What I Bought 1/4/2021 - Part 2

Well, work Wednesday was about as terrible as I expected. Worse actually, since driving for hours in the rain at night has given me a pain over my left eye that still hasn't gone away. On the other hand, work kept me so occupied I didn't realize a bunch of terrorists were busy occupying the Capitol while the cops just. . . sat around on their asses. Remarkable how easily they can keep from injuring people when they want to, isn't it?

Sympathy for No Devils #3, Brandon Thomas (writer), Lee Ferguson (artist), Joe Villarrubia (colorist), Simon Bowland (letterer) - Seems more like Sympathy from No Devils.

So the Mayor hauled Winston back to her place, because she can't get enough apparently. Also so she can threaten to kill him if he doesn't drop this case. Winston replies that, on any given day, he wouldn't mind if she did kill him, and he never asked for this "gift" she gave him. She doesn't seem happy to hear that, but orders her goons to chain Winston up and throw him over a bridge. Fortunate the dame who hired him sees it happen and jumps in to save him. Unless she's actually planning to make sure he drowns. Anything is possible.

Inspector Crae pays a visit to a lilac-colored rhino that tells him what to do. Lilac has him beat up and possibly drowned for bringing Winston in on this case Lilac and the Mayor are both somehow tangled up in. Of course, he orders the possible drowning just before a messenger from the Mayor arrives telling him to stay away from Crae, so Winston can't figure out there's a connection. Those crime bosses just can't help throwing their weight around needlessly.

I wish Winston's little backstabbing assistant would shit or get off the pot already. All this whining about how awful Winston is and how he's gonna get him - really, any minute now! - is getting old. Come on, ratbag, let's see your brilliant scheme to get around his weird luck power. Impress me.

 

I'm not sure if the thing that's about to eat Winston at the end of the issue is another of these colossals, and it actually wants his help before it becomes the next victim. Or if it's just some giant undersea creature that's hungry. It's kind of cool looking, regardless.

Power Pack #2, by Ryan North (writer), Nico Leon (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Just wave a Confederate flag around and the cops will leave you be, kids.

Alex is actually old enough to act as mentor to his siblings, but Generic Jackbooted Facist Lady argues there's relativistic hinkiness there and so he's not old enough. Julie argues that's a dangerous slope that could lead to the entire stupid law being thrown out (good), and the GJFL graciously relents and gives them 24 hours to find a mentor. Julie shoots down Spider-Man (bad call), in favor of Captain Marvel (worse call, ask Kamala about Civil War 2 sometime). They can't find Frog Thor or Hulk (good), briefly consider Deadpool (?!?!?!?), and Tony Stark (actually a worse idea than Deadpool). So they end up accepting the offer of some goober named Agent Aether, who encourages them to be heroic by using their powers to help him generate cheap electricity for people.

I mean, I guess that's pretty helpful. Kind of boring. And, oh wait, he's actually the Wizard in disguise, and the Boogeyman was just a hologram over an android to draw the Power kids out as part of some nefarious plan. Guess that explains all the whirly, hypnosis emblems on the costume. Evil!

I'd like to think that losing to the Power kids would be the sort of humiliating defeat Wizard would never recover from, but they made Sabretooth look like a putz in Mutant Massacre and that (sadly) didn't stop him.

 

I think North is just using the event as an excuse to write a Power Pack story, which is fine with me. The less time it actually spends on the massive idiocy of the Outlawed event's premise, the better, since the whole thing is so stupid it makes my headache worse. You're old enough to drink, vote, and serve in the military, but not do costumed superheroics without a mentor. 

(My main issue is still having no confidence that Marvel's writers won't fuck this up and conclude that actually, a police state exerting total control over civic-minded adolescents is good, actually.)

Anyway, the part where they run around trying to find a mentor was the funniest part. Each of them arguing in favor of a different hero based on something different. Although they passed up both Gorilla Man and Sif during their search. Either of those two would be awesome mentors, and Ken Hale deserves better than playing butler to Jason Aaron's Avengers, or whatever the hell Aaron is using (read: wasting) him for.