Extinction in Progress, Father John Misty, and Luminous Vault

New music just keeps on coming out! How is one supposed to keep up?? And other trite introductions.

Today I have stuff that’s not THAT new. Albums from Extinction in Progress, Father John Misty, and Luminous Vault. Two of those you haven’t heard of! Don’t even bother.

Extinction in Progress – Shades of Pale
(April 21, 2022)

Extinction in Progress - Shades of Pale

Extinction in Progress formed in 2011 and spent the next eleven years doing whatever it is that Finnish people do. Eating snow? Avoiding eye contact with one another? At any rate, the extreme sorta-metal band furnished the public with a pretty neat debut album in April.

Speedy technical drums and almost-screamo yelling caused me to think I was listening to a Converge / Dillinger Escape Plan mathcore clone at first, but the progression through the first track alone shows a lot of the record’s stylistic range: soaring minor key melodic passages, subdued guttural gothic soliloquys, female vocal chants and whispers, slow proggy sidebars. Pretty interesting combination, honestly. A complex tapestry!

I’m reminded of the engrossing extreme prog metal of Rivers of Nihil, which I also really liked, but that’s admittedly because of the smooth jazz saxophone solos on tracks like “The Loudest Silence”. Still though, it’s pretty ballsy to bust out the Kenny G shit on your aggressive record of growlin’ and hollerin’. But there’s also some of that luxuriant, contrasting beauty from other instruments! Like…uh…the descending piano arpeggios on the final 10-minute track “Motherland”! That’s some good stuff.

Not once in its perfect length of 44 minutes is there a lull in its vibrancy. And with all the different musical styles and (at least) three distinct vocal types, the ear stays interested. Nothing better than diversity and interesting…ness. I always say.

Early Verdict:

Father John Misty – Chloë and the Next 20th Century
(April 8, 2022)

Father John Misty - Chloë and the Next 20th Century

Josh Tillman goes in a completely different direction with his fifth album and gifts us with a whole load of really boring, straightly presented, mellow ’30s big band and swing jazz tunes. I don’t like it.

I’m not the biggest Father John Misty fan anyway, but I like his sardonic and often bizarre lyrical style, and that hasn’t changed here at all. In fact, pull up the lyrics from any song off of Chloë and the Next 20th Century and you’ll never know that they accompany Sinatra-style crooning lounge jazz or James Taylor-y singery-songwritery twangy country stuff. “When I ask what he wants/His only response/Is a single word less than I need/He watches TV/She reads the I Ching/And I keep my face nearly straight/When he tries to leave“. How about that one? Or maybe “Everything you want/What’s the fun in getting everything you want?/I wouldn’t know, but look, baby, you should try/Forget that lefty shit your mom drilled in your mind“. See? Exciting.

The music is colorful; filled with pretty harmon-muted trumpets, metallophone exotica, slow drum shuffles, plinky and tastefully schmaltzy piano balladry, sweeping string arrangements, baleful and dryly emotional outpourings. Some tracks are somber, vocal-forward, easy-listening country music. A couple of the more energetic tracks don’t really get that close to “energetic” anyway. You won’t even notice.

Perhaps the most engaging track, and my only takeaway, is “Q4”. It bounces and flourishes along with bubbly orchestral decadence. A tune you could actually put on repeat and not lose your fucking mind. It’s the literal centerpiece of the record, smack dab right in the middle.

After that, it’s back to being glazed over again. 51 minutes, and most of it is brain-numbing. HERE, HAVE SOME POSITIVES: Tillman’s voice has never been better, the lyrics are great, the music is gorgeous. It’s one of the biggest oh-wells I’ve ever awarded.

Early Verdict:

Luminous Vault – Animate the Emptiness
(May 20, 2022)

Luminous Vault - Animate the Emptiness

Check out that dripping incandescent rainbow album art! I love colors! Perfect 10 on the art alone. No need to listen to the music, I’ve made my decision.

No? OK. Luminous Vault is an industrial black metal band. They don’t sound like the KMFDM of industrial black metal like Aborym, nor do they sound like the Agoraphobic Nosebleed of industrial black metal like Anaal Nathrakh. They’re more like the Legendary Pink Dots of industrial black metal! OK, this paragraph sucks. Let me start over.

This band is an even merging of industrial electronica and extreme metal. You know what you’re getting into right off the bat with a buzzing synth prelude. It immediately lets any metalheads who take themselves too seriously know that they should bow out right away before they accidentally listen to too much electronic bleeping and blooping and lose their cred. For the rest of us, this is interesting stuff! I’m not a stranger to industrial black metal; it’s probably in my top three of the 900 black metal subgenres! Luminous Vault’s debut, Animate the Emptiness, puts the focus on melancholy clean, traditional guitar riffs and gritty, hoarse vocals while sprinkling in occasional thumping EDM beats and fizzling synth crescendos. Almost all of the percussion is unsynthesized, so there’s a lot of warmth to the sound…as much as raspy black/doom metal can really be.

I’m impressed with the music’s vividness. Maybe it’s the colorful album cover, maybe it’s the inclusion of power metal major chords, maybe it’s the chugging, hook-laden melodic phrases… ultimately, what does it for me is that there’s lack of cheese in spite of all the possible avenues leading to cheesiness. I never feel stupid for listening to this like I would for any ’90s industrial or nu-metal act. Or straight power metal, or prog metal, or melodic death metal, yada yada yada. Never, in 36 minutes, do I feel like something is incredibly lame. That’s quite a feat from a genre dominated by edgelord nerds.

I’ve yammered enough about this album. See you next time.

Early Verdict:


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½ – “Untitled”! Yeah, I don’t know. This story has no name! You can also call it just plain “Ultimate Spider-Man #½” I suppose. It don’t mean no nevermind to me.

I just finished the “Double Trouble” storyline, but here’s a bonus for ya! During the middle of that arc, a standalone story was released featuring the goings-on at the Daily Bugle. J. Jonah Jameson gets his 15 minutes of fame!

So without further ado, enjoy this bonus Spider-Man story before I move on to something else. Ciao, baby.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½ [February, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

Jameson holds up a beautiful picture of Spider-Man. Just a stunning work of photographic genius! Really captures the spidery essence. “Who took this?” he asks, mouth full of cigar. One of the young interns took such a glorious boner-inducing photo. Her name is Karen, and she just happened to be there. At the right place at the right time. It appears to be an action shot of the young crusader thwarting a purse-thieving street crime! “Good for her– I want to see her in my office at the end of the day.”

Jameson turns to JOURNALISTIC SUPERSTAR Ben Urich, who has the scoop: Tara Keegan, 34-year-old black woman, was suspected of shoplifting a pair of children’s shoes from a sporting goods store. She is followed out of the store by an employee named Warren Hepburn, who asks to see what she has in her bag. Keegan is resistant! Hepburn is persistent! And he grabs her, throws her against the wall, and tells her to cough up those shoes before he calls the C.O.P.S.

Keegan starts screaming stuff like “HELP! I’M PREGNANT!”. Hepburn starts screaming stuff like “HELP! I NEED A POLICE!”. Things start to get ugly.

You know what, I might as well show you the photo:

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

A picture is worth a thousand words, but I’m going to write a thousand words about it anyway.

Yeah! Now you’ve got context!

So these two losers are screaming on the street and no one is helping. Total bystander effect. UNTIL, that is, a big ol’ black guy named Clarence Wilson comes out of the store and takes note of the ruckus! Wilson grabs Hepburn by the head, pulls him back, and declares “You can’t grab her! You ain’t got no badge.”

Wilson continues to hold onto Hepburn. Hepburn continues to hold onto Keegan. It’s like a human centipede with less poop. Wilson tells Hepburn to say he’s sorry or he’ll crush his stupid face. Keegan tells Hepburn that he’s lucky she’s not stabbing the fuck out of him right now.

And wouldn’t you know it, things get even weirder! Oh boy!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

You do NOT want to experience the wrath of the living Final Fantasy X character.

Some grimacing Aryan Youth dude in a leather jacket approaches Clarence Wilson and warns him not to hurt the skinny sporting goods store man. Then, with barely an ounce of additional warning, Blondie performs a majestic sidewinder kick right to Wilson’s big bald dome.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence “Thomas” Wilson ain’t going down that easily, though! “MMrrff…someone’s looking for a beating,” he murmurs, rubbing his head. Alas, sir, because Blondie’s right fist starts glowing like a fireball. “Bring it on, mutant!” yells Wilson, who probably pooped his pants just a little bit in spite of his hard-nosed outward demeanor.

This is when Spider-Man swoops in, and I’m blinded by the bulge in his crotch in this full-page spread. Don’t worry, I won’t subject you to this…uh… mesmerizing… … uhm

And this is where Karen McKarenPants the Intern gets a bunch of really good photos. Just dazzling. Pulitzer-worthy.

“Ha! Anyone talk to the guy with the glowing hand?” Jameson asks, face twisted into what I can only describe as a “pleasure grimace” (sorry). Betty Brant has those deets, sir! Goes by the name Danny Rand, and per a personal statement he’s not a mutant, but he has abilities like one! He has “mastered the ability to focus his spiritual energy into an impervious fist of iron”. Sounds like a mutation to me, guv’nor. But no, years of martial arts training and extreme focus. All the Spider-Man stories have inspired Rand to consider becoming a similar hero, but what’s holding him back? His Backstreet Boys good looks?

Witnesses corroborate Rand’s story that he was only involved to stop the fight, not to contribute.

But he was the one Spider-Man punched in the face. And now Rand doesn’t feel much like doing that kind of thing anymore.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

Or how about “Masked Man Makes Mockery out of Mutant’s Management of Misappropriation Mishap”?

Urich doesn’t think this turd is worthy of the front page, but Jameson tries to sell him on the art. When that doesn’t sell him, Jameson pulls rank and tells him that it’s a done deal, and see you urchins at the 10am meeting!

NOT SO FAST, HOSS! Benny Boy still has more witness statements! “I was up about seven stories from where the action took place,” Urich begins. Jameson tries to interrupt and leave, but Urich presses on. “Now even though I know that every move I make is going to be criticized out the ying yang because I wear a mask–” Urich shoots a wry smile at Jameson, “–I take that chance.”

Ohhhh boy, now you’ve got J. Jonah Jameson’s Jumpers all nice and moist, buddy! Urich continues Spider-Man’s inexplicably audible self-narration. “And to any bystander with a brain in their head, the man with the glowing hand is the immediate concern. The man with the glowing hand might very well be out of the normal law enforcement’s league and something right up my unique alley,” Spider-Man beams to himself while clinging to the side of the building.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

Although a little bit of Word and Excel never hurt anybody.

We see a series of action shots showing the ensuing takedown of Mr. Firehand. “So yeah, I made a mistake.” Spider-Man sheepishly claims. BUT, Tara Keegan WAS shoplifting, and she WASN’T pregnant, so he’d uppercut that bitch in a heartbeat if he could take it all back. He feels terrible about hitting Rand, and he knows that he’d be heartbroken too if the roles were reversed.

Especially since “someone who works at the newspaper just so happened to be standing there at that moment and…they just happened to take a picture that ended up being the only decent art on the editor’s desk that day.”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #½

Ahhhh, my one true love. Gonna replace that ugly photo I’ve got on my desk with ol’… whatshername… … Wife.

Jameson sits there speechless, and then contorts his face in a subtle expression of bemused admiration. “All right… ok, all right… let me think about it,” he says, placing the photo back down. Robbie “Rob-Rob” Robertson, Jameson’s high-ranking editor, asks him what he thinks after everyone else in the room sits back down at their desks and plays Super Pong or whatever working people did at their desks to pass the time in 2002.

Jameson smiles.

“Run it. It’s good art.”

Final Thoughts

This self-contained story is a hit! I approve! Run it, I want to see it on the front page tomorrow. Get some good art on it, though, you college dropouts.


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Paper Girls, Issue #3

Paper Girls, Issue #3

* Part 3 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 1 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #3! In the previous installment, Erin’s family has mysteriously disappeared, the sky keeps cracking and humming with eerie violet energy, and Mac’s alcoholic stepmother, Alice, claims that Mac’s dad suddenly disappeared from the bed that morning right in front of her eyes. There appears to be some Rapture shit going on!

Alice puts a gun to her head, Mac tries to stop her. The issue ended with a BANG! But we don’t know what happened yet.

Now we will!

Paper Girls, Issue #3 [December, 2015]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Issue #32

There’s a couple of costumed teenagers hanging out drinking on the high school football field. Terry, with upper lip peach fuzz, stares up at the ungodly purple vortex raining flying dinosaur creatures. “I am tripping my face off,” says Terry. Gabrielle, dressed like a cat, thinks they look like dragons. Two others, Becky and Tonia, are unaccounted for. Gabs was smoking under the bleachers with them, and they vanished into thin air.

Gabrielle is totally freaking out man, so Terry takes advantage of this opportunity and makes his move! Here’s his move: lunging into her face for an impromptu kiss! Smooth, sir.

She shoves him on his ass. “What is wrong with you? I don’t even like you like that, you psycho!” Sorry, Terry. You’re not getting your dick wet before the end of the world. He gets all bitch-hurt about this, forgetting that the fucking sky is falling. “Is it because you’re still into Chris? ‘Cause Chris is probably dead, like everybody else in the whole damn Stream.”

Terry continues his creepy entitled bullshit, yelling at Gabrielle that he’s been wanting to bone her since freshman year, so she owes him big. Now they’re alone and they can finally do it. So tear off those clothes, Citizen!

Look dude, there’s no time for getting mad-rutty. Hate to break it to you, but there’s a very large, scary man wearing a super-futuristic metal suit riding one of these pterodactyl dragon creatures. He’s holding a large glowing scepter that looks kind of like the Halo Energy Sword, except less copyright-infringy. “Scruddy teenagers,” he growls.

Paper Girls, Issue #3

My sentiments exactly, buddy. Put another shrimp on the barbie.

Wasting no time, this new guy joining the party zaps both Gabrielle and Horny Boy with his Halo sword. They turn into pink pillars of dust, slowly blowing away from the top-down in the wind.

Zappy the Pinhead speaks jive into his Star Trek insignia radio, calling these kids “stragglers”. Obviously, it’s this guy’s mission to round up everyone still alive and living and hanging around town and turn them into Kinetic Sand. Halfway through his transmission, he hears a loud BANG in the distance! Oh boy, a gun! Looks like this guy’s going to investigate the source of the sound. Sucks to be whoever is involved with this loud gun bang.

Oh right, it’s the four girls! Whoops! Shouldn’t have made a loud gun bang. Surprise, surprise, though. Neither Mac nor Alice got killed. The gun went off during the struggle.

“Is everyone all right?!” Alice hazily asks.
“We’re fine, ma’am,” responds Erin, who is bleeding badly from the stomach, “Mac’s shot must’ve gone right past us. It’s a miracle.”

That escalated quickly.

Then she collapses into Tiff’s arms. “Holy crap!” Tiff yells, a reaction befitting of a 12-year-old who just watched another 12-year-old get shot. The three still-conscious kids start panicking, but don’t forget! Mac’s a dang Girl Scout! She has about fifty merit badges related to caring for gunshot wounds! She was stationed in Da Nang for about ten months killing Vietnamese people! And that was after the war!

After that, then Alice can drive them to the hospital.

But Tiff notices that Alice disappeared…

Great, another victim of the Rapture! So now what? Carry Erin on their handlebars, rattling her around, giving her whiplash while she bleeds out? Nein! Tiff will drive them. Who cares, right? No one’s on the road anyway. If Maggie on the Simpsons can do it, so can she.

“Good enough,” says Mac, “just don’t forget the gun.”

I, for one, blame this all on George H. W. Bush and/or Tipper Gore! Jimmy Swaggert. *checks notable people in 1988* Ted Bundy.

Tiff doesn’t want to bring the gun. Mac wants to bring the gun. Tiff says guns are bad! Mac says they may need to shoot giant killer dragon monsters.

The voice of reason speaks up.

Paper Girls, Issue #3

Quiet, dear, the adults are talking.

Fine. No guns.

Tiff barrels down the road in an ugly station wagon. KJ’s in the front passenger seat. They both have their seatbelts on! That’s good. Mac’s in the backseat with Erin, desperately trying to keep the blood from pouring out. Luckily, Tiff’s mom is a doctor at the local hospital, and if she didn’t get whisked away to space with the rest of the non-sinners, she can help Erin not die. Maybe.

Laughter emanates from the walkie-talkie again. “Ye’s ben twentied, jungs. Renders now or B same-fated as thy friend,” proclaims the Jar Jar Binks asshole through the receiver. The girls are like, great, some new creep to worry about. They wonder what happened to the other creeps. Ol’ Triangle Eyeballs.

The car passes by a newspaper truck, where, speak of the devil, two of them are currently crouched behind! After the car passes, they leap a fence to the backyard where their friend got wasted by one of those pterodactyl dragons. They look like they’re trying to revive him, but he ain’t even got no head no more!

Paper Girls, Issue #3

Can you hear me, Johnny?! Speak to me, man!

Meanwhile, Erin is hella hallucinating now. She’s ice skating with President Ronald Reagan! “Snap out of it, Erin. Remember when you spaced in Social Studies last week?”

Soviet rockets fly willy-nilly in the sky above as the two of them skate around the frozen pond. “What…what does this one mean? Are we all dead?” Erin asks, remembering the dream where she was in heaven talking to the Challenger space lady.

She asks why she was shot. “Why is God letting this happen to me?” She doesn’t get a real answer. Erin misses the fifth grade, and Reagan knows why. She had friends back then. No friends now! Not even Wendy, your fake pen pal!

Listen kid, it’s time to buck up. Trust Ronald Reagan, you’re not dead. You’ve got a job to do. “Remember your papers,” he says before pulling an apple out of his coat pocket – black with a bleeding bullet hole through the center.

Then she snaps out of it a little, stirring and moaning in the car. But first, I have an instant classic panel to share:

Paper Girls, Issue #3

But, man, Jodie Foster would’ve been really fucking impressed had things turned out differently!

Back in the car, Mac is begging Erin to, like, not die. The walkie-talkie dude keeps threatening these youngins with his flowery prose, and it’s not long before they come up to him standing in the middle of the street looking badass as shit, unafraid of a car coming right for him. Tiff slams the brakes; they stop within inches. He never moved a muscle.

“What is this guy?!” Mac sneers. Tiff is going to try talking to him. Y’all stay in the car, daddy’ll take care of this!

“No-how u lurked solong, but endcredits for de lot, masters. Ur transgresses willn’t B–” proclaims this dude as he maintains his intimidating pose. He sounds like some nerd AOL Shakespeare chatroom. All like “Forsooth, my droogs, a/s/l?”

Tiff interrupts his inanities with pleas to help them stop their new friend from dying. Steel Suit boggles and realizes that these kids are “locals”. I suppose he thought these precious, cherubic children were triangle-pupiled aliens? He shifts his Rosetta Stone translator module back to 1988 English and apologizes for the confusion. “This must have been very troubling for you to witness,” he says before aiming his Halo Sword right at Tiff’s eyeballs. “I promise you won’t remember a thing.”

Hey, you know that gun that no one was going to bring? KJ pulls it out and aims it right at Master Chief over here.

Paper Girls, Issue #3

Your word is worth SHIT to us.

Tiff is pissed off, man. “We said we weren’t gonna bring that thing!”
“No, you guys said it…and I’m a crappy listener,” KJ responds, trigger finger gettin’ itchy.

This still-nameless dude from the future, or Mars, or something, assures the kids that everything will be juuuuust fine. Mac isn’t too sure, but she doesn’t seem to be one to take anything an adult says at face value. “Can these people fix Erin?” she asks the guy, who pivots and insists that none of them should be out and about during “the Ablution”.

“If you would please just remain perfectly still, I can take you to–”

BANG!

For the second issue in a row, a gun goes off. But it wasn’t KJ, she promises! She’s just as surprised as everyone else. Nevertheless, a bullet had traveled right through the side of this guy’s bald dome, right above the ears. Like, through the brain. Probably through the optic nerves. Three more had hit him in the chest. He’s dead, Jim.

The perpetrators make their presence known straight-away. Douchebag #1 and Douchebag #2 from the Outer Space Triangle Pupil Eyeball Federation. “What is wrong with you alien dicks?!” yells a rather incredulous Tiff, “This guy was going to help us!”

One of the aforementioned alien dicks grabs the dead dude’s voice-translating coin and informs her that, no, he wouldn’t have helped you. Quite the opposite, actually. What’s the opposite of help? … NO help. He would have no-helped you.

These guys, though! You can trust these guys. They’re not aliens at all! In fact, they’re just like you suburban Ohioan kids!

They’re teenagers!

Paper Girls, Issue #3

One of us… One of us…

Final Thoughts

We’ve got people disappearing, futuristic mercenaries trying to eliminate people who haven’t disappeared yet, kids bleeding out from their gunshot wounds, thieving otherworldly teenagers with technology from 2015, and Reagan hallucinations!

With bated breath, I await what more insanity could possibly unfold in the next issue.


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Sucky Funnies for June 12, 2022

It’s Sunday already! Well hot damn! Is today the Super Bowl? I don’t really pay attention to these things. Is the big NASCAR race on? God taking a rest? Elaine needs to unwind after Puerto Rican Day?

Sounds like a packed Sunday! Here’s some comic strips too, on top of all that nonsense.

Zits

Zits - June 12, 2022

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Jeremy Duncan has been perpetually 15 years old since 1997, which means he really should literally be 40 years old right now in 2022. Instead of being able to relate with his pre-middle aged parental units in the 21st century, he’s trapped in a hellish teenage existence. Even worse, a hellish late-’90s teenage existence. Just a whole bunch of Titanic and Star Wars prequels and boy bands and Furbies and Monica Lewinsky.

Anyway, Walt Duncan’s lookin’ pretty sexy here. Get over yourself, Jeremy.

HCassidy: “I did all that three days ago and at the the end, in all fairness, I couldn’t say what Walt said.“
eddi_TBH: “Once the hair stopped growing on my head, it needed to go somewhere. Fortunately there was little brain matter to slow it down. Now I look like the Grand Negus of Ferenginar. But not quite as handsome.“
kab2rb: “My own hubby when he lost most hair on his head, most of his body is clean. Our kids now adults does not bother them. Our son did not get his dad’s 6’4″ height our daughter takes after her grandmas size in height, short.“

I was thinking the same thing, everyone! I’m glad that the generation that used to be terrified of putting any of their information on the internet now puts ALL of their information on the internet. Every last gritty, mind-numbing detail.

Lola

Lola - June 12, 2022

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I’m not going to pretend I know the first thing about this comic strip, but I’m going to hazard a guess that the spry granny is the titular character.

It’s too bad she died on this particular day. Blunt force trauma following a cannonball leap into seven inches of water, breaking 180 bones in her octogenarian body, then disappearing into another dimension through a portal at the bottom of the wading pool.

RIP Lola. You will be missed?

Ricky Bennett: “The poor dog’s pool session got hosed…“
Rolf Rykken: “Max, who is so much more mature than human Lola, puts up with a lot. : )“
m b: “Poor Max – very rude, now he has to fill his pool again“

Lola readers are a sharp bunch.

Nancy

Nancy - June 12, 2022

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The Nancy comic strip has been around in some form for 100 years. 100 years. Betty White wasn’t even around for 100 years! That’s absolutely fucking bonkers.

Eight people have authored Nancy since 1922. The second guy, Ernie Bushmiller, born in 1698, his tenure was 57 years. Can you even imagine drawing those dumb spikes on Nancy’s Gary Spivey helmet hair for 57 years. Did he kill himself in 1982?

Do authors have to go through an intensive masterclass in order to write properly for Nancy? The strip always feels like it’s locked into the sterility of stark early 1920’s media presentation. The fact that it looks like it was illustrated in Adobe Flash doesn’t help. Should I talk about the actual strip itself? *sigh* Fine. It took Fritzi four ice cream cones before she realized that Nancy wasn’t coming to appreciate the art of baking, as evident by her doorway body language. That’s dumb. Nancy sucks.

Rolf Rykken: “Nancy! What a great idea!!! Yes! : )“
some idiot from R’lyeh: “She’s coming to appreciate the art of consumption.“
VICTOR PROULX: “Kind of lame“

Exactly. Cancel Nancy.


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Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1 – “In the Beginning”

* Part 1 of 12 of the Superman: Birthright limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Birthright, Issue #1 – “In the Beginning”!

I was going to bounce back to the New 52 Action Comics reboot, but after a lukewarm first impression…I’ve been hesitant to press forward. The New 52 Supergirl rekindled my interest, but I figured that I needed a critically acclaimed Superman story at this point. After much hemming and hawing over the many supposedly excellent Superman stories, origin-related or otherwise, I finally settled on Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright for two reasons. 1) it does cover the Superman origin story, which I do have an interest in, and 2) I’m already familiar with Mark Waid and the first story of his 1998 Captain America run! It didn’t go well, but my dude deserves another chance.

Superman: Birthright spanned twelve issues as a self-contained Superman story. It was prompted by the success of Smallville, so just be thankful I’ve never actually watched Smallville. You’d hear a lot of Tom Welling jokes from me otherwise.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1 [September, 2003]
Written by: Mark Waid
“In the Beginning”

Superman: Birthright: Issue #1

Look out! Superman’s here, and he ain’t got no pupils in his eyeballs!

The story begins with the beginning! That is to say, Superman’s beginning with respect to Earth and whatnot. He’s being launched from Krypton in his little space pod. The computer is going haywire as the pod is pulled off-track by Krypton’s red sun. It looks orange here, though. It should probably be more red.

Turns out that it’s not the real pod at all. On Krypton, Daddy Superman is banging out simulations on a computer. One plunges into the sun. Another bounces off some asteroids. Another runs out of fuel and gets lost in the cosmos. Another gets attacked by space goblins and intergalactic pirates and random hydrogen molecules. No matter how he plans the trajectory, the simulation always ends with destruction. “Hopeless,” he moans, “It’s hopeless.

Jor-El! That’s his name, I remember now. Jor-El and Lara. They had marital relations and pushed out a baby once, which was dumb on a doomed planet. We could learn a lesson here on Earth too: stop procreating, idiots! Myself included! I did it twice! Stupid!

Jor-El wishes his advice was heeded sooner. They could have a fleet large enough to carry the whole planet’s population to safety. Now they only have a measly pod large enough for their son that keeps getting dumped into fiery stars. Not only that, but these whiz-bang Kryptonian computers have been running like clockwork to try to find ANY other intelligent civilization in the universe! Jor-El’s been mining bitcoin with them on the side, so most of the resources were allocated for that, and now the planet is exploding, but at least he has three Bored Apes to show for it!

Lara keeps trying to talk her husband into launching their baby into space, but he’s not so optimistic anymore about anything. JOR-EL NEEDS HIS SERTRALINE!!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Great, Jor-El, perfect opportunity to launch into a story that’s longer than the time the planet will live.

Jor-El starts wasting his precious moments recapping some 10,000-year-old Kryptonian history: War was getting tedious, so they got along instead. Being ignorant was getting scary, so they learned how to science. Suffering was annoying, so they opted to create a luxurious society. Easy shit. Piece of cake. Now it’s all exploding, and no one will ever even know or care.

Lara gives him a glazed-over cross-eyed stare, ignores everything he just said, and asks him to bring over that iPad Pro on the table. It contains the history of Krypton. Throw it on the ship with the kid.

Jor-El thinks it’s a waste of fucking time. Who would even be able to translate it?! Our dumb kid? He’ll barely even be able to understand English! Oh well, fine. Go ahead. What does it matter anyway? So stupid…

Mom and Dad make the preparations to blast their child into outer space even though they’ll probably witness him exploding in a fiery oblivion like the Challenger. “Listen to me,” Lara shrieks, “I am so frightened. I cannot imagine Kal-El not in my arms. But he doesn’t need our science now. He needs our courage.” So, launch that whelp and try not to think too hard about it, mkay?

So they press forward. Lara straps him into the little space bubble. Jor-El scrambles through the computer files looking for one measly planet that could be viable. He comes across dumb old Earth. Yellow sun. Reasonable gravity. Lots of Chipotle restaurants. It’s as good a choice as any. Hell, a young sun’s radiation might even make him stronger! In case he can’t find Ovaltine. Let ‘er rip.

Jor-El begs for forgiveness and he inputs the super secret launch codes. Lara tells him he has nothing to be sorry for except his really tiny, unsatisfying penis!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Hurry up and just get rid of it. I don’t even want to look at that ugly thing anymore!

And off Kal-El goes.

“Life support batteries 89%,” chirps the computer. Not even fully charged upon launch!

“Life support batteries 67%,” as he rockets past a large, red planet. Looks like this thing is draining like a motherfucker. Maybe Kal-El has too many apps open.

“Warning: Life support batteries 29%,” as he zooms past some more colorful planet-like space objects. What’s it been, five minutes?

“Danger: Life support batteries 09%,” as he drifts through a swirling void. Plug it in! Plug it in!

“Danger: Life support batteries 02%,” as the yellow sun, then the Earth and its Moon, comes into view. We’re really pushing our luck here, aren’t we?

The pod prepares for landing. Cloaking activated. A nice patch of boring Kansas land is the target. Can babies survive a blunt force trauma impact of like 200,000 Gs? I guess we’ll see!

Or we won’t. We cut to 25 years later in West Africa. A man who looks like Clark Kent with a tourist camera strapped around his neck pushes another man to the ground. “Get down!” he screams as someone in a speeding car tries to fill these mopes full of bullets.

The man Kent pushed down is named Kobe Asuru, who has a small team of bodyguards pointing their own weapons at this mysterious white boy who just popped out of nowhere. Kent wants to follow the car, but he needs to stay put. How do they know he’s not dangerous either? Kobe Asuru has many enemies, mostly because he keeps cheating at Mario Kart.

“No weapons. Passport under the name of ‘Clark Kent’. Press pass from the Ghana Dispatch – though that could be a cover. You speak our language notably well for an American, Mr. Kent,” says one of Asuru’s more female-y members of his entourage even though they speak English in Ghana. She pulls the Kryptonian iPad out of Kent’s pack, but he implores her to be careful with it. He means Kobe Asuru no harm, he promises. He just wants to…uh…it’s not clear yet. Play hopscotch together?

“I’ve come to talk…and listen…unlike his would-be assassins,” proclaims Kent, and Kobe welcomes this stranger with WARM SMILES! His personal bodyguards are Gyamfi, Yao, and his sister Abena. You can call him Kobe. Like the beef or the dead rapist basketball player!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Tell me what the fuck is going on here or the jig is up. This camera shoots more than just photos, you know.

Uh oh, here’s where Mark Waid, confirmed plump old white man, starts bordering on cringe with the subject of race. Kent and Kobe toast to the Ghuri tribe during a Ghuri party, but not to tribalism. “I didn’t think racial barriers existed here,” says Kent, making a rather punchable looking facial expression. Kobe confirms that racism doesn’t exist here! So, in the absence of racism, the people find other ways to discriminate. In this case, along tribal lines.

Kent asks if that was what all the shooting was about earlier, then. Kobe says “PROBABLY! Hey! Let’s change the subject,” Kobe pulls open a nearby child’s textbook and explains the clash between the Ghuri tribe and the Turaaba tribe. Turaaba holds the wealth of the region, and Ghuri have often relied on them for their employment. SO, the children spend their youth absorbed in Turaaba culture while their own Ghuri culture becomes systematically marginalized. THAT’S the real problem here, Clark Kent, you rugged blue-eyed devil you.

Parallels though! Kobe’s sister tells Kent that the Ghuri tribe ask themselves, at the end of every day, “who are we?”. Clark Kent, sir, who are you? Aha, ah yes. And what the fuck are you doing here? And also get out!

Clark Kent takes it all in stride! He explains to Abena that he’s a freelance reporter, remember? When you turned his backpack inside-out? Hmm? Remember? Uh huh. Kent has worked for newspapers all over the globe, and now he has been hired by “the Ghana paper” to profile Kobe and the attacks.

He reminds them of some broad name Lois who was here not too long ago. Lois Something-Or-Other! Do you know someone named Lois, Clark Kent? Not yet? Ok! Here’s the timeline: Kent graduated from high school in Smallville, Kansas, started studying abroad, strung some credits together from many universities to obtain his bachelor’s in journalism JUST NOW actually, and he turns 25 next month! So his car insurance rates go down to boot. Life is lookin’ good.

Good ol’ American upbringing, eh? Waffle Houses and LTE home internet. Sure, sure, but Kent was adopted. FROM WHENCE, he still doesn’t know, but he knows it’s pretty far from Kansas. After he explains he’s still kinda trying to find a place he can call home, Abena has some advice: You’ve turned away from your birth legacy. Embrace who you are.

In the middle of that advice, Clark does some fancy faster-than-a-speeding-bullet shite, grabbing water in a glass in the middle of someone else’s accidental spill.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Two places at once! I can catch that water faster than you can say “BBBEE”.

Anyhoo, so there’s a Ghuri party going on that they now find themselves at. A celebration of the Ghuri ways! A renewal of identity through custom, music, dance, and dress. Clark is like “oh yeah, that shit’s everywhere, dummies. Philippines, Scotland, Ingideonous America, Afghanistan. Way to maintain your singular identity by being just like everyone else!” *sssiiiiiip*

Just like everyone else except those creepy tribal masks, guys! They give me the heebie-jeebies! Didn’t they lift the mask mandates around here? Ha ha!

Kobe looks offended that Clark is dissing their masks, but he means no disrespect! Honest! Masks are just a symbol of distrust in his own land, y’hear? Before Kent really even has a chance to explain himself, though, bullets rain in through the windows and walls of their little party. Kent holds a dying old woman while yelling for someone to get Kobe out of the building. NOW!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #1

Don’t worry, I’ll save you all! I’m pretty, super, man.

Kent tries to use his laser eyes to cauterize a major wound on the old lady, but it dawns on him that driving Kobe out of the building is exactly what they wanted to happen. Eek! He runs outside and jumps in front of a few bullets aimed for Kobe. He gets a back full of ‘em!

“What the hell? He’s wearing a vest, he must be…!” the terrorists whipser to each other, noticing a torn-up shirt but no scratch to be seen.

Kent and Kobe’s crew jump into a VW bus and they book it! Abena looks horrified at the state of Kent’s $2 Old Navy polo shirt, but he claims he got it all torn up back in the bar.

So, more Turaaba shenanigans going on? I guess you could say that. Kobe is running for senator and the elections are coming up. Nobody’s taking too kindly to Kobe’s views on Ghuri revolution. “We will stand before the men who govern our republic, and we will insist upon representation in their parliament. We deserve to be heard, and if the Turaaba don’t like it…they’ll learn to.”

Kobe’s posse attempts to goad Clark Kent into asking the real question. The question that all the reports ask: “Why him? Why is it Kobe Asuru’s task to shoulder the burden of his people? Doesn’t he know he’s risking his life being a damnfool hero? Is he insane?”

Clark Kent remains stoic. He wasn’t gonna ask any of that stuff! “I believe the tribe Ashanti have a saying: ‘A charge to keep they have, the human race, to glorify–all other neighbors to save, and raising human esteem high.‘” And, according to my Google Docs page, that saying is a grammatical problem. But Kobe is delighted to hear these words come from Clark’s big, dumb, white face.

Basically, you can’t sit back and hope to fit in. You gotta do what you need to do. “The world never changed for a man too timid to play his [game] to the absolute limit.”

Final Thoughts

Mediocre start, Mark Waid! Better step on it before I forever lose interest in all your comic book blitherings!


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