What I Bought 7/5/2018

I got too much sun over the Fourth of July. Being outdoors in the summer is always a bad idea. Reading comics indoors is a good idea. Sometimes.

Multiple Man #1, by Matt Rosenberg (writer), Andy MacDonald (artist), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Jamie's looking a little crazy on that cover.

So, Madrox Prime (and presumably Layla Miller) are still dead, courtesy of that stupid Inhumans vs. X-Men mini-series. But at least one duplicate had locked himself away in a lab earlier trying to allow duplicates more autonomy. But he's still dying for some reason. He steals Bishop's time travel device (which he casually carries on his belt like a pocketwatch). Then a bunch of Jamies start showing up at the mansion, telling Beast not to find the cure for the duplicate Jamie's condition. One of them may somehow be Jamie Prime? He absorbed one of the others, but most of them appear to be strange hybrids of Jamie and other Marvel characters.

I am not entirely sure what's going on. I have a theory, if I can take some time to pull it together. I don't know why the dupe Jamie that was in the secret lab is falling apart. Do duplicates have a set time limit they can remain separate? Because the one that became a priest was on his own long enough to get married and have a kid (sort of). Or is whatever the Mists did to Jamie Prime somehow transmitted to the duplicate, even though he was nowhere near there. Wouldn't make much sense, but that's nothing new. Lotta questions, no answers, or really even any idea which direction to start going for answers.

Rosenberg's Madrox seems to fit with Peter David's version. He doesn't feel jarringly off, at least. Kind of goofy, a little hard for the others to track what's going on with him, and he's not very good at explaining it. Which makes a certain amount of sense, considering the trouble Jamie Prime always had discerning his actual memories from those he got from absorbed duplicates.

Andy MacDonald's art is clean and straightforward, but still a mixed bag. His art reminds me a bit of Chris Samnee, but thinner lines, fewer shadows. Jamie looks really young in some of the panels, like a dumb teenager, even when it's a Jamie who has been living off baked beans in a secret lab for who knows how long. There are some very good expressions in there, though, like Hank's scowly face in the panel below, and there's one of Jamie where I think he's reacting to the presence of tomatoes in the sandwich Guido handed him. If Jamie Madrox hates tomatoes, that's one more thing I like about the character then.

The fight at the end didn't have much flow to it. Everything is happening in the same room, but it feels more like a bunch of skirmishes scattered all over the place. Especially when a Jamie is just sitting in a chair as this erupts all around him. He said it had nothing to do with him, and maybe as far as he knew it didn't, but why just keep sitting there then? Find cover or help or something. 

Mata Hari #4, by Emma Beeby (writer), Ariela Kristantina (artist), Pat Masioni (color artist), Sal Cipriano (letterer) - That is closer to her face than I would be comfortable allowing a snake that size to get.

As Monsieur Bouchardon continues to try to pull a confession from Lady McLeod, her trip through her memories continues. She's performing in that circus, but needs more money if she hopes to win custody of her daughter. But the ways she's able to best earn money also make more easy fodder for her ex-husband to proclaim her an unfit mother. With that dream closed off, she decides she might as well take advantage of the opportunity she has, use these guys that drool over her to enjoy her own life, and try to maintain her connection with her daughter as best she can. In the midst of that, the War starts, she's in Germany, and forced to leave the country. Originally bound for Holland, as her country of birth, she tries to redirect to France, only to change her mind when the Germans show much greater hostility to someone going to 'enemy territory'.

Whether she's innocent or guilty, I have to think all this duplicity about her nationality and whatnot is going to end up being a strike against her. Bouchardon knows the alleged telegrams are forgeries by a Minister desperate to get her convicted, but is still willing to use them to try and scare her into a confession. It isn't as though the military court is going to require more than the flimsiest circumstantial evidence to convict the convenient scapegoat.

Kristantina shifts how much detail and focus she puts on faces throughout the issue. At first I thought it was just being rushed, since this issue was already delayed a month, but I don't think that's it. Lady McLeod's face, both in the past and the present, maintains detail. Her present-day face shows the lines of strain, age, the unpleasant living conditions. Or the face of her coworker who gives her an idea for her performance. But the faces of the other women in the prison you ridicule and whisper about her, or the men playing out their early-20th Century version of a casting couch, their faces are more vague. The lines are thinner, almost washed out by Masioni's colors. Ultimately, the specifics of those characters don't matter. They're just more people in a long string of them who told her she had one thing worth of value to her, and then judge her for using their desire for it to make a living.

Bouchardon should probably be similar, since he clearly thinks her life choices indicate she'd be a willing and eager spy for the Germans, but he's a repeat threat, there everyday badgering her. And he becomes more real not just because she can't get away from him, to a new place with new people, but because she still has hope she can convince him of her innocence, whether true or not, and get free. That's her goal of the moment, and there are no other options available. It's Bouchardon or it's nobody.