What I Bought 7/28/2023 - Part 1

I didn't manage to get everything from July. A couple of books I couldn't find, and there was no copy of Moon Knight for a price I was willing to pay. Maybe I'll find them next month. Of the six I did find, they kindly break out into neat categories, so let's start with a couple that are wrapping up.

The Great British Bump-Off #4, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Borras (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Look, it's a nice cake, but it's not that nice.

The contestants present their movie themed cakes, although the one guy made Downton Abbey. Isn't that  TV show? What should be grounds for immediate disqualification, is not. Corruption amongst the judges! Corruption most foul! Eh, what am I saying? It's a fake baking show, who gives a turkey? Shauna's just about got the mystery solved, but she might also be about to get eliminated.

A fortunately timed protest saves her, and she lays the whole thing out. I guess it makes sense. As much as any other answer would. At any rate, props to Sarin and Borras for making the most visually interesting, "detective explains everything" scene I've ever seen. The expressiveness of the characters, the swirl of hearts following Shauna's fingers, the shift in posture of one of the guilty parties when the jig is truly up.

We even get a chase scene I would never have expected, plus the phrase, "Cake Jail is no picnic." And while none of Shauna, Sunil, or Maisie win, we find out on the last page they took a vacation to Switzerland together and had a good time. Proving the real Bakery Tent prize was the potential friends they kept from getting murdered along the way.

So, this was nice. Not my favorite thing Allison has written, but nice. I never particularly felt like I was drawn into the mystery, that Allison wanted the reader to try and solve it, but it was funny, even though I know next to nothing about baking or cooking competition shows. And I love Sarin's art, so all good.

Hellcat #5, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), Kj Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - The cover says, "After Pacheco", but I have no idea what Carlos Pacheco cover Pere Perez is supposed to be homaging here.

Let's get this over with, I got an appointment with a bottle of turpentine to blot this from my memory.

Patsy didn't kill the Stupidly Named Love Interest. She saved him from Blackheart, but he used the door-thing, saw Patsy as she "really" is, went nuts, and killed himself. Rick Sheridan knows this because. . . the Imaginator recorded it, but it's busted, so I don't know. Sleepwalker stopped hiding this info from him, I guess. He lets Patsy read it from his mind, she freaks, blasts Daimon into the sea. Daimon doesn't show up again, nor is there any sort of resolution of that in this comic. Just shuffles off to Buffalo.

Rick convinces her to walk through the door thing, and she turns back into a human again, but she's out of it. Rick watches over her, Hedy uses a spell to exorcise Patsy's mother's ghost from her home, which. . .seems like something you would discuss before doing unilaterally. At the very end, Patsy puts on the costume, still appearing to be out of it. She keeps muttering, "Good. Bad." then continuing in internal monologue, "Who's to say?" Which makes it seem like she probably shouldn't be leaping around rooftops.

Also, it happens one page (albeit an indeterminate amount of time) after She-Hulk and Stark ask Rick to watch over Patsy. Great job, Rick!

Oooooooooooooof. This thing is just a mess. The door shows your true form (and Demon Hellcat is still a boring design.) But it doesn't show your true form, because people are different things and Patsy's too locked into binary thinking. Or it's because "Hell is lies." In which case it wouldn't be a "True-Form Door," would it? Hedy banishing Patsy's mother's while Patsy's lost in her own head, why? Because Patsy was never going to do it herself? No closure or any sort of conclusion between mother and daughter (granted we've seen that 40 times over the decades)?

Oh, and we're told Daimon and Blackheart probably just lost interest in Patsy because she appears broken. That's this mini-series in a nutshell. Too much stuff, so Cantwell just chucks some of it in the trash at the end. Because he either didn't have a better plan when he included it, or he's shit at pacing and didn't leave himself enough room.

Sunday Splash Page #281

 

"Marquee Battle," in Journey Into Mystery #85, by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber (writers), Jack Kirby (penciler), Dick Ayers (inker), Stan Goldberg (colorist?), Jon D'Agostino (letterer)

Saturday Splash Page may be done with Thor, but Sunday Splash Page demands its turn at the God of Thunder! The digests of Thor The Mighty Avenger also included his first four appearances in Journey Into Mystery. The book started as a horror title, then shifted to a sci-fi monster of the week theme before Thor premiered in issue #83. Eventually, it was Thor's name atop the cover.

In a lot of ways, it feels like one of the sci-fi monster of the week stories. Race of alien rock-men from Saturn show up with the intent to conquer. All humanity's conventional weapons are powerless. Except instead of their defeat coming at the hands of a scientist or plucky teenager, it comes at the hands of a doctor who finds a walking stick in a cave and gains the power of the Norse God of Thunder.

The next three issues are Thor contending with a brutal Communist general, Loki escaping imprisonment in a tree via liberal interpretation of the terms of his curse and making a beeline for Earth, and Zarrko the Tomorrow Man stealing an experimental cesium bomb to take back to his time and cow everyone in the year 2262 into making him their ruler.

The faux-Shakespearean dialogue and dramatics haven't developed at this point. Thor's speech is still more formal than an average person - Stan Lee's not trying to be hip yet - but it's not the distinctive voice it will be later. In some ways, Thor/Don Blake pull from the Superman/Clark Kent playbook, as Blake tends to be very milquetoast, telling Jane Foster he doesn't read newspapers because they upset him, or claiming he was absent when Thor saved them from jet fighters because he got nervous and fell overboard. At the same time, Blake and Jane don't hesitate to go on a humanitarian mission to San Diablo despite the risk of the "Executioner".

Jane Foster is, well, she's a woman written by Stan Lee in the '60s. She swoons over Thor, she wishes Dr. Blake could be more like Thor (while Blake chortles to himself about what she'd think if she knew the truth). When Loki makes the scene, Jane's first thought is that it's a lovely name, and he seems so dashing and romantic. But, whatever she might think of her boss, Jane went on that humanitarian mission, too, so there's something tough in there.

With almost every page a 7-panel layout, Kirby doesn't really have the room to show off the scale and grandeur he would later. Asgard's barely in these issues, so we get only a glimpse of what he'll eventually make of it. But there are panels where he has enough room, or makes enough room, to really show off Thor's power, or go with a more dynamic layout. Thor leaping into the air, being pulled by Mjolnir right at the reader. Things like that.

Saturday Splash Page #83

 

"Contemplate the Void," in The Thing (vol. 1) #11, by John Byrne (writer), Ron Wilson and Joe Sinnott (artists), George Roussos (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

Ben Grimm, always the best of the FF, had his ongoing in all but name for 100 issues with Marvel Two-in-One, but Marvel eventually canceled that and gave him a book his with name in big letters on the cover. The Thing ran for 36 issues in the mid-80s, so not nearly the lifespan of his team-up book, but better than any of his teammates have ever managed as solo stars.

John Byrne and Ron Wilson were the initial writer/artist team, although Mike Carlin ended up writing roughly half the issues, mostly in the back half. The first 10 issues revolve around various one or two-part adventures. Ben and Lockjaw trying to protect Crystal's daughter Luna, from her maniac of a dad. Ben trying to talk sense into some angry teens from Yancy Street. I don't know if the backstory Ben provides here, about his brother dying in a gang fight and Ben being a ne'er-do-well for years after was something Byrne created here, or if that was already established.

Then Secret Wars happened, and Ben found out that on Battleworld, he could shift between the Thing and Ben Grimm at will. When Reed and Johnny return home (with their new teammate She-Hulk), Ben stays behind. The next year of the book is Ben wandering a Battleworld that is both increasingly bizarre and troublingly familiar. What appears to be Dr. Doom shows up at one point, Ben spends an issue being harassed by some punk kids in some cross between Yancy Street and the cantina from Star Wars. Despite his stated wishes, Ben keeps finding himself in situations where he has to change back into the Thing.

Eventually, everything falls to pieces, including the planet, as the Thing returns to Earth. Only to find Alicia and Johnny are living together, and Reed Richards had certain knowledge of Ben's subconscious condition that sure woulda been helpful for Ben to know sooner. Which kicks off the final year of the book, where Carlin writes most of it, as Ben leaves the FF and New York entirely, and just wanders. It's a bit like the first year, except instead of people coming to the Thing with problems, he stumbles into them as he goes.

It's most notable for being the time period where he joins the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, something a number of wrestling-obsessed comic writers have returned to over the years. Carlin adds the teenage version of Vance Astro, who in one timeline becomes the 30th Century Guardians of the Galaxy's Major Victory, but here will become the New Warrior Marvel Boy. It's also when Sharon Ventura meets Ben. She'd eventually gain super-strength from the Power Broker and join the women's division of the UCWF as Ms. Marvel (Danvers I think being out in space as Binary at this time), and eventually joining the FF with Ben during the Englehart run.

Ron Wilson is the penciler until the final three issues, at which point Paul Neary takes over. Most of the first year's adventures on Earth are inked by Hilary Barta, while Joe Sinnott takes that responsibility for most of the Battleworld issues. Sinnott's shadows are heavier, but he seems to soften and round the Thing out more. The Thing is shorter, broader, smoother. Wilson and Barta's version is rougher, rocky plates not uniform in height, the eyes ringed by darkness, the brow ridge more prominent.

Could be that on Battleworld, with Ben reluctant to become the Thing, he's trying to retain some of the fleshy softness of Ben Grimm even when he transforms. During the Barta issues, Ben's clearly still struggling to accept himself as the Thing, and eventually pushes Alicia away. He's not at home in his skin, angry and frustrated and rough to the touch. That might not hold up, but it does get harder for Ben to make the switch the longer he stays on Battleworld. He's not finding any sort of balance or peace between the parts of himself. Instead, he's in a situation where the two sides can actively war against each other.

Random Back Issues #112 - Fantastic Four #296

Yes, more of that.

The 25th anniversary issue of Fantastic Four feels like it's following up on the conclusion of The Thing's series, where Ben was mutating further and decided to go off alone to die (pausing briefly to save the West Coast Avengers in issue 10 of their book).

Here, though, Ben is rocking (no pun intended) his traditional look as he tromps through the rain to where Reed's defective rocket crashed down. Bemoaning how he's still a 'walkin', breathin' monster', Ben enlists pilot and childhood friend Hopper Hertnecky to fly him to Monster Island. Hopper then visits the FF to tell them, Ben asked to be left alone, because he knew Reed would track him down sooner or later.

On the way out the door Hopper also, correctly, points out it's Reed's fault Ben's how he is, and makes his own plea to drop the issue. While Johnny flies around stopping bank robbers and beating himself up about dating Alicia, Sue finds Reed brooding and tells him, no, it's not Reed's fault Ben was transformed by cosmic rays Reed swore his spaceship was shielded against, and that Ben has been tormenting Reed all these years by sulking over his fate. His fate of being transformed into a rock monster because Reed was too certain of his own genius to allow more testing on his ship before asking Ben to pilot it.

Amazing that Sue manages to be more unlikable than Reed. Of course, she's the one who called Ben a coward for expressing doubts about the cosmic rays in the first place. So maybe she's just covering her own ass. I'm starting to think Sue deserves being married to Reed Richards.

Anyway, Reed's determined to have it out with Ben one last time, so the Fantastic Three fly to Monster Island, leaving She-Hulk, Alicia, and Wyatt behind. They find themselves immediately overwhelmed by all the monsters.

On Monster Island. Because they didn't bring the super-strong member of their team. What genius is driving this clown car?

They wake up to find The Thing standing over them, dressed like his new pal. That's right, Mole Man's got an entire society for ugly people, and Ben's his general! Having found a place he thinks he belongs, Ben wants to apologize to Reed for 'taking it out on him all those years.' I choose to believe Ben's just saying this to get them to go the fuck away. The last thing Reed Richards needs is people apologizing to him. Ben decides to be a good host and give them a tour, including showing them the enormous machine Mole Man promises will cause a new island to form in the middle of the Pacific, just for their society.

Reed's suspicious, especially once Mole Man calls them back, worried about such a breach of security. Then Alicia shows up, having asked Hopper to fly her to Monster Island. Quite why he listened, after insisting they should leave his friend be, I don't know. I guess Ben Grimm just has lousy taste in friends. Before she passes out, Alicia mumbles she had to come, so great was her fear of what Ben might do to Johnny. Ben later has an unproductive conversation with Alicia, where she says he was too self-absorbed and she needed someone gentle and understanding.

Re-read those qualifications, then consider she's dating Johnny Storm. Alicia might just be an idiot.

In a sour mood, Ben finds Reed and Sue making a ruckus looking for Johnny. Reed of course insists Ben needs to listen, so Ben punches him in the face. But it turns out Mole Man took revenge for Ben, using some machine to make Johnny, gasp, physically unattractive! Ben orders the lot of them sent to the surface, but Reed, never one to know when not to poke the bull, is determined to go back down. He's sure Mole Man's machine is going to create a new island through vulcanism, the resultant tsunamis killing millions.

He also describes Ben as, 'an innocent dupe whose only mistake is putting his trust in the wrong man!' What else is new? Meanwhile, in trying to get answers out of Mole Man, Ben learns his buddy has a private holosuite where he pretends to hang out at parties with conventionally attractive women.

Confronted with the distressing reality his new friend would rather be with the pretty people up above and not the "uglies" he claims are like him, Ben is not in a great mood when he finds his old friends trying to trash island-maker. But he listens to Reed and helps wreck it, which causes the entire place to collapse. Johnny's hit by falling ceiling and Ben carries him to Mole Man's lab, and convinces him to undo what he did to Johnny. Matchstick can't be moved for 7 minutes, so Ben stands there holding up the ceiling while Mole Man retreats to seeming certain death in his crumbling dream world. He would, at minimum return in Byrne's second Sensational She-Hulk stint, trying to force her to marry him.

Reed, Sue, Alicia and Hopper watch the island collapse from an inflatable raft. Reed's determined to swim(?) down to get Ben and Johnny, over Sue's objections, but the guys surface and it's now six people, including a 500-pound rock guy, in one inflatable raft. But Ben seems willing to rejoin the FF rather than use Reed for dental floss, so, whoo-hoo?

{4th longbox, 112th comic. Fantastic Four #296, by Jim Shooter and Stan Lee (writers), Barry Windsor-Smith, Kerry Gammill, Ron Frenz, Al Milgrom, John Buscema, Marc Silvestri, and Jerry Ordway (pencilers), Windsor-Smith, Vince Colletta, Bob Wiacek, Klaus Janson, Steve Leialoha, Joe Rubenstein, and Joe Sinnott (inkers) Glynis Oliver (colorist), John Workman (letterer)}

Innocent Erendira and Other Stories - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Other than The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother, which runs 60 pages, this is another collection of shorter works of Marquez', written anywhere from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.

Most of Marquez' stories I've read revolve around characters talking while doing otherwise mundane things. Conversations over dinner, or while working, with the art coming in how he approaches them. Usually it seems as though the characters are on entirely different wavelengths. One of them may be speaking obliquely, unwilling to say openly what they mean. Or one of them may be disconnected from reality, not even noticing what the other is saying.

There are a few stories like that here - The Woman Who Came at Six O'Clock most notably - but more of the works are internal. Entire stories that are just monologues of someone's thoughts. At least three of them are involve someone in bed having an existential crisis. Having those three appear consecutively in the book was a mistake, because it gets old by the third one. What, another character just lying in bed freaking out about stuff?

There's also a bit more magic, or blurring the lines of reality, in these stories than I've seen in most of his works. Innocent Erendira involves a young man whose father somehow grows oranges with diamonds inside. Eva is Inside Her Cat involves a woman either disassociating herself from her body entirely, or it collapses under the weight of her troubles until it vanishes beyond a singularity. Another has a man who died as a child but still lives, waiting for his next death. A crappy town on the edge of a lousy sea, where rabbits and entire civilizations exist beneath the waves, somehow.

These characters, in a state of half-sleep in the middle of the night, or only half-awake in the morning, full of worries and doubts. In that state, the troubles become more solid, something they can see or hear or smell (several of the stories describe characters smelling something while in bed as well). A man contemplates his stressful schedule as he shaves and notices his reflection doesn't quite seem to match. That it eventually has a cut he doesn't. Dreamlike, is the best descriptor.

'"Last night I dreamt I was expecting a letter," the grandmother said.

Erendira, who never spoke except when it was unavoidable, asked:

"What day was it in the dream?"

"Thursday."

"Then it was a letter with bad news," Erendira said, "but it will never arrive."'

Deceptively Busy October

My initial impression of October's solicits was it would be another month of slim pickings. Then I tallied up the total number of books I'd scrawled done and was forced to reconsider. It's not so much there was nothing I'm interested in, just that it was all confined to what is, for me these days, a small number of publishers.

Also, DC hasn't released their solicits as of my writing this post, but it wasn't likely they were going to release something new I'd be interested in two months in a row.

So, what's new, pussycat? Marvel's releasing another oversized collection of Kelly Thompson and Guruhiru's It's Jeff comics from their online app. Boom! has Slow Burn, a 5-issue mini-series by Ollie Masters and Pierluigi Minotti about a couple of crooks and their hostage trying to hide in what's left of a town sitting on a endlessly burning coal fire. Man, everybody wants to do comics about people deciding a toxic and obviously dangerous situation is no big deal these days. I don't have a feel for if this is a horror story or a mystery or what, so I'll keep my eyes on the next couple of solicits.

Third, there's A Haunting on Mars by Zach Chapman and Ruairi Coleman, published by Scout Comics, about a special team sent to investigate a dead colony on Mars. It's a classic formula, but it could be good. Although with no mention of how many issues it is, it could end up being like Deadfellows or Sudden Death, where there's a first issue and then. . .nothing.

What's ending this month? As mentioned, I haven't seen the solicits, but I assume the final issue of Unstoppable Doom Patrol will be out.

And all the rest? Moon Knight, Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest, Uncanny Spider-Man. The Fantastic Four are fighting dinosaur versions of other Marvel heroes, so I'm assuming North is using that one multiverse from Excalibur #51. Although those were reptilian-derived, not actual dinosaurs, so maybe not. Either way, probably a bad sign I'm not more excited at the prospect of that.

Outside Marvel, the second issues of both Coda, Lone and Midnight Western Theatre: Witch Trial. Also the second issue of Space Outlaws, but I didn't realize that book was $7 a pop, so may be waiting on it. There's also (probably) the second issue of Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville, but, again, not sure if I'll be getting that.

Still, that's potentially 13 books. The total builds up fast sometimes.

No Time to Die (2021)

Last call for Daniel Craig as Bond. Just about to settle into domestic bliss with Lea Seydoux from Spectre, all it takes is one idiot with a bionic eye attacking him on orders from Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, whose role in this feels both critical and marginal, and doesn't really give him enough to make it feel worthwhile) to put a seed of doubt in Bond's mind.

So he puts her on a train and it's off to a solitary retirement in Jamaica, which remains neither solitary or retired as there's still something going on with SPECTRE and a missing plague scientist. This inevitably brings Bond back into contact with Seydoux, as well as with his replacement in MI-6 (played by Lashana Lynch), plus a mysterious killer (Rami Malek) that's more obsessed with Seydoux and Waltz than Craig.

Alex and I were trying to figure out how Bond afforded the expansive home he was living in for his retirement. It looked really nice. Does Her Majesty's Secret Service have an excellent retirement package, because they so rarely have to pay out? We were also wondering how Ralph Fiennes' M could say with a straight face that Bond dropped so far off the grid they weren't sure if he was alive, when Lynch and the CIA seemed to find him effortlessly.

But Lynch's 007 is very skilled and mostly all business, just a hint of the inexperience we saw with Craig in Casino Royale that allowed him to be outflanked on occasion. She wasn't read for Ana de Armas' character's maneuver with the car, that's for sure. It's nicely done, where Lynch is clearly annoyed at the old-timer expecting to be deferred to when she's got things figured out (a bit like Craig and Judi Dench, albeit that was a boss-employee relationship), and Craig alternates between being impressed and amused, because he knows there's still more to learn. Hopefully her learning curve involves less getting dropkicked through windows and nearly blown up than his did.

I couldn't take Primo - the bionic eye henchman - seriously. Even knowing the gimmick henchman never actually kills Bond, the guy got choked out by a concussed Bond in their first confrontation, 5 minutes into the movie, in what felt like a 20-second fight. That kind of poor showing erased him as even an interesting roadblock from then on. Heck, the fake State Department guy (who Bond nicknames "The Book of Mormon") did slightly better.

The movie's too long. Even as the conclusion to Craig's run as Bond - and I chuckled at Bond becoming literal poison to the people he loves - 140+ minutes is too long. Maybe it's trying to set things up for Lynch to headline the 007 franchise going forward, in some buddy partnership with de Armas' character? Because I think they could have cut Armas' character otherwise and pared down much of the scene in Cuba. That felt like Blofeld's scheme, but he feels so ancillary to the overall proceedings, why are we bothering? He set things in motion, long ago, but now his part is over. He's a spectator.

We don't even see any satisfaction on Malek's part about taking revenge on Blofeld, or taking back what he considers his. Maybe because he's too busy being a man of vision, but it again raises the question of why the movie expends as much time on it as it does. Because Bond allowed Blofeld to get in his head, I suppose.

Fast Cars, Leggy Ladies and Giant Monsters

That's the Chicago, er, the Toriyama Way.

Originally released as 3 separate volumes, but collected into one big hardcover omnibus here, Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater is a collection of a lot of Toriyama's shorter works, ranging from his earliest published story, Wonder Island from 1978, up through Go! Go! Ackman, which concluded in 1994.

There are also one-page strips after some of the stories about what was going on with Toriyama at the time, or the reaction to the stories. For example, Toriyama (whose rendition of himself is a lot like those Shyguys from Super Mario Bros. 2) excitedly calling his editor after Wonder Island was published, only to get some bad news about its reception. Or, after the flop of Wonder Island 2, that his editor recommended he try doing a comic with a female lead (Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe, which is what the panels at the top are from), and that its success spurred him on to eventually create Dr. Slump.

Given the massive, ongoing, success of Dragon Ball, with the tournaments and power-ups and screaming and ass-kicking (which Toriyama's very good at drawing), it's easy to forget Toriyama might be more of a comedy writer. Early Dragon Ball had a fair amount of that, even during the fights (see Krillin winning against Bacterian when he remembers he doesn't have a nose and can't smell anything) and I think Dr. Slump was primarily an absurdist comedy series.

The earliest works are almost entirely comedy. Toriyama's characters in Wonder Island wouldn't look that out of place in an issue of MAD Magazine, with their bizarre heads and almost miniaturized bodies. The stories themselves are an almost constant string of jokes, puns, sight gags or just strange shit that happens for seemingly no reason. The World War 2 pilot hoping to escape gets hit with fire from an artillery gun. When wondering how he's alive, the characters demonstrate they use the gun as part of a giant slingshot to shoot rocks at birds. When their shot misses the target and the little fairy asks the caveman what they'll eat now, he shrugs and suggests coal. If there's a logical progression to that, it's either lost in the translation or the logic is, "anything goes."

Toriyama doesn't abandon comedy over time, but he does dial it back. Mad Matic involves some guy and his winged dog finding a giant fridge in the desert being guarded by a couple of jungle gals. There's still a fair amount of silliness, but there's also just enough plot and character interaction that the story breathes a bit, allowing the comedy time to land.

The tone of the humor is questionable at times. Gropey old men (The Elder, which is otherwise a fun car chase/battle between an old man with a souped up jeep and a super-spy with a roadster full of James Bond gimmicks), or characters accidentally (accidentally would need to be in quotations some of the time) walking in on a girl bathing. Ackman's repeatedly thrown off his attempts to kill humans by things like a gust of wind revealing a young mom is wearing a g-string. Lot of upskirt shots in this collection, so depending on your tolerance for that, be aware.

And there are some gags that just don't translate well, or at all. Ackman's angel rival hires a big martial artist by the name of Yakimo Heederu, and an editor's note informs us this translates to, "potatoes make you fart." If I knew Japanese, that would probably make me laugh. I think there's a similar one in Tomato where she adds an ant to her hostage collection and the crook threatening the baby does a pratfall at such a great "pun."

His art style slides back-and-forth over a sort of continuum across the stories. Sometimes the characters are very much in the Dragon Ball style, tall and a bit lanky, long heads. Big, bald grinning guys with Fu Manchu mustaches. Other times, he shifts back more towards his earlier style, with all the characters being exaggeratedly short and squat, their heads out of proportion to the rest of them. Or some combination of the two. The two Chobit stories involve a hick cop protagonist very similar in look to Goku, but one of the villains is dressed like a cowboy with a head the size of his entire body. That's more of a comedy, including a bit where the cop tries to demonstrate his marksmanship and only succeeds in shooting holes in the panel they're in.

Overall, I found it really interesting to see a lot of his lesser known work. See the change in what he wrote and drew, and how. Also, what elements crop up frequently. Dragon Boy feels like a dry run for Dragon Ball, with a young martial artist protagonist with curious extra appendages, who protects a pampered girl on a long a perilous journey. He even has a teacher named Master Roshi (who looks much different from the Turtle Hermit.) Toriyama also really likes desert wastelands with rocky columns and arches scattered about. Easier than drawing a crapload of trees, I'll bet.

Sunday Splash Page #280

 

"Master at Work," in Joe Kubert Presents #1, by Joe Kubert

A six-issue mini-series that was released shortly after Kubert's death, this was a collection of things Kubert wished he saw more of in comics at the time. At least, that's how he presents it in a text piece in the middle of issue 1. He raised that question with Paul Levitz, and Levitz offered him the chance to put together just such a book.

In practice, that means less superheroes, more war and pulp stories. Sam Glanzman has a U.S.S. Stevens feature in every issue, Kubert and Levitz pen a sort of Sgt. Rock story in issue 5. Kubert has three chapters of someone called "The Redeemer", who is destined to be reborn through time, but if he can avoid corruption, will eventually end all pain and suffering. The character only has vague dreams of his past lives, so the story is framed more through the attempts of the wizened, dark wizard looking "Evil One" to corrupt the Redeemer.

Even the Hawkman story that kicks things off feels more like a sci-fi pulp, with a few pages devoted to Katar and Shayera just flying around on Thanagar before heading to Earth and getting mixed up in an ivory poaching thing. Definitely feels like a pulp story there, right down to the less-than-great depiction of the African natives in the story. Hawkman as the guy who has to explain you shouldn't trust people who want to economically exploit your home, yeesh.

Kubert, Brian Vendetti and Jason Wright put together a Kamandi story in the final issue, that guest stars Etrigan. There's another Kubert story that's more like a horror tale, about a biker who lost a leg serving in Afghanistan, who seeks shelter in an abandoned house for the night. The plots aren't the most tightly scripted things, feels like you have to make certain jumps at times, but they capture a particular vibe pretty well.

Brian Buniak has an Angel and the Ape mystery that runs through the each issue. That one is more of an attempt at a humor comic, with a lot of sight gags, parodies (the leads are annoyed by a snoopy reporter of the "Daily Times Herald World Star Gazette Tribune" named Noel Kurt) and one-liners. Also plenty of cheesecake in the art, but the tone makes for a change of pace from the other features.

Other than the Kamandi story, Kubert draws all the features he writes (and the Sgt. Rock story, which Levitz writes). Most of them are recognizably his art. That thin line, the diagonal skritches for shadowing, lanky limbed heroes who look like they were carved out of stone (I hadn't realized how much Kubert's style seems to influence Tim Truman's until reading this.) Kubert's protagonists aren't the most heavily muscled, but they seem like the toughest because there's nothing soft on them. All of that has been worn away by life or circumstance.

The exception is "Spit" the feature about a homeless orphan that joins a whaling ship for lack of better options. Kubert does that on what looks like grey paper, with lines much thicker and darker than his usual. I want to say he did it in charcoal, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong, and I can't find anything in the mini-series where he discusses it. (There is a bit on the last page of the final issue where Pete Carlsson describes Joe's process for coloring his own work.)

Saturday Splash Page #82

 

"Norse Invasion," in Thor The Mighty Avenger #4, by Roger Langridge (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer)

Thor The Mighty Avenger was, near as I can tell, aiming to be a Thor book for people interested in the character after seeing the first Chris Hemsworth movie, while not exactly sticking to the premise the movie established. Easy entry point, essentially.

Thor is banished to Midgard (ending up in Oklahoma), and separated from Mjolnir. He meets Jane Foster, recently appointed head of the Nordic History department at a local museum, who decides to help the brave (if a little confused) homeless guy. Thor eventually regains Mjolnir, adventures ensue.

Langridge's Thor is young, by Asgardian standards. He remembers visiting Midgard as a child, but didn't think the mortals would remember him (in the book Jane shows him, Samnee draws Thor more like the Jack Kirby design.) He's hot-tempered, impulsive, petulant at times. He spends more issues fighting other heroes - Giant-Man, Captain Britain, Iron Man, Namor - than he does what you could call villains. But he's sweet on Jane, and the two of them sort of dance around the issue. She helps him acclimate to Earth, and he helps cheer her up when she's frustrated by work.

Samnee at this point is a year and change away from working with Mark Waid on Daredevil. He already knows how to draw a fight scene, and how to make Thor look powerful, without overdoing it on the musculature. This isn't Simonson's Thor, or even Ron Frenz', but he's younger, he wouldn't be as bulked up. And Samnee makes him look charming when the scene calls for it, you can see how Jane would be interested even when he just seemed like a kinda crazy homeless guy.

Samnee goes easier on the shadows here, understandably, and Matthew Wilson's colors are brighter here than on that book, too. Even if Thor's on Midgard, there's still an otherworldly, fantastic element to him that should be brighter and more colorful. 

The central mystery - which is not resolved before the book ends with issue 8 - is why Thor's been banished to Midgard. He recalls arguing with his dad, and his friends keep making reference to him needing to learn a lesson in humility, but the specifics are lacking. The reason (or a reason, at least) Thor doesn't remember is given at the end, but the gaps aren't filled.

Random Back Issues #111 - Spider-Girl #81

Is that what's happening? I thought you two whiffed the high five.

Spider-Girl's fighting Aftershock, who I think was introduced in the only issue of the original 100 issue run not written by Tom DeFalco (issue 51, written by Sean McKeever). Aftershock's not doing so hot here, as the armored car she attacked was empty at the time, which the driver tried to tell her.

What should therefore be a pretty easy win against an idiot goes sideways when Mayday's distracted by her cellphone. She dodges the next attack without thinking and aggravates some recently injured ribs, landing in a pile of garbage. Yep, she's Spider-Man's daughter, all right.

The security guard tries to grab Aftershock and gets electrocuted for his trouble. Spider-Girl manages to perform CPR to save his life before heading home. She also gets a call from her friend Brenda Drago (former legacy Vulture villain Raptor), that Brenda's now engaged to Normie Osborn. So in addition to getting chewed out by her dad for not coming home to look after her baby brother after school (because she was losing to an idiot), she also has to hear Peter bemoan the idea anyone would willingly marry an Osborn.

Mary Jane tried playing peacemaker, but the forecast is chilly at school the next day when Mayday gets a call from the Avengers. Electro showed up at the mansion, demanding to speak to Spider-Man. He initially dismisses Spider-Girl as a 'teen sidekick,' then revises it to 'secretary' when she explains no one gets to see Spider-Man without going through her.

Peter throws on the old costume to meet Electro (who, in a nice touch, recognizes Spidey's walking with a limp, because he's missing a leg from the knee down). Aftershock is Max Dillon's kid, but he's stayed away from her. Partially because the mom insisted, partially because his aura and his daughter's are on different frequencies, so it hurts them both to make physical contact. There's even a picture in the file Max is carrying that shows him and what is supposed to be a baby, but looks like Tiny Gerald Ford reacting badly.

Peter agrees to help, musing how awful it would be not to be able to hold your child. In the middle of that, all the younger Avengers show up, because they all want to meet Spider-Man. Which is cool, that he's considered one of the greats by the next generation, and lets his daughter see a different side of him.

Mayday finds Aftershock robbing a jewelry store. Hopefully she didn't grab costume jewelry. Spider-Girl's holding back, leaping about and just slapping Aftershock instead of full on punching her. All that really accomplishes is pissing the girl off, and she blasts Mayday from the street to a rooftop at least a couple of stories up. Aftershock vows to 'melt the flesh off your scrawny bones,' but the Avengers arrive, and electricity can't get through melt the Juggernaut's kid (or, unfortunately, the flannel shirt he wears around his waist.)

Aftershock's not exactly happy to see her dad, and he considers bailing, but Peter gives him the speech about how parents can't ever give up, and so Max hugs his daughter. This hurts, but it seems like it fades after a few panels. I guess their bio-electric auras adapted or merged with each other given time, it was just Max never stuck it out long enough for that to happen before. Which is understandable. If your kid screams in pain every time you so much as touch them, you would probably stop doing that.

At home that night, the Parker family discuss what'll happen to Aftershock (she's a minor, so a light sentence or paroled into Max's custody is Peter's guess). Peter and Mayday stay up to talk and Mary Jane finds them asleep on the couch at 3 a.m., having apparently buried the hatchet. Except the cover for the next issue reminds me that Normie's about to get bonded to the Venom symbiote, so that'll be another thing to make Peter wary. But haven't we all had a friend our parents distrusted because they were forcibly bonded to a brain-eating alien slime mold?

{10th longbox, 88th comic. Spider-Girl #81, by Tom DeFalco (writer), Ron Frenz (writer/art breakdowns), Sal Buscema (finished art), Gotham (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)}

The Death of Artemio Cruz - Carlos Fuentes

Artemio Cruz is dying, after 71 years. As he dies, in between wishing to hear the conversations his right-hand man audio recorded over the years, or laughing at his wife and daughter's naked desire to find his will, Artemio thinks back to many different points of his life over the decades.

Fuentes doesn't move in a chronological order with the flashbacks. The first is in 1941, when Cruz is a powerful businessman, who uses his newspaper and his influence to grease the wheels for American investors and crush labor dissent. The next is in 1919, when Cruz arrives at the hacienda of his future father-in-law, supposedly bringing a message from his dead son. Only much later does Fuentes reveal the circumstances of the son's death and Cruz's involvement.

Artemio is not a pitiable figure. There is something to be said for his ability to survive, to grasp and claw and pull his way to the position he reached. But it's also true Cruz is not what people around him perceive. He fought in the Mexican Revolution and survived many battles, but as we see, he survived some of these by luck, and others by simple cowardice. Choosing to let another man bleed to death rather than assist him, because he simply had to get away from the battle, even with no immediate danger.

Whatever he may have believed in joining the Revolution, it was buried under his desire to pull himself to the top over the bodies of many people he used and discarded with broken promises. The Revolution becomes something to invoke in an editorial when he wants to push public opinion one way or the other. This thing is what the Revolution was fought for, or this politician is not the sort we fought to elect.

So it's hard to feel bad for him when he bemoans the loss of the women he professes to love, when Laura asks him to marry her and he feeds her excuses. Or when he wonders why his wife Catalina would never be open with him. She may be the only one who knows her father made her do this to try and save his status (which failed), consigning her to a life with a man she can't bring herself to love without feeling like a traitor. But they both know Artemio was using her as an in to ultimately gain that status and power for himself. Just one more stepping stone on a path to gaining the position to crush others.

Fuentes uses a variety of writing techniques repeatedly. The overlapping conversations are effective. Especially in the present day where Artemio is surrounded by people, all with their own motives. A mass of confusion, combined with everything whirling around in the mind of the dying man. Fuentes blends conversations in the present into reminiscences of the past, blurring the line between the two as Cruz's mind slowly falls apart. The repetition of certain quotes - such as the one about crossing the river on horseback - either build the mystery or - in the case of his repeated requests someone open the window to let in air - contribute to the blurring effect. Is it the same time as when he last asked, or another day entirely? Time largely loses all meaning as Cruz feels himself disintegrationg.

On the other hand, the listing of things, Cruz rattling off all sorts of items or foods or places that he recalled in long paragraphs, that became tedious. It's probably meant as a way that lives can be pared down to simple categories if you choose, that memories can rest entirely on such things. It just felt too drawn out. The point was made. Or if it wasn't, I was too ready for Fuentes to move on to a different tack to care.

'Chaos has no plural.'

What I Bought 7/15/2023 - Part 2

Have any of the five of you still using Blogger been notified one of your posts has been hidden because it violated their standards recently? I got that message last month - about a review of Deadpool #25 I did in January of 2017. It didn't say what the violation was, and all I had to do was edit the post and ask for a review to get that removed, but still. This AI, machine learning, algorithm stuff is such a load of horseshit.

Midnight Western Theatre: With Trial #1, by Louis Southard (writer), Butch Mapa (artist), Sean Peacock (colorist), Buddy Beaudoin (letterer) - Feel as though Ortensia might resent being drawn with flowers in her hair.

Southard and Mapa start where Southard and Hahn ended the previous mini-series, more or less. In 1848, Ortensia woke up on a slab in the woods, hair a different color and surrounded by the bodies of the men who killed her and her father. Turns out the morons summoned a different demon than intended and it, for reasons yet unknown, took their lives and gave them to Ortensia. They wanted immortality, but I wonder if that's what she got, or if she simply has to die 4 more times before it sticks.

From there, the story jumps ahead to 1857 (six years before she met Alexander). Ortensia is apprenticing or sidekicking for Sarah, the witch who found her wandering in the forest after the sacrifice. Ortensia hasn't developed her fashion style yet, and Mapa has her far more open with her emotions than Hahn did. Southard also writes her as more of a mouthy teenager compared to the brusque and frequently grouchy woman in the first mini-series.

But it's a different relationship between the leads. Ortensia and Alexander will be partners and friends. Sarah is a teacher and surrogate parent. Sometimes a little smug, like when she casually blows smoke off her finger after saving Ortensia, and sometimes gentle when Ortensia is sad. Sometimes exasperated when Ortensia insists on naming her horse, "Horse". But when those two are interacting, even if Peacock colors the room they're in red, the shadows on them are limited. Their faces are open and visible, whereas there are a lot more shadows when Ortensia's fighting zombies or Sarah's talking with the Plague Doctor.

The two of them handle various paranormal problems like zombies. Although Mapa draws Ortensia with a muzzle-loading rifle that she shoots several times without having to reload. My dad would be so annoyed, assuming the zombie stuff hadn't put him off anyway. They seem to get tips from the Plague Doctor that showed up on one page of the third issue of the previous series, and seems to have his own stuff going on in the background. Real "One-Who-Knows" vibe. Makes excuses for not mentioning important things sooner, that kind of guy.

The specific problem he only now mentioned is a demon that stole Sarah's soul has returned, and he's interested in Ortensia. And he's in the form of a well-dressed man of some local importance, though Sarah doesn't know this and if the Plague Doctor does, he ain't talking. And the demon already found Ortensia, who hasn't been taught not to trust someone who dresses all in white in the Old West. With all the dust and cow shit, they're either complete idiots or messing with dark powers to avoid looking filthy at all times.

So there's likely to be conflict between Ortensia and Sarah, the latter trying to keep the former away from Corson, who will either try to woo Ortensia or convince that he's a monster yes, but one who wants to do better. Could she please help?

Bumblebee (2018)

Yeah, I know, but this is supposedly the not-terrible Transformers movie, so what the hell.

The Autobots are losing their war with the Decepticons, they flee their planet, and Optimus Prime intends for them to establish a safe haven on Earth, so he sends Bumblebee (or B-127 at that point) to set things up.

First question: Why not just send everyone to Earth right from the start? Optimus scatters them across space (although one of them ended up on a moon of Saturn), promising to gather them later and bring them to Earth. Doesn't that leave the surviving Autobots isolated, vulnerable to be overwhelmed by entire forces of Decepticons before Optimus can show up? That is, in fact, what happens to the one on the Saturnian moon. Gets attacked by 2 Decepticons, gets cut in half, lengthwise.

But, OK, whatever, the Little Bot That Could lands on Earth in the middle of some military training game, earning the ire of John Cena and being chased by both the U.S. military and a Decepticon that has somehow already been on Earth long enough to mimic a, I think F-4 Phantom jet, which Bee destroys, but not before losing his voice and his memory. The dread amnesia plot thread emerges! Also, Cena's guys mostly get wiped out, which makes him hate every 'bot he sees, from Autobot A to Decepticon - alright it doesn't work as well as the Simpsons' Planet of the Apes musical, whatever.

Second question: Why does the military have Humvees equipped with harpoon launchers? Do a lot of whaling up in the Cascade Mountains, do they?

Bee is eventually found, disguised as a VW Beetle, but depressed teen Charlie (played by Hailee Steinfeld), at which point the movie really leans into the '80s aesthetic. Constant playing of popular, well-known '80s songs (which may or may not have existed yet in 1987, I don't know). Snide rich girl minor antagonists. Angst about broken family situations. Nerdy boy next door trying to be noticed. Charlie working double-time to train her new robot car and hide it from her parents. Felt like Harry and the Hendersons (or E.T., or Beethoven, or Alf, take your pick) with that stuff. Especially when Bumblebee breaks into the house and basically destroys it by being functionally a moron.

But, the notion that Charlie is using caring for this lost robot (who is depicted as much cuter than he was in the Michael Bay movies, with little "ears" that stick up sometimes) as a way to regain some control of her life after her father's death, works pretty well. The movie avoids going the route of the car being some status symbol that makes her cool, because it's a Beetle, not a Camaro, but it was something she could fix, and help, and would listen to her.

Two Decepticons team-up with the U.S. military to find this dangerous robot, though I appreciate that both sides intend to betray the other at the earliest convenient moment. Cena plays his square-jawed intensity into a gung-ho angry prick, rather than some laughable doofus. Some of his facial expressions are (unintentionally?) hilarious, but they're usually him looking extremely serious, or seriously pissed, so it fits the character.

Third question: What kind of weapon is the Decepticon using that makes human bodies burst apart like they were made of snot? It uses it a couple of times, and the result reminds me of Men in Black. I'm not saying they needed to spray corn syrup and raw beef disguised as brains everywhere, but why go that route rather than disintegration or something similar?

The arc between Charlie and her family feels a little stunted. She barely interacts with her brother until she needs to convince him to cover for her. And I thought they really missed an opportunity when her mother criticizes her for bringing home that 'piece of crap' (meaning the Beetle) without asking and not having Charlie retort that her mother didn't consult Charlie before bringing home her own piece of crap (the stepdad.) I most empathized with Charlie at the moment his birthday gift to her was a book about how she should smile more often.

The fight scenes are fine. It helps there's rarely more than two giant robots fighting at one time, and the military doesn't get involved much, so there's not so much to keep track of. Bumblebee sure did use a lot of wrestling moves, though. Guess he wasn't just watching '80s movies while holed up in that garage.

I don't know if I think it's good, but it's definitely better than the Bay-hem ones. The subplot with the popular boy and the rich girl felt unnecessary and stunted. The smaller scope of the story keeps it focused, which helps it have at least some emotional heft. Unlike in the Bay movies, where the army guys seem almost as important as Shia LeBouf's character, here Cena's a secondary antagonist. The stone-faced authority figure who could ruin what Charlie's managed to pull together. He's not drawing the plot or significant screen time away from Steinfeld and her relationship with Bumblebee, which helps.

What I Bought 7/15/2023 - Part 1

My Friday got off to a great start with a notice from my bank they put a freeze on my debit card because of some strange charges. At least they caught it, but no debit card until they get the new one to me. Most annoying.

In the other annoying developments, the guy that runs the local store apparently didn't realize the credit card the distributor had on file for him expired two weeks ago until this week, so I had to wait until I met up with Alex in the next town over on Saturday to grab any books. Plus side, that store had at least one book the local guy wouldn't. Plus, Alex was playing the country club gig, which meant plenty of good food for him and me.

Who says I can't look on the bright side? Besides me, obviously.

Fantastic Four #9, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - This is all a misunderstanding! The misunderstanding is everyone should be trying to kill Reed.

Alicia narrates as she, Sue and Johnny try to hold off Ben and Reed, under the cntrol of Xargorr, who actually is one of those early Marvel sci-fi monsters. The rest of her people left Earth, but Xargorr stayed behind and set herself up like a queen, with an army of people who don't remember anything else. Man, Xavier and those other X-telepaths could take lessons from this lady, since she can remove any knowledge of Johnny or Sue from Reed and Ben as friends or family, but still know Johnny won't burn them.

So Alicia gets the idea to use her creative talents to help Sue and Johnny come up with a combo attack the other two won't expect. Sue gives her a small force field projection to mold as a model, while Sue copies it on a large scale. North sets it up with a page of nothing but dark panels and voice balloons, then lets Fiorelli and Arbutov go big with the double-page splash.

Also, Fiorelli draws a very good homicidally deranged Reed Richards. Little bit of spittle in the corner of his mouth and crazy eyes. The works.

Even with force-field calamari kaiju, things are looking bad, so Sue plays the old gambit of goading the villain into of trying to use their power one more time, and sends it back at her. The previous issue had established Sue force fields can block the telepathic waves. North's pretty good at that aspect of writing, which is something I appreciate.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #4, by Dennis Culver (writer), David Lafuente (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Pat Brosseau (letterer) - Is her head supposed to be a Rorschach test or something?

Breather issue, guest artist. Did Burnham need a skip month to stay on schedule? Is that why this thing went from 6 issues to 7?

Anyway, the doctor's power lets her commune with 5th-dimensional entities who see beyond space and time and help people visualize what's in their mind. So she talks with everyone on the team individually about what they're feeling, while Lafuente draws parts of their past or their present in the background. And each session ends with some bit of profound realization by either the character or the doc, though of course the characters aren't always receptive. Still, it feels trite how they all conclude like that, when you would expect them all to be at different stages. Some hear but don't accept, some won't even hear it. Some won't interact.

I guess that's the new Chief's spot, as she's apparently lying about how all the others in their system are fine with her being out all the time. Can't the others stage a rebellion and force themselves to the forefront, so to speak? I'm sure that won't happen at an inconvenient time!

Lafuente's a good choice for artist, though. His style's much looser, more animated than Burnham's. Better suited to an issue focused on what people perceive inside their minds, which won't match reality. So Rita's mind makes Flex Mentallo out to be even buffer than he actually is, really cartoonish, while her version of herself swoons against him, hair obscuring one eye in a classic actress look. Beast Girl thinks of the Chief as a holy figure, the sun encircling her head as she holds up a uniform.

The real question is whether any of what's discussed here will prove important later on. Will Robotman be willing to trust the others and not do everything himself? Will Rita self-sabotage her happiness somehow? Will Negative Man realize he's not alone, or realize he doesn't have things figured out as neatly as he thinks? Three issues left to find out!

Sunday Splash Page #279

 

"See the Fire in Its Eyes," in JLA: Incarnations #2, by John Ostrander (writer), Val Semeiks (penciler), Prentis Rollins (inker), John Kalisz and Heroic Age (colorists), Ken Lopez (letterer)

Released in 2001, this 7-issue mini-series was a series of snapshots of the Justice League at different points in its history. Not being any sort of expert on the Justice League, I assume it's trying to accommodate the team's history into what passed for DC's timeline at this, post-Zero Hour, pre-Infinite Crisis, moment. So they share an Earth with the JSA, who came first, and the first issue is the two teams butting heads, as the old guard thinks the newbies aren't up to snuff. 

The second issue revolves around Superman and Batman's respective entries onto the team. I'm assuming those two not being founding members was from Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and barry Kitson's JLA: Year One. John Ostrander and Val Semeiks spend the next two issues on first the rise, then the fall, of the Satellite Era. In the early issues, the passage of time is mostly demonstrated through Green Arrow, who starts in his clean-shaven, bright green outfit, but is on to the darker green and goatee look by issue 3, as he gets more political and frustrated with the things the League can't or won't do.

Issue 5 is the Detroit League + Crisis on the Infinite Earths. Issue 6 is JLI and the last issue looks at the Morrison League. Some of the later issues have back-up stories as well. Issue 5 focuses on Barry Allen's sacrifice in COIE (drawn by Norm Breyfogle). Issue 6's looks at the end of the "Extreme Justice" thing. It's interesting to me mostly that it ends with Batman contacting Superman to discuss how they're going to build the next Justice League. Odd that in a series where those two join last of the Big Seven, it has them decide they ought to be the arbiters this go-round.

Semeiks and Rollins's art falls mostly in line with a Sal Buscema style. Superman's jaw is impressively square and the linework and postures are a bit stiff, but the action is clear and carries a sense of impact. When Semeiks loosens up a bit, such as Martian Manhunter starting to melt as Grodd attack his mind with thoughts of fire, it works.

They don't really change the style across the series. Semeiks doesn't try to ape George Perez in issue 5, or go with higher panel-counts on the pages in the issues that would have been in Golden or Silver Age. Which makes sense given the compressed timeline (the internet apparently already exists in issue 2). These stories aren't taking place a decade apart like the eras they're meant to represent did for us. It maintains a sense of continuity, helping carry that it's the same mission across years and years, even if some of the faces (and sometimes a lot of the faces) change.

There's also a reporter character, Tully Reed, whose career we watch in parallel with the League. He starts as a guy with a cable access show, eventually starts covering superheroes for a Luthor-owned news channel, and eventually starts his own magazine about them. As things shift darker, he loses faith for a while. Falls under Glorious Godfrey's sway during, Legends, I think. Swings back around at the end, where he indirectly helps save the world.

Saturday Splash Page #81

 

"Asgard Babies," in Thor and the Warriors Four #3, by Alex Zalben (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

I reviewed this mini-series 3 months ago, so I'm gonna keep this short.

The Power kids, spurred on by the story of Idunn's Golden Apples that Julie reads in a book of Norse myths a convenient nurse so kindly offers, find their way to Asgard to try and save their sick grandmother. It's all a plot by Loki, which almost backfires spectacularly by ending everything, but the Power Pack and Thor save the day.

This was the last of the all-ages Power Pack mini-series Marvel put out, but they wrapped up with a bang. Gurihiru get to draw a bunch of Thor characters as babies and Beta Ray Bill with a magnificent afro. Plus, there's a back-up story running across the four issues of Hercules babysitting the Power kids so the Human Torch can go on a date, written and drawn by Colleen Coover.

Random Back Issues #110 - New Warriors #8

Yes, Nova, fly through a rainforest while you're on fire. Maybe you used that bucket as a battering ram once too often.

This was the comic I was actually supposed to review last week, but for some reason when I was shifting longboxes, I stopped too soon. For this 3-parter, most of the roster's in Brazil, helping Speedball track down his mother, an actress that's joined with an environmental group called Project: Earth. There was a news report the group was attacked, with most of the the inner circle being kidnapped.

Or not. The leader, Omar Barrenos, staged that with Speedball's mother's theatrical expertise, to discredit the developers tearing down the rainforest. Even if that works in the long-term, in the short-term Barrenos has another plan: attack the developers, corporations and the Brazilian government directly with his own super-group, Force of Nature!

Woof. Not even the real Plant-Man, a 14th-rate Inhuman and a guy Walt Simonson used as one of the loser villains in his Acts of Vengeance tie-ins for Fantastic Four. I think Firewall's new, but I'm also not sure if she ever appeared again. More likely the codename got handed to some vaguely internet-themed bad guy later in the '90s.

Since this is the middle chapter, the Warriors got trounced before they even know what's happening. At least they had time to discuss the diversity of life in the rainforest, and why the developers would be cutting it down. Although Namorita's oddly understanding of the developers' position. possibly because the humidity is making her woozy? How is too much moisture in the air messing with her? To make matters worse, Speedball promised on behalf of the entire team to help Barrenos! Nicieza does have Nova (the one usually most annoyed by Robbie) be the only team member conscious at the time, so that Speedball explains to him. The Human Rocket shows unusual maturity in backing him up.

That's the B-plot, though. The main story revolves around Night Thrasher and his old flame Silhouette. A pastor friend of hers is being attacked by the Bengal (who Nicieza introduced in a fill-in issue of Daredevil he and Ron Lim did during Nocenti's run). Thrasher did pretty well against the Bengal, but then the Punisher showed up, rocking a long-tailed headband like either Rambo or Ryu from Street Fighter, wanting to ask Sil some questions.

The fight's narrated by Frank, who goes from mocking Night Thrasher for his bullet-proof skateboard to thinking maybe he needs one after he gets cut a couple of times by its razor edge. Frank's losing in close fighting, but manages to get enough space to do use the Budda Budda Budda style of Gun-Fu. Thrasher's armor keeps him alive, and with a few unbroken ribs, and Frank's injured enough to have to bail in his voice-activated battle van.

While Frank patches himself up - with stitches that will 'leave scars like the Appalachians' - his van's computer analyzes Dwayne's armor. All the money Punisher puts into guns, Thrasher put into that suit, which is bullet-proof (mostly), knife-proof, fire-proof, punch-proof. Which makes the Punisher wonder, in a startling lack of self-awareness, what could make a kid do that to himself? He's also left wondering what's in the shielded compartment on Night Thrasher's back.

Meanwhile, Dwayne and Sil are getting the pastor's story. He served in 'Nam. His unit gunned down and destroyed an entire village, save one kid who tried to climb on the chopper, only for this guy to kick the kid until he fell back into the jungle. Now the kid is back as a grown man, ready to stab someone, and Night Thrasher's not so sure he wants to protect this guy any longer.

That's about when the Punisher crashes his van through the church's front door, stunning everyone long enough for him to put a gun to Silhouette's head. Seems oddly destructive for Frank. Not putting a gun to the head of someone he thinks might be a crook, the driving into a church part. At least he finds out what Thrasher was hiding.

There's also a little over one page devoted to a) Emma Frost trying to find out who got access to her computer database, and b) a mysterious woman up to something in a pyramid.

{7th longbox, 195th comic. New Warriors (vol. 1) #8, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), Larry Mahlstedt (inker), Andy Yanchus (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)}

The Wise Hours - Miriam Darlington

Darlington's writing about owls. What starts as a desire to see all the species native to England expands, through offers and stories sent to her by friends, to trying to see all the species native to Europe. She doesn't manage that, not being able to swing the trips to Lapland to see some of the tundra species, but she does travel to Serbia to see the Long-eared Owl, and to a special preserve in France to see the Pygmy Owl.

The book isn't simply a travelogue, though Darlington does go into some detail about the experiences of her trips to see these various owls, as well as the sense of community she feels with the people she meets on these trips.

But the book is still largely about the owls themselves. Darlington talks about the ecology of each species. Their calls, their mating and hunting habits, their predation risks, the dangers that come from being around humans. Fast cars and low-flying owls are a bad combination, as are rodenticides and animals that eat rodents.

But it's also about how humans perceive them, and have over the ages. The way owls appear in ancient cave paintings, the stories and myths and human characteristics we assign to them. The feelings seeing or hearing one evokes in us. Darlington writes often of the wonder or excitement she feels at seeing these owls, or even the anticipation of seeing one. She also veers too far into "humans today don't respect nature" a few times, complaining about our disconnection compared to our ancestors. 

Right, our ancestors who knew fuck-all about owls except they flew at night and so must be evil or a bad omen. As opposed to now, when we study them and learn about their habitat requirements and take steps to help them survive.

Darlington also tries to weave in mysterious health issues that afflicted her son during the time she was writing this. I think because he's also fascinated by owls, and that shared interest was some piece of normality as they grappled with whatever was attacking him. But with each chapter largely its own essay, only loosely connected to one another, that thread doesn't hold up. It's unmentioned entirely in some chapters, and like her quest to see all the different types of owls, isn't neatly tied up at the end. Which wouldn't be a problem, except it becomes something that doesn't quite mesh.

'His wings splayed, soundless from the velvety fringes on his primary feathers. The silent arrival must have freaked out our ancestors. The wings of all the other birds make a noise when they fly. Why not with this one? And as the Tawny Owl silently hunts, all the other birds go mad with alarm. What could be more eerie?'