What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 4

So when I put in an order at the online store I use for the stuff I missed this month, I forgot The Rush #3. I'd already checked two of the stores in the general area for it prior to that, so it might be a while before I get around to reviewing it. In the meantime, here's two more comics from two weeks ago.

Moon Knight #7, by Jed MacKay (writer), Federico Sabbatini (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Even for Moon Knight, picking a fight with half the Wrecking Crew is crazy.

Moon Knight is trying to find Zodiac, without much success, but 8-Ball points him to Manslaughter Marsdale, who wittingly or not, points him to "the Clown". Which clown? Obnoxio, the one from Circus of Crime? Can't really tell, because Zodiac already cut his head off and took it with him to meet Marc's psychiatrist. Got green hair and a green star over one eye, which I don't remember the Clown from Circus of Crime having. Also, while Tigra is helping Marc out, she's also really there because Black Panther has asked her to keep an eye on Marc. Booo, fuck off T'Challa, go back to ruling your own country through some "divine right by combat" bullshit.

Sabbatini's doing a pretty good job of aping Cappuccio's art here. Linework's a little looser, more jagged, but overall, the book looks largely the same. Although I suspect Rosenberg's color work helps there, too. The one issue is some of the staging in the panels is wonky. There's one, when they've caught up to 8-Ball, where Reese points to something spraypainted on the wall behind her and asks Marc what it is. But I honestly can't tell what it is, because Marc's arm is covering part of it from out perspective. Maybe that's intentional, though I'm not sure why that would be.

Also, MacKay has Moonie do the "imperil a guy until he snitches" bit. Only, unlike Batman dangling people off rooftops, he dangles 8-Ball over a car shredder. And this works, of course. I'm not surprised Moon Knight would try that; he's a brutal vigilante on a good day. Little disappointed it works, though. Be nice if writers would stop acting like that crap gets results all the time.

She-Hulk #1, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I think this cover is very plainly stating that all the Jason Aaron bullshit is off the board. Which is fine, since none of said bullshit seemed interesting to me. Guess it sucks if you were enjoying it.

Jennifer gets interrupted on her way to her new job by Titania, who just feels like fighting a bit. So they fight, but Jennifer lets a little too much slip about her current status, to the point Titania is confused and irritated about feeling bad for her. Jennifer gets the fight delayed for the time being so she can get to her new job, working for her old rival (from the Dan Slott run) Mallory Book. And the Wasp is going to let Jen live in the same apartment she loaned her in Sensational She-Hulk, which still has a bunch of her clothes.

Then Jack of Hearts shows up and passes out in her doorway.

So Rowell's trying to get back to excellent lawyer She-Hulk, and clothes horse She-Hulk, while not entirely discarding everything since, I guess when Thanos put her in a coma in Civil War II. She-Hulk's been away from this sort of life for a while, and she's trying to get back to it. How she plans to "reinvent" herself, I don't know. Reaching a sort of detente with Titania might be a start. Where they don't get along, but they aren't engaged in life-and-death fights all the time. Although that's more a sign of progress for Titania than She-Hulk.

In terms of Jennifer and She-Hulk, Antonio goes more towards her portrayal in the Dan Slott runs, with Rich Burchett or Juan Bobillo as artist, as opposed to John Byrne. Jennifer is portrayed in ways that make her look very small, even around Mallory. Heck, Janet van Dyne is only about 5-4, and she and Jennifer look to be the same height. And her body language shows her hunched over, arms pulled in close to her body. Antonio's She-Hulk is confident, unsurprisingly, and tall, but also more muscular than she was in Sensational She-Hulk, while not anywhere close to how she's looked in Avengers the last few years. Still emphasizes the idea that she's strong, that she's got a lot of power.

I do question Jennifer's feet not changing size when she's She-Hulk. She took her shoes off to fight (sensible), but was able to slip right into her heels without changing back to Jennifer.

Sunday Splash Page #203

 

"Tell Them It's a Lesson in Self-Sufficiency," in Giant Days, Chapter 2, by John Allison

Before it was my favorite ongoing series two years running, Giant Days was a webcomic, which Boom! eventually collected in a handy tpb (titled, Giant Days: Early Registration) for Luddites like myself who don't like reading comics on a computer.

It covers Susan, Daisy and Esther's early days in college. Moving in, making new friends. Being taken hostage by a society of annoying preppy girls who think you're just like them. The fresh bloom of new love, or at least basic physical attraction. Not being able to sleep because the people upstairs play loud music into the wee hours of the morning. Joining a new club and overthrowing the de facto president by challenging him to arm wrestling. Getting drunk and waking up with a tattoo. A tattoo that almost gets you initiated into a dark society.

The thing John Allison does here that I enjoy is the mixture of the banal and the absurd. Problems that kids out on their own for the first time encounter and are frequently befuddled by, but with some little element that pushes it over the top. The head girls trying to co-opt Esther because they think it's still high school and she should be part of their stupid clique isn't unusual. The fact each of them - including Esther - is the master of a particular fighting style is.

Allison's quick to fill out their personalities. Susan's blunt talking and general acerbic manner, coupled with a fierce loyalty. Daisy being compassionate and a little naive, but also oddly knowledgeable. Esther being simultaneously charismatic and easily charmed. Determined to do things her way, but flighty enough to be easily swayed. It allows for each of them to run smack into problems they can't deal with, but one of the other two can.

Allison has a very simple drawing style, but it works for what he's trying to do. This is a book with a lot of big action, mostly people talking and making clever comments. Allison's good at drawing people who dress and slouch or whatever like actual people would. Giving them realistic body language, but it's loose enough he can draw something a little weirder and still make it work.

Next week, the mini-series turned ongoing series I loved so very much.

Saturday Splash Page #5

 

"Uninvited Guests," in X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #2, by Jeff Parker (writer), Carlo Pagulayan and Carlos Rodriguez (pencilers), Gabriel Hardman and Chris Samnee (artists), Jason Paz and Terry Pallot (inkers), Wilfredo Quintana and Veronica Gandini (colorists), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Take less time to discuss this 2-issue mini-series than it did to write all those names. Consider this as a companion piece to Avengers vs. Atlas (discussed in Sunday Splash Page #59). The other mini-series Marvel tried to use to get a little more fanbase engagement with Agents of Atlas before the second attempt at an ongoing. Atlas only lasted five issues, shorter even than the original mini-series, so we can safely say that didn't work.

This is set during the stretch when the X-Men had formed their own little island community. No, not Krakoa. No, not Genosha. The island off the coast of San Francisco made from leftover bits of Asteroid M. Man, that thing just rained down over the entire planet, didn't it? Way to mass pollute Magneto, you dick.

Atlas steals Cerebro, sorry Cerebra, because Bob the Uranian wants to use it to boost his telepathy to find their missing teammate Venus. Because they figure the X-Men won't agree to let them borrow it. Because Atlas was posing as a criminal empire with ties to Norman Osborn, or just because they're jerks? Either/or. Turns out Cerebra doesn't mesh well with Bob's headband that allows telepathic transmission, and the Atlas team and the (surviving) Original 5 X-Men get sucked into some sort of shared feedback loop thing, playing off the story Parker did in X-Men First Class where the kids meet Gorilla Man while looking for Xavier. 

Parker also takes the opportunity to continue the grudge match between Wolverine and M-11 he established in the first Agents of Atlas ongoing. The one dating back to Logan blowing the robot up during a mission involving mind-controlling insects in Cuba in the 1950s, then renewed during a fight against the New Avengers.

The fight gets halted by Namor, of all people, since he's allied with both groups. He literally shouts, 'Cease this battle at once! Namor Commands!' and it works. Everyone just stops and looks around awkwardly while Emma Frost notes Namor still has the loudest voice. Anyway, the groups set their differences aside, Bob locates Venus, who has actually been abducted by agents of Aphrodite, who is displeased about Venus borrowing her likeness without paying usage rights. That leads into the mini-event Assault on New Olympus, which was mostly an Incredible Hercules storyline, but I'm pretty sure the Agents of Atlas were involved.

The art's not quite as much a mess as the credits would suggest. Samnee draws the sections in the shared telepathic space. Hardman draws the part at the end involving Venus at the very end. Rodriguez takes over for Pagulayan after Samnee's part, which is a little distracting because his art is close to Pagulayan's, but just different enough you notice the shift.

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 3

Got confirmation of a bit of bad work-related news this week. I was expecting it, but there was always a chance it wouldn't happen. As Red once noted, hope is a dangerous thing. But there's about 6 weeks until it comes to a head, so in the meanwhile, comics! Today, Calvin takes precisely the opposite lesson from comics from what the writers likely intended!

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #1, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Each time I look at the cover, I think it's Mayday Parker in the costume at first glance.

Set during the stretch of the Clone Saga where Peter and MJ moved to the Pacific Northwest, Ben's struggling with being back in a place that holds plenty of memories, but where he can't fit. Because those are Parker's memories, and whether Ben's the real deal or a clone, he doesn't get to be Peter Parker. He does get to be Spider-Man, though, and heads out to capture Carrion, who is lashing out because he got some bad news and can't cope. Ben extends a helping hand, Carrion goes back to Ravencroft. 

Ben has a conversation with Dr. Kafka, but rejects the offer of therapy or friendship. Also, Peter apparently explained the whole clone thing to Kafka at some point. The issue ends with Scorpion in Ben's apartment, calling him Spider-Man. Jeez, he let Scorpion dope out his secret identity? At least Peter had the excuse the symbiote snitched to Brock and the Puma used his super-senses.

Hard for me to believe Ben would unmask to her just like that. Unless DeMatteis' point is Ben's in denial. He's simultaneously building walls and tearing them down. I'm surprised DeMatteis isn't showing Ben trying to build a real life for himself in New York. He still thinks this is going to be transitory, that he'll lose it at some point, so why bother? Or he's scared. I identify with it either way, part of why I always liked Ben.

Baldeon's more restrained on the facial expressions than he was with Domino, but this book isn't as over-the-top as that was. There's still variety and nuance, but not as many people looking psychotically angry or screaming. Although Ben was wearing his mask when he briefly lost control, so we could only see one eye during that scene. That's also the one page he goes away from the basic square and rectangle panels going across and then down. He opts for five panels slanting diagonally across the page, zooming in on Ben's face across the middle three and letting the top and bottom panels bookend the thing. The first is from behind Ben, looking down at Carrion before he unloads on him, and the last is from beside Carrion, looking up at Ben after said unloading.

Defenders #5, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez (storytellers), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The terrifying truth is the Masked Raider has a tribal tattoo like Mike Tyson. It looks ridiculous.

OK, somehow the Third Cosmos is the first of the multiversal cycle. What were the First and Second then? Anyway, the Defenders show up during a fight between Existence and Non-Existence. Zota's already there, and even if it's been an eternity for him, he's not willing to die without a fight. Unfortunately, anything anybody uses to fight draws upon Existence, so they're about to help Non-Existence win. Masked Raider steps in, opts not to shoot Zota, ends up being shot and, yeah, he's Zota. 

Not that it was difficult, but I got a prediction right. Mark it down next to that time I correctly predicted Ryan North was using Mojo II: The Sequel in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Zota puts on the mask and jumps in to help Existence, a mask made from the stuff of a universe that won't exist for five more cosmoses somehow still working. But the Defenders are able to draw on the nature's of the other ones they've visited to give Existence a boost and help it win, Seemingly at the cost of Zota's life, but probably not. Taaia gives Strange a device he can use to contact her, while Harpy tells him to leave her alone as they fade into an A-Ha music video. Everyone's home, Strange has the mask, story over.

So Masked Raider was Zota from one point of his life, running around trying to stop a version of himself from earlier in life all this time? Only to die because that earlier version couldn't make a selfless decision until he'd killed himself? And that had to happen, so Raider couldn't stop his earlier self any sooner? Feels a bit like that ending to The Dark Tower, the one Stephen King advises you not to read, but if you really must, OK. Where Roland is stuck redoing his whole story until he makes a "better" choice, or whatever King was going for. Except there are two Rolands and the one who needs to make a better choice doesn't realize it.

The page where "Lifebringer One" triumphs, Rodriguez lays it out like a descending arc. Panel of Lifebringer's sword growing as they're powered up aligned vertically. The deathblow at maybe 60 degrees, the initial disintegration at maybe 45. All drawing the eye to a big explosion in a panel along the bottom of the page. A lovely comic to look at, right to the end.

R-Point

When I reviewed Ghosts of War in late 2020, Kelvin mentioned the initial premise (before the stupid twist) sounded similar to the movies The Keep and R-Point. I couldn't convince Alex to rent The Keep through his Amazon Prime account, which, you know, fair enough. That wasn't even an option for R-Point, so I went ahead and just bought the DVD.

A group of South Korean soldiers serving in Vietnam are convinced to volunteer for a possible rescue mission. A different platoon went missing in an area called "R-Point" six months earlier, with only one survivor. But one night, there they are on the radio, asking to be rescued.

The platoon heads out and end up in what used to be a lake, but was filled in after some awful circumstances. In the fog, they find the remains of an old hospital, and begin their search. It's quickly clear they aren't alone, as a quartet of Americans show up one night, and there's someone leaving incense burning in a temple ruins, but they aren't having any luck finding the missing soldiers.

Then they start getting picked off. The lieutenant, who's already seen too much action, starts seeing a woman in white in the middle of the night. The men already don't trust him, because he has a reputation of getting people killed, and this doesn't help. His sergeant seems no-nonsense, but he's keeping secrets, too. All of this and the creeping sense something's very wrong starts to wear on the soldiers. 

So you never actually see a monster, or spectral horror at any point. Some corpses, yes. Some ghosts, who still look basically normal, yes. But a lot of it is just guys getting freaked out and jumpy and making bad decisions. One of the things I like about the movie is it seems to establish a rule about who might be able to survive when they first get there. Then the presence goes about making it so those people won't be able to, by stressing them until they do something stupid. 

And the fact this isn't some platoon that's been through thick and thin together helps that along. These guys don't know each other. They haven't found that line where the jokes are still taken as good fun and not cruelty. None of them know if they can rely on each other, so when things get worse, they fall apart rather than pulling together. It's also a way to flesh the characters out at least a little without it feeling awkward when they tell the others stuff about themselves. I ended up feeling awful for Lieutenant Choi, who tries really hard to keep the last few guys alive, to help them keep it together (for his own sanity as much as anything else).

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 2

Damn, that Chiefs/Bills playoff game was insane. Sucks if you were playing defense for either team, because you ended up looking like a chump, repeatedly, but fun to watch. Feel

Batgirls #2, by Beck Cloonan and Michael Conrad (writers), Jorge Corona (artist), Sarah Stern (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer) - So the car is possessed, is what I'm getting from that cover.

Steph and Cass have to run for their lives from the three Magistrates, who Oracle tells us all about during a 4+-page long fight/exposition sequence. The fight's going on while she's yammering through the walkie-talkie about each one and what they can do. Except Steph dropped the radio right off, so nobody's listening, and it never occurs to Oracle to stop and take a breath to actually see if either girl would like to tell her anything. It helped me have some idea who these characters are, but it's a clunky method.

Also, the Magistrate designs kind of suck. Valentine is this skinny little girl with these huge bionic or just armor things on her legs that look like they were stolen from a Rob Liefeld character. And they have these really busy armor designs, but 85% of the armor is this blah grey, with a bit of color here and there.

Anyway, the Magistrates think their leader is not dead after all, but the hologram they're listening to is this Seer person. Still not clear on what the Seer's beef with the Batgirls is. Oracle's going to try tracking her down, while the girls try to investigate the serial killer in the neighborhood. They don't get anywhere with that, but find a bunch of people bringing stolen junk to the docks to build - something. Maybe it's a Boom Tube! This book could use a little Kirby bright colors. 

Then they run into a gathering of people listening to this "Tutor" guy, and Steph seems to fall under hypnotic control. Probably because she's been in touch with the Spellbinder gallery. The Tutor has a lower face that lacks skin, and wears a gas mask that pumps green gas to him. Which could be a lot of things - fear toxin, Joker gas, Poison ivy pheromones - but none of them good.

I can't say Cloonan and Conrad aren't putting a lot of things in motion, even if I feel like I lack context for half of them.They're trying hard to create a sense of the cast being hemmed in and under siege, while also trying to make the Hill feel like a real place. Work in progress on both those fronts, but at least they're trying. I feel like the coloring could stand to be a bit brighter. I know it's Gotham, it's dirty as hell, they operate mostly at night. But Stern is doing some interesting color combinations, they're just murky. The Tutor's art doesn't pop nearly as much as it should, even with all the surrounding buildings being drab.

The Thing #3, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Interesting that Ben can get a black eye. Wouldn't think rock would bruise.

Ben, Amaryllis and Bobby make it back to the surface and find the cops waiting. Ben remote calls the Fantasticar and they bail. They head to Brusque's apartment the next day, and when Ben touches the poster of Amaryllis, the Champion of the Universe pops up. Cue 7-page fight across the city, ended when Amaryllis smacks the Champion in the head with the weird light vial. They flee the cops again, and chat with the Champion in Reed's interrogation room. Champ says he was hired to protect someone for the Matriarch, and he's there to save the universe.

So Ben's figured out, if he hadn't already, his two new friends aren't what they seem. Credit again to Mosley for writing Ben as observant and smart. Amaryllis seems connected to the weird pixie that got Ben in the dating app, and Bobby's having conversations about the burden of life without end with the Champion when they think Ben's not around. Are they both manifestations of some abstract concept? Bobby as Curiosity or Wisdom, Amaryllis as. . . I don't know. They can't be just everyday people, but beyond that I got very little. What's their interest in Ben Grimm?

How's it going to relate to his temper and unwillingness to give up (things he mentioned in his profile for the dating service)? As Champion notes, Ben attacked first, though it's hard for me to see Champion not throwing a punch if Ben held off. Is there a point Ben's going to have to give up, accept that some things, (like death, for instance) are inevitable?

The Predator: Hunters and Hunted - James A. Moore

Yes, it's a prequel novel to the Predator movie that came out in 2018. The one I watched part of in a hotel room, unaware a tornado was destroying my apartment. Look, the book was $3, it would have to be pretty bad to not be worth that.

It's not actually that bad. Basically, a Predator comes to Earth. The U.S. military and CIA are aware of the fact these things exist, and when they get wind of this one running around in north Florida, they send the 8-man team they've been training for this to capture it. Which they do, surprisingly quickly. The book is about 300 pages, and they catch it by page 130.

Of course, it doesn't stay caught, because there are people within the project with motives of their own. Like letting it escape with a tracking device on it, so it'll lead them to its ship. Gotta love how people understand it's an alien from a species vastly more advanced than us, but they treat it like a dumb animal. Moore spends a fair amount of pages on the jockeying for power behind the scenes. The bland schemer in the suit angling to take control from a general and a guy who survived encountering a Predator in Vietnam. That stuff would seem more important if I re-watched the movie; here, it's just a lot of talking going on while the Predator kills a bunch of people.

Moore also spends time narrating from the Predator's perspective. The process behind its thoughts. That if it causes a little carnage and then waits, it might get better prey. Its weaknesses, its particular brand of honor. There's a few things in there about the alien's species undergoing dramatic changes and them not being sure why that, again, feels like something paid off in the movie. Doesn't ring a bell, but I could have missed it.

One thing that's interesting to me is the novel explicitly references Predator 2 more than once. One of the researchers in the project is even the son of Gary Busey's character. But the first movie is at best, vaguely alluded to. Which seems strange. Dutch and his crew were American soldiers, on an (unwitting) job for the CIA. Wouldn't Dutch, who was in command of his own elite fighting unit, be someone they would absolutely debrief?

'The next report to the general resulted in a furious demand for action. So the next day, all of the remaining agents went hunting. They did it together, thinking there would be safety in numbers.

Remembering made Pappy desperate for a drink.'

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 1

3 weeks has actually produced a decent number of comics to review. 8 altogether, which doesn't count the third issue of The Rush, which I wasn't able to find. And anywhere from 3 to 6 more coming out this week. I can't tell if Diamond's got their website crap sorted to where I can trust what's listed under New Releases. It's weird, having so many comics after the recent lean years.

Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost #2, by Jim Mahfood - The photo image of the actual human hand on the cover is odd. Reminds me of the collage I had to do for the last art class I took, a long time ago.

Turtleneck Jones shooting himself in the head releases some cheerful robot named Natas, who kills almost all the guys threatening Dio with a pair of guns named "Chucky" and "Bride of Chucky." Mahfood does the gunfight in black and white, before bringing the colors back in the next scene. Oh, and shooting himself in the head also killed Turtleneck Jones, but he'll be back in three days. Just like Jesus! Natas and Dio meet a little chickenbot who gives her a map to dream jump to the place she needs to recover what she needs of Billy, then self-destructs. The chickenbot also claims the person Dio was supposed to meet was a spy, but they can trust him. Sure, seems legit.

In other news, Gordi didn't die, thanks to Becsu of the Azarian Tribe, which is sister to the Grrl Scouts Army. And Mistress Tako's still trying to help the Teeth escape the place where it's trapped. Dio also gives us another glimpse of her and Billy, this time how they started dating. It involves a clay dick, dream jumps, and wet t-shirts. I started laughing as I finished that sentence. 

This comic is just bizarre. Mahfood's all over the damn place with the story. The color schemes he use vary from one scene to the next. Gordi and Becsu are a similar shade of blue-green set against black and yellow backdrops. Natas and Dio's scenes use more sky-blue contrasted against white. Tako and the Teeth are in black and white, except for Tako's red cloak, and those pages are just filled with swirling lines and circles and weird floating eyes. It's kind of like a Ditko Doctor Strange image, except there's more emphasis on it being wild and less on clarity. I don't think this is a comic that's necessarily big on clarity, though.

Lunar Room #2, by Danny Lore (writer), Gio Sposito (artist), DJ Chavis (colorist), Andworld (letterer) - I guess if you can't change into a werewolf, a big honking sword is a decent consolation prize.

OK, the sword Zero stole a piece of was forged long ago during a special alignment. The blacksmith was then killed by shadowy robed types, under the usual horseshit about it being powerful and for everyone's own good. Anyway, the sword actually unlocks access to the "lunar room", and if he can get there, he becomes the most powerful mage alive. Easily able to break the curse. If he lives long enough, which could be dicey. His brother's already tracked down Cynthia, although he only sent humans to fight her, which didn't end well for those dopes. And her old partner Angie, along with Angie's new partner, heard about Cynthia being able to transform (while shaking down people for protection money, essentially), and new guy spilled to their boss. Just not soon enough, so she burned him alive. 

Lovely people. This is going to be one of those stories where everyone sucks, isn't it? This Gloria's a crime boss, and clearly the short-tempered, violent sort. Angie's clearly willing to murder or intimidate people who pay up, just for a little muttering. Cynthia used to work with her, so she probably was the same. Zach's brother seems like a jerk, from the brief glimpses we got of him, and Zero doesn't seem like a good choice for, 'the most powerful mage alive,' as he put it. I don't know why. He just seems untrustworthy. Maybe because he doesn't have much on his side, so he's playing sneaky to give himself a chance.

Hard to know who to root for here. I figure Lore will eventually reveal why Cynthia was "bound" by Gloria, and it'll probably be something like refusing to disembowel the child of someone who couldn't pay up. Which, better than her going along with that, certainly. And we might find out Zero was always the unloved child, the Zuko to his brother's Azula, and that's left him struggling for any self-respect. At this point we don't really know enough about either of them to say. Cynthia's grumpy and impatient, Zero's not great with people.

Sunday Splash Page #202

 

"Snapshots of an Impending Divorce," in Ghost Tree #3, by Bobby Curnow (writer), Simon Gane (artist), Ian Herring and Becka Kinzie (colorists), Chris Mowry (letterer)

This was an odd little mini-series from, OK, I thought it was 2017, but actually it was 2019. Cripes, feels like a million years ago. I picked this up, I think because the second issue cover caught my eye.

It's a story about the danger of trying to live in the past, or ignoring the present. Brandt and his wife had an argument of some sort, so he flies to Japan to stay with his grandmother for a while. Meets his grandfather's ghost, and realizes there's a tree in the forest where ghosts gather. Brandt can interact with them, just as his grandfather could, so he does that.

Is he helping them find peace or running away from his problems? A little of both, but definitely the latter once Arami, who he dated one summer while he was here, shows up. Why go home to a marriage that seems to have fallen apart, when he can stay and talk with someone who is exactly how he remembers her?

It's more than just Brandt's relationship drama. There's the question of why Arami and his grandfather are still hanging around. The question of what's going on with the monster in the woods, which Gane draws as a sort of giant centipede with a mouth full of pointy teeth inside a larger mouth of pointy teeth. Do we really not have a term for that? I'd try to come up with something, but I'm afraid what sort of internet searches this blog would start showing up on.

Ian Herring, whose work helped Ms. Marvel maintain a consistent feel through a whole host of different pencilers, colors most of the mini-series. He uses a faded green and dull gold during a lot of the day-to-day scenes. The mundane stuff like dinner with the family and cleaning gutters. When the spirits show up, the colors grow darker, taking on a bluish tint when Zero, the mysterious guardian makes an appearance. When the monster arrives, everything shifts to red hues. The tones aren't bright at any point, but the colors are stronger, showing the allure of Brandt sticking with this rather than going back and dealing with his shit.

Saturday Splash Page #4

 

"Everybody Wants Magneto," in X-Men vs. Avengers #2, by Roger Stern (writer), Marc Silvestri (penciler), Josef Rubenstein (inker), Christie Scheele (colorist) Joe Rosen (letterer)

No, not Avengers vs. X-Men, the 2012ish tentpole event that gave us Wolverine killing polar bears in Antarctica. I'm not touching that crock of shit with a ten-foot pole. 

This 4-issue mini-series from 1987, running almost concurrently with Fantastic Four vs. X-Men (see Sunday Splash Page #190), which started two months prior. That story focused a little more on the desperate situation the X-Men were in after Mutant Massacre. Hiding out on Muir Island, searching for some way to save Shadowcat's life, especially once Reed Richards turned them down.

That mini-series did spend some time on the difficulty Magneto faced trying to move to the other side of the tracks after joining the X-Men. The FF met his plea for help with suspicion and anything that started to go wrong only reinforced their doubts. This mini-series leans more heavily into that side of things, as well as the fallout of Magneto's interrupted trial in Uncanny X-Men #200. 

Parts of his old Asteroid M base fall to Earth, and Magneto goes to make sure some important devices he left behind are either destroyed, or don't fall into other hands. The Soviet Super-Soldiers are on his trail, determined to bring him in for sinking that Soviet submarine, dead or alive. Preferably dead. The Avengers are not OK with this, for various reasons. Thor thinks it's dishonorable, She-Hulk and Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) question the legality of it. Captain America just really thinks Magneto needs to stand trial for his crimes, and does not agree with the finding of a previous court that this is a different Magneto from in his early years because of that Defenders story where Magneto got de-aged then grew up again from a baby.

I'm not sure about Roger Stern having Captain America compare Magneto to Hitler, when he says the world must not be denied its chance to see Magneto stand trial the way they were with Hitler. That feels like a bad analogy to use, for a host of reasons.

In the middle of all this are the X-Men, unsure where their responsibilities lie. Magneto is being cagey about what he's after, and keeps taking off alone. He's actually trying to keep the X-Men from being dragged into his mess, but since they're already dragged in, Wolverine feels like Mags is playing them for patsies and ditching them once they aren't useful. Should they make Magneto stand trial? Can he get a fair trial? He's been an X-Man for about five minutes, how much leash do they give him? Do they keep trusting him until he explicitly goes bad, and would that be too late?

On top of all that, they're outgunned. If not by the Soviet Super-Soldiers, definitely by the Avengers. Especially when you consider this is an Avengers' roster with Monica Rambeau, when she's being written by Roger Stern. Stern really plays her up as this weapon neither of the other teams has any defense against. She can slip through Magneto's force fields, and catch up to Rogue or the Blackbird effortlessly. Short out Titanium Man's armor when he's possibly overpowering Thor (who is under Hela's curse of having brittle bones at this point.) Although Stern came up with a vague excuse for Longshot and Psylocke not to be around (they "stayed behind" while the rest of the team went to lounge at a lake somewhere). I suspect a telepath would have leveled the odds at least a little against Captain Marvel, and leveling odds is what Longshot does best.

But this way it plays into the feeling of the X-Men being off-balance and just scrambling to stay alive while under attack from enemies on all sides. There's too many threats, too few people they can trust, no mansion in Westchester or any other safe haven. They just don't have enough firepower to stand up to it. So they have to play hit-and-run, try to hide and sneak around.

The last issue is written by Tom DeFalco and Jim Shooter, and drawn by Keith Pollard and Rubenstein, with three inkers. I don't know if there was some editorial difference of opinion leading to Stern and/or Silvestri getting pulled, or it was just a deadline crunch. It sure feels like they decided to change the ending for some reason.

2021 Comics in Review - Part 5

As always, I wrap up with the post ranking all the books and creative teams against each other. As always, I'm only considering things I actually bought and read in 2021. Why would I try to rank something I hadn't even seen?

Favorite Ongoing Series (min. 6 issues):

1. Black Cat

2. Runaways

3. Moon Knight

I mean, there were only three books I bought more than six issues of last year, total, so it was a pretty narrow category. Hopefully I find a few more ongoings worth following this year. Anyway, even if I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the previous volume, Black Cat was still the easy winner. Runaways just had such a sedate pace that I got frustrated with it, and I don't like the look of Moon Knight nearly as much as the other two.

Favorite Mini-Series (at least 50% shipped in 2021):

1. Midnight Western Theatre

2. White Lily

3. Kaiju Score

I really enjoyed the mixture of monster-of-the-week with Westerns, and the interactions between Alexander and Ortensia. Like I mentioned yesterday, White Lily felt too jam-packed at the end, to the point it blunted some of the impact, but the story was well-told and I like some of the artistic approaches for the air combat scenes. With Kaiju Score, I enjoyed the whole concept behind it, and Patrick's writing is slick enough I don't mind that Marco got really lucky, because he worked hard for this score, and he deserved a little good fortune.

Everfrost would have had a chance, but there's things about the story and the characters that still don't make a ton of sense. Locust is only half-done. None of the other options were good enough to be in the running.

Favorite One-Shot:

1. Giant-Size Black Cat

2. Sweet Downfall

3. Black Cat Annual 2021

As far as the Black Cat nominees, I had to give the nod to the capstone to MacKay's run with the character. Even if Sweet Downfall was closer to a sampler than a real one-shot, it was interesting, and I liked it a lot more than Cardoselli's other work. Whether that would impression would hold over the entire story is another matter, but the other options were generally underwhelming.

Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel (anything I bought in 2021):

1. Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover's Bandette volume 4: The Six Finger Secret

2. Ann Nocenti and David Aja's The Seeds

3. Magdalene Visaggio and Eva Cabrera's Kim and Kim volume 1: This Glamorous, High-Flying Rock Star Life

I think Bandette is more or less required by the Blog Constitution to win any year it actually ships. I'm always down for Ann Nocenti's writing, and Aja does good work, assuming you don't die waiting for it. Kim and Kim was weird and the plot was all over the place at times, to the extent I'm not sure the characters even know what's happening, but it was funny and cool. It narrowly edged out Hero Hourly and probably Grrl Scouts - Work Sucks, since I think Mahfood had found his footing artistically better by that point than one the first volume.

Favorite Manga (see above):

1. Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&! volume 15

2. Mitsuru Aachi's Cross Game volume 3

3. Jin's Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General volume 6

As with Bandette, I think Yotsuba&! winning any year it ships is in the Blog Constitution. I do wonder how far Kiyohiko intends to go, because it feels like it's building towards something. Maybe just Yotsuba's first day of school, I don't know. Volume 3 of Cross Game was the end of the line for imminently hateable Coach Daimon, and the awkward romance stuff wasn't getting too ridiculous yet. And volume 6 of Precarious . . . was a nice, mostly tentacle sex joke free return to form after a disappointing previous volume. Other than those three, I probably would have put one of the three volumes of Eniale and Dewiela in, but I'm not sure which one.

Favorite Writer:

1. Jed MacKay

2. Louis Southard

3. Ann Nocenti

Nocenti's a little bit of a cheat, maybe, because it's based off my buying that collection of The Seeds, which I think was actually released in 2020. But hell, I didn't specify this was only based on new single issues. Anyway, MacKay had all the Black Cat and Moon Knight stuff working for him, and Southard wrote Midnight Western Theatre. Next writer up probably would have been James Patrick for Kaiju Score and Hero Hourly.

Favorite Artist (min. 110 pages):

1. David Hahn

2. C.F. Villa

2. Andres Genolet

Villa beat out Genolet for the second spot because while they're both good and body language and expressive faces, Villa has the edge on action sequences. Not that Runaways has a ton of those. Hahn won out because his linework is clean, easy to follow. He can do violence when he needs to. He can do comedic reaction stuff when he needs to.

For artists with less than 110 pages, Javier Rodriguez and Sami Kivela would be at the top of the list for sure.

OK, that's it. Now we can move on without ever thinking of 2021 again. On to 2022!

2021 Comics in Review - Part 4

David Hahn ended up as the artist who drew the most pages I read this year, at 163 between Midnight Western Theatre and Impossible Jones. There were five other artists who broke the 110-page mark: Damian Connelly (147 pages), Alessandro Cappuccio (130), C.F. Villa (130), Andres Genolet (128) and David Wachter (120).

Sweet Downfall #1: This was really a teaser of sorts for a larger graphic novel Stefano Cardoselli was releasing a few months later. I hadn't exactly loved Live Die Reload, but I didn't have a hell of a lot else coming out in January, so a bit of a story about a crash test dummy-turned-hitman sounded worth a look. I might try to track down the full thing one of these days.

Sympathy for No Devils #4, 5: The last two issues of Brandon Thomas and Lee Ferguson's story about a murder mystery in a world where there's only one human left (for reasons I'm unclear on). That mystery was honestly more interesting than the murder of a very large being that was actually being investigated.

Tales from the Dead Astronaut #1, 2: Well, I just reviewed an issue of this last week, you know what it's about. Three stories, seemingly unrelated, told by the floating skeleton of a dead astronaut. Except perhaps not so dead by the end of issue 2. Currently only one of Jonathan Thompson's three stories really interests me; two out of four if we count the astronaut himself, and I go back and forth on Jorge Luis Gabotto's art, though I prefer it when it doesn't seem like he's using watercolors. The last issue is supposed to be out next week, and I'm still dithering about whether to get it or not.

The Thing #1, 2: Walter Mosley and Tom Reilly (with Jordie Bellaire on colors) with a story about Ben Grimm having a bad day that is rapidly turning into some weird love story/cosmic struggle about the nature of people. Or something. I'm mostly guessing on that "cosmic struggle part". Mosley writes a decent enough Thing, and other than some trouble with drawing Ben's face from a three-quarters angle, Reilly's doing a really good job.

The Union #2-5: What was originally supposed to be an Empyre tie-in quickly became a King in Black tie-in, but Paul Grist doesn't waste much more time on that than he can avoid. It's more about an old super-villain trying to steal an item of immense power, only to find himself outmaneuvered by a modern-day, dipshit tech bro villain, I mean billionaire. While the heroes are largely too disorganized to even make a minor attempt at stopping him.

High Point: I like the designs for the new characters, especially the villains. Lady Shimmering Lights in particular was cool-looking. I would like to see them again, even as I know that has almost no chance of happening, unless they die in they get used as cannon fodder in the next Captain Britain book. Most of the team having no particular interest in following Union Jack was sort of amusing.

Low Point: Given the general ineptitude and disharmony of the heroes, this feels like a book that needed Grist drawing it himself. Having Andrea DiVito's more standard superheroic art style didn't really fit with how largely irrelevant the heroes are. The team seems to disband again as soon as the threat is over, and that's tossed in almost as an afterthought in one panel. That feels like something that would happen in Jack Staff.

Way of X #1-3: My one real foray into the whole Krakoa quagmire, Nightcrawler's attempts to codify some sort of mutant belief system. Not a religion, though, because that's the sort of stupid thing humans do, and mutants are obviously much smarter than humans. *wanking motion* But hell, Si Spurrier actually used Stacy X, and did so in a way that didn't irritate me. Bob Quinn got to draw Magneto and Fabian Cortez barfing! Maybe that was the high point of all the comics I read this year.

White Lily #1-5: A story about Lilya and Katya, two women who were part of one of the Soviet's first women combat pilot squadrons. There's a lot of struggling with people doubting their skills, the harsh realities of actual combat. Katya's in love with Lilya, but Lilya falls for a guy. The story doesn't end happily, but that's no surprise given the body count on the Eastern Front. Lovalle Davis drew the first two issues, but after his sudden passing, Jake Bilbao drew the remaining issues.

High Point: It took me a while to get used to it, but I kind of like how the page is turned on its side during the dogfighting sequences. It gives the artists a wider (if shorter top-to-bottom) space to use, and Bilbao and Davis both take advantage of that an inset panels to simultaneously show us the wider scope of the battle, and what's happening in the cockpits as things progress. I like that Katya's shown to be an excellent pilot in her own right, not diminished because she's not as abrasive or reckless as Lilya.

Low Point: Preston Poulter could have spread this out over an additional sixth issue easily. The last two issues had a lot of pages, and certain things felt very rushed. Maybe that was intentional; that Katya was never going to last long once Lilya was gone, but it still didn't leave enough time for things to have a proper emotional impact.

You Promised Me Darkness #1-5: One group of people with powers granted by Halley's Comet try to stop another group led by a guy called the Anti-Everything from destroying the world through the power of fire and Gangam Style. We probably deserve to be wiped out for that song.

High Point: Connelly's good at creating the feeling both that this event is something a lot of people have been preparing for or working towards for a long time, but also that it's just one weird thing in a long line of them. Some of these characters, like Sage, have been around a while and lived lives full of weird stuff.

Low Point: The art, in black-and-white, but at times just black, makes it very difficult to distinguish characters or tell what the hell is going on. That's really the biggest problem I have. The story is interesting enough in theory, but trying to actually follow it is a chore. Also, Sage's tendency to wander off-topic during internal monologues and randomly shout "Yikes!" during said internal monologues was really annoying.

Yuki vs Panda #1-3: I was excited at the prospect of a young girl unwittingly setting off a blood feud between her and a panda, then having to survive it when the bill came due. Unfortunately, three issues in there had been no actual feuding. Instead we were getting teen romance hijinks and the panda failing to hold down a job at a hot dog cart. Sometimes I want worldbuilding. Sometimes I want violence. From this, I wanted the latter, and I wasn't getting it.

2021 Comics in Review - Part 3

Marvel ended up being top publisher in 2021, as usual. 54 comics, which is pretty well in-line with 2018 and 2019 (55 and 52, respectively). However, it's the first year since 2017 Marvel topped 50%, and that just barely (50.47%). Really owed more to all those issues with Vault and Grrl Scouts I talked about yesterday driving down the overall total than anything else. If things had come out how I thought they would in October, the results would have been almost identical to 2018.

The other 53 comics are divvied up between 11 publishers. Scout Comics came in second with 13 (12.15%). The other 10 publisher were between 1 comic (Image) and 6 (Behemoth). So it's a bunch of people getting very tiny slices of pie.

Lunar Room #1: So far, it looks like a half-assed mage wants to steal a magic sword from his twin brother, and he's going to use a lycan who can't turn into a wolf at the moment at his bodyguard, with the promise of helping her with that problem. We'll see how it goes.

The Marvels #1, 2: Kurt Busiek and Yildray Cinar seem to be taking advantage of Marvel's long history to tell a sweeping story with a lot of different characters, while also introducing several new characters to the toy box. It feels like something that will read better in collected format, though, so I figured I'd wait.

Midnight Western Theatre #1-5: Louis Southard and David Hahn's story about Ortensia and Alexander. A girl nearly sacrificed to dark powers and a vampire, roaming the Old West fighting monsters and cults for money.

High Point: Let's see, I like Ortensia's design. The bowler hat, the vest, even the striped pants. Oh, and the skeleton horse, very cool. I like the different threats they encounter, and how the story switches between past and future to fill in backstory while still moving things forward. I like that they left things open for more stories in the future, either Ortensia's training, or what happens after she and Alexander go to the property she owns in Oregon. My favorite issue would probably be #4, because it's the one where the fact they're friends is most obvious.

Low Point: I guess the fact I don't know if we will get any more of it in the future. That possibility is a real bummer.

Moon Knight #1-6: Spinning out of events I didn't read in Jason Aaron's Avengers, Jed MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio give us a Moon Knight trying to carry on his work as protector of those who travel at night, after having turned against Khonshu itself. So there's a lot of exploring why Marc Spector does what he does, and why he does it that way. Plus, some expansion of the Moon Knight mythos with the notion Khonshu would have more than one "fist".

High Point: The scenes inside Marc's head, like in issue 1, when the guy tries to take him over with his mind-controlling sweat (a clever idea, but still gross) are lovely, and kind of creepy. That janitor's mind being bound up and stuffed in a sarcophagus somewhere in the back of Marc's head was disturbing. And I'm never going to complain about a respectful Tigra appearance, even if I don't understand why Reese didn't go to her for help in issue 6 instead of Dr. Badr, who wanted to kill her for being a vampire. And MacKay pulling Zodiac out of mothballs could be interesting, depending on what he does.

Low Point: Cappuccio's city scenes are always eerily empty. There's never anybody on the streets, never any cars driving around. If Moon Knight is protecting these people who travel at night, shouldn't we see more people, you know, traveling at night?

One-Star Squadron #1: Between this and Deadbox, it's probably best for me to conclude I'm not on the same wavelength as Mark Russell's writing. This just felt ugly, and from what I saw the second issue didn't get any better. Like it's making fun of the people trying to get by in the "gig" economy, rather than jabbing at the people running it.

Power Pack #3-5: I don't think Ryan North had much interest in Marvel's pandemic-aborted "Outlawed" event, except as an excuse to do a Power Pack mini-series. Which is fine, because he and Nico Leon made this extremely enjoyable book as a result and that's all I need. The Wizard got treated like the putz he is, which is always good.

High Point: Taskmaster showed up and lost because he can't help showing off, which is accurate. I already mentioned the Wizard getting humiliated. The panel Leon drew where we see the Wizard coming up with plans to use the Pack's powers to defeat other villains. Like his plan in case of "disagreement with Juggernaut". The best part, though, was Wolverine helping the Powers out by staging a fight with him in a purple outfit calling himself "Wolvermean", Wolverine's evil twin. That might actually be the high point of all my comics this year.

Low Point: I didn't like the notion that when the kids are angry right after they've lost their powers, that the anger is because some of the Wizard leeched into them while he was stealing their abilities. Why can't Katie just be angry on her own that a stupid law lead them into the hands of a super-villain who stole their powers and tried to kill them? She's like, 8, can't she just be angry about that without it having to be the villain? Because it certainly didn't seem like any of their better natures soaked into the Wizard.

Runaways #33-38: Rainbow Rowell wraps up her stint on the book with Andres Genelot as artist. It's a bit rushed, as things get introduced (like a Gert from the future here to take Chase with her), then we don't find out what happens as a result. And there's no telling if the next writer will pay it any mind whatsoever

High Point: We didn't get a lot of it, but Gib's continuing integration into the group, and high school life was entertaining. Molly hitting a growth spurt and being taller than Nico was a nice touch, as was her immediate "who do I punch?" reaction to seeing two Gerts. Genolet continued the trend of having giving each character a distinct fashion sense and style. Which is not normally something I worry about, but it's a tradition on Runaways titles, so it's probably important. The star of the book is Doombot, of course. As is only fitting, because DOOM! is always the star of any book in which he deigns to appear, so how could one of his creations fail to do as much?

Low Point: Issue 36 being only 18 pages wasn't great, since there certainly wasn't any reduction in the price. I don't know if Rowell knew the book was being canceled or not, but if so, a little more urgency to the pacing wouldn't have hurt. Leaving the book on a bunch of cliffhangers like Karolina's return to her homeworld (and taking Nico's staff with her), and Chase going to the future, leaves the group in a weird spot. Especially with not knowing when or if they'll get another book.

The Rush #1, 2: Si Spurrier and Nathan Gooden bring us a story of weird things going on around a Yukon gold rush town. And one woman will have to do her best to navigate those dangers if she wants to live long enough to figure out what happened to her son. It's the sort of Western-setting I enjoy, with the hint of weird shit that I also enjoy, so I'm actually pretty hopeful for this one.

2021 Comics in Review - Part 2

I bought 107 new comics in 2021, an increase of 34 from the previous, blighted year. Still the lowest total for a year where comic distribution wasn't completely disrupted for over two months. Actually, it would have been higher, but between Vault apparently soliciting books to come out a month earlier than they actually do, and the second issue of Grrl Scouts slipping into January, the total came out a bit lower than I expected.

Defenders #1-4: Javier Rodriguez and Al Ewing send a disparate bunch of Defenders on a scramble through a bunch of past universes after a guy seeking to remake existence with himself as the ultimate power. Except the team's very obviously getting jerked around by the guy that warned them of the threat.

High Point: It's a beautiful book. Rodriguez does most of the inking and coloring himself, changing up styles to match whatever vibe Al Ewing's going with for this Magical Metatextual Adventure. The whole "Kirby Science" look in the Sixth Cosmos was probably my favorite so far, especially the fight between the Silver Surfer and Zota. The Surfer either gifting or cursing baby Galen with the knowledge of all those lives he's going to devour in the next Cosmos was an interesting moment.

Low Point: I still don't understand what Ewing's talking about with Strange letting his magic do what it likes. He can bring it out, but he can't actually make it do anything? Plus, comics that are commentary about comics are not typically my bag.

Everfrost #1-4: I'm not sure how to summarize this. A scientist discovers something she thinks will help people escape the frozen world they're on, but finds she's been away longer than expected, and things are very different. And everyone has their own notion of what to do with her discovery. Sami Kivela draws it and Ryan Lindsay writes it.

High Point: Kivela's very good at showing us a world slowly losing to ice. Where you can see glimpses of what it was, maybe what Van remembers, but that's being buried. Which explains part of why she sees staying as a dead end, but also why others want to try and reverse what's happened. Along those lines, Van's ability to rationalize basically any action she takes. To insist looking to the past is a waste, while ignoring she's using emotional blackmail on a holographic recording of her mother to get what she wants.

Low Point: That said, what Van's after seems to keep shifting. Get in touch with other scientists, get off the planet. No, track down the guy cloning her son. No, destroy the alien thing she created so it can't be used, or just use it herself to remake the world. I guess that's adaptability, and again, she can rationalize whichever course she takes, but it gets to the point I'm wondering if she even knows what the hell she's really trying to accomplish.

Freak Snow #1: I don't know, some crazy guy living in a post-apocalyptic winter wonderland going on some made-up quest to alleviate his guilt complex or something.

Giant-Size Black Cat #1: The conclusion to Jed MacKay's Black Cat run, where he and C.F. Villa show us why Felicia was trying to get together three of the people with Infinity Stones inside them. As conclusions go, it works pretty well, though I hate to see Felicia get caught. At least it's only temporary.

Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost #1: Jim Mahfood returns to his Grrl Scouts universe, but with three different characters this time, focusing on one lady's attempt to retrieve her dead lover's remains from someone he owed a debt to. Mahfood's continued the evolution of his style from where it was in Magic Socks, and I like it a lot better here. I think partially because the coloring seems to match the art style better.

Impossible Jones #1, 2: Karl Kesel and David Hahn's book about a thief who gets caught in a super-science experiment and decides to pose as a hero while hunting down the member of her crew who betrayed her. They're trying to do a lot of worldbuilding really fast, but it's mostly working for me.

Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #1-6: Someone was running around killing the dragons of the Immortal Cities and stealing their hearts. The Immortal Weapons and some other folks are trying to stop them, but ultimately fail because. . .they were meant to, best I can tell. It ends with Danny losing the Iron Fist for what has to be like the 20th time as this point.

High Point: The first issue, when Larry Hama had Danny knock the head off a zombie, horse-riding warrior with said warrior's own arm. Also, Taskmaster was there, which is always good. David Wachter drew zombie destruction pretty well.

Low Point: It really feels like Hama needed to pad the thing out for six issues before getting to his conclusion because the heroes spend a lot of time running from one plan to the next, even though nothing they're doing is having any effect. Protect the dragons, forget that, protect that gate, forget that, bring the Heavenly Cities to Earth to unite the heroes. Ooops, that didn't work at all. The whole thing just feels pointless, like the cast is a bunch of idiot teens in a slasher movie running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And there's a whole thing about a lady wanting revenge on Danny that never gets any sort of proper payoff.

Jenny Zero #1-4: The daughter of a legendary kaiju fighting hero has to stop being partying and try to be a hero again. Which means learning the truth about herself and embracing it.

High Point: Magenta King's designs for the kaiju are pretty cool. Good sense of scale and the right amount of creepy to feel like a real horror, rather than somebody in a rubber suit. The interplay between Jenny and Aiko is pretty funny. Grumpy old lady master and smart-mouthed drunk kid is usually a good mix, and Dwonch and McKinney don't disappoint there.

Low Point: The fact that it's very obviously just part 1 of something larger. There's no real resolution at the end of the mini-series, since I wouldn't say Jenny has really even begun to confront her issues with her father. Which isn't even getting into the whole thing about the looming threat of the monster that killed him that the story ends on. I guess they were waiting to see what the reception to this mini-series was, but I'm not sure if this ending helps or hurts.

Kaiju Score #3, 4: The second half of Patrick and Rem Broo's story about whether Marco was finally going to be able to pull off a dream heist, or if there was going to be one little detail he forgot that tripped him up like all the times in the past. Although in this case there were really a lot of things that tried to trip him up.

Locust #1-4: The first half of Massimo Rosi and Alex Nieto's post-apocalyptic story. They move between flashbacks and the present, showing what happened when people first started turning into bug-monsters, as well as other kinds of monsters, which helps to explain why Max is running around looking for a particular kid and angry at some guy named Ford. Presumably the second half will be out at some point.

High Point: Nieto's depiction of how people transform, with skin rotting away and revealing bug features underneath, is suitably freaky. You can completely understand Max or anyone else being horrified and confused to see that. Rosi's ideas of how people would react are pretty bog-standard - Ford is your typical, "This is a sin from God of our sins" power-grabbing looney toon - but they're bog-standard because they work. Especially in the U.S., where people have used God as an excuse to do heinous shit before this was even a country.

Low Point: It works for the setting, but I wouldn't mind if the coloring was a little brighter. There are a lot of panels that are just too murky. The thing with the flashbacks means we get introduced to characters in the present without any idea who they are, so any impact of their arrival is muted.

2021 Comics in Review - Part 1

Hey, it's the comicsblogowhatchamfloogle's only review of last year's books that gets strung out over an entire week! Well, I guess Mike Sterling's look back at people's predictions for last year go a lot longer than a week, but whatever. Am I being thorough, or just lazy? Let's go with the former. Anyway, I've been doing this in the same format since 2008, so you know how it works. Look back at each title over the first four parts, then do the thing where I rank the books and creative teams against each other in a cruel struggle for my approval.

Batgirls #1: Spinning out of events in a bunch of Batman comics I didn't read, Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, and artist Jorge Corona set Oracle, Batgirl, and Spoiler up in a new headquarters/hideout, in a new neighborhood, where they will undoubtedly encounter new problems and hopefully at least one friendly person.

Batman Urban Legends #1: I bought this whole thing entirely for an admittedly sort-of amusing story by Marguerite Bennett and Sweeney Boo about Batgirl and Spoiler hanging out in Wayne Manor watching movies, and then getting sent out on an investigation. It was alright, but not worth the cost of the whole comic. Yeah, I make bad decisions, this is not news.

Black Cat #2-10: Jed MacKay's second go-round writing Felicia Hardy included a trio of King in Black tie-ins, a one-off story that was originally going to be an Annual, the conclusion of everything Felicia had been stealing for the Black Fox, and then a whole thing about Felicia gathering some of the people who now have Infinity Stones in them for a mysterious purpose. C.F. Villa drew five of the issue, Mike Dowling drew the Gilded City arc, and Nina Vakueva drew the issue with the "Queen Cat".

High Point: My favorite single issue was probably #4, even if Felicia's mostly in it at a distance while Lily Hollister tries to track her down. It's an enjoyable little thing about someone trying to be a better version of themselves, and Vakueva's art has a roughness to it that fits Lily's current situation. Other than that, MacKay having Felicia and Odessa hook up at the end of The Gilded City and then actually touching on it again later, rather than just letting it drop, and Felicia and her guys stealing the Spider-Mobile to use in a heist.

Also, Felicia hating Eddie Brock and symbiotes. One more reason to love her.

Low Point: I didn't love Dowling's art on The Gilded City. It was more realistic than Villa or Vakueva's, but that made it come off as flat and kind of lifeless. It didn't really reflect any sort of terror that I think was supposed to be there when the Black Fox trades Manhattan to the Gilded Saint.

Black Cat Annual 2021: Set after The Gilded City, when Felicia decides to get out of NYC for a time, and gets roped into helping South Korea's super-team deal with a mind-controlled member of their squad. There's a bit at the end that leads into Felicia's whole thing hunting down the Infinity Stone people, but it's not relevant to this particular story. Which is an enjoyable little romp that introduces some new characters that Joey Vazquez (I'm assuming, he drew this comic) gives some nifty designs, that I wouldn't mind seeing again at some point.

Black Jack Demon #1-3: A story about a boy in the Old West, trying to hunt down and kill a demon that emerged from the family mine, killed his father, and wore his face. Things don't go smoothly, but as of the the third issue, Silas appears to have succeeded. I'm sure nothing can go wrong for him now!

High Point: Writer/artist Nick Hermes uses a very Golden Age comics approach to his art. It's odd-looking compared to all the other comics I pick up, but the vivid, mostly single-tone colors and straightforward panel layouts works for the story. I think the second issue was my favorite, where we see Silas trying to continue the hunt, but also struggling with all the problems that come with that. Like money, and having no one to watch his back. But Hermes makes sure to add some nice moments, to give Silas something to want to survive for.

Low Point: I don't really understand who the guys in the ship that attacked Silas and the demon near the end of issue 3 were. Whether they were pirates of a sort, or some kind of harbor patrol. I'm also not sure why the demon needed to die in the manner it did, but I'm assuming that's going to be explained at some point, since Silas seems determined to go home and dig up the demon's treasure.

Black Knight #1-5: Si Spurrier introduced a new set-up for Dane Whitman in a King in Black tie-in, and this mini-series runs with it, while also giving him a daughter/partner to work with. It also established a version or origin for Camelot that plays into it's fairy tale perfection as being a deliberate thing, if that interests you. Also, Elsa Bloodstone is there, but she seems kind of annoyed about it.

High Point: I like the design for Dane's armor when he starts really tapping into his uglier emotions and using them to power himself up. Ummmmmmm, yeah, I got nothing else. Maybe someone can do something with the "shared burden" idea.

Low Point: I'm never really fond of writers doing the thing where all the other heroes hate or barely tolerate the main character, when it doesn't jibe with anything we've seen before. But that's where Spurrier goes here, that the Avengers only call Dane when they want him to use the Ebony Blade's power to obliterate something (when Thor and Captain Marvel are right there), and otherwise they would rather not see him ever. You can do it, I guess, it just feels like erasing a lot of past evidence to the contrary.

Count Draco Knuckleduster: It's part of the same story as Phantom Starkiller, which seems to be a sort of dark magic Star Wars. You got the energy swords and the evil empires, dark masters, the title character, who accepted subservience in exchange for a longer life and ends up in a life-sustaining suit. Instead of characters surviving beyond death by living in the Force, they get brought back as living corpses. I'm not sure where the whole thing is going, but it's sort of interesting.

Darkhawk: Heart of the Hawk: Three different stories by three different creative teams. Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley's story is set during their original Darkhawk run. Dan Abnett and Andrea DiVito's is from Chris Powell's time as a fugitive in space. Kyle Higgins and Juanan Ramirez set theirs at the end of the universe, to set up their mini-series taht came out later in the year starring a new Darkhawk.

Deadbox #1, 2: What I think Mark Russell and Ben Tiesma mean as some sort of commentary on American society, or maybe just small-town American society, aided by a weird movie machine that lets people rent flicks nobody's ever heard of. But it's just tired and stale. There's nothing here I haven't either seen somewhere else (and done better), or don't already know. It's not funny, it's not insightful, it's just there. Sadly not the last time Russell's going to let me down this week.

Deadpool #10: The last issue of Kelly Thompson's Deadpool book, and it's a King in Black tie-in where the cast spends the entire issue trying to kill one of the symbiote dragons. They've got Elsa Bloodstone in the cast and they can't do any better than that? Anyway, all the more interesting subplots Thompson was writing about Deadpool as King of Monster Island are left unresolved and as far as I know, nobody's picked them up or done anything with that idea since.

Sunday Splash Page #201

 

"An Electrifying Ending," in Ghost Station Zero #4, by Anthony Johnston (writer), Shari Chankhamma (artist), Simon Bowland (letterer)

Anthony Johnston wrote The Coldest City, which is what the movie Atomic Blonde was based on, which was enough to catch my attention. This isn't Johnston and Chankhamma's first mini-series starring the Russian heiress secret agent called Baboushka (real name Annika Malikova), but you can follow the story in this volume easily enough without having read The Conclave of Death.

It's a familiar sort of spy thriller. Someone is hunting down legendary "Ghost Stations" that the Soviets had scattered throughout the world, and destroying them. Baboushka is tasked by the CIA to figure out who is behind it, and what they're looking for. There are obligatory casino scenes, death-defying escapes from disasters both manmade and natural (my other option for the image was her trying to escape an avalanche on a snowmobile). The mastermind who has big plans that will, of course, endanger countless lives of other people. A trained killer that pursues our hero doggedly, with a fairly distinctive look by the end. That's her up there. She's got the eyepatch when Baboushka shot her in the face with a nail gun. 

Huh, Danny Glover killed a guy that way in Lethal Weapon 2. She must not have done it right.

But Johnston and Chankhamma use the standards of the genre pretty well. Annika's internal narration guides the story, and Johnston allows her to get frustrated with herself or annoyed with others where it's convenient, even as Chankhamma mostly lets the character maintain her cool exterior. It drops when it's a good time for it. Her coloring gets sharper over the course of the series. What I mean is, in the early issues, the colors seem to shade and blend together. In the casino, the coloring reminds me of the sort of gauzy filters they would use for actresses in old movies (smearing Vaseline on the lens or whatever). That falls away as the chase really begins and bullets start flying. As a result the linework is starker and better defined, making characters appear harder-edged, as Annika drops the Russian countess role and goes full butt-kicking secret agent.

The end of the collection teases there would be another adventure, titled "The Malikov Gambit", but it hasn't come out yet as far as I can tell.