What I Bought 1/26/2019 - Part 3

Like I said on Friday, it was about 6 degrees for a high on Wednesday. Yesterday it was in the 60s. Chaotic! Temperature started dropping again midday today, though. Which won't be too bad if it'll at least stay in the 20s.

Mega Ghost #2, by Gabe Soria (writer), Gideon Kendall (artist/colorist/letterer), Julie Peppito (color assist) - Usually it's the other way around isn't it, the secret identities fighting in the foreground, and their superheroic alter egos looming in the background.

The blond kid on the cover, Fausto, is a spoiled rich brat who demands a toy that doesn't exist for his birthday. His dad finds a different battery-powered robot toy that Fausto loves, even as he begins to act very strange and buildings in the city are being randomly flattened. Martin figures out the toy's possessed, and anything it does to the replica of their town happens to the real thing. So he gets Mega Ghost to be toy-sized and away we go. The day is ultimately saved, but the mad scientist from last issue looks like has a lot of possessed toy to go around, and Martin's sister kept one of the weird batteries that powered the toy, which could be good, could be bad. I didn't really get enough of a sense of her character in this issue to decide what she might want it for.

I guess the real question is what's Ultraghoul's endgame. Working from the shadows, providing occult weapons to idiots who will unleash them with no chance of controlling them. What's he want to accomplish? Is it just a trial run for his stuff? Does he want to destroy the city? I'm sure he wants to get rid of Mega Ghost now, but he didn't know that was going to be an issue when he started. It's hard to say because the occult doesn't seem too unusual, in that Martin isn't some weirdo because he's interested in it. Plenty of other people seem to be as well. So you'd think the authorities would be getting suspicious about all this recent activity, but apparently not.

I dunno, I'm mostly trying to think of things to say about this issue. There's not a mystery to what's happening to Fausto, for us or Martin, so there's not much suspense there, and the fight is fairly brief. The idea of getting the ghosts to be action-figure sized is clever, although it seems like Martin could have just let them smash the toy while they were at full-size. I guess this preserves a secret identity. I like Fausto's "flunky", as Martin calls him. He dresses like a butler, but he's this broad-shouldered, crooked nose, scowling looming presence standing just behind Fausto most of them time. For some reason I like the design for him. It fits his role and the general supernatural air of the story. Could see him working for a vampire or some mad scientist in their castle.

Smooth Criminals #3, by Kurt Lustgarten and Kirsten Smith (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - Not everyone can make the big sunglasses work without looking like a grandma at the beach, but Mia Corsair is one of the few who can.

Two main scenes to this issue. The first is Mia and Brenda tracking down Mia's old fence to learn who told him the "Ice Man" had such a huge stash of diamonds. Turns out it was Mia's rival Hatch, the one engaged to the Ice Man's daughter in the present day. Second scene is Mia and Brenda making it to the unveiling of the Net of Indra so they can scope out the security measures, and running into Hatch. So he knows Mia's out and about, seemingly un-aged after 30 years.

So the gears turn a little more. The feds are also asking Mia's mother some questions from her prison cell. Seems like she should be older, since I'm figuring Mia had to at least be in her early 20s in the 1960s. The elder Corsair should be pushing 70 at least, and I would figure prison helps one age gracefully. But I guess some people are lucky that way.

Was "baller" a common phrase in the late '90s? No wonder Alex laughed so hard when I randomly decided to use a few years ago. I didn't think it was that passe. Even for me, that's a bit behind the curve.

After last month's rather abrupt downturn in the art quality halfway through, this issue marks a nice rebound. There's the occasional oddly shaped face, but that seems to be down to a few angles causing problems. Riddel does use a lot of small lines for shading on things, but it doesn't make things too fussy, and usually helps convey an elevated emotional state. Not necessarily panicked or furious, just not calm. The backgrounds are much more detailed than last issue. I wonder if Riddel prefers drawing one of Brenda and Mia more than the other. Brenda's the one who gets to be more animated and expressive, since Mia's almost certainly older and used to planning heists. The differences in their formal wear is interesting.