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(Scene 1. Satellite of Love bridge. We see Mike, Tom, Crow, and Gypsy performing a routine system sweep.)MiST MARVEL: GENERATION X #47 written by Quamp and Icehole
Mike: Run a level 2 diagnostic on the yaw projection compensator.
Gypsy: Working...
(Pause.)
Gypsy: I have detected no problems in that system.
Mike: Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.
(The light flashes.)
Tom: Oh God, not again.
(The screen comes to life to show Pearl there, dressed as she usually is.)
Pearl: Well you waste of oxygen, how are things on my station?
Mike: I’ve got things working again, no thanks to you. That meteor shower was very nasty.
Pearl: Well, I’ve got something even worse waiting for you. And to make sure you see it, I’m turning off all the oxygen in the rest of the station.
Mike: We’ll never kow-tow to you, never! We’ll go there, but you’ll never break our wills!
(Door sequence. Scene 2. Theater. Big John is waiting for them there.)
All robots but Big John: Oh God, not you!
Big John: What?
Mike: Well, let’s hope this self-control circuit board we installed in him works.
Crow: Oh yea... we forgot about that.
Mike: So what foul cesspool of entertainment has Pearl dragged up for us today?
Tom: Looks like another comic book... Generation X #47.
Crow: Oh God! Not Larry "I’ll ruin Generation X just like I did Elektra" Hama again!
Mike: I’m afraid so. They say this is going to be his last issue.
Big John: Let’s hope the new writer doesn’t write so badly that we get his/her material over and over.
Tom: Let’s start with the credits. First, writer Larry Hama.
Big John: Thank God he’s leaving. Let’s hope that Gen X sales stop sliding once he leaves.
Crow: We’ve already gone over him in the last Gen X time.
Tom: Artist Aaron Lopresti is next.
Big John: You got to feel kinda sorry for him. His biggest claim to fame was writing and drawing Forbush Man stories in What the --!?
Crow: I loved those stories! They should have let him write this.
Mike: Forbush Man? Who’s that?
Big John: He’s that guy with the pot on his head and the F on his chest that appeared on the cover of Marvel Age magazine a lot. He’s supposed to be their official corporate mascot.
Mike: You mean with characters like Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Hulk and Daredevil, Marvel chose to make its mascot a guy with a pot on his head?
Big John: Yea. Goes to show you what kind of company they are.
Tom: Guys, we’re getting off the subject. Next we have Walden Wong, inker.
Mike: Who?
Big John: Yea, who?
Crow: Beats me. Let’s just skip to the editor.
Tom: Frank Pittaraese, Editor.
Crow: Man, that last name is almost as impossible to spell as Bill Sienkiewicz’s name.
Mike: Are you sure you spelled that right?
Crow: Yea, I had to look it up.
Big John: Or how about Renee Witterstaetter’s name?
All but Big John: Who????
Big John: Never mind.
Tom: All right, let’s start with the cover.
>> A visit from Forge... brings the shadow of DEATH!
Mike: Let’s hope the shadow of death falls on Hama here.
Crow: Or at least whoever is responsible for this.
Big John: You know, it’s kinda funny. The whole thing is done committee style, so that whenever something goes wrong, everyone can point the finger at everyone else.
Mike: "A committee is a group of people doing the work of one man." -John G. Kennedy.
Crow: I thought his middle initial was F.
Mike: This is a different John Kennedy. His middle name is George. He’s from Northern Ireland, and wrote in the 1930’s-50’s.
Tom: Check out the inside front cover.
Mike: Why is the White Queen wearing a purple outfit? I thought she was supposed to be the White Queen.
Crow: Perhaps this is to go with her ‘dark’ status.
Tom: So that would make her the Gray Queen?
>> Jubilee: "Like, are we gonna practice fighting sentient monster basketballs from the fifth dimension?"
Tom: Sssh! Don’t give Hama ideas!
Crow: Well, Hama wrote that, so it is his idea.
Mike: Doesn’t surprise me.
Big John: It’s Jordonos, the monster basketball that walked like a man!
All but Big John: DON’T ENCOURAGE THEM!
Mike: We'll be reading Marvel Comics until you three rust over. Even you, Big John.
Big John: Hey, I’m made of stainless steel.
Mike: My point exactly.
>> "The curriculum at the Massachusetts academy is eclectic, stimulating, diverse and challenging..."
Mike: And just like the rest of the country, all the students are failing because they’re apathetic about learning!
Tom: I thought it was because they were too busy going off into la-la land with pookas and tokens and whatnot to fight M’s brother.
Big John: The only diversity of late has been how lame the villains that Generation X has fought!
Crow: This is about as intellectually stimulating as watching paint dry.
Mike: Frankly, the two challenges of late have been not falling asleep while reading this... or throwing up.
Tom: Moving on now...
Mike: Say, that bench Jubilee was sitting on suddenly turned into a trash can.
Crow: That’s where Hama’s writing should go.
>> Skin: "R2D2 thinks a Brit and a rich girl are more of a threat than an east L. A. homey? This bad boy is going down!"
Mike: And unfortunately, he’s bringing the quality of Marvel with him...
Crow: That’s been sliding steadily since the late 1970’s.
>> M: "The Sentinel is now blind, disoriented, and most importantly -- off-balance!"
Big John: He’s blind. Lucky dog. Then he doesn’t have to look at Hama’s writing.
Crow: Well, at least in dying, he’s spared Hama’s dialogue for the rest of the story.
Mike: Sometimes I wish I didn’t have senses... so I didn’t have to worry about these things...
>> Forge: "I’m just here because I own a complete set of Allen wrenches and a cordless Makita drill."
Tom: Oh, is that all it takes to be the official X-Men’s carpenter?
Mike: Maybe I’m in the wrong business.
Big John: They should have hired Damage Control.
All but Big John: WHO????
Big John: Never mind.
>> Banshee: "Oh, by the way, got any idea what happened to the bio-sphere?"
>> Forge: "Do you remember Krakoa, the living island?"
Crow: I thought Krakoa was dead and unable to reassemble itself.
Big John: Sure was.
Mike: Didn’t you guys say last time that in the Marvel Universe, nothing stays dead for very long?
Tom: No, that was the time before, I think.
Crow: God, we’re recycling jokes.
Big John: Well, Marvel’s been recycling material of its own.
Mike: Some things just shouldn’t be recycled... like the 70’s, for example.
Big John: Yea, it’s the most culturally deprived decade of our time.
Crow: Yea, and Pearl has disco wafting through all the halls all the time... ooh, that lack of soul!
>> Gaia: "When can I get a shot at this?"
Big John: Well, I’ve got something here I’d like you to take a shot at...
Mike: Oh God, that self-control circuit we put in you is breaking down.
Big John: Come on, Mike. You should have seen this one from a mile away. If I hadn’t said it, I’m sure Crow would have.
Crow: Oh, sure, drag me in on this.
Big John: Well, who was the one I caught rifling through Mike’s back closet 2 days ago?
Mike: WHAT!?!?!?
Crow: Er... let’s continue now.
>>Forge: "Exactly. Krakoa wants -- needs to be hole again from some unknown and possibly dire purpose."
Mike: Maybe Krakoa’s going to make all Marvel comics stink.
Big John: A bit late on that one.
Tom: Perhaps Krakoa is going to join Pearl in her quest to find some piece of entertainment that is so bad it will ruin the minds of everyone everywhere.
Crow: Or even worse - Krakoa is going to clone Hama so that he can write every Marvel title.
All: AAAIIIEEE!!!
>> Jubilee: "But why isn’t she with us? She’s not even wearing her uniform."
Mike: Well, maybe she’s trying to come to her senses and run away from this as fast as possible.
Tom: Egads! Trapped forever in a terrible comic book? Can there be an even worse fate?
Big John: Trapped for all eternity on some God-forsaken satellite having to watch horrific things like this comic book.
Crow: At least you get to get out of here tomorrow. We're stuck here forever.
>> White Queen: "Well, Jubilee, Gaia is somewhat of a... special case."
Crow: What? You mean there aren’t thousands of thousand year old alien teenage women on Earth in the Marvel universe?
Big John: I’m not too sure I’d want to date her. If her life is that stretched out, then her times of the month must last for years!
Mike (coldly): Big John... I think we’re going to have to examine that self-control circuitry I put in you.
Big John: Hey... that stuff is part of my core programming. I can’t help it.
>>Banshee: "By the way, that’s an impressive bit o’work in that morphing control booth, Forge. Something new you cooked up?
>>Forge: "Actually, it’s a bit of salvage."
Tom: Just like this script... it feels like it was salvaged from the trash can of some other comic book company.
Mike: So that’s how Marvel is saving money in these dire financial times for them. They’re getting scripts from other comic book companies’ trashcans!
Crow: You know, sales would probably be higher if they actually took the time to hire someone who was well qualified to do this.
Big John: Well, they rehired Byrne and Claremont, even if the two of them aren’t speaking to each other.Kinda reminds you of Excalibur #24, where Clarmont poked fun at his ex X-artist.
Crow: They don’t write them like that anymore, and with good reason.
Big John: Yea, they write them even worse.
>> Forge: "Can’t quite suss out what the communication language is."
Mike: Let me get this straight. He uses some weird piece of alien technology without knowing exactly what it does?
Crow: I’d like to know how he could do that.
Big John: I hope he doesn’t come around here. I’d hate to end up as a toaster or something.
Tom: Or worse.
>>Banshee: "Is it safe? You don’t even know where the thing came from?"
>>Forge: "It’s safe."
Mike: Those who speak of absolute certainty oft stand on shaky ground.
Tom: Man, Hama sure is terrible at foreshadowing... we might as well stop reading this now.
Crow: Yea, you can bet that something’s going to go wrong.
>>Forge: "It really can’t think for itself."
Big John: Just like most of the Marvel staff, right?
Mike: Must have read too many Marvel Comics.
Tom: Yea, if you read too many comic books, it will rot out your brain.
Crow: Well, he is a character in a comic book, and that means he’s sort of reading them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
All: Good Lord! It’s enough to drive anyone insane!
>> Forge: "As long as someone doesn’t tamper with its internal codes..."
Mike: I’ll bet my week’s food rations that someone messes with the codes.
Tom: Yea, like anyone but you eats human food around here.
Crow: All right.. but then again, I don’t eat, so I don’t have food rations. Just as long as I get to say that someone does mess with the codes.
Mike: Oh no, I want to say that.
Tom: Are you sure Pearl allows gambling around here?
>>Banshee: "Hmmm.... can ye do us another favor while you’re here?"
Mike (as Banshee): Help me find out why me hair is turning brown a lot.
Crow: And figure out why the light sources are so screwed up on these characters.
Tom: Maybe he could figure out a way to make Hama a better writer.
Big John (as Forge as Dr. McCoy from Star Trek): Damnit Tom, I’m a technician, not a miracle worker!
>>White Queen: "I’ve put Gaia on the roster on a trial basis."
Tom: Man, check out all that bolding. They must think that bolding automatically leads to something cool.
Big John: Yea. It’s like they think they need to bold almost every other word.
>>Queen: "There’s a little point of creating a "history" for her to present to the school board.
Mike: Hi, I’m in the witness protection program, and you don’t know me.
Big John: Sure, then the school board tries to investigate her past, and then what happens?
Tom: Probably the same thing that happened last issue here.
Crow: Goodness, they’ve already plotted Generation X #51!
>> Queen: "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make some decisions about some of the other wards of this school...
Crow: Ah-ha! A fashion model pose. You owe me a tune-up, Tom!
Tom: Rasinfrats.
Mike: You actually bet they wouldn’t use fashion model poses in this series?
Tom: Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...
>> Leech: "Leech very happy with our new home..."
Mike: Your new home is the attic, where there’s cobwebs, dust, and a lot of junk.
Crow: It’s a step up from a treehouse.
Big John: Some people are happy with anything.
Tom: Hey, don’t dis those kind! They’re the ones keeping Marvel afloat!
Crow: Too bad their population is dwindling... that’s why Marvel’s in such trouble.
>>Leech: "No Pooka, no Token... just us!"
Big John (as Wolverine): Yea, kid, nobody to hurt you... no quarter given, none asked for!
Mike: Well, if you believe that, I’ve got some nice coastal property for you in Paraguay...
Crow: And I have a lovely bridge for you in New York City...
>> Queen: "Leech? Artie? May I come up?"
Mike: Not one peep out of you two.
Big John: Peep. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Mike: *Sigh*... you’re incorrigible, Big John. Even with a self-control circuit, you’ve still got your mind in your pants.
>> Artie: "YAY!"
Mike: Wait a minute. I thought you said that Artie couldn’t talk.
Big John: He sure can’t.
Crow: Looks like someone got confused as to who was whom.
Tom: Not only that, Artie’s shirt didn’t have a collar on it in the past panel, and he wasn’t wearing a white shirt beneath it.
Mike: Maybe Artie and Leech switched coloring?
Crow: They do that a lot.
Big John: Gee Tom, would you change coloring with me?
Tom: No way. Those electric green shorts are horrific.
>> Forge: "How do these words relate to you as members of Generation X and mutants in training?"
Mike: I still say you don’t have to train to be a mutant, you’re born being one!
Tom: Power to boost sales for no apparent reason, responsibility to make sales as high as possible, and the Ethics not to violate the comics code in the process.
Crow: I thought it was the power to have bad writing and get away with it, the responsibility to make Marvel’s sales grow, and the Ethics to be thrown out the window.
Big John: I’m inclined to believe you, Crow.
>>Gaia: "This can’t be too hard..."
Tom: Why isn’t she with the other students?
Mike: Probably because having her in that skimpy outfit boost sales.
Big John: That’s why the She-Hulk was always getting her clothes torn to shreds. I loved that series.
Mike: Why am I not surprised on that one?
Crow: Hey Gaia, you throw like a girl!
Mike: She is a young woman!
Crow: Oh, sorry...
>>Gaia: "Nobody said that morphing the hoop wasn’t in the rules!"
All: Foul! Go stand in the corner for the rest of the issue!
>>Gaia: "That wasn’t so hard..."
Big John: But I’ve got something for you that’s -
Mike (interrupts): Don’t even think of finishing that sentence, Big John.
Big John: Spoilsport.
Mike: We’ve got some sensitive ears around here.
Crow (to Tom): I didn’t know you had sensitive ears.
Tom: It’s not me, Crow.
Mike (to Tom and Crow): Work with me, guys.
>>Forge: "Ethics is about putting others before ourselves."
Mike: Funny, my dictionary defines ethics as "a set of accepted codes or principles a society follows."
Big John: One doesn’t necessarily have to put others before oneself to be ethical.
Crow: Huh?<>
Big John: That’s Pearl’s logic at work.
>> Paradox: "And what kind of a ethical decision is it to condemn a sentient being to an eternity of being a hoop and a back-board?
Tom: Hey, I’ve long since given up trying to figure out Marvel logic.
Crow: It’s more like Marvel lack-of-logic.
Big John (sings): "You hypocrite/ Don’t talk to me/ ‘Cause you’re not fit to know me/ So don’t pretend/ That you could have ever been a friend."
All but Big John: Who is that?????
Big John: Lush.
Crow: Oh... who?
Big John: Never mind.
Mike: Say... Forge’s body disappeared. He’s now a disembodied head!!
Tom: No! Not a repeat of "The Attack of the Disembodied Heads!" again!
Crow: Does that mean he’s going to have to make himself a body again?
>> Paradox: "Isn’t that a bit high-handed and grossly unempathic?"
Mike: Oh, and so busting down a wall and trying to kill everyone in sight is.
Big John: Hey, make love, not war. That’s my motto.
Crow: You’d make love to anything that moved.
Big John: I’m a pleasurebot. I was programmed that way.
Tom: It’s not as unempathetic as that M/Penance mess back in issue #40.
Mike: Yea, now that one was terrible with a capital T.
Tom: Say... M must have really done a bad dye job on her hair, because it just turned purple!
Mike: M goes punk?
Crow: What next, a pierced nose?
Big John: No, that’s Dark Angel.
Tom: No no, he’s just called Angel now.
Crow: Warren Worthington III had his nose pierced?
Big John: No, this is a different Dark Angel. This is the one based in the UK and her name is Shevaun Haldane.
All but Big John: Oh. Marvel’s recycling again, aren’t they?
>>Paradox: "Deactivate? Isn’t that a euphanism for kill?"
Crow: There sure have been a lot of creative euphemisms over the years. Like unlawful termination of life for killing, waste-management artisan for garbageman, animal control expert for dogcatcher, and so on.
Mike: And slipshod writing, unfathomable plotlines, and stupid villains is now called Marvel Comics!
Tom: And more bolding? They’re shouting as if we’re going deaf!
Big John: Well, studies show that the youth of today, on average, have less hearing than their parents did at their age.
Mike: It amazes me how Forge can keep calm and speak so clearly when someone’s trying to choke him.
>> Skin: "Caramba! He can’t be grabbed or slashed, either!"
Tom (as Charleton Heston): "Get your filthy paws off me, you stinking ape!"
Crow: Marvel should hire monkeys to write their material. It’s cheaper and higher quality.
Mike: You mean they haven’t been using monkeys?
Big John: I think they’re using something worse.
Tom: Young Republicans?
Big John: Even worse.
Crow: Lawyers?
Big John: Nope.
Mike: Elzarian Primal ooze?
Big John: No.
All but Big John: Then who?
Big John: Editors.
Tom (trying to move things along): Moving right along...
>>Jubilee: "Eat hot pafs, creep!"
Mike: Ah, pafs, so delicious and good for you too.
Tom: Yea, and this week they’re on sale, $1.99 per kilo!
Big John: As opposed to the cold pafs, which aren’t that appetizing.
Crow: Oh, just heat them up in the microwave.
>> Paradox: "What good are your against mutant powers against an entity that can morph instantaneously?"
Mike: Well, about as good as the dialogue here...
Crow: Further evidence of our "if you can’t be good be bold" theory.
Big John: Hey, look, Forge’s shoulder bands turned white all the sudden. I wonder if that’s due to lack of oxygen to the brain?
Tom: Nah, it’s lack of oxygen to the colorist’s brain.
>>Forge: "What? It’s all zeros and ones and it’s 78 pages of printout!"
>>Synch: "Yes, but I’ll bet you have it memorized!"
Big John: He could have 78 pages of ones and zeroes memorized correctly? Man, that must have taken a long time.
Crow: Well, Forge has had some time on his hands since X-Factor was cancelled.
Mike: Woah... drug flashback... I’m seeing a rainbow all around Synch.
Tom: I never knew you took drugs.
Mike: Erm... only on the advice of my doctor. I had a mild case of ... a... glaucoma.
Big John: Who was your doctor, Timothy Leary?
Crow: That’s just to let you know Synch is getting in Synch with someone else’s mutant powers.
Tom: But why Forge’s power? His mutant power is to make gadgets and gizmos. That’s not very useful when you’ve got a big, mean, black cybermorph barreling down on you.
>>Forge: "I can display it holographically faster than I can recite it!"
Mike: I don’t know about you, but most of those characters don’t look like ones and zeros to me.
row: SR 87? Who was a senior in 1987?
Tom: Run D.M.C? Now we’ve got a rap group in there?
Big John: Eat corn? Did the national corn board pay for that subliminal message?
Mike: Buy chix ilfio? What’s an ilfio and why should we by the chix brand of it?
Tom: Kiss? First Run D. M. C., now Kiss?
Mike: We don’t allow that kind of music around here. We all know what that really stands for.
Big John: What?
Mike: Knights In Satan’s Service.
Big John: That’s just an urban legend!
Crow: And look at this last line: Bill + Monica = Luv!
Mike: It’s more like Bill + Monica= scandal + near downfall of a president.
Tom: I heard they barred Monica from this year’s thanksgiving parade.
Mike: Why?
Tom: They might have mistook her for one of the inflatable balloons.
Big John: Bill sure has come out of that smelling like a rose, hasn’t he? Well, except for this censure thing they’ve got going on in Congress.
Mike: Let me guess... he’s your idol, isn’t he?
Big John: Well, he does get a lot of beautiful women... Hilary Rodham, Monica, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Dolly Browning, Markie Post, Christy Zercher, Paula Jones, and on and on and on...
Crow: Chelsea?
Mike: Chelsea’s his daughter!
Big John: Well, he is from Arkansas...
Mike (very coldly): Don’t go there, Big John.
Tom (trying to get things back to the story.): You know, I’m really amazed at how Synch could memorize that code so quickly and accurately.
Crow: Maybe he took the Evelyn Wood speed-reading course?
Mike: You know, if I had been able to do that, I probably wouldn’t have ended up here. I would have graduated at the top of my class.
>> Forge: "I thought of that... but it’s a moot point since I didn’t bring the hardware to access Paradox’s liquid memory!"
Mike: Man, you can tell this guy wasn’t a boy scout.
Crow: How could he have forgotten something like that!
Tom (as Forge): Oh, sorry, I can’t save the world because I forgot my hand!
>>Synch: "This is not good!"
Mike: Oh, it took you this long to figure out the dialogue was bad?
Crow: Maybe they’re running out of bold lettering.
Big John: Or maybe they’re running out of ways to stretch this plot line further.
>> Forge: "It’s worse than that, son!"
Big John: Oh God! That mean’s Hama’s not leaving!
Mike (as Forge as Darth Vader): Synch I am your father.
Crow (as Synch as Luke Skywalker): No! You can’t be! My father was featured in issue #15!
Mike (continuing his part): Search your feelings, Everett... you know it to be true!
Tom: You’ll never see a villain as cool as Darth Vader in this series, at least as long as Hama’s writing it.
Big John: Moving on to the next page, it’s amazing how Penance can leap around like that and not tear up anything.
Tom: Yea, isn’t she supposed to have diamond hard, razor sharp skin?
Mike: Hey Penny, run your fingers over my face, I need a shave here.
Crow: Talk about getting a bad haircut.
>> Psi Balloon (pointing to Chamber): "Forcing him to the left."
Mike: Hey hey hey, don’t be mentioning the l-word around here, pal.
Big John: Libido?
Mike (Grimaces): The other l-word.
Tom: He means liberal.
Crow: Yea, we like it conservative. Strom Thurmond in 2000!
Big John: The man’s nearing 100! Are you sure you want him in the White House for four years?
Tom: No... we want him there for 8 years.
Big John: My God, you people have been on this satellite for too long.
>>White Queen: "What’s going on in here?"
Mike: Well, we’ve got this pesky Jehovah’s witness here...
Crow: I thought he was here to sell Amway!
Tom: Oh no, he’s with Quantum Leap!
Big John: Nah, he’s selling sex toys. Just look at his hands on the previous page!
Mike (sternly): Big John....
Tom: Wait a minute. The White Queen’s outfit has suddenly turned gray!
Crow: I knew it! She’s the Gray Queen now!
Mike: Too bad that doesn’t improve her lines.
Big John: So she’s telepathic and telekinetic... and now she’s going to start smoking ,drinking, and saying "bub" a lot.
Crow: I feel sorry for her then. She’ll end up an old maid.
Tom: Oh, and the way she’s going now is any better?
Big John: I like what Quamp’s doing with her... that relationship she’s got with El Águila?
All but Big John: What????
Big John: Oh, I forgot. You don’t get any quality entertainment around here, do you?
>>Queen: "What is that thing?"
Mike: It’s the specter of decent writing come to slay all series that are terrible in the writing department.
Crow: If he’s in Marvel, he’s going to be there for a long, long time.
Tom: I still say it’s a Quantum Leap salesman.
Big John (sings): "Woah-oh-oh/ Buy my snake oil! And remember, you get what you pay for."
Mike: I’m not too sure I want to know who that was.
>>Synch: "No time for explanations,"
Big John: We’ve got to take a roll in the hay!
Mike (coldly): Big John, cut it out!
Crow: Hey, her name is Emma Frost, not Mary Kay Letourneau.
Mike: You’ve been hanging around him too much, haven’t you?
>>Synch: "Just synch with me -- so I can use your psi-power to download the code changes into Paradox’s memory!"
Mike: Just like a male to constantly use the female for his cheap gains.
Big John: Since when did Synch need skin-on-skin contact to synch himself to someone else’s powers?
Crow: A dark Synch?
Tom: But he’s already black! He can’t get darker than that, can he?
Mike: Moving on here...
Crow: They turned him into a basketball hoop!
Big John: A bit of a letdown in the climax, don’t you think? I mean, they’re supposed to fight until they defeat it, yadda yadda yadda.
Tom: Everything Marvel has put out of late has been one letdown after another.
>>Banshee: "I thought you said it was safe!"
Mike: Well, they wouldn’t have much of a plot if it wasn’t...
Tom: They didn’t have much of a plot even with it being unsafe.
Crow: Plot? You mean there was a plot in this thing?
Big John: Well, it’s the same plot they have in every Marvel comic. Get some hot studs, some total babes, put them in skintight clothing, and have them fight some villain and beat it.
Mike: Oh, well that makes things a lot clearer.
Tom: And look, Chamber just got gray hair!
Big John: From fighting some idiotic monster?
Crow: He probably found out he’s going to be in the next few issues of Generation X.
Mike: That would be enough to keep me awake at night.
>> Forge: "It’s safe to say you’ve seen the last of Paradox."
Tom: Just like last time, hm?
Mike: So we’re going to be treated to Paradox, the basketball hoop that walks like a man sometime soon?
Crow: That’s probably the plotline to the next issue.
>> Gaia: "What? I’m ready. Let’s get started."
Crow: Hey, you were supposed to stand in the corner for the rest of the issue.
Big John: I got your balls -
Mike: Don’t even think of finishing that sentence.
Big John: Gee, you’re no fun.
Tom: So just where was Gaia really while they were fighting Paradox?
Crow: Beats me. Musta been dying her hair or something.
Big John: See, it took her 9 pages to get ready for things. In Marvel time, that’s... well, what is it?
Tom: Oh that varies from issue to issue.
Crow: Time is extremely inconsistent. I mean, take look at Leech. He was introduced around the same time that Powerhouse was, and Leech has barely aged a year while Powerhouse is in his late teens...
Mike: Maybe the more popular a character is, the slower s/he ages.
Tim: In that case, Ol’ Santa Claws has probably stopped aging.
Big John: Well, that’s the end of the comic book, thank God.
(The doors open, and the everyone goes out. Door sequence. Bridge. Enter all from the previous scene.)
Gypsy: We have an incoming communication.
(Pearl appears on the screen.)
Pearl: So, Big John, have you learned your lesson yet?
Big John: Yes, most exhaulted Mistress Pearl.
Pearl: Good. I’m teleporting you back here, and I’d better not catch you doing anything bad again!
Big John: Yes, most exhaulted Mistress Pearl.
Pearl: And as for you, gene trash, I see you’re still alive.
Mike: Your pathetic attempts to break me fail all the time, Pearl. You’ll never win, ever!
Pearl: Curse you, Nelson! I may have lost this round, but I’ve got plenty more where that came from!
Tom: Yea, Marvel publishes about 21 titles a month, not including limited series and -
All but Tom & Pearl: Don’t give her ideas!!
Pearl: Well, I am teleporting you back, Big John. You’d better be ready tonight!
Big John: Sure, whatever, Most exhaulted Mistress Pearl.
(Big John teleports away. Mike picks up a control device.)
Pearl: And as for you, you waste of oxygen, I’ll be back!!
(The screen goes blank.)
Crow: Well, don’t just stand there, push the button.
Mike: All right, all right.
(Mike pushes the button. Go to Pearl’s bedchamber in the Forrester fortress. We see her with Big John.)
Pearl: Well, ready for your usual weekly bed discipline tonight?
Big John: Not tonight, bimbo. I’ve got a headache.
(Focus on Pearl’s face.)
Pearl: NELSON!!!!
