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.