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

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

* Part 1 of 5 of the Shaman storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Shaman (Part 1)”!

If you’re reading all these comic book posts in chronological order (why?), then you’ll notice that I’m still in the middle of Superman: Birthright. Well, that shit is twelve issues long! So I’m taking a quick post-Crisis Batman break before I return to the second half of Superman’s origin story. Well, one of Superman’s origin stories. I’m sure there’s another 500 of them littering the endless comic book archives.

The original Legends of the Dark Knight series was intended to be a self-contained anthology publication that allowed a rotating chair of writers to craft short Batman stories that only span a few issues each. I think the main Batman line was doing that anyway around this time, but no one can have enough Bat Men. Plus, I need to start chipping away a little bit at the post-Crisis stuff. I started with Batman: Year One, the original Catwoman limited series, and the ultra-sized Batman: The Man Who Laughs. Now I tackle this 200+ issue series from the very beginning, and I’ll likely finish when I’m a wheezing old geriatric using an ancient version of WordPress on Web 15.0.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [November, 1989]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 1)”

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

We open with a couple of dudes scaling a snowy, icy, mountain crag. Looks dangerous. The caption says “Several Years Ago”, so what does that mean to me? 2018? This can’t possibly be, like, 1984 or something. That was way more than several years ago!

These two are tracking a killer, and one of them, Mr. Doggett, is SURE AS SHIT that the killer came this way! What, should they turn back? Sounds likw a good plan to me, climbing this rock is tough and really dumb.

“I’ll stick it out to the end, Mr. Doggett,” says the young companion. These two are going to fucking die and no one will ever find their mutilated bodies, parts all eatin’ by mountain goats and Yetis. “If you’re worried about the money you paid me, Boy, I’ll give half of it back,” says Doggett, who is obviously frightened and is having second thoughts about dying on some rock.

But this kid ain’t scared. Mr. Doggett is the best bounty hunter in Alaska. I’m gonna call Doggett “Dog” for short. So this Dog the Bounty Hunter, he probably has the only chance of bringing in Thomas Woodley alive! This kid just loves the opportunity to play fetch with Dog.

Of course, it’s not that easy! It’s not just about going up to a guy like Woodley and saying “hey there fellow Blood, come with me please”, no sirree. Hell, Dog may not even take him alive! Sometimes it don’t end up that way. Sometimes you got to stab the fucker with your can opener a few times before he stops squirmin’ enough to ride him down the mountain like a bobsled!

But here’s the lol! Dog barely finishes his thought when he catches a bullet in the forehead. What a loser!

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

Yeah, if you’re so great, how come you’re dead?

“He hears the snap–the mini sonic-boom a high-powered rifle slug makes as it breaks the sound barrier–and before he hears the shot itself booming through the mountains–he knows that Willy Doggett is dead and that the killer is above them on the cliffside and that the next bullet will be aimed at him.”

LOL

“You like that, Bruce Wayne? How I killed ol’ Willy?” laughs the gunman. The kid is Bruce Wayne! I figured it out. And this gunman guy is the gunman! Thomas Wooley, I reckon! “You a city boy. City boys die easy,” he says. Citation needed.

Bruce ran away, but now Tommy is tracking him down. “Gonna gut shoot you, city boy. You ever see a gut shot? Take you hours to die–”

Tommy Salami approaches an empty coat and pack, propped up against a cave wall as if someone were in it. Someone is not in it! Tommy is taken aback just long enough for Bruce, who is hiding while clinging to a cliff edge, to stab Tommy in the calf with an ice axe. Then he swoops up, does some gymnastics, kicks Tom-Tom in the face, does some more cartwheels, but Bruce gets knocked in the side of the head with the pulled-out ice axe.

More scuffling.

More scuffling…

But then Bruce throws him down the side of the cliff. Tommy-Tom-Tom grabs the coat and pack as he tumbles down, down, down, down. Dead.

“I didn’t mean for him to die. He didn’t scream. He fell without a sound.”

The forlorn figure of Bruce Wayne glances over the side of the mountain. For one thing, he’s on top of this dang hill wearing not much more than a sweater and jeans. No coat, no pack, no gloves, no hat, no thermals, no hot chocolate, no fireplace, no pussy, no nothing. It’s probably 50 below freezing with the windchill. And the nearest village is about a day’s walk away. And there’s a storm coming soon. Ha! Just try and get out of this one, dummy. Shouldn’t have followed the dead bounty hunter.

He can’t even go down the mountain anyway! Not without his gear. So he goes up instead and wonders if he should pray for a miracle. Like a plane crash right in his face.

But he’s not the praying type, and certainly not one for miracles. Dead parents put an end to that kind of optimistic living. Plus, it’s too cold to pray for miracles. Takes too much dang energy.

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

Jack Frost nipping at your nose…

He gets too cold and weak to move on, so he faceplants in the snow while thinking of his mom and dad getting killed. Only, this time, an evil, grinning, melting snowman holds the gun. His parents shatter into pink shards of glass while a young lad Bruce Wayne stares horrified.

“Dreaming. Remembering and dreaming and remembering,” he thinks, eyes all wonky, staring up into the sky. But there are four faces in his field of vision. Is he dreaming? Three are regular people, but one of the faces is the face on the cover art. I’m guessing this is the Shaman™ in question?? It gets right up in Bruce’s face: “Hear me, for now I tell the tale of the healing…”

So Shaman Magoo starts going into some Indigeous, possibly horribly racist, backstory mythology! Raven got sick and was going to die. Bat is Raven’s friend and didn’t want Raven to die, so Bat sought to help. Raven tells Bat he must cause a great wind to blow the sickness away. Bat doesn’t know how to cause a great wind, for he is only a Bat, and also what are you even talking about? Raven tells Bat that, ok, he’ll die then! Bat calls Raven’s bluff and decides to try this wind thing by forming wings and flapping them really hard. It works. The wind blows away the sickness. Raven is thankful, and as a reward, Bat gets to keep his wings. Congrats.

Bruce wakes up, looking like crap.

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

Honestly, we were deciding amongst ourselves whether or not to just leave you there. Just hours of rock, paper, scissors.

A group of fur trappers took him back to their cabin to tend to his various ailments, blemishes, maladies, and contusions. This lady looks like he’s going to fuck his bones the moment he fully recovers. Bruce thanks her, but she doesn’t want any thanks! She didn’t do nuthin’. Thank that old guy over there *points to a saggy garbage bag sitting in a chair and wrapped in a blanket*, the tribal shaman. Her grandfather. “Medicine Man” they call him. A regular Dr. Mehmet Oz. He healed his diseased near-corpse.

With drugs? With antibiotics? No no no, Bruce, you little slut. Magic!

This young woman assures the dashing Bruce Wayne that he should be ready to travel again in a few days, but a week goes by and he’s still moving slowly. He’s going to take a trip into town and insists upon doing it alone, but she won’t hear any of that nonsense! She’ll accompany him, maybe grab a little ass en route. Heh heh.

“My grandfather has a request to make of you,” she nudges, and Bruce is totally game for fulfilling a shaman request! Remember that story you heard about the raven and the bat? Her shaman grandpa told you that story while you were wacked out of your gourd, feverish with Mountain Syphillis? Well, don’t repeat that story to anyone! It’s a sacred healing story, one that shouldn’t have been told to any outsider such as yourself. So zip the lip.

Ever the skeptic asshole, tactless in the face of ancient tribal traditions, Bruce asks why a bright young woman like her would believe such bullshit fairytale idiocy! In nicer words, of course.

They get to the village, so she bids him farewell. She can’t go any farther. Bruce asks her to come with him to Gotham City! He’ll pay for airfare! There’s all sorts of stuff to do there. There’s this Sex Chair he bought on eBay for $6,500 that he wants to try out!

She declines. “No. I would not be happy there.”

She touches his cheek and walks away. We don’t even learn this woman’s goddamn name.

SCENE CHANGE! Bruce is back home, and I always imagine Alfred gets extremely annoyed whenever he doesn’t have the house to himself anymore. Alfie was probably hoping this mope fell down a mountain and cracked his head open. No more secret Wayne Manor orgies for the butler.

“How long will you be staying this time? Long enough to get our bags unpacked?” Alfred asks tartly! Ha! I love this guy. Bruce does too, his smile is as large as Alfred’s frown. “I’m back for good. Travels are done, at least for the foreseeable future. I’m ready to begin.”

Alfred doesn’t even want to know what that means. He informs Bruce that a shipment of books arrived from London. It’s a bunch of material on the study of criminology. Check this one out, Alfred! Gory pictures! That guy swallowed bleach! A seven-year-old girl with her eyes gouged out! This is some good shit, son.

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

This smells like leopard feces and Inuit pussy, sir.

Sounds like Bruce has been cavorting around the world for the better part of 12 years and is back permanently, placing this very near the beginning of Batman: Year One. Tonight, to toast the town, he will be dressing up incognito and roaming through the seedy downtown streets of Gotham’s red light district, where he will be punching pimps and whores, getting stabbed by little girls, and shot by police officers. These panels also summarize the end of Batman #404, where Bruce escapes from the cop car, bleeds profusely as he speeds home in his Porsche, and witnesses a bat crashing through his window as he sits in his father’s study.

Big Lightbulb Moment for our dude over here.

The next day, Bruce pumps iron like he wasn’t torn up by bullets 10 hours ago. Alfred gives him his day’s schedule: Wayne Foundation business matters, including recent funding to research in ballistics, bombs, nerve gas, poison, explosives, and Alfred’s favorite, assassination techniques of the Calcutta Thugees. “May I observe that unless you finance gentler pursuits, you will become known as Gotham’s answer to Attila the Hun?”

Alfred’s a fucking buzzkill, man. He suggests other options. Here are some good ones on the list: astrological volleyball, nude skiing, macrame spittoons, Indians of Northern Alaska…

Bruce stops him there. Speak more on that last one, you good old butlery butler you. Research by a Dr. Madison Spurlock of Gotham University’s Anthropology Department? Hell yeah, he’ll go talk to this geek tomorrow! Tonight, though, tonight Bruce has other plans. Other non-agenda plans. Bat-like plans, you might say? Heh heh…no, wait, forget he said that.

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

You look like that guy from that Adam West TV show.

Alfred helps Bruce shimmy into his new bat pajamas. Time to bust some nighttime crimes! “In the event that I have to blot you up from the pavement, where will I be going?” the dear butler inquires, and through some unnecessarily menacing gritted teeth, Batman tells him he’s going to stake out “Leslie Thompkins’ Free Clinic”. It’s been robbed three times in the last month. There will not be a fourth.

OK, sir, thank you. That sounds dumb. We could rent a movie instead?

Nope, he’s gone. And, lucky for Batman, Leslie Thompkins is getting robbed again at this very moment! A few local ne’er-do-wells are shaking this lady down for some good-ass drugs! They also want to kidnap this sick, young, pregnant woman too! Because when they’re out of drugs they can do some rapes. Thanks, Leslie, you’re the best! We’ll be going out the back now, see you next time.

NOT SO FAST, CREEPS! Gotham has a new hero in town and his name is Mr. Batsman.

“You can crawl…on your bellies…and plead for her forgiveness…that’s the first choice. The second is…”

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

Grrr, I’m the bat! Here, let me tell you a super secret shaman story that I’m not supposed to talk about.

Batman gives these guys a clue: pssst, the second one is more fun. The thugs brandish knives. Yay, the second one it is, then! Batman uppercuts one in the gut, and knocks the other guy in the chin. This shit is easy when you’re wearing spandex. Suddenly, there’s more confidence. Preteen prostitutes aren’t stabbing anyone this time. No fucking cop bullets either.

The third thug grabs the young, pregnant woman and points a gun to her head. “Back off, or I’ll blow her brains out.”

Batman calls his bluff and doesn’t back off. The thug drops the woman and starts shooting in front of him, but Batman disappears! The young woman runs crying back to Leslie. Shit’s getting tense now…

OH SHIT, LOOK UP! AHH! Bounce. Pummel. Batman flies down from above and knocks the dude unconscious.

Only one dude is still conscious. He’s really got the waterworks going. Batman gets right up into his face: “Tell everyone. Tell the punks, junkies, gunsels, enforcers, all the wise guys, leg-breakers, muscle boys…tell them they’re finished. Tell them the streets belong to the BATMAN.”

The dude runs away. Leslie asks if all that violence was necessary. Batman says yes.

The pregnant woman picks up a knife off the ground and points it at the hero. “CHUBALA…don’t hurt me…don’ come near.”

Batman comes near. He tells her he’s here to help, and give him the knife.

Ha! Fuck that! She ain’t giving you the knife! You don’t get the last laugh here! She stabs herself right in the dang chest and collapses in a pool of blood.

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

lol

Final Thoughts

Hey, what the dealo? This isn’t that bad at all! With the first half I thought I was gonna get into one of those overly-spiritual fish out of water stranger-in-a-strange-land type stories where Bruce learns a lot from some fake tribe over the course of the story. Instead I get the snarkiest depiction of Alfred I’ve encountered thus far, and a pretty grim clinic robbery situation!

Again, I have to ask, why didn’t Alfred ever get his own comic series? Why the FUCK wouldn’t they have 100 of them by now?


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Frank Zappa, Mary Halvorson, and SAULT

The Quietus dropped their mid-2022 album list on July 4th, so it’s time for my semi-yearly check-in to see how out of touch I am with the smug elitism of the UK-based publication that specializes in confounding the whole English-speaking world with its befuddling list of obscure shit.

-I’ve heard of 34.
-I’ve listened to 16.
-I’ve only reviewed 2: Black Country, New Road and Spiritualized.

Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do! Here are three new reviews, and one of them happens to be #20 on the Quietus’ list. It should be higher.

Frank Zappa – Zappa/Erie
(June 17, 2022)

Frank Zappa - Zappa/Erie

Yeah yeah yeah, this is technically cheating since it’s an archival box set release, but the Zappa freak in me loves a good box set. And since Zappa’s stupid wife died in 2015, Ahmet and Diva have been REALLY churning out the goods. Lately, it’s been a lot of stuff people have been waiting decades to get the official releases of, such as the complete 1973 Roxy concerts (as well as the movie) and the full Hot Rats sessions. And some of it is just fun stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day, like these Erie, PA shows from the mid-70s.

This set documents three shows mostly performed in the Erie area with some odds and ends slapped in from venues in other cities like South Bend, IN and Toledo, OH. Archival concert releases of this ilk have included some material that has already been released in one form or another, and this one happens to contain the “Elsewhere” portion of Roxy & Elsewhere; “Son of Orange County” and “More Trouble Every” from the Edinboro show. What I really like about this set is that the material covers 1974 and 1976, which comprise two entirely different lineups. I get a lot of my mid-’70s favorites in one box! Napoleon Murphy Brock! Ruth Underwood! The Ralph Humphrey/Chester Thompson drum set dream team! Ray White! Even Jeff Simmons! Jeff Simmons! He quit and came back for a hot minute, and here he is! George Duke! Terry Bozzio!

Oh fuck, and here’s the kicker: Lady Bianca! A singer in her 20s who had literally toured with Zappa for one month in late 1976. You can hear her in the Philly ’76 release too, but here’s even more of her lovely voice. You don’t get to hear many women in Zappa’s 25-year career, that’s for sure, and Bianca brings some vibrancy to some of these old favorites. Should’ve had more women in your band, you dumb dead motherfucker.

Obviously, I’m going to fully enjoy any box set dug up from the vault that comprises live concert material. The other flavor of Zappa box set comprises session outtakes, basic tracks, and interview snippets of studio albums. Those, while enjoyable, are much less exciting. This is the good stuff.

But don’t worry, Zappa/Erie won’t be counted in the final Top 2022 list. Because that would really be cheating. Because it would win.

Early Verdict:

Mary Halvorson – Amaryllis
(May 13, 2022)

Mary Halvorson - Amaryllis

Mary Halvorson first caught my attention with her contribution to John Zorn’s massive Masada Book Two – The Book of Angels undertaking. The avantgarde guitarist performed Zorn’s compositions with her quartet for the final volume of the 32-installment series, putting a cap on the project with a solid entry. The thing I noticed most about her music was that it was vastly different from the other guitar-driven installments of the Book of Angels. While seasoned freak guitarists like Marc Ribot or Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz provided ultra-loud and cacophonous takes on Zorn’s klezmer arrangements, Halvorson’s was much more reserved and calculated. Still speedy at times, but rarely aggressive. Her elaborate noodlings were captivating and calm; she makes it sound easy.

So I dug into more of her solo catalog. Trios and quintets and sextets and octets fill her discography as a band leader, comprising many different lineups of many different performers. Heavily influenced by Anthony Braxton’s unusual methodology of jazz composition, he mentored her into expressing herself uninhibitedly on her instrument of choice. Well, she took this advice to heart, because Halvorson is probably the most interesting and unique jazz guitarist working today. She doesn’t limit herself to the confines of “jazz” as an absolute system of rules and codes, but rather seamlessly weaves it in among other music traditions: rock, noise, classical, and flamenco, among others. The cool thing about guitar is that there’s guitar in almost every genre! The inspirations are limitless.

Amaryllis is the one of two albums from Halvorson to drop on May 13th, so I should give the other one (Belladona with the renowned Mivos Quartet) a listen at some point very soon. This album, though, is absolutely phenomenal, featuring a sextet with occasional involvement from the Mivos Quartet. With the opener “Night Shift”, you’re plunked right away into an angular labyrinth of layered guitar vibraphone (Patricia Brennen). Then the trumpet (Adam O’Farrill) comes in to ape the melody, culminating in a meaty, brassy solo. Then Jacob Garchick gets to flex his trombone skills. All backboned by Nick Dunston’s subtle bass, Tomas Fujiwara’s shuffling drums, and, of course, Halvorson’s slippery guitar work.

At times the group sounds right out of Eric Dolphy’s archival sessions, playing with sudden tempo shifts and off-color lounge atmospheres. Halvorson often bends her strings into peculiar microtones that sound like your record might be skipping. “Anesthesia” sounds like a complete breakdown of musical norms, just notes wafting and circling around a lazy river. Then there’s the energetic title track, featuring a fairly raw and straightforward O’Farrill solo blanketing some free-for-all bass and vibe runs while Halvorson strums her axe like it was a ukulele. The end sounds like a display of indulgent big band bombast!

Also worth mentioning are the interplay of strings provided by the Mivos Quartet on “Side Effect”. Sounds like a classical string ensemble fighting one another before the rest of the band jumps in. And is that the theme from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor that I hear popping in occasionally? Resplendent!

And that’s just the first four tracks. I already wrote a ton; more than any other Newer Release Roundup write-up, I believe. I can’t get enough of this. If you’re even slightly interested in modern left-of-center sort-of-accessible avantgarde-y jazz (and who wouldn’t be, goddamnit?), this is all you’ll need in 2022 to satisfy your INSATIABLE CRAVINGS.

Now to check out Belladonna.

Early Verdict:

SAULT – Air
(April 13, 2022)

SAULT - Air

SAULT is currently fighting The Armed for the crown as the leading anonymous, enigmatic band in business. Each is similar The Residents in their respective genres. The Armed work hard to keep its members a secret through deceptive measures, such as playing live under different band names and hiring actors to pretend to be musicians. SAULT isn’t as mischievous, but the line-up is completely unverified (resources will simultaneously say that the project is led by Inflo and that such a claim is unconfirmed) and they refuse to play live, producing work as a studio outfit entirely. Therefore, there’s not much known about them! They had pumped out five albums between 2019 – 2021 with staggering consistency, especially drawing the attention of publications with the two-fer of Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) during the height of George Floyd protests. SAULT became one of the leading voices of anger, sorrow, frustration, and optimism in 2020 with respect to Black injustice in the United States.

Already having established themselves as an R&B/soul/funk collective in their short timespan, SAULT makes a giant departure already with Air. This isn’t R&B, this isn’t soul, this isn’t funk, this isn’t or hip-hop or rock or jazz or afrobeat or blues. This is contemporary classical music, son. And it’s damn good classical music, too. There’s fluttering flutes and horns and strings and choirs and shit. SAULT made a suite! SAULT made a sweet suite!

The ups and downs and tense moments and beautiful releases are all over, bringing to mind some of the most awe-inspiring white-guy composer music from at least as early as the Romantic era. However, that’s admittedly short-sighted of me since my only frame of reference at this point in my life IS the white-guy composer music. Sorry, I can only try my best going forward. This is a great start for my journey, though. For anyone’s journey if they remain as ignorant about Black contributions to classical music as I am. I haven’t gotten so lost in an album this year as I have with Air, and I urge anyone with a passing interest in contemporary classical (or SAULT, for that matter) to give this a try.

Early Verdict:


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New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5 – “Black Swans”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Everything Dies storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5 – “Black Swans”! In the previous installment, with Captain America out of the picture, the New Avengers team prepares to try to blow up the incursion event or look for the alternate reality Infinity Gems or something, I forget what they actually settled on. They have only five hours, and if that doesn’t work, Stephen Strange has a backup plan that’s so horrible that he won’t even talk about it. He’s planning on staying back and dying.

All well and good, but upon arrival on the doomed alternate Earth they discover Galactus destroying New York City, and some blowjob named Terrax who tries to reason with the Avengers team. The Avengers team can’t be reasoned with, so a big time-wasting battle ensues.

These Illuminati guys are deceptively dumb. Maybe Tony Stark will fall on his dick, hit a button, and activate the “Stop Incursion Forever” sequence.

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5 [June, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Black Swans”

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Is that a BUTT that I see on the cover? Nice!

“So you’re finally ready to hear real answers.”

That’s Black Swan, still captive in Necropolis, talking to a desperate Reed Richards.

“But do not come to me like this, a keeper to his captive. If you want my help, you have to ask me properly. Or not at all.”

Ha! Who’s got the upper hand now, bitch? Richards tries to play it cool, but I can tell inside that he’s absolutely seething with testosterone-fueled defensive white guy rage. “I do want your help. I have no ego about these things, and I have no trouble asking…”

Feh! Black swan says “Feh!” at you sir. There have, in fact, been two incursions since he’s been held captive here at the dumb Necropolis, and everyone lives to tell the tale! And living is pretty good! She’s in it for the living. No strings attached. Just the not dying in a catastrophic colliding universe calamity part is all she asks. She proves this by punching a crack in the Prison Cube! Rawr!

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Get me one of them little bone-shaped dog tags.

Good enough! You passed the test! Richards and T’Challa let her out of the Giant Ice Cube. “Cracking the cell wall was impressive,” compliments T’Challa, “you’re stronger than Reed estimated.” Well, yeah, Reed is the dumbest guy she’s met on Earth so far!

T’Challa puts a leash on her and tells her to be good, so we all know how that will work out for everyone. She scoffs, says she can not be kept like *points to a guy on a stone throne* this knucklehead over here.

The guy on the stone throne is that Terrax guy. He looks like he’s waiting patiently for something.

I guess we’ll see how that fight from the end of Issue #4 played out. That was already a week ago! I guess no one died. They all look quite determined to murder one another. That’s cool.

Terrax cleaves Iron Man right in the face with his scythe, which would kill anything, but Iron Man gets right up and takes a nice, long drag from a cigarette. Off panel. I’m sure.

Next, Terrax flings Richards off his back. Then T’Challa leaps on him and tries to stab his upper back with a knife, but Terrax flings T-Challa off of him as well!

And, hold up, he’s not fucking done with Iron Man yet. Want more scythe to the face, Robot Boy?

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

I will slice and dice you with my comically large and non-aerodynamic butcher knife!

Take some of that, you soused alcoholic smarty man!

Terrax prepares another blow while Ironing Man revs up his blasty hands. Before Terrax can take another swing, the strong, silent Black Bolt grabs his arm, twists him around, and…yells in his face really loudly? I gotta be honest, I don’t know the first thing about Black Bolt. He’s powerful and he can’t talk, that’s all. OK, so I know the first two things.

Anyway, Black Bolt’s huffin’ and puffin’ sends Terrax flying to the ground. He looks hurt.

Galactus stands in the center of a giant, red, smoldering crater that was once Bizarro New York City.

Beast gives everyone a thumbs-up, and the Avengers team flies/hovers back to their own Earth.

And I guess they all just jerked off for the next seven days before bugging Black Swan for help.

“Are you holding out hope that a servant of a World Eater is going to tell you how to save a planet– to save your planet? Is that why you brought him back with you?” Black Swan asks, face punchable with smugness and self-satisfaction.

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW: Galactus is a World Eater. Terrax is a servant of a World Eater. The Avengers are a team of smelly humans. Black Swan is a Black Swan. None of this means anything to me.

Black Swan tells the full team that, for starters, they all have no fuckin’ clue what it is that they are actually dealing with.

“Why don’t you tell us, then?” says Strange.
“Who is this man?” Black Swan asks with utter disdain. lol.

Doctor Stephen Strange stands up with crisp dignity as if it’s his time to shine! He introduces himself and lays out his boring credentials. “PTOO!” spits Black Swan, literally. You go girl!

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Fuckin’ A, lady. The rest of them suck, too, you’ll see soon enough.

Namor pops a boner. “Seems she’s got you pegged, Stephen. I like her.”

Finally, after several pages of wheel-spinning, Richards demands that she just tells them what she knows they don’t know so that they can know it and move on already.

But, the wheels still spin. “Heh. A virtually infinite amount of knowledge in the multiverse and you want to know what you don’t know…” she laughs.

Looks like Issue #5 is a big bottle episode, my friends.

Richards tells her to start at the beginning. She seems to understand this. Let’s go.

“There was everything.” Picture of a star.
“Followed by nothing.” Star explodes.
“A swirling, gaping maw that swallowed life-giving suns.” Swirling cosmic drain.
“And then…we cowered in the night.” Blackness.

Cool fucking story. Hey, we have like ten minutes before everything is ruined. Do you need to go back in your Cube?

Well, Richards asked for the beginning, and the beginning he certainly got. Now, Black Swan moves onto her beginning. She was four years old…

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Aha! Now we’re finally getting somewhere!… maybe

The Keeper of the Great Key, huh? Sounds positively important! “The key unlocked the city’s – our planet’s – greatest treasure, a library of worlds. A gift from Sinnu Sarrum, the Ivory Kings.”

So this Dadingra kid, Black Swan’s bro, he had the key. He could open the door. But he couldn’t navigate the library. Only the trained can navigate the library. Dewey Decimal System and all that.

“Legend said that only the Great Ladies – whom none of our people had ever seen – could find their way through the twisted paths between worlds.”

Apparently, this kid used the key to open the door every single day hoping these “Great Ladies” would appear. Probably because he thought he’d get a little action too, baby. Nothing more alluring than a door that leads to some great ladies.

But then, one day, the dang sky turned red. These mofos, known as the Black Priest, descended from the sky and slaughtered the whole lot of ‘em! Everyone! Except the Black Swan. She ain’t dead yet.

So how did Black Swan Yabbat Ummon Tarru McNulty Fauntleroy get away with it? She took the key, opened the door, and she saw a few Great Ladies!

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Squid-Head doesn’t seem that great to me.

The Great Ladies give Blackie Swan the skinny: her world was an offering to the Great Destroyer, Rabum Alal. I told myself during my Issue #3 rundown to make a note of that name because it might be important. Good for me!

So these three Great Goddamn Black Swans raise the little ugly duckling into the beautiful Black Swan you see before you, gentlemen. And furthermore, sh–

“Wait. Swans. There are more of you?” Richards rudely interrupts right before she gets to the good part (arguably). Don’t interrupt, fool. Anyway, duh. And second of all, it doesn’t matter. “The Swans scattered.” The library of worlds is destroyed.

BOOOOORRING! Tony Stark is bored now! Tony Stark is gettin’ cranky! “Your bad fiction skipped several billion years, give or take. What I want to know is what caused all of this to happen?”

OK, well, sir, she already mentioned Rabum Alal. He was born. That’s what caused all of this to happen. “At his birth, the early death of everything began. So we offer him his Earths, an offering, that the many may live for a season longer. Wardum Uggae.”

Namor’s turn to get pissed. “Those are not answers. It’s gibberish,” he whines. Fairy tales for children. Namor is no child, no matter what everyone says! “Tell me something real.”

Black Swan says it’s all real. Every last fucking fairy tale is true. “The incursions never stop, not until your world dies– not until everything dies. This is all there is.”

New Avengers (Vol. 3), Issue #5

Yeah dummy. Pay attention.

However, contrary to literally everything that’s been said so far, stopping these incursions is actually pretty easy lmao. “Simply evacuate this world and then destroy it completely. It has been done many, many times before.” Easy peasy! Evacuate this dumb Earth. Elon Musk is trying to colonize Mars, start lining people up.

“YOU,” she turns to Beast, sizing him up. “The Beast is a name well known in the great game of worlds.” Apparently, in every universe that ever exists, Henry McCoy is the key! How very important. Good thing Professor Xavier died. Beast has an opportunity to take the “eighth option” to end the incursions. It’s a coward’s way, this eighth option, but the New Avengers are nothing if not useless cowards. This option is called “Shading the Apocalypse”, which is my favorite yo-yo trick.

Mr. Richards, always one to waste time, wants to try the other seven options first! T’Challa speaks up for the first time during this whole conversation. He doesn’t like this monochrome lass one bit. “I watched you kill a world,” he says accusingly, which obviously really weakened a once strong trust. Black Swan moves on, unphased by Black Panther-related stalling.

She calls their little palm tracking devices cute. A good start. She has something similar too, IN HER GODDAMNED EYEBALLS. So she can see incursions coming a million miles away! And guess what, fam? The next incursion is happening in only a few minutes. Good thing y’all spent an eternity talking about a whole lot of nothing.

The Avengers all look at each other with vapid “well shit” expressions.

Black Swan’s special incursion-sensing contact lenses already detect Rabum Alal’s presence.

The Avengers stare at their palms and attempt to triangulate the location. And they discover it. And it means nothing to me, but it’s the cliffhanger of a lifetime for some people I bet.

“It’s Latveria.”

Final Thoughts

Latveria isn’t even real. It’s a red herring. You guys are supposed to know things.


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Paper Girls, Issue #7

Paper Girls, Issue #7

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

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #7! In the previous installment, the three girls who are currently accounted for, Erin, Mac, and Tiff, they landed in the future, which is actually the present, which is actually the past. Their future. My past. The present as this series was released! That puts us right in the summer of 2016, when everyone was still laughing that Trump wouldn’t win a presidential election! Ha ha! It’s funny that we can laugh at that now, right? Everyone? Hello?

They bump into the 40-year-old version of Erin, who is anxious and neurotic and snippy. She remembers nothing about all this time-travel she did as a 12-year-old. She only offers to help out of complete apprehension, but perks up a bit when Young Erin shows her an Apple device that seems more futuristic than 2016 technology!

She’s going to log into it with her Apple ID. If it’s anything like my Apple ID login attempts, she’ll get locked out and have to reset her password over and over again until she gives up.

Paper Girls, Issue #7 [July, 2016]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Oh yeah, I forgot. And a girl WHO LOOKS LIKE ERIN but speaks the alien gibberish descends down to Cleveland and kills someone right away with crazy time-warp powers. That is something I want to know more about. NOW. I should’ve put this part in the intro section, but it’s here now instead because I feel like getting a little experimental with my format. Breaking out of my own mold.

“The present is not a gift”

Amen, sister. This issue begins with a young girl walking alone in the rain. She looks like Tiff with tight cornrows and a shirt that says “JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE AND JOHN CRAWFORD”. Both of these happened in Ohio, and no justice yet! After a now-familiar hum, she spots something hitherto unknown in the river. She snaps a photo of it with her phone. I’m sure we’ll find out in a moment what it is! Hold your horses!

A young girl who looks like Erin comes running up to the young girl who looks like Tiff speaking squiggly. Not-Tiff asks Not-Erin if she saw the same thing, but Not-Tiff can’t understand any of her crazy talk! So Not-Erin pushes a button on this cool Babel Fish collar she’s wearing and starts speaking English instead. “I was saying, you should delete that right now, or the old-timers will poison your brain until you’ve forgotten your own–”

Not-Erin is interrupted by a rather large rowboat suddenly crashing down onto the street next to where they’re standing.

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Boats are falling from the sky again! Damn this hellish future we live in!

“RUUUUN!” Not-Tiff yells, ruuuuning. Not-Erin doesn’t move, she stares wistfully in the direction of where the boat had supposedly come from. Then she talks into her Star Trek wrist communicator: “Now that I’m in synch, my field shouldn’t accidentally hurt more civilians,” this Not-Erin Erin-looking Erin-impersonator says Erinly to some jerk, probably, “And, as you can tell, I’ve picked up the local dialect, so I’m definitely on the right point in the ‘line.” Ha, the kids are shortening the word “timeline” these days. I’ll have to make note of that next time I’m checking out my friends’ Facebook ‘lines. Heh.

“Unfortunately, I think I may have brought along a stowaway,” she reports, referring to the thing Not-Tiff took a photo of, which looks like it might be a giant squid? I sure hope so!

Let’s head back to the house of Single, Old, Washed-Up Erin, eh? She’s glued to a map she’s got projecting into her mind, or so she claims. The other three are less than thrilled about the 3D view of Stony Stream that Old-Erin is currently “seeing” on her 19th Generation iPod Touch, but are going along with it at any rate. For now.

Tiff wonders if the map will help them find KJ. Young Erin wonders if the map will help them find 1988. Old Erin wonders if the bottle of Xanax she’s pulling out of her pocket will help her find tranquility. Young Erin thinks she’s taking rude drugs!

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Just steer clear of the Viibryd, m’kay?

Anyway, back on track here. Old Erin scopes out the “map” and finds a highlighted route leading to a dot called “The First Folding”. Sounds promising, right? You kids feel kind of folded up, right? Maybe just one folding? Let’s start there! It’s at the old mall. You kids like malls, right? Orange Julius and Mervyn’s? Mervyn’s was a thing in 1988, I know that much.

Well, Old Erin’s gonna go by herself. No point in dragging three minors to some weird “First Folding” nonsense! Here, she’ll leave some Xanax for y’all. Go nuts.

“So you’re planning to find KJ on your own? What does she even look like?” Young Erin challenges her older self to a game of “who is KJ” and young-she knows that old-she’s gonna lose! Older people are dumb.

Old Erin starts to get defensive about this. Listen, kid, this whole thing happening right here and right now may be your current present or something, but Old Erin remembers quitting that paper route almost 30 years ago and she never saw any of these kids at school, remember? Different schools? Hello? Why would she give a shit now? It’s not like any of them kept in touch or anything. Jesus. Where’s that Xanax??

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Not just your asses. You’ve got six other orifices you can stick your thumbs in. Have fun!

Young Erin points out that she already made her point for her. Old Erin needs to bring her to be able to identify KJ. “If anybody asks, you can just say I’m your daughter,” she says, like anyone’s going to fucking believe that shit.

Old Erin groans as another ulcer forms, then agrees to bring Young Erin and only Young Erin. Then the other two complain, as you can see ← thataway. This is when Old Erin snaps again, tells Tiff that life’s not fair. And fuck off. Basically. Then she storms into another room, leaving the three of them stewing in an awkward silence.

“I’m so sorry, you guys,” Young Erin here trying to keep the only friends she’s made in months, “I think I grow up to be mentally insane.”
“I’m glad you said it,” Mac responds without a single sprinkle of coated sugar.

So is she fibbin’ about the map? Is this lady off her rocker? Lost her marbles? Does she need her NES cartridge blown?

Young Erin advises the other two to take the bikes out of the garage and search for someone who can actually help them. Like, maybe their older counterparts are still in town and not all messed up and batty and weird and alone and miserable. Meanwhile, the two Erins are gonna check out this Final Folding. Maybe they can get one more fold out of it!

“Plus, somebody needs to keep an eye on myself,” says Young Erin, rather dramatically.

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Won’t someone think of the children?!

Let’s see what’s currently going on with the third Erin! She’s chasing down a car in the rain, hailing it like a taxi. But it isn’t a taxi, it’s one of those futuristic taxis where normal everyday people are the taxi drivers! Strange, I know.

Not-Erin, as you can see, is trying to convince this random lady to give her a ride. She is cut off by the sound of a very loud ululation! Like this: “uuuuuuuuuuuuuu”. And it’s emerging from a giant tardigrade standing in the river. Not the giant squid like I’d hoped, but a giant tardigrade is way creepier. Those things are supposed to be microscopic. This one is easily 12 stories tall. Yuck.

The Uber driver is quite paralyzed with shock, and Not-Erin insists that they need to get the hell out of there. “I imagine it’s terribly hungry,” she says, calmly enough.

But there’s another one nearby!

“OUOUOUOUOUOUOU” says the other tardigrade. It makes a good point. This tardigrade is kind of purple. The other one is blue. They probably want to do some very public tardigrade bonin’ very soon, and that won’t be good for anybody.

Nope, scratch that. The purple one starts bloodily tearing into the blue one with its crazy-long tardigrade claws.

The Uber woman has gotten out of the car to get a better look, but Not-Erin works on pushing her back in. “When that one finishes digesting its friend, I’m hoping it’ll go into cryptobiosis. If not, we don’t want to be here.”

Not-Erin sure knows a lot about tardigrades and cryptobiosis and a lot of other things that sound smart. This comic is too smart for me. I gotta go back to Nightwing.

The woman asks how this girl is so calm, but she’s not answering any questions right now. “I need you to take me about thirty minutes from here. To an establishment called Stony Gate Mall.”

I’m sensing a Triple Erin Meetup in the very near future.

The other two Erins are on their way to the closed mall. Young Erin is sad that the mall is closed; in complete disbelief that even the Waldenbooks is gone. Oh man, I’ve been there, sister! I’m still mad that Waldenbooks left my mall, and that was easily 20 years ago!

Paper Girls, Issue #7

I’m telling ya, you have to keep that almanac away from Biff Tannen.

I think the closed bookstore caused Young Erin to snap just a tad too far. “This time… I think it’s all wrong,” she says quite plainly. Good luck trying to change anything, though. You can’t even find the First Folding! Let alone other foldings. Let’s keep going.

“Spencer’s Gifts is gone, but that doesn’t mean things are post-apocalyptic. You just happened to catch me at a weird time,” Old Erin tells her younger counterpart. “I can only imagine what must be going through your head. Seeing that we wind up being some fat unwed loser with a dead-end job…”

Tom (Writes About Stuff) would frankly pay a lot of money to be a fat unwed loser with a dead-end job right now. If even just temporarily. It sounds pretty sweet actually.

“You are not fat, idiot! Gross, that sounds like something Dad would say,” snaps Young Erin, still full of life and gusto and a belly no longer crawling with robot bugs. Plus, she thinks her older self has a cool haircut…and she’s wearing a nice shirt. PLUS, the unmarried part doesn’t sounds bad at all. Kinda nice actually!

So she gets a hug. Stop hugging yourself. It’s awkward. It gets awkward. She stops hugging herself. It got awkward.

It’s a good thing the inhuman wailing of a 900,000 lb tardigrade breaks the silence! Or is it something else making the “UUUUUUUU” sound? It’s coming from the mall, so it’s probably not the tardigrade. Unless it’s trying to loot what’s left of the Hot Topic or something.

Paper Girls, Issue #7

Just wait until you see a Tesla. You’re going to want to take a big dump right on top of it.

Mac and Tiff are biking across town. Tiff is going ga-ga over all the futuristic stuff on the streets, like that car over there, or maybe that sign over there. Mac doesn’t give a shit. That don’t impress her much. Oh oh oh-oh.

They see a Hillary Clinton campaign sign. Tiff can’t believe her FUCKING eyes! A lady president! The future is great! Too bad this is July, 2016, and if only Tiff knew how bleak it would get in four months. Mac’s realistically cynical. I won’t go into why. I think you can picture it.

Tiff asks why Mac has to be such a jerk.
Mac asks Tiff why she has to be so cheerful.

Well, Mac, because the world still exists in 2016. “Every single paper we ever delivered was about another war or another plague or another meltdown, but it turns out everything’s going to be–”

What? Devastating? Ruinous? Disastrous? Cataclysmic? Mortifying? *checks thesaurus.com* Wretched?

“Whoa,” says Mac with dinner-plate eyes, cutting off Tiff’s train of thought, “what happened to my house?”

“It’s all…nice,” she says, trembling with intimidation. Hell no, she doesn’t want to meet her future self. Not at all. Even if Mac and Tiff agreed to try Old Mac first, fuck that shit. What if she, like, knits or something? Or has three kids? Or owns a big yoga ball? Yuck.

Taking a deep breath, Mac bites the bullet and rings the doorbell. A bald man with a goatee who probably isn’t Mac, but who knows, answers the door. “¿Puedo ayudarte?” he asks.

Tiff speaks Spanish! I don’t, but I think I can translate reasonably well: she asks him if his huevos are grande! Also, if the Coyle family lives there. The Coyle family no longer lives there. They bought the house from the previous family way back in ‘92. His huevos, though, are grande.

“Wait, they moved?” Mac asks, stunned.
“Right after their daughter passed, God bless. Leukemia, I think.”

Well that’s a fucking buzzkill, man.

Tiff looks at Mac. She’s emotionless.

“Okay then. We’ll be sure to update their subscription information,” Mac responds vaguely.

Final Thoughts

Bummer. Pretty dark shit. It must suck to go to the future as a kid and learn that you died of cancer when you were 16.

I’ll be sure not to do that.


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Sucky Funnies for July 10, 2022

The planet is rife with misery and chaos! Climate change is inevitable in my lifetime. Putin isn’t going to stop killing Ukrainians until he’s dead or they’re all dead. Congress keeps getting packed with braindead representatives who believe that there are tracking chips lodged up their noses and mind-control chips in their Cracklin’ Oat Bran. Elon Musk will eventually knock up every single woman on Earth, consensually or otherwise.

But at least we have the rib-tickling antics of Blondie and Mallard Fillmore to take our minds off of the atrocities of this Hell Planet!

Blondie

Blondie - July 10, 2022

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Ugghhhh, read the room, Blondie. Are you seeing any of the societal progress happening around you in the 21st century, or we still stuck in 1948 where you can exchange your wife for a toaster at the pawn shop. It’s like, hey Dagwood, while you were spending the day sucking dicks in the dick-sucking mines, Blondie was cramming 79 hours of work into a totally shitty 8 hour day with the constant reminder that she’s married to you, you magician-looking pointy-haired sack of shit.

So stay in that fucking tub until you die of starvation.

G Bruce Hollett: “How long has the fridge been out? Most will keep food safe for 25 hours or so.”
Do Tell: “It’s also probably not a good time to tell Dagwood that today is Sunday, and he is entitled to the day off.”
Chip Cayer: “You’d think as a caterer, she’d have lots of leftover food available all the time to have for dinner.”

You all have brainworms. Every last one of you.

Mother Goose & Grimm

Mother Goose & Grimm - July 10, 2022

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This reminded me of TWO things. First, Jayne Mansfield getting decapitated after her driver plowed into the back of a semitruck. Second, James Byrd Jr. getting tied to a pickup truck and dragged for miles by white supremacists.

In either case, Grimmy has some hard times ahead of him.

Wirepunchr: “It looks like you are going to get rolled over.”

THANK you, Wirepunchr! That’s an upvote from me, my good man!

Mallard Fillmore

Mallard Fillmore - July 10, 2022

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Saved the best for last! Finally, after two instances where Mallard Fillmore was conspicuously absent in my Sucky Funnies feature, here he is, finally, in all his glory, treating us with the People’s Eyebrow for three panels.

While I’m proud of Mallard Fillmore because he found a way to sympathize with a younger generation without sneering about Kids These Days™; dare I say, even embracing the situation, I’m going to have to call bullshit on Loren Fishman’s grasp of technology timelines. This dumb duck holding an iPod with a click wheel, a feature that had been already discontinued from iPods since 2014 by the way, thinks that these devices are Gen Z-era technology? Please, these kids have been watching Spongebob on their iPhones since they were eight years old and getting all their music from Spotify and Youtube. The iPod is a total Gen X / Millennial music player.

Millennials and their Walkmans? Fair enough, but Gen X enjoyed those for longer and you didn’t even mention them.

I don’t have any real funny commentary for this today! I predict that the lovely individuals in the comments section are going to be able to boringly wax nostalgic about their own music playing devices while simultaneously bitching about how Obama ruined their lawns with space lasers.

Blue_Fez: “AAA says properly inflated tires can save drivers, 3 cents a gallon. I say properly counted votes can save drivers $3 a gallon.”
Certiorll: “I don’t understand all the hoopla regarding the ten-year-old insurrectionist no one, including the Washington Post, can find. Brandon himself said the little girl was (understandably) fleeing the sniffer and wanted to end his presidency.”
SATX2CCFL: “DeSantis Reacts to Newsom’s Targeting of Florida: ‘California is Driving People Away With Terrible Governance’”
SageGrouse: “Nah, let ’em laugh. THEN hand them a dial phone and say “Make a call.” Or give ’em a Walkman and say “Play something on that!”… they CAN’T! Heck. most can’t even read cursive or tel time on a clock with hands! let ’em mock! Better still……. hand ’em a SLIDE RULE”

Good thing the future of our country will no longer be in the hands of these people.

On behalf of the entire Millennial generation, I give all future generations FULL PERMISSION to vaporize us off the planet when we hit 60 years old. Deal? Good. Because we’re going to be too completely clouded with nostalgia about Space Jam and Waffle Crisp to be of any use to anyone.


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