Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11 – “Kneel Before…”

* Part 11 of 12 of the Superman: Birthright limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Birthright, Issue #11 – “Kneel Before…”! In the previous installment, a giant robot bug, claiming to be an invader from Krypton, starts terrorizing Metropolis. Lex Luthor spreads kryptonite radiation all over the city, preventing Superman from doing a damn thing about it! This makes him sad enough to quit his job over it.

But then some huge cocksucker named Van-Gar, who claims to be an invader from Krypton visiting in order to take over Metropolis and then Earth, starts broadcasting to the public that he is visiting in order to take over Metropolis. And then Earth.

So Clark Kent doesn’t quit his job over this. He becomes Superman and we’re going to see him try to fight something else unsuccessfully!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11 [August, 2004]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Kneel Before…”

Superman: Birthright: Issue #11

On the cover, they had to make sure Superman’s head was significantly enough below this dude’s crotch so that they wouldn’t get dinged by the Comics Code Authority. Leinil Francis Yu had to redraw it 46 times.

There’s a bunch of these Silver Surfer-looking mofos wearing Superman costumes terrorizing downtown Metropolis. They speak in their strange diamond alien language and they blast holes into buildings with laser arm cannons. One of them might be a water tower? It’s more like a water silo. They crack the sucker open and the streets start getting flooded.

One of them corners a damsel, and she looks quite distressed about it! The real Superman pops in at the last moment to save the fucking day. A regular white knight.

“You’re safe now, miss,” Superman says before safety is completely ensured. He’s just standing there talking before he acts; a bold move when every second counts.

“You, on the other hand–” Superman continues, referring to one of the Silver Surfer Supermen, taking his sweet time with respect to, you know, actually saving somebody from dying, “–you disgust me.”

Then the assailant, the guy who disgusts Superman, he gets shot in the chest with laser eyeballs. He’s down for the count. A good effort, sure, but that took way too long and there’s a hundred more! So way to go, good job.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

Once again, I’m compelled to point out the top-notch artistry on Superman’s stupid monkey face.

Superman sees more descending from the sky. Kind of. He’s still all fucked-up and clouded from the kryptonite radiation, all scrambling his circuits and screwing up his internal compass and giving him heartburn and indigestion and very strong pedophiliac urges. He flies away and leaves the woman screaming for him to come back. All like “Superman, where are you going? Don’t leave me! SUPERMAN!” lol

High atop the Daily Planet building, Lois Lane is watching all the action through her binoculars. She thinks out loud about the sheer coincidence of these bastards showing up out of nowhere, with no warning, in ships that completely escaped detection, and suddenly news reports are flooding in about alien sightings that never happened and property damage that doesn’t actually exist. It stinks. Stinks bad. Stinks real bad. Smells like one of Lex Luthor’s big, ugly dumps.

Lois is all like “Superman, if you can hear me, please show up and let me help.”

Superman flumps onto the roof, looking wretched as hell. Real shameful shit. “Okay,” he grunts. Lois looks at him with a face that screams “ew”.

But then she leaps toward him and starts…feeling his chest for a bit. Superman stands there arms akimbo like “yeah, baby”. “My god,” Lois sobs, “what did they do to you?”

As I’ve hypothesized before, Superman probably wears boner-proof underwear so strong that it causes his boner to invert upon itself. That’s what’s happening right now as we speak. He huffs and puffs, pretending to be deeply affected by kryptonite radiation, but you and I both know that it’s because his inverted boner is tearing up his insides at the moment.

“This ‘invasion’ is mostly a hoax,” Superman pants, “It’s designed to create a fear and panic that Luthor can ‘save’ us from– and ‘prove’ that I’m never to be trusted.” I can’t help but imagine him doing air quotes with each applicable word like Dr. Evil.

Lois is like, what the SHIT are you talking about? I just saw you fight some real soldiers with mine own two eyes!

Subpar-man is like, nah bitch, these are men in crafty disguises masquerading as MERCENARIES pushing FALSE IMPERIALIST KRYPTONIAN AGENDA, employed and bribed by Lex Luthor TO FUND HIS SEX TRAFFICKING OPERATION. That’s about 10%. The other 90% is “an illusion cast by an energy web Luthor’s thrown over the city.” He using holograms and blanketing this city with sickly, green, magic hallucination gnomes.

Sounds plausible!

Lois is a few steps ahead, yo. She already figured out some of this junk, smartypants. ALSO, she knows Superman is being poisoned by something and she wants to know what it is. “It’s too dangerous a secret, Lois” Superman whines when asked, “I can’t– I shouldn’t–”

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

Welp, there goes yet another pair of those alleged “boner-proof” underpants.

But Lois knows how to melt that ol’ butter, amirite? After a little awww shucks from the cornfed Kryptonian Kansan, Superman starts opening up about the dangers of kryptonite and how it’s harmless to humans but dangerous to superhumans such as himself! “That’s what’s powering this entire operation. A chunk of rock no bigger than a football– and I can’t get within a city block of it.”

Lois is intrigued. A football-sized rock, eh? Sounds pretty…stealable, if you catch my drift. She opens her purse, revealing a nicely arrayed set of lockpicking tools. The kind she uses for breaking and entering to get real scoops. Let’s check the old newspapers. What year is this again? 2004? Ah, here was a juicy story! *ahem* Lockpicking tools she, for example, uses to catch Jude Law fucking his children’s nanny!

She asks where this rock is. “In his lab on the top floor,” Superman grins devilishly, “there’s a private elevator through an unmarked door off the north alley. It’s open.”

Nope! Never mind! Sounds too complicated to me! Can’t I just grab any rock I find off the ground instead? Come on, now.

Well, at any rate, Lois has to skedaddle ASAP. The vague sounds of diamondy language are heard by Superman from over yonder. She takes her leave. Superman grunts and groans and forces himself to do more Superman stuff now.

A group of these so-called hired thugs and mercenaries are terrorizing a crowd. One of them lifts up a baby and threatens to eat it, or something. Before they do that, though, they open fire on the crowd with some real-ass bullets.

Superman lumbers in, hoisting his heft, to barely save the day again by blocking the rounds. Problem is, this time it looks like he isn’t entirely impervious to the bullets. He’s weaving and heaving, smoldering and moldering!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

Hey, who farted?! Heh heh!

“People, listen to me,” Superman wheezes, eyes all bloodshot and droopy, looking a lot like everyone’s boozy Uncle Jack at Thanksgiving before he says something incredibly racist and takes a dump on the carpet, “you’re being lied to. Tell them the truth, ‘Van-Gar’–or whatever your name is! Your men are actors working for Luthor!”

And Van-Gar, lookin’ sheepish, is all “I dunno what you’re talking about, weirdo.”

Superman starts trundling toward him in a manner that suggests he, and the rest of Metropolis, are going to try taking him on? Yeah, that’ll work great.

“I don’t know what’s brought on this sudden bout of of insubordination, soldier–” Van-Gar bellows while holding Superman in place with just one arm, “but why don’t you ask these delicate little sparrows you say will ‘fight’ us?”

Van-Gar motions toward the sorry looking lot that is the civilian people. Just a bunch of shaggy, overweight men and empty-headed children. And women with underbites.

“How ‘empty’ does this threat look?” Van-Gar asks as a very large alien tank rolls in, then he gets right up close to Superman’s tender ear and whispers these sweet nothings: “My men aren’t doing this for the money. We’re backing Luthor because he’s right. You’re the fraud, and we’re on to you.”

Van-Gar tears the spandex right off of Superman’s oily, hairy chest and throws his ass to the ground, son.

“It’s only a matter of time before you turn on anyone weaker than you. That’s how it works.”

Well, that part really burns his biscuits crispy-like. Fuck you for ever suggesting that Superman would pick on someone weaker than him! Get over here right now, weakling!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

I don’t want any crying kids in my new world order!

Nope, the tank starts revving up and blasting through the crowd. The weakened kryptonite-smeared Superman tries to carry people out of the way quickly. Jimmy the Ginger-Faced Photographer pushes his way up to the action for some photographs and notices the tank blast gun pointed right at a crying kid. He screams for Superman’s attention. He gets the kid out of the way and blocks the blast with a giant ‘S’ shield he tore off the vehicle.

Jimmy calls Perry White to let him know he has another humdinger of a photo. Jimmy’s making a “look how important I am” face while doing it, too. Like “Rrrrrr, I’m gonna win a Pulitzer!”

And indeed, the photo gets uploaded and spread all over Internet Land. I’m not gonna post the photo here! You’re gonna have to pick up SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT! ISSUE #11! at your local 7-Eleven.

Lex is angry that the photo exists. “DAMN IT!” he yells, not very Christianly.

“Lexcorp’s Earth-First Security Force is fully armed, ready and eager to engage the invaders, sir,” radios in a decked-to-the-nines military man general! And his military crew. Whatsitcalled. Army. And, oh yeah, Lex is ready all right. He’s been edging himself in his chair waiting for it. But instructs the army general to hold fast in order to give Commander Van-Gar McDougle another minute for the opportunity to “break Superman’s spine”.

Van-Gar puts a little more pepper in his punches. The crowd gathers to watch Superman get his ass handed to him EVEN THOUGH he’s yelling at them all to stay back.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11

Is it because his voice sounds like this?: “Ehehheehheehe heehEHE deee deee deee dddeeeeeeeEEE”

Nobody listens to Superman because he’s predictable. That’s what Van-Gar says, at least. I don’t think that really answers the correct question.

But, all the same, Van-Gar blasts him a few more times.

“I’ve been waiting all day to say this, Superman: Your ‘S’ is mine,” Van-Gar cracks.

GRRROOAAN. Fucking groan, dude. Fuck off, Mark Waid. To anyone reading this, don’t forget to Google a picture of him and snicker at it. His short-sleeved plaid button-down shirts look like they reek of Hormel chili and inhaler medicine.

“Back off,” sneers Jimmy, surrounded by a throng of other sneering Metropolis citizens, “He’s with us.” Ooooh, how very intimidating. A bunch of dorks with makeshift club weapons. There’s even an old woman with saggy titties holding a spoon.

Lex Luthor is preparing the army general to advance. Lois Lane has finally made her way, in a clandestine fashion, into Luthor’s quarters…

“You’d think Luthor would have the courtesy to label his death machines,” she whispers to herself as she peruses the lab.

Eventually, she finds the pointy green shard of scary glowing rock.

“If you can hear me, I’ve got it. We’ve won,” Lois whispers.

Yeah, look out behind you, there’s a grinning bald doofus that’s about to roofie your shit.

Final Thoughts

THE THRILLING CONCLUSION IS NEXT! Who knew a 12-part limited series would have this many parts?!


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Calvin and Hobbes – December, 1985

Welcome to December, 1985! Arrow Air Flight 1985R would hilariously kill a whole plane full of U.S. troops on December 12th. Ricky Nelson would also die in a plane crash on December 31st after some lunatic fired a blowtorch for 45 minutes in the cabin (I’m guessing). And who is to blame for these horrific aviation accidents? The wacky hijinks of Calvin? We can’t rule that out!

December sees Calvin getting into more scoundrel mischief and general goofabouts. There’s a little bit of a Christmas story arc that involves Calvin asking his parents to buy a ton of presents for his stuffed tiger, in which they likely acquiesce begrudgingly. Calvin forgets to give Hobbes a present. Hobbes forgets to give Calvin a present. We all have a nice laugh at the expense of Jesus, who was completely overlooked during their heathen festivities.

But table that for now. We bring you to early December where Dad is doing poorly ahead of the midterms:

Calvin and Hobbes - December 2, 1985

December 2, 1985 – These are some real Walter Mondale numbers, Pops.

Oh, that Calvin! It’s a good thing that Dad still wins all the elections in spite of his constantly tanking poll numbers. Five terms in a row over the course of the strip’s lifetime! That’s pretty good even if it smacks of being a career politician. You would think even ONCE that the household would vote against him in one of the elections. Especially Mom, who would rather have Patrick Swayze in the house instead. Lord knows I’d want to. Hubba hubba.

It makes me wonder. If Dad isn’t popular with tigers and six-year-old white males, then who is he popular with? 400-pound black women? 14-year-old Albanian male prostitutes? Ryan Seacrest? Yuck.

Calvin and Hobbes - December 4, 1985

December 4, 1985 – This one must have gotten a lot of letters from angry freaks who had suffered debilitating brain aneurysms. The letters were like “DEATP BILIL WARTESTSON: AURDHSFSSDISJ.”

The complicated series-long love triangle starts on December 4th, 1985! We don’t even get to see Susie Derkins yet, but she shows up quite a few times before the end of the year. Hobbes represents Calvin’s inner desire to get all up in Susie’s guts, but Calvin will spend the better part of his endless six-year-old childhood tormenting her. Occasionally, Calvin or Susie will betray their true feelings, but it doesn’t happen often. This is obviously why they keep interacting with each other, but if I were Susie I’d give it up and find someone less psychopathic.

I really REALLY don’t want to check, but there has got to be millions of stories of Calvin and Susie fucking as teenagers that are clogging up the giant internet toilet. They might even have kids! Can you imagine that? Just a horde of urchins planning on blowing up airplanes and killing Ricky Nelson.

Calvin and Hobbes - December 9, 1985

December 9, 1985 – Watterson continues to push boundaries with words like “skimpy” and “murder” and “ravishing” and “school”.

This strip always reminded me of those Peanuts strips where they all watch TV in a bean bag. I also found it odd that the TV is placed on Calvin’s bed, ready to be accidentally kicked off of it at a moment’s notice and broken into seventeen million pieces.

Watterson would always talk about some of the angry letters he’d get from adults who had nothing better to do than write letters to the editor. Or perhaps they would be from parents of children with antisocial tendencies who are one bad word away from throwing their feces at the other school children. This strip is a little too sexual if you ask me, and I’m too busy furiously jacking off to give Bill Watterson a piece of my mind here in 2022! I hope he reads this. Grrr.

Calvin and Hobbes - December 14, 1985

December 14, 1985 – Moments before Calvin is abducted and driven to a hydroelectric sex dam in Washington State.

Finding pleasure in giving his parental units heart attacks, Calvin spends an hour fashioning a rope out of bedsheets as if he were escaping prison and then walks seventeen miles to a payphone outside of the city limits. Mom and Dad rush to their car and find all four tires slashed to shreds! All the neighbors have been murdered! By now, Calvin is surely on an airplane to Tristan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again.

Calvin and Hobbes - December 22, 1985

December 22, 1985 – Betrayal! Treason!

Ahahaha, oh Hobbes. Always the foil! Every time Calvin asserts a modicum of dominance over anything, even for fifteen seconds, Hobbes will be there to throw a snowball at his fucking face or splash him with caustic acid or dismember his stupid little limbs!

Calvin often does this thing where he declares some nonsense loudly to no one in particular. I imagine this kid is just yelling in the middle of a quiet, snowy afternoon, completely disturbing the peace. The neighborhood should be celebrating Hobbes’ infiltration and attack. At least no one had to call the cops.

Calvin and Hobbes - December 24, 1985

December 24, 1985 – RIP Santa Claus at the age of 1,985. Died of starvation while trapped in a suburban American family’s chimney. He leaves behind a wife and dozens of filthy elves.

Christmas time in the Calvin and Hobbes household, as can be predicted, is never a peaceful ordeal either. If only Mom and Dad knew that Calvin was about to perform some shenanigans at their fireplace in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, they would take this opportunity to throw every single gift in the fucking garbage and boot the kid out of the house with a one-way ticket to Tristan da Cunha!

Calvin and Hobbes - December 29, 1985

December 29, 1985 – Death by oatmeal. It’s a horrible way to go.

Ahhh, that magical time between Christmas and New Year’s. One week where time seems to stand still. When the pressures of work don’t seem to matter at all. When the anticipation of new beginnings takes a brief pause. When good little Christian children can spend days uninterrupted by school to indulge in their new toys and games, or, if you will, their pursuits in destroying their meal. Boy vs. Breakfast! Who will win in the end!

Certainly not Calvin’s parents.

That wraps up 1985 already! Considering that the strip only started five weeks prior, that’s not a very substantial feat. Stay tuned next time when we crack open 1986 with a fucking baseball bat.


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All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

* Part 2 of 5 of the Yesterday’s X-Men storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #2! Looks like we don’t get titles for the stories anymore, which sends my OCD into a fit of hysterical, inconsolable rage! In the previous installment, Cyclops is cuckoo nutso now and he’s on a mission to, I don’t know, kill all humans and save all mutants. He’s making the other X-Men cry.

Beast is constipated, or he’s mutating again, same difference. In spite of his troubles, he decides to go back in time with his DeLorean and talk a young Scott Summers into talking to an old Scott Summers about cutting out this genocide mischief. It’s some “the only person who can tell him to stop is himself” loophole.

Unless, of course, Old Scott Summers is feral and bites a chunk out of Young Scott Summers’ neck. Then they’ll all be shit out of luck, won’t they? ESPECIALLY the humans!

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2 [January, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #2

All right, the cover tells me that the Anti-Cyclops team has assembled! Wolverine! Storm Chaser! Iced Man! Beastly! Cat Power! The Aussie! They all look like they’re ready to tear the reader a new one. Better flip that page before you get a face full of claws and/or feces. Wolverine’s flingin’ both these days.

A full-size splash page with as many words as L. Ron Hubbard’s 10-volume Misson: Earth series (the unabridged version) catches me up on Scott Summer’s shenanigans. He’s “gathering mutants as fast as they appear” for his “new mutant revolution”. This is all mid-life crisis shit, trying to atone for regrets and sins and other nebulous shame-related emotions. The other X-Men, as it is said, are “at their wit’s end” about it! They make it sound like Cyclops keeps eating all the cake every time one of them bakes a cake. Or some other more apt analogy!

At the Jean Grey School of Gettin’ High and Gettin’ Poon, Kitty Pryde knocks on the door to Beast’s quarters. The whole hallway looks like a spaceship dock. Someone is an accidental elbow away from hitting the airlock button and jettisoning everybody into the sun.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

Beast has been going potty a lot lately. Potty all over the place.

Beast isn’t answering. Strange. He always answers! “Henry? We want to go track down Scott,” she says, as if Beast is a child who forgot the plan. “Come on, Henry, you’re freaking us out! If I phase through the door I’ll blow the circuitry and you’ll be mad at me.”

Beast isn’t answering. Still strange. This dumb motherfucker is making everyone suspicious. Almost as if he traveled back in time and forgot to return at the same instant he left. Classic rookie mistake.

So Pryde phases through the door and blows the circuitry and Beast is going to be mad at her. You know how he feels about the sanctity of circuitry!

Beast’s quarters looks like a landfill of industrial robot arms and computers. They find a mini purple hologram schematic of his skeleton, just kind of chilling there. I mean, Kitty Pryde is a genius too, just like Hank McCoy, and she doesn’t even know what Hank McCoy is up to! The genius! Even the genius is perplexed!

Pryde mashes a bunch of buttons on a keyboard and a screen flashes on with a terrible 2D rendering of Wolverine. “Don’t touch that which doesn’t belong to you, Students of the Atom,” says the cute computer graphic. Should I be capitalizing that? “Students of the Atom”? It seems capitalize-able.

Anyway, this is weird too. Everything’s fucking weird here. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe mutant genocide isn’t that big a deal, now that we are all thinking about it. Maybe–

Oh hell, we’re in the past now. Young, human-looking versions of Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, and a so-far unidentified blonde dude are all staring at Beast like he just took a giant, blue shit on the floor.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

These all look like Clue characters ready to solve a murder.

Beast is very patient. He knows how this looks, it must be very hard to explain. Let’s start at the beginning: when a man loves a woman, he– hmm, well, heh heh, that story’s a little blue, you might say! *rimshot*

Young Hank is coming around already on this, though. “This is absolutely fascinating on every conceivable level,” he says, stroking his chin smartly. Bobby “Iceman” Brady is all like “whoa man, you’re talkin’ jive, son! Scott Summers, THE Scott Summers is gonna go Hitler on everyone’s asses? Far out man.”

“I mean, look at him,” Bobby says, for real this time, “he’s waaaay too boring to bring on an apocalypse.”

Jean Grey goes with her original idea to get Professor Xavier involved. Beast, again, warns her to NOT do that. Beast encourages her to just read his mind and it will all become clear! But, whoops, she doesn’t know how to do that yet. Heh, never mind, kid! Here, have a lollipop.

“Let’s say any of this is true, which I am not convinced,” speaks up Blondie, whoever he is, “what about Professor Xavier from your time?”

Uhhhh, well, he pooped too hard on the toilet and died, so he can’t help whatsoever. Don’t you think Beast would’ve tried that already? No, he had to time-travel. Which is impossible. That’s how desperate he is!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

Surprise!

Just kidding! Oh, how he wishes that were so, but no, the Professor did not die from anything poop-related. We all hope. No, it was your buddy Scott Summers what did him in. He genocided him right in the neck and/or face. Scott is being a real Bad Boy. So come back to the future and straighten this out, ok?

“How could you say that to me?” Scott grimaces at his futuristic blue friend. If Scott could cry without burning a hole in his face, he’d probably be doing it right now. Anyone but the Professor! Everyone but the professor!

Young Hank is like whoa whoa whoa. Don’t look at me. I wasn’t the one who traveled back in time to tell you this stuff! Well….ha, uh

Now Scott is all riled up. How DARE he say such slanderous falsehoods! And what’s the point of hearing this right now? What is he supposed to do with this information??

Hey Daredevil-Wannabe. Pay attention. Beast wants you to come with him, and this part’s very important, to stop yourself. Put on your listening ears.

“If he killed Professor X,” pipes in Blondie, pointing a finger at frowny Scott, “then why don’t you kill Scott?” pointing back at Beast. Blondie gets it.

Murder is bad? Look, Beast isn’t in the business to kill anyone named Scott unless it’s Scott “Republicans Will Be Hunted” Adams, creator of Dilbert. Then it’s fair game. That guy needs to be hunted.

Jean Grey is getting feisty now too. “You tell us that Scott killed the Professor but you won’t tell us what we’ll see when we get where you want to take us?” Now that I’m seeing it from all their points of view, Beast didn’t really prepare for this very well, did he? He’s being awfully cagey for someone who needs so much help in such a roundabout way.

Beast admits that he didn’t think it would be that hard to convince the original X-Men. But whatever! He’ll be waiting outside, let him know when you’re ready to just shoot down his idea.

…

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

HURRR!! Uh oh! HURRR!! I’m mutating! HURRR!! It’s happening, this is it, you guys! HURRRRRRRR!!!!

The four of them immediately turn to Young Hank, who is in awe right now more than anything else. He becomes quite the sexy beast, huh?

Meanwhile, Beast is hanging out on the school grounds by himself enjoying the scenery, and then those really painful constipation pangs start hitting him again. Cramping and sweating, he lurches and burbles! And this is just about the time the group of youngins spots him and starts running toward him. It couldn’t be a worse time. He’s gonna mutate again right in front of them, and he’s gonna become, like, a squid.

“How do you plan on bringing us to meet our terrible future selves?” asks one of them. Good question, One of Them! You’re standing on it! Behold, “the time cube”.

And indeed, there’s a fucking glistening rectangle on the ground. Out of nowhere. It was invented by that pudding face Reed Richards and that smelly old sock Doctor Doom, and modified and perfected by Hank “Beastmode” McCoy. Thank you very much. So just step on this rectangle and that’s it, you little pissants.

“So we understand each other, if this is a trap I blow you head off,” Scott warns Beast. See, he had a little bit of that aggression in him even as a young man. It’s not entirely crazy that Scott Summers would become the genocidal maniac he is today! And he’s not even that at the moment, so everyone is freaking out over nothing. Honestly, people.

Within three panels, they all Time-Cube their way to the present. The Jean Grey School of Shoe Cobbling. And things look great here, actually. Never better! All futuristic and lovely. Jean Grey is horrified that the school is named after her now. Why her? Beast doesn’t answer. Perhaps it’s a touchy subject. I certainly don’t know why. Maybe I’ll learn why in 15 years.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

This is all Ninja 101!! This is BASIC STUFF!!!

Wolverine is in the midst of angrily teaching his class about ninjas when he smells the unmistakable scent of TIME-TRAVELING TRESPASSERS outside on the grounds. He runs out, SNIKTs his claws, and leaps with a hearty growl and a hearty froth at the assailants! And they’re dressed like ninjas! They had it coming, based on what they’re wearing and everything.

Jean Grey was already crying before Wolverine attacked for no reason, but she stops him in mid-air rather level-headedly. Wolverine’s face is frozen in the big, snarly way it always is anyway. So nothing is really different other than he’s hovering in the air and not landing on the ground. Iceman hits him with his ice, man. Wolverine unfreezes, ironically, and thumps on the ground. Storm, Pryde, and Old Iceman watch from the school entrance. They see what’s going on here already. They don’t like it.

Blondie asks Beast who these older people are. Blondie has falcon wings. I’m just going to look this guy up right now because no one is saying his name…Warren Worthington III (Angel). Yuck, sorry I had to learn that. Beast tells Warren Worthing the Third that these older people are…the X-Men. Like, we’re at the school, kid. Who else would they be?

Young Iceman and Old Iceman look at each other. There’s some tension…

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

Stone cold, baby.

Is this Beast guy straight out of the looney bin? Why the fuck would he mess with the space-time contiuum like this? The older X-Men are irate, to say the least!

Beast doesn’t have a chance to make a rebuttal, unless his rebuttal IS just lurching and groaning in front of everybody. Great, another thing to deal with.

Concerned, the group takes Beast back to the school hospital wing. Kitty Pryde tries to check his vitals, but she’s not a doctor. Beast needs a doctor! Is there anyone around here who’s a doctor? Oh, just Beast? Crap.

Mr. Frasier Crane Kelsey Grammar Beast is unconscious now. Young Hank is literally 12-years-old but he can give this doctor thing a shot. In the meantime, Old Iceman wants to know exactly what Beast told them and why he brought all of them here. Young Scott lays it out on the table.

Wolverine is grumpy. “Little X-Men, outside! Now!”

He rounds the little whelps up and starts giving them the straight talk: “Hank’s obviously going through a thing and not thinkin’ straight. So we’re gonna figure out how to get ya back where ya belong and forget this thing ever–”

…ever what? What was he going to say?! Jean Grey had to go and interrupt him. “Sleep,” she demands, doing her mind-meld trickery. “Jean, you know that mind stuff doesn’t work on…” Wolverine begins, then crashes onto the floor with a massive FUMP. All tuckered out, drooling like a baby.

It’s cool, this new thing, you know? Jean was able to read Wolverine’s thoughts; he secretly thought Beast’s idea was kickin’ rad! So she put him to sleep so they could continue their new mission of stopping Genocide Jones.

The youngins gather around to discuss. It sucks that Cyclops becomes a maniac and Jean Grey is dead. “But on the bright side, TV sets are much nicer in the future,” proclaims Young Iceman. Young Angel asks Jean if she figured out who the FUMPed angry guy on the floor is. “This is Wolverine,” she says, “He runs the school. And the rest of his thoughts are…pretty disgusting. And he hates you, Scott.”

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #2

Yeah, a Dance Dance Revolution.

Angel thinks they should all just go back. This stuff is too weird. Who knows who’s telling the truth and who’s lying and, above all, who’s telling the truth! And also who’s lying.

Young Hank, who would likely know how he himself thinks better than anyone, suggests that Beast is the real deal. First of all, he’s dying. Why would he spend the time pulling a fast one? Why would he waste his dying moments fucking with his younger self and his friends? Obviously, this is important.

Plus, Cyclops wants to see this bitch future version of himself anyway. But how are they going to find him? He’s traipsing all over the country! They’ll never find him! It’s like a needle in a haystack, and that’s hard enough! Haystacks usually don’t have needles! And furthermore, th–

“Reports from the campus of the University of Dallas confirm another new mutant–” says a very convenient news report. What luck! Let’s go to Dallas. Hopefully Lee Harvey Oswald doesn’t shoot anyone in the head while they’re there.

Kitty Pryde peeks into the room. Things are taking too long and there’s business to attend to… she discovers Wolverine passed out-cold on the floor in an otherwise empty room.

“Uh-oh.”

The kids have already taken off in the X-Men Jumbo Jet! The adults watch as it flies away.

“Uh-oh.”

Final Thoughts

Uh-oh!

The series already breaks the “whatever happened happened” rules of time travel! Any future selves involved should have remembered doing this when they were 12 years old! Old Iceman should’ve been all like “oh yeah, this.”

So harumph to that.


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East of West, Issue #19 – “The Dead Wood”

* Part 4 of 14 of the The Apocalypse: Year Two storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #19 – “The Dead Wood”! An issue-long Viagra commercial is ahead of us. In the previous installment, Orion and his pet Hell Demon approach Babylon and Balloon in a verdant meadow (or as Babylon sees it, a desolate wasteland with trees out of the Doom computer game). Babylon sees a friendly man with a large cuddly gerbil. Babylon and the Hell Demon get along famously. Alone, Balloon and Orion discuss Babylon’s path to becoming the Great Beast. Frankly, it should be Babylon’s decision. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Death and Xiaolian exchange their final pleasantries. Death gives her a locket that allows her to speak to him through it, although it doesn’t work both ways. So it’s essentially useless for her.

The Endless Nation exchanged a ton of their intelligence for the House of Mao’s alliance and cooperation. I’m looking forward to that backfiring.

East of West, Issue #19 [May, 2015]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Dead Wood”

East of West, Issue #19

Look at the cover, man. Death is dying! That’s some crazy stuff. No holds barred, anything does. You’re gonna see some serious shit, Marty! But that’s probably not Death. I can’t tell who it is. Tom Cruise.

Babylon clutches his tummy. He’s hungry! It’s an odd feeling, these hunger pangs. They royally suck. How can anyone live like this? He’d rather commit all sorts of suicide.

Balloon tells him to eat, but he doesn’t wanna. All his life he ate through a stinkin’ tube. If he eats like a normal person now, there will be no going back! …sigh, oh well. Bring it on. Hamburger and fries, please. And a Shamrock Shake! … … … … well, get one anyway!

No! No time! Balloon knocks Babylon over behind a fallen tree. “Shhhh! I’m installing stealth protocols into your prefrontal cortex,” Balloon informs his little charge urgently. BOOP! “Upload complete.”

Well hot damn! You can still do stuff to him. Upload a burger and fries, you dumb orb.

But no, this is important. Babylon’s food is currently climbing a tree. Go get it son, it looks delicious!

East of West, Issue #19

Yum! Go get it. Looks like it would be good with ketchup!

Boo. That looks gross, but it’ll have to do. Orb will get a fire going so they can cook that sucker.

…

“You’re not going to get it for me?” Babylon asks meekly.
“I’m sorry, Babylon. Not today. Improvise.”

And indeed he does. Like a real Boy Scout. He grabs a stick and starts sharpening it all pointy like. He’s gonna spear him a weird little angry demon imp. Let’s watch…

Balloon cheers his buddy on. WOOP WOOP! He’s got this in the bag.

It’s a squirrel. Babylon can’t see that, but he nonetheless doesn’t want to hurt it. That sounds mean. And while Balloon reminds him that he has, indeed, hurt things before, Babylon has his reasons. “That’s different. The Horseman was going to hurt me.” Plus, he sucked and had it coming.

Yeah, fair enough. But this is dinner. You gotta eat, right? Ain’t no Funyuns and Little Debbies in the woods! At this point the orb shoots the squirrel with a laser and decapitates it profusely. You love to see it.

“Consume it all. Eat the root.”

“All of these are tests. All of this is change.”

We’ll see.

Babylon and Balloon are enjoying a decadent meal of spit-roasted squirrel. I’m quite jealous, since I had to settle for spit-roasted rat for my own meal today. Thanks, Obama.

“Remember this, Babylon… part of living well is eating well.”
“Weird thing for you to say, Balloon… but something’s different about you, isn’t there? You’ve been acting strange since we ran into the prophet with the awesome gerbil thingy.”
“If you think the entirety of our association is a game– and it isn’t –the rules of said contrivance have changed. You understand what I am, right?”

Meh. A talking balloon. Also a watcher. Also a teacher. Also a friend. Did he hit the nail on the head?

East of West, Issue #19

I was thinkin’ a Jon Hamm type. OR, ooooh, Jim Parsons!

Ok, so that stuff is true! Things are different now, though. There’s no more really molding or guidance or anything of the sort. Now Babylon chooses his own path. These are standing orders from Warden Orion.

Cool?

The next morning, after a long, uncomfortable-as-shit slumber atop a thick tree branch, Babylon is awakened by urgent nudging from his frowning balloon. “We have to go.”

But WHY? This place is great. So many delicious squirrels!

It’s because it’s possible that they’re being followed and watched. It’s due to an unknown failure on Balloon’s part, and this information piques Babylon’s… paranoia. “Might be time for you to come clean, Balloon. Failed at what? Spit it out.”

Here you go; catch that spit, sonny. Orion seems to have tampered with Balloon’s programming package. Ergo, he is now being forced to push Babylon into very real, life-threatening situations. It’s all about priority. So, you hear that unsettling rustling and cracking in the bushes over there? Get a move on.

“I’m going to regret asking…” Babylon says tentatively, “But what’s the prioritized area I’m studying now?”

MURDER! It’s murder! Your priority is murder! Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it! Stabbing! Gunning! Choking! Drowning! Hitting with your car, a Kia Soul perhaps! Be creative.

Also, run! Run, boy! They’re gaining on us! Who “they” are, who knows. But, damnit, run from them anyway. And Babylon runs, intrigued about the prospect of murder. Keith Morrison over here getting a little moist in the loins over murdery murder. Only murders in the building.

Here’s the rub: Babylon was supposed to kill that squirrel himself, and he failed. That just won’t do. It won’t do at all. Work on it.

East of West, Issue #19

Teach things, learn things, make up your mind you lousy talking balloon.

While Balloon is schooling this whippersnapper on choices and options and successes and failures, the “they” who are gaining on them appear to be little four-legged demogorgons. And there are a bunch of them.

Here’s Balloon’s lesson today: Man kills to eat. That’s the first type of murder that one needs to learn, but that’s low-stakes stuff. Here’s the next step: Man kills to survive. That’s the second type of murder. That’s higher-stakes. I wonder which step is “Man kills for fun”. A good step. A respectable step. This is what the demogorgons are here for, getting killed by you for your health and safety. And hey, at least you’re not hungry anymore. That’ll help the not being too sluggish part of the whole ordeal.

Don’t worry, though. Balloon will allow Babylon some time to get his bearings and plan his attack by hoisting him in the air about a dozen feet off the ground. “Nasty looking bunch you sicced on us, Balloon…” Babylon says with a touch of reverence, “but here’s a question: Basic evolutionary biology would suggest that [TOM’S NOTE: BOOOORRRRRING].” His question, in a nutshell, is about why these demogorgon beasts have tentacle-y tentacles when it doesn’t make much sense for land animals to still have tentacles after 700 trillion years of evolution.

East of West, Issue #19

Nice one, Balloon. You just bought yourself about twelve seconds.

Afraid that Babylon is starting to catch onto the whole alternate reality thing that Balloon is forcing him to see, you see, he fabricates a dire stuck-in-a-tree situation. And, oh god, oh me oh my, the string starts to rip in the branch. Babylon starts freaking out, because the tether will break and he’s going to land in a pile of demogorgons and he’s going to have to put his murderin’ pants on.

The tether rips. The child falls.

“Oh no. How did that happen? I’m so dumb. How come all these awful things keep happening to good people? God is dead,” wails the Balloon rather unconvincingly, throwing in some Nietzsche when appropriate to add a little panache. Then Babylon falls on his big white face.

No time to think now, is there? The kid brandishes his makeshift pointy stick. Balloon gets himself stuck in a branch on purpose, moaning effusively about the hopelessness of everything. “So it’s just me, the stick, and these monsters… any advice?” Babylon asks, flailing for a modicum of help from his loser sidekick.

“Yes. It’s a spear,” Balloon smiles, “And they have a soft underbelly.”

Excellent! The kid goes feral and starts hacking and slashing. Absolutely fucking nuts, here. “There’s hope for you yet, young man,” comments the ever-omniscient Orb as Babylon tears these creatures up like crêpe paper.

Once Babylon is done being a little sociopath, WE THE READING AUDIENCE get to see what he really butchered: a bunch of wild warthogs. At least seven of them. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” he says to Orby Balloon, on to him and his antics.

East of West, Issue #19

I’ll show YOU Son of Death! Prepare to be deathed, son!

“It is possible that the proportions of the situation were manufactured,” Babylon’s best buddy in the whole, wide, terrible world, “It’s even possible that I released synthesized pheromones into the air – whipping the beasts into a frenzy. It’s possible that I would do all kinds of things contrary to my new programming to help you become who you’re supposed to be.”

So much for free will and surviving untethered in the real world, I suppose. “Some people call that unconditional love, Babylon.”

Well, that’s kind of screwed up. Lesson learned, though. These warthogs were going to kill the child, and instead the child killed them. That’s called survival, and it’s one step closer toward the inevitable rampant murdering. “Like riding a bike,” the Tutor of Life says.

“Hear that?” Babylon perks up again, on edge, “There’s something still moving out there.”
Balloon shoots him a look of completely feigned surprise. “Oh! And do you know what it is?”

Step One, killing to eat. Done. Step Two, killing to survive. Donezo. Step Three? We all remember Step Three, right? And if you thought “Profit” then I’m rolling my fucking eyes at you. How original. Get a real sense of humor.

Step Three is also killing for survival, but this time it’s a preemptive strike. Gotta kill the ones who will someday kill you. Gotta learn how to anticipate that. There might be some that will try to kill you decades from now! Put some polonium in their Cheerios today. That’s called politics, my friend. “Hrmpt! Seems a bit presumptuous to me,” Babylon reacts with disdain. Hrmpt indeed. How the hell is supposed to know who’s gonna kill him. It could be literally anybody!

…oh.

“We hold the world and its flawed herd in contempt. Which is why we want to destroy it and build something better… but when you treat the mob with contempt, you can’t be surprised when they become your enemy. And once someone is your enemy there’s no going back. They are going to hate you forever.”

East of West, Issue #19

I smell bacon!

Final Thoughts

Poor piggy.

Orb is really grooming this kid into being a big jerk. Give it six more issues and Babylon’s going to hit him with a shovel.


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Sucky Funnies for August 28, 2022

The last Sunday of August is nothing special, and on the last Sunday of August there’s a whole page of Sunday comics that are nothing special either. The summer theme is there, I guess, but I think half these cartoonists don’t even want to bother with that anymore. Plus, they have to submit their strips about 18,000 days in advance so they weren’t even thinking about summer when they wrote them. Maybe Blondie’s Dean Young is shivering his ass off in the cold, unforgiving winter in his drafty, dilapidated cabin with his single sad candle.

Jump Start

Jump Start, August 28, 2022

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Jump Start is one of those strips, like Get Fuzzy or Frazz, that will cram a whole lot of ideas and meandering directions into one installment. Jump Start is far from the worst offender on any given day, but today’s strip is quite muddled. It’s a camp talent show, and Kenny Crunchy can play the guitar with his stank-ass feet. We’re making sense so far!

But then Dr. Appleby’s talent is throwing a bunch of balls with both hands? A weak premise! The greatest dodgeball player of all time would not just throw these large, red, rubber spheres of torture all willy-nilly! He would calculate his every move as if it were a chess game against the Game of Thrones fan and Putin-obsessed chessmaster Garry Kasparov! It’s also about the catching!

I also think it’s against the Hippocratic Oath to do harm in any fashion, Appleby. Reread your manual.

Beetle Bailey

Beetle Bailey, August 28, 2022

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It took me a few scans of this stupid garbage to fully understand the tenuous and scraggly threads of this particular narrative. Most importantly, and for the love of god, why are these speech balloons placed so fucking poorly? I’m sitting here thinking that BRIGADIER GENERAL AMOS T. HALFTRACK’s men are either losing their marbles OR they’re taking advantage of Halftrack’s senility by calling him up on the phone and amusedly addressing him by much lower ranks. Then I find out that we are only seeing one side of the conversation. Thank you, speech balloons, for pointing at the telephone cord instead of Halftrack’s mustachioed pie hole.

And then Halftrack’s mad because he was only able to scrounge up the three worst golf companions? Holy Hell, dude, you got THE DOG to answer your phone and agree to your invitation! What more do you want?

Family Circus

Family Circus, August 28, 2022

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I always ALWAYS have to mention that Jeffy’s Mom has got it goin’ on. That’s a given.

Now that THAT’S out of the way, until next time of course, let’s focus our attention to the fact that three-year-old Jeffy has one hell of an arm on him. That fence is 10 feet high and he was able to get it up to 8 feet with an overhand throw? Goddamn, someone find this kid a scout immediately. He’ll be recruited to the Houston Astros by the time’s he’s seven! And that’s one of the good teams!

Mallard Fillmore

Mallard Fillmore, August 28, 2022

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Remember when the Internet starting exploding in the late ’90s and every person born before 1965 was freaking out about the complete lack of privacy inherent in such a new and scary, connected world? Now they have Facebook accounts with names like “BobboCarsonCity58” or “Philandtammy Dirksen” and they freely say stuff like “I found moles digging into my cabbage patch earlier this week, so I went to the Home Depot at 451 Franklin Ave. to buy some more mulch for my backyard behind my $750,000 house at 761 Drucker Dr., where I spend the hours of 1pm – 4pm on Saturdays with my back turned to the street and completely unaware of my surroundings.”

Life is funny sometimes.

Old Nerd: “‘The California Air Quality Control Board on Thursday announced a state ban on the sale of gas-powered vehicles in California after 2035. I understand the state’s motivation for announcing and enforcing the ban. Electric vehicles aren’t powerful enough to pull a U-Haul, so we’re all trapped here.’ – Comedian Argus Hamilton”

Who in Dick Van Dyke’s poopy pants is Argus Hamilton? Let’s look him up!… “Robin Williams has called him ‘the Will Rogers of the Baby Boom’.” So what does that mean, exactly? In a cohort of annoying, entitled individuals, Argus Hamilton is the most annoying? That’s what it sounds like to me. That’s what I interpreted and I’ll hear no more about it!

activist1234: “Very smart comic today. We used to long for fame, but anymore it’s privacy that is rarer. What disturbs me are all the young people I’ve talked with who see no need for privacy and willingly surrender it.”

Privacy, in the way upper middle-aged people see it, no longer means anything anymore. Young people do not give a shit about the kind of privacy that Boomers think is important, and instead of accepting this, they harp on it over and over again like it’s a character flaw of a younger generation.

Ironically, these people are willingly typing in credit card numbers in any sketchy link they see in their AOL inboxes, so don’t talk to us about privacy. Go bitch about it on Truth Social.

James: “There are a lot of addictive properties to the internet, so I take Mallard’s meaning. That’s why I always have a book (yes, a real one) handy. Of course, many of the internet and social media’s denizen’s have long since lost the ability to read unless it’s on a phone screen.”

While I do appreciate James’ relatively calm and non-belligerent comment, I have to point out that the tired talking point of “young people are illiterate because of Facebook”, usually coupled with a smug satisfaction of NOT reading any books electronically, doesn’t land because older people consume social media like water every single day just like the rest of the first world human population. The only difference is that they’re projecting for some reason. It’s like they’re  all ashamed because, after years of 1950’s / 1960’s-style passive aggressive, emotionally abusive upbringing, they are irrevocably broken!

That gets a last laugh from me, I tell you what. And I’m sorry, I’m feisty today. That Mallard Fillmore really brings out the worst in me!


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