If you've gotten to know the Eltingville gang at all over the years, you saw this coming from a mile away. Things weren't going to end well.
But hey, given how the first issue of this final mini-series ended, things certainly could have been worse.
Set a decade or so after the all-out Avengers-themed brawl, which culminated in the burning down of the local comic shop, the second and final part of the series finds the gang reluctantly reunited at Comic Con, having long ago gone their separate ways.
It's the perfect setting for one last go for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the clear joy drawing the convention center halls brings artist Evan Dorkin.
The detail he brought to the previous issue is spread out across an immensely grander canvas, the old school comic shop having been traded in for the main hall of the San Diego
Between the crowds of cosplays and the back issue bins, there's little doubt as to why issue two had been perennially postponed. Dorkin clearly poured everything he had into the project, even as he chronicled his ongoing issues with pain in his hand over on his Livejournal.
And fans will no doubt be forgiving once they discover the deluge of nerd references and inside jokes packed into every panel.
The Club itself, on the other hand, doesn't come away looking so hot. The uber nerds displayed little to no signs of maturation or moral redemption in the first part of the series and little has changed in that respect. From Milk & Cheese on down, Dorkin has never been particularly concerned with painting his characters in a good light.
While no one here scores quite as highly on the psychopath test, there are several moments when the quartet ends up coming off like the walking manifestation of #Gamergate trolling. For his part, Dorkin doubles down on the pain and misery that befalls his beloved geeks. For every misogynistic or generally misanthropic diatribe, the world only hits back harder, including, almost poetically, a trampling at the feet of a riled up Comic Con crowd.
And just when you think a quiet moment in the eye of the crowd story might lead to a moment of self-reflection on the book's final pages, the unblinking eye of fandom rips the filth convention center carpeting out from under you.
Dorkin has given his characters the ending they deserve - which is to say no particular ending at all. Just a funny and tragic sense of inescapable nerd limbo.
