Steady State at Mid-Year

Seems that as fast as titles fall of my list of things to buy, new stuff pops up to take its place. Certainly beats the alternative. So, what did June's solicitations have to offer?

At Marvel, there's still She-Hulk and Moon Knight among ongoing series. The latter seems like it might be bringing Marc's battle with Zodiac to a head. Iron Fist is wrapping up, and judging by the cover, Loki's involved in all this somehow. Wolverine: Patch would be on issue 4, if I'm still buying it. Undecided at the moment.

As far as new things, Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez are doing another Defenders mini-series. As much as I'm sure it'll be beautiful, I'm giving it a pass. I don't need another 5 issues of Ewing's meta-commentary paired with a cast of characters I mostly don't give a shit about (other than Tigra). Jed MacKay's doing another Black Cat mini-series, though it's called Iron Cat because Stark's involved. I notice there's an Iron Man/Hellcat Annual. Can we just have Felicia and Patsy team-up in a mini-series, and Stark can just team-up with himself in the annual? I'm sure he'd be fine with that. Finally, Steve Skroce is doing a 5-issue Thing mini-series called Clobberin' Time. I don't know why we're getting all these mini-series about Ben Grimm, but I'm fine with it.

Let's stick with new things for now. Dark Horse solicited a tpb for volume 3 of John Allison's Steeple. I didn't love volume 2, but he's earned benefit of the doubt. Paul Tobin and Alberto Alburquerque have A Calculated Man out through Aftershock, about a mob accountant who went into Witness Protection, who's going to have to get more hands on if he wants to survive. Fingers crossed he uses his math skills to rig up a bunch of wild death traps out of Home Alone, Rube Goldberg or Wil E. Coyote.

CEX Publishing is releasing a "Definitive Edition" of something called Silencers by Fred van Lente and Steve Ellis. Not sure what it's about, but the solicit caught my eye, which is, well it's not half the battle. 27% of the battle? Lev Gleason - New Friday has the first issue of Fantomesque by Jacob Norris. I don't know if it's going to be an ongoing or what, but it's $10, so I'm going to have to figure that out before I'd consider spending that kind of cheddar. Scout Comics has the first issue of Agent of Worlde by Deniz Camp, Jason Wordie, and Filya Bratukhin. This 4-issue mini-series was solicited last year as Chaos Agent. Fingers crossed it actually comes out this time. Finally, Seven Seas has the 8th volume of Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General. I ought to have got around to buying volume 7 by then.

So that's new three collections, one ongoing series, and three mini-series, plus whatever Fantomesque is. As for things that are continuing, there's Batgirls #7, Jenny Zero II #2, Kaiju Score: Steal from Gods #3, Lead City #4, West of Sundown #4, Broken Eye #3, and Distorted #4. Although I doubt any of the last four of those titles will be that far along by June. The two from Scout Comics were both a month late on their first issues, and Lead City and West of Sundown were supposed to start this month, but did not.

Heist

Gene Hackman's the leader of a crew of thieves. He got caught on camera at a jewel heist so he needs to leave the country, but Danny DeVito's withholding the proceeds to make him do a different job stealing a bunch of gold from a plane. Worse, DiVito sticks his incompetent nephew (played by Sam Rockwell) on their crew. Much double-crossing ensues.

I will say this for David Mamet: The guy's dialogue is very distinctive. I've only seen one other movie of his - the name of which I can't recall, but I discussed watching on here a few years back during a visit to my dad's - and I still had a hunch who was behind this fairly quickly. Probably the, 'quiet like an ant pissing on cotton,' line that did it.

So I don't pay a lot of attention to the opening credits. There's stuff happening on screen to watch.

After a while, though, the dialogue starts to wear. Definitely by, 'cute like a Chinese baby,' I was tired of the snappy, ultimately meaningless catchphrases. The one about how long is a Chinese name. Well, it depends on the person, jackasses! Not all names are the same length!

That said, the actual heist was nifty. The misdirection and preparation, the way Hackman has to adapt to the one security guard not being there when he was planning on it. I really wasn't sure how it was going to play out. I figured either Hackman was going to win, or Rebbeca Pidgeon (playing his girlfriend) would. Because I wasn't sure whose side she was on ultimately, besides her own. Which is fine. I don't think Hackman was really on anyone's side other than his own, at the end of the day. Got one guy in his crew killed, basically pimped Pidgeon out to Rockwell to throw him and DiVito off track. I guess Delroy Lindo's character came out the best, despite getting a bullet in what sure looked like it would be a lung.

The acting's good. They sell the dialogue. They play the roles so that things we (and DiVito and Rockwell) see early on, personality traits, come up later on as decoys. Oh, Delroy Lindo's letting his temper get the best of him again. Or not. That sort of thing. Rockwell plays an annoying doofus well. Very sure he's got everything figured out, not smart enough to second guess anything.

What I Bought 3/23/2022 - Part 2

It's Monday, which is bad, but the weather's nice, which is good. And there are comics to discuss, which is, well, context-dependent, but it's good in this case. Also, Alex and I are going to try and hit a small comic con this weekend, if plans hold.

Batgirls #4, by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad (writers), Jorge Corona (artist), Sarah Stern (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer) - My God, it's full of Batgirls. Eh, could be worse.

So the whole thing with Nightwing being taken prisoner from the end of last issue was just a hoax by Seer. That kind of gets a casually tossed in resolution at the start. But Oracle is sure she fixed her firewall this time, so it's time to track down the Tutor with the tracking bug they slipped on him last time. The tracking bug he found, so he's ready for them and Steph falls under control again, and starts attacking Cass. Who uses Steph to knock out all Tutor's other followers until Steph can snap out of it. Tutor is captured and taken to Barbara's old friend the psychotherapist we met last issue. Who is Spellbinder. Whoops. Never trust a guy with the last name "Dante".

I'm unclear why the Magistrates, who spot the Batgirls as soon as they head out across the rooftops towards the Tutor, do not attack. I guess the more accurate question is why Seer doesn't let them. She was perfectly OK with them attacking in issue 2. I thought maybe she has a plan for Tutor, and was going to let the Batgirls catch him, then take him away, but again, the Magistrates let Steph and Cass drive off (and where the hell did their car come from if they went by rooftops to get there?) with him.

This is a book where the smaller characters bits are working for me, but the larger plot is falling flat. The first third of this issue is Cass and Steph taking the day for themselves, before that night's mission. So Cloonan and Conrad have them interact with Mr. Dhaliwal (whose cookpot Cass returned last issue), who owns a bookstore, and continue with Steph's half-assed investigating into whether Mr. Greene, the sour-faced old man is this "Hill Ripper" person. They also meet Dante on the street and both of them can tell something's off.

The whole thing kind of plays into their characters, and Corona's selectively loose, exaggerated, expressive fits there. Cass is reserved, and Corona draws her in mostly draw clothes that don't have much loose fabric. She keeps her arms and legs in close, any free hand seems to be a fist, and she can be really intense. Steph, in contrast, is all over the place. Bright clothes, really baggy jeans, arms and legs flailing about. Much more energetic, much less controlled. 

Corona's art is better suited for this than the fights, where his tendency to not always ink himself very strongly means Stern's colors overwhelm his lines and details get lost. Plus, while he gives them large capes, he doesn't really do anything with them stylistically. Nothing like a Breyfogle or Jones using the capes to make them seem larger than life, or like living shadows or anything. The capes are just long pieces of fabric that seem to be in the way.

Also, it would be nice if Stephanie actually got to do something useful. So far, Cloonan and Conrad aren't doing much to disprove Stephanie's fears that she's a liability to the team. At the bare minimum, she should be more competent at following a suspect and trying to gather evidence than stumbling out of bushes and crashing into passerbys.

This book is on a real tightrope with me, and I'm not sure how much more time it's got.

Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost #5, by Jim Mahfood - I feel like this should be painted on the side of a panel van. Or maybe a fighter jet?

Dio is Kettlehead's prisoner, and as he had a bag experience with love, he's not going to let her retrieve her lover's ashes before hauling her off to Mistress Tako. Fortunately, Gordi and Becsu finally caught up, and Becsu jumps in, cutting goons to pieces with the power of her sword and the extremely large butt Mahfood gives her. Finally the guy with only one eye gets tired of all his buddies getting chopped to pieces and decides to just try and kill Dio with a poisoned blade. Becsu jumps in the way (that, with Mahfood going to black-and-white for those panels, feels a little like he's aping Frank Miller), but that leaves no one to protect Dio.

Except Turtleneck Jones, who's back from the dead and shoots the guy in the head. Kettlehead decides he's had enough and makes a rocket shoes escape. Becsu's dying words are to ask Dio to travel to Earth and meet the Grrl Scouts so she can be trained for. . .whatever her mission is. But it looks like they're still going to retrieve Billy's ashes first. I'm guessing that'll be the last issue. 

Which is good. This book is all over the place with weird shit, to the point I was debating describing it as "dream logic", but I think the thing that holds it together is that Dio is always trying to find Billy's ashes. Even when Natas seems to be dead (he starts putting himself back together at the end of the issue) and she's a prisoner, she's still asking if they could please go retrieve Billy's ashes before she's hauled off to her likely painful death.

That devotion to loved ones is recurring thing for the whole story. Gordi betrayed Dio out of love for his family, and agreed to help Becsu save Dio out of friendship. Becsu is, I think, protecting Dio at least partially because of the importance of Chouko to her and her tribe. Heck, even Matty, the one-eyed guy, hit his limit because his friend got killed. At that moment, the money no longer mattered, only his dead friend. There might be something similar between Turtleneck Jones and Natas, but I'm not clear enough on their whole deal to be sure.

It's interesting to watch the shifts in color across each issue. This one starts out with a lot of blue on most of the characters, with the backgrounds being a sort of off-white/cream color thing, all through the early stages of Becsu's fight with Kettlehead's guys. Then there's another of the "legal pad" pages of Dio and Billy's relationship, a two-page spread of Tako and the Teeth talking. That's mostly black-and-white, minus Tako's faded bloodstain cloak and Teeth's red speech bubbles. Then two pages of Turtleneck Jones escaping the cops that are mostly black and green backgrounds, with orange for the characters. After that, Mahfood goes back to the fight and yellow and orange dominate everything else. The speech balloons, the characters, any little lines used for emphasis on action.

I don't have any idea why Mahfood switches it around like that. It's just neat to watch.

Oh, and the panels from this issue are from the brief back-up story, where Gordi and his son find a polybagged '90s issue of Macho Tailfin, which cracked me up with such lines as, 'We'll be in and out faster than a crackhead sells his 8-ball jacket for his next hit of rock.'

Sunday Splash Page #211

 

"Yellow and Green Make War," in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #144, by Judd Winick (writer), Dale Eaglesham (penciler), Rodney Ramos (inker), Moose Baumann (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

What few Green Lantern comics I own are all from Kyle Rayner's stretch as the sole ring-bearer. The only one I bought at the time it came out was the final issue, for reasons I can no longer recall. That ends with him decapitating Major Force and sending his head floating into the void. Then Kyle decides to go into space.

Pretty sure the next time he pops up is Green Lantern: Rebirth, where he managed to not get snuffed by Geoff (goddamnit, I spelled it "Geoof" on the first try again) Johns, against all expectations.

The others are from the stretch when Kyle tapped into all the power Hal left behind when he reignited the Sun during Final Night, becoming rather godlike in the process. Kyle manages to not try and reboot the entire universe, but does gradually extend his abilities. On a grand scale, he travels to an alien world he visited previously, still torn apart by conflict, and simply makes violence impossible. Oh, people can try, but any attempt, from using a laser tank to a rock is thwarted by him. The idea seemingly being that, with killing or harming all their adversaries off the table, the sides will have to learn to co-exist.

On smaller scales, he reignites his then-girlfriend Jade's inherent powers, so she no longer has to rely on a power ring. He also tracks down his father, who was apparently an intelligence agent who wanted out of the life, and is so skilled, he covered his tracks beyond the ability of anyone Kyle knows to track him down.

Kyle ultimately chooses to recreate the Central Power Battery, which somehow creates a bunch of new Guardians. So we get a whole new batch of little blue morons. That was after Superman gave him the old, "we can't do too much for humanity or we stifle their potential," speech, and Kyle debating whether to stop Hal Jordan from going down his dark path. So he was going to mess with time, just a little. 

Kyle's presented as still inexperienced in some ways. Still only touching the surface of what he can do with these powers. But also wise enough to know when to ask questions. Ask Hal if he wants Kyle to change the past (unsurprisingly, Hal has an active role in this story.) Ask Alan Scott for his perspective on having this much power inside. And when he renounces it, wise enough to make some changes to his ring to address certain problems he's had in the past, like the ring getting taken away from him, or running out of power entirely.

It's an OK storyline, although he creates a new costume that's kind of hideous. Way too much white, almost no green. When he goes back to just being a Green Lantern, he creates the costume I remember seeing described as looking like a sneaker. I can see what they mean, but I like it all right. That may be because it was the one he wore during Joe Kelly's Obsidian Age storyline, which I was rather fond of.

Saturday Splash Page #13

 

"The Darkest Timeline of All," in X-Men '92 (vol. 1) #1, by Chad Bowers and Chris Sims (writers), Scott Koblish (artist), Matt Milla (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars started from the point where all the universes were destroyed, after Earth's heroes failed utterly to prevent this. Doom was able to destroy the Beyonders, because Doom is goal-oriented like that, and made himself god of a single surviving world, cobbled from pieces of those destroyed universes. Like Crisis on the Infinite Earths, but a lot less stuff salvaged, and much more messily pieced together.

Yes, even messier than Hawkman's continuity.

Marvel decided to lean into this by at least temporarily canceling all their ongoing titles. In their place, we got a bunch of four-issue mini-series, set in different zones of Doom's world. This is probably the oddest of those, considering it's playing off the early Nineties X-Men cartoon, of all things. Well, sort of. Sims and Bowers bring in characters that were not part of that cartoon as part of what is a weird story.

The X-Men get an invite to a rehabilitation clinic supposedly helping violent mutants set aside their destructive and self-destructive impulses. A clinic run by Cassandra Nova, who in this reality is a clone body of Xavier's (made by Apocalypse, I do not remember that plotline) that is possessed by the Shadow King. Nova has some weird plan to smooth out the X-Men's rough edges and neuroses, to make them into bland, pleasant sorts, presented as making them "BSP Approved", meaning Broadcasting Standards and Practices. 

Yeah, I don't know. It feels like meta-commentary, but it isn't like the cartoon wasn't in some ways nerfed by the BSP back in the day. We didn't see Wolverine violently carving people up, just robots. Same for Bishop and Cable shooting things with their giant firearms. Nor was their much suggestion anybody was getting any, but Nova apparently felt there was just too much tension and innuendo going on between Gambit and Rogue. And this is all part of a plan to make sure Robert Kelly (who is Doom's "baron" in this sector) gets killed by some Frankensteined mega-Sentinel, so Nova can take his place. It doesn't work, thanks to an assist from a bizarre X-Force squad. Having Bishop and Cable on the same team seems like it would violate some limit on the number of firearms you can carry.

I think this comic must have been released digitally first, because some of the panel layouts are just bizarre if it was designed for print. Not at all what Koblish's layouts look like on anything else I've seen of his, or anything else I've seen that Bowers and Sims wrote. Pages with lots of empty black space and only one or two panels (like the page up above). I assume those were meant to read like you swipe and the next panel pops up, closer to still in an animated feature. There are voice balloons where Nova says one thing, and there's a big red "X" stenciled over it and a little note saying it's inappropriate, with different, less suggestive in another balloon nearby. That said, the psychic battle between Xavier and Nova has some neat bits in it, with Xavier's consciousness being scattered into a bunch of little orbs that look very freaked out. I don't buy the Shadow King, Xavier body or no, can overcome the Phoenix, though.

As far as the four Secret Wars' mini-series I've actually read, I'd probably rank this third, although I haven't re-read Master of Kung-Fu in a while.

What I Bought 3/23/2022 - Part 1

Found all three books from this week, plus one from two weeks ago. So let's kick things off with the nostalgia titles from Marvel.

Wolverine: Patch #1, by Larry Hama (writer), Andrea Di Vito (penciler), Le Beau Underwood (inker), Sebastian Chang (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - That is an interesting dress Tyger Tyger's almost wearing.

Hama puts several pieces in motion right off. There is a Dr. Malheur who is performing some sort of experiments involving monkeys out in the jungle for some guy with a spider tattoo on his face. There's a General Coy roaming the general after a bounty. SHIELD is keeping an eye on things from a Helicarrier. There's a Soviet plane wrecked in the jungle, and two mutants who have also been "enhanced" who may be the subjects of the bounty.

And into all that drops Patch. Literally, because after Fury tells him to butt out, Logan jumps out of his buddy's plane - without a parachute. He runs into the two hiding and gets cut up and left for dead. I know it stretches credulity that a lot of people don't recognize Logan just because he puts on an eye patch, but he actually brings out the claws during the fight and Gimel and Beth still don't recognize him. I figured Logan did enough Cold War secret agent crap he'd be very well known to even fugitive Soviet agents/soldiers, just as someone they might have to kill.

But I should know better than to start trying to untangle the layers of Logan's backstory at this point. Anyway, my initial impression is the thread about Malheur and his experiments in unrelated to everything with General Coy and Nick Fury. I'm not sure which thing is the reason why The Prince asked Patch to go investigate. I'm unclear enough on the power structures of Madripoor to know whether Coy and Prince are rivals, associates or something else entirely. If rivals, then you figure Prince wants to know what the general's scouring the jungle for. But if the Prince is a crimeboss, then maybe it's the guy connected to the yakuza he's curious in.

Di Vito's art is his typical clean look. Underwood's inks add a little rough edge to what's kind of a pulp adventure, what with the spies and weird scientists and whatnot. The idea of Logan wandering a tropical jungle in a white tuxedo is a little silly, but the jacket's already being torn up, so it may not last long. I liked the full-page splash of Logan's descent to the forest floor, done as series of images of Logan falling and hitting tree limbs awkwardly. Cowles compliments it with Logan's scream stretched across a bunch of small speech balloons as he falls.

I'm sort of amused at placing the sound effect of Patch stabbing Beth's arm over the actual stabbing. I guess that is where the sound would emanate from, but it feels like they think they need to hide it. Although looking at the rest of the fight, Cowles seems to have other sound effects that also move on the arc of the attack. So maybe that's just the approach he (or Hama, or Di Vito) decided to go with it.

It's kind of weird, because I don't know that I'm interested in any of the characters so much as I am how Hama tries to tie all this together. Do the different threads even come together, or is it going to be a case of tying one off first, then moving to the next?

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #3, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The Strategically Torn Costume proves ineffective against Dr. Octopus.

Ben fights Dr. Trainer, who once again knows who is under the Spider-Man mask. She seems to be angry that her father cared more about Ben than her, though Ben argues that isn't true. Then she vanishes and a decaying Kraven shows up. Who turns into a bunch of spiders. Edward narrowly saves Ben from those. Ben heads to Ravencroft, figuring if it's no Chameleon it must be Mysterio. Again, Mysterio got put in an asylum? He's not nuts, he's just a crook with an ego. Send him to regular prison.

Either, way, he says it isn't him, so Ben starts trying every other foe he can think of, hoping it's not the Jackal. Well, it's not Jackal, but it might be worse. Yes, it's the return of the Spider-clone absolutely nobody requested, Spidercide! The one that could shapeshift and stuff. Yeah, I tried really hard to forget he existed, too. So much so I did not know his body releases toxins that produce emotional responses. Unless Ben is being metaphorical about toxins permeating his mind, digging into the darkest caverns of his psyche. It's DeMatteis, it's a possibility.

Spidercide being a shapeshifter would seem to make him the likely culprit behind the first date serial killer, but that feels too neat at this point. Especially since Spidercide seems to be fixated on Ben, and was so clingy in his "John Diaz" identity Ben basically stopped hanging out with him. The notion he was going out on dates and charming people seems before killing them seems unlikely. But there also hasn't been any forward momentum on that thread, so I'm not sure DeMatteis can deal with it in two issues. If he intends to. Maybe Ben not solving it because he's been caught up in these mind games is going to be a point.

I'm curious about Ben's notion that, unlike Peter, he isn't motivated by guilt. Even though he is supposed to be Peter Parker at this point. The point being Ben's life on the road, trying to carve out some sort of existence for himself has forced him to move past that. Which makes a certain amount of sense. If Ben spent five years believing he was the clone, then he would have told himself what happened to Uncle Ben had nothing to do with him. He didn't exist when that burglar escaped, and would have worked hard to reject what he saw as Parker's influence.

Baldeon tries some horror stuff with Spidercide's shapeshifting. The spiders pouring out of Kraven's mouth as his head decays, plus some multi-faced, multi-limbed howling monstrosity near the end of the issue. I'm not his work can quite carry it off. Maybe more shadows, more left to the reader's imagination, would work. There's a panel of Ben lifting the multi-faced thing where we can only see outlines of eyes and teeth and a few limbs that's kind of creepy. Baldeon does do a good job of drawing those panels so that Ben feels trapped. As the spiders swarm him, the panels are tilting so it's like he's falling or being pulled down and the multi-thing tends to dominate the shared panels. It's all around him so that even when he's attacking it, it looms over him.

Circle of Enemies - Harry Connolly

I hadn't intended to read this until next month, but last Friday was a really slow day at work. So, third book in the series finds Ray returning to his old stomping grounds in L.A. after a friend randomly appears in his room and accuses him of killing her and their other friends. I thought this was going to turn out to be some time loop scenario, where her saying that is what sets everything in motion, but no. 

Ray finds that his old car-jacking crew had encountered the guy who set the events in motion that led to Ray meeting Annalise, and Ray having to kill his best friend. Wally made them an offer of power, they accepted, and they are slowly realizing it was a very stupid decision. Wally, for his part, seems to have big plans, although they vary between making himself a big magic mucka-muck, or giving the entire planet a mercy killing.

Ray is hoping to find some way to save his friends, while being realistic enough to know he needs help. And this time, the Twenty Palace group doesn't screw around and actually send Annalise straight off. Although Ray again seems uncomfortable with some of her methods, and her indifference to collateral damage. He's a really slow learner. 

Connolly really seems more interested in slowly expanding Ray's knowledge of what's going on with magic in the world. Ray accidentally cuts himself with his ghost knife, which offers some strong hints it's more than just a handy tool. He also learns he's gaining a rep of his own. Wally is aware of Ray's previous adventure, that he defeated a power magic-user all on his own in the course of killing the sapphire dog.

In both the prior book and this one, he gets a sense that the Twenty Palaces are kind of doing a shitty job in their attempts to keep predators from infiltrating the world. Maybe because they take a scorched Earth, ends justify the means approach. Ray meets another wooden man in this story, who doesn't exactly handle himself well. Annalise says he's getting kicked out, in a way that Ray takes to mean killed. Great organizational philosophy. Like Vince Lombardi said, if you lose, you're outta the family.

'Annalise had promised to tell me what she learned about Wally's pictures. She had never offered to pass me information without prompting before. Now, just as she was trusting me, I wanted to be far away from her.'

What I Bought 3/19/2022 - Part 2

This has been the kind of month for comics I like. A few books every week, not less than 2 or more than 4. Plus, it's nice to actually read some of these first issues I've been waiting on, try to figure out what's worth keeping. But for today, a book I might not be keeping.

Lunar Room #3, by Danny Lore (writer), Gio Sposito (artist), DJ Chavis (colorist), Nathan Kempf (letterer) - That is not a load-bearing title sir, I insist you get down this instant.

There's a flashback to when Cynthia first met Angie and Gloria. Zero snoops around Cynthia's apartment, trying to get a bead on who she is. Learn a little about her interests and who she's been in touch with. Most of the issue, though, is Cynthia speaking with Zero's brother, who wants her to get the shard back. But he takes entirely the wrong approach, and it doesn't end well for him. Although I assume he didn't get killed like all his goons. He got tossed aside, but there's no corpse wearing an ugly sweater vest.

For the most part, Lore and Sposito use this issue to flesh out Cynthia. We do learn a little about Zero. That they're nosy and have a limited attention span. Also paranoid, probably with reason. There's a couple of panels where they debate leaving for a while as they looks out the window. The street below is drawn at a distance, but just a little closer in the second panel. Close enough to tell a couple of the people's faces are turned Zero's way. Are they looking at Zero, or is it a coincidence? We don't know, but it speaks to Zero's mindset. 

We also learn a bit about the group he and Axton are part of, and at the least how Axton sees the value of people (or maybe just Zero). But all of that is teaching us about Cynthia. Zero's snooping gives us a sense of Cynthia's current and past life based on what he finds. Letters to Angie she didn't send. Shackles, her reading choices. We see she used to lead her own crew of werewolves before she met Angie, even if we don't know what happened after.

The conversation with Axton is the main show, though. After his test with the goons doesn't work, he tries money. Then insults, then a more overt threat with the true believers of their little group. During the first half, he never looks directly at her. Which might be because he's driving, but not even out of the corner of his eye? He does in the second half, but he's always trying to be aggressive or dismissive. Never trying to understand what she's saying.

Meanwhile, Cynthia is pretty much always watching him, until her old crew show up. His show of force doesn't interest her at all. Guys with guns and axes, big whoop. We've already seen her beat a banshee. Instead, she's taking his measure, listening to not only what he's saying, but how. The fact he only talks about the Shard, but never about Zero unless she brings them up. And Lore takes this chance to try and establish that Cynthia has certain principles. That yes, she's worked for bad people and done bad things, but she does have at least one rule. That family is important.

Overall, it's a good approach, and yet I still feel like I'm waiting for the actual story to get interesting. I don't particularly care about Gloria, and I haven't seen enough of Angie to care about her, whether Cynthia still loves her or not. The Shard is still this vague MacGuffin. Maybe the arrival of Cynthia's old gang or pack could be something. On that line between, "I am interested to see what happens next," and "I think what happens next could be interesting, eventually," this book is on the latter side.

Game of Cages - Harry Connolly

The second book in Connolly's Twenty Palaces series finds Ray called suddenly into action by a woman he doesn't know. They head to a small town where someone is auctioning a "predator", one of the creatures from outside the universe that can be summoned, but really shouldn't.

Ray's out of his depth, as he's not only not working with Annalise, this new lady isn't even a peer. Merely a "investigator" with no apparent magical powers. When a peer does eventually arrive, he brushes off Ray entirely, confident he's got everything handled. He does not. 

As with the first book, Ray spends a lot of time investigating on his own, finding dead bodies and giving evasive answers to local law enforcement. Of course this time, there isn't the possibility Annalise will kick down a door and dismember whoever who has taken him prisoner at the moment. There seem like a lot of moments where Ray could easily have been killed, as there's at least one magic user involved that is well beyond his skills, but he seems to luck out. Some of that is planning - Ray is not a genius, but he may have spent enough time around criminals to know how they think - and some of it just seems to be he stumbles into a potential trap when there's no one there to spring it. 

Connolly has Ray constantly debating how willing he is to kill people when they've fallen under the "sapphire dog's" control. He doesn't kill someone, they raise an alarm, someone else gets sacrificed in a summoning, Ray feels guilty about it. Ray is very aware that Annalise wouldn't hesitate, would indifferently kill anyone who got in the way of her mission, including Ray. He comments on this more than once. Combined with the fact she's equally clear that he's an ultimately expendable asset of hers, it's just weird that Connolly writes Ray as being so relieved when Annalise does finally arrive late in the story. Like Ray's developed some weird dependency on her. 

Could be intentional, along with Ray being written as excited to get contacted for a mission. A sign that one of the things Annalise put on him, along with all the various protections, makes him unconsciously reliant or malleable to her. I don't think that's it. I think it's meant to be that Ray is developing a taste for this work, but is at least of aware of his own limitations.

'"I also want safe passage out of the country and your personal assurance that you will not try to kill me or any of my descendants, ever."

"Do you want my left foot, too?"

"If your left foot is of value, then yes, I want it. I want everything a man can want."'

What I Bought 3/19/2022 - Part 1

Had an owl hanging out on my windowsill one night a couple of weeks ago. Only noticed it at first because it cast a weird shadow across the blinds. No, it was not trying to peer into my apartment. This time.

Here's a couple of first issues from the last two weeks.

Slumber #1, by Tyler Burton Smith (writer), Vanessa Cardinali (artist), Simon Robins (colorist), Steve Wands (letterer) - Come on lady, don't allow stuff to escape from the dreamscape into the real world. That's just begging for dangerous invasive species.

Stetson, with her (zombie?) pal Jiang and tech guy Ed, helps people deal with recurring nightmares. By going inside their dreams and killing the hell out of what's tormenting them. Stetson has her own reasons, as she's seeking someone called Valkira, the Shadow Walker. Meanwhile, in the waking world (sort of), there's a series of murders being committed by people who all claim to have been sleepwalking. They wake up in a home they don't know, standing over a corpse they don't know. And there are marks on the wall, along with a demand to be brought to the "Dream Eater". During the interrogation of the most recent suspect, Detective Finch has a bad experience and the next time he wakes up, he's the latest suspect.

I wasn't sure if I'd dig this, but at least through this issue, I am. It hit the ground running. Showed how Stetson tries to help people with nightmares, gave us some quick intros to her crew. Do I want to know how she ended up working with a possible katana wielding zombie? Yes I do. Gave some hints to her past and why she's after Valkira, and at least suggests Valkira is the cause of the sleepwalker killings. Although part of me expects a bait and switch there. Introduced this Finch guy and showed how he gets dragged in, and why he may try to divert the other police away from Stetson. Because otherwise, her card showing up at all these killings really ought to get her dragged in for questioning at some point.

Cardinali's art makes everyone look a little strange. No incredible physiques, but everyone is beady-eyed or bug-eyed, or lumpy shaped. Stetson and Jiang are both thin and Stetson looks eternally exhausted. Finch and the other cop both have thick lines under or around their eyes. Really, everyone looks like they don't get enough sleep. But if being asleep is this dangerous, that makes sense. the people in dreams don't look that much different, fingers a bit longer, teeth larger and sharper. Enough to look a little weird, but maybe it's because Stetson's pretty inured to it by now.

Cardinali doesn't play with the weird effects of being in a dream, too much, beyond stuff like floating whales in the background. There is one bit where their client is running and falls, only to hit their back against the top of the panel

Broken Eye #1, by Martin and Xabier Etxeberria (writers), Inaki Arenas (artist) - Sir, your scar is cool, but severely undermined by that mustache you're trying (I emphasize trying) to grow.

Liverpool 1970 and a guy named Seamus finds a hand floating in the sea. A hand that belongs to the assistant of a judge who is trying to bring down Sebastien Delporte, who is, at least, an illegal arms dealer. Arms like guns, not like human limbs. Although maybe human limbs. There's a cop named Hathaway looking into Delporte, we'll see how that goes. And a man named Brendan is released from prison, determined never to go back. That could be difficult, as he's being told to purchase weapons from Delporte to defend the Irish from the British Army.

This feels like it could play out like a Guy Ritchie movie, where you can see all the disparate threads are going to come together, and they do some in some absurd clusterfuck. Seamus has a murdered man's hand, and since his right eye allows him to see things about the owners of things he touches, he's seen the face of the man who cut that hand off. Probably not admissible in court, but the sort of thing Hathaway would like to know, and Delporte would like to keep quiet. The sort of thing Brendan might handle for a discount. I don't think it'll be funny for anyone involved, however.

On top of that the Etxeberrias introduce other characters that are in Seamus' circle. Victoria and her son Felipe. Seamus seems to like Victoria and gets along with Felipe. Then late in the issue, he meets Eleanor and her dog Digs. My first impression is they're setting up the two women as opposite ends of a spectrum. Eleanor's blonde, white, seems younger, dresses maybe less casually. Victoria's older, Chinese, brunette, and they establish she's a sex worker. They both seem interested in Seamus, so we'll see how that plays out.

Arenas handles both art and color on the comic. The art leans towards clean but effective style. Not a lot of excess lines. A few to show creases around eyes, or jowls, but that's about it. There's a nice bit when Brendan's being released from prison with three rows of panels. The first shows his and two guards' heads as they exit the cell block. The next two rows are each three panels, and the middle panels are still Brendan, moving down his body as he's switching from prison garb to civilian clothes, and in the final row, fully dressed with his coat and suitcase as he leaves the prison entirely. For good, he says. The guards' presence and any of their comments are reserved for the panels on either side of him, and they cease to show up at all once he's outside the gates.

Sunday Splash Page #210

 

"Yeah, You Left a Corpse," in Great Lakes Avengers #4, by Zac Gorman (writer), Jacob Chabot (artist), Marissa Louise with Tamara Bonvillain (color artists), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

In late 2016, Marvel gave the Great Lakes Avengers their own ongoing series. It ended after seven issues. Chabot only drew this issue, all the others were by Will Robson, but this was the best splash page in the series. Zac Gorman tried to present the GLA, who were standard superheroes (if questionably successful at it), with situations where standard superheroics were of limited use. 

He moved them from Milwaukee to Detroit, setting them up in the remains of some old Stark factory (this during a period when Tony Stark was, by his standards, broke. Only one Quinjet for his Avengers team, the horror). They ended up against a former third-rate superhero, now politician, who was using supervillains to aid in gentrifying neighborhoods. By destroying what was there and driving out the people who lived there. That's what's left of him there in the background. After this, they dump his body in front of a hospital with a note describing him as a supervillain pinned to his chest.

I don't know what to make of that decision.

After that, they gotta face some quack scientist who captures Bertha to figure out how to reproduce her powers in a vitamin supplement. The team has to get themselves together enough to stop him, and then Deadpool shows up to personally tell them they got canceled. And during all that, Doorman's being followed around by a ghost that looks like a Mario that's fallen on hard times, who can't grasp he needs to move on.

Flatman was now leader of the team, as no one was sure where Mr. Immortal was, though he shows up eventually. When he does, he makes things worse. He and bertha have some bad history now, and he just seems to assume he gets to be leader again. Bertha reinvented herself as a plus-sized model and seemed much more short-tempered than before. Just kind of fed up with being on this team. Doorman had apparently been off working for Oblivion so long, he was largely out of touch with his friends and humanity in general. Also, he kind of sucked at ferrying dead people to the next world. Squirrel Girl's apparently too good to hang out with her old friends now. Ooh, la-de-da, she's on a real Avengers team. 

I mean, not really, it was the crappy one Sunspot was leading after he bought A.I.M. It had Red Hulk on it, that is a clear sign of a shit Avengers team.

Gorman added two new characters to the team. One is Good, the girl covered in blood up above, who is also a werewolf. The supervillains hospitalized her brother, so she threw a bottle at the politician's head. This was during a different interaction, before she nearly mauled him to death. For some reason, I thought I'd read Good was supposed to be trans, but I'm not sure of that. Everyone always uses "her" when speaking to Good, so that's what I'm going with.

The other new character was Pansy, a vaguely goth young lady that found Mr. Immortal's phone in a graveyard and when Flatman started texting him about the team getting back together, decided to show up, because she didn't like to assume the texts weren't really for her. She never does much other than hang around and occasionally point out things nobody else is noticing. I don't know what, if anything, Gorman had planned for her down the line.

That first four issues, it feels like a book about friends who can't remember why they're friends anymore. Flatman's the one who seems to really need them to be a team again, desperate to prove he can hold this together. Doorman's been away so long, it's hard for him to remember what he's even supposed to know about things.Bertha's happy to see him and Doorman initially, but over the course of the first issue, it's like she remembers what idiots all her friends are, and she gets progressively more annoyed. 

Mr. Immortal's return only makes it worse, and he's only there because Doorman pulled him out of the hole he was in. Good's there because she was being hauled into jail when the GLA's lawyer was showing up to get them out, and they covered for her. Pansy, as mentioned, showed up because she found a phone, and hangs around because. . .lack of anything better to do.

The fact they pull together in the second arc, and maybe even become inspirational figures to the people of Detroit suggests maybe was Gorman was going for the notion that even if you can't fix gentrification, corrupt politicians and urban infrastructure issues with punching, heroes can help people take pride in their city, and if you take pride in your city, maybe you can fix it up? I'm guessing. With more than 7 issues, maybe it would have become clearer.

Saturday Splash Page #12

 

"Princess and the Pain-in-the-Butt," X-Men and Power Pack #1, by Marc Sumerak (writer), GuriHiru (artists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Back in the mid-to-late 2000s, Marvel did a bunch of 4-issue mini-series starring Power Pack, mostly aimed at younger readers, mostly involving the 4 Power kids teaming up with some other hero or group of Marvel heroes. Most of the ones I've seen take the approach of each issue being its own, done-in-one thing, which makes sense if you're aiming at younger kids. Give them a whole story, to make it worth the money.

That's the case here, as each issue involves the Power kids running into a different X-Man, although they already know them in each case. Wolverine tracks Sabretooth down in a forest near a Halloween costume party the kids are attending. Meaning Sabretooth gets to lose to the Power kids a second time (counting Mutant Massacre, which is not referenced here, for obvious reasons). Mystique steals a device of Hank McCoy's at a big conference the kids' dad is attending. Mystique can't exactly slit people's throats, so she tries to win by shapeshifting into a giant purple monster, while retaining the same mass as always. That doesn't work great.

Issue 3, Nightcrawler returns to his old circus to find it under the control of the Ringmaster. Kurt gets hypnotized and the kids have to deal with all that, despite Katie's fear of clown and Julie's fear of snakes. In the last issue, Cyclops gets captured by Mr. Sinister and the quartet save his butt. Which is especially amusing after Cyclops dismissed them (and Alex especially) rather coldly after their first attempt to help went badly.

I'm a little surprised there wasn't a Shadowcat issue. I feel like, other than Wolverine, she's the X-Man who interacted with the Power kids the most back in the day. Plus, the Wolverine and Power Pack mini-series established Jack's got a crush on her. Don't know what the hook would have been, though.

There are a few things that seem to carry from one mini-series to the next. Jack torments his little sister. Alex has his awkward teen crush thing on Caitlin, and Julie's seeing a guy named Greg, who had an internship working for Mr. Sinister. But apparently he's not a clone of Madison Jeffries or something, just an actual teenager with a part-time job. Bizarre.

The GuriHiru art team's work is suitably clean and bright for the tone of the stories. Logan might pop his claws against Sabretooth, but nobody is drawing blood. Mustique shapeshifts into a suitably punchable monster, rather than trying to assume a harmless appearance to escape and/or murder people. They do have some fun with the costume contest, as Jack finds Wolverine is a very popular costume that year, and the kids have pulled out almost every variation possible, up to and including Dark Claw from the Amalgam universe. Real deep cut there, Ba-dum-tssh.

Random Back Issues #82 - Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9

From back before Geoff Johns was a big wheel at DC, with a remarkable lack of gratuitous, graphic violence. Still plenty of trying to explain continuity stuff, though. Is it coincidence that every time I try to type his name I spell it "Geoof"? Probably not.

Courtney Whitmore's been wearing the Star-Spangled Kid's old cosmic belt thing for a few months, while her step-dad Pat uses a powered armor he built. His son from a previous marriage, Mike, showed up unexpectedly, and this somehow turns into the story of how Pat could be an adult sidekick in the 1940s, and still be filling that role in the year 2000. It's not that weird, ask Dick Grayson.

In 1948, the Seven Soldiers of Victory get summoned by The Spider to defeat a new weapon of some old enemy of theirs. The old enemy is The Hand, the new weapon is the Nebula Man, 'a being whose touch has the power of twenty atomic bombs.' I can't remember if there even were 20 atomic bombs worldwide in 1948. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist says the U.S. had 50 that year, but we're still a year away from the Soviets having one.

Anyway, the Spider got Pat plans for a "nebula rod" that he's sure that will be enough power, right before he collapses. He had a map of The Hand's hideout, so the Soldiers head out to save St. Louis. Guess The Hand was a Cubs' fan, the stupid bastard. They better not let anything happen to Stan Musial.

One problem: The Spider's not actually a hero, which Billy Gunn (a friend of Vigilante's) shows up to tell them. Shows up too late, and gets an arrow in the neck. The only Soldier still there is Crimson Avenger's sidekick Wing, who beats the Spider. But Spider removed a key piece of the nebula rod, so it's not going to work. I guess rest of the team's finding the Nebula Man would be bad news, then. 

Well crap. Crimson Avenger uses the rod right as Wing shows up, but all that happens is everyone gets teleported to Tibet. Wing replaces the piece and uses the weapon himself, at the cost of his life (and possibly Crimson Avenger's sanity.) After two panels in a lava lamp, everyone's separated. Pat lands in ancient Egypt, spending a week as a slave. Starman, Hourman and 'some guy named Batman' Pat never heard of show up to rescue him and get captured. Great rescue. Prince Khufu, who I think is Hawkman eventually, helps them escape, but Pat learns he and the others are now 40 years in their future while only a week older. The exception is Vigilante, who spent 20 years in the Old West before anyone showed up. Because Johnny Thunder's an incompetent dolt, according to Pat. Checks out.

Star-Spangled Kid went on to join the JSA, and Pat tried to move on with his life. Married Mike's mom in Vegas, but neglected her and she left. Moved to L.A. with Mike to be tech guy for Infinity Inc., but Star-Spangled Kid died and Pat lost custody. Mike ended up in military school, but got himself kicked out by taking in a dog, which he named Patton, so he's moving in with his dad again. Brought the dog, too.

The Spider came up in James Robinson's Starman, since the Shade killed the one shown here, as this issue references, and his descendant came looking for revenge later. Johns even references the fact this version of Vigilante went on to open a bunch of chain steakhouses, which I first learned from reading El Diablo. Don't know if that's where it was established. I know, Geoff Johns referencing obscure bits of continuity? Unheard of.

[10th longbox, 190th comics. Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9, by Geoff Johns (writer), Scott Kolins (penciler), Dan Davis (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)]

What I Bought 3/4/2022 - Part 2

I hope last week was the end of the snow. I'm tired of people freaking out and rushing to the store because oh my gosh, two inches of snow! What will I do? It's so scary!

The Thing #5, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Ben, just because you took that belt off Champion, does not make it a championship belt.

Ben fights the Berserker, while Terrax pursues Amaryllis and the Faceless One (who might also be the Bodyless One) chases Bobby. The Faceless One dies beneath a barrage of acid spewing spiders. Bobby stays to watch because when is he going to see that again? Amaryllis takes offense to Terrax calling her a crude name and stabs him with a knife she got from Dr. Strange. It's a nasty little weapon. Ben, meanwhile, just beats the Berserker down and takes his weird staff-weapon thing. He also collapses. 

Ben's collapsing a lot in this mini-series, but the fights don't seem that hard. Don't know if that's important or not.

Bobby and Amaryllis return, although Amaryllis' story of how she survived does not match reality. And it's about then Dr. Doom shows up. Doom was commanding the other three, and the army of Warbots are his, and he really doesn't want to fight Grimm. He's out to rescue his mother's soul, which did not go to Heaven after Doom and Strange's efforts in Triumph and Torment. Mama Doom was captured by Death and is being held in some other dimension.

Ben's pretty sure Doom defeating Death on her own turf would be bad, so he beats Doom down, but refuses to kill him, against Bobby's suggestion. Instead, Ben offers to help Doom rescue his mother, if Doom will leave Death alone afterward. Bobby fears this will sunder Ben's soul, and Bobby's apparently part Watcher (???) so maybe he would know. Amaryllis is not OK with this plan either, both because she loves Ben, and because she's Death. And Alicia's weird boyfriend, and the little pixie that dragged Ben into this in the first place both either work for her, or are her.

Great, now Ben's going to have Thanos and Deadpool after him for stealing their gal. Whatta revoltin' development. I guess her being Death explains both her constant casual suggestions they kill enemies, her treatment of things like breakfast as novel, the Surfer's confused reaction to her. The way Reilly shadows her face in this issue when she mentions she read the Berserker cannot die. I made the mistake of thinking the mysterious cloaked figure was something other than just Death. I think mostly because Reilly drew Death with more flesh on her face than usual, and because the being looked male to me. My bad making assumptions.

This all kind of makes the shift in Ben's appearance make sense. She's been putting him in situations that give him the chance to armor himself. Gain weapons, gain power, gain tools that would send him to where she needed him. A place Doom would have to face him, and then Ben would crush him and his goal of rescuing his mother. I guess that's what the nightmares are about, too. Try to make him feel like, if he doesn't keep fighting, everyone's going to die and it'll be his fault. Then he keeps running into people he's traditionally fought, so that's what he does. He fights them, and she believes he'll just keep fighting, no matter what.

So I like the fact he defies that, refuses to kill even Dr. Doom. Then offers to help Doom. That feels very true to Ben Grimm. He doesn't want Doom attacking the Earth with those machines (I like his comment Doom would try to conquer the world over a Labor Day barbeque), but he gets wanting to rescue a loved one's soul. I don't see how Bobby can think this decision will sunder Ben's soul. Killing Doom, especially when Doom was beaten, that seems like the sort of thing that would wreck him. Unless he ends with his heart broken.

Villa and Zapata - Frank McLynn

McLynn's book is focused on the actions and ideologies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata during the Mexican Revolution, but it's not exclusively about that. It can't be, since what they did was shaped by and in response to the actions of others.

So McLynn starts with the reign of Porfirio Diaz, how he changed the rules to remain in power, how his aid to the owners of the giant haciendas and to foreign land investors increased dissent among the peasantry. Their land kept being stolen, and there was no legal recourse. Even when they had title deeds, they weren't honored. That in particular raised Zapata's ire, and was agrarian land reform was a consistent part of his movement throughout.

McLynn discusses the rise of Madero as a political opponent to Diaz, his flight to the U.S., the rise of various armed revolutionaries like Zapata, Orozco and eventually Villa. Madero's return and ascendance to the presidency is ultimately a disappointment to those who helped get him there. At least in this portrayal, Madero reminds me more than a little of the folks who run the Democratic party here in the U.S. More than willing to use the more radical elements to gain power, but always determined to cozy up to the people who were there enemies. That's Madero. He refrains from any land reform, preferring to try and make friends with the Army and the major landowners at the expense of the working classes who got him the job. So he ends up with no friends.

From there, you have the rise of Huerta and the revolution against him. Then the battles against the Carranza/Obregon front. The shifts in fortune for each major player, their shifting alliances, the escalations in violence. Huerta especially brings things to a level of brutality that leads to atrocities on both sides. Things don't remain at that fever pitch, but it seems easy for all the men in charge to fall back on that when things turn against them. Villa starts taking the old men in villages hostage so the people won't report him to the Army, or Pablo Gonzalez hauls all the people in the villages of Morelos off to concentration camps to take away Zapata's support.

The book does its best to parse fact from fiction on everyone's actions. This is difficult with Villa, where there are often many conflicting accounts. His, his admirers, and his enemies and detractors. So McLynn often will discuss each motive or theory in terms of which seems most likely. How accurate the conclusions he draws are, I don't know. Villa comes off as mercurial, self-aggrandizing in a way that works as both a great weapon and great weakness. His charisma is what helps him gather such a disparate group of people to his banner, and the loyalty he inspires wins him more than a few battles. It hampers him when he starts to believe his own hype too much, especially when he decides his failures are the result of turncoats. 

This happens with Zapata as well, during the struggle against Carranza in the latter stages of the 1910s. There are defections and betrayals, but both men grow overly paranoid, and seem to fail to realize that while there are those who will cheerfully go on fighting and killing indefinitely, most people are going to get tired after a certain point. Especially if there's an option to request amnesty or possibly even get a reward for laying down arms.

McLynn's theory seems to be that what ultimately doomed both men was a lack of ambition. Once Huerta was defeated and the time to choose a new national leader arrived, neither Villa or Zapata stepped up. Zapata because he had no interest - McLynn presents him as a man really only concerned with things in his home state of Morelos - and Villa because he felt himself unsuited for the position. Villa apparently is very impressed by intellectuals and liked to learn, big on encouraging education for children, but didn't feel he had the level of knowledge to be a leader. And, like Zapata, he was mostly concerned with his home state of Chihuahua, with his idea of military colonies. So each stayed out of the way at the national convention until it was too late, allowing Carranza and Obregon to gain popular support.

I don't think that turned out well for Mexico, but it's hard for me to fault either man for not reaching for a job they either didn't want or felt unqualified for. Also, it's hard for me to picture what Mexico might have looked like with either man in charge. I feel as though if Zapata tried to implement his version of agrarian reform over the entire country, he'd find himself fighting another revolution. One probably backed by a lot of foreign investors and possibly foreign governments. McLynn does a good job of keeping this book about Mexico, but pointing out that all the players were aware of their neighbor to the north. Everyone is cautious about when they want the U.S. to either be involved or to stay out of it.

The book needed a better editor, as there as definitely passages where the wording is confused, or a word might even be missing. In a couple of cases, I think McLynn puts the wrong name in, such as a sentence where he's meant to be talking about Villa in relation to Madero, but the way it's written, it's somehow Madero reacting to himself. 

Also, McLynn is fond of drawing comparison to other historical figures without explaining the reference. At one point, he states that Madero doesn't realize he's the Mirabeau in this process, and that he will have to give way to the Robespierres, the men of Thermidor and the Bonapartes. I have a vague enough knowledge of the French Revolution to grasp at the general meaning, but I have no clue who Mirabeau is. In another passage, he compares Villa, Zapata, Carranza and Obregon to Achillies, Hector, Aeneas and someone else, and I'm unclear at which was which and why. That tended to break my stride in reading, so I'd just as soon he left those analogies out.

'The Zapata movement was coherent, focused on a strong core, dedicated to a relatively straightforward form of class warfare; the Villa movement was a trans-class coalition, embracing military colonists, agricultural workers, miners, railwaymen, industrial workers, the middle class and even some reformed hacendados. Villismo was heterogeneous, eclectic and fissiparous: it did not have one single goal, but several, often mutually contradictory.'

What I Bought 3/4/2022 - Part 1

One thing I've never been any good at is getting over a mistake I make. Until I can see it's not going to cause more problems, it just lingers in my mind, sometimes even beyond. At this point, there's a particular mistake I'm going to be thinking about for at least another six weeks. Lovely. Here's some comics that were light on plot from two weeks ago.

Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Ha, ha, now Moon Knight is trapped within my 6th grade Trapper Keeper! Fine, it's a knock-off Trapper Keeper.

In this issue, Moon Knight deals with a haunted apartment building. More specifically, with one particular floor, one the building is not supposed to have. One that doesn't let people leave once they arrive. It does, however, throw Moon Knight out. Because his brain is too crazy to absorb. Marc gets some intel from Wong and goes back to make the haunted floor an offer/threat. And Moon Knight gets his Midnight Mission back, although the idea of encouraging people to step inside and ask for help seems, well. . . Like something a crazy guy would do.

It's funny (or sad) this is set after Moon Knight escapes from prison in that Devil's Reign one-shot I didn't buy, but this shipped first. Great work, Marvel. Anyway, it's a decent enough one-off story. Cappuccio mostly draws the House of Shadows as long hallways with peeling wallpaper and deep shadows. Although Cappuccio is always adding deep shadows. There's also skeletons. Lots of skeletons. Those are new. Haven't been many of those in the book up to now.

The more interesting long-term development is Dr. Sterman questioning whether Marc can actually help people at all. She mostly couches it in the old question of whether superheroes only attract more violence. Which, with Zodiac specifically trying to target Marc, has some validity. Although Marc's presence also brought in Hunter's Moon, so that's an extra person to protect the innocent. However, the part of the session we see ends with her questioning whether it's a good idea for Marc to be a superhero.

This is probably her trying to give Zodiac what he wants, to make Marc violent. Abandon this notion of helping people. But it's not unfair to question whether this is the best thing for Marc's mental state. Being Moon Knight, remaining tied to Khonshu in a sense. Throwing himself into these situations, hurting and being hurt.

She-Hulk #2, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The store only had the "X-Gwen" variant, so I get to see Gwen Stacy, if she dressed like Wolverine. At least she doesn't have body hair like Wolverine. Or maybe she does. The costume covers almost everything.

Most of the issue is Jen trying to figure out what happened to Jack of Hearts and why he's there. It doesn't go well. Jack knows he was trapped in a tube somewhere after his death, his energy being siphoned off, and he eventually got away, determined to find her. Why? he doesn't know. Who had him? No clue. Why? No clue.

What Jack does figure out is, he's thirsty. For the first time in years. Hungry, too. So Jen gets him a lot of food, although Jack's apparently forgotten frozen food should be cooked first. Man's eating pizza rolls right out of the box. Also, Jen suggests they could get actual pizza, but there's a slice of it on a plate right in front of Jack. Also also, I think the turkey he ate part of was a tofurkey, because there's a hind quarter missing, but there's no bones visible.

Jack also doesn't want to contact the Avengers, because he's concerned Tony Stark will throw him back in an isolation chamber. Jen can't disagree with his assessment, so she lets him crash on her couch (he needs sleep now, too) and heads to work. Meanwhile, whoever Jack escaped from has a disturbing bulletin board full of stuff about She-Hulk. 

Darn, Jack comes back from the dead to be used as a patsy before Slott kills him off in that Reckoning War thing. Come on, we all know when they say someone's gonna die, and Jack's standing there with She-Hulk and 3/4 of the FF, whose number is up. Like I said, 75% of this comic was that one conversation between Jen and Jack. Rowell's not exactly setting a blistering pace here, though that's no surprise. 

I wouldn't say Antonio's doing a lot with all the space being afforded from the sparse dialogue. The body language on the characters is good, but the layouts are pretty straightforward and it's not as though the backgrounds are packed with details. It's mostly just two characters sitting on a couch talking. I can't remember whether Jack had the rat tail haircut Antonio gives him in the flashbacks or not. I mostly excised Geoff Johns' Avengers run from my collection. I mostly just remember Jack getting increasingly frustrated as his condition worsened and taking it out on Scott Lang.

Sunday Splash Page #209

 

"Time for a Chat with Your Academic Advisor," in Gravity #5, by Sean McKeever (writer), Mike Norton (penciler), Jonathan Glapion (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Greg Willis arrives in New York City from Wisconsin, ready to make it big in college and as a superhero. Things. . .do not go the way he planned. He gets humiliated by a villain named Black Flame, struggles to make friends, struggles to keep his grades up. Just generally struggles. The mini-series is about how you react when things don't go like you hoped. Do you get up, or stay down? Keep pressing, or decide it was all stupid anyway, so who cares?

The whole teen superhero trying to juggle all the parts of their lives isn't new, but McKeever tries to add something by connecting it to that out of your depth feeling a lot of kids get when they first go to college. Everything's different from high school. New place, new people, rules are different. No one's there to make sure you go to class or do your work. Gravity is similarly new to being a superhero, so his expectations are similarly unrealistic. The idea he might struggle to find crime to fight, or to gain recognition, or even get his butt kicked, clearly hadn't occurred to him.

Most of the time, Norton draws Greg as not very impressive. He's a little awkward flying, or trying to use his powers to fight. As the story progresses, he gets better. Better able to use his powers, and Norton draws him taking up more of the page. Gravity's taking control, becoming the driving force of his own life, for better or worse.

This was Gravity's introduction to the Marvel Universe. It's during the same mid-2000s stretch that introduced Arana, the new Scorpion, and Amadeus Cho. I'd say Cho is the only one who really ascended to any level of greater success, with his run co-starring in Incredible Hercules. Even so, he's sort of relegated to an Agents of Atlas group that pops up every once in a while. I guess maybe Arana, but they took away her powers and just started calling her Spider-Girl, so I'm not sure we'd really be talking about the same concept by then.

Better than Gravity. I don't know the last time he popped up. Young Allies, which was also written by McKeever? Wikipedia agrees it was 2011. He couldn't even get included in Avengers Arena, for cripes sake. He is somehow at a level below acceptable cannon fodder. It is interesting to compare how McKeever writes him to how Dwayne McDuffie did in Beyond! and Fantastic Four. McDuffie's version is very much the awestruck and awkward young superhero. A bit over his head, but game to try.

McKeever's version is more emotionally volatile. In this mini-series he goes through both an angry phase, where he pushes everyone away, and a depressed phase, where he gives up on everything. In Young Allies, he gets obsessed with taking down the Bastards of Evil, forgetting things like shaving or bathing because he's focused on getting those villains. He feels things deeply, but not in a healthy way.

Saturday Splash Page #11

 

"Welcome to Monster Isle," in X-Men: First Class (vol. 2) #2, by Jeff Parker (writer), Roger Cruz (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer)

The 8-issue mini-series ended, followed the next month by the special we looked at last week. The month after that, the ongoing series started up. It ran for 16 issues, and largely followed the same pattern as the mini-series. Mostly done-in-one stories about the Original 5 X-Men facing some problem and having to overcome it, maybe growing some as young adults in the process.

Parker and Cruz bring in other characters than from the first mini-series. The Black Widow shows up in the "black mask/fishnets" look she had briefly after her face turn. The team runs into the Man-Thing and get a look at horrible possible futures for each of them. Jean gets a ride-along day with the Invisible Woman. Machine Man shows up, but it's X-50, not X-51, the future Aaron Stack. So it's fun to watch them take advantage of the Marvel Universe back in its early stages. Characters the X-Men never met until much later, or ones at a much different place at this time.

There are a couple of threads that run more than one issues. Angel leaves the school for a few issues after he goes looking for his archaeologist aunt (who bears a remarkable resemblance to a certain tomb raider), and finds a lost civilization that doesn't make him hide his wings. Jean's powers continue to expand, little things like that.

After the series ended, there was one more four-issue mini-series, the graduation for the five of them, which ends with them heading off on one more mission to a little place called Krakoa. Marvel would go to the "First Class" well subsequently with Uncanny X-Men First Class (8 issues) and Wolverine First Class (21 issues). The latter was really about Kitty Pryde as a student, but got use the name that sells. But Parker and Cruz weren't involved with either of those.

What I Bought 2/28/2022 - Part 4

We finally reach the tail end of the stuff from prior months, but next week I'll get into everything from last week I bought. I'm still a month behind on The Rush, but I guess it's a good sign there don't seem to be copies available where I look. I'll take it that positive view, at least.

The Rush #3, by Si Spurrier (writer), Nathan Gooden (artist), Addison Duke (colorist), Nassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - Those are some weird sculptures.

The layer Nettie hired is dead, of course, but some guys tracked down a bear and killed it, so that's that. Never mind it was definitely not a bear that did it. Inspector LaPointe tries again to get Nettie to leave town, but only succeeds in explaining how he ended up assigned this post. M.P. arrives, bringing gold from the site in Caleb's name, but Nettie vocally doesn't care about that, which enrages the prospectors. Still, Nettie and M.P. visit the site again, along with Tsikamin (or Bill), who works with animal hides. They find the site was "salted", meaning someone spread gold on the surface to suggest it was there. Further discussion is tabled as they hear someone dying again and find a pretty horrific cabin, plus the giant moose, now crying gold.

There's a couple of funny bits in this issue, strange as that might seem. Nettie's letter notes how quick the citizens are to give things names. The creature that killed the lawyer is dubbed "The Carrion Kid", because Nettie compared it to a crow in her first description. When LaPointe introduces her to Tsikamin and mentions he has another name, she guesses "The Redskin Kid". This goes to the second gag, where Bill will make an observation, and Nettie will ask if he's basing it off his tribe's oral history, or spiritual correspondance, only to be told no, he read it in a book. When Bill makes a comment about whether she thinks he can track the Pale because he can commune with the ghosts of the soil, she shoots back, no, can you follow the giant spider tracks in the snow.

The smartassery makes me laugh, but it also helps flesh Nettie out as a character. Even if she spent years as a dance hall girl, as she tells LaPointe, this place, this situation is outside her experience. She can't help falling back on hearsay, the sort of stuff men in taverns say about Native Americans. Plus, a certain level of superiority she feels over the people who willingly live here, chasing gold. I'm not sure the land is so happy with her disinterest in the gold. The reaction of the prospectors certainly seemed outsized and disturbingly synchronized. The way Gooden draws them, it's hard to tell what they might do, to her or themselves. M.P. may be like them soon. He started scratching at his arm about the time they began pursuing the Pale. I have got to catch up on this book.

Ice Canyon Monster #2, by Keith Rommel (writer), Jonnuel Ortega (penciler), Maury Tanaka (colorist) - I don't know what he's carrying at his hip, but years of anime make me think it's a katana and short sword. Which wouldn't fit the cultural setting whatsoever, but that's my brain.

Akutak's a shaman. He's not pleased with what's happening to Greenland, so he carves an idol and chucks it into the water, summoning forth a giant squid monster. Although between it's bulging eyes and the pointy teeth, it reminds me of Bob the Killer Goldfish from Earthworm Jim. It first appears to, Fina, a member of a fishing vessel that falls in the sea. It keeps him from being eaten by a shark, by eating the shark itself. Plus his leg. Then it cripples the propellers of a large shipping vessel. Meanwhile, the fisherman's friends aren't sure what to make of his story about what he saw beneath the waves.

It's odd the creature first emerges in a panel that states "KILL! KILL! KILL! Is all it knows!", but it kills no one. OK, the fishermen are local, maybe they're protected by how Akutak created the talisman. But it didn't attack anyone on the cargo ship. The only thing it's killed so far are a couple of sharks, because it was hungry. And I'm not sure Akutak put any limits on it. The captions state he sees himself as a doctor administering a cure, and what happens after is none of his concern. I'm pretty sure that is not how being a doctor works. Maybe the creature has to warm up before it starts killing, but, again, doesn't really match the introduction.

Ortega's style is busy in places. He works better with small panels, where he has limited space. When they go to full-page splashes, he goes overboard on the amount of shading and extra lines to try and suggest musculature or the shape of the face. In the smaller panels, either he or Maury Tanaka do a good job of shading to suggest those contours. Other than with the squid monster, I think he's trying to draw people are fairly realistic looking in clothes and body types.

I don't really understand why they picked some of the full-page splashes they did. One is the doctor standing in a doorway, telling Fina's friends Fina's been saying some weird stuff, and another is three pages later, Fina in the hospital bed, talking about the shark taking him underwater. With the latter, I can sort of the see the thinking. It's one big image, so maybe the reader stops and really takes in that Fina was getting ready to die. but it's just Fina sitting in a hospital bed, staring at his lap as he talks (and now I'm wondering why he doesn't at least get a shirt or hospital gown). The image doesn't really seize the eye the way I think you're hoping if you're giving it a full-page.

That said, I am sort of curious if Fina and his friends are going to be recurring characters in this. Are they going to confront the monster again? Are they going to figure out who's responsible and confront him? I don't know. It's at least got me for another issue.