Cerebus #16 (1980)

Cerebus is going up the stairs while Lord Julius is going down them. In the same direction.

Cerebus is often touted as the greatest independent comic book of all time (for various reasons) but I'd like to point out that Elfquest told an incredible story with beautiful art in just 20 issues as opposed to 300. Plus it had an elf orgy. Also, I know it continued on after the first 20 issue story arc but we can ignore the rest of the story because there was never another elf orgy and also the rest of the series concentrated too much on Skywise's fear of dying which was totally valid but was often used as a foil to make Cutter seem braver and more loyal to his wolf roots but really just showed he was stubborn and dumb and totally didn't fuck as many elf maidens as Skywise did.

Cerebus does have some sex in his comic book but since the first sex he has is when he rapes Astoria, I don't think anybody was really clamoring for any more of that. I mean, sure, some people were! I didn't mean to erase the sickos and perverts out there. Sorry, jerks!

I'm sure the "A Note from the Publisher" bit by Deni seemed like a good idea when starting out on a harrowing self-publishing journey like that of Cerebus. But it quickly became a space where Deni just says, "Self-publishing is fraught with hardships and also this is a really good issue! I won't spoil it! Goodbye!" I won't be sad to see the divorce happen! That's an okay thing to say because it already happened, right? It's not like my wishing for the end of their marriage in 2020 somehow brought about the end of their marriage in the early 80s. Is it? I never took a college course on cause and effect so who the fuck knows? Unless that Critical Literary Theory class was about that?! Oh my God! I think I understand it now!

Dave's finale to the "Swords of Cerebus" essay that has been broken up over the last three issues describes how he was consciously drawing the Eye of the Pyramid cult leader's gigantic penis while drawing the snake. Sorry to report, though, that he's being sarcastic. Apparently Dave is above using phallic imagery to make a point about patriarchal themes. Only fucking hacks do shit like that! Take that, whoever wrote fucking Beowulf!

Even if Sim can't see the humor in everybody assuming he made a giant snake dick joke on purpose, he can still be extraordinarily funny with the least of materials.

This issue takes Cerebus to his first fancy dress party (that's a costume party for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was born a citizen of the United States of America who didn't have a choice but knew it was a huge mistake as I was learning about Monty Python's Flying Circus and Dave Allen at Large in elementary school and The Young Ones in junior high and Red Dwarf in college)). Cerebus changes out of his vest and puts on his costume: a furry black jumper (that's sweater for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was forced to watch mostly American popular entertainment until the advent of YouTube and now I mostly just watch Taskmaster over and over (by the way, is Taskmaster as good for people who don't know all of the "contestants" or do I enjoy it more because I recognize and like almost all of the people on the show?)). Lord Julius is dressed as an, um, a, uh, Estarcion matador? I have no context in which to guess what he is.

Certain people like Cerebus because he says what's on his mind. I purposefully used an anonymous subject here so you can't prove one of those people is me.

Lord Julius has a follow-up joke that leaves the reader thinking, "I guess all Pavrovians are fat?" That's Dave Sim continuing his work on Estarcion continuity! Remember how Pavrovians are the, um, you knows of Estarcion! You know the nationality I'm thinking of! The ones that are all the things people usually find insulting! Come on, you know who I'm talking about. The dumb fat arrogant stupid naive gullible ones! Yes, that's it! Americans! Try to remember Dave is Canadian. You have to think of Americans through Canadian eyes (which are the equivalent of smart, cynical Americans)!

E'lass and Turg have gotten tickets to The Festival of Petunias so they can steal the Wyndmel Diamond. They're the duo composed of a giant muscular man and a little bitty shrimpy guy who last encountered (and were beaten by) Cerebus in Issue #6. E'lass is dressed like some kind of small dirt dwelling creature so I hope Cerebus gets offended by his costume and stabs him in the throat. There isn't enough random slaughter in this book about barbarians.

I haven't wanted to fuck a fish this badly since The Littler Mermaid.

I suppose I could have said "since Splash" in that last caption to seem more normal and less perverted but then you'd know I was lying.

The assassins make a move on Lord Julius but Cerebus comes up with a plan to stop them that involves inducing the Palnu elite to throw herring-and-onion dip at them. Is that a parodied scene from Duck Soup or Conan the Barbarian? In the confusion, the lead assassin slips out through a secret door and E'lass, having just stolen the diamond and becoming increasingly paranoid that somebody saw him, slips through it as well. Cerebus and Lord Julius follow, having noticed the assassin but not E'lass. Most of the pursuit's tension comes from E'lass believing Cerebus remembers him and is now going to use the excuse of this new crime to murder him. It's more tense than I've even described because I really need Cerebus to murder somebody in this Swords & Sorcery book already. Reading this book waiting for a murder is like firing up a porn video on your laptop with your dick in your hands and realizing after five minutes that the video is almost over and was just a teaser for a pay porn site.

Cerebus threatens to quit his job just before battling the assassin so he can negotiate a term of 8 bags of gold and a horse in exchange for killing the assassin as a pension before he goes. Julius agrees and Cerebus takes out the assassin with a rock to the head. I mean, I guess it's a murder so yay? But I was really hoping for some stabbing. Meanwhile E'lass lives through the cliché of the criminal whose paranoia gets the better of him and he tosses the diamond into a huge pit so he doesn't get caught only to discover that they never knew he took it anyway. Everything is wrapped up quickly and thoroughly with Cerebus given money and motivation to move on from Palnu.

Dave complained about his heavy use of cliché in this Palnu trilogy and I have to say I agree with Dave. But I only agree with Dave on this point! Don't take that out of context and start raving on Twitter that Grunion Guy agrees with Dave's Issue #186 rant about girlfriends being illogical which is also secretly a rant about a guy who needs to get laid so badly he puts up with partners he probably wouldn't even be friends with and then finally just decides orgasms are evil and religion is super awesome but only if you smash all three People of The Book religions into one bland mash paste of ancient dogma.

In the epilogue, Lord Julius receives a letter from his niece Jaka in which she expresses delight in possibly seeing Cerebus again. I guess Dave learned from Howard the Duck that comic book nerds really love for their anthropomorphic heroes to be fucking statuesque women. Perhaps every guy develops a fetish of being with a woman whose breasts are at head level due to being hugged constantly by their female relatives when they're ten years old.

Deni's brother Michael's first installment of the "Aardvarkian Age" essays appears in this issue. It gives more details to the various nations of Estarcion and their inhabitants' culture, ruling styles, and brutality of their armies. I thought I'd be more interested in this than I actually wound up being. Maybe I thought it would be funnier? Instead, it's just a bunch of facts about made-up kingdoms to make them sound more believable by making them more like European countries in the Middle Ages. If this entire bit were just lifted from a history of Europe with the names of actual countries replaced by Estarcion countries, I wouldn't even notice. Mostly because I know nothing about European history. As I've always said, "Those who know about European history are doomed to repeat it, boring every single other person at the cocktail party."

Dave apologizes for the quarter price increase of the comic book in the Aardvark Comments pages. Why, I hadn't even noticed! Probably because this is the Biweekly reprint issue and I purchased it as a collection off of eBay. Some people write in and discuss how Cerebus is a very fine and funny comic book. I nodded along in agreement as I read the letters. I only touched my private area twice while reading and neither time was for pleasure.

The most surprising thing about "The Single Page" is that it clearly states who the comic was authored by: Kent Featherly. I don't know why so many of these single page comics aren't more clearly labeled. Isn't part of the reason for having them exposure for the artists drawing and writing them?! Not putting an effort to let a large audience know who you are and how they can read more of your work just sounds like something I would do. By the way, you should play this game I wrote, Starship Troopers: The Game. You can find it on the hard drive of my laptop.

Cerebus #16 Rating: B. Look, it was funny and well drawn and all that. But even Dave said it relied too heavily on cliché plot devices. I've got to lower the grade when even the author points out some of the story's flaws! And I'd probably have come to the same conclusion without having been influenced by Dave Sim because I'm like the best Internet comic book critic who isn't a critic and isn't actually reviewing comic books. Also I almost forgot this evidence: I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Nobody else can make that claim and if they do, they're plagiarizing me and I'd like you to point them out to me so I can send them a threatening email in which I pretend to be my own lawyer who is really good at suing dumb-dumbs.

Justice League #4 (1987)

Do I want to know what Booster Gold was just about to do to Captain Marvel?

I don't want to think that a bunch of rape just happened and a bit more is about to happen but what can I do? I'm a product of my culture! Thanks, patriarchy and growing up in the 80s!

At the end of the last issue, Maxwell Lord IV and Booster Gold managed to break into Justice League Headquarters and not get their asses kicked by Batman. One of those is an impressive feat and the other one is absolutely fucking ludicrous. You can work out which is which because I've done all the math I can for one lifetime. If I have to figure out the volume of a reservoir by derivating the limit to an infinitely small progression one more time, I'll fucking probably get better at math. And who wants that? Also, you might be able to tell by my horrible description of a math problem that my final grade in a math class (Calculus freshman year) was at best a C. I suppose that's what I get for listening to Skid Row tapes on a mono tape player with one ear bud during class.

The mention of Oreos is the first time I've ever fantasized about being on the Justice League.

For me, J'onn will always be addicted to Oreos and not "Chocos." Stupid fucking Chocos. What the fuck are Chocos?! No way they're better than Oreos, even if they are cartoon food. And you have to admit, cartoon food always looks fucking delicious.

Batman decides the best course of action is to give Maxwell Lord the bat stink eye until he caves and tells them why he's insinuated himself into a position in the Justice League. But Maxwell Lord is all, "I don't take Bat shit from nobody!" That causes Booster Gold to feel uncomfortable, having hitched his star (costume reference!) to a madman, and leave the Justice League Headquarters by the front door. Which is on the side of a mountain. And which has, for security, a couple of pylons with some sort of microwave between them.

The days when I would climb to nearly the top of the Redwood trees in my elementary school are far behind me but I'm still pretty sure I could hop that white pylon.

The Royal Flush Gang (in disguise!) short out the fence because they can't be bothered to hop over when nobody is looking. The fence shorting out cuts the power to the entire headquarters which might seem like a flaw but who am I to say? Batman works in mysterious ways! It's probably meant to kill all the power so that everybody knows the fence was shorted out and somebody not powerful enough to hop or fly over has just broken in!

In the dark, Guy Gardner makes Batman ears with his fingers and Batman gets pissed. I don't know why either of those things happen! I get Guy Gardner is a jerk but why make fake bat ears in the dark?! He's Batman! You know he can see you! Also, um, why do it in the first place?! What kind of an insult is that?!

Booster Gold follows the Royal Flush Gang and finds them hiding behind some rocks getting into their costumes. It's not as sexy as "people getting undressed to get into a different outfit" might suggest to perverted peepers like me. I meant like you. It basically amounts to them taking off their overcoats, putting white powder on their faces, slipping on the domino masks, and throwing crowns on some of their heads. Also there are only four of them so it's the worst Royal Flush I've ever seen. I guess Ace will stop by later to make me think about terrible things like previously mentioned.

To stop the battle getting out of control and possibly killing some of the nearby press (even if Batman wouldn't give a shit about that), Batman turns on a gigantic force field bubble surrounding Justice League Headquarters Mountain. Well, at least that's something. Four issues in and while it seems like the Justice League saved the day once, they really only saved the day from Maxwell Lord's fake terrorist situation and now they're battling villains whose sole purpose is to target the Justice League. Seems like they're shaping up to be about on par with the New Teen Titans.

Batman tells the League to stand down while Booster fights the Royal Flush Gang alone. I guess this is his real interview for the League. He defeats Queen, King, Jack, and Ten pretty handily but even so, if I were Batman, I'd pass on Booster as a member because he tells a lot of really lame jokes during the fight. And the League already has Blue Beetle for that role.

And then Ace shows up.

Booster Gold now knows which way Ace dresses.

Ace is a robot so he might not have a penis. Although I've never seen an image that says "I am a man with a gigantic penis and you will rue the day you met me!" than that previous scan.

If Ace is a robot and he's programmed to defeat every member of the Justice League, does that mean he's Amazo? I suppose it means he's going to be defeated by Booster Gold or Doctor Light, since whoever programmed him didn't know they were on the Justice League. Like that moment in The Return of the King when that lich lord guy is all, "No man can defeat me!" And then the knight takes off her helmet and her glasses and her hair tie and she's all, "I'm no man nor librarian! I'm a woman and an object of lust!" Then she kills him and Aragorn falls in love with her. Meanwhile Frodo is showing her panties to the other hobbits so they think he scored.

Ace defeats everybody but Batman, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle. He doesn't defeat Blue Beetle because Blue Beetle knows better than to try to fight him. And he doesn't defeat Batman because he doesn't get a chance before Booster Gold picks him up and tosses him toward the Justice League Force Bubble. Beetle unplugs it and plugs it back in just in time to cut the robot in half! Spectacular! What a ploy! I wonder if they would have done that with a living being?! Probably.

In the end, Booster Gold is asked to join and Maxwell Lord takes it upon himself to become the press liaison of the Justice League. Batman isn't happy. He's so not happy that he's probably going to sock Guy Gardner in the jaw next issue.

Justice League #4 Rating: B-. The jokes were all terrible. Except the joke where Booster described everybody's dialogue as terrible because that's a great J.M. DeMatteis self-own! Some writers aren't aware when they're writing terribly. But Giffen and DeMatteis know when they're writing terribly and then refuse to write better. They just make a joke about how bad their writing is and move on. I have to admire that level of laziness in your craft!

Cerebus #15 (1980)

If the story so far had revealed that Cerebus has a vagina, I could make a hentai joke here.

The first time I encountered hentai was at an anime convention at a Red Lion Inn in San Jose in 1994 or 1995. I went to the convention by myself because I had recently fallen in love with the cartoon Sailor Moon and wanted to get some Sailor Moon LaserDiscs unless it was actually Sailor Moon dolls I wanted. It was so long ago, how am I supposed to remember?! They had a room where they were showing movies and one of the movies I watched was Sailor Moon R: The Movie. It was subtitled which was great because then I had the story memorized for all the times I watched my non-subtitled LaserDisc. But that wasn't the pornographic anime I saw! I don't even remember what that was but I watched some tentacle fucking movie late at night in a dark room with a bunch of other sweaty nerds. I didn't know that was what was going to happen though so I didn't have my dick in my hands like the other guys probably did. I was as shocked as anybody when they first find out that cartoons where women get fucked by tentacles exist! I mean, how many penises does an alien need?! I grew up thinking the little gray aliens had zero!

That Red Lion Inn was the same one where I played in a couple of Magic the Gathering tournaments. Being in a dark room with a bunch of horny anime fans was less awkward and uncomfortable than playing Magic the Gathering against Magic the Gathering fans. Most of them probably couldn't believe they were actually playing against such a cool and handsome dude. It really threw them off their game when I would say things like, "Yeah, I've touched a couple of boobs. I attack with my Serra Angel."

I know what you're thinking: "Anime, comic books, and Magic the Gathering?! This awesome dude must have owned every single Stars Wars figure too!" Aw, you're too kind! I'm blushing! But obviously I never owned Yak Face.

"A Note from the Publisher" is still being published so I guess Dave and Deni are still married.

In his Swords of Cerebus essay, Dave Sim discusses "Why Groucho?" It seems to mostly come down to this: Dave Sim enjoyed the characters of Groucho Marx as a teenager and memorized a lot of their lines. He also mentions Kim Thompson's review of Cerebus in The Comic Journal (the first major review of the series) in which Kim praised Sim's ability to make his parody characters transcend the parody to become unique creations of their own. This review gave Sim the confidence to put Groucho in the role of Lord Julius. Which worked out so well that Sim later adds Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margeret Thatcher, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Woody Allen, Dave Sim, and the Three Stooges into the story. I'm sure I'm missing some but I can't remember every aspect of this 6000 page story. Was The Judge also a parody of somebody? Was the Regency Elf based on Wendy Pini? I don't know! I'm sure I'm missing a lot of references in Cerebus simply because I haven't experienced all the same knowledge sources as Dave Sim. Just like I'm missing a super duper lot of references in Gravity's Rainbow because nobody in the history of ever has experienced all the same knowledge sources as Thomas Pynchon.

I've been reading Gravity's Rainbow (for the first time but also the third time because I'm basically reading it three times at the same time. You'll understand when you read it) and I'm surprised by how funny it is. I don't think anybody ever described it as funny or else I'm sure I would never have stopped reading it multiple times prior to this time when I'm actually going to finish it. Although I suppose when I read Catch-22, I had done so on my own so nobody ever told me how funny that book was either. But for some reason, Catch-22 lets you know it's going to be a funny book pretty quickly. Gravity's Rainbow is all, "Here is a description of an evacuation of London which is just stage setting because, you know, the bombs have already blown up, but it makes people feel safe. And after that, how about a scene where this guy makes a bunch of banana recipes for breakfast. Is that funny enough for you?" Oh, sure, there are some funny moments like when that one guy pretends a banana is his cock and then some other guys tackle him and beat him with his own pretend cock. But there's a gravity to the scene that doesn't lend itself to the reader thinking, "Oh, this is a funny book!" But if you make it far enough, you start realizing, "Hey! I'm not understanding this!" So then you reread the section and you start realizing, "Hey! I'm laughing at this stuff! This is pretty funny!" Plus there are a lot of descriptions of sexy things that I'm assuming are really accurate because Pynchon is obsessed with details.

Anyway, I was supposed to be talking about Cerebus, wasn't I?

A Living Priest of Tarim crashes Lord Julius' bath to scold him about a party Julius is giving in a fortnight (which is the amount of time your kid has lost to a video game). I don't know why the priest has to declare he's a living priest. You can tell that by the way he's shouting and foaming at the mouth. Although this is a Swords & Sorcery book so I suppose there are many dead creatures that also shout and foam at the mouth. Sometimes I forget I'm reading a fictional book and wind up ranting and raving about stuff that I'm supposed to just assume is fine. Like when I read The Flash and nothing in it makes any sense at all because The Flash should never have any trouble stopping crime or saving people from natural disasters. The comic book should be over in two pages. Even the writers, at some point, realized how ridiculous Flash stories were and decided the only way to make them believable was to have The Flash battle other super fast people. But that just meant Flash stories basically became bar-room brawls. Two people with super speed fighting is the same as reading a story about two people without super speed fighting. Boring! Some writers even decided that maybe a telepathic monkey would make things more interesting and I suppose telepathic monkeys make everything more interesting so kudos to them. I was going to go on a long rant about telepathic monkeys but then I realized how much I love the idea of telepathic monkeys so why should I create an argument against them? More telepathic monkeys, please.

This made me laugh out loud. Not as much as the chapter in Gravity's Rainbow where the old woman forces Slothrop to eat a bunch of terrible candies. But then it isn't a competition, is it? I mean, I guess it's a competition for my time which is why I haven't written a comic book review in a week or more. Blame Thomas Pynchon for being so entertaining (and also Apex).

Baskin, the Minister for Executive Planning, has come to let Lord Julius know what the revolutionaries have revealed while being tortured. The only bit of useful information was one prisoner's last words: "Revolution...the pits." Cerebus immediately assumes "the Pits" is a location and not a summation of the prisoner's feelings about revolution which led to torture which led to his death. Cerebus, being the Kitchen Staff Supervisor, begins an investigation into The Pits. His first step: threatening the Priest of the Living Tarim. Which makes me realize I transposed the word "living" in the previous encounter with the priest and went on a digression that makes no sense to anybody who has read and somehow remembers that particular panel. I'm sure they were scoffing and snorting and exclaiming to their pet rat, "What a stupid fool loser this Grunion Guy is! Living Priest of Tarim! HA! Ridiculous! What a moronic mistake! He has made a gigantic fool of himself!"

I don't know that the almost certainly imaginary people who called me on my mistake as they read this have a pet rat but I do know there almost certainly isn't another imaginary sentient being in the room with them.

Cerebus learns that The Pits are Old Palnu that lies under current Palnu. It was destroyed in a massive earthquake long ago and the new city built over the top of it. It's like a Dungeons & Dragons module but with a lot less treasure.

This scene reminded me that I need to finish rereading The Boomer Bible: A Testament for Our Times (which is what it was called in the 90s but is just as accurate for today).

Cerebus and Lord Julius engage in another typical misunderstanding (it's not hard when only half of the people in the conversation care about making sense) which ends up with Lord Julius deciding that the location for the Festival of Petunias will be The Pits. This complicates Cerebus' job of not allowing Lord Julius to be assassinated because the assassins are most likely housed in The Pits (along with their giant snakes (*see cover)).

Lord Julius, Baskin, and Cerebus descend into The Pits to find a suitable location for the Festival of Petunias. In doing so, they wind up in a trap and confronted by a masked revolutionary of the "Eye of the Pyramid." Which is odd because you usually have to murder at least a dozen kobolds and several goblins before you reach the room with the boss in it.

Typical unbalanced beginning level module. A giant snake as the first encounter!

Cerebus manages to defeat the giant snake by crashing it headfirst into a wall. The wall winds up being a key support structure and the roof collapses. Everybody makes it out alive but the masked revolutionary evades capture. He will be back next issue to ruin the Festival of Petunias.

Aardvark Comment is still just a mostly standard comic book letters page. I'll probably stop discussing it until people start criticizing Dave. Right now it's just "This comic book is great!" and "Keep writing, Dave, and I'll never think ill of anything idea you espouse!" while Dave replies, "I owe my fans everything! I can't wait until I can stop feeling that way and start jerking off onto my art boards and selling those as pages of Cerebus!"

Cerebus #15 Rating: A. Good story, good Lord Julius dialogue, good Living Priest of the Living Tarim scenes. I wholeheartedly endorse this comic book and Dave Sim. No way a guy with a sense of humor like this is going to go off the rails, right?!

Justice League #3 (1987)

Much respect to Doctor Light who dresses for the weather.

The advert on the back of the comic book is for Oreo which might be the greatest corporate cookie ever created. I simply don't trust people who don't like Oreo cookies. "Don't trust" is my kind way of saying I despise them and they disgust me and if I could end the death penalty in America, I absolutely would except for people who dislike Oreo cookies.

I would absolutely elbow Mickey Mouse in the face if he tried to eat my Oreo cookies.

In this issue, we meet the Rocket Reds, voted by me as the worst characters in the history of comic books. They're just so "Russian through the eyes of an American who has only passing knowledge of Russian life." I'm not saying I knew much about the Russian people in 1987. If me in 1987 had to design the Rocket Reds, I would have made their suits out of concrete and had them say "Capitalist Pig! *ptui*" after every third sentence. But if the current me were in 1987 designing the Rocket Reds, they would not have been men in rocket suits. They would have been straight up super heroes created by some fucked up cosmic isotope brought back to Russia by a vengeful Laika who had miraculously survived her Sputnik 2 orbit and gained sentience, realizing that her masters knew she would die and sent her into space anyway. Also they would be dogs. And it would be revealed that sentient dogs had taken over Russia in 1959.

No, forget all that. That's more of a Planetary story.

I never thought the Russians were real people until I heard Billy Joel's "Leningrad" and I was all, "Wait. Russians have clowns?!"

Blue Jay and Friends continue to work with Bialya but to expedite their anti-nuclear-holocaust mission.

While Blue Jay and friends make plans, the Justice League hang out in Blue Beetle's Bug Ship just outside Bialyan airspace. During that time, we learn that Batman doesn't appreciate jokes.

You can't make jokes like Beetle and you can't act like a sexist, arrogant, violent asshole like Gardner; what the fuck does Batman want?!

Don't answer that question! It practically answers itself! Batman didn't like Dick Grayson because he joked too much and then he didn't like Jason Todd because he was that arrogant violent asshole. So he finally settled on Tim Drake! What Batman wants is lukewarm oatmeal!

How many times per day do you think Batman says, "I don't like your attitude, mister"?

Page 3 of Issue 3 and Batman is already to the breaking point with Guy Gardner. He threatens to punch him in the mouth but gets distracted by Blue Jay and Friends finally leaving Bialya. Batman will have to wait at least two more issues before the money shot to Gardner's face.

Beetle doesn't follow them far before they fly into Soviet airspace and he has to stop the Bug short.

Ultimately it probably would have been more satisfying if Black Canary had gotten to punch Guy in the nose.

I never "accidentally" fell on a girl with my hands growing up but thankfully a number of girls "accidentally" rubbed their boobs on me. It was always appreciated! Like that time I was playing Donkey Kong Jr. at the bowling alley and Michelle Preble was watching me with her hands on my shoulder and her boobs against my arm. Or that time at the ice rink when that girl I'd just met kept laying across my back whenever she got the chance (although I was in sweats that day so she kept forcing me to stay seated longer than I'd planned). Or that New Year's Eve (again at the bowling alley!) where Angela from the next lane over kept coming over and sitting on my lap. Or at that weird young teenage party in some garage where Dessa kept lying across my lap and then leaning against me. I can't even remember whose house that was or why I was there! I don't think I ever even spoke to Dessa before or after that! But I probably loved her forever after!

So those are probably some of my strongest memories growing up. The only way they could remain as powerful or have stuck in my head better is if they'd been attached to a catchy song like those Church of Latter Day Saints commercials or Schoolhouse Rock.

Look at these dumb commies spouting state propaganda! Idiots! Good thing Americans are immune to that!

Of course the Justice League clashes with the Rocket Reds while Blue Jay and Friends fly unhindered into Russia. Gardner, of course, can't wait. It was just a few years earlier when Stallone kicked that Russian guy's ass in the ring and everybody in every theater across America was chanting, "U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!" Although some of the bigger wusses were weeping over Apollo's death. I totally wasn't one of those guys because I didn't see Rocky IV in the theater having missed Rocky III because I went to see Annie instead.

Okay, that was a lie. I did see both of those movies in the theater. But I did skip going to see Rocky III with my guy friends to go see Annie with my girl friends because I'd already seen Rocky III once. Also, Annie was better. Yes, better than Rocky fighting Klubber Lang.

Gorbachev gets word of what's happening from Maxwell Lord because Giffen and DeMatteis are establishing just how powerful Maxwell Lord is.

This is actually a pretty good portrayal of Gorbachev. Thank the stars for his calm head and clear sight back in the 80s! Fuck Reagan.

Normally advertisements don't really do much for me but since Oreo cookies are my heroin, I'm desperately craving them now. Especially the Carrot Cake flavored cookies!

The Justice League battle the Rocket Reds for the exact number of pages to make it exciting before the Rocket Reds get the order to stand down and team up with the Justice League to help stop an imminent meltdown at a Russian nuclear power plant.

Once Blue Jay and Friends realize the power plant is about to go critical, they join in to help stop a nuclear disaster. Its hugs and kisses all the way down now!

Bald Thor manages to stop the power plant from going critical but collapses afterward. The Russians wrap him up and cart him off to help him and probably experiment on him if he survives. Blue Jay and the Silvery Brown Sorceress remain with Bald Thor while the Justice League is once again kicked out of a country where they were trying to help. They can't get United Nations backing soon enough!

When they head back to their headquarters, they find Maxwell Lord and Booster Gold waiting for them. It's time to find out who their real leader is!

Justice League #3 Rating: B+. Giffen and DeMatteis are steering the team nicely in the direction of needing to become international. As the Justice League of America, they were severely limited in their ability to save the world unless the danger came from Texas or Space. Now after two missions where they needed other nation's permission to do their job, they're ready to hear what Maxwell Lord has to say. Although nobody is ready to hear what Booster Gold has to say. It will invariably be dumb and full of future references that nobody understands.

Cerebus #14 (1980)

This is what happens to Cerebus because he still hasn't taken my advice to stab everybody he meets before they become a huge annoyance.

I'm not suggesting everybody stab everybody they meet so that they'll never have to deal with any non-stabbing drama because then everybody I meet would be trying to stab me. That sounds like a bad social contract. A good social contract is to not talk to anybody at all in public unless they work in the service industry and also maybe don't make such aggressive eye contact with people on the street? I'm just trying to get from Point A to Point B with as little human contact as possible. I wouldn't mind interacting with people except for one huge problem: most people are way more terrible than they realize. And the more enthusiastic and social a person is, the more likely that they're the real life version of Red Sophia or Elrod.

On a similar note, I really love this thing where we're all wearing masks. Now if we can just develop a virus that spreads through eye contact so we're all forced to constantly wear dark glasses, I'll be pretty fucking happy about the state of the world.

I mean I'd be happy with the state of the world in regards to what I have to deal with when I go outside (which is people trying to talk to me and looking into my eyes). I don't mean I'd be overall happy with the state of the world which is fucking terrible because a bunch of assholes think teenagers telling them they can't say retard on the Internet is worse than Donald Trump and the GOP's self-serving style of governing where they think taxes shouldn't be used to make the country better but should just go back into the pockets of corporations and Wall Street pricks and other politicians and the already extremely wealthy. Also, a lot of centrist Democrats think the same way. They're only more acceptable because they mostly aren't racist, sexist homophobes.

Now that all the snowflakes have stopped reading and went to hug their guns in consolation of my mean Internet words, I can get to the review.

In "A Note from the Publisher," Deni claims this is the funniest issue of Cerebus to date. Since it's Cerebus' first visit to Palnu, I'm not even questioning her claim. It's almost certainly true.

Dave Sim's Swords of Cerebus essay is a textual stroking of Prince Valiant creator Hal Foster's dick. Sim's mostly talking about Foster's art style but he obviously decided to mimic some of Foster's story telling style as well. See, Prince Valiant was a continuous story that ran (or has run? Is it still going by his son or grandson or something?) for decades, a story which chronicled the life of Prince Valiant and, eventually, his children. Cerebus is a comic book that didn't run for as long but whose continuing story was easier to follow and had a drunk aardvark as the main character. So there are some similarities there, right? This was also the first issue of Cerebus after going to a monthly schedule. Dave Sim would now have to do 300 issues instead of the 150-something he had been planning. Ha ha! Sucker.

This would have been a most opportune time for Cerebus to start his stabbing people upon meeting them practice.

I knew at some point I was going to have to admit this so I might as well begin with it: I don't think I've ever sat through an entire Marx Brothers movie. It's possible I have but I just don't really remember because it happened so long ago. But I need to also reveal this: I loved Groucho Marx as a kid. I've revealed before that I had a grandfather fetish as a child. I loved hanging out with old men and I loved watching old men on television. Going in Style was one of my favorite movies and I simply adored Art Carney. I also loved The Shining because it was about a young kid who got to hang out with one of my other favorite older guys, Scatman Crothers. Groucho Marx in You Bet Your Life fit into the old guy category. I don't think he was as old as the oldest men I loved but, as a young kid, he certainly seemed ancient. I think the duck that dropped down when somebody said the secret word helped a lot. But I would watch reruns of You Bet Your Life whenever I found them on television because it was like hanging out with an old man, my favorite pastime from around four to ten or so. As for Groucho's movies? I've definitely watched parts of some of them as I stumbled on them on television and realized he was in it. But I've never made the effort to start one from the beginning and watch it all the way through. I should probably rectify that.

Cerebus has wound up in Palnu thanks to a short diversion in a comic strip that appeared in The Comic Buyers Guide. He wound up marooned on an island with Lord Julius' son, Lord Silverspoon. Upon being rescued, Lord Julius decided to reward Cerebus for saving his son. I don't have the issue of Swords of Cerebus with that story so I can't comment on how annoying Lord Silverspoon almost certainly was.

Cerebus' reward is to be put in charge of Lord Julius' security forces and granted the title of "Kitchen Staff Supervisor." It doesn't make any sense because Lord Julius invented bureaucracy. He realized the only thing that can really keep a leader safe is to make sure that nobody else knows what the fuck is going on.

Oh, see? I suppose I could have just read a few more panels and realized Lord Julius explains it himself.

As Kitchen Staff Supervisor, Cerebus' job is to keep assassins from assassinating Lord Julius. Aside from that, he was pretty much free to do whatever he wanted. Unless he only thought he was free to do whatever he wanted and whatever he wanted was whatever Lord Julius was manipulating him into wanting. Lord Julius is a master of getting people to accidentally do the thing they didn't think they would ever do that Lord Julius also didn't want them to do but actually secretly did want them to do. Basically anybody who has recently spoken with Lord Julius is actively doing Lord Julius' bidding, whether they know it or not.

For some reason, Cerebus decides to take on the role of Kitchen Staff Supervisor even though it's the most boring thing he's ever done in his life. At least it's entertaining for the reader because nearly every line out of Lord Julius' mouth is a solid gag. And since I haven't really seen any of Groucho's movies, I can't say how many of the gags were stolen outright! I have to assume it's all new material and only Groucho Marx parody. Some people, in an attempt to never be fooled by anybody, never believe anything at all. I am not one of those people. I believe everything I hear until somebody slaps me and yells, "How can you believe that obviously falsified tripe, you fucking moron?!"

Assassins try to poison Lord Julius and Cerebus tracks them down to an underground group trying to free the city from the clutches of Lord Julius. When the assassin, Cerebus, and Lord Julius wind up in the same place, Cerebus outs himself as a spineless centrist.

The Centrist loves to believe that not taking sides is the only logical conclusion to any matter that doesn't seem to immediately affect their lives.

Some people are probably wondering how that previous caption is a negative criticism. "Um, yeah. Seems about right. If it doesn't affect me, why should I offer up an opinion!" And yet when a situation exists where one side is full of abusive and manipulative people controlling the reins of power and the economic purse strings of the country and the other side is being bullied, cheated, and abused by that side, not taking a side is siding with the powerful and the abusive. Even if your life hasn't been affected.

Of course, Cerebus doesn't need to take a side here. I mean, he does take a side: he sides with the people who have all the money. But he doesn't really care is the point. You'll see he retains this philosophy of rich people winning every argument later when he's Pope and gives out his wisdom that "God loves rich people which is why they're rich and hates poor people which is why they're poor." Pretty much the philosophy of evangelicals in the U.S.

Cerebus survives the battle with the assassin and then gives Lord Julius some free advice about running the country. So Cerebus kind of does agree with the assassin but also the assassin wasn't paying him anything so he deserved to be thrown five stories to his death. Lord Julius says, "You can rest assured that I'll give the matter all the attention I feel it deserves." Is there a better way to tell somebody to shove it than that? It's so elegant!

In Aardvark Comments, Dave Sim answers a letter on how to go about self-publishing. And so his role as Independent Comic Book Publishing Mentor begins! In his list of things you'll need to get together to successfully publish your own comic book, he kindly leaves out "talent." Obviously Dave understood how to go about getting something published but he also put in the hard work and had the talent to produce a comic book that began well above mediocre or average. I can't imagine a lot of self-published books began at this high of a plateau. And even if they were eventually capable of Cerebus quality, how long are readers going to give them to get there? Probably not even two issues, would be my guess.

The Single Page had a comic called "Sex Education" by April. I thought the first two panels were cute.

Cerebus #14 Rating: A+. As with Elrod and Red Sophia and The Cockroach, Lord Julius' first appearance is a banger. Dave Sim never once falters with Lord Julius' repartee. Solid gags throughout. Sim really is a master of dialogue and, to think, it only gets better.

Justice League #2 (1987)

I didn't know Orgazmo was in this comic book.

Once again, I'm surprised by how quickly an old comic book I read years ago gets to some of the stories I think of as major story arcs. These pseudo-Marvel heroes on the cover are the precursor to The Extremists whom I remember as major antagonists to this team. I don't know if The Extremists appear any time soon though. First, the Justice League have to deal with these peaceniks. Only after they've become allies with Blue Jay and Bald Thor and Brown Scarlet Witch do the Extremists finally come to destroy Earth.

The issue begins with Kevin Maguire going, "Look at these lips. You like these lips and this mouth. Well, you're gonna get lots of them! Even Maxwell Lord gets some lovely pouty face slugs!"

I'm sorry for referring to lips as "face slugs."

Batman's main goal is to get to the bottom of how Doctor Light became a member of his League. He'd already hired Black Canary so why would he need another woman in the group? Isn't a ratio of eight men to one woman good enough?! I'm counting Oberon in the number of men just to make it seem even more lopsided. Although Doctor Fate has already ditched (and will become a woman soon anyway, right?!) so, not including Oberon, that makes the ratio six to one! Getting better! Plus add Doctor Light since she was on the cover and has somehow forced her way in, a ratio of six to two! That's three to one if you reduce it! Which is practically one to one if you squint and put your fingers in your ears and go, "Nyah nyah nyah! Everything is already equal! Why are women fighting for more than they already have?!"

Anyway, my point was: Fucking Batman. What a monster!

I wouldn't think a sleeveless vest with a wacky collar layered on top of a turtle neck with elbow length white gloves would look so cool!

I prefer to concentrate on Guy's outfit rather than his misogyny and lack of intelligence and terrible haircut.

In this issue is an advert for the all new Dr. Fate four issue mini-series by Giffen and DeMatteis. So that solves the mystery of why he was sort of included in the first issue. He was basically a commercial.

Jack Ryder's gossip television show has been trying to portray the new Justice League in a negative light because that's the kind of reporting that gets eyeballs and raises revenue. Maybe if people's lives weren't so boring, they wouldn't eat up all that hot take drama shit from people like Jack Ryder and Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. I suppose I shouldn't wonder how rational people watch that shit because most people, rational or not, are just looking for somebody to repeat their inner views back to them. And Fox News has honed that ability to a razor edge. Sometimes I imagine Sean Hannity doesn't believe the stupid shit he comes up with but then I remember my high school and college friend Soy Rakelson and I think, "Oh yeah. He actually believes that shit."

I recently found this letter by Soy from our college paper. It's been in my head since 1994 when I could not fucking believe he wrote it. Poor, poor discriminated Soy, self-declared "Defender of Western Civilization."

One small note about Soy: maybe a month or two after Trump became president, he quietly disappeared from Facebook for good. I won't speculate on why but I suppose if I spent some time trying, I'd probably come up with his actual reasoning.

After Guy throws another tantrum that has to be quelled by Batman, Doctor Fate gets a scene of his own! I guess he didn't completely disappear from the comic book. At least not yet. Although, if Doctor Fate sticks around for a dozen or more issues, I'm going to feel even more shitty than I already feel about my memory.

Doctor Fate visits some purple haired guy who sees everything as gray and warns him to take back up his destiny. I don't know who it is. The only purple haired character I remember is Pariah. But what is his destiny other than to watch worlds burn? Also, he has other selves across the world reaching into people's souls. Is he Jim Corrigan? I have no idea!

Meanwhile, Blue Jay, Wandjina, and Silver Sorceress (whose costume is brown), from Earth-Marvel-Parodies (or some other new world, I suppose. In 1987, there was just one Earth left, right?), are busy dismantling Bialya's nuclear arsenal. Bialya is one of DC's evil countries. Sometimes you don't want to write a story that exists in a gray world; you just want pure black and white, good and evil. When that's the case, you have the heroes battle Bialyans!

Blue Jay and friends are here to rid the Earth of all their nuclear weapons so as to save it from the fate that befell their homeworld. The leader of Bialya sees an opportunity for mischief and power and the destruction of America, so he greets them with open arms.

Rumaan Harjavti, the leader of Bialya, teams up with Blue Jay and Friends to help guide them to other nations who have nuclear weapons that need to be disposed of. The first country he sends them to is Israel. Probably because it's close by and not because he has ulterior racist motives. Guy Gardner hears the news and is thrilled because he gets a boner imagining a world where only Ronald Reagan has control over a nuclear arsenal.

When he first mentioned Ronnie, I thought it was a mistake. I forgot how old this comic book is!

Batman is all, "We're going to stop these peaceniks from making the world a safer place!" Because if there's one story that can't be told enough it's the one where we all learn a lesson about how the ends do not justify the means, no matter how amazing the ends will be and how messy the means are. I suppose the ends justify the means if the means are compassionately thought out and done with respect for all parties' opinions! So maybe sometimes the ends justify the means? Or does the statement not work that way because the point is that you can't just make that blanket statement. Like, do you murder five million people to save one little girl's life? Probably not! Or do I have it completely wrong and everybody thinks the ends do justify the means? Anyway, Batman doesn't think world peace should be achieved through the destruction of other people's dangerous property. It's basically the same story that season one of Stargirl just told. The Injustice Society of America wants to make the world a leftist dreamscape but at the cost of 25 million lives or something. And the Justice Society is all, "Well, we really like your manifesto. We agree with all of these points. But maybe the cost is too high?" So in the end, I was left supporting the Injustice Society of America because I guess I believe the ends do justify the means?! Also, I'm fairly certain I don't like a quarter of the population so good riddance? But also maybe the entire season of Stargirl was some sort of anti-leftist parable about how you have to let people come to their own decisions about saving the world because forcing them to get on board is rude and it's better if climate change destroys the world than to force one person to believe that manmade climate change is an actual thing?

I had philosophical whiplash by the end of Stargirl season one. One character is all, "Murder is wrong!" and then goes and murders somebody and another character is all "I need revenge because this monster killed my parents!" and then he gets all merciful and lets Solomon Grundy go so he can kill other parents and the Injustice Society is all, "We'll kill indiscriminately to make the world a better place for our rich white kids!" and then their all, "A lot of rich white people's kids are going to die from our plan but that's okay because they're not ours." Also, the worst part of the show, the part of the show that I cannot forgive, is how they introduced us to Doctor Mid-Nite's sad owl back at the abandoned JSA headquarters and Luke Wilson is all, "Yeah, he's just waiting for Doctor Mid-Nite to return. It's sad, right? He just hangs out here alone super sad." And then Beth becomes the new Doctor Mid-Nite and you keep expecting the owl to befriend her but the owl never appears, ever again. Every episode, when the sad owl didn't appear onscreen, I was reminded of the sad owl. So every minute of every episode, I kept thinking, "Is the owl going to befriend Beth now?" And nothing. The season ends with the sad owl still super sad and all alone and fuck the writers and showrunners for that. I suppose they couldn't afford a CGI owl after ejaculating all of their CGI money on the five minute Solomon Grundy fight.

I just digressed so much I need to take a shower.

Guy and I are in 99.5% agreement about the dismantling of nuclear weapons. That last bit is where he thinks the U.S.A. should get to keep theirs.

Everybody treats Guy Gardner like his argument isn't even worth listening to but they're all wrong! They're just treating him like a dumb jerk! Sure, I agree that the Justice League just can't take it upon themselves to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. I mean, do I?! Hmm. I'm not so sure I do agree with that! If Superman really cared about Earth, shouldn't he martyr himself by becoming the biggest criminal in the history of the entire world by destroying all nuclear weapons against the will of every nation that has them?! There are plenty of other planets in the DCU that he could go live on after becoming a giant Earth menace! Can't he even make that small sacrifice for the safety of his homeworld?! And if his actions cause some kind of horrible repercussions that cause the world to spiral into chaos, he can probably just blame Batman.

Silver But Really Brown Sorceress questions if what they're doing is right. Bald Thor says, "In the end they'll thank us. And even if they don't, at least they'll be alive to hate us." See?! That's what I just said about Superman! He should totally take that bullet! That was not a tasteless George Reeves joke and even if somebody read it that way, it's been like a hundred years since his death!

Blue Jay and Friends tell each other their origin story as they remember how their world was destroyed by nuclear weapons and how they decided to interfere with everybody else's lives because of it. I think their origin was supposed to make me see their side of things and feel empathy for them but it totally made me rethink their position and now I totally think they need to be stopped. Because I was fine when I thought the argument was "Destroy all nuclear weapons to save Earth." But I dislike the argument, "Something bad happened to me and now I have to make sure it never happens to anybody else no matter how annoying I make myself!" It's like when somebody's dumb kid gets hit by a bus while riding their bike and then they have to get a law passed making it illegal for busses to run over kids and to name the law after their kid and to get politicians who support the law because it doesn't really change anything (being that busses running over kids was probably already frowned upon if not illegal) but it's good press and makes it look like they're doing something. Then after the dumb law is passed, the parents of the dumb kid can say things like, "My baby didn't die in vain!" Even if that's totally untrue and their baby did die in vain and the law never actually makes the world a better place at all.

Guy rushes in to stop Blue Jay and Friends all alone but fails because writers can't reward brash arrogant heroes who are mostly just big jerks. It would be unseemly.

So far, I've liked the bits with Captain Marvel but I'm still weirded out that he's a little boy in a grown man's muscular body.

Blue Jay and Friends fly into Bialyan airspace and the Justice League have to back off. But they'll get another chance to stop Blue Jay and Friends next issue when Blue Jay and Friends try to disarm Russia!

Justice League #2 Rating: B+. It gets too complicated when super heroes bump up against the wall of political conflicts. When Batman points out that the Justice League can't chase Blue Jay and Friends into Bialyan airspace without creating an international incident, some readers might start questioning how super heroes can act even within the borders of one specific country! Surely every time they commit their vigilantism, they're creating a domestic incident! Don't make me start asking questions about the fundamental nature of masked people doing whatever the fuck they think is justice without the consent of any kind of laws or political powers, comic book! This is too heady for my tastes! I guess the whole point is to eventually have the Justice League backed by the United Nations so that the reader can think, "Okay, right. So they have the authority to do whatever they want now if I'm willing to believe the United Nations has any real authority at all!" And then the reader goes on to prove the moon landing never happened and that Project Cloverleaf rains human excrement down on our heads on a daily basis for some kind of Nazi experimentation.

We Are

Imagine, if you will (because it’s not hard. Just fucking go along with this. Stop being so stubborn), driving through the American Southwest in the 1950s. You’ve got the top down in your huge steel car that steers like a child’s spring-loaded rocking horse and is painted the colors of a football team that hasn’t won a homecoming in twenty years and whose mascot is a fish nobody has ever heard of. Don’t try too hard to figure out what that reference might be because it isn’t a reference. It’s just a colorful turn of phrase to get your imagination going but in a way that isn’t directing it too narrowly. You’re free to imagine your own world, baby!

Dammit. Stop interrupting. Now I need to start again.

Imagine, if you will, driving through the American Southwest in the 1950s with that car and stuff. The stifling wind blows back your hair and tastes slightly of electricity and cancer. You’ve passed through half a dozen small two gas pump towns where old fellas greet you at the pump and their wives greet you inside at the register. Too many stray dogs to count have sniffed at the cuffs of your pants or the hem of your long skirt, depending on what you’ve decided to be wearing in the fantasy. Maybe you’re naked. What do I care?

Are you still imagining? Okay good! You’re getting a bit weary from the road (unless you’re just dizzy from the radiation in the atmosphere) and you see a town up ahead in the distance. It’ll probably have a small motel where you can unwind by masturbating frantically in the shower as you wash the dirt of the road and the gamma rays of the air from your tangled hair. But what you don’t know is that this town hides a secret. You might be too self-involved when you arrive to notice how the people are different from other communities. Like antelope at a watering hole, they glance furtively about them without even realizing they’re doing it. They’re kinder than the people you’ve met previously who have been far kinder than the people you left behind in the big city you’re imagining you came from. If you imagined you’re from a smaller place, fix that! That’s a part of the fantasy that you don’t get to control.

You pull into the motel parking lot (The Setting Sun Inn) and laugh audibly. Not the kind of laugh you’d emit upon hearing a neighbor’s anecdote about somebody at work making a huge fool of themselves but a kind of relieved chuckle. So many motels along this stretch have entered the atomic age by cutely referencing the testing of nuclear weapons that it’s a slight comfort to be staying in one that decided to keep the old fashioned charm of a name that represents the end of a long, weary day and the promise of a restful night’s sleep. Of course you only feel that way because you don’t yet know this town’s secret.

Perhaps you get lucky and your rest is fulfilling and peaceful. You wake, masturbate again, grab a quick breakfast at the diner across the parking lot (Also The Setting Sun but a Diner instead of an Inn. You might remember later how you thought it should be The Rising Sun Diner as you strode across the already too hot asphalt on your way in to grab some hash browns and gravy), and drive out of town without ever learning why the town was different from any other town you’ve driven through on your journey. You eventually make it to wherever you were headed for whatever reasons spurred you on to that destiny. Hope for a better life on the West Coast? A chance at romance? Running from the bodies you buried in the crawl space under your neighbor’s house. Who knows! None of that is pertinent to this fantasy.

But in the end, you aren’t lucky. Because if you were lucky, I would end this fantasy and you would be sitting there thinking, “What the fuck was the secret?! The secret, goddammit! What was it?! You can’t end your story like that!” So even though the secret might not be pleasant and most likely will end in the death of the main character (which is you, remember), you can’t bear to not know it. You would sacrifice the safety and happiness of your alternate timeline self simply to satiate your curiosity. What a fucking bastard.

So instead of having a restful sleep, the clerk at the front desk grabs your wrist as she hands you the key to your room. She still smiles at you but there’s an urgency in her grasp and you feel her desperate need to articulate something to this stranger who thinks they’re just passing through. And, again, you might be one of those. But the clerk feels she can’t take that chance. She’s been complicit in the death of too many strangers who weren’t let in on the town’s secret. Her fingernails begin to dig into your wrist and you pull back, maybe a bit too frantically. She’s caught you by surprise and your heart rate skyrockets. For the first time since you’ve entered this town, somebody’s smile falters. Her lips tremble and her eyes go glassy and distant. “Don’t stay,” she croaks in a voice straining to not break into a sob. You almost bolt out of the front office but that curiosity that resides in your actual chest also lives in the chest of your alternate persona in this story. You have to know. What’s going on. Why should you leave? So you ask.

“Why?”

But before the clerk (Ms. Waverly. Her name was Ms. Waverly. The black and gold nameplate near the little bell read Ms. Waverly) can answer, the air around her shimmers. You hear a muffled roar that seems to echo down from above as if you were at the bottom of a deep canyon and somebody was yelling from the top of the cliff’s edge. The air around Ms. Waverly streaks red and black and shimmers like the air over a desert road. A blast of warm air punches your hair back and stings your face. It only takes a second or two but in the end, Ms. Waverly is gone. The shock of the incident keeps you from noticing, at least for a few seconds, an intense pain in your right foot. You were standing back on your left heel and your right foot was still stretched out ahead of you, where you were standing when Ms. Waverly grabbed your wrist. You look down and notice blood gushing out of the front of your shoe. Not the front, exactly, but what is now the front after having lost about an inch of the toe. Your big toe has been sheered in half, and maybe the tips of several others. If you hadn’t fallen back violently when Ms. Waverly grabbed you, what happened to your right foot might have happened to the rest of your body.

You stumble out the door away from the incomprehensibility of whatever the hell that was. You run, limping heavily, toward the diner across the parking lot where two old men sit smoking on a bench outside. Their eyes open wide with fear as you stumble toward them and they do that thing you noticed earlier…that bit where they glance back and forth quickly and tense up, like rabbits having seen the shadow of a hawk. They know you’ve seen it. Their secret. You don’t yet understand it and maybe that’s a good thing. But, once again, you have to know. What just happened in front of your eyes? What took your big toe?

“Ms. Waverly!” you stammer. “She just…she…she’s gone!” One old man stands up and puts an arm on your shoulder.

“Come on, kid,” he says, possibly saying son or daughter, depending on your vision of yourself and how you present yourself to the world. “Take a seat. You’re still here, by God. You’ll be okay.” You slump onto the bench next to the other old timer who nervously chews on the end of an unlit cigar.

“A mighty shame,” he states, unemotionally and with a voice like irradiated gravel blown across the potholed asphalt of a long Southwest road. Your breaths come hard and fast and you feel like passing out. The first man, the one who stood at your approach, kneels down in front of you and begins removing your shoe. He pulls a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wraps it around your bleeding foot. The other man pats your knee and gently takes your hand in his surprisingly smooth grip.

You win the fight to stay conscious because you have to ask: “What was it? What did I see?” The old man tending to your foot looks up at you, makes eye contact, then looks over at his friend. You glance over at his friend and see him biting his lower lip, the cigar now in his free hand. He begins to speak in that voice which reminds you of a motorcycle throttling low.

“Imagine, if you will, an ocean. In that ocean float millions and millions of plankton. What they know, who can say? They’re just little creatures and their entire world is simply drifting en masse towards whatever destiny has in store for them. For what is an inconceivably small fraction of them — inconceivable because whales are so large and eat so many at a time — death awaits. There one moment. Peaceful, tranquil…or whatever the feeling of just being is to a goddamned plankton. And just gone the next. Imperceptible to the others, really. The whale is on a scale so large that the plankton, if they were sentient, couldn’t articulate what was happening. They couldn’t know the scale of the world they lived in. Imagine only knowing a world of plankton. And imagine you’re the plankton at the top of the plankton food chain. What do you have to fear? You eat them little veggie bastards getting their energy from the sun. You have nothing to fear. Except…there’s that thing that happens. That thing where your mates just up and disappear for no reason at all. Just huge swaths of them…gone.”

Your foot is throbbing but your heart has stopped racing. The old man’s story has distracted you from the terrible sight you saw earlier, even as his story offers the explanation for what you saw. He’s telling you the town’s secret the only way he knows how. By parable. Because what you’ve quickly understood from the story is that the people of the town are the plankton who have no concept of what terrible whale engulfs them one at a time. The only evidence? The occasional organic matter that comes slightly too close to the feeding but not close enough to be consumed.

These men have obviously told this story before. They recognize the moment you understand what they’re saying, and they grow quiet. You want to know why they don’t leave. You want to know how they have survived to the age they are. You want to know how they live with this terrible knowledge that their lives aren’t in any way under their own control. But what you don’t want to know is the real secret they have yet to tell you. It’s the secret they keep to themselves, and it’s the secret they won’t pass on to you as you race out of town in the middle of the night. Why burden a stranger passing through with the truth, one of them will say to the other long after you’ve fled. Why let them know that this creature…these creatures, for surely the laws of nature work the same on whatever plane this predator exists on…doesn’t merely hunt in this one small irradiated town in the American Southwest. They feed across the world.

The old man with the cigar pulls another from his shirt pocket as he watches the dust roil around your car as you back out of the parking lot across the way. He hands it to his friend and they light their cigars together as they watch your taillights disappear down the perfectly straight highway that connects their little town to the rest of the world. They inhale deeply and, as they do, they shift their glances quickly to the right and to the left, unconsciously, and constantly, keeping an eye out for some thing they’ll never see.