Atop the Fourth Wall (TV Series)
Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #5 (2010)
Lewis Lovhaug: Linkara, Ninja Style Dancer, Harvey Finevoice, 90s Kid, Mechakara, Dr. Linksano
Quotes
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[opening lines]
Linkara : It was then that the daughter stopped loving her parents. She realized that they never loved her, had never seen her as anything else other than the means to their goals. And she grew very angry and hateful. But she did as her parents had wanted, lost everything that she was so that they could have their weapon, and kill for their god. The daughter poured all of her rage, all of her hate, all of everything that was mad that her love had held back into that weapon. Every unchecked drop of emotion was placed into the instrument. It seemed as if she had put her very soul into it. And when the parents tried to pick up the weapon to use it in their righteous cause, the weapon burned them, burned their minds, and burned their souls. It plunged their psyches into nightmares too horrible for them to comprehend, giving reprieve only so it could be snatched up and the haunting of their very being could continue. But before the parents received their final suffering, they asked the weapon why, why it would do this to them. They loved their god and had even sacrificed the life of their own daughter for it. And the weapon replied, "Because you were my god, and all I have done is follow your teachings of love." And with those words etched into their last thoughts, the parents descended into madness and death, the weapon laughing in loving devotion.
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Linkara : [recapping the story] When we last left our merry band of dimwits, windbags and completely pointless characters, everybody was separated, and yet they all had the same unfortunate happenstance of us not knowing just what the hell was going on. Here's the plot as I can figure: A witch named Lenora has taken control of Silent Hill from the last year's protagonist Lauryn in preparation for the arrival of some great being. Christabella, the demon girl who needs to wash her mouth out with soap, has become mortal, but inherited Lauryn's power to make demons explode. Hollywood actor Ken Carter has been kidnapped by Lenora so that he can become a psychotic killer and bring "the nightmare of Silent Hill into the minds of everybody in the world!" Whoooo! Which, as far as evil plans go, ranks up there with "I'll take over the world by making everybody stupid by convincing kids not to go to college." I'll explain why it's so absolutely idiotic in a minute. Lenora takes Ken to Silent Hill to convince him to become a murderer by also kidnapping his ex-girlfriend Connie. Through a series of convoluted events, Connie has now been possessed by something; Ken has located Lauryn's magic book, but is now encountering his undead father; and Lenora now stands revealed to have been Lauryn the whole time, a plot twist that comes so far out of left field to have come from an entirely different field altogether. Oh, yes, and there's Whatley, who, despite these comics' continually trying to convince us is someone important, has done all of two things so far...
[cut to a clip of "Army of Darkness"]
Ash Williams : Jack and shit. And Jack left town.
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Linkara : [about Lenora's plan to have Ken become a murderer] So, why is this evil plan so moronic? Well, it should be pretty damn obvious, but if it wasn't obvious to Scott Ciencin, then there are probably those out there that don't get it. Having an actor kill people is not gonna strike all that much fear into people, partially because actors and celebrities have killed before. At best, in pop culture, it's something that ends up with the murderers being ridiculed as the subject of jokes. Remember O.J. Simpson? Sure, he was more known for sports, but he did do a little bit of acting in his life. And remember during all of the original trial how it made us all insane with fear and nightmarish visions of a hellish town and a guy with a doorstop for a face? NO, OF COURSE YOU DON'T! Even if some people were frightened by the knowledge that an actor had killed someone, what're you gonna do about areas of the planet where American films are less watched? What about people who may know his name casually, but have never actually seen his face? What about little kids who have never seen his movies or- God, you get the point! This plan doesn't make any sense, and I don't understand why they'd even want to do it in the first place. And of course, everything about this is now questionable, because Lenora is Lauryn! So now, all that's left is to see how the real main character, the dog that Ken brought with him, will overcome these obstacles of idiots put before him.
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Linkara : As before, let's take a look at the summary of the plot at the beginning of the individual issue.
[reads text]
Linkara : "Faking her own disappearance, Lauryn takes on the identity of the mad Lenora and plants herself deep behind the enemy lines of the Whatleys, a group that has had a hand in the evil plaguing Silent Hill for countless generations." No, it hasn't. The order was a cult that worshiped some unknown god that some have speculated to be a demon called Sammael. Their attempts to bring their god into the world resulted in their entire town getting screwed over. You're a dumbass, Scott Ciencin!
[reads more text]
Linkara : "Her goal has been to deal them an unexpected and fatal blow from within..." If you've been wondering why I've been reading these little summaries, that sentence should tell you why: plot points and character motivations are given here INSTEAD OF THE COMIC ITSELF! You know, I thought "Amazons Attack" was bad when its collected editions had those summaries of tie-in books that featured important plot stuff, instead of putting the tie-in books with the collections, but dear Lord, this thing just took the cake with laziness! At least those tie-in books actually exist. Some sad idiot who actually likes "Amazons Attack" could hunt down those issues if they so desired, but there's no tie-ins to "Dead/Alive"! This is it! We need a summary at the beginning to tell us what the hell actually happened in the book, because the writer couldn't be bothered to put it into the actual story! And you want to know the real kick in the nuts? THOSE SUMMARIES ARE NOT IN THE TRADE PAPERBACK! Even if someone could stomach all of this "Christabella", "Whatley", and other not-Silent Hill nonsense, they'd be utterly lost if they picked up the trade paperback from a bookstore.
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Linkara : Okay, like last time, there's a lot of stupid in this comic. Almost everything they say or do gives me something to mock, but the problem with this is that we'll be here for hours if I make fun of everything, so let me just try to explain what is happening. Whatever is possessing Connie sucks out Troy's marshmallow filling... or maybe Troy was filled with bed sheets. Yeah, tip for artists: energy or clouds or something should not have black outlines, or else they look, well, like this. Speaking of the artist, I can just imagine them spilling their whiteout onto the page for all these random dots and just deciding to leave it there for artistic effect. Still, at least we have more colors than brown, but they're still watered down and dreary. The goddess thing turns its attention towards Christabella, who starts flapping her jaw to try to distract it.
Christabella : So you're... what? Sammael? One of the other elder gods the nimrods around here have been trying to summon up?
Linkara : The fact that Scott Ciencin knows what Sammael is suggests a terrible, terrible idea: that he *does* know about the games; he just doesn't give a crap!