What I Bought 9/28/2022

The local store got shorted on their Marvel stuff for the week, but hopefully I'll have the second issue of Damage Control and the other 2 books from this month by the weekend. In the meanwhile, here's the first issue of a new mini-series!

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - No worries, zombies can't digest Rocks.

This issue is basically all set-up. Establish Hitler has a program for reanimating corpses and sending them into combat, and that he wants more of them. Establish the Allies are aware of this, and that Rock and his guys are assigned the mission of finding a way to shut it down. Establish what the Allies know about how the corpses are reanimated (regenerating drugs, and a doodad at the base of the skull, that artificially stimulates the brain), who to look for, and where to look. 

Spend three pages on the nifty things they're outfitting Rock's guys with. Keep in mind, "nifty things" in this case involve walkie-talkies, night-vision goggles, and a thermal visor thing. We'll see how useful any of it proves to be. For example, do undead Nazis have a thermal signature? Even though one of the last bits is Rock and his guys getting an up close encounter with a captured undead, they didn't exactly try out any of that stuff. But it does establish how difficult this might be if they try to fight they way they do against living soldiers.

One can hope Campbell is getting the exposition of the way now, so next issue he can jump right into the action. He introduced a few of the other soldiers, to the extent of giving them names, but not much in the way of personalities yet.

Russo's version of Rock is hard for me to get used to. He's scruffy looking to be sure, but the haircut is odd (shaved on the sides but like a scraggly mop on top). Plus, he smokes a cigar. Does Russo think he's drawing Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos? Russo's also fond of shadowing soldiers' eyes with the rim of their helmets. Usually its just dark underneath, but in a few panels, one soldier's eyes are visible as tiny white circles with a dot in them. Not sure why, since he went the other way with Rock's face in the same panel. It could be for an expression of terror, which would fit some of the uses, but not that particular one.

The Mexican Revolution Volume 2 - Alan Knight

Volume 2 picks up where the first volume left off: Madero is dead, and Victoriano Huerta is in the driver's seat, thanks to all the people who wanted an "iron hand" to restore order. Meaning, put the lower classes in their place. Problem with the iron hand is, it needs some strength behind it, and the Mexican Army wasn't up to snuff. Press-ganging people into fighting does not an effective fighting force make, something we can hope Vladmir Putin will learn soon. Or he can die, whichever.

Knight charts the course Huerta takes, which broadly is to consolidate as much power within himself as possible, and how he lacked the ability to hold control. Initially as Carranza, Villa, Zapata and many others rise up, the Federal forces can hold the cities, owing to greater force of arms and artillery, but the countryside belongs to the various rebels/revolutionaries. Which sounds extremely familiar to many other revolutions and civil wars.

When Huerta is ultimately defeated, Knight moves to the "war of the winners", the battle between the various revolutionary groups. There is an attempt to form a government, a constitutional convention, but it ultimately falls apart. Knight points the finger at Villa, claiming he attempt to intimidate the conventioneers by stations a large number of his men not too far away. It's an interesting contrast to McLynn's portrait of Villa (and Zapata) in his book, where Villa is portrayed and quoted as saying he is unsuited to run a country and that should be left to more learned men.

But in general, Knight seems more hostile to Villa and more forgiving of Carranza. If Villa's men wantonly execute several miners, Knight is more than willing to lay the blame at Villa's feet, even if he admits Villa was not there. But when Carranza sends Pablo Gonzalez to Morelos, and Gonzalez proceeds to destroy entire towns and forcibly relocate the people, this is somehow something for which Carranza bears no responsibility. This despite the fact Carranza wants to run the country (Carrancismo seems largely to boil down to, "Venustiano Carranza should be in charge") and insists he be referred to as First Chief. OK then, First Chief, then the actions of your generals reflect on you. But not in Knight's world, apparently.

He's highly critical of Zapata and Villa for not doing more to win urban workers to their sides, after he's repeatedly highlighted that urban workers did effectively jack shit during the fighting. If they haven't done anything so far, why would anyone expect them to start now? It's real Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Knight also wastes several pages criticizing those who attempt to apply the Marxist lens to the Mexican Revolution, and even after continues with little jabs about if so-and-so is a "petty bourgeois", and if so, does that mean his opponent is bourgeois. Look man, hash your petty rivalries with other historians out on your own time, I'm trying to learn about the Mexican Revolution, and this book is long enough already. 

The book is, as with the first volume, highly detailed and thorough. When there's a section on challenges to the Carranza regime, he devotes a section to crime, and spends part of that highlighting bandits and discussing the line between regular bandits and "social bandits", and the differences in how people reacted. Then he works that changing response to the people growing weary with year after year of fighting. Which results in a dichotomy where the people are more inclined to form their own defense of their town (as Carranza's army is not much more effective maintaining peace than Huerta's), but less inclined to fight for change against the ineffective government. It seems a curious disconnect, but at a certain point, maybe a person just wants to focus on protecting what they still have.

Also, I was floored to see Knight include a graph of the declining value of the peso through the 1910s, plus two tables. Wonderful reprieve from the endless walls of texts.

'Maderista liberals, agraristas, die-hard parochials - all made major contributions before 1914; but decisive, permanent gains eluded them; and, ultimately, they all lost out for a similar, simple reason - because, unlike the eventual victors, they looked backwards, evoked a lost past, and stood against the main trends and pressures within Mexican society, which, whoever ruled in the National Palace, had an irresistible dynamic of their own.'

A Slow Freeze

The December solicits came out two Fridays ago, a week earlier than expected. But there wasn't much new of interest, so maybe it was best to get the disappointment over with.

What's new I might buy? Marvel is starting a 5-issue Mary Jane and Black Cat mini-series. Do I care about Dark Web? Not at all, unless you promise me that Maddy Pryor is going to drag Cyclops' sorry ass into Limbo and tear his soul to shreds so completely no Krakoan hoopa-joop can bring him back to life. So, not at all. 

That said, I do care about Jed MacKay writing the Black Cat, so here we are. The other new book is a six issue mini-series, Grit N Gears, by Angel Fuentes and Nahuel Sb through Blood Moon Comics. A steampunk Western about an automaton lawman turned outlaw. I can't say steampunk is a big thing for me, but Westerns and gun-toting robots are.

What's ending? The only thing I might be buying wrapping up is the Damage Control mini-series, which, September's issue is going to have to impress the hell out of me to keep me reading. I notice Will Robson's not listed as artist, with Nathan Stockman in his place, for what that's worth.

Did I notice anything worth mentioning I won't buy? I have made my feeling about Mark Millar as a writer pretty clear. He relies on shock value, his plotting is spotty, his characterization is shoddy, but he knows how to come up with broad concepts that catch my eye, and work with artists that can make them look good. I saw the cover and solicit for Night Club, about a teen being turned into a vampire and deciding to fight crime wearing what looks like a luchador mask, and was like, "Oooooooh." Then I saw who was writing it. Never mind.

Denpa Books had the first volume of a manga called Renjoh Desperado about a ninja girl with a metal arm in a 'wild west inspired Japan', which seems like it should be up my alley, but the cover art makes me mildly concerned whether it's going to focus on adventure or romance or what.

Also, I will admit that the solicitations for Batgirls often sound like something I would really like. Then I remind myself I already gave the book six issues and it didn't click.

What's left? The Alyssa Wong Deadpool book is an ongoing, so it, Ryan North's Fantastic Four, and the Tiger Division mini-series will all be on issue 2. Meanwhile, Moon Knight will be up to issue 18, still fighting vampires. Remarkably, it appears Blade hasn't made an appearance yet. Look who's too good for killing vampires now that he's hanging out with Avengers, la-di-dah.

The Bruce Campbell-written Sgt. Rock mini is up to issue 4. Nature's Labyrinth will be on issue 2, although the solicit is oddly worded. 'The island will show the contestants who they truly are. Will they accept the truth or will they devolve into the violent criminals they are?' Aren't both outcomes the same. If the island shows them who they are, and they are violent criminals, then accepting the truth means being a violent criminal, doesn't it?

Scout Comics has the second issue of West Moon Chronicles. So is She Bites really just 3 issues? That's 2 months in a row it hasn't appeared. I hope not, it seems like a concept with some legs. Anyway, the only other book is the seventh issue of West of Sundown, although it feels like another title that's not quite living up to what I hoped for.

Relationship Hell

Hey man, whatever exercise regimen works.

Mirka Andolfo's Un/Sacred follows Angelina and Damiano, through a long and winding relationship. Damiano's originally just interested in sleeping with Angelina, but quickly finds himself having fallen into a seven year relationship with her. The story as written as a series of one-page comics, each more or less stand alone, but part of a larger arc. The first third of the volume is mostly Damiano trying to find ways to convince her to sleep with him, or thinking she's asking him for that when she's really inviting him to a sleepover with her gal pals. So the entire page is panels of him watching her make preparations, getting increasingly excited, and then the payoff is him sitting grumpily while her friends give him a manicure and sing along to some cheesy song.

The second third (dubbed "Purgatory") runs from their engagement and the difficulties that arise with Angelina's mother, up to the wedding. The humor is much the same, but filtered through wedding prep and conflicts between Angelina's very uptight, rich white lady mom, and Damiano's more hedonist parents. One comic seems to be a part of an adult film, and in the last panel we learn it was, and that it's when Damiano was conceived. And that his parents thought that was a good thing to watch with the engaged couple. 

The final section covers Angelina being pregnant and Damiano trying to find a balance between growing up and being a responsible husband and expectant father, while not abandoning his dreams of music stardom. There's a lot of panic about that, Angelina getting frustrated with some aspects of pregnancy, including one comic of way too many people trying to cop a feel. There's also a family reconciliation, but it reveals there was almost an incest situation which. . .I was not expecting that. Don't know if Andolfo always had this swerve planned, or if things changed somewhere along the way.

A lot of the humor revolves around misunderstandings or misdirections. Damiano getting himself in hot water for not recognizing the earrings Angelina wore when they first met, but talking himself out of it by perfectly describing her necklace from that day. Which he remembers because he was fixated on her rack, which Andolfo draws very generously. I think there are slightly more jokes that revolve around Damiano being a horny devil than Angelina being rather naive or squeamish about sex, but it's pretty close. Damiano certainly gets more character development; though he retains the core of a lazy horndog, he does try to get a regular job and be a considerate boyfriend. He doesn't always succeed, but Andolfo shows him making an effort. Angelina doesn't seem much changed; she never entirely seems comfortable talking about sex with other people, but she was never oblivious to the idea, just firm that she wanted to wait. She's still very bright and cheerful, still prone to telling Damiano to go sleep on the couch when he fucks up.

Most panels, Andolfo keeps the artwork of fairly straightforward style. Minimal linework, distinctive character designs, easy to exaggerate for comic effect whenever called for. But it shifts to a more detailed approach with coloring done to approximate an unearthly glow for the wedding sequence. And since it takes place in a church, Damiano and all his family are giving off smoke the entire time, which was a little detail i appreciated.

Sunday Splash Page #237

 

"One Count, Two Count," in Hellsing vol. 8, chapter 61, by Kohta Hirano

I think Hellsing was the first manga I discussed on this blog. Of course, at that time it might have been the only manga I was buying that was still releasing new volumes. Can't remember if I was buying Yotsuba! yet or not.

So, Hellsing. Vampires exist, and the UK is protected by the Hellsing Organization, currently led by Integra Hellsing. Their primary weapon is Alucard, an insanely powerful vampire who proceeds to kill a shitload of vampires, ghouls, and various lackeys over the course of 10 volumes. Hellsing finds itself up against a remnant of Nazi Germany, an entire battalion of SS vampires, 1000 strong, led by the mysterious "Major", that invade London with two goals: Have themselves a war, and kill Alucard.

Hirano loves drawing over-the-top violence. Limbs blown off with guns, or the top of someone's head sliced clean off. One vampires swallows a soldier's eyes and the bridge of his nose in a single bite. Seras Victoria, the "police girl" Alucard turns into a vampire in Volume 1, slams an enemy's face against the wall, then drags them the length of the hall until their head is almost entirely gone.

Alucard's ideal for all this, not just because he's presented as so powerful he can cleave another vampire's arm lengthwise with his own, but because he's so powerful he can take what seems an obscene amount of damage. And he's presented as so aware of his power that he will stand there and let a bunch of poor, clueless Brazilian SWAT teams spend literal pages shooting him, until the top of his head is Swiss Cheese and ribs are showing, then casually raise his gun and vaporize one of their skulls.

The longer the series goes, the more Hirano pulls back the curtain on Alucard. He seems quite gleeful at being a vampire at first, but there's a weight to it. Alucard wants a challenge, but more than that, he wants a challenge from a human. I think because there's a will or madness to humans that will drive them forward to challenge a monster against all odds. Despite their mortality, despite their limited strength. It's why he considers Father Anderson, the vampire exterminator of the Vatican's Section XIII, his rival. He's an enhanced human, but at the end of the day, he's human and he won't withdraw. 

And the Major emphasizes that he is still human, that he wouldn't become a vampire no matter what, because it dilutes who he is. Of course, the Major is still a monster, even if he's not a vampire. He's a monster because, at the end of the day, he's entirely indifferent to the loss of life. It's all just a chance to fight a war, to destroy Alucard. His battalion, the ones who stuck with him for decades, the over 3 million inhabitants of the UK killed in his invasion, none of it is anything beyond a means to an end. His currency is still blood. He just spills it, rather than drinking it.

I'm not sure if Hirano is saying Alucard regrets becoming a vampire, because if so, why turn Seras? He didn't have to, he says she chose it, and he gives her a lot of crap about her reluctance to drink blood. To cross that threshold and accept what she's become. Maybe the point isn't whether he regrets it, but that he accepts he made his decision and Seras needs to do likewise. I'd think maybe he regrets the sort of vampire he's been, a true glutton, which contrasts with Seras, who only drank blood when someone freely offered it, and only drained one person entirely.

But no, he seemed to revel in it, that he could take so much, just as he reveled in acting as a weapon that Integra must "fire". He could just kill all their enemies, but he always makes her order him to it. It could be seen as deference, the way he kneels to her in the page above, but it also feels like he enjoys making her take responsibility for all the lives he's about to take. The brutality he will inflict.

Alucard's kind of a dick, is what I'm saying.

Saturday Splash Page #39

 

"Jack Splat," in Weird World of Jack Staff #5, by Paul Grist

A couple of years after the one-shot we looked at last week, and after ending the second volume of Jack Staff, Grist did this 6-issue book. I think it's meant to be a mini-series, although it's also possible Grist just lost interest and stopped. As far as I know, he's not gone back to the character since.

John Smith (aka Jack Staff) has lost three weeks of his life, with no idea how. He's also forgotten he's Jack Staff, which is rather inconvenient when an old enemy shows up. It turns out his memory loss is related to a whole thing involving a great hero who will wield the Sword of Devastation to save the world from a dire threat in the future. The threat being the local neighborhood coke dealer up there, and the hero being, well, that's the question on everyone's mind.

As the title of the book suggests, this is less a Jack Staff story than of the world he inhabits. There's a sense that for all he's supposedly Britain's Greatest Hero, John Smith has often been little more than a well-meaning guy getting jerked around by those who claim to be pursuing some higher motive. Even when Grist delves into Mr. Smith's origin, it involves a Victorian prognosticator who believes Mr. Smith is his key to grasping tremendous power. As it turns out, he is and he isn't, but John doesn't have any idea what he's landed in until it's too late. And for this time-traveling jaunt, it's much the same.

Jack Staff only pawn, in game of life. Or perhaps it's simply that he's never actually in his own book. There's still that sense that this is several comics that overlap. So that one is never quite sure whose book it is at any given moment. So anybody could be the star, and anybody could be the surprise guest star. So characters can be as competent of useless as needed.

Grist does use the old saw of the attempt to avert a dire fate actually bringing it about. Except the reason the person time-traveled in the first place to make certain the dire fate was avoided, was in fact, created by their time-traveling. It's a whole mess, but at least Grist writes Staff as annoyed by it as I am.

What I Bought 9/21/2022

Wednesday was not a great day. Only found 1 of the 2 comics that came out. According to Diamond's page, instead of close to 8 comics next week, I'm looking at only 3, for reasons I am unclear on. And the calipers on the brakes on my car locked, producing a really unpleasant burning smell and costing nearly a grand in repairs. And that's why I'm a skinflint about buying frivolous things, despite my friends rolling their eyes about it. So I can just pay for this kind of shit when it crops up without an excess of heartburn about my financial stability. 

Also, it means I have money to help them out, so they should really be grateful I lived in self-imposed austerity.

Iron Cat #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Tony is really losing all composure on that cover. You'd think he'd never by attacked by weird pseudopods while in some strange cyberscape.

It's Tony, Felicia and Tamara trying to stop Sunset Bain from causing nuclear disaster with all Tony's reactors. She also has all Tony's armors to get in their way. Felicia and Tamara, after 3 pages on bandying about various names (such as "The Time-Traveling Ombudsman") for various schemes, split up. While Tony and Felicia try to get to a secure server to purge Sunset, Tamara needs to recover a thing to help with that.

I do enjoy how Felicia immediately starts trying to be playful like Tamara like old times, and while Tamara tries to hold out, she's soon throwing out ideas and perfectly in sync with Felicia again. Perez keeps most of that as broad rectangular panels,, but when they're attacked, switches to a page of  3 tall panels, tilted and narrow. Really makes the characters feel hemmed in by all the repulsor blasts.

Tony and Felicia seem to have achieved their end, although Sunset's got a Hulkbuster. Perez draws all the armors with Bain projecting her face over them, which does look suitably off-model. You kind of expect the face of an Iron Man suit to look a certain way, and a leering semi-transparent human face is not it. Anyway, it's all moot because Tamara got blown up. Oh no. Definitely not more misdirection.

My theory is Stark and Felicia are actually doing the distraction to let Tamara, who is more tech-savvy than Felicia, get to a different server and purge Bain while she's busy trying to kill the other two. Bain could never conceive of Stark letting someone else do the genius day saving. Frankly, it's hard for me to picture, but I'm calling my shot.

Blogging About Writing, Part 4

OK, last set. It hasn't been quite as interesting as I hoped, but it's helped carry me through a stretch where nothing seems to be coming out.

31. Write a short love letter to your readers.

Thank you for the time you allocate to reading my writing. Knowing you deemed my thoughts worth some of your finite lifespan is both surprising and appreciated.

32. What is a line from something you return to? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

"I believe it's the duty of the press to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." It's from Inherit the Wind, so I found it because I watched it with my dad. It means I write people in power as untrustworthy asshole and kill them whenever I can bend the story that way.

33. Do you practice any art besides writing? Does it ever tie into your writing, or is it separate?

I sketch, as people on this blog are aware, though I haven't done any of that in a couple of years. I have tried on occasions in the past to draw scenes from my stories. Such as Calvin and Clever Adolescent Panda arguing while Deadpool blows up part of a road, or Adorable Baby Panda being attacked by a pirate penguin. It never turns out well, so I stopped doing that. I don't have a strong enough sense of my characters' designs (or I lack the skill) to put them on paper and not be disheartened by how they look.

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, go.

Had to look it up to make sure it was what I thought. It was. I don't really care. I'll use as few commas as I can get away with, but if other people want to use an extra one, it's not getting my nose bent out of shape.

35. What's your favorite writing rule to smash to smithereens?

All of them? I see a lot of posts on tumblr about how you should never do "X", or stop doing "Y" when you write. Don't skip over a scene you're struggling with to write one you already have prepared. Don't refer to characters by their hair color. That kind of shit. Because I'm a contrary person, my reaction every time is, "Don't tell me how to write my stories."

I can write reports for work following the rules, even if refraining from sarcasm is really hard, but when I'm writing for fun the only thing I care about is that I'm happy with the end result. However I get to that point is fine. So fuck all the rules.

36. They say Write What You Know. Setting aside this is terrible advice. . .what do you know?

Wildlife biology. Sports trivia and comic book minutiae. Basic farming stuff. Westerns. Habits of dialogue and tics in noirs. Sarcasm. Self-doubt. Isolation. Slapstick comedy.

37. If you were remembered only by your words on page, what would the historians think of you?

I didn't know how to write romance. I like settling things with violence. I'm a bizarre mixture of fatalism and optimism.

38. What is something about your process you think is really weird? Or, if you aren't comfortable talking about that, what do you think cats say about us?

I have no one to judge against, so nothing about my process seems weird to me. As I understand it, cats think we are also cats. So they think we are the dumbest, ugliest, most hopelessly incompetent cats around.

39. What helps you when you feel like giving up?

I hate giving up on things because it feels like failure. This is why I finish books I hate (Tristam Shandy, come on down and get chucked in a compost heap!), or watch shitty Netflix horror movies all the way through. Well, that and because I think I might get something of use out of them. So I just force myself to keep going. I have stopped working on a story for about a year before, but I still came back to it when it was all said and done. So, stubbornness drives me forward. That, or the knowledge the idea will just sit in brain, annoying me, until it's done.

40. Please share a poem with me.

Uch, really? Fine. 'Land of ivory waves, Your kings conceal old secrets, Secret of ancients.'

I cobbled that haiku attempt together for a story. At least haiku don't have to rhyme.

The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure (2022)

A group of bandits, adrift at sea, are rescued by a group of pirates. The combined group becomes aware of a map that is supposed to lead to the treasure of a deceased, betrayed king and sets off to find it. At the same time, a ruthless former general is after the gold as well, as part of a plan to be named ruler of a particular kingdom. I actually appreciate the plan. Because he's a disgraced former general, he has no army of loyal followers. He can't take a kingdom, or the gold, on his own. But he can dangle that prospect in front of someone with ambition that outstrips his strength, get the muscle he needs as backup, and go get the gold.

The movie is pretty heavily action-adventure, with a fair amount of comedy thrown in. The bandit leader, Woo Moo-Chi (played by Kang Ha-neul) constantly refers to himself as the greatest swordsman of the land he came from. And when he's actually swordfighting, he might live up to the claim. But he's also an idiot who won't listen to the advice of the pirate captain Hae-Rang (played by Han Hyo-joo), and usually ends up with egg on his face. Such as when he sees a cow go charging into the far end of a cave tunnel and encourages his men to rush in the other end to kill and eat it. So he misses the entire herd that stampedes in on the first cow's heels and ends up being flung off a cliff.

It leans too far into comedy with the Mak-Yi character, who is a complete idiot who uses a little bit of useful information he possesses to make the crew name him Pirate King, then proceeds to abuse the crew and generally not have any clue what he's doing. It also does a whole romance angle between Hae-Rang and Woo Moo-Chi where they keep annoying each other and saving each other in alternating fashion. He can't stop trying to act like a big man, and she can't help giving him rope to make an ass of himself.

The film uses the hunt for the treasure to bring the crew to a variety of beautiful, CGI set pieces. Allowing themselves to be carried through an underwater current filled with colorful (and apparently harmless) jellyfish. An island with a burned out village at the peak where lightning strikes constantly, but also an ice cave.

The climax of the film splits into three parts. Hae-Rang leading her pirates to assault the enemy vessel and take it for their own. Woo Moo-Chi fighting the former general (they have some backstory I was never entirely clear about) in that aforementioned burned out village. Mak Yi following a penguin to the gold.

The swordfight got the least time, which is too bad, because the setting was pretty good. The village gets hit with lightning because the spears of 12 generals were placed points up in a ring. So the guys are fighting in and around all these lightning strikes. One guy shoots an arrow which is struck by lightning and simply gains destructive energy rather than being incinerated.

It's All a LARP to Him

The gig economy is rough.

One of the appeals of both team books and D&D campaigns is the fun that comes of throwing a bunch of disparate characters together and seeing how they interact/combust. Kendra Wells' Real Hero Shit is a team book, set in the sort of European medieval fantasy world like one might encounter in a D&D campaign. Big stone castle, rustic villages with wood slat roofs, that sort of thing. Michel, Hocus, and Ani are a traveling party in need of a good fighter, and the kingdom's prince, Eugene, applies to join. After a brief test spar, which Wells draws to good effect, and highlights the characters' differing approaches (Michel likes to attack from blind spots, Eugene stands his ground but jumps to conclusions), Eugene is on the team.

Michel's a thief, observant, reserved and serious. Hocus is a cleric, who also carries a war hammer. Kind, polite, steadfast in their convictions. Ani's a mage, outspoken, sarcastic (which is probably why she was my favorite character), quick-tempered. Edward's tendency to treat things as a lark, as well as his being endlessly horny, quickly irritates the hell out of Ani.

While the arguing is entertaining, and Wells uses it to hint at Ani's backstory, it also ends up leading to the two characters fucking. Yes, once again it's the "Constant Arguing = Sexual Tension" trope! Quite possibly my least favorite thing in all of fiction! Oh joy.

Moving on. Wells is quite good at working glimpses of the characters' histories, or the world's for that matter, without dragging the story to a halt for exposition. When we learn through Ani why there aren't many mages like her, it's in the middle of her angrily responding to an insult hurled at her by the equivalent of a clergyman. It's airing a grievance that we get the impression Ani carries with her for a long time. Since Wells has established Ani is not shy about telling people what she thinks of them, it doesn't seem out of place. 

Likewise, when we learn a bit about Michel's childhood, it's in the midst of an unexpected reunion with a long-lost friend. The other characters are just as in the dark as the reader, so an explanation - not so vague as to be useless, nor so detailed as to draw out for pages - is perfectly understandable.

The book is a third done when they reach the village where the disappearances are taking place, but Wells has used that time to establish the outlines of the characters' interactions, which leaves time to spend on investigating the mystery, fleshing out Michel's backstory, and the whole thing with Ani and Eugene. It's also allowed for some lighthearted scenes, which allows the darker turn in the back half to have a little more punch. Wells can simplify or exaggerate their art for comedic effect, as well as things like placing a little character head/emoji next to a speech bubble if that character isn't otherwise present in the panel.

It's still a straightforward problem and solution, but again, Wells seems to be using this to lay groundwork for future stories. Eugene is presented as being very pleased with himself, and Michel points out a ruler's decisions will rarely be so neat and tidy. It'd be interesting to see whether the art shows any shift to match the tone of the stories if things did grow more complicated. The coloring remained bright (Amanda Lafrenais is credited for color flatting), even during the nighttime scenes, which made everything easy to read, always appreciated. Would things get murkier? The characters do occasionally get dirty or wounded (nothing graphic), but it's easily cleaned up. Would that change as the work got dirtier?

Sunday Splash Page #236

 

"Into the Fire," in Hellcat #2, by Steve Englehart (writer), Norm Breyfogle (artist), Tom Smith (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

So in 2000, Marvel brought Patsy Walker back from the dead. In a Thunderbolts Annual we'll see in Saturday Splash Page some time next year. After a subsequent appearance in the Avengers Annual of that year, Patsy got this 3-issue mini-series by Englehart and Breyfogle, where Hellcat finds herself caught up in a war for control of the realms of condemned souls.

Patsy herself is struggling with finding meaning in life. She'd committed suicide and wound up in Mephisto's realm, didn't really get asked to be brought back to life, and isn't sure there's any point in it. And while Dormammu's spearheading the invasion, two of the realms being invaded are ruled by Mephisto, who claimed her soul, and her second ex-husband, Daimon Hellstrom. So she's got to help two people she doesn't particularly care for.

Englehart ramps up Patsy's abilities somewhat, as her time in Hell has taught her to both sense magic and be able to evade/slip free of it. She's no spell-slinger, but actually getting her with a spell is hard to manage. Breyfogle and Smith give the magic that gets tossed around a vivid, tangible presence, coiling around victims, which lets Patsy's ability to avoid it be more visually interesting than simply dodging it.

They also, as you notice above, revamp her costume, essentially swapping the blue and yellow. I like it personally, makes her look more sleek, but when Busiek and Larsen pulled her into their Defenders run, they immediately reverted her to the original look (though they retained the magic-sensing abilities). I don't remember them doing a lot with Patsy struggling with her past suicide, either, but a lot of the focus of that book was on how much the Big Four hated being forced to work together.

Englehart wastes what I feel is a lot of pages on the idea that actually, Satannish was created by Dormammu, as a double agent for when Dormammu inevitably invaded these Hell-realms. At the very end, we find out that actually actually (yes I typed it twice on purpose), Hellstrom is the Son of Satannish, because he was Dormammu's second double agent, in case the first time didn't work. Which feels like the sort of needless continuity patch Roy Thomas or Geoff Johns would do, and also seems like much more subtlety than Dormammu would bother with. If he was able to create Satannish back when Mephisto first came into being, why not just crush Mephisto then?

It seems like Englehart really wanted Patsy to figure this all out, like a goofy twist on the soap operas she used to love (according to what she says in this mini-series), and needed an appropriately convoluted reveal.

After this, it was 8 years before Patsy got another mini-series of her own, and 7 years after that before she got an ongoing. We won't see either of those for a few years (probably late 2025.) She will pop up in an ensemble mini-series in a few weeks, however.

Saturday Splash Page #38

 

"Down the Spout," in Weird World of Jack Staff King-Size Special, by Paul Grist

We'll get to Jack Staff proper in Sunday Splash Page some time next year, but for now, a two-week foray. Grist explains on the last page, that this was a story originally serialized in Comics International sometime earlier, and then reprinted as one big comic through Image in 2007. Grist mentions one thing he learned is that you shouldn't do a comic that's being released in 3-4 page chunks on a monthly release schedule, because it loses momentum. Weekly works better, apparently.

The story itself involves Q (really, the Q acts as the dot at the bottom of a question mark, but I have no idea how to type that), who are your sort of shadowy group that investigate mysterious goings-on. 3-person team. Helen Morgan (???), Harry Crane (ex-cop, precog), Ben Kulmer ("reformed" thief). In this case, that involves a mysterious meteorite and people being turned into walking, talking plant-folk. Grist, as was typical for his Jack Staff stuff, populates the book with other characters who feel as though their stories have just happened to intersect with Q for the night. Hints at their backstory, but nothing more. The Starfall Squad. Sommerset Stone, Gentleman Adventurer.

It works as its own standalone adventure for Q, while also letting Grist hint at a few different threads with those characters. That Helen's playing some sort of long game the other two don't grasp, and that Ben's probably not as much his own man as he thinks, with that weird claw on his hand. Mostly, it's just a nice creepy adventure. Grist uses the nighttime, woodsy setting to play with shadows and negative space, which he's pretty good at. The plant-folk are weird, but not too monstrous.

Random Back Issues #93 - Ms. Marvel #2

No, no, no, you have to clench your fists on either side of you and scream really loudly. Have you ever even seen Dragon Ball Z? Fake geek girls, I tell ya. *immediately beaten to death*

Having snuck out to a rowdy teen party, then been exposed to Terrigen Mists and breaking out of a weird egg, Kamala has also changed to look like Carol Danvers. Which does not produce the confidence and strength she hoped.

Wandering the fog, Kamala spies current Mean Girl Zoe and future fascist bootlicker Josh near a pier. While Kamala reflexively shrinks to bug size, Josh wants to sing, or dance, or drunkenly make-out. Zoe's not having it, and when Josh tries to dip her, drops her in the river instead. Kamala remembers something her father said about the importance of saving even one life, and is able to rescue Zoe while looking like Carol Danvers. 

Also, I love the little details Alphona adds for garbage that gets scooped up along with Zoe. I am very curious about "free-range maple syrup." Is this something Plant-Man is involved with? Trees that get up and move? Oh crap, it's not those plant-people that don't like K'un-Lun is it?

Zoe vows to never get wasted again while people thank "Captain Marvel" and compliment her return to her old costume. Kamala bails, thinking about how the boots pinch and the leotard gives her a wedgie. It occurs to me, is the costume Kamala's regular clothes, which she was able to change along with her body, or did her body actually grow over her clothes when she changed shape?

Still looking like a blonde Amazon, Kamala borrows a sweater from a guy with a shopping cart full of stuff and sneaks back into her room. Fails the stealth check though, as her brother hears her. Fortunately for Kamala, her body changed back to normal, so that's one less thing to explain, though she does try. Aamir takes this to mean some boy tried something at the party, which she assures him isn't the problem. Bad news, her parents know she snuck out. So she gets a lecture about how she's being willful and disobedient and her mother blames it on America. Then Kamala gets grounded. I guess no superheroing until that's lifted. Oh well.

{7th longbox, 140th comic. Ms. Marvel (vol. 3) #2, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Blogging About Writing, Part 3

I would have talked about the convention here, if I'd gone to it. Given my car is doing things that make me nervous, probably just as well I didn't try it.

21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not?

If I ran out of things to say, probably. Or if I just got tired, or it was too much trouble to find a way to post it online. I guess there are times I would like to quit, but in the hopes I'd written everything I wanted to and figured I was done. I suppose as long as I can write, it's a good sign my mental acuity hasn't gone in the toilet.

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe your organization, if it exists. What tools do you use?

I wouldn't say I'm terribly organized, which is not a surprise to anyone who has read my ramblings on this blog over the last 15+ years. There have been a few stories where I made a vague outline ahead of time in a basic composition notebook. Character names and a few traits I considered important. Timelines of things I definitely wanted to include. In one case, where I planned to have a bunch of characters split up and each doing their own thing, I made a sort of chart to map out who was doing what at what times, relative to each other. Helped me figure out if there were gaps where I really needed to account for somebody, or if I was putting the same character in two disparate locations too close to the same time. A few times, I've even written out specific scenes when I thought I had something good and didn't want to lose it.

Most of the time, I wing it and try to make the first draft the final draft. That worked pretty well for the Adorable Baby Panda/Calvin/UnCalvin "hijinks of the week" stories. The more complicated stories, not so much. I end up revising more than once, which I find really annoying.

23. Describe your writing environment.

I type at my dining room table, because that's where my laptop is. The table is sorta messy, got some papers off to one side, books and other stuff on the floor behind the chair. I have a good view of my TV from here, or I can open the sliding door and look outside, although the view isn't much.

24. How much prep work do you do? What does it look like? Do you enjoy it?

Is this separate from the organization? If I decide to include some specific subject or whatever in a story, I will do as much googling on it as I deem necessary. The point where I get annoyed is where I draw the line on necessary. So sometimes I decide it's enough to know the correct terms for the tools. Say, if I decide one character likes to knit, but don't intend to spend much time on that beyond noting they do it. I have also spent over an hour trying to calculate the mass of a hypothetical city and what it's velocity would be if it was sent tumbling down a mountain as a single object, and how big a tidal wave that would create. Eventually, I gave up and decided the tidal wave could be as big as I wanted.

25. What is a hyper-specific detail you know about your characters that is irrelevant to the story?

I'm not sure the knitting thing was relevant to the plot, but I felt like it was an important character detail. My approach to those sorts of details is similar to the question last time about lore or backstory. If I go to the trouble of thinking it up, then it's going to be relevant somehow. Who are these people that have the time to map out all sorts of irrelevant crap about their characters?

26. How do you get into your character's head? How do you get out? Do you regret going in?

I write from third-person omniscient a lot, which I think creates a certain detached distance. If I do go more personal, I decide what they would say or do, and type them doing it, and that's that. If I make them do something awful, it doesn't bother me. Neither does making them sad. The person who devised these questions takes a very different approach to writing than I do, I think.

27. Most stressful character you've written and why.

I don't know. Probably either a really smart character, or the sort of character who is very good at reading people and their intentions. The latter is not something I'm good at, or at least I don't think I'm any good at it. Characters who doubt themselves are extremely easy for me to write.

28. Most delightful character you've written and why.

When Pollock is being especially condescending and arrogant, because writing pointed insults indulges the sarcastic, vicious part of myself. At the same time, I know Pollock is probably getting some kind of comeuppance, which is also something I enjoy doing. So I'm setting myself up for a enjoyable payoff at the end. It's the same reason I enjoy writing Vegeta. I can have him talk shit, and know I'm going to write him getting his jaw broken for it soon, and it's entirely in character.

29. Where do you draw inspiration? What do you do when the well runs dry?

We've already discussed dreams. Beyond that, probably Westerns and noirs a lot. Superhero comics for certain things. I steal names for places or background characters from video games. A lot of the time it comes down to what I would like to see, or would have liked to see with a particular character or story. Then I write it, and it makes me happy. The well hasn't run dry yet, so that is not a problem. Choosing between two equally appealing outcomes of a particular scene, that's a problem.

30. Have you ever used material from dreams in writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember when you woke up?

Things I dream frequently end up in my stories, usually as settings or occasional antagonists. The antagonists are rarely fleshed out, they're more like obstacles or an excuse for a fight scene. I've probably written in a dream once, but I don't recall what I was writing offhand. I definitely can't confirm or deny that bit from Batman: The Animated Series about not being able to read in dreams. I think I may have read in some dreams, but I'm not positive of that.

The Keep (1983)

I found this for free, which is good, because I might have been annoyed if I spent actual money to watch it.

The Nazis set up an outpost in a small Rumanian town, and choose a big old castle the people maintain, but where no one stays the night. The Nazis, naturally, don't care abut such warnings. They are only months away from capturing Moscow, and so they're masters of the world. Yeah, about that. . .

A couple of the soldiers can't help themselves from trying to steal a cross they think is silver because it glows, and a cloud rips one of them in half. More soldiers die, the guy in charge asks to be able to move, and instead a bunch of SS guys show up. Which the movie tries to distinguish as being worse than the Wehrmacht, because the regular soldiers just traveled quietly through the village, but the SS guys immediately start pushing people around and killing "partisans", vowing to kill 5 for every Nazi that dies after.

Somehow the village still had people left by the end, even though the thing keeps killing Nazis and growing steadily more corporeal. The SS bring in a sickly professor (Ian McKellan) and his daughter to translate a warning, and the creature offers him his health if he'll remove a talisman. Which Scott Glenn and his weird contact lenses are not supposed to allow.

Most of the Nazi killing is alluded to rather than shown. Instead we get a lot of arguing between McKellan and the village priest, who seems to abruptly lose his mind part way through. Maybe he's picking up on the bargain McKellan made, but where's the compassion, the plea for McKellan to not sacrifice his humanity in a misguided pursuit of vengeance? Also a lot of arguing between the Wehrmacht captain and the SS commander. How the SS guy loves to talk about his courage as he and his ilk murder women and children. Oh, but the captain stood aside and let them murder those women and children, so what does all his compassionate talk count for?

Eh, maybe it's for the best. The more the creature kills, the more corporeal it becomes, and the stupider it looks. The early versions, where it's like a walking smoke machine that crackles with red lighting that outlines its limbs, that was pretty cool. Then it starts looking like a Power Ranger monster-of-the-week. There's actually a lot of smoke machines getting used in this thing. Between that and people running in slow-motion, it's like watching a music video. I don't know for which band. Maybe Meatloaf? Night Ranger? Some overdone Phil Collins song?

There was one shot that stuck with me, very early on. The Nazis just arrived and the camera watches the captain from behind as he strides up the bridge towards the keep. As he actually enters, the angle switches to a shot from directly above. But it's such a quick transition, and the way the captain's overcoat trails on either side, and almost glows in the light from outside, my first thought was the view hadn't changed and we were seeing some ethereal winged creature rising up from somewhere ahead of the captain. It took me a second to correctly interpret everything, but it was very cool while I was confused.

What I Bought 9/8/2022

There's supposed to be a baker's dozen worth of comics out this month I'd like to buy, but absolutely none of them are available this week. And only two from last week, both of which I've got here to discuss. Either the back half of this month is going to be crazy stuffed for me, or there's a lot of stuff running behind.

Bet on the latter.

She-Hulk #6, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Luca Maresca (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Appropriate for an issue which discusses Eat Cake in Fancy Dresses Wednesday.

She-Hulk meets Patsy Walker at a cake shop. Because it is Eat Cake in Fancy Dresses Wednesday. Patsy's also borrowed Tony's file on Jack of Hearts for Jen. Cannot believe they're having Patsy marry Tony Stark. Her taste in men is somehow getting worse than the Son of Satan. Back at the office, Nightcrawler is waiting with a request for She-Hulk to be the lawyer for every legal issue for the mutants who decided they didn't like shitty human countries and fucked off to their island paradise, but still want' to be able to vote and have driver's licenses. I would have thought "licenses" for "driving" would be considered inferior human concepts mutants wouldn't bother with.

Then Jen and Mallory have an argument where one page, Mallory is pissed Jen is taking superhuman clients after Mallory said not to do that. Two pages later, after Jen has pointed out Mallory was an expert in superhuman law and she hired She-Hulk (and pointed out she's on retainer with Krakoa now), Mallory is happy and like, "well maybe I do like superhuman law after all.)

This feels like such awkward pacing. Rowell's been trying to sell the notion Jen has no non-superhuman clients in the background, but the whole thing about why Mallory is so set against that comes up and gets resolved and/or shoved aside in one conversation that spans a couple of pages. Then she spends the last 11 pages on the Jack of Hearts plot, where Jack is thinking of moving home, but he cooked lasagna for Jen and then they make out and that's the issue.

The second-to-last panel is of Jen, as she's following Jack to the bedroom, pausing and looking at something in the living room quizzically. I have no idea what. I've been treating that page like one of those "spot the differences!" challenge puzzles, but I can't see that Maresca drew anything differently between any of the four panels. Nothing moved suddenly, nothing vanished. Is she just looking at the wine bottle, wondering about Jack being willing to touch her now (he is apparently not radioactive at all now)?

If you could say anything was resolved by the end of the sixth issue, I guess it's that Jen no longer has to hide the fact she's meeting superhuman clients from Mallory. Again, though, Rowell has put that so far on the back burner I can't reach it with the spoon to see if it's done yet.

Moon Knight #15, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight finds himself trapped in the horrifying world of high finance. Can he escape a banker's life?

Marc speaks with Dr. Sterman about Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. Sterman has not brought them up at all, and she explains to Marc that was because everything about Moon Knight that was a cause for concern circled around Marc Spector. I kind of wonder if that's always been macKay's plan, or if he shifted it when there was such a positive response to how Marc's D.I.D. was portrayed in the TV show. Granted, I'm basing "positive response" on what I see on the two or three tumblr blogs I read that discuss the show. 

Given how MacKay has shown that Marc looks like hell when he's running the show solo, and that he has been consistently behind his enemies through most of this book, I'm inclined to think that was all part of a plan.

Anyway, intercut with the therapy session are scenes of Steven and Jake out getting information. Jake hits up a bar about the vampires, which leads to a section of Chinatown where this Structure group doesn't go. Which suggests a pretty powerful vamp already lives there. Hunter's Moon is not thrilled at the idea of a parlay with said vampire, which will probably be an issue later. He is, however, entirely cool with Moon Knight have D.I.D., because it reflects the different phases of the moon. I'm not sure that's the best logic, but OK, fine.

Steven, meanwhile, hits up a guy with the notion that supervillain movies will be the next big thing, and maybe he could get some info on a couple of European killers as a rough draft? And that's how Calvin learns about pankration, an ancient Greek submission style. Who says comic books aren't educational? 

It's a contrast in settings. Steven sits in a comfortable chair in a high-rise lounge after going to his stylist to fix the disaster Marc made of their hair. Jake is literally drinking in an alley, wearing his fake mustache. Not sure where that leaves Marc, who spends most of the issue in Sterman's office, or standing on the rooftop of said building. That's up high, but it's also kind of on the street. It's also precarious, I suppose. One more step and he's over the edge. I would think that with no longer trying to suppress Steven and Jake, Marc would be at less risk of doing something stupid. But if it's going to bring out his insecurities about his value compared to the other two, maybe not.

Sunday Splash Page #235

 

"Charting a Perilous Course," in Hedra, by Jesse Lonergan

This was an experimental one-shot Lonergan released through Image back in the fall of 2020, telling the story of an astronaut sent out to find some way to revitalize their world after it was destroyed by nuclear war. Lonergan starts with a 5x7 panel grid, then shifts that as necessary.

Sometimes several panels are combined to form a larger panel. Sometimes Lonergan leaves panels empty, as a reference point against the movement of the characters through the other panels. And, as in the page above, sometimes the how the action moves through the panels in a way meant to imply the landscape they depict.

I think the way he uses the panels to show movement in most interesting. There's one where the astronaut swings a sword, and the action is shown across the bottom row of the page. But the arc of the blade, which goes above the astronaut, is shown as a single white line against a dark backdrop on the two rows above it. I'm not sure it always works - there are times you have to jump around the page to follow the action in the order it's happening - but it wasn't something I remembered seeing before. So for novelty and creativity alone, I'm glad I read it.

Saturday Splash Page #37

 

"Trivial Pursuit," in West Coast Avengers #23, by Steve Englehart (writer), Al Milgrom (penciler), Romeo Tanghal (inker), Christie Scheele (colorist), Tom Orzechowski (letterer)

After the initial mini-series, West Coast Avengers got itself an ongoing in late 1985. Steve Englehart was the series writer for about the first three years, though apparently several of the issues near the end were almost entirely re-written by Editorial, to Englehart's great annoyance.

Englehart kept the five characters from the mini-series, although by this point, Tony Stark was back in place of Jim Rhodes. There was some restriction in the current status quo that said the team couldn't have more than six members, so Englehart tried getting mileage out of Hawkeye's search for that sixth member. Hank Pym shows up, determined to just be tech support, and of course Clint tries to get him to do it. When that fails, he tries recruiting Ben Grimm, but that gets wrecked by the events of the tail end of Ben's ongoing series. Mockingbird convinces him he's been overlooking Firebird all along, but by the time Clint asks, she's found a different path.

And then Vision tells Clint that limit got tossed a while ago, anyway. Yeesh. 

Eventually, both Moon Knight and Hank Pym join the active roster. This is when Pym forgoes changing his own size (as his body apparently can't take it) and goes the "scientist adventurer" route, which eventually resulted in him wearing the flight suit with pockets full of tool, weapons and instruments, shrunk down until he needed them. I think it's actually a pretty good turn for Pym, who never seems to fit when he's trying to be big and punch things.

Of course, to get to the point Englehart first pushed Pym to feel like such a failure he was putting a gun to his head before Firebird stopped him. This was either the first or second of the "drag Hank Pym to the depths, then build him up" stories, an arc that has been repeated probably a half-dozen times since then.

Englehart's run is also the one where Mockingbird gets abducted by the Phantom Rider while the team is in the Old West, then drugged into loving him. Which ends with her breaking free and attacking the Rider until he slips and falls to his death. Which she then lies to Hawkeye about when he asks, enabling the Rider's ghost to pop up a century later and tell Clint a bunch of lies which help torpedo his and Bobbi's marriage. Chelsea Cain at least tried to retcon that story halfway with her Mockingbird run, but I'm not sure it didn't do more to rehabilitate Hawkeye than Mockingbird.

Englehart also decided that Tigra, rather than worrying about whether she was cut out to be an Avenger, should be feeling torn between her human and cat selves. Her cat self manifested in her being almost terrified of water (which was not a problem in the mini-series, even when Graviton flung her and the Shroud out into the ocean), and basically trying to jump almost every man she saw. Wonder Man, Pym (the Pym thing is especially weird since she was on the Avengers during the whole domestic abuse thing, and she pretty clearly thought Hank was scum then.) Heck, even Graviton when he forcibly kisses her after capturing the entire team. This is resolved around issue 15, but that first year was pretty rough, and the Mockingbird thing picks up almost immediately after. I'm not sure it's a great run for the women on the team.

The one development that I actually enjoy is what Englehart does with Wonder Man. Simon is still a bit afraid of dying again, but after managing to beat an Ultron all by himself, starts to accept just how powerful he actually is. This causes him to get a swelled head and start trying to throw his weight around on the team. It is really impressive that he managed to be the biggest asshole on a team with both Tony Stark and Clint Barton. Also, they gave him an absolutely hideous Christmas-colored costume for about a year.

Al Milgrom draws the book a lot, and for the first two years, he's almost always inked by Joe Sinnott. There are some nice looking issues, but a lot of times, I think there's too much information to cram into panels that are too small and everything starts to look clunky. Sinnott's inks might be too heavy, or maybe it's that Milgrom's lines are too thick, although it wasn't as much of a concern in the issue when Kyle Baker inks Milgrom (issue #6). Iron Man in particular often looks like he had to expand his armor to accommodate some middle-age spread.

After Englehart left, John Byrne arrived within a few months, and kick-started his own troublesome storyline for a character, with the whole bit about Wanda and Vision's children being figments of Wanda's power, and she's really crazy, and well, you see where that got us. *gestures to the last 20 years of Marvel comics*

What I Bought 9/3/2022 - Part 3

I was thinking about going to a comic convention tomorrow, but I don't really want to drive 3 hours. Plus, I'd probably pick up a bug while I was there and I've got an elderly relative's birthday to attend next weekend, so maybe next year. In the meantime, here's two second issues.

Agent of WORLDE #2, by Deniz Camp (writer), Filya Bratukhin (artist), Jason Wordie (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - Weird how there are dead bodies wherever this guy goes.

Our protagonist teams up with another old acquaintance, Ares Hill. He gets along better with Ares than Kilgore last issue, as they spend part of the story reminiscing and catching up while retrieving the MacGuffin. This action is interspersed with scenes from Phil's quiet home life watching movies with his daughter and talking her through nightmares.

At the end of the issue, Ares intends to use the MacGuffin to make things how he wants. He'd been undercover, with an entire implanted psyche and a family. A family he killed when the mission was over, per his orders. He wants that back. Phil kills him and tells him he ought to have grown up, or come to Phil for help. Before he dies, Ares asks if Phil would have done the same if their situation was reversed? Judging by Phil's expression, I'm guessing the answer is no.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of Phil. He claims he sees everything a person can be, which Bratukhin shows with all the tiny little sepia or greyed-out panels that surround the main action as Phil walks through a mess of enemies, killing a bunch of them. And he seems sad about this, but, as Kilgore noted in issue 1, that doesn't stop Phil from doing it. So what's the difference? Those people are dead whether Phil feels bad about it afterwards while he tucks in his daughter (that he hasn't had to kill).

Camp seems to position Ares a bit like the old friend from college that never grew up or beyond what they were then, while Phil has matured in worldview with his additional responsibilities. Camp's good at writing them as old friends who had a lot of good times once. But Phil's worldview seems to be to kill whoever WORLDE tells him to, then go home to his family. They were arguing earlier in the issue about movies and how Ares can't enjoy the special effects spectacle because he knows it's fake, while Phil says he can see the wires, but enjoys it anyway. Which seems to suggest he knows he's in a crappy world, and helping make it crappier, but he doesn't really care. "Fuck everyone, I got mine," ain't a particularly mature worldview either.

Blink #2, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - Can you turn the sound up? It's hard to hear over all this demonic chittering.

Wren and Joel run from the creatures, but their way out is sealed, and they can't find another. Not that Wren is willing to go. She wants answers, even if it kills her. I don't know if I can follow that thinking, that the life she built was 'hollow' as she puts it, because she doesn't have these answers. But my situation is not her situation. I know where I came from, at least enough to satisfy me. 

Wren doesn't know anything, and the next set of security monitors don't tell much. People agreed to stay in this place for six months back during the Y2K freakout. But whoever set it up changed their minds and wouldn't let anyone out at the end. The creatures find them again, Wren and Joel run, Joel gets a knife through the skull. Bye Joel.

Wren finds her way to a hall full with photographs, then some immense cathedral. Where she's captured by a creepy whispering guy in a hood. Good luck with those answers.

All the panels are set against a backdrop of TV snow or static, streaks of pixels. Some of the panels themselves have those blurring effects, like we're watching this through those same broken-down monitors Wren and Joel found. Sherman uses a lot of panels that are focused tightly on Wren. He might pull back for an establishing shot, to give us a sense of what she's found. Then he draws in close immediately afterward to make her feel trapped. Some pages, the panels fit around each other like puzzle pieces, in others, they're arranged as a giant arrow when Wren gets dragged down. He plays with the sense of space, in that you can't tell if Wren's pushed up against a wall, or flat on the floor. The panels may point down, but which direction is that at this point?

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Robotnik gets rescued from the mushroom planet by Knuckles, who is after Sonic because he thinks Sonic is hiding the Master Emerald, which he makes the mistake of mentioning is incredibly powerful while standing within earshot of Robotnik. Cue super-villain team-up, with inevitable betrayal.

Meanwhile, Tails showed up because he somehow picked up on Sonic's energy when he caused the blackout early in the first movie. He saw Sonic be a hero, and basically showed up up to fanboy. It's a weird mix of tones in this movie. You have Sonic making a huge mess when he's left home alone, and another sequence where he and Tails go to a bar and get into trouble. Siberian dance-off trouble.

At the same time, Knuckles is there as possibly the last member of his people, trying to retrieve the Emerald Sonic's giant owl mother and her people hid (because it's immensely powerful and dangerous). So Knuckles' people are responsible for killing Owl Momma, and she is quite likely responsible for killing Knuckles' father. And now the kids are fighting each other. Sonic's getting punched through walls, he does the spinning dash things and drives Knuckles through solid rock. It's not like there's blood or dismemberment or anything, but definitely a couple of characters working through abandonment by whupping the shit out of each other.

And in the midst of all this, James Marsden and Tika Sumpter are playing Sonic's adoptive parents, who got to Hawaii for Sumpter's sister's marriage. The sister, Rachel, still doesn't like Marsden's character, so of course he messes up her wedding. Even those low-scale hijinks then get roped into the fact that Robotnik originally came after Sonic at the government's behest. 

That part fits awkwardly with the Emerald stuff, but I think they wanted to make a point about how Sonic found a new family, which he adds to with Tails and Knuckles, but they didn't have a good way to incorporate Marsden and Sumpter's characters into the Emerald hunt. So the movie tries to give them something else to do until they can be involved.

Jim Carrey's still bringing a lot of energy, which is good since he interacts with CGI talking animals roughly 90% of the time. My favorite bit was when he yells that he can't die from being run over by a giant spiked boulder because it's too derivative. That or when he criticizes Stone for not having read the manual (of the giant robot he just created), and a few minutes later, Stone uses a weaponized mustache. When Robotnik asks what the hell that was, Stone holds up the manual. He works for a lunatic, but Stone is a devoted employee.

What I Bought 9/3/2022 - Part 2

Moving right along, we have the penultimate issue of one mini-series, and the penultimate quartile of another series. If you count the two Locust series as one big, 8-issue mini, then the fifth issue is. . .you know what? I don't have to justify this to you. Let's just get on with it.

Locust: Ballad of Men #1, by Massimo Rosi (writer), Alex Nieto (artist), Mattia Gentili (letterer) - Like a hideously mutated bug-man to flame.

In the past, Max and Stella explore a shopping mall right after Ford's men kill a bunch of scientists that were trying to broadcast a message about what's happening. That's pretty grim, and the color scheme is still a washed out grey, but Stella is very excited about getting to eat a can of corned beef and ride one of the little rocket ship things outside the arcade. I don't know whether it's sweet she can find joy in the midst of this, or sad these sorts of things qualify as a great day for her.

In the present, Max and the cultist he caught previously are attacked by a bunch of the locusts. They survive, though Max gets chomped on, but made too much noise and are discovered by the guy Max wanted to avoid. Who looks a lot like one of the guys that got killed in the sequence in the past. Not sure if that's just a coincidence on Nieto's part, or if that person actually survived. Because Max seems to know them, and we haven't seen that meeting yet.

Then Ford launches some nukes at NYC from the Army base he's taken over, because he's determined to rebuild this world the way he thinks it should be. Which is an interesting escalation. I'm guessing that will serve as a backdrop to the remainder of the story, as Max continues trying to rescue Stella.

While the color scheme is still oppressively drab, it does feel like Nieto pulled back on it a bit in the interests of clarity. Not as many sequences where I feel like I'm squinting through fog trying to tell what's going on. Also seems like the blacks are more solid, pronounced than they were in the first mini-series. Maybe that owes to the lightening of the colors overall, but it helps. It makes the contrast of the shadows, makes them stand out more. Better effect.

A Calculated Man #3, by Paul Tobin (writer), Alberto Alburquerque (artist), Mark Englert (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - It all adds up to trouble. Don't groan at me!

Most of this issue is Jack's war against the Keys. He meets with the feds long enough to explain what he's doing, and basically assure them they can't stop him. Meanwhile, the mob boss tries to tell his men to act differently than normal to avoid falling into Jack's traps. This apparently fails utterly as Tobin has firmly planted Jack in the same realm as the seemingly omniscient serial killers in horror movies. 

He lets 3 guys spot him leaving a store, they start to chase, but two of them stop, because obviously they are being fooled. They retreat to their car, the third guy keeps going across the rooftops in what is a fairly entertaining chase as Alburquerque makes it more than just two guys running. Lots of leaping across gaps, or having to lunge for a higher ledge. Adds in some interesting bits for what people get up to on rooftops. 

Anyway, Dumbass 1 catches up to Jack, but steps on a pressure plate, triggering a shotgun to blow his head off at the exact same time Jack is using a sniper rifle to kill the two guys in the car because they're taking the route he knew they would take. Jack even went to the trouble of dressing in a casual guy jogging suit to complete the, "oh crap, you have taken my by surprise!" effect.

Maybe I should have expected this, but it was easier when Jack was ambushing one or two guys in a drug lab before they could know what was hitting them. This level of planning and foresight is severely straining my suspension of disbelief, even if watching the Keys' boss come up with increasingly ludicrous suggestions of how they could be unpredictable is funny. I actually think the "distribute fliers like he's a missing person" suggestion has merit. Or the "hire a circus to kill him" idea.

Through it all, Jack is really only concerned about his relationship with Vera, and the fact he's gotta tell her the truth eventually. I don't know how Tobin is going to play that. Is Vera actually a plant by the Keys? Will she freak out and leave Jack broken-hearted and ready to be arrested/executed? Will she think him actually killing people is really hot and decide to join him, like that movie with Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick, Mr. Right?