LIBRARY artefact #042 Vying with The Just as my personal favourite of the Multiversity books, this was my attempt to do what I can only describe as nihilistic cosmic! If Society was pulp and The Just was ‘90s via The Hills. If Pax was Moore, and Mastermen
I loved this one, in particular the bit where the third person itself realises it too is implicated, it too is doomed.
"The only medicine available for this particular ailment is, of course, the concluding chapter of the Multiversity series!"
Well you say that, but... "Multiversity" as a play on "university" suggested an exam, and with all the creepy spidery build-up to this issue it was obviously going to be the final test in some sense. Reading it there was that insistent repeated cry that if you consume this from beginning to end then everything is forever fucked. So, some pages into it, I started thinking that maybe I should flip to the end and read backwards; would that cheat fate or would it be a case of ‘Overthink, Man With The Multi Mind, overthink!’ which would simply ruin a long-anticipated story? Anyway I did, flipped forwards to the final page without quite reading it, back a few pages ditto, then the image of Ultra bursting heroically back into rejuvenated life (following some conflict I hadn't seen yet) grabbed me, I read that triumphant page, let that simmer in my mind for a while before returning to read the whole thing in the "proper" order.
Funnily enough this nonlinear reading had a pleasantly haunting effect. Here in 2023, with everything having long ago turned to shit, with no possibility of even the possibility of anything good ever happening again, sometimes I can vividly see Ultra Comics bursting out of its constructed confines to remind us that time is not necessarily linear and - oh well - we'll always have had the past! Death and decay was inevitably part of the programme but the mad art and battles and acid-trips of 2015 are still there somewhere doing their thing...
“Skagra •realised• that The Secret Key to The Secret Prison of The Time Lords must in •some• way involve The Dimension of Time....”
The Book is called
“The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey”;
At Trial, The Spell uttered
by The Judge in passing sentence goes :
“We but Administer;
You are imprisoned
by The Power of The Law ITSELF --“
....meaning The Book.
To Go to Shada :
It’s like a hidden track on a CD positioned before the start of Track 1 --
• You bring The Book inside Your Merkabah;
the time-field of an operating Time Capsule;
• You go through the motions of reading The Book BACKWARDS --
The Text of The Book of The Law is written in an insoluble code; it’s insoluble because it’s MACHINE Code, and it’s printed BACK to FRONT.
• As you turn BACK through the pages of The Book, from End to Beginning, the control column of the Time-Ship pilots the proper course and flight trajectory, as operation of the time-field scans and uploads the code from The Book AS the pages are BEING turned (sdrawkcaB)
• Turn The Last (i.e. FIRST) Page will TAKE You to SHADA.....
“Crowley said that the general tenor of the last six thousand years of human civilization could be summed up by the personalities of a family of Egyptian gods.
And the first two thousand years up to the birth of Christ, this was the Age of Isis, The Mother Goddess, where people were hunter/gatherers or early agrarians living off The Land, relying on ‘Mother Earth’, the seasons and the tides.
So, the next Aeon from Christ onward is The Aeon of Osiris, The Dying and Resurrected God. Osiris is also The Law Giver and He brings with Him The •Written• Word, so now Ideas can be enshrined in BOOKS and BOOKS can outlast generations and they take on the aura of Gods •Themselves•. God-HIMSELF is present in the works of The Bible.
God-HIMSELF is present in The Quran.
So certainly, there’s this programming code language, the instructional DadLanguage, which can •take people over• just from reading a book and turn them into Agents of The Dad God’s Expansionist, Controlling Agenda.
[,“To be Honest, I kinda lost interest in The Patriarchy once I learned that it wasn’t •mostly• about Horses…..”, says Ken (who doesn’t have a penis). ]
This is when Nature goes from Provider to something that exists to be TAMED and •exploited•.
The Archduke of Post-Modernism, Jaques Derrida used to frequently speak of The Future, which he characterised in The Category of ‘MONSTROUSITY’.
J.Rob : “We imagine A Future,
and Our Imaginings •horrify• Us.”
A Monster is A Child with only ONE Parent;
Like Merlin.
Or Darth Vader.
Or Boba Fett.
MONSTROUSITY (n.)
1550s, "an •abnormality• of GROWTH," from Late Latin monstrositas "strangeness," --
Doc Brown, Veteran of The Manhattan Project* :
“I WARNED You about This, Kid!
The CONSEQUENCES
could be DISASTROUS…!!
I REFUSE to •Accept•
The RESPONSIBILITY”
If The Future IS Monstrosity,
then it represents *malformed* or *abnormal* Growth — which would be True : *That’s Evolution.*
So Rocket Raccoon *is*
an Abomination —
He IS a Little Monster.
-- monstrosity," figuratively "repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, abomination," a derivative of *monere "to remind, bring to (one's) recollection, tell (of); admonish, advise, WARN, INSTRUCT, TEACH”* --
Kara Zor-El :
Do You Know What This Symbol Means?
Barry :
Yeah, it means ‘Hope’, right?
kenning (n.2)
early 14c., "SIGN, TOKEN; TEACHING, INSTRUCTION;" c. 1400, "•range• of VISION," also "mental cognition;" late 15c., "sight, view;" verbal nouns from ken (v.).
Cognate Old English ‘cenning’ is attested as "•procreation•; DECLARATION in COURT" (and see kenning (n.2)).
-- from PIE **moneie- "to make think of, remind,"* suffixed (causative) form of root *men- (1) "TO THINK."
Caesar : Tell me, Breck, before you DIE —
HOW do WE differ from the dogs and cats you and your kind used to LOCE?
This might be my fav single issue comic book ever.
Ultra Comics being created by the CMYK tubes of ink pouring into his body is such a wild moment!
I associate it with The Filth #3, the whole Secret Original "flood ink chambers" bit, not that the stories really overlap, except but! A character called Ultra-Humanitarian, who also has a forehead gem of some sort, dies after crashing into the 4th wall. Though another casualty in the scene, Alpha-Sapiens, more so has the primary colored standard issue superhero look of Ultra Comics.
There's a kind of hypnotic induction with all the page turn commands and anchoring in real life physicality, with mundane actions in the reader's reality getting imbibed with transcendental implications, somewhat reminiscent of Aleister Crowley's Magic Without Tears, "I therefore take 'magical weapons', pen, ink, and paper; I write 'incantations' — these sentences..."
All the while being slowly persuaded to transfer our attention from the oblivion machine to "the felt presence of immediate experience."
There's a game that James Joyce seems to play, that I think I maybe see a bit of in Ultra Comics too, which is, "I'm going to imagine the worst possible way that things could be so that it's more awesome when I affirm life anyway."
It's easy and therefore meaningless to say yes to life when life is a beach.
Though heck, Animal Man #26 was enough to fuck me up when I was a kid!
You're definitely on the FAR end of the bell curve.”
“Oh, Mr. Hemingway,
How I Love You.
How exciting you are.
How a lot of things
•happen• around You,
and besides all that,
I Love You anyway.
How I Love the way You Love Me,
and your flannel shirt seems a strangely beautiful thing,
and it smells so good besides.
Some day, if I •don't• watch out,
there'll be A Poem on the smell
of a clean white shirt
that'll raise up the hair
on The Dead.” “
Smart-Arse : ....After •three centuries•
of having gone through those sewers,
only •The Daleks• would accompany Me,
because only •The Daleks• --
Don't Have Noses.
The Priest : Nor’ve You, Ya Big Dumb Egg.....
Smart-Arse : (shaking Oswald’s Flipper)
Not a Lot of REFLECTIVE SURFACES
in The Sewer, I guess, huh? Ha-Ha, Ha-Ha!
•Fake Laugh to Highlight Sincere Contempt•
The Penguin : (turns to Max)
•Fake Laugh to Disguise True Feelings•
O, Ho-Ho, Ho, Ho!
(turns back to The Spin Doctor
and BITES HIS NOSE OFF -- )
A. : Terrible.
Spengler : ....it’s IN There.
•Venkman nudges The Box with His Foot;
it crackles and sparks•
Venkman : Mep.
Spengler :
......What Do You Call a Fish with No Eyes..?
• The Traveller just STARES at Her, •Transfixed• •
Spengler : A “Fssssssh”!
• Nothing •
Data : •moving His Arms in and out•
A Guy goes inta Da Dahkters’ Office;
Da Dahkter Says, “You Need an Operation.”
The Guy Says, “I Want a Second Opinion.”
The Dahkter Says,
“Okay, You’re Ugly, Too.”
•Ba-Da BOOM!-Ch’i•
• Guinan remains STONEFACED •
Spengler : Two Whales Walk into A Bar;
One of them Says “ mwwWWWWOOOOAAAR!!!”
And The Other One Says :
“Go HOME -- You’re DRUNK!” •grins• :)
•blank stare•
Mulder : Well, oddly enough, there seems to be •one• obscure fact which in ALL the stories told by the different cultures is •exactly• The Same, and that's that,
Vampires are really, •really• obsessive-compulsive;
Yeah,
You toss a handful of seeds at one,
no matter •what• he's doing [Like, EATING You.]
he's •got• to STOP and •pick it up•;
If he sees A Knotted Rope,
he's GOT to untie it —
It's in His Nature.
In •fact•, that's why I'm guessing that our victim's •shoelaces• were untied.
The Sheriff [who IS a Vampire] :
Yeah, obsessive...
Like Rain Man. (Mulder nods)
It's like when that old boy
dropped them matchsticks,
he had to pick them all up —
Same thing, right?
MULDER: …..Well,
he didn't actually •pick them up• —
He COUNTED them.
[ That is •Very• Funny Mulder —
See What Ya Did, There…]
The Sherif : Oh, yeah :
247. Right off the top of your head.
Mulder : Well,
if he •had• picked them up,
he WOULD have been A Vampire.
•blank stare•
•CAN’T penetrate it• [ Stoppit, YOU.]
•CAN’T understand it•
•CAN’T assimilate it•
•CAN’T Dominate and Rule over it•
• Try Querying it — •
Smart-arse :
......HAVE YOU COME
TO •OFFER YOURSELF•
IN SACRIFICE….?
Spengler : …..what?
Smart-Arse : •grins•
ARE YOU •PREPARED• TO •DIE•?
Spengler : ……No — I’m TWELVE!
[ Meanwhile, Podcast has piloted the remote-control Ghost-Trap to the base of Zuul, The Gatekeeper’s plinth]
Spengler : …..are YOU?
• The Trap SLAMS open, pulls Zuul inside,
RIPPING Smart-Arse in Twain,
The Ectomobile •power-slides• in
through the side of The Mountain,
skids to a screaming halt at the foot of The Steps to The Second Temple — She has A Second Temple. Period. — they SCOOP up The Box, Collect Spengler’s Mom,
I’ve never once sat down and tried to read it from “Beginning” to “End” in my entire life --
What Would Be The Point..?
It •isn’t• Darkseid’s idea to shoot Orion dead in The Past with a time-travelling God-Bullet fired back in Time; “It WAS Your Idea.” “BUT.”; It’s Batman’s Idea, and he GIVES it to Darkseid, BEFORE he •Does• it.
God don’t HAVE Ideas
(expect when they breed),
God’s ARE Ideas.
It was BATMAN’S Idea;
he thinks of it in Batman 702, tells Wally,
who remembers it in FC#2, and tells Jay,
which opens up A Hole in Time via The Mobius Chair, which lets Barry back into The Multiverse
(and DEATH Followed with him), which is what brings about Darkseid’s Death,
in Saving Superman.
Batman/Orion TELLS Darkseid about the idea HE has had (“BUT.”), in FC#6 even though Darkseid HASN’T done that -- •Yet•.
Then Batman shoots His Father in The Past,
which causes Darkseid to open up The Box
which is a Grandfather Paradox,
and then banishes Batman
(with a dose of Amnesia)
BEYOND The Crisis,
BEYOND Continuity,
BEFORE all Stories,
so that Darkseid can USE his rebuilding of His Memories as an Escape-Hatch for The Supermassive Black Hole at The Base of Creation (where Orion is •also•, HOLDING him IN there--)
Osiris’ Ghost,
Hamlet, Father of Hamlet (Deceased) :
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, RE-Member me.
[ “AFTER I am DEAD, put Me BACK •together•”]
[Re-Member Me. ]
Exit
HAMLET, Son of Hamlet,
Lord of FORCE and FIRE :
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. REMEMBER thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. REMEMBER thee!
Yea, from the table of My Memory
I'll wipe AWAY all •trivial fond records•,
All saws of BOOKS, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And THY commandment all ALONE shall LIVE
Within The Book and volume of My Brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,-- meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark :
•WRITING•
So, uncle, there you are. Now to My Word;
It is “Adieu, adieu! RE-Member Me”
•I have sworn 't.•
“So, the next Aeon from Christ onward is The Aeon of Osiris, The Dying and •Resurrected• God. Osiris is also The Law Giver and He brings with Him The •Written• Word, so now Ideas can be enshrined in BOOKS and BOOKS can outlast generations and they take on the aura of Gods •Themselves•. God-HIMSELF is present in the works of The Bible.
God-HIMSELF is present in The Quran.
So certainly, there’s this programming code language, the instructional DadLanguage, which can •take people over• just from reading a book and turn them into Agents of The Dad God’s Expansionist, Controlling Agenda.”
Spock : •REMEMBER•.
Kirk [which means ‘Church’],
Father of David : You’re suffering from
The Effects of a Vulcan Mind-Meld, Doctor!
McCoy, Leonard H., Son of David
[Which makes him Solomon] :
That Green-blooded son of a bitch.....
This is His REVENGE for •all•
those arguments he lost....
Anyway -- Bruce Wayne
is Darkseid’s Escape Hatch ;
In reconstructing his memories and his own identity (by filling up The Hole left by The Amnesia), he remembers WHO His Father WAS -- not who he would •like• His Father to BE -- and Re-Members Darkseid BACK into existence (everyone had forgotten Who He Was); which is how he got out of The Tomb on Earth-51, the Graveyard Earth sometime before Kamandi & co open it in the Multiversity Map and Guidebook -- He Got Out.
AFTER Bruce has The Idea for a Father to Shoot His Son in The Past, he tells Darkseid about it, and then shoots His Father in The Past (in issue 6), and then Darkseid DOES IT in Issue 7 -- •TAKE AIM•
Raising a glass to the much-missed 2nd person narrative voice. Always liked its usage in early 2000s Marvel comics like Tom DeFalco’s Spider-Girl and Paul Jenkins’ Hulk and Spider-Man. Great for characters wrestling with guilt and self-doubt!
WORDS FOR WORDS' SAKE!
I loved this one, in particular the bit where the third person itself realises it too is implicated, it too is doomed.
"The only medicine available for this particular ailment is, of course, the concluding chapter of the Multiversity series!"
Well you say that, but... "Multiversity" as a play on "university" suggested an exam, and with all the creepy spidery build-up to this issue it was obviously going to be the final test in some sense. Reading it there was that insistent repeated cry that if you consume this from beginning to end then everything is forever fucked. So, some pages into it, I started thinking that maybe I should flip to the end and read backwards; would that cheat fate or would it be a case of ‘Overthink, Man With The Multi Mind, overthink!’ which would simply ruin a long-anticipated story? Anyway I did, flipped forwards to the final page without quite reading it, back a few pages ditto, then the image of Ultra bursting heroically back into rejuvenated life (following some conflict I hadn't seen yet) grabbed me, I read that triumphant page, let that simmer in my mind for a while before returning to read the whole thing in the "proper" order.
Funnily enough this nonlinear reading had a pleasantly haunting effect. Here in 2023, with everything having long ago turned to shit, with no possibility of even the possibility of anything good ever happening again, sometimes I can vividly see Ultra Comics bursting out of its constructed confines to remind us that time is not necessarily linear and - oh well - we'll always have had the past! Death and decay was inevitably part of the programme but the mad art and battles and acid-trips of 2015 are still there somewhere doing their thing...
“Skagra •realised• that The Secret Key to The Secret Prison of The Time Lords must in •some• way involve The Dimension of Time....”
The Book is called
“The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey”;
At Trial, The Spell uttered
by The Judge in passing sentence goes :
“We but Administer;
You are imprisoned
by The Power of The Law ITSELF --“
....meaning The Book.
To Go to Shada :
It’s like a hidden track on a CD positioned before the start of Track 1 --
• You bring The Book inside Your Merkabah;
the time-field of an operating Time Capsule;
• You go through the motions of reading The Book BACKWARDS --
The Text of The Book of The Law is written in an insoluble code; it’s insoluble because it’s MACHINE Code, and it’s printed BACK to FRONT.
• As you turn BACK through the pages of The Book, from End to Beginning, the control column of the Time-Ship pilots the proper course and flight trajectory, as operation of the time-field scans and uploads the code from The Book AS the pages are BEING turned (sdrawkcaB)
• Turn The Last (i.e. FIRST) Page will TAKE You to SHADA.....
“Crowley said that the general tenor of the last six thousand years of human civilization could be summed up by the personalities of a family of Egyptian gods.
And the first two thousand years up to the birth of Christ, this was the Age of Isis, The Mother Goddess, where people were hunter/gatherers or early agrarians living off The Land, relying on ‘Mother Earth’, the seasons and the tides.
So, the next Aeon from Christ onward is The Aeon of Osiris, The Dying and Resurrected God. Osiris is also The Law Giver and He brings with Him The •Written• Word, so now Ideas can be enshrined in BOOKS and BOOKS can outlast generations and they take on the aura of Gods •Themselves•. God-HIMSELF is present in the works of The Bible.
God-HIMSELF is present in The Quran.
So certainly, there’s this programming code language, the instructional DadLanguage, which can •take people over• just from reading a book and turn them into Agents of The Dad God’s Expansionist, Controlling Agenda.
[,“To be Honest, I kinda lost interest in The Patriarchy once I learned that it wasn’t •mostly• about Horses…..”, says Ken (who doesn’t have a penis). ]
This is when Nature goes from Provider to something that exists to be TAMED and •exploited•.
THAT’S The Aeon of Osiris.”
Caesar : “Beware of Cassius :
He THINKS Too Much --
Such Men are Dangerous.”
The Archduke of Post-Modernism, Jaques Derrida used to frequently speak of The Future, which he characterised in The Category of ‘MONSTROUSITY’.
J.Rob : “We imagine A Future,
and Our Imaginings •horrify• Us.”
A Monster is A Child with only ONE Parent;
Like Merlin.
Or Darth Vader.
Or Boba Fett.
MONSTROUSITY (n.)
1550s, "an •abnormality• of GROWTH," from Late Latin monstrositas "strangeness," --
Doc Brown, Veteran of The Manhattan Project* :
“I WARNED You about This, Kid!
The CONSEQUENCES
could be DISASTROUS…!!
I REFUSE to •Accept•
The RESPONSIBILITY”
If The Future IS Monstrosity,
then it represents *malformed* or *abnormal* Growth — which would be True : *That’s Evolution.*
So Rocket Raccoon *is*
an Abomination —
He IS a Little Monster.
-- monstrosity," figuratively "repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, abomination," a derivative of *monere "to remind, bring to (one's) recollection, tell (of); admonish, advise, WARN, INSTRUCT, TEACH”* --
Kara Zor-El :
Do You Know What This Symbol Means?
Barry :
Yeah, it means ‘Hope’, right?
kenning (n.2)
early 14c., "SIGN, TOKEN; TEACHING, INSTRUCTION;" c. 1400, "•range• of VISION," also "mental cognition;" late 15c., "sight, view;" verbal nouns from ken (v.).
Cognate Old English ‘cenning’ is attested as "•procreation•; DECLARATION in COURT" (and see kenning (n.2)).
-- from PIE **moneie- "to make think of, remind,"* suffixed (causative) form of root *men- (1) "TO THINK."
Caesar : Tell me, Breck, before you DIE —
HOW do WE differ from the dogs and cats you and your kind used to LOCE?
WHY did you turn US from pets into SLAVES?
Leader Breck :
Because Your Kind were once our ancestors.
Man was •born• of The Ape.
And there's STILL an ape
curled up inside of every man.
The Beast that must be
•whipped• into submission.
The Savage that has to be •shackled• in chains.
YOU are that Beast, Caesar.
You TAINT Us.
You POISON our GUTS!
When...
When We HATE you, we're...
We're hating the dark side of •ourselves•.
[ He Thinks Too Much. ]
“One of My FAVOURITE Images in ALL of it is the little image of Superboy on The Moon with The DOG beside Him —“
Narcissus cannot •recognise•
His OWN Reflection —
THAT’S why he falls in Love with it.
A Myth for our OWN Times.
“It’s just like •every•
lonely adolescent,
contemplating His Future,
but *then You look at The Dog*
and The Dog’s just looking
*at HIM.”*
This might be my fav single issue comic book ever.
Ultra Comics being created by the CMYK tubes of ink pouring into his body is such a wild moment!
I associate it with The Filth #3, the whole Secret Original "flood ink chambers" bit, not that the stories really overlap, except but! A character called Ultra-Humanitarian, who also has a forehead gem of some sort, dies after crashing into the 4th wall. Though another casualty in the scene, Alpha-Sapiens, more so has the primary colored standard issue superhero look of Ultra Comics.
There's a kind of hypnotic induction with all the page turn commands and anchoring in real life physicality, with mundane actions in the reader's reality getting imbibed with transcendental implications, somewhat reminiscent of Aleister Crowley's Magic Without Tears, "I therefore take 'magical weapons', pen, ink, and paper; I write 'incantations' — these sentences..."
All the while being slowly persuaded to transfer our attention from the oblivion machine to "the felt presence of immediate experience."
There's a game that James Joyce seems to play, that I think I maybe see a bit of in Ultra Comics too, which is, "I'm going to imagine the worst possible way that things could be so that it's more awesome when I affirm life anyway."
It's easy and therefore meaningless to say yes to life when life is a beach.
Though heck, Animal Man #26 was enough to fuck me up when I was a kid!
https://weirdoverse.com/buddhafart/buddhafart-ep-15-tmi/
SUFFERING SUCCOTASH!
"Well, where's the rest of me!?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XvXsuSJ-1A
Orion : You Shouldn’t have SHOT Orion.
A Radion Bullet -- LETHAL to (Y)Our Kind.
I sealed it away in My Belt for INSPECTION.
A Bullet in A Gun -- it WAS Your Idea...
[No it •wasn’t•......]
I made a very Solemn Vow about Firearms.
But For You,
I’m Making a Once in a Lifetime Exception.
Darkseid : BUT.
The War-Dog of Apokolips :
DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR..!!
Darkseid : Little Man -- Son.
Can You Outrace The Omega Sanction --
The Death That is Life?
Orion : TRY ME -- •!BANG!•
• SHOOTS His Evil Father•
• !OMEGA-SANCTION! •
• He LANDS on Earth-Whichever-Number,12, is it?•
•Goes to Shoot Da Rabbit•
•Click-click, clickitty click, click• *
Orion, Nimrod,
Mighty Hunter before The Lord :
Fudd, Elmer : Well, whaddya know?
No More Buwetts....
Captain Carrot : “No More Buwetts”?
(to The Duck) Hey, Laughing-Boy! --
No More Buwetts!
The Duck : (bounding over, gleefully)
No More Buwetts..?!? Gimme That Thing --
•snatches The God-Gun•
•peers down The Barrel•
• !BANG! •
Orion : Well, whaddaya know?
There was •One• Buwwett Weft! *
Captain Carrot : “•One• Buwwett Weft”...??
(to The Duck) Hey, Laughing-Boy! -- There was --
The Duck : (Head half hanging-off)
....•I• Know, EYE-NO....!!!
[ * That can HAPPEN, ‘cos it’s FUNNY. ]
Now we're talking!
"Who else wants to argue with cartoon physics?"
Someone [Else] had better start
making fun of The Intellectron,
(whatever-his-name-is.)
AND SOON,
because I’m sick of hearing
The Sound of My of Voice --
What an •Excellent• Day for an Exorcism •grins•
Let’s TRAP Him (Pronouns!) Inside A Joke :
[!Spoilers!]
I Say!, I Say!, I Say! --
Q. : The Dark Lord Voldemort
has •got• NO NOSE -- HOW Does He SMELL....?
Q. : Where’s Regan?
Ronald REAGAN..?? The ACTOR?!?
[ Kara Zor-El..?? The BABYSITTER!?! ]
A. •In• Here -- with •Us•.
Smart-Arse : What an •Excellent• Day
for an Exorcism •grins•
The Priest : You’d LIKE that?
Wouldn’t that drive you OUT of Ultra Comixx?
A. : It would •bring• Us Together. :)
The Priest : You and Ultra Comixx?
A. : You and •US•.
•flips back to Page One•
The Priest : ......Did YOU Do That..?
Smart-arse : Uh-Huh. :D
•reads The Comic again, but
right through to almost The END, this time --•
The Priest : Do it Again --
Smart-arse : In Time.
The Priest : No, •now• --
Smart-arse : •IN• Time....
The Priest : Aren’t We All?
Smart-arse : Speak for Yourself....
The Priest : Yes, Well --
I •Control• Time in THIS Reality
that You have obligingly
got Your Self •STUCK• in,
like Winnie The Pooh
in that •extremely• silly
and impractical Narcissistic form
You have •chosen• for
Your Self, Smart-Arse, so --
[ Blows Raspberry, whilst flicking double V-Signs ]
-- •ENJOY• The RIDE....
“The World is like A Ride
at An Amusement Park,
it goes Up and Down,
Round and Round,
it’s got Thrills and Spills
and it’s •very• brightly coloured,
and it’s FUN, for a while....”
DALEK: Exterminate!
DALEKS: Exterminate! Exterminate!
Smart-Arse : STOP! NO!
After three hundred and twelve years
of •climbing• through the BIGGEST
and most •disgusting• sewers in the cosmos,
after three •centuries• of •wading•
through those VAST, •steamy• lakes,
climbing those HUGE •squelchy• mountains,
after a LIFETIME of only dung-slugs for Food --
.....and the occasional Company
on those •long•, LONELY nights.....
After ALL That,
I'm going to Kill The Doctor MYSELF,
with My •Own• BARE Hands!
THE Doctor, THE!
(The Master •lunges• forward,
The Doctor and Emma step aside
and he FALLS down The Trapdoor •again•.)
Bladders : Don't worry,
I •Believe• He Knows The Way Out.
(Enter The even-older Master, spitting slime.)
Smart-Arse : Six HUNDRED and
twenty- four YEARS....!!
In a •SODDING• SEWER..!!
“ALL Writers are narcissistic;
That's •not• the same as
being A Narcissist,
as being A Sociopath;
But no one can sit in A Room BY THEMSELVES
12 hours a day, THINKING about
What They're Thinking,
and •not• be a little more
self-focused than the normal person —
You're definitely on the FAR end of the bell curve.”
“Oh, Mr. Hemingway,
How I Love You.
How exciting you are.
How a lot of things
•happen• around You,
and besides all that,
I Love You anyway.
How I Love the way You Love Me,
and your flannel shirt seems a strangely beautiful thing,
and it smells so good besides.
Some day, if I •don't• watch out,
there'll be A Poem on the smell
of a clean white shirt
that'll raise up the hair
on The Dead.” “
Smart-Arse : ....After •three centuries•
of having gone through those sewers,
only •The Daleks• would accompany Me,
because only •The Daleks• --
Don't Have Noses.
The Priest : Nor’ve You, Ya Big Dumb Egg.....
Smart-Arse : (shaking Oswald’s Flipper)
Not a Lot of REFLECTIVE SURFACES
in The Sewer, I guess, huh? Ha-Ha, Ha-Ha!
•Fake Laugh to Highlight Sincere Contempt•
The Penguin : (turns to Max)
•Fake Laugh to Disguise True Feelings•
O, Ho-Ho, Ho, Ho!
(turns back to The Spin Doctor
and BITES HIS NOSE OFF -- )
A. : Terrible.
Spengler : ....it’s IN There.
•Venkman nudges The Box with His Foot;
it crackles and sparks•
Venkman : Mep.
Spengler :
......What Do You Call a Fish with No Eyes..?
• The Traveller just STARES at Her, •Transfixed• •
Spengler : A “Fssssssh”!
• Nothing •
Data : •moving His Arms in and out•
A Guy goes inta Da Dahkters’ Office;
Da Dahkter Says, “You Need an Operation.”
The Guy Says, “I Want a Second Opinion.”
The Dahkter Says,
“Okay, You’re Ugly, Too.”
•Ba-Da BOOM!-Ch’i•
• Guinan remains STONEFACED •
Spengler : Two Whales Walk into A Bar;
One of them Says “ mwwWWWWOOOOAAAR!!!”
And The Other One Says :
“Go HOME -- You’re DRUNK!” •grins• :)
•blank stare•
Mulder : Well, oddly enough, there seems to be •one• obscure fact which in ALL the stories told by the different cultures is •exactly• The Same, and that's that,
Vampires are really, •really• obsessive-compulsive;
Yeah,
You toss a handful of seeds at one,
no matter •what• he's doing [Like, EATING You.]
he's •got• to STOP and •pick it up•;
If he sees A Knotted Rope,
he's GOT to untie it —
It's in His Nature.
In •fact•, that's why I'm guessing that our victim's •shoelaces• were untied.
The Sheriff [who IS a Vampire] :
Yeah, obsessive...
Like Rain Man. (Mulder nods)
It's like when that old boy
dropped them matchsticks,
he had to pick them all up —
Same thing, right?
MULDER: …..Well,
he didn't actually •pick them up• —
He COUNTED them.
[ That is •Very• Funny Mulder —
See What Ya Did, There…]
The Sherif : Oh, yeah :
247. Right off the top of your head.
Mulder : Well,
if he •had• picked them up,
he WOULD have been A Vampire.
•blank stare•
•CAN’T penetrate it• [ Stoppit, YOU.]
•CAN’T understand it•
•CAN’T assimilate it•
•CAN’T Dominate and Rule over it•
• Try Querying it — •
Smart-arse :
......HAVE YOU COME
TO •OFFER YOURSELF•
IN SACRIFICE….?
Spengler : …..what?
Smart-Arse : •grins•
ARE YOU •PREPARED• TO •DIE•?
Spengler : ……No — I’m TWELVE!
[ Meanwhile, Podcast has piloted the remote-control Ghost-Trap to the base of Zuul, The Gatekeeper’s plinth]
Spengler : …..are YOU?
• The Trap SLAMS open, pulls Zuul inside,
RIPPING Smart-Arse in Twain,
The Ectomobile •power-slides• in
through the side of The Mountain,
skids to a screaming halt at the foot of The Steps to The Second Temple — She has A Second Temple. Period. — they SCOOP up The Box, Collect Spengler’s Mom,
JUMP in The Car and RUN AWAY,
like a Quartet of Honour Jacksons….•
A Barrista (who has Mulder’s Latté) : Dave?
Is Dave Here….?
Scully : (•Mirthful•) It’s an Alternate Reality —
“Fox” Doesn’t EXIST in Coffee Shops.
Mulder : No,
It’s a FALSE Reality, Scully —
Just like •everything• we’ve been told, so far….
“All Living Things must conform
to The Laws of The Form They Inhabit.”
ANGEL : [ Realising •How to WIN• ]
Being inside •A Human• makes it •vulnerable•, doesn't it? •That's• WHY it had to stay HIDDEN.
Why it needed to •create• something •stronger• to pour itself INTO.
SKIP : Takes a •whole• lot of •CRAMMING•
to get THAT much Glory and THAT much Sweetness into A Human —
••••••
Mother Superior : Why Would
The Forces of Darkness attack a •Convent•?
Van Helsing : ....perhaps
They are sensitive to •Criticism•...?
•••••
Gloria Emerson (Journalist and Snob) :
BUT You’ve MADE Yourself RIDICULOUS....!!!!
Lennon : To •some• people, I don’t care;
You’re just a SNOB about it...!!
If it Saves LIVES...
Gloria : You don't think...
My dear boy, you're living in a never-never land. You talked to a...
You •don't• think you've saved a •single• life?
What Do YOU Know about
A Protest Movement, •anyway•?
Lennon : I know a LOT about it.
Gloria : It consists of a lot more than...
sending your •chauffeur• in your •car•back to Bucking—ham Palace.
CAN’T You give up something means a little MORE?
Lennon :
It’s not •about• The Sacrifice, I KEEP Telling You :
It was NO Sacrifice to get rid of The MBE,
because it was an •embarrassment•...
Gloria : Then what •kind• of
•protest• did you MAKE?
Lennon : It is an ADVERTISING Campaign
for PEACE — Can you •understand• that?
Gloria :NO, I CAN’T.
Lennon : A very BIG •ad campaign• for PEACE.
Gloria : I think it's •vulgar• and self-aggrandising —
Are you advertising John Lennon or Peace?
Lennon : OH,
Do You Want •nice•,
MIDDLE-CLASS gestures for Peace?
And intellectual •MANIFESTOS•...
written by a lot •half-witted• intellectuals….? And,
NOBODY •READS• them !!!! —
[ “He has raped my wallet for the last time.”
THAT’S The Trouble with
The Peace Movement!!!!
Gloria :
[Passive-Aggressive Fangirlish Threatening Tone]
I'm someone who •admired• you •very much•…..
Lennon : Well, I'm sorry you liked the old mop-tops, dear, and you thought I was very satirical and witty, and you liked Hard Day's Night, love,
But •I've• grown up —
YOU obviously haven't.
Gloria : Have you?
Lennon : •into The Camera, Speaking to History•
Yes, folks.
https://youtu.be/VHmfTV-abRU
I read •a• page of Final Crisis,
AT LEAST once a day.
I’ve never once sat down and tried to read it from “Beginning” to “End” in my entire life --
What Would Be The Point..?
It •isn’t• Darkseid’s idea to shoot Orion dead in The Past with a time-travelling God-Bullet fired back in Time; “It WAS Your Idea.” “BUT.”; It’s Batman’s Idea, and he GIVES it to Darkseid, BEFORE he •Does• it.
God don’t HAVE Ideas
(expect when they breed),
God’s ARE Ideas.
It was BATMAN’S Idea;
he thinks of it in Batman 702, tells Wally,
who remembers it in FC#2, and tells Jay,
which opens up A Hole in Time via The Mobius Chair, which lets Barry back into The Multiverse
(and DEATH Followed with him), which is what brings about Darkseid’s Death,
in Saving Superman.
Batman/Orion TELLS Darkseid about the idea HE has had (“BUT.”), in FC#6 even though Darkseid HASN’T done that -- •Yet•.
Then Batman shoots His Father in The Past,
which causes Darkseid to open up The Box
which is a Grandfather Paradox,
and then banishes Batman
(with a dose of Amnesia)
BEYOND The Crisis,
BEYOND Continuity,
BEFORE all Stories,
so that Darkseid can USE his rebuilding of His Memories as an Escape-Hatch for The Supermassive Black Hole at The Base of Creation (where Orion is •also•, HOLDING him IN there--)
Osiris’ Ghost,
Hamlet, Father of Hamlet (Deceased) :
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, RE-Member me.
[ “AFTER I am DEAD, put Me BACK •together•”]
[Re-Member Me. ]
Exit
HAMLET, Son of Hamlet,
Lord of FORCE and FIRE :
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. REMEMBER thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. REMEMBER thee!
Yea, from the table of My Memory
I'll wipe AWAY all •trivial fond records•,
All saws of BOOKS, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And THY commandment all ALONE shall LIVE
Within The Book and volume of My Brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,-- meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark :
•WRITING•
So, uncle, there you are. Now to My Word;
It is “Adieu, adieu! RE-Member Me”
•I have sworn 't.•
“So, the next Aeon from Christ onward is The Aeon of Osiris, The Dying and •Resurrected• God. Osiris is also The Law Giver and He brings with Him The •Written• Word, so now Ideas can be enshrined in BOOKS and BOOKS can outlast generations and they take on the aura of Gods •Themselves•. God-HIMSELF is present in the works of The Bible.
God-HIMSELF is present in The Quran.
So certainly, there’s this programming code language, the instructional DadLanguage, which can •take people over• just from reading a book and turn them into Agents of The Dad God’s Expansionist, Controlling Agenda.”
Spock : •REMEMBER•.
Kirk [which means ‘Church’],
Father of David : You’re suffering from
The Effects of a Vulcan Mind-Meld, Doctor!
McCoy, Leonard H., Son of David
[Which makes him Solomon] :
That Green-blooded son of a bitch.....
This is His REVENGE for •all•
those arguments he lost....
Anyway -- Bruce Wayne
is Darkseid’s Escape Hatch ;
In reconstructing his memories and his own identity (by filling up The Hole left by The Amnesia), he remembers WHO His Father WAS -- not who he would •like• His Father to BE -- and Re-Members Darkseid BACK into existence (everyone had forgotten Who He Was); which is how he got out of The Tomb on Earth-51, the Graveyard Earth sometime before Kamandi & co open it in the Multiversity Map and Guidebook -- He Got Out.
AFTER Bruce has The Idea for a Father to Shoot His Son in The Past, he tells Darkseid about it, and then shoots His Father in The Past (in issue 6), and then Darkseid DOES IT in Issue 7 -- •TAKE AIM•
It is •not• linear....
Raising a glass to the much-missed 2nd person narrative voice. Always liked its usage in early 2000s Marvel comics like Tom DeFalco’s Spider-Girl and Paul Jenkins’ Hulk and Spider-Man. Great for characters wrestling with guilt and self-doubt!
This was the Haunted issue. It haunted me.
What Would Window Twanky Do?
Shrink it.
Shrink Everything Down.
It’ll all come out in The Wash.
Final Crisis #7
Let’s Sit Down.
Now,
Receive My Meaning --
The entry in Bamber Gascoine’s
Encyclopedia of The British Isles begins :
King John
“One of Shakespeare’s LEAST performed Plays....”
That •isn’t• because it’s NOT Very Good.
Likewise, the •other• entry begins,
The Prisoner
“Hallucinatory in tone....”
See? He gets it.
If You want Certainty,
Buy an Encyclopaedia.
Receive it’s Meaning.
If You never want to be
Certain in Your Life about
anything ever AGAIN,
Buy TWO Encyclopaedias;
and How are You, Mr. Wilson?
That was fab! I know what I'll be re-reading next!😃