Glass Onion (2022)

I don't know if I like the story in this movie better than Knives Out. I saw a few things online over the winter, to where I had a pretty good idea who the murderer was going in, so I can't assess the quality of the mystery. It seemed pretty obvious who Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), and Miss Brand (Janelle Monae) were ignoring as a suspect in the lengthy flashback that occurs halfway through the movie, but, would I have noticed that going into the movie entirely cold? I like to think so, if only because the character was such an obvious shithead it would really be no surprise that they turned out to be the killer all along.

But the explanation for why Blanc takes so long to figure it out, because of his peculiar weakness, was at least well-established for comedic effect early and often, and then paid off at the end. Chekov's Blind Spot. Craig seems to be having a lot of fun with the character, and even the amping up of his folksy Southern charm has a reason.

The setting is excellent. The whole ridiculous, overdone, faux-visionary design of the island. The sliding panel over the painting, which is triggered by someone getting alerts on their phone, because the "hack" was shoddily done. The random presence of Derol, who I spent the entire movie waiting to see if he would actually be important, or if he was really just some guy Miles Bron (Ed Norton) was letting hang around while he figured out some stuff.

Norton also seems to be having fun with Bron. I mean, I hope he had fun playing an Elon Musk stand-in. An imbecile who perceives himself as brilliant and visionary, but is basically the equivalent of a five-year-old saying, "What if the duck pooped ketchup?" To be fair, Norton is always good at playing guys I'd kinda like to see get punched in the face (him and Jonah Hill both), so this is right in his wheelhouse. There's a flashback when Blanc does his big explanation, where Bron gets a fax and he's wearing an old-school Adidas tracksuit with the collar popped, no less. Perfect look, somehow just said everything about the character.

Sadly, Edward Norton does not get punched in this movie (Jonah Hill doesn't get punched either, but he's not in the movie.) I was hoping it would happen right at the end, but the way things went was, mostly fine. I guess. I mean, yes, it's going to be a whole thing for his reputation, but the painting did get destroyed, which kind of sucks for humanity. Whereas, if he just gets punched in the face, the only person harmed is him! And maybe the knuckles of whoever punched him.

What I Bought 2/22/2022

It's Wednesday night, and Friday I'm driving 600 miles with Alex to one of his gigs, then coming back on Sunday. Fingers crossed things go well!

I was only able to find two of last week's six books at the local store, but they're both from Marvel, they're both on the 4th issues, and they're both kinda disappointing me. That's enough of a theme.

Deadpool #4, by Alyssa Wong (writer), Martin Coccolo (artist), Neeraj Menon (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Why's Deathstrike need a sword anyway? She let Spiral rebuild her so she'd have built-in weapons! Not like Deadpool's healing factor is useless against sword wounds.

Deadpool, with the symbiote, are doing pretty well against Harrower's experiments, so Ock tries taking Valentine hostage, but doesn't pay attention and gets shot. Despite the fact we see blood, he doesn't seem all that hampered by it three pages later, when he destroys one of Valentine's arms. Which is about when things go wrong.

Deathstrike shows up, trying to kill Deadpool. She has to kill him and Ock, why not go after Ock first? As long as Deadpool's alive, he's a distraction she can use in her favor. Anyway, Harrower yoinks the bag of sedatives keeping the symbiote free of her control, Deathstrike gets multiply impaled, and off the bad guys go. Valentine gets Deathstrike on her feet and demands she help rescue Deadpool, or she'll die screaming in agony. In the meantime, the symbiote has matured and, sigh, Cletus Kasady bursts out of Wade's chest like a Xenomorph.

Oh goody, said no one whose opinion is of any relevance to me whatsoever. After a promising third issue, Wong returned to the stuff I don't care much about. The symbiote as antagonist, Harrower, Lady Deathstrike. The symbiote as sort of a supporting cast member that we saw glimpses of last month? That I liked. There's something there, where the symbiote could act as most of Wade's historical supporting casts. Sometimes they bail each other out, sometimes they screw each other over, sometimes they just annoy each other. Valentine as supporting cast/love interest/person of mystery? That I like.

So I'm back at the point of whether I want to continue buying this book on the chance I will get more of the stuff I like. Example, at the end of the issue, Wong nods towards the question of, why exactly Ock has hung around and helped Harrower. We don't get an answer, but am I intrigued enough to hang on and find out?

Tiger Division #4, by Emily Kim (writer), Creees Lee (artist), Yen Nitro (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I wonder whose metal hand that could be, holding the mystical gem? OK, I actually know who it is because the solicit for issue 5 spoiled the surprise.

Min-Jae gets ready to steal Tae's powers and transfer them to himself, so Lady Bright busts through the window. Then she pauses she Tae can give us another flashback about how he decided to turn his life around and make up for all his past misdeeds. Then, having not destroyed the machine or incapacitated Min-Jae during all this, Lady Bright has to try and fight him when he dons the ugliest, stupidest looking armor I have ever seen.

It is like a grey version of a Mandroid armor, but instead of the clear faceplate, it's just open in front like Magneto's helmet. Or maybe like he's wearing a Mindless One as a meat suit. It's made of a bunch of little flat pieces of metal, which he can shoot like projectiles, but also he can channel energy through it. Or electricity, maybe it's electricity.

He triggers the machine, Lady Bright tries to destroy it and fails, then gets beat easily by this moron in his shitty armor. Then the rest of the team shows up, but Tae's lost his powers. I think Nitro colors Tae with duller tones, like he's a plant that's been kept out of the sun and is slowly dying. Lee shrinks Tae's muscles too, and while he doesn't make Tae's clothes hang off him, he draws his shoulders as slumped and the pauldrons don't seem to be almost floating off his body any longer.

Then the guy who helped Mae-Jin build this device shows up. It's Dr. Doom. Well, at least it's a character who wears armor with some damn style. As well as a character with a track record for seeing sources of great power and saying, "I'll take that." I mean, "It is only logical that DOOM should be the one to wield this power to its full extent." Yeah, that sounds more like Doom. So credit to Kim for that.

I wouldn't exactly give this squad a great chance at beating Doom, but it may be as simple as Tae taking a crazy risk to reach the gem and regain his powers and Doom leaving. If he can't get the power, then he's not going to hang around fighting South Korea's government super-team. That's just a recipe for a lot of tedious diplomatic meetings.

Sunday Splash Page #259

 

"The Gold Ball and Chain," in Impossible Jones #4, by Karl Kesel (writer/inker), David Hahn (penciler), Tony Avina (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

I think this was funded on Kickstarter originally, but I ran into it as a four-issue mini-series released through Scout Comics late in 2021. Kesel and Hahn do a variation on Plastic Man's origin - the thief who gains stretching/shape-shifting powers - but where Plas became a legit hero, Impossible Jones is mostly playing hero as cover to figure out who threw her in whatever super-science gizmo did this to her and then try to take revenge.

Also, the hero biz is good cover for pulling her own heists, or pawning loot she recovers from other super-villains.

We don't get answers to the mysteries, beyond her finding someone in her crew was hired to knock her out, but had nothing to do with the super-science. Kesel and Hahn sprinkle in hints, like the fact Jones' shadow seems to have a mind of its own (and Even Steven up there recognizes it, whatever it is). The story does more world-building, establishing several other heroes and villains, issuing vague references to all kinds of backstories. The city seems to have a hero identity that is passed around between citizens for a year at a time, though the specifics were not revealed.

Hahn varies the styles of costumes. There are the more classic spandex types, but also the folks with more regular clothes repurposed into a motif, like Homewrecker there. Impossible Jones' powers allow for a lot of different visual looks and gags, and they have some fun with that.

There's been a few one-shots released since the end of the mini-series, slowly coming out in physical media, but I don't think they've dived any deeper into the mysteries around the main character yet.

Saturday Splash Page #61

 

"Impractical Effects," in Ultragirl #3, by Barbara Kesel (writer), Leonard Kirk (penciler), Terry Pallot (inker), Rob Alvord and Shannon Blanchard (colorists), Vickie Williams (letterer)

A 3-issue mini-series released in 1997, Ultragirl was about an aspiring actress, Suzy Sherman, who one day figures out she's got herself the superhero starter kit: Flight, super-strength, if not invulnerability, increased resistance and rapid healing. She meets the New Warriors, and they team-up to try and stop a special effects wizard calling himself "Effex", who causes disasters all over L.A., seemingly just for the publicity.

The tagline for the book is, "Marvel's Sassiest Powerhouse," but I don't feel "sassy" is the word to describe her. Ultragirl (although in the journal entries Barbara Kesel uses as expository dialogue, it's written "Ultra Girl") seems like a bit of an earnest, Valley Girl-type who keeps describing things as "ultra". In the first issue, before the powers manifest, Leonard Kirk draws her as self-conscious about the fact she somehow gotten taller and more ripped recently, trying to wear dark colors to look slimmer, hunched over slightly and trying to hide the gun show.

Suzy comes out of it a bit once her friends come up with a costume from some swimsuits a sporting goods store gave her after some work she did for them, but she's extremely smitten with Justice, which sparks a bit of jealousy in Firestar that Ultragirl's either oblivious or unaffected by. She finds out she has powers when a Sentinel attacks her during a tryout photo shoot, and she's suddenly a hot item, so she decides to lean into it. But part of how she does that is by quoting Terminator, then the Adam West Batman show about how she'll see the press again. Really seems like more of a dork. To the extent she's sassy, it's when people try to make decisions about her life without consulting her and she tells them where they can stick their notions.

Which is fine! You could argue Kesel could stand to let Ultragirl be a little angrier or less cheerful towards something other than the Sentinel that tried to kill her (and even that she doesn't totally destroy, just dismantles its body and uses like a murder minded computer), but her being a more media-savvy Silver Age Supergirl is OK.

I'm not sure what Power Girl's status was at DC at this point, whether she was still in her Atlantean heritage, magic using stint or not, but it feels as though Marvel figured there was an opening for a woman that's a "flying brick" type in their character stable. We're still a couple of years away from Kurt Busiek bringing Carol Danvers into both his Avengers and Iron Man runs, and when he did, she was going to be struggling with alcoholism, anyway. Outside of getting a little play in Ostrander's Heroes for Hire, I'm not sure what She-Hulk was up to, so other than Rogue (and she was in the X-Books, which I think were more walled off at that time), there wasn't much competition.

In practice, the character never really took off. Ultragirl was part of a large cast in Avengers: Initiative, and did eventually end up in a relationship with Justice, after he and Firestar's ended. But I don't think it got referenced in the most recent New Warriors series (the Chris Yost/Marcus To volume from 2014). Kesel gave Suzy an entire supporting cast of friends, a sister, plus a science-inclined ex-boyfriend to act as tech support, but I don't know if any of them ever showed up again.

Random Back Issues #100 - Fantastic Four #548

Imagine the Wizard describing someone else as having pretensions to relevance. How did this moron not die during Acts of Vengeance?

Reed and Sue's attempt to reconcile at Mentor's digs on Titan after Richards' rampant jackboot-licking in Civil War was interrupted by a weird space probe. While Reed was poking at it with Hank Pym, Sue got ambushed by the Wizard's latest version of the Frightful Four (him, Titania, Trapster, Hydro-Man).

We pick up after Reed's ship is destroyed by a booby-trap the Wizard somehow got on-board. Fortunately the Black Panther suggested remote starting the ship, but Sue's still being tortured because the Wizard's a sadistic little shit. They've got a back-up ship, but they still need a plan. So Reed sends the Wizard a little message.

The rest of the Frightful Four agree it's time to bail, also recognizing that they'd better kill Sue rather than risk her coming after them. The Wizard, however, is convinced Richards threatening to nuke him from orbit means Reed is charging in heedlessly. Dumbest smart man in comics. Yes, even more so than Reed. But hey, this house is really hi-tech. No way anyone could sneak up on them. Except maybe if one of the C-listers was an expert at that sort of thing.

(Plus, it's not like Reed Richards wasn't staying there for several days. He probably took everything apart while he was promising to never help the government throw people in Negative Zone jail again.)

It's hard to say who has the worst go of it in this issue. The Thing gets sucker-punched by Hydro-Man, then gets his foot stuck to the floor by a stray glue shot from Paste-Pot Pete as he's getting kayoed by the Panther. While he's stuck, Ben gets sent flying by Titania.

On the other hand, Hydro-Man's attempt to drown Ben got thwarted by the Torch evaporating his arm, and when he tries to take T'Challa prisoner, Storm simply turns him into humidity. As it turns out, a guy made of water fighting a guy made of fire and a lady who controls weather elements is in for a bad day. Who knew?

Reed's actually having trouble fighting the Wizard 1-on-1, but after Hydro-Dope gets dealt with, it's 5 against 1. Or is it, because the Wizard has a fancy briefcase! And inside that briefcase, is. . .a flowerpot? A hearing aid for Galactus? No it's the sonic cannon of the sound menace, Klaw! Hard to believe that guy was kept in reserve, considering the losers that made the starting lineup.

[4th longbox, 117th comic. Fantastic Four #548, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer)]

The Bone Orchard - Joseph Trigoboff

It's a murder mystery, set in New York City. Well-trod ground, to be sure. The cop in charge of the investigation already has too many other cases, is divorced, living alone, and finds himself under investigation by Internal Affairs. Again, not unfamiliar characteristics to the genre.

Trigoboff's angle is to emphasize Detective Yablonsky is not a particularly exceptional detective. He's not stupid, necessarily, but seems as though he needs time to tease things apart and solve cases. The internal monologue repeatedly emphasizes his awareness that many crimes go unsolved. His former partner tells Yablonsky he's not half the detective he was, to his face. All in all, not exactly inspiring.

Or the angle is how limited the system is. Limited people, trying to figure out who committed a crime from limited evidence and limited cooperation. Everyone with an ax to grind or secret to hide, including Yablonsky. Beyond that, the case ends up venturing into waters of diplomatic immunity, that's still more limits.

It wasn't a book I had much difficulty putting down. Not because it's hard to read, or Trigboff is too graphic. More because Yablonsky seems so resigned from the start, it's hard to escape the feeling of futility. There's not going to be any real justice, the innocent won't be protected. The victims' families don't even seem all that broken up about their deaths. It feels like Yablonsky's a detective either for the pension, or lack of motivation to do anything else. Even the few scenes of violence or action lack any real tension. At worst, someone may day a little sooner than they would otherwise.

Kinda nihilistic when I write it out. Yeesh.

'Outside a crowd had already formed in front of the apartment building. How did they find out so quickly? he wondered. He flashed his badge and got their attention. "The apartment of a murder victim is sealed for three months. No one can take occupancy now," he said.

He watched the mob of prospective tenants curse, complain and scatter before him. He felt like Wyatt Earp.'

May is Full of Possibilities

After the quiet affair of the April solicitations, May's brought a few new things. Like flowers blooming, they're pretty, but they also spew pollen everywhere and mess up your allergies.

What's new? Marvel has a Storm mini-series, written by Ann Nocenti, set during Storm's mohawk phase. I am conflicted. The "nostalgia" minis haven't exactly worked out great, even with characters I like a lot more than Storm. On the other hand, Ann Nocenti.

DC listed a Power Girl one-shot written by Leah Williams, but it says they changed Power Girl's superpowers after Lazarus Planet and she's estranged from the rest of the family, whatever that means. They did the different powers thing in the '90s, with the Atlantean heritage telekinesis or whatever, and I do not recall it being a rousing success.

Fairsquare Comics has Far South: Crooks, Pimps and Gauchos, which is described as a different sort of western, with violence in a Sin City style. Rodolfo Santullo's writing it, with Leandro Fernandez (who I remember from Ennis' MAX imprint Punisher work, if it's the same person) as the artist. Ten bucks, so I don't know if it's a one-shot, or a big collection or what.

OK, I haven't actually mentioned anything I'll definitely buy, so let's get an easy one. Impossible Jones and Captain Lightning #1, which is going to guest-star one of Kesel's other Kickstarter projects, the Section Zero cast he and Tom Grummett created. Black Jack Demon #4 isn't technically a new book, but there hasn't been an issue since 2021, I think that's a long enough absence to mention it here. Scout Comics also has Sudden Death #1, by Alexander Banks-Jongman and Robert Ahmad about a guy who can't die and a detective trying to solve why.

What's ending? Nature's Labyrinth, so we'll see how many answers we get.

What's left besides that? At Marvel, Fantastic Four and Deadpool involve fighting Dr. Doom and a host of assassins, respectively. Moon Knight's teaming up with Eddie Brock's kid. May give that a pass. Clobberin' Time and Hellcat are both on their third issues.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol is going to pit Robotman and Negative Man against a couple of Green Lanterns. Immortal Sergeant and Darkwing Duck are both up to issue 5, although by the time this posts, I may know whether I'm still bothering with the latter. 

Fallen and Liquid Kill are both up to issue 4, although Liquid Kill has no been extended to a 6-issue mini-series instead of 5. Fallen promises that the gods are regaining strength, which I can't imagine will be good for humanity. Maybe the "Just Don't Look" strategy from the Simpsons Halloween Special will work on them, too.

As far as magna, Zom 100 issue 10 seems to involve the guys trying to cruise a geisha district in the apocalypse. Good to know they have the energy to be horny.

Gorky Park (1983)

Renko (William Hurt) plays a Soviet cop, stuck with a case involving three dead bodies found in a park with their faces cut off. All Renko wants to do is find some evidence that will enable him to pass it off to the KGB, but matters are complicated, as they usually are, by Americans. Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin) is an American businessman who always seems to be around, even if Renko can't figure out how he's involved. And then an American cop (Brian Dennehy) shows up, because one of the corpses is his brother. There's a young woman (Joanna Pacula) involved, but Renko can't get her to tell him anything, but he finds himself unwilling to hand it off to the KGB by then.

Which leads to a chase scene where Dennehy tries to flee Renko across a train yard. Right as I was thinking both that Dennehy is not really built for running and that he was built to beat the hell out of a stringbean like William Hurt, Hurt caught up to him and Dennehy proceeds to whup his ass.

The movie really plays up the politicking and deal-making. Renko's making deals with the KGB, but they're making other deals with Osborne, but Renko and Dennehy are working together in secret, and it's unclear where the young woman's allegiances lie. The movie drags a bit for it, because it feels like there are a lot of conversations that boil down to Renko and Osborne doing the, "I know you're up to something." "I know you know." "I know you know I know," bit, or Renko trying to get the girl to tell him something and her refusing. I'm sure it's mean to be about the difficulty in teasing out the truth when that's a very dangerous commodity, but it comes off as wheel-spinning.

Hurt's performance is fine, so is Dennehy's. It's not an odd couple/buddy cop movie - it doesn't focus on those two enough for that - but they play off each other all right. Marvin seems bored mostly, but it fits his character, who thinks he's got the jump on everyone, and there's no real competition to this. The movie does resort to a shootout near the end, although it's restrained by '80s standards (no Uzis!) But Osborne spends most of it holding a rifle with a scope with one arm, braced against his hip. Not really a good firing position, but he's that sure of things he can afford to be indifferent.

Beauty's in the Dead Eye of the Beholder

You come at the Kino, you best not miss.

Titling it Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World is really starting to feel like a dark joke, as volume 6 is one hell of a downer. There are three stories in the volume. In the first, Kino helps out three guys whose truck got caught in a blizzard and are almost out of food. They're so grateful that Kino will go hunting for rabbits to feed them - until they decide they're strong enough to try and take her prisoner and sell her into slavery. They'd already eaten their current cargo, you see.

That's the last of them up there, so you can see how that plan worked out. At least they died with a full stomach!

Not a bad start if we're in the mood for some harsh justice, but Kino feels badly she killed three rabbits to feed these men, and they ended up dead anyway. I suppose it's nice that Kino is still trusting enough to help people in need. So! Second story, Kino is following a story told to her by an old man of a country nestled in a valley. Instead she finds an old woman who believes she's an automaton built to serve the family she works for. A family that offers repetitive, basic answers to every question and dumps the food she makes down a hidden trash chute every night.

Kino learns the truth after the old woman's death. Essentially, she became so engrossed in her work of creating automatons to improve life for people, she neglected her family. By the time she succeeded, the unrest in the country had become civil war and her family were dead. Her creations cared for her, and this meant indulging her possibly-cranial-trauma-induced fantasy that she was their artificial servant. It's a little strange that Kino and Hermes are so shocked to learn the family are automatons, as Iruka Shiomiya draws them very differently from the old woman. Noses that look pasted on, limited expressions, perfectly smooth and unusually shiny faces. With her gone, the automatons lack a purpose, and Kino doesn't have any need for them.

Yeah. Well then, there you go. I don't know. The woman became so wrapped up in her work, she lost the people she really cared about, and made herself into someone whose only purpose was to serve. The automatons were built to serve, and adapted that programming as needed. But they can't not serve someone, so there's no "after" for them. And Kino, Kino doesn't seem to need anyone, except maybe Hermes. She travels, that's her purpose, and whether she has anyone to rely on or who relies on her, ultimately doesn't matter. She's the only one still alive, so does that mean she's got it figured?

The third story involves Shizu, the deposed prince Kino met a few volumes ago. This is set before that story, and tells how he and his dog Riku came to meet. It's mostly a funny story of Shizu being tasked to deliver the puppy to his new owner, a member of a royal family in another nation. Riku, who doesn't speak yet, also doesn't make it easy, crapping everywhere, refusing food, biting Shizu. But they gradually become accustomed to each other.

When he reaches his destination, he finds the mercenaries he'd been working with had invaded the country and killed the entire royal family. Shiomiya gives us a delightful panel of the little girl still clutching a picture she drew of her with the dog - which is how Shizu learns the dog would have been named Riku - with a big bloodstain over her face. 

No wonder Kino never stays anywhere more than three days. Every place in her world is absolute shit. Or maybe it's just that every place has people, and people inevitably fuck everything up.

Sunday Splash Page #258

 

"Iron Anniversary,", in Immortal Iron Fist #21, by Duane Swierczynski (writer), Timothy Green (artist), Edward Bola (colorist), Artmonkeys Studios (letterer)

David Aja, Matt Fraction and Matt Hollingsworth left Immortal Iron Fist with the conclusion of issue 16. Ed Brubaker had left two issues earlier. The last issue all four of them were credited on was actually issue 13.

In their places were Duane Swierczynski, Travel Foreman, and Matt Milla. Issue 16 concluded with Danny reading through the history of the Iron Fists and realizing all of them - save Orson Randall - died at age 33, and that's when Orson went missing (and somehow hid his chi by living in an opium haze for decades.) It just so happens Danny just turned 33. Well, then.

So Swierczysnki's first story arc is about a predator that hunts down and kills Iron Fists, devouring the chi of Shou-Lao within them and using them as a gateway to K'un-Lun, where he tries to kill the dragon while it's still in its egg. Somehow, despite have a perfect track record killing Iron Fists, it never manages to get past the regular warriors guarding the egg.

It's a bit like JMS' Morlun story in Amazing Spider-Man, though narrowed in focus. Morlun would feed off any mystical animal-themed being, but this character only targets Iron Fists. The baddie even looks a bit like Morlun in that he's a classy-looking gent with slicked back dark hair who favors dark trenchcoats.

Also, where Peter won his fight by taking advantage of the radioactive aspect of his spider-powers, Danny wins by. . .fighting like an angry, furious child. Really, that's it. The guy can somehow read every martial arts move Danny makes in their first fight, so in the final showdown, Danny just rushes wildly at him. Even internal monologues about his frustration with growing up as an outsider in a strange city, missing his mother and father, et cetera, et cetera.

Travel Foreman's work is very different from Aja's. Characters tend to look angrier, more feral. The inking tends to make every sinew or muscle stand out. The page layouts are a mixed bag. In the first issue, when Danny fights the creature initially, there's a bit where he unleashes his chi and it forms a big glowy dragon visible above the trees in Central Park. This is relegated to a small panel in the upper corner of one page. The point when the creature drains Danny's chi is left to an ever smaller panel in the lower corner, which kind of blunts the impact of the moment.

Suffice it to say, I was not much a fan of the shift in art. Which is why the only two issues I retain from Swierczynski's time on the book are ones that focused on other Iron Fists, and were drawn by different artists. The above issue, about a future Iron Fist, and issue 24, drawn by Kano, about Li Park, the "Reluctant Weapon".

In and around those one-shots, there was a story about Danny investigating the existence of a mysterious "Eighth City" he was told of at the end of "The Capital Cities of Heaven" arc. Then there's a final issue where HYDRA tries to finish of Rand Corporation, and Danny learns Misty Knight's pregnant. As mentioned when we talked about Heroes for Hire vol. 3, that development was handwaved away somewhere in the between June of '09, when this book ended, and December of 2010, when that book started.

Saturday Splash Page #60

 

"Legion of Sorta Super-Pals," in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (vol. 2) #49, by Ryan North (writer), Derek Charm (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

Erica Henderson departed as regular artist after 31 issues (though she continued to be the primary cover artist, and drew parts of a few issues after that), and Derek Charm took over for the remainder of the run. Charm's style was much smoother, in some respects less detailed than Henderson's, but also clearer at times as well. Renzi's colors occasionally overwhelmed Henderson's linework, making things appear muddied, rushed, or half-finished. That wasn't an issue with Charm, but he also didn't vary characters' clothes, hair or general appearance as much as Henderson. Doreen went back to the conventional furry jacket costume look at stayed with it. Nancy basically stuck to one hairstyle.

One theme that North seems to turn to more over these final 18 issues is the fact that Doreen keeps befriending super-villains, and the possible consequences of that. The first story Charm draws involves her inviting Kraven the Hunter on a friend outing to an escape room. Doreen had dissuaded him first from hunting Spider-Man, then from hunting innocent creatures at all (Kraven became a "hunter of hunters"), and seemed to consider the matter settled. Then she's confronted with all the stuff he did - like killing Spider-Man - before she ever met him, and the fact Spider-Man might not be all that convinced Kraven's changed.

Later on, there's a Skrull refugee that first impersonates Squirrel Girl and appears to die (as part of a plan to convince the Skrulls she herself is dead and they don't need to come looking), then kidnaps Tony Stark when the plan goes sideways. Once he's rescued, Stark is understandably reluctant to believe the Skrull girl's claims that she just wants to live peacefully on Earth. Well, kidnapping and attacking a person's friends will have that effect.

The book seems to default to the notion that people can change, so you should therefore keep giving them opportunities. The final story arc is about an enemy Doreen hadn't convinced to change gathering an entire team of villains, outing Squirrel Girl's secret identity, destroying her apartment, hurting her friends, and Doreen still insists Galactus not just eat all the villains when he makes a last-second save. Because if they're dead, they can't change. This seems to sidestep the question of how many people you're going to give them the chance to hurt while you're giving them chances to change, but perhaps too heavy of a subject matter for the intended audience.

It isn't all questions of the human capacity for change and discussions of mercy. There's an all-silent issue about the over-zealous ghost of a librarian, plus an issue where Kang fights the Squirrel Girls of three different eras, each drawn by different artists (Naomi Franquiz for Old Lady Squirrel Girl, Charm for Present Day Squirrel Girl, and Henderson for Awkward Neophyte Squirrel Girl). Plus, the book gets it's one and only official tie-in to an event!

Sure, it's a tie-in to War of the Realms (the event so lame Malekith is the main bad guy), but it involves Squirrel Girl teaming up with Ratatoskr, the trickster Norse squirrel, to liberate Canada from frost giants. There's Ultron as a tree, rudimentary whale speak, and the line, "Food has backfired, somehow!" It's a good time all around, even if you care not a bit about the event itself.

What I Bought 2/16/2023

This week has been one thing on top of the other. One of those times where a bunch of stuff I'd been waiting a while for, all shows up at once, and all the people sending it want responses immediately. Plus a bunch of other random shit get delegated to me.

At least the week's over now, and I've got comics! Two of them, anyway.

Fantastic Four #4, by Ryan North (writer), Iban Coello (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Quite the eclectic grouping. Hard to believe Annihilus or Blastaar wouldn't just kill the Mandrill for the hell of it.

So, why does everyone hate the Fantastic Four even more than I hate Reed Richards? Why has the family fragmented? Well, during a battle with a Negative Zone army, Reed decided the only way to win was build a time machine that would send all the bug aliens six months into the future. They'd reappear at the same point in space, but Earth would be on the other side of the sun, so tough shit buggies.

Unfortunately, to get all the buggies, Reed sent a section of New York into the future as well, including their home, which had all the kids inside (plus a lot of other people). Don't worry, Reed somehow programmed that part of the time bubble to go exactly a year into the future, so they'll all pop right back in place on Earth, as long as nobody tries to time travel between now and then. Reed's explanation was not the most tactfully phrased - I know, shocking - so Ben and Alicia blew up at him.

Coello draws most of that page from the same angle, looking over Reed's shoulder at Alicia and Ben's increasingly unhappy expressions. Well, Alicia blew up, eventually, Ben gets progressively more somber and scowly. Might be time to bring back the Lee/Kirby FF tradition of Ben trying to turn Reed inside out.

This all plays out in flashback as Reed, Sue and Johnny investigate a big dome that looks made out of Thing, and find its some piece of Randau the Space Parasite that's latched onto Ben and Alicia for sustenance while it grows. The parasite is forcing those two to relive the memory to keep them from noticing the others' attempts to free them, but this gives Ben (and us) a chance to see things from a different perspective, and he realizes Reed is sad that he and Sue won't get to see their kids for a year, either.

Anyway, the band's back together now, though Johnny is apparently keeping the mustache. Coello is still drawing Reed doing weird crap with his powers. Extending his eyeball on its optic nerve, or stretching his torso into a dozen fists. Being around the others does seem to make North ramp up Johnny's stupidity, or maybe ignorance is more accurate. Though really, it's his Sue I have no bead on whatsoever. Even the issue with her and Reed was mostly focused on how she perceives Reed.

Mary Jane and Black Cat #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Vincenzo Carratu (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - *Ricky Bobby voice* That decal is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love the Black Cat.

The ladies team up with S'ym, since they can find Belasco's soulsword, and S'ym can help them fight the mysterious "guardian". Which is your standard sort of horror with tentacles, eyeballs and teeth all over, in increasingly unpleasant combinations. The birds with lots of eyes and teeth and boil-covered tongues are more disturbing.

But during the fight with the guardian, Mary Jane draws another crappy power and figures out Felicia's bad luck powers are screwing up her pulls. And if Felicia's powers only mess with her enemies, then. . .

The impact of all this is somewhat deadened by the fact Dark Web is already over, and Amazing Spider-Man has already moved on to a storyline involving Felicia, Peter, Mary Jane and whatever her stupid temporary love interest's name is, all going to the same spa and much awkwardness ensuing. More urgent pacing to this story might have helped, so that we reached this point last month. Or start this mini-series sooner. Or figure out some kind of dual artist thing that would let them ship twice a month.

I would say it's funny Felicia is making things harder for them because she's actually worried about feeling like she betrayed MJ by dating Peter. Especially if it turned out MJ either didn't care or just wants out of Limbo. That the professional thief is worrying about damage in her wake. But I'm not sure Mary Jane is going to be OK with it, given the few pages I saw from ASM, so who knows.

Accident Man (2018)

Mike (Scott Adkins) is a hired killer whose specialty is making it look like his target either killed themselves, or suffered an unfortunate accident. He's part of a little outfit of killers, each with their own preferred methods, although he says one of the guys just picks names out of the phone book to use to test out new ideas. Such as band-aids laced with something that causes immediate anaphylactic shock.

He explained it, but I wasn't paying attention.

Mike learns one day that his ex-girlfriend was murdered. The police are labeling it as a break in by a couple of crackheads found o.d.'ed nearby, but Mike figures out it was a couple of the other guys in the outfit, and this is not OK. So then he has to know who paid to have her killed and it turns into a whole thing.

If, like me, you were asking why we should care that Mike lost someone he cared about (albeit someone who broke up with both because she realized she was bisexual and he was an asshole, and failed to at any point mention she was pregnant with his child, which she was going to raise with her new girlfriend), when he has been killing people for years, in some cases making the victims' loved believe they committed suicide, well, the movie itself raises that point. Michael Jai White plays one of the guys who killed Mike's ex, and he asks what the difference is.

The movie doesn't have a good answer. Mike keeps bringing up she was pregnant, but he found that out at her funeral during an unpleasant conversation with her girlfriend, so it isn't as though it was making much difference to him. Though his mentor (played by Ray Stevenson) notes Mike is going soft, and Mike doesn't disagree, at the end of the movie, Mike also makes a comment that, if he can't be a hired killer in this town, there are surely other towns that need a guy like him.

So he didn't even learn anything from the pain of losing his ex-girlfriend! There was no epiphany, no moral clarity. This was strictly a revenge style, "you touched my stuff," reaction. He's going to go right back to inflicting that same pain on other people because, essentially, he is too stupid (lazy, more likely) to bother to learn another trade.

Anyway, some of the fights are good, Adkins is athletic enough to do lots of tosses and spinning jump kicks and other flashy stuff. There's a lengthy flashback to his teenage years that explains how he met Stevenson's character and became a hitman*. It feels awkwardly placed in the story and mostly acts as padding, but I imagine the idea was to highlight the relationship between the two and how it factors into the story from that point on. I'm not sure it was necessary, though.

* Sorry, assassin. Apparently "hitman" is some stupid Yank term, according to Ray. In England they're "assassins". That feels like the sort of thing Ennis would have mocked for a few pages in Hitman before Tommy Monaghan blew some guy's head off.

"Necessary" Requires Some Level of Competence

As you are likely aware, I don't buy the current volume of X-Force. I do, however, see scans of it online here and there, and read Paul O'Brien's reviews. The book comes off as odd in the context of certain quotes I've seen from the writer, Benjamin Percy.

Percy has made a point, more than once from what I can tell, that X-Force in general, and the character of Beast in particular, is about examining the messy things people do in the name of nation-building. The underhanded, unfriendly-regime-toppling shit the CIA got up to. And so he states that Hank McCoy believes himself to be a, 'necessary bastard.' 

Hank feels he has to do stuff like turn an entire country into zombies so they don't produce drugs that can compete with Krakoan products. Or have the Five resurrect Wolverine as a nearly mindless weapon Hank can use to assassinate Senators.

The problem with this is that, while Percy's version of Beast has the "bastard" part down cold, he's fucking up on the "necessary" side of things. None of Hank's schemes seem to work out well. The zombification of an entire nation nearly backfires at their first stupid Hellfire Gala, and it's only the people he victimized being unbelievably understanding that keeps it from being a huge embarrassment.

His Wolverine puppet is so brain-dead it doesn't wait for Hank to turn off the security cameras, so Logan is caught on video murdering the Senator. His secret outer space prison where he conducts illegal experiments falls apart and he ends up imprisoned for a time. The dude fucks up everything he attempts.

Now, if the point Percy's driving at is a nation does not, in fact, require "necessary bastards", he might almost be pulling it off, considering Hank's Sideshow Bob-esque ability to step on every rake in the world, has yet to actually damage Krakoa's standing or safety in any demonstrable way*. If that were Percy's goal, it would seem like someone needs to actually, you know, remove Hank from a position to cause problems. Tell him Krakoa has moved beyond such tactics, or whatever mutant supremacist nonsense they're spouting these days.

But outside of Emma or Sage giving him the occasional talking to, Hank's received no censure whatsoever. Has not lost his official position, not been condemned to the Pit. X-Force still go on the missions he gives them, even though it should be abundantly obvious this is a terrible idea. Hank's written like when DC fucks up Amanda Waller and just make her cartoonishly evil and incompetent.

On the other hand, if Percy thinks nations do need "necessary bastards", whether because they want to build/maintain an empire, or simply feel outnumbered and besieged from all sides (either of which you could apply to Krakoa), then shouldn't some of Hank's plans actually work? Shouldn't we be seeing more evidence of him actually nipping a real threat in the bud, rather than create potential public relation time bombs the rest of the cast have to scramble to defuse?

If Percy wants to question the ultimate utility of even those successes - make it that Hank's turned himself into a monster for the equivalent of sticking fingers in a leaky dam - make them only temporary wins, or have unexpected effects. Some people in the zombified nation show natural or developed resistance, and this helps them make even better drugs. Or it turns out another nation was on the same track, several of them even, and Hank can't turn them all. Wolverine isn't caught on camera killing Senators, but it doesn't matter, as their successors run on the same platform and gets elected because, surprise!, killing a politician did not alter the demographics or beliefs of his electoral district.

The current approach seems like the worst of all worlds. Hank fails all the time, so he certainly doesn't demonstrate the necessity of his actions. Especially as Krakoa seems to be just fine no matter how badly he fails. But his ineptitude produces no negative consequences for him either, even though there are certainly enough people who know about his shit with the power to get him removed, and at this point, I can't see Hank having anyone in his corner to save his job, so the fact they haven't ousted him in favor of Sage (alcoholic or no), or hell, Gambit or Lady Mastermind or someone, just seems ridiculous.

* Although you could argue that's because the Quiet Council figuring they could let Mr. Sinister help clone them and there'd be no problems blew up first.

The Runaway Man - David Handler

Now this book did come with its book jacket, so I knew what I was getting into. Big-time lawyer approaches small-time family detective agency to track down a college kid that's gone into hiding and give him a lot of money. Who does the lawyer work for? He won't say. Why do they want to give the kid the money? He won't say. Sounds hinky, but as is usually the case, the shamuses are in no financial situation to turn down the money. Things go sideways from there.

So, fairly standard detective story, albeit set in the early 2010s rather than the 1940s. The main character is a baby-faced mid-20s kid named Benji, rather than a hard-drinking, hard-smoking archetype. He still seems to be irresistible to women, as apparently no less than three characters in the book express interest, ranging from a 17-year-old high school girl, to the mid-30s former exotic dancer than acts as the agency's tech support/receptionist.

As much time as Handler spends describing breasts, you'd be surprised Benji finds the time to do any actual work on the case, but he does. There's no choice, the book moves at a brisk clip. He finds the kid (and the first dead body) in the first 60 pages. More bodies drop shortly after, and in between Benji's being interrogated by cops, going on interviews with cops, having dinner with a kindergarten teacher he met at temple, attending funerals. Handler just doesn't waste much time. Typically even when Benji is beating himself up about a mistake or being flirted with, the plot is still moving forward somehow.

I had an inkling of the killer maybe halfway through, and the reason why the first victim was killed around the same time. On the latter point, I chalk it up to my having watched a lot of Midsomer Murders lately, so the twist about the kid's parentage was one my mind unfortunately went to very easily.

So I don't know if I would call it a difficult mystery, but if you figure the book is more about Hadley writing a noir in a more modern setting, then that may not be as big a deal. Those are usually about a certain vibe, the powerful trying to cover their asses through money or violence, expecting others to take the fall. This isn't nearly as depressing an ending as a lot of noirs, but sometimes it's better not to end with, "there's no justice or comeuppance in this world."

'Legs listened without comment until I got to the part where Bobby had hinted that the Grayson political machine might be behind the deaths of Bruce and Kathleen. "Wait, he told you that his dead sister was a teen skank and he threw his own wife under the bus?"

"Pretty much."

"Whoa, he's some cutie."'

Walk-Off Home Run

Is Senda right (for once)? We'll check back in later.

Volume 8 of Cross Game is the final volume of the series. After the romantic melodrama-swamped mess that was volume 6, this book is blessedly focused on the rematch between Seishu Gakuen (the school Ko pitches for), and Ryuou Gakuin, who defeated them the year before (seen in volume 5). At stake is the chance to reach the Koshien high school championship. Since this is their last year, it's the last chance for Ko and Akaishi to make Wakaba's dream of them playing in that championship come true.

But Ryuou Gakuin have their own ace pitcher and star slugger, superior to the ones that headlined the team last tie, so it's not going to be easy. Adachi cuts between the action on the field and Aoba and Junpei watching in the stands (also at stake: Aoba's big sister agreed to marry Junpei if the team makes Koshien). Ko promised Aoba he'd throw a 100 mph fastball, and so Adachi throws in a lot of close-up panels of the radar gun readings on the scoreboard.

This is the frustrating thing about this series for me. Adachi is really damn good at making the games tense. Lots of small panels that jump from one the ball taking a funny hop, to the reaction in the dugout, to a close-up of a foot touching home plate. Then sometimes Adachi will switch to an establishing shot, the bleachers for example, then back to a small panel of a ball bouncing off the steps. He may not draw the ball making contact with the bat, but you the see the leave the pitcher's hand, and you see where it ends up. 

Aoba's cousin, Mizuki, doesn't attend the game, but Adachi uses that to good effect, as Mizuki finds himself drawn into watching the game on TV, and when there's a big hit, he can hear to crowd's roar all the way from the house. (Mizuki also ends up stumbling across Aoba's journals, which help him make peace with the fact she likes Ko, and he goes on walkabout. Still feels like Adachi introduced Mizuki, then had little to do with him.)

Adachi also has some fun with the announce team, at times having one of them make a comment, then switch to the dugout in the next panel and have the manager point back at the previous panel to ask his players if the comment was correct, or vice versa. Late in the game, he switches out the announcer who pretends to be knowledgeable with one who responds to his partner's rhetorical questions as though they were literal. It help with the rise and fall of the tension.

Point being, the presentation of the game is expertly done, and I would have gladly taken a lot more of that. We also get to see Azuma let himself really enjoy playing baseball, even though he's sad on some level that he'll never get to face Ko - this version of Ko, a true ace pitcher - one-on-one.

Adachi also throws in a funny at-bat where the opposing pitcher, a little annoyed at all the oohing and aahing over Ko's velocity, decides to strike out Ko on three straight fastballs. He only hits 93 mph, but Ko's surprised at how fast that is. As Akaishi notes, it's because Ko never gets to see how fast his own pitches are from the batter's box.

Overall, it's very enjoyable conclusion to the book, even if I'm never clear on why these baseball manga are always about getting to the championship at Koshien, but never actually show any of the games played there. It's like having a baseball movie, but cutting off when the team earns the right to go to the World Series. Just odd.

Huh, look at that. Broken clock and all that.

Sunday Splash Page #257

 

"Serpent Infestation," in Immortal Iron Fist #4, by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction (writers), David Aja (artist), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

Immortal Iron Fist may have been one of the first books I bought primarily because of the creative team, rather than the characters. Granted, when I first heard about it, I somehow confused Ed Brubaker with Brian K. Vaughn, who was writing Dr. Strange: The Oath, which I was very much enjoying. But the point remains, I don't recall having any strong feelings one way or the other about Iron Fist prior to this title, yet, here we are.

One of the major thing Brubaker and Matt Fraction did was posit or explore the idea Danny Rand was only the latest in a long of Iron Fists. Even if DC went away from the concept in the immediate aftermath of Crisis on the Infinite Earths, the notion of characters being part of a legacy or tradition made a slow but steady comeback in the late-90s, spearheaded by Starman and JSA.

Marvel never seemed to have a lot of time for that, outside the occasional nod like Rick Jones trying to take the codename Bucky to be Captain America's sidekick. Marvel seemed to prefer the "replacement" approach. Jim Rhodes taking over for Stark as Iron Man when Tony was in his cups, or Scott Lang becoming Ant-Man after Pym had shifted to Yellowjacket. When they did explore it, it was usually relegated to side universes like Spider-Girl's MC2 Universe.

After Immortal Iron Fist's success, suddenly legacies started popping up for all sorts of second-tier characters. Jason Aaron used it on Ghost Rider, and Moon Knight is nodding to the idea right now. Immortal Iron Fist also expanded the mythos what I would call laterally, by adding another six "Heavenly Cities", each with their own champion, with Fat Cobra seeming to be the fan favorite of the bunch.

(Aaron's Ghost Rider did this too, with Spirits of Vengeance across the world, and MacKay introduced the notion Khonshu has two "fists" at the same time.)

Amid the larger story of Danny learning he's really just the most recent (and least well-prepared) Iron Fist at the exact moment he's besieged from all sides by both HYDRA and his old enemy the Steel Serpent, the book would take time out to devote one-shot issues to some of the previous Iron Fists. Issue 7's spotlight on Wu Aoi-Shi, the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay (drawn by Travel Foreman, who also drew flashbacks at the start of most of the issues, as well as Leandro Fernandez and Khari Evans), seemed to be the fan favorite.

David Aja was the primary artist, and he brought a different sensibility to the action sequences. Where other artists would combine multiple actions into a single panel (via the after-image approach), Aja would sometimes draw out the sequence of Danny jump kicking a single HYDRA agent through a subway window across three panels. Really stretch out the moment. A lot of alternating between larger panels to show the scope of the challenge and lots of small square panels to cut between important points within a scene rapid-fire.

He also ditched the '70s high collar with plunging neckline costume early on in favor of the number above. It's more streamlined and practical and I don't have any complaints, but I don't know how more committed Iron Fist fans felt about the change.

Unfortunately, having David Aja as your regular artist means that if you're going to keep a monthly schedule, you're going to have fill-in artists. By the latter stages of the "Capital Cities of Heaven" arc the covered the second half of their run, Aja was sometimes drawing only a handful of pages, or none at all, with Kano or Tonci Zonjic taking over the lion's share of the work. They were close enough in style that the character's maintained a similar look, but they didn't seem to have Aja's sense of style when it came to page layouts.

Also, the arc suffers from either not enough time, or too much build-up. We're told what's at stake is how often the Heavenly Cities may intersect with Earth. The loser, rather than being limited to once a decade, will be limited to once per 50 years, for example. It's unclear how you would determine a loser since there was apparently to be a battle royale between the fighters who lost earlier in the tournament. For that matter, if Orson Randall fucked the whole thing up last time by first refusing to fight, then killing another of the champions when he was to be punished and fleeing, how did that not result in K'un-Lun getting barred for fifty years?

It's a moot point, since the whole notion is dropped entirely to focus on the HYDRA subplot, which is itself really a revenge plot by a new character, descended from another new character we meet in flashback. Overall, I'm not sure the Brubaker/Fraction/Aja run doesn't end up being less than the sum of its parts, but the book didn't end when they departed.

Saturday Splash Page #59

 

"Awwww-kward," in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (vol. 2) #9, by Ryan North (writer), Erica Henderson (penciler), Tom Fowler (inker), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

As you would expect from a company that impersonates a headless chicken as often as Marvel does, many of the ongoing series canceled due to Secret Wars restarted before it was finished, and most of the books paid absolutely no attention to Hickman's event. Including this one!

Outside of Doreen now being a second-year computer science major and having Avengers' privileges, North and Henderson largely continue as they were before the first volume got canceled. Doreen alternates between spending time with her friends and fighting various criminals. The fighting does sometimes involve punching, but just as often involves computer science, helping the antagonist to see a different solution, or just generally talking things out.

So College Age Squirrel Girl can team-up with a version of herself that survived in a timeline that Dr. Doom ruled for decades, but ultimately win by communicating a plan with Nancy by using C++ computer language, since Doom only knows the computer he designed himself. Or Doreen can get Mole Man to stop trying to pressure her to date him by helping him see someone who's loved him all along. Or they defeat a guy who takes over the world with his power to split into limitless numbers of himself, which can combine into a gigantic version of himself, by applying Galileo's Square-Cube Law.

It's a rich and varied tapestry of problem-solving, is what I'm saying.

Henderson's still very good at getting cross the humor that North writes in, mostly by being excellent with body language. My favorite is probably the dating montage from the issue before this, where every date ends with Doreen kicking a can as she walks down the street. Every idiot potential suitor ends with the same frustration.

She also varies Squirrel Girl's look a bit. The costume above is the standard for Henderson's run as artist, but she also introduces a "flying squirrel" suit design which I thought looked pretty neat. Not many heroes can pull of a superhero costume with brown as the main color, but Squirrel Girl can't be defeated even by traditional standards of color theory! There's also a Savage Land, jungle outfit suit for when she has to contend with DINOSAUR ULTRON.

(I really wanted a splash page of DINOSAUR ULTRON, but the few there were didn't really provide the full effect. There was almost a double-page splash, but it had a bunch of tiny panels across the bottom of the page. So close.)

Most of the stories run two to four issues, but North and Henderson mix in the occasional one-shot, such as a Choose Your Own Adventure against the Swarm, or an issue about Taskmaster written from Nancy's cat's perspective. In addition to giving Nancy, Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi from the first volume some more page space and fleshing out, they also added Brain Drain a human brain placed in a robot body by remorseful aliens, who is delightfully poetic about his nihilism, and Mary, another computer science student who might end up becoming a super-villain one of these days. Or maybe not!

Random Back Issues #99 - Suicide Squad #63

How in the blue hell did I make it through 98 of these before landing on Suicide Squad? Friggin' dice are rigged, man.

This is the last story arc of the original run, and we open on the island of Diabloverde, where we find a man running for his life down the streets. He gets attacked by a bunch of super-powered losers - Deadline, Bolt, Blockbuster, Sudden Death, and Shrapnel - for being out after curfew. During their game of Hot Potato Homicide, Bolt mentions that the gig may be boring, but it pays well and they get time off their jail sentences. Hmmmm.

Two locals, Maria and Rimon, look on in horror, but this is all a diversion to cover Maria reaching the coast and sailing to the U.S. Where she will kill Amanda Waller, as one does. Waller and her team are currently based at the Institute for Meta-Human Studies, and The Wall's enlisted the help of old cast member Dr. Simon Legrieve and the Dybbuk, a sentient AI working for the Israeli super-team. They want to help another AI, dubbed Ifrit, created by the group Jihad and based on Mindboggler, who died in the first story arc of the book after Captain Boomerang let her get gunned down. It's Waller's hope Dybbuk can release her of the programming insisting she kill the Squad.

While she and the others wait, Maria infiltrates the building and takes Boomerbutt hostage, although he's all too happy to lead her to Waller. I'm reminded of what Dave Campbell said on his blog, Dave's Long Box, lo those many years ago: Captain Boomerang is a complete and utter dick. What a great character.

They show up just as something is starting to happen with Dybbuk and Ifrit. Ramban can't just whip up a spell whilly-nilly, so he settles for a nifty light show and promising to send Maria to Hell via the 'Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth.' The threat of being in the crossfire kicks Boomerang's self-preservation into gear and he disarms Maria with a nifty elbow to the gut/judo flip combo, as Dybbuk and Mindboggler emerge.

Except Mindboggler prefers to be called her true name, Leah Wasserman. Mindboggler was nothing more than 'a reaction to her upbringing.' She's also convinced Dybbuk to take a more human name, and now Leah and "Lenny" are getting married. Everyone except Colonel Hacohen is in favor of this, and Ramban points out the Colonel is not Lenny's father and has no say. Besides, Leah seems like a 'nice Jewish program.'

Well, that's all very amusing, but Boomerbutt's still got the would-be Gavrillo Princip in a hammerlock. Waller asks what the deal is, and doesn't like what she hears: the Suicide Squad is on the loose in Diabloverde. A man named Edwardo Guzman gained powers from the metagene bomb and used them to overthrow the previous regime. He was elected president, but began calling himself Guedhe, a god of death, and shut down everything while declaring himself dictator for life. Which could be a problem since he seemingly couldn't be killed. When a resistance rose up, the Suicide Squad arrived to back Guzman.

I must confess confusion as to why, if he's shut their economy down. What's the U.S. get with no production of crops or exploitation of natural resources? Waller puts in some calls and Professional Shithead Sarge Steel confirms the CIA stole her idea. You know, Sergeant Rock had to fight a Nazi with a metal hand, and I bet we've never seen that guy and Sarge Steel in the same place. Makes you think.

Waller demands a peso from Maria and tells her she's just hired the Suicide Squad to liberate her country. Ostrander used this bit - the merc being hired for a ridiculously small amount - in GrimJack, too. Boomerang of course raises a fuss, but Waller points out she'll cover everyone's fees with her shares of their previous jobs, and he didn't seem too concerned about Maria killing Waller, so he's going, or else. Because this is the Squad's last ride, baby.

There are a couple of pages about Deadshot's costume being sent to him in the mail, after he symbolically "killed" himself several issues ago, someone contacting Cliff Carmichael, the current Thinker with an unknown offer. Also a delegation from Vlatava ask Count Vertigo to resume leadership of their country to help stabilize it, but the Count is too depressed and suicidal to be certain it's a good idea.

{10th longbox, 256th comic. Suicide Squad #63, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (writers), Geof Isherwood (penciler), Robert Campanella (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)}

Pursuit - Berry Morgan

I bought 4 used novels for a total of $6 last month while I was buying a used bookshelf to hold more trade paperbacks. There was no book jacket for this one, so I didn't know what to expect, but hoped for a "Most Dangerous Game" type thriller.

This is absolutely not that. Set in the 1930s along the Gulf Coast, it's about Ned Ingles, who returns to the family plantation after years teaching at college in New Orleans. Ned tries to pick up life in the country as though he never left, including reestablishing a relationship with Laurence, the illegitimate, mixed-race son he's abandoned for the boy's entire life.

That goes poorly, as Laurence unsurprisingly has little time or interest in his father, or in Ned's plans for Laurence to inherit the farm. Although few of Ned's plans really go as he expects, which seems to be in no small part due to him. He's massively self-centered, but with a martyr complex. So that he sacrifices so much for Laurence's sake - without bothering to ask Laurence if he wants what Ned's offering - but has to make sure everyone knows about it.

He'll bring an old flame to stay in his house because she is sure she can talk Laurence out of entering the church, and yes, he'll marry her daughter that's Laurence's age (so 30 years Ned's junior), but he'll make certain everyone knows what a sacrifice it is. When he's not black-out drunk, that is. Morgan will use this approach of having Ned declare he's done drinking, or that he's going to do something, then have a chapter break and pick up an indeterminate time later. Whereupon we learn Ned hasn't stopped drinking, or hasn't done whatever he said he would.

Ned certainly seems, even early in the book, like he wants to die. His focus on preparing Laurence to run the farm and his frequent reveries about his parents or his childhood. He visits the family cemetery often, and muses how unfortunate it is that he shows no signs of age or infirmity as he nears 50. The book mentions a few times that Ned served in World War I, that there was a point he had orders to transfer to a frontline infantry unit, but the only two officers that knew died in an artillery barrage. Ned destroyed the orders and stayed in the rear. He never outright expresses guilt, but it seems like that moment where he ran from duty hangs over him. Or maybe that's his essential character. Claims to be handling everything, but really he falls apart and leaves it to others to take care of.

The problem with the book remaining fixated on Ned, it presents such a limited view of everything, because he's so wrapped up in himself. We never get Laurence's thoughts on his father or his own life, except through Anna describing her conversations with him to Ned, and those are likely extremely edited. But Ned's a very tiring character to deal with. I kept waiting for him to either pull out of the tailspin or hurry up and off himself so Morgan could focus on someone else.

'Annabella changed her position, moving towards him slightly, and then crossed her legs. "Do you know why that is?" she inquired tentatively.

"Why what is? I don't want to know; knowing doesn't help. If I were you, young lady, I wouldn't be too free with my questions or advice. I like a lot of space around my head."'

What I Bought 2/3/2023

I love that Kyrie Irving demanded a trade. The Nets spent 3.5 seasons covering for and excusing all his dumbassery. Whether it's throwing his teammates under the bus as not being good enough to help he and Durant, or refusing to get vaccinated, or promoting movies that claim Jews made up the Holocaust, the Nets always make excuses and empty promises that Kyrie's gonna do better, and nothing changed. 

And now the Mavericks traded the only guy on their team who plays defense, plus draft picks for Kyrie Irving, whose teams never show any real drop-off in performance after he leaves, and who can't be counted on not to get hurt or say or do something stupid or hateful that gets him suspended. And he's a free agent at the end of this season! They gave up actual useful players and draft picks for the basketball equivalent of a 5-month migraine! Just spectacular.

One book last week, one book this week (that the local store won't have). Maybe three books next week. Why is everything waiting until the last week of the month to ship? Like February isn't depressing enough already.

Moon Knight #20, by Jed MacKay and Danny Lore (writers), Alessandro Cappuccio and Ray-Anthony height (artists), Le Beau Underwood and Scott Hanna (inkers), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight can sense a fashion disaster somewhere nearby, but he just can't find them.

In a much earlier volume, Moon Knight had a group of agents and informants. Someone is now killing them, including a poor guy who looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Ruh-roh. Marc's rushing to the home of his buddy Plesko, the guy who talked with Zodiac last issue, but the place blows up. Which is strange when the other victims are being killed in more hands-on ways. Totally not suspicious!

They've managed to save a couple of people so far, which gives Reese the idea to have Jake figure out what route the killers are taking. Nice panel of Marc stepping aside for Jake by pulling the mask off while the burning building puts their face in shadow. Jake figures the route, Moonie finds them, i.d.'s them with some help from 8-Ball, and beats them up while they make cryptic statements about a 'ghost in the telephone.'

I had thought, based on how Sabbatini and Rosenberg illustrated them in the glimpse we got at the end of last issue, that they were robots. Actually, I thought they looked like the droid goon lackey for Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs!, but they're actually some guys called the Harlequin Hit Men. The masks are supposed to look stitched together from different pieces of fabric, I guess. Whatever, someone did a number on them mentally, and while Marc lets Dr. Sternman take them in, now he's in a mood.

The second story, by Danny Lore and Ray-Anthony Height, is set in the 1970s and involves Blade teaming up with a Moon Knight of that time to deal with some yuppie vampires that are abducting people to feed on and buying up the abandoned buildings at a discount. Ah the old double-jump snatchy-snatchy, seen it a million times. 

Moon Knight and Blade take care of the vampires, but when Moonie decides to try and kill him, too, Blade points out he'll owe her a favor in the future. Or, it'll be owed to another of Khonshu's fists. Which is why, in the present, Blade agrees to help Reese learn about being a vampire as soon as Marc asks.

It's a nice twist. I was expecting a fight or some sort of confrontation between Marc and Blade about Moon Knight dusting all those vampires that came to New York for the sales pitch, but Lore used the fact Blade's been around for a while, and there have been a lot of Moon Knights. Height's art is very different from Cappuccio's, less sharp and minimalist. His 1970s Fist of Khonshu is a much more elaborate look, and while she does rock a big cape, it doesn't swallow up her movements. Rosenberg does away with the high-contrast, deep shadows approach she uses for the main story.