What I Bought 10/21/2018

Alex asked me to tag along to a gig on Sunday, and so I took some time to grab a couple of last week's books while I was in town. It probably says something about me that Alex thought I'd be there by noon, and was calling me at 12:10 when I hadn't arrived yet, even though he wasn't planning to leave until 1:30. I don't bat an eye when my dad is 10 minutes late for something, or Alex for that matter.

Unstoppable Wasp #1, by Jeremy Whitley (writer), Gurihiru (artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - It's a cute cover, I really don't have anything more substantive to say.

Well, I didn't read the brief ongoing the new Wasp had a year or two ago, but it's reasonably easy to follow along. Nadia has her own group of young lady scientists, and they invent cool stuff part of the time, and help her fight crime part of the time. Crime, in this case being AIM, back to being evil after that stint where Sunspot was their boss, and doing something to prepare for Hank Pym. Pym being Nadia's father, who she thinks is dead. And who I thought was dead. Isn't Ultron still just Ultron, but he thinks he's part Pym? Or maybe he is part Pym. It was Hank's brain patterns he was based on, so I guess he's technically always been part Hank, the poor genocidal robot bastard.

The book feels pretty cheerful, despite all that looming stuff about Nadia's dad that I guess the Avengers haven't told her. She and her friends seem to be having fun, cracking wise and whatnot. The Guruhiru team's artwork is very bright and expressive. They draw Nadia as having freckles, which, I'm trying to think of superhero characters with freckles. Jimmy Olsen, I guess, if you count "Mr. Action". I feel like Siryn does, depending on the artist. The little drone hovercraft her friends remotely pilot look cool, and fit the wasp motif.

All that said, something didn't click. There's a whole thread where there are going to be a bunch of investors coming by to see if their lab is worth buying into, and Nadia's been slacking on the super-science. I can see how it's important for her character (and a connection to her dad, who probably should have stuck to super-science and stayed away from superheroics). Plus it connects to the friendship between her and Janet (who is helping her with the business side of things), but I feel like it's going to distract from the subplots among her friends, or trying to stop AIM, or Nadia dealing with whatever she's going to learn about her father. The things I'm more interested in seeing play out. So I'm on the fence about buying issue 2 now.

Stellar #5, by Joseph Keatinge (writer), Bret Blevins (artist), Rus Wooton (letterer) - What you see on the cover is pretty much what you get for the first half of the issue. Which is nice. Truth in advertising, and sometimes you just want robot smashing.

So the older and younger versions of Stellar are gone, taken somewhere by Zenith. She's left wandering for some time, asking people if they've seen them, getting no response until someone recognizes the photo and gives her a lead. And it leads back to. . . Zenith, who has made himself a seemingly happy family with them, if the photos on the wall are anything to go by.

That was a little strange. I still haven't figured out the mother and daughter both looking like Stellar. One of them, sure, but both? Zenith sparing her starts to make a little more sense. Why hadn't he killed her like he did all the other members of their team? Well, he had some sort of interest in her. And he feels he's moved on, made a family, has grandkids now (although he's also taken the time to get himself some death bots at some point). Whereas Stellar, hasn't. Even before she was spending all her time trying to track them down, it seems like she wasn't doing much. Almost no friends, crappy little apartment. Is she afraid of wrecking this world, that she'll taint it if she tries to immerse herself in it? So she stays on the fringes, watches, but doesn't really live in it much.

It's neat two watch how Blevins draws Zenith differently over the course of time. We first see him, he's this techno-organic monstrosity. Like he says, reborn for war. When he found her last issue, he's wearing a stylish hat and coat. The power is still there if he wants it, but he's not trying to impress or terrify anyone. By the time Stellar finds him at the end of this issue, he's dressed like a grandpa. Spectacles and sweater vests. Probably about to settle down and watch his programs with a cup of tea (coffee keeps him up nights). He's been the one we keep hearing was so scary, so terrifying, reveled in being this super-power, killing who he wished. But maybe that was who he had to be and he's not that any more. Or maybe he is, he just hides it better. Stellar is still wearing the same kind of raggedy trenchcoats she was wearing when this series began. She's stuck in place.

One thing I'm waiting for is whether we'll see Stellar really cut loose before the end here. The first issue, we kept seeing her as a glowing yellow human silhouette. She hasn't done that since, even when she's ostensibly fighting for her life against Zenith, or lashing out in a fury. I'm curious to see if it comes out here at the end, and what the end result would be. Probably a lot of death and destruction.