Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95 – “Krypton Lives”

* Part 2 of 9 of the Superman: No Limits collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95 – “Krypton Lives!” In the previous issue of the Superman: No Limits collection, Lois and Clark are married. Lex Luthor sold the Daily Planet back and now everything is back to normal! It’s revealed that Lois convinced Lex to sell the newspaper back in exchange for ONE story, at any time of Lex’s choosing, to be completely disregarded! If Lex says don’t write about this story, then Lois Lane will not write about this story.

Also some douche named Mongul, or at least the son of the guy named Mongul (and he’s also named Mongul) needs Superman’s help with something. It’s unclear.

None of this matters! This is a completely different series today anyway! There’s no way any of this is going to get addressed! Onward.

Superman: Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95 [December, 1999]
Written by: Mark Schultz
“Krypton Lives”

Superman: Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

“Strange visitor from another planet”! Oh no! Are you telling me that Superman has been on Earth for decades, with literally thousands of issues of comic books addressing this situation, and it’s still not a resolved problem??

The scene: Antarctica. Or rather, “somewhere in the Antarctic”, because it doesn’t matter where. It’s a big, useless pile of cold land. A Lexcorp team is doing their shifty business on the continent, whatever that may be, probably digging around looking for Lex Luthor’s virginity. Oh wait, never mind, it’s never been lost!

“Let’s go, L-Team! Go! Go! Go! Everyone back to the VTOL! MOVE IT! Ion levels are fluctuating like crazy!” bellows the L-Team leader. I wonder what the “L” stands for. I have a pretty good guess.

The suited team runs back to their aircraft. The leader radios back to their base to tell them that their mission is complete, luckily, because “they’re about to get clobbered by one weird mother energy storm”. Hey, that’s my new band name: One Weird Mother.

Leader hangs back, staring at a hovering entity in the air. “I don’t get it,” the leader says to one of his men, “the entire time it just floats there…watching…something…something, but not us.”

It’s an icy, white-faced Superman. A menacing Superman. Whatever, they got what they came for, let’s go before this guy decides to hurt us at the last minute and AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

The ground splits open, revealing fiery chasms to Hell! The two lagging members of the Loser-Team book it to their aircraft as the ground shakes, rumbles, rattles, and rolls!

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Oh, I’m sorry, is there a problem, officer?

This Superman-y robot Terminator turns on his eyeball blinkers and stares puzzled into the opening earth. Just a bunch of “ZZZZ?” and “???” and “?” as he gazes like a dumb deer into the Hellmouth. Eventually, something large and fast emerges from the rift! Mighty claws, giant, massive demon claws, oh man these claws! There’s, like, five of these claws! They grab the Superman robot and work toward pulling him down, down, down into the molten abyss! Superman Robot all like “?!”

Is this robot going to be the titular “man of steel”? A neverending cavalcade of wacky hijinks starring an android that keeps going “??!?”?

“Hey Clark, pass me the stapler.”
“?”
“Yo, Superman, my cat’s stuck in a tree!”
“???!?”
“Superman! Help! Metropolis is being razed to the ground by Elon Musk and his SpaceX Giant Centipedes!”
“??!!!?”

Speaking of Metropolis, Jimmy “Goldenballs” Olsen got invited to Lois and Clark’s pad in the heart of the city! I guess we’re not following the robot around afterall. “It’s great to be able to compare notes, what with the Daily Planet being back and us getting rehired and all,” Jimmy says! Hey, nice exposition dialogue! There’s that kernel of continuity I’m happy to lap up like a dog!

I guess it’s been literal years since any of them worked. Jimmy is thrilled to be holding a camera again. He simply cannot believe the technological advancements within the last few years alone! The late ‘90s are something else! Why, his 20-pound digital camera can hold up to 14 kB of memory! Far out, man! Mambo #5!

That, plus the internet! Cool stuff there too, man. With international news and all those language barriers, the VISUAL IMAGE is king! You got that right, Jimmy! *ruffles his hair and gives him a noogie*

Lois, Clark, and Jimmy’s genial chat about work is interrupted by the “VREEP VREEP VREEP” of a strange alarm. Jimmy gets up and starts poking around the living room like he owns the place. “GUYS…! It–it’s the head of Superman’s drone robot,” he says, pulling out a large gold visor apparatus from on top of the fireplace mantel and behind the books. Busted!

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Uhhhh… that’s not a robot head, that’s…uh, one of our SEX TOYS! Heh heh! Right, honey?… now be a good lad and give it back.

Jimmy is freaking the fuck out! Clark stays cool and gives him a charming smile. It’s just a Superman radio/alarm clock! A collectible! Pretty stupid stuff, he got it for Lois as a jokey joke! You know how she is, right Jimmy? LEGS OPEN AND READY FOR SUPERMAN AT ALL TIMES! Ha ha ha! Right, Lois? *gulp*

Clark asks the “radio” to “please isolate microwave bandwidth .001479 short, and broadcast”, and it’s tuned to a traffic report. Jimmy is satisfied, especially the verbal command response! Very futuristic. Kinda like Siri or Alexa!

Ha ha…yeah… Lois starts pushing the kid out the door. “Afraid we’re going to have to ask you to hit the road,” she says curtly. An appointment, you see! That’s…that’s why the alarm went off! On the robot head! Clock, I mean “clock”. It’s a clock! Right, see: 1:58pm hurf durf! Ok, by Jimmy. *slam*

Once the ginger kid is shoved out, Lois chides her dear husband about leaving Kryptonian artifacts all over the dang house! “But I need Kelex to help me keep tabs on the ruins of the fortress…” he says, like Lois just told him to throw out a few old video game controllers from his man cave. He asks his robot head why the alarm went off; the device tells him in some very robotic green text that the Super Robot stationed at Superman’s fortress reports a flare-up! That seems like a mild way of saying “a fucking portal to Hell opened on Earth”.

Also, there were some humans there. This unsettles Clark. “Current danger? Effects of intrusion?” Negative on the danger, boss! However, there is something adjacent to danger! The humans took something from the premises. Something unknown. You’re gonna have to go and see for yourself because the sentry robot didn’t do a very good job sentrying, apparently.

That’s just what Clark plans to do. Lois wants to fly with him to Antarctica, but he doesn’t wanna do that. First of all, it’s Antarctica. Second of all, no.

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Plus, all this malarkey about “women owning property” has me a bit discombobulated!

“Come on– I know next to nothing about your Kryptonian heritage. This is your chance to teach me a thing or two,” Lois whines.

Third of all, no.

“Besides, I’m your wife,” she smiles, “and by law that makes the fortress 50 percent mine.”

Fine. Die in Antarctica if you want to, who gives a shit.

So, clad in a winter coat and sunglasses, Superman flies her bony butt to the inhuman frigidity of the South Pole. There’s an aurora in the distance, quite borealis-like if you will, surrounding the location of the fortress. “It’s weird–” Superman proclaims, “it’s the visual fallout of the trace singularity that is the lingering essence of the fortress.”

Yeah, ok nerd. Can you please just give Lois the WiFi password once you get there?

Superman is perplexed. Where’s that robot at?! He was supposed to keep an eye on things! “When you came for me,” Superman begins referencing something I have no fucking frame of reference for, “when you came to wrest me from Dominus’ manipulations, you called the fortress a shrine to a dead planet.”

Whoops! Yeah, that was a little mean, wasn’t it? “I was angry,” she says, defending her loathsome actions and words, “desperate to shock you out of your complacency…”

But Superman is starting to agree with that sentiment. Has he really tried to maintain Krypton’s legacy? I mean, has he really tried to keep the memory of Krypton alive?

Yuck, Superman’s in one of his self-hatred moods again. HEY, there’s the robot down there in that chasm! Whew, good. Lois didn’t want to have to listen to that man mope and cry again, like he did last night during their sexual escapades! *wink*

“Hey, Super Robot! What are you doing down there?” Superman asks jovially, as if the robot is his impish little son.
“I stand by to observe further phenomena as per your directive, Kal-El,” responds the android in cute, red blocky text.
“‘Super Robot’ just doesn’t cut it,” proclaims Lois, butting the fuck into the conversation, “How about ‘Ned’?”

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Yes, yes, we all had that one Uncle Ned who touched us just a little bit too inappropriately.

Well, we’re getting nowhere fast here, aren’t we? Superman ignores his wife and presses his robotic counterpart for more information. “Manifestations last appeared from this fissure,” explains Ned. Ned the Robot. “Biological entities of unknown origin, preceded by an increased flux in trace singularity activity and geophysical disturbances.”

Sounds fun! A real laugh riot! This robot is a funny guy! Lots of personality! At least 95% of the personality that Clark has, if I did my math correctly.

So what do you mean, then, Robot Buddy? Strange underground creatures that scurried away when those pesky humans were here stealing the whatever? The thing? And who are these humans, huh buddy? A team of 12 LexCorp agents? That’s fucked up!

Ugghhh, this sucks. “I should have never brought Lois,” Superman thinks to himself, because, obviously, bringing a human woman to Antarctica was a great plan until now, eh? “Too many unknown factors…”

Time to start shaming the robot. “Why didn’t you intercept the scavengers?” Superman asks rather crossly. And you don’t want to make him cross, oh no. “My instructions are to observe and report phenomena associated with the anomaly…” Ned says simply. Take that, smartypants, ya idiot. Observe and report, that’s it. That’s all. And here’s a little bonus punch for you, Spandex Man: the phenomena associated with the anomaly has started up again! Rumble rumble!

Superman freaks out and scrambles and flops and works on trying to get Lois out of there before–

K-K-KRZAAAK RRRRRRRMMMMM!! That’s the Earth splitting open again, shooting up geysers of acrid Hellsmoke into everyone’s faces. Lois is scared! Superman is trying to figure some shit out, so pipe down, lady! “The phenomena flared when I came for Kelex, and when the LexCorp team trespassed. Human presence must somehow agitate the anomaly!”

Double bonehead move for bringing Lois along, huh? Side note: I don’t know who/what Kelex is exactly, or why Clark needs him/her/it to “keep tabs on the fortress”, or why it’s human enough to cause geophysical disturbances in Antarctica, or if the previous 94 issues of Superman: Man of Steel would help answer those questions. I don’t know ANY of that! And I’m happy enough with my ignorance at this time.

Anyway, here’s another image:

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Who did you just call your “bloated perversion of your birthing matrix”, pal? Go fuck yourself, this marriage is over.

This “bloated perversion of Superman’s birthing matrix” appears as a large ball of orange energy with various rocky-looking demon parts attempting to jut themselves out of it. Just these toothy, eyeless, horrible screeching creatures. I’m told that these creatures existed as part of Krypton’s prehistoric past, so they’re like Kryptonian dinosaurs! And they look like they haven’t eaten in 150 million years! Superman frantically struggles to hold one at bay while keeping Lois safe from Kryptonian dinosaurs and geophysical anomalies and weird sentry robots and Antarctic chills! Why, oh why, did Lois want to come?? She’s so stupid! Arrrghh!

“Super Robot! Get Lois Lane to safe– –OOOF!”

Super Robot works on getting Lois to safeooof even though such a command makes no sense!
The dinosaur pins Superman to the ground while Lois shouts Clark’s name over and over again like that’ll help. The robot flies her out of there. Many more dinosaurs attempt to make short work of Kal-El the Mighty!

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

You think Lois couldn’t hold her own against these jerks? Come on, let her have a chance.

Superman calls all this shit “madness”, but that’s not a good word to describe what’s going on here. There seems to be a “method” to this “madness”.

“They must be– they are the children of the creator of the fortress!” he declares. I was going along with him for a moment there, but now he’s lost me again. Children of the creator of the fortress? These dinosaur bitches? Ugh. Fine.

“They are the work of the Eradicator! That ancient Kryptonian survival program JUST– WON’T– DIE!” Superman grunts, catching us all up on the immortality of the, what was it now, the “Eradicator”. My nickname in college.

Good thing this Superman fellow is literally made out of steel, as I understand it. He’s not going to die right here and right now! This Eradicator comrade, he is working toward rebuilding the fortress, possibly even Krypton itself, by using the birthing matrix to recreate Krypton’s primeval life. Did you get all that? It sounds convoluted, but hey, the Eradicator is nothing if not convoluted! I mean, motivated.

These bitches are tough! Kryptonian creatures get their strength from the Earth’s yellow sun, and they’re no exception! Oh god, does Superman wish they were the exception!

Now seems to be a stellar opportunity for some birthing matrix-related flashbackin’. It’s not like Superman is currently very busy. Let’s see, blah blah blah blah blah. Jor-El, Superman’s dad, he broke the rules by not “staying removed from his bride”. And he and Lara learned that “ancient hatreds” were killing the planet, they launched their only son into the vast emptiness of space for fun.

“SNAP OUT OF IT CLARK,” Clark says to himself, snapping out of it, “FOCUS! These things are pure aggression.”

It’s been very fun reading Superman fight these losers for 475 pages, but now it’s getting old and I’m getting tired and also vice-versa. These stupid dinosaurs have been running your life for too long, Kal-El old boy! Fight fire with fire!

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Oh my! A blatant, obvious show stopper is in our midst? Good timing, sir, the comic book is almost over!

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the fiendish reptiles become easier to beat and Superman wonders why. And then he doesn’t wonder why anymore, because he figures it out! “These are animals designed for prehistoric Krypton’s hellish climate! The further they move from the tremendous heat generated by the matrix and into the polar cold, the more their biological systems slow down!”

Cool, man, so you could’ve just flown home? I understand now.

But no, it wouldn’t be Superman if he just flew home! He has to do something super! If that means “altering environmental conditions”, then by god, he’ll alter environmental conditions! It’s like pressing a button on a microwave, beep boop all done.

He creates a clockwise rotation in the atmosphere, which creates a micro-front of pressure in the southern hemisphere and overcomes the hot air radiating from the matrix. Duh. It worked! It’s too cold and the dinosaurs are crying! Huzzah! They’re retreating from whence they came! Double huzzah!

No time to party yet. Especially not in a manner that is hearty. These creatures weren’t generated out of nothing! “Somehow the Eradicator program– the original architect of the fortress…has twisted my birthing matrix to create…KRYPTON ON EARTH!” Superman declares!

I’m…uh, I think he already said this kind of thing multiple times? Why does he keep saying this information over and over again? Does Mark Schultz think his readers can’t remember what they just read three pages ago? Does Superman even know he’s just talking to himself? Does Superman know that Robot Superman is boning Lois right now as we speak??

Anyway, the bottom line here is that “the fortress is willing itself back into existence”, and that’s not at all something that we can withstand! We won’t tolerate this nonsense! Superman’s gonna burn this motherfucker into oblivion with his Hot Eyeballs. “Melt it into slag and seal it over!” ZZZZ-TOOM! That oughta do it.

Certainly not a permanent solution, but it will buy him time until he thinks of a better plan!

(He won’t. He won’t at all. He’ll forget this ever happened in the first place. The next issue will concentrate on Superman’s cuckoo clock that keeps revealing his secret identity at the stroke of every hour while Jimmy Olsen repeatedly tries jerking off in their dining room.)

Superman: The Man of Steel (Vol. 1), Issue #95

Directive #1: The Superbathroom needs more Supertoilet paper! Directive #2: The SuperFord Focus is upside-down in a ditch again!

Superman flies to the cold rock where Lois is waiting with her very talkative friend. “You’ve destroyed all the remains of your birthworld…” she laments, sobbing into Superman’s puffy muscles, but then the ground starts shaking again! MORE ACTIVITY FROM THE GHOST FORTRESS! They have to get out of here! This place sucks!

Super Robot has standing orders to keep on watching and, this time, fucking do something about it if someone is intruding! I mean, does that really have to be said out loud? Don’t fail or else Superman will smack you with a wrench until every nut and bolt in your body flings out into the ionosphere.

Lois is scrambling to understand! Please explain everything to her again! *groooaann*

“It’s about survival, Lois. The survival of the evil, intolerant spirit of Krypton…or survival of the Earth…they cannot coexist. The Fortress of Solitude, and the culture it preserves, has repeatedly proven to be a threat to my adopted planet. The Fortress must never be resurrected, Lois. All traces must be…ERADICATED.”

Pretty dumb stuff. And it’s not even over yet! It’s not even fucking over!

The last couple of pages show a meeting where an unseen individual is presenting a new invention to the mayor and a couple of high-ranking police officers. A steel suit! Fully integrated armor and weaponry! Encephalo-sensitive command and response! Flexible land, air, and sea mobility! There’s also a chamber near the crotch that cooks pasta for you in only four minutes! It will revolutionize the way you do…whatchamacallit…police work.

Gotta be non-lethal, though! We don’t want any killings. Just maimings, please.

“Commissioner, I look forward to working with the special crimes unit,” the man says, shaking hands.

“John Henry Irons, on behalf of the entire police department, welcome to Metropolis!”

Final Thoughts

Bloated! Comic books are for kids! What’s with all these talks of pressure micro-fronts and encephalo-sensitivity! I’m nine-years-old and I can barely read!


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Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

Death Note, Vol. 1, Chapter 6 – “Manipulation”

* Part 6 of 7 of Vol. 1 – “Boredom” *

Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 1, Chapter 6: “Manipulation”! In the previous installment, Ryuuku spends a lot of time flapping his spiky-toothed gums about the overwrought Shinigami rules for Death Noting, including stuff like a human being sucks but a Shinigami is awesome. They know people’s names just by looking at their faces. They get to siphon some extra years from their victims to add to their own lifespans.

Humans can get some of dem Shinigami powers too! It just costs half the rest of their lives, that’s all. Then they can get some Shinigami Eyes. Raito’s gonna do it because he’s an idiot. And now he’s going to start killing people just by looking at them. Probably.

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Manipulation”

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

Raito mulls this over. The whole “cut my life in half and go on a rampage” notion.

“Ryuuku, this deal…” starts Raito, and Ryuuku’s reaction is all “!”. It’s all “!”. He does a “!”.
“…is out of the question.”

Welp, that settles that! Let’s go hit the hot tub!

“I’m supposed to create a utopia without any criminals, and as God of this utopia, I have to maintain my reign for a long time,” concludes Raito Almighty. So, no shortening of lifespans. CLEARLY, Ryuuku should have already known this about him! I predict that he really will seek to lengthen his lifespan at this time. Fingale some Shinigami life-sucking powers somehow. And then he’ll turn Ryuuku into a human and kill him for even suggesting the lifespan-shortening proposal. Good god, man.

Ryuuku was just being forthcoming, is all! Don’t come crying to him later when you need to know L’s name and kill him quicker than you can find your little Jerkoff Book. Just remember, “we can make the deal at any time, as long as you own the Death Note.”

Cool, fine, cool, cool. What’s next on the agenda? We need to plant tomatoes, and– WAIT A MINUTE! IF THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME WHEN EVER FIRST MET? Huh? Huh? Well? Do you speak English? Do you speak English? Answer me.

Ryuuku stares at this fucking psycho. He just can’t believe he’ll brazenly question and berate a Shinigami without a second thought. Amazing. Wonderful. He knew he liked this little sprat.

Arms folded, Raito continues staring the God of Hot Topic down. “Is there nothing else to tell me, Shinigami Ryuuku?”

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

Nice going, Mr. Omniscience. Mr. Know-Nothing.

BrrRRRtt! Better answer correctly. Boss is gonna be irritated if he finds out you withheld other information up to this point! Here’s hoping there are no more Shinigami Laws of the Land!

Luckily, Ryuuku told him everything! …he thinks. That’s too bad, though! Raito was hoping for some bitchin’ wings. If you could get some cool Shinigami wings, you could soar through the air like a godly dumbass albatross!

Ryuuku is like “BUUHHH, WHAT ABOUT THE POLICE?!”, and Raito’s like “you’re an idiot”.

“But you know what? If I did make those deals, I’d end up becoming a Shinigami just like you,” the kid muses. I’m not sure where he gleaned the idea that making these deals would turn him into an actual Shinigami. I missed that part. I heard the part about cutting his worthless life in half. I heard that part.

“There’s nothing to worry about there,” says Ryuuku, puckering up for a little ass-kissin’, “Raito, you’re already… A FINE SHINIGAMI!” Pfft, calm down. Say it, don’t spray it, and whatnot.

Funnily enough, the kid considers this an insult. I mean, from what he’s heard, Shinigami are a bunch of do-nothing trashy bums. Layabouts. Deadbeats with their faccid dicks in their hands! “Don’t compare me to the Shinigami. I’m using the Death Note as a human, and for humans!”

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

Good idea, Sparky. Those guys sure are worth your time and effort.

Raito cracks open his rag and studies the instructions that are inexplicably written within it. A “description” of the Death Note. Like, this thing was invented and there’s this whole how-to-use section like you can buy a bunch of them at Target. Anyway, Raito figures out how he can get the name of the guy who’s been following him for the last couple of days. So he can crush him like a gnat in his tender little fist. He checks the time: not even 6pm. And tomorrow’s Saturday! Perfect! Sounds like Raito is gonna pull an all-nighter here. Maybe it’s gonna be a big creepy seance with pentagrams and goat’s blood and spiky wide-eyed gods with studded belts.

…or not. The time and the fact that tomorrow is Saturday are INCONSEQUENTIAL to the next events. “If you write the reason of death, you will have an additional six minutes and forty seconds to write the specific details of death,” he recites from the book, “First I have to test how ‘specific’ these details can be.”

Luckily, Raito amassed a collection of convicted felons he can test this kind of shit out on. A bunch of arsonists and murderers and embezzlers and anime fans. It’s like baseball cards that double as voodoo dolls. Collect them all! Stick them with pins!

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

I gots me the Shirami Misaaki rookie card! “Burning down of family housing”. He’s an up-and-comer for sure.

He intends to make the guy following him think he’s squeaky clean and uninvolved. It sounds like he’s going to finagle himself an alibi while being watched to throw off the scent.

Raito’s father, Mr. Director of MURDER CRIME INVESTIGATIONS, gets a call on the official Murder Crime phone. SIX more heart attacks have been reported, and something funny is going on! THREE of them did something before dying!

The first guy, he goes by the name Shirami Misaaki. You may know him as Mr. Cuddly Arson Man, he drew a pentagram on the wall of his cell.

This other guy, Yadanaka something or other. Yadanaka Papadopolous McGillis. He wrote a dang suicide note! A cryptic message referencing Kira the Killer! Whoa baby, this is some juicy stuff.

This third guy, “Yoda”. From jail, he escaped. Collapsed in the bathroom, he did.

Watari wastes no time relaying this info to his butt buddy L. Even L is slightly unnerved by the strange behavior of these three suckers right before they ate it, but he takes a logical step back and QUICKLY SURMISES that, since Kira can control the time of death, then he can also manipulate his victims’ actions before their deaths as well. He decides this within three panels. So that was anticlimactic.

L gets Mr. Director on the horn right away! Don’t say anything other than “died of heart failure”! It sounds like Kira is testing some new waters here! Over and out! *bzzzt* *glub*

“Toying with people’s lives? I will not allow it!” says the Director, and I shall remind all of you that this stuffed shirt is Raito’s dad. He’s going to send Kira to bed without his dinner.

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

Ryuuku is always just chilling in Raito’s room like he’s a bored little brother.

Raito hacks into Director Dad’s database and sees the fruits of his labor already uploaded into the system. It worked! Everything he jotted down had happened right down to the last minute detail. Some real bonkers shit. It’s like, after all these chapters we still can’t believe everything the Death Note does! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

So we heard details about the first three of the six heart attack deaths. What about the other three? Raito tried some impossible ideas, such as “die at 6:00pm in front of the Eiffel Tower” and “draw a picture of L’s face” and “write ‘I know L distrusts the police’”. The first two are obvious. Raito explains them to Ryuuku because Ryuuku is a moron, but YOU, loyal reader, I know I don’t have to insult your intelligence! The third one, as Raito explains it, supposes that the victim is unable to write anything about thoughts he’d never have about someone he doesn’t know about in the first place. Those three jailbirds just died of simple heart attacks with no strange circumstances accompanying the deaths.

So the Death Note isn’t as completely batshit magical as one would hope. Oh well. Guess we have to stay constrained to reality then. Like sitting ducks.

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 6

I’m beginning to suspect that this Ryuuku cat has some really fucked up brain damage.

These six victims, though, that was just a warm-up. Here comes the really fun one! “The next test will decide everything. The outcome of this test in the morning will be enough. L and the police won’t see this one at first,” Raito mutters as picks his mark and jots down some notes.

“And even L will never discover my true purpose,” he adds, snickering to himself like a mongoose-faced snake in the grass! He’s going to fabricate some nonsense words and drawings for the victim to draft up, leading the police on a wild goose chase based on something completely meaningless!

L, meanwhile, pores over the suicide note in an attempt to pinpoint Kira’s reason for experimenting with the victims in this manner. The fake suicide note is just a bunch of purple prose that projects the dead guy’s alleged fear of Kira. “Definitely for Kira I am just…literally a prey.” Thanks, literally a broken English translation.

While inspecting the note, L spots something curious in the corner…

The next morning, Raito comes down for breakfast uncharacteristically early for a Saturday morning. That’s because the little masturbator wants to check the newspaper to see what’s what. He grabs the paper and sneaks back into his room with it.

“And the result?” Ryuuku eagerly asks, practically bouncing up and down in his 40-buckle goth boots. The victim was a convenience store robber who was stabbed with his own knife by the clerk. It was caught on the security camera, and ruled as self-defense.

“This Death Note is incredible,” Raito says in awe, “for my directions to be carried out in such detail!” You can see his chicken scratch in the book laying out the details: death from blood loss, stabbed at 1:30am by his own knife in a convenience store, yada yada yada. I don’t have to tell you again.

Raito is 100% sure he’s going to be tailed again today, so he sets up one more trap to further throw these investigators off. He’s going to use a guy he saw on the news last night who attempted bank robbery and ended up killing a teller and a customer, then he fled before the cops showed up.

“Nine o’clock…a bit early, but it should be fine. Let’s try a few people,” Raito flips open his 2003 cell phone. It probably has Snake on it. That was a fun game.
“Try a few people?” ponders a bewildered Ryuuku. His smile doesn’t even look that smiley.
“You know I’m pretty popular with the ladies, Ryuuku,” grins Raito. I don’t believe that for a goddamn second, kid. This 17-year-old still pulls pigtails of the girls he sits behind in class.

His phone call wakes up some girl in her bed. We don’t know who she is. We don’t know why he’s calling her. And that’s the end.

Final Thoughts

Man, I really want to see the police face-fuck this kid. Are we supposed to be cheering him on? He’s so smarmy and cocksure. Makes me want to write his stupid name down in a notebook of sorts!


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All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

* Part 5 of 5 of the Yesterday’s X-Men storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #5! In the previous installment, Old Cyclops is a big whiny crybaby and Young Hank is going to perform his Doogie Howser doctor magic on his aged, mutated, heart-murmuring self.

Magneto and Frost are mad at Cyclops, the good guys back at the school are mad at Cyclops, and he sits there with his malfunctioning visor grinding his teeth and sobbing and moaning. Dude needs some Klonopin.

This issue wraps up the first story. Every single one of these mutants is broken and beaten. Without exception. It’s a wonder no one killed themselves yet! Ha ha. Suicide is serious, please call 1-800-273-8255 if you or someone you know is considering suiciding and you can talk to a representative who might make you feel worse by accident. Sorry.

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [March, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Old Beast is having a flashback where he and the young X-Men are back in school and Young Hank has already mutated into Young Beast. He prowls around the halls all excited like a kid in a candy store, or Donald Trump Jr. in a cocaine store. As it turns out, Jean Grey has done some magic psychic voodoo and transported both of them into Old Beast’s brain. Maybe! Jeannie has never done this before. I hope they’re not stuck forever!

Well, Young Beast (who is actually Old Beast) tells Jeannie that she’s not supposed to become telepathic for at least another year. Perhaps all this jumping around time and being traumatized into fucking oblivion has jump-started Jean’s telepathic battery. Cool, huh? You can thank him later for showing up in the past and rearranging all of the metaphorical furniture.

“I can’t get over how good it is to see you,” Beast tells the very-much alive Jean Grey, “I’m sorry about all of this.”
“No you’re not, you did this on purpose,” she snaps back, a little salty that Beast had to go and mess with time and space. You don’t DO that, man!
“I’m sorry you have to grow up faster than you were planning. But you’ll go back and Xavier will put it all right.”

Another version of Young Beast shows up to the party. He’s not blue yet, but he’s beefy! Super beefy. A beastly slab of beef, this one. The two Beasts talk to each other and finish each other’s sentences, and it’s darling as heck, and Jeannie is amused by their encounter. The two Young Beasts want to bounce ideas off of each other in order to determine what’s going on with their old, stinky, senile, fetid, useless older self.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Well, for starters, I don’t think manhandling Blue Beast’s titties is going to help all that much.

Non-Blue Beast knows what the problem is! Eventually, their older self is going to fuck around with their mutation and, years down the line, it’s going to cause a whole slew of issues! Such as, and get this, having weird heart attacks and panting and heaving in this ugly hospital room.

Don’t blame Blue Beast! He’s the same person as you are, Non-Blue Beast, you janky little whelp! Second of all, how was he supposed to know what would happen? They were fine for years! Decades, even! So take a chill pill, Jill, before he gets shrill and he’ll kill you with a quill. It will be a thrill. You swill.

Back in the actual real world non-psychic head invasion, the rest of the X-Men are cautiously worried about Young Hank screaming nonsense into the face of his older, comatose self. All like “THE HELL YOU WILL!”, and Wolverine confirms that he’s a twelve-year-old. No hair on dem balls yet.

Meanwhile, back in Head Land, the two Beasts pore over a wall full of fake-ass equations. They each keep repeating “oh my stars and garters”, which is the worst catchphrase since “Jiminy Jillickers!”

In the real world, Young Hank wants everyone out of the room except Jean. Kitty Pryde wants to stay, but he tells her to go fuck herself!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

If it makes you feel any better, Benjamin, it’s less because you’re a mutant and more because you look just like every mass shooter in the last twelve years.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS! Benjamin, Mr. FaceApp, got kicked out of school and he’s going to sue the pants out of all of them. Not only that, but he thought all of you were his friends! Oh, sure, you’re gonna protest mutant rights until you get gunned down by police Kent State-style, but when a real actual mutant, with a big ol’ dick by the way shows up in the flesh, you all are like “HUB BUB BUBLBUBULB”! Well, screw you guys, I’m going home.

Benjamin storms out of there with his purple skateboard and an ugly scowl on his face. Like a sexual predator, Scott Summers is hiding behind a tree with a sexual predator jacket and a sexual predator hat. And large, red, sexual predator sunglasses. “Sorry you’re having a bad day,” he says, moving in for the kill. Benjamin recognizes this asshole right away.

“Can’t help but feel partly responsible,” Cyclops says, hands in his pockets like he’s going to sell this kid drugs any minute now.
“Partly responsible?!” Benjamin scowls incredulously, “I give you full permission to allow yourself to feel fully responsible. You show up– you bring– what was that? Your whole mutant superhero roadshow with you.”

Kid’s got a point. Cyclops has no way to react other than sheepishly. Trying to be the bigger man and all that happy horseshit. He tries to explain that he has no idea what that was all about and he doesn’t know what to say and he doesn’t know what to do to make it better. This, preposterously, if you can fucking believe it, doesn’t sit well with Benjamin. He asks to be left alone.

Benjamin walks about six steps before curiosity gets the better of him and he about-faces back over to sheepish Cyclops. “Why me?” he asks him, getting up in his face. Pfft, don’t flatter yourself kid. It’s not about you. People like you are popping up all over the world right now. A real PANDEMIC, you might say! Get yourself a mask, kiddo.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

I’m still not convinced that Cyclops isn’t trying to worm his way into some quality cuddling time with this flirty display.

Cyclops admits that he doesn’t know what the hell Benjamin’s deal is. He knows shapeshifters, oh God does he know shapeshifters! But this isn’t really shapeshifting. And it’s not totally becoming another person entirely either. Odd stuff. Unprecedented, you might say. It’s very sexy.

Benjamin lets his guard down and allows Cyclops to start playing the sympathy card. All that cult stuff that one needs to watch out for. Kindness, understanding, making the target feel like he’s not alone, that’s he’s cared about, all before he gets a nice cup of Flavor Aid in Guyana.

“You need guidance and training. I’m offering it to you,” Cyclops tells him.
“I have the internet. I know who you are, Scott Summers. I know what you’ve done,” Benjamin counters, pointing his bony, accusing finger at the handsome perpetrator!

Cyclops tells him he can just walk away from all this if he doesn’t like it or him. Trust him. And his target is snared! They’re immediately transported to the New School of Creepy Weapon X Holocaust Experiments! Welcome home, son!

Meanwhile, back at the Jean Grey School of Hard Knocks, Young Hank is gettin’ touchy!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Look lady, you’re distracting me from my very important giant lightbulb starin’.

Young Hank shows off his moves by flipping up to some ceiling pipes and twisting around like a six-year-old on a jungle gym. “Don’t do anything crazy,” Pryde warns from the floor, “you tend to, sometimes, do crazy things.”

Crazy? Moi? Hey now, Young Hank has more of a vested interest in keeping himself alive than you or anyone else, Kitty Cat, so if Young Hank wants to do CRAZY SHIT then WABWHA HABWHWBWBW AHWBWHWBA PPFFFFTTTTTHWBAB!!

Pryde looks hurt by this. Oh well!

Back in Hank’s Head, a young blue Beast chit-chats some more with Jean Grey. He doesn’t want to give her a big I-told-you-so, but she got in Cyclops’ head and now she knows that Beast was telling the truth all along! ♫♪ told you sooooo ♪♪♫♪

Jean bites her lower lip like someone who doesn’t like the idea of knowing she’s going to die some day for reals. “How did I die?” she asks Beast. “Which time?” he replies. She doesn’t like that at all! Nevertheless, she wants him to show her. Show her how she dies? Like, as in, get a front row seat on the action? That sounds grim. Let’s do it!

OK, honey, get your telepath probe and root around in there for a bit. Just get deep in Beast’s brain. Look at the big brain on Beast! It won’t hurt, he might even like it a little too much. She looks. Her eyes pop open like “BRRRZRRTT!!” and she sees a swirling vortex of past scenes that look like cutouts from other X-Men issues! Stuff like her emerging out of water covered in flames. Her stare upon her own dead body. Her kissing Wolverine. Her with hair like Margaret Thatcher. Her her her. These glimpses mean nothing to me, but I’m sure they mean something to somebody!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

…It was so tiny and BLUE and it was shaped like bent mushroom that had withered in the sun over the last twenty years!

Jean yells “NO!” really loud, emits some violet light, and knocks over a table full of Young Hank’s equipment. She flails among the scalpels and beakers while Pryde runs to her assistance. She saw everything! And it wasn’t pretty!

The women walk out of the room. Young Hank gives his comatose older self the side-eye. “What are you up to?” he asks out loud while filling a ten-gallon syringe with red liquid. “Let’s hope one of us is as smart as the other one thinks he is,” he says, injecting ten gallons of Kool-Aid through Old Beast’s hospital-room chest plate thingy.

What’s happening outside the front of the school again? Why, Wolverine and Storm confront Young Cyclops and his ragtag team of precocious chumps while a slew of lookie-loos gawk at them brainlessly. Young Cyclops is all like “SORRY, I’M SORRY, WAAAHH, PLEASE FORGIVE EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW PLEASE I’M BUT A CHILD” and Wolverine is like “pfft”. They’ve got Wolverine talking like a Goodfellas. They’ve got Wolverine speaking like fuckin’ 4’ 7” Joe Pesci.

“Every time I could’a just popped a claw in the back of your scrawny neck and stopped you cold,” Wolverine muses, savoring the thought and popping a stiffy instead of a claw. Storm tells him to cut it out and stop being mean to the genocidal dipshit.

For reasons I don’t understand, Wolverine declares that killing Young Cyclops will make Professor Xavier magically appear. Probably not, though, because the Professor would’ve probably fallen head first into the toilet by now. Wolverine wants to get democratic with it and put the notion of killing the kid up to a vote. Cyclops tells him to knock it off. They look like they’re either about to kill each other OR hug and kiss. Perhaps both!

“That’s quite enough, all of you…” chirps a mysterious blue beastly voice. Young Hank and Old, Revitalized Beast show up! Beast has ten gallons of Kool-Aid sloshing around and he feels fit as a fiddle! “Logan, I didn’t bring them here so you can work out your issues.”

Huzzah! Hurray! Excelsior! Hooah!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Bad example. Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t learn a damn thing.

Someone objects to this sentiment. Jeannie Grey doesn’t want to go back. First of all, living her life on the original track means she dies and that doesn’t sound fun whatsoever. Second of all, she’s seen everything, and I do mean everything, for the next ten or fifteen or eighty years. She saw it all in the blink of an eye! And it sucks. So no. Third of all, Professor Wheelchair is going to know what happened and he’ll flash the Men in Black mind-wipey thing on all of them. Fourth of all: no.

Jean keeps talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. Being an X-Man means a lifetime of torture, disaster, whining, and bitching. Nothing matters anyway, it’s all going to lead to this exact same point. So fuck it.

So here’s the deal: they stay, right the wrongs, THEN they can go back and get tortured and experience disaster and whine like bitches. But not a second earlier than they’re supposed to! Got it? Good.

Wolverine doesn’t like that. Get your ass back to the past.

No.

Now Jean wants to get democratic with it. Voting time! Show of hands please.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Everyone’s a comedian…

Only the youngins are to vote. Everyone says yay except for Angel, but who cares about him? I don’t. I don’t know that guy. He can get thrown into the dump for all I care. Right into a landfill full of hypodermic needles and baby feces.

“Then it’s settled,” announced Jean.
“It’s not settled,” argues Beast, who brought these kids here in the first place, “you’re just kids. You can’t just go bobbing around in the future doing whatever you want.”

Kitty Pryde puffs out her chest and uses her most authoritative squeak she can muster. “I’ll keep an eye on them!”

Cool stuff. That won’t be a torturous bitchy moany disaster.

Angel still isn’t pleased. He wants to know where the hell he is in this horrible future. He hasn’t seen his older self loafing around anywhere. What gives?

He probably farts himself to death.

ANYWAY, Young Cyclops wants to talk to Jean for a quick second. Jean walks away and tells him to leave her alone.

Final Thoughts

DRAMA! It reminds me of high school, except here two airplanes didn’t fly into the Twin Towers during my 9th grade French class.

HOW ARE THEY GOING TO RIGHT THE WRONGS! Tune in next time when I tackle the next All-New X-Men storyline! In, like, seven months.


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The Social Network (2010)

Tagline:
You don’t get to 500 millions friends without making a few enemies

Wide Release Date:
October 1, 2010

Directed by:
David Fincher
Written by:
Aaron Sorkin
Produced by:
Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Ceán Chaffin

Starring:
Jesse Eisenberg
Andrew Garfield
Justin Timberlake
Armie Hammer
Max Minghella

The Social Network

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I was in college when The Social Network was in theaters. Its release date was on my birthday, in fact, and I can’t think of a better birthday present in 2010 than not watching this movie!

After an additional decade of Mark Zuckerberg still being “influential”, supposedly, to whom I have no fucking idea (plus a sufficiently long enough stretch of time since I’ve watched anything written by Aaron Sorkin), I had decided that I can be motivated to tolerate another two hours of Sorkin’s style while viewing a movie that depicts Zuckerberg in a timeless negative light! The window for this motivation wouldn’t have stayed open much longer. And here we are.

THE 350(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The year is 2003. Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is on a date with his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara), and she’s super tired of his awkward, robotic, sperglord bullshit. She understandably breaks up with him, possibly months later than she really should have! Mark gets mad and throws a lot of shade about her in his LiveJournal that evening. Still riding the high of his misogyny-fueled ambitions, Mark hacks into the college database and creates a HotOrNot ripoff website using photos of all the female Harvard students. It blows up overnight, crashing the servers.

The Social Network

Cool website you got there, fucking incels.

Rich, arrogant, WASP-y, rowing team twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) each channel their inner entitled pretty-boy James Spader and try to recruit Zuckerberg for work on the social network they’re developing with their friend Divya (Max Minghella): Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg accepts and immediately steals the idea, rounds up his rich friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to help fund the development of Facebook. Divya and the Winklevosses spend months under the impression that Zuckerberg is working on Harvard Connection. We all know what happens next!

I assumed the whole premise of Zuckerberg and Saverin meeting up and getting involved with Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) was complete Hollywood sensationalism, but it turns out that this had also really happened. And indeed, they meet up with Parker, who is portrayed as a hyperactive cool guy visionary instead of, more likely, the complete nerd he actually is. Parker envisions Facebook to be a billion-dollar business. Zuckerberg is on-board. Saverin is skeptical. Saverin becomes gradually pushed farther and farther out of the partnership.

So that just leaves all the impending lawsuits! The Winklevoss twins, along with Divya, finally come to an agreement on suing Facebook over intellectual property infringement once they learn that its dominating presence had reached Europe.

Saverin, meanwhile, feeling salty about his lack of influence over the project, freezes the bank account in a petty move to get Zuckerberg’s attention. Zuckerberg secures an investment deal that cuts Saverin’s share of the company to .03%, so he’s mad about this and decides to sue Facebook as well.

Many of the interstitials of the story revolves around these two lawsuits. In both cases, Zuckerberg settled because he was advised he wouldn’t win on account of him being an unsympathetic, smelly robot that the juries would detest! And then the movie ends with Zuckerberg stalking his ex-girlfriend, the only person throughout this whole movie who didn’t kiss his ass.

The Social Network

Justin Timberlake is in this movie for some reason.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Aaron Fucking Sorkin

I have a lot to say about this smug, crack-smoking Ivy League wannabe. I’ll probably write the exact same stuff whenever I decide to watch A Few Good Men. Or Moneyball. Or Molly’s Game. Or if I feel like writing about any season of The West Wing or Sports Night or The Newsroom. Or anything else he wrote ever.

I believe that there’s a half-life of enjoyment for anyone who takes to Sorkin’s writing style. When I first watched Sports Night in, like, 2008, I found his writing style fresh and engaging. Certainly, it was my first Sorkin experience ever. I was in college and I lapped that shit up like a dog. Then The West Wing was even better. Presidential advisors helping to run an entire country? It was the perfect context for that fast-paced, ultra-important, high-stakes banter! Studio 60 in the Sunset Strip was the start my cynicism with the style, but I stuck with that one. The Newsroom annoyed me and I didn’t finish the first episode.

Watch enough Sorkin and you’ll be able to recognize his trademark recyclable garbage from a TV three rooms away. You just need to hear two characters exchange two sentences in the middle of any random scene from ANYTHING he has ever written. He’s very good at writing characterizations for self-righteous narcissists who believe they can, and demonstrably succeed to, THROUGHLY OWN A PERSON during an argument with a very scripted, very overwrought monologue. He’s good at this because he is a self-righteous narcissist. And he himself is the embodiment of a scripted, overwrought windbag. It’s the easiest project in the world for Sorkin to develop a character who is a horrible, arrogant, friendless asshole.

And that’s why Aaron Sorkin jumped at the opportunity to write about Mark Zuckerberg.

The Social Network

Now son, I’m the law man here. I’m the law man and you’re the layman. *smirk* *smirk* *SMIRK*

TOPIC 2 — Mark Fucking Zuckerberg

This guy sucks balls and I’m pretty glad this movie didn’t aim to paint him too positively. Reportedly, the script leaked over a year before the movie was released to theaters, and that gave the twerp a brutal amount of time to squirm and stew about the fact that a movie was being made about him. That’s fantastic. It’s pretty telling that he obviously knew what to expect.

The funny thing is, knowing how the movie would portray his backstabbing idea-stealing real life self, Zuckerberg attempted to pre-emptively do a charitable thing one week before the movie’s release. Even funnier, this money was completely wasted! And he was criticized heavily for the poor timing of the action. It’s as if he has no self-awareness!

Sorkin is pretty fucking good at writing smarmy, confident characters. Jesse Eisenberg plays one of the most unlikeable protagonists you’ll find in cinema, and this is a compliment. His acting is phenomenal, portraying Zuckerberg exactly as the average person might picture him (exactly as the average person should picture him).

“I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive,” Zuckerberg said during an interview. Well, lol to that, sir, because not only did you get a movie made about you while you were still alive, but also while you were still in your twenties. You deserved it. I’m glad it made you uncomfortable.

The Social Network

Go back and cook your meth, Pinkman.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Natalie Portman revealed during “Newsweek’s 2011 Oscar Roundtable” that she gave a dinner party for writer Aaron Sorkin, while he was writing the script for this movie, to which she invited a bunch of her friends from Harvard. She wanted to give him the chance to listen to first-hand stories about the social life at Harvard University.
Yeah, and I bet Sorkin thought that this dinner party was actually going to be an orgy and he showed up to Portman’s house wearing a toga and smelling like horse pheromones. He had a flask full of mouthwash.

Mark Zuckerberg originally planned never to see this movie. He ended up taking several of his employees to see it. He later remarked that, despite some of the film’s inaccuracies, they got his clothing right.
I don’t know what’s better: the fact that Zuckerberg “planned never to see it” and then took people to see it, implying that he changed his mind completely while it was still in theaters, OR that he didn’t even have friends to go with. He took employees, who I imagine wouldn’t have bothered whatsoever if Zuckerberg didn’t pay them overtime for it.

Andrew Garfield came into rehearsal with a copy of Economics for Dummies. Inspired by that move, Jesse Eisenberg bought C++ for Dummies. According to Eisenberg, both he and Garfield read the introductions of their books and then put them down.
Method Acting for Dummies also remained unread, it seems.

The Social Network

We’re just a couple of fun dudes with a 40″ height difference hangin’ out at a party!

Jesse Eisenberg, who is diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), said in an interview that one of the hardest things about the role was having to deliberately speak and behave in a manner he had struggled against in his own personality his entire life.
Haha, oh my god, no kidding? So Jesse Eisenberg had to channel Jesse Eisenberg in order to accurately portray Mark Zuckerberg? That’s the saddest thing I’ve read in a long time.

After casting, David Fincher forbade principal actors from meeting their real-life counterparts until filming was completed.
“Do not meet Mark Zuckerberg! I demand that you stay away from Mark Zuckerberg! Don’t even think about it! Jesse, what did I JUST say! Stop it, Jesse! Stay away from him, Jesse! NOOOOOO!”

Aaron Sorkin directed the last shot of the film’s shoot. David Fincher announced he was leaving- Sorkin thought it was a joke until the production crew came up to him asking how to film it. It only amounted to a second’s worth of footage anyway, but Sorkin got to announce the final wrap at the end.
Immensely funny to imagine David Fincher going “fuck THIS shit” and storming out when there was exactly one second of shooting left for the film.

Armie Hammer was forced to eat a lot of junk food to keep his weight up. All of the rowing he had to do for the film would have made him lose too much weight otherwise.
This sounds like abuse to me, considering there was, at most, 40 seconds of footage of Armie Hammer rowing in the entirety of The Social Network.

The real Mark Zuckerberg had never heard of an Appletini before he had seen the film. After he tried one, he liked it so much he made the Appletini Facebook’s official drink.
Jesus Christ, dude.

The Social Network

Reminder that a bunch of women corroborated Armie Hammer’s cannibalism fetish. And now we have TWO of him??!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

It depends completely on your ability to withstand Aaron Sorkin. Everyone gives decent performances, but they are VERY Sorkin-directed performances. And sometimes that makes me want to puke up all my vital organs. Other times it’s tolerable enough. I think being based on a true story helps here, so Sorkin didn’t have much wiggle room to cook anything up from his own cocaine-pickled brain.

If you’ve already gotten enough Sorkin saturation to last a life time, you can skip this movie. Just read about it on Wikipedia.


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Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151 – “We’re Back!”

* Part 1 of 9 of the Superman: No Limits collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151 – “We’re Back!”

I’m going to do something a little different here. Not all comic book storylines are nice and linear. Sometimes, there aren’t even really continuous stories! Often, a bunch of issues of different ongoing series are packaged together in a collection merely because the stories are very loosely connected, or, perhaps they were all released at around the same time. This seems to be common with comic books up until the 2010s, from my meager experience.

Superman: No Limits is my first of many, many, many, many, many future forays into the world of loosely-bound trade paperback collections. I expect nine issues of individual Superman stories with different writers, cartoonists, plots, and even characterizations of Superman himself! And if it’s an overall good experience, I’ll try to knock out a few more collections from this era in the near future.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151 [December, 1999]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“We’re Back!”

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

FASTER. THAN. A. SPEEDING. BULLET. I don’t know, man, it looks like those bullets are whizzing past him to me.

“Perry told me once, it’s not over until ‘The Bulldog’ is put to bed.” This is the very first sentence of a Lois Lane soliloquy. I’m bored already!

“The Bulldog” is the newspaper’s last edition for the day. “Putting to bed” means sending it to the printer. Of course, that’s just that day. There’s always going to be tomorrow. And there’s always going to be future days for a long time. That is, until the sun becomes a red giant, envelops the Earth, and puts everyone out of their misery! That’ll be in *checks watch* about five billion years from now.

I can’t tell for sure at the moment, but it appears that Superman is sifting through Daily Planet building wreckage. We see him hoist the giant globe that crowns the top of the building (or used to) and fly off into the Metropolis downtown area with it. Like Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders! Or something equally, or infinitely more, profound.

“The Daily Planet has gone through some tough times lately,” narrates Lois, catching us all up, especially me, “Lex Luthor bought it for the sole purpose of shutting it down. He almost put everybody out of work.”

That’s in the past already, though. I can assume that this was all covered extensively in Superman Vol. 2, Issue #1 through Issue #150! I don’t have to read all that right now until I get fired and divorced and have infinite time on my hands! Ha!

But, Perry White had good news for everyone. He just needed some “heavy lifting” and, suspiciously, Clark Kent slipped out of the office. Lois doesn’t know why. Maybe he was getting too horny and had to go jerk off in the men’s bathroom. Again.

Superman places the globe atop the not-destroyed Daily Planet building, from whence it came. Perry is on the roof already, and he gives Superman a hearty “Thanks.”

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

Gee whiz, Archie Andrews doesn’t want to make his boss all cross!

The next morning, Lois strides down the street toward the newly-reopened Daily Planet office building. “Feels like the first day of school,” she says with nervous energy. I don’t know how long the newspaper building has been closed, but my best estimate is seventeen decades.

Poopypants Jimmy Olsen races up and gets in the elevator before it closes on his freckled, pimply face. “So, why do you think Luthor sold the Planet back?” Jimmy asks Lois with his best crooked Joe Biden smile.

Lois doesn’t answer. She must’ve slept with him.

The elevator doors open and the hallways are filled with giant, framed print-outs of front pages with headlines like “METROPOLIS ON FIRE” and “DOUBLE TROUBLE” and “WHICH ONE?”. I wonder if something big happened recently!

Lois stares at one that reads “IT FLIES”, one of her own legendary front pages exclusives, and starts reminiscing about that day when Superman hoisted a rocket ship. Must’ve tilted on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral and made a trajectory straight for the heart of Metropolis! That’s unlucky.

“What was it Clark said when he first got hired…? ‘Guess I’m not in Kansas anymore.’ I thought he was talking about Dorothy, but he wasn’t kidding.”

Hey Lois, where are you going with all this, huh? Are you dying of cancer? Are you quitting your dead-end job to become a hot dog saleswoman? Maybe a little bit of both?

The office is full of people NOT working, but rather gossiping about the recent events and making hypotheses of their own as to why Lex Luthor sold back the Daily Planet. Maybe he missed the Sunday funnies BADLY?

Clark the Nerd is already typing away at his Window 98 with the Pentium II processor and the 14 GB hard drive. “When did you get in?” Lois asks him while making a total Hilary Swank face. Why, only SECONDS before you did, my good chum. He came in through the window in the custodian closet, which Lois doesn’t find suspicious whatsoever. I mean, everyone in the whole building has entered through the janitor closet window on the 70th floor at one point or another! Certainly!

Clark is working on yet another Superman story. Lois is about to berate him for having a big boner for Superman when Perry White interrupts both these hatefuck birds and yells for them to come into his office for some boot-in-ass treatment! And he’s wearing his favorite cowboy boots today, the ones with the specially-fitted toe spurs! Jimmy has to go too for some reason.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

Clark Kent’s been hitting the Taco Bell XXL Grilled Stuft Burritos a little too hard during the furlough.

“I called you all in here so I could talk and you could shut up,” Perry White growls. Ahh, how he missed this. He’ll tell the rest of the staff soon enough, but White considers these his closest allies who have stuck with him through thick and thin. Jimmy too for some reason.

Perry’s looking to quash any rumors about him running the place. Not gonna happen! He’s had seven heart attacks in the last three years and he doesn’t want another one tomorrow, got that?! So let’s all welcome the actual new publisher: Ben Shapiro!

Ew, no! That’s a discussion for another time. Jimmy gets offered his old job back as a photographer if he wants it. It makes me wonder what else he was considered for. Janitor closet window sealer?

Lois is distracted by another framed front page hanging in Perry’s own office. THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN. Hey, that’s a pretty iconic story, ain’t it? I’ll have to hit it one of these days. In 2035. “Of course, Perry would want this one in his office. The hardest story we ever worked on.”

Clark gets offered a position as a foreign correspondent. You know, because he’s always ducking out of the office anyway. Might as well leave the fucking country and get decapitated by the Taliban. “It’s a whale of an opportunity, but it could be hell on a marriage,” says a concerned Perry, but Clark says that he and Lois can handle it.

So Lois and Clark are married? Am I supposed to know that? Is that what the TV show Lois & Clark was all about? That explains why entering the building through the janitor closet didn’t seem so weird to her, right? Well, that’s no fucking fun!

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

The one-man Trenchcoat Mafia has arrived!

Anyway, Lois is all like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What about ME? But she doesn’t get to know yet, because Lex Luthor pops into the office like he owns the place! Which he doesn’t! Not anymore! So he’s trespassing and should be thrown in an abandoned jail.

Jimmy asks Luthor straight up why he sold the newspaper. “Ah yes, tongues are wagging, aren’t they? I could hear them all the way over at Lexcorp.” Lex pivots to Perry. “You know why, don’t you, White?”

Perry wants Luthor to say it. All kinds of “YEAH I know, but, uhhhh, I want you to say it first. So, I can, like, confirm it, heh heh.”

Lex stares Perry down for a panel. “Simple economics. Sometimes unloading a bad investment is the smart thing to do,” he responds smugly. Perry doesn’t buy that. Obviously not. Because Perry knows why, right??

“I run Metropolis,” Luthor says coldly, getting right up to Perry White’s face close enough to smell his mouthwash and Vicodin breath, “I think it’s good to have a voice out there that opposes me. It makes it look more like a fair fight…even if it’s with a mouse.”

Tee hee. Luthor laughs at Perry White’s pathetic insistence to stand up for the Daily Planet. “You’re as much of this newspaper as the ink on the page. You’ll do anything to keep it running…” then Lex Luthor grins rather fatly in an evil red glow, “…even if it kills you.”

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

Evil fat Lex Luthor thinking about pie right now.

Time for Lex to go. Good seeing you guys! He’s gonna go wax his head or something. Bye!

“He never answered the question, did he?” says Clark, brow furrowed in consternation.

“There are times I wonder if Clark’s disdain for Luthor – and he’s got plenty of reason for it – doesn’t have a little something to do with my past with him…” Lois thinks.

Let me get this straight. I just got through all of Superman: Birthright where Clark has a boner for Lois, and Lois has a boner for Superman, and Lois doesn’t have a boner for Clark, and Clark is sad that Lex Luthor is mean and not friends with him anymore, and Lois hates Lex Luthor… and now Lois has a boner for Clark, and she knows he’s Superman, and also they’re married, AND she had a sordid, lusty past with Lex Luthor? What the fuck and why?

Perry White’s as impatient as I am with all this. He tells these three cretins, his best friends in the whole wide world, to get out of his dang office. They’ve got a paper to write! It’s not gonna write itself! All the news that’s fit to print and all that jazz. Move it!

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

I’m not entirely convinced that these two don’t have a sordid, lusty past as well.

And move it they do. Lois returns to her desk. Everything’s back to normal, huh? So why does it feel new and weird? Like some shoes you gotta break in for a while? Or, like, I dunno. A marriage with some guy you work with?

Speaking of which, thicc-ass Clark Kent needs to duck out to go visit his mommy in Kansas. He’ll be back in an hour. Don’t wait up! *smooch*

Lois muses on the biggest story of her career. One that no one can know about. She pores over a tiny little newspaper clipping with the headline “LOIS LANE MARRIES CLARK KENT”. It’s the day she married Superman himself. We get a full-page spread of their tongue-rasslin’ in a church. Looks like a sham marriage to me. There’s no way they consummated that. Kryptonians produce spores, right?

Superman is already back on his farm. Lois is kind of jealous of Clark’s closeness with his parents, mostly because Lois’ parents are dead or estranged or QAnon or a combination of all three or maybe just really, really stoned these days?

Old Jon and Martha Kent are hanging out on their large swinging porch chair when Superman fucking crashes into their house like a heat-seeking missile. “Thought I heard you, son,” Jon says passively. Clark’s parents look rather cornfed. They look like they write in to the Pluggers newspaper strip on a weekly basis. “Is everything all right, Clark?” Martha asks all motherly. Motherly love is just the thing for you, you know your mother’s gonna love ya till you don’t know what to do.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

“Martha, dear, I think our hapless, dimwit son may have been body-snatched. Get the hose.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Clark,” his mom says, hugging him, the universal phrase from others that means “that sounds like garbage to me, but hey it’s your life”.

“Sometimes you’ve got to plant the same field a dozen times before you find out what you had there in the first place was just right,” wheezes old-man Jon Kent, dishing out some of that sheep-fuckin’ rural wisom.

Wow, wasn’t that nice? *fart* So, in no time at all, Clark is back at the Daily Planet. He probably came in through the laundry chute this time. Lois wastes no time making fun his mama’s boy bullshit, but Clark is distracted by a streaking fireball making a beeline right for the building. The sound of the streaking fireball hitting the street in front of the building sounds like this: “WHAROOM”. Again, I must state that I wish I could make a living making up comic book onomatopoeia. I’d be all like “BIZZZORT” and “CRUUKAAA-MCBOOOOOOOMSPLUT”.

“GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST!” yells Perry, who is drawn with his eyeballs a millimeter apart from one another, “Don’t just stand there, Lois, find out what in heaven’s name just hit us!”

That would be funny if it caused the Daily Planet to shut down again on the very same day it reopened. lmao

Lois takes this as the approval for her old job position. She tells Jimmy to grab a fucking camera and start hoofing it. Glasses already off, Clark is full speed ahead. Well, not full speed, I guess. That guy is faster than guns, if I’m not mistaken!

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #151

Use your eyes, dummy! No wonder I’m always looking for your keys.

Superman is Superman before Lois and Jimmy even make it to the ground. Superman’s all “what seems to be the problem, officer?” while a giant crater smolders in the middle of the street, disrupting traffic.

It’s not a thing that hit the ground, though. It’s a…uh, guy.

“MONGUL!” Superman cries in big red block letters. Mongul is a large, purple, Frankenstein of a meaty man. “I…hear the disgust in your voice, Superman. And while I bear my dead father’s name, you are speaking to his son.”

YAWN! I don’t care about this! Where’s Lex Luthor and his leather jacket? I don’t want to see the follies of MONGUL’S LARGE ADULT SON.

Well, things aren’t going well for Mongul The Son. He crash-landed on Earth face first because he’s desperate for Superman’s help. “You are the last, best hope for us all…”

I will remind the reading audience that this all has happened in about eight panels. Things move fast in Metropolis. Not like Smallville, where things…move…slowly…

We end with a flashback. Lois is in Lex Luthor’s ugly, furniture-free office working out a deal. Lex Luthor will sell the Daily Planet back in exchange for Lois Lane killing one story of his choosing in the future. It doesn’t matter what it is or when it happens. If Lex says don’t write about it, then don’t fucking write about it. She is not to quit, retire, or get fired before this happens. If you so much as make a sneery face at Perry White, so help him Lex Luthor will make you eat so much feces for breakfast you won’t even know where you asshole actually is anymore! Everyone she cares about will eat shit. The Daily Planet will eat shit.

“Despite whatever feelings I may have once had for you,” he concludes.
“Yes. We have a deal…” Lois responds with forlorn puss.

Final Thoughts

Saucy! Spicy! Whoa mama! This ain’t your dad’s Superman! Meow!

This Son-of-Mongul guys seems uninteresting. I hope I’m proven wrong.


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