[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

Spoilers Ahead. Forreal.

In a strange way, I had hoped that Nemesis wouldn’t end up getting the Images & Words spotlight. The reality is that I’m a Mark Millar fanboy and so is Caffeine Powered. On top of that, we’re particularly fond of the writer’s collaborations with Steve McNiven, such as Civil War and Old Man Logan. With these comic book Mega Powers reuniting, we’ve been ranting and raving for months about how sick Nemesis is lining up to be. Which, to be completely candid, calls our objectivity into question.

Hell, the OL wad might’ve already been shot — there’ve been two posts about the comic before I could even get my grubby, powdered-sugar dusted hands on it. With this much hype, picking Nemesis as the week’s top comic seemed like a foregone conclusion. And I didn’t want to know which comic released on Wednesday was best before reading them. I wanted to sit down with my stack of funnies and say, “Let’s see who wows me!”

In fact, I even said, “Maybe Nemesis won’t even be that good. Maybe Millar’s played out. Maybe the new Streets of Gotham is going to rise to the occasion. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have acted a damn fool.

The first chapter of Nemesis is fucking awesome. As promised, Millar delivers an ultra-violent, wonderfully vulgar twist on the billionaire-superhero archetype. The reader gets to see what would happen if someone had all of the resources and ambition of Bruce Wayne, but not a single ounce of his altruism. Matt Anderson is the end product of replacing the philanthropic sentiments with sheer lunacy, and then stripping away every good intention so that they can be raped in the bathroom of an abandoned bowling alley. He is the Nemesis.

The titular character hunts for sport. But, as a maniac, he conducts his very own rendition of The Most Dangerous Game; he finds the best law enforcement officers in the world and then sends them a card that tells them exactly when they are going to be murdered. This game that Anderson plays is both incredibly cerebral and shockingly destructive. Not only does this predator toy with his prey, savoring the moments leading up to the killing stroke, but he makes sure to make a spectacle of the event as well.

In the opening sequence, Nemesis reminds a Japanese inspector of all the recent crimes he has failed to prevent. He then informs his target that the men coming to the rescue are on time, but two miles away — in a hotel that Nemesis has rigged with explosions. Then, in a grand twist, the inspector realizes that he is bound to a chair that is on a train track; not only is he killed by the oncoming transport, but the train derails as wreckage from the hotel bombing interferes with the train line. This is the undiluted, masterfully-executed plan of a homicidal genius.

Opposing Nemesis in this series is Blake Morrow, the thematic equivalent of Jim Gordon. The reader is introduced to the Washington D.C. Chief of Police as he shotgun blasts a bunch of crack-heads that have taken hostages in their attempt to hold up a convenience store. This dude is the archetypal old man bad ass, the aging dude who has paid his dues but still isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Take for instance, this exchange with younger officers;

Officer: What the Hell? How’d you even get in here, Chief?

Morrow: Well, crack-heads tend not to count their hostages, son. I just wandered in the back door wearing a baseball cap.

Sergeant Lee: You are something else, boss. I had your job, I wouldn’t come near this shit.

Morrow: Language, please, Sergeant Lee. We’re supposed to be an example here.

Of course, Morrow isn’t one to piss his pants when he gets the death-sentence card from Nemesis. Instead, he remains calm and decides to put together a plan to take on the world’s only supervillian. Which is even more impressive when the reader realizes that this is an impossible task — to prove his dominance, Nemesis hijacks and crashes Air Force One. He then televises his challenge to Morrow, informing the public that “It’s time you hailed your new fucking Chief” as the President of the United States kneels before him beaten and whimpering.

Thus far, the most intriguing aspect of Nemesis is that I’m not sure who I’m rooting for yet. I’m not even sure if the reader is supposed to favor one character over another, as Millar introduces Matt Anderson as Player One and Blake Morrow as Player Two. Perhaps this is all just a game to sit back and enjoy, not worrying ourselves with getting too invested in either side. In effect, both players can be lauded for their respective supremacy.

Yes, Matt Anderson is a fucking lunatic whose atrocities would never be praised in reality. But this is comics. And moreover, the character has a swagger about him, exuding a confidence and fuck you attitude that most of us wish we had a little more of. And to top it all off, Millar intimates that Anderson has some sort of troubled past, as the character declares,

“Washington shall suffer just like Tokyo before it, but my new campaign has a personal touch. Call it revenge for a stolen childhood. The black sheep of the Anderson family has returned to burn these idiots who believe that you protect them.”

Even if you end up hating Matt Anderson, I have a feeling that you are going to love to hate him.

I genuinely think I could read Millar’s script and be on the edge of my seat. Fortunately, I don’t have to, as the mighty Steve McNiven rocks that shit out of this book. The highlights include three splash pages, two of which I foresee becoming requisite posters for every comics shop. Seriously, within the first issue McNiven’s visuals help convince the reader that Matt Anderson is a bad, bad man.

The only other note pertaining to the art is that I perceive a slight difference between Nemesis and McNiven’s other work. In this book, some of the art seems to have more lines. It’s not as sketchy as Leinil Yu’s art (which I adore), but keeps a sincerity that is sometimes inked right over. The art speaks as though it is proud of itself, and not as a comic that desperately wishes it were a movie or television show. Again, I know very little about formal art, so take that for what it’s worth.

Nemesis #1 is a sick book. You should read it if you like any of the following:

Superheroes

Supervillians

Explosions

Die Hard

Swear Words

Sick Art

Guns

Old Dudes Who Beat Ass

Condemnations of Society

Crack-Heads Getting Shot

Ultra-Violence

Cool Shit

One gets orgasms and backrubs for life on a throne of hundred dollar bills, the other is thrown into a pit of daggers and malice.

Discuss.

A couple of days ago I found out that season three of Mad Men was coming to the ole digital video disc this week. I was naturally stoked, since I hadn’t checked that shit out yet and was wondering when I’d get to stare at Joanie for another amazing thirteen episodes again. Oh, and uh, take in an incisive look at mid-century America or whatever. I sent away for it on Netflix and received news that I’d be getting it in mail sometime today.

I was stoked. And then I had the weirdest god damn dream.

I had this odd dream where my better half confessed that she didn’t actually like Mad Men. I was shocked, for she has been my wingman in all of my Mad Men viewings. The murky waters of my dream shifted, I was appaulled. I mean, I don’t handle dreams where she wises up and leaves me well. But this was like three-thousand times worse.

After she told me that she was never really into it, I sat there in my dream, confusion, distraught. And I looked her dead in the eyes, and I remember saying so completely serious:

This is going to be a problem.

There are certain dealbreakers for me in relationships, I just never realized this was one. I mean, I’m not demanding. I just can’t date chicks who can’t respect The Trilogy, who smoke, or worship zombies and other cults. But apparently Don Draper is up there for me too. I never knew. I decided to share this with Lady Caffeine.

Ian: I had a dream you secretly didn’t like Mad Men, and you told me, and I seriously went, “This is going to be a problem.”
Ian’s Better Half: hahahaha
Ian’s Better Half: it probably would be a problem

Well then. I’d hate to see what would happen in a dream then, if someone was like, “Yo, Ian, I love you, but like, Billy Adama is lame.”

[Search Engine Terms come from an app in the Word Press dashboard. It tells you the terms that people are using in google to lead to your site. Most of ours are ultra depraved and horrible. And amusing to sick people like me.]

People are searching for Pepsibones Krueger. And while I’m proud of this, since he’s my brother, I’m also sort of worried. Would it surprise you to know that his name really isn’t Pepsibones Krueger? You’re not surprised? Yeah, me either.

Pepsibones though? He’s pretty certain it is his name. To the point where now even our mother calls him by it. I’m worried by the fact that people are beginning to validate this delusion of his. I mean, Jesus Christ, three searches for Pepsibones Krueger brought them here yesterday? It’s only going to get worse.

I’m fairly certain that Pepsibones is going to write about Nemesis tomorrow for Images & Words. But I’ve been too stoked about it since reading it this afternoon not to vomit some love. Let me just say this! Isn’t that like, always the sentence you use before prattling on for fifteen paragraphs? Anyways.

Let me just say this!

When I finished reading it, I flipped it to Pepsibones and summarized the comic in one statement:

This thing is retarded in all the right ways.

I was giggling at ultra-violence and perversity like I was…well, pretty much any age throughout my depraved life.

In my younger years, I was all about brutal metal. Seven string guitars, double bass drums, growling like Satan – what’s not to love? Well, I suppose the appeal of mosh pits has always escaped me. Nevertheless, I digress.

Lately I’ve succumbed to the charm of shitty pop music. It’ll never replace my metal heritage, but it’s nice to mindlessly bob my head from time to time. A dude can only listen to Hammer Smashed Face so many times.

The video above features YouTube user EddieKim attempting to meld these two diametrically opposed universes. Apparently, every week he is going to post a new entry into a series he has coined Billboard Death Metal. The premise? He’s going to take a chart-topper and turn it into something that’ll scare the church-goers. Essentially, he’s attempting to do for pop what Anchorhead has done for the music of the Star Wars Trilogy.

This week, Eddie Kim presents Rihanna’s Rude Boy.

There are moments on LOST that are so utterly epic, you want to shit your pants. Or do laps around your room. Or perhaps, jump up off your couch after shitting your pants, and do laps around your room. Tonight’s LOST brought all of that funk into my soul. I’m excited at a cellular level. I am tweaking out on pure undiluted awesomeness, not to mention an entire fucking bag of Starburst jellybeans. Oh sweet Christ, if this isn’t one of the best episodes of all time, I don’t know what will be. Buckle the fuck up, there are going to be fanboy fluids flung everywhere. Open your mouth and say a novena.

Where to start? Where the fuck to start? There’s too much enormity! My god damn skull plate is about to break off, spin around the room, before breaking through my ceiling and flying off into the stratosphere.

Let’s get down to the essentials. The storyline for Ab Aeterno is framed through the tale of our boyfriend Richard Alpert, and how he came to be on the Island. While there are ridiculously important developments on some sort of macro level, it’s all tied down through the most beautiful of bindings, the heart strings. I thought it was a dope way to intertwine the two.

Did you swoon for Richard before? Yeah, me too. I couldn’t believe how thunderous the clit-boners and butt-crushes were for Dicky. I mean, I know that I love him, but the LOST community seemed centered on this episode tonight with especial fervor. RICHARD, we all screamed, OPEN YOURSELF UP TO US. And he did, oh boy did he did.

Our boy Richard rocks the most touching of archetypes, the lover who wants to be with their deceased wife. Seriously, ladies and gentlemen. If that doesn’t melt your heart, you don’t have one. The episode opens up with Dicky galloping upon his horse to his beloved Isabella. And she’s obviously on her way to rocking the rigor mortis. I don’t know much about the medicines of 1847, but when your wife is barfing blood, she’s probably fucked.

One deep-dicking by the Catholic church later, and Ricardo is on his way to the New World via some serious slave trading bullshit. I mean, how can you imprison this guy? He’s utterly gorgeous! I mean, sequester him in your house and rub him with salves? Try and quiet his disturbed heart? Sure. I can understand that. But slavery?

Before we get overly intellectual and begin to rocket philosophical loads, let’s just be honest. We freaked the fuck out in geek esctascy for a solid five moments. The moment you see the Statue through the Black Rock during the maelstrom, you shit your pants. And then when it’s launched into the air, you begin hyperventilating. And when you realize that the Black Rock is responsible for demolishing said Statue? Geektacular Euphoria.

And before you can clean your pants, Smokey attacks the Black Rock. Dudes getting flung and mashed and mushed into Cream O’ Human. I can’t help it, but every fucking time he attacks, I find it absolutely chilling. Even though his methodology is still the same, even though they’re always the same sounds, it never gets old to me. Richard’s petrified pleadings to God as Smokey hovers near him was amazing.

And then? Then Richard meets himself in the middle of the chess game between the Devil and God. Can we call it that now?

Our boy Richard is freed by the Man in Black, and sent to kill Jacob. The conversation eerily echoes that of the one between Dogen and Sayid earlier in the season; everything from not letting them speak, to the sword given to kill him. If anything, it’s got to be clear that both Smokey and Jacob are master manipulators, and to let either of them talk to you is to allow them to rock out some hardcore guile on your ass.

Smokey’s manipulation of Richard was reminiscent of his manipulation of Ben back at the end of season five. Seriously, this guy has a velvet tongue. What does the Devil do, if not cajole you into biting apples and doing other dumb shit under the guise of some grand reward, or some grand slight you have received?

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Well holy fuck, shit actually seems to be heating up regarding the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Don’t you play with my balls, Square Enix! Don’t you pull this shit again!

Via Kotaku:

Yoichi Wada, the president and chief executive of Square Enix, told Siliconera that the company has heard its fans’ pleadings to remake FFVII, made nearly 13 years ago for the original PlayStation.
“Right now we don’t have a clear direction, but many fans have requested we remake Final Fantasy VII,” Wada said. “We’re going to explore the possibility – whether or not we’re going to do it, if we’re going to do it, and the platform.”

Fans have been asking for it? No shit! I think we began fapping about the possibility way back when the god damn PS2 was announced Get this shit done. Please. Please, God. I beg you.

Still rockin’ the Gemma background. But I decided to show you the madness that is generally my desktop. All the images that I use on OL are 450/300. But they all have a 2 pixel gray border. Which means I have to crop, resize, and do everything. Always. All of my LOST images are handpicked, from screen captures. I’m a bit anal. So this usually creates madness on my desktop.

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[ source : all games beta ]

Oh, just simply fuck you Japan. No, seriously. You lucking sons a bitches.

Here are two of my favorite things in the world, Mountain Dew and Metal Gear, slammed into a singular orgy of awesomeness. I need this so bad I’m considering importing it. Then I’ll hide in a cardboard box and pound them one after another, while someone sits outside the box and reads some philosophical slop that Kojima would pen into the game in some nonsensical and overly long cinematic.