Sunday Splash Page #268

 

"Closet Headspace", in Iron Man: The Inevitable #4, by Joe Casey (writer), Frazier Irving (artist and color artist), Comicraft (letterer)

Iron Spring can't be stopped or diverted! One could almost say it was. . .fated? Unavoidable? Damn it, right on the tip of my tongue. . .

Iron Man: The Inevitable is about evolution. Tony Stark at this point has the Extremis virus that lets him manipulate and control armors or other technologies at a thought. "See through satellites" was I think how he described it in that incredibly delayed story where Warren Ellis and Adi Granov gave him the ability.

With this new perspective, Stark is trying to do things differently. Improve the world with new inventions, as well as de-fang his old enemies via more peaceful methods. He wants to be done with the old "punch 'em up, repulsor ray 'em up," stuff of the past. But not everyone is as ready to move on from how things used to be.

Casey lines up three villains: Living Laser, Ghost, and Spymaster. The Living Laser is in some sort of discorporated energy state, so Stark brings in a Dr. Maggie Dillon to try and reach him through 'telepathic intrabeam particle communication.' The idea being she'll help Laser to see what's driven him to keep being a super-villain, and realize it's a dead end path he should abandon.

This Spymaster (3rd in the series, apparently) is a rich corporate raider type that thinks being a super-villain is a specific calling, complete with a code, and Tony Stark is breaking the code by trying to pretend he's not Iron Man any longer. Spymaster hires and discards the Ghost (who gets a boring costume design here, basically a beige body stocking) to try to mess up Stark's stuff. Ghost doesn't care about money, or politics or any of that. Stark owns a massive corporation, and the Ghost wants to tear it down for that alone.

Really, all of them just want Iron Man to acknowledge them. Banter, fight, and argue. Give them something to push back against. For power, for the thrill, for the weight it lends to their ideology. Stark wants no part of it, because it all seems like a waste of life and time and effort.

But Stark might not be as beyond the old ways as much as he pretends. Having gone back to pretending Iron Man is Tony Stark's bodyguard, he speaks in a faux-tough-guy tone. About being sick of their b.s., or pretending anything connects him to them. He refers to himself in 3rd person, claiming he's not going to play the same games with them Stark did, because he's not soft like that. It's Stark trying to pretend this isn't him, that's he's outgrown all of it, but it's a lie. When he guides the Ghost into a trap, he can't help info-dumping an explanation of what's happening, just like Tony Stark would. At this point, he could control the armors remotely, more than one even, as he notes after things go sideways. Heck, just tell SHIELD or the Avengers if it's really so beneath him.

Frazier Irving really likes the color pink and purple. They pop up everywhere. At the banal parties Stark has to attend as a corporate head. In the laboratories where Dr. Dillon tries to reach Laser, and in the weird space where the two of them talk. I don't know the significance of the color choices. The faces he draws are sometimes strange, falling in that uncanny valley where eyes look too wide, or hair doesn't sit naturally on their heads. Doc Samson shows up since Dr. Dillon was briefly a student of his, and Irving shades his face to really emphasize the cheekbones and brow ridges. It makes Samson look like a caveman.

Maybe that's how Stark is supposed to see him, since it's during a scene where Tony explains he still uses phones and computers when he doesn't have to, because it looks "normal". When he's alone, he doesn't bother, sends texts by just thinking of it (Irving's good about including those differences) so it's just for appearances. To not frighten the people scared of the future, and he's growing sick of it. Though mostly he just seems sick of the fact he still cares, that he lets these people locked in the past hold him back. He's a futurist, you know.

Maybe the issue with the faces is deliberate. It's most noticeable in those party scenes, or when Tony is interacting with anyone other than Dr. Dillon. Not absent the rest of the time, but not as noticeable as the oddly elongated necks, rictus grins, and weird hair at those parties. But the parties are all bullshit. The wealthy at the events that are going to do "something" to help the less fortunate, when it's really about making sure they're seen attending. It's all a waste to Stark, who has to be reminded to attend them.

But the uncanny valley issue goes away when everyone's in costume. Even if Stark's pretending he's not Iron Man, he's pretending less with that armor than he does at some gala. Ghost, Spymaster, the mask lets them be who the want to be, but aren't willing to be openly. Living Laser isn't wearing a mask, but he's a glowing outline with dark spots for eyes and mouth. No distinct features, it might as well be a mask.

But he's the guy who, like Stark, has become something more than human. Sentient light, but all he can think to do is try to kill Iron Man. It's all he wants, but the same way Stark is still just using one armor, the Laser's not expanding. Iron Man flies away and the Laser just chases him. He's light, he's the fastest thing in the universe! He could chop Iron Man up like cold cuts in a micro-second! But he can't think outside the same limited range he's used to.

Saturday Splash Page #70

 

"Cat Scratch One Cop," in Tigra #4, by Christina Z (writer), Mike Deodato (artist), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Marvel had a run of 4-issue "Icons" mini-series going in the early 2000s. I'm sure as hell not going to buy a mini-series about Cyclops, but Tigra, who was part of those early West Coast Avengers' teams I really liked? Sure. Especially since I bought this in back issues several years after it came out. Probably during some rough years for the character, when I was hoping for a better take on her.

Granted that "rough years", doesn't narrow it down much. Jim Shooter put Tigra in Avengers to be the rookie who wasn't ready for prime time, wrote her out within six issues. Roger Stern used that poor experience as part of his West Coast Avengers mini-series, but then Englehart wrote the ongoing and suddenly Tigra was trying to jump just about every guy she saw. Because, her "feline side taking over" apparently translated to always being horny. Then Byrne had her go completely feral, get shrunk down and treated like a pet by Agatha Harkness.

But the late-2000s were pretty ugly because for whatever reason, she ended up in Brian Michael Bendis' crosshairs, and that's never a good place to be. Ask Clint Barton. Bendis wrote Tigra being pistol-whipped and humiliated by the friggin' Hood, part of BMB's ill-conceived attempt to turn Parker Robbins from a small-time punk with dreams into a big wheel. I remember complaining about this on the blog and being chastised by someone in the comments that, 'maybe Bendis had a plan.'

Even if you allow for that possibility, that doesn't mean it's going to be a good plan. There was also that bit where Bendis wrote Jarvis (Skrull Jarvis, but presumably meant to be a convincing imposter) as calling Tigra a bitch and promising to quit if Stark put her back on the Avengers again. Maybe if Stark had been written as noting this as clear evidence it wasn't the real Jarvis it could have been something - although, again, it would be a pretty big slip-up for what was meant to be an expert, undetectable infiltrator - but, hahahahahahahaha, that sure didn't happen!

Point being, I was looking for something that treated the character with a little respect (the Marvel Adventures line added her to the Avengers, as a cheerful, but naive, rookie. Better than nothing.) Which brings us, eventually, to this.

This revolves around Tigra trying to figure out what she's really trying to accomplish in her life, played out through her investigating the death of her husband (the "Nelson" part of her being Greer Grant-Nelson".) He was a cop and what scant clues there are point to a "Brethren of the Blue Fist", who surprise! Turn out to be dirty cops. Greer joins the police academy and shows enough promise (all that Avengers training paying off) that she's given the chance to join. Which she uses to tip off her husband's old partner so the cops can stop the various assassination attempts.

Christina Z definitely takes the approach of there being "a few bad apples" that despoil the police's mission of serve and protect. The cops she contacts show no hesitation to arrest the Blue Fist members, or even shoot them. But hey, it's a story starring a cat lady, we should expect unrealistic things.

Greer completes the training and becomes a cop, which I'm pretty sure was never referenced again, but I don't know how in-continuity these mini-series were to begin with. (There's also a brief mention of Steve Rogers having given up being a cop to be Captain America, which, I can't figure how sickly-ass pre-serum Steve Rogers pulled that off.) Greer also learns some unpleasant facts about her deceased husband, so her clarity of purpose comes at the cost of some innocence.

Z's version of Tigra is confident in her physical abilities and the righteousness of what she's doing, prone to urging the Brethren into attacking her, daring them to try and hurt her. She requests the Avengers let her handle this herself, and even when she doubts that she deserves to stand with them, never questions whether she needs their help with this mission.

She's less so about many other aspects of herself. She's short with people who try to discuss loss with her, more prone to speaking through action and body language. Deodato often draws her flipping or leaping up fire escapes, perching on statues, doing full-body lunges towards her enemies, claws flashing. Tigra doesn't hold anything back when fighting, but Greer is more controlled, but just as relentless, willing to get hurt to keep going. During a particularly difficult fight as Greer, she starts to kick and slash more like she would as Tigra while remaining human.

Z does nod to the notion of the animal instincts inside Greer, but writes Tigra as in control of them. Even in that rough battle, she never changes to Tigra. Greer at one point uses her desire for the cop that recruited her to the Brethren to lure him into the woods, then ditches him so she can snoop around the academy.

Deodato seems to have based his version of Tigra on the one from the unlamented Avengers: United They Stand cartoon from the late-90s. I can't remember any other artist giving her shaggy tufts of fur on her forearms and shins. Sometimes, he even draws some of her hair in the front sticking up like little cat ears (you can sorta see it on the page above). That might just be to emphasize the unruliness of her hair, or something about it reflecting her emotional state but I'm not sure of that.

Random Back Issues #103 - Wolverine #51

Well, the graphics still beat what you'd get in the Metaverse, and Xavier's less morally compromised than Zuckerberg. Barely.

We are just past the big 50th issue showdown with Shiva, the killer robot, which is presumably trying to track down and kill Sabretooth. In the meantime, the X-Men are trying to get a handle on what the revelation that many of Logan's memories were faked on a bunch of movie sets had on him.

Results are either troubling, or totally rad, depending on your perspective. Wolverine hacks through the highest settings the Danger Room's got with barely any change in his vitals. Logan knows it, too, so Xavier offers him a new challenge, 'virtual reality visualizer and sensors.' Because putting Logan in a big metal helmet with a red eyescreen never ends badly.

Logan's confronted with, as he puts it, 'refugees from a Dire Straits video' forms of Ogun and Shigen, and the helmet supplies dialogue based on his own mind. The longer it goes, the more Kubert shifts from a cubic, 80s computer graphics look to his normal style, as Xavier and Forge add Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike to the mix.

Not that it matters, Logan takes the quartet out in 4.839 seconds. Forge notes his emotional pattern has regressed to that of a berserker, while retaining more sophisticated combat skills, using the comparison of doing a gold medal gymnast routine while beating four chess computers.

It's only after the "fight" is over and Logan's just howling that Storm and Cyclops decide this is something they don't want to be a part of and leave the control room. As though that would stop Charles Xavier when he's got a bad idea! But really, Xavier thinks this gruff, more hostile Logan, may be the real Logan, reasserting itself with the memory blocks removed.

Or maybe Logan's just an asshole. He gives Jubilee the brush-off to go to a nearby dive bar, where he meets a blonde woman in a tight mini-skirt. He correctly notes she's not there to shoot pool with, 'no hoi-polloi'. After some quick discussion of the selection on the jukebox (and the tendency of musicians to die in plane crashes), and some dancing, they retire to her motel.

Jubilee, meanwhile, can't sleep and goes rollerblading into town, finding Logan's motorcycle parked outside the Cloud 9 motel. Against her judgment, she investigates, and who emerges from a motel room but Jean Grey! Hey, timeline-wise, we're about 25 issues from Logan getting his Admantium torn out, which means we aren't too far ahead of that whole thing where Psylocke (for some reason) tried to seduce Cyclops. Jean's just getting pre-emptive revenge, for that or the messing around with Emma Frost thing.

Logan's motorcycle mysteriously falls over seconds later (and Logan refers to it as his, 'scoot', which is the same term Jubilee used when he brushed her off, but looks damn weird coming from Wolverine's voice bubble), by which time we know the blonde/Jean Grey is actually Mystique! Jubilee figures something's up about the time she reaches the Mansion and finds Jean Grey heading out on a morning jog.

As for Mystique, she's acting a little odd. Logan claims to have known it was her in the bar, due to her scent, and Mystique mocks the notion he accepted her offer strictly for business. It also turns out she impersonated Silver Fox at some point during their fucking, which is mostly confusing to me in terms of how Mystique knows about Logan's old girlfriend. Did he go to the trouble of describing her? "No, the hair needs to be silkier. The headband is darker red. Damn, Raven, are you even trying?"

Anyway, Logan claims he played along because he could smell fear and wanted to know what's happening. Mystique keeps speaking in vague terms about someone having gone off the deep end, and she can't use the person's name, because they'll know and track her down. Logan finds it unlikely the person in question could pick out their name among all the everyday uses. It's not that common a word, is it? Spiral?

Oh. Well. Never mind then.There's also a subplot about the Wolverine robot Albert and Elsie-Dee repairing their stealth ship and going to do. . .something, with a big white werewolf in tow. No clue what that was about.

[12th longbox, 160th comic. Wolverine (vol. 1) #51, by Larry Hama (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Steve Buccellato (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)]

Orion Shall Rise - Poul Anderson

This is set on an Earth long after a nuclear calamity nearly destroyed civilization. Humanity has spent a long time clawing back up the mountain, because humanity is resilient like that. Humanity is also very good at repeating mistakes.

Anderson jumps the story all around the world, starting in what we'd call Europe, part of which is now the Domain, ruled by a Captain chosen from various Clans, who controls a floating, solar-powered station 30 kilometers up. But he also jumps to the Pacific Northwest, where there are tensions between the Northwest Union and the Maurai Federation, which put the Union under its heel over an earlier attempt to harness nuclear power.

And so Anderson turns the focus on many different characters. Iern's a pilot in the Domain, who might one day become Captain. Mikli Karst is a spy for the Northwest Union. Terai is likewise an intelligence officer for the Maurai. Plik is a drunken poet. Vanna is a Librarian in a Gaean belief system of some sort. Ronica is a scout and outdoorswoman for the Union. All of them have different perspectives, different lines they draw, different goals, but what Anderson shows is that each has blind spots about themselves and their societies.

Vanna's country has an entire class of "slugai" who are indentured servants at best. But we are assured they are free to move to a different farm if they aren't happy, and can even receive education if they show promise. Ronica fully believes the Union will only use nuclear power to reach beyond the Earth, so that it won't be necessary to pollute or mine it out for resources. Terai is sure it's necessary to keep the Union from nuclear power so they don't contaminate the world, and if it just so happens to keep the Maurai Federation (who aren't exactly sharing their technological advantage) at the top of the food chain, well, that's just a coincidence. Iern hates the idea of being stuck behind a desk, but hasn't considered that he might not like what someone else does once they get there.

Problem being, it takes time to flesh out the politics, cultures and motives of all these disparate people. Or more accurately, it takes a lot of pages. Over 60% of the book was done before all the moving of the pieces and setting of the table concluded and things actually started to happen. That 60% wasn't uninteresting exactly; it's necessary for the cause-and-effect later on to make any sense. I did start to wonder what was the point, though.

The point seems to be we're all on the same world. The Union insists they just want to improve their lot through what seems to them a perfectly viable route, and that they aren't hurting anyone. Just pursuing their own freedom. But their actions aren't in a vacuum, and not even everyone within the Union has the same motives. More countries get involved, each for their own reasons (although Anderson doesn't go into depth for all of them.)

The fighting in turn promotes changes in those countries, as Anderson sets up anti-imperialist or anti-war sentiment in the younger generation of the Maurai, which outrages Terai in that sense of, "do you understand what we sacrificed for you?" Iern is outmaneuvered by a rival of his for a Captaincy Iern didn't really want, only for the winner to realize it's not such a great prize. It's interesting to watch that character take power under false claims and promises, then repeatedly compromise the values he professed to have to keep his allies, or just to keep hold of what he's seized. He can claim the title, but not necessarily the respect that goes with it.

'Plik looked long at him, while Wairoa arranged the tray in its rack and after he had sat down again. "I think you may be the loneliest human creature on Earth," the Angleyman murmured finally, "but you control yourself like a steel spring."

Wairoa started the least bit, and almost spoke.

"Your special senses and abilities - " Plik went on. "Yes, it is something to be the great Watchman. And at the end of the world, you can let that coiled spring fly free."'

Another Lull in the Heat

July solicits! Not too great! Isn't the perfect time to read comics when it's too hot and humid to be moving around? On the other hand, given the increase in devastating wildfires, carrying easily flammable things could constitute a health hazard.

Speaking of signs of disaster, Image solicited issue 11 of Battle Chasers. Joe Mad had multiple issues ready to go?!

(I'm not buying it, but it was surprising enough to merit mention.)

What's new I might buy? Ann Nocenti's writing a Captain Marvel mini-series, but one set in the current day, rather than a continuity insert. So I might try that. Stephen Mooney and David Messina are doing another Rocketeer story for IDW, Den of Thieves, following up on the "European flying race" mini-series they did previously. Not sure if it's a one-shot or mini-series, or if I'll buy it, but it's there.

There were 3 books from Scout Comics I'm looking at. Most notably, Louis Southard's Midnight Western Theatre: Witch Trial, set prior to most of the action of the first mini-series. Butch K. Mapa, who I'm not familiar with, will be artist rather than David Hahn, but I'm excited! Space Outlaw is written and drawn by Marco Fontanelli, a 3-issue mini-series about a Martian killer robot sent to capture an escaped prisoner. Fontanelli homaged The Outlaw Josey Wales with the cover, so, fingers crossed for something good. Finally there's Wild Cosmos, by Curtis Clow and Mauro Mandalari, about a salvage crew running into trouble in an abandoned space station.

That's the one I'm least interested in, but we'll see. If it's a slow month I might try it. Assuming any of these show. That Impossible Jones one-shot was supposed to be out two months ago, nothing.

I might buy Eight Limbs, a graphic novel by Stephanie Phillips and Giulia Lalli, through Humanoids, about a Muay Thai fighter coming out of retirement to help her adopted kid. Don't know, see how I feel. This was originally released in 2021 but, Search for Hu, about a man trying to protect his parents from their feuding mob families. It's by Jon Tsuei and Steve Orlando, with Rubine as artist.

What's wrapping up? Hellcat, Clobberin' Time, and The Great British Bump-Off will all conclude in July. I was expecting to see the solicit for the last issue of Fallen, but it was absent. Maybe not a surprise, since we should be on issue 3 by now (meaning April), but we've only seen 1.

What's left? Hardly anything that was actually listed. Fantastic Four and Grit N Gears. On the latter, let's note that issue 1 was supposed to come out this month, and it did not. This is after it was originally solicited for December, only to not come out. So, consider me doubtful. There's also Moon Knight, but since it's issue 25, Marvel's doing a 96-page issue (although some of that's a reprint, and the rest is leading into an event), at $10. Maybe I can find a beat-to-hell copy on discount. Fallen may show up, but at this rate, it may only be up to issue 4 by July.

DC is doing some sort of nightmare event thing which seems to have put all their books on delay for the month, so no Unstoppable Doom Patrol. Black Jack Demon couldn't make it to 3 consecutive months, which is fine. I wasn't expecting that.

The Thing (2011)

The staff at a Norwegian research base in Antarctica find a spaceship beneath the ice. They bring in an American paleontologist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) when they find a body frozen some distance from the ship, and need someone to supervise excavating and examining it safely. Of course, it isn't actually dead, and the base is soon in the throes of paranoia over which of them aren't who they claim to be.

Going in, I couldn't remember if this was a remake of John Carpenter's 1982 movie, or a prequel. It's the latter, which I thought made it a remake of the 1950s adaptation of the novella they're all based on, which would make Carpenter's film a sequel to a movie both 30 years older and 30 years younger. But no, Thing from Another World was an earlier, less-faithful attempt at adapting the same story as Carpenter's version.

Anyway, the good news is, they used at least some animatronics and physical effects for the hideous creatures, rather than relying strictly on CGI. While they get the bizarre, twisted designs right, I think they're a bit too neat, if that makes sense. The creatures in Carpenter's version seemed to have teeth and eyes and limbs in all sorts of places, whether it made sense or not. Like life gone berserk. The monsters here have terrifying mouths and teeth and tentacles, severed arms that sprout their own lamprey mouths at the stump end, but there's a certain restraint to them. Mouths in one, relatively practical, location per creature.

The CGI mostly isn't bad, although there's something in the texture on the limbs that appear skinless that reminds me of some of the monsters from Resident Evil 4. That same glistening, exposed muscle tissue, look. It's less effective when they use CGI to put human faces on a full-on monstrosity, looks ridiculous more than anything. There is a scene I thought was pretty effective, where a creature climbs on top of one scientist and presses the side of its face against his and gradually absorbs him. That looked like a horrifying way to go.

The movie finds ways to avoid just repeating everything Carpenter's version did, some more effective than others. The attempt to do blood tests encounters sabotage, forcing Winstead to try a different, less-certain test (it also helps demonstrate her attention to detail, which plays a role later.) They find different ways to keep some of the cast out of sight for a while, so that the audience is left guessing about them. Most of the staff are Norwegian, and Winstead and a couple of other Americans don't speak the language. So there are scenes where the research head is talking to the staff in Norwegian and the Americans don't know what they're saying. Usually at tense moments. Could be telling them to comply, could be saying, "attack and kill the Americans on the count of 3."

On the other hand, while there seems to be a bigger staff at this base, most of them get little fleshing out. It's hard to care if one turns out to be a monster, or if they die a human. Sometimes it was hard for me to tell which scruffy, sullen white guy was which.

The climactic battle is, eh, I don't know about having it take place in the alien ship. Especially when the alien is seemingly unable to shift its own form to more effectively navigate in these weird crawlspaces. When it can split an arm off to act as an autonomous organism, why not split itself into smaller selves that will fit?

A Tale Fit for Legend

Corrective dental work for those choppers must be hella expensive.

Thor and the Warriors Four starts on a down note: one of the Power kids' grandmothers is dying. Katie doesn't really understand the problem, Jack's angry, Alex is struggling to look after them and be realistic, and Julie's in, I guess bargaining.

Which is where the book of Norse Myths a helpful nurse just happened to give Julie comes in. She gets the idea they just need to travel to Asgard and ask for one of Idunn's Golden Apples, and their grandmother will be fine. An abrupt (and oddly convenient) team-up with the Pet Avengers against the saddled Asgardian wolves offers a way to reach Asgard. Then a helpful old man, who needs one of the apples for his ailing wife, helps them out with clothes that disguise the fact they're mortals, even from Heimdall.

It's unclear how long the kids are in Asgard, as this all seems to take place in the span of one night on Earth, but they develop a reputation as the "Warriors Four" for being very helpful around Asgard. When they even help Thor and Beta Ray Bill fight a frost giant, Thor agrees to ask Odin for one of the apples.

At which point all the Asgardians turn into babies, offering the Gurihiru art team ample opportunities to draw cute stuff, which they are very good at. Beta Ray Bill de-ages too, I guess because of the enchantment on Stormbreaker? The helpful old man shows up to guide them to the path to the apples, Julie, Jack and Katie retrieve the apples, defeating Ratatoskr (called "Ratatosk" here) in the process, over five years before Ryan North used the Norse Squirrel of Mischief in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Loki's really fallen on hard times if he's gloating about outsmarting a group of grieving children. As usual, Loki didn't think things through, and the gods beginning to age to what their years are brings about unexpected consequences. Like Ragnarok. Loki gets his at the end, but I think Zalben missed out not letting at least one of the Power kids give Loki a good sock in the kisser.

Zalben uses the kids' desperation to save their grandmother to drive the conflicts. There's a bit about Alex and Julie disagreeing about magic and science, whether a gold apple can actually give immortality, but it's written so it feels like a defensive reaction and Alex trying to be the older sibling. He doesn't want to get their hopes up (or his own), and to keep them out of danger, so he tries to talk them out of it, to dismiss the possibility anything can be done. Julie's willing to take the risk, take almost any risk, to try and save her grandmother. If that means believing in magic, fine. If that means stealing the apples, fine.

Zalben keeps up the adversarial relationship between Katie and Jack for comedic effect here, with Jack hogging credit for Katie's victory over Ratatosk, and Katie describing her brother to a doctor as 'having dark and is mean.' That, plus Katie's fascination with Beta Ray Bill, or "Thorse", and the various baby hijinks keep things from getting too depressing.

Each issue also has a back-up story written and drawn by Colleen Coover, about Hercules taking over babysitting Power Pack for Johnny Storm, and keeping them entertained by telling about the 12 Labors he undertook to prove himself to Hela. There's also a brief fight with HYDRA (the terrorist group, not the multi-headed mythological beast) when they try to steal some of Dr. Power's science stuff.

Sunday Splash Page #267

 

"Armors War," in Iron Man Power Pack #4, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Marcelo Dichiara (artist), Gurihiru (colorists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

As I said, something very different from Saturday. That's just how variable the weather is during Iron Spring!

This was the seventh of the all-ages line Power Pack mini-series. At least Iron Man can tell himself he got one before Wolverine or Thor. As with most of these, the Power kids get roped into tangling with Iron Man's enemies. Ultimo in the first issue, Blizzard and Speed Demon in the second, Titanium Man (briefly) in the third.

The overarching story starts with the Ghost setting Ultimo loose to cover his stealing a special neural interface chip from Stark, for the Puppet Master of all people. Whose goal is to combine the chip with his special clay so he can control armors as well as people. Hence the siege of Armor Designs Past. I would say just control the people inside the armor, but Stark somehow built something into his suit to block such effects, so I guess it's not a bad idea.

The exception is issue 2, which has nothing to do with the Puppet Master plot. It focuses on Julie Power running for student body president, against the daughter of a barely-veiled Trump stand-in. The daughter's kidnapped by Blizzard (who is working with Speed Demon) for ransom, and the Power kids (reluctantly in Julie's case) follow him. Meanwhile, Stark is trying to get "Arnold Crumb" to sell him some property for a new lab, which Crumb intends to use to build another big tower with his name on it.

Stark agrees to save the daughter in exchange for the property, and it's two loser super-villains against five super-heroes. Sumerak even has Speed Demon lampshade the fact he would have been the better choice to kidnap the target, rather than the guy who leaves a giant ice slide everywhere he goes.

Despite the blithering stupidity of the villains, it's actually the issue I like best, as it's the only one that really has any sort of focus on the Power kids. Namely, Julie struggling with her distaste for her opponent (who is as much of an asshole as you'd expect a rich teenage girl) and her concern for her secret identity. Which is a change from most of these mini-series, where Alex is the one who wants to keep secret identities, especially from their parents, and Julie wants to be more open. But it's the one issue that really feels focused on the kids.

Saturday Splash Page #69

 

"Somebody's Watching Me," in Tiny Acts of Violence, by Martin Stiff

Both of this weekend's selections were things I bought last year I hadn't gotten to in the Monday review posts. They're also wildly different books, as you'll see tomorrow.

Tiny Acts of Violence is set in East Berlin in 1968. It revolves around Sebastian Metzger, a former Stasi officer, now a schoolteacher haunted by psoriasis and nightmares. And maybe, possibly, he's haunted by something else. Something long and skeletal that lurks in shadows.

Or maybe not, because the truth is not always clear in East Berlin. Much of Tiny Acts of Violence revolves around the idea of stories, or perhaps lies, depending on what distinctions you draw between the two. Lies the states tells its citizens/subjects. Lies one person tells another. Lies one tells themselves. Early in Chapter 1, Metzger's doctor tells him of observing an attempt by a man to get his son and himself over the Wall on a zipline. The son makes it, the father is quite literally let hanging when the mechanism jams in mid-air, just shy of the wall.

Metzger's only comment initially is to muse that this is a shame, because the man was a good mechanic and Metzger's car needed a new alternator. But when he meets with a friend later and tells him the story, he alters it so father and son both make it across. Metzger's friend already knows the truth, and dismisses the deceased as a coward, for choosing not to stay and fight. But Mr. Althaus tells himself lies, perhaps about what he's accomplishing, and certainly about his wife.

The central mystery, even beyond the thing in the window, is why Metzger's not a Stasi officer anymore, and why his fall is so public that hes recognized and whispered about when invited along to a fancy party out in the woods. It seems something to do with his brother Volker, as well as Metzger's wife and children, who are always referred to in the past tense, but who Metzger rushes home speak with on the telephone when he can.

Until late in the story, the reader is left to make their own assumptions what all that means, which Stiff does a fair amount. Metzger's doctor just wants to escape, and is slowly eliminating a select circle of people on behalf of a group of people. Who are the group, why do they want these people killed? Again, kept hidden until late. There's an old coworker of Metzger's, a preening bald bully named Schneider. He plays magnanimous with Metzger, jokes that easily tip over into cruelty. A man lying to himself about how successful he feels, resentful that he felt left out of an inner circle, and grasping for the means to claim status.

Stiff sticks mostly to wide, short panels, the characters caught within these narrow confines. Most of the story takes place within the city, and whether inside buildings or outside, the panels makes everything feel closed in. A lot of small rooms without windows, whether it's a kitchen, file room, or an interrogation chamber. Even when a person is alone in a room, they look trapped. The top of the panel might barely clear their head, and the range of vision doesn't even encompass the entire room. This remains when things move into the woods, as the panels are full of trees where we can only see the bottom of the trunk, so that they look more like bars in a cell than trees.

Random Back Issues #102 - Giant Days #42

Hey Giant Days, is it Relationship Disaster Time for Esther de Groot? Trick question, it's always relationship disaster time for Esther.

Esther has, many months after Ed Gemmell's drunken confession of his feelings (of which she was already aware), concluded she likes him, too. All that remains is, as Esther puts it, to use the month of December to get him under the mistletoe. Her boss at the comic shop has over 20 years of accumulated fad nerd shit piled up, and Esther finds a bunch of Advent calendars. Including one for Babylon 5! Gemmell's heart is sure to be hers!

Personally, I think she should have quoted the dialogue from Batman Returns about the relative lethality of mistletoe versus a kiss. Ed would probably have spontaneously combusted with attraction.

Susan thinks, predictably, this is a terrible idea, but hasn't got time to try harder to talk Esther out of it. McGraw has gotten roped into regularly helping some older gentleman named Cliff with various. . .activities. These are carried on at all hours of the day and night, and seem to be sucking away McGraw's life. He can barely enjoy the lasagna he made!

With that to contend with, the best Susan can manage is warning that Ed's been hanging out with Nina, a large Australian girl who is also in physiotherapy due to drunken decision-making. Esther's response is, when approached by arch-nemesis and housemate Dean Thompson about whether Ed and Nina are dating, to tell him the field is open and go for it.

Yeah, that intel was out of date, as pretty much the first thing Nina does after she and Ed ditch the crutches, is invite him home for dinner that quickly turns to sex. I would say it's fortunate they went to her room for the latter, but knowing the conditions of kitchens occupied by college kids, sex would hardly impact the cleanliness.

Nina is so smitten with Ed, she asks if he'll come visit her in Australia after Christmas. They don't waste time in the land down under (as highlighted in the Giant Days one-shot, "Where Women Roam and Men Thunder"). Ed demurs, not sure if he can afford the plane ticket. He's also worried, as he explains to a rapidly disintegrating Esther, that he'll develop serious feelings for Nina, then she'll return to Australia after college and that'll be it. He asks Esther to tell him what to do.

Esther says go for it, an act of remarkable maturity. Which she follows by retreating upstairs for Advent-calendar-chocolate therapy while Ed ponders how to wrangle money for a plane ticket. Fortunate that Daisy has gotten hired on with a Christmas village, run by someone McGraw would be all too familiar with.  

[4th longbox, 180th comic. Giant Days #42, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer)]

Viking Wolf (2022)

So a bunch of Vikings raided the Normandy coast, and while they were there, they found some monks guarding a locked room. A locked room with an extremely vicious CGI wolf pup inside. That was actually a hellhound, who the Vikings decided to bring home with them. As one does. It killed them all and escaped into Norway, and either it or its descendants have roamed Scandinavia ever since. Either way, the wolf attacks some teenagers at a party, including Thale, the daughter of a new deputy police officer in town.

Most of that is out of the way in the first 10-15 minutes. The rest of the movie is split between the cop trying to find what killed one of the other girls in front of Thale, and Thale dealing with the aftermath of that attack.

The former actually resembles Jaws in some ways. Liv's a cop, new to the area, out of her depth. There's a grizzled, one-armed old guy who shows up, saying this was a werewolf and he knows how to kill it. There's a young, glasses-wearing veterinarian, who believes in science. He recognizes things like the claw left behind from the attack is unusually large for a wolf, and the bullet Liv used that actually killed the wolf was silver, and the wolf's flesh reacted very oddly to it.

Did I hope for a point where the vet would do a comparison of the bite radius of two victims and conclude there was another wolf? You bet. Did the movie provide it? Yes, it did. Two thumbs up!

The other plotline plays on how Thale had this traumatic experience, and she's in a new town, with few friends. Her father recently passed, she's distant towards her stepdad (who tries to connect, but she's not having it) and she's holding a lot of anger towards her mother around her dad's death. When Thale spends a lot of time alone in bed, or staring out the window at the moon, well, there's no reason to think it's anything other than PTSD or depression. Not that those are minor issues, but they do somewhat pale to her gradually becoming a werewolf.

Thale and her mother don't speak much, and most of their conversations are hostile and end poorly. So whatever Liv learns from the one-armed guy isn't passed along. Thale doesn't know why her hearing seems so sharp sometimes, but it happens when she's hallucinating the girl who died, so it's easy for her to dismiss it as she's just going crazy.

The movie's very good about setting up various things early, even little things, and making them pay off. The stepdad is a repairman/electrician. He knows about tools, but is also the absent-minded sort who keeps locking his keys in his car. Those things come up near the end. Thale and her little sister (who is deaf) are close, and that pays off, as Thale isn't so far gone she doesn't recognize her family. Liv is injured fighting the first wolf, that pays off at the end, too.

It's a well-plotted out movie, and it uses the distance between Thale and her mother effectively to help drive the two plotlines together at the climax.

A Possible Package Deal

Jed MacKay's decided to have Tigra and Moon Knight, well, "date" feels like a weird word to use. I don't know if they'll be going to dinner or movies, but it doesn't seem like it's strictly a sex thing, either. Marc's already been coming over for movie and snack time with Tigra and her son, those could sort of be dates.

Whatever. I'm generally ambivalent about the development. I would worry MacKay's setting Tigra up to get badly injured so Marc can become full of vengeance again, but a romantic relationship's not required for that. Moon Knight sealed that clay guy up in an airtight steel drum and buried him alive in concrete, and that was just for abducting and impersonating his psychiatrist. Still, I was fine with Tigra wanting to be there to watch out for her friend, no other feelings involved or necessary.

But, we've got what we've got (until the next writer ignores it.) My question now is, how does this work with the system the guys have? Meaning, what are Jake and Steven's feelings about this relationship, or about Tigra in general? What are her feelings about each of them? I'm sure there were times in the West Coast Avengers days where one of those two was at the forefront and spoke with Tigra, but I've never actually seen it. Certainly not in a low-stress situation that didn't involve fighting super-villains.

Reese got to interact briefly with Steven, albeit in a stressful moment where she was trying to keep Marc from murdering someone, and she and Soldier spent some time with Jake when they went to that nightclub. Tigra wasn't involved in either of those, though.

Presumably Tigra understands there will be times Marc's not there, although just based on what's on-page, he's still hogging time as the identity fronting. I feel like Jake is easygoing enough to get along well with Tigra, though I could see him telling off-color jokes around her son and getting himself in trouble that way. Steven I'm less sure about, since I don't know how the circles he's supposed to move in would feel about a were-woman. He's supposed to be high-class, he could manage politeness if nothing else.

Given that Jake mentioned during the boys' conversation in issue 14 that Marc wasn't the only one who loved Marlene, and Marc got rather defensive about that, there could be problems if Steven or Jake fall for Tigra as well. Or maybe the guys are in a healthier balance now. Maybe I'd just like to see her actually interact with either of Steven or Jake, just to see what that's like.

Black Hat - Theresa N. Melvin

Casey works for the military, but after dismembering an abusive man in Saudi Arabia who her bosses wanted to look like a suicide, she has to be sent somewhere quiet until things blow over. The best plan her boss can come up with is a cattle ranch in Montana run by one of the doctors that helped make Casey. . .whatever she is. Human-lynx hybrid, I think. Except one of the doc's sons is a seething ball of rage who is coming off beating the shit out of his ex-wife, and has apparently concluded all women are terrible. Oh, and he's an ex-Navy SEAL, so a highly-trained, massive guy with anger issues. Awesome.

I got about 80 pages in before I set the book aside. The spelling issues - "teaming" instead of "teeming", "Paul Bunion" instead of "Paul Bunyan", being two of the more egregious - didn't help, but mostly there was something about the whole atmosphere of the ranch that felt strange.

It was one thing that Gabe's internal monologue describes all women as "bitches", and he doesn't exempt Casey from that, but is also very interested in her. Whether that interest is in twisting her head off her neck or making out with her seems unclear. And Casey is extremely wary of Gabe, but also protective of him when she overhears his brother badmouthing him.

But OK, that's going to be some "enemies to lovers," stuff. Not my bag, but always popular, although I had a bad feeling we were going to be told at some point Gabe's ex-wife did something to deserve being beaten by him. Like, he caught her cheating, so yeah, of course he whooped the shit out of her.

But every other guy on the ranch (minus the doc) is also hostile towards Casey, from the moment she arrives, for no particular reason. Casey had allegedly been there for months by the time I stopped reading. She did her work without complaint, didn't snap back against their verbal abuse or ridicule if she wasn't as good at driving fence posts as them, stayed out of their way, but there's no sign it's getting much better.

Nor is there any explanation for why all these cow punchers hate her so much from the word "go." Melvin delves into Gabe's thoughts, so we have some idea what's swirling around in that cesspool, but there's nothing like that for the others. So it comes off as Melvin needing to make them all horrible so that Gabe, who expresses concern by nearly killing one of the workers that mistreats Casey but is accusing her of stealing food five pages later, looks better by default.

'Gabe almost never interacted with anyone. Until Casey showed up. Since her arrival Gabe had been like a wild animal. . .territorial, hyperaggressive, and fiercely combative. Jacob just couldn't figure it out. Gabe went out of his way to not only have nothing to do with her, but to make sure no one else had anything to do with her either. Still, after everything that had just happened, Jacob was certain that no matter how much Gabe may hate Casey, he hated the idea of anyone hurting her even more.'

Different Turf, Same Struggle

Looks more like a squid than a finger to me.

Stories revolving around someone dying and being reborn or otherwise ending up in another (usually medieval fantasy-based) world seem to be pretty big in manga these days. A lot of of them seem to focus on finding a way to make a good living with either mundane skills, or whatever technology they happened to bring with them. Which probably says something about the economic pressures either the creators or audience are living under, that they flow towards books where they get a fresh start somewhere new and avoid crippling debt or job insecurity.

That's not so much my bag. I would rather read about people doing things I don't, like fighting or exploring. I already work, thank you, that's what I'm reading comics to escape. To that end, the first volume of Miroki Miyashita and Takeshi Natsuhara's Yakuza Reincarnation, which is what the title suggests. An old-school Yakuza named Ryumatsu Nagamasa is betrayed by an old friend of his. As he's drowning, he sees the "heavenly maiden" who he has tattooed on his back. She jams a finger through his chest, and he wakes up in the body of a little princess out in the woods, about to be killed by goblins.

The first volume is basically two things. One, getting Ryu (or Princess Riyu, now) and us up to speed on the world he's in and the overall situation. The princess seems to have two people on her side, a middle-aged, highly excitable knight named Giovanni, and a dark elf spell caster named Nyui, who seems to really dislike even being in proximity to men, for reasons that are not immediately explained. They seem to be in a hurry to leave their kingdom, and try passing through the princess' town, which turns out to be a drug and crime-ridden shithole.

Miyashita goes with a medieval Europe aesthetic for the covered wagons, the windmills, Giovanni's suit of armor and sword choice. Although the orcs being large pig-men is a little different. Instead of horses, the wagons are drawn by "hogfowl", but their heads really look more like walruses. There's also some stuff about "skill trees" being marked on a person's arm, that looks like something out of Final Fantasy. None of the JRPGs I've ever played had that set-up, so it pretty much rolls off my forehead.

The second thing is everyone else reacting to the dainty princess behaving strangely. Giovanni and Nyui mostly roll with the fact their princess doesn't remember any of this stuff, or them. Her lack of concern at people tearing down her statue, as well as her tendency to punch people who actually try to harm her, that confuses them. Sometimes the disconnect is used for comedy purposes, such as when the princess is confronted by a guy who uses "witchin" by snorting it, and she refers to him as using, 'crank to solve him problems.'

Other times, like with the statue, are Natsuhara's effort to show Ryu was an honorable yakuza, who didn't resort to things like extortion or drugs, and believed it was his job to make sure things on his turf were peaceful. From Ryu's perspective, if things are bad in this town, it's the princess' fault for not stepping in to make things right. So if he's the princess now, he'll do it.

When Miyashita wants the princess to look intimidating, he draws Riyu with her head tilted so that her hair looks cropped close, and her face is heavily shaded. The other approach is to draw one eye wide, with the pupil very large as well, and then frame it with her hair so that's it almost like the eye is peering out from behind a mask. Natsuhara also keeps Ryu's dialogue limited in those panels, to demonstrate the time for talking is almost done.

The first volume ends with the Riyu dealing with the guy running the drug trade, and finding the source of the problem, which only hints at a much larger problem.

Sunday Splash Page #266

 

"Target Locked," in Iron Man #230, by David Michelinie (writer), M.D. Bright (artist), Bob Layton (writer/artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Janice Chiang (letterer)

Iron Spring's the perfect time to hang out with the cool exec with a heart of. . .damn it, Stark, your song's not fitting the aesthetic I'm going for here! Why's your name even Iron Man?

Like Incredible Hulk a few weeks ago, Iron Man is not a title I've ever bought regularly, and it didn't seem to end up in those grocery-store 5-packs as much as Hulk's book, either, so I encountered it even more sporadically. The earliest Iron Man comic I had was 203, when he gets Hank Pym to shrink him down so he can sneak into Obadiah Stane's computer files via the power of the Internet to figure out where Stane hid all his money. Which might explain my fondness for the "Silver Centurion" armor, though it also has the advantage of looking very different from almost every armor before or since. it also looks a lot better when the Bright/Layton art team are drawing it than when Al Milgrom's handling it in West Coast Avengers.

After that, there was an issue of Armor Wars II, some stuff from the "modular armor" era post-#300, which followed the "remote piloted armor" era.

None of that stuff is still in my collection. What is includes the original Armor Wars (although the comics themselves call the storyline "Stark Wars"), the big 150th issue trip to King Arthur's time with Dr. Doom, the Acts of Vengeance tie-ins (which include the sequel to the King Arthur story), and a couple random issues from further on.

I don't know why Iron Man didn't appeal to me more when I was a kid. Powered armor should have been pretty cool. I watched the early-90s cartoon, although that didn't do a great job selling the character. Especially the second season, where the armor could morph between different looks. . .when that effect actually worked. Made the armor look kind of shoddy, how often he'd try to use "Hydro-Armor" and the suit just shut down instead.

These days, it's easier to know where the problem lies: Civil War. I suppose the fact Stark went from, "I'm going to shut down all these armors even if it means fighting SHIELD and the government," to, "Everybody follow the stupid law, or else!" can be chalked up less to inconsistency than to Stark's defining trait being his apparent conviction that he's always right. Which could probably be chalked up to Bendis deciding Stark was a "futurist" who could anticipate not only market trends, but larger socio-political trends.

It's hard for me to take that seriously when Tony Stark - apparently always correct Tony Stark - is also the guy who got his entire company swiped from under him by a Lex Luthor knock-off because he decided to crawl inside a bottle of Johnnie Walker. The utter lack of self-reflection or self-awareness is off-putting. I really shouldn't enjoy seeing the ostensible hero get his ass kicked nearly as much as I did with Iron Man from 2006 through, well, at least 2010.

Hell, Matt Fraction tried to reboot Stark's mind to before all that (and before Warren Ellis' Extremis thingamabop) to make Stark not a toxic asshole. He managed to undercut the attempt by having Tony leave a recording for his friends - who he was relying on to save his life - where he said he'd do everything exactly the same. Keep in mind, one of the people he's asking for help is Thor, so this apparently means Stark thought making a cyborg murder-clone of Thor without his consent was a brilliant decision, actually.

As far as I can tell since then, he alternates between building new Stark companies up, with some bold-new initiative like interactive A.I. (which end up being sentient beings who feel enslaved), and losing all his money and starting from scratch. At least Danny Rand has the excuse he knows nothing about business and doesn't particularly care. Stark is ostensibly trying to be good at business, he simply apparently sucks at it.

Saturday Splash Page #68

 

"Results Unclear," in Tomb of Dracula #44, by Marv Wolfman (writer), Gene Colan (artist) Tom Palmer (inker/colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

This is the only issue I own of Tomb of Dracula, the first half of his first run-in with Dr. Strange, the latter half of which got touched on in Sunday Splash Page #158. Drac fed on Wong coming back from a grocery run, and Strange needed to break the Lord of Vampires' will so he'd undo that. Didn't really work how Stephen hoped.

It's a book seemingly tailor-made for Gene Colan, with a main character who is all billowing cloak, swirling shadows and mist. Dracula's physical presence is in the damage he inflicts around him, on objects or the people he kills, while he actual body is drawn with a loose, in some ways weightless line that makes him seem more fluid. Fingers unnaturally long, or eyes glaring out of the cloak.

The book ran 75 issues, and I imagine is most well-known for introducing Blade, who does show up briefly in this comic, although he encounters unwilling vampire/paranormal investigator Hannibal King rather than Dracula.

What I Bought 4/12/2023

The temperature is climbing, but I refuse to turn on my AC! For now. Hold off on letting my electric bill take a hatchet to my wallet as long as possible. After all, it's the job of comic books to deplete my finances.

Fantastic Four #6, Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Aburtov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Oh crap, it's the Civil War schism all over again. At least Sue got the Fantasticar in the divorce this time.

The mirror dimension algae is on the loose. The FF purify a lake in under 3 minutes, but given the extent of spread already, that's not good enough. Johnny, remembering Reed mentioned the algae just needs light and air to make food, gets the idea of having Sue make the Sun invisible until the algae starves to death. But only for 16 hours a day for three consecutive days, and only over a few states.

So Johnny keeps her company in the upper atmosphere while she does that, and Reed, Ben and Alicia try to keep people from freaking out, and beat up Dr. Octopus. They fail (at keeping people calm, not beating Doc Ock, they haven't fallen that far), but the mobs wait until Day 3 to combine torches with pitchforks, so it doesn't get too out of hand. Then Maria Hill shows up.

I trust that sentence speaks for itself.

This seems like an attempt to give Sue more focus, and at least as far as her interactions with Johnny, it sort of works. North lets Sue be less of a "mom" to Johnny, and more like close friends. She can needle him about stuff, but not in an exasperated "why won't you grow up?" way. When he pauses in reading Jane Eyre to her and she comments her audiobook narrator has mysteriously stopped.

Beyond that, North's Sue is empathetic and observant, in that she recognizes that Reed stresses himself with how often they've beaten the odds saving the world, and how close some of those successes have been. And so she actually relishes this year away from that - recent adventures notwithstanding - because it lets them all decompress. But that's really more a matter of luck, isn't it? If the world were in danger, from say, mirror dimension algae, they would be back into the world saving business, It's just happened to take this long for such a situation to arise.

North's mostly moved away from the approach he had in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the first issue of this book of ending pages on some sort of joke or gag, but not entirely. I don't think the artists' styles really suit that approach. Neither Fiorelli or Coello's work leans towards humor. The body language and expressions don't exaggerate enough to really sell the moments. North might need to move away from that sort of thing even further.

Moon Knight #22, Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Someone got into the Pym Particles again.

Marc's old enemy Midnight Man is on the loose, committing robberies, but Marc shows little interest in pursuing him. So Tigra decides to handle it herself. Talks to Moonie's old cop buddy Flint, investigates the victims for connections, randomly talks with Hawkeye, and figures out the next target. Catches the bad guy, who is someone she knows, and we know. Who needs money, because he made a big show of not caring when Zodiac stole all his cash 15 some-odd issues ago.

There's a big argument and, well, of note here is MacKay brings up the fact that Tigra's son is the product of her sleeping with a Skrull who thought they were Hank Pym, and who Tigra thought was Pym, but was not, in fact, Hank Pym.

Which I don't remember anyone ever addressing beyond (I think) Christos Gage in Avengers Academy having Tigra worried her son would manifest Skrull traits. I'm not sure Tigra really needs her son being the product of sexual assault added to her backstory, on top of the crap Bendis did, on top of the crap Englehart did with having her want to jump everything with a dick (because cats are apparently always horny in Steve Englehart's world), on top of when Byrne had her go feral and then Pym shrunk her down to pet cat size, and. . .goddamn Tigra's gotten a shit hand from writers.

Over the course of the issue, MacKay's weaving Tigra's investigation in with her life as a single mother who apparently has no paying job. She describes herself as living on a partial Avengers pension, as using her old Avengers login to steal Stark's wi-fi so she can upload photos of her son for her parents. She's not going to get her security deposit back, because her and William's claws have done a number on the floors (and Cappuccio makes sure when we see the floors in the next panel, there are lots of scratches. He also shows William playing with his mom's hair while she's sitting and thinking, like when you see lion kittens chewing on the parents' ears or whatever.)

And so far as William knows, Hank Pym is his dad. He doesn't know about the Skrull or anything like that and she intends to keep it that way. So that's a thing she has to carry, because she doesn't want the circumstances of his birth to burden him. It's a rough emotional situation for her. Cappuccio has her body language all over the place. She's in Marc's face, teeth bared, but sometimes she's crying. Or she's turned away and she shifts from sad to furious in the span of one panel. Arms spread wide or with a finger jabbed aggressively at Marc, or pulled in close, practically hugging herself. She's letting a lot of stuff out all at once, I'm guessing because she's got no one else to tell if she's telling friggin' Moon Knight. That's maybe one step up from discussing emotional trauma with Frank Castle.

I mean, who are Tigra's friends in the superhero community? Mockingbird? Times like this, I wish writers hadn't cast aside the friendship Tigra started to develop with Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman so Carol Danvers could be Spider-Woman's Only Lady Friend Who's a Superhero.

The Duelist (2016)

Yakovlev (Pyotr Fyodorov) is a professional duelist in 1860s St. Peterburg. If a Russian nobleman that finds yourself facing a duel, the excessive list of dueling rules state that if unable to duel, someone can duel in their place. Much like the A-Team, if you can contrive a reason why you can't duel personally, and if you can find him (probably passed out drunk), then, for a fee, Yakovlev will duel in your place. Count Beklimishev (Vladimir Mashkov) in particular, has been using Yakovlev to eliminate people the count owes money.

But Yakovlev is actually a former noble named Kolychev. The circumstances of this are gradually explained in flashbacks that start with Kolychev's near-death in the Aleutians, and work backwards to how he got there. They do, however, involve Beklimishev.

As Yakovlev, Fyodorov keeps his hair cut short, and he's paler, thinner than he was as Kolychev, but he maintains similar mannerisms. He sits sideways in chairs, slumped shoulders. Kolychev doesn't like dueling, doesn't see the point, until he does.

Yakovlev is a great shooter, even supplements his income by putting on trick-shooting exhibitions that he carries out with a dead-eyed, disinterested expression. But he has no love for it, and less for dueling. He always allows his opponent the first shot, and when it's his turn, he makes it quick. 

I think of the duel between Gregory Peck and Chuck Conners in The Big Country, where Peck holds off on his shot and allows Conners to reveal himself as a coward (also Peck has no interest in actually killing Conners).

More than revenge, Yakovlev's trying to raise enough money to bribe officials to have his original family name placed back on the rolls of nobles. So there's a push-and-pull of motivations, and he can't simply shoot Beklimishev in the back of the head on a dark street because murder didn't work out so well for him last time.

The tipping point comes when Beklimishev hires Yakovlev to kill a young prince trying to protect his sister from the count. The prince is a polite, agreeable young man who's been hoodwinked by a man who claimed to be his friend, and instead set him up to die slowly and painfully. Yakovlev refuses, but this makes him an enemy of the count rather than a tool, so his whole game explodes. He can't duel Beklimishev properly, and he finds his bribery plan blocked, also by Beklimishev.

I'm surprised that at that point, he refuses to simply track down the count and shoot him down like a dog, but I guess that's the point. His "nobility" was taken from him, ultimately for refusing to do something he considered ignoble. To kill the count outside a duel, would be ignoble and confirm that he fall was deserved. I don't think wandering the disgusting docks of St. Petersburg, drunk off his ass in the rain, is all that noble, but there's probably some exemption for that in the rules about dueling.

I never realized there were so many variations to dueling. The first duel involves two pistols, one not loaded. Each man picks a gun, then they stand face-to-face, guns pointed the others' forehead, and one pulls the trigger. When Yakovlev's opponent gets an empty click, Yakovlev quickly raises his pistol and kills the man. That's what has to happen, so no sense dragging it out. Another involves a silk screen hiding the duelists from each other. A third from opposite sides of the room, with a sword stuck in the ground between them.

One is simply Russian roulette, which led to a discussion between my dad and I about how it's usually depicted in Western media (this movie is Russian). In this version, one round goes in the revolver, they Yakovlev spins the chamber, then they take turns pulling the trigger. My dad said he'd usually seen it depicted that the chamber is spun after every shot, so the odds are 1-in-6 for each trigger pull. I've only ever seen it like this, where the odds of landing on the bullet rise with each pull. 1-in-6, to 1-in-5, to 1-in-4 and so on.

Subterranean - James Rollins

Evidence is found of an intelligent civilization beneath the earth in Antarctica. An intelligent civilization that would predate humans by a couple million years. So a group of specialists is gathered to venture into the caverns and explore the geology, biology, and evidence of culture they can find. With a military escort, because what is neglected in the sales pitch is this isn't the first team to be sent down there.

As it goes, this is akin to Natural Selection, which at the time I compared to a more fanciful Michael Crichton book. Really, I think these are more updated Jules Verne stories, just wildly implausible stuff, but it makes for a good adventure. Quick to read, not too complicated, plot keeps moving with limited space devoted to characters struggling with the stresses of their situations. Not no space devoted to it, but not much. Rollins has got places for the story to go. 

The scientists encounter giant predatory creatures that look a bit like a crocodile that walks on hind legs, but have poisonous spines on their backs, because they're actually monotremes (mammals that lay eggs.) There are several varieties of fungus, including one that produces anesthetic spores in response to body heat so it can break down the slumbering prey for food.

And, of course, the subterranean civilization, which are essentially humans, but if they evolved from monotremes rather than placental mammals. And some of them have telepathic abilities, and may have influenced Indigenous Australians. . .somehow. Or interbred with them? The caving expert on the team is apparently Indigenous Australian on his grandmother's side, though he looks like a white dude, and he's somehow able to unlock this same ability.

I mean, these people were in Australia at some point, but the land bridge between it and Antarctica was submerged or otherwise broken, Antarctic surface climate became inhospitable, so they went underground. I'm not sure the timelines line up frankly. I guess maybe if these people were still able to access Australia up to the last Ice Age, but I feel as though they'd have advanced further technologically than they did if they were already able to carve tools and cave dwellings and art underground 5.2 million years ago, as we're told early on.

I know, I know, just go with it for the sake of the story, but this stuff interests me, like the ecology and atmospheric conditions of all those weird-ass planets in the Riddick movies.

There's a romantic subplot about the caving expert and the archaeologist that leads the team feeling attracted to each other, but she's reluctant to open up emotionally. And she's a divorced single mom, so her son is staying at the main base camp and ends up in danger. The biologist is claustrophobic, the geologist is actually a mercenary hired by the diamond companies to make sure the apparent wealth of underground diamonds don't tank their companies, while he also wants to make sure no one finds any oil deposits that could harm the economy of the Middle Eastern nation he hails from. The lead soldier is there because his brother was part of the previous team that went missing.

There's a lot of attempts to add depth to the characters, or give them arcs, but it's all kind of clumsy. Ashley keeps trying to use her archaeological knowledge to help them with this new culture, and she's determined to not make a bad first impression. But every attempt backfires and she keeps having to be protected by the guys. It's caving guy Ben embracing his heritage that makes the breakthrough because he can use his mind powers to bridge the language gap.

'"You feed those monsters? No wonder there are so many of them."

"We must maintain their numbers to produce enough spoor. It is the main goal of the hunters to collect the spoor and bring it back here."

"Shit collectors," Ben said. "So much for the noble hunter image."'

What I Bought 4/3/2023 - Part 3

They interviewed to fill our vacancy last week. The best candidate wouldn't be able to start for another month, and we'd have to train them up before they could really help with the load, but they seem promising. More promising than these two 1st issues? Maybe!

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #1, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer) - Uh-oh Robotman's rocking a jacket like he's on a '90s Avengers team.

So, the whole thing with the Lazarus Pit rain has apparently activated a bunch of metagene, and unscrupulous types are rushing to exploit these confused people. So the Doom Patrol, with one of Jane's personalities acting as Chief, are out to protect these folks from a world that hates and fears them. Well, the X-Men are busy failing at nation-building, so why not? There's one entirely new team member, Beast Girl who looks like something you'd see in an enchanted forest designed by Jim Henson. Allows for some variety in size and the horns and fangs help fit in with the idea of the team for monsters.

They recruit a new guy who was being experimented on. He gets stronger and weirder looking as he gets angry, which he likes (the being angry and the getting stronger.) No chance of problems from there! Has a bit of a Doomsday by way of Akira vibe to his look. Some future artist will absolutely streamline that as being too much work. The Suicide Squad has someone infiltrating the team to tear them apart, but if Peacemaker picked them, they probably suck. And the Brain and Monsieur Mallah have broken up. Horrors, not the original Odd Couple! Is there no place for true love at DC?

Since the issue occurs in Gotham, Batman's there with the impotent, "I'll be watching," threat. It's only slightly dumber than the Chief pretending there's a difference between being an alien or Atlantean and having a metagene to the people looking to profit from superpowers. Would someone like that really care if a person's size-changing was due to whatever gives Elasti-Woman that ability, versus it being an inherited trait like Colossal Boy or Shrinking Violet on the Legion?

Besides, I'm pretty sure Robotman doesn't have a metagene, unless "bad driver" qualifies.

Flimsy, bad faith arguments aside, it at least gives Culver a hook for the title. So long as we don't get six issues of the Chief claiming moral superiority in the face of whatever they or their charges do, because the other superheroes "don't understand."

Deadfellows #1, by Kody Hamilton (writer), Ramiro Borrallo (artist/colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer) - The spirit in the lower left looking like, "Idiot, drinking bleach is a much better way to go!"

Pete moves into a new apartment by himself. It's probably a bad sign he's scoping out how sturdy the ceiling fan is, and the proximity of electrical outlets to the bathtub. When he gets depressed enough about his recent break-up with his apparently awful, possibly physically abusive ex-girlfriend, he takes a bunch of pills. At which point the ghost of a former child actress appears and makes him throw the pills back up.

Pete wakes up the next morning, alive, confused, and with the word "LEAVE" scrawled on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste. After briefly considering an exorcism, Pete concludes having a ghost around could be good. It's a friend that can't leave! The ghosts are of a slightly different opinion, but Pete's been kicked around and abandoned a lot lately, so he refuses to go.

Borrallo draws Pete as a sad sack type. Slump-shouldered, deep bags under his eyes, wears a baggy hoody that swallows him up. In the apartment, he drapes a blanket over himself like a tent to peer out from. As one of the ghosts observes, he comes off as kind of pathetic.

We see a few glimpses of whatever was going on in his life prior to this and he doesn't seem much happier. His girlfriend glares at him when they have dinner, and someone (probably her) hit him with a shoe. There's the prominent cast on his arm, too and the fact someone (again, her I'm assuming) dumped his stuff on the lawn for anyone to steal, then turned the sprinklers on him when he picked it up.

I'm guessing there's some reason there are so many ghosts in the apartment, and that it probably relates to the contract Pete signed to move in. I'm not sure how the landlord's apparent interest in pop culture fits in, but Borrallo draws the guy's office covered with posters and memorabilia, including in the scene where he and Pete discuss the contract. Feels significant.