Genesis Owusu, Part Chimp, and Julien Baker

Welcome to December. I have three albums that came out all the way back in the first half of 2021! Better late than never, I always say. I ALWAYS say it. You know me.

Genesis Owusu – Smiling with No Teeth
(March 5, 2021)

I’ve been wanting to write this one up for a while, but it’s been intimidating. I don’t think I can do this record justice it deserves. Kofi Owusu-Ansah is Genesis Owusu; he was born in Ghana and moved to Australia as a toddler. Let Genesis Owusu be the first Ghanian-Australian hip-hop artist I review on this site. Here’s to many more!

Hip-hop, though, just scratches the surface. Genesis Owusu’s debut, Smiling with No Teeth, is a stunning tapestry of colorful styles. “Drown”, for instance, is basically a bouncy new wave tune with bubbly synths and a catchy chorus. Think Duran Duran, only…uh, less nasally. The first group I think of with “The Other Black Dog” is That Handsome Devil: an odd mixture of rap, scuzzy rockabilly bar rock, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins-style horror blues. “Gold Chain” is straight soul/R’n’B EXCEPT for the thin layer of experimental breakbeat power electronics. “Black Dogs!” is nothing but a good, fast-paced alt rock song. And there’s oh-so-much more. At 54 minutes it tends toward overlong, but I think the pacing and sequencing keep things interesting throughout. Everything is delightfully eccentric, and you can’t turn a corner without bumping into a fuckin’ hook! Hooks! Hooks everywhere! Don’t be a fish and listen to this album!

Speaking of fish, this album mentions black dogs a lot. Sorry, bad segue. During an interview with Atwood Magazine, Owusu-Ansah explains that Smiling with No Teeth is split into two conceptual halves: the first, upbeat half “deals with the internal black dog, the depression”, and the second black dog, a more confrontational black dog, “deals with the brunt of racism and oppression and it’s angry”.

Aren’t we all depressed and angry, deep down? I sure am! This album is fantastic, take out your your dentures and listen to it as intended.

Early Verdict:

Part Chimp – Drool
(June 4, 2021)

I used to get Part Chimp mixed up with Chimp Spanner, which is dumb and unfair because Chimp Spanner is a vastly different space-y jazzy prog metal djent project and Part Chimp just knocks their dicks against chunks of concrete and records the results. I like Part Chimp better! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? You don’t know me well enough yet.

Yes, I’ll never get the two mixed up anymore because I finally listened to Part Chimp proper this year with their sixth album Drool. This is my kind of pure post-hardcore with no frills, no modern toned-down indie rock sensibilities, just slabs upon sludgy slabs of distorted, down-tuned guitars, noisy electronic buzzing, dirgy dense riffing, and vocals low in the mix, buried under 15 feet of rubble. It’s the kind of record you show people as proof that rock music can be heavier than the heaviest of heavy metals! This is the real stuff, the stuff that evokes strong memories of the salad days of heavy post-hardcore groups: Jesus Lizard/Scratch Acid, Shellac, Unwound, Unsane, Polvo, early Butthole Surfers, early Melvins. All that and more, baby. Throw some other stuff in there too! Swans. Neurosis, occasionally. The first half of “Dirty Birdy” sounds just like the sparse black hole of unsettling tension you would hear from Confusion is Sex-era Sonic Youth.

Now, Part Chimp has been around SINCE the ’90s, or at least prior fledging incarnations have existed since the ’90s, so this ain’t throwback music. From what I’m gathering, reading about the rest of their history, the band has kept their formula since their inception. That’s good news for me, because the formula isn’t very formulaic anyway. It just means that they spend a lot of time between albums making things right. Go ahead and listen, in between all the dumb loudness there are plenty of layers and careful nuance. That kind of attention to detail is my heroin.

Anyway, while I’m not totally gaga over Drool right now, I suspect I’ll be singing many high, out-of-tune praises for Part Chimp twenty years too late once I get a few more of their albums under my belt. EARLY VERDIT: SMILE!

Early Verdict:

Julien Baker – Little Oblivions
(February 26, 2021)

Julien Baker initially caught my attention a couple years back because she’s a cute-looking dork with cool tattoos. Her first two albums didn’t grab me because, typically, I’m a hard sell for slow, mostly acoustic, sorrowful, singer-songwriter indie rock in any case. Old, young, man, woman, it’s tough for me to connect with it unless the vocalist is super distinctive (John Darnielle, the Mountain Goats) or the subject matter is super acerbic and pointed, coming from a place of anger or exasperation (Stella Donnelly). For someone like Julien Baker, I need to actually pay full attention to the lyrics. Shocking, I know. Lyrics are, like, half of music, man.

And yes, Baker’s strength is in her lyrics. Little Oblivions is peppered with musical surprises: the lazy, twangy guitar of “Heatwave”; the melancholy, yet strong, power chords of “Ringside”; the military march snare-driven progression of “Faith Healer”. It’s all nice, but the real raison d’être of Baker’s music is the intensely distressing, emotional agony of the subject matter and the presentation. I mean, you don’t really hear it in her voice, but lyrically, painful topics like drug addiction, depression, and self-loathing are handled with naked honesty. She’s the tragic character in her own story. “Five days out from the initial event/It takes two kinds of pills to unclench my fists/It’s too kind of you to say you can help/But there’s no one around who can save me from myself“. You know, that kind of thing!

So what makes her stand out? It’s the combination of everything. Sad-sack folk blues lyrics, dissonance with the somewhat cheerful melodies and vocal delivery, the pretty arrangements and instruments, the catchy chords, she’s not doing anything particularly unique if you isolate the components. But put it all together, and the fact that her storytelling is hella captivating, it’s a winning combination. She’s good at what she does.

Little Oblivions expands the instrumental color palette further than Julian Baker’s first two studio albums. If you’re looking to dig in, this is a fantastic place to start before working backwards.

Early Verdict:

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “The Devil’s Demon”

* Part 7 of 8 of the Guardian Devil storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #7 (Legacy Issue #387) – “The Devil’s Demon”! In the previous installment, Murdock is grieving over the loss of Karen Page, but continues his commitment to Daredevilling after an old memory resurfaces of her telling him never to stop, not even if they have a baby together.

After some sleuthing, Daredevil makes his way to Old Man Macabes’ building, which is armed to the teeth with guard ninjas and spooky special effects. Thwarting all of it, including his fake guardian angel Baals-to-the-Wall, he finds himself at Macabes’ command center! Macabes is revealed to be some villain in a costume! Surprise! I’ll find out his name in this issue. Maybe. But he’s a trickster! I don’t know what to believe anymore!

Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #7 (Legacy Issue #387) [May, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Devil’s Demon”

“This is the denouement, dear listener”, our mysterious (to me, perhaps) villain begins, letting us all know that the climax to the story has already happened, there’s going to be no more action, and the rest of this storyline is going to a nice cool down. Or is it? I don’t think so! Some shit’s still going to go down, but since another 20,000 comics have been made since 1999 featuring Daredevil…I’m thinking he’s going to be all right in the end here.

Daredevil says “FUCK NO MORE ACTION, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS JABRONI TALK!” and he slugs the villain right in the dome. Literally. He just has a big white dome head. Daredevil’s punch makes a POOMP sound! He hits him again with a DOOP! He’s on his hands and knees now, reminding Daredevil about the baby. “Oh, yeah, shit,” Daredevil thinks. Daredevil demands the baby’s whereabouts, but, of course, the villain ain’t talkin’. Not yet.

After the villain (I’m just gonna call him Fake Macabes until I know his real name) knocks Daredevil to the floor and gets up, he lets him know that the baby is safe and secure in a soundproof chamber somewhere in the building, contained in such a way to make it impossible for Daredevil to detect with his super-hearing. Maybe if the baby poops he’ll detect THAT with super-sniffing? Let’s hope so! Let’s hope the baby poops!

Fake Macabes drones on. Apparently, the baby is contained in a vacuum, which means there’s no oxygen in the chamber. So, uh, the baby is going to be dead soon anyway. “Waste any more of my time, and you sign the infant’s death warrant.” says Fake Macabes coldly. Daredevil backs down, unlike Tom Petty, who tends to stand his ground and not back down. But he’s dead now, so why are we talking about Tom Petty? Stop talking about Tom Petty.

I’ve affixed the child to a time-sensitive bomb! There are precisely 450,000 milliseconds until its explosion! You have wasted precious picoseconds! Here, let me get you a calculator.

Fake Macabes tells our impish little Daredevil that the baby will live if he keeps his goddamn cool from here on out. Daredevil frowns. He frowns a lot. Faux Macabes opens a chamber door and asks his companion to accompany him to tie up some loose plot threads. I like the cut of this guy’s jib! Very nice jib cut with this one.

Daredevil is seething about his lack of control in this situation. He can’t sense the baby whatsoever, and concedes to the reality that he has to go along with whatever False Macabes wants to do until he can regain control. Grumbling and mumbling, he tags along.

Fake Macabes assumes that Daredevil doesn’t know who he is, which at least lets ME off the hook here as well. Whew! Phony Macabes starts going on a tangent about filmmakers and asks the deviled one if he’s heard of Quentin Beck. The frowny, sulky silence means no. Then Mock Macabes starts verbally sucking Quentin Beck off, lauding his prowess on “creating incredible and intimidating three-dimensional illusions” while talking shit about the terrible special effects of Jaws, Star Wars, and Terminator from their, uh, respective filmmakers. So, I see Kevin Smith is shoehorning in his film work knowledge here, good for him. Not at all subtle.

Imposter Macabes is talking about Quentin Beck so much, in fact, that I’m guessing that this fucker is none other than Beck himself. He should’ve just named him Kevin Smith! Ok, ok, I already poked fun at the lack of subtlety. Quentin Beck might not even be Smith’s invention, I’ll let it go.

Ok, he admits it. He’s Quentin Beck. That too bad, I had about 100 more synonyms for “fake” I could use. So Beck discusses his personal backstory: his own innovative techniques were the prototypes for Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, and others, in their own special effects techniques for their multi-million-dollar blockbusters. And no one has ever thought to credit Quentin Beck with any of it, ever.

“Experimentation with untested latexes”. Pfft, not until you’re older, son! You’re grounded!

I’m starting to wonder what any of this has to do with an antichrist and the apocalypse…

So it’s revealed that Beck has no interest in using special effects in movies. He practices his craft in the real world. Beck insists that his motives are positive and altruistic, intended to show the world his version of beauty, but time and time again he gets attacked and defeated by that pesky, runty little superhero Spider-Man! And not only that, but somehow he keeps getting lumped in with the Sinister Six by accident! What a way to live! That’s not fair!

So yeah, nevermind, I probably should know who this is! Sorry.

BUT, digressions, digressions! This isn’t about Spider-Man, oho, not at all. “I’m sure you’re far more interested in why I became your bad egg.” he tells Daredevil, who is probably actually legitimately interested, finally, yes. “It all starts with a visit to the Ravencroft Physician…” ohhh maaaaan, BOOOOOOORRRING!! Boring! NO! That’s not at ALL part of it and you know it, you windbag from Heck!

OK, it all starts with a visit to the Ravencroft Physician. Quentin Beck is possibly sick with cancer. The prognosis looks no bueno. Quentin Beck is like Walter White, and all those chemicals he’s been around for years, experimenting with synthetics, have taken its toll on his body. Inoperable brain tumor, inoperable lung cancer! With a year to live, the hospital declared him sane, no longer a menace to society, and discharged Beck. Back at home, Beck destroys his years of work. Masks, costumes, props. AHA! MYSTERIO! He’s Mysterio!

*the collective “duh” uttered by the rest of the world is deafening*

During his grieving, he decides he’s not going to let some stupid fucking cancer end his life! He’s going to fight Spider-Man to the death! SOMEONE’S death, at least. But, as it turns out, according to the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man’s bad now? It’s not clear, perhaps something is going on in the Spider-Man books at this point and time? No matter, Beck is downtrodden about this news. Why bother fighting a guy who’s also bad? Fuck that shit!

Beck was ready to give up, but then he remembered another superhero he could try to fight instead.

Finally, my life regained meaning after I realized I could waste years attempting to get you involved for some reason.

Beck liked that Daredevil wasn’t really known much outside of Hell’s Kitchen, let alone Manhattan, let alone New York City! Kinda like a second-rate superhero. Just like Mysterio was a second-rate villain! Perfect!

And then it turns out that Murdock was right about Wilson Fisk the Fatty Fat Kingpin all this time. He WAS involved! Mysterio was able to meet up with this bald, fat piece of shit and strike a deal. Mysterio gets all the info that Fisk knows about Daredevil, and Fisk gets a cool $1,000,000 which is probably just a drop in his fat bucket (but I guess he had “lost his empire” recently).. “He’ll beat you within an inch of your bubble-headed life.” Fisk tells him matter-of-factly. And once Mysterio tells him that he doesn’t want to actually fight him, he wants to drive him insane, Fisk was intrigued. And he agreed. And he told him everything he knew. EVERYTHING. A full page spread of loved ones, friends, weaknesses, strengths, all sorts of images of possible callbacks to previous Daredevil stories, his creepy sexual fetishes, etc. etc. etc.

“Can you imagine that — in this day and age of wonder and science — how dumb this bitch was?”

So Quentin Beck starts studying his bible! Plans on using religion against Daredevil, the scampy old altar-boy! He used teenage Gwyneth as a pawn, kidnapped her, drugged her, artificially inseminated her, had her believe it was immaculate conception. And then he had her parents killed before they could, like, take her and her new baby to a hospital for tests.

Then there was Lydia McKenzie, the divorcée. Why, she was merely some junkie that Beck hired to fool Foggy Nelson! And then he drugged Foggy in such a way that he perceived her as some sort of demon before she jumped out the window! Not sure how his face got scratched up though, that wasn’t explained. What the fuck, Smith?

Oh yeah, and he stole horror movie guy Jonathan Curtain’s identity. We knew that already.

He dressed up as a fake doctor and tricked Karen Page into thinking she had AIDS. She was too dumb to even go to a real doctor about it and get any actual tests done. I guess her history of sucking and fucking made contracting the disease plausible enough!

And the massacre at the childrens’ ward at most of the hospitals around town? Not him. HMMM!…maybe Bullseye was just HAVING A LITTLE FUN??

It seems our friend blew you so hard that you need a ventilator!

Mysterio approaches Mr. Gabriel, who was just abandoned on the floor for a bit after Daredevil thwarted his Baaler efforts! After asking how he’s feeling, and the answer is, obviously, not the greatest, Mysterio assures him that help is on the way.

Then Mysterio picks up a fucking gun and blasts him in the face!

Daredevil finally speaks up. “While you’ve been rambling about how clever you are, I’ve been listening for the hum.” Mysterio is confused, then Daredevil pinpoints the location of the hum and launches his Devil Stick at Mysterio’s wrist. “The hum of the battery that powers your suit’s circuitry.” The stick breaks Mysterio’s wrist contraption, then Daredevil kicks the ever-loving fuck out Mysterio’s fishbowl head, cracking it to smithereens. SMITHEREENS I tells ya!

And, yeah, Quentin Beck is just some cancer-ridden feeb with an oxygen mask. “Tell me where the baby is now…or so help me God, I’ll kill you!” Daredevil spits as he hoists this sad sack in the air by the front of his…uh, purple scarf thing. And this is exactly what Beck wants: to be put out of his misery by Daredevil after he spent so much time destroying everything that Daredevil cared about.

Owned.

Daredevil thinks about it, then drops him on the floor. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.” he sneers, and once more demands the baby. He calls Beck a fraud, which hits a nerve with him. He practically starts crying! “A-BLOO-BLOO-BLOO BUT I DROVE YOU CRAAAAZZZYY!!”.

Kevin Smith wrote a list of all the things that he would kill himself over if he heard it himself.

And then Daredevil calls his methods cliché, which is the possibly the word that would fuck Beck up the most. It’s a word that I’m sure Kevin Smith has heard plenty of times himself! Ha!

Daredevil keeps hitting with a few choice words to really break Cancer Guy’s spirit, and it works. It’s so simple, too, it’s a total Kevin Smith mad-on-an-internet-forum wish fulfillment scenario. DECIMATING YOUR OPPONENT VERBALLY. What a bunch of fuck! Crying in his gloves, Beck hits a button on his wrist and opens the chamber containing the alleged antichrist child. The baby is perfectly fine, and as Daredevil extracts her from the weird glass incubation chamber thing, Beck aims a gun in Daredevil’s direction while sporting a crazed, manic smile.

And I guess he turns the gun on himself, possibly out of complete utter shame. KABLAM! Neither Daredevil, nor the baby, flinch. Daredevil walks away, leaving Beck’s corpse to rot.

Final Thoughts

This comic book about sorcery and blind-guy-ultra-heightened-senses is not realistic! Wah! I want my money back!

Nah, just kidding, it’s still ok. This was a really, really, REALLY long-winded issue, though. Probably doesn’t justify the nine trillion words I just wrote about it! See you next time for the conclusion of the Guardian Devil storyline, as well as the conclusion of Kevin Smith’s run on Daredevil Vol. 2.

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Frank Zappa, Dmitri Shostakovich – It’s Cold Outside, Goddamnit

It’s cold and dreary in Chicago now. The sun goes down at 4pm and everyone around here is going to be miserable and crabby until June — present company most definitely included. So, I’m going to drown out my sorrows with music. You know, for a change.

Frank Zappa

You’ve angered the Bert-and-Ernie-shirt-wearing conductor! Allegro! Always allegro, motherfuckers!

I write about Zappa a lot, I think. If I actually don’t, then maybe I just think about writing about Zappa a lot. He is, and always will be, my favorite musician of all time…even if I may have outgrew some of what I liked about him in the first place: mostly the sneery asshole “everything is a joke to ridicule” mentality. I still admire his work ethic, his lack of fear or self-doubt to make what he wanted to make (even if a lot of it didn’t land), and some of his social/political commentary. Most of it didn’t age very well, but what really has since the ’60s and ’70s?

When I was 18 years old, I went through a phase where Zappa was literally the only thing I listened to. This was still the pre-streaming days where you either bought physical copies of albums (which I did) or buy the digital versions on iTunes (which I refused). I spent a lot of money on Zappa albums. Money I probably should have saved for other things at the time, but who cares? I have no regrets! I know the ins and outs of his catalogue fairly intimately, and 16 years later I’m still pretty grateful that I spent all those hours listening to his 700 albums.

Around this time of year I get the urge to binge through a handful of Zappa albums again. Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps this was just the time of year that my Zappa obsession was at its most feverish, but it’s a good way to revisit and lock-in on some of my late teenage years for a brief spell. Plus, posthumous albums have been released consistently since his death in 1993. There’s always something sorta new to dig into. By the end of the year, the Zappa Family Trust is releasing 50th anniversary super deluxe boxset edition of the 200 Motels album, comprising of six discs, that’s chock full of alternate/unused takes, bonus audio footage, basic tracks, and rehearsals.

I don’t even like the 200 Motels album that much! But I’m a sucker for this shit, so I’m looking forward to it anyway.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Russian composer Dmitri “Harry Potter” Shostakovich finally escaped from under the stairs…but at what cost? At what cost?

I played trumpet in various concert/symphonic classes in high school and college (plus marching band), and although I didn’t like playing trumpet that much — I didn’t like playing it all, actually — it fostered in me an innate appreciation for classical and jazz music.

HOWEVER, just because I appreciate classical music it doesn’t mean it’s always fun to listen to! Some of it is downright dull. I’m still trying to enjoy guys like Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, even Bach. Bleh, I say! But there’s one guy who always manages to TURN ME ON, as they say, and that’s Shostakovich. He’s in the sweet spot: not old enough to be completely dusty and boring, not recent enough to be mired in non-melodic avant-garde contemporary classical sensibilities. Like other Russian composers, there’s a hard edge to his sound that reminds me of the tension that I enjoy out of my rock music. Unlike his other Russian contemporaries — Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff — Shostakovich never left the country. He just stayed during the Soviet uprising, being treated like shit for most of his life by the government. It’s fascinating, and you can tell he channelled this sadness and anger into his compositions. It’s like, fucking escape, man. Rachmaninoff went to New York City, for God’s sake. Rachmaninoff bought a new car every two years!

Shostakovich’s body of work is impressive and satisfying. I particularly enjoy his String Quartet’s Nos. 3 and 8, his Symphony No. 9, and both his Piano Concertos. But he’s pretty consistent. Don’t sleep on Shostakovich! He may have died in 1975, but he still slaps! He’ll make a resurgence here in the 2020s, you heard it here first!

Other Quick Thoughts

This is what a heavy metal band who names themselves “Franklin Zoo” looks like. I think the lead singer is going to try to thwart Superman.

-One month of 2021 left. Still a million new albums I haven’t listened to yet. Publications are gonna start dropping their lists, and most of them will just have the same 15 albums rearranged in a slightly different order near the top! I’m expecting to have mine done at the very end of December, maybe even the very beginning of January. And then the cycle starts anew! My favorite time of year…if only Christmas didn’t get in the way of all the festivities. Stupid holiday…

-This time of year I also tend to binge on all the new metal releases I can squeeze in before I never listen to any of them ever again! It’s tradition, after all. Some good ones to laud before they start collecting dust in 2022 are releases by 1914, Sunless, Ars Magna Umbrae, First Fragment, The Silver, Replicant, and Franklin Zoo. I guarantee that I’ll forget any of these were even bands in a few months, but thems the breaks!

-I hate math rock so much. Well, certain kinds of math rock. The kinds of math rock that emerged from the emo side of rock and punk music is what I’m talking about. I recognize that there’s a certain unavoidable emotional sterility when you base your band’s entire sound around technicality and gymnastics with time-signatures, but bands like This Town Needs Guns and American Football overcompensate by being cloyingly precious and wimpy. And I can stand wimpy sometimes, but bands like these…they’re, like, aggressively wimpy! Makes my blood boil! Grr!

That’s it for this edition of…*squints*…”AudioBiography”?? That’s a stupid name, who greenlit that?

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Batman and Robin (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Matter of Trust”

* Part 4 of 8 of the Born to Kill storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman and Robin (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Matter of Trust”! In the previous installment, Robin starts gallivanting alone around Gotham City during nighttime, against Daddy Bruce’s wishes of course. During a routine mugging in which Robin brutally beats the assailants (and I’m just not saying that–it’s pretty fucked up), Morgan pops in with an air of admiration about the boy’s psychotic, sociopathic behavior! However, Batman swoops in to ruin the fun. It doesn’t work very well, since now both Batman and Robin are caught and now they’re going to see Morgan’s movie Clockwork Orange-style at an abandoned drive-in theater.

That’s about all I have to say about that! I hope it’s a good movie. Methinks something from the ‘90s, perhaps, starring George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell??…

Batman and Robin (Vol. 2), Issue #4 [February, 2012]
Written by: Peter J. Tomasi
“Matter of Trust”

Bah, not the movie I suggested! That would’ve been way more torturous! Oh well. Morgan instead shows them a montage of Gotham City’s favorite villains that we all know and love: Joker, Two-Face, uhhh, red-haired lady…masked person…

Morgan asks why bother with this song-and-dance of sending these maniacs to jail instead of just murdering them on the spot? What’s the point? They’re just going to come out and be bad again! Doesn’t Bruce read comic books? There have been about 40 million issues of some sort of Batman-related villain plot and not ONCE has Batman decided to pull out his giant Batman Gun and shoot someone in the fucking throat? I agree with Morgan here, shoot some of these fuckers into the sun! TEXAS JUSTICE! YEE-HAW!

“There’ll always be monsters, but I don’t have to become one to fight them.” Batman retorts, pointing out that there is clearly more to this than just “monster hunting” on Morgan’s part. Morgan disagrees, claiming that the other “actual” villains give themselves colorful names “Batman” (he actually puts quotes around Batman like a real boomer, implying that “Batman” himself is also a villain. See, I’m paying attention!), and Morgan is simply Nobody. Or rather, NoBody, which has more flair than Nobody so, therefore, it’s more colorful. But, hey, a man is no one! Someone joined the Faceless Men of Braavos lately!

Do you want your kid to be a psychotic, unempathetic mass killer? Or do you want him to be some sort of FAILURE?

At this point there’s a lot of back-and-forth with Morgan going “you’re an idiot” and Batman going “I won’t stoop to your level” and Morgan going “but your son!” and Batman going “but my son!”. I’m predicting at this point that Morgan may attempt to lure Damian into being his son so he can nurture his psychopathic side, which I think would be better for everyone! But Batman doesn’t want that for some reason. Morgan NoBody is simply crestfallen that his effort to talk some sense into Batman has fallen short of success. He drops the name Ducard, who sounded like some sort of mentor to the both of them back in the day.

Ducard was big into murdering and killing, and since Bruce wasn’t a big fan at all of the murdering or the killing, he tried walking away. And Morgan started targeting him. And, all these years later, it’s still happening because Morgan doesn’t have a Netflix subscription or anything so that he can stay home and hang out on a weekday night instead. So now Morgan wants to kill Batman before he can taint Robin with his shitty parenting. Robin seems slightly sad about this. “Don’t worry,” Morgan says, “in time he’ll also become a nobody.” Too late! He’s way ahead of you there. Just wait until puberty, he’ll be too busy jerking off to do anything.

“Any last words, Bruce?” asks Morgan NoBody. “Yeah. Lock and load, Alfred.” And then Morgan NoBody gets conveniently gunned down by a giant remote-controlled toy airplane shooting rubber bullets. Alfred is controlling the thing from the Batcave, playing Galaga with his five-monitor setup. Nerd alert!

Alfred had to drop out of Butler University for playing too much World of Warcraft.

Morgan NoBody scoffs that even now Batman can’t kill anyone, and he scurries away avoiding more bullets. Batman and Robin pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and grapple onto the Batplane. They are whisked away just as NoBody accidentally fires bullets into gas tanks of the abandoned cars in the theater, blowing everything the fuck up. Robin thinks he’s dead, but Batman knows that he’s likely already plotting his next move…

Back at the Batcave, Alfred the Butler / Chessmaster / Fighter Pilot / and now Health Professional, is tending to Bruce’s many wounds. Bruce is finding it hard not to scold the little pissant, but reminds him of the main things he expects of him: 1) eat your vegetables, 2) do good in school, 3) listen to everything Bruce says, 4) prance around in your sexy uniform once in a while for daddy, 5) prance around for Alfred too. I’m serious, those last two are in there, I just, uh, I don’t need to prove anything to you.

Face it, pops, you’re a shitty father. I’m too smart for you. I wanna go live with the Turpin family, they seem nicer.

The two argue about respect and trust, with Damian making some pretty salient points about Bruce’s lack of trust and respect on his end. Bruce argues that Damian has two dead bodies on his hands because he went out alone, and he could have easily been the third. Damian snipes back with “FUCK YOU, DAD! EVERYTHING WAS FUCKING FINE UNTIL YOU SHOWED UP, BITCH! I DEMAND EMANCIPATION! RAWR!” Bruce insists that Damian can’t leave the house without his explicit permission. Damian, like most children, was trained by the League of Assassins when he was three years old and should be able to leave the house wherever he wants!

Mother Alfred has had his fill and tells the two of them to stop fighting. Damian wants to know why this NoBody fellow knows who the both of them are, and Bruce launches into some juicy backstory! Oh boy, grab the popcorn! Wait, this is boring! I want to see more father and son relationship drama! Oh well! NoBody is Morgan Ducard, son of Henri Ducard, one of Bruce Wayne’s six (!) trainers. Henri Ducard was really good at finding really bad criminals, and he was world renowned for his ability to find really bad criminals who didn’t want to be found. This stuff sure is boring, but an arms-akimbo Damian literally says “I’m all ears.” while Bruce relays all this information.

Funnily enough, at the first sign that Damian shows interest, Bruce shoots him down! “When did he turn into NoBody?” the kid asks. “It’s NOT a story I can share with you right now.” Bruce says, as if there weren’t plenty of pages left in this issue to answer Damian’s fucking question. Understandably, the child is pissed off again and storms off in a haughty huff. “It’s like I said before, even your secrets have secrets, and if leading by example’s part of your plan, then good luck.”

Alfred “Mother Goose” Butlerman tells Bruce that, maybe, he should just start answering the kid’s questions. “It may confuse him more, Alfred.” Bruce sure has an excuse for everything. Alfred, of course, disagrees, and tells Bruce that his own son saw him get his ass kicked today. That shit sticks with a 10-year-old!

Damian is at the graveyard visiting Bruce’s dead parents. “Your son’s an ass.” he tells the headstones. looool

Damian crushes a firefly between his fingers and decides to start bonding with his new dog, whom he names Titus. NoBody emerges from the shadows and tells Damian that he intends to teach him everything that he knows, he promises not to hold back, as long as Damian does the same.

Red pill, blue pill, blah blah blah.

Sounds like Damian’s got a new dad!

Final Thoughts

Sounds like Damian’s got a new dad! Whoops, I already said that. Looks like Damian’s going to the dark side for an issue or two, he’ll learn the error of his ways, he’ll come crawling right back to Bruce crying about how wrong he was, Bruce will jab him with an I-Told-You-So before they decide to team up as a real team and fight this villain. Respect will be earned both ways.

Or not. Who knows. Maybe the X-Men will crawl out of the ground and start stabbing people instead!

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #6 – “The Devil’s Divested”

* Part 6 of 8 of the Guardian Devil storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #6 (Legacy Issue #386) – “The Devil’s Divested”! And happy fucking Thanksgiving to, like, America. A country I’m in right now! I’m probably eating turkey at this very moment. Like, a lot of turkey. Anyway, things are starting to get good with this Daredevil schlock, so strap in! In the previous installment, Daredevil enlists Dr. Strange’s help in determining if the antichrist is real or not, and discovers that the cross he’s been carrying has been laced with a hallucinogenic that activates whenever anyone implies that the baby is NOT the antichrist! So there’s that. There was also the matter of Bullseye completely destroying a church and killing some nuns and taking a baby. There’s that too. Plus, Bullseye kills Karen Page! So there’s that as well. And now the aftermath.

Oh wait, first I’d like to remind everyone of a tidbit I found interesting from the previous issue that I don’t want to forget mentioning again: a newspaper showed a photo of Macabes with a headline that said “One time ‘Creature Feature King’ John Curtain found murdered in Hollywood home”. So keep that one in your back pocket as well.

Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #6 (Legacy Issue #386) [April, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Devil’s Divested”

“Six nuns and five indigents were found dead in a Clinton Mission Shelter in what has been described as the worst hate-crime in the nation’s history.” Ha! Nowadays, this nation tops that on a weekly basis. Also, interestingly enough, this issue came out in April, 1999, the same month as the Columbine High School massacre, which has now quite literally set the groundwork for every other mass shooting in America since. But I digress…

The newspaper singles out Karen Page as a casualty, and points out the perplexing nature of her presence at the church in the first place. The story also draws a connection to the massacre at the maternity word from the beginning of Issue #1 that I completely forgot about until just now!

Murdock is in a bad place right now! I wonder why? Anyway, he’s sitting hunched on the floor holding his wounded arm amidst the debris of used cigarettes, wound dressings, blood, Karen’s belongings, and the newspaper. He puts a gun to his head and we jump to a flashback.

Karen is scolding Murdock for wanting to put on his tights and play superhero. “BUT THE KINGPIN, BLUHBLUHBLUH” he argues. After a back-and-forth about why the cops should handle it, that the Kingpin owns the cops, and that the Kingpin doesn’t own ALL the cops, Karen gives up and tells him that she can’t make him stay home even though it’s his birthday and even though one should call in sick once in a while and even though there’s sexy times in store for him yada yada blah. He listens to her.

Now she’s gone! Who’s he going to listen to now? His dick? Alas! His dick is sad too! And he takes his anger out on the poor lamp, and the poor statue, and the poor window, and the poor potted plant, among other fragile objects in the room. He’s just punching and kicking and throwing and screaming! Sounds sexy on paper, but I assure you it’s not. The man is grieving, have you no heart? For shame!

Yeah, put it down. Get a shotgun, pussy. Go out like Kobain.

Uh oh, more flashback memories already. He ran out of things to break, though. After some possibly heated sexy-time fuck time, Karen asks him when he’s going to give up the superhero schtick. “When we have a baby” he decides. He’s always thought this, which reassures Karen. But then she tells him not to quit even then. The world needs people like him, and she feels safer in the world knowing people like him are out there.

She tells him to never stop, no matter what. No matter what.

No matter what.

No matter what!

No matter what?

No. Matter. What.

So current-day Murdock lets this sink in, and he puts down the gun. For now.

Macabes is on the other side of town preparing for Daredevil’s eventual arrival.

“So I shh-ays to him, I shh-ays, hey you. YEAHHEYYOU. I shh-ays, ahhhhhh. You don’t- I got-…I got-…zzzzzzz”

Meanwhile, at a bar called Ennis’ Tavern, a table of drunks are swappin’ stories. One claims to have killed Daredevil, and starts making shit up like that one kid in high school whose uncle worked for Nintendo. Pokemon Turquoise my left foot, Danny! The drunkard says he tied Daredevil to his giant dinosaur and starts tearing into him with a knife. Just eviscerating and gutting him like a dang fish! “This is for all my peeps you ever put away!” I tells ya!

The rest of his table spots Daredevil and clears out immediately. This drunk guy, Turk, doesn’t realize what’s happening until Daredevil grabs the sumbitch. Up on the roof of the high-rise, Daredevil dangles Turk over the edge and asks for some answers on Bullseye’s whereabouts. “I DON’ KNOW NOTHIN’ ‘BOUT NO BULLSEYE!” screams Turk, oddly fearing for his life. But, we all know how this story goes, ladies and gentleman! Daredevil’s going to loosen his grip and then it’s AAAHHHH OK I’LL TALK I’LL TALK!! They always talk. This guy talks too! He does claim that Bullseye left town. When asked who hired Bullseye, Turk panickedly tells Daredevil that some old rich guy did. An old rich guy who wants Daredevil’s brand new baby! He then directs him to the old rich guy’s building “where all the heavy-hitters are meeting tonight”. Everyone except poor ol’ Turk, that is. Turk wasn’t allowed to heavy-hit tonight. Satisfied, Daredevil leaves him dangling on a storm drain and bolts off to Macabes’ place.

OK, so it’s Christmas time. Did I know that already? There’s a big tree in the lobby of the building. Wasn’t Karen Page sitting outside in an autumn-painted park landscape one issue ago? What the hell, man. Daredevil is standing outside, and Macabes is waiting for him in his fancy CSI multi-screen command center and he looks like the general from Beetle Bailey! I just realized this! Macabes directs his men to their stations, and he tells the guy at the front desk to “shoot to wound only”.

Daredevil, with his super powerful dogboy hearing, picked up every word and is ready. He shoots his Daredevil Stick through the window, beans him right in the forehead knocking the gun out of Front Desk Guy’s hand, and the stick bounces back into Daredevil’s hand with a “FAP”. FAP FAP FAP FAP. Just like that. Daredevil strolls into the building.

A swarm of nunchuck-wielding red ninjas starts attacking! Ha ha ha! What! “You’ll have to do better than this, Macabes” says Daredevil only 17 seconds after taking out his opponents. He strolls deeper into the building. Macabes instructs his lap dog, Mr. Gabriel, to prepare himself. Macabes presses a button on his console that says “WHITE NOISE”. It starts playing Yoko Ono! Just kidding, it starts playing white noise. Gotcha!

Daredevil tries to climb the elevator shaft with a wounded arm. It doesn’t really work very well. The white noise renders him disabled, so I’m sure he’s having an all-around groovy time right now. Macabes speaks out loud: “You would take on the powers of Hell to rescue a whelp you’re not even sure is still alive? There are easier ways to atone for one’s transgressions, you know.” He presses a button on his console that says “HELL”. It starts playing Yoko Ono!

Anyway, somehow, the elevator takes him down fifty floors below ground level where Hell is located, apparently, directly below Macabes’ building. He hears the constant howls of the damned, and eventually hears Karen Page.

Even in Hell she’s a Karen.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME! YOU SENT ME HERE! HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME IN THIS PLACE?! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!” Karen screeches from the depths of the fiery inferno, clawing at Daredevil with her cool-ass eight Hell-hands. She’s become a Hell Octopus! A Hell Octopus with a snake tongue! “Wait a second…” Daredevil pauses, figuring out that he can hear the thing’s heartbeat. At that moment, an elevator door opens and that one guy pulls him up out of the Hellish vortex. He showed up a few issues ago, let me check my notes…

…Sparky! I mean, Baal. Remember Baal? The big demon guy wearing the black sweater and the grey Levi’s with a black belt? He claims that he’s Daredevil’s guardian angel, and Daredevil is like “whuh”. Now Daredevil and Baal are teaming up to stop the evil Macabes! Cue the ‘70s action music.

That’s right, try to swindle God Boy over here with your divinity. Nice sweater.

Baal confirms that the baby is still alive, but Macabes can’t kill it until midnight “when a demon’s powers are at their apex”. So just midnight in Eastern Standard Time, then? Because midnights happen constantly all over the world. Once the baby is dead, an apocalypse will commence, and that’s not fun for anyone! I think I read about this mythology in Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, but I stayed for the funny jokes. That reminds me, I should read some Neil Gaiman comics some day.

Daredevil isn’t really listening to Baal talk; he’s too preoccupied by the piece of fabric he tore off of the Karen Page vision in the Hell Elevator. The Hellevator! He recognizes the scent of the fabric, but before he can pinpoint it he starts picking up a high-frequency transmission. As a squadron of these Robocop-looking motherfuckers start attacking, Daredevil is realizing that it’s all starting to come together. All the pieces are falling into place. And I’m glad it is for him, because I don’t know what the FUCK is going on! I hope Foggy is ok somewhere!

While Baal fights, Daredevil just kind of stares…uh…blindly. “I pray I’m wrong” he says as he keeps ruminating, but, in my experience, people in stories who pray they’re wrong are usually right. Once they finish taking out the Robocops, Daredevil suddenly knocks Baal on his ass as well. And I feel bad for the guy.

Homeboy done got sucker punched!

“I find the nerve cluster in the solar plexus of this ‘guardian angel’ and squeeze.” thinks Daredevil. Holy shit dude, calm down! That sounds gross, don’t do that! He squeezes within an inch of Baal’s life and he’s out cold. He remembers his first encounter with Baal in the sensory deprivation room with the angelic shrieking. He was also still hallucinating at the time. He feels like a fool for not noticing it before, but he lets himself off the hook for being, you know, hopped up on goofballs! He tears into him and discovers nothing more than an elaborate robotic costume worn by none other than DRUMROLL PLEASE brbdbrbdbrbdbrbdbbrbrbbdbr bdbdbdbdbd brbbdbrbdbrbr BRBDBRBDBRBBDBDBRB bdbdbdbdb brbdbdbrbdbdbrdb brbdbrbd brrbrbdbbrbbdbrrbbd brbBRBDBRBRBDBRrbrbrbdbrbrdbbdbrbrr BRBDBBRDBRB RBBBD BRBDBBRBR BRBRBRBRBRBDDBRBRB brbdbrbBRRBDbrbdbrbdBRDBR brbdbrdb MR. GABRIEL! “You better pray, whoever you are, you better pray that baby’s still alive.” he threatens with the most inhuman grimace I’ve seen so far in this comic book full of inhuman grimaces.

Daredevil races up a stairwell following the excited, labored breathing of someone who thinks he’s winning. He makes his way near Macabes’ command center, but he still can’t find him. Macabes launches into his Big Bad monologue, which is helping Daredevil find him more easily. He pinpoints the source and launches his Daredevil Stick into a window. The window looks like it faces the outdoors, but guess what! Command center! Command center right behind the fake building window!

“Show yourself.” Daredevil commands his foe. And a swirl of pink fog starts stirring up in the room.

“First rule of showbiz, my sightless friend…regardless of the size of your audience…always make an entrance boy…Always make an entrance!”

And it’s revealed to be…some guy in green clothes, yellow gloves, purple cape, face covered by a purple scarf, and some sort of white dome head!

Wow! What a reveal!

I have no fucking idea.

Final Thoughts

All right, so the mystery of Dead Macabes is revealed. Some trickster type entity that I’ll learn about in Issue #7 stole a dead man’s face. So there’s that, good for him.

This villain is obviously still playing with Murdock’s head, what with the Hellevator and, like, the demon costume guy.

I still don’t know what his game is. Is this baby a real antichrist? The good guys are always losing the antichrist! Put a bell on it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone :turkey

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