Early Arrival

Calvin: I'm not sure which of us should be more embarrassed.

Clever Adolescent Panda: Me, obviously.

{Calvin is pushing a blue baby stroller, which Clever Adolescent Panda is tucked into, complete with a comically oversized lollipop in one paw, and a rattle in the other.}

CAP: And what would you even be embarrassed about anyway?! There' nothing wrong with a man pushing a baby stroller!

Calvin: *huffing and puffing* There is when he looks like he's about to have a heart attack in the process, because he's actually pushing the largest baby in recorded history.

CAP: I am not!

Calvin: Human baby.

CAP: Oh. Right.

Calvin: Now pipe down, we're almost to the guy at the front desk. Or, I dunno, make a bunch of baby-appropriate noises.

CAP: *drily* You mean crying?

Calvin: Sure, whatever.

*The security guard for Creative Industrial Approaches takes one look at the guy pushing a panda in a baby stroller towards him and decides that is Not His Problem. It's time to take a two-hour bathroom break. At the McDonald's down the street. Calvin and CAP watch him go.*

Calvin: Huh. That makes things easy. *pushes the stroller through the double doors.* You know, I like Pollock's new building better than the old one. No elevators to worry about.

CAP: *kicking their paws idly* I miss the view. It was more fun to sneak in through the roof when it was higher off the ground.

Calvin: *sticks out his tongue* No thanks. That time Rhodez jumped the van from the building across the street was enough for me.

CAP: Well, yeah, that was terrifying. But sneaking around in air ducts is different.

Calvin: Of course. Waitaminute, why are you still in the stroller? We don't need the disguise now!

CAP: Not even just to be sure? *bats eyes and pouts*

Calvin: *unimpressed* You should know better than to think cuteness will work on me.

CAP: Right, I forgot your frozen heart.

Calvin: Frozen, dead, heart, thank you. Now, out.

CAP: Fooey.

*They continue through the halls on foot, passing several offices and labs.*

CAP: Nobody's running away.

Calvin: Pollock probably figured out mind control to reduce lollygagging among her staff.

Pollock: My beloved employees are simply enjoying their work.

Calvin: On a Friday? I call bullcrap.

Pollock: Also, they're avoiding eye contact in case the two of you decide to kill them.

CAP: What?! We wouldn't kill your employees! That's libel! Or, no, slander.

Calvin: Unless you wrote it in an employee handbook.

Pollock: What are you doing here? It's still March.

Calvin: I have stuff to do tomorrow.

Pollock: *laughs, which at least gets the employees looking to see what's happening* No, seriously, what are you doing here?

Calvin: *exchanges a glance and shrug with CAP* We're here to bury the hatchet.

*Pollock backs up and adopts a defensive stance*

CAP: Not literally. There's no actual hatchet. It's time to end this feuding.

Pollock: *rolls her eyes* Please. You tried this two years ago, claiming you were too grown up for pranks. Then you caused a major malfunction with my security plants.

CAP: And got everyone high!

Calvin: Except me.

CAP: Yes, except you, square.

Pollock: Ha!

Calvin: Look, you want your peace offering or not?

Pollock: This should be good. Let's see it.

Calvin: *produces a long cylinder wrapped in reflective silver. Inside is a bouquet* Ta-da!

Pollock: *makes no move to take them* Flowers?

Calvin: Well, I wouldn't care about them, so we figured you would. Especially with all your questionable experiments on teaching plants to kill.

CAP: See the purple ones with the pink speckles? Those are a special breed that only grow around the Panda Citadel.

Pollock *intrigued* Really? Are the pink speckles visible in spectra other than visible light?

CAP: Sort of. *sneaks around Pollock as she leans in for a closer look* They're infrared sensitive.

Pollock: Infrared sensitive? *twists to look at CAP* What does that mean?

*The heat from Pollock's face causes the purple flowers to eject a burst of pollen in her face. Pollock leaps backwards as CAP cracks the lollipop, revealing a giant bubble wand. The panda uses the bubble wand to trap Pollock.*

Pollock: *finding the bubble surprisingly difficult to pop* How are you two comfortable being so deceitful when you're supposed to be the good ones?!

Calvin: Hey, you pretended to sell Girl Scout cookies last year just for the chance to kick me in the face.

Pollock: *sighs* Fine. I'm trapped in a bubble. What now?

CAP: Now it's time for Phase 2.

Calvin: Isn't this Phase 3? Weren't the flowers Phase 1, the bubble Phase 2?

CAP: No, this is Phase 2 because the flowers haven't done their part yet.

Pollock: *growing increasingly nervous* What does that mean? Is that pollen already growing inside me?

*CAP and Calvin exchange surprised looks* 

Calvin: I sure hope not.

CAP: Of course not! That wouldn't be funny at all! The pollen is coating the outside of the bubble.

Pollock: Yes?

CAP: And now I'll show you what real sound-responsive plant life is like.

*Clever Adolescent Panda shakes the rattle, producing a sound like rainfall on stone. In response, the pollen undergoes a surge of mitosis and differentiation, producing short, sprawling plants of broad leaves and more colorful flowers. The bubble is soon completely covered.*

Calvin: *tapping foot* So, what happens now?

CAP: *scratches head* It was supposed to produce tall, flowering shoots that would suspend the bubble and Pollock in the air like an ornament. It was going to look really cool, and keep Pollock trapped inside for a while. I guess the hallway isn't narrow enough.

Calvin: Or there's too much available light from all these ceiling lights.

CAP: *gawks up at the lights* I didn't think of that. I've only seen it in the forests around home.

Pollock: *muffled from inside the bubble* You didn't account for variable growth conditions? You clod!

Calvin: I gotta agree with Pollock on that one.

CAP: Botany isn't my best subject! I tried my best!

Calvin: What happens with all those flowers?

CAP: Well, the pollen expended a lot of energy on those to take advantage of the favorable conditions. They'll produce a lot of pollen if there's heat nearby.

Calvin: *backing up quickly* Like Pollock's body heat near their roots?

CAP: Yeah, probab - aw shoot.

*Calvin dives inside the nearest open doorway as the flowers eject a staggering amount of pollen. The hallway looks like a lava lamp recreation of the Dust Bowl. Calvin and several employees stick their heads back out.*

Calvin: You OK, fuzz buddy?

CAP: *spitting* Ugh, I guess.

Pollock: You won't be. *The hallway is littered with already dying plants, and Pollock's out of the bubble, also coated in pollen.* Your plants sucked up all the moisture in the bubble.

CAP: Don't move!

Pollock: What, another peace offering?

CAP: Yes. The rattle is under your boot. If you move, you'll shake it, and then, well, you know.

*Pollock spares a glance down and confirms her boot's resting on the rattle, lifting one side just slightly off the floor.*

Pollock: It might be worth it to see the accursed furball impersonate a Chia pet. *sighs* But, I don't need the damage to the walls or any sensitive electronics.

Calvin: Glad that's settled! *grabs CAP and sprints away* See you at Blogsgiving!

Pollock: *to her employees* Get the decontamination units out here and clean this up. Then take it to the Floral Research Lab. We can make use of this. . .

Lost City (2022)

Sandra Bullock can do, "awkward, yet attractive, dork" role in her sleep. It's interesting it works with Channing Tatum also playing essentially an awkward, yet attractive, dork. But when the two of them are together on-screen, Tatum plays up being well-meaning but largely clueless more, and Bullock leans on her character having archaeological knowhow.

So, "awkward" in that she's emotionally repressed out of grief and doesn't interact well. I actually had to walk away during the book tour event scene at the start, because she looked so miserable and ill at ease I felt bad for her. Meanwhile Tatum is playing awkward in the sense he's wildly out of his depth, but trying hard to impress her.

I don't know if they have romantic chemistry or not, but they play off each other well enough on the comedy side of things. Again, even though they both go to the "shout when startled" approach. Neither really seems to be the "straight man" in the duo. If I had to pick one, maybe Tatum. He's the butt of a lot of jokes, with his attempts to be the hero, but that's not really the same thing.

Daniel Radcliffe plays the bad guy as someone with an inferiority complex, who is trying to be a James Bond villain without being much good at it. The fake-polite conversation, the condescension towards his subordinates, the big gestures. Like having a back wall slide open to reveal a VTOL aircraft landing, even though that probably damaged everyone's hearing, and scattering all those cheeses he bought to try and seem like a swell guy. It's fun, the character is trying so hard to pull this scheme off, sunk all of himself into its success, but he loses his composure as soon as things go off-course.

It's fine, as a popcorn movie goes. Something to throw on for 2 hours and just let wash over you. The movie's trying to do a whole arc about how Bullock's character has been dying a slow death of isolation since her husband died, and she needs to move forward. I know because the movie tells us these things explicitly more than once, although I thought the montage at the start, contrasting her life with her publicist's voicemails, handled it fine.

Does it pull it off? I guess, in the sense the character seems revitalized at the end. The movie seems to feel she's recaptured her zest for life. Though I wonder if she resumed her work in archaeology, in addition to writing archaeology-themed romance novels. Archaeology seemed to be her real passion, it's just that she couldn't make a living that way. Have her go back to that, if it's important to her.

Summer Solicitations, Make Me Feel Fine

June solicits ran strongly to graphic novels or trades that caught my eye, more than single issues.

What's new I might want to buy? The Great British Bump-Off is not actually new, as issue 3 is coming out in June from Dark Horse. But I hadn't realized what appeared to be a murder mystery around a cooking competition was from the John Allison and Max Sarin creative team. Look, I can barely find the energy to spend time doing actual cooking, that would produce food I could eat. You can't expect me to linger on a comic about other people cooking.

Ablaze Publishing has Volume 1 of Terror Man, by Dongwoo Han and Jinho Ko, about a guy with the ability see what decisions will lead to disaster, which he uses to try and save people from danger, but makes him look like a terrorist and makes him desperately unhappy. Humanoids has Arca: Into the Dark Labyrinth (or maybe it's Project Arka: Into The Dark Labyrinth, the cover and solicit text disagree), by Romain Bennasaya and Joan Urgell, about a interplanetary colonist ship that seems to have gotten stuck in some empty stretch of space. It's 25 bucks, so that's probably something I'd buy much later on, like I did Carthago.

Iron Circus Comics has S.J. Miller's Mage and the Endless Labyrinth and, yes, obviously I have a thing for stories about people traversing bizarre and dangerous landscapes. Finally, Uncivilized Books has Tyler Landry's Old Caves, about a widower who spends his time either roaming the forest or thinking about the past.

Is anything I'm buying ending? Nope, the great dying off starts in July.

What's that leave? Hellcat, Clobberin' Time, and Liquid Kill will all be on their penultimate issues. In theory, so would Fallen, but since the first issue shipped a month late, I'm doubting issue 5 will actually appear in June. Clobberin' Time's going to have Ben Grimm teaming up with Dr. Doom!

Unstoppable Doom Patrol will be on issue 4, with the team dealing with an entire town that hates them. Immortal Sergeant's up to issue 6, with Michael and his asshole cop dad still butting heads apparently. Grit N' Gears solicits issue 3 for the second time. Very curious to see if that book actually shows up next month like it's supposed to.

Moon Knight is dealing with an old enemy named Morpheus and Sue and Alicia may have to fight mirror universe versions of the rest of the FF in Fantastic Four. Or maybe demonic possession is at hand? The third volume of The Boxer is being solicited. I've read the first volume, not sure how I feel about it. Feels like it's message was, "boxing is for sociopaths."

The most surprising item was Black Jack Demon. When the first three issues came out in 2021, they seemed to be spaced about three months apart, so I was not expecting issue 5 to pop up one month after issue 4.

True Tales of the Prairies & Plains - David Dary

The book is, so far as I know, what the title suggests: true stories about the life and times of white settlers on the Great Plains during the 19th and early 20th Century. The chapters range from 2 to 10 pages, the subject matter ranging from stories about people traversing long distances to deliver mail, legends about lost treasures of stolen gold ("true" in the sense someone has told these stories), stories about people encountering some of the wildlife that used to exist on the prairies.

The writing is textbook, by which I mean Dray sticks to the classic paragraph structure of "introductory sentence, supporting sentences, concluding sentence, repeat." Which is fine so far as getting across information goes, but it makes for a choppy reading experience. One paragraph doesn't flow to the next with opening lines like, "Yet another legend of the plains tells of. . ." It feels like something I'd have written for history class in high school. There had to be more graceful transitions available.

There's also a sense Dray has a particular view of the life on the Plains, and isn't all that concerned with examining it. He might note that snakes were once so common in the prairies they were considered pests, as mice are today, without really noting that mice being pests can be somewhat attributed to the sorts of activities he describes in the rest of the chapter, where white folks go around killing every snake they come across. Or he'll note that grizzly bears had vanished from the southern plains by the 1880s, but doesn't bother to go into why. Which is kind of ridiculous when he started off a chapter talking about how much of the larger wildlife that once existed in the prairies is now gone. Yeah, no shit, wonder how that happened.

The height of the absurdity comes in a chapter about a lawless section of what became the Oklahoma Panhandle. he talks about some cowboys accusing a man of stealing their cattle, then hanging the man over his wife's protests. After they ride off, they come across another man in the process of stealing cattle and hang him. Then they turn around and ride back to tell the widow they hung an innocent man, laughing when she freaked out because she thought they were there to kill her.

Dray's next paragraph starts with, 'Most of the settlers and cattlemen in the strip were good people who respected the rights of others. . .'

Credit where credit is due, it's a more creative transition than a lot others.

'John Hittson and his little army recovered about eleven thousand stolen cattle and three hundred stolen horses before legal difficulties prompted him to end his invasion of New Mexico. The cattle and horses were driven away and sold - one account says in Denver - but from what is known, none of the Texas ranchers whose cattle were recovered was ever reimbursed.'

What I Bought 3/22/2023 - Part 2

I feel as though I should get out and explore the local businesses in this town more often. Been here over six years, and still lots of restaurants and whatnot I haven't tried. Haven't even bothered to get a library card. On the other hand, I could just lay around in my apartment and review the first issues of two mini-series.

Fallen #1, by Matt Ringel (writer), Henry Ponciano (artist), Toben Racicot (letterer) - I think the green, leering face detracts somewhat from the neon sign, if you want people to visit the business.

At some point the gods descended from their plane to live in the mortal world. Not as mortals, just among them. The Greeks and the Norse at minimum. As this is set in the '80s, it means Zeus dresses like he's starring in Miami Vice and getting annoyed at Apollo for selling watered-down Ambrosia to mortals as a drug. Incidentally, Loki's pitching the same idea to Odin, although the Norse gods are a biker gang.

Casper, who dresses more like someone John Wick would kill, is Zeus's errand boy, a mortal granted certain gifts. He's out on the balcony while Zeus dresses down Apollo, but then a mysterious figure with a spear shows up and impales Zeus, blasting Casper into the river. He survives, and the remaining pantheon doesn't kill him, but he is kicked out of the club, so to speak.

Lots of questions, lots of possible hints and clues scattered about. Athena mentions not all the gods have made it to Earth, with Apollo's sister (I'm assuming Aphrodite, but who knows with the way the Greek gods fucked around) specifically mentioned. Which raises the question in my mind of whether there are gods sneaking around the others don't know about. Ares' is apparently a big weapons dealer. The possibility of conflict over the Norse also making a version of their sacred drink for the mortals.

A lot of pages with just 2-4 panels, meaning a lot of large panels that span the entire page and half its height. I thought maybe it was meant to suggest the gods' power and presence. That even these large spaces can't contain them, but outside a few examples, there's usually lots of space in those panels. Ponciano also tends to draw Casper so we're looking at his back, and when we're not, he's usually looking at the ground. We don't know much of anything about Casper yet, so maybe that's by design. The gods are dismissing him, making him seem irrelevant, but he's the one to watch.

Hellcat #1, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), KJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - The city is on fire, but Patsy's more pressing issue would seem to be that she's floating in open space.

Patsy's back in her hometown, and she's a suspect in the murder of a guy she met a month ago at one of Hedy's parties. Patsy was at the scene, her gloves are covered in blood, the body, which we see in panels shaded entirely in red, was badly mangled. Patsy's also living in her childhood home, which is haunted by her mother. And Patsy's self-medicating with booze and pills. She returns to the scene of the crime and finds Sleepwalker's badge. She visits Rick Sheridan in a psychiatric hospital and he explains Sleepwalker is suspended because he's a suspect in Patsy's boyfriend's murder. Because Rick's in love with Patsy.

Well, shit Rick, why didn't you do us all a favor and kill Tony Stark when she was engaged to him?

In a vacuum, the strange murder mystery aspect of this is cool. And teaming up Hellcat and Sleepwalker, neither exactly a mage or sorcerer, but each sort of mystic-adjacent, also potentially cool. But man, do I feel like I'm missing a lot of pages. Not just that Patsy and Rick are apparently old pals. Patsy mentions that "something" has been messing up her psychic abilities for months, so she can't read minds.

When the hell could she read minds? Sense magic, sure. That's been a thing since at least when she came back from the dead, and I think it's how she found the badge.

This Patsy seems so defeated. Even more than when she returned from the dead and found it difficult to care about anything because she was certain she'd just end up there again. Even then, she put up a cheerful front and pushed on out of sheer irritation she was mixed up in a war over the various Hells. Now, even when she was supposedly so happy with this guy, Spalding Grantham, what a name, still with the booze and pills. Maybe Cantwell figures it's a more realistic reaction to the crap she's been through, but it just looks odd from this angle.

That said, I like Lins and Diaz' combined artwork. Lins brings rough, kind of squishy texture to the art when Patsy's in costume that makes her look wilder and a little broken. Like Stuart Immonen, but a little busier, bit sketchier look. It goes away when we see her with Spalding (jeez, that name). Linework is more solid, character faces are less cluttered, less hatch marks. Everything's a little simpler.

Diaz colors those scenes in more moderate tones. Or less contrast. The ones set in the present, Patsy's in a squad car with blurred lights coming through the windows, or bright blood clashing with the dark blue of her gloves. Or she's in interrogation, with some unpleasant yellow light making everything look sick. The flashbacks are more pleasant, no jarring combinations. Almost too good to believe, one might say.

Sunday Splash Page #263

 

"Cat Burglar 2.0" in Iron Cat #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer)

Ultimate March may be over, but oxidizing showers bring rusty flowers, because it's Iron Spring!

Iron Cat was part of Jed MacKay's seeming attempt to keep writing stories about Felicia Hardy, which is A-OK by me. It brings together several points from the two volumes of Black Cat he wrote.

One, that while the Black Fox was teaching Felicia how to be a thief, he had another apprentice, a young woman named Tamara, who was Felicia's girlfriend for at least part of that time. Two, that Felicia ultimately betrayed the Black Fox after he tricked her into handing over Manhattan to the Gilded Saint in exchange for immortality. Third, that Felicia borrowed Tony Stark's facilities to build a suit of armor to intimidate Odessa Drake with during her war with the Thieves' Guild. A suit Stark ultimately got back and then upgraded, and which Tamara subsequently stole to kill Felicia.

Stark's technology being stolen and abused is enough to drag him in to even up the firepower disparity, but MacKay throws in a plot about the digitized intelligence of Stark's enemies helping Tamara as part of its own plan to destroy Stark's name and legacy forever. I mean, good luck. if Stark himself hasn't managed that by now. . .

There are inevitable betrayals, plus Tamara and Felicia both trying to pull misdirection ploys on each other before joining forces against the greater threat. Watching Felicia try to banter with her ex and actually somewhat succeed despite Tamara's best efforts is kind of cute, but the further into the mini-series you get, the more the story becomes an Iron Man story Black Cat happens to be mixed up in, which is not ideal from my perspective.

Pere Perez' art is solid, able to keep things clear when there's a whole mess of Iron Man suits zipping around firing repulsors at each other. He draws the Iron Cat armor different from how C.F. Villa did, though, and I'm not a fan of the changes. Took a lot of the individuality out of it by shrinking the ears, making the claws more like physical claws rather than some sort of laser/plasma projection, and removing the glowing ponytail thing on the helmet. Guess in-story that could be chalked up to Stark, though.

Saturday Splash Page #65

 

"In the Spotlight," in Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1, by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Mark Brooks (penciler), Jaime Mendoza (inker), Scott Hanna (additional finishes), Dave Stewart (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

First off, don't let the hair color confuse you, that's Kitty Pryde, not Mary Jane. Now that we've settled that, Ultimate Spider-Man had 3 Annuals, but I'd dropped the book six months before the third one came out.

While the Annuals did work as standalone stories, Bendis typically used them to set-up certain elements he'd go on to explore in the ongoing series. The first one was Peter and Kitty's first date, leading to their relationship, which lasted for, maybe 30 issues or so. Kitty's broken up with Iceman over, I think, him having something going with Rogue behind her back. Peter's distanced himself from MJ because he thinks he'll get her killed.

The 2nd Annual was Peter getting caught up in gang war territory stuff again, as Jean DeWolff encourages him to go after the Kangaroo, who is trying to make a play on the Kingpin's territory. Daredevil shows up, being a grumpy asshole. Moon Knight shows up as does the Punisher, who shoots DeWollf, because she was on Fisk's payroll. Or maybe he was sweet on her, as the issue ends with Fisk seemingly sad to learn of her death.

Honestly, I kept the Annuals because I enjoyed keeping all the issues that involved the Ultimate version of the Shocker, who Bendis kept having pop up as a minor nuisance for Spider-Man to easily beat down. He's actually the last guy Peter fights in the first Annual, where Kitty demonstrates that with her powers, Peter doesn't have to worry about her getting hurt. But in the second Annual, yeah, Spidey beats him in about one page while wondering how the guy isn't in jail. Which is when Foggy Nelson explains just leaving people webbed to a flagpole is not a good way to keep them in jail. So Peter takes the Shocker directly to the cops, which is how DeWolff gets the chance to point him at the Kangaroo.

Does that mean Foggy was secretly working with Fisk behind Daredevil's back, or perhaps working with the Punisher to draw out DeWolff so Frank could kill her? No, but I'm surprised Bendis didn't try either of those as a surprise ending at some point.

And with that, we come to the end of both Ultimate March, and the letter "U"!

What I Bought 3/22/2023 - Part 1

One of my coworkers is leaving next week. To focus on being a parent, which, OK, kids need parents. Just means more work for the rest of us until we hire a replacement and train them up. I already got enough work as it is. Where's that recession to stifle this economic growth?

Darkwing Duck #3, by Amanda Deibert (writer), Carlo Lauro (artist/colorist), Jeff Eckleberry (letterer) - Darkwing took to riding outside the Thunderquack, because it was easier to bail out when Launchpad started to crash.

Drake takes Gosalyn to visit Morgana, and gets a cool reception from her family. He also finds out Launchpad's acting as sidekick to Morgana's dad. But Morgana's game to try the suburban life, which allows the opportunity for puns like her making "ghoul-ash" for breakfast and accidentally turning Honker into pudding when trying to make a dessert for Gosalyn's lunch.

His attempt to be a volunteer at the elementary school community garden gets him suspended, because his inventions are untested and dangerous. Well, how do you expect to learn if they're dangerous without testing? This is the problem with schools now, everything has to be by the book. Drake and Morgana leave, just as Bushroot causes the garden to attack the school, and that's where the issue ends.

Lauro's still doing that thing where Drake's eyes are colored red instead of black with no pattern I can clearly discern. He's drawing Drake as looking very sad for not being a superhero any more. Lots of slumped shoulders and glum expressions. If you figure he doesn't really want to give it up for being a responsible parent, I suppose it makes sense. But I figured he'd look a little more happy than he does.

I did actually chuckle at one panel. When the school gardener goes missing, but his uniform is left behind, the mayor remarks, 'Poor Earl! He must be so cold!' And Jeff Eckleberry seems to be having fun with the goofy sounds effects. So that's something. Not enough, but it's something

Tiger Division #5, by Emily Kim (writer), Creees Lee (artist), Craig Yeung (inker), Yen Nitro (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Welcome to Doom's Palace, where the odds are 100% the DOOM always wins! Unless you cheat like the Accursed Richards.

To Min-Jae's complete surprise - but not to anyone with a functional brain - Doom intends to take the power of the Psylot Gem for himself. Min-Jae goes ahead and throws in with Doom anyway, until Tae apologizes for turning away from his past and his friend. That would ignore the fact Min-Jae became a bigger and more ruthless criminal by the time Tae got back home to his aunt. There was a whole flashback about Tae's aunt pointing out his old crew was threatening the local shopkeepers with violence if they didn't pay up. Was Tae just supposed to show up and go back to committing crimes with his old friend/brother?

I guess we're meant to be believe that in some timeline where Tae both decides to stop being a crook and goes back to his friends, he convinces them to clean up their acts as well. Because Min-Jae is touched by this heartwarming speech and switches sides again. Doom jobs out to him, because he apparently didn't even design a backdoor into Min-Jae's shitty robots to control them. Nobody half-asses as completely as DOOM! Tae gets his powers back, gets chewed out by Lady Bright for keeping secrets, tells everyone about his past. Min-Jae slinks off into the shadows somewhere.

This rather obviously didn't work for me at all. I at least conclusively know I don't find Taegukgi an interesting enough character for him to headline a five-issue mini-series. Especially when he's part of an entire team of characters that all seem more interesting. Kim could have spent issues on a different character, or on how Taegukgi assembled this team. Something. Anything!

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 (2020)

The movie is what it says on the tin, though it's original name may actually be Crazy Samurai Musashi, according to IMDb. Miyamoto Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi) had killed two clan leaders, so the clan has challenged him while setting up a trap so he'll have to fight 400 dudes. Maybe. I didn't actually count, and IMDb's summary says this was Musashi's most famous battle, where he fought 598 people.

The fight scene is done as one continuous take, from the title screen a few minutes in, until a flash-forward in the last 10 minutes. I'm assuming with a drone, because there's a point late where the camera draws back and then rises to give an aerial shot of Musashi being ringed in by yet another wave of guys. The whole thing reminds of those Dynasty Warriors games, where your character would just fight an entire army.

It's not explained why Musashi killed the first two clan leaders, but he was apparently expecting this fight, as it moves towards a deserted village where he's hidden some water and a bunch of extra swords. So there are brief breaks in the fight where he staggers down an alley, throws aside a rice paper screen, chugs some water and grabs the next sword. Then either the next wave of guys find him, or he ambles down the alley and finds them.

The longer the fight goes, the more Sakaguchi shows the exhaustion, though I don't know how much of that is acting versus actual fatigue from swinging swords around for 75 minutes straight. He gradually stops holding his sword in the stance he uses at the beginning, where it's out to one side and parallel to the ground. He staggers side-to-side after he kills or drives another person back, like he's got no energy to devote to his legs.

It helps that the guys he's fighting don't seem very smart by and large, though some of that is no doubt a concession to trying to do this in one take. I can only remember one guy that actually tried to attack from behind, even though people will repeatedly shout, "Surround him!" Sometimes they do, but mostly they form a half-circle in front of him. But you'll see guys run behind him within striking distance as the try to get in position, and do nothing. Sometimes they'll attack two or three at a time, but sometimes it's one guy tries and dies, then another, then another.

It's especially ridiculous when you watch one guy charge with sword held overhead, only for Musashi to take one step to the left and swing into the guy's gut. Then next guy tries the same thing, Musashi takes one step to his right, sword to the guy. Repeat five or six more times. But there are parts where you see the attackers gradually lose the aggression as they watch him strike down their comrades. Musashi will stand advancing on them, striking while they're hanging back waiting, instead of letting them attack and countering.

I thought we'd see a bit more variety, especially after one guy challenged him with one of those short sticks with the sickle blade on one end and a weighted chain on the other. See some guys wielding pikes or more chains, or try to surprise him coming out of a doorway or leaping from the second level of one of the buildings.

Probably hard to coordinate all that in one take, though, and that's the thing about it. It's interesting as an exercise in filming, but I think the limitations it places hamper it as a viewing experience. It's a 90-minute movie that's basically one guy after another rushing Musashi to be chopped down in one of a limited number of ways. After a while, with little dialogue, little character work, no time whatsoever spent on why Musashi is doing this (at the end he says he, 'just wanted to win,' which seems like a dumb reason to go around killing people), that's pretty boring to watch.

Starman's Quest - Robert Silverberg

Alan Donnell works on his father's cargo spaceship, ferrying goods to Earth and people out to space. Their ship can go almost the speed of light, but with the way time slows down as you approach that speed, it means Alan is biologically 17, even though he was born 300 years ago. He had a twin, but Steve jumped ship on Earth during their last trip. A few months for Alan, 9 years for Steve.

So the next time he's on Earth, Alan decides to go looking. Not only for his brother, but the work of a physicist from over a 1,000 years ago, whose writing claims he was on the verge of unlocking faster-than-light travel.

The search for Steve, and later for the Cavour Drive, don't seem to take up that many pages. The search for the Drive, maybe a sixth of the book near the end. The search for his brother, maybe a third of the book, and much of that is really about Alan trying to figure out how society on Earth works so he can figure out how to even try to find his brother. A lot of that involves Alan falling in with a highly successful gambler named Hawkes, who helps Alan out, but has his own motives. With Hawkes' aid, it takes very little time to find Steve and resolve his difficulties, at which point Silverberg focuses on Alan's learning to be a gambler at Hawkes' elbow.

Silverberg makes a point that no more often than "spacers" are on Earth, and the time that passes between visits, there can be vast changes in culture or language the spacemen are unprepared for. Plus, they essentially live in isolated communities on their ships, everyone knowing everyone. Earth is a world of 8 billion (it's around the year 3750 in the book, so Silverberg underestimated our ability to procreate), it's a very different situation.

It's interesting to note aspects of the future Silverberg correctly anticipates, and those where he misses. That everyone is supposed to has a specialized locator chip on their person at all times. That there's still segregation, people who are out and those who are in (although Silverberg presents on a basis of whether one is born into a trade guild, rather than race or religion.) But physical books are not unknown in the 38th Century, although there is some transcription of them to electronic media, and there are still cars (although it's unclear what they run on.) Computers are a part of society, although you still have to feed them a tape with information for them to calculate.

Silverberg never lingers on anything in the plot for too long, whether that's Alan's improvement at gambling, or a proposed heist of an armored car (paper money, also still a thing in the 38th Century). Overall, it's a very quick read.

'Hawkes had a gift - the gift of winning. But he didn't abuse that gift. He concealed it a little, so the people who lacked his talent did not get too jealous of him. Jealousy ran high on Earth; people here led short ugly lives, and there was none of the serenity and friendliness of life aboard a starship.'

A New (Idiot) Challenger Arrives!

And then he went to jail. After Riku punched him across the village square. One of those two statements is true.

At the start of volume 2 of Steel Fist Riku, Jyutaroh Nishino decides to introduce a rival for Riku. Chikara shows up wanting to avenge a defeat Riku's father dealt Chikara's grandfather years ago, but her father's out of town. So he fights Riku instead, and makes an ass out of himself by insisting she's a dude and engaging in inappropriate grabbing.

The next chapter involves Riku and Chikara grudgingly working together to catch someone attacking couples in the park. When the chapter after that starts with both of them signing on as security for a wealthy snack food entrepreneur, it looks as though Jyutaroh's going to settle into a basic engine of them bickering but ultimately getting the job done.

Instead, the thieves crush Riku and Chikara pretty easily. What's more, one of the thieves - the tall, thin obnoxiously smirking type who wears sunglasses all the time - has the same ability to turn a limb metal like Riku, but won't tell her anything about her origins. Though she at least succeeded in recovering an important heirloom for the snack king, the loss pushes Riku to demand more training from her dad on his return, so she can get strong enough to force answers out of the guy.

When her father remains unable to fight Riku without her wearing the chest wrappings that inhibit her breathing, he sends her to his old teacher. I still struggle to see a difference in how Jyutaroh draws Riku's chest whether she's supposed to be wearing the wrappings or not. Pretty much have to go by whether the other characters are making references to her boobs.

When Chikara shows up looking for a fight, Pops sends him along, too. The end of the volume is the two fighters encountering the old master. Jyutaroh goes with a rather sadistic old woman as the master, rather than some perverted old man, which is something at least. He draws her with big eyes that could look innocent, but rounds or shapes them so that, combined with a Looney Tunes-worthy wide grin, she gives off a gleefully malevolent air.

Overall, the title doesn't entirely abandon the "case of the week" aspect, even as it gives Riku a consistent rival who isn't too incapacitated by her chest to fight, and offers the possibility of an answer to Riku's origin. I don't know that where she came from or why her arm can turn to steel was really weighing on my mind - the explanation that their world has "demi-humans" with strange abilities was enough - it's clearly something Riku wants to know.

Sunday Splash Page #262

 

"Wikipedia Wormhole," in Infinity 8 (vol. 6) #3, by Emmanuel Guibert and Lewis Trondheim (writers), Franck Biancarelli (artist), Jeremy Meeloul (translation)

The spaceship Infinity 8 comes to a halt at the edge of a vast collection of the dead and their resting places. The captain is from an aquatic alien species with the ability to reset time 3 hours back 8 times from a given point, giving them multiple chances to unravel what they've found. Each 3-issue story focuses on a different one of those attempts, as different officers are assigned to try and learn what exactly this place is. Each story is drawn by a different artist, and each story deals with a different complication.

In volume 4, Patty Stardust is undercover with a group of revolutionary artists who have something much larger planned than just a concert among the dead. Ann Ninurta in volume 5 has to deal with a zombie apocalypse and trying to protect her daughter during the mission. In volume 3, the officer herself is the danger. Volume 2 involves there being a Nazi Party on the ship, who think the Nazis were just big proponents of German beer and lederhosen and are quite excited to find Hitler's corpse in this floating graveyard. So it gets put on a police bot and tries to start a Fifth Reich. The officer helps them rather than following orders, essentially because she's bored.

(The story also includes a little blue alien named Shlomo Ju, with a bushy beard, long black coat, and one of those wide-brimmed hats, I think Borsalinos, who denounces the Nazis, because he hasn't forgotten what they were really about.

I'm not at all sure what I was supposed to take from that. That's it's all too easy for the people who weren't victims to forget the ugly parts?)

Trondheim uses the repetitive nature to slowly reveal different aspects of life on the ship, while also providing clues as to the purpose of the mausoleum. The first story "Love and Mummies," reveals a race of aliens on-board who like to eat corpses, but absorb characteristics of their food. Volume 3, "The Gospel According to Emma," introduces a guy who can telepathically control or kill anyone whose genetic material he's come into contact with, even if it's through an ancestor. If it's through an extremely ancient ancestor, that increases the number he could control/kill. All this comes together in the 8th volume, when it turns into a race between one side out for revenge, another to ensure future hegemony, and a third just trying to survive.

Some of the stories are sad, some are a bit funnier. A lot of them are just depressing. Volume 7, "All for Nothing," in particular, where a character finds out they've been used as a tool their entire life, and the fact it feels like it ruined their life is unremarked on by the ones doing it. I kept about half the series, ultimately.

Saturday Splash Page #64

 

"Called in a Ringer," in Ultimate Spider-Man #91, by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), John Dell (inker), Justin Ponsor (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Ultimate Spider-Man , written by Brian Michael Bendis, drawn for 110 issues by Mark Bagley, then later Stuart Immonen, David LaFeunte, Sara Pichelli, probably some other folks, was the longest-running title in the Ultimate Universe by a fair bit. Probably the most successful, depending on how you want to grade versus Millar and Hitch's The Ultimates, which I imagine had higher sales, but also didn't have to sustain them long.

I started buying Ultimate Spider-Man when I got back into comics, shortly after I started college. I don't think I necessarily understood what the point was when I bought this, but it wasn't too hard to figure out. Taking Spider-Man to the beginning, revising and in surface ways updating Ditko and Lee's story. The spider is genetically modified rather than radioactive. Both the company that modified it (Oscorp) and the questionably legal governmental agency (SHIELD) are aware Peter got bit. Peter can't keep his mask on for anything.

I don't know if Bendis dislikes the idea of secret identities, or simply figured there was no way a 15-year-old could keep his shit together enough to maintain one in a world with as much surveillance as ours. When Nick Fury finally pops up, about 24 issues in, he rattles off a laundry list of different ways he knows Peter is Spider-Man. As someone who enjoys the secret identity aspect of superheroes, that trend was more than a little frustrating.

Bendis had I think made his name on street-level crime books, even if they included superpowers, such he and Michael Avon Oeming's creatively titled Powers. So a lot of the stories revolve around mob level crime, sometimes industrial espionage. Doc Ock worked for Osborn, but was actually a mole for Justin Hammer, who has his own program creating superhumans. His first confrontation with Spider-Man is Peter trying to stop him from tearing up Hammer Industries in revenge. Someone targets Roxxon for destruction a couple of times, and because Spidey stops them (just wanting to help people) he ends up targeted for that.

Daredevil never got above a supporting character in the Ultimate Universe, so Kingpin maintains a large (no pun intended) presence among Spider-Man's rogues' gallery whether Hornhead is around or not. Which does give Bendis the chance to show Peter struggling with how powerful people can escape justice, as even after he gets a recording of Fisk killing a man to the media, Fisk manages to beat the rap.

Granted that street-level is Spider-Man's bread and butter, it feels like it lost something that everybody was the product of what seemed to be a few concentrated experimentation programs, rather than people getting powers through weird accidents happening all over the place. Made the universe seem smaller. Even the symbiotes, rather than aliens, were something Peter and Eddie Brock's parents created as step 1 in a cure for cancer (which Curt Conners later got a hold of and was messing with before Peter found it). So you're back to the tight circle of genetic researchers being responsible for everything.

It wasn't always street-level stuff. Bendis had Spidey get tangled up in Dr. Strange stuff once, confront vampires a couple of times, probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting. There was a mini-series where I think Norman Osborn wanted to take over the country or something like that, but on the whole, not many stories about someone holding the city for ransom, or threatening to use an orbital satellite to wipe out half the country.

(There was also the jokey Freaky Friday 2-parter when Spidey and Wolverine wake up in each other's bodies thanks to Jean Grey being an asshole. Which does at least lead to Spider-Man cussing out the entire team of X-Men as a bunch of various expletives.)

Like I said, Bagley drew the book for 110 issues straight. With Bendis' writing style, that's maybe 37 issues worth of actual plot. Outside of the Green Goblin, who fans dubbed "Goblin Hulk" (and later the Hobgoblin, who stayed in the same vein), he didn't really change the look of the major villains. I guess Electro got turned into a very simplified hairless guy in a black leather suit/pants combo. Or maybe it was a tracksuit? I'm not sure. Doc Ock still looked basically like Doc Ock. Ditto for Kraven, the Vulture, etc. Probably just as well. I don't think people loved Goblin Hulk.

Much the same would be true for the supporting cast. Aunt May looked younger, as Bendis based her personality more on his own mother, moving away from the frail old woman always two seconds away from another heart attack. This May had a job, she eventually started dating again, she chewed out Jonah on the phone after he fired Peter. Mary Jane looked about the same, but was Peter lifelong friend who was more of a quiet bookish sort. Gwen Stacy came in as the wild child, with the piercings and carrying knives around.

As far as civilian life, Bendis kept things focused more at home and school. Peter worked at the Bugle, but as an IT guy, and as a high schooler among adults, he doesn't seem to interact with them much. No pep talks from Robbie Robertson or Ben Urich, no dating Betty Brant (none of whom every get much focus.)

But lots of dating melodrama at school. Peter tells MJ his secret early on, which was sort of a sweet issue about two dorky teens misreading each other. Bagley can handle facial expressions and body language. Peter and MJ date. Bad things happen, or nearly happen, Peter breaks up with her. They start to get together, he has another bad experience, they break up again. Kitty Pryde and Peter start dating. They break up, but she moves to the neighborhood anyway. Then she starts dating Kong (or Kenny) a new character Bendis created for the series who looks a bit like Bendis (at least the way Bagley draws both of them.) Liz Allen turns out to first hate mutants, then actually be a mutant (basically Firestar, seemingly so there could be a comic with Spidey and his Amazing Friends on the cover.)

I think sometimes the tipping point for the book was when Bendis tried to introduce Geldoff, the foreign exchange student who had the power to blow stuff up somehow, and used it to destroy the principal's car after he suspended some of the football team. Geldoff was new, was apparently not a mutant because he was experimented on in the womb (he was from Latveria), and apparently the fans hated him.

Bendis pretty much stuck to remixing the hits after that. More Kingpin! Carnage! Gwen Stacy dying! Black Cat and Elektra! A Clone Saga (ye gods he did a Clone Saga)! Aunt May having a heart attack! Harry Osborn being self-destructive! I mean, I guess it worked for a long time. Helps when you do a 9-issue Gang War story that has maybe 3 issues' worth of plot.

To be fair, Bendis does have Peter grow over the series. The progress is erratic and hard to trace, but especially by "Ultimate Knights" the last full arc Bendis and Bagley do together, Spidey is refusing to be pushed around by Daredevil, making a stand to keep Daredevil from killing an innocent woman to hurt Fisk, and finally using the fact that Nick Fury seems to like him as leverage to make Fisk back off. He seemed to have a better sense of himself, what he wanted, what he could do.

I gave up on the book at issue 122, for a host of reasons. Bendis' last couple of multi-issue stories hadn't done it for me, and the next was going to a) involve the symbiotes, b) draw elements from the Ultimate Spider-Man video game, and most damningly c) tie-in to Jeph Loeb's Ultimatum. After I left, Peter almost died in Ultimatum, then did die (I think keeping Punisher from killing Captain America). Then maybe didn't die, but Miles Morales was Spider-Man by then? Then the universe got wiped out in the run up to Secret Wars.

Random Back Issues #101 - JSA All-Stars #11

Another victim of the insidious "volleyball stuffed with talcum powder" gag.

JSA All-Stars! Because DC got it in their heads the market would support two JSA books! The team is trying to deal with a bunch of orphaned children who had been cared for by Brainwave Jr. in the nation of Parador. Except the kids have merged/evolved/been possessed by some ancient gods and come to Los Angeles to build a new temple. Power Girl tried to fight the lot of them by herself the issue before.

It did not go well. I know, a Kryptonian fighting magic, and it ended poorly? Go figure. Citizen Steel's attempt to come to the rescue got him smacked towards the ocean. Fortunately the rest of the team's able to catch him in their jet while Atom Smasher gets big and tries his hand at god-fighting.

Right about the time he's getting pummeled, Cyclone shows up, throwing whirlwinds around. She'd been feeling sick lately, which I think would be resolved in a few issues, and involve clones. The team's not really getting anywhere like this, and citizens at risk of being crushed as they rush to pray to these gods for the restoration of things they lost.

So Brainwave asks everyone on the team to think of something from their past they need to let go, and just, you know, do that. He takes the effect and somehow spreads it among the crowd, and it breaks the gods' hold. They shrink back down, but when Brainwave demands they return the kids, he finds out they are the kids. There's no going back. Uh-oh, sounds like someone's got a regret they need to let go of, but it's time for beach volleyball!

This was during the stretch when DC was doing back-up features in some of their books, and JSA All-Stars' involved Liberty Belle and Hourman chasing some "staff of life." They started in competition with Injustice Society members Tigress and Icicle, but they'd teamed up by this point.

There was someone else after the staff too, who could transform into a blue cloud? Blue flame? (Man, I do not remember any of this storyline.) Anyway, he turned solid long enough to try and stab Tigress, but Hourman took the hit instead. The blue cloud's guy dad has similar powers and manages to get the staff away, although the effort kills him. But the staff keeps Hourman alive to get treatment, and he sneaks it away later on to make sure Tigress doesn't have any complications having her and Icicle's kid.

[6th longbox, 70th comic. JSA All-Stars #11. "Apostasy: Glory Days Part 4", by Matthew Sturges (writer), Freddie Williams II (artist), Richard & Tanya Horie (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer). "The Inheritance: Pass It On", Jen van Meter (writer), Travis Moore (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Allen Passalaqua (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)]

Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts

Miles is home from Oxford, and meets Neal, a clever boy who catches whitebait when he's not learning the theater. Through various circumstances, Neal needs to leave England in a hurry, and Miles' father gets them both booked as crew on a cargo ship head for America.

The first mate is a disagreeable man named Langman, who is always against any action and tries to make the captain look incompetent. The end result of that is the ship ends up wrecked on a crappy bit of rock off the coast of Maine in the dead of winter. Miles and Neal both remain loyal to the captain as he struggles to maintain discipline and the crew disintegrates over the weeks.

The book was published in 1956, but in the broad outline of the plot, feels like a throwback to books of a century earlier. The young men forced to grow up fast in a difficult adventure due to calamity at sea. The book's written from Miles' perspective, and Roberts includes many paragraphs of Miles berating his past self for not realizing how good he had it, or opining on how little other people understand of true hardship. That brand of self-pity that feels like a moral tirade.

Although, it's been a long time since I read Robinson Crusoe, but I don't recall descriptions of toes falling off from frostbite, or men pissing into a powder horn and pouring it over their feet to treat the sores. Of course, that was a tropical island, not much risk of frostbite.

Most of the book is focused on the struggle to survive on Boon Island. Trying to find enough wreckage to build a shelter, eating seaweed and sucking on salty ice to cope with hunger. There are two attempts to build an escape raft, so there are problems with how to construct it from limited tools and when to try and get it in the water gives the surf and all the rocks. The men like Langman, who seem determined to protest every action, but demand extra rations when they finally fall into line, or the ones who pretend to be too injured or sick to help. I expected more of an open mutiny at some point, but it never came around.

And, of course, the apparently inevitable question of cannibalism. I don't know if Roberts breezes past the moral qualms of eating a dead human too quickly or not. The only ones who object are Langman and his batch, and only for a day. Probably to see if a ship arrived so they could point the finger of horror at everyone else. If you're that hungry, maybe there are no qualms. No energy for them, at least. Miles quickly begins to refer to the flesh as "beef", and that's pretty much it. More time spent on how they worked to skin the body or separate out the flesh to make it easier to chew.

The end of the book drags on a bit. Like Roberts wanted to wax about how kind and intelligent Americans were. They all want to help the survivors, none of them are so foolish to pay any mind to the nonsense Langman and his cronies spout. After everything else, it felt strange for the characters to be worried about things like that, rather than leaving it on Miles grateful to be away from Boon Island.

'Swede rolled over clumsily to look at Langman. "Langman," he said, "you're a whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave! You're against everyone and everything, and you keep right on telling lies to try to prove you're right. If we leave the snow on the tent and get more snow, the canvas will split, or it'll fall down on us. Snow's heavy! And you talk about Eskimos!"'

The Mule (2018)

An old man named Earl (Clint Eastwood), whose flower business went under, uses his extremely careful and conscientious driving skills to shuttle cocaine from Texas to Chicago for a cartel. On a largely parallel tangent, a DEA agent (Bradley Cooper) tries to bring down the same cartel.

Eastwood plays Earl as being fairly charming. He seems to quickly (although I don't know how long he was doing these drug runs) become buddies with the guys he picks up the drugs from. Joking around with them, promising he's gonna learn how to text before the next run. And it seems to work, even the guy sent by the cartel boss (played by Andy Garcia, though he doesn't get much to do) ends up liking Earl after a while. Earl's also more than a little racist, in that (if you're being generous) oblivious way. The bit where he stops to help a black family change their tire and refers to them as "Negros" made me groan.

I'm also not sure how clueless Earl is meant to be. Did he really not have any clue he was running drugs until he actually looked in the duffel bag they threw in the back of his truck?

But Earl, like most of Eastwood's characters, is bad about expressing his emotions towards his loved ones. His way of showing he cares is by trying to be the best "provider" he can be, even though this meant he was never around. He misses his daughter's wedding, and takes the initial drug run to keep his promise to pay for the cash bar at his granddaughter's wedding. He keeps making runs at least in part because he sees other people or places he cares about the money could help. The notion that his family would have been OK with a little less providing, in exchange for him being around, didn't seem to occur to him until it was too late*.

The movie stays heavily focused on Earl. There are brief cuts to Cooper's investigation. he and his partner leaning on the guy they've convinced to snitch. Generally being jerks to him. They keep using Mexican terms to refer to him, and when he points out he's Filipino, they respond that just means it'll be harder for the cartel to kill his family then. Or we get Cooper arguing to his boss (played by Laurence Fishburne, again not given much to do) for a little more time.

Hard to judge the passage of time, as we don't see changes in seasons or anything, but the point seems to be Cooper is neglecting his loved ones by focusing on his job the way Earl once did. Not sure it really works. Earl running a flower nursery for decades doesn't seem quite the same as working for the DEA. Also, we never actually see Cooper's family, so it's hard to get any sense of how important they're supposed to be him. Might have been simpler to not bother trying to draw that parallel, just focus on the fact Earl's time is running out in more ways than one.

* He's been going to that well for a long time. Since at least when he played the cat burglar guy in Absolute Power.

What I Bought 3/8/2023 - Part 2

The regional library had their annual used book sale last weekend. I'd been meaning to go for years, but something always came up. Picked up 8 books, two CDs and a movie for 10 bucks, so expect resumption of book reviews in the near future.

Sgt Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #6, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Credit where credit's due: the interior of the book delivers what the cover promises.

This issue is basically Rock fighting Hitler (who is all hopped up on those revitalization drugs) in the bunker while Easy Co. calls in another saturation bombing. It's a seesaw battle with Hitler using weapons and misdirection, but Rock basically just powering through all of it. Kind of like a pro wrestling match that way. Hitler tries a bayonet, a pistol, a syringe full of those drugs, hitting Rock with a locker, gassing him.

Risso and Rossi illustrate the fight to good effect. Bent noses or bones protruding from broken wrists. They emphasize the difference in the characters' eyes. Rock with larger white ovals and dark pupils, while Hitler gets smaller, almost bird-like yellow eyes with pupils like dots. I like that in the panel I picked, Rossi even shows the outline of Hitler's messed-up mustache by where the blood is and isn't. It's a nice bit of detail.

Rock survives the bombing, but the Army would like him to deal with similar problems now, and that's pretty much the end of the comic. Feels a bit like Campbell's referencing that bit from the '90s Suicide Squad book that said Rock handled missions to that island with dinosaurs and whatnot. Could just be a coincidence. I'm still curious why Campbell started with the internal narration boxes in the last two issues, after not using them in the first half of the mini-series. They did have the effect of making Rock feel more familiar.

Rock keeps up a sort of steady string of one-liners during the fight, which I'm less into. If the fight is meant to be a grim, difficult struggle, the dialogue cuts against that. But it's a story about fist-fighting a Hitler doped up on drugs to bring the dead back to life, so that's probably not the effect Campbell's going for anyway.

Fantastic Four #5, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - That's kind of trippy. Good work.

Nicholas Scratch and the Salem Seven show up to. . .mildly annoy the Four by spinning them around? Well, it turns out they've somehow reversed the "handedness" of the team's molecules, making them incompatible with life in their own universe. Their bodies could try to break down food, but the enzymes can't bond properly to do so. Slow death by starvation.

They get into the Dark Dimension and Reed does something to push his powers to the point where he can reverse the process. Spin everyone around in four dimensions so they're molecules are aligned properly. Something like that. They go home, Reed has Johnny burn some gunk off Ben because he fell in a pool of water and they don't want to carry any Dark Dimension bacteria over here, but completely ignores the puddle of water from where Ben landed. *sad trombone*

Of course, one of the locals of the Dark Dimension tried to chase them and its arm got lopped off when the portal closed. Sue just picked it up with a force bubble and tossed it in a dumpster. What if there are invasive bacteria in it? I guess they probably aren't photosynthetic if they live inside a creature, so they'll have the same "can't eat" problem the FF were going to. But it seems like something to be more careful with than that.

North seems to really like writing Reed Richards. Maybe something about the opportunity for creative solutions that comes with writing a genius. But at least in this issue, it feels like it reduces the rest of the team to Reed's supporting cast, which I'm not sure is the way to go. Certainly at some point Sue needs to get some spotlight,

Fiorelli kept the look of the book reasonably close to Coello's, although I see more 2000s Ron Garney is his work than I did in Coello's. Especially in some of the hatching and shading. Anyway, I assume Fiorelli got across what North was looking for with the thing Reed did with his body to do the rotating. 

He does draw Ben Grimm with closer to a normal human's proportions, however. Seeing the Thing with a body that tapers towards the waist is kinda weird. Plus he gave him a neck. The Thing is not supposed to have a neck! It was in the style guide and everything!

Sunday Splash Page #261

 

"Trashy Jokes," in The Inferior Five #8, by E. Nelson Bridwell and Don Segall (writers), Win Mortimer (penciler), Tex Blaisdell (inker), Ray Halloway (letterer), colorist unknown

A couple of years ago, I got the notion of trying to hunt down some of DC's more comedy oriented books from the '60s. Inferior Five, Angel and the Ape. But even beat up issues are pricier than I'm willing to pay, so the plan never got past owning about three issues of this title, one of which was actually a reprint of their first appearance in Showcase.

The team consisted of five heroes who were the children of other, more successful heroes, pressed into service in place of their parents when an old enemy re-emerged. Awkwardman is clumsy, the Blimp is slow, White Feather's a coward, Merryman's a weakling and Dumb Bunny. . .well, it's in the name, isn't it?

The book takes the approach of trying to cram as many gags, jokes or attempts at funny wordplay in as possible. The phones they use to receive emergency calls are dubbed the "lukewarm line". When the Blimp's diner is carried into the sky on the growing mountain of trash, a cop tells a child it's a public service, since they won't have to eat there now. While climbing the trash mountain, they encounter both a dress shop, whose owners spend half a page outfitting Dumb Bunny, and a bunch of hippies, who plant seeds that turn into a man-eating plant(?)

The team is just competent enough to win (Dumb Bunny seems to be the most successful at actually using her powers to fight stuff), or else their opponents are that incompetent. I don't guess it was much of a hit, it only lasted 12 issues, and at least two of those were reprints of the Showcase stories. It went the parody route frequently, with two separate issues involving a "Kookie Quartet" that was a spoof of the Fantastic Four, plus another issue where the team visits the DC offices.

Saturday Splash Page #63

 

"Fin," in Ultimate X-Men Annual #1, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Tom Raney (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Gina Going-Raney (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

All the issues of Ultimate X-Men I still own - all three of them - involve Gambit. Which is odd, considering I have very little use for the version in the Marvel Universe. There was some discussion of Gambit in the comments section for the 400th episode of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, and I noted there that Gambit seemed very cool to me when I first saw him. The exploding playing cards, the bo staff (Donatello was admittedly my least favorite Ninja Turtle, but that didn't mean he wasn't cool), and hey! Rogue liked Gambit, and Rogue was cool. I was not yet aware that Rogue's taste in men was worse than her luck in parental figures.

But then it turns out Gambit's been married this whole time, and that seemed kind of sleazy. The longer he was around, the less he seemed a "charming thief", and more a "two-faced conman", jerking Rogue around while flirting with anything he laid eyes upon.

No doubt aided by the fact he only appeared in maybe a half-dozen issues, the Ultimate Universe version didn't go that route. The story we looked at last week, he's kind of a low-level hustler, living on the street, able to use his powers for some flashy tricks to win pocket change or a phone number from a pretty lady, but that's about it. He's nice enough to try to protect an orphaned girl, and to recognize when he's at the limits of what he can do.

Brian K. Vaughn brought him back, a fair bit closer to his Marvel namesake, and he and Rogue took off to be high-class thieves together. Which brings us to this comic, where a successful heist is interrupted by the Juggernaut, who was pals with Rogue when they were in Weapon X. Gambit ends up dying dropping an entire construction site on Juggy's skull, and Rogue absorbs his powers and mind when she kisses him as he dies.

Far as I know, nobody brought him back before the Ultimate Universe got wiped out by Secret Wars (although I read Jonathan Hickman might be bringing it back), so he never got the chance to diverge too far from the cocky guy enjoying stealing stuff with his girlfriend. No Thieves Guild and Assassins Guild stuff, no Belladonna or any of that mess. Sometimes simpler is better.

What I Bought 3/8/2023 - Part 1

One thing I've noticed from watching the Midsomer Murders channel on Pluto TV is nobody in Causton locks their friggin' doors. All these killers just waltz right in to people's houses. Makes you wonder if the people around Causton are even dumber than all the oblivious people that inhabited Sunnydale on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Sure, I'll walk down this dark alley with this guy I just met who was strangely adverse to sharing my spicy garlic buffalo wings!"

Moon Knight #21, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Marc's always happiest when surrounded by people he can punch of be punched by.

The issue is presented in flashback, Reese explaining what she's experienced to Dr. Sterman. Which is that Reese and a couple of her other vampire friends took Soldier to a nightclub to have him enjoy himself. Even got Jake Lockley to play chauffeur. Rosenberg colors the nightclub scenes in purples and reds, and I don't know if it's Cappuccio or Petit doing it, but he music basically forms the background, going for that ambient sense of being immersed in sound.

Unfortunately, during the festivities, just as Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince warned, someone stole the DJ and played a record that caused all non-vampires to go crazy and start attacking each other. Moon Knight dives in, Rosenberg adding a beam of blue and white light that disperses the reds and purples on his arrival. Reese is actually the one who stops the mayhem, reaching the stage and smashing the turntables to stop the music. She also gets shot by a guy with a burlap sack over his head, but eh, she's a vampire, it's fine.

The burlap sack puts me in mind of one of Marvel's versions of the Scarecrow, who was more of a contortionist thief than a master of fear if his appearance in Untold Tales of Spider-Man is anything to go by (and if you can't trust Kurt Busiek's grasp of continuity and character backstory, whose can you trust?), but that's probably just coincidence. If Cappuccio and MacKay are using any character as inspiration for that looks, it's more likely Christopher Nolan-Batman movies, Jonathan Crane Scarecrow.

Anyway, the cast's conclusion is this must the be the work of the same "ghost in the telephone" mentioned last issue. Someone trying to use sound to control people. A cable news network, in other words. The issue ends on a panel of a shadowy outline in front of a sunlit window, who I assume is the mastermind. I also assume it's Marc's old merc buddy turned psychologist that supposedly got blown up last issue, but that's just going by tropes.

Mary Jane and Black Cat: Dark Web #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Vincenzo Carratu (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - MJ using the old Nintendo Power Glove to keep people away from her stash of Laserdisc players back there.

MJ is rather annoyed she's going to die because Felicia's feeling guilty about keeping her relationship with Peter a secret. Fortunately, the Guardian kills S'ym first. No big loss there, Maddie really should have done that herself the moment she took control of Limbo. Felicia tries to buy MJ a chance to run, by shooting the claws from her hand into the monster's eye. I think Carratu could have laid out that panel better, because at first read, I thought Felicia somehow slashed or stabbed his eyes. MacKay had to explain two pages later it was something Felicia could do, but typically didn't because it was of limited utility.

Anyway, Mary Jane instead used the chance to yell at Felicia for feeling guilty over being happy with MJ's ex. Which seems to settle things so MJ gets a power that makes her look like Herald of Galactus Nova, albeit with blue fire. But actually she rewrites reality, so after the Guardian is dead, she resurrects S'ym.

Boooooooooooooooooooooo.

But this kind gesture convinces S'ym to warn them that if either of them touches Belasco's Soulsword, it will bond to their soul. Then Belasco will kill them to get it back, and they aren't magically adept enough to stop that. I mean, I feel like Belasco's track record of getting pantsed by Illyana or Maddie suggests he's kind of a loser, and that magic or no, Felicia and MJ can handle his stupid ass, but whatever.

Felicia appears to choose to fall on the sword, so to speak, although this is MacKay writing the Black Cat, so there's some sort of fakeout coming. As they exit the tower, they meet all the groups that were afraid to go in themselves, but still want that sword. And that's that.

It feels a little ridiculous that MacKay spent three issues on Felicia internally monologuing about how worried she was about MJ finding out, only for it to be resolved so easily. But that's probably the point. Felicia made things much harder on herself (and Mary Jane) with her guilt and keeping secrets than if she just told the truth. Although I don't really think of them as having been friends 'for years' at this stage, but I also haven't seen them interact much prior to MacKay's work since. . .before Straczynski's run on the book? Maybe Nick Spencer did more with them, but they still seemed somewhat antagonistic in that one-shot MacKay wrote last year.

*shrug* Everyone defines friendship different, I guess.