Nightmare Fuel / Atop the Fourth Wall

Beneath the seas, beside the flame

Off the coast where the lost beast came

To bring the world misery and shame

A piece of the world is missing

— The poem of The Entity

Atop the Fourth Wall is a funny review show... that features a number of horrifying events and beings, including an Eldritch Abomination, a Killer Robot / Manipulative Bastard, a Multiversal Conqueror, a gun Powered by a Forsaken Child, and a heroic comic book nerd who, for the longest time, was edging further and further into Anti-Hero to the point of being nightmarish. Yeah, the city of Minnesota is really good at spewing out tales that fill us with terror.

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Atop The Fourth Wall Storylines

• Mechakara.
  • Look at what he's done. He originates from a universe that suffered a robot apocalypse, and apparently, the majority of organic life has been killed off. He killed his Linkara and ripped off his skin, then wore it a la the Terminator, because he was tired of listening to Linkara being a comic book fanboy. The fact that he wants to harness the magic gun and kill every single living thing in all reality is bad enough, but the fact that he is actively out to torture and Mind Rape Linkara just because he wants to see a version of Linkara suffer a slow death? Yeah, Mechakara is one of the most psychotic, depraved and demented A.I's this side of AM.
  • And yet nobody mentions who Mechakara really is: Pollo.
  • And as of The Movie, he's back. And later on, we see what he truly looks like.
    • What's worse is the Unwilling Roboticisation of the crew of the Caelestis. We don't see any of it, just an exterior shot of the ship, and their screams of pain and horror...
• From Sultry Teenage Super Foxes #2, "All that he sees, he conquers." Damn it, Mechakara, stop being creepy!
  • It's worse when you get the context. It's an Early-Bird Cameo of Lord Vyce's catchphrase/slogan.
• The Clone Saga storyline also makes him arguably even more terrifying when you consider that by the end of all, after recovering his memory and realizing that he's now the very thing he utterly despises, any remaining sanity he had left is now long gone. Meaning that somewhere down the line, Linkara is going to have to deal with an old enemy who's likely even more dangerous than ever as a result.

• Lord Vyce. He's a Multiversal Conqueror considered the most feared being throughout the multiverse. He's managed to kill gods, and effortlessly took out Linkara. And the kicker? He's doing it to save reality from something even worse than him.

• The backstory of Linkara's Magic Gun.
  • It's a girl. The Magic Gun is powered by the soul of a dead girl who was tortured to death by her zealot parents. And the god they worshiped? It's the Entity.
  • Linkara's related breakdown. Think about it: this guy has faced killer robots, mad scientists, and horrible comics without batting an eye. His breakdown when he believes that he was the girl's father reminds us that he can, in fact, go insane if push comes to shove.
    • The Gaslighting Linkara goes through is pretty disturbing in and of itself. Especially the scene where Mechakara seemingly appears in Linkara's apartment to taunt him.
      [Linkara is seated on his futon, staring closely at his Dragon Dagger]
      Linkara: I am not insane.
      Mechakara: [appears standing over him] Talking to people that aren't there is a pretty good sign of insanity.
      Linkara: Someone is trying to trick me, trying to make me think I'm insane.
      Mechakara: Paranoia is another sign of insanity.
      Linkara: I am not listening to you. You are not there.
      Mechakara: Of course I'm not. Delusions. See where I'm going with all this?
      Linkara: I am going to proceed with the review. It will get my mind off of this.
      [Beat.]
      Mechakara: [smirking] You know, you really should kill Pollo.
      Linkara: [through gritted teeth] Shut up.
      Mechakara: He could grow up to be me, after all. [mockingly puts hand over mouth] Oops. There's that paranoia again.
      Linkara: SHUT UP!!
      Mechakara: Kill him! Just like you killed her!
    • The whole storyline is chock-full of real world fears. Brutal child abuse? Losing your grip on reality? Being abandoned and shunned by those you care about? Losing your most important memories without knowing it? Being responsible for the death of your own child? Nothing imaginary about those.

• The Entity, aka Missingno. It's an Eldritch Abomination so deadly that somebody was forced to conquer universe after universe just to ensure this thing doesn't destroy the entire multiverse.
  • The Entity has stolen over a billion people including most of the cast and Pollo over a period of several months and people (including the cast) are only just now noticing it. And it is thorough in stealing people. It'll steal whole families so no one reports missing relatives, it waits until the person is alone to kidnap them, and yes, being alone in one room of a house while someone else is in another room counts as alone. It kidnaps people from heavily populated or rural areas so the disappearances will go unnoticed for a long time, and it doesn't leave any kind of traceable energy signature or other evidence behind. Any time you are by yourself, the Entity could kidnap you. Just let that sink in...
  • Really, the way the Entity goes about stalking and stealing Linkara's friends and associates is pretty terrifying in itself. In order:
    • Linksano is confused, then horrified at something heading towards him, and he is completely powerless to stop it, in a way that makes it clear that whatever stole him away is much more horrifying than Vyce's coming in the previous arc.
    • The Ninja Style Dancer is seen throughout multiple episodes skulking around, only to constantly run into the Entity. And all he can do is flee via smokescreen. And then finally, a bedraggled Ninja manages to meet up with Linkara, giving him a cryptic message, and possibly finally getting some help...only for Linkara to turn around for a few seconds too long, and the Entity to suddenly appear and take the Ninja away. And the Ninja is completely helpless to stop him due to his exhaustion and injuries.
    • Harvey's own disappearance isn't as unsettling, but the implications for his reactions prior to him being stolen are unsettling in their own right. He takes a long look at the Absent Grimoire left behind, and because of what he was doing prior to reading it, he instantly realizes to his own horror what exactly the Lost Beast is long before everyone else. And then the Entity is right there to make sure he can't get the message to Linkara, and all he can do is fire his gun in futility against it.
    • Pollo's own disappearance. Imagine being sent to a different area of the house, less than one room away from your friends and family...and then being disappeared without a trace by some unknowable being. More specifically, the being you were trying to prepare for by setting up more defenses in that room you were in. It only really emphasizes that even in their own house, less than a room's distance away, no one is safe.
    • The subsequent disappearance of all of the other Channel Awesome reviewers that Linkara is acquainted with. If it's horrifying to disappear while knowing something is after you like the above, imagine disappearing while not having any idea WHY or WHAT is coming after you.
    • Iron Liz' disappearance, due to the fact that she disappears while in the same room as the last two people on the planet. And her disappearance was due to poorly judged curiosity at what she was seeing, despite being less than a few feet away from her loved ones.

  • In a bunch of episodes before the Silent Hill comics that finished off the Entity Arc, in the credits there is a garble of static. If you freeze frame at the right time, creepy unsettling messages appear such as "You have seen my bones before". They were all hints towards the big reveal, but to add on to the creepiness, Lewis played along denied any knowledge of it:
    i am always watching
    the lost beast has found a home
    you've seen my bones before
    i've already won
    it's more than a piece
    i'm not that thin
  • Whether you think the Entity is silly or pants to be darkened material, you can't deny—there is something incredibly off-putting about both its voice, and the way Lewis plays it. It has a high-pitched voice that makes it almost sound like a deranged child, with an uncomfortable static filter thrown on top. Combined with the way anyone it's possessing smiles, and their voice doesn't fully match their movement? It's some of the creepies acting on the internet.
  Entity: Huuuuumaaaan!
• The trailer for the Halloween review. Oh boy. Everything about it drips with creepy. The unsettling distortion of the voices, what sounds like Vyce reciting the poem from the Dead/Alive review, the mysterious voice at the start saying "EVERYONE IS GONE" and, to top it all off, Linkara's panicked cry of "Is there anybody out there?!" Oh, and the Entity storyline wrapped up in the same month. Joy.
• Street Fighter #1: Cue cred- wait, what's happening to the video?!...time's up...what?! WHAT?! And then Linkara finds a new entry in the journal:
  • I SEE YOU LINKARA
    • Which is then mitigated by his reaction: "Oh, it is ON now!"

• "IAMTHENEVERSHOULDIAMTHENEVERSHOULDIAMTHENEVERSHOULDIAMTHENEVERSHOULD"
• And then there's the Entity's Leitmotif, a creepy little piano tune that adds a whole level of disquiet to what ever scene it's playing in. The tune's name? "Evil" (or alternatively, "Satanic"; Linkara says that he has two copies of the tune with different names). We're not making this up, the song actually has the name "Evil".
• Planet of the Symbiotes: The combination of the murky lighting, odd angle and extremely freaky effect when 90's Kid opens his eyes showing light and static, revealing that 90's Kid is already gone and Linkara's alone with the Entity results in an image that seems very alien, and extremely disturbing.
  • And it gets even worse: The Reveal tells us that the Entity has been around since the first generation of Pokémon. Liz gets taken and the Entity laughs, then Linkara calls for backup and gets no one. Some really scary flashbacks reveals the Entity's systematic plan to remove every single member of the cast besides Linkara. And meanwhile, 90's Kid is slowly devolving, going from goofy and adorable to smirking, and then his voice gets higher and more electronic until...
  • 90's Kid has been gone since the KISS Comics review, maybe even longer than that, and no one even suspected it until now because Entity/Missingno was flawlessly impersonating him.
    • The Reveal of the 90's Kid's true nature is pretty horrifying in it's implications. Imagine that everyone else has disappeared, and you're stuck with only one other person for company. But then the other person, who you've known for a while and know their quirks, says something that you know is out of character for them. And then suddenly everything begins to click; the small strange behaviors you've seen from that person, the inexplicable and convenient nature of the situation, the fact that the other person was always around the people who had disappeared yet hadn't disappeared themselves... And then it's revealed why: that other person is an imposter, the cause of the disappearances. You're completely alone with them, and you don't have any way of getting away from them.

  • Early on into the "Electric Tale of Pikachu" review, the Entity laughs when Linkara mistakenly says that Vyce could destroy it...and not it's usual evil laugh. This time, it's a flat-out psychotic cackle.
  Linkara: Lord Vyce...he was trying to destroy you.
  Entity: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (suddenly serious) He was an obstacle, not a threat.
  • Linkara's final conversation with the Entity. The fact that the Entity plans on finding "what happens when an Outer God dies" by killing itself (and that it's smirking as it does so) makes you wonder if it will come back and let Linkara know what happened...
    • What's more is that it identifies the entity as an outer god, one of Lovecraft's pantheons. Considering its age, it is likely the weakest. To put this into context, the only other outer god with a somewhat human form is Nyarlathotep, who is so powerful that if he wished he could obliterate the human race in a space of time smaller than we can perceive. He doesn't because he finds madness more entertaining. He exists in Dr Who continuity. The Doctor is afraid of him. The entity can kidnap you, but Nyarlathotep can be anyone it wishes and if it told you the proper pronunciation of its name you would go helplessly insane. Now imagine a gun made in a ritual to Nyarlathotep. Now imagine one devoted to Azathoth, a being so vast that it hurtles through space, destroying entire solar systems without even noticing. A fight with the entity was bad, but if someone summons another outer god, then you can expect an outright, completely irreversible apocalypse.
  • In the 15th Anniversary commentary stream for the storyline segments, its revealed that being taken by the Entity has a "time limit" to it: only the people taken from Linkara's universe are restored by its death, as all prior victims have already been "digested, for lack of a better term."

• The end of the Battle for Bludhaven review has an enormous one for people who have seen Suburban Knights: Cloak #1's suggestion combined with that single drum beat from a certain villain's Leitmotif implies that Linkara might be going to fucking Malachite for help.
• The end of 'Rock N' Roll #31": Things have taken a turn for the worse- Holokara has threatened to kill 90's Kid if he ever interrupts the show again by putting his freaking arm through his chest and grabbing his heart until it stops beating. I fear that Holokara might become the next Mechakara- or worse. Not only does the normally cheerful 90s Kid look genuinely scared but the very idea that a hologram can do that is terrifying; once it's got you, you wouldn't be able to fight it off as it's not solid and you'd just go through it.
  • And now again in Future Shock #1: Holokara effortlessly knocks out Harvey Finevoice when the latter confronts him about his treatment of 90's Kid, and tries to force him to get examined by Nimue. Worse, Holokara's cold rage from Rock and Roll #1 has now morphed into full-on Dissonant Serenity. He keeps insisting that nothing's wrong with him, and when he curb stomps Harvey, he cheerfully implores Harvey not to get in his way again. "I'd hate to have to crush your neck. I mean, how would you ever sing again?"
• The end of the Catwoman - Guardian of Gotham #1 review. We finally find out why Linkara's magic isn't working. He's turning evil! Seeing Holokara's bad enough, but the idea that the real Linkara is on the path to being like that is just chilling. Although this does explain the Holokara's attitude; if Linkara's turning evil, and Holokara is based on him...
  • The end of the second issue essentially deconstructs Linkara as a whole. By showing all the times he's acted selfishly, reckless, or just plain ignored the feelings of his allies, the girl in his magic gun feared Linkara was turning evil and refused to work. The wizard even tells Linkara "These are not the actions of a hero." It's quite telling that all of Linkara's behavior, despite his intentions, would come back to haunt him.
    • What makes it particularly jarring is how little the viewer would have previously thought of Linkara's "evil" acts, brushing it off as comedy. Given the behavior of the average internet reviewer (and more specifically, a member of Channel Awesome), the viewer has effectively been conditioned not to notice Linkara's behavior before this point.
    • The Holokara's rant at the end of Batman: Jazz #1 is a further deconstruction: It plans to use Comicron 1's firepower to force Marvel Entertainment to make better written stories of its heroes under threat of death. This is what Linkara would've turned into had the Magic Gun not stopped his magic, and forced him to re-examine himself.
    • And now the Gunslinger's gotten a hold of Holokara's mobile emitter. Holokara is likely not happy, considering how his last confrontation with Linkara went, and if the Gunslinger can get him working again... Yeah.
    • Actually, the mobile emitter was tied into something in Comicron 1, something that Linksano fried. The scary part is that the Gunslinger might be able to tie the emitter into Sierra, and use it to make a Holoslinger. Think about it: our universe is toxic to the Gunslinger, but a hologram wouldn't have that issue, and could fight effectively.
• Here's a happy thought: As of Starstream #1, The Thing, the creature best known from the John Carpenter film, is in the apartment.
  • The 2012 October trailer also hints that the trust between Linkara and his characters might be broken. Ironic since in the previous video he says that they're one of the main reasons that he won't turn evil- as they help to reign him in- and are true friends. Also Linksano has a pretty creepy Slasher Smile near the end of it as well.
• The Thing from Another World #2- Harvey, Linkara, 90's Kid, and Linksano have turned on each other out of paranoia and fear. Their close friendship has devolved into an explosion of bickering and unfounded accusations against one another, not one of them taking the time to stop and think rationally, or listen- and all the while, a hooded shadow ( sent by the Gunslinger in an attempt to get Linkara angry enough to unlock his Magic Gun and therefore make it "up for grabs" to claim for his collection, enhancing their preexisting resentments and skewing their perceptions to believe they can't leave the apartment and can't communicate with the outside to do so) watches unseen.
  • The way the viewer realizes that the shadow is there? Linksano walks off screen, and the shadow, which looks like it was cast by him, doesn't move.
  • There's also Linkara dressed as Freddy for the Eye Catch prior and after the commercial break.
  • The mention of the planned Sci-Fi Thing sequel TV miniseries that got scrapped, and the revelation that in it, the Thing finds a way to get around the blood test.
• The Ghost of Christmas Present says to Harvey "Where do you think you are right now?" Then the screen goes white as the video ends.
  • The Ghost of Christmas Past/Critic said the same thing.
• The scene of The Gunslinger kidnapping Margaret.
• The end of Star Wars 3D #1 NIMUE turns red and looks like she's ready to go HAL 9000 on everybody.
• The Gunslinger's Orwellian home dimension has quite a bit of Nightmare Fuel.
  • To wit, what began with the well-intentioned idea to protect artists' rights in the Gunslinger's universe soon spiraled into curtailing Internet freedoms for the good of the people and eventually labeling expression itself as heresy against the State. The realization that it starts off from a similar scenario in real life makes it even more unnerving.
• The whole introduction of Youngblood #5, with Linkara about as pissed as we've ever seen him, even using some profanity.
• NIMUE's slipping.
  He-he-he-he has seen me. (bzzz) You're not going to win!
  • and if her Star Trek quote is any indication... she knows it and is terrified about it.
  • This is also the first episode to use the To be continued... Scare Chord, which can be startling if you're not expecting it and even if you are, it's still a pretty spine-chilling sound.
• It's even scarier at the end of the Battlestar Galactica review. She asks Linkara if he is afraid of her, he says no and leaves and we get a zoom in on NIMUE and she says in a very scary voice: "You should be."
• Marville is honestly how Bill Jemas sees the world. Think about that for a second.
  • Well, it could be worse—Bill Jemas isn't violent, and at least Marville isn't wish-fulfillment.
• The stinger for The Culling: Part 4. Linkara reads the Absent Grimiore (the book on the Entity) and reveals that the Entity has relatives out there. *gulp*
  • Including one who takes the form of fear itself. And also might be possessing NIMUE
  • Worse still, its mysterious cousin is a small fish from their home universe. That's right, the creature that embodies fear itself have bigger, badder relatives who could easily destroy everything we know by complete accident!
• The stinger for Brute Force #4 has NIMUE acting up again."I'm going to kill you."
  • During NIMUE's ramblings, she mentions "Moloch". A name that has often been attributed to gods and demons. Possibly a name for the Entity's cousin, the King of Worms?
  • Also, Jaeris once had to completely reprogram Sierra, because Sierra started acting up, just like NIMUE is. Sierra could think at insane speeds, and had no one to interact with. As a result, it went insane, and attempted to kill Jaeris. And considering what we've heard from NIMUE (see the above), she's not too far from trying the same.
• The October 2013 trailer where we see NIMUE completely losing it, her ramblings more intense and horrific than ever before. But the scariest bit of the trailer might be the very end.
  NIMUE: (terrified) Help me.
• The ending to "The Thing From Another World: Climate of Fear #1 and #2".Linkara is now trapped aboard Comicron-1 as it flies away from Earth, with the only company being an almost completely insane NIMUE.
  • That was nothing compared to NIMUE screaming and yelling at Linkara during her breakdown before speaking normally like nothing was wrong.
• Gets worse in the review of Climate of Fear #3 and #4. Not only has NIMUE gone full paranoid schizophrenia on us, no longer apparently comprehending what Linkara is saying, it turns out the King of Worms is behind her insanity-and he made her drive Linkara into his domain, presumably to wait until he can get around to doing whatever horrible things he has planned for Linkara. "Are you afraid?" indeed.
• Spider-Man: Crossfire's cliffhanger brings us this after Linkara puts NIMUE offline.
  Linkara: Nimue? Nimue, please speak to me...
  *beat*
  Vyce: Your computer is dead, champion. Tell me... are you afraid?
  (Cue Oh, Crap! face from Linkara.)
• The stinger to Space Odyssey 2001 #1: Harvey comes home to the apartment alone, only to be infected by a cybermat that was taken over by the King of Worms.
  • Also Nimue vs. Lord Vyce in an admittedly awesome way. She makes sure he knows how pathetic he is compared to her in a programming fight and lists that she has figured out 329 ways to eradicate him.
    Nimue: Number 28 is my favorite.
• After a few months of breather reviews, a Freeze-Frame Bonus appears during the "Extreme!" Running Gag in the review of Youngblood #6: the caelestis won't come home and IN THE COURT OF WORMS WE ARE ALL DEAD. Oh, Crap!.
• At the end of Athena #2 we see one of Linakara's morphers fail. He brushes it off, says it's new and that it took him forever to get his Zeo morpher to work right. The he casually notes he hasn't seen it in a while despite looking for it but brushes it off and when he leaves, a cybermat, controlled by the King of Worms most likely, comes and messes with the broken morpher. Uh oh.
• A little fact that pops up at the end of the 300th Episode: The Margaret from the Mirror Universe volunteered for the ritual that made her what she is. And she still destroyed the cult afterwards. Thank God they're sealed away forever...
  • And to a lesser extent, Frank Millers art. It is painful and unpleasant to look at, and nobody looks properly human.
    • And to a greater extent, like the Bill Jemas example above, Frank Miller’s mind. And there’s millions of people who think just like him.
• During The Adventures of Jell-O man and Wobbly #1 when Linkara is overwhelmed by stupidity he attacks the camera. This comes off as scary rather than funny.
  • In the post-credits story portion, the Cybermats are seen spying on Linkara. And their distinctive noise is heard, growing louder and louder until the video ends.
• In episode 24 of Let's Play Pokémon Omicron, Lewis accidentally knocks out a Corsola with Pokérus and worries about what might happen. Then out of nowhere, the screen starts to turn to static and glitches out. Then Lewis is suddenly on a new save file, acting like nothing happened. Considering that static included creepy, red eyes, it seems like something has returned...
  • In episode 41, the same thing happens after Lewis accidentally knocks out a Missingno he was trying to catch. And to make matters worse, the opening of the video is a black screen filled with static, [while part of the Entity's poem is being read by (apparently) Lord Vyce. Fitting when you realize he is becoming the new Entity....or not Vyce at least, as it turned out.
• In The Stinger of Marvel Super Special #17: Xanadu, we get an in-depth legend about the King of Worms. In order to understand fear, the King visited a world without strife, hatred or fear, and planted a nightmare in the minds of every living being there. The inhabitants of this world grew unable to distinguish the dream from reality, and all went mad. Every being that wasn't Driven to Suicide killed one another until one remained. The King gave sanity to this survivor, forcing it to feel grief and sorrow for its actions. Just for the record, the King of Worms is one of The Entity's weaker cousins.
  • As an added bonus, a cybermat manages to infect Allen.
  • Remember that message in Youngblood #6, "the caelestis won't come home"? Allen mentions that he's been busy helping prepare the first manned flight to Jupiter. The ship is called the Caelestis. Uh-oh.
• Has anyone else noticed that in recent videos, and as of Kamandi at Earth's End #6, Linkara's usual shelf props—most notably, his Legacy Morpher and Dragon Dagger, the Snowflame cutout, the Hostess Fruit Pies box, the Poke Ball, his Li'l Petti plushies, and his logo pillow—are all missing and there are more Cybermats than usual? The fact that it's during this arc that Linkara began having the post-credits Patreon plug is helpful to make the comparison in each video, as his shelf is still full of said missing props in the plug.
• Sonic Super Special #7: The King of Worms is in control of Linksano. Which means, presumably, it's also controlling everyone else who's been attacked.
• His idea of what the Borg Queen's body should have been: a giant spider with a bunch of weapon attachments.
• The Stinger to Cosmic Slam #1. The King of Worms takes control of Sierra, knocks Jaeris unconscious (making it likely he's been overtaken as well) and disables Pollo's new body, forcing him into an older model.
  • And think about it from Jaeris' perspective. Sierra almost killed him once before, and he went to considerable lengths to make sure it would never happen again. But it's the work of an instant for the King to turn him, and suddenly Jaeris is at his mercy.
  • Harvey Finevoice bringing up the possibility that Pollo and Nimue were infected by the King of Worms as well. Considering that he's most likely a sleeper agent for the King, he could be lying to demoralize Linkara...or is he?
• "The Thing: Eternal Vows #1 & 2" has Dr. Linksano showing Linkara how to get into the King of Worms' home dimension. Remember the "Sonic Super Special" stinger? The King controls Linksano already. He wants Linkara to come to him and wants Linkara to think he's found a back way in. And now also knows that Linkara is preparing weapons to destroy him.
  • In the following episode, we get the utterly chilling sight of the apartment crawling with cybermats, after which Harvey reveals he's also working for the King of Worms and shoots Linkara while the Walking Lizard can only watch and run.
  • Actually, funny story; that's not Harvey. It's an Auton.
  • That reveal. A lot of viewers will have been expecting something like this from Harvey for a while now, but that doesn't make the cold violence he turns on Linkara, right when he was looking to "Harvey" as the only immediate ally he had left, any less horrifying.
• The Thing From Another World: Questionable Research - The King of Worms finally appears in person. And its goal is to make the other Elder Gods afraid. Not only that, but upon finding out Linkara is immune to its platinum masks, it lets him know in no uncertain terms that it will dissect his soul to find out why.
  • And then there's how it found that out: a cybermat came into Linkara's room while he was asleep, attacked and abducted him, and then returned him afterward...unaware that any of it had ever happened.
  • The really unsettling static affect that the King of Worms sometimes displays. It's like the Entity's eyes only covering his entire body.
• The implication of what the King of Worms finds inside of Linkara's mind. It scares an eldritch god to death.
  • Made even worse by the fact that that's what does the King of Worms in. Yeah, those anti-Entity weapons? They didn't even work!
    • Linksano's disturbed, nervous behavior after performing the autopsy, gloved hands still covered in blood really sells it.
  • The King of Worms finally attacks Linkara... and we are treated to a disturbing vision where both the past villains and Lewis, both his real self and the Linkara character laugh nonstop and repeatedly kill him, all the while reciting some creepy dialogue. And on top of this, the Entity copy? It stops to look at the audience.

    We are inside with you!

    You will never get away!

    Your pain won't end!

    • The above quote is actually a reference to The Exorcist III.
    • We later learn down the line that that was NOT JUST a copy of the Entity at all.
  • Word of God says that the backwards Linkara is saying "Sleepwalk in eternity." Coincidentally, the next chapter of the Atop the Fourth Wall plot is "the Sleepwalker", and October is about A Nightmare on Elm Street...
  • The King's screams of "It can't be! It can't be! No, please, I did not know! I did not know!" This is because, as it's eventually revealed in the Delicious in Dungeon review, the King of Worms accidentally roused the Entity, who had been sleeping inside Linkara. The Entity is pissed off enough that it kills the King of Worms.
  • Lewis' laughing deserves special mention. He's surprised by something he sees in his camera's screen, then he looks up to check what it is, tilting his head in confusion.....and then he starts grinning. THEN he laughs.
• Wanna know something about The King's actor? It's Suede. Brr.
• Although played for laughs slightly, all of reality is lucky that the different multiverse's Insanos did not come up with the idea to work together sooner. The potential chaos of several very intelligent evil scientists is too scary to fathom.
• The ending of Nightmares on Elm Street #1-2 review, which sees Linkara trapped in a similar situation to the Elm Street movies.
  • Who wants to bet that this year's outer god will be dream related?
• The ending of Nightmares on Elm Street #3-4 ups it even further... because whatever is happening, Linkara is still wide awake.
• The fact Freddy Krueger exists in this universe—or seemed to as the following episode hinted at him really being a being tied to the King of Worms
• At the end of Batman: Shadow of the Bat #58, we see Linkara pacing in thought before moving a white pawn on a chessboard. Pollo then comes in, and the two have a discussion regarding past events, plans for the future, and some of Linkara's fears. At the end, when camera pans back out, we see that someone-or something- moved a black pawn off-screen.
  • Even creepier is Linkara's last line:
    Time to move some pawns.
  • The revelation that the King of Worms was a lesser god among his pantheon-a mortal being that ascended to his current status via outside forces. Between that tidbit of information and the above info pertaining to his death, it's no wonder Linkara is concerned about what might happen if something bigger and nastier decides to do some damage.
• At the end of Superman and the TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids: Victory by Computer, Linkara finally has the message from the future decoded. A mere glance at the first line sends him into a sheer panic that he orders EVERYONE aboard Comicron-1 immediately. What line would get him so panicked?
  • "A piece of the world is still missing".
  • Adding to this, he mutters to himself that he knew beating the Entity the way he did was too easy and enough that he's considering Vyce's help.
  • Some of the lower lines make the first one even worse, such as "Powerlessness fit him.", meaning The Entity is now in a better position than before!
  • Pay special attention to the wording of the last line, A piece of the world is still missing, implying that the entity never left!
  • The second line has some bad implications. "Sing a lie to misdirect fellowships." Makes you wonder if we can even trust the message or anything else.
• The cold opening for Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid #1: a man and a woman are preforming a ritual that ends with them drinking a ...suspicious red liquid from a goblet. They then proceed to cough and gag, the flesh on their hands and around their eyes turning black, before finally collapsing, seemingly dead.
  • The end isn't any better. Linkara — exasperated with the fact it's the time of year that something tries to kill him — decides to call the forces of darkness out (because that's such a good idea). Cue a mysterious portal opening — then closing, with seemingly nothing coming through. Linkara then investigates the bathroom, where his reflection moves on its own. It seems to flip-flop between two different personalities — an Entity-esque Creepy Child that covers his eyes and wants Linkara to play a game with him, and a raging psychopath with bloody holes where his eyes should be, screaming about showing him "true power", before finally settling on Freddy, causing Linkara to shoot the mirror. An invisible force then shoves Linkara out of the room, and when he looks back in, it's covered in blood. In short, we're off to a great start.
• Paranoid #2 doesn't end much better, with Linkara blinking out into darkness and being attacked and dragged down by many hands. He barely manages to shoot his way out and blink back into existence, covered in black smears.
  • The worst part is that said blinking was only from Pollo and Eliza's point of view. To Linkara, he saw black spots appear on the walls, which slowly begin to expand until they engulf EVERYTHING, all while Pollo and Eliza's argument fades into silence.
• In part 3, Linkara is attacked by two ghosts who burn an upside-down Starfleet logo into the wall. He calls Nella for help and asks her what she knows about it. Her reaction says it all. Can this mean the return of Dark Nella?
  • Before this, Pollo recounts one of Vyce's logs, detailing his encounter with a hostile ghost. Said ghost had Monster House levels of control over the house it was haunting, down to the last pipe and electrical cord. How did Vyce defeat it? By completely destroying the house.
• In Spider-Man: Cyber War, we have Nella's description of what it was like being Dark Nella. Brrr. Also, that fact that Dark Nella had followers. Double brrr.
• In The Real Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters II #1-3, Linkara encounters a grim-reaper like creature. He doesn't recognize it, but it sure as hell knows him...
  Ah... There you are...
  • Pollo's intel on the previous tenets cum Dark Nella cultists, aka the people seen in the Cold Opening of Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid #1. From the way he describes it, they were just as likely to have become serial killers or mass murderers as they were to become cultists.
  • The ghosts hitting Linkara with pure unadulterated bitterness and vitriol, causing him to verbally lash out at Pollo. It's just as disturbing as it sounds.
• At the end of Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl, going back to the original message, Linkara realizes something: The message pertains to Lord Vyce. Specifically, it lists everything he has done since his first defeat. And it will all lead him to becoming the next Entity.
• The end of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #4 implies that Linkara is making a backslide into evil.
• The end of Ultimate Power #4 reveals that Linkara has been possessed by the Entity all along, and this was why 90's Kid had been working with Lord Vyce as far back as when it was first revealed in Spider-Man: The Trial Of Peter Parker's review, not to mention Linkara's apparent backslide into evil.
  • The Entity is, if possible, even more nightmarish than its first appearance. Before, it exuded an aura of calm malice towards everything. This time, it screams at Erin that this is a game it intends to win. Bonus points for Erin's actress selling her horror at realizing she's trapped on a spaceship with an Eldritch Abomination.
• Margaret the Magic Gun isn't going to be of any help. Why? Because the Entity has control over her, too.
• The end of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Ep. 1-4 has Erin going up against the Entity again, this time with the sight of Comicron 1 restored to give Linkara help in the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight with the Entity. At first, Erin is going along with this plan, but then she reveals that she has the Magic Coin, which she was trying to take from Linkara when the two of them first met and is made of a material that drives Outer Gods mad. It actually starts to work on Linkara, who suddenly begins to glitch out and show his Jekyll & Hyde tendency by playing chess with the Entity, signifying which one was in control at the moment by Clark Kenting. After he wins, the Entity separates itself from Linkara (looking identical to him, no less) and blasts Erin, who orders Seras to teleport herself and Linkara out of the ship. However, the day isn't exactly saved, since the Entity now has a body of its own.
• Imagine if you will that, at the end of Moby-Dick, the whale died and Ahab, refusing to accept that the thing he was hunting died without him being the cause, snapped and decided to go homicidal. This is what Vyce does after Linkara gets the remnant of the Entity to kill itself, opting to try and destroy the entire universe via a singularity because he could not believe the Entity was dead.
  • It gets worse: Linkara manages to take care of both problems by tricking Vyce into entering Comicron 2, and sending both on a suicide run into the singularity, closing it.
• Lavidian Scarn may not be as intimidating as Mechakara or Lord Vyce and is an arrogant Starter Villain, but throughout his and Linkara's bout in the Contest of Champions, he is shown to be capricious and violent-tempered, especially during his Villainous Breakdown. He also stabs Linkara in a final bid to claim victory. Thankfully, one can't die in the Contest of Champions, but if that weren't the case...
• The intro to the "World War Hulk" review. With nothing more than an ominous drum track and a reverb over a deep, loathing tone of voice, the "Puny humans" speech is given the exact kind of mood it deserves. Namely, the mood of righteous fury.
• The 500th Episode had several interludes showing a Bad Future taken over by Brother Eye. An eyepatch-wearing Obscurus Lupa told Linkara to find Brother Eye amongst the future setting. Linkara seems to have no luck finding him, but then he asks about Lupa's eyepatch... which she didn't even know she was wearing. And taking off the eyepatch revealed Brother Eye underneath, Hidden in Plain Sight this whole time! We were watching it all along and we didn't even know it... or was Eye watching us?
  • Not only that, but Eye's creator Welshy is surprisingly terrifying as the mastermind behind it all, Disproportionate Retribution-based motivation notwithstanding. And Linkara's attempt to fix everything just resulted in it happening. Linkara's actions turned Welshy evil and doomed the future!
• Whatley is usually portrayed as an ineffectual and ultimately less than terrifying villain, in large part due to Linkara's disdain of his source material, with much of the creepiness factor being based on what is going on around him rather than the man himself. However, when he's revived by the Clone Linkara and Erin temporarily during their desperate attempt to find out anything about the former, he surprisingly manages to come off as rather unnerving with his smug demeanor, given that he does know what's going on, but finds the truth to be far too amusing and is content to just let things play out, laughing as he leaves on an ominous note...
• The end of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors finally reveals the nature of the 'clone' ... and it's a doozy. First Erin enters the room while a thunderstorm is going on outside and we see Copy-kara in a corner with his back to the camera. He begins raving about how he's not a clone, and how "It fixed me. It fixed me! But it got me wrong!" before turning around to reveal his face slashed and bleeding, and a bloody knife in his hands. He begins stalking towards Erin, cursing his face and lamenting all the times he's died. "No! No no no no" He says. "This was the final time. For clearly I have arrived ... in hell!" Erin asks who he is, and he replies "I am the one they call Mechakara." as a lightning flash causes half of his face to appear as a robot.
  • The robotic skull flash is now included in the intro as of 2019. Even out of context, the whole scene can be startling to first time viewers not expecting it.
  • Somehow, Mechakara is even scarier as a human than as a machine. In his robot form, even though his voice is positively dripping with hate and menace, he usually speaks very calmly even when threatening to brutally murder Linkara. But now that he’s human, he’s positively screaming with rage about his fate, and comes off as someone who has truly discovered something horrible and has gone off the deep end.
  • During his rant he specifically notes that he "tried to cut the flesh off, but it just keeps sweating, and bleeding..."
  • The earlier cliffhanger of the "clone" regaining his memories. He starts off elated, then quickly spirals into screaming terror and despair at his fate.
  Mechakara: I remember! ...oh god, I remember... I remember!
• At the end of Youngblood: Judgement Day, Linkara has a pleasant chat with fellow champion Tyler, the Blue Knight of Titan. However, the conversation turns dark at the end when Tyler gives Linkara a warning: Lord Vyce had sympathizers who agreed with his methods, and who might be gunning for Linkara.
  • Also in that review's "Extreme!" Running Gag, there is a Freeze-Frame Bonus...which includes these delightful messages: "Beware the architects of mirrors," which proves to be Halloween foreshadowing, "We have seen its harbinger. It is the sayer of doom," referring to the skeletal entity (see below), and, "She was left behind, now she's making plans."
• At the end of Clive Barker's Hellraiser #1, after Harvey and Eliza calm Linkara down from his Halloween paranoia, Linkara notices Starfire and Chieri (the two cats Lewis and Vega adopted in real life) and wonders when they got cats... only for there to be a sudden burst of static to occur, after which Linkara suddenly say they've always had cats, backed up by 90's Kid... who's suddenly standing where Harvey was.
• In Clive Barker's Hellraiser Spring Slaughter, while shifting through alternate realities at rapid fire, that grim reaper figure Linkara briefly encountered in The Real Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters II #1-3 appears again, this time in Linkara's home. It says one line before dissolving into static in a way eerily similar to MissingNo's eyes:
  Now... comes... your... dooms... day...
  • Right after that, at the end of the episode, a weird hooded entity suddenly appears in Linkara's house, fiddling with some kind of device. It gives only the vaguest of answers to Linkara's questions, vaguely saying that, "Information contaminates the experiment," before saying that, "This never happened." Linkara is suddenly sitting in his couch, commenting that it was good to have a Halloween where nothing happened.
• In Pinhead 4-6, a mysterious box appears in Linkara's house. Despite being contained in a forcefield, it activates and traps Linkara in another dimension. A figure made of shadows swiftly attacks him, claiming it has all eternity to make him bleed.
• At the end of Pinhead vs Marshall Law, Confession telepathically scans Linkara's mind to learn what he fears. The process is excruciating for Linkara, made worse when the being decides to start torturing him instead.
  Confession: You may not fear pain, but that won't stop me from inflicting it.
• Spider-Man: Web of Life indicates that Confession has been torturing Linkara for hours.
  • While Linkara's resistance to Confession is admittedly awesome, the torture process has left him exhausted and pissed. He practically growls at Confession for an answer about who sent him in a way that's eerily similar to Mechakara, all the scarier for being so quiet.
  Linkara: You knew about me the instant you started. You were ready for me... and confessions about what I'm afraid of are useless to you. You don't need my fears for that. But someone sent you, because they need to know. So... who sent you?
  • Linkara only escapes by a Deus ex Machina: Confession's tortures accidentally damage the mysterious stabilizer device seen last Halloween, causing the hooded entity (wearing an eerie Doctor Doom-esque mask now) to arrive and repair it, completely No Selling Confession's pain beams in the process, before dumping the two back in Linkara's home dimension (and purging Linkara's memory of the hooded figure again). Confession is terrified, pleading with Linkara to help him figure out what happened before everyone vaporizes him.
  • It's more understated, but The Reveal that the Bandit Chief is the one who sent Confession after Linkara just goes to show how low he's willing to sink in order to get the slightest scrap of information that can help him crush his opponents in the Contest of Champions.
• Youngblood: Strikefile #2 has another set of "Extreme!" messages: "She volunteered. She can't be saved," likely referring to Mirror Margaret, "Mirrors are brightest when dark shapes are in front of them," "The Architects are eternally patient," and, "The victims of Loxely want justice. It's how you beat him."
• Linkara's newest opponent is Billy Torr, a telepathic Slasher. Who knows what kind of Mind Rape he'll bring to the table while hunting Linkara. Worse, Billy has already defeated Pilo and is smart enough to forbid Linkara from using Pyramidhead or the ghosts.
  • The next episode has Linksano state that in his universe, Billy has a body count in the hundreds, and the police haven't been able to do anything about him.
  • Crossing over with Tear Jerker, it turns out that Billy Tor was an ordinary hiker who stumbled on the site of the Loxely Prison Massacre, where five hundred minimum security inmates were murdered on the Colorado governor's orders to preserve food rations during a famine. Thanks to knowing magic, the dying inmates cursed Billy to carry out their desire for retribution, meaning every time he died, one soul was laid to rest while another took control. In short, he's a walking corpse driven by hundreds of vengeful souls, and only a message of apology and restitution broadcast by President Linksano is able to lay them to rest.
• The 2022 Halloween storyline "Be All My Sins Remembered" initially retells the story for the Magic Gun. It seems to play out the same as the original...until it reaches the final lines:
  Linkara: "What they [The parents of the little girl who would be turned into the Magic Gun] failed to realize, was that she loved their god more than them too."
  • Mirror Margaret has returned, and she catches Linkara in a chokehold, all the while Harvey is disturbingly nonchalant about his friend being tormented right in front of him. Something is very, very wrong here...
  • Mirror Margaret's story parallels Mark, in that they both became victim of the ritual for the Magic Gun forced upon them by their cult family. The similarities end here, as whereas Mark rejected the cult and exterminated them before turning over to the cause of good and decency, Mirror Margaret, perhaps in utter denial of her own terror and anguish, instead doubled down and chose to view herself as a god, and (as Linkara points out) chooses to act with immense cruelty and anger in tormenting others to validate her own existence. It's a chilling demonstration in how despite them having the same backstory, their difference in choices causes Mark and Margaret to take completely different paths, with the latter choosing cruelty, delusions of grandeur, and malice despite having every opportunity to make better choices.
  • Moarte gets involved when Mirror Margaret foolishly attacks his Longbox, and it's made immediately clear that he is much more powerful and brutal than she is. He casually ignores her feeble attempts to harm him, and nearly destroys her in the same way as he did to her former wielder, Mirrorkara.
    • What's more disturbing is The Reveal of Moarte's reason for even being in Linkara's home for all these years; as it turns out, back during the Guns and Sorcery Arc, Linkara had found out about a terrible and dangerous box that he thought could have answers as to why he had lost his magic. Except it turns out to be Moarte's Longbox, who was not happy to have his sanctum invaded, and nearly destroyed Linkara for showing up. It was only due to him being intrigued by Linkara's circumstances and his job that saved him from having his soul desecrated: In exchange for his life, Moarte would host the Longbox of the Damned show every Halloween. However, Linkara in return must not only uphold this, but also cannot involve Moarte in his "petty squabbles", because he can revoke the deal at any time. While Moarte only lets off Linkara with a warning (while strangling him) this time, this puts a very dark twist on something that for the longest time was not fully elaborated on, and makes it clear that while Moarte tolerates Linkara, they are very much not allies. And terrifyingly, Linkara is incapable of getting rid of him at all.
  • The final scene before the Bloopers: Mechakara has returned, and he has turned himself into a cyborg.

Other

• The entirety of the Winter of '83 April Fools Analog Horror mini-series is this, demonstrating a masterful use of public domain footage, editing, and voicework by Lewis and his friends to create a surprisingly chilling storyline. Check out some of the frights here!

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