Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Alias Investigations (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Alias Investigations storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Alias Investigations (Part 5)”! Time to wrap this puppy up. In the previous installment, Jones travels to Washington D.C. to try to get more info about the Keaton campaign. She finds the blonde woman who hired her to find “her sister” at the campaign office, who hurries the fuck out of there when she spots and recognizes Jones. Jones catches her in the back alley and learns that she was hired by the Lawson, Daviano & Silver law firm. THERE, after having some fun trying to scare Lawson, she learns that the law firm was hired by someone else! Mystery upon mystery.

As she stakes out Lawson in the parking garage, Matthew Murdock calls her to let her know that she’s no longer a suspect in the murder because the strangulation marks on the victim showed that the perpetrator had very large man hands. As she thinks about this more deeply, a man with very large man-hands pulls her out of her vehicle and tries to put strangulation marks on her neck.

And that’s it, no time to waste! Let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s motherfucking go!

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [March, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Alias Investigations (Part 5)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Isn’t it bittersweet to already be ending this storyline? Dawwwww?

We start where we left off: Jessica Jones is getting choked out in the parking garage. The creep is telling her that “the best part about this is that I can take your lifeless body out somewhere remote and I can do whatever I want with you”, so this guy seems like a cool-ass dude. “Man Mountain Marko” he fancies himself. Jones ain’t taking this shit anymore, so she breaks free and slams her palms against his ears. She then slams her fist in his dick and balls and knocks him to the ground. “They didn’t tell you that they were siccing you on a super hero type, did they?” she gloats at him, and then asks who sent him.

When he refuses to answer, she punches him in the face. They go back and forth like this for quite a while, actually, until he finally realizes that he’s the one getting beat to shit and she’s not! So she finally gets what she needs from this hired goon and sets off.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

“Fuck You”, huh? Interesting name. Very exotic.

We see some Hollywood director bigshot named Zoumas playing golf while surrounded by corporate lackeys. After he is told that FOX is picking up a script for a movie similar to Zoumas’ project, he pulls out on the spot! And jizzes all over his golf ball, whoops, haha. He says, “fuck it, I’m not married to this project anyway, we’ll just wait for something better to come along”, essentially, moments before Jessica Jones tosses Man Mountain Marko’s unconscious bulk right in front of him. Zoumas and his team aim guns at Jones as she approaches them on the course. She bluffs her bulletproofedness as she approaches like a real badass lady about town. Zoumas takes a pause and then asks his team to give him and Jones a moment alone.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

There’s the Jessica Jones I know from the TV show! A little bullet in the butthole never hurt nobody.

Zoumas starts talking. “It seems you aren’t nearly the angry, drunk, down-on-her-luck, loser ex-superhero, looking out for herself bitch I was led to believe.” She looks surprised, and if I were here I would’ve retorted with “I’m still pretty drunk” but she doesn’t, oh well. Zoumas then tells her to sell the Captain America tape for the fortune that it’s worth. She indignantly asks him why she was tricked into making the tape in the first place. He counters by telling her he could either sell it or give it to the cops to clear her name from the murder charges. Jones, if she’s understanding correctly, infers that this woman was murdered so that Jones had a reason to get rid of the tape. Zoumas can see she’s still confused, so he asks her straight up what she wants from him. “The truth,” Jones says, “You’ve done something terrible and I want you to confess.” OR ELSE WHAT?! Oh yeah, the super strength power thing, I guess she could squeeze his nuts until they popped like a little bag of Cheetos.

Zoumas, though, has nothing to confess. He didn’t murder anyone. He didn’t hire her for anything. And tricking her into making the tape? Well, she’d have to show the tape to someone as evidence, now, wouldn’t she? He’s slurping up this delicious irony like so much irony honey! From the irony bees. So it’s a stalemate.

Then, he launches into his reasons for doing everything that he did: the president owes Zoumas for getting to where he is today with his help. And, according to Zoumas, he forgot this along the way. And he hates that. Wah wah wah. He calls Captain America a douchebag who is essentially just government property, and he wanted to use the reveal of his identity to bring down the president. Zoumas goes on to explain that all this shit with the politicians, the scandals and the dirt, it all gets brought to the public’s attention by people with money. And these people with money spend a lot of their money to make sure the scandals and the dirt get revealed to the public “by accident”, even if that means getting people like Jessica Jones involved fourth- or fifth-hand. You dig?

Zoumas tells her again, kindly, to just sell the tape and take the money. Jones says she would never do that. So Zoumas tells her again, kindly, to sell the tape because if he finds out she either destroyed it or she dropped his name about this to anyone, he’ll ruin her and then kill her. You dig?

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

So that’s a NO to the bullet in the butthole, then?

Jones starts freaking out just a tad as Zoumas walks away to play through on the course. She gets a phone call by a guy named Clay Quartermain who tells her to turn around and walk away immediately, which, I’d say, isn’t much help at the moment. He informs her that S.H.I.E.L.D. has had a bug on her since she showed up at the crime scene, and they just got the whole conversation between her and Zoumas. A swarm of helicopters emerges, and Zoumas’ crew tries to shoot their guns at them while Quartermain insists that Jones gets far away. He tells her “If you had taken the job with us at S.H.I.E.L.D. none of this would have ever happened to you. But you never listened to me, not once.” Jessica Jones is such a woman, never listening to the man! How dare she, ugh, gross, awful. This Quartermain guy sounds like a real winner.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Crunch Crunch, Little Bug

Back at her apartment, Jones is watching a Keaton concession speech as she’s rooting through her clothes looking for the bug. “Clay, if you’re listening, thank you and fuck you” she says after finding it and before crushing it between her fingers. Soon, there’s a knock at the door.

“HI, I’M CHRIS EVANS!” says the man at the door “I PLAY STEVE ROGERS, AKA CAPTAIN AMERICA! YOU KNOW, FROM THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIES? CAN I COME IN?!” He asks her for the tape, which she proffers to him without hesitation. Captain Chris Steve Evans Rogers America is surprised that she didn’t hand it in to the authorities, and Jones tells him that it never even occurred to her to do so in the first place.

He finally sort of recognizes her as an old member of the Avengers, but apologizes for his time-travel-related memory lapses. They share an awkward pause. Jones apologizes that the woman died. Chris Evans says “haha, uh, yeah, uh, that sucks doesn’t it? Heh? Man…” He then asks her why she quit superheroing, and she gets annoyed, and he gets pushy about it, so she finally answers the question. “Because it became very clear that I could never be you” she says earnestly without a hint of Krysten Ritter sarcasm. And she didn’t mean Chris Evans Rogers Mr. America specifically, no, she meant the whole dang gang. She says she didn’t have what it took. She didn’t have the drive to be a good person all the time. Roger Evans ‘Merica tells her that, out of the millions of people he has met, he can think of three people, TOPS, that would have handled this situation the way she had.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Nothing like a rousing compliment from Captain America himself. Let’s see here…*squints*…”that’s the stuff”. Wow. Yeah.

He thanks her, and tells her to call Carol Danvers if she ever reconsiders joining the team again.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this immensely as a story with a beginning, a middle, an end, with excellent pacing, suspenseful moments, real emotional tension, high-stakes situations, and sorta realistic dialogue. I enjoyed this immensely as a character study of an extremely flawed, extremely human individual with extremely human motivations, hesitations, insecurities, and hangups.

But all this drama over Captain America’s secret identity? Give me a break, he can go fuck himself!

Done with Alias for now! Gonna circle back to it eventually, but the Matt Murdock stuff intrigued me so I’m going to give Daredevil a shot next on the Marvel side of things. I hear that he can’t SEE! LOL!


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Andrew Hung, Blanck Mass, and Perturbator

Halloween is right around the corner! I don’t have anything particularly spoo0oO00Oo0oo0o0oky today, but synthesizer-drenched music definitely reminds me of Halloween, so here’s three of such ilk: Andrew Hung (one half of the experimental drone band Fuck Buttons), Blanck Mass (the other half of the experimental drone band Fuck Buttons), and Perturbator (because Fuck Buttons didn’t put out an album proper this year! Or else it would have been Fuck Buttons).

I miss Fuck Buttons.

Andrew Hung – Devastations
(June 18, 2021)

Andrew Hung - Devastations

Andrew Hung’s chief influence is Aphex Twin, but Hung’s solo output strays from the chaotic electronics or the placid ambience of Richard David James’ usual trademarks. Devastations is album full of dance rhythms, complex pop hooks, warm synthesized bleeps and bloops, and emotive expression in every way. It’s definitely not Aphex Twin, but it’s just as colorful.

“Battle”, the first track, feels like familiar territory for a Fuck Buttons fan. It’s a mellow electronic groove with driving forward momentum. Distorted high-pitched vocals makes me think of the band Battles’ early work, but maybe that’s just because the name of the track put it in my head? After “Battle”, the music shifts to a cheesy ’80s synth dance number with “Promises” and I find out that Hung’s British vocals match the music perfectly. He clearly has an affinity for the retro-future, channeling his inner Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, or even James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

Each successive track brings with it a facet of Hung’s individuality. It’s clear that this is a very personal record for him, and Hung’s knack for bringing the human aspect out of the cold, alienating characteristics inherent in synthesizer-laden electronica is welcoming. Take “Colour”, which keeps things moving with an oompah accordion groove and shuffling drums. There’s no way that’s a real accordion, right? But it sounds like a real accordion! It’s warm and immersive, like a hot tub. So I’m happy. My favorite is “Space”. Totally schmaltzy lyrics (“Perfection exists in space/That’s why we’re reaching for the staaars!“), but I like the way he belts it out like he really means it. If this were a lyric in a neo-progressive album, it would godawful garbage! Here it works wonders, because Andrew Hung comes across as someone who is remarkably in-tune with himself as a person and himself as an artist, but without an ego or a misguided sense of what makes the music actually resonate in the first place. A great combination!

Anyway, this has all the trappings of an indie rock record from a bygone era. A timeless effort. Bravo. I love it.

Early Verdict:

Blanck Mass – In Ferneaux
(February 25, 2021)

Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux

Well, it appears that Andrew Hung has all the pop-sensibility in the Fuck Buttons project, not that I’m complaining about that, necessarily. It’s just that, knowing how Hung and Benjamin John Power work together and what can come from it, an album like In Ferneaux comes across to me as sparse and unengaging. Admittedly, his fifth album as Blanck Mass is my first encounter with Power’s solo work, so Fuck Buttons is my only frame of reference for it at the moment. Comprising two large vinyl side-length collages of experimental drones, noise, and, occasionally, music, In Ferneaux is a challenging listen by anyone’s standards.

Things start off positively with a very Rubycon/Ricochet-era Tangerine Dream synth krautrock exercise that builds into an explosion of bombasic power-synths about 4:30 into “Phase I”. It last about a minute before returning to the original theme, and at this point, we’re already past our peak. The experimental minimalism that follows isn’t particularly compelling; for a couple more minutes it sounds like someone is putting away silverware near a crackling fire during a thunderstorm. Then, if you can believe it, this fades into something that’s even less interesting with a stagnant drone that goes on absolutely far too long. This morphs into a hazy, breathy, optimistic electronic hum that wouldn’t sound out of place during the heartfelt denouement of an ’80s family movie. Then more noise. And that’s “Phase I”.

The transition to “Phase II” is seamless, making the entire record one large single piece. Here, the beginning presents over three minutes of a monologue sample over more electronic droning that takes a while to turn into more flat-out noise and static. It sounds like Merzbow fucked an amplifier while slapping around a Van der Graaff generator before nutting (to use the most flowery language I can muster under the circumstances). Finally, at long last, something somewhat entertaining happens just before the 11-minute mark: yelpin’ and whoopin’ under some loud sticks-on-the-drum’s-edge percussion…but even that turns into more blistering, static-y pandemonium before long. Only in the last few minutes does some melodious, subtley apocalyptic piano break the tension before it’s over.

But really, what tension? Albums like In Ferneaux are frustrating for me because it’s not ambient enough to serve as background music, but it’s not dynamic enough for a full-attention listening experience, let alone multiple full-attention listening experiences. I don’t know what to do with it. It feels like post-rock without any real moments of catharsis or emotional resonance. Maybe more listens are in order…someday.

Early Verdict:

Perturbator – Lustful Sacraments
(May 28, 2021)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

And then there’s Perturbator, which is only on this list because Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power haven’t made a Fuck Buttons record in over eight years. SIGH! So here’s an electronic project by James Kent out of Paris, whose background involved playing guitar in several black metal bands and draws his main inspiration from gross cyberpunk anime movies! So that’s unique!

But, more importantly, Perturbator’s Lustful Sacraments is on this list because this type of minimal wave (specifically, darksynth) sounds about as close to Halloween music that you’re going to get without listening to actual Halloween music! And believe you me, Lustful Sacraments is quite a graveyard smash in its own right. It surprises me that this kind of album would get released in May. Who listens to this in May?

I often relegate music like Perturbator’s to the background. After all, this stuff is usually not too dense and demanding of a close listen. Akin to ’90s video game MIDI soundtracks, it’s the perfect mood music for reading or writing. Lustful Sacraments is the first time I gave a darksynth record my undivided attention, and I was surprised at how varied and deceptively intricate the arrangements sounded to my ears. You can do wonders with keyboards and synthesizers; occasionally the drums and the bass effects sound downright organic, son.

A lot of this album leans toward gothic rock/post-punk with some pop elements. “Secret Devotion”, my favorite, has Bauhaus-ian vocals over jaunty John Carpenter dance beats. It could a Eurythmics song.

But, the nagging feeling that this is a novelty still persists. It’s hard to take this all in and extract lasting appeal from it. And, forgive me if you can, but I’m not going to listen to this anymore once Halloween is behind me. Sorry! I’ll bust it out again in October 2022.

Early Verdict:


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Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “Rocket Song” / “Baby Steps”

* Part 5 of 8 of the Superman and the Men of Steel storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “Rocket Song” • “Baby Stepsl”! AGAIN, two stories for the price of one! In the previous installment, shit really went down. There was a battle with robots that ended with most of Metropolis disappearing into some alternate-reality alien preservation containment thing, and then I was told at the end of the story that we wouldn’t even continue with that plot until Issue #7!

So now we are apparently running in a hamster wheel for two issues, so go make yourself a snack or something.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Rocket Song”

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Cover art analysis suggests that we will possibly be doing a Superman origin story at this point. At first I was going to say “uhhhhhh, why the fuck now?”, but then they did already do a flashback in Issue #3 with Krypton going kaputt and all, so it seems semi-appropriate. I guess. Harumph.

Krypton is crumbling like so much coffee cake! Superman’s parents are sad that their favorite planet of all time is facing destruction right before their very eyes. Jor-El and Lara, that’s their names, I think I knew that already. They wrap baby Superman in Jor-El’s father’s cloak, which looks like Superman’s cape. Seriously, bear with me here, I don’t know SHIT about Superman except that I really like the Superman roller coaster at Six Flags, so go to hell. Jor-El declares that they can all still get out of this alive if they escape into the Phantom Zone, which sounds like a Sonic the Hedgehog level. “This ghostly anti-universe I discovered was made a jail for Krypton’s super-criminals, but it’s our only way out.” Jor-El says in a fit of heavy-handed exposition dialogue so that dumbasses like me don’t make any more Sonic the Hedgehog jokes. As he calibrates the Phantom Zone Sega Genesis machine for teleportation, or whatever, Lara senses something weird: strange figures emerging, awful voices telebanding into her mind. You know, the usual stuff. A group of eight menacing figures talk to them through the Stargate portal thing, letting them know that they’ve been waiting for Jor-El and his family. “Do you hope to join us in this bodiless limbo where you left us to ROT?” one says. Yeesh, awkward. As the guy reaches through the portal to them (Jor-El, shocked, declares this to be impossible), the family dog bites the guy’s arm and then gets pulled into the portal, shattering it upon entry.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Something’s going haywire with the Stargate! Close the iris! The Goa’uld are fiesty!

“Oh man we’re so fucked now” Jor-El sort of tries not to think. They both go to Plan B: saving the baby instead. A tiny little ship that can only hold a tiny little baby (or an animal test subject, but they never tried that); a tiny little ship that Jor-El and Lara built together. While fucking! Ew! Tom, that’s immature! They decide to send Baby Superman alone in this ship Moses-style down some Krypton space version of the Nile River. They tell the ship to go to a planet with the following criteria: a) yellow sun, and b) weak gravity so it looks like he can fly. I see that Kryptonians have some relatable priorities here. Meanwhile, Baby Superman makes fat alien baby sounds like “kaaa” and “nna”. The ship flies away from the krumbling koffee kake Krypton! ROCKET MAN, BURNING OUT HIS FUSE UP HERE ALONE!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Surprise! The miracle of life! The stork has new methods of delivery these days.

A bunch of really stupid poetic nonsense frames the scene of Baby Superman escaping as the planet explodes. “The Blinding Gulfs of Superspace. Of Un-Time. Exquisite Calculation. The Last Son of Krypton Dreams.” None of this means A HILL OF KRYPONITE BEANS to me. The ship eventually, and by eventually I mean “like 5 panels later”, meaning it probably only took ten minutes, finds Earth. It decides to crash land in the middle of nowhere Kansas at four trillion miles per hour. In some shitty truck on the road, a couple is shivering in the cold and talking about “Bessie’s poor deformed calf” and “I lost muh baby” before they see this flaming fireball suddenly land in a field in front of them. They approach the flaming alien ship and discover no scratch whatsoever on the ship or on Baby Superman. Baby Superman says “DAB!” so the couple think he’s Russian. They scoop him up and drive away with him. At the crash site, the ship analyzes Earth and determines it to be a primitive planet of “apes with atom bombs”. “Their imbecilic machines lack voices, opinions or self-direction.” You got that right! Fuck Earth! As helicopters approach the ship, it turns on its own silent mode. I wish the ol’ ball and chain could do that! HAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAH!!!! HRWH@

We see the military attempt to test the ship by shooting their fucking guns at it a whole lot. We also see Jonathan Kent, the male individual of the hick couple, drive back to the crash site to show the military that he “reckons I found a spaceman.” It’s actually Bessie’s poor deformed calf! Puttin’ those birth defects to good use.

The timeline suddenly jumps to the future, I guess, where Adult Superman enters a room in a military facility where the ship is being kept. “Silent Mode Off. Many Greetings! He Has Returned.” declares the ship to no one in particular. The ship keeps verbally sucking Superman’s dick while Superman pets the ship and promises it that he’ll come back for it.

Beginning to think Superman’s fuckin’ the ship.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

GREETINGS, STAR CHILD. YOU MUST BE PAUL STANLEY. PUT ON YOUR KISS MAKEUP, IT’S TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT. AND, TO A LESSER EXTENT, PARTY EVERY DAY.

We jump in the timeline again back to the bridge where robots and men in steel suits were fighting Superman while Lex Luthor cavorted around in an army truck. The ship is narrating something about the collector of worlds and upgrading Level 3 planets to Level 4 planets and other such hoser shenanigans. And then we jump to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, where some entities time traveled to a point before Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was able to protect itself against time travelers. Well, why didn’t you fucking think of THAT you fucking idiot, Superman? No shit, of course time travelers could take advantage of that easily. Jesus Christ.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

These spiky blue lights have been biding their time for years, planning their spiky blue revenge!

So I’ve lost the thread of the story at this point. In the Fortress of Solitude Where Superman Jerks Off, off-panel humans and spiky blue lights are talking about Kryptonian sunstones and green Kryptonite, which is the flavor of Kryptonite that can harm Superman because, I don’t know, he hates lime jello. As they keep blah-blah-blahing about Synthi-K and “joining the tesseract”, they get engulfed by some purple thing. Then something happens. Then another thing happens. Then someone says “Not again! The ultimate break-in! And we couldn’t do anything to prevent it!” Then the ship narrates obliquely again. Then something happens. Then someone says something about shields being put up around events that’s even beyond the time trapper. Ugh. Then the green Kryptonite engine disappears! Ok! And now it’s in the hands of the Anti-Superman Army! Sure! Then the ship moans and wails about needing the green Kryptonite engine! Fine! And if the ship doesn’t get it, the ship is doomed and so is Earth! Groovy!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Keywords only, or Google Analytics will be confused! Leev soopa-zerOs 2 Me? What the FUCK is that? That’s garbage!

Fucking fuck this, man. It makes me wish I was reading more Alias instead; Jessica Jones never talks about “joining the tesseract” unless it’s a euphemism for boning Luke “Nic” Cage. I have a headache now and I don’t care.

“Baby Steps”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

We’re not done yet! There’s another story to cleanse the palate of the awful taste Grant Morrison unloaded into all of our mouths! Sholly Fisch is going to bring us inside the backstory of hick couple Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark that no one asked for!

They get married.

After the marriage Jonathan Kent’s like “I’m glad that you enjoyed marrying me because now we’re married.” I mean, that’s very close to what he actually says, goddamn. Before they even drive away in their “Just Married” pickup truck with the dang cans rattling behind them, they talk about having kids. It’s like they just met or something. These people seem boring.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Nice foreshadowing from the Dull Duo.

Fast forward to the couple’s well-kept little hick house. Martha peed on her 900th pregnancy test and got negative results, and she’s crying for some reason I can’t fathom! Martha begins to think that conception will be impossible at this point after trying for two years, but Jonny-Boy says “NONSENSE, POOPYPANTS” and assures her that they’ll go see a doctor.

The bowtied, cross-eyed doctor has bad news: BOTH of them are sterile! LOL! “What about them test tube babies…” Jonathan drawls, but the doc tells them they can’t fucking afford that shit and it doesn’t work most of the time anyway! LOOL! They start hormone therapy, but a year later there’s still nothing! LOOOL! Then they go to the church where they got married to ask the priest why God is punishing them! LOOOOL! He quotes a bible verse at them! That’s helpful! Lmao!

Then he tells some bible story about some old broad who had a kid at 90 years old, and it livens their spirits. The priest assures them that God has a plan for everyone yadda yadda yadda. Satisfied, they start saving up for in vitro fertilization.

Now they’re at the adoption services office pleading their case. By now Martha miscarried her very expensive test tube baby, but the agent warns them that the adoption process is very long and very expensive as well. Unphased, the couple stays optimistic and plans to start saving up again. As they discuss this in the truck, Jonathan proposes selling the farm to get the money. “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID YOU DUMB HILLBILLY” Martha kind of says to him, to which he responds “yeah” with a big smile on his face.

Unbeknownst to them, Baby Superman is floating near the Earth’s atmosphere.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

HERE I COME TO RUIN YOUR LIFE! YEE-HAW!

Final Thoughts

I think Jonathan and Martha are both dumb and they should’ve given up a long time ago! I think Superman is dumb for crashing-landing on Earth in the first place, there must be trillions of better planets that shitty ol’ Earth! Other than that I have no fucking goddamn idea what the hell is going on and I’m looking forward to trying to keep track of all these characters named things like “Vzxxyx” and “Mtlvtl”.


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Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Alias Investigations (Part 4)”

* Part 4 of 5 of the Alias Investigations storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Alias Investigations (Part 4)”! I’m liking these creative story names for these issues. In the previous installment, Jessica Jones is interrogated by a smiley homicide detective for about 49 pages. Matthew Murdock, aka Daredevil but maybe we don’t really know that yet (?) busts in lawyer-style and drags her out of there. He and Luke Cage go way back, and I guess Murdock owed him a favor. He’s Jones’ lawyer.

After that whole unpleasantness was finally over, Jones decides to visit her old superhero buddy Carol Danvers to try to enlist some help, and Danvers finally begrudgingly agrees. Jones asks her to look up the number she originally got from her client, and later Danvers discovers that the number is linked to the office of Democratic presidential candidate Steven Keaton in Washington D.C.

Weird, right! I thought so. Let’s see what happens next.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [February, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Alias Investigations (Part 4)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4

There’s some George W. Bush-lookin’ guy on TV in the first few panels here, and I started laughing because the artist drew some guy that looked like George W. Bush, and then I realized that it’s actually supposed to be George W. Bush! The political ad chastises Bush for spending taxpayer money on “servicing the interests of the elite” while footage of him rubbing elbows with costumed superheroes is shown. “Time to vote for someone who has your best interest at heart. Vote Keaton for president.” Keaton is some fucking Gerald Ford-lookin’ white guy. Fuck Keaton.

We cut to some public affairs talk show where panelists are analyzing the ad, and they’re all surprised that Keaton is pointing out Bush’s ties to the Avengers/Fantastic Four in a negative light. “One of the most poorly thought-out strategies in the history of modern politics” claims a pundit. Ha! Wait 15 or 20 years, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Four Seasons Total Landscaping, son.

As these political buffoons stroke their dicks, Jones, who is half-listening to the TV in a bar, starts relating her situation to losing car keys and tearing up the house looking for them, only to discover that they were exactly where they were supposed to be the whole time. Then you can’t believe how much of an idiot you feel afterward. The pundits arguing about “fearing the large men wearing masks” being a good idea causes Jones to break the shot glass that she was gripping tightly. The bartender asks her to leave, saying that he “doesn’t want her mutant shit at his place”. She drunkenly tries to argue with him with snappy comebacks like “thing is–man…”, but hobbles her way out of the bar anyway. It’s broad daylight. She’s in Washington D.C.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Ohhhhh…shhhhhiiiii….. hiiii guuuuuuurrrlll….

Jones puts on her favorite hangover-hidin’ sunglasses and ambles around town. The thing she feels like an idiot about is that her client set her up! Tricked her! Hoodwinked her! At least she thinks she was. I, personally, am not at all convinced about that yet. She makes her way to Keaton Campaign HQ, where she finds the woman who set her up! Tricked her! Hoodwinked her! Like I said, I thought so all along! The woman recognizes her, excuses herself from the conversation she was having with a colleague, and hurries to the back alley. She frantically attempts to dial a “Mr. Lawson” on her brick of a Year 2002 phone, but Jones ambushes her before she can connect. The woman faints or orgasms or something, hard to really say for sure! Jones grabs her cellphone and gets Lawson’s number.

Lawson is a lawyer, and the number goes to the Law Offices of Lawson, Daviano & Silver. Jones goes up to Lawson’s office and lays it all out on the table; says that she knows he hired her through a third-party. This guy is cocky and half-shadowed, so you know something is up! He asks her why exactly he would do that. Undaunted, she says she doesn’t know, but the girl she was hired to find is dead and she wants to know WHY and HOW and WHERE and WHEN and WHAT and WHO and HUH and WHY! Lawson starts stalling with some “you did NOT just come in HERE and accuse ME of a CRIME to my FACE in my own OFFICE” rigamarole. Her stony-faced, silent reaction speaks louder than words, but if they were words they would be “yeah I did bitch”. He doesn’t answer, but instead denies everything and threatens to throw her out. He gets on the phone and starts to call the cops, but pauses once she says that the cops would love to hear what she has to say about this. He hangs up the phone and remains silent. She walks out of there.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Hey, this is just like MY job but with less profanity.

Jones takes some time to catch up with her reading audience! That’s nice of her! Here’s the skinny: once she found out her client was trying to call her lawyer, Jones knew that he wasn’t who she needed to talk to anyway. BUT, she had some fun confronting the guy and dropping the murder bombshell on him. She knew that he was lying about being involved, but she also knew that the guy was surprised to learn the murdery murder part of things. She’s just happy to have given the lawyer a scare. With that out of the way, she now needs to figure out who hired the lawyer to hire the woman to hire Jones to follow a woman who ended up getting killed. And WHY! WHOWHATHUH! So she sits waiting in the parking garage of the law firm with the intention of following Lawson when he heads out.

While she waits in the car, she gets a phone call from our favorite little daredevil of a man Matthew Murdock! He declares that Jones is no longer a suspect after the murdered woman’s autopsy results came back. Congratulations! Plus, the grinning jerk who interrogated her in the last issue was pulled off the case! Double congratulations!

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #4

♫♬ HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAAAAAAAY! ♬♫

I think Murdock was expecting his cock to get sucked at this point because the wind was taken out of his sails when she barely responded to this news. ANYWAY, no one’s got nuthin’ on her. She is grateful to be rid of one problem, but continues to be a Debbie Downer about all the other problems. You know, the who what where when why what where who why and how stuff about all the shit that’s going on. She’s still lost as to why she’s even involved in the first place! God Damnit! She asks him what evidence, exactly, ruled her out as a suspect. He says a very large man with very large man-hands strangled the girl, but has Murdock looked closely at Jones’ hands? She got some thicc-ass fingers, dogg.

Of course, as she ruminates over these large hands, a man with large hands suddenly grabs her out of her car and wraps his large hands around her throat. “What do you want from me” she chokes out. “Nothing” he answers, smiling like Erik Estrada.

Final Thoughts

Home stretch! One more issue left of this particular story! So much still to know, like, uh…everything. Seems to me that someone from the Keaton campaign is trying to involve Jones in damaging Bush’s reputation with the whole superhero angle, but why specifically HER is unclear to me. But it sure seems like the kind of storyline I’d expect from the post-9/11 500% approval-rating days of the Bush presidency, so no surprises there.

Too bad Jones seems damaged by her past and hesitant to really hand someone’s ass to them, but she’s got her WITS and that’s more than I can say about Batgirl who just fumbles her way through all her sticky situations WHOOPS-style.

Do I have more to say? No! Except that I’m JONESING for the next issue! lol


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Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Superman and the Men of Steel” / “Hearts of Steel”

* Part 4 of 8 of the Superman and the Men of Steel storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Superman and the Men of Steel” • “Hearts of Steel”! That’s right, TWO stories for the price of one this time! In the previous installment, there seems to be an apocalypse going on at Krypton in a very befuddling flashback. Some police officer named Detective Blake is mad at Clark Kent for writing mean things about Metropolis in the Daily Planet and Clark is warned to not cause a ruckus. Clark’s landlady asks him point-blank if he’s from outer space. Clark neither confirms nor denies this.

Clark is simultaneously nervous for himself and for his alter ego (spoiler alert it’s superman). The former because Glenmorgan is diverting attention away from his corruption by spreading this Superman defamation story, and the latter because he himself is Superman in the process of getting defamed! A mysterious informant gives Clark some dirt on Glenmorgan and how he rigged the subway to crash in Issue #1. He doesn’t want to write about it, but after experiencing some bad PR as Superman he reconsiders. At the Glenmorgan robot factory, Clark witnesses all these robots on the floor spouting a message about Krypton’s database being backed up as an apocalypse safeguard, which everyone finds completely fucking weird because I don’t think Glenmorgan’s robot factory is actually supposed to make robots at all!

John Corben the former-mustache gets plugged into the steel suit. His brain is overridden by Steel Soldier, who Lex Luthor welcomes with open arms. Steel Soldier demands Superman.

These Action Comics are pretty dense. A LOT is happening here so keep the fuck up! Let’s continue.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4 [February, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Superman and the Men of Steel”

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

Hey, the title is the same as the name of the story arc. FASCINATING! The MEN OF STEEL! OOooOOOOoo, chills!

So this Krypton database backup message? It sounds like it’s somehow related to robots being created out of nowhere in manufacturing facilities. At least, that’s what I’m gleaning from this at the moment. The issue begins with a news report that facilities all across the world are suddenly seeing thousands of these robots being made from a computer virus, but it’s unclear if the robots are appearing out of thin air or if these robots already exist and are being infected? Who knows.

Lex “Jeff Bezos” Luthor is freaking the fuck out, though. “I warned you! I warned everybody!” he yells, terrified, his mind scrambled with alien anxiety. Corben/Steel Soldier demands Superman. Luthor poops his pants full of turds.

Back at the Glenmorgan Robot Brothel, all these mechanical monsters keep spouting robot nonsense in green speech balloons. I keep seeing the word “terminaut” so I’m going to take the leap here that these robots are called terminauts! The foreman is just as confused as his visitors. The terminauts start advancing on the group.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

My eyes are simply CROSSED with petrified fear!

Back to the news broadcast, the mayor of Metropolis is publicly implying that the blame may be on known alien Superman for the existence of these terminauts, which is cool for Superman’s enemies but not too cool for Superman.

Back at the Glenmorgan Sex Robot Museum, Superman suddenly shows up in his baggy slacker “S” shirt and Levi’s jeans. He tries to beat up some robots but there are too many. The people at the scene are like “who gives a fuck, they can take Superman, they want him anyway, they’ll leave us alone if they take him, he can go fuck himself”, and I agree with this myself right now. Cops at the scene want to arrest Superman, but then some giant two-story robot comes barreling through demanding Superman, lifts an army tank over its head, and aims at Superman with a “Krypton Specimen Identified” warning. ACTION! The robot sends a projectile right into his goddamned chest! Ha ha!

Outside the immediate area of all the ACTION, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane are hotwiring a car to escape, wondering where the hell Clark went. Steel Soldier pops into the scene and recognizes Lois, and a little bit of John Corben comes out for the briefest of moments. “Lois. Help me.” She recognizes him and tries to chat, but it doesn’t work very well.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

How about that time in Key Largo when you fucked a fish?

Meanwhile, Superman’s not dead, of course, why would he be? He only got hit point-blank with a motherfucking tank missile. He lifts a TV news van over his head and launches it at Steel Soldier’s back, which doesn’t do jackshit. Lois still tries to get John Corben to snap out of it, but it’s an exercise in futility. It looks to me that Corben’s own thoughts are getting scrambled into a stew of Krypton super-robot-virus messages, and he’s saying stuff like “You broke my heart on another planet, Lois!” Boo hoo, go get fucked, Corben, you incel.

Superman tries to take a swing at Steel Soldier, but it didn’t do nuthin’. Now that Steel Soldier has finally detected his target, he starts opening fire with his robot arm gun! And so do a bunch of other terminauts! Yeah! Go robots! Fuck that guy up! “FROM THE MOMENT HUMANKIND SUSPECTED YOUR EXISTENCE, WORK HAS BEGUN ON THE ULTIMATE ANTI-SUPERMAN WEAPON. I AM THAT WEAPON. MADE TO DESTROY YOU!” Yeah! Go get him, Steel Soldier!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

Jeff Bezos is losing his composure!

As Steel Soldier and his cohort of menacing mechanical, uh, menaces, advance on Superman, the caped one belts out a mighty “GRAAUU!” and tears a few of them to nuts and bolts. Man of Steel vs. the Men of Steel! Poetry! Action! AHHH! I FEEL ALIVE!! The fight gets taken to a suspension bridge where Lex Luthor is in the back of an army cargo truck apparently awaiting his own moment of glory. A blast from Steel Soldier sends Superman straight into the asphalt, creating a crater on the bridge the size of, like, the whole width of the bridge, man! A message is transmitted that “dwarf star lensing” is being initiated, and Luthor poops his pants again and orders the driver of the truck to get off the bridge post-haste. I recall this “dwarf star lensing” is what fucked up Krypton in that weird Krypton flashback, correct? Yes, correct. I’m always correct.

Some dude in an iron suit, a monocle apparatus thing, and a giant hammer shows up and starts swinging at Steel Soldier. Corben recognizes him as Dr. Irons who I guess designed and built the damn steel soldier suit and is going to now try to destroy it. A little box in the corner of this page says “EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out this issue’s backup to see how this fight plays out!” Oh boy! Can’t wait! *sets fire to my own head*

So this fight isn’t important at all? So I guess I don’t get to see the actual action happen in the main story of this Action Comics issue and it gets relegated as a side story? A little side-action you might say. Heh. OK, you’re the boss, Action Comics Issue #4. I’ll follow your lead.

The terminauts announce that preservation of the planet is now complete and irreversible. “Welcome to the collection”. The residents of Metropolis, including Lois, Jimmy, and Lex, seem to be encased in a bluish hue. Under the Dome, kinda. “Bottled. Preserved for all time.”

Superman is unnerved. He and the military personnel are outside of this bottled up Metropolis, all they see is a giant smoking crater in front of them. Superman, however, says he can still hear something. They’re not dead. But where are they? Lois Lane’s father approaches, asks if there’s a way to save her if she’s still alive. Among the ruins of the city in front of them, Superman says he has an idea. But he’ll need help.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

Jesus Christ man, what is it with you people and needing to be, uh, “SAVED”, all the time???

AND THEN A NOTE SAYS THAT THIS IS CONTINUED IN ISSUE #7? WHAT THE ALMIGHTY GODLESS FUCK? Continuations in future issues? Backup storylines? Come on, Action Comics! You’re jerking me around here!

“Hearts of Steel”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

So I guess we’re taking a detour from the main story that will spill into Issues #5 and #6? Not very actiony. I guess we’re going to delve deeper into the Dr. Irons cat that designed and built the Steel Soldier suit? Snore.

We see a man working in a lab, and the first sentence of this narration is “All my life, I’ve been inspired by heroes.” GROOOAAANN. Wow, how banal can you get? This man likes nerdy scientist guys like Richard Feynman, one of those Manhattan Project guys. “Like Feynman”, he says, “I wanted to serve my country–and my world. I created Metal-Zero to protect the Earth against the possibility of alien invasion.” But then it all went to SHIT when Lex Luthor started poking his bald nose around, AS USUAL.

This man is John Henry Irons, he invented the Steel Soldier suit. But he calls it “Metal-Zero”. For alien protection. He’s named after John Henry, the album by They Might Be Giants!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

Revenge of the nerds.

We go to the fight scene between Irons and Corben/Steel Soldier, which apparently could not possibly have happened during the main story when the fight scene actually occurred. Irons is like “I’M GONNA TAKE YOU DOWN!” and Corben is like “Beep Boop Your Motherboard Wears Bootloaders” and Irons is like “TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH!” and Corben is like “Fzzzzt Whrrrrrrr Beep Hey Irons Your Ubuntu Linux Daemon Is Showing” and this kind of thing happens for quite a few panels.

“You attempt to shield yourself in steel. However, I AM steel — whereas you are merely flesh!” taunts Steel Soldier, hitting Irons right in his fleshy, easily-bruised ego. Irons makes Steel Soldier take pause when he tells him he already beat him two minutes ago. And he explains with fancy computer words like “terabytes” and “external U.S.B. ports” and “crashing your system”. What he did was infect him with a computer virus and then he smacks him with a hammer.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #4

This John Henry Irons guy, I can tell you with 100% certainty that he absolutely does not fuck.

The smack with the hammer tears Steel Soldier apart into a fiery arc of broken metal bits strewn about the bridge. Irons approaches dominantly with the intention of deactivating the suit once and for all, but the alien entity that infected Metal-Zero has other plans. He basically says “I’ll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!” and then suddenly the suit, and John Corben, disappear into thin air.

The issue ends with John Henry Irons saying that there’s room in Metropolis for other heroes besides Superman.

Final Thoughts

I guess Irons is going to try to horn in on Superman’s action? Sounds like that might be what the next two issues will be about?

I’m torn so far on this story. On one hand, it seems a little too weighty with a lot of fucking shit going on at once (alien bigotry, alien viruses, plutocratic Glenmorgan endeavors, possessed metal suits, disappearing cities). On the other hand, impossible to predict ain’t it? Plus, the nonlinear storytelling is intriguing and convoluted in a good way? Plus, I like seeing a struggling Superman. I wasn’t really expecting him to get his ass handed to him more often than not so far.

The current story arc is now half over! What will become of Metropolis?? What will become of Lois Lane?? Are these terminauts like those shitty replicants in Stargate SG-1?? Who cares, I’m going to bed!


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