Friday, February 21, 2020

The Last One #1


I took the title of this comic book literally and never purchased the second issue.

I don't remember this comic book but it's of the era where I probably picked up every first issue of a Vertigo book in the hopes it would be the next Shade the Changing Man. I guess this one wasn't that. If I were forced to guess what this one were about or else my parents would be dropped into a vat of piranhas, I'd say, "I refuse to guess!" And just like that, I'd own a million dollar property in Silicon Valley! Unless my mother changed her will since the last time we spoke. She's been dating a slightly younger man and even though he's a nice guy, I can't help but think the only value in dating my mother is her Bay Area property! I mean, there's no way he's fucking my 70 year old mom, right? Ugh! Oh. Ow! The horror of that thought just made my appendix burst!

Now I'm probably going to go bankrupt due to medical bills! How much money do you think I could earn with a GoFundMe campaign that reads, "Need help paying for appendix which burst after picturing my 70 year old mother bent over her antique stove while getting fucked from behind!"

Fuck. I was just pretending to picture my mother getting fucked by Ron but now I've gone and actually done it! Ow my tummy! I really need those funds!

Let's try this again: If I were forced to guess what this comic book were about without any threats to me or my family because it was just some really insistent comic book fan, I'd say, "Wasn't it about the last ancient god wandering the Earth? Yes? No? Can you please back up a foot or two?"

My main hope is that I don't thoroughly enjoy this issue because I don't want to feel a desperate need to hunt down the other five issues so I can finish the story. Please, please, please suck!

The issue begins by explaining that the last One is the final angel born of a nameless God long before anything existed. Probably best to keep an aesthetic distance between the angel and God of this story and the angels and God of Christianity. Plausible deniability of Biblical texts is my favorite way to avoid arguing with Christians. They'll point out that something I said or did was utter blasphemy and I'll say, "I don't know what you're talking about!" Although it usually comes out "By bomp bo but bour bocking bubbob!" because my mouth is wrapped around Satan's dick.

The Last One gives twenty dollars to a kid on the street who says they're starving. The kid then rushes off to buy some drugs which doesn't seem to please The Last One one bit.


The Last One must be a goat angel.

The Last One's name is Myrwann. They're the last of the angels simply because they decided not to kill themselves. The other angels were all, "Fuck this living shit! Flesh? Limited perception?! Flatulence?! I'd rather not exist!" And so they stopped existing. But Myrwann was all, "I think I'd like to smell my own farts." And boom! Myrwann walked the Earth for thousands of years. Their hobby became convincing lost souls to become their roommates. So now Myrwann lives with a bunch of starving artists. If I had to predict Myrwann's motives, they'd be that Myrwann wants to make a movie and is gathering all the talent needed to do so. It's quite possible they Myrwann is actually Tommy Wiseau. It would explain the accent.

Having only read half of the comic so far (and not remembering anything from when I read it almost thirty years ago), I have a theory. Everybody in the house is all, "Myrwann has made my life bearable! They're making my dreams come true! I can be the person I've always wanted to be!" And the new kid, the one that spent the money on drugs who Myrwann seems intent on making into a movie director (so maybe he's Tommy Wiseau and this is Tommy's origin story?), will be all, "Oh wow! I'm going to like it here!" But then he'll be approached by one of the roommates who will be all, "You have to get out of here! Sure, I'm a best-selling novelist now. But every night, Myrwann cuts off my dick and does depraved things with it! In the morning, Myrwann reattaches it and my dick's memories flood my brain and I have to live through all the wretched things it lived through the night before! It's a horror show here!" Then the new kid will be all, "Oh no! I must escape!" because the new kid isn't me who would be all, "Oh boy! My dick is going to go on an adventure!"

The new kid, Patrick, spills his guts to a few of his new roommates. He had a sister who kept him sane even while their father molested her every night. But when she got married young and fled the house, Patrick turned to heroin to keep him sane. Or at least not conscious. At times, they feel quite similar. Personally, I just slept for over 12 hours because I wanted to feel sane for a little bit. At one point I got up and ate and then I thought, "What the fuck am I doing? Perception and being aware are terrible attributes we have been gifted. I'm going back to bed to loll in and out of consciousness for another six hours." Of course I brushed my teeth first because I'm not an animal. Was that redundant? I think I just described how my entire problem with consciousness is that we're not animals. Sentience is a fucking curse.

I just listened to David Bowie's "Life on Mars" and have you ever thought, "My entire life doesn't measure up to four minutes of this one person's entire existence?" I should go back to bed.


Mitchell only figuratively gets his dick cut off in this scene but I think it's close enough to what I guessed.

Mitchell doesn't seem super upset that he was just castigated and thrown down the stairs. I bet Myrwann emits some kind of angel pheromone that keeps everybody upbeat and positive. Patrick will probably discover a way to make himself immune to its effects and one by one, he'll cut everybody else from Myrwann as well. Myrwann will become so enraged that they'll do something unforgivable, after which they'll have a true moment of introspection and realize that the other angels were correct. Better to not exist than to be what Myrwann is amid human flesh and minds. And since I only have the first issue of this series, I'm just going to assume that I guessed correctly after I put this comic book back in the box and forget about it forever.


Oh fuck. I understood what was going on too well. Apparently what I need is to have my dick cut off every night only to be reattached in the morning with the knowledge of all the depraved things it was used for the night before.

The good news is that once I find somebody to cut off my dick every night after which it is reattached in the morning with the knowledge of all the depraved things it was used for the night before, I'll finally become a Real Writer!

Patrick decides to stay and Myrwann retires to their room to sit in front of the fireplace and place their head in their hands, spent. It's possible I have the story entirely wrong and its the common people who will teach Myrwann what it is to be human and save Myrwann's life. But who can tell? Nobody really since this is the only issue I have!

The Last One #1 Rating: B. I was only twenty-one when I first read this book and I can see why I didn't keep reading it. What did I know about the exhaustion of existence at twenty-one?! Nothing makes you feel more alive than possibility. And here is a comic book about an immortal exhausted and confused by existence simply trying to offer those possibilities to young people. Maybe by the sixth issue, the young people will have all succeeded in their endeavors only to learn that even having their greatest dream come true was just another trap. It was the end of possibility and the lesson that even a dream life can turn into the drudgery and obligations of an existence bereft of other possibilities. Twenty-one year old me would have read this and thought, "What kind of Vertigo comic book was that?! That angel was fat and ugly. Where were all the titties, yo?!" It was the early 90s. We were obligated to say "yo" after every question.

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