Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220! And happy birthday to my darling wife, who turns 492 this year!

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220 [April, 1974]

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

”A Star Is Born”

‘70s fashion is at it again! Betty’s wearing a patchwork quilt with 40 bright colors on them. Veronica is wearing pants you might find on some octogenarian at the golf course. Those were certainly the days!

We meet our titular two ladies in Riverdale High’s hallway. “YOU? Betty Cooper, are to play WHAT?” Veronica gapes in disbelief. Yes, yes. Betty Cooper has been cast in the school play as a “teen-age temptress”!

“Ha! That’s like casting Snow White as the Bride of Frankenstein!” laughs Reggie, the school’s Scott Baio. Even Archie is laughing uproariously at this, which really peeves Betty to high heaven. “Humph!” she grunts as she goes home to get her gun.

Just kidding! What she actually does is starts strutting her stuff and going “why CAN’T I be a femme fatale”? And Archie, good ol’ Archie, is like “MAYBE THE OLD COW IS IN A COMEDY!!” and everyone agrees and Betty goes home to get her gun.

Even Dilton, the school’s Potsie, hurls some insults at Betty as she storms off. “Clowns!” she screams. “Nothing but clowns!”

Jughead rushes around the corner at maddening speeds and leaps into Betty’s arms. “Betty!! Tempt me!” I actually laughed at that. Good going, Archie Comics. It was the first time!

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

Veronica, you catty bitch! *pulls back trigger*

Everyone gets in their final digs before Betty actually really leaves this time. “Poor Betty!” Veronica says, tears in her eyes. “She couldn’t tempt Jughead with a hamburger!”

The riotous laughter continues in the distance, and Betty cries. She cries and she can’t stop. There’s been about five pages of continuous ridicule and we might see someone who has been bullied into suicide for the first time in Wholesome Archie Comics!

“I guess maybe it is kind of silly to try to be what you’re not!” Betty exclaims as she walks by two boys with rapey glints in their eyes. “I truly thought I could do it, but I guess I’m just not the type!” She starts striking seductive poses absent-mindedly. “I suppose even the greatest actresses have their limits.” She makes a Marilyn Monroe face.

By now, the two boys have really been ensnared by the overt seduction! Next thing the rest of the gang knows, Betty’s got two boys in tow! An arm on each one! “By George, I think I’ve got it!” she says, which befuddles me. I can think of a million better things to say to her friends, such as “Look at this, you fuckin’ nerds” and “Threesome time!”

We are treated to an intermission in the comic book where we see Betty rocking bowtie fashions and Veronica sporting ugly knee-high flower socks. I don’t know who these pages are for but I’m not running out to get flower socks and bowties anytime soon. Ask me in a month.

”The Maverick”

The narration is quite enthusiastic!

“All the world loves a Maverick! Someone who doesn’t follow the pack! They’re different! They’re exciting! They’re adventurous!”

But enough about Sarah Palin, of course. We’re talkin’ about a guy. We’re talkin’ about a guy named Guy. A guy named Guy who won’t pull over when a cop wants him to! Betty is in the passenger seat and she’s quite concerned, because Guy seems like the type to accidentally careen off the side of a cliff with a blood alcohol content of 2.7%.

Guy drives like a piece of shit through the streets until he gets to his house. Hopefully, other cops weren’t on his tail! And hey, his license plate is so full of mud that there’s no way they were able to write it down! Ha ha ha ha! Yes! Betty calls him a “wild, mad fool” and I’m guessing she’s more than a little titillated.

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

FUCK tha Police! Haha! 1312, pigs!

Betty describes Guy as “scandalous, thrilling, and devilishly exciting”. He would whack men in the head with pool cues at biker bars, and he’d never finish his mashed potatoes at dinnertime. No respect for rules! No respect for the law! Betty is in fucking heaven, man. She loves being bad!

“By comparison, boys like Archie and Reggie were dull, dull, dull!”

They both try to protect Betty. They insist that Guy ain’t no good. He hangs out with the bad crowd, see? He likes it rough and tough, see? But all Betty wants is attention from these two for some reason. But NOOOOOOOO! It’s all about Veronica! Veronica, Veronica, Veronica! So she gloms onto the guy who wants to be with her.

And that guy is the Guy guy.

His friends all look like degenerates. Spider got busted yesterday, they say, but they don’t elaborate. Insider trading? Money laundering? Probably. Spider loves white-collar crime. But they don’t need Spider to have a good time downtown making a ruckus, scaring the children, and eating the rats. One kid has a beer belly, wild blond hair, and a 5:00 shadow. He looks like Buzz Osborne.

One night, though, everything changed…

Guy and Betty are driving around the neighborhood at 700 mph. Guy clips a parked car while making a turn. “Whoops! Ha, ha!” he says. “Little close, that one! Let’s split!”

Split they do, sorta, until Betty screams for Guy to stop. “THAT WAS MY DADDY’S CAR!” she was known to yell. Now, now, Betty, you wouldn’t rat on ol’ Guy, would ya? Skank. You skanky skank, you.

That was the last straw for Betty. And the first straw, honestly. She gets out of the car and walks the fuck away. “And don’t call me! I sure won’t call you!”

Betty’s dad was already staring at the damage once she got home. Tsk tsk, he says. Hitting and running? Very cowardly! Oh yeah, and his car looks like shit now. There’s that, too.

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

I hope you like a shallow grave, Betty.

Mr. Cooper starts crying. With tears of sorrow and disappointment in his eyes, he asks why, why, oh why, Betty, do you run with the bad crowd now?!

“The greatest injury is not to the car! It’s the hurt inside of me! I know the feeling of failure! I really thought I was doing a better job!”

He walks away, leaving Betty sobbing her lungs out on her bed. Later, she commits a very messy suicide! And so ends this miserable afterschool special. Thanks for playing.

”Pin Up”

Veronica is wearing an awfully tacky leopard skin coat that Archie compliments like the kissass that he is. Betty is concerned that Veronica isn’t aware of the leopard’s endangeredness. Veronica gets mad and tells her that the coat is dacron and go fuck yourself.

”Temptation”

“We could get into trouble!” gasps Betty.

“We ought to steer clear and we both know it!” agrees Veronica.

Dilton peers around a tree with an orange and black plaid vest that looks like Halloween threw up on your grandma’s shag carpet. “What’s that? What are you girls talking about?” And, of course, the girls want to shove this nerd’s head into a toilet.

“So anyway, what’s the problem?” Dilton persists even though his presence is unwanted by many. Betty and Veronica are suddenly happy to have an ear: there’s a rumor going around about a boy! Isn’t that exciting?! Legend has it that his penis is–

“I’ll tell you what’s rumor!” Archie stomps into the scene with his finger up and ready to wag at anyone who gets in his way. “The rumor is that he’s no good – with a Capital N.G.!”

Betty and Veronica smile at each other and agree with Archie winkingly. NO GOOD IS RIGHT! Legend has it that his balls are–

“Ah, I see!” Dilton gets it now! “They’re afraid they might run into this fellow!”

Oh, my poor sweet Dilton. We’re talking about penises and balls here. Don’t you know what girls like? Sweet, sweet, Dilton. Poor, sweet, Dilton, dripping with honey, covered in whipped cream…

Betty and Veronica (Vol. 1), Issue #220

Sounds like someone’s getting a visit from the Pillsbury Doughboy!

“Why, he’s a challenge to any woman!” Betty exclaims.

“We’re all reformers at heart, you know!” Veronica chimes in.

“To make over a beast like that! What a victory!” Betty adds.

“What a sense of power!” Veronica says.

OK, now I’m confused. Is something heinously sexual happening here? Well, Archie and Dilton are in on it, and Archie just lost a bet. “This time I thought I had you, Dilton!” Archie grumbles, digging angrily into his pockets for a fresh 1973 penny. Now the tables have turned, and it’s Betty and Veronica who don’t know what’s going on.

“Arch couldn’t believe that girls would actually fight to meet a complete stinker!” laughs Dilton. “So we made up a rumor to see how you two would react!”

The girls chase the boys with the intention of gutting them both with a garden rake.

“THERE ARE WORSE THINGS IN THIS WORLD THAN COMPLETE STINKERS!” Betty yells.

“THERE ARE YOU TWO, FOR EXAMPLE!” Veronica yells.

What a prank for the ages.

Final Thoughts

Keep your grandma away from this particular Archie comic, kids! She’ll shit in your hat and then she’ll make you wear the hat on your butt!


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NewsRadio, Season 1 – News on the Radio!

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.
Discussion Subject: NewsRadio, Season 1 (1995) (NBC)

NewsRadio
I really, really like NewsRadio, guys. Criminally underrated sitcom. CRIMINALLY. Someone should go to jail about this.

I bitched and moaned for, like, a decade for NewsRadio to show up on a streaming service. I had the DVDs but some of them were all fucked up a scratched and bent and pooped upon. Finally, like an angel from heaven sent by God herself to blow me, NewsRadio was available on Amazon Prime. And now I’m available to watch it! All 5 seasons, even the abysmal Jon Lovitz season. It’s ripe for the picking, baby!

The Premise

New York City has the city’s most kickass all-news radio station: WNYX. Change of the guard! The station is now headed by fledgling news director Dave Nelson (Dave Foley)! Physical gags aplenty, smart writing, this show was made for the college-educated in mind! Like me! Maybe you too, but if you’re the kind of person who appreciates my blog humor then you’re probably in the age range of 11 – 16.

Season 1 is short with only 7 episodes, but the tone of the show was firmly established already. Some of the absurdism isn’t happening yet, but we’ll get to that as the series progresses! Hoo boy!

My Half-Baked Thoughts

Since there are only seven episodes of Season 1 of this helplessly ’90s sitcom, I’ll use this space in its entirety to rank the characters! Well, I’ll rank them with respect to their Season 1 presence. This list shifts around over time (especially when one of them gets murdered between Season 4 and Season 5).

8) Joe Garrelli (Joe Rogan)
Most of Joe’s screen time is spent being a somewhat macho piece of shit, and he isn’t really fleshed out yet to be the electrically- and mechanically-inclined genius that he will be shortly. Plus, he has this real douchebag earring that reminds me of a simpler time when OJ Simpson’s glove didn’t fit (so one must acquit).

NewsRadio, Season 1

I found the problem, Dave. This six-second porn video takes 45 minutes to download on your shitty 1995 laptop.

Joe’s best moment is when Lisa confronts him about her office affair with Dave, but he was under the impression that she caught him hanging out with a very flamboyantly homosexual friend. Either Joe is gay, or Joe hangs out with a very flamboyantly gay friend! Both cases are excellent, but it’s not enough to hoist him out of the bottom spot. In a nutshell, Joe on NewsRadio is very much like the conspiracy theory-touting real Joe Rogan, and that’s bullshit and I won’t stand for it.

7) Catherine Duke (Khandi Alexander)
I think I would place Catherine firmly in the 7th spot anyway, but most of this ranking comes from her exceptionally low screen time throughout the duration of the season. I’d be surprised if she had even ten lines. Mostly they were just “fuck you, Bill” and “fuck you, Dave”. Both cases are excellent, but it’s not enough to hoist her out of the 7th spot. See what I did there?

Catherine’s best moment is when she pretended to know nothing about the Big Bonus even after Dave made the decision to give her the Big Bonus King Solomon-style. “I guess you just gotta know how to play the game, honey.” Snap snap, son.

6) Lisa Miller (Maura Tierney)
Things get tough around Rank 6 because this cast is so goddamned strong. Strong like bull. Or reinforced concrete, at least with respect to compression strength! I guess what I’m saying is, even though Lisa is cute as a button, she gets the 6th spot. Basically, of all the personalities on the show, Lisa’s is the most grounded. Her intelligence and sarcasm are always appreciated, but she mostly spends Season 1 as Dave’s love interest. That’s is an awful use of her character.

Lisa’s best moments are the little reveals that she’s kind of a slut. As in, among other things, she wants to fuck in the studio booth. Good for her.

NewsRadio, Season 1

We all know that Dave is the much bigger slut, though.

5) Dave Nelson (Dave Foley)
Dave and Lisa are pretty evenly matched for similar reasons, but Dave eeks out ahead because he gets a lot more screen time and flexes the most sarcastic attitude of the cast. This matches sublimely with his 13-year-old good looks. It’s refreshing to see children in positions of authority in television.

Dave, being the straight man, gets more leeway on his ranking. All the KOOKY CHARACTERS AROUND HIM have to carry most of the weight with their KOOKY PREDICAMENTS. The most Dave has to worry about is Phil Hartman bitching about his desk, or breaking up with Janeane Garofalo because she murders Lisa Miller in cold blood. You know, serious stuff.

Dave’s best moments are his interactions with Jimmy James. This is because Jimmy is a better character than Dave, and Dave has to bend over and take it in his role as the foil! I also like it when all the other characters make Dave bend over and take it. It happens a lot.

4) Matthew Brock (Andy Dick)
I’m happy to proclaim right here on this blog that Andy Dick’s performance on NewsRadio is the only thing I’ve ever liked about Andy Dick. And not only that, but he gets to be in the top half of my ranking?? Remarkable!

NewsRadio, Season 1

Not pictured: The mountains of cocaine stored in Andy Dick’s home closet.

You can all rest assured that Andy Dick publicly exposes his genitals roughly 99.999% less on NewsRadio than he does in real life, guaranteed! In fact, Matthew Brock is mildly flamboyant, rather mild-mannered, and only off-putting in a way a normal co-worker would be. Plus, he’s quite funny.

Matthew’s best moment is the on-air mispronunciation of “Joey Buttafuoco”, which I’m kinda surprised they got away with in 1995 network TV. Obviously, they gallivanted around the actual mispronunciation with respectable aplomb, but it’s still almost directly mentioned.

3) Beth (Vicki Lewis)
Good ol’ Beth. No last name, just floating by with her four-letter appellation. Like Cher.

Early on, Beth is firmly established as a completely useless secretary. Not necessarily rude, loud, or brash, but she certainly has a personality. I’m surprised at how tame her outfits are this early on. They get progressively more revealing and office-unfriendly as time goes on.

NewsRadio, Season 1

That red-headed bitch is a bitch.

Beth’s defining moment is when she makes a move on Bill while he escorts her to a broadcaster’s luncheon. This may also be Bill’s defining moment, honestly. The whole episode led up to Bill’s sleazy, less-than-innocent motivations for taking Beth out on a date and subverting it by making Beth the sexual molester. Funny stuff!

2) Jimmy James (Stephen Root)
By the time I actually watched NewsRadio for the first time, I had seen nothing but miserable buffoonery and antisocial sad-sackery from all of Root’s characters. Bill from King of the Hill and Milton from Office Space are the big two that everyone knows. There are others, but I’m not doing your homework for you! Do your own Stephen Root homework.

Jimmy has enviable confidence and boisterousness, but why the hell wouldn’t he? He’s rich as fuck and doesn’t give a dick about anything. He exhibits kindness, humanity and generosity. He’s like Bill Dauterive without all the atrociousness.

NewsRadio, Season 1

“You don’t DESERVE William Fontaine de la Tour Dauterive!”

Dave: “Oh, uh, Mr. James. I didn’t see you come in.”
Jimmy: “Yeah, well, I’m like, uh, that magician guy. What’s his name?”
Dave: “Um, David Copperfield?”
Jimmy: “Nope.”
Dave: “Siegfried?”
Jimmy: “Uh-uh.”
Dave: “Roy?”
Jimmy: “That’s the one.”

1) Bill NcNeal (Phil Hartman)
No shit that Bill NcNeal is the best character. Did you really expect that Phil Hartman wouldn’t be the best character in a TV show with Phil Hartman in it? For shame, sir.

Bill McNeal has some incredible nuance that you don’t see in all the other characters. Masterful sleaziness — a nice, constant patina of sleaziness — and you never actually see or hear Bill do or say something distinctly sleazy (Flanderized, as it may be, as the series progresses). In fact, often subverted. Beth jumps Bill’s bones and Bill spends the rest of the episode traumatized and offended, but you never know if he was playing it up or not. I remember a scene in Season 2 where Beth shows Bill a nude photo of herself with a paper bag over her head (and a drawn-on smile). Bill critiques it as an art piece, and when asked if it’s sexy he gets mad at her for undermining the artist’s intent of the photo as a social commentary. Then he tells Matthew that “Beth is showing naked photos of herself with a paper bag over her head. Check it out.”

NewsRadio, Season 1

Hi, I’m Phil Hartman. You might remember me from such news articles as “Celebrity Shot in the Brain”

Worth the Watch?

Fuckin’ A is NewsRadio worth the watch. No early installment weirdness at all, except maybe the shakiness of the pilot with no Joe Rogan or Khandi Alexander. The show is established firmly already, and if you don’t laugh at anything out loud then this show is not for you + you’re dumb.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49 – “Hero”

* Part 4 of 8 of the Cats & Kings storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49 – “Hero”! In the previous installment, Peter Parker spends an issue trying to stand up for himself and it doesn’t work! He confronts J. Jonah Jameson about getting fired, and then Jameson double fires him! He tries to pound through the glass at Fisk’s building, and all he gets is a smirk from the fat guy. He tries to ask his teacher why the FUCK Fisk beat a murder charge and why the justice system is so FUCKED UP and he gets suspended from school!

And I’m lolin’ and lmaoin’ all along the way.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49 [January, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Hero”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

Aunt May ends up calling Jameson and calling him Hitler, so he’s probably going to cry about it and then rehire Parker so that the old lady isn’t mean to him anymore.

J. Jonah Jimmy James Jason Joey Jameson is walking out the Daily Bugle parking garage after a long day of yelling at children. Waiting for him is Ox, Montana, and Fancy Dan. There’s a guy in front of his car who is either dead or unconscious and I can’t tell who it is. Jameson just stares in horror.

“I think he’s speechless.”

“You know, I’ve never seen that before.”

“What?”
“Someone actually struck speechless. You hear about it, I mean, sure, but I’ve never actually ever seen it.”

“Where, there it is.”

“What do you think he’s thinking?”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“’Cause he’s speechless.”

Montana hazards a guess. Probably something along the lines of “please don’t kill me”. Please don’t kill me even though I went back on my word on endorsing Sam “Magic” Bullit. And then connecting him to organized crime. And then implying that Wilson Fisk was organized crime.

Jameson continues to stare wild-eyed like a fucking raccoon.

Please don’t kill me even though I really, really screwed up and I have, like, one chance to rectify the mistakes and redeem myself.

“And that would, at a bare minimum, include a printed retraction and a reinstatement of my support of the candidate,” says Dan, speaking on Jameson’s behalf. And then a physical reminder is going to be in the cards today!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

Can I interest you in The Onion. They have these silly headlines! But now real life is way too depressing for satire anymore.

A voice from behind catches all their attention. “Oh man… this sucks. I was all proud of myself for thinking of sneaking into this garage to give Jameson crap. But seriously, how clever an idea could it have been… if you guys thought of it, too? I mean, really.”

SPIDER-MAN IS ON THE SCENE! *Batman theme plays*

The Three Musketeers are shaking in their boots. Spider-Man again, eh? Fuck.

Spidey grabs Jameson by the scarf and throws him away while Fancy Dan and his Fancy Bunch pull out their semi-automatic rifles and start firing. Spidey does about five pages of flip-a-ma-bouts, dodging all the bullets while Jameson forgets how to blink for another ten minutes. In the chaos, Dan shoots Ox in the leg. While Dan kisses his boo-boo, Spidey uppercuts Ox and barely leaves a mark. “Is it that you’re too stupid to fall down?” Spidey asks hilariously. Then he ejaculates his web goo all over the lot of them. He taunts them; wonders out loud how they’re not in jail; wonders if the Kingpin is so connected that he just throws money around and nothing ever happens to any of them.

Ox punches a windshield.

Spider-Man punches Ox. “Come on, man. Just fall down!!”

Dan shoots through the web around his gun, throwing Spidey off balance enough for Ox to slam his twerp-ass to the ground. During the scuffle, Jameson takes out his phone to call the police but he has no service in the garage.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

Listen, we can argue about who shot who until the cows come home. Let’s just forget anyone shot anybody, m’kay?

James then sets up a voice memo recording on his phone and lists the three of their real names ‘cause he knows them, and then starts interviewing. “How long have you worked for Wilson Fisk, AKA the Kingpin?” he asks with a newfound stance of authority and confidence.

“The hell you doing?” Dan snarls.

“You said earlier that the Kingpin sent you here to rough me up so I would change my endorsement of his candidate Sam Bullit. My question to you is how long you have worked as muscle for the Kingpin?”

“Are you serious with this?” Dan snarls again. Refusing to answer questions, Dan reiterates that Jameson is to put a retraction in the paper before he fills his pants with someone else’s poop.

Spidey then pops up and gives Ox a wedgie. Then he bonks Dan’s and Montana’s heads together. Then he punches Ox in the chin three times. He doesn’t fall down. Then he does – right onto a windshield, breaking the shit out of it.

“Well…” Spidey turns to Jameson.
“Well, what?”

Spidey points a finger right into Jameson’s face. “I’m not leaving here until I get a thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

Jameson continues his news reporter schtick and asks Spider-Man why he wears the mask. Spidey ignores him and asks him why he insists on being the way he is… but then he just heard that Jameson went back on his endorsement? Jameson confirms this and tells Spidey to buy a paper if he wants to know more.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

Getting dunked on by Spider-Man is my dream.

Security enters the parking garage. Jameson turns his head for a split second, then finds Spidey gone when he turns back. Jameson looks forlorn, but not as forlorn as the Threesome of Suck on the ground.

Outside, while Parker removes his suit, he complains about getting shot at again. Again! This superhero stuff is dangerous fucking business, yo. “God!! And I gave a grown man a wedgie. That’s a memory that’s going to haunt me.”

I don’t know how Jameson teleported to Peter Parker’s front steps, but Parker finds him sitting there looking sad as the dickens. Parker frowns.

“Mr. Jameson.”

“Kid.”

Jameson explains that he had an exceptionally bad day at work. He dragged himself out to the “nightmare that is Queens” to… uh… starting talking about how his son was on the space shuttle Orion that got burned up in orbit. About a year ago. “Technical malfunction” were the only two words he heard about it. Classified information otherwise. “My boy was an astronaut. A hero. A hero!! And he’s gone and that’s — I didn’t get a body to bury.”

Parker looks so sad that I can hear his little penis drooping.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

:[

Jameson doesn’t see Spider-Man as a hero. “You asked me this. This is why you got fired.” Spider-Man is not what a hero is. Heroes are heroic! Like Dale Earnhardt or Charles Atlas! “Astronauts are heroes. People in creepy masks are not.” And this bias has affected his integrity as a reported. So NO MAS!

“Today was a big eye-opener. There. That’s the thing. So… there. I think we both understand that what we are talking about here is between us and not to be discussed. Or brought up again.” And Parker agrees.

The kid asks if Jameson is worried about the Kingpin’s reaction to his editorial. Jameson says it’s a headline the Kingpin can’t walk away from. Plus, if anything happens to Jameson then he knows it’s the Kingpin they’ll come after first (and we know how well that worked out the first time). Anyway, Jameson was wrong and Parker was right. He offers the kid his job back.

Parker mumbles and gets self-deprecating, but Jameson calls him a bright boy with a huge future ahead of him. “In between things, I’m going to have you tag along with Ben Urich on assignments. See the city the way a reporter sees the city.” Jameson thumps him on the shoulder. “See the city for what it really is.”

Jameson gives him a little atta-boy and walks away. Parker is on top of the world.

The next day, Spider-Man has lunch with his enemy.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #49

lol, this doesn’t need a comment.

“Young man, you have a lot of growing up to do.”

“Right back at ya, Rerun.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, you really got my head spinning.”

Spider-Man wonders why the Kingpin is just sitting at a restaurant without a care in the world. He’s a murderer, a liar, a cheat, a criminal. And he just gets to walk around the city. He wants to know how the world allows him to be.

In short, Spider-Man just wanted to look the guy in the face. And Wilson Fisk, well, he says he’ll someday look Spider-Man in the face. His real face. And he’ll find out who he is. And he’ll personally come to his house “…and I will teach you exactly what I am.” Fisk gives his most intimidating, obese scowl.

“Are you hitting on me?”

Fisk notices that Spidey webbed his feet to the floor. He doesn’t understand the satisfaction Spidey might get out of that. Spidey says this is proof that they don’t understand each other at all, then.

Fisk, again promises to find out who Spidey really is, and Spidey flings out of the restaurant.

Final Thoughts

Touching! J. Jonah Jameson redemption arc! I didn’t know he had it in him! You love to see it. Or you may not. Maybe you like it when Jameson takes a big stinky shit all over Peter Parker’s face.

Speaking of a big stinky shit, Wilson Fisk is done with his lunch.


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Shane Gillis

Shane Gillis

Shane Gillis’ Official Website

JUMP TO:
(2021) Live in Austin
(2023) Beautiful Dogs

Live in Austin (2021)
Rating: Good

Shane Gillis - Live in Austin

Hey, I heard that Shane Gillis is an insensitive bro prick who makes fun of Asian people and Downs syndrome kids. I heard he got fired from SNL because clips of his podcast surfaced where he and his cohost said some very slurry things in the context of a racist 1940’s NYC landlord. I also heard he’s fat and ugly, and I heard he accidentally got a really shitty Dominican haircut before taping his Live in Austin set. I also heard that’s actually pretty damn funny.

I guess my point is that I’m going to be a Shane Gillis apologist and since you’re not reading any of this anyway, it doesn’t matter! I have had no experience with Gillis before listening to Live in Austin — none. Not his podcast, not Beautiful Dogs, nothing. And this set is fucking hilarious. Gillis’ material is almost entirely political in a manner that doesn’t come from the perspective of someone who wishes to be angry or preachy, but rather from the perspective someone who just wants to soak in all the crazy bullshit going on in America with insane curiosity. He often polarizes the audience with claims such as “Trump is funny” with plenty of arguments to back up his claims. Gillis is right: Trump is funny, but it’s always unintentional, and it’s mostly because he’s a huge autistic jerk with no sense of social norms or decorum. Gillis’ whole bit about Trump turning the 2015-2016 debates upside down on their heads is something I found legitimately humorous in spite of my very strong negative feels toward the treasonous piece of shit. The material is delivered with frat boy congeniality instead of sourpuss bitterness, and who would have thought that maybe this is the way to go?

He has a chunk on how the University of Alabama finally desegregated their football team in 1971 after they got their asses completely handed to them by a team full of black guys from USC (“Hey, uh, we’re 0-4, maybe we should, uh, consider adding some black guys to the team…?”), making the point that football can end bigotry better than anything! Get a whole team of transgendered people to blowout Alabama and you won’t hear anyone complain about their bathroom usage ever again.

Gillis only talks to the audience when he loses them a little bit, but he takes everything in stride. The bit about transgender football was off the cuff after getting slightly heckled, but then he agreed to move on from the topic. Another time he started telling some pretty mild pedophilia jokes and got a bit of a negative reaction, so he was able to move on from that, too. I like a comic who can adjust on his feet, especially when they’re relatively new at the game. Of course, he pivoted from talking about little boy volleyball shorts to how coaching a team of special kids was hilarious to him. “Special kids love ladies and John Cena. That’s it. That’s all we talked about…” And if some of this material seems callous or insensitive to you, then don’t worry! There’s a relatively inoffensive chunk about Gillis taking his heroin-addicted sister to Six Flags that’ll surely tickle those fickle ribs!

Oh yeah, I didn’t even get to mention his fantastic Fox News Dads material! My bottom line is that Gillis is good. He pushes boundaries without being mean-spirited, and he has an everyman temperament about him that’s endearing to lowlife scum like me anyway.

Beautiful Dogs (2023)
Rating: Just OK

Shane Gillis - Beautiful Dogs

Oh, Shane, I had the highest of hopes for you! I was expecting you to top Live in Austin with flying colors! Instead we step down a little bit, pushing a little too hard against uncomfortable boundaries in many cases, and riffing too long on some weaker material.

I’m mostly alone on thinking Beautiful Dogs isn’t a work of genius, but I was on edge that the dude was going to be cutesy and try to drop an n-bomb mid-set. I could see his fingers twitching nervously, feeling out the crowd, seeing if he might lose them. His opportunity was during the George Washington plantation slave reenactment bit! He could have thrown it like a grenade and run away in the chaos!

OK, that’s kind of unfair, but I am an annoying woke asshole sometimes and there was just too much “gay” and “retarded” references in an act from 2023 for me to handle. He does poke fun at himself throughout, claiming that he’s not a Republican “yet”, but being a history buff like himself is a gateway drug for being a Republican and he’s on a slippery slope as it is. Based on Gillis’ set, he must be one of those mythical undecided moderates who literally don’t know who to vote for in 2024. Wild.

There’s a lot of good, though, and the best is the whole George Washington plantation story. Trying to one-up the black slave reenactor trying to push the white guilt with Gillis’ own brand of MENTALLY CHALLENGED FACES had me rolling, and then the whole bit about seeing George Washington’s teeth made of animal teeth, lead, and slave teeth as the last moment of the tour, then getting pushed out into the sunny parking lot going “what the fuck was that?” was the hardest I’d laughed at something a stand-up comedian said in a long time. The jokes about how white people stopped being cool the day Jackie Robinson went up to bat for the first time were fresh as hell, along with the sidebar that predominately white countries that aren’t America don’t have enough cool black guys around to keep the white guys humble. Getting dunked on by a goth in Australia, getting a girlfriend with a Navy SEAL ex, and the furry military general being the scariest soldier Gillis had ever heard of are all top-notch comedy hilarities!

Some of the other stuff, not so much. The whole chunk on sex lands horribly, with unneeded misogyny peppered in through. “What do women do for fun, fold shit?” was so bad that he had to backpedal and legitimately half-apologize for it. It was awkward. Then he disappointedly repeated the “Down’s syndrome guys like titties and John Cena” joke from Live in Austin, a topic that could have been mined for some new takes. The story about watching the war in Iraq streaming online also meandered into nothing, with the ultimate conclusion being “I can relate with the scared dudes.” Some of this stuff could have been worked on a little longer. And, as mentioned before, everything is “gay” and “retarded” like it’s still 2002. Sorry, dude, that’s not cool anymore.

He at least capped off the set with his Trump impressions, which are immaculate. It’s funny to see a comedian make equal opportunity knocks on both Biden and Trump. One is clearly, no contest, the better option for President of the United States of America, but we can’t pretend that he’s not a doddering old fucking man. I’m glad Shane Gillis isn’t pretending he isn’t.

I think the good outweighs the bad by slim margins, but if you have a higher tolerance for frat bro comedy then you’re going to love this way more than I did anyway.


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Superman: Rebirth #1

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Rebirth #1!

I’m getting a little tired of the New 52, yet I don’t want to stick entirely to the past, so I’m going to jump ahead to hit a few DC Rebirth series to get those comic book juices flowing again! Whatever that means! Those juices never left!

Superman has been more miss than hit, but I hear this is ok. Before we kick off into the 2016 Superman reboot proper, here’s the one-shot that will ease us into it. Off we go.

SUPERMAN REBIRTH! DUN DUN DUUUUN DUH DUH DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUNNNN!!! What kind of wacky hijinks will this stupid, weak asshole get into today?

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1 [August, 2016]
Written by: Peter Tomasi / Patrick Gleason
“Superman: Rebirth”

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1

Some sort of dark, but good, version of Superman has a monologue about how he was trying to save Real Superman. He tried to help him while he was too busy saving others instead of himself. Then he died in Metropolis? “There was so much I wanted to say – so much I wanted to hear – but then you were gone… and buried here in Metropolis.

Dark But Good Superman looks at Regular Ol’ Superman’s memorial. It’s a huge, HUGE, base for an eventual statue that will likely be 40 feet tall and a hazard for airplanes.

But then Dark But Good Superman sees something… odd… “Hmm?” he says. This is how I know he sees something odd!

Meanwhile, in the underground access tunnel (of what, I don’t know), a redheaded woman with a ponytail attempts to break open a seal on the wall shaped like Superman’s insignia. The one he keeps on his chest. You know the one! The “S”! See, Rebirth hasn’t changed too much, has it?

Suddenly, she hears the sound of footsteps behind her. “Who’s there?” she gasps. It’s Superman. Not Dead Superman. “CLARK!” she yells so loudly his eardrums burst, and then runs to give him a giant hug. “You’re alive!”

This is Lana Lang, and she confused Dark But Good Superman with Regular Superman. “…I’m afraid I’m not who you think I am,” he tells her. She gives him the eyebrows of consternation. Then she jabs a finger in this imposter’s chest and gives him the Business.

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1

Fucked up if true, sir. Beards always mean evil, you know.

“How do you know my name,” she asks him, the guy, the one who knows her name somehow.

“It’s a long story that I’m not able to talk about for a variety of… personal reasons.”

WHAT A COP OUT! I don’t like this guy at all! Very suspicious! Tremendously, even! Lana recognized him as the guy who was there. You know. There. As in, he hoisted Clark’s bulk back to Earth and “laid him down in front of them”. And then he left! Took off! Flew the fuckin’ coop! And again, it was for personal reasons. Diarrhea, mostly.

“Okay, how about answering me one simple question: What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For your Superman to come back.”

“Come back to what?”

“To life.”

How very mysterious! This guy is just a beacon of riddles. A fountain of intrigue. Lana continues her pissy hissy fit, telling this guy that Clark is dead. Dead is dead, and he’s not coming back to life. “Rawr!” she says. “Rawr!” But Not-Superman says he has faith. Like that’s going to help at all whatsoever.

Not-Superman changes the subject and points out Lana’s array of interesting devices. She responds that she’s an engineer and that she makes things to do things (Tom’s note: I’m an engineer too and I don’t know how to make or do shit). When Not-Superman asks her what she’s doing down her, Lana tells him that she’s keeping a promise. She intends to steal Clark’s corpse and bury him next to his dead-ass parents back in Kansas. Not-Superman advises her to stop what she’s doing and be patient; he’s going to come back to life and whatnot.

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1

Oh man, Superman is going to screw up his own Rebirth, isn’t he?

How does Not-Superman know that rebirthing is hard? Because he died once, don’tcha know? Doomsday killed him! Lana says, yeah, they had to deal with Doomsday too. And then Not-Superman slaps her right across her mouth and goes “mine was worse”.

Not-Superman explains that Doomsday came out of nowhere and severely injured some Justice League members. No rhyme or reason to his appearance and his wake of death of destruction. Not-Superman got cocky, thought he could beat Doomsday with the ol’ one-two-buckle-my-shoe, but not at all. “His bony protrusions somehow tore through my skin,” he says. He actually says this, I didn’t make this up this time.

And for the first time, he was scared.

Then all of Smallville was killed, I guess. He’s talking like he’s Real Superman, but I know the harsh truth.

“To stop him, I had to be every bit as ferocious and unrelenting as I could. Doomsday wasn’t getting past me no matter what the cost. There was no holding back. I put everything I had left into one last punch.”

Pow.

And then Doomsday hit him back, and, well…

They both died?

Then a small circle of light appeared and he was Rebirthed?

Doomsday wasn’t even the bad guy! He has a boss and his boss is named fuckin’ Mongul. I remember that guy from earlier times. I read a lot of comic books now.

Mongul killed Smallville. Now it’s Metropolis time! This is why Rebirthed Not-Superman is back, baby. And Regular Superman came back, too. For real. He means it.

Lana Lang doesn’t believe one word of his cockamamie story, but he knows why he’s here. We wants to steal Clark’s skeleton bones, too. He wants to keep them somewhere safe.

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1

Because Clark calls it his “Jerkin’-Off Hut”.

Not-Superman talks about how he intends to respect Regular Superman’s privacy and not go find his Fortress of Solitude for some reason. Unless absolutely necessary. Now it’s too late anyway, because he can’t find it anyway with following Superman. Who’s dead. Keep up.

WELL, LANA LANG KNOWS WHERE IT IS! She was there once to watch episodes of Sons of Anarchy. Not-Superman lasers the plaque on the wall, and Lana tells him that she’ll show him where it is if he takes her and Clark’s remains with her. Leverage, bitch. Upper hand, son!

They travel to the Arctic, somehow. It doesn’t show them how, they’re just automatically there. I’m guessing blimp. Not-Superman zaps something and the Fortress lets him in. It doesn’t look cozy at all. A couple of robot eyeballs float in to ask how then can help, and Not-Superman needs to find the Regeneration Matrix (lamp-shaped toaster). How convenient that they can just shoot this Regeneration Matrix laser or whatever at Clark’s rotting corpse and it will bring him back from the dead. Fantastic.

The robots can’t detect the Regeneration Matrix. “No such artifact exists within the confines of the Fortress,” they say unhelpfully. Lana Lang stares at a Kryptonian crystal and stuff happens.

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1

Just kidding! I’m a hilarious little crystal, aren’t I??

A hologram of Superman shows up like Tupac. “If these crystals have been activated, it means I’m dead, Kara. Like we spoke about last time we were here together… you’re the last Kryptonian, our beautiful and fragile adoptive home world needs you now more than ever…”

Superman knows a lot of women, huh? Very suspicious.

“…it needs it’s Supergirl to be ready.”

Meh.

Not-Superman gets kind of choked up. “The Superman of this world is dead. And I can’t bring him back.” Well, that settles that! Let’s bring him back to Smallville and throw his decrepit bones in the fucking garbage can. I mean creek. I mean, bury him by his stinky parents.

Lana Lang grabs a shovel and intends to dig a giant hole, which would usually take hours but we don’t have that kind of time. So she digs it in maybe five minutes while Not-Superman smiles and says touching words and sniffs and burbles.

“All that tomorrow is missing…” he says importantly, “…is Superman.”

Final Thoughts

Stupid.


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