Random Back Issues #34 - Coda #8

When she's trying very gently to explain to you what a dumbass you are.

This replaces Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #28 as the most recent comic to get the Random Back Issue treatment, as this came out at the beginning of 2019. Feels like a million years ago now. Kelvin, you gotta skip this post until you finish reading Coda. It's gonna spoil stuff

Coda #8 is a transition issue, written from Serka, the Urken warrior's perspective. The issue before, she finally got to confront the Whitlord who runs Thundervale. The Whitlords were the dark sorcerers who created the Urken to help them carry out their plans by convincing them there was some great holy reward if they did. Surprise! It was all bullshit, and Serka has become a wandering hero to atone, and also to see if she can find any of their old masters and, you know, kill them.

Unfortunately, this "Whitlord" was also bullshit. Serka headbutted to death an empty suit controlled by little rat things. It was good headbutt, though. So she's a bit out of sorts, and sneaks off alone to a community of Urken at the edge of a massive storm called the Everstorm. Where she allows her rage to take over and rampages until it burns itself out.

Hum, waking up alone, decides that when his wife leaves him a note promising she'll return and asking him to keep his promise not to seek her out, it is obviously time to do exactly the opposite. He's got himself a potion from the Murkrone to "cure" Serka, and it's time to act. If, he can get out of Thundervale alive. His old acquaintance the jester bandit isn't willing to let him go, and it turns into a hell-for-leather chase across the desert, Hum pumping more and more magical acker into Nag to keep it going.

Eventually the idiot rides directly into the Everstorm, and is nearly killed by another Urken before Serka finds him. He tries to get her to take the potion, and well, yeah, that wasn't a good idea. He winds up entirely alone, which is what sends him stumbling into position for the climax of the story.

The big theme of the issue seems to be that these two are married, but neither of them understand each other. Hum obviously doesn't understand her relationship to the berserker aspect of herself, except that it keeps taking her away from him. Serka thinks he doesn't understand what it's like to pin everything about yourself on one goal. He does, even if his goal is a really stupid and misguided one. But so is Serka's. The Whitlords would be a danger, sure, but she just wants to vent all that anger they cooked into her nature on them. She needs counseling, but the hubbie's out here offering pharmaceutical assistance.

[3rd longbox, 48th comic. Coda #8, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/color artist), Michael Doig (color artist), Jim Campbell (letterer)]