I borrowed that title from a BBC radio show that aired in the 1970’s. The show, written and produced by a young, angst-ridden man by the name of Douglas, was to feature a darkly humorous dramatization about the destruction of the planet each and every week. Douglas, who at that time thought it would be quite a thrill to annihilate the planet on a weekly basis, was going to write a unique short story to be produced each week in which the planet was destroyed. The show never actually aired as such, though, because his very first story about the destruction of the earth, which had largely to do with ugly, single-minded aliens, a besotted and luckless Englishman, and his care-free friend who was an alien POSING as a besotted and luckless Englishman, just sort of grew out of control and became the entire radio series. This radio series went on to be a book series, a musical, a poorly done television series, a comic book, and became the chief livelihood of Douglas, spawning quite a bit of unwanted speculation on the meaning of the otherwise unremarkable number ’42.’

Little did Doug know (or did he?) that even as he wrote the series, an enormous meteorite was hurtling toward earth. Of course, its impact is many years off. I would tell you more exactly, but for two things: scientists give it only a small percentage of actually hitting us, and I am too lazy to research the facts. I’m not too frightened of Rocks From Space, though, as the gas giants on the edge of our Solar System tend to suck most of them in while the moon shields us from many more and the atmosphere burns the remaining few up before they can usually do much damage. No, it’s the black hole headed our direction that worries me. So far as I understand, those things can pretty much suck up anything in their path and keep coming. But it makes little difference. Earth is doomed no matter which way you cut it. Geologic pressures are building such that Really Smart Scientists tell us that an enormous quake which may tip the scale toward 10 Richters is due in the area of the big fault line in California. The quake would be felt nearly across the US and with any luck, send Hollywood out to sea where it belongs. Also, there is an enormous super-volcano building up pressure underneath Yellowstone Park. When it blows, it will take a few states with it, and fill the sky with so much debris we will enter nuclear winter. This may be just in time to cool us down from global warming.

Now global warming is an issue very close to my heart. I largely regarded it as so much bunk until a coworker pointed out the extremes in weather and the added tilt the earth’s axis has developed. Maybe its my paranoid nature, but as we get more and more and more rain here where I live and fires rage across the west I keep thinking ‘greenhouse’ and I’m reminded of a character in a movie who has been warned of something outrageous and begins to wake up to how many coincidental facts seem to support the outrageous claim.

So the angels are poised at the four corners of our planet ready to pour out their pitchers of destruction. Pick your poison.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2004 at 12:18 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.