What I Bought 11/13/2018 - Part 1

Something I learned last Friday is, if you go out running when it's still dark, it's very difficult to see ice. It was actually funny, because I had hit some snow and was just thinking, "Boy, I hope there's no ice," and my foot landed and immediately started sliding. At which point it's like, "Well, shit." I'm fine, minus some cuts and bruises. Was even able to keep running for another hour. It was about 30 degrees so my legs were too cold to feel pain until I got home and warmed up.

Let's get to these books from last month! We're going to start with two mini-series that are wrapping up. One has been a confusing disappointment, the other is 5 months late.

Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell #6, by Adam Warren (writer), Carla Speed McNeil (artist and letterer), Jenn Manley Lee (colorist) - The combination of murder weapons taken from Clue with all the mundane items makes for one heck of a party.

It's Spooky and Emp against Queen Bee Ashley and her henchlady Ashlee, both ramped up on most of the magic Spooky also draws from. Except it's quickly just Ashlee after she stabs the Queen Bee in the back, taking the power for herself. Emp is left trying to protect Spooky until Spooky can get herself together, at which point she figures out a truth about Ashlee. Confronting Ashlee with that causes her self-destruction, the ladies leave Hell, Spooky now more powerful than ever since there's no one left to split the power with.

That was an interesting reveal about Ashlee. Makes sense, considering Spooky was offered the same deal. Wonder how many of the other girls were in the same boat. The series probably could have stood to be an issue shorter and gotten to the same point. You can definitely do something with the gauntlet concept, but it's neutralized, by the fact the Infernal Service Provider was healing them up after each fight. At that point, it's more a matter of whether Spooky can handle revisiting the site of so much old emotional trauma. Except the story established fairly quickly that what she went through in school wasn't her weak point, it was her feelings of failure and loss over the death of her girlfriend. All her old tormentors were still stuck on the same old bullshit, while Spooky had moved on to newer and more awful traumas! Which she has apparently learned to manage. Whether she's been doing so in a safe manner is another matter I'm not qualified to assess.

Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee's artwork is and has been the selling point for the series. How Ashlee, once she's the last one standing, is drawn with increasingly heavy linework, making her look more jagged, meaner, uglier, as she just unleashes everything she kept under wraps for years playing second fiddle to Ashley on Spooky and Emp. Spooky for the choice she made when she took the deal, and Emp for the fact she won't lash out against Spooky for all the abuse that was dumped on her, the way Spooky took out her high school grudges on Emp. Or the bit at the end when Spooky's hand is reaching up from one panel towards the Infernal Service Provider in the panel above. Then in the next panel, she's crushing him and I think the panel he was in. Or maybe it's the weird "fake school" space that he'd dumped them in.

Multiple Man #5, by Matthew Rosenberg (writer), Andy MacDonald (artist), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - If you can tell us how many multiple men make up Jamie Madrox, you can win an all-expenses paid trip to Albuquerque, where anyone on the street will shave your back for a nickel, and the Shriners play their kazoos all day! Note: there is no prize. Don't do the math then contact me looking for your trip.

OK, I dunno what's happening. The thing Bishop gave Jamie a few issues ago is actually a bomb, which Bishop uses to blow up as many of the time-traveling Jamies as he can. Somehow one version of the bomb looks like it blew up a city block, and yet another version of it failed to blow up General Madrox who was standing three fucking feet away from it. One version of Jamie and his mutated dupes return to the present, where Hank has finished the serum so a duplicate can be Jamie Prime, which general Madrox takes. Fighting and merging ensues, things get worse, Hulk Madrox kills the combined Jamies Prime, all Madroxes die. Except the one who wound up on Swimsuit Issue Earth, who returns from years of being a bartender, borrows what's left of the serum, and goes to find Layla and her son.

So, all that confusing mess to get us basically the Jamie we had before Inhumans vs. X-Men killed him. This Jamie is a little goofy, kind of mellow, has the "M" tattoo over his eye, the serum will let him create duplicates, and he's going to live with Layla and their kid. He's Jamie Madrox, full-stop. What I don't understand is, if all the duplicates died when Hulk Madrox killed the Jamie Prime, how did the duplicate in the bunker survive for as long as he did after the Terrigen Mists killed his Jamie Prime? How did the Madrox at the end of this series survive with his Jamie Prime (whichever one it was) dying somewhere in the midst of all this nonsense? Shouldn't he have just keeled over during his shift at the bar?

I find it strange a bunch of X-Men couldn't beat an army of Madrox armed only with swords. Or big knives. What MacDonald drew varied from one panel to the next. Not sure if that was intentional or not. It didn't seem like the duplicates were particularly skilled fighters, and considering this mini-series takes the approach that seemingly none of the X-Men like Jamie, you'd think they'd just stomp hell out of him.

I'm fine having Jamie back, let he and Layla go off into the sunset. Inhumans vs. X-Men was dumb as all hell, undo anything you want from it (yes, you can even bring Cyclops back). This is too convoluted of a way to do it, not nearly as clever or funny as it thinks it is. I do chuckle at Hulk Madrox simply saying "roar" when he is supposed to be getting angry, but most of the story misses the mark with me. I probably would have smiled at 'So I've become the proverbial Grinch. I've come to take your present,' if I hadn't been so bored by General Madrox' bullshit speech by the time her got to that.

It didn't dawn on me until the weekend that the last panel, which I have included above, is a Fall of the Mutants homage/riff with all the corpses on the ground. On the plus side, if the mutants have already fallen, then there's no harm Madrox can do. Everything is gonna be OK?

It has not been a good year for me and mini-series from Marvel. Come back Wednesday when one of the books I review will be the first issue of another mini-series from Marvel! Sooner or later I've got to land on one I enjoy, right?