Fear is the Key - Alistair MacLean

An appropriately manly book for Clint Eastwood's Birthday Day.

The story starts with a plane fleeing a Latin American country on the verge of revolution. It carried two cargoes, but they're both lost when the plane's mysteriously shot down.

From there, MacLean jumps some undetermined amount of time forward to a trial for a man named Talbot. He didn't produce identification when the cops asked, and hospitalized a couple of them when they insisted. The situation gets worse when he shoots of them and escapes the courthouse with a young woman as his hostage. He escapes the cops, but ends up under the thumb of a odd group consisting of a general, a killer, a junkie, and a would-be Mista Big, who have some need of Talbot.

MacLean builds things slowly at first. I was reading in 50-page bursts, and for the first fifty, it was hard to tell what the connection between the prologue and everything with Talbot was. The next 50 pages aren't exactly thrilling, but they neatly answer that question and set the table for the rest of the book. From there, it's a question of whether Talbot can keep pulling the wool over everyone's eyes long enough, whether the people's he's trusting to help actually can.

That's where the tension comes. There's little doubt there's going to be a dramatic confrontation, but it's up in the air who'll have control when it happens. Is it going to be on Talbot's terms, or on theirs? MacLean treads a good line in how Talbot puts forth a certain face for these guys, while also projecting a level of confidence he doesn't necessarily feel. Things start to go wrong very early, and though Talbot acts like it's still going according to plan, he's aware how big a chance he's taking and how far out in the wind he is.

The end is more talkative than I would have expected, but it doesn't feel out of place. Once it's clear what Talbot's stake was, the exposition is a mixture of catharsis and triumph. MacLean makes it work, at any rate. That said, he could stand to cut back on the adverb usage. I'm not one of the people who advocates using no adverbs, but MacLean can't help himself. He piles them on, making long sentences even longer and breaking the flow of the story.

'"You never knew, did you, Vyland, that someone was in radio contact with that plane just before it was shot out of the sky. But I was. Just for two minutes, Vyland." I looked at him slowly, consideringly, emptily. "Two little minutes that mean you die tonight."'

What I Bought 5/28/2022 - Part 1

Going to start off the reviews of the rest of May's stuff with two books from a couple of weeks ago. One's a second issue, one the first issue of the second storyline. I try to pair these things by some sort of theme, and that was the best one I could come up with. That or both books have two writers. No, I'm not Two-Face. Don't say things like that, I'm not looking to have Batman punch my face in.

Jenny Zero II #1, by Dave Dwonch and Brockton McKinney (writers), Magenta King (artist), Arnaldo Robles (colorist), Dave Dwonch (letterer) - It was nice of them to bring the person they constrain like she's really dangerous out for a fun night of pachinko.

Set some time I'm assuming shortly after the end of last year's mini-series, Jenny seems to be getting treated like a dangerous criminal. of course, she beat the hell out of the guys transporting so maybe it's a valid concern. Or maybe not, because that was all an illusion created by the Director's three helper ladies, who have various mental manipulation powers. I'm sure the ability to erase or alter someone's memories won't get abused.

The Director gets Jenny on board by mentioning the threat of the Overking, aka the thing that killed Jenny's dad, and by bringing in her friend Dana to help her improve her image. Aka, make Jenny not behave like a drunken, pill-popping disaster all the time. Neither of them seems dumb enough to trust the Director about who is behind the Overking, or so it seems. 

Ugh, I appreciate Dwonch and McKinney establishing right off that those three ladies can mess with perceptions, but it means I can't trust anything I'm reading in this comic. If that whole escape Jenny pulled at the start was all in her head, then the conversation in the burger joint could be as well. Certainly the "Chunker Jr." mascot coming to life seems suspect. Or, I had to go back and check the end of the previous mini-series because I couldn't remember if Jenny had a scar over her left eye. She did, but if she didn't, that might have been a clue they'd been using her for missions and erasing her memories.

King's line seems more solid than it did on the first mini-series. It was also more jagged and wobbly then. This might just be a sign of progression as an artist, or maybe it's an intentional choice. Jenny's starting to embrace her past and her heritage (including by reading her father's journal, although the Director knows she's got it). She's more stable now, more, "mature" might not be the right word, but something like that. Combined with Robles using a less glaring color palette than Dam did on the previous mini-series, and the whole thing seems more stable. Jenny's got a plan, she's got a friend she trusts and will rely on, things are possibly under control.

Or it's all in her head. I am going to second guess every conclusion or interpretation I try draw about this mini-series, I can tell.

West of Sundown #2, by Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell (writers), Jim Terry (artist), Triona Farrell (colorist), Crank! (letterer) - I guess the cover captures a mood, but it's not exactly easy to distinguish what's going on at first glance. Still beats blase pin-up covers Marvel opts for a lot.

The issue starts in a flashback to how Constance became what she is. Her mother conceived Constance (then Rosa) with a young Native American man who had been taken from his tribe and forced into service as a soldier (and thus I learn the term "genizaro). Her father objected to them getting married, killed the priest too late. Domingo got the gun and tried to protect them from his father-in-law's dog. Bullet hit the dog, but also his wife. Domingo ate the dog's blood and flesh, becoming a werewolf(?) and ran off with little Rosa.

In the present, Constance and Dooley travel to the site of that church for the earth she needs. They better hurry because she's getting hungry and he's the only immediate source of food. But someone's built something there. A church of their own, where they whip themselves and proclaim the life is the sky. Seems concerning, though not as much as the weird creatures with long, paralyzing tongues that nearly kill Dooley. Constance gets enough earth for the time being and carries him to safety. But those people are set to investigate who intruded.

Also the man who has been hunting her is actually her grandfather, Frankensteined together by, well, Victor Frankenstein is the extremely pale young man with heterochromia is telling the truth.

Obviously it couldn't be that easy for Constance to get the earth she required, although I'm not clear how much she needs. Does it have to fill a coffin? Just grabbing a handful made her strong enough to tear that little creature in half, and she seemed confident she could handle another four of them. Either way, no we've got her and Dooley, Grandpa and Dr. Frankenstein, the creepy cult, possibly the sheriff (whose loyalties are uncertain). Might need to add the tavern owner after Constance bought his place and kicked him out for being rude earlier (because he's black and correctly intuits Dooley fought for the South.) Surely that won't come back to bite anyone! No pun intended, but accepted.

On some level, it might have been more interesting if the people living on the old church site weren't up to no good. If they were innocent farmers or sheep herders, how far would Constance go? How far would Dooley go to help her? He seized the escape when she offered, but Seeley and Campbell seem to be establishing there are limits to how far Constance's protection extends. Push comes to shove, Dooley may not be anything more than a useful instrument. Or maybe she's been a vampire so long she's forgotten the limits of humans. But Terry draws Dooley as looking weary and/or terrified basically the entire issue. The life is taking its toll.

Sunday Splash Page #220

 

"Casual Arrival," in Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost #2, by Jim Mahfood

After Work Sucks, there wasn't another Grrl Scouts mini-series for 14 years. Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks is, unfortunately, my least favorite of the four stories, so it didn't maintain its place in my collection. I don't care about extended Hunter S. Thompson riffs, and Mahfood was in some kind of transition period with his art, and I didn't like the results.

By late 2021-early 2022's Stone Ghost, however, he'd settled into a style I liked a lot better. His work is this strange mix of the characters tending to be fairly simple designs, while the backgrounds and surroundings are a wild mix of details. Dio's (the one in the lower left) face is usually a basic circle with a couple of smaller circles for eyes, two dots for nostrils, some basic shape for a mouth. Her pal Gordi is like a cartoon jellyfish with a derby hat. Mistress Tako is a blood-red cloak with white slits for eyes and mouth surrounded by shadows.

At the same time, the backgrounds are littered with weird stuff. Wires or smoke or random bullets just hovering there. Swirling monstrosities in a void when any notion of distinct panels seems to have been thrown out entirely. It actually makes me a bit nostalgic, because it reminds me of when I would just draw random shit all over my folders in school. Tanks, cubes, lightning bolts, ninja turtle weapons, Velociraptor pupils. Other times, it makes me think of graffiti or wall mural art. Big and wild and just trying to express something.

This is the first mini-series that doesn't take place in Freak City or involve Daphne, Gwen and Rita. In fact, it doesn't even take place on Earth. It revolves around Dio's quest to retrieve her boyfriend's ashes, which he hocked to a loan shark to protect Dio from the debt he'd racked up. Unfortunately, Dio is tied to an ancient lineage and so there are forces out to stop her. Dio initially hires a bodyguard named Turtleneck Jones, but he's soon replaced by his partner of sorts, the cyborg Natas. Where Jones is a gruff, mulleted hardass type, Natas is a big, goofy killing machine who regards the whole thing as a fun adventure are distracts people by asking if they're interested in subscriptions to Cereal Aficionado Magazine.

I can't tell why exactly Mahfood makes the particular choices he does, but I like the sense that he's just going with whatever he feels works at the moment. It fits with the surrealist feel of the story, where anything can happen at any moment. A cyborg can emerge from someone's skull. A guy with a kettle for a head can be taken seriously as a threat. Jumping into someone's dreams is entirely viable. A young couple unites because one makes a ceramic codpiece for the other.

What holds it together is that the story remains focused on Dio and her love for Billy. That's what drives her forward in spite of everything, and it's the relatable core of trying to process losing someone important that gives the story just enough grounding to not feel weightless among all the weird shit. Every issue has a flashback to some part of Dio and Billy's relationship, all of which Mahfood draws as a bunch of little panels done on pages of a yellow legal pad. Like a story someone might doodle during an especially dull meeting. It gives the reader a sense of the relationship the two had, that Billy was goofy and silly, and more than a little self-destructive, while Dio was the more tentative, responsible one. This whole thing is Dio embracing her the bolder, more confrontational part of herself. The part that helped her meet him in the first place, which helps her to move forward.

Saturday Splash Page #22

 

"Steroid Side Effects May Be Severe," Wynonna Earp (vol. 1) #2, by Beau Smith (writer), Joyce Chin (penciler), Mark Irwin (inker), Nathan Lumm (colorist), Amie Grenier (letterer)

I think I first became aware of Wynonna Earp because Ragnell had a post on her blog once that was excited about the announcement of one of the later stories with the character (which we'll get to in a couple of weeks). It didn't do much beyond my sort of passively noting, "Huh, Wynonna Earp? Weird, but sure, why not?" When IDW released a collection of the first four stories in 2016 (called Wynonna Earp: Strange Inheritance), I was buying the mini-series that tied in with the TV show, so I went ahead and bought it, too.

This story came out in 1996, published through Image. Not hard to tell just by looking at the above. The absurd firearm, the hyper-thyroid werewolves, the title character being a "federal marshal" who walks around in skintight pants, half a bra and a denim jacket. but if you can make the look work for you. . .

There are two stories in here. The first is a three-parter where Wynonna teams up with two werewolf bounty hunters to hunt down some vampire, Bobo del Rey, that is dealing a drug that is highly addictive and makes people hungry for blood and super-strong. Bobo and his entire family are also fans of The Andy Griffith Show, for some reason, to the extent Bobo kills a man that badmouths the show. The other two issues (drawn by Pat Lee) are Wynonna teaming up with some ex-boyfriend who works for a mob to stop the revival of the chaos goddess Tiamat, whose followers try to use Wynonna as a host. Which means they started wrapping her up like a mummy, but only got so far as strategically covering the naughty parts before she got free. Seems like an inefficient way to wrap a body, but if it works for you. . .

I think this was meant to be an ongoing series, but it got canceled after 5 issues, with the last two pages being Wynonna giving Beau Smith grief for not using his pull with Jim Lee to keep the book going, and threatening to get one of Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis to write her adventures in the future. As terrifying and/or hilarious as any of those might have been (I can't picture what Neil Gaiman's Wynonna Earp would have been like), Beau Smith would still be writing when the character got her next shot in 2003.

Random Back Issues #85 - El Diablo #4

Don't ascribe to moral paralysis what could easily just be shitty refereeing. Also, because I'm a nerd, I looked it up. The Oilers beat the Steelers both times they faced them in the regular season in 1989 (though the closest game to Christmas was December 3rd), but naturally lost in OT in the playoffs. The Run n' Shoot always crapped out when it really mattered.

It's a none-too-happy Christmas in the town of Dos Rios, and not just because the Houston Oilers are getting hosed in their game against the damn Steelers. The fellas' bonding time is interrupted by a group of children performing the La Posada, which is apparently kids pretending to be Joseph and Mary looking for shelter for 9 nights, only to be turned away. Seems weird anyone who would participate would want to be the ones who refuse to offer shelter to the parents of Jesus, but I'm not religious, what do I know?

Before anyone can hardly get back in their seats, there's another interruption, this time because the kids found a dead child. Yeesh. Hector and the others would love to contact El Diablo, but it's been weeks since the end of issue 3, and nobody's seen him since.

Meanwhile, in the Mayor's office, a heated argument between Councilman Thorn, and Ms. Zamora, leader of a citizens' group. There's a proposal to tear down some low-income housing near the river and turn it into a commercial development. Mayor Tommy's folksy, homespun approach fails to cool tempers, so he dumps the responsible of forming an advisory committee on the issue on Rafael Sandoval (El Diablo's) shoulders. Fun. 

Tommy frames it as a chance for Rafe to build a coalition of his own. Rafe points out whichever way it goes, Tommy won't take heat for either kicking poor people out of their homes or costing the city income. Really, Tommy thinks having Rafe do him a favor will actually make Rafe feel indebted to him, which is the sort of logic I'd expect from a politician.

Rafe's visit to his parents' home is cut short when he sees the news bulletin about the murder. He's got a friend on the force who is feeling frustrated over this whole thing and reveals there have been three disappearances lately. So the dead kid doesn't bode well. He also doesn't trust El Diablo, or think they should put any faith in him.

While Rafe's busy meeting with Ms. Zamora and the tenants of the riverwalk section, another child gets abducted outside a convenience store. Rafe finds out while almost getting kissed by Tommy's aide, Virginia (or "Dixie"). He goes, in costume, to speak with the head of the parish. Turns out he's got a bit of performance anxiety. Is being a vigilante is the best way to achieve results, or should he stick to being a politician? Diablo feels the needs to fight the horror in the world with, 'something more than budgets and zoning ordinances.' Well yeah, you don't fight horror with other horrors. Either way, kind of unusual to see a superhero who takes a break for reasons like that. Normally the breaks are necessary convalescence from being badly injured.

By issue's end, El Diablo's on the case, but the situation is going to get more heated before it gets better. Violence, panic, angry mobs, accusations of police corruption. To be fair, those aren't things you can fight with zoning ordinances, either.

[4th longbox, 51st comic. El Diablo #4, by Gerard Jones (writer), Mike Parobeck and John Nyberg (artists), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist), Tim Harkins (letterer)]

A Few Points of Light for Late Summer

There are a couple of new items in August's solicitations I'm interested in, but mostly it's quiet. DC didn't have anything I was interested in. I saw a lot of stuff involving Black Adam, is that movie coming out this summer? I am completely out of the loop on that stuff. DC is also bringing back. . .Azrael! Poor Jean-Paul valley, getting himself another mini-series. If only Diamondrock were still running their blog to see this.

Over at Marvel, Moon Knight's fighting vampires, Iron Cat rolls on, that Nocenti-written Longshot story in X-Men Legends is more than one issue, and Nightcrawler is going to pay She-Hulk a visit. I thought she wasn't supposed to be taking any super-clients, but I guess Krakoa could sue Mallory's law firm for, species discrimination, I guess. Though why the almighty Krakoans need a flatscan lawyer, I can't grasp. They must have someone with the mutant power of perfect lying. One new thing is a new Damage Control mini-series! With the main story written by the creators of some TV show called The Goldbergs? Um, optimism dimmed somewhat, but cautiously retained.

Let's see, Image has Slumber #6, Above Snakes #2 (if I like the first issue), although I'd swear last month it was 4-issue mini-series, and now it's listed as five. Maybe I'll try Dead Lucky, which is a new series by Melissa Flores and French Carlomagno about a lady veteran back from Afghanistan with electricity powers operating in San Francisco. Jenny Zero II will be wrapping at Dark Horse, and there's a trade of Jeremy Haun and Christopher Mitten's 40 Seconds about explorers traveling through alien gateways. That doesn't actually come out until October, though.

Aftershock has issue 3 of A Calculated Man, and Vault has West of Sundown #5. Issue 2 of Agent of W.O.R.L.D.E. is out through Scout Comics, which seems like a month earlier than usual. There's also the first issue of Mr. Easta, about a bunny that is a galactic assassin. It's by Kat Wallis, has kind of a Skottie Young vibe to it. Maybe I'll try it.

Seven Seas Entertainment has volume 4 of Yakuza Reincarnation and the second volume of Weakest Contestant in All Space and Time. I actually bought volume 1 of Yakuza Reincarnation last weekend. it was enough to convince me to pick up volume 2 at some point, but it has that feel of a book relying on one type of joke that it could run into the ground in a hurry.

Raymond Chandler's Pulp Stories

My dad bought a two-volume collection of Raymond Chandler's work. He said he wanted to see if The Big Sleep makes any more sense as a book than it did as the Bogart/Bacall movie. He hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, but he loaned the volume to me anyway. I stuck to just reading the short stories at the first, placed under the general heading "Pulp Stories".

Based on that, my father's hope for clarity in plot may be dashed. I mean, I guess you can say the stories make sense, as Chandler usually has the detective character (who varies, a couple show up more than once, but not more than 2-3 times) lay everything out at the end. But these are not what I'd call fair-play mysteries. The reader's best bet is just to guess based on the conventions of these kinds of stories. Assuming you're the kind of person who likes to try and figure out what's happening ahead of time.

It's pretty clear Chandler's most interested in descriptions, of both people and places, and dialogue. Sometimes he takes the metaphorical approach, when he describes a woman's hair as sucking up all the light so there's a halo around it. Other times he goes for something more, I think self-consciously silly. Describing a gunman as a "long thin man" with a "long thin face". Mostly Chandler just seems to love dry dialogue. The clever one-liners and smart comebacks. Outside of the characters that are there to be goons, everybody in a Raymond Chandler story is very glib, and basically never at the loss for a good phrase. Which is fine with me, they're fun to read.

Most of the stories are roughly similar. There's a detective, sometimes doing OK financially, sometimes not. Always ready with a dry remark. There's a beautiful woman. Sometimes she hires the detective, sometimes she's the one being investigated. Either way, there's trouble that isn't actually what it seems at first glance. Like they always used to say on House, everybody lies. Blackmail comes up a fair amount, so does infidelity. More than one story revolves around pearl necklaces, including "Pearls Are a Nuisance," naturally, but also "Goldfish". No missing gemstones, though. Maybe Chandler considered rubies too exotic for a private detective.

I was expecting the protagonist to get killed at least once, but it never happens. Which isn't to say they always win, necessarily. Sometimes they're just fortunate to limp home with bruises but minus any bullet holes. The cops usually make an appearance. Sometimes they're crooked ("Blackmailers Don't Shoot") and sometimes they just enjoy tap dancing on a guy's face if he won't give answers. There is one story - "Spanish Blood" - where the main character is a cop. But the crime involves the death of a childhood friend and he gets the "turn in your badge" speech part way through, so he's effectively a private detective after that point.

"Pearls Are a Nuisance," is the most unusual story of the group. It's still a basic mystery about missing pearls, but the main character is a wealthy young college guy who does not appear to be any sort of detective. His fiance ropes him in to helping the lady she acts as a private nurse for, and he gives the appearance of not being any good at it at all. He still offers the chance to write witty dialogue, but in a very different tone. More educated, more chatty. It almost feels like a send-up of Chandler's other stories, where the protagonist actually has a very low tolerance for alcohol but doesn't seem to recognize it, and spends pages at a time cheerfully wasted. It made for a nice change of pace.

'For a moment neither man moved. Then Steve kicked the trombone away from him and squashed his cigarette in a glass tray. His black eyes were empty but his mouth grinned whitely.

"If you want trouble," he said, "I come from where they make it."' (From "The King in Yellow")

What I Bought 5/18/2022 - Part 2

Was not expecting to find all four books from last week I wanted at the store here in town. Maybe three, tops. But pleasant surprises are welcome. It would almost encourage me to look on the bright side of things, if I weren't the person I am.

Slumber #3, by Tyler Burton Smith (writer), Vanessa Cardinali (artist), Simon Robins (colorist), Steve Wands (letterer) - Man, don't litter in somebody's grave. Unless it's a trash hole. Some graves are essentially trash holes. I think the difference is based on the amount of care used in placing the body. Lower it slowly? Grave. Toss it in? Trash hole.

The story starts with a quick flashback filling in a little more about why Stetson's after Valkira and hints towards how she got involved in running around in people's dreams. From there, it shifts to the present, inside Finch's dream, as he gets dragged along with Stetson and Jiang as they seek Valkira. They end up at a funeral, which Finch badly wishes to avoid. So Stetson "kills" him and wears his skin. Things still go sideways and they dive into the grave, where they find a subterranean cavern and the body of Finch's brother. Which Valkira has possessed and Finch is rather protective of.

Smith explains a couple of things in this issue which become immediately relevant, one of which I had been wondering about. Namely, why shooting the bad thing in a dream does any good. Apparently, if you kill it in a dream, it's gone forever. The person no longer remembers it and can therefore no longer be haunted by it. The other point is that the person whose dream they're in, can't be killed. At least not permanently. They just respawn through the nearest door. Seems like it wouldn't kill them, just erase their sense of themselves, but OK. Stetson uses the latter to her advantage a couple of times, and Valkira's using the former.

It only lasts a page-and-a-half, but I like Robins' color work after they dive into the grave. The cavern is this monotonous greyscale, as is everything in it (Finch has little four-armed fish-head guys who clean in his dreams, which I like as a random detail). Except for the lake of red liquid they fall into. It's a stark contrast and it really grabs the eye. The flashback is done with dull, muted colors and lots of black backgrounds. The characters are occasionally surrounded by light, but it doesn't brighten them much. It's there, but like it isn't interacting with them somehow.

Kaiju Score: Steal from Gods #2, by James Patrick (writer), Rem Broo (artist), Francesco Segala (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer) - I don't think the white lettering of the title set against T.G.'s cream-colored hair is a good set-up. Need more variation between colors.

Having committed to taking the job, Michelleand her crew get a rundown on the facility and how they can get inside. Unfortunately, there's a lot of security measures, and those they have to work around themselves. Also, after Michelle put a bounty on Carlito, he raised the bounty he put on them. So Michelle asks the creepy guy who financed the first kaiju score for a loan to up her bounty to match, and then goes to ask Marco for help. He won't come on the heist, because apparently pulling off one successful score was enough for him (smart man), but he does help her identify the way past the security measures. Great.

Except Glover almost screws up the retinal scan, and the Russians hit treasure sooner than expected, and the guys who hired them have something else in mind with this job than what they said.

I've been wondering who was going to make it out of this, or where the inevitable double-cross was coming from, but more and more that looks irrelevant. The way Patrick writes this, the whole thing is a maze nobody (except Marco, oddly enough) can actually escape. Even if Carlito gets killed, even if these guys who hired them get killed (because I'm guessing they've got a lot more cash than Carlito if they decide on revenge/tying up loose ends), Michelle's gonna have to pay the hitman broker back, and he must charge ridiculous interest, and now she's got to pay Marco for his time, and look after her crew. It's just an endless cycle of getting in debt to do a score to pay off debt incurred to pull off a previous debt.

Broo uses a fair amount of short, wide panels to zoom in on people's faces, at least during the tense conversations. When Michelle's talking with the guy that hired them, or she and Glover are arguing. The talk with Marco, he pulls things back a little. The pressure is still there, there are still some tight panels to make it seem like Michelle's boxed in, but Marco's in the panel with her. She's not on her own, she isn't having to pretend she has everything under control because this isn't someone looking for weakness or needing reassurance.

Sunday Splash Page #219

 

"Quality Customer Service," in Grrl Scouts: Work Sucks #2, by Jim Mahfood

Set sometime after the events of the first mini-series, 2003's Work Sucks finds the Grrls a little too well-known around Freak City, a condition that can be dangerous for drug-dealers. So Gwen decrees the three of them are going legit. Unfortunately, as selling medical cannabis won't be an option for several years yet, that means finding other jobs.

Of the four Grrl Scouts stories, this is the most down-to-earth. No demons, no vast conspiracies, no magic socks or slipping into someone's dreams. There's still violence, there's still absurdity and the girls being irritated by morons, just in everyday settings. The kind of stupidity and aggravation that comes with dealing with people who don't know a damn thing and are determined to make that your problem. The most bizarre thing is Daphne (who ends up working as a bartender) having to keep one-half of the evening's entertainment from being killed the by other half when he accepts their offer of cocaine and doesn't realize it wasn't free.

Mahfood brings each character to something they enjoy the same way (offer from a friend), but not strictly the same path. Rita turns something she was doing in her spare time (tagging), into a regular paying gig working on murals for the city. Daphne doesn't get far looking for work, but demonstrates she knows how things work at the bar and gets offered a job. Gwen's the only one who really goes out hunting for work, and runs into the ever-delightful insistence on "experience". She finds a job working with kids while drowning her sorrows over getting fired.

Mahfood's art is starting to shift a little. He goes to a thinner line almost exclusively, and uses the shadows around the eyes to convey a haunted or irritated look a lot. He's also starting to simplify his expressions and figures. I don't know if that's a time-saving maneuver or just honing his style. His panel layouts are evolving, too. A lot of panels with borders that flow like waves, or that overlap at tense moments or are tipped at an angle. Switches to panels running across two pages and then back to a standard page seemingly whenever he feels like it. He's still a long way from the almost mosaic-like pages in Stone Ghost, but you can see him starting in that direction.

Saturday Splash Page #21

 

"The (Metaphorical) Claws Come Out," in X-23 (vol. 2) #11, by Mariko Tamaki (writer), Diego Orlotegui (penciler), Walden Wong (inker), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

After her first ongoing series ended, Laura Kinney had to wait five years to get another, by which time she had a different codename. All New Wolverine ran for 35 issues, and we'll get to it (someday). Almost as soon as it ended, though, she got shunted back to her old codename, and another ongoing series to go with.

This series still focused on Laura trying to deal with her history as a designed weapon. But where previously that had been through either trying to bring her under their control, or focused on the trigger scent that made her go berserk, this series looked at those who were trying to make more weapons like her, minus that inconvenient free will.

But Tamaki seems more interested in the differences in opinion between Laura and Gabby, who is a younger clone version of her. Despite that, differences in age and experience mean they see things differently (which is always something I find interesting to play with about clones.) Not just that Gabby is more versed in pop culture references and phrases (I feel like Tamaki downgrades Laura's knowledge there, as she doesn't even know "K.O." stands for "knockout.") Gabby talks about their birthdays, and Laura dismisses it, acts as though they don't even have birthdays because they're just clones.

More critically, especially in the second half of the book, they see things differently when it comes to who counts as family. When they encounter a clone of Laura with cybernetics but no healing factor, Gabby treats her as another potential sister. Someone to befriend and help the way Laura did for her. Laura sees the "X-Assassin" as just a machine, a damaged weapon. She's not family, she's not even a person. The end of that story would seem to argue in Gabby's favor, although it's undercut somewhat by the fact the X-Assassins were being mass produced and neither she nor Laura hesitated to kill the hell out of all the others.

Juann Cabal drew the first five issues, which involve another group of clones, the Stepford Cuckoos. There's a one-shot drawn by Georges Duarte about Gabby and Laura going undercover at an elementary school. Then Diego Orlotegui took over as artist for the remaining six issues. Cabal's art is a bit closer to photorealistic, his version of Laura is bit bulkier. As I noted in a review of one of All New Wolverine's tpbs, you can see a little more of Logan's genetics in her build when Cabal draws her compared to most artists. Orlotegui exaggerates expressions a bit more, there's more comic effect in his work, when it's warranted. The last two issues have a bit of humor in them, even as they're a continuation of the argument between Gabby and Laura.

OK, we are done with the Xs! Whoo!

What I Bought 5/18/2022 - Part 1

Work yesterday was pretty lousy, which I knew was going to be the case for weeks, but yeah. Just not enjoyable, dealing with lots of anger and stupidity. So tired. Speaking of tired, here's two comics from this week on their last legs with me.

Iron Fist #3, by Alyssa Wong (writer), Michael Yg and Sean Chen (pencilers), Michael Yg, Victor Olazaba, Keith Champagne and Don Ho (inkers), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Great, now he's got even more pieces of sword stuck in his arm.

Bishounen-looking guy from last issue is Lie's older brother, who gained power from the destroyer god at some point. The demons work for him, and the one impersonating Min's father tries to steal the pieces of Lie's sword. Lie and the others fight him, but he gains the upper hand and demands the shards. So Lie. . .jams them into his arms. Goddamn, kid, just buy some pouches. Cable and Deadpool can't possibly own all of them.

He tears through the demon, who delivers a message on where to meet his brother. But before they get there, Lie, Min, and the grumpy teen jerk from last issue are caught by Fat Cobra and the Bride of Nine Spiders. Nobody ever captures the Bride's look properly, compared to how Aja drew her. That reserved, creepy look. They always make her too expressive and loudly aggressive. There were other Immortal Weapons for that, except other writers keep killing them. She's carrying knives now. Why?

But with four inkers, things were going to be a little weird. Chen draws the middle section of the book, the part that encompasses all of the fight with the demon, and Yg handles the rest. I don't know which inkers are with which pages, although I'm very curious who drew the last couple, when they run into the Immortal Weapons. Yg's art looks much looser, and there's one panel (above, on the right) like a caricature or cartoon. It was a nice change of pace, although I don't think it was an intentional so much as a necessity to save time. Sometimes shortcuts are good!

Overall, though, I just don't really care. I feel like I should want to find out if Lie will remain Iron Fist, or repair his sword, or why Shou-Lao chose to do him a solid, or at least be excited Fat Cobra showed up, but I'm not. 

Wolverine: Patch #2, by Larry Hama (writer), Andrea Di Vito (penciler), Le Beau Underwood (inker), Sebastian Cheng (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I feel like landing on flat on his left foot is going to really jar his leg.

This issue is "Patch's Crappy Trek Through the Jungle." He's still trying to heal from the beating last issue. Then he gets shot with some poisoned arrows by the locals, who think he's out to hurt the two Russians. Logan convinces them he's not an enemy and they start guiding him to the Russians' hiding spot. Then he gets shot by some of General Coy's guys, who want the locals to lead them to the Russians. He kills them. Then he gets shot by some Yakuza working for the guy doing monkey experiments. He kills them. Then more of the general's guys show up and he kills them (off-panel). He reaches the Russians, the locals convince them to help, because there's a third one, a little girl with weird powers who goes inside Logan's brain and finds Jean.

I guess some of Logan's time as Patch did happen while Jean was "dead". Or it could just be Logan has her on his mind a lot. In which case, that kid should really get out of there. Not age-appropriate.

Hama uses SHIELD as an almost narrator. I was going to say omniscient, but there's a lot they don't know, so that wouldn't work. The Helicarrier is still just hovering there in the sky, in full view, wondering why they can't find these Russians. All the cigars must have clouded Fury's brain. I went back to check, because I thought I remembered Di Vito drawing Fury smoking, but my mind must have just autofilled that image. Anyway, SHIELD is somehow surveilling all over Madripoor at once and so as they discuss one place or the other, the story cuts to that location, then back, then off somewhere else. 

It's not a bad way, and it works to contrast Logan tromping through the woods, getting more tangled up in all this by fighting guys for reasons he doesn't even know, with everyone else doing reconnaissance or forming alliances to try and achieve their goals. Logan just takes the direct approach. But when all you've got are unbreakable adamantium claws, the whole world looks like something to cut through.

All Paths Lead to Indecision

As I've mentioned recently, there are a few titles I've been buying I'm thinking about no longer buying. This is not a new problem. The question of when to give up on a comic is one I repeatedly struggle with, so much so I did a bunch of posts about just how often I went on buying comics after I stopped enjoying them.

Sometimes it's out of inertia; I've been buying the book, so I just keep on buying it. The fact most of the things I buy don't run very long these days actually helps on that score. Now it's more often I see things in the series I enjoy, and so I see ways the series could turn around, or come together in a really satisfying fashion. "If there could just be more of that, and less of this other thing I don't enjoy." Or, "These individual pieces aren't too interesting, but they might be combined in an interesting way."

But that leads back around to me potentially buying something I don't enjoy for a long time. But it's not too hard to tell the difference between the books where I finish one issue and I'm excited to see the next, and the books where I finish and my reaction is, "Well, this might pay off eventually." 

Simple enough to drop the books in the latter category, except sometimes those books do pay off. The question is how long of a leash do I use, because, again, I find myself potentially buying some dissatisfying book way too long. Like Hulk when Dr. Strange banished him to the Crossroads, I just keep ending up in the same place. I gave Batgirls 6 issues, but it's, in theory, an ongoing series. Letting it finish the initial story arc seemed fair, but doesn't really work for mini-series like Iron Fist or Ice Canyon Monster (assuming another issue of the latter ever shows up.) I don't know what Distorted is, so what's fair there?

So I'm tentatively going with the vague definition of enough issues to get a sense of the story. If I'm still guessing about what they're trying to do, it's can get a little more rope. It plays into my tendency to hope things will come together in an enjoyable way, but I'm not planning to sit around and wait forever for it to happen. At a certain point, I'll have a sense of what kind of story they want to tell, and I can decide if I give a crap.

Although I was thinking about this during a long, work-related drive yesterday, and realized this benefits the slow-paced books. Like She-Hulk, where 3 issues in, not a lot has happened. The plot is more theoretical than anything else at this point, which leaves my imagination free to run wild with all sorts of possibilities. But She-Hulk is, like Batgirls, an ongoing series, so I can see where it stands at the end of the first arc.

Guess I'll see how long this half-assed system holds.

The Harder They Fall

Rufus Black (Idris Elba) marches into a preacher's home, kills the preacher and his wife, and carves a cross into their son's forehead. Years later, Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) learns Rufus has been sprung from a prison transport train and teams up with U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo) to bring Rufus down. Even with Nat's gang insisting on helping, it isn't going to be easy.

It's a good cast. Regina King and LaKeith Stanfield as Rufus Black's main two people. King as Trudy Smith, who held the gang together while Rufus was in prison and has no patience for fools. Stanfield's the soft-spoken killer, very pleasant when he advises someone to please not do something stupid, then cutting their hamstrings once they do. Zazie Beetz as Stagecoach Mary, who is a successful saloon owner and Nat's off-again, on-again lady. Lindo plays Reeves as quietly confident. He doesn't boast, he doesn't make threats, he thinks some of these kids are fools the way they are doing things. 

My favorite (and this is no small thing because I loved Stanfield as Cherokee Bill) might have been Danielle Deadwyler as Cuffee, who was Mary's bouncer and sometimes lover (I think). I like that she casually carries just as many weapons as any of the guys, but she has this intense look at almost all times. Like a coiled spring that could snap at any moment and you don't want to be in range when she does. But it's controlled. When she decides to get violent, it's a decision, not her being goaded. The look she gives Majors when he forces her to wear a dress as part of a bank robbery, thought he was going to drop over dead.

It's a creatively shot movie. There's a nice, I'm guessing drone shot, that runs from the room where Elba is looking over his town, down the street past all his guys, and stops in front of Majors where he sits on his horse. Like an old video game that shows you the route you have to take to reach the end, right before everything starts. There's another shot where Stanfield is talking with a soldier through a door and the screen is split, but when the door opens, the divider moves with the door and merges the shots into one.

A big part of this revolves around the city of Redwood, which Rufus Black and his gang apparently established when it was just a territory, and is owned by black people. It's their town, and it's a beautiful place (you know, before the big gunfight and the explosions). All the buildings are vividly colored and decorated. Mary's saloon isn't quite as colorful, but it still has a distinct atmosphere and style. It makes for a fun contrast when Nat Love and Cuffee visit Maysville, the white town that is the whitest place I've ever seen. Whiter than those gag pages of Snowbird fighting in a blizzard John Byrne drew in Alpha Flight. 

I don't really like the ending, when Rufus Black reveals to Nat why he killed his father. There could be something in the story he tells about Nat's dad, how he changed as he grew older, and how Rufus might mirror that journey. I don't know all the history of Redwood, but Rufus clearly had a major hand in its formation. I'm guessing at least some of that was funded by the crimes he committed before being captured (by Bass Reeves). And he's determined to protect it against the soon-arriving wave of white settlers. He's still willing to demand every person in town hand over every bit of money they have to fund the effort, but he lets Regina King tell them that if they refuse they and their families will be killed and all they own seized or burned.

It feels a bit like a man who decided it's time to rewrite the story of his life. Re-frame the shit he did when he was younger as the early steps of a man out to build something better. Necessary evils for a greater good. Nat's father did something similar on a more personal level, in simply trying to become a better man, but from a certain angle, it could be seen as him trying to bury the darker part of who he was. There's no indication he went back to try and make amends for his past sins, just decided to start again and do it better this time.

Of course, Rufus Black could just be lying. He's more than content to play the brotherhood card on Nat to twist the knife, but he's just as willing to harm anyone to get what he wants, so I'm not sure anything he says can be trusted. Certainly with regards to his motives. And Redwood ends up pretty badly damaged at the end, buildings shot or blown up, dead bodies all over the place. Is that some larger moral about trying to build something on a foundation of blood and causing misery? It's a town founded, built, lived in by black people, and it gets destroyed in a fight by two groups of black people. But there's that looming threat of the white folks moving into the area which drives some of Rufus' actions. There aren't many white people in the movie, but you can see their hand on certain levers that cause things to happen. I need to think about all that some more.

Anyway, it's an interesting movie, fun to watch. There's some really good dialogue, couple of nice fights, the music is varied and not typical for a Western, but it works for this Western.

Takin' Care of (Family) Business

Look at Little Miss "Too Good to Kill Her Father."

Ryuko, a 2-volume manga series by Eldo Yoshimizu, does not hesitate to keep throwing things at the reader. It's funny, because all the review blurbs on the back describe it as a crime thriller, but it feels more like an '80s action movie. Just one excuse for crazy action sequences after another.

Ryuko is the daughter of a former yakuza boss, sent into exile by his brother. They ended up in Afghanistan, befriending the king, but her father eventually sided with a general against the king. Ryuko killed her father when he learned she agreed to take in the king's infant daughter. The story moves to Japan, when she learns her mother isn't dead, but a simple reunion isn't enough. Ryuko meets two important criteria which could make her the ruler of a hidden army of criminals, "the Black Glory" if she wants to, and can survive.

In the midst of all that, Yoshimizu adds in that Ryuko and her father were in an Afghan village when it was wiped out by the Soviets in the '80s, but that a boy they met survived, was adopted by someone Yoshimizu draws as a dead ringer for Brian Cox's character in The Bourne Identity, and became an agent for the CIA, who have their own interest in that secret crime army.

In the midst of all that, gunfights, fistfights, swordplay, death by missile, death by motorcycle used as a missile, stealing a train car full of money with a helicopter, patricides, tearful confessions, casual badassery, on and on. Some people have a very different definition of "crime thriller" than me. 

Which isn't a complaint. I love that Yoshimizu just keeps piling on the double-crosses, the scheming, the surprise reveals and alliances. Even when things slow down for character backstory, it's still the sort of character backstory that involves an occupied village and a girl on horseback attacking grown soldiers. It moves things forward, and it's exciting. 

In action sequences, Yoshimizu's art will take on this mixture of dense shadows, just solid black, and a blurring twisting effect. Bodies are drawn like they're almost fluid, loose limbs and shapes bending under the forces the movement exerts. Panels are suddenly leaping across pages, or sharply angled and tilted to one side or the other. Sometimes it falls into incomprehensibility, where there are just a few dark shadows vaguely shaped like people amid a crapload of speedlines and black ink done like spots of blood.

Mostly though, it works. Ryuko's facial design is very simple. Sharp nose, huge eyes framed by jet-black hair where the bangs form a sharp curtain at the top of the eyes. Whatever other chaos may be going on, you can almost always pick out her face and her expression in there somewhere.

All the characters eligible for controlling the Black Glory are women, but none of them - Ryuko, her mother, a young woman named Situ Zi - are actually interested in it. Instead, there's always some guy - Situ Zi's grandfather, Ryuko's uncle, Brian Cox - who wants that power and the women are just a convenient way to acquire it. Someone they expect to manipulate from the background. All they see is the advantages they envision. As the ones to have to lose something to gain that "honor", Ryuko and the others understand it's a poisoned chalice.

There's a theme of parents, intentionally or otherwise, making choices that impact their children's lives, but perhaps not in ways they could predict. Ryuko's father seems to have instilled a sense of honor and compassion in Ryuko, even as those qualities dwindled in him. Whether she intended it or not, Ryuko raised the king's daughter in a world of crime and violence, so Valer takes to those things. But she's also loyal to her childhood friend Sasori, which, for all Ryuko might mock it, is probably something else Valer learned from her. Situ Zi's father doesn't want her mixed up in her grandfather's criminal schemes, but out of a desire to protect him, she goes along with it.

Yoshimizu varies the art during the quieter moments as well. Sometimes characters are drawn with these thick dark lines to where they're just a vague shape. Like someone doing an exercise in shading with a block of granite. At other times, Yoshimizu goes entirely the other direction, with a white backdrop and the character simply outlined against it. Like they're empty inside and the world around them no longer exists. And Yoshimizu may use either one for a similar reaction. Shock at learning something they never expected, for example.

Which is part of why I enjoyed this so much. I never knew what was going to be waiting as I turned the page, because it seemed like any approach, any layout, was possible.

Sunday Splash Page #218

 

"Must be a British Knights fan," in Grrl Scouts #4, bu Jim Mahfood (writer/artist), Sean Konot (letterer)

Released in 1999 through Oni Press, Grrl Scouts was Mahfood's first mini-series starring the trio of weed-dealing, ass-kicking women that make up the cast, Rita, Daphne and Gwen.

Mahfood starts with their day-to-day life of dealing drugs, partying, and beating the crap out of anyone who gives them any static. Very quickly, Mahfood pits them against a mysterious cabal called the Brotherhood of the Cracker, whose membership includes a high-ranking Catholic Church official and Phillip Nykee, major shoe company CEO. The grrls are soon on the run, before teaming up with Rita's not-seen-in-years father for an all-out attack on the Nykee Corporation. Much killing of anonymous men in dark suits follows.

Prior to this, Mahfood had drawn a couple of comics set in Kevin Smith's Clerks universe, and this shares a certain tone with that. The casual drug use (and humor around it), the frequent use of profanity (and the humor around it), the periodic rants by characters which really feel like the author airing grievances (in this case, about Saturday morning cartoons being replaced by live-action teen-oriented shit like Saved by the Bell). If you include Dogma, we could add the ancient conspiracy element and the presence of the supernatural, since Nykee appears to be more than human.

Which is fine by me, I generally enjoy ranting, cursing, and at least sometimes, watching other people get high. It does date the book a bit, makes it feel of a particular era. How much of an issue that is probably depends on the individual.

Mahfood tends towards straightforward page layouts, other than he occasionally has rows of panels run across two pages instead of just one. He's really fond of drawing people pointing guns directly at the reader for some reason, so that we're looking right down the barrel, or like it's coming off the page. I would think that was meant to be unsettling and possibly make the reader consider the violence in the book, but the characters themselves are pretty cavalier about killing people, so maybe not. Maybe he just did it because he could.

He varies the thickness of his linework effectively, messes with perspective and the level of detail as needed. A character's eyes can be extremely detailed from the make-up, eyelashes and bags under the eyes, or they can just be little round circles, depending on what seems to work. Daphne is usually the one exaggerated most, typically for comic effect. It helps get across her more erratic personality. Mahfood also tends to drench the adults (either Nykee and his guys or Rita's father and his guys) in shadows. Half their face obscured, sometimes against a featureless black background. The Grrls rarely get that treatment. Despite everything they get up to, they remain cleanly visible throughout.

Next week, the Grrl Scouts try to go straight.

Saturday Splash Page #20

 

"Wolverines Can't Fly, Wolverines Can't Fly!" in X-23 (vol. 1) #12, by Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Laura Kinney (aka the sorta Wolverine clone/daughter) had been in a couple mini-series through the mid-2000s, focused primarily on her origins and how she got to the point of being where she was in the NYX mini-series which was her debut. This was her first ongoing series, running for 21 issues.

Marjorie Liu wrote the series, this being the same time when she was writing her Black Widow ongoing (see Sunday Splash Page #89). It's at an interesting moment for X-23. Her stint on Cyclops' Stabbity Kill Team had just wrapped up, as someone finally realized having the girl raised as a weapon treated as a weapon was maybe not the best strategy for her. Liu has Laura realize she doesn't really relate to the other kids on Utopia (since this was also during that stretch of X-Book stuff), and they're mostly afraid of her. The adults mostly treat her as something to either pity or monitor. A beaten dog that might bite anyone's hands.

A rough confrontation with a demon running around in Logan's body (as a result of some nonsense Jason Aaron cooked up to explain how Logan survives some of the crap he does) helped convince her it was time to go see who she was some place where people didn't know and immediately judge her.

Liu picks Gambit of all characters to act as Laura's travel buddy. Presumably because Gambit has done plenty of questionable things, and to a certain extent, he was raised that way, what with da T'ieves Guild (or however you would spell his accent phonetically) and all. Gambit does have some experience acting as a mentor to a teenage girl (teen Storm), but isn't necessarily going to do things the same way as Logan. He's a little more lighthearted, encouraging Laura to enjoy herself, trying to be playful.

A decent chunk of the series revolves around Laura dealing with the legacy of her existence, that she was created to be a weapon. She took a lot of lives (though not all the ones she was ordered to), and there are still people who want to profit from her one way or the other. So that's part of it, her trying to figure out how to move forward from that. 

Liu also runs Laura into her, I guess half-brother, Daken. Gets a look at someone who is still a weapon, but tells himself it's solely on his terms. Logan eventually pops up, minus the demonic possession, but with Vampire Jubilee in tow. Which is its own opportunity for contrast. Not only between Laura and Jubilee (the former started as a weapon or creature of instinct and is trying to learn to be a person, the latter is reversed) but how Logan tends to act around Laura versus how he acts with Jubilee. There's a team-up involving Spider-Man and the Invisible Woman that had to do with the Enigma Force, and Liu draws a line under the relationship Laura had with Hellion at some point that I couldn't identify. Laura's growing and he doesn't fit, or he's still stuck in the past, or hasn't gotten over losing his hands somehow.

As with most Marvel comics at that point, the book goes through a bunch of artists. Will Conrad draws most of the first six issues, where Laura realizes she needs out of Utopia and runs afoul of Miss Sinister. Conrad's version looks the most underfed and haunted. Not exactly bags under the eyes, but she sees a lot, and she's exhausted inside.

Sana Takeda draws most of issues 7-12 (including the Paris jaunt with Jubilee), plus 3 out of 4 parts of Laura trying to babysit the Future Foundation kids, while Phil Noto draws 13-16 (which includes the first part of the babysitting story), plus issue 20 and 21. Takeda's work is very pretty, and manga-inspired, but Laura typically looks either bored or just out of it. Noto's art is, well, I know a lot of people like it, but I've never thought it was great for storytelling. Great for static images or reaction shots where you need emotion, but not so much if there's any action.

What I Bought 5/12/2022

The temperatures have been like mid-July all week around here. I hope this isn't going to be an insanely hot summer. I found the only comic from last week I wanted, and one of the three from this week. Both of which highlight the futility of seeking help for mental health issues! Joking, or am I?

Batgirls #6, by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad (writers), Jorge Corona (artist), Sarah Stern (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer) - "Spellbound by Spellbinder" just seems lazy, especially with the painting motif. "Framed by Spellbinder", maybe?

So, Spellbinder's time working at Arkham convinced him the ones kept there were the most sane, because they refused to be dictated to or let anyone else determine what they think. He wanted to encourage everyone to see things that way, and somehow his brush strokes on his paintings interact with a particular type of fear gas to. . .make people agree with his ideas about tearing down society. Which doesn't seem like it's encouraging people to think for themselves, but oh well. Guys like that are good at excusing their hypocrisy.

Barbara beats him down with her legs tied to a chair and gets him to confess through a video she posts on the Tutor's account. Cass is trying and failing to fight an entire mob, and Steph is only doing so-so against the Tutor. At least she's not getting hypnotized. Cass does keep the reporter from falling to her death, the keep the Tutor from blowing himself up, but lose their car in the process. But people like them again, and now the Seer shows up on their door, looking for help.

I'm still very confused by the fact it seems like Spellbinder must know their secret identities, and considering the Seer walked in on them while they were just hanging out on the couch, she probably does, too. Yet this doesn't seem like a concern to the heroes. Odd, when you consider they were supposed to be hiding out to avoid being arrested after the false accusation they blew up the Clocktower. That keeps nagging at me, the usually secretive Bat-folk don't seem to care about enemies knowing who they are. But Spellbinder seemed surprised Barbara could fight effectively without her legs, so does that mean she was Oracle, but not in a wheelchair at all, or that it wasn't common knowledge Commissioner Gordon's daughter was in a wheelchair? I have no clue what's in and what isn't at DC in terms of character backstory any longer.

Speaking of things I don't understand, I can't figure out why Barbara is doing in that first panel. The one before that, she grabs the lapels of his jacket, so maybe she slammed his face on her kneecaps. But the way the arms are posed is more like she did the old abrupt neck snap maneuver, which is definitely not what she did.

I almost went with a panel of Stephanie with her mask down, grinning in a frankly terrifying manner as she tries to drive the bomb a safe distance away. It's like she got Joker gassed, or turned into a painted doll or something. I don't know what the hell Corona was thinking there, either. It's weird, because he's generally done excellent work on the emotion in this series. The end of the issue, where they briefly try to fake-out that Stephanie died getting rid of the bomb, Corona's pretty good at having everyone look somber or thoughtful, but each with their own postures and expressions. Each person processing things in their own way.

That said, I think this is the end of the line for me with the book. There are parts I like, things I think I should enjoy, but the sum is less than the whole of its parts.

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #4, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Israel Silva (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Steve Skroce really likes drawing Ben making the "twhip" fingers.

Spidercide really just wants to be a family for Ben, for them to be a connection to each other. Spidercide's been trying to understand humans, since he doesn't fool himself that he's one of them, the way Kaine or Peter do. And since Spidercide can apparently split himself into lots of people, he can be everyone Ben lost while he believed he was the clone. "A" for effort? Well, maybe A- since all the different forms he takes are lacking eyes, except for Jason Diaz, the one identity he created for himself.

Ben refuses the offer, there's a fight, Ben keeps offering to help, but it turns out dividing yourself repeatedly into separate beings tends to destabilize a person's genetic matrix, and Spidercide. . .blows up? Well, mostly, because there's still one Spidercide left, posing as a Doctor at Ravencroft, and he let all the patients out. Again I wonder what Mysterio and Scorpion are doing in a mental hospital. Send them to real prison.

Baldeon draws Ben without the mask for almost the entire issue, right up until the bit at Ravencroft at the end. Which is interesting since Ben declares during the fight with Spidercide (god I hate typing that) he's been lying to himself about not wanting Peter's life when really, he wanted it so much he wasn't even trying to have any sort of life as Ben Reilly. No friends of his own. So naturally, as soon as the fight seems to be over and he goes to visit two people he's decided are his friends (Dr. Kafka and Edward "Vermin" Whelan) he puts the mask back on.

I get there are secret identity reasons, since more than 2 people work there, but it just struck me as a funny juxtaposition after he said he'd been hiding behind the Spider-Man mask. Anyway, next issue would appear to be a big knock-down-drag-out fight, though i expect Spidercide will have a face turn and help out. I hope Dr. Kafka's able to reach a couple of her patients and convince them to calm down. If she hasn't reached a single one, that's kind of a damning indictment. Also, considering Mr. Hyde is apparently among the patients, Ben needs all the help he can get.

Some Don't Play Well with Others

In addition to buying collected editions of different series, I'm usually hunting things down in back issues as well. Whichever is easier to manage, really, given how often things fall out of print these days. One of the series I tried at the start of this year was the post-Infinite Crisis volume of Doom Patrol, the one written by Keith Giffen.

The first six issues, which is all I bought at the time, didn't do much for me. Nobody on the team really seems to like each other or enjoy being around one another. It reminded me unpleasantly of where Teen Titans was at after the One Year Later jump, back when I first started this blog. One of those books where you wonder why any of the characters are even there if they hate being around each other so much. I suppose the standard response is, "a lack of anywhere else to go."

But the book really didn't get off to a good start with me. The first issue opens on the team on some mission. Negative Man, Robotman, Rita Farr, and two characters left over from the John Byrne run that preceded this, a (I'm assuming) telekinetic teenage girl codenamed Nudge, and a four-armed gorilla called Grunt.

Within about six pages, Nudge gets machine-gunned into nearly unrecognizable meat chunks by a helicopter and Grunt flees into the jungle with her corpse. And that's basically it. One other character questions the fact the team didn't even attempt to recover Nudge's remains, but otherwise, out of sight, out of mind.

I mentioned in the Sunday Splash Page for John Arcudi and Tan Eng Huat's Doom Patrol run that I'd never heard anything positive about the Byrne run that followed it. But this just seemed so, perfunctory. Like Giffen didn't want to deal with either of those characters and shuffled them out as quick as possible. In which case, why not just have someone make an offhand reference to why they aren't around and leave it at that? Nudge didn't want to hang out on Mad Scientist Island, and the gorilla only likes her so it went along.

I also get that the Doom Patrol have a long and distinguished tradition of some or all of the team dying. So much so, none of the team appear to be phased by the death. But if the point they're all highly depressed, inured to death or even actively suicidal, there are plenty of other ways to show it. I know, because Giffen does it in subsequent issues. All told, it came off as Giffen smashing a toy he didn't even want to use, just because he could.

The Bedford Incident - Mark Rascovich

I bought this for my dad because I know he enjoys the movie with Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark, though I have no clue whether he's read it already or not. But his birthday isn't until next month, so there's time for me to read it first!

Ben Munceford's a freelance TV journalist who scores a ride on a US destroyer in the Arctic, the Bedford. It searches out any attempts by the Soviets to sneak into the sovereign waters of NATO countries, and there's one sub in particular the ship's captain is determined to catch. Munceford joins the ship at the same time as a new ship's doctor, and both slowly realize (Munceford slower than the doc) that there's something not right on this ship. No one grumbles, no one complains, no one will even admit if they're feeling under the weather, let alone try to fake it to get out of work. The entire crew is whipped into such a fever pitch of devotion to Captain Finlander they can hardly be pried away from their stations.

Once the Bedford locates the sub - unsubtly nicknamed Moby Dick - the hunt is on. Even once the sub is back in international waters, where it has every right to be, Finlander insists on hounding it, and his crew is only to happy to obey, even as they stretch to the breaking point. 

Rascovich is very good at writing the heightened tension and how it takes its toll. Not just in the big ways, that men vomit from the strain or struggle to stay awake at their posts, but little things. No one being able to laugh at the captain's jokes, or the sonarman jiggling his knee constantly as he strains to listen. Rascovich works at the notion that during the Cold War, military men were encouraged to be in the mindset of potentially fighting or killing at any moment, but by the nature of the conflict, were never allowed the, I guess, blow-off of pressure from actually fighting. They were just supposed to be in this heightened readiness, all the time, forever.

There are two people on the ship not from the U.S. Navy in the book. One is Commodore Schrepke, a former Nazi U-boat commander who escaped the Soviets and represents NATO, and a Lt. Packer from the British Navy. Schrepke is there as sort of the voice of the Russian sub, as a former submariner himself. We never see or know the thoughts of the Russians, so his observations are the closest we come. 

Packer's less useful. Rascovich gives him a Lt. Dan (Forrest Gump) like backstory of men in his family dying at sea for the British Navy for the last 200 years. His father was on the Hood when it was sunk by the Bismark, and it just so happens at one point, the Russian sub tries to hide near the wreckage of the Hood. Which freaks Packer out a bit, but ultimately feels like a vestigial, tacked on subplot. Likewise, while Munceford is supposed to offer an outsider's perspective on all this, he drops out of the story for long stretches, and is written as such a shallow hack of a reporter, ultimately believing in nothing, that it's hard for him to matter much. No one on the entire ship likes him, but it's because he's generally unpleasant, not because he's good at ferreting out things they'd rather keep hidden.

'Commodore Schrepke answered with a wistful irony: "What you feel for me now is the kinship of the damned, my poor captain."'

They Used Up All the Heart References

The Heart Hunter takes place on an island where everyone carries their hearts outside their bodies. If they meet their soulmate, they place each others' heart inside their bodies, and only then can they a) leave the island, and b) age. 

Some people like not growing older, and for them, there are Heart Hunters like Psyche, who will find your soulmate and kill them, by destroying their heart. Takes a special arrow designed by King Marius, who has a heart made of steel, and definitely doesn't want to meet his soulmate. So he hires Psyche, who finds Marius' soulmate has a heart made of gold, which is rather difficult to destroy. Complications ensue.

Mickey George and V. Gagnon (writer and artist, respectively) take basically all the old sayings about hearts and make them literal. Hearts of gold, broken hearts. Marius' soulmate uses pieces of his heart to mend others'. One character has a literally bleeding heart they wear on their sleeve. When Psyche is in danger from an "indifference monster", she pours her heart out to Isaac. By which I mean she pours it out of its jar to him. You get the idea.

Gagnon fills panels with hearts or circulatory-system style background details. Trees, clouds, everything seems to branch like a bunch of capillaries or images swirl into each other like blood mixing. Also seems fond of tall, narrow panels curved at the top, like a church window. There are a few different scenes where characters get a glimpse at someone else's feelings or past and Gagnon opts for a bunch of fragmented, jagged panels to give a lightspeed montage feel to things, like we're seeing it all at once.

There's nothing bad, per se, about Heart Hunter, but I found myself really irritated with the book while I was reading it. Not so much the soulmate thing, or even that the main pairings we see are between characters that spend most of the story fighting, arguing and generally being hostile to each other, which I find tedious. This notion that you may not like someone now, but if you just keep spending time around them, you'll like them eventually. Or maybe you'll hate them even more.

But the notion someone else's compassion is necessary to mend a broken heart, or that time doesn't move for people who feel grief, that bugs me. That you have to take a certain outlook on life or you're stuck in the past, or incomplete somehow. Psyche says early on, and no one disputes it, that some people don't have soulmates. So by the story's logic, they were destined to just be stuck in place, unchanging, forever. Which seems wildly reductive. Maybe the point is supposed to be you have to remain open to the possibility of finding that special someone (and the book does state soulmate does not necessarily mean romantic partner, so that's something), and that means accepting good with bad, but it also seems to be implying you can't make it on your own. Not that you don't have to, but that you can't, which is something different.

Sometimes a story just hits the wrong way.