What I Bought 2/7/2018 - Part 1

These aren't from this week, they're actually from last month. I'm saving the third book for Monday, because it's the end of a story arc. In the meantime, one of these two is still ramping up, and the other is preparing for the conclusion. In other news, Bruce Willis is doing a remake of Death Wish, the Charles Bronson 1970s, "what is society coming to?", or maybe, "minorities are scary" movie. Kee-rist, that is not a thing anyone needed, ever.

Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell #2, by Adam Warren (writer), Carla Speed McNeil (artist and letterer), Jenn Manley Lee (colorist) - Being attacked by emojis? Yeah, that sounds like Hell.

Spooky is able to get her and Emp out of the biology lab of horror by playing on Bethany's fear of the preserved specimens. If I though the dissected frog assistants last issue were creepy, the formaldehyde, whatever those were, hog fetuses? Yeah, those are more disturbing. Then they're forced to fight a pair of students using their phones to physically harm people, rather than emotionally. Although if Emp or Spooky had time to read the texts, it would probably hurt emotionally as well. They get out of that situation, so only three dozen more crazy, entitled high school girls to go. So I have to assume they're going to pick up the pace big time on defeating these girls, if there's only four issues left.

Although it's curious to me that there's still a "Queen Bee" girl, given the stakes. The Infernal Service Provider has said the fewer of them there are, the more of Spooky's magic each will get. Rushing out to fight them on the orders of some other girl seems a poor choice. Given there are supposed to be the stereotypical entitled mean girls, I would expect someone to try and backstab or coup against Ashley.

McNeil is giving Spooky a tired air throughout this whole thing. Not that she isn't in danger, or the attacks aren't hurting, but she's already been through a wringer, and beaten herself up about it. And she already survived these girls once. Their attacks may have a little more power behind them, but it's the same stuff they used to do. They haven't grown or evolved, and she has. She can think circles around them. I'm more worried about Emp, who has always struggled a bit in the face of scorn from others, including Spooky. It looks like the fight in the library took more of a toll on her. So that'll be something to monitor.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #4, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer, designer) - I went with the variant cover because that thing is freaking boss. Just now I've had a vision: Atomic Robo/Haunted Tank team-up! It's glorious, I tell you.

Back in the actual story, Helsingard wants to team up with Robo. The robots that attacked were some of his, that were overtaken by ALAN's programming when he came looking to loot all those nukes. As it turns out, all the people falling apart because they're cyborgs are also his soldiers, an even more advanced design, that are also being controlled by the rogue programming. Sooooo, awkward, uneasy team-up! Yeah! And before the end of the issue, Helsingard has allowed himself to be pulled into the network, and overtaken it by force of will. That's either a very bad thing, or a good thing. Good because it means Robo can try killing two of his enemies at once. Saves time.

In other developments, Vik and Lang have found a way to get construction going again, by extorting Elon Musk to call an emergency meeting of the community members, and vote in Telsadyne's favor. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Was part of that because I'm side-eyeing Elon shooting a goddamn car into outer space this week, and I enjoyed a fictional version of him having to eat shit? Maybe!

Man, I don't know if Wegener's rushed, or just disinterested, or Clark's colors are overwhelming the linework, or what, but damn the art has looked sloppy in this story. There are some panels where Robo is a vaguely defined grey blob. I went back and looked at the third volume, Shadow from Beyond Time, and the difference in how crisp the art looks is night and day. And some of it is definitely the colors (that series was colored by Ronda Pattison), because the colors were a lot brighter in that mini-series than they are here. It drove home how muddy things look now. But there are times where it looks as though Wegener didn't even bother to draw some lines, and is letting the coloring suggest their existence. It's too bad, because this is a pretty cool story, but the art's not carrying its share of the load.