Monday, May 01, 2023

What I Bought 4/26/2023 - Part 1

Two Fridays ago, I went to check one of the handful of Twitter accounts I read (mostly people who used to blog regularly about comics), and the whole site was down. I had an excited moment of thinking Musk had finally killed the site through his spectacular incompetence. Then I checked later and it was working again. Maybe next time.

Here's two comics from last month, starring ladies with a feline theme.

Hellcat #1, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), KJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Hellcat in the headlights.

Sleepwalker convinces Rick they need to investigate this murder, rather than wait to be found guilty. They travel to a lighthouse that was mysteriously important to the dead guy, and find Blackheart, just sort of chillin'.

Meanwhile, Patsy is having a lot of conversations. Her mother's ghost insists Patsy was a good girl, and that those comics about her weren't lies. Daimon Hellstrom (apparently sealed inside a stuffed rabbit), and Hedy both disagree with this, insisting basically that Patsy's awful and willfully oblivious of the damage she causes to everyone else. Hedy also called the cops, and they show up and shoot Patsy. Only twice, though. Must have forgot to reload after some shooting earlier that night.

Is that what Cantwell's trying to do with this? Tell us Patsy's horrible, actually? Because I don't think it's really borne out by. . .any of her depictions in much of anything at least since she met the Beast (I can't speak to the Archie-style teen hijinks stuff.) Maybe it fits with what Cantwell did with her in his Iron Man run, but to put it bluntly, I'm not buying his take on the character over Englehart, Gerber, Kraft, Busiek, Immonen or Kate Leth's. This is the guy that had her get engaged to Tony Stark, after all. Oooh, she accepted money from other kids in high school to write essays for them! What a delinquent!

Because the other option seems to be this is all someone messing with her head somehow. We got a demon involved, a dream creature, whatever Hellstrom is, her mother's ghost just hanging around. Spalding seemed like he was too good to be true, which means he probably was. Patsy losing her balance around him, right as she's saying she never does that, could be her playing a role to flirt, or it could be him messing with her somehow. Or someone else messing with her.

Diaz colors that flashback in light greens and blues, whereas the rest of the issue is at night, drenched in dark colors. Patsy's still bruised and bandaged up. Lins draws the sash around her waist more like an actual cat tail. She's crouched in front of Hedy's window and the thing is somehow curving in an arc towards the sky. Her gloves also seem more like paws, especially in how the claws set in them. The fingers are very thick near the end, the palms broad. I was going to say, "tell me we aren't getting a Hellcat becomes a real cat story," but then I remembered the solicitations.

Sigh. The real question is whether I care enough about the mystery to stick around. A pity I like mysteries.

Mary Jane and Black Cat #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Vincenzo Carratu (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I don't think I've ever seen MJ depicted with so many freckles.

Felicia and MJ return to Belasco and reveal they know that he left out the part about his sword bonding to whoever grabbed it, which would mean he'd have to kill them to get it back. So they present him with the question of which one of them fell on the knife. MacKay's dialogue presents it as them being playful about it. Feigning shock and surprise as they lay out Belasco's scheme to him. Carratu draws Felicia along those lines. Mostly restrained in her gestures, maybe putting her hand to her mouth in shock at what MJ's said. But he draws MJ more aggressively, leaning forward, arms out wide, very angry. Doesn't quite match how the scene reads.

As it turns out, MacKay used Mary Jane getting reality-altering powers on that last "pull" for more than reviving S'ym. They split the sword, so they're both carrying it. Which somehow means it can't bond to either of them? Forget it, Calvin, it's Limbotown. They trounce Belasco, and let S'ym, take possession of the swords.

This is presented as good thing, S'ym declaring that Limbo needs an "opposition party" to Maddy Pryor. Are we just ignoring that it's because of S'ym that Maddie became Goblin Queen in the first place? he approached her in a dream, let her think that's all it was when they made the agreement, and twisted her around. And I'm just supposed to be like, "Yay! MJ and Felicia made a new friend!" Maddy should have flayed this bug, purple fucker the first chance she got. Then every chance after that.

Whatever. MJ and Felicia get to go home, Mary Jane is still being vague about what's going on, mentioning only that she and peter were apart for much longer than six months and Felicia gets introduced to Mary Jane's family, whose names I don't know or care to learn. Like, I could almost care enough to want to know the names of Ben and Alicia's adopted kids Ryan North shunted a year into the future, but these kids? Nope, don't care, didn't love 'em, didn't need 'em.

2 comments:

thekelvingreen said...

Patsy is somewhat "troubled" in the Jessica Jones TV series, so maybe there's some influence from that?

I don't remember if she was in Alias and if she was, if Bendis also made her a terrible person. I wouldn't be surprised.

CalvinPitt said...

I never read Alias, but I don't remember hearing about Patsy being in it. I knew she was in the Jessica Jones show, but again, didn't get around to watching it, so maybe that's it.