THE WATCHMEN FILES
Score: 7.3 / 10 
12: The Grand Finale
Who??? If you don't know who any of these people are, you clearly need a scorecard.
The Grand Finale opens in New York where, just as Lord Smartypants so cleverly exposited last issue, a giant psychic space alien has exploded, killing all the supporting characters as well as a few million other people.
We see several full-scale pages of the devastation before seeing MegaSmurf and Bimbo Lass wandering through the corpses.
"MegaSmurf complains about how he can't see the future."
MegaSmurf complains about how he can't see the future.
"Now, that's weird," he says.
"Yes," says Bimbo Lass. "That is weird."
He then deduces that his inability to perceive the future stems from Lord Smartypants' Tachyon Generators located down in Antarctica. So, sensibly enough, that's where the two of them teleport to.
Meanwhile, down at the South Pole, Lord Smartypants continues to bore Pudgey and Splotchey to death with yet more exposition, explaining in great detail again how he masterminded this rather over-the-top plan.
"You told us all this last issue!!" screams a furious Splotchey.
"Yes, but did I mention that I can catch bullets."
"Well, no," confesses Pudgey.
"Well I can," says Lord Smartypants, and smiles smugly.
Outside, MegaSmurf is finding this whole uncertainty about the future not at all smurfy, so teleports inside to see what's up.
Rather cleverly, Lord Smartypants leads him into one of the old nuclear decompositional Tear-Apart™ machines that he had hanging around in his garage and blows up not just MegaSmurf, but his genetically mutated superlynx as well!! Oh, if there was any doubt about Lord Smartypants' villainy before, there isn't now. Fancy blowing up your own superlynx. How very callous. I think I shall rechristen Lord Smartypants 'Gargamel'.
By this stage, Bimbo Lass has just about had enough and shoots Lord Gargamel Smartypants.
But of course he catches the bullet and admonishes (and kicks) her.
"Did you not hear my earlier exposition?" he asks.
"Yes!! Yes she did!" say Splotchey and Pudgey quickly, in order to prevent any further expositing from Gargamel.
"Well, you're all very childish," says Gargamel. And then does a double take as a giant MegaSmurf pops up and expresses his disappointment at Gargamel's attempt to explode him.
"You blew up your own superlynx," says MegaSmurf, shaking his head sadly.
"'Azrael knew the risks when she signed up,' says Gargamel."
"Azrael knew the risks when she signed up," says Gargamel. "Hey, anybody want to kick back and watch some TV?"
He flips on his multitude of sets where we see non-stop coverage of his psychic alien beast killing everybody and how, therefore, the Russians won't be starting World War III out of sympathy. (Just like when Diana died.)
Gargamel raises his fists in triumph and then points out to everybody else that they're really going to have to keep his little secret, because a prank's no fun if everybody else is in on it.
Everybody agrees, except for Splotchface, who decides to head home and dob. Strange, I never pictured Splotchey as a dobbing kind of guy, but there you are. Perhaps he's violently opposed to cruelty to superlynxes.
Anyway, Bimbo Lass is so traumatised by all these events that she decides to shag Captain Pudgey again, while MegaSmurf wanders off and kill Splotchey. Y'know, so he won't ruin the gag. MegaSmurf may seem humourless, but he appreciates a good joke as much as the next giant blue nuclear super-omnipotent being.
Then he has a chat with Gargamel and tells him that although it was a good practical joke, he's now set his standards so high that he's going to have to really come up with something special next time. And then he disappears into a plastic ball. "Huh," says Gargamel.
And that's more or less it. We have a bit of an epilogue a few months later where Pudgey and Bimbo Lass, disguised as a blonde couple, pop in to visit The Original Bimbo Lass. Bimbo Lass forgives The Original Bimbo Lass for making The Dead Comedian her father because, after all, a sense of humour is a very attractive quality in a man.
Meanwhile, back in New York, a worker at The Daily Troublemaker newspaper is looking for some material to fill up a couple of pages. He is told to take something from the pile... a pile which includes Splotchey's incriminating diary. But before we can see whether he takes it or not, the issue ends.
Oooh!! A cliffhanger! Bit of a pointless one, too, because that's the end of the story. Still, makes you think, doesn't it?
That's all. Greatest Superhero Comic Book Ever? Hell, why not.
Begone,
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