Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6 – “Good Girl Gone Bad”

* Part 6 of 7 of the Traps and Trapezes storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6 – “Good Girl Gone Bad”! In the previous installment, a lady summons a demon to try to trap Jimmy the Clown into a permanent purgatory marriage. Nightwing gets involved with that, which takes him completely out of his Circus Mystery preoccupation.

The end is a trip, though. It’s revealed that Saiko is Grayson’s dead circus friend Raymond. So THAT means that Grayson’s alive circus friend Zane hired Grayson’s dead circus friend Raymond. And not only THAT, but Raya’s in on it too! Three circus friends plotting against Grayson! The sweetest plum.

So that’s funny and that’s what’s keeping me motivated to witness some really powerful Dick Grayson frowning action. Right into my veins, as the kids say.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6 [April, 2012]
Written by: Kyle Higgins
“Good Girl Gone Bad”

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

Looking at the cover, I’m reminded of when Jimmy the Voodoo Marriage Clown was four inches from Nightwing’s face and didn’t recognize him as Dick Grayson. And then Batgirl keeps her really long, distinctive red hair flowing out of her cowl? Do these people have any idea how close they could come to losing their night jobs? I could be at the supermarket without my glasses on and make the Grayson/Nightwing connection from 10 aisles away while he stares at a pile of pears.

The circus has now made its way to Austin, Texas. Keep Austin Weird, I always say. Nightwing doesn’t say that, but he’s not quick on his feet like I am! Higgins is sure to remind everyone, since his readers have the collective memory of a goldfish’s dick, of everything that has happened so far. It’s a whole lot of nothing, honestly. Boning redheads. Psycho killers. Smelly circus clowns. You got the jist.

Nightwing is unsettled because Saiko rubbed two halves of a brain cell together and figured out that Grayson and Nightwing are one in the same. And it’s been weeks since there’s been any sign of Saiko, so any minute he could POP OUT! BOO! Hah hah. Right now, though, Nightwing is fighting a cowboy in spurs wearing the Steel Soldier suit that I read all about in Action Comics, baby! This one has giant claws, though. Also, a cowboy. His name is Shox, who is the right-hand man of Terrance Clark, who is the southwest branch CEO of hiring assassins. Nightwing followed a lead to Clark’s nightclub, and now he’s fighting half-robot/half-cowboy villains.

Shox crashes a large aquarium, flooding the floor. Nightwing uses his electric suit to shock Shox! This is probably why he’s called Shox, for this single throwaway joke. That’s fun! I’m having so much fun.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

You might say Austin looks…WEIRD…from this angle? Eh? Eh?

A sweaty bloatee’d Terrance Clark is hiding behind one of the room’s columns. He doesn’t get a chance to run. Next thing we know, Nightwing is dangling him upside-down from a rope in the rain — from a very high balcony. “A contract killer — goes by the name Saiko. I hear you know him. Tell me how.” Nightwing threatens with a smug smirk that I want to dickslap off his face.

Clark screams desperately; tells Nightwing that Saiko has only done one job for him, he swears it! The guy’s phone number is disconnected or something, he swears it! Off the grid! Some sort of personal project! Whoops, how did he know that? Whoopsie-daisy, now he’s gonna get grilled for further information…but pull him up and he’ll gladly share more of what he knows! And Nightwing is all “ok” and pulls him up. Dumb. Lower the rope a few inches! Do I need to come in there personally and show you how it’s done, son?

Elsewhere, in a private room, Raya and “Dead” Raymond are going over a plan. Sounds like all the loose threads have been identified and tied up. Bryan Haly gets his circus back once Dick Grayson gets killed and murdered and dead (no longer breathing)…as long as Haly puts together a tribute show. Whatever that is. Raya is hesitant, but Raymond reminds her that the only reason Grayson is even hanging around the circus is because he was lured there in the first place. It’s definitely NOT because he cares about her or anything. She agrees and continues to go through with the plan, although she still has her reservations…

Later, Raya and Dick go on a stroll through Austin. Keep it weird! Lmao! He notices that she’s extra quiet tonight, but she claims that it’s because she’s been thinking a lot about his parents. That’s weird! Good job, Raya, on keeping the weirdness.

Anyway, they’ve been on her mind because she recently returned to the circus, too? And Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were the ones to actually teach her the trapeze, so all that flippin’ and floppin’ in the air stirs up some memories. They were like family to her! And Grayson, whose own family was like family to him, is like “yeah, I understand”.

Raya takes this opportunity to let him know that Bryan Haly is arranging a tribute show, so at least that was explained quickly.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

Are you sure that pamphlet doesn’t say “THE FUCKING GRAYSONS”?

Grayson is shocked! He has no idea why a circus full of people who want him murdered are being so nice to him! “Because we all think it’s important to remember and celebrate their lives, Dick…instead of mourning their deaths.” she explains, but Grayson is awfully suspicious. “How many people know about this? Am I the only one who didn’t know?” he asks, and there’s that frown I’ve been looking for! Frown check! It’s quite a frown. I love it. Of course, Raya insists that it was supposed to be a surprise, but now the only thing Grayson thinks is that he’s not gonna get murdered in front of everyone on a big stage. And that’s probably true. It makes me wish he didn’t know that. So we could see it happen. So we could see Dick Grayson get murdered.

That night, or the next night, or, I don’t know, a night 14 years later, Grayson announces to the troupe that he’s going to cancel the tribute show. Everyone glowers at him. Jimmy the Incredulous Clown asks why the fuck, and Grayson doesn’t have a good reason. Not really. He mumbles something about Saiko and dead original circus owners. Bryan “Drunk on Listerine” Haly accuses Grayson of wanting the circus to die, because why else would he cancel the only show in about 190 circus seasons that will actually draw a crowd of more than ten? There might be TWELVE at this show! “Hire whatever extra security you want, but this tribute is happening whether you show up in Gotham or not.” Haly demands, waving a finger at him. Grayson frowns.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

lol, I thought he said “you may own Haly’s dick” at first.

As they speak, police are investigating a crime scene in Gotham City: two extremely bloody corpses of a couple of gangbangers. Who cares, right? But they find a stick with a Nightwing symbol on it. This guy cavorts around town in nothing but a skimpy eye mask AND he carries weapons with his branding on it? What an absolute dingus of the highest order. Anyway, yeah, framed, blah blah blah, I hope he spends some time in jail awaiting his trial.

The circus arrives in Gotham City three days later, preparing for the big show. Grayson is on guard, barely paying attention to anything circus-related. He’s got the ol’ shifty-eyes, using his night-vision goggles to try to catch even the smallest of disturbances. The place is loaded up with motion sensors and, like, bear traps I guess. Nothing will ever be good enough, he has to stay vigilant! Rawr!

Grayson is alone in the stadium doing his cartwheels and his tumbles. He looks up at a large, old poster of the “Flying Graysons” showing he and his parents. “I must say, it’s a lovely picture of you all Master Richard.” says an unknown voice behind him. Why, it’s none other than Alfred McButler wearing his oversized street clothes! A striped polo tucked into dark khakis! A tan belt! A watch! Very sharp, sir!

They hug, and Grayson apologizes for him getting dragged to the performance. Alfred, of course, is happy to be there, but he was only stopping to say hi. Fuck the circus! But really, Bruce Wayne is missing and he can’t stay long, you know, just in case Bruce appears suddenly and needs a big soft pretzel at home or something.

Alfred asks Grayson how successful he has been securing the facility, and Grayson bitches that the place is huge so it sucks, thanks. Alfred reminds him not worry so hard about security that he doesn’t live in the moment and enjoy the (fake) tribute show for his own (murdered) parents. The parenthetical words are my own! Too bad it’s a fake fucking tribute show so that Grayson can get murdered like his parents! Oh well.

The house is packed. This is 2012, shouldn’t they all be home watching Game of Thrones and pouring ice buckets on their heads? Clowny Jimmy shoves Grayson out to the microphone to give a speech before the show starts, which he wasn’t expecting to do, so he stammers through some nonsense about “waah my murdered parents” and “waah my emotional insecurities” and “waah the circus is my family”. While he talks, we get a glimpse of Saiko leering down from way up high in the rafters. Also, Grayson’s phone (left backstage) alerts him of a security breach. So LOL to that.

Backstage, Raya, moved by his stupid speech, asks him if he really meant what he said.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

Just like my own parents, you’re all similarly dead to me!

I don’t know why Raya would have thought Grayson didn’t care about them, since he never in his life said to any of them stuff like “FUCK THE CIRCUS!” or “FUCK YOU CIRCUS BITCHES!” or “I HATED HALY AND HIS STUPID CIRCUS!” or “I’M NIGHTWING, AND ALSO I’M DICK GRAYSON THE MURDERER, AND ALSO, THE CIRCUS? ARE YOU PEOPLE HIGH?”

While Raya starts regretting every decision she’s made recently, Grayson finally notices his phone is going off like crazy and starts running away to get into Hero Mode. Without missing much of a beat, Nightwing swoops along near the ceiling, above the show, to where Saiko is biding his time. They start fighting immediately, as if thousands of people aren’t going to notice two guys dressed like dumbasses scuffling during a circus show.

During the fight, Saiko decides to unmask himself and reveal his identity as Raymond the Maybe-Dead. Nightwing is BESIDE HIMSELF WITH SHOCK. “Raymond…?! But you –” he starts, but Raymond finishes his sandwiches: “DIED? Exactly, Dick…”

So that clears it up once and for all! Time to wrap this puppy up and —

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #6

OH NO, HE’S GOING TO BLOW UP THE 92ND STREET BRIDGE!

OH, there’s still more going on. I see now! Raymond blames Grayson for his death and I don’t even know why. Was that explained? Raymond throws a knife at him that cuts through the rope that Nightwing’s been swingin’ around on like a chimp. He plummets, he shoots his Metroid grapply beam, he lives.

“They came from the shadows and took me, Dick…they kidnapped me…tortured me…they ruined me. They turned me into this. And it’s your and this godforsaken place’s FAULT.”

Raymond, at this point, as you can see, presses a button in his hand.

A giant boomy explosion happens on the ground! On the ground at the circus! Where all the people are!

Final Thoughts

Go cry about it more, Raymond.

There’s one issue of this story left. Did Raymond, who wanted to kill Dick Grayson, end up killed everyone else in the circus EXCEPT for Dick Grayson? Sounds like a fuck-up to me!

See you next time when I close this shit out!


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East of West, Issue #3

East of West, Issue #3 – “The Dragon”

* Part 3 of 15 of the The Apocalypse: Year One storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #3 – “The Dragon”! In the previous installment, the Three Horsemen systematically decapitate every single person in the presidential line of succession until they get to the Secretary of the Interior Antonia LeVay, who seems like a believer enough in the Message to satisfy their needs.

LeVay meets up with other members of a sort of secret Message society, who don’t seem too thrilled that this new woman is now among their ranks. A guy named Andrew Archibald Chamberlain, who looks like Colonel Sanders, leaves before the feast and returns to his Chief of Staff office in the Black Towers. There, Death is waiting to kill him, but Chamberlain’s a silver-tongued son of a bitch and he (possibly) convinces Death into partnering up with him.

He tells Death that there’s something in the Message that might interest him.

He tells Death that his wife is alive.

Death’s wife is a young Asian woman.

And remember, any of the unattributed quotes in italics you see represent the occasional full-page gray-text-on-white-background bumper pages sprinkled throughout the issues. Thanks for stickin’ around!

East of West, Issue #3 [June, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Dragon”

East of West, Issue #3

“Who is this woman, the one who conquered Death?”

I guess if anyone was going to conquer Death, it would be the old ball and chain! Ha! Zing! Right fellas! Heh heh! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em! Heh heh heh!

In New Shanghai, women are lined up wearing Samus Aran from Metroid suits. A flower is held by the young woman we saw in the previous issue, who also appears to be under arrest in some fashion? She has these weird metal wrist-glove restraints, plus a neck device that four people can drag her along with.

“A moment, Security Minister.” speaks up one of the Metroid women, “She should be checked before you speak with her. Your father ordered it.”

The Security Minister is annoyed, but allows it. Her “checking” involves an x-ray scan, which shows abnormal denser-than-usual bone structure in some areas from skeletal regeneration, but nothing separate from the on-record prosthetics. Dense bones, eh? Sounds useful!

The young woman is named Xiaolian, and she is the sister to the Security Minister. “Father has summoned us” the Security Minister tells Xiaolian, and Xiaolian responds with a bitter “It’s been 10 years, Hu. I expected more than that.”

Ah yes, Hu, House of Mao, Security Minister. She is involved with the Secret Message Society. Good, excellent, very well then.

East of West, Issue #3

The bible is the real Good News!

We are treated to what I can only assume is a flashback. Hu motors up on kickass floating hog, she’s dressed like Speed Racer! She yells for Xiaolian to come out of a dark hole. “I told you — all of you — not to look for me.” says Xiaolian, “What are you doing here, Hu?”

And Hu responds with some cult Message bullshit! I’m sure Xiaolian doesn’t want to hear none of that, but then three more nefarious individuals descend upon them from the rocks. They look like older versions of the Horsemen Children, and the Red One is wearing a getup like Carmen Sandiego! I wonder if she knows she looks like Carmen Sandiego. Yeesh.

Xiaolian is alarmed. “What have you done?” she asks her sister with shock. And Hu says “A righteous, righteous thing.”

And then something happens to Xiaolian. It’s hard to tell. It looks like she gets thoroughly OWNED by these three new guests who may or may not be who I think they are. There’s some swirling electric blue vortex. She doesn’t look happy about it, at any rate.

“She lasted longer than you will.”

“If you cannot trust your eyes as you look at the world, what good are they? I can give you something better.”

Junction. On the border of the Union and the Burning Plain. It looks like…if the Grand Canyon were U-shaped, and there was a dense urban landscape within the chasm. It’s weird.

In an empty bar, a bartender is wiping down the surfaces. CREEEAKK! “Ah! First customers of the day…”

The barkeep from Issue #1 welcomes his new guests to the Atlas. “Newly refurbished and exceptionally fine!” he beams. But once he realizes who’s in his bar, his face falls. “Shit.”

East of West, Issue #3

Here comes trouble! The Dirtiest Dudes in Town!

Yes, yes, those three lovable scamps! The blue one asks for a “manly man drink”, and the barkeep points out, and RIGHTFULLY SO, that he appears to be underage. To which Blue replies coldly “Oh, I’m ancient. Older than the world. And you know better, Hunter. Now, thirsty, thirsty…”

Yellow feels an aura about the place. Dots of light take shape to form the outline of Death. “Yes, no mistaking it is there?” says Red, “The man certainly leaves a mark.”

After Red asks in the barkeep’s direction to confirm that Death was, indeed, in the bar at some point. When the barkeep starts to gibber and deny Death’s presence, Red claims that he wasn’t talking to him. Then some unseen force tears the barkeep’s…um…”bad eye”…out of his socket. Which we did see happen before! So at least this isn’t completely vexing to me!

East of West, Issue #3

MC Eyeball spittin’ rhymes with immaculate flow.

“Yesss. Yesss. Much to fear. Mister bonesss wasss rattlin’ here.” says the eyeball in sp0o0o0oky red speech bubbles! Yellow looks to more dots of light to see that Death had two companions. Red gets right into the eyeball’s face and asks what the FUCK Death wanted. And then the eyeball, continuing to speak in flowery poetry, said that it didn’t know — couldn’t see.

At this point the barkeep leaps onto the bar and grabs the little mutherfuckin’ eyeball. “Gotcha!”

“Do we need to start cutting off body parts, or are you going to tell us what you gave to him?” Blue not so much warns as he plans. Yellow and Red like the idea anyway. “Honestly, we could use the practice.”

The barkeep stammers as he shoves the squelchy octopus of an eyeball back into his socket. He tells them that he couldn’t give Death what he really wanted, so he gave him a list of names of the Chosen. The Horsemen now understand what happened to the former President. So now, knowing Death, he’s going to carry out at least three further moves: a) kill everyone on the list, b) get back what the three of them stole from him (still unnamed, as far as I, Sir Tom, am aware), and c) find his wife. Now it’s just about knowing what’s next…

If only there was a rather…helpful…barkeepery barkeep of a man on the premises…

And the barkeep is like “AH BUH UHHH YEAH DON’T KILL ME, I’M VERY HELPFUL. I’M A HELPFUL BOY.”, and he pulls a lever shaped like a bottle that opens up a hole in the floor. Out of the hole comes a rather large hologram of the Earth. And then he points at the Earth and mumbles some stuff about trackers and pathfinders. He is the Pathfinder, and the Pathfinder stores all the data that the scouts collect over the world. This sounds, to me, like a windbag way of telling the positively cherubic Horsemen that he’s too useful to be killed.

Also, he can track anyone on the planet. Right here. Right now. Boom.

East of West, Issue #3

The same reason all those pedophiles travel thousands of miles just to get chewed out by Dateline‘s Chris Hansen!

Death’s location is easy to spot. He’s in New Shanghai. WIFE IT IS! And, as it happens, New Shanghai appears to be where, like, Tennessee is or something. United States. Interesting.

The Horsemen are certainly confused as to why Death is bothering with this woman right now. Of the three tasks, this one seems the least important. BUT, Death is a curious entity, isn’t he. Mmmhmm, aha. Even Wolf and Crow are fascinated by Death’s motivation to find his wife, speaking to each other about how powerful love is. “It makes the old new. Makes dead things live. Love makes you into something better.”

Then Wolf says something that implies that Wolf loves Crow, but then it’s not brought up again. “It’s the reason a wolf would chase a crow, even knowing he can’t fly…and she don’t ever need to touch the ground.”

At the Imperial Palace of New Shanghai, the Mao-in-Charge in 2064, “Premier Mao”, welcomes his daughters. And “welcomes” is too strong a word. He kind of just sneers at them. Hu and Xiaolian stand rather sullenly while he talks. He tells Hu to remove Xiaolian’s chains, and Xiaolian shoots a smug smirk at her.

“If you think it wise, father,” Hu begins to argue, making a case that isolation in the garden for years may have made her positively feral! And Premier Mao agrees with that: “which is why I try to visit her garden as often as I can.”

Shocked! SHOCKED! Hu is shocked about this revelation! Then Daddy Mao starts fawning over her delinquent daughter. “We wouldn’t want your sister becoming some sad and broken thing,” he coos, lightly touching Xiaolian’s cheek. Hu is fucking FROWNING. Xiaolian continues her smug glances. “Your mercy and your kindness are staggering, father.”

East of West, Issue #3

Don’t make me finish the job I should have started with you years ago! All those times I could’ve choked you out in your crib! ALL THOSE TIMES!!!

And then he starts choking her. TABLES HAVE TURNED! Now who’s smirking? And then, this scrawny 120-pound man, he bursts about 40 forehead veins in his efforts to lift her off the ground by her neck. He doesn’t have time for her malarkey today!

“Your husband approaches the imperial city.”

And indeed he is, blowing up bridges an’ shit. For whatever reason.

“Death is coming for us all,” Daddy Mao warns, posing overdramatically. And then he walks away as he lets them know that both their actions have really FUBARed the natural order to the world. Hu, with her ties to the weird Message Cult, and Xiaolian, with her ties to Death by marriage and what the hell is all that about anyway?

Daddy Mao intervened; he had spoken to Hu’s Weird Message Cult ages ago and worked out an agreement to keep Xiaolian safe and untraceable, even by Death himself. And that’s why she still lives to this day. So maybe a little THANK YOU wouldn’t be so goddamned hard??

Now, they await Death’s arrival. Mao sends one of his knights, all suited up like a cartoon knight, to go attempt one last appeal. “I ask for reason and not more madness. And if he rejects this, tell him what waits for him here.” With this message, the knight clangs and rattles away on his similarly clangly, rattly motorcycle-horse!

“Tell Death we will not be the only ones that die here today.” Mao promises, as we see a view of his army numbering in the thousands. Tens of thousands!

East of West, Issue #3

And, if you have time, you can head on over to the 2064 AMA Motocross Championship finals!

This knight makes it to the blown-up bridge, where a dying soldier tells him to run back. Steadfast, though, in his pursuit, The Knight carries on! He approaches Wolf and Crow and tells them that Mao seeks a parley! Crow is like “fat chance, nerd”, which leaves Mr. Knight no choice but to demand that they leeeeeaaavveee heeerreee nooooowww OOOooOoooOoOoOO.

The knight starts describing the large army that awaits. The prose is very purple, describing the bridge blockade “as stars to the sun” and the imperial “armies of heaven”.

Death approaches, saying “GOOD.” More fun to kill a bunch of people, right? Death tells the knight to run back to Mao, they’re not taking his deal.

“The Great Wall is coming down…and my judgement will follow shortly.”

Final Thoughts

Death is gonna fuck up Mao’s army! Ain’t no ’bout a-doubt it!


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Sucky Funnies for February 27, 2022

Things I’m looking forward to as I start the new week: the beginning of March, the end of February, the stupidly large pot of chili I’m going to make today, and reading more morons from my country attempt to be Russia/Ukraine geopolitical experts on Twitter.

BUT, for now, here are three more Sunday strips to kick off the week.

Garfield

Garfield - February 27, 2022

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Garfield has been tormenting Jon Arbuckle for 44 years now, which completely ridiculous if you stop and think about that. You would think, by now, that Jon could possibly get a handle on some of this shit. This is an easy one! Buy a mini-fridge and put a padlock on it. OR, even better, drive the cat out to the middle of Nebraska and dump him on the side of the road.

But, unfortunately, Jon Arbuckle is pushing 80 years old and his faculties just aren’t there anymore. Plus, he’s been gaslighted by his cat for so many decades now that he doesn’t even know which way is up anymore! I do like the spontaneous scraggly beard-hair growth on Jon after yelling. He should really be a wizard by now.

Marmaduke

Marmaduke - February 27, 2022

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As a parallel to Jon’s situation with Garfield, Marmaduke’s owners are similarly held captive by their 400-lb Great Dane. However, Marmaduke is far more diabolical and abusive than Garfield could ever hope to be. At this point the only solution is a bullet through the dog’s fucking brainpan, but that won’t work anymore either. It’s too late for that. Marmaduke hid all the guns.

In supremely stupid fashion, Phil pushes his luck and attempts to play a prank on his less-than-faithful dog. Doomed to repeat history time and time again, Phil learns a harsh lesson. Another organ will be taken from him while he sleeps tonight. You’re running out of non-vital organs quickly, Phil. Marmaduke will soon have to move on to the other ones.

Mary Worth

Mary Worth - February 27, 2022

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I’m not a 65-year-old cat lady, so I don’t keep up with the soap opera Sunday Funnies like Rex Morgan, M.D., Judge Parker, and, of course, meddling old Mary Worth. The benefit of these serial story-based strips is that you can jump into one once in a while, lacking all context, and it turns out to be WAY funnier than any of the joke-based offerings on the rest of the Funnies page!

I don’t know who Toby is exactly, but I imagine she’s either one of Mary’s many horrible grandchildren or, barring that, Just Some Lady Mary Knows. I picture that Toby has been unwittingly leading one of her students on for months now, slowly developing in him an infatuation so unhealthy that he’s probably considering shooting the President of the United States to try to win her over. He has recently finished wallpapering his bedroom pictures of her, all photographed in secret.

Here’s hoping Mary steps in to put a stop to this before Toby’s body is found in a duffel bag in a subway station bathroom; his brains are blown out all over mirror and sink.


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Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11 – “Dangerous (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Dangerous storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #11 – “Dangerous (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, the Danger Room computer brain manifests itself as Robot Medusa (my name for it) and starts fighting the X-Men team. She kicks their asses, and that’s putting it lightly. They all seem dead! Pryde and Wolverine get impaled for the love of Cornelius! Now she wants to go after her creator, Professor Xavier.

Meanwhile, at S.W.O.R.D., Agent Brand catches wind of the catastrophe going on at the school. Their mole is trapped in the Danger Room with the other kids. After talking with Ord to confirm that Robot Medusa isn’t one of his own cronies, she decides to let the situation play out because, hey, less work for her!

How are these X-Mens gonna come back from the dead, huh? Huh? Huh?

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11 [July, 2005]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Dangerous (Part 5)”

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

A “previously on…” recap page fills me on two points I either missed or didn’t know at all.

First of all, the very act of Wing committing suicide caused Professor Xavier’s only Danger Room failsafe to be destroyed. Why, exactly? I dunno!

Second of all, Professor Xavier has been living in the “ruins of Genosha” for the past year. I don’t know what or where Genosha is, or why the everliving shit he would be living there for the past year, but perhaps he knew this Danger Room was going to kill him so he rolled away on his wheelchair as fast as his little arms could? He rolled all the way to Genosha!

“You don’t have to do this.” pleads Professor X, brow furrowed, obviously referring to the killing of him that is going to inevitably happen. Robot Medusa says “fuck yeah I do, this is the only thing I was made for, smarty man”. She’s already riding the self-driving jet, the one that crashed into Xavier’s Playboy Mansion. She’s already flying over Genosha. She’s already taking a majestic swan dive off the jet.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

SWAN DIIIIIIIVE!!

She bullets down to the ground and lands like a heat-seeking missile right the fuck in front of Professor X. Like, literally 10 yards away. “This ends in death, Father.” she says, or thinks, or whatever. “I know.” he answers. And she looks. And the man in the chair appears to be some dead corpse impostor.

Out of nowhere, Professor Xavier, with his lame legs, is driving a HUGE semi-truck tractor! He drives right through a wall. He drives right into Robot Medusa. He drives her into many brick walls. She looks frightened. You almost feel bad for her.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

Floor it, sir! Pedal to the metal! Get those legs working for ya!

“What did you think, Child? That I’d save myself with reason? With mind games? You took out my X-Men. Any — or all of them — could be dead.” Professor Xavier is very calmly explaining himself telepathically as he drives this massive vehicle all over the damn desert. He brakes hard in front of a large (still active) high voltage switchyard. Robot Medusa is flung onto a pile of high voltage wires and starts getting fried!

“Recalibrate…reroute…kill this @#$%ing cripple.” she thinks, as her circuitry goes haywire.

Back at Professor Sexaviar’s Sex Mansion for the Sexually Adventurous, the X-Men team are in the sick bay. Everyone honestly seems fine except for Scott and Kitty, who are unconscious in their beds. Peter is sitting up clutching his abdomen. Logan and Emma are trying to siphon out as much healing power as they can from a Golden Boy Healer guy. He’s writhing on the ground, tapped out. There’s only one other Healer on the premises, and he’s in shock. No students are dead, except for that Wing sad-sack. Logan seems to think there’s something else going on, it all seems so anticlimactic.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

That’s a nice roundabout way of admitting that you guys are sucking at your jobs right now.

Kitty wakes up. “Father…” she breathes. “It’s about the Father. We don’t matter.” she tells them. This has never been about them, this has always been about the Great Bald Crippled One. “She has to kill the professor.” We see Scott is also sitting up, so that’s everyone! All the X-Men are perfectly fine! It takes more than a ton of concrete or a large, sharp spear through the gut to take down any of these mutants! Geez, someone should stop them before it gets out of hand. If only some lab somewhere started developing a cure…

The team doesn’t think that even Robot Medusa could find the Professor, but Kitty (who didn’t know where he was) guesses correctly. And the “oh shit” on everyone’s faces, it was quite palpable! A real palpable “oh shit” right here. When asked how she knew, Kitty tells them about how Zombie Wing whisked her and students away to many exotic locales, including Genosha. “I remember the place pretty well.” she says, head hanging down. Looks like someday I’ll be stumbling upon the “Kitty Pryde is stranded in the desert for reasons” X-Men story arc!

Beast is going to check up on all those tasty children, you know, make sure they’re still all right, and, uh, tender. The team is going to figure out how to get their injured asses to Genosha.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

Shock! Shock! Shock! Watch the monkey get hurt!

Back in the high voltage fun park, Robot Medusa’s resources are depleting. She’s trying her damnedest to redirect the electrical current and overload the grid, which she does, and it explodes into a nice boomy boom.

“Now, my Child…we talk.” says Professor Xavier, and now he and Robot Medusa are in the Matrix facing each other in cozy matching armchairs!

In the co-ed locker rooms, Peter approaches Kitty and tells her that he doesn’t think she should go with them. She’s already all geared up, OF COURSE she’s going, Peter, you awful MAN. “We can do without you.” Peter tells her in that cold, unsympathetic Russian way! She is a bit salty and sulky, and tells him that she’s an X-Men like the rest of them! She gets paranoid, thinking that Peter doesn’t want her around anymore, and launches into a rant about how he came back from the dead and now they’re supposed to pretend that he didn’t come back from the dead! And-and-and-and-and-and furthermore!…uh!…he smells! Lives are at stake here, and she’s going to Genosha! And that’s final! Grr!

Peter is bewildered but charmed, and comments that she hasn’t changed much. Peter is still trying to come to terms with being back on Earth and not being dead and all that. Apparently something happened in Genosha recently, millions of people died. I should check out what series and issues that story comes from. Kitty Pryde’s family was there when whatever happened happened. And she’s sad. And he gets that. And that’s why he thinks she should stay, it might be too much of an emotional hurricane.

She apologizes for flying off the handle at Peter, and still stubbornly wants to go. Peter tells her the train is leaving in ten minutes! Shake a leg! And also, he wants her around plenty! Around his dick, that is! Aw shucks.

Back in the Matrix, where Robo Meduso and Captain Xavier of the Starship Armchair are primed for a friendly chat, the robot snidely comments on Xavier’s use of mind games after all. It’s like, why hit me with a fucking truck, sir? Ah, because it buys Xavier time while Robo fully reboots after electrocution-related setbacks. He calls her a mutant, which sends her into a frenzied fit of insecure rage! “DON’T CALL ME THAT! I’M NOT A MUTANT! I’M NOT NATURAL AT ALL! MUTANTS ARE THE OPPRESSORS!” she bellows while taking a flying leap at him. “Not natural, and yet you take human form.” observes Professor XXX. She argues that he has his limitations just like she does, except she chooses them and he’s stuck with his. “In the end, though, aren’t we all? Our limitations? If none of us had limitations, what would God do with his time?” he argues back.

And I guess this did the trick. She crumples to the ground, robot head clean off her robot shoulders, and starts sparking. Xavier won with one sentence? Is this like when Daredevil got a guy to kill himself just by making fun of his set design abilities? These three-issue villain buildups sure do end anticlimactically.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

A big mushroom cloud? When is it ever good?

At this point the X-Men are flying in a jet and are very near Genosha. Way in the distance they see a mushrooming cloud of smoke and fire emanating from the ruins. They try to get a read on the Professor’s location and/or aliveness, but it’s not working. The team flies over and parachutes down in their cute “X” parachutes.

Xavier reveals that he was able to tell the jet a fake location of their whereabouts, and it had crashed elsewhere in the ruins. Not the X-Men’s jet, the jet Robot Medusa arrived on. The X-Men’s jet is going to autodrive somewhere else now. Maybe it will go on an autojoyride.

Medusa asks Xavier if the X-Men know the real Professor Xavier. He says that he’d like to think that Jean Grey did. He throws her head behind him, and Colossus catches it. “Now make like she’s a grapefruit.” Wolverine tells him, and Colossus is ready to oblige…

“X-MEN. WELCOME TO GENOSHA. MUTANT PARADISE. MUTANT GRAVEYARD. GENOCIDE. A WILD SENTINEL KILLED SIXTEEN MUTANTS HERE IN A LITTLE LESS THAN AN HOUR…AND NOBODY WONDERED WHERE IT WENT?”

The robotic voice is not Medusa. This one is coming from the nearby ocean. And an enormous robot bug rises out of the waters like some robot bug Godzilla. It’s four times taller than the tallest standing Genosha skyscraper! It’s as big as the dickens, I tells ya!

It calls Medusa “Mother”. Medusa says “Welcome, my Child.”

The team are all looking up in awe. Only Beast is able to muster any words:

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #11

Let’s just quit the X-Man thing, ok? Sound good? I’m pretty proficient at Word and Excel.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, Beast, I have some thoughts! Just have Professor X mention God a couple times, that’ll do it! Stay tuned, the conclusion to the storyline is nigh! Just like Bill the Science Gigh!


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Viibryd Nightmares!

Viibryd Pills

The Devil exists and he comes in little, easy-to-swallow tablets.

Nothing warms up a potential audience quite like talking about comic books AND mood disorders, I always say. Next I’ll be talking about my collection of Vegeta corn cob holders and how much of a “nice guy” I am to all the ladies.

For whatever reason, though, against my better judgment and my insistence that I avoid writing too much about my personal life, I feel compelled to talk about my current adventures with vilazodone, code-named Viibryd. During my struggles of coping with depression, major crippling anxiety, and motivation to do all the shit I gotta do on a daily basis, it happens to be the EIGHTH psychotropic medication I’m trying since I started down this particular path over a year ago. Oh, there have been many fun twists and turns along the way! I don’t even want to list the other seven medications, because even if I could remember half the 24 letters involved per drug name, there’s nothing I can even really write home about with any of them at the end of the day. “Oh wow, Wellbutrin made me wake up in a two-inch-deep puddle of sweat every night at 3am, forcing me to swim to the bathroom to get a drink of water and struggle out of my sopping wet, swamp-ass t-shirt”. Yawn.

Viibryd’s been great, though. Viibryd helped me survive the Christmas season by allowing me to float through dinner in a complete foggy haze while I focused on how cool Rimfrost’s music sounded in my woodsy suburban Michigan childhood home! Viibryd made it possible for me to bake a cinnamon apple and pear crisp two weekends in a row (and then made it possible for me to subsequently eat more than 2/3 of each crisp in a span of three days apiece, resulting in a noticeably increasing plumpness which started drawing the mockery of the neighborhood children while I shovel the snow in my crop top).

Viibryd hasn’t been peachy with respect to the strange sleep-related side effects. It took me a while to figure out that it was the medication’s fault in the first place, since I initially chalked it up to heightening social anxiety during the tense holiday season. Take the medicine without food? BAM! Increased heart rate at bedtime. Take the medicine a couple hours off schedule? BOOM! Restless 3am tossing and turning in sweat-soaked haze. Accidentally miss a dose? KAPOW! Psychotic locked-in half-aware dreams about committing felonies and going to below-ground shopping mall prisons! Here are three of my more eventful episodes:

Viibryd Nightmare #1!

Spooky Haunt!

I mean, it wasn’t exactly like this, but the vibes are right.

I had this pleasant little night terror about one week after starting the medication while staying at my parents’ house during Christmas. Before sleep even occurred, the sensation of intermittent synapses firing across my eyeballs kept me groggily alarmed, a sensation that I would soon learn to be the telltale sign of a shitty night ahead! Again, I felt overstimulated from the day and I reasoned it to be extra adrenaline buzzing through my stupid brain.

This soon morphed into a strange, half-asleep state where I could feel myself lying in the bed while my mind felt like it was being rocked in a ship. Soon, I felt like I was floating across the bedroom near the floor, trudging through a bog of swirling darkness and eerie disembodied voices. I could feel myself attempt to move my arms, but they wouldn’t budge. My mind reached the door of the bedroom before another firing synapse sent me bolting upright in my bed! Merry Christmas!

Viibryd Nightmare #2!

Ebenezer Scrooge

Don’t try to change me, ghosts! I’m a strong, independent black woman who don’t need no man.

Having successfully navigated through the first nightmare evening, I continued my Christmas vacation undisturbed by another similar incident. Must’ve been an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato! There was more gravy than grave about it, whatever it was! I let my guard down and wrote off the first night as a total fluke.

Nightmare #2 didn’t occur until the night of February 6th, which I remember distinctly because I was trying to listen to the new Black Country, New Road album! Synapses fired again, which put me in a rather salty mood as I tried to enjoy the dizzying highs of “Chaos Space Marine” unfettered by pesky moments of psychosis! Eventually, I called it quits on trying to enjoy the record and settled in to sleep.

Repeatedly, at around 12:30am, I was hearing a big SQUISH that would only fall silent every time I lifted my head to look at the clock. Once my head was back on the pillow, it was SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH. Like squeezing a wet sponge. I tried shifting positions, I tried keeping my head up for about a minute, I tried everything except actually leaving the bed…because I couldn’t. It felt like some force was keeping me there. I started to realize that I was dreaming, but that didn’t help. SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH. My dream-self was convinced that this dream-sponge was dream-squishing a message to me, but I never did figure out what it was supposed to be. I also never figured out why it stopped when I looked at the clock. Were the clock and the dream-sponge enemies? Was the clock the predator, the dream-sponge the prey, and my focus on the clock was the means to give away its position, setting it up to be pounced upon and picked apart savagely by the nimble hands of the clock? To this day I do not know! Perhaps more Viibryd-induced dream disturbances will unlock more pieces of this puzzle, but I am far from ready to continue this particular adventure.

Viibryd Nightmare #3!

The Big Scary Dark Prison

It’s like that movie where Tom Hanks couldn’t pee without crying.

This one was the bad shit. This was the one that convinced me to reconsider my medication decisions. The hallucinations and physiological effects were so disruptive on the evening of February 10th that I had to take the day off from work the next morning and continue sleeping for seven more hours, until about 1:30pm. Even at that time I wasn’t rested, and I didn’t feel like myself again until the NEXT morning. I felt like I was losing my mind. I felt like I was developing a serious psychological disorder. I even turned to the Internet to seek similar anecdotal evidence, and I was relieved to find it!

I mentioned this one earlier, the shopping mall prison nightmare. The dream involved being in a building that reminded me of a ’90s-era video game overworld area. Like in Super Mario 64 or Diddy Kong Racing or any of the PS1 Spyro games where you can run around looking for portals to the levels. It was also like a shopping mall, but it was also like a trailer park! It was very strange.

Eventually, like the previous nightmare, I became aware that I was dreaming. In this particular instance, I was presented with an opportunity to show my little dream social circle that I could prove that I was dreaming! So what did I do? I murdered one of them!

Nothing major. I think I just bopped one on the head Mario-style. Well, the rest didn’t take kindly to my blasé act of homicide and, without any perceived lapse of dream time to speak of, the Dream Police arrived to the scene!

Next thing I know, I’m trapped in the basement of the building. It looked like a sad shopping mall with vacant store fronts and dirty floor tiles. From this point forward the dream lasted forever. I tried to will myself awake as I wandered the endless, lonely, unkept hallways, but it wasn’t working. The dream kept dragging on and on, stretching to what seemed like hours. In reality, it’s possible that only mere minutes were actually passing. The dream took long enough that I started thinking, with my dream-mind, that I was either stuck forever in this hellhole, or that I was literally developing a serious mental disorder.

Then I woke up! And I was groggy! And then I stumbled and grumbled my way through seeing the rest of my family off to work/school and I went the fuck back to bed.

Do I Recommend Viibryd??

Absolutely, man, it’s a real trip having strange fever dreams if you miss a dose by six minutes! If you have even a shred of anxiety that you’re looking to alleviate, Viibryd is perfect to show you how limitless a person’s capacity for feelings of dread can really be! 5 stars.

Do I Recommend Chocolate Fudge M&Ms?

Hell yes. This stuff is better than Viibryd at relieving anxiety and/or depression, but only if you eat 30 bags in one sitting.


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