The Phantom Stranger #19

Hey! Hey! Listen to me! I have a really funny joke! "Sometimes it sucks to be the Phantom Stranger!" Get it? His mouth is wide open like he wants to suck a dick! OH! Also, he's being sucked down some mysterious hole!

Sometimes people don't know what to write about but they still want to think of themselves as a Writer. I don't know why anybody would want to be a writer if they didn't have anything to write about. Stop dreaming about being something useless! Go play video games instead of banging your head against a blank notepad saying, "I have Writer's Block!" Here's a quick assignment to help you get past your Writer's Block! Go to Wikipedia. Hit the random article button wherever the fuck it is on that page. Then write a story about whatever topic comes up! You can do it a few times if you need more help. Here, I'll give you an example! I'm headed over to Wikipedia right now!

Main topic of story: Kilum-Ijim Forest.
Now that you have a main topic to write about, use your imagination!

Brokeback Kilum-Ijim Forest
By Grunion Guy

Deep in the heart of whatever continent the Kilum-Ijim Forest lay in (or lied in! Fix that up in post!), there lived a guy that didn't know he was gay. Unless he was a monkey. Can I use gay and monkey right after each other? I think I can unless that's bestial homoeroticalism! Anyway, he was definitely a monkey because being a monkey is going to be a metaphor for being gay to trick homophobic people into feeling empathy with homosexuals when they feel their hearts break because of the monkey's sad story that you are going to hear soon.

The monkey whose name was Roman lived in a tree deep in the heart of the Kilim-Ijim Forest. He was living with a monkey without a cowboy hat but it didn't feel right because he had to close his eyes when he did it with that monkey. And when he closed his eyes, he always pictured a monkey in a cowboy hat. Oh boy did he want to do it to the monkey in the cowboy hat really badly. But the other monkeys frowned on monkeys doing it to monkeys in cowboy hats for some reason. It was probably because their monkey Bible said doing it to monkeys in cowboy hats was the worst sin ever! Even worse than the list of ten sins that were supposedly the main sins! Why wasn't the doing it to monkeys in cowboy hats sin on the list of the worst sins if Monkey God hated it so much? That was nearly the biggest mystery in the Kilum-Ijim Forest!

But the biggest mystery deep in the heart of Roman was where he could find a monkey in a cowboy hat. But that mystery would be solved by the end of the story! Because this isn't one of those stories written by depressed Germans like Kaka and Neatsheets where Roman would die never ever finding a monkey in a cowboy hat to bring meaning to his existence because there is no meaning ever in anything! Why even tell a story like that?! What's the point except making readers mad at you for being an incompetent storyteller?!

A biggerer mystery deep in the heart of the Kilim-Ijum Forest was where Roman got his cowboy hat that he kept hidden in the closet. But that mystery won't be solved with this story because some monkeys are just born with cowboy hats and nobody knows why because monkeys aren't that into science and DNA and gnomes and stuff.

So one day while Roman was just hanging out in the Killem-Ijum Forest eating bugs off of a stick, a monkey smoking a cigarette swung into the Kilium-Ijit Forest! But the cigarette wasn't the important character trait of the new monkey (at least not until the super sad ending)! The most important character trait was the cowboy hat that he was wearing on his monkey head! Roman was very happy to see the new monkey and also did not have anything in his pockets. The new monkey's name was Ramon.

Deep in the heart of Roman's closet, the cowboy hat box was empty because Roman decided to put it on his head and go up into the tallest tree in the Killium-Ijium Forest with Ramon. You see, Ramon also liked doing it with monkeys in cowboy hats which Roman had discovered through his use of Cowboyhatdar. Up in the tree, Roman and Roman did it in that special way that they wouldn't do it if one of them wasn't wearing a cowboy hat. It was romantic. It was steamy. It was disgusting. Except it wasn't disgusting because they were wearing cowboy hats! It was disgusting because they were monkeys!

After they did it in the special way that cowboy hat wearing monkeys do it (which is super different than the way I do it all the time! Loads!), Ramon smoked a cigarette. "Oh man, that's a good cigarette," he said. Roman ate a banana. Then they put their cowboy hats back on (which they took off so they could relax and not keep wanting to do it constantly) and did it again while looking lovingly into each other's eyes.

But then tragedy struck as a tree branch broke! Ramon fell out of the tree and tumbled to the floor of the Kilit-Ijit Forest where he broke his back! His cowboy hat and his cigarette fell just out of his reach. "Roman! Roman! Help me!" he cried out in agony and desire. Roman scurried down the tree where he found Ramon struggling to grasp his cowboy hat. "I can't quit...," he began before crying out in pain. Roman picked up Ramon's cowboy hat and put it on his head.

"I know, Raman, I know," said Ramon. I mean Roman. Ramon scowled and knocked the hat off his head and continued to struggle for something on the ground.

"No, Roman, no! Please...please...my cigarette! I can't quit...smoking," Ramon said and then died. Roman took Ramon's cowboy hat, kicked some leaves over him, and went back home to see if his previous mate might not want to wear a cowboy hat sometimes.

The End!

See how easy that is? Writer's Block, Shmriter's Shlock! Writer's Block is just a sign that you're lazy!

What was it I was ignoring to write my story? Oh yeah! The Phantom Stranger #19 starring Madame Xanadu the Phony Baloney!

That thick, obstinate saltiness, Madame Xanadu? I think it's called semen. I mean sea air!

This issue is called "The Crack in Creation" because there is a crack in creation. Superman almost flew into it last issue but decided against it because he stopped feeling like a murderer at the last second. Now Zauriel is lying in bed saying, "I'm losing my damn mind! I'm dying. Help. Don't let me die." But he's speaking Old Portugese [sic] so nobody in the room understands him. What they do understand though is that he's sweating profusely and shitting himself. So they've gotten the message. He's dying!

I know how to cure him! Ring a fucking bell already! He needs his wings back! Idiots!

Another crack is forming in San Francisco, so The Phantom Stranger takes the opportunity to pop in and flirt with Cassandra Craft some more. Little does he know that idiot Madame Xanadu is already there waiting to cock block him.

Or maybe some other mystical force has already set up a cock with which to block him.

Meanwhile in the outer reaches of Heaven, Sin Eater and his master, Natas the Rottweiler, speak their vile plans aloud! Sure, it's a bit unorthodox for an Evil Mr. Smartypants to reveal his plans without a hero strapped to some torture device in front of him. But you do what you have to do to make sure the reader knows you're behind all the horrible stuff happening in the universe. Not that anybody thought somebody other than The Sin Eater was behind all the current chaos in this comic book. But now we have a clearer picture of his plan which is to crack Heaven open like a piñata and rain angry ghosts down upon it. During the chaos, he and Natas will take over the world!

Meanwhile, although it wasn't mentioned on the cover, you can tell a really old school voice is writing this comic book by the way the characters are over explaining everything.

That voice this issue is Len Wein.

Anyway, The Phantom Stranger saves the world by kissing Cassandra Craft. Also, Zauriel manages to make his dying words not count by saying, "Tell him that I always lo--". Always what, Zauriel? Always lose at poker? Always look forward to the McRib? Always love a good reach around? What were you trying to say, angel?! Anyway, he might not actually have died. It's ambiguous for now!

Once The Stranger and Xanadu save Craft from the Crack of Heaven, The Spectre appears to kill everyone's buzz. "Let's get our vengeance on!" he screams as he flexes his pectoral muscles and fucks an Old Testament.

The Phantom Stranger #19 Rating: -1 Ranking. This entire issue just seemed like a bunch of stupid bullshit. Sorry, Len Wein! If you want to feel better about my criticism, just remember that I can't stand Madame Xanadu and I also seem to not like comic books as much as I thought I did! That's why the subtitle of this blog is "I Revile Comics!"