Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1 – “True Believers (Chapter 1)”

* Part 1 of 6 of the True Believers storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1 – “True Believers (Chapter 1)”! In the previous series (!), Alex turned out to be the no-good mole and he got fucking killed, so now the Runaways team is down to five kids with no clear discernible leader.

BUT THAT WILL CHANGE WHEN CHARLES IN CHARGE IS IN CHARGE!

But seriously, I’m looking forward to this. Let’s read it!

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1 [April, 2005]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“True Believers (Chapter 1)”

Runaways (Vol. 2) Issue #1

Los Angeles, California – 9:17pm

A couple of teenagers – one thin and weasely, one fat and smelly-looking – are hanging out in a messy bedroom shootin’ the shit about Spider-Man, etc. Fatso thinks Spider-Man is a banger, but Weasel says that only Fox News and the Daily Bugle think that he’s a criminal. The Bugle is the least-respected newspaper in New York!

This conversation gets interrupted by Weasel’s homemade police scanner, which declares a 10-39 in progress. Weasel recognizes this as a masked felony – supervillain shit. “Real bad guys? Here? We gotta check ‘em out!” says Fatso. Weasel’s curfew is 8:30pm and he’ll get a spanking if he’s caught outside after dark, so no dice hombre.

“Fft, you’re gonna look back on this and hate yourself someday, bro,” says Fatso. After some tough talk, Weasel looks wistfully at his open bedroom window. This kid is so getting grounded.

Downtown – 9:19pm

A group of costumed blowjobs have just pulled off a super bank heist! Piledriver, Excavator, Thunderball, Wrecker, and Bulldozer. Isn’t that cute? Anyway, they’re going to start bouncing around L.A. now that The Pride is apparently gone! “This was their turf,” says Wrecker. “Any mask who tried to make a play for it would get sent back to the Big Apple… piece by piece.”

But now the Pride are dead, betrayed by their lousy kin. And who knows where their lousy kin is these days. Heh heh. Hey, who’s that immediately ahead?

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1

I’ve seen Mean Girls. This won’t end well.

“The Hell is this?” says Thunderball.

“I don’t know,” smiles Wrecker, “but I’ll take a box of Thin Mints.”

The minor in question is Excavator, who is like 15 years old or something. Nico tells the group of baddies to hand him over before they fuck them all up seven ways to Sunday. “Haven’t you seen the news, Ricky?” says Karolina. “Your grandparents are worried sick about you.”

Ricky don’t give a shit! He hoots and hollers about those old fogies being nothing but fogies. He’s rolling with Piledriver (his dad) now!

Welp, negotiations are over. Time to get fighty and mean about it. Karolina turns into that incandescent alien ball of light that she does so well and blasts Piledriver across the street. “They’re muties!” cries Bulldozer. “Light ‘em up!”

Karolina tells him that she’s an extraterrestrial, thank you very much! Molly calls Bulldozer a racist.

Excavator, the kid, tries to hit Molly over the head with his magic shovel, but it splinters into a million little pieces. He makes a “buh” face as Molly’s eyes turn violet. “Too bad. Our club coulda used another boy.” Then it’s KAAPOW! Punched down the fucking street, bitch. Fuck you, Excavator. Your pants are full of poop and you suck.

Nico takes this opportunity to bleed a little bit FROM HER VAGINA and extract the Staff of Whatsits from her chest. “Deconstruct,” she declares, which turns Bulldozer into a pile of pancakes. He’ll regenerate in an hour or two, so don’t worry. *kicks around the pieces* He ain’t dead.

Now it’s Gertrude’s turn to show everyone what she’s made of! Nothing, as it turns out. But she has a big-ass 87th-century dinosaur buddy that comes a-roarin’ out of the trees, scaring the literal crap out of Thunderball. And by that I mean he chews on his face for a bit. Gertrude stands there proudly like she lifted a single fucking finger.

Gert gets punched in the jaw by Wrecker, who has it all figured out. “You’re The Pride’s kids, ain’t you?” But before he has a chance to say “boo”, Chase lands on top of him with eight tons of Leapfrog. “Sorry I’m late, baby!” he says. “I totally forgot to gas up the Leapfrog last night. Had to ‘borrow’ ninety gallons of unleaded from the Circle A…”

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1

Worst heroes of all time right here.

So this little Excavator shit is unconscious and stupid-looking all sprawled out on the street like that. Gert vetoes letting him in the club. “No offense to your dearly departed boyfriend,” she tells Nico, “but the last thing we need is another Alex to stab us in the back.”

Noted! That’s the smart thinking we keep you around for, Gert. Plus your dinosaur. And… uhm…

ANYWAY, there’s an Excelsior Meeting in the basement going on right now at the Holy Trinity Church! A young woman named Michiko Mushashi – Mickey – tells the group that she moved here to L.A. three months ago to work for the Los Angeles Times! And she and this guy named Phil Urich *points* hope to make Excelsior a nationwide outreach program by *checks watch* 10pm. So let’s hustle! Thanks for coming to the first meeting, by the way.

“Like everyone here tonight, Phil and I are former teenage superheroes,” Mickey smiles while Phil makes a face that looks like he’s ready to fuck Mickey if she’ll let him.

You see, Mickey was saved from a life of superherodom by continuing her college education and getting a degree in journalism. But enough about her, some dude named Chris has a story! Go Chris!

“Oh, uh, sure. My name’s Chris Powell, and I’m… well, I used to be Darkhawk.” He found an amulet in high school and got all sorts of superpowers from it, like laser-vision and free Taco Bell. Superhero stuff was fun for a while until he started getting these rude-ass nightmares. He realized he wasn’t cut out for the job, seeing the kind of stuff that superheroes see. You know?

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1

You’ll be waitressing for a long time, Julie.

Anyway, shut up Chris. Julie has something to say now. Julie stands up and talks about how superheroing robbed her of a normal childhood. “With the help of therapy, I’m trying to get some of that innocence back.”

OK, cork it, Julie. It’s Johnny’s turn now. Johnny looks like he shot up heroin about 14 minutes ago, and his problem is that he was such a Z-list superhero that every time he went out to fight crime, some other superhero was already taking care of it. “I wasn’t a superhero… I was superfluous.” Very clever, Johnny! Go get some cake at the table over there.

Mickey and Phil take the floor again. This is why they created Excelsior, to help these people regain the normal lives that had left behind. I mean, Phil enjoyed his time as the Green Goblin, but now it makes more sense at this stage of his life right now to…

“Hold the bleedin’ phone!” yells a guy, starting to rev up his fire-face superpower. “This kid’s the Green Goblin?”

Well… uh… no… he just found one of the Green Goblin’s suits and used it for Good instead of Evil, and–

Mickey tells fire-face to calm his fuck-ass down and introduce himself. He’s Jono, known as Chamber, and he’s just here for the free pizza he read about in the email.

Mickey gets a call and breaks off from the group. The person on the other end, whom she doesn’t know, compliments her on forming the group and tells her that there are young kids, not just adults, who could use Excelsior’s help as well. Ones that are just starting superheroing. Mickey gets suspicious, thinking she’s being asked to go find kids on the street to scoop up. “All I’m asking your team to do is help me find five runaways…” says the mysterious man/woman/goat, “…and in exchange, I’ll give your organization one million dollars, enough to reach out to every cape and cowl who’s ever lived the life.”

Mickey likes the sound of money! “Keep talking,” she says. I see the beginnings of more running away in the future from America’s favorite five kids!

Beneath the La Brea Tar Pits Museum

Molly gripes about their shitty “beneath the La Brea Tar Pits museum” secret hideout. It used to be run by The Pride, so their stink is all over it. Everyone tells her to go to hell.

“Us taking down The Pride was like the U.S. taking down Saddam. We got rid of a monster, but we didn’t plan for what would happen next,” Nico points out. “Our parents may have been awful people, but at least they maintained some kind of… order.”

Chase is beside himself at Nico praising her parents, but that’s not the point. The point is, sir, that the Runaways have a responsibility to clean up their parents’ mess.

Suddenly, a young woman who looks remarkably like Nico appears in the Yorkes’ time machine.

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #1

It’s TIME to get a watch! Ha ha ha! Wait, that’s not what you asked…

“Ah… Karolina’s still here… must be 2005,” the young woman says. Gert threatens to sic her dinosaur on their new arrival until the young woman tells all of them that she is, indeed, Gertrude from the future! In twenty years, she’ll be leading the Avengers. And she’s going to be betrayed by someone that, and I quote, “she’s stupid enough to put on her team.”

Anyway, all her Avengers were slaughtered and it’s all her fault. Old Gertrude, not Young Gertrude. Well, it’s partially Young Gertrude’s fault, if you want to be honest. Every hero on the planet – murdered!

“A supposed champion named ‘Victorious’,” Old Gertrude explains. “He’s the most powerful man on the planet…” Well, you would have to be with a name like “Victorious”, I suppose. And only the Runaways can stop him!

…

Karolina is all like “Listen, lady. We’re just kids.” But Old Gertrude begs them to find Victorious-as-a-Boy and jam a stick in his neck. She shows them all a picture of a handsome young man named Victor Mancha. He grew up in Los Angeles, and he’s… HEY! Guess what? That’s Weasel’s name from the beginning of the comic! How about that??

“His father…” Old Gertrude pants, “is a villain from your time… the greatest evil… in the universe…”

Then she dies before she can tell Chase how much she loves him. Too bad, so sad.

Gertrude isn’t convinced; she thinks this is one last mindfuck by their parents from beyond the grave.

Nico takes a step back. Then a step forward. Then a step back again! “What if this woman was telling the truth?” she says poignantly. What do they do about it?

“I say we find him…” says Chase, cradling the older version of his girlfriend. “…and we rip his damn heart out.”

Final Thoughts

Okay, okay, time travel is good stuff. Me likey. There’s an implication that Karolina gets hella killed in or around 2005, cool cool cool. Consider my curiosity verily piqued! Don’t ruin it, Vaughan.


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Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #619 – “Chapter 12: The End”

* Part 12 of 12 of the Hush storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #618 – “Chapter 12: The End”! The end, indeed. In the previous installment Batman fights a fake Jason Todd who turns out to be Clayface in a crafty disguise, so Batman continues to be completely befuddled as to who is actually pulling the strings around here.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #619 [November, 2003]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter 12: The End”

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #619

Some inconsequential guy named Harold, whom Batman visits on the Gotham City Bridge, gets shot by a dual-wielding gunman. It looks like it might be Harvey Dent, but that’s weird, right? I guess we’ll find out soon enough…

Pour one out for Harold, my good man.

“You’ve murdered him.” Batman clenches his teeth menacingly. The mysterious man wrapped in bandages WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE TWO-FACE aims his two guns at Batman now.

Batman reminisces about our dearly departed Harold. He used to be mute, his body misshapen, he wandered through life as a victim. He could speak to machines and electronics, and therefore was very good at cyberchips and internets. Batman thought he did good by him by allowing him to work in the Batcave. Oh well!

The murderer starts quoting Aristotle, which confuses Batman. None of his enemies are well-read! What gives??

The maniac starts shooting and Batman starts dodging. Remember Harold? Batman’s back on Harold. You see, the Penguin found Harold wandering the streets once. Penguin took advantage of him and helped him do serious criming until Batman scooped him up and subjected him to Batcave slave labor. Someday, Batman had hoped to restore his voice. Until then, a fancy kazoo was utilized for communication. Just kidding! Or am I?

“Harold’s death is meant to keep me off balance. His betrayal leaves my attention unfocused. I have to shut all of that out.” So the ever-calculative Batman attempts to figure out who his assailant is. A shooter who quotes Aristotle, for starters. Generic trench coat. Gun specs that prove inconsequential. “When this… all began, someone severed the Batline. I fell, fracturing my skull. Since then, I have been searching for that individual.”

Oh, I get it. This issue is going to be 75% rehashing of previous events while a gunman keeps aiming poorly and shooting at Batman! Fun! Is this for everyone who jumped into the Hush storyline in the last issue. Because fuck them.

“THE GAME ENDS TONIGHT!” Batman yells, kicking tha bandaged man with one oversized boot.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #619

When he caught Bruce Wayne jerking off in a tuxedo in the bathroom during the most lavish ball of the year.

“Where did you get this?” Batman asks, ripping off a green pendant from the man’s neck. The pendant that Harley Quinn tried to steal from Thomas Elliot at the opera. The one he was buried with.

The bandaged man calls Batman “Bruce”, spooking him a little bit. Batman is starting to think that this is Thomas Elliot back from the dead, but that’s plumb impossible! “WHY hide your face? WHO ARE YOU?!” Batman screams while bleeding all over the damn place. Again. The bandaged man just stands there, asking Batman if he thinks it’s a coincidence that they’re both here on this bridge on a rainy night. The same kind of night when Thomas’ parents had that car accident…

“I do not know how you could have heard these stories – but Doctor Thomas Wayne did everything in his power to save the Elliots.”

Well, he didn’t, did he? And Bruce promised that he would. He promised.

“What is this all about? A child’s broken promise?” Batman punches the man again. “No, Bruce, I was never angry that your father let me father die on the operating table. It was that he let my mother live.”

Batman is confuzzled.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #619

So fuck you. Sins of the father, and all that. Eat shit, cunt.

An explosion rocks the house, son. Batman gets blown toward the bandaged Thomas Elliot Zombie, who tells Batman that he was lucky his parents died and left him with an immense fortune while he had to wait years for his mother to die of cancer. He admits that he strapped the Batmobile with C-4 while Batman and Harold were chit-chatting. “I’m taking you to Arkham where everyone else gets the pleasure of unmasking–”

“PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!” yells Jim Gordon with a gun. “PUT YOUR KNEES IN THE AIR AND YOUR HANDS ON YOUR KNEES, AND DO A BACKFLIP AND LAND ON YOUR KNEES WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND YOUR KNEES ON YOUR HANDS!”

“NOW.”

Thomas Elliot grimaces. Jim Gordon to the rescue, eh? Batman, getting half-Nelsoned by Thomas, tells Gordon to take the shot, but Batman and Thomas are too close together for a clean hit.

Harvey Dent emerges from near the smoking Batmobile. He’s not afraid to take such a risky shot! BLAM BLAM, right in the shoulders. Batman waxes nostalgic about his former good friend Harvey Dent, who got acid splashed in his face and became Two-Face. His face looks better now, and Batman wonders of this friendship can now be rekindled?

Thomas falls off the side of the bridge, and Batman follows him. He must know if it’s actually him underneath all those mummy bandages.

“Look,” Dent turns to Gordon,” I shot ‘Elliot’ in that alley. It’s how I knew the Joker was innocent.” Turns out that ‘Elliot’ was Clayface, too. Always with the Clayface. “You’ll be charged for this,” warns Gordon. Dent just smiles. “I’ll take my chances with the courts.”

Batman comes back up out of the water and onto the bridge, wondering who did Dent’s plastic surgery. “You’re kidding, right? You just saw him take a header off this bridge. Friend of Bruce Wayne’s. Elliot. Doctor Thomas Elliot. Did the work in Philadelphia.

“Thomas Elliot is dead,” says Bruce, but Dent tells him to dig up the grave. He’ll find clay residue.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #619

Have you ever seen a more beautiful sight in your life, Jim? The terrifying flames are like a serene sunrise…

Two weeks later, Huntress stands atop a tall building posing like a badass on top of a bust of a gothic, uh, bird. Catwoman shows up to give her shit about being affected by Scarecrow’s fear gas. “You’re angry with me, Batman, everyone… but mostly you’re mad at yourself.” Catwoman smiles. Huntress tells her to go to hell. You know. For her sins.

Huntress asks Catwoman if it’s worth it to keep changing costumes and switching sides on the good vs. bad thing. “…Yes. As long as you’re doing it for yourself… and not for what someone else thinks of you.

Superman meets up with Batman in the Batcave, where bats come to play. Batman is beating himself up for taking so long to crack the case that he pretty much failed anyway. Superman tells him that detective work is like finding your eyeglasses. They’re always in the last place you look! Heh heh. *avuncular clap on the back*

“How could I have not known what was going on around me?” Batman grits his teeth angrily. He pushes a button on his computer console and shows Superman how Thomas Elliot got to him: “Subliminals. Every time I used the computer, Harold’s hidden relay would randomly flash his image. When I fell… when I needed a surgeon… I only thought of Doctor Thomas Elliot.”

“Bruce, what can I do to help?” Superman asks. How about shutting up for starters, then going to hell.

Batman wonders how Thomas Elliot found him in Metropolis. And everywhere else for that matter. Superman uses his x-ray vision and discovers a chip – a homing device – implanted in Batman’s skull. Damn you Thomas Elliot and your incredibly invasive surgery!

“Burn it,” says Batman.

“I could hurt–”

“Do it.”

So Superman fries Batman’s brain like an egg. He stands up and decides that Thomas Elliot did not work alone. The detective work continues…

*intermission*

*dancing popcorn tells you to go to the lobby*

Batman travels to Arkham Asylum and becomes very wordy at whoever is there listening to him. We don’t know who it is yet, but rest assured that it’s probably Jermaine Jackson. Batman surmises that it all began with Killer Croc kidnapping the kid for the ransom, but the man he’s talking to didn’t need the ransom. Thomas Elliot financed all of it. Then he got Kryptonite for Poison Ivy’s lipstick. He promised he could surgically fix Croc’s mutation… for a price. Scarecrow did the evaluations. Poison Ivy was involved because of the money. Harley Quinn? She’ll do anything the Joker wants to do. The Joker? Hmm… he was promised butt stuff? Maybe the whole Jason Todd thing piqued his interest. And Clayface? Money! It all comes down to money in the end, does it not? Ra’s? Not really in the game, was he? He just wanted to know who was using the Lazarus Pits.

The thus-far unseen man is doing a crossword puzzle. “How do you know it was me?”

Now for some dumb shit! “Elliot’s medical records are in storage in Philadelphia. You didn’t use your real name. But… ‘Arthur Wynne’. The man who invented the crossword puzzle. That was the missing piece.”

Final Thoughts

Just kidding! Would that be funny if I just ended it right then and there? 12 issues and then anticlimax? What an lol that would be.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #619

Terminal Riddler! The perfect criminal. Bask in his glory.

It was the Riddler all along! “You were diagnosed as terminal. When you came out of the pit, you must’ve been quite mad.”

“Not mad. Angry. I used to be somebody in this town. Now, everybody has a gimmick. I was going to show them all. And I did.”

Riddler thought he had a gambit: a cure for cancer. Thomas Elliot’s mother died from it, he would have done anything to help cure it. “Turns out, he wanted something more.”

So Riddler came up with “Hush”, the bandaged man in a trench coat. It started as a funny ha-ha-type joke! “Then, Scarecrow started singing the song. ‘Hush, Little Baby…’ It’s about a kid who can’t be satisfied. And it stuck.”

And now, somehow – I don’t know how because I’m not paying much attention! — Riddler knows Batman’s secret identity: Jermaine Jackson! Barring that, Bruce Wayne.

Batman has his own gambit. He knows Riddler better than he knows himself, for serious. Just a man made out of riddles and nothing more. Edward Nigma. Yeah, that’s right. Fuck you, too. “In case you ever again do decide to trade on my identity… keep in mind Ra’s al Ghul is still looking for who used his pit.”

Riddler buries his face in his hands, defeated! “Get out,” he mutters.

“One last thing.” Batman turns around. “Why Jason? Why bring the boy into it?”

It’s because Riddler lost so many times to Batman that he wanted to really hit him where it hurt, that’s why. Fucker. “His grave is empty. Where is Jason’s body now?” He smiles. “That is a riddle, isn’t it?”

Right in the face! Punch! Riddler gets his nose bloodied! That’s the shit that’ll get you owned, sir. A guard comes into the cell to see if everything’s all right. “He fell,” replies Batman, and then he takes his leave.

Later, Batman stands in the graveyard where he buried Harold. Catwoman watches from the branch of a tree. She can’t believe it was the Riddler all along.

Now there’s the situation where both Batman and Catwoman know each other’s secret identities. Batman claims that he’s not very good at having partners or opening himself up to anyone, but Catwoman reminds him about fuckin’ Nightwing, Robin, Alfred, Oracle, et al.

When Catwoman tells Batman to “hush”, he gets all mad at her and grabs the fuck out of her wrists, hurting her. “What the hell is wrong with you, Bruce?” And now Batman wonders if she can really trust Catwoman. He wonders if she may have been part of all this… and they both wonder when they can really trust each other.

Anyhoo, show’s over, folks.

Final Thoughts (For Real This Time)

What a ride! Another epic Batman story in the books. What’s next for the caped crusader? Will he help Nightwing with his homework? Will he give Robin a spanking? Stay tuned for the next storyline: “Daddy Batman”.

On second thought, kill me instead.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71 – “Strange (Part 2)”

* Part 6 of 6 of the Superstars storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71 – “Strange (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, Parker and MJ have their expensive dinner out on the town, and Parker regales her with a tale of how he encountered Doctor Strange.

Or did he? Memories are surprisingly hazy…

…because he’s actually currently in a living nightmare and MJ is some sort of vampire beast thing and the dead figures of Uncle Ben and Gwen have come to haunt him! Aaaahhh!

…and so forth.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71 [March, 2005]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Strange (Part 2)”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71

Doctor Stephen Aloysius Strange is passed out on the floor, as we had seen him in the previous issue. A gust of wind stirs him awake, and he notices that the glass is shattered on his large, round foyer window. He palms his face nervously.

Spider-Man is passed out on his floor.

And Strange’s bald assistant, Wong, is tied up on the floor with sticky webbing over his mouth. “By the hoary hosts of whatchacallit, what happened?” Strange says, channelling his inner Ron Burgundy. “What is going on? What is this?”

Strange casts a spell that dissolves the webbing off of Wong’s mouth. It also dissolves Wong’s shirt right off his body, exposing his tender, pierced nipples! Strange gawks at him, and I think he might even have just licked his lips?

“What happened?” asks Strange.

“Thank the Ancient One, he’s still alive,” replies Wong.

“Is that really Spider-Man?”

“I believe so, yes. He came in through the window–”

“What? He crashed into here? He just crashed in?”

Spider-Man’s breathing is shallow. Wong removes the mask, exposing Parker’s secret face! “He’s probably going to be mad you did that,” warns Strange, but Wong doesn’t give a fuckshit. The kid needs the kind of a help only a pierced-nippled man can provide.

The last thing Strange remembers is meditating on the floor with Wong. But, uh oh, he forgot to create some astral defense spells before the meditation. Without doing that, you can accidentally open astral plane dimensional doorways! Shit! Shit! Possible possession by unearthly, magical, possibly nefarious energies! Fuck!

Wong tried to wake Strange with no success. Especially since he was, you know, attacked by Spider-Man before he had a chance to really try. But the real question here, my bald sir, is why Strange was in a weird sleepy dream state in the first place? Who had put him there?

I don’t know, sir! Your subconscious is delicious to interdimensional beings? At any rate, it seems that the energies have left Strange and latched onto snotnose over there *points to the lousy unconscious teenager*. Strange smacks the kid a bit to try to wake him, and when that doesn’t work he gets up to go look for some spellbooks. “Hang in there, kid,” he says.

Meanwhile, Parker is having some nasty-ass nightmares. Every creature he has ever fought – Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Wilson Fisk, Venom – are attacking him all at once, and they’re all 50 times their usual size!

And now Parker lands in the middle of a picnic, the kind of picnic where people’s Uncle Bens are still alive! But then, suddenly, almost everyone turns gray and drops dead right in front of him.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71

This is what you get for masturbating, kiddo. You made God angry.

Parker runs away from the scene and suddenly finds himself stumbling upon a kid facedown in the pond. “Hello?” he says to the prone, unmoving body.

“Gwen can’t hear you Parker,” Harry Osborn says behind him. “She’s dead.” Parker asks him how he can talk to her, and Harry responds by kicking him off a cliff! Ha!

Yeah, so this whole issue’s going to be the damn dream, isn’t it? BO-O-O-ORING!

While Parker blubs and flubs in the water below, Strange and Wong (outside of Nightmareland) pore through books to find the good ol’ abracadabra that will wake Parker up again. After what seems like dozens of hours of wasted time, Strange stumbles upon some information about the Dream Dimension. Some powerful, strong, burly men have succumbed to the horrors of the Dream Dimension and died after unsuccessful recovery. The entity within the Dream Dimension feeds off of nightmares, sapping energy to nothing and working toward phasing into the corporeal world. Oh no!

Strange demands that Wong get him some candles, incense, crystals of Agamotto, and a liverwurst sandwich. This kid’s going to wake the fuck up on his watch.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71

GGGAAAHHH!! I forgot to pay the Hulu bill!

Meanwhile, Parker likely bolts up from a dream-within-a-dream, panting and sweating, saying “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” A shadowy figure in the bedroom with green pants, and a green brassiere, and holding a couple of sai walks closer to the bed. “What’s the matter, sweetie? Nightmare?”

Parker doesn’t find this entirely unusual, so he starts spilling about the dreams he had. The thus-far unseen woman asks him if he has heard the old legend that if one dies in their dream, they die in real life? The figure of Mary Jane enters the light and throws the sai right at Parker’s chest, but it bounces off harmlessly. Equally scantily-clad figures of Liz and Gwen hold Parker down on the bed.

“I’m going to have to kill you, Peter, because if I don’t… you’ll kill me,” she tells him. “You do know you’re going to kill me, Peter. Of course you will!! I will die just because I know you!!”

Parker is horrified by the very truth of this matter! In fact, MJ says she’ll die before that saucy cougar Aunt May!

Figures of J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, and Ben Urich appear in front of the bed to take bets on who will die first, Aunt May or MJ. Jameson bets on Aunt May because, and I quote because it sounds like something I’d write, “That woman will drop dead the minute she finds out the nerd wears a costume.”

But Parker will die way before any of them. In ten years, no one will remember there even was a… whatchucallit… Spideyman.

A giant robot bursts through the window and starts choking Parker out while everyone around him cheers. “KILL HIM!! KILL HIM BEFORE HE KILLS ALL OF US!!” smiles and shrieks the figure of MJ. Things are really getting chaotic! Wouldn’t it be really, really funny if Parker never woke up from this? lmao

Too bad. Doctor Strange enters the dream and tells the robot to let Parker go. The robot turns into Aunt May and she’s all like “RAAWWRR! NO!” Strange does some boogity-boogity, which causes Aunt May to yell and whine. She keeps switching between robot and beast and MJ and robot and goddamnit.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #71

Klaatu Barata Nikto, motherbitches!

Strange, as you can see, continues speaking in his wacky language to banish the monster from Parker’s tender neurons. After a spell, so to speak, the demon grows to about 25 stories tall and shapes itself into the visage of Doctor Strange’s father! “GO TO YOUR ROOM!” he says, basically, then zaps Strange with purple laser eyeballs. “This is my domain! The arrogance of you! This is your doing, sorcerer.

Doctor Strange does some magic finger waggling and the demon seems to disappear into a lesser dimension. One of them dimensions that’s fewer than three. I’m gonna say two. “You shouldn’t have used the image of my father like that,” Strange grimaces. “All you did there was make me angry.”

Parker, in an unmasked Spidey suit, hovers unconscious in midair. Strange swims over to him and asks the kid if he’s ok after he slaps him about the face a few dozen times.

“Well done, sir, that was quick.” Wong holds a visibly exhausted Strange while Parker woozily lifts his head up from the floor. “Whatthefuzzaga!!??” he blubs. Strange assures the kid, who smells like poop now, that everything’s going to be ok. The threat is gone. All those bad dreams about the people you live dying and/or killing you? Poof! Heh. So, uhm, wanna go bowling?

Parker stammers that he has seen Strange before, somewhere, maybe. And after Strange admits that he used a memory spell on Parker, which obviously didn’t work very well, Parker leaps through the glass of a fucking window and bolts away from the house.

Doctor Strange admits to Wong that he completely faked his way through saving the day! He should really catch up on his reading, because next time something that is actually prepared might attack! I like this Strange cat, he seems like a lovable fuckup.

Speaking of lovable fuckups, the kid no one loves cavorts back to his house and rolls up into a scared little ball in his basement. The visions are still there haunting him a bit, but MJ starts knocking on the outside basement door to give him kissies and snap him out of it.

He ignores the knocking. All he can think about is MJ yelling about how he’s going to get her killed someday.

“But tonight was our fancy date…” MJ grovels.

Final Thoughts

HAHAHAHAHA!! What a hilarious ending! What other antics is this Peter Parker dickwad going to get into next, I ask ya! Penis caught in a mousetrap?? Cucumber up the butt?? Exciting potential awaits!


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Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #618 – “Chapter 11: The Game”

* Part 11 of 12 of the Hush storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #618 – “Chapter 11: The Game”! In the previous installment, TV’s Tim Drake’s Robin gets really fake-mad at Catwoman hanging around the Batcave soaking up all the Batsecrets, including the big one where *cough cough* Batman is Bruce *cough* Wayne. They fight for some reason even though Robin is hella pretending. This particular part of the issue serves no purpose and results in nothing.

Meanwhile, the Huntress has been steeped in Scarecrow’s fear gas, and Batman has decided that Scarecrow has been the culprit all along! All those other jobbers – Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Joker – were just pawns in an elaborate game of Space Chess!

But none of that matters either, because TV’s Jason Todd’s Second Robin comes back from the dead to hold Tim Drake Robin by the scruff, ready to rumble with the Batman himself.

Two more issues to go, bitch.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #618 [October, 2003]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter 11: The Game”

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #618

“Jason Todd is dead. The Joker killed him years ago. However, it is not impossible for the dead to come back to life.”

Oh man, whatever. You expect me to suspend my disbelief for that? Suck my entire dick, sir.

But Batman goes on to say that Green Arrow and Superman died before, and they came back to life! So why not Jason Todd, someone as equally important as the likes of Superman? Batman notes that Jason Todd’s corpse is gone from his grave. It’s really him, in the bone and flesh!

Jason tells Batman to come and get him before he slits Robin’s throat. “Tell me, Batman. You let one Robin die. You want to go for two?”

Instead of stopping Jason, Batman ruminates about Ra’s al Ghul’s “Lazarus Pit”. It has healing energies for the dead, but it leaves the user riddled with madness!

Catwoman distracts Jason, leaving an opening for Batman to plow into him. He’s mad at Catwoman for not staying with the Huntress, though. All like “I COULD HAVE TAKEN CARE OF THIS! RAWR!”

Jason hits Batman back with a “BDFF”. Batman hits Jason back with a “WUP”. The onomatopoeia leaves a lot to be desired. Jason gets extra mad, accusing Batman of considering him a “second-rate Robin”. I would have to agree! I barely know this kid and I can already tell he sucks. “HOW COULD YOU LET ME DIE?” he yells. “C’MON! FIGHT ME!”

Batman almost threw the kid in the pit himself in a moment of grief-stricken dumbassedness. Good thing he didn’t, as you can see, but it happened anyway, and oh well. Jason is really holding his own against the Bat, but a lot of that is because Batman is sitting there and taking it like a dumb ol’ bowl of grapes. I mean, come on. Jason wants to kill him, and Batman’s like “durrrrr, I want to watch House”. Jason is like “hurrrrr, it’s all a game man, play ball!”

“If you are who you say you are–” Batman growls. “–then you already know. Thinking what we do is a game is what got Robin killed.”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #618

Sloppy like yo’ momma’s pussy! Ha!

“My opponent is counting on Jason’s appearance to affect my abilities. Play on whatever guilt I harbor for Jason’s death…” KRAK! THAK! CHOKK! SWOOSH! PHTOOM! Not today, pipsqueak! Batman starts fighting back with all the gusto in the world. Catwoman wants to enter the fray, but Robin holds her back. She hisses a big fat “fuck you, kid”.

Batman acknowledges the fact that Jason Todd was never this good at holding his own. Something fishy is going on here.

Jason chides Batman for going after all the wrong people. The Joker. Ra’s al Ghul. “C’mon, Batman – It was right in front of you the entire time. “Jason smiles devilishly. He reminds Batman that someone cut his Batline, causing a near-death all the way back when.

Batman remembers when he and Jason first met. Jason was trying to steal one of the Batmobile’s tires for some fool-ass reason in Crime Alley. Someone orchestrated a Batline-cut that landed Batman in that same exact spot. All the pieces are coming together like a one-piece jigsaw puzzle.

The fight gets taken to the top of a very large and tall monastery. Batman holds Jason over the edge of the edge of the edge of the edge. “You are not the Robin who died,” Batman sneers. If this were really Jason Todd, he would have called him “Bruce”. Or at least “Fauntleroy”. But that hasn’t happened. Whoever orchestrated this is keeping Batman’s real identity secret from “Jason”.

Batman accuses “Jason” of defiling a child’s grave and posturing as Jason. He really beats the shit out of Jason’s face at this point, and the kid merely says in a meek, whiny little voice “…I only wanted to be loved, Batman…” And, well, that was “Jason’s” mistake all along. Jason knew that Batman loved him.

Yeah, right. Loved him right up his butt.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #618

I do love you! You’re like the son I almost had. When I fucked your mother last year.

In the rain, “Jason” dissolves into nothing and produces a weird smoke. Batman surmises that it’s possible that this imposter never even knew he was supposed to be Jason. He never namedropped himself, after all. Because, yeah, people do that all the time, right Batman? Give me a break.

Robin asks Batman when he knew that it wasn’t actually Jason. It was when he discovered the clay on the ground. Clayface was the culprit here. Just another pawn in the fucking game.

Robin’s neck is still bleeding a little from the wound from Clayface’s knife against his throat. “Go to the cave. Have Alfred tend to your wound. Then get to work on that costume.” Batman points to the ratty little rag that Clayface was wearing. “See if there’s anything on it other than clay that will help us find out who is behind all this.”

Catwoman reports that the Huntress took the motorcycle. “In her ranting, it sounded like she made a deal with someone who betrayed her.” Batman thinks it might be about him, but they can’t be sure. Here I am thinking that not everything is about him, goddamnit. So fucking self-centered, this guy.

These two get a little mushy for a panel or two. Batman admits that he trusts Catwoman (even though I wouldn’t, idiot), then he fucks off with the knowledge that SOMEONE out there is still pulling the strings.

Batman makes his way to Oracle’s clocktower hideout, where the wheelchaired one works at her computer console. He scares the bejeebus out of her. “I need to find Huntress,” he rasps without even so much as a hello. Oracle tells him that Huntress ditched the motorcycle about two blocks from where they were. “Let me know when you find her,” Batman says. “She’s a loose end… and whoever it is we’re dealing with isn’t going to let her stay out there for long.”

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #618

Batman raises a good point here. Why, indeed? Tommy Elliot is dead and no Lazarus Pit will ever bring him b—WAIT A MINUTE!

Oracle arranges for the Gotham City Bridge (the only bridge in a city full of rivers) to be closed all night. She has arranged a meeting between Batman and some fuck named Harold. “Why? Why betray me? I would have given you everything you needed. I had given you anything you needed. A home. A purpose.”

Harold looks like quite the hapless, homeless man. He used to work in the Batcave; a genius with electronics and computers. And he had planted a bug under the one of the computers in the Batcave.

“He said he could heal me,” cries Harold. “Make it so I wasn’t mute. So I could stand up like a man. I thought that even if I had been tricked… you are my hero.” He looks to Batman. “You would always win… forgive me…”

This mysterious “he” that Harold is flapping his gums about knows Batman’s identity, Harold’s work in the cave. And he’ll tell him exactly who “he” is.

Why, it’s–

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #618

Oh well.

Mister Two-Guns appears to be Mr. Two-Face. But we’ll see, won’t we. We’ll see.

Final Thoughts

Gulp! The last piece of the puzzle is Harvey Dent himself, isn’t it? One more issue to go. Is it going to wrap itself up in a neat little package, or am I going to have to slaughter some bitches for wasting my time? That’s the real mystery.


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Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7 – “Of Sith and Shadows”

* Part 2 of 3 of the Heart of the Drengir storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7 – “Of Sith and Shadows”! In the previous installment, Sskeer is twelve kinds of fucked up from the Drengir invasion, so the doctor has him in stasis to try to recover. It’s barely working. For some reason, Keeve decides to turn off the stasis field and she is immediately infiltrated by Sskeer’s Drengir arm. But good news! She and Sskeer are able to channel some energy into locating the Grand Progenitor! Yippee! Joy!

Except they don’t know exact where he is, but he’s around here somewhere. Check the couch cushions.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7 [September, 2021]
Written by: Cavan Scott
“Of Sith and Shadows”

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7

Keeve still finds herself in the void and Sskeer-less. It’s scary in there, and being alone is, like, triple scary! She calls out, but all she hears is her echo. Until…

“No one. That’s all you’ll ever be, child. All you can be.” This is the voice of the Drengir. Suddenly, Keeve’s fairy friend Kanrii shows up, as does Bartol. Neither knows why they’re there, or even where they are. They aren’t much help to Keeve, probably on account of they’re just visions in her puny little peanut brain. She sees a couple more motherfuckers before everyone disappears in a poof.

Then a very real man shows up, if you could call him a man. He’s very disfigured, and he has a dashing widow’s peak. He busts out a red lightsaber and challenges Keeve to a duel of sorts. All the while, Keeve repeats “no, no, no, no” over and over, and thinks this is all a goddamned dream. Not like the fun dreams she has, the ones with Avar Kriss and a wading pool full of chocolate pudding.

“Did you think you could defeat us, seed-pawn?” says the assailant. Keeve admits after a few more lightsaber clashes that she has no idea what he’s talking about. Suddenly, in a black Drengir-drenched speech balloon, Keeve blasts the man with purple jizz and says “The harvest will be protected.” This surprises her, because a) she’s used to plain ol’ not-evil white speech balloons, and b) now’s not the time for harvests of any kind!

“The harvest will be ours!” says the man before plunging his lightsaber through Keeve’s chest. She can no longer move, and then she freaks out because “the circle shall be forever”. I don’t know what this means, but it seems very nefarious.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7

Stupid circles, always going on forever.

Back to reality, in the meditation chamber, the doctor is trying to snap Keeve out of it. She sits cross-legged on the floor, sweating. She was meditating the whole time, but it didn’t work very well. The doctor says her pulse rate jumped 10000%, which is the opposite of what’s supposed to happen during the likes of meditation. It’s probably because she keeps having scary visions of creepy proportions due to her Drengir mind. It’s beyond the doctor’s capabilities to help, so she should probably just jump off a bridge the next chance she gets!

“I thought I was so clever tapping into the Drengir root-mind to find out the location of the Great Progenitor,” she muses as her brain keeps playing damnable tricks on her. She rounds the corner in the Starlight Beacon’s many twisty turny hallways and bumps into astromech droid KC. She asks the beepy boopy robot where Maru went, and he’s where he always is! He’s looking at many screens like a gamer nerd trying to call up every Jedi worth his salt. Many are otherwise occupied by their own problems and can’t fight a few stupid plants, but Avar Kriss won’t hear any of it. This is the fuckin’ Drengir. She needs everyone to report here on the double.

Maru’s like “too bad, so sad” about that. Many are dealing with Nihil, many others are preparing for the Republic Fair. Ha! The fair. Yeah, the fair is real important right now. Get those lazy Jedi asses over to Sedri Minor tout suite.

Once Maru is off the phone, Keeve bugs him with wishes to help out. Maru asks her if she even trusts herself right now to help herself poop out of her own butt, let alone neutralize the Drengir threat. Keeve doesn’t really know what to say until Maru is interrupted by a Category Three report from the Rseik Sector. A Category Three! Sounds like a job for this blowjob over here *points to Keeve*. Hop to it, sister.

We’re talking Agricultural Hub 42 on Chortose, an Outer Rim planet full of cute little hairy werewolves. The Nihil have busted their way through the hub and are at the factory gates. A couple of Chortose brothers try to call the Beacon, but it’s too late. A smoke bomb gets thrown and the Jedi are nowhere to be seen. Looks like these two will need to fight the Nihil on their own!

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #7

You station yourself in the mucky sewers under the factory gates, I’ll go to the lounge and eat Doritos while watching All in the Family reruns.

Too bad the Nihil are like “suck it, idiots” and infiltrate the factory looking for sprayer droids. At the 11th hour, a Jedi does show up to fight. That Jedi’s name? Keeve “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Trennis, and she’s terrified out of her plant-infested mind. She starts getting blasted by enemy fire, but she deftly ricochets each hit with her lightsaber. One blast catches the Nihil guy on the shoulder, which hurts a lot I presume. Probably because he goes “YAARGH!”

The two Chortose brothers, Pango and Gru, are hurt. Pango is not as hurt, so he’ll go while Keeve stays behind to help Gru. A good plan in theory, but someone whacks Keeve in the face with a stick and incapacitates her for the split second it takes to grab the brothers. And things look very grim until a spooky ghost woman shows up to actually save the day. You can call her Orla Jareni, and Keeve has been seeing visions of her. Jareni has detained all the Nihil in the factory and they will soon be picked up by the Republic Defense Coalition. The next thing Jareni does is punch some numbers into a computer, turning on the vents in the room and getting rid of the smoke.

“Which temple do you belong to?” Keeve asks.

“None,” Jareni replies. “That’s the thing about Wayseekers, we go where the Force leads us – and the Force led me to come here.”

“To stop the Nihil?”

“No — to find a Jedi in danger of losing herself.”

*jerkoff motion*

A message over the comm demands all available Jedi to report to Sedri Minor, but Keeve doesn’t leave. She tells Jareni that the Jedi don’t even want her around, but that’s not true, is it? They just want her to trust herself! It’s a lesson we can all learn from time to time.

*jerkoff motion*

Keeve starts yelling. She doesn’t trust herself. Being a Jedi Knight is hard! And her Master? The darkness has taken him! And Keeve can barely handle a gaggle of stinky Nihil! And the Drengir? Keeve got a message from them in her head:

“It’s over. We’ve already lost.”

Cut to a creepy skeleton wearing the same forehead jewel that Avar Kriss has! Whaaaat!

Final Thoughts

Whoa now, slow down. The Jedi can’t lose! That’s not the Jedi way! We have one more issue to get it together, people! I don’t want to see any fucking slacking from all you Starlight Beacon nerds!


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