What I Bought 3/13/2019 - Part 2

In my Giant Days review last week I went on about John Allison always drawing Susan with pointy teeth, then used a scan where he doesn't draw her with pointy teeth. Brilliant work there, Calvin. Then again, my decision process on what to scan and post is about a 50/50 mix between "this illustrates something I discuss in the review" and "I like this panel for reasons".

Here's the other comic from February that showed up last week.

Coda #9, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/colorist), Michael Doig (color assists), Jim Campbell (letterer) -It took me a bit to realize the cover image extends onto the back cover as well. It's Hum watching an army advance on Ridgetown.

Hum is adrift now, but at least able to get Nag up and moving. He roams aimlessly, writing things in his journal, then crossing them out while trying to be honest with himself. Mostly how much of a miserable dumbass he is. He ends up at the Murkrone's fortress, looking for something to do. He gets to shovel poop out of her nursery. That would send me back into the desert, personally, but he seems OK with it. But once the giant understands Serka won't be back to defend Ridgetown, he makes a beeline for it (and the endlessly regenerating elf the townspeople use as a source of magic). And his up 'til now silent partner (controller) is going to make sure Hum's sudden awakening of a conscience can't do anything either.

I didn't see that end reveal coming. Maybe I should have, but I figured the creepy guys who finish each other's sentences were their own group, pursuing their own ends in an alliance with the giant. Instead, they're someone else's lackeys. It's one of the things that's always fun about the first step into a new fictional universe, you don't know where anybody stands on the food chain. They may always be a follower, or they may be a power-mad leader, but you don't have any past history to theorize from.

I don't know if we'll get it, but I'd like to see what Serka's up to while Hum's busy with this. His quest, even if he tried not to think of it that way, is over. It ended in crushing failure, an he's left with the knowledge of what pursuing it cost. Serka thought she had reached her goal, to finally punish the ones who tricked her and her people into destroying the world, and got nothing. Hum has decided to find some crappy, low responsibility job to hide away and kick himself. How does Serka respond to her situation?

The Murkrone's base is a nifty design. A mass of walls have cut it off from the ocean, and she has people trying to tunnel through. In the meantime, she and her babies live in this graveyard. The corpses of massive beasts and ships alike strewn about. Rock formations or maybe its the remains of coral reefs in this lovely shade of pink sticking up, and then the various signs of settlement. Thrown together shacks and tarps tied down over crates of stuff. It's a lovely mixture of what was and what's come along since.

Beyond that, I like the scene in the pilot room of Thundervale, as Notch speaks to her "mysterious boss". Most of the scene is done in this sickly bright shade of green, which Bergara and Doig use to highlight how uneasy Notch is getting with this situation. Then the next page we get a glimpse of the remains of the elf in Ridgetown, which has sprouted a new, baby head in place of the one Hum foolishly cut off. That's just disturbing, especially when it's screaming about doom while the leader of the town cuts pieces off its leg to turn into magic fuel.