Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Shaman (Part 4)”

* Part 4 of 5 of the Shaman storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Shaman (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, a fiend is running around with a shaman bat mask shooting arrows at bitches. Batman gets one in the back and lives! Dr. Spurlock gets one in the back and dies!

Bruce visits the Alaskan village to try to get his bone on, only to discover the village hates his guts for funding Spurlock’s expedition, bringing Western bullshit to the little town, ruining the lady’s grandfather’s life, etc.

Then a car runs them off the road and they plunge into a lake. If this were real life, they’d all be killed instantly. But this isn’t real life, so Bruce is going to walk away without a scratch while No-Name Woman and her grandfather get killed. You can bet your butt.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [February, 1990]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 4)”

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

The cover art is getting more and more dire! The skeleton behind the man behind the mask behind the mask! Issue #5 is going to have just a neck stump with steam coming out of it at this rate.

We pick up EXACTLY where we left off! Well, not exactly. Where we left off, the car plunged into the water. Here, we see Bruce bailed from the car before it left the cliff! Clinging precariously onto a tree branch, he sees the car splash and decides that the woman and the old man must still be inside! No fucking shit, dude. Best detective in the room, right here.

Bruce sheds his coat and does a swan dive into the river. “For a moment, the chill is painful–” the narration describes. One of these days, some sucker in a work of fiction is going to dive into water sight unseen and break his neck. How often are these bodies of water deeper than three feet? Come on, now!

“–but almost instantly, the pain is gone.” Cool. Bruce has magic cold-blooded thermophysiology-changing powers now. Like a goddamn frog, he is.

So this white knight, he dives down to the car and rescues the woman first. “She may already be dead,” he thinks as he drags her body up to the bank of the river. No time to check now!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

The Leaping Puma to the rescue!

Myself, I’d be content with saving only the one life. Good enough, call it a day! But no, Bruce needs to save both. How annoying.

So he leaps into the river and rescues this Bret Michaels-lookin’ floofy-haired headband-wearing shaman guy. The wind picks up, and their drenched bodies ain’t helping the staying-alive part of this whole adventure. Bruce retrieves his suitcase and accesses his Batman costume, where he keeps a butane lighter in his trusty utility belt! Good thinking, Mr. Wayne! Light them on fire!

No, not the victims! That won’t work, silly! So he looks around for giant rocks that might have some thickets dry enough to keep a flame going.

“The flame is tiny, frail. The cold is fierce. He must save the flame, nurture the flame–”

Be one with the flame. Caress the flame. Get inside the flame’s mind. Channel your own inner flamer.

Bruce notices the two of them shivering, which is a good sign. A good not-dead-yet sign. As good a sign as any. He grabs his apparently no longer shredded cape and plans to wrap both of them in it. The old man croaks out a request: “Tend to her.”

Why? Because the shaman, much like Bruce Wayne, has thermophysiological magic powers! So he’ll be ok, but the poor young woman. Yeesh. She’s got nothing going for her. Plus, she’s bleeding on top of catching hypothermia on top of having nothing going for her. She needs a doctor, stat! One of them real doctors, no offense sir. Bruce doesn’t mean to undermine your…you know, superstitious wacko ritualistic bullshit.

But desperate times call for desperate mystical powers. “Look, you once saved my life…” Bruce turns to the old drunk, “two years ago, when I was suffering from exposure…I had pneumonia…”

These are all true statements, very good! Unfortunately, the old man traded in his magic healing powers when he decided to dance for nickels in the town square. HOWEVER, sir, Brucey W., YOU know the healing story! Remember? He told it to you and then you blabbed about it first chance you got? Step up, bitch. And put on your mask.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Here, put that stupid thing on. That’ll help.

Bruce starts deflecting. He’s not a shaman, and that’s not a shaman mask! OK, well, close enough, right? It’s all snake oil, anyway, dummy. Put the mask on! Now’s not the time to be bashful, a lady is dying! Put it on!

…fine…

“And when the mask hides his face, he feels something surge–” What is it, his erection? No thanks.

This part’s pretty funny. He’s wearing the Batman mask and his ‘80s cable knit sweater trying to mumble his way through the Raven and Bat healing fable. He gets embarrassed and gives up, but the old man is like “no, look, see, she’s breathing better! Keep dancing the hokey-pokey.”
So he dances the hokey-pokey, and it works. That’s what it’s all about!

She hangs on long enough to find paramedics, they take her, everything is fine. Bruce does a lot of thinking. OR, maybe he does a lot of drinking. Sometimes they are one in the same.

Later, he visits her in the hospital. Need I remind everyone, we STILL do not know this woman’s name. Clearly no one thought it important enough for this reasonably important character to have a name. She’s got her head wrapped up in a large bandage. She has the cold, tired, dead eyes of Melania Trump, except with much more vibrancy!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

I somehow survived having to look at that awful sweater.

Bruce starts grilling the poor woman. He wants to talk about two years ago, when her grandfather saved his life. There was another guy there too, right? Tom Woodley, the maniac who killed the best bounty hunter in town! The guy who was being bounty hunted in the first place! He survived his fall.

This is where Bruce rubs a couple of brain cells together and connects some dots. Dr. Madison Spurlock hired Woodley to help with some of the more…unseemly tasks. They had a falling out, but Woodley wanted revenge. He killed Spurlock and his assistant Mr. Fancypants Bennet Young.

With bows and arrows, mind you. Not a gun. That would be too hard to figure out! He stole those from Spurlock’s display.

“I’m not sure about the mask, though–” Bruce ponders. The woman confirms that Woodley, while insane, reveres the sacredness of said mask. He promised to return it. Which means, at some point, he’ll be returning to Otter Ridge. He’ll be killing two birds with one stone! And Bruce Wayne is one of those birds, because as the principal financier of the Spurlock adventure, he is also a likely target for Woodley! For some reason.

Time to go! He gives her one of those fatherly kisses on the forehead. For some reason.

Then he leaves. He cuts a check to the hospital to cover every medical expense incurred, and whatever’s left over can go to the hospital itself! That’s a lot of zeros on that check. Maybe start with better snacks in the vending machines.

At the local airport, Bruce telephones Alfred. It’s likely the middle of the night there. Alfred’s in his robe and slippies. Bruce will have “the information waiting for him” when he transfers in Anchorage. Meanwhile, there are still a few loose ends to tie up. Don’t wait up, Alfie!

Alfred hangs up the phone and heads back to his quarters. He discovers an open door on his way; an open door he was sure he had locked…

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

I’m not taking your money unless I earn it, sir, via very degrading sexual favors! Please? Hint hint.

Bruce spots his old man shaman buddy dancing like a dumbass in the middle of the terminal. He tries to give him money, and promises plenty more where that came from on a monthly basis, but the old man doesn’t want his dang pity! …but he WILL accept payment for another story that he’d like to land softly upon Bruce’s ears. *grabs cash*

“After Bat blew the sickness away from Raven, he collected it and blew it in the nest of Vulture. Vulture went away forever.”

That’s it! That’s the story? Know why? Because we can’t tell you a story with you blabbing to everyone, that’s why. So we’re giving you one of the short, dispensable stories we have lying around.

Shaman advises Bruce to “wear the mask” and “become the mask”. Like Jim Carrey. Also, find a way to blow the sickness into Vulture’s nest! It’s only fair. Vulture kind of sucks.

Later, Bruce is on his connecting flight riffling through Alfred’s collected records that all point to Santa Prisca as the Drug Capital of the Caribbean. But what’s really preoccupying him is getting rid of the Vulture. But what’s REALLY preoccupying him is the death of his parents! Perhaps that event was pivotal? What does everyone think about that?

Bruce calls home from the plane, and even his answering machine is snarky: “You have telephoned Wayne Manor. Kindly leave a message after you hear the ridiculous beep.” The RIDICULOUS beep! Alfred is even grumpy about an answering machine beep! Now there’s a man who misses his orgies.

Wayney is gonna stay downtown tonight, which is why he’s checking in with Alfred. He doesn’t want the little guy to worry. The Batman convention is in town and Bruce has got a costume ready!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Hey, sometimes you just need a break after spending a whole afternoon studying Winnie the Pooh.

As Batman, Bruce breaks into Tom Woodley’s house to do a little snoopy snooping. He grapples and tightropes his way to the top floor of the manor instead of, you know, going through the front door. That’s way less cool, I suppose.

In a giant room with a giant bookcase, he immediately discovers a tiny Winnie the Pooh book among the shelves and shelves of banking books. He pulls it, revealing a secret compartment, where he finds the secret exit to the bonus level. “If I ever use this gimmick, I’ll pick a better book,” Batman mutters, pretending to know how to read.

The secret compartment contains a gun, a bulletproof vest, a full Chubala Shaman costume complete with feathers and a large bird skull, a couple of Snickers bars, and a box of old pornography where the ladies have stretch marks and nicotine-stained teeth! Also, but really, a scrapbook with a press release that Bruce sent out after financing Spurlock’s expedition. “I think I just found my connection,” he thinks, not fully appreciating the convenience of finding literally everything he needed to find in one spot in a secret compartment in his assailant’s residence within two minutes.

So it all makes sense! Otter Ridge is where Woodley got the whole shaman idea in the first place. Then Woodley went to Santa Prisca to research the Chubala Shaman ritual so that he could profit off of it and kill people and sell drugs and eat Ritz Bits.

At this moment, Batman starts to hear voices. Either he forgot to take his atypical antipsychotic medication again, or the guards are hootin’ and hollerin’ in another room somewhere!

Lucky for Batman, he remembered to take his atypical antipsychotic medication.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Whoa, settle down there boys! You’re out of control!

Batman tries to get their attention by throwing shit around the room, but even the loudest of THUNKS is unheard by these arguing rent-a-cops! As a final gambit, Batman takes a Christmas tree and crashes it through a window! That’ll do it, sort of. They maybe heard something somewhere. They’re gonna go check it out.

“Oh, you caught me,” Batman says coyly, thinking he’s cute, when the two guards corner him in the study. He scares them both with some real TOUGH GUY ATTITUDE and the guards scurry away like frightened mice. Then Batman leaves! The sun is starting to come up.

I didn’t mention this yet, but there was a homely, middle-aged couple that was traipsing through the airport in Alaska while Bruce was talking to the old man, and we saw them again walking through the airport in Gotham while Bruce was leaving a message for Alfred. Had Bruce not been distracted, he would have noticed these two flapping their gums about “reporting something”. We see them now in their high-rise apartment building. Let’s check in on the conversation already in progress…

“BER-R-RNIE, I still think you shoulda reported it…”
“Shut up, Peaches. What’s this, you been buying stuff again? I told you, no more buying stuff– …a bat? You bought a dead bat?”
“I don’t think I bought it. Maybe it’s from your mother,” says Peaches, then notices Bernie has grabbed a note. “What’s it say, I don’t have my glasses.”
“’I know what you did in Alaska. I saw the license plate on your rental car and traced it. Give yourselves up.’”

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #4

The robust criminal masterminds you see before you have finally been taken down.

While Bernie and Peaches call the cops, the guards at Woodley’s manor speak to a private investigator about the “giant bat what terrorized us last night hyuk hyuk”. The P.I. is gonna check out the study…alone…so get the fuck out of here while he doesn’t something completely legal and not at all suspicious.

Among other things, the completely legal and not at all suspicious actions this P.I. takes are as follows: Access the secret compartment. Pour acid on the bulletproof vest. Replace the bullets in the gun with blanks. Attach a homing device to the costume. Sew non-lethal explosives to the costume. Sniff the costume.

The P.I., who looks like Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard by the way, leaves the study and reports back to the guards. He recommends a bunch of really expensive security gadgets, insults them without them even realizing it, and leaves.

HERE’S THE REVEAL! Mr. Bruce Wayne is a veritable Master of Disguise! Why, just two issues ago he was masquerading as a drunk homeless guy, and now he pulled off Martin Mull as a private investigator! Slick, man. Slick as the dickens.

Bruce telephones Alfred again to let him know that he’s heading home (and get dinner ready, he’s had a long day). For the second time, Alfred doesn’t pick up. Now that’s strange, Alfred is always picking up phones. He picks them up all day, left and right. There isn’t a phone around that Alfred won’t pick up. Something fishy is going on.

Well, it is Christmas Eve after all. Perhaps he’s churching it up. OR, maybe he’s dead from too many strange open doors that he thought he had locked? Either way, I’m sure he’s perfectly fine!

Whoops, no, he’s not fine at all! The Chubala Shaman has invaded the home and Alfred’s tied up and gagged and getting threatened with a knife as we speak! Merry Christmas!

Woodley is raving about stalking Bruce for a month. He’s seen him out of costume! He’s seen him in costume! And he wants revenge for getting bested in Issue #1. He almost got him at that construction site, but he plumb got away! Oh well, no matter, he’s dead soon. And you too, Butler Boy! Har har!

And there’s Bruce now, pulling up to the house!

“He comes through this door, I put a knife in him. I put it in his throat and watch him die.”

Final Thoughts

Oh no! That doesn’t sound very friendly at all! You better watch out, Woodley. Bruce is gonna spread the sickness to your Vulture’s nest.


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John Zorn, Anthony Braxton – A Tribute to Jazz’s Insufferable Nerds

Welcome again to AudioBiography, the feature where I squat over my laptop and spread music-related diarrhea all over the blog! Don’t forget to hit that ol’ Subscribe button!

*points to door that says “High Voltage”*

John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn was being an insufferable hipster nerd way before 21st century insufferable hipster nerds were continuing to be uncool with it.

When your extremely impressionable music listening years are dominated by an insatiable Zappa appetite like mine was, a large discography isn’t daunting. In fact, it’s enticing! And it doesn’t get much larger than John Zorn’s catalogue. Solo outputs, jazz ensembles, inaccessible grindcore projects, minimalist orchestral works, instrumental surf rock, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled upon Zorn in around 2010. Perhaps it was my interest in the various Mike Patton projects that led me to the massive John Zorn discography page on Wikipedia? And that discography page has only doubled in the last twelve years. Easily.

It was difficult to get into him at first. I still hadn’t been exposed to too much EXTREEEEEME or avantgarde music yet; not even that much free jazz or modern classical either, so albums like The Classic Guide to Strategy and Locus Solus and Cobra were tough nuts to crack. I gravitated toward the more accessible Masada project, a phenomenal mix of experimental jazz and klezmer that was eye-opening and rewarding. Even stuff like Naked City and Painkiller were too out-there for me, but I have this really pesky tendency to persist for years until things start clicking. Admittedly, the idea of liking Zorn was more motivating than liking Zorn himself. It was the immature pursuit of a badge of honor that kept me going.

I don’t know when I realized I actually started legitimately loving the guy. What first appeared to be a giant collection of same-y material slowly revealed itself to be richly diverse body of work. A richly diverse body of work that draws most of its inspiration from the Jewish scales, but diverse all the same. I’ve always been naturally drawn toward the various scales of the Eastern European / Middle Eastern traditions. Zorn delivers. There’s some Ennio Morricone influence too, that’s fun.

Even though I’ve binged hardcore on Zorn in recent weeks, I’ve barely scratched the surface on albums I haven’t heard yet. Some day he’ll die and I’ll finally be able to catch up.

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton

Speaking of nerds, presenting jazz’s earliest completely unapologetic insufferable hipster nerd.

Anthony Braxton: the guy who was Zorning before Zorn even started Zorning. Braxton gets lumped in with the free jazz movement, but he’s so much more than that. His active years began after free jazz was already widely established by greats like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, and Cecil Taylor, but his approach is and was always more calculated and methodical. Therefore, being the insufferable hipster nerd that I am, this resonates with me profoundly. And it must have resonated for John Zorn too, because Braxton’s groundbreaking For Alto record is why Zorn picked up the saxophone in the first place.

While John Zorn’s work is greatly influenced by his Jewish heritage, Braxton’s work doesn’t seem to be influenced by his own heritage at all. In fact, this dork was super into space travel and electronics. He spent a lot of time tinkering with circuit boards and studying wiring schematics and taking drafting classes. He found the idea of composing music akin to developing engineering prints and drawings. His compositions have incredibly creative names like “Opus 40M” and” 308M-64 / 30 / C4DM(R)- Z”. Sometimes they don’t even have titles; sometimes his titles are literally, literally, just drawings that look like abstract molecule diagrams. His improvisations are like little games where he invents systems with sets of rules and organized classifications. His orchestras are laboratories where he can conduct live experiments, dismantling and rebuilding composed pieces as if they were machinery parts.

I love that I guy like Anthony Braxton exists. As a terminally open-minded music listener with a deep background in STEM disciplines and total comfort with his obsessive-compulsive left-brain tendencies, this guy is my guy. A kindred fucking spirit. The music being so chaotic and satisfying and excellent is just the icing on the cake for me; his take on jazz and classical music is thoroughly engaging and exciting. And his discography is just as vast and varied as Zorn’s. Some day he’ll die too and I’ll finally be able to catch up.

Other Quick Thoughts

John Zorn

I said it before and I’ll say it again: This guy absolutely does not get laid.

-Man, I’m on such a jazz kick lately that I haven’t mustered up desire to listen to much else. I usually stick to the tried-and-true classics from the bebop era forward, my favorites being Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, and Dexter Gordon. Passing interest in Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Pharaoh Sanders, and Freddie Hubbard. I’m not the biggest fan of jazz fusion, so Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock can take a hike! Modern jazz artists? Mary Halvorson is cool. Avishai Cohen is all right. Kamasi Washington is fine. Esperanza Spalding is interesting. Tigran Hamasyan has got it goin’ on. Jaga Jazzist? BOO!

-All that jazz has taken my attention away from everything else right now, including, much to my chagrin, new releases. I just don’t feel like listening to new shit these. I’m sure the new Jack White “slaps”. I’m sure the new Lizzo “goes hard”. I’m sure the new Alan Parsons solo album is a “banger” that’s really “jake” with the “droogs”. But I dunno, nothing new sounds particularly interesting to me at the moment. These phases last a month at most, usually. WE SHALL SEE. Until I get my groove back, Newer Release Roundup will be updated sporadically.

All right, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next AudioBiography installment where I discuss Gordon Lightfoot’s hip-hop era, which was just an excuse for him to use excessive racial slurs!


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Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7 – “Healing Factor (Part 2)”

* Part 2 of 2 of the Healing Factor storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7 – “Healing Factor (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, after getting barely a lecture from Sheikh Abdullah, Kamala hears strange growling noises within Jersey City’s famous World’s Largest Pothole and suits up to investigate the sewers. There she meets a hologram of the Thomas Edison clone, aka the Inventor, aka the Birdman of Menlo Park, who intends to keep her alive to do nasty experiments upon her mutant teenage existence. She’s like “fuck that” and books it.

She also meets Wolverine, who is in the middle of tracking down a missing runaway from the Jean Grey School of I-Think-Professor-Xavier-Is-Dead-These-Days, so it was renamed. They team-up, fulfilling Sheikh’s advice to find a teacher to help Kamala get better at helping. AND THEN Wolverine gets hurt and now Kamala has to fight a giant alligator alone.

Kamala Khan has an audience! Wolverine is watching, she best not screw this one up.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7 [October, 2014]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Healing Factor (Part 2)”

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Fantastic cover art. Although she’s holding the phone with the wrong hand, UNLESS she has the camera view un-mirrored. Which nobody would ever do unless they’re a lunatic. OR, maybe she’s fondly viewing a photo taken earlier. Wolverine has never looked happier, I must say.

RECAP!

“Kamala Khan has always felt different. Nerdy interests, strict parents, and now…strange poly-morphing powers. She found out that the villain after her is a bird/human hybrid clone of Thomas Edison…yup. Luckily for her, Wolverine is on the case and is totally her friend now! Not so luckily, he doesn’t have healing factor and there’s a giant gator about to attack them. Bummer.”

G. Willow Wilson, speaking fluently the language of the kids these days.

Obviously, this is the doing of Thomas Edison the Bird, siccing a giant alligator on our heroes to keep them busy while he continues his various eugenic endeavors. Even with the alligator snapping its jaws, looking to really tear these two new assholes, Ms. Marvel is, and I quote, “trying not to squee” in the presence of Wolverine.

Even though Wolverine is hurt, he’s gonna take this beast on. Ms. Marvel, trembling, advises him to let her handle it. She’s got a plan! It’s to run away, how’s that sound? Let’s just run away. Byeeee.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Oh look, the 130-year-old superhero made a funny.

Nope! Wrong! Here’s what Wolverine wants her to try doing: poke its eyes for a bit. Get up there and kind of rattle those eyeballs around. He’ll try to head it off. Or something. Whatever. It’ll all work out, kid, trust him.

Ms. Marvel is on top of the monster, panicking as the dickens, trying to figure out what the hell to do. “This is gonna be so gross–” she cringes as she gets close to one of its enormous, yellow eyeballs…

She plunges an extendo-arm deep into the eyeball with a loud “SPLOOSH!”, which sends the gargantuan reptile into a frenzied…sadness. It looks sad now, like it’s crying. Marvel gets thrown off its head, landing what looks rather painfully into the water below.

Now it’s Wolverine’s oh-shit moment. He’s hurt, the alligator is hurt and mad, and Ms. Marvel is possibly hurt and/or dead and/or needs some kind of Wolverine-related assistance at any rate.

“How’s that one line about death go? ‘Biting the big one.’ Guess this is what fancy people call literalism,” muses Wolverine as the alligator’s open jaws ready themselves to chomp him like a tasty, albeit a bit hairy and pointy, morsel.

The alligator misses Wolverine by about three inches. Roughly twice the length of Cyclops’ cock, if nobody here is mistaken! Something pulled the creature back a little bit at the last minute. OUR HEROINE. Little Ms. Muffet, she pulled the alligator back with its tail. “Get–back– you giant– lizard!” she pants and puffs and groans and moans and huffs and fluffs! With long, spindly legs, she run up its back, clamps onto the top jaw and yells for Wolverine to do his “claw thingy”. Wolverine, indeed, does his claw thingy. SNIKT! I never get tired of that sound effect.

So he rips the alligator up a bit, it falls into the water, along with Wolvy, along with Ms. Marbles, then she gets out, then she helps him out, then the fight is over. Hooray team, good job, let’s all go out for a round of frosty chocolate milkshakes!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Kid, you don’t even want to know how many cute little baby ducks I’ve had to fucking pulverize in my time. Just crushed to paste.

Ms. Marvel hates that the whole superhero schtick has to involve hurting people, or animals, or places, or things, or vegetables, or minerals once in a while. That’s life, though. “It all circles around. The hurt, I mean,” Wolverine lays down some tribal knowledge, “Sometimes you can avoid hurting other people, but it usually means you get hurt pretty bad instead.”

He grabs his aching butt, which has aching-butt lightning bolts drawn next to it. The universal symbols for “ouch, my butt”.

“The pain’s gotta go somewhere,” Wolverine says. Ms. Marvel doesn’t want to believe that, but it’s true. She’s still young, but she’ll come around on that eventually.

Anyhoo, time to scurry. The closest sewer exit is blocked off by giant fallen rocks, so they’ll need to traipse through more of the sewer to find another way out. There could be more ghoulies and ghosties and fecalpheliacs and god knows what else in here. “Now might not be the best time to say this, but even without a few torn ligaments, I’m not the best swimmer,” bemoans the grumpy Wolverine. That’s ok! You can ride on Ms. Marvel’s back! He weighs about 700 pounds, but they’ll make it unless she collapses and dies right here in the sewer like a little loser. And we can’t have that happen, can we?

“How did you lose your healing factor anyway?” she asks during this perfect time to break the ice a little and share a stronger bond (so she can tweet about it later, probably). He says it’s a long story, perhaps one to read about in some other ongoing series, but the moral of the story is “appreciate it while you got it”. Healing is the only thing worth piffle. Everything else is flashy and stupid. ESPECIALLY those Cyclops plasma eyeballs. Fuck that guy.

They encounter an opening in the ceiling that looks like it leads outside. She stretches up enough for Wolverine to grab onto the ladder. It’s a tight fit, and it looks like it twists and turns. “You claustrophobic?” Wolverine asks his fresh-faced companion, and she’s too excited at this point to care. In she goes.

On their way up and out, Wolverine asks what Ms. Marvel is doing with Carol Danvers’ old moniker anyway? Seems pretty haughty, eh? Well, Kamala has looked up to Ms. Danvers her whole life. “And when she came to New York and all that stuff went down, I felt like she was the bravest person who ever lived.”

There’s an editor’s comment with respect to the “all that stuff” mentioned. I was advised to check out Captain Marvel Issue #17. So if I ever get around to that, you’ll see a link right there! Thanks for playing.

Anyway, becoming Ms. Marvel felt like it was necessary to emulate Carol Danvers. Then, after a bit of time, Kamala learned that she could just be herself, y’know? She doesn’t have to pretend to be anyone else.

“But you’re wearing a mask,” Wolverine observes, attempting to poke holes in Kamala’s teenage sense-of-self discovery like a grumpy asshole. Well, duh, sir, it’s because Kamala’s parents would lose their collective shits if they found out their daughter was gallivanting around the Jersey City sewers in spandex.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

I’ve been to Vietnam, kid. I’ve paid good money for a glass bottomed boat.

They’ve almost made their way out of there, seeing a grate on the ceiling with sunlight poking through, indicating passage back to the outside world.

Then a metal door slams shut over the grate, trapping them. A TV screen, one of them 35” LCD flat screens I’d say, flips to a broadcast of Mr. Chicken Man Edison. “Greetings, my dears. I see you’ve bested my megagator. I’m very impressed. By you, I mean. Less so by the megagator.”

Chicken McEdison yammers on about how the big hungry alligator was the first trial, but now try getting out of THIS! Ha ha! And so forth.

The walls start slowly closing in on them, like this is a level from Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Robotnik is actually a cockatiel. Wolverine can be Tails.

“This maniac’s gotta have some power source,” Wolverine mumbles as he rips the TV off the wall, exposing many electrical components, “If we shut it down maybe we can stop the walls from turning us into jelly.”

Both are at a lost with this one, though, since neither graduated high school for vastly different reasons. Wolverine tries tearing a wire out with his hands, which gets him all sorts of electrocuted and, if he weren’t a freakish mutant about town, likely dead. But he doesn’t die. He just goes “Rrrrrrgghhh!”. Ms. Marvel tries her hand and pulling out wires too, which gets her all sorts of electrocuted and…you know the rest. “It’s like being snapped with a rubber band, except a thousand times worse and all over,” she thinks as her healing factor starts sapping energy out of her muscles. Honestly, it’s almost worse than getting hurt. Wolverine’s starting to admire this kid’s spunk!

Wolverine has a new idea. He helps her not-at-all-charred not-at-all-a-corpse up and asks her to shrink down and walk through the opening to find a power source.

And she finds a power source all right.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Great, another living thing I’m going to have to poke the eye out of.

“Is this what the Inventor is doing with all those missing kids? Hooking them up to machines?” she asks herself. Another one of those meddlesome robot bugs arrives to harsh Ms. Marvel’s mellow, snipping and snapping around the little pool. Ms. Marvel is starting to wonder if this Inventor is not a great guy at all!

Miss Marple punches the thing into robot crumbs, but another one across the pool zaps her with its Robot Scorpion Laser. She’s thrown back hard enough to punch a hole through the wall.

The hole is big enough for Wolverine to jump through! “RRRAAAHH!” Snikt snikt, mother fuckers.

Wolverine recognizes the Power Source Girl as Julie, his missing Mutant School runaway. She’s still alive, but in somewhat of a stupor. “There– there are others–” she grunts in Wolverine’s arms. Others what? Other sandwiches? Other triangles? Other doctrines of Christian Science? Gotta help Wolverine out here a little bit, sweetheart, he didn’t graduate high school you know.

Gah, too late. Julie’s out cold now! What a bitch, right?! Wolverine’s gonna get her to a hospital, Ms. Marvel wants to play in the sewers a little bit longer. Oh yeah, and find others. Heh heh. That too, certainly.

Wolverine tells her to take a break, but Ms. Marvel refuses. She goes all Batman on him. This is MY city! Jersey City is MY city! I don’t want anyone fucking with MY city! And so forth. Superheroes and their cities, my god. Relax.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #7

Wait, what’s this about a tarragon bomb? It didn’t smell like a French restaurant to me!…well, maybe it did…

Ms. Marvel is sure that she’ll be hanging around so much more to investigate. After Wolverine shows his initial surprise about the terrigen-induced superpowers, he quickly pivots and changes the subject. Fine, she can do her thing, “but this ain’t a game. I’m gonna keep an eye on you,” he warns, training his wary eye on the teenager before leaving.

“When the student is ready, the master will appear,” Kamala ruminates of Sheikh Abdullah’s impossibly good advice. Even a slow clock is right once in a long while, eh? Things seem to be going pretty…pretty…pretty……. pretty good.

But of course, here comes the standard END-OF-ISSUE TWIST that always happens once the hero is led into a false sense of security. ATTALIN. Hudson River. New York/New Jersey border. Some spaced-out costumed lady with red hair looks over the river from her window, talking to herself. “The river is so quiet at night. So deceptive. You can’t tell what might be happening…just beneath the surface.”

Then STEVE FUCKING ROGERS enters the room, because God knows he needs to be in every Marvel series for some reason, to talk to this woman. “Wolverine just called. Seems he’s found a young Inhuman patrolling New Jersey. Says she’s got no idea what she is.”

This spaced out red-haired lady is like, really? Another one? They’re like cockroaches. This one’s not like the other ones, though. She’s special enough to warrant Wolverine actually picking up the phone. That must be pretty damn special. The red-haired lady wants her sent over right away for special training. “I don’t think that’s what Logan had in mind,” Steve says. Wolverine considers this new youngin’ as stubborn as himself. Says she wants to learn things on her own.

However, the red-haired lady argues placidly that Ms. Marvel needs a companion. “Someone to help her, and to be my eyes and ears while she grows into her power.”

And she knows just the…thing.

Lockjaw! A giant dog.

Final Thoughts

Inhumans! There’s a whole big event about that! Here, I’ll do the link thing here too, so you’ll see a link to the big multi-series Inhumanity crossover event somewhere in this paragraph if I ever get around to reading and writing about it! Even if it’s 20 years from now! That’s called magic, my friend.

Ms. Marvel gonna get a doggie. That’s cool I guess. Good for her.


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Paper Girls, Issue #9

Paper Girls, Issue #9

* Part 4 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 2 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #9! In the previous installment, KJ is still missing! The two Erins scope out the mall looking for clues! Mac, Tiff, and Not-Erin all converge at the mall, but Not-Erin plans to whisk the two of them away 68,000 years in the future where they will be “safe”.

In the mall, the two Erins discover a field hockey stick jutting out of an alternate dimension near the ceiling of the concourse. Old Erin discovers some writing carved into the stick and pulls it out for Young Erin to read.

It says “DON’T TRUST OTHER ERIN!!!”

Open for interpretation, obviously! I wanna keep reading. Someone shut me up right now so I can continue on!

Paper Girls, Issue #9 [September, 2016]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #9

“The here and now is neither here nor now“

So here we are! Now! “You must be very confused, but I have answers to all your questions,” proclaims Not-Erin, still helping Tiff out of the maggot spooge. The giant maggot must have been in her backpack full of rations, and, like the tardigrades and god knows what else, got resized all wrong while she… “chuted through her folding”. Sounds like you have to be over eighteen for that.

Not-Erin uses her special time-travel genie powers to warp the maggot spooge out of existence. At least out of this existence. I’m sure the maggot is still spoogin’ Tiff at another point in time in this ONE timeline, as Not-Erin has confirmed. Just one. You can bounce around it all willy-nilly though. You just can’t, you know, flash sideways.

“So, you’re another time-traveler? Then…why do you look exactly like our friend?” asks Tiff. Oh hey, remember when Not-Erin said she has the answer to all of your questions? Well, she doesn’t want to answer this one. Not yet. “Right, the original Erin Tieng. Please tell me you know where to find her.”

Um, up your butt, bitch! That’s where!

Paper Girls, Issue #9

Bill Cosby loves the New Coke! Don’t tell me you’ve got a beef with Bill Cosby?? In 2016??!?!

Newsflash! There are two Erins running amok in the Great Cleveland Area!

What, you didn’t know that? Looks like the unflappable doth been flapped, as they say! Not-Erin looks nervous. Here we go, buddy. Now it’s your turn to be in a fucked situation, Sport.

Back at the mall, Young Erin just discovered that she’s not supposed to trust “other” Erin… OR, MAYBE, Old Erin will soon discover that she’s not supposed to trust “other” Erin… a real sticky wicket is about to unfold here in either case!

Old Erin climbs down from the fountain ready and eager to learn what her scrappy counterpart has just discovered on the field hockey stick.

“Well, I don’t know if KJ really wrote it…” Young Erin looks sheepishly down at the stick and begins her uncanny Jeff Goldblum impression, “…but um, it says… ah…”

WELL DON’T LEAVE ME HANGIN’, SON! Let me get closer! These old-ass eyes have SEEN better days, heh heh heh!

Young Erin flips the stick over before Old Erin is able to read the words. The other side says this: “GET TO THE 4TH FOLDING NOW”. Hey, whew, that looks like an important diversion! Good call, Mr. Stick. “What do you think it means?” Young Erin asks her wise, albeit shaky and coffee-fueled older self.

The 40-Year Old Virgin pulls out her Apple doohickey and says that it just told her the ass where the stick was extracted from was the First Folding, the very same First Folding the device told her about back at home. So that means they found it! Maybe they gotta find two other foldings before they can stumble upon the Fourth Folding. Kinda like collecting crystals or gems or dungeon medallions! Hey, this sounds kinda fun!

Nah, scratch that, the Apple Brain Worm is giving Old Erin directions to the Fourth Folding as they speak at that very moment, in that very dingy mall. It’s pointing them to downtown Cleveland…and about 1000 ft above the ground. Taller than Terminal Tower. And Terminal Tower towers pretty terminally at 771ft. Young Erin already knows that, somehow.

So how are they gonna get up there, you ask? I already predict that someone’s going to hijack one of those futuristic pterodactyls! But right now, who knows? “Flying is Missy’s gimmick,” Old Erin mutters saltily.

Wow, Erin’s younger sister is a pilot! Gnarly shit!

Paper Girls, Issue #9

Oh, Dad? Dad’s in hell. Where he belongs.

Old Erin doesn’t get a chance to answer. There’s a bear-sized tardigrade sneaking up behind Young Erin’s back! Eek! Eek and gross.

Young Erin hits it with the hockey stick, but it gets stuck in its…face sphincter. He chews it up into splinters. “Aww, he’s just a little guy!” coos a voice coming from the stairs. Old Erin and Young Erin turn to look…

And here we have it! A confluence of the three Erins! Not-Erin descends the stairs with Mac and Tiff in tow. “Stand aside ladies. This is about to get…” she notices the two ladies she’s going to save are indeed her and her, “…messy? God. Is that how I’m gonna look when I’m old?”

This distraction buys the tardigrade time to swipe his creepy tardigrade paw at Not-Erin, knocking her ass down the rest of the stairs. It looks like curtains for Not-Erin. Curtains, see? But Tiff leaps onto the water bear and rides it like a bull, just like this issue’s cover art!

“Tiff, what are you doing?!” shouts Mac.
“I have no idea!” shouts Tiff. She has no idea.

Tiff is keeping the beast at bay, though, and she urges the rest of them to get out while she has the flolloping tardigrade occupied.

Fuck that, though! Young Erin takes the hockey stick and stabs through the top of the beast’s head. Now, a quick Wikipedia article perusal on tardigrades will tell you that these things are literally damn near indestructible. They can survive in volcanoes, they can survive in Antarctica, they can survive deep in the ocean, and they can survive in the vacuum of space. So impalement by hockey stick is fuckin’ nothing. Still, the thing wails and rolls up in a quivering little ball.

Paper Girls, Issue #9

I was made in a cup. Like soup. $130,000 cup of soup.

Young Erin, Young Patient Level-Headed Erin, Young Erin Who Doesn’t Like Cussing, looks at her similarly-aged doppelganger and asks her, and I quote, “What…what the fuck are you?”

“Get away from her, Erin,” yells Xanax Nancy over here, “she’s obviously some evil Mirror Universe version of us!”

No, there are no alternate universes. There are no alternate Earths. She’s DEFINITELY not an alien, how could you even be so dumb? No no no, she’s a CLONE. Like, a CLONE, you know? As in *fzzzz* *whrrrr* *spppllorrt* *zzzzzizizz* *POP* there’s your new clone!

And who cloned her? Her “creators”. Sort of like mom and dad without the penis inside the vagina part. Good ol’ Naldo and Uncle Heck, those do-gooders aren’t the “creators”, but they helped!

Even Mac has to hand it to these two who died to save Young Erin’s bullet-riddled life.

Young Erin, though, is skeeved out a little bit. “A clone? Why would anyone want another one of me?” she asks. If I had a nickel for every time I myself was grateful I didn’t have a creepy twin.

The answer is simple. November 1, 1988, was a very special morning. You paper delivery girls found “her family’s ship” and the rest is history. Or future. The rest is history in reverse.

Does she mean that thing that happened where the ship overloaded and sent them to the future? Mac wonders if that’s what gave her the Dreaded Cancer, but no, it did something else too. It “encrypted their DNA”, sort of. And this magical DNA encryption renders the “Old-Timers” unable to find them. And anyone who shares their genetic makeup, for that matter. Not-Erin. Old Erin. You get the gist. Do I need to spell it out for you?

The key was in one of those robot bugs that swarmed over Young Erin’s gunshot wound. When Naldo and Heck’s ship crash-landed back home with their dead corpses and whatnot, one was discovered brimming with Young Erin’s blood. Not-Erin owes her, and all the rest of the paper girls, her life. And she intends to repay that favor by helping them all to safety.

Which, as you might recall, is somewhere in the vicinity of Year 70,000. The 701st century, baby.

Paper Girls, Issue #9

Aren’t you listening? Magical DNA encryption! Hockey sticks! Keep up.

Old Erin is understandably skeptical. You don’t get to age 40 living in the same town and working at the same newspaper without… … …well, at any rate, she doesn’t trust this kid as far she can throw her. And she’d probably be able to throw her pretty far if she wasn’t all squishy and flabby. Her sentiment, not mine. I think she looks tops!

So why should you listen to Not-Erin right now? Because there’s giant versions of normally tiny creatures roaming around, and that’s gonna attract attention (DNA encryption or no DNA encryption). And since we don’t have time to get that shit on the blockchain permanently, they all need to do something about it before these old-timers catch wind of something fishy going on in 2016 and pop in unwanted. They’re the Kramer to our Jerry’s apartment.

OLD ERIN’S GETTIN’ UPSET! “You keep saying ‘old-timers’ like that crap means anything. Who are these senior citizens you’re so afraid of?”

“Like most people over thirty, they’re monsters,” Not-Erin says grimly. Darn tootin’! That’s what the “don’t trust anyone over 30” said until they all turned 30 and were not to be trusted! You can trust me on that, I’m 34.

Young Erin gets douche chills and peeks over at the still-crotchety old lady with a look of mild apology.

What’s going on in downtown Cleveland right now? GOOD QUESTION, TOM, LET’S FIND OUT. A woman is flying a helicopter over the urban skyscape. The sky crackles with violet-tinged electricity. A bridge is destroyed. Some collapsed buildings emit plumes of smoke. Looks like Detroit. Eh, Cleveland’s not much better, who am I kidding?

Her boss, or, like, some guy, radios her to get out of there. “Missy, get back to the hospital, right now. We just watched the 19 Action News Chopper get…get swallowed by something.”

Missy, Erin’s sister, helicopter pilot extraordinaire, is like “what”. She requests more information as she flies into a large cloud of hot pink light. “VUR VUR VUR VUR VUR VUR VUR VUR”. That’s the hum! You remember the hum, right? When crazy time shit starts happening? Crazy time shit is happening.

“Please do not worry, all shall be done and forgotten,” says a new voice over the radio. Missy is like “what”.

The voice repeats the part about the done and the forgotten. In front and above Missy’s helicopter, a huuuuuuuuge whale of a flying craft emerges from a space-time rift in the sky. We’re talking like an ornately old-fashioned cruise ship the size of Providence, Rhode Island connected to three big blimps. We’re talking some crazy cyberpunk shit.

Paper Girls, Issue #9

You best not be yankin’ our chains right now, bitch.

Back to the group where 3/5ths of them are Erins, the cloney Erin takes them all to the front of an old Radio Shack where the Fifth Folding is about to pop into existence! What about the Fourth Folding?! For that matter, where’s Two and Three? Did we skip levels? Did someone blow the Warp Whistle?

Young Erin motions desperately for her old self to put a fucking sock in it. Mac asks what she’s talking about. Old Erin spills the beans about the field hockey stick they found. “WHAT?! You got a message from KJ and you didn’t tell us?” cries Tiff with petulant indignation!

“We don’t know she wrote it,” Young Erin defends herself against the onslaught of Tiff’s fiery Arkanoid-addicted rage, “I…I didn’t know what to believe.”

Not-Erin agrees. It was probably a trap. Sorry, Tiff. The Fourth Folding is no good, kid. It’s less than jake. It would take you right into your enemies’ hands! No, no, no, the Fourth Folding ain’t the place to be. The Fifth Folding is where it’s at. It’s, like, ONE better! Plus, it takes you to the sanctuary. The future. 68,000 fucking years from now. So let’s hop to it!

“I don’t know where your companion KJ really ended up, but if you don’t come with me, I promise you’ll never live long enough to find out,” says Not-Erin with the solemnity of a bowling ball to the face. Does anyone realize how serious this is? There are hockey sticks sticking out of time-space continuum portals next to KAY-BEE TOYS, you ninnies.

“So now you’re threatening these children?” challenges Old Erin, itching for a Xanax-fueled fight.
“It was a warning. And these girls are not children,” replies Not-Erin, adding more exciting WTF layers with every new sentence that comes out of her mouth.

Tiff is starting to come around on this cockamamie business. After all, the future is where Young Erin got her bullet wound chewed up by robot bugs back to full health, right? Perhaps someone somewhere can even wipe out Mac’s cancer? Hell yeah, now Mac’s on board. Fucking cancer can kiss her Gen X ass.

Paper Girls, Issue #9

You had me at “hello”.

Off they go, leaving Old Erin behind and completely beside herself. “This is insane! I’m not letting you girls leave here with some patently sinister stranger!”

This is where it comes out. With Mac and Tiff convinced, and Young Erin sheepishly following suit based on that menacing hockey stick advice, nobody is on Old Erin’s side anymore. “Even Erin thinks you’re a crazy person,” says Tiff coldly. Young Erin has tears streaming down her face. Old Erin has tears streaming down her face. As they say, you’re your own worst enemy.

“Erin Tieng, if we have learned one thing over the last twenty-eight years, it’s that most people are way better liars than us. Please, please be smart about–”

Boom. Violet light. Fifth Folding. They’ve got 87 seconds to pass through the barrier. Shake a leg.

On the other side of the open portal, you can see creepy pod communities built upon strange tree-like structures growing out of the ocean. Flying mechanical robot centipede things. It doesn’t look very sanctuary-esque to me.

Final Thoughts

Yeesh. How about we all just go back to Radio Shack and loot some walkie-talkies? All these Foldings seem like bad news. How about an Orange Julius? Eh? Eh?

Fine, go through the dang portal.


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Sucky Funnies for July 24, 2022

When it comes to locking horns and acne and marmadukin’, this is the post for you.

The Lockhorns

The Lockhorns - July 24, 2022

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I think the Lockhorns is the only Sunday comic strip older than dirt that I enjoy unironically. Even as a kid, with no relatability with or personal frame of reference for romantic relationships, I found the simple fact that these two hate each other to be hilarious in of itself. As an adult, I have a strong appreciation for just how consistently clever the jokes are. We’re talking over 50 years of gender role humor! Do they get recycled? Is it even possible to tell if they are?

I don’t remember when Leroy started to look perpetually drunk, as illustrated with the jagged upper lip, but it’s an excellent touch for the panels that have nothing to do with partying. Just look how inebriated and dejected Leroy appears with that newspaper in Panel #4! I’m still laughing!

It makes one wonder when these 4-ft tall crabapples will finally get a divorce. Or feel the sweet, sweet release of death drape over them like a warm, fuzzy blanket.

David Rickard: “Loretta: I’ve often thought about going after you with a steamroller… but it would be too fast. I want you to suffer, Leroy.”

Ha ha! Heh heh heh… um…

Marmaduke

Marmaduke - July 24, 2022

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Who has two thumbs and wants to drag Marmaduke out to the backyard and blast him in the face with a shotgun at point-blank range, Old Yeller style?

The Winslows are stuck in an eternal Hell, we all know that already. It does seem naïve to me that Mother Winslow thinks she can break the cycle by repeating her demands twice in a row! Of course it doesn’t work. Nothing will work. They are all but ghosts in a house with fates they cannot control, desperate for means to finally put an end to all the suffering and transcend this existence of unrest.

Unfortunately, only Marmaduke can decide when this happens. And it ain’t gonna be anytime soon.

SHAKEDOWNVILLE: “‘Tossed’ salad.”
LookingGlass: “‘Hurricane’ Marm certainly did ‘help!!’ :-O”
anncorr339: “Marm is no good doing chores”

Well, I suppose we’re all stuck in an endless cycle of suffering, after all.

Zits

Zits - July 24, 2022

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I hate having to clean up after my teenage son after he shits on the floor. Is this something every other parent of a teenage son has to deal with? Is it just me, then? Hello? Is this not a normal thing? I thought everyone had to deal with their floor-shitting teenager, like a rite of passage.

I’m happy that Mr. and Mrs. Duncan can escape into their Elephant & Piggie books. Take it from me, when you are raising children you don’t have much time or energy to invest in a novel that is any more complicated.

Do Tell: “Jeremy can’t be an elephant. He always forgets to do what his parents ask of him.”
eb110americana: “Jeremy’s his own Animal House”
wil22: “THAT’S ALL WRONG, IT SHOULD BE A DONKEY AND PIGLOUSEY. SPENDING LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW. FREE THIS, FREE THAT. THANKS TO JOE MANCHIN WE MAY LAST A LITTLE LONGER”

Oh wil22, you just wrote the funniest thing I’ve read all day. You should be a newspaper cartoonist!


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