Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Shaman (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Shaman storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Shaman (Part 5)”! The last installment of the story. In the previous installment, Bruce saves the nameless Inuit woman and the old shaman man and learns that Thomas Woodley is still alive and fucking with his shit. He breaks into Woodley’s estate and discovers a bunch of Chubala Shaman cult supplies! So it sounds like he’s masterminding the Chubala cult (Gotham branch), but we still don’t know who the Chubala cult leader is yet.

Time to head home, but Woodley’s at Wayne Manor threatening a bound and gagged Alfred and waiting to pop Bruce in the face with a knife.

I’m rooting for the knife.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [March, 1990]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 5)”

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Let’s review the cover art progression: Issue #1 shows the shaman bat mask. Issue #2 shows the shaman bat mask breaking away, revealing the Batman cowl. Issue # shows the cowl breaking away, revealing Bruce’s RUGGED, HANDSOME, 007 visage. Issue #4 shows Bruce’s face shattering, revealing a SCARY SKULL. And now, we see the skull fragmenting and revealing… Batman. Like one of those Russian dolls. Underwhelming.

Woodley, clad in his shaman garb, rants and raves like a schizophrenic lunatic. And not the fun kind. “He comes through this door, I put my knife in him,” he mutters with little regard for spoken grammatical correctness. “I put it in his throat and watch him die.”

It’s very tense! Panels bounce between Bruce walking up the steps to his front door, Alfred sweating profusely in the chair, Woodley assuming his stabbin’ stance, the doorknob, a jar of mayonnaise, the glint of the knife, a jar of pickles, etc.

“Where is he? What’s takin’ him so long?” Woodley fidgets in the splendor of the foyer’s Christmas tree glow. Here’s what’s taking him so long: Bruce went in through the backdoor, baby.

Good thing it snowed! Bruce saw no footprints leading out of the house, and certainly not to Alfred’s car. Unless Alfred learned how to float two inches above the ground on a magic carpet (and he might have, for all we know), then that means he’s tied up and gagged in Bruce Wayne’s foyer! Not today!

So they tussle for a spell. Bruce avoids the knife a few times before he definitely doesn’t avoid the knife. It goes right in his chest almost to the hilt. “If I hadn’t been wearing this padded disguise, I’d be bleeding now,” he thinks, slightly stunned anyway. I’m stunned. The guy is wearing a six inch layer of padding? Fat fucking chance, this guy should be dead.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Whatever.

They take this fight outside, and there are several panels of grabbing and kicking and punching and more attempts at stabbing. Bruce is able to overpower Woodley by a hair, but Woodley’s got the crazy gleam in his eye! Crazy usually wins!

“Saved by the padding–again,” explains the narration as Woodley tries to rip through Bruce’s abdomen and pulls up the squishy, gelatinous padding like so much sticky, sweet saltwater taffy!

Eventually, Bruce wrests the knife out of Woodley’s hand and it gets tossed too far away to retrieve. Gettin’ all cocky like he already won, Bruce lets his guard down and gets flipped onto his back like a turtle by the crazy man! “He’s outfoxed me again,” he declares, delicately and whimsically. I’d use a lot of words to describe the drooling, rambling Stabby Man’s disordered maneuvering, but “outfoxed” implies a certain cunning.

Woodley runs into the woods. And why wouldn’t he? He’s Woodley. He was born to run into the woods. Bruce doesn’t even bother chasing him. He’s still recovering from the disastrous outfoxing!

“I’d never have caught him in this ridiculous suit, anyway,” says Bruce later after freeing Alfred from the SHACKLES. Your grapes appear to be sour, sir! There’s no time to rest, though, he needs to go back downtown and end these ritual killings once and for all.

Woodley may be harmed but he’s OUT there like a FOX in the woods and is still a dangerous asshole, so Alfred is advised to drive into town and stay at a motel for the night. Poppycock! That’s a coward’s way out, and why bother when they’ve already got HBO in the manor? No no, he’ll be staying here tonight.

Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “no way, José”.
Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “not a chance, Lance”.
Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “go away, Bobby Flay”.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Sounds to me like Alfred needs some immediate alone time with his erection.

Plus, it’s Christmas Eve and Alfred wants to go to his own home for some reason. Why? To be all alone there too? Alfred doesn’t have anybody! Why would he have a home? Wayne Manor has 14,000 rooms in it and there’s never more than just Bruce and/or Alfred in any of them at any given moment. Stupid!

Bruce is a benevolent slave driver, so he allows Alfred to go home on Christmas Eve just this one time, but the next 20 Christmas Eves you’re staying here, Buster!

Anyway, Bruce knows the identity of the Chubala cult leader out of nowhere. The banker named Carl Fisk who we barely saw in passing two issues ago. It should’ve been figured out a long time ago, actually, but Bruce was too busy talking to dancing old guys in the airport and putting on fat suits. It clicked when he was fighting at the half-completed construction building. There were no guards to stop anybody, as if they all had been called away. Someone who didn’t want to have witnesses for the drug deal. Since Fisk is also financing the construction, he was the prime suspect!

How very flimsy. I think the cult leader is none other than Nipsey Russell! I have my own theories and I shall keep them to myself.

Now this Fisk guy, he’s supposed to be bankrupt and poor and not in a position whatsoever to be interested in buying a handful of scratch-and-wins, let alone some Wayne real estate. So what gives?

WELL, Alfred dug up some Fisk dirt; learned that he had visited Santa Prisca in order to take control of the drug operation, and he accomplished this by scaring all the dealers with superstitious Chubala Shaman nonsense! Plus, he wore a big trench coat and threatened to open it up full frontal to anyone who naysayed and/or refused to cooperate, so that helped!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

We found him prostituting and cramming Coke bottles up his rectum while squatting seductively.

Now, tonight, it’s fucking on, bro. Fisk is outfitted with, like, a million tracking devices. The whiz-bang 1990 GPS tracker takes Batman near the river, where a ton of redevelopment projects are underway. That means empty buildings. That means plenty of space for creepy, private rituals. That means piñatas and cake.

“If my stunt works, Fisk’s own weapons – fear and superstition – will destroy him…” Batman is very good at masterminding ironic punishments! Let’s watch…

Carl “Wilson” Fisk “Chalupa Shaman” is cooking this dude over a flame while saying scary cult things. “It is time. Time to trade – an eternity of torment – for the peace – of oblivion.”

Fisk gets his knife ready. He’s about to poke a big hole into the mustachioed human sacrifice. Then Batman presses a button on a remote and a squib goes off on Fisk’s costume. “AAGH” he says! Foiled!

“Chubala is a fool,” Batman begins his monologue, billowing into the room, “Chubala is a god of old women and small children. The other gods laugh at this Chubala. The other gods call his priests WEAKLINGS.”

Batman blows up another squib. “OWH” he says! Foiled again!

At this point, Mr. Jim Jones is tired of Batman setting off little fireworks on his person and tries to sic his followers on the cowled one. They don’t move.

“You are the servant of a powerful god? Then, Priest of Chubala, strike me yourself,” Batman taunts, striking the Priest of Chubala himself. With another squib. “UNGH” he says! We’re running out of grunt sounds, I think.

So this keeps happening, this back and forth, padding out the issue with a lot of “what are you afraid of, bitch?” and then “OWH! HURN! HABRF!”.

Then Batman takes Chubala Shaman’s big sword and pokes him in the nipple, drawing blood. To show that everyone’s Dear Leader can bleed blood, I guess?

Now Mr. Jim Jones pulls out his gun. Playtime is over.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Shooting blanks?! Not again!

Playtime has just begun! Shaman’s acidy kevlar vest doesn’t work. His blanky gun doesn’t work. Batman sets off one more squib, and it’s a biggun. It blows Fisk’s skull hat clean off his dome.

All the while Batman shows all of the cult followers that this guy ain’t shit. None of this would work for Trump supporters, though. They would all be there witnessing this happen and Trump would say “this isn’t happening right now” and they would believe him.

Batman cuts loose the human sacrifice and tells him to go find the police. Let them know that Batman HIMSELF will deliver the serial killer in only a few hours. This victim doesn’t even have any clothes to wear. Gonna run all naked around town, I guess.

Turning to Carl Fisk, Batman tells him he will draft up a written confession! In ink! Calligraphy! On only the finest loose leaf paper money can buy! Fisk pleads for mercy. After all, he had to do it! You don’t understand, sir, he wanted money! So that he wasn’t poor! And Batman, who would likely shudder to think of having to be poor for even seventeen minutes, pretends to show no empathy…but you can tell being poor would worry him too. As if Bruce Wayne isn’t ABOVE starting a death cult to get some money back.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Ew. Did you keep the receipt?

The cops find this dude hanging on a lamppost, which I’m starting to gather is Batman’s preferred way of turning in criminals. Captain Jimface Gordon is all smiles! He’s even smoking a dang pipe, he’s feeling so celebratory at the moment. He tells a sergeant to get a warrant and check Fisk’s safe deposit box at the bank, where he’s stashing 30 kilos of cocaine. That’s a lot of kilos of cocaine, man. That’s, like, 1/100th of the amount that Charlie Sheen has in his own safe deposit box.

So that’s that, eh? The bad guy has been thwarted. Gotham City is now safe forever. *dusts off hands*

Bruce discusses the victory aftermath with sourpuss Alfred Pennyworth. And what’s a penny worth? Getting out of this conversation! Haha! Does that make any sense? Probably not.

Here’s what bugs Bruce right now, though. The gun wasn’t full of blanks anymore! Check it out: *points gun at Alfred’s face* *pulls trigger* It’s full of live rounds now, see? *pulls back hammer* *pulls trigger*

“He must have reloaded,” observes Bruce using his eyeballs to look at the gun’s real bullets. If Alfred had a monocle right now, it would be falling into his wine glass. IF he also had a wine glass! That is to say, Alfred is quite SHOCKED! “His aim was faulty?”

That’s the only explanation! Even though it was point blank range, for Pete’s sake!

“The only other explanation is… I was wearing a mask. And that’s no explanation at all,” Bruce rambles. Masks save lives! It stops COVID and bullets.

Anyway, just one last piece of business because Bruce Wayne can relax in his Olympic-size swimming pool full of pussy: find Woodley and bite him in the butt. I guess he’s still chilling in the woods? It shouldn’t be too hard to track the guy since the woods would likely be full of only one guy’s footprints from running around like a lunatic for hours on Christmas. Plus, Batman can tell that he’s bleeding, because snow shouldn’t be red! The red snow really pops in contrast to the white snow, AND, thus, is a good clue! Batman, you shrewd detective you.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Fuckin’ guy in a bat suit screaming in the woods about “white man’s law” on Christmas day.

Batman spends a literal hour running through the empty woods before stopping and yelling for Tom Woodley. “I’ll take you to where you will be tried and punished properly,” Batman calls out, sweetening the deal! It works. Tom Woodley emerges shivering, exhausted, hungry, and stupid, and slumps his way over to where Batman is standing.

“On the mountain, I couldn’t kill you,” Woodley starts pouring his heart out about that which has been obviously eating away at him since the whole incident in Alaska, “Old Willy died easy enough, but not you. Shoulda seen you for what you are, shoulda seen the bat in you then…shoulda seen the shaman…” he starts blubbering A-BLOO BLOO BLOO BLOO, “…save me a lot of grief…”

Woodley throws Batman the shaman mask he took from Otter Ridge, claims he shouldn’t have ever taken it in the first place. Also, during their fight the previous night, Woodley fell on his own sword and got stabbed! In case you didn’t notice the blood all over the woods. Oh, you did! Then never mind!

I don’t know why, all of a sudden, Batman’s being very kind and accommodating to this murderer. All “I can help you” and “do you need me to get you anything?” and “maybe a kiss will make the boo-boo better?” Woodley wants Batman to tell him a story. I think that’s super dumb.

Batman says he doesn’t know any “appropriate” stories. He only knows smutty ones. So he just says three words to him and leaves him to die: “Rest in peace.” He smirks while he says it. Maybe Batman was pretending to be kind! Or he’ll go home and unload all over Alfred during one of those mandatory therapy conversations. Unload all over him.

Man, this story still isn’t over? What more is there to really say here?

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Let’s 9/11 this motherfucker.

Bruce flies his $98.15 airplane, looking like it’s going to break apart mid-flight any minute now, transporting Woodley back to Alaska, I guess.

“Speaking of redskins…you hear the one about the Indian chief walks into a bar with a six-shooter, a cat, and a bucket of manure?” asks the grinning, racist pilot. Bruce shoots him a dirty look, the kind that says “only I get to be racist on this plane!”, and the pilot clams up. “Yeah, well, it isn’t real funny anyway…”

Aha, unfinished business! Bruce still has to try to bone the nameless Otter Ridge woman! Well, not today! Her pop-pop died quite recently and she’s not looking to bone anything at the moment.

“He died sober,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce replies. He must not have heard her.

Bruce also tries to apologize for blabbing about the Raven and the Bat story, but she won’t forgive that one any time soon. They head out for a walk, because there’s way more awkward chit-chat to be had here.

He tries to ask her out! He fucking tries to make a move here! Jesus Christ, dude, keep it in your pants you deplorable dumbass. You ruined her happy little community, you fucking creep.

“In a moment, I will leave you and I will never see you again, but first, listen to me–” she starts, giving Bruce her complete lack of interest in no uncertain terms. She can tell this miserable loser had a very traumatic childhood experience, so she gives him a little piece of advice: channel that energy into something useful. BECOME the mask! How’s that grab ya?

Bruce tries to give back the shaman bat mask. She doesn’t want it back.

“After Bat blew the sickness away from Raven, he collected it and took it to the nest of the Vulture…”

And thus, the man decided to keep being Batman.

Final Thoughts

Bruce Wayne didn’t get to have sex, BUT he did learn a valuable lesson about the importance of wearing a mask. What a timeless lesson.

And was the implication here that Bruce Wayne is bulletproof? No real explanation for those live rounds, huh? Sounds cool.

Also, Carl Fisk’s big money-making scheme was wild. Instead of just dealing drugs and laundering money through a legitimate business front like a normal criminal, he decides to learn some crazy cult shit and kill people with crazy cult shit on top of dealing drugs. Yeah, that’s sustainable.

Oh yeah, and this story was fucking racist as hell! Thanks, 20th century!


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Paper Girls, Issue #10

Paper Girls, Issue #10

* Part 5 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 2 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #10! Closing out the second story arc with a bang, or at least a bright violet light. In the previous installment, Not-Erin meets up with the other two Erins and convinces the group, minus Old Erin, to follow her through a portal leading them all to the 701st century. Where they will be “safe”. Perhaps the future will cure Mac’s cancer? Perhaps the future will answer all sorts of unanswered questions?

Or perhaps there will be a completely batshit twist that will cause me to want to immediately move onto the next arc!

Time will tell. 68,000 years of time.

Paper Girls, Issue #10 [October, 2016]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #10

“What is past is epilogue.“

Three Erins. On the cover. Lookin’ sad and nervous.

I mentioned in Issue #9 that a wormhole opened up over downtown Cleveland and an enormous cyberpunk floating cruise ship emerged. This luxurious Titanic of the Skies contains the Old Man Beard from the end of Issue #5. He was meddling and then the girls time-warped before he could get them.

Well he’s back! With a VENGEANCE! “When are we?” he asks his loyal assistant Whatshername. I forget already. Let me look it up…

…hold on…get yourself some Pizza Rolls while I thumb through my notes… *plays Wordle for five minutes*

…Cardinal. Her name is Cardinal. “Bystand a nano, grandfather… Ograph puts us smackmid of… 002016,” she says after playing Wordle for five minutes. “Ah, the year my mother was born,” replies the old man.

Funny enough, this issue dropped in October of 2016 and the old man makes mention of The Problems that are about to begin after the election! How depressingly clairvoyant.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Same.

Cardinal punches some numbers in her Futuristic Space TI-84 Graphing Calculator and notices ripples in the space-time continuum. Retcons, you might actually say, I suppose. Changings of the past? The old man isn’t worried about that right now. “Curfew has been broken wide, which means our enemy is already here. They must be after the same young girls we are.”

And he only hopes that he and Cardinal find them first… (eek)

Let’s see what those young girls are up to right now! Oh yeah, the portal to the future. Not-Erin, hereby known and referred to as Clone-Erin… never mind, that’s wack. Not-Erin tells them all to shake a leg. Only seconds before the Fifth Folding closes up like so many pierced ears.

“I promise there’s nothing here for you,” Not-Erin says rather bluntly and morosely! Really killing the party here. Damn. “Do you want to live in the future or die in this miserable excuse for a present?” Yeesh, lighten up, Bleak Betty. Take your Xanax.

Mac’s like, FUCK 2016. Unless they cured cancer, she’s taking her chances in the year 9 Billion.

Tiff’s like, SCREW 2016. KJ is still missing and she’s clearly not here. Why not give it a shot?

Old Erin’s like, BOO TO 2016. God knows she’s not happy. But, she’s not about to let some preteens gallivant off to some crazy future with some crazy Erin who’s even crazier than she is! Not on her watch! “Look, none of you are acting rationally. You can’t. You’re twelve.”

Mac doesn’t want to hear it. Did you hear what the old Mexican man said in my childhood home?? She’s gonna get cancer and be dead forever! She says it out loud and breaks down a little bit, so Old Erin takes this last opportunity to sway her against following this weird clone girl.

“Enough. We don’t have time for this,” Not-Erin says with all the emotion of a lawn chair. She starts waving her magic sorceress arms and zaps Old Erin with a beam of violet light.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Hmm. I’ll give you a 9/10 for form, but I’m going to have to dock a few points for not sticking the landing.

The girls are like “whut”. Old Erin may have been some crazy, twitchy nutcase, but she was THEIR crazy, twitchy nutcase, damnit! She lies motionless on the floor.

When asked why she did that, Not-Erin tells them that YOU three paper girls are going to “turn the tide of this war”. “I have come too far and my people have sacrificed too much for some ‘grown-up’ to throw it all away.”

She waves a hand and tells the three of them to shake a leg. Don’t make her hurt you all too if she has too.

Young Erin gets some pep in her step! “YOU BITCH!” she shrieks, leaping at her clone, forgetting all about her propensity for squeaky-clean language. Young Erin starts choking herself, you might say. Really wrapping those fingers around her sociopathic clone’s throat. In the heat of the fracas, she removes Not-Erin’s translation collar. Throwing a punch back at Young Erin’s jaw, she calls her a name that we can only read in her alien language. It’s probably “cunt”, for serious. Young Erin smacks her head on the floor right in front of the portal.

Mac gets hostile, but Not-Erin looks alarmingly angry while shouting her gibberish.

“Tiffany, tabletop her!” yells Young Erin from the floor. Tiff, indeed, tabletops the little shrew. Not-Erin topples over Young Erin and she falls back-first through the Fifth Folding. Bye!

“Whoa,” Tiff stares as the portal closes up behind them, “I…I’ve only had that done to me.”

Old Erin stirs and sits up. Her shoulder is burned up pretty badly, but at least she didn’t get time-ripped apart like that one dude and that one maggot. “Told you that kid was evil,” says Old Erin, finally looking kinda sexy for the first time in five issues.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Ooooooh, I like it when you look angry.

Young Erin is apologetic, as she often is, but it took her this long to really believe that the hockey stick was talking about Not-Erin instead of Old Erin. It wasn’t specific! It just said “other” Erin! It could’ve been any Erin! It could’ve been Erin Brockovich!

There’s that pulsing “VURVURVURVURVURVUR” again, the one that means some inconvenient time-related nutso crap is going to happen to throw everyone for a loop. A time loop. “Oh no, that’s the sound the other bad guys make,” Tiff says, gettin’ all panicky. “The assholes with the pterodactyls? We’re screwed!” Mac says, gettin’ all jittery.

Not today! Old Erin, with her post-puberty faculties in order, has a plan. If KJ was right about not trusting Not-Erin, then she was probably right about the other thing too. The Fourth Folding. We should go to there. And there’s only one person at this point who can really help us!

And it’s not Batman. It’s not even Robin. It’s DEFINITELY not Archie.

The one person who can help them lands her helicopter outside of the abandoned mall. She has a kickass pixie haircut and jumpsuit with a medical pilot patch. She’s Erin’s cooler younger sister who probably gets way more chicks than even I do, yo.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Yeah, and you’re going to gun them into the ground! Use your training! Black Hawk Down!

“MISSY!” yells Old Erin as she hobbles over to her sister with a large piece of gauze over her bloody shoulder. They exchange hugs. Missy starts asking who the EFF these little pipsqueaks are, then Missy recognizes one of them. She gasps. “You’re…you’re my big sister. You’re my big sister and you’re little.” It’s like, having you been keeping up with the Paper Girls comics? Old news.

Missy is confused. Old Erin will explain on the way. Here, have some Xanax to take the edge off. We’re flying the chopper, kiddo.

“We need to take these girls downtown. There might be a way to the get them out of this nightmare,” Old Erin flails frantically at her little sister, who has a big sister and a little big sister right now and it’s a lot to take in at the moment. “Them? What about us?” asks Missy.

In downtown Cleveland, people are running for their lives as a guy on a pterodactyl zaps them all with his Halo energy sword. We find out what happens when one of these hapless victims gets some zappage, because it happens to the girl who sort of looks like Tiff, the first person Not-Erin talked to after she phased into 2016. They don’t die. They get transported to the Old Beard Man’s tube where they remain in stasis until oblivion! Or whatever!

The view from these future mercenaries from their lavish blimp-powered cruise ship is quite a sight! Why, helicopters are putting on a show right outside the windows! “Sir, multi locals b gawking,” Cardinal reports as she gets outfitted with more knightly armor.

“Forget the choppers, Cardinal,” the old man dismisses his second-in-command, “I want your troops to concentrate on transferring every school-age female here for processing.”

Oh ho ho, the plot thickens! Like a fine gravy! It’s a SEX SLAVE RECRUITMENT INITIATIVE! Or, barring that, a SEX SLAVE HEALTH SPA! Or whatever, let’s just keep reading.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Yeah, I dunno. I guess so. The entire ‘80s could give it a run for its money.

All the ladies are crammed into Missy’s helicopter looking for the Fourth Folding as they edge closer to downtown Cleveland. A comedian with nerd glasses once told me that Cleveland rocks, but I never believed him. Old Erin is plugged into her Apple Brain Drain and relaying directions from the passenger seat, while Missy is like “what the fuck am I even supposed to be looking for? Is it going to look like a big gaping vagina?” Ha, no she doesn’t say that, but they’re all damn well thinking it.

When asked how confident she is that this is all going to work out, Old Erin says that this gadget “has been right about all these Narnia portals so far.” And by the way, her time with it is done. She proffers the device back to her young self, from whence it came. “You might need it wherever you end up next,” she says, implying that there’s no way in hell she’s following these kids to whatever death trap they’re going to be stumbling into next.

Old Erin makes up some flimsy excuse about needing to stay in her time to help anyone else in need who comes across her path. She and Missy both. Young Erin accepts this because she’s a dumb 12-year-old.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Yo, I think Frank Lapidus found the Island.

Old Erin advises Young Erin to stay friends with these girls. They all obviously care about each other, even if it’s only been about two days. Old Erin doesn’t know what happened 28 years ago, but she wishes she had gotten to know ANY girl as badass as these too. Maybe she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a dork. OH WELL! Hey check it out, a rift in the sky!

Great! Perfect! Let’s get closer and you kids can just hop out! Be careful not get decapitated by the rotor blades and–

“JUMP?!” shrieks a startled Mac, like she just caught cancer or something, “What makes you think we won’t fall to our deaths on the other side?” The answer? Uhhhh, quit being such a pussy! That’s what makes me think.

Young Erin, ever the voice of reason, says that KJ wouldn’t steer any of the wrong. Ergo, let’s jump through the portal that’s 1,000 feet about the ground. Capital idea!

Tiff glances out the window and notices a whole horde of Editrixes rolling into town. That’s those green orbs with the robot eyeballs. They fought one in the sewers, but Young Erin wouldn’t remember that since she was feverish with bullet-wound-itis at the time.

“What are they?” asks Old Erin.
“Hell if I know,” says Tiff as she works on opening the helicopter’s door, “but I’m never letting one touch me again.” Faithful readers may remember Tiff’s life flashing before her eyes, and it contained a hell of a lot of Arkanoid.

The door is open. The helicopter hovers directly over the Fourth Folding. All they have to do is jump down. Looks fun. Fun like a hemorrhoid.

Paper Girls, Issue #10

Why not?? Oh, right, because they’re jumping out of a helicopter without a parachute into a mysterious portal hundreds of feet above the ground. I forgot for a second.

Time to jump, kids! Screw the consequences! The three of them hold hands and gaze upon the portal, sick to their stomachs no doubt. Old Erin breathes a quiet prayer in the front seat. The Editrix orb buttheads start wrapping their distended metal alien eyes around every part of the helicopter: the rotor blades, the cabin, the stabilizer. All this will likely cause a certain death for the older Tieng sisters, but this isn’t their story anymore. The three young girls take their leaps of faith.

They appear mere feet above a peaceful meadow, landing softly in the grass. Softly enough, at least. No broken bones or sprained ankles or shattered pelvises or severed vertebrae. We’re good.

Well, not quite. Mac and Erin landed. Tiff isn’t near them. Tiff doesn’t seem to be present.

“YOU GUYS!” yells the childish, 12-year-old voice of a hockey stick wielder, “YOU MADE IT!”

Sure enough, KJ, whom we haven’t seen one panel of since the previous storyline, appears to be completely safe and sound here in…wherever this is! We don’t know yet.

They share a nice reunion hug! Ha ha! Too bad it’s not a real reunion!

Oh wait, Tiff landed in the river. Whew! She emerges soaking wet and coughing. “Well. That sucked,” she pouts. Ahahaha! Oh you.

Erin isn’t celebrating just yet. “KJ, where are we?”
“I was hoping you knew,” KJ replies, “I landed here a few hours ago. I’ve been looking all over for any sign of you three. Of anyone. Well, that’s a bummer. They landed in a time where all humans have been wiped off the face of the Earth! That sounds splendid. Maybe they’ll stumble upon bomb shelters containing cans of beans.

This is sort of unsettling. Also, what about the hockey stick that you carved messages into, KJ? Didn’t you do that for us? And KJ doesn’t know what the FUCK this kid is talking about at all! Hahaha! It’s good to be all together again!

The scene pans out. The four of them are atop a very large, grassy hill. The hill has a…

…well, see for yourself…

Paper Girls, Issue #10

All hail the Apple Inc. Goat Demon! All hail the goat boy!

Final Thoughts

Good place to end for now! 2016 is wrapped up, the four kids have all reunited, the older versions of Erin and her sister are likely dead, but that seems to be the name of the game. The people who help Erin die doing so.

Apples are everywhere! Erin dreams of apples. Apple logos are on all sorts of devices, buildings, and landscaping. The old man wore an Apple Records shirt once.

Look to the apple. Before the apple looks to you.

Or something. I don’t know how to end this.


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Sucky Funnies for July 31, 2022

Hey, what’s in the newspaper this weekend? Nichelle Nichols died. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to be Trump’s 2024 running mate. Biden still has COVID and his withered ass may die any day, lmao

Ahhh, fuck it. Let’s just turn to the comics page.

Macanudo

Macanudo - July 31, 2022

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I don’t know anything about Macanudo. The Wikipedia page tells me that some guy named Liniers from Argentina draws it. Reportedly, “it has been considered very popular”.[citation needed]

Popular with whom, that’s debatable. The comments section still seems lousy with technology-illiterate middle-aged fucks who probably didn’t really get the joke but still want to put their two cents in to seem “up to speed” on the kind of jokes “the kids” like.

This strip has total Far Side clone energy. Always imitated, never as good. Rhymes with Orange, Speed Bump, Pardon My Planet already exist. We don’t need another one.

Ricardo @disqus.com: “This is what happens when we spend too much time on Twitter!”
MJ N: “It’s true! Birds aren’t real…They’re actually drones that need to periodically recharge on power lines…”
Willozwisp: “Today’s strip gave me the charge I needed…”

LOOK OUT, WE GOT A BUNCH OF COMEDIANS OVER HERE.

Rex Morgan, M.D.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2022

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Hey, remember when Tildy was feeling dizzy so she drove her own ass to the hospital? Well, things are getting dire! Not only does Tildy need to tell Dr. Park what happened, but Dr. Morgan has to tell Andrzej what happened! And who are all these people anyway??

I can hear the old man wheeze in Andrzej’s voice when he yells “MY TILDY!“, like he got suddenly, and briefly, jumped out of his dementia stupor. Or, MAYBE, he’s saying it like David Schwimmer says “MYY SAAANDWICH!!”

And then he’s all hung up on Tildy’s car, and then his car then her car again. It’s like, dude, should the hospital have called someone else? You seem incredibly unhelpful.

William Thompson: “Let us have a moment of silence for Dr. Park, who foolishly asked Tildy to describe the accident. It is a terrible thing to watch an innocent person die from felony boredom.”
194919671982: “Did I miss something? Don’t these two live in the same house?”
Noel Schornhorst: “Will he have a real heart attack/car accident and then everyone just ignores it since the car already looks junked and he just said he might be late/not coming? FINGERS CROSSED!!!”

I love it! The Rex Morgan comments crew is on point. They’re like the anti-Mallard Fillmore crew, who are about four times loonier and, therefore, nine times funnier.

Marvin

Marvin - July 31, 2022

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Go fuck yourself that the Marvin comic strip is 40 years old. How on Earth can one person make a comfortable living do this his whole life? It should be against the law.

Tom Armstrong was saving this one up for a while. You can tell he was meticulously crafting a perfect list of sugary candy and foods with weird textures to really send the Marvin readers into a nauseous tizzy! Marvin doesn’t even want to enjoy his birthday! He would rather eat garbage and ruin his parents’ day! Are you laughing?! I’m laughing!

Happy Birthday, Marvin. Please find it in your heart to die of SIDS sooner rather than later.

J. J. O’Malley: “He can talk and communicate concepts to his parents, and he enjoys it when his diaper is filled.”
Mike Scott: “Man, Marvin ages slow LOL”
the_sculptor: “Forty years of telling the same shitty joke.”

We are all celebrating heartily.


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Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 – “Generation Why (Part 1)”

* Part 1 of 4 of the Generation Why storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 – “Generation Why (Part 1)”! In the previous installment, and, technically, the end of the previous storyline, Ms. Marvel and Wolverine spend a lot of time bonding as they make their way to the exit of the sewers. Wolverine takes a liking to the young lass, which is saying something since Wolverine doesn’t take much of a liking to anybody or anything, and relays his opinions to a couple of Avenger-types. They decide to get Ms. Marvel a giant dog companion.

Wolverine found his runaway, but Ms. Marvel is still keen on finding some other kidnapped runaways that are being used by Thomas Birdface Edison. I’m sure she’ll regret this decision shortly.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 [November, 2014]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Generation Why (Part 1)”

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

Kamala’s narration reveals that she spent the better part of the weekend punching out alligators in the sewers. Sounds like she’s finally getting the hang of necessary animal cruelty! It gets her ruminating about why adults running the planet don’t seem to care much about the big stuff going on: terrigen bomb mist, bird clones kidnapping runaway children, etc. It’s almost like they’re pretending that these problems don’t exist until the problems get too big to ignore.

Ms. Marvel is roaming the neighborhood with photos of missing runaways, asking around if anyone has seen any of them lately. As this is happening, she doesn’t seem to notice the thing that everyone on the street wants to run away from. Something that looks like a problem that’s too big to ignore.

As everyone around her flees as if in a shitty ‘50s Godzilla movie, Ms. Marvel looks around and wonders what all the fuss is about.

She slowly turns around…

She sees the problem that’s too big to ignore…

“Awww! Look at you! You are just the cutest most humongous thing I have ever seen!”

Ms. Marvel fawns over her new best friend in a big “daaawwwwww” moment.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

I like hugz :3

We’re back to the old artist! I guess someone was on strike until his demands for $28M per panel were met.

ATTENTION! I’M NOT REWRITING THE RECAPS ANYMORE. Yeah yeah yeah, we get it, strict parents, nerdy hobbies, she becomes Ms. Marvel, lots of trips to the mosque, Jersey City, and erotic fanfiction.

“So…he followed me home. Ammi, Abu, can I keep him?” Kamala grins while hugging the giant canine. As if she already didn’t know the exact reaction.

“Get out! Fuck you! Gross! That thing is forty feet tall! Out! I can’t imagine how big its turds must be! Go to hell!”

That kind of thing, essentially.

Aamir tells her she can’t have dogs in a house because it’s considered haram. Forbidden. I guess Islamic law prohibits dogs purely for companionship. Kamala starts gibbering and bargaining, insisting that she’ll feed and care for the monster and keep him in the backyard at all times. I mean, how much could this thing possibly eat, right? He probably eats dirt and trash. There’s ALWAYS trash!

Ammi worries about what the neighbors would think. Abu has been silent the whole time. They walk away, and Kamala will take all this as begrudging permission. “It’s your funeral,” Aamir says, walking away as well, “I’ll try to talk Ammi and Abu off the ledge.”

“Huzzah!” Kamala cries, like Mr. Burns. Later that night, she entertains the idea of teaching Lockjaw to play fetch, but she has other more important business to attend to first. She’s got her buddy, Bruno, on the horn to discuss Runaway Julie. She’s been in a coma since Wolverine took her to the hospital. Some real feeding tube shit. Total vegetable.

Julie Harrison is the only lead Kamala has on the Inventor’s nefarious kidnapping schemes. She browses Julie’s Facebook page – I’m sorry, Facehead page – and finds nothing of great import. Some real dead-end shit. Total futility.

There is something, though, maybe: her latest Facebook – I’m sorry, Facehead – status from five days earlier. “Side trip!! Met some like-minded souls on the road. So excited!!”

“She sounds like a hippie,” Bruno says dully. Some real crunchy shit. Total granola.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

You can ride your new tank. I mean, dog.

The post is has a tagged location, so Bruno punches them into Google Earth – I’m sorry, Google Earth-616 – and it’s a random spot outside of Bayonne, NJ. There’s nothing there. Kamala rubs her head in migraine frustration and wonders what to do next. Suddenly, her giant oaf of a dog is heard panting right behind her head. “Uhhh..hold on, Bruno. I think my new dog just teleported into my room.”

Kamala hangs up the phone rudely and gets right up in Lockjaw’s face. “Did you just BAMF in here all by yourself? That’s amazing! How good are you at reading maps?”

Lockjaw gives her a quick, sad-eyed stare. “Hurrh,” is the response.

Later, Kamala clad as Mrs. Marvelous meets Bruno in the alley behind Circle Q. Bruno frowns at the dog. “You found a giant teleporting dog wandering down Cator Ave.? Is this for real?!”

Oh, it’s real, son. And Kamala’s gonna use this dog to teleport to the exact coordinates within Bayonne! While she’s there she can check out the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway and then visit George R. R. Martin’s childhood home! Thanks, Wikipedia.

Kamala grabs her pet and wonders what to do to activate the, you know, teleportation sequence. I think just wondering how to teleport out loud was good enough. Bruno takes out garbage, remaining completely nonplussed, as Kamala and her giant dog disappear in a wisp before his eyes. “So yeah, I’ll hang here and take out the trash while you guys warp out to fight bad guys. I don’t feel emasculated at all…”

Whatever, Bruno, you fucking loser. The teleportation takes all of three seconds; in the gross outskirts of Bayonne, Ms. Marvel starts traversing the landscape with her super-stretchy legs looking for something, anything, that looks noteworthy. “Why would she come here? What could a teenage girl possibly be doing in a place like this?”

Lockjaw runs off ahead to a closed-off entrance to an abandoned power plant. This wasn’t on the map! Who knows what could be here, all sorts of mutanty mutant radioactive stuff. Plutonium isotopes and toxic waste and cores reachin’ critical mass! Fun! Wonder what Mr. Birdman would need this place for.

Doubt starts sinking in. This all sounds like hogwash! Ms. Marvel asks her companion if he’s sure they teleported to the right place. A big CRREEAK! and a BOOM! answers that question for her: yes! It looks like a large automaton activates among the dilapidated structure. Ms. Marvel tries punching it with an embiggened fist! It just makes it angry! This robot has an enormous meat cleaver.

At this point, I bet Kamala kinda wishes she was punching alligators again.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

Robot Butcher, at your service!

So they fight a bit. Eventually, Ms. Marvel crashes the robot to the ground. “Structural integrity compromised,” it chirps, “Switching to defense weapons array.” Doesn’t sound good, does it?

“Initiating weapons command sequence in 3…2…1…” Oooh, that extra extra EXTRA doesn’t sound good!

“STOP!” yells Ms. Marvel, and then headbutts the assuredly very hard and strong metal robot. Granted, she made her head extra-large, almost as large as Tyra Banks’ head, but still. Ouch. It did the job the, she put a big fucking dent in it. The robot, I mean. Not her head. The robot stopped moving.

Ms. Marvel and Lockjaw flip the robot over on its front, revealing a large, domelike cover on its back. She presses a button, the cover unhinges. There’s a fucking kid inside.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

CAPTION GOES HERE

Just like in the sewers, this kid is being used as a living battery in order to provide power to the robot. “Is this happening to all the missing kids?” she asks herself. Why? How? Where? When? What? Which? Whom? Whose? ALL the interrogatives!

I barely remember this kid anyway, but I think he was one of the two who was stationed out in front of that house and possibly inhaling illegal substances. Ms. Marvel tries to rescue him out of the robot hatch; while she does this, a tiny robot crawls out of another compartment and sneaks into her boot without her somehow noticing. Seems unlikely, but I’m not a comic book writer! I’m barely any kind of writer. I’m barely literate.

“Nnno– stop–,” the kid rises up suddenly and alarmingly, like a corpse you didn’t know was still alive, “I’m p-part of it now– I’m giving back–”

Ms. Marvel doesn’t know what the HELL this kid is talking about! She’s trying to save him. Be grateful, goddamnit! “Lockjaw, warp us to the nearest hospital,” she instructs her faithful companion. I hope the closest hospital is the one from House. Hugh Laurie will know what to do.

We cut to later that morning, where Kamala’s teacher is in the middle of taking roll call as Kamala sprints through the halls to class. She makes it to the room after the teacher utters the third “Khan…”. Too bad her last name isn’t “Zahn”, she would’ve been on-time and also, as an added bonus, be related to Steve.

“Sit, Ms. Khan. What’s today’s excuse? This is the second time you’ve been tardy this week,” her grumpy, stumpy, frumpy teacher squawks. I’m not entirely certain why, but the teacher has a knife on her desk. She’s also holding a two-by-four, ready to smack someone unconscious. Today’s excuse is as follows: Kamala had to take a friend to visit that pill-popping miscreant Dr. House!

Her friend Nakia sees that as the filthy, flimsy lie that it is! “Kamala, we’ve known each other since kindergarten. Why does it seem like you’re hiding something from me?” she eyes her “friend” suspiciously. Probably because she is hiding something from her. Everything, honestly. They may as well not even be friends anymore!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

Yeah, that was me in high school too, sister. The trick is taking naps during all your classes like I did!

Ms. Old-Time-Religion is getting tired of these two talking during class. She’s about four seconds away from thunking that piece of lumber right into someone’s brain. “Ms. Bahadir! Would you like to share your thoughts with the class?” she says to Nakia, referencing the discussion article everyone was supposed to read for homework. Maybe it was this one! Lol

“Well, Mrs. Van Boom…I found the article insulting,” proceeds Nakia, “The writer says teenagers are just parasites addicted to their smartphones, who don’t give back to society…but that doesn’t sound like anybody I know.”

As she’s talking, the little robot stowaway from earlier peaks out of Kamala’s backpack.

“I mean, how can you write off a whole generation before its even had a chance to prove itself?”

Easy, Nakia. It’s because every generation thinks it’s better than the one before it and the one after it. It’s called being human. It’s one of the 19,000,000 reasons why we suck a whole fucking bunch!

Ms. Van Boom (the “Boom” stands for whack, thunk, drop, dead) turns to Kamala and asks if she agrees or disagrees with her colleague. Kamala doesn’t get very far into her own opinion before a giant BA-BOOM!, one that has nothing to do with the piece of lumber, rocks the school.

“Remote homing beacon located,” announces the very large, definitely still-working robot as it plows right through the wall. It found its mark.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8

Senseless school violence. smdh

Debris falls from the crumbling walls and ceiling. Kamala gets trapped under some shit. Her inner monologue keeps trying to motivate her to get her butt in gear and help stop this thing, but she’s stuck. Lockjaw apparates within school grounds, which is something that even Dumbledore can’t do, and helps Kamala out of the rubble.

“Heal first, then transform. No time to go to the Circle Q for my costume,” she thinks, scrambling to figure out why the robot appears to be chasing her down.

The healing is a drain on her powers. She tries to transform, to look different, but nothing’s working. She stands there in the wreckage, helpless, just like the rest of her classmates.

Nothing happens.

“I don’t understand.”

Final Thoughts

You just explained it yourself! The healing is a drain on your powers! Case closed ! Let’s get some Funyuns.


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The Umbrella Academy, Season 1 – Depression and Daddy Issues

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.
Discussion Subject: The Umbrella Academy, Season 1 (2019) (Netflix)

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1
When I started watching this show I didn’t know it was based on a Dark Horse comic book limited series by motherfucking Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance. I don’t know that until halfway through Season 1. Not that it would have particularly swayed me against giving the show a shot.

But seriously, Gerard Way? Yuck.

I started watching Season 1 in December, 2021. I finished it in July, 2022. There are ten episodes. If that doesn’t tell you everything about it right now, not much I’ll write after this will either, I suppose.

The Premise

Bear with me here. On October 1st, 1989 (exactly two years after I was born IF YOU ALL MUST KNOW), a few dozen women all over the world, who weren’t previously pregnant, suddenly went into labor and gave birth to a child. This isn’t explained at all for the rest of the season. A billionaire, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), decides to buy seven of the babies from their unwilling mothers and raise them as his own. And by “raise them”, I mean “torture their childhoods with strict, exploitative regimens designed to maximize their innate super abilities”.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1

Sir Reginald’s fashion sense could use some work.

–Tom Hopper plays Number One (Luther Hargreeves, “Spaceboy“). He has super strength. Sir Reginald injected him with gorilla serum once to save is life, turning him into a large, hairy, half-man half-gorilla beast. He’s gross.
–David Castañeda plays Number Two (Diego Hargreeves, “The Kraken“). He has, like, super ninja skills or something. He’s not very interesting.
–Emmy Raver-Lampman plays Number Three (Allison Hargreeves, “The Rumor“). She can persuade a person to do or think exactly as she says just by starting a sentence with “I heard a rumor that…”, which also helped her land a job as an famous celebrity. She and Luther want to fuck each other.
–Robert Sheehan plays Number Four (Klaus Hargreeves, “The Séance“). He sees and talks to dead people. He has been doing drugs for 20 years and is, for all intents and purposes, literally insane. He is the best character on the show by a long shot.
–Aidan Gallagher plays Number Five (Five Hargreeves, “The Boy“). He can transcend space and time, which accidentally landed him stuck in a post-apocalyptic future for around 40 years. He’s the only member of the family who is perpetually played by a teenager, and he’s a better actor than any of the rest of them.
–Justin H. Min plays Number Six (Ben Hargreeves, “The Horror“). He’s dead now and essentially serves as Klaus’ babysitter. While alive, his super power seemed to be about something related to summoning Hell creatures from a portal to the earthly realm. Sounds awful. I’m glad he’s dead.
–Elliot Page plays Number Seven (Vanya Hargreeves, “The White Violin“). She doesn’t have super powers, so she was out of all the missions and all the fun and all the reindeer games as a child. You find out later that she does have super powers, and they’re terrifying and frightening and etc.

The two other notable characters are Hazel (Cameron Britton) and Cha-Cha (Mary J. Blige), who are partners from the agency tasked with assassinating Number Five. They spend the whole season trying to track him down. They bumble a lot along the way.

There’s also a talking monkey. There are other characters too, but who cares?

ULTIMATELY, through all the convoluted bullshit, the ultimate plot of the season revolves around the Hargreeves team working toward stopping the apocalypse from which Number Five was stuck living in the aftermath for a few decades. They have eight days to figure it out.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1

Oh shit, this ain’t Six Flags! Did I miss a turn?

My Half-Baked Thoughts

I’m already upset at how long the Premise section had to be. This is one of those TV adaptations where there is just so much worldbuilding from the original source material that it’s very difficult to pull it off successfully. I’m glad I learned a few episodes in that it was originally a comic book series, because I wouldn’t be able to entirely forgive an original TV series that attempts to cram a glut of information with breakneck pacing and nonstop exposition dialogue.

There’s a whole lot to take in as you’re watching the first few episodes, and it’s hard to simultaneously try to give a shit about any of the characters. Character development is disappointingly paper thin across the board with a few exceptions (Klaus, Hazel, and MAYBE Vanya if I had to pick a third). Range of emotion from the cast spans a whole colorful spectrum from “mopey” to “angry” to “slightly mopier” to “on drugs” (Klaus).

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1

These guys are brothers?! They don’t even look alike!!

Number Five has the most interesting backstory, personality, and temperament. While I never really suspended disbelief that he’s a 58-year-old trapped in a teenager’s body, Aidan Gallagher does a fantastic job with the role and he’s probably the most good-looking adolescent actor you’ll find on TV in the last, like, 40 years. Beats the fuck out of James Van Der Beek, who played a teenager in Dawson’s Creek at age 37. If you’re a teenage girl you can slap a poster of Gallagher’s mug on your wall next to, I don’t know, who do teenage girls like these days? Danny Bonaduce?

Over the course of the ten episodes (which, again, took me seven months to get through), you witness the seven Hargreeves children attempt to cope with the death of their abusive father, an event that brought them all together for the first time in adulthood. Each has their own (thin) backstory and their own way of dealing with the loss. The narrative gets chaotic when attempts to solve Reginald’s possible murder mixes in with attempts to save the world in eight days; mixes in Cha-Cha and Hazel’s attempts to assassinate Five; mixes in Vanya’s kanoodling with a love interest who repeatedly nudges her into activating her dormant powers (and he turns out to be an ex-murderer who will cause the apocalypse…maybe). Chaotic narrative != immersive television.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1

Put on your INTENSE face, it’s Rachmaninoff time.

With so much shit going on constantly, it becomes impossible to connect emotionally with any character in the family. Any one of them could have gotten horribly killed and I probably would’ve been in the bathroom while it was happening and not even notice for three episodes.

With that all said, my favorite characters are Hazel and Cha-Cha. Their chemistry is much more interesting than anything going on among the family members, and their particular scenes are slow enough by comparison to allow room for actual three-dimensional humanization beyond “I’M SAD ABOUT THIS” and “I’M MAD ABOUT THIS”. Hazel falls in love with a middle-aged owner of a donut shop, which causes him to reevaluate his whole existence as a time-travelling assassin. That adds a lot of tension in his relationship and Cha-Cha. I found it amusing to witness Hazel be this really calm, kind, thoughtful, and soft-spoken man throughout the whole season considering his line of work. And Mary J. Blige is an excellent foil, spending most of the season visibly frustrated with Hazel’s behavior.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1

Bliss comes old-fashioned style with sprinkles on top.

The season ends on a cliffhanger. The events that lead up to stopping Vanya from causing the apocalypse are actually the very mechanism that sets it in motion. Funny how that works, innit? So the family all hold hands and Five jumps them all in the past. Together, they’ll all try again.

Worth the Watch?

Eh. The Umbrella Academy has the kind of macabre, surreal campiness reminiscent of shows like Dead Like Me or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While enjoyable enough, I find this kind of show hard to binge (obviously). These are the kinds of shows that are fun in the moment, but very hard to muster up some motivation to move on to the next episode. And when you aren’t watching it, you don’t really think about it.

I liked it enough plan on watching Season 2 some day. Possibly. Maybe.


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