells Narsimha that this is serious business, and he “would not be here without reason, and certainly not just to follow someone selling religion.”

Oh, ok. Whew! Carry on, then.

They all take out their bloody skin-scrolls with pod-people looks in their cold, dead eyes.

Follow the Prophet. The man with the Word. All will be fine. Here, have some Kool-Aid. It’s grape! And–

“Just one problem with all that, sport…” a voice says off-panel, much to Orion’s complete frustration. “I am many things, but one of them is not being a foregone conclusion.”

This is Archibald talking now, making the point that his life certainly isn’t set in stone by determinism and sans free will. So shut up about all this “doing what you were born to do” horse-hockey. He’s a cunt hair away from walking out on this charade right now. Take your Chosen and pack it into your butthole, Ezra.

Ezra can’t believe his mangled ears! “You – all of you – are being offered an honored position,” he froths and points. “I have seen a vision of God’s army. The Message has shown me that.”

Madame LeVay admits that her skin scroll contained very personal information that no one could know about. Perhaps Archibald should keep on considering sticking around for this cool apocalypse. The answer, of course, is “shut up”. Archibald is his own man and he will not be pushed around by things like “prophecy” and “entropy”. By the beat of his own drum, and so forth.

East of West, Issue #27

Sorry, I don’t make of a habit of listening to ugly people.

“Do not test me,” Orion yells, positively irate at this point. He keeps spouting righteous garbage, the kind of stuff that would make any Chosen groan. Archibald all but calls it complete bullshit. Orion gets even madder. Xiaolian was right to stay home.

Prophet Orion thinks he’s God, and as God his followers will do what he says. He ate the paper! Come on, people. This is serious business! Fall in line!

And then, finally, much to my own relief and satisfaction, Orion gets completely riddled with bullets. BLAM POW BAM. Dead! And not soon enough.

“That’s two,” Thomas triumphs, gun a-smokin’.

“The Word cannot be undone by a man with a gun,” Orion coughs and sputters while his Hell Demon buddy sticks its tendrils through his body. It looks painful. He deserves it.

Thomas then throws something that looks like a utility belt. It lands near Orion and Hell Demon. The Hell Demon sniffs. “Pentolite, propylene, ammonium nitrate… it’s a bomb,” the demon deduces. And just in the knick of– BOOM!

Orion’s lower body explodes in a dozen gorey pieces! With his dying breath, Orion permits the Hell Demon to kill them all. Or, as he puts it, he “judges all of them”.

All the pilgrims in the cavern leap down and start ambushing to kill. “Kill the Chosen! Kill! Kill! Kill!” they scream in unison like Message Zombies who don’t give a shit about anything except what the dead guy wants.

Thomas calls over his dog and fashions a zipline out of grappling hooks and carabiner clips! Bel’s like “what the unholy fuck are you doing?”, and Thomas is like “surviving, dummy”. And they lift themselves up over the mob and zip away.

East of West, Issue #27

And not a moment too soon, you clever WZZZZZZZZards!

“Not this time, Old Man,” proclaims the great Jonathan Freeman Number Eight as he draws his gun again. He aims to kill. “Not today, and never again.”

The mob punches the gun out of his hand at the last second. It goes off, but off course. Foiled again! Hoisted by his own petard! The mob is rather irresponsible with the guns. Just shooting at each other and stuff.

“Are you okay?” Sharra asks her beloved Eight Ball.
“No. I am not. Look at this shit…” Eight responds sadly. “Look at what they have done.”

Wolf, Crow, Archibald’s niece Constance, Chief Narsimha, they all actively involve themselves in the fray! Punching, leaping, they feel ALIVE!

The man that Constance is fighting wraps his large hand around her skinny frame and begins biting her shoulder. Archibald, now donning a gray hooded cloak befitting of a member of the Thieves Guild, produces a hidden dagger and stabs the dude right in the neck. “Young lady, when the world is going mad…” he advises his young niece, “it is imperative that one keeps one’s head.”

East of West, Issue #27

Is there anything Archibald won’t enjoy? Seriously.

“These people are mad, Uncle,” she pants.
“Yes, mindless indeed,” he responds calmly, offering her a cloak of her own. “Here, put this on.”

Archibald rises up and speaks to the crowd, pretending to be one of their own. “There! There! Behold the faces of our enemies! We must strike them down! For that is what the Prophet declared, and what our God demands. Consume them wholly! The lord loves a happy plate!”

This really whips the mob up into a simmering froth! Archibald and Constance mosey around, trying to be inconspicuous. Elsewhere, Madame LeVay is nervous while Doma Lux shoots into the mob with her automatic rifle. A few sneak up behind LeVay and grab her. Lux is about two seconds away from getting knifed by a raving man, but he is stopped via impalement!

“I find value in keeping things I own intact, Doma Lux. And after today, you will an even more precious commodity…” says Narsimha, her white knight. “When she dies… you ascend. Do nothing to save her,” he quotes the Word, I imagine. I didn’t take Narsimha for a pious man whatsoever. He made that much clear already.

Freeman No. 8 is angered that the mob has surrounded LeVay, but Sharra tells him to let her go. Let her die. Every man for himself! And woman; let’s not discrimination here. “It will make things right for your father,” she adds.

Nah. John Freeman The Eight is better than that! “Try and keep a landing area clear, Sharra,” he says, entering the fray with a gun in each hand. “I’ll be right back.”

There are still millions of these fuckers. John has lifted LeVay up bride-over-the-threshold style and starts running back, heading into the ship. Wolf and Crow had become a bunch of wolves and crows, and they too head into the ship. Sharra is ahead of them. Lux and Narsimha bring up the rear, but Narsimha is grabbed from behind. His head gets pinned by a man’s arm as another brandishes a large dagger.

“Help me,” he begs.
“Sorry,” Lux replies, “but I find no value in keeping the things that own me intact. I hope it hurts, asshole.”

When Lux gets into the ship and informs Wolf that his Uncle didn’t make it. “NO!” he yells, leaping and bounding out of the ship to, like, get dead himself.

“How badly are you hurt, Uncle?” he asks, punching more bitches. Well, Nephew, your dear old uncle got stabbed about four times, so things could be better. Crow joined them, but it looks like the ship is now leaving without them. Narsimha frowns sullenly like he dropped his ice cream.

A couple of ships are trying to blast Hell Demon, who appears to have absorbed Orion again through some of his patented tendril acupuncture. Orion is super fucking mad and promises an unleashing of hell on the Endless Nation. It is now his mission to raze the Machine City to the ground. Not sure why, since it was Thomas the Independent Hunter Guy Who is Friends with Texas Magoo who started this whole riot to begin with. Or, technically, it was actually Orion. Nevertheless…

East of West, Issue #27

Wolf’s a lucky guy. Crow’s never been sexier!.

Narsimha urges Wolf and Crow to get out of here and warn the Endless Nation. Leave him there to die! Go! Do it! *gurgle* Please… *gurgle* …just go… *gurgle burble*

Wolf is not agreeable to this. Mr. Uncle must return! However, much to Crow’s dismay, Wolf will stay here to try and halt Orion’s army before it even begins to march. Pick off as many people as he can. Wolf and Crow hug, and Wolf promises to be back.

He probably won’t be.

Time to turn into a rabid wolf and try to take on the Hell Demon! I mean, really now. Has anyone successfully been able to take on this beast? Fucking Ezra Orion became his arm or something.

“I am a servant of Death himself, and I don’t mind seeing him again,” Wolf thinks as Hell Demon’s six tongues start wrapping seductively around Wolf’s wolf face. Death is such a cheerful kind of guy. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with him?

And then the demon bites him. Just eats him all up like a, I dunno, like a fishstick. Sure.

Final Thoughts

What a dumb way to bite the big one, Wolf. You were always stupid! I’m deciding that now for the first time, actually. Wubba lubba dub dub.


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Sucky Funnies for October 30, 2022

Oh man, Happy Halloween y’all. Tricks and treats and ghosts and ghoulies and candy with razor blades in them and toilet paper and eggs and effigies and Satanic rituals and murders and rapes and pumpkins and cider.

And comics! It doesn’t get any better than this!

Mother Goose & Grimm

Mother Goose & Grimm - October 30, 2022

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A subtle joke about fucking. This is one for the grown-ups! Someone’s gonna get sucked tonight!

I’m sorry, I realized that this particular strip has offended my sensibilities and I intend to write an angry letter to my local newspaper about this. I don’t have a subscription to my local newspaper, but they just lost a prospective customer.

You know what? That sounds like a lot of work. I realized that I don’t mind this particular strip after all. I’m glad I could work this all out in real time.

Shoe

Mother Goose & Grimm - October 30, 2022

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I don’t know, it looks like Uncle Fatso has the sweet life to me. I can barely find five minutes to myself on a daily basis, so a sedentary existence of junk food, TV, and a really comfortable outfit is the dream right now! I don’t even own a pair of sweatpants. My life is in shambles.

Garfield

Garfield - October 30, 2022

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Congratulations to everyone born between 1946 and 1964, today’s Garfield strip is for you! Your notorious hatred of pumpkin spice is validated.

But perhaps you’re not catatonically perplexed by the punchline here like I am? It seems macabre for your average Garfield fare. The tables have turned for the squirrels, yes, but what exactly is a squirrel squeezin? Did this pumpkin hire some muscle to wring out a squirrel to death? Would it have been too morbid to make the liquid in the bowl a deep red?

One thing’s for certain. Stay away from that fucking pumpkin.

Mallard Fillmore

Mallard Fillmore - October 30, 2022

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BONUS MALLARD FILLMORE. For a split second I thought this was supposed to be a rare moment of self-deprecation and self-awareness, but the Cult of Trump has the capacity for neither. So the man with the male-pattern baldness ponytail symbolizes your average left-wing socialist piece of shit! And, lo’ and behold, a wry comment on the spoOooOOOookiness of Donald J. Purmpt!

Of course, the infestation of MAGA wasps with their pickled brains did a lot of projection in the comments.

Saul of Tarsus: “Get over it Karen. I will take a million mean tweets as long as it comes with the successful economy, freedom, national sovereignty, respect by foreign powers, more peace deals and America first.”

The pot calling the kettle Karen, I see! I wasn’t aware that freedom was off the table during a democrat presidency, but maybe I’m not paying enough attention! Or maybe I’m paying too much attention and that’s why I want to strangle myself with piano wire right now.

Dumpeagle: “I went into a YouTube chat last night on a liberal talking head video…mostly young people, they weren’t overly rude, but the stuff they were earnestly discussing was absolutely insane…apparently, Trump lives in their heads 24/7…I pointed out he hasn’t been in charge for almost 2 years now, it went right over their heads…”

Once in a while I like to “mingle” with the “kids” and join one of them “Youtube chats”. Maybe the guy writing a comic strip showing a Trump sign on a lawn in 2022 could tell you a thing or two about a former president living in someone’s head 24/7.

Old Nerd: “My wife turned on the radio and her favorite “easy listening” station is play Christmas music. ACK!”

Read the room, Old Nerd! We are not here to discuss family-friendly unpolitical matters! You take your wife’s favorite “easy listening” station and shove it up her cornhole! This is about lambasting our Grandpa-in-Chief! Show some respect for the pervasive animosity toward America’s executive branch! ACK!


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