#lex; doomsday (the-haunted-office)

[playedbetter]

Every Shinigami has a different method of procuring a human's remaining lifespan. Of course every Shinigami writes the human's name in their Death Note to kill them, thus claiming that human's remaining lifespan for their own, but it's which human the Shinigami chooses that varies. Some choose humans who have less time left to live, to be more merciful, in a way. Others choose humans who have a lot of years left on their lives, to give themselves more time. Other Shinigami choose completely at random, without any regard to a human's remaining lifespan.

Doomsday chooses completely at random. She doesn't particularly care who she kills, and that's not because she's concerned about forming attachments or anything, it's simply because it doesn't matter to her. Whenever she needs to add more time onto her own life, she looks through a portal into the human world, picks out the first human she sees, writes their name in her notebook, and goes about her day. Unless they have a small amount of time left, and then she might write a few names before calling it a day.

Sometimes, though, when she's bored and making bets with Ryuk and taking turns throwing their notebooks through the portals to mess with the humans, Doom will observe the humans a bit more closely. She's spent a bit of time both on Earth and watching the goings on of Earth through the portals. Whenever Ryuk is with a human on Earth, she watches him through the portals, laughing at his successes and failures. Whenever she herself is with a human on Earth, she learns all that she can about them.

She's learned how very greedy some of them are. How power hungry. Some of them like to hoard wealth. If they hoarded anything else it'd be called a mental illness and they'd have people from all over the city called in to haul away all their stuff, but if they're hoarding resources? Cash? Then apparently it's okay. Applauded, even, and heavily protected by the law, even if it's directly causing the suffering of millions of others.

Humans are really weird. And as evidenced, they love death.

This human would certainly love death. Call it a sixth sense, Doom can just tell. He has a lot of money and power, a certain ambitious air about him that tells her he'll give her the show she wants. The death parade. Ryuk will be impressed after this. This human is going to make his first human look like Gandhi.

Giggling to herself, Doomsday creeps into the office of Lex Luthor and simply drops her notebook right there on his desk, right where she knows he'll see it. She's been watching him for a few weeks now, she roughly knows his comings and goings in this little part of the world. It's not likely anyone else will come in and get to it first. And if they do? Well. That just might be interesting too.

That done, she then goes off and does her own thing for a little while. She'll know when her notebook has been claimed. And when it's used. And from that point, she'll have 39 days to reveal herself to the new owner of the Death Note.

(tldr; Lex Luthor has been given a gift by Shinigami Doom!)

@the-haunted-office

Plotted Asks / Accepting!

He'd just returned from a meeting about furthering the company presence in various countries, he approved or denied each for his own reasons mostly tying to how lax their enforcement of scientific ethics were. Progress was never made without some broken eggs, and it was far easier if nobody made any fuss over those eggs.

Immediately he noticed the notebook on his desk, he knew he didn't put it there, and it looked too out of place to be put there by any of his employees. Especially with a title like death note on it. This was certainly a sloppy attempt at delivering contact poison to him in order to kill him.

He retrieved a thick pair of gloves and put them on before touching the note and examining it. The text inside was certainly fascinating, if true. Considering the world he lived in where aliens and magic walked amongst man, he wasn't going to take any chances by letting anybody else take hold of it. He let the security team know to review the footage of his office before he went off to his lab to further examine the death note.

Upon review he found nothing off with the notebook, no poison or drugs, no clue as to where it came from. Stranger yet the security team came back with the story that the notebook had just suddenly appeared. This made the likelihood that this was real skyrocket in his opinion. He still hadn't touched the notebook.

He'd test it. He wrote down the name of a competitor he had in the market space, one he had a meeting with that very week, and wrote down that during the meeting they would have a sudden, fatal, brain aneurysm. As he did so, he still did not touch the notebook, as he was wearing lab gloves.

During the meeting he couldn't help but pay extra attention to his rival, did the man have a ticking clock over his head? Only time would tell. And tell it did when they suddenly grasped their head and collapsed dead. On the inside, Lex smiled.

Finally back at his lab alone afterwards, he picked up the notebook without thought to put on any gloves beforehand, finally becoming its official owner. He flipped it open to the first writable page and considered his next steps.

[djjelo]

Justice League & The DCEU

Accepting that I’m in the minority. What I’ve loved about the DC universe is the dark tales. The tales of earth in jeopardy, heroes who’ve turned evil, Villains to heroes. Stories like Superman:Red Son that suppose the hero crash landed in Russia, not Kansas, and how that affected the way Kal-El would turn out. Stories like The Dark Knight Returns (no, not like the film in-name-only) where our vigilante ‘hero’ who tries retirement from being Batman is haunted by his choice. Plagued by the choice,even. Realizing that the costume he wears is really Bruce Wayne, not The caped crusader, and the consequences he faces returning to Gotham as an older man fighting a new war. There’s ‘Kingdom Come’, a dystopian tale of the Justice League that has our heroes battling their offspring, relatives and protégés , resulting in an all out war that engulfs all nations and nearly destroys earth. ‘Flashpoint’, a dark story that has The Flash doing his best to get back to the point in time where he feels he can make the difference and what his past choices have led to...a place where his friends are now enemies with each other hellbent on mutual destruction. Batman, again, in ‘The killing Joke’, battles Joker to near death. Realizing that if he would kill the clown villain that he may be without true purpose. There’s more...but, often, these stories are considered to be DC comics best tales. They’ve been reprinted, they’ve been retold. They’ve been loosely adapted to live action film which ultimately watered down the initial idea of the art. The stories have been animated and they’ve been sequelized and retold again and again on pages. Even though these stories were told as a reaction to the original tales of these heroes, from a golden era where battling Nazis and bank robbers inspired hope to the readers, the titles I’ve mentioned are known as DCs best sellers. The reason why DC became a powerhouse publisher. The numbers are there. I’m sure someone, somewhere is recalling when Superman stopped a train from running over a dog, or when Wonder Woman helped a lost child reunite with a family, or when Aquaman helped clean up an area of an ocean. Maybe someone can recall when The Flash was fast enough to slow down a speeding car from running a red light and causing an accident. I’m sure. But, whoever you are out there ...you’re in the minority of sales. Sales are votes. I know that the primary idea was that heroes should inspire and that these stories helped build into that mythology. The stories laid the groundwork for other legends like ‘TDKR’ or ‘Kingdom Come’ to happen. Yet, when these dark stories emerged from print, they crushed it with mega sales across the planet. Somehow, when adapted to the silver screen, that caused distress among an audiences everywhere. I didn’t get it. Just like ...I don’t think McDonalds makes the worlds best hamburger...yet, there it is. The planets best selling hamburger. I disagree with that opinion but the sales dwarf whatever the hell my thoughts are. I don’t piss and moan much about it as I’ve accepted that people want their shit hot and fast so they can take a fast hot shit. Meanwhile, I’m over at Holy Chuck and baby...that’s a hamburger ! So, when people bitched and moaned about Man Of Steel being too dark, that their Superman doesn’t kill, I thought to myself ‘Which Superman would that be?’ When BvS came out and people gripes about Batman ‘Not being a killer’ or ‘Superman’ isn’t supposed to be moody’ I wondered to myself ‘Which story are they complaining about?’ Batman kills lots in TDKR. Superman self exiles himself in Kingdom Come and is super moody. Wonder Woman is practically militant in Kingdom Come. These are DCs best selling stories. Sadly, instead of translating these mighty tales to film, they’ve been adapted and then relayed to some wonky, stock holding round table of asshats who chose to say shit like ‘too dark’ and ‘not enough light’ and even worse ‘not funny enough’ Before I leave the impression that I think the DCEU is flawless I’ll inject and digress towards my opinions ...loved Man Of Steel. Easily the best Superman I��ve seen on film and it’s a gorgeous looking movie. BvS has moments of awesome mixed with moments of true diarrhea and that’s because many, especially the audience that voted with dollars, had this screwed up reaction suggesting that ‘Superman was too dark’. He’s an alien on Earth ...alone and one of the last of his species. Affleck completely rocked it as Batman. Not one scene prior to Ben in the warehouse comes close to that type of awesome. When he’s training in that film we could believe that this Batman kicks ass. We also finally see Bruce as a detective and technician within the bat cave. He nailed it as Bruce. But, that death thing doe. I could talk all day about the terrible casting for Luthor and the unnecessary addition of Doomsday. I’m on that team. Then, because BvS undelivered at the box office despite the $1billion it generated, Suicide Squad came at us like a bullet of spit. We’ll never know the actual film that director intended us all to see because the studio got cold feet when they saw the dailies, suggesting the film was ‘too dark’ despite the title of the film ...wait for it ... “Suicide Squad” and what that meant. None of them were supposed to live but hey...marketing could’ve gone with ‘Almost Suicidal Squad’. Could’ve worked, maybe? Then ‘Wonder Woman’ happened and the studio and audience did a collective sigh because it brought in the big dollars which means it worked on a level that shareholders and audience members could agree upon. I liked WW but it’s far from perfect. Where the hell did that laser beam come from at the climax ? Diana shoots lasers?! Now, on the eve of the release of ‘Justice League’ all reviews point to ‘fun’ and ‘great jokes’ with ‘not too dark, like MoS or BvS’ and I’m over here scratching my head apart. Which stories were they reading ?! The stories that sold less than half of TDKR ? Or ‘Flashpoint’ ?! Marvel films are transforming into parody, popcorn fodder, and very little discussion happens after that. For example, I’m sure that no one is going to be talking about Guardians 2 the way that people were talking about Guardians1 except for ‘not as good’. Thor:Ragnarok was fun, fast paced and had me laughing out loud a bit but it won’t be this memorable film that I’ll want to replay years from now. In fact, most of the new Marvel films have a disposable feel where I never feel anything is at stake really...just stuff happening without any true resolve. Maybe that’s why I’m so hopeful for the upcoming Infinity War because Thanos kills everyone in the Marvel Universe. Sorry...spoiler alert ? Mostly, it’s this ...when I watch a DC movie I want to see the dark. That’s why I go !!! I want to to reflect and have thoughts and discuss with my friends who or what or when could be different. The change. The twist. I do not hope for my DC films to be like Marvel. But, with regards to Marvel, I mostly just hope for Thanos to kill everything just so we can all move on to something else. We need alternative. That breeds new stuff and new stuff is cool. That’s why these dystopian and dark messed up stories were so badass to begin with. Because they offered us, the readers and potential theatre audience, the opportunity to see ‘what if’. Yes, I know Marvel printed that stuff first and yea I was a fan of their tales. But, no one ever really dies in Marvel, do they. Or DC...they’re guilty too. That’s why the publishers printed these What If stories to begin with ! Otherwise it’s onwards towards the never ending. This type of shit removes the stakes at hand. That’s why the dark ‘what if’ stuff is awesome ...it follows through. It ends things and allows new shit to start. Otherwise we see Magneto die, again. We see Lex Luthor go to prison, again. Do you think Batman might capture the joker, again? How about Wolverine...will he escape the treacherous mutant bad guy...again? I got chubbed when Marvel announced Wolverines death. But, wouldn’t you know it...he’s back. So is Magneto. So is Lex. Pretty sure The Joker is murdering someone with laughing gas and laughing about it. Shocker, isn’t it? A lot of people will take a dump on the film makings of Snyder and what he tried to do with the DCEU. For all the stuff he tried that didn’t work, and some of it didn’t for me too, he def tried to do something different than what was done before his efforts. His reward was getting heaps of po0p thrown at him by keyboard warriors seeking a McDonalds hamburger. These same viewers who reward ‘same, same again’ and fuel the stockholders to sequelize and trilogize stories that we’ve loved at first into this endless, stakes free world, where nothing changes. It’s all safe and they’ll see you soontimes, even if they have to recast. But, get excited cuz this time they’ve got XYZ director at the helm. He’s supposedly got more influence than the shareholders and the board of boredom, donchaknow. I am super excited about seeing Justice League because I’m a slut nerd for comics to film, an admitted sorry ass zombie slave, hypnotized to sleep walk over to the box office regardless of who or what is directing or starring. For example, Taika Waititi didn’t put my ass into a chair. It’s not a perfect hypnosis ...I skipped seeing Suicide Squad in the theatres, I passed over Spider Man:Homecoming and I won’t be seeing Ant Man 2: Ant Harder. I really saw Thor 3 for The Hulk and the wondering of how badly they screwed over the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline but Thor’s triceps looked huge and the first three times he failed was funny. The 20 times after that not so much. Anyways, the initial tracking after opening weekend for MoS fared shittily for the rest of what could have been the DCEU and sadly we won’t be seeing the ‘what if’s’ and instead we are getting served the ‘you knew it !’ versions of these movies. Also, a studio and round table so desperate to catch up to the financials of their competitors that instead of doing their bestest to tell great stories that they did for us on the page, they’re serving us some McDonalds hamburgers. Enjoy the super size. It’s only an additional buck more.

[crabadonk]

let’s take a look back at the rebirth era superbooks that dweebs on reddit are hailing as a lost era of unappreciated greatness that bendis is now cruelly destroying on purpose:

SUPERMAN:

in the very first panels of issue 1, the wider comic audence’s first introduction to our new superboy, we see jonathan accidentally incinerate a cat with his heat vision. there’s exposed bone and charred flesh. so we’re off to a bad start, it seems like

then the eradicator shows up and then they go to dinosaur island then the super sons first team up and aside from sometimes being overbearingly hokey i liked this bit. issues 2-11 get a pass

then frankenstein shows up? i don’t remember why this happened

the multiversity sequel thing was terrible

jon gets lost in a haunted house for a whole issue. this one was good

superman reborn crossover: incredibly stupid continuity shit and it wrote out what i thought was a weird-ass status quo that didn’t get milked enough but it was flashy and mr. mxy was there so we’ll call it a wash

the first issue of black dawn, with the psychic cow that kidnaps batman, was (with the exception of that one panel of clark acting like a DARE officer) was fucking great but then lois’ leg got sheared off and manchester black was torturing jon and everyone on earth fucking hated it as it was coming out

then they go on a tour of washington dc and reflect on their favorite war crimes and leave a bunch of human remains on someone’s porch

superman fights parallax then superman fights deathstroke and i’m so bored oh my god i’m in hell remembering waiting two full weeks each time for a mediocre filler issue that accomplishes nothing whatsoever

imperius lex! i was excited for this! lex luthor contending with a prophecy that he would take over apokolips as a second-tier superman after darkseid’s death sounds awesome and the first issue was great and then it immediately lost steam and just kind of. stopped. i don’t remember if this story ever got resolved

super sons of tomorrow crossover: some good art and it was kind of cool seeing conner for the first time in forever but this again petered out into nothing. some cool art tho

then there’s some more filler issues and superman and jon let a planet explode and they get sad about how trying to change things is pointless

time for bizarro! yay, he’s so silly, and now there’s a boyzarro, too! haha yaaay bizarro beats the shit out of his wife and son constantly and they both hate him for being an abusive piece of shit asshole and they don’t even do a good job writing his opposite-style dialogue so he’s impossible to understand

then they say goodbye to all the friends they made along the way, none of whom i can remember. i know they were aliens hiding on earth pretending to be humans. and i think one of them was a doctor? the end

BUT THEN there’s a special bonus issue where they go back to dinosaur island but nothing fun happens. the end

ACTION COMICS:

we start with six goddamn motherfucking issues about doomsday, the worst and most boring piece of shit superman villain ever conceived. so again we’re off to a rocky start

wacky continuity stuff means there’s a human clark kent running around alongside superman and there’s all kinds of foreshadowing that he’s superboy-prime (spoilers: he’s not superboy-prime). this is an interesting setup that ends up pretty much wasted

lois, being a refugee of a destroyed universe (it’s complicated), hijacks the career and life of the lois native to this new universe, who is now dead. nobody notices that she’s a good 15-20 years older than dead lois. i don’t think she accomplishes anything by doing this

l’call the godslayer makes his grand entrance in what is probably the high point of this whole run. lex luthor is brought across the universe to be tried and executed for Future Crimes but superman saves the day and they form an uneasy truce. this story is actually very good

oh yeah, there’s another clark kent running around, he shows up again. he Remembers Things and is now resentful of the life he was supposed to have, and is especially fixated on the cruel joke that this new superboy represents. this is the same deal as superboy-prime, who, again, he is not

superman reborn crossover, see above

TWO FULL ISSUES of superman standing still and listening to a robot narrate his life story to him. there is foreshadowing that conner kent will appear soon. he does not do this until well after this writer is replaced

then the superman revenge squad appears: this is kind of a big load of nothing that lasts too long but it’s not offensively bad and the new super-man of china is there and he’s great (side note, New Super-Man, with or without the and The Justice League of China subtitle was fucking great and it’s the real underappreciated gem of superman’s rebirth era)

oz effect is a big load of horse shit that dragged on way way way too fucking long. the mysterious hooded figure who’s been hanging out in the shadows saying cryptic shit is actually jor-el but an evil murderer now and oh my god it’s so bad and so boring and literally any other reveal would have been so much more satisfying. like bizarro. like of course if the guy who does the opposite of everything superman does is trying to get superman’s attention he’s gonna hide his face and change his voice and say weird vague shit before disappearing for months

i’m still mad about oz effect

booster gold showed up. this was boring

action 999 was preachy and hokey and boring

action 1000 was largely handled by a variety of different creative teams, who weren’t full of shit, and was therefore good

BUT THEN there’s a special bonus issue where future lex luthor acts out a very poorly conceived plan to kill superman, but then he dies, and superman gives up on ever finding any shred of humanity left in present lex. the end!

then bendis took over both series and people lost their absolute goddamn minds when clark stopped making his son call him “sir”