Saturday Splash Page #92

 

"Elemental Imbalance," in The Terrifics #5, by Doc Shaner and Jeff Lemire (storytellers), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer)

Starting in 2018, and I guess spinning out of one of those Metal or Dark Multiverse event things I did my damnedest to avoid, this is sort of a "Fantastic Four in the DCU" book, though Lemire has to work a little to bring together his chosen cast.

Mr. Terrific's company was bought up by Simon Stagg while Terrific was off in the Dark Multiverse or something. Holt shows up to meet with Stagg about it, finds him using Metamorpho as some sort of probe to explore said Dark Multiverse. I'm going to try and make that the last time I use that phrase in this post. It's mostly another way for Lemire to throw the cast into different worlds.

Stagg fucks it up, Holt busts out a comatose Plastic Man, who wakes up from a reaction to the energies being thrown around, and keeps Mr. T and Metamorpho from dying as they get sucked in. They find the corpse of some giant, and run into Phantom Girl from the Legion of Superheroes. Or a young girl from the same planet, a thousand years in the past, I guess. When they make it back to Earth, they find the energy won't let them get more than a mile apart. So they might as well deal with other problems while they're stuck together.

The problems don't waste any time showing up. They're attacked by a War Wheel, then a town in Michigan suffers an outbreak of Metamorphoing. That giant corpse they found had a beacon left by Tom Strong, so Mr. Terrific's determined to track him down. In the middle of that, he's targeted by a Dr. Dread. My first thought was it was the Dr. Doom knock-off from the Extremists that fought the Justice League in the '90s, but no, it's someone else entirely. I tend to have issues with Lemire's, let's call it leisurely, pacing in some of his other things I've read, but he keeps the ball rolling here.

The cast stick together in large part for lack of better options, even after the artificial constraint is gone. Phantom Girl finds she's been away from home much longer than she thought, and finds it more stifling than she recalled after a few adventures. Plastic Man had been in a coma for 5 years (5 years?!), so reconnecting with his kid doesn't go great. Metamorpho gets turned back into Rex Mason, but just like Ben Grimm, can't quite believe he's good enough for Sapphire Stagg that way.

Mr. Terrific's the most resistant, as Lemire writes him as extremely isolated. All this, the mystery, the energy holding them together, it's just getting in the way of his research. Tom Strong, who has a full life of action science, but also a family of adventurers, a talking gorilla pal, a robot butler, all that jazz, acts as a sharp contrast with Michael Holt, who had his own company and a skyscraper research lab, occupied solely by him.

The biggest issue the book has over Lemire's 14 issues as writer is the lack of a consistent artist. Ivan Reis is the first go, but Jose Luis is already drawing 5 pages by issue 2. Joe Bennett draws issue 3 and 6, with Shaner handling the two in-between. Then Dale Eaglesham for two issues of trying to find Tom Strong, but Jose Luis draws another issue before that arc's done. Then three issues by Viktor Bogdanovic, before the last two issues by Bennett.

You can sort of handwave the shifts in art style with the jumping between universes, although it's rarely a 1:1. Shaner draws the first issue of the Metamorpho story, but Bennett finishes it, for example. It doesn't kill the book. Jose Luis is adaptable enough he can draw close to either Reis or Eaglesham's to minimize the obviousness of the shift. Bogdanovic's rougher, more sharply squared off figures are the most out of place compared to the others. But it doesn't help it, either. Again, I could try arguing the shifts represent the quartet struggling to come together as a team, when they're even trying, but that would require the art team to stabilize when they finally choose to stick together.

What I Bought 9/27/2023

It was a very chill week, aided by my taking today off. Not a lot going on at work, which was fine. I am going to try not to think about what next week might bring. I'll have to deal with whatever it is then, so let it be Future Calvin's problem.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #6, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer) - Come on guys, you're never going to get that Justice League International #1 homage cover done at this rate!

A training exercise for some of the newer kids is interrupted by all those villains General Immortus has been recruiting, who warp inside the base. In the middle of that, the magic-using guys who were hanging out in the basement in issue 2 show up, because the real threat is Houngan is doing something to give the general a new body that involves Dorothy's corpse. Hey, a Doom Patrol member I sort of know!

Did the evil plan work? Maybe? Immortus is more "wax melted over a skeleton" than ever, but there are a bunch of candles hovering around him and he's calling himself the Eternal Flame. Seems ominous. It's a nice look, though, props to Burnham, and the name is a good play on Immortus' longevity.

I'm not sure how Culver's going to resolve this and whatever Peacemaker has going in one issue. Plus, the seeming conflict in Jane's system about The Chief being in charge all the time. It makes the capture the flag sequence feel like padding the story can't afford at this point, even though it was probably important for a variety of reasons. Introduce the people Doom Patrol is helping and show some examples of how (community, self-confidence, control of their abilities, etc.,.) It evens up the numbers in the big fight, and provides some potential casualties. Although the core cast have died so many times, it's hardly any big deal to kill them again. Go ahead, blow Robotman up! He goes through bodies like the Gotham goes through innocent civilians.

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #2, by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada (writers), Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Only one of these characters is actually in this comic. Thankfully, it isn't Cyclops.

Kamala's still having that dream, but a conversation about it with Bruno helps her realize the Silver Surfer she keeps seeing is from one of her fanfics. Kamala resolves to try actually talking to it the next time, while Bruno cobbles together some machine to monitor her brain waves.

But first she has to deal with an anti-mutant hate parade. There's one person standing up for mutants, and she gets threatened and forced to run. Kamala does nothing. I mean, OK, you're not going to bust out the superpowers and whoop bigot ass because you're undercover, but you could stand with her as a fellow student, right?

ORCHIS tracks her encrypted communications with the X-Men and attack Ms. Marvel with a bunch of drones that can combine into a larger robot. That's kind of cool, in a lameass Voltron knock-off way. Iron Man shows up in his stealth armor to help, but apparently one of the drones already injected Kamala with something that will let them control her so they can make her do things to make people hate mutants more or something. And of course she's going to be sleeping soon to try and unravel her dream.

Somehow that last bit of the summary really depressed me. ORCHIS hasn't done enough damage, they have to keep doing more? Like a bunch of lame asses, they're going to control someone else into doing it instead of just doing their own shit. And it's not as though I'd want Ms. Marvel to kill them, but maybe Frank Castle could return from the dead conveniently and start shooting people?

The dream sequences are still a different art style from the rest of the issue, and I still don't know which artist is responsible for which. Maybe it's Arciniega's coloring that makes it look different. There's less going on in the panels during the dreams, so there tend to be fewer colors. It's more just gradual shifts from one shade in the background to the other. But the lines also look thicker and things blend a little more.

I think I prefer the dream sequence art, the expressions feel more natural. Some of the panels during the rest of the comic, character's faces feel frozen in awkward or uncanny valley expressions. Like the character is posing or acting - this is me enjoying playing a video game with my friend - rather than just doing that.

The City & The City - China Mieville

There are two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma. They are beside each other, and also overlap. The latter is something inhabitants of both lands, and any visitors to either, are supposed to ignore. See that person down the street, whose clothes and gait don't match everyone else? No you don't, or at least, you better not. Or else you're in breach and soon you'll vanish into Breach.

The specifics of how that circumstance came to be, Mieville doesn't really investigate. None of the characters in this book know, or if they do, they're aren't telling or even thinking it where any narrator can notice. It's just a part of their surroundings they accept and attempt to navigate with their investigation of a murdered archaeology student.

Tyador Borlu is the Beszel detective assigned the case, and he's a fairly typical fictional cop. Overloaded with cases and outwardly willing to find an excuse to dump this on someone else. Yet also dogged enough to keep digging even when it looks as though he'll get what he wants and the case will be declared breach and taken out of his hands. He annoys people in power by asking questions they don't like, he frustrates his colleagues and partners (and he ends up with those in both cities and more before it's over) by keeping his thoughts to himself and pursuing hunches alone, leaving them to deal with the fallout.

I didn't have any sense of the answer to whodunit, but I'm not sure if that was because Mieville did an excellent job masking it, or because it felt like the whole thing about the nature of the two cities, plus Breach, overshadowed it. Because everything about the investigation, every careful step Borlu has to take, is dictated by those circumstances. So the question of why things are like that, or how they got that way, feel important. But, you know, Mieville doesn't really answer that, not directly.

I did, however, see Borlu's fate coming from a fair distance off. Pretty much from the moment he was apprehended, I knew how things were going to end for him. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Reading this was a strange experience. I wasn't invested in the actual murder mystery, which seems bad, nor did Mieville answer the questions I did have, which seems unsatisfying. Yet I read through it quickly and easily, without any hesitation or question of whether I wanted to finish. So it must have done something right.

'The theft of the van and the dumping of the body in Beszel were illegal. The murder in Ul Qoma was horribly so. But what we had assumed was the particular transgressive connection between the events had never taken place. All passage had appeared scrupulously legal, effected through official channels, paperwork in place. Even if the permits were faked, the travel through the borders in Copula Hall made it a question of illegal entry, not of breach. That is a crime you might have in any country. There had been no breach.'

A Cold, Quiet Winter

I feel like the amount of books I'm buying is usually on the upswing by the end of the year, but not this time. Not according to the December solicitations, anyway. More money to spend on gifts for the important people in my life, right?

It also doesn't help Marvel listed a bunch of stuff in November's solicits that's actually coming out in December, then listed a bunch of stuff this month that's coming out in January. Case in point, the second issue of Fantastic Four listed last month comes out in December, and issue 15, which is listed this month (albeit with jack shit for information) comes out in January.

What's coming out that's new? Not a lot. Moon Knight's concluding and Marvel solicited the first issue of Vengeance of the Moon Knight, but it's one of those books coming out the first week of January.

Dark Horse has the first two issues of Borealis, which sounds like a supernatural murder mystery set up in the Arctic Circle. Mark Verheiden and Aaron Douglas as writers, Cliff Richards as artist. The solicit for the first issue interested me, but the second issue dampened that a bit, so we'll see.

Scout Comics has Blood Run by Evan Pozios and Stefano Cardoselli, which is basically extreme car racing/demolition derby. But Cardoselli's art has a lot of energy, so it's probably going to look good. There's also Total Party Killer by David Yu, which is about an "adventurer intern" wondering if all this questing is really what she wants to do. It's an $8 comic, but if Space Outlaws is any indication, it'll be over 40 pages, so, maybe?

Is anything ending in December? As mentioned above, Moon Knight. Uncanny Spider-Man, because apparently it really is double-shipping in November. Also, Ms. Marvel the New Mutant is only 4 issues, so it ends in November. I thought for sure Marvel would milk it for six issues.

So Marvel's section of my purchases is really getting gutted at the end of the year. I've looked at some of those "Gang War" tie-ins, but I don't really want to get wrapped up in some mini-event thing, even though it seems like a story I would enjoy.

What's left to discuss? Fantastic Four will ship at least one issue in December, I'm pretty sure. Coda will be up to issue 4, and Vault's solicits say the same about Lone, but that's not true because I'd forgotten the first issues of Vault's books always ship a month later than what they're originally solicited for. Midnight Western Theater: Witch Trial's up to issue 4, too. And Yen Press is releasing the 4th volume of Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World. So, "4" is the lucky number in December.

Refusing to conform to this pattern, The Boxer is up to volume 5, and the main character's already won a title belt. Can't say writer/artist JH is wasting any time. And on a side note, I thought Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Hernandez Walta's Phantom Road was going to be a 6-issue mini. In which case, I'd probably buy it in trade at some point. But, as the seventh issue got solicited for January, I guess it's going a bit longer than that. Giving Lemire more issues only encourages him to slow things down, and he doesn't need the encouragement.

Cocaine Bear (2023)

I can't decide if this movie is the good kind of stupid, or just stupid.

Starting a movie set in 1985 with a quote from Wikipedia about black bears not being territorial and if attacked you should fight back, seems to fall in the "just stupid" category. If you're gonna go to the trouble of the period appropriate cars, clothes, music, existence of pay phones, there had to be a period-appropriate field guide or encyclopedia to cite.

But, OK, that's a little thing, fine, whatever. I did laugh at several points, some of them even when it was trying to produce that reaction. The bear chasing the ambulance, for example. Elizabeth Banks clearly wanted to go over-the-top with this, and those are the parts that work the best. When it just goes to a point of absolute absurdity. The cop emptying one of the packages while the bear does a happy, awkward dance under the coke. The bear spitting out a bullet after being repeatedly shot.

The parts where Banks tries to add some depth to the potential victims, that was hit-or-miss. I suppose I wanted the two kids playing hooky to make it out alive, but I didn't really care that Dee Dee wasn't receptive to her mom dating again. Henry trying to pretend he knows all about coke was pretty funny, especially when he doubled down after eating it backfired. The stuff with Daveed and Eddie trying to recover the coke, while Eddie is mourning the death of his wife and essentially dumped his son with his dad (played by Ray Liotta), who is a drug lord, not so much. The cop not being totally satisfied with the dog he adopted, because he was expecting one he could play fetch with? Not caring about that at all.

And that stuff occupies a surprising amount of the run time. I know, you can't just have the bear running amok for 90 minutes straight (or can you?) Use it for effect, let the audience wonder when it's going to appear and what will happen then. In theory, the audience should probably want at least some of the humans to survive. Maybe. But there are points - mostly when Park Ranger Liz is trying to flirt with the wildlife guy - that I was sitting there thinking, "So where's the damn bear?"

Punch Your Way to the Truth

Nostalgia's a hard drug to kick, take it from a comic book fan.

Volume 3 is the finale for Steel Fist Riku, which means series creator Jyutaroh Nishino's only got 173 pages to wrap things up. Which means first dealing with the story arc of Riku and Chikara's training with the sadistic old lady martial arts master.

The master separated their energies into each other's bodies, so when they exert themselves, they're drawn together like magnets. Nishino thankfully doesn't use this as an opportunity to push a romance angle (although there is one sequence of Chikara walking in on Riku in the bath). Instead, he uses their competitive rivalry as a way to use this problem to make the improvements they wanted.

The payoff doesn't come until the very end, when Riku gets her rematch with Kuro, the dark sunglasses guy who has the same ability to turn a limb metal as her. The fight goes on for several pages, and it turns on something Nishino threw in for one panel during the training chapters in an unexpected way. It's enough for Kuro to tell what he knows, so the last 10 pages are devoted to explaining Riku's origin and a reunion with her mother, which we're told about through a letter from one character (not Riku) to another. Which is kind of an odd choice.

Nishino breaks up the training with a short chapter about Fumika, the rich girl Riku befriended in volume 1, trying to learn to cook with the help of Riku's father. It's quick and allows Roku to show a more friendly side than he does around Riku, but seems mostly to be set-up for a last panel reaction gag that's only so-so.

After the training, there are two longer one-offs. The first involves Riku meeting Kuro's partner, who kicked Riku's ass in the previous volume, on his day off. He actually wants to buy stuff from Roku's shop, but Riku won't take money earned on criminal jobs, so it turns into a theme of her lining up ways for Shozaemon to earn money legitimately, only for each attempt to backfire. Shozaemon's ability to grow two additional arms requires a particular brand of vegetable juice to work properly, so Riku naturally keeps grabbing the wrong bottle. The payoff at the very end is actually pretty funny, though.

The other, and my favorite, starts with the return of a childhood friend of Riku's. At least, Riku thinks they're friends. Aguri remembers their childhood somewhat differently, and it turns into an almost Looney Tunes-esque attempt to get revenge. Complete with trying to get Riku to step on a land mine and chasing her around with a mace. It cracked me up, especially when Nishino mixes in Riku taking a "troubleshooting" job to track down a stolen ticket granting a 3-month supply of salted pork buns. That'll give you some heart disease. That allows just enough space for more "happy memories" gags and for Riku to ultimately remind Aguri she means well, at least.

Sunday Splash Page #289

 

"People You Meet in Prison," in Justice League International #13, by Keith Giffen (writer/penciler), J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Al Gordon (inker), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Bob Lappan (letterer)

After Crisis on the Infinite Earths, DC went a somewhat different direction with the Justice League. Not just in the sense that this Justice League was more tied to the governments of the world, with the team having embassies around the world, but in the tone of the book. Superhero teams weren't strangers to characters getting on each other's nerves, going back to at least Ben Grimm wanting to throttle the Human Torch, but that was usually played for melodrama or angst.

While Giffen and DeMatteis had some of that - in the issue above, Batman's increasing frustration is causing him to basically be a dick to the entire team and forces the Martian Manhunter to lay down the law - Justice League International could qualify as a workplace comedy. Because amid Batman's poor attitude, you've got Oberon remarking (under his breath) that Bats could use a good psychiatrist, Canary joking Batman paid the super-villains(read: Suicide Squad) to attack the Russian prison to get permission to go there, and an injured Max Lord deciding it's a good idea to play cute with Amanda Waller. It's not making light of the whole situation, not exactly, but it's not playing things with a perfectly straight face, either.

The roster's a mix of established Leaguers, second-stringers, and a few relative newbies, but it seemed to work better than the Detroit era's attempt did. Certainly most of the characters that got promoted to the big leagues by this title have hung around (even if it hasn't always been pretty what's been done with them.)

Maybe the tone being so novel gave less-established characters a more unique hook. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold running pranks and get-rich schemes when they aren't fighting crime (and sometimes while they are). Guy Gardner being an abrasive loudmouth, except when he's got brain damage and is acting like a sweet-mannered child. Or just trying not to be a jerk because he actually really likes Ice and wants to impress her. Max Lord being the connection to the government, but rather than being a Peter Gyrich-style antagonist, Lord's putting every bit of his used car salesman charm into trying to make the League (and by extension, himself) look good.

Adam Hughes and especially Kevin Maguire are a big part of the book's success. With a title that's as much about conversations and humor as it about fighting super-criminals, the artist has to be good at facial expressions and body language. Not only to help sell the characters as feeling genuine, or sell the humor, but to keep things from looking static and dull. Otherwise, it's just a comic of talking heads, and that can get old quick. Maguire and Hughes both do that. The characters gesture and snarl and hands are thrown up in exasperation (when they aren't burying their faces in them).

Saturday Splash Page #91

 

"Experimental Stage," in Test #2, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer)

A mini-series from 2019 about Aleph Null, a young person who has spent years signing up to be a test subject for different studies which may work, or may not. Either way, Aleph takes the money and uses it to try and make themselves into what they think feels right. Magnets under the fingers, all sorts of bits of software or hardware that work, some of the time. Because Aleph's obsessed with finding the future, finding where they fit.

That future might just exist in the town of Laurelwood, but once Aleph gets there, they find the future's not much of an improvement, not in the ways Aleph might hope, anyway. There are still factions, humans fighting and squabbling over different interests. The ones who want the technology destroyed, whose futures lie in the past. The corporations, looking for the next thing that will make them big bucks, whether it's Laurelwood or Aleph. The people who think they can win a big fight and fix everything.

It seems like Sebela's writing about control, who has it, who doesn't. Aleph wants control of themself at least. That's what they've been striving for in one way or another. To not lose people, even if that means trying to stay away from everyone, or by experimenting on themself, make themself into whatever they can manage, because at least it'll be their choice.

In the town of Laurelwood, mirrors are actual portals that people can move through. Most of the time, they just spy through them. Like all the experimental studies they were part of, doctors sitting behind fake mirrors, watching to see what happens to the guinea pigs. Hickman draws those people as dark shapes with big empty eyes peering out, to the point Aleph takes to sleeping in a trunk suitcase to stay hidden. Trapped in a box within a larger box. The world behind the mirrors is a mess of dark hallways and twisting stairs. Another maze for Aleph to find their way through.

It can lead anywhere, but that doesn't really matter because Aleph finds much the same thing in every direction. They're always being manipulated, always seen as the key in someone else's plans. Even the piece of the future, however it frames what it's doing, has its own designs and desires for Aleph. But that isn't only Aleph's problem, as they know. The doctors that watched the studies were themselves watched by someone else. Even those mysterious, faceless suits were being watched by what exists in the town. Everyone's being watched, everyone is a potential tool for someone or something else.

Hickman rarely usually panels that give expansive views. Even panels of the town are wide but short. You can't see beyond the buildings, and usually not beyond whatever street Aleph's looking at. The future is not a wide universe of possibilities. It's still a bunch of confining spaces, small boxes and test chambers.

Aleph ultimately is able to do some good for other people in a similar state, and maybe find some measure of peace for themself. Some acceptance of who they are, assuming that's actually how they feel, and not something imposed on them by the one helping. That seems to be the best one can hope for. The world's not presented as one where there will stop being conflict. As long as there are people and their wants, the same themes will occur, and that's not going to change, even in the amorphous future.

What I Bought 9/20/2023

The downside to a week spent in the field was my allergies went berserk. I wore sunglasses most of the time just to obscure my bloodshot eyes. I knew it was gonna happen, I just always underestimate how annoying it is. On the positive, I didn't find anybody screwing things up badly. And, a comic shop in the town I was staying had the one book I wanted this week, plus one from earlier in the month.

Moon Knight #27, by Jed MacKay (writer), Federico Sabbatini (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Hunter's Moon over there like, "I don't see any vampires," while Marc's getting a head start on the race for the last slice of pizza in the fridge.

Desperate for information on Black Spectre, Marc turns to the creepy guy with the mind-controlling sweat MacKay introduced back at the beginning of this series. Hawley's in a coma, but if Marc and Badr drink the sweat (yuck) and inject it into Vibro's IV drip, they can get in Vibro's mind. That is a hilariously ridiculous plan, though MacKay does address the notion of why Marc doesn't get some super-powered help by mentioning Clea's at her mother's wedding in Antarctica. And, you know, the mutants have all the telepaths and they got their own problems.

The rest of the issue is those two in Vibro's mind. They find a seemingly ordinary geologist named Alton there, too, and Jake and Steven chat with him while the Fists fight a bunch of Vibros. Eventually Badr figures out Alton is who Vibro was before the accident that gave him powers, and Marc convinces Alton to tell them Black Spectre's plan, while Hunter's Moon buys them time by fighting an army of Vibros with an army of all the past Fists stored in his head. Which seems like it would only weaken the line between him and them even further, but desperate times.

That's basically it. I think the book is being canceled and rebooted at issue 30, but this really feels like it was drawn out to help stretch the story. Vibro's mindscape is rendered as a rather dull plain with some rock spires or stalagmites here and there, all drenched in red. Other than there being a lot of them, the Vibros don't really take advantage of what is theoretically home court. I could rationalize that Black Spectre's done something to Vibro to make him so devoted, and that plus the coma, have removed a lot of the depth from his mind. But if this - Moon Knight and Hunter's Moon diving into a super-criminal's mind for answers - is what you devote the entire issue to, it could be a little more visually interesting.

Uncanny Spider-Man #1, by Si Spurrier (writer), Lee Garbett (artist), Matt Milla (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Can he BAMF? Listen bub, he's got inherited genetic traits that express themselves in a variety of ways.

Nightcrawler's living in New York, wearing a Spider-Man costume Peter loaned him (and which Kurt has somehow modified to accommodate his unique morphology), fighting random crime and sleeping in a church steeple. What looks like one of those "bamfs", the mini-Nightcrawlers, is hanging around as some invisible voice, whispering stuff. Mystique is living in Central Park, seemingly muddled in the head. The Vulture is working for ORCHIS, and mucking around with the techno-organic virus from the Phalanx, it looks like.

I know all comic book scientists are multi-disciplinary geniuses, but there had to be someone better suited than the Vulture, who's into aerodynamics and magnetic lift or however his outfit worked. Whatever, ORCHIS seemingly has nothing ready to hunt Nightcrawler, so they hired Silver Sable. Or at least, Silver Sable has come to New York to find Nightcrawler, and either capture or sleep with him. Or one, then the other.

Questions about how Kurt got the costume to fit aside, and ignoring that the chest logo reminds me of Knull, I like the look. Red and black work well together, it isn't an overly complicated design, Garbett minimizes how much the ears stick out compared to what Tony Daniel does on the cover. Overall, it works for me.

The story aspects, I don't know. The X-Office threw in the whole thing where ORCHIS threatened to kill ten humans for every mutant they saw running around, then has to contrive reasons why they don't carry out this threat - which would likely turn a lot of even dumbshit Marvel Earth against them - when mutants like Kurt (who they're 97% certain it's him) or Iceman or Kamala Khan are visibly running around.

Spurrier wings it that ORCHIS thinks Nightcrawler is more likely to disappear than surrender himself. And the way Spurrier's writing this, maybe that's accurate, as his Kurt seems mentally exhausted. He apparently told Spider-Man he wanted to help mutants and clear his name, but it seems more likely he simply can't muster the energy to think about anything like that. The best he can do is save a person her or there, eat pizza, ogle women out jogging in the park. Peter Parker used Spider-Man as a way to let out the personality he couldn't show as old Puny Parker. Nightcrawler's using it as an escape. Play a role, avoid thinking about his problems.

The Passage (1979)

Anthony Quinn plays a gruff Basque sheepherder who agrees to ferry an important writer over the mountains and away from the Nazis. The matter is complicated by the fact he doesn't find out until he arrives at the meet he's also guiding the man's family over the mountains, including his ill wife (played by Patricia Neal). 

Of course, they're pursued by an SS captain, played as a sadistic loon by Malcolm McDowell. I'm not sure the performance really fits the rest of the movie. McDowell portrays the Nazi as a real believer in the notion this is the start of a thousand year empire. But he also performs interrogations where he ties the prisoner in a chair in a kitchen while he cooks goulash, then eventually chops the guys fingers off while gleefully yelling, "chop, chop" over and over again. He wears a damn codpiece with the Iron Cross on it prior to raping the writer guy's daughter (which happens and is just sort of passed over once they rescue her.)

The movie in many ways feels very grim and grey. Quinn's character is concerned with getting this done as quickly as possible, before his sheep die. He's not quiet about the fact Neal's character is slowing them down and how annoyed he is with this whole job (which he could have simply refused to take, regardless of how much money he was offered.) Christopher Lee's in here for about 20 minutes as the patriarch of a group of Romani that Quinn and the family hitch with for awhile. Their fortunes don't appear to be too great before McDowell starts nosing around, as Lee correctly notes the Nazis are no fans of his people, either.

Maybe it fits that the only person enjoying themselves is the sadistic Nazi. Reveling in his capacity to inflict cruelty and death.

Although the movie's opening theme put me in the mind of The A-Team, and there was a whole bit where Quinn and the family manage to take a truck and bust through a Nazi checkpoint into Spain. Machine guns igniting truckloads of gasoline, that sort of thing. So sometimes it feels like a grim survival film, especially when they're trying to trudge up mountains. And others, it feels like a good old fashioned action flick. Doesn't manage to merge them successfully.

What I Bought 9/13/2023 - Part 2

A nice, quiet weekend ahead of a week spent on the road. Possibly the last quiet weekend for the next month, though. Several impending engagements with friends and family, plus I'd still like to do that longer day trip I had planned at some point before the weather turns.

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #3, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Java Tartaglia (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Uh-oh, Carol's caught by the Fructose Bands of Life Savers.

Carol finds her way out of wherever Nada put her with the help of. . .I'm not sure what. Villanelli draws it as having a thin, shale-like outer layer, with a dark interior, save for a purple ring/eye/circle. Carol initially takes it as a threat, but changes her mind and it lets her fly out the eye to appear back in space.

Nada, meanwhile, is waiting on the other Earthfolk to decide to take her offer or not. There's some bickering, but two of the teenagers and the journalist are down. The teens' sister, Zen, reluctantly decides to stick with her brothers, and Blake's robot concludes Blake needs power too, because the bot can't protect him on an alien planet. I like that part, that the A.I. grew and responded outside of Blake's expectations or commands, even as it's still limited by them to try and protect its creator.

By the time Captain Marvel finds them, they're killing some of the local wildlife, for reasons that aren't apparent. Seems like a generic strength, speed, energy blast power set. They have different glowing yellow symbols on their faces, but I'm not sure what they mean. Remind me of a schematic for a circuit path of something. Like in Terminator 2, when Arnold's systems reroute from his back-up power source and there's a little red-and-black diagram? Kinda like that, but with yellow-orange.

Anyway, not sure how they got that from Nitro exploding while covered with Nada's weird purple goo-stuff. Probably doesn't matter. The key seems to be they have power and (theoretically) control, but what are they gonna do with it? The journalist, Keziah, said she would be happy to get power if it helped her communicate with these alien lifeforms. Instead she's killing those lifeforms? Was it self-defense? Did she try to communicate? Did she even get that power in the grab-bag?

Nitro also seems to be having doubts about his parent. Nada's a little too glib, comparing the whole thing to high school and them just needing to look "cool" to sell the Earthlings on her deal. Too confident she can outflank Captain Marvel again if need be. Although she does, in fact, outflank Carol again by the end of this issue. Fake it until you make it, I guess.

There's also a couple of pages spent on Spider-Woman and Carol's other pals trying to get a spaceship up and running to go help, but that's getting nowhere fast. Hopefully that thread will come to some sort of point before too long, because there's only two issues left.

Sunday Splash Page #288

 

"Big Talk," in Justice League of America #252, by Gerry Conway (writer), Luke McDonnell (penciler), Bill Wray (inker), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Albert De Guzman (letterer)

The only other issues of Justice League of America I own are the three issues for the Detroit League throwing down against Despero. I bought them mostly because I was curious about the specifics of the fight, since when Despero returned in Justice League International, he was hellbent on revenge against the Leaguers that took him down.

Beyond that, I pretty much knew this era from all the negative talk about it online. That it was a case of Gerry Conway trying too hard to make the Justice League like the X-Men, complete with giving them a sort of Danger Room for training. That the new characters didn't belong in the Justice League. I guess there's less of a feeling that the b-listers can have a place there than in the Avengers.

It doesn't help that it's a team pulled together by Aquaman, and then he left the book (for reasons I'm unaware of and indifferent to). When the ostensible mind behind it doesn't stick around, not a good look. And it leaves the roster with Martian Manhunter and then. . .well is Zatanna or Elongated Man the bigger name in 1986? 

(Although Batman is in this arc, but I don't have the impression that was a regular thing. Batman's like a cat. He decides he wants to be involved, so he jumps in your lap and insists on being included. It's weird to see him go on a date with Vixen as Bruce Wayne. Different era, I know, and Mari McCabe's a well-known model, so not weird for her to be around a billionaire playboy, but seeing Batman that casual with a teammate was unexpected.)

The story itself is alright. It doesn't seem like such a terrible defeat, but Conway establishes Despero shows up wanting revenge on the original League that defeated him, and decided killing the current version was good enough. So him coming back from this loss and doing essentially the same thing is at least consistent.

I don't think Luke McDonnell's really the best artist for a Justice League book. Despero looks alright, and some of the large establishing shot pages are good, but the action isn't very dynamic. The characters don't look impressive. Which, if this was supposed to be demonstrating that a Justice League comprised of more mortal and less gods (2nd-stringers instead of 1st-stringers) can still do the job, then I guess it's a good choice. But you could probably make the characters themselves look almost ordinary, but what they're doing look more explosive than comes across here.

Most of the new characters didn't have much staying power. Vibe got killed, although Geoff Johns tried making him a thing again in the New 52. Steel was basically dead, then john Henry Irons got the codename and was much cooler, and then Johns introduced a new character, "Commander Steel", around the time JSA All-Stars was going. Gypsy, got back in the League eventually, but in the '90s, Extreme Justice rosters. Not exactly a high point, but she also got to be in some Birds of Prey arcs, which is probably better.

Vixen had the most success, since she ended up as one of the heroes keeping the super-crooks on the Suicide Squad in line, and even survived to the end. She's gotten to rejoin the Justice League at least once, albeit I think when Brad Meltzer was writing.

Saturday Splash Page #90

 

"Flashy Entrance", in Thanos Imperative: Devastation, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Rain Beredo (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Following up on Thanos Imperative, the one-shot set the stage for the next bit of cosmic action the Abnett and Lanning writing team had planned. Set against the backdrop of Blastaar launching a sneak attack against the Kree-Inhuman Empire, we see Cosmo the Spacedog going around recruiting different heavy hitter space characters - Gladiator, Quasar, Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, Ronan the Accuser - for a team-up of problem solvers.

Turns out, just before he went off to (not) die alongside Nova in an attempt to keep Thanos in the collapsing Cancerverse, Star-Lord tasked Cosmo with recruiting a team of the biggest badasses he could get to protect the universe. Because Peter Quill tried it once, and could only recruit what Cosmo describes as, 'team of misfits and outcasts and also psychopaths.' The big shots weren't interested, but now, after the entire universe nearly fell to extra-dimensional creature hosting mirror versions of everyone, there's a bit more perceived need.

I don't think Beredo's coloring does Sepulveda's art any favors, as it seems to make facial expression land in the uncanny valley, and the Silver Surfer looks more like a multi-faceted piece of quartz someone tried spiffying up real good.

This resulted in the two Annihilators mini-series, but I was much more interested in the Rocket Raccoon and Groot back-up stories in each (see Sunday Splash Page #62.) I hoped at one point we might see those two characters pull together the other surviving members for a group to handle slightly less massive threats, or else handle the big threats with a bit more finesse. As much finesse as you're going to get, given Rocket's love for large firearms. 

Either way, I guess the minis didn't sell, because Marvel handed Guardians of the Galaxy to Bendis of all people - because when I think of writers to tell rollicking outer space adventures, I think Brian Michael Bendis - and things progressed (degraded) from there.

What I Bought 9/13/2023 - Part 1

Been a long week as the only one in the office. One person on vacation, the other two away on trainings. So all the calls from the public came to me. Yay. Oh well, the shoe'll be on the other foot next week, that's for sure!

Coda #1, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/colorist), Michael Doig (color assists), Jim Campbell (letterer) - What happened to the Nag's wings. It was flying, last we saw it.

Set some years on from the first mini-series, Hum and Serka have found a solid routine. Serka rages in the Everstorm as necessary, and roams the land helping others. Hum pretty much tends their land, fishes, and tries determinedly to not be caught up in any sagas. Bergara cleans him up a bit - I stress "a bit" - but he's still recognizably the grouchy former bard he was before. Serka seems bulkier than before, hair a bit wilder, but again, recognizable. Bergara doesn't exaggerate expression quite as much as he did in the first mini-series, but he can get goofy when he needs to.

Mostly with the little spriggan/fairy things proclaiming the savior is nigh. Because there's another chosen one about, and the kid's followers/retinue/manager swiped Nag as a piece of the pageantry. Hum attempts to recover Nag when the kid is presented at a nearby industrial town, and promptly gets arrested by the locals along with the kid (who does have some strange hold over Nag that makes it behave.)

Serka, meanwhile, encounters the wonders of "natural philosophy" while trying to protect a group of tradesmen from bandits. The gnomads she works with have developed guns, or something similar. They wear the contraption on their head like a plague doctor mask, but it shoots projectiles out the snout. I feel like it's not a coincidence the smoke that wafts from the barrel is the same shade as the stuff the industrial town is smelting (which Hum describes as "iron pus," as delightful image.)

Spurrier narrates the issue via a letter Hum is writing to "Little Gap", which I'm assuming is a child they're expecting. Or maybe a child that died young or in childbirth. Hum seems determined to leave all the questing and whatnot behind in the "old world." It's all garbage, he refuses to believe any of it or want any part of it. His mistake would be in assuming Serka feels the same, because she seems tempted, or at least interested, in the gnomads weapons. Not sure why; maybe she's grown tired of having to kill people up close, but doesn't want to abandon protecting others.

Either way, I expect their paths will cross at some point before all this is done. Hum's caught up in what feels like a story trying to regress things, and Serka's meeting the future, or at least newer ways of doing the same old thing.

Werewolf by Night #1, by Derek Landy (writer), Fran Galan (artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - My comic guy opined Elsa's shoulder was really going to hurt when she fires that shotgun. I imagine that's part of the fun for her, along with monster skulls exploding.

Separately, Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone arrive at a castle a guy had moved stone by stone from the Bavarian Alps to the Rockies. What, a McMansion wasn't good enough for his human sacrifices and whatnot? Both of them there because this guy, Doctor Nekromantik, abducted a girl from a town nearby. Yet far enough away Elsa found the best approach to be hitching a ride on a private plane owned by vampires, killing the vamps, and jumping out when the plane's over the castle.

I've seen stuff on Tumblr that suggested Europeans didn't grasp how big the U.S. can be, but that's a bit much.

Anyway, while Elsa's prediction the doc will wait until midnight for his big play is correct, she's wrong about what the big play is. He's going to unleash a bunch of monsters from some place called the Suffering Wastes on Earth, in exchange for the secrets of the universe. Or so he says. His plan to betray the creature is somewhat complicated by Elsa and Jack successfully convincing the creature Nekromantik plans to betray it for an entirely different reason. Which is kind of funny, and not a bad twist, actually. I liked that.

End of the day, the problem is mostly successfully resolved, but Elsa's horrified to learn Jack's rocking long hair and a longer beard when he's human. Landy's Elsa is less hard-boiled than the version that's been around since NextWave. It's the same character, but almost like a younger version. The arrogance is more of an act, she's trying for one-liners to sound cool. Just in general, this version feels like she's having to try to act the way she's been written over the last two decades, rather than it being who she is. Which is fine, it probably makes her less abrasive, a little easier to interact with Jack if she's not constantly insulting him about his fur or smell (although she comments on that) or his being a stupid American or whatnot.

Galan takes the approach of coloring most of the comic in blacks and greys, minus some red eyes for shadow monsters. The exception is Elsa, who is always colored in her standard orange jumpsuit and hair. The scenes on the plane are all in color, and the morning after, when it's her and Jack in his human form are, too. Once he transforms again, he goes back to the greyshaded look. So I guess Elsa's in color because she's still human, or occupies the daytime world, while werewolf Jack, Nekromantik, and whatnot don't. Though that wouldn't explain coloring in the vampires on the plane.

Beaver to Fox - Derek Kartun

In the midst of a string of bombings that have tensions with France and without running high, a young man on a motorcycle is hit by a truck. In his possession are official minutes of a government defense meeting he absolutely shouldn't have. It falls to Alfred Baum of the French DST to figure out how the young man (who is killed soon after) got those documents, and what it means.

Kartun is focused on two aspects of the investigation. One is how easily things can change for the better or the worse. Baum's men try on two different occasions to apprehend people connected to young man (and the bombings, as the two are connected). Despite all the manpower he's able to assemble, all the instructions, planning, back-ups to avoid the tail being spotted, both attempts fail miserably. Partially because he and his agency underestimate who they're dealing with, but also, bluntly, because shit happens.

Likewise, things turn because Baum can't let go of an entirely different problem that's been nagging at him, which offers another avenue. Kartun writes Baum as very good at maintaining an outward even keel. Only his wife sees that he's troubled, and that because he complains his liver is bothering him and keeping him from enjoying food as much as he would like. He doesn't lose patience, doesn't press risky plans unless there's no better alternative, and he's realistic about how likely certain actions are to produce results.

Which is an ideal attitude for this work, because Kartun's other area of interest is how much in-fighting and rivalry there is within the government. The DST is only meant to deal with external threats, so they have to tread carefully. Use the police where possible, but not too much, or they'll get in the way and louse things up. Certain people must be handled delicately, because they're too important. The people truly responsible for everything get off scot-free because it would bring too much discredit and embarrassment to the country for them to actually face consequences that would inevitably become public knowledge.

The United States also sticks its nose in, suspecting Soviet involvement. At least the CIA guys do. Kartun uses Kissinger briefly in the book (this is set in the early 1980s, pre-Reagan), and he doesn't buy it, since the political left parties in France seem ready to make major gains in the upcoming elections, but his sage insight (I'm rolling my eyes as I type that) is ignored. Honestly, I was hoping the big thing the bombers had planned to really put the screws to the government was to try and kill Kissinger while he was visiting. It's fiction, it's fine if it succeeded! Preferable, really.

'Vallat, a cadaverous, pinstriped figure with the sorrowful look of a man who had worked too long with the President of France and would shortly die of it, looked at Wavre and Baum dispassionately. He did not want to know why they had questions to ask. He was totally devoid of curiosity and quite without the normal human desire to impart what he himself knew to others.'

Kite (2014)

Sawa's a young woman (India Eisley) trying to kill the mysterious "Emir" responsible for the death of her parents. She's getting some help from her late father's old partner (Samuel L. Jackson), but she's taking a pretty haphazard approach to climbing the organizational ladder, as she can't or won't stop trying to kill each person on the ladder as she meets them. Which wouldn't be the worst approach if she didn't keep screwing up and leaving people alive. Which reduces the effectiveness of her appearance as cover, because now people know there's a young woman running around killing people.

The backdrop of the movie is that Sawa's hooked on a drug called amp. I'm unclear on its effects beyond that it obscures or wipes memories. But she struggles to function without it, so Jackson keeps finding some for her, and at the start of the movie, she claims she barely remembers her parents. She has to verbally remind herself who she's after (The Emir) and why (her parents' death.) In the process of one of her attempted kills going sideways, she meets a boy that claims to know her. The longer she's around him, the more she tries to stay off amp, which allows the fog over her memories to clear.

It probably won't surprise you that, as she regains her memories, Sawa finds what she thought was the truth doesn't quite match what she actually remembers.

Eisley plays Sawa as all jagged edges. She snaps and snarls at people who try to help, plays indifferent when they express concern for her. She's vicious in her killing - several guys in a kitchen get kebab skewers jammed places they'd rather not - but it's controlled. It's not a feral anger of someone in grief, just someone determined to kill these people painfully. Probably because the emotional connection was lost with the memories.

Jackson doesn't get a lot to do with his role. He's either giving Sawa grief about getting sloppy, or answering his current partner's questions with evasive comments or mirrored questions. It's more that as the movie progresses, the way you're meant to view those actions changes. He doesn't change, just the audience perspective.

What I Bought 9/6/2023

Last month the store didn't have any copies of Fantastic Four, this month it was Moon Knight. So instead of the two comics I was hoping for last week, we've got one. And there were actually three out last week I wanted, including the three months late final issue of Nature's Labyrinth. Still, one is better than none.

Fantastic Four #11, by Ryan North (writer), Iban Coello (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The dog and the house just look to photo-realistic next to the Thing. It's like some fumetti, photo-collage effect.

Ben Grimm wakes up alone (except for a dog that had begun hanging around lately) in the FF's temporary home, with said home free-falling through a bottomless pit. As quickly as Ben keeps noticing things that don't match the situation, those things correct themselves. Which is how he figures out someone's really messing with his mind. He eventually breaks through the illusion with the help of the dog, beats the villain and that's that.

And at the end, he finally decides to go ahead and keep the dog. If nothing else, the dog is useful as an excuse to provide exposition, which is most of what it does this issue. The Thing can pretend he's talking to the dog (or that he's just talking out loud to keep focused), which keeps it from feeling too obvious Ryan North is explaining things to us.

Coello's art makes the dog (and the house) look less out of place next to the Thing than the cover does, although he seems to have trouble with how Thing's head sits on his shoulders. Especially in profile, it looks like it just sort of floats above his torso. Mostly when the Thing is looking happy or confused. When he's angry, annoyed or depressed (Coello gets to do a wide range of expressions for the Thing in this issue and makes the most of it), his head seems more in contact with the rest of his body. When he's smiling, Coello draws the skull too round and it's like a melon sitting on the edge of a tabletop.

I was looking forward to a story about Ben thinking his way out of such a strange situation, and while I didn't exactly get what I was looking for, it still highlighted that the Thing is more than just muscle and determination. It's always nice when writers remember Ben Grimm was smart enough to be an astronaut.

Sunday Splash Page #287

 

"Splash Stealer," in Justice League of America #70, by Denny O'Neil (writer), Dick Dillin (penciler), Sid Greene (inker), colorist and letterer unknown

Another survivor of my dad's collection, the one issue of the early (relatively) Justice League of America. I think Gardner Fox liked to come up with threats that required the team to split up, similar to the Golden Age Justice Society, but for this one at least, O'Neil just uses a 4-man roster. Batman had recently teamed-up with the Creeper, and thinks the League should settle whether the guy is good or bad. He's already on the "good" side, so he leaves it to Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and the Atom to investigate (they've at least heard of the Creeper, and Atom references his defeat of Proteus from the end of his brief ongoing series.)

Well that should be straightforward, especially since the Creeper's on the trail of some hoods planning to rob an atomic energy plant. Except a bunch of aliens passed by and tried to establish telepathic contact with a local. They unfortunately found Mind-Grabber Kid (in his first appearance), who, in a fit of teenage pique over his exploits being ignored in favor of a broadcast of Superman and GL playing catch with a comet, tells the aliens Earth is under the iron grip of the brutal Justice League.

You would think as much planet hopping as Superman and Green Lantern did, the aliens would have heard of them. GL even recognizes what planet they're from, but oh well. The aliens of course have special headgear that lets them copy people's powers, so they dispatch the four heroes with ease. Except Superman, who has so many powers the cap of his opponent explodes. Some Silver Age "science" works around that, so it falls to the Creeper and a late to the party Mind-Grabber Kid to fix things up. The Kid learns a lesson, the League conclude the Creeper's OK and let him go on his way.

Since this is the only issue I've seen, I don't know if this is typical for O'Neil's time writing the team or not. It kind of makes the League look incompetent. I know Hal Jordan's an idiot, but shouldn't he be used to dealing with yellow power rings from fighting Sinestro, who actually knows how to use the thing? I like Dick Dillin's art though. Kind of halfway between Gil Kane and Neal Adams (who drew the cover for this issue, with the Creeper playing marionettes with the League), though Dillin doesn't have Adams' dynamism in the layouts. He doesn't opt for the odd postures Ditko would use to make the Creeper seem weirder, but he does have the Creeper move and hunch and leap in markedly different ways from everyone else.

Saturday Splash Page #89

 

"All Aboard?" in Thanos Imperative #2, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Jay David Ramos (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

So, after the conclusion of Ignition, the Cancerverse is invading the 616, lead by a version of Mar-Vell loyal to the Many-Angled Ones. He seeks the Avatar of Death, meaning Thanos, so he can perform a ritual to kill Death in the 616 as well. To that end, he and his "Revengers" are gathering up every "anomaly" person they can find. Like Major Victory, who's from the future, or Namorita who came out of the Fault. 

Thanos is, unhappily for everyone involved, with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who infiltrate the Cancerverse to try and figure out how Death was killed there to possibly undo the process. Meanwhile, Nova is trying to halt the invasion, without much success.

That's basically all the plot there is. The Guardians snoop around the Cancerverse, rendered by Sepulveda and Ramos as a muddy, destroyed mess. I don't know why life overtaking everything results in everything falling apart. I guess if you can't die, you don't worry about protecting yourself from the elements or maintain infrastructure. Drax (donning the classic purple cloak look but still carrying alrge firearms) eventually loses it and tries to re-kill Thanos, only to find he can't (as in, Thanos just regenerates from a skeleton) and ends up dead himself. Nova grabs a bunch of heavy hitters for a surgical strike on Mar-Vell's ship. They mostly get their asses kicked. I don't recall Mar-Vell being enough of a force to shatter the Surfer's board, but I guess that's the boost from the Lovecraftian horrors.

There is a nice bit where the Scarlet Witch is revealed to have been a sleeper agent for the Vision and other artificial intelligences, only pretending to serve Mar-Vell all this time (which was nicer than Wanda had been treated in the Marvel Universe at that point in like 10 years.) but it really does feel like a lot of running in place that could have been pared away.

End result, Thanos pretends to switch sides, offering Mar-Vell the chance to kill him so he can be dead again. I thought the idea was he can't die, so this lets him see the ritual and reverse-engineer it to destroy Mar-Vell. Wrong. What it does is, bring Death from the 616 into the Cancerverse, and she just kills Mar-Vell herself. Which trashes the Many-Angled Ones, since he's their connection or something, and will supposedly cause the collapse of that universe from the immense loss of mass. Seems contrary to how I understand current theories on universal expansion, but sure.

Death basically leaves Thanos, having gotten what she needed, and he's insanely pissed and still unkillable. So Nova and Star-Lord stay behind to try and keep the Mad Titan there until the universe collapses. Otherwise he's headed back to the 616 and everybody's fucked. Nova's got the entirety of the Nova Force and Star-Lord has that damaged Cosmic Cube.

I mentioned last week to keep in mind that, during Ignition, Star-Lord announces the Cube is exhausted. No power left. He and Rocket had been running tests together, so they both know this, and they were telling Moondragon, a telepath with less regard for the sanctity of other's minds than your typical Marvel telepath. No indication he was lying, until it just suddenly has enough for two or three more uses. What? How?

The plot elements don't really add up. Most of the casts of the books Abnett and Lanning had been writing up to that point, the ones we'd presumably be most invested in, are useless. The other Guardians don't get to do much but tag along behind Thanos and Star-Lord. The rest of the Nova Corps is barely involved. Now, that could be by design. We'll see next week that Abnett and Lannig did have a sort of plan behind the Guardians' ineffectiveness.

There is a point made, that this war is on an entirely different level from the previous events. The Cosmic Abstracts, the Celestials and Galactus and whatnot, all show up to confront the invasion from the Cancerverse. None of them bothered when Ultron conquered the Kree with the help of the Phalanx (Annihilation: Conquest), or when Kree and Shi'ar went to war (War of Kings). Galactus was dragged into Annihilus' plan by Thanos' scheming, but the moment he gets free and exerts himself, he wipes out like 80% of Annihilus' army in one shot. The point being, all that stuff was ultimately the concerns of little mortals, and didn't matter a whit to the truly big guns.

This? This requires their involvement. Sepulveda mostly shows them floating there, but the Surfer tells us the Abstracts are fighting on levels mortals can't perceive. Taken from that angle, that this ends with Nova and Star-Lord just trying to slow Thanos down long enough for a collapsing universe to hopefully kill him, could almost be seen as a logical end. They've survived a lot of close calls going back to Annihilus, but this is another scale. Against that, all they can do is fight until they can't any longer.

What I Bought 9/5/2023 - Part 2

I took today off. I originally planned to run some errands and then rest up ahead of a lengthy funtimes driving trip. Instead I'm going to run errands and rest up ahead of a much shorter funtimes driving trip. In the meantime, the other two leftovers from last month, both from Marvel.

Fantastic Four #10, by Ryan North (writer), Leandro Fernandez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Looks like a story Skrull kids tell around the campfire.

The story feels a bit like the sci-fi suspense/horror stuff of the '50s and '60s. Mystery in Space and whatnot. You've got an alien craft with all its inhabitants in stasis save one, who maintains the ship until awakening and training their successor. Except one caretaker finds their ship has simply stopped in space, and all the stars are gone. But there are monsters roaming the ship.

Unlike the aliens, we recognize the Fantastic Four. Like the aliens, we don't know what the FF are doing. Why they seem to be trying to get in. Why they're blocking off sections off the ship. Why they're not doing anything as one caretaker after another loses their mind or dies trying to keep them out.

I don't know that it's an entirely effective approach. I think the reader can see it enough from the aliens' perspective to understand why it's terrifying them, but not so much that it really works that way on the reader. Fernandez helps by typically drawing the FF at a distance, or obscured, so their humanity is de-emphasized. That helps with the notion they're perceived as strange and terrifying by the aliens, though going further with it, like when one caretaker is trying to fend off a bunch of "worms" that are actually Reed's fingers, could have ramped it up even further.

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1, by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada (writers), Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Join the X-Men, learn to walk on air.

So, Kamala Khan's alive again. Good, fine. She's also apparently a mutant, but also an Inhuman. Seems like too many hats, and the comic itself starts with a dream Kamala's apparently had every night since her resurrection where all the hero factions want a piece of her and it's overwhelming. The connection to the Inhumans was one of the least interesting parts of her character under G. Willow Wilson and I don't see that being a mutant is going to be any different, but sure, fine, slap an "X" on her and let's go.

Anyway, Kamala was accepted into a summer program at a university science center. . .funded by ORCHIS. So it's an X-Men undercover mission thing and an educational opportunity! To be fair, Kamala asked to help, unwilling to run and hide from bigots, which is very on-point for her. She decides to go against Emma Frost's advice (always a good choice) and tell Bruno the truth about herself.

Glad to see Vellani and Pirzada aren't throwing Kamala's classic supporting cast away entirely in favor of X-Men. One positive about Ms. Marvel's supporting cast was so many of them weren't costumes. They were just other teenagers and relatives to be part of that side of her life. And the supporting cast still look mostly recognizable. I don't know whether that's Gomez or Gorham, because I think one drew the dream sequence at the start and the other drew the rest of the issue, but I don't know which did which.

The conversation with Bruno is partially interrupted by the arrival of something that looks halfway to being a Deathlok. Lotta tubes and wires, but not quite enough metal parts yet. She's tries to talk with it and gets a hint it's related to whatever ORCHIS is working on, but then it self-destructs and she has to protect a bunch of ungrateful college kids. Still, Kamala's more bothered by those dreams, and will stay up all night playing video games with Bruno to avoid sleep. Although the look on her face in the panel where she suggests the idea is kinda creepy. The wide eyes and smile are starting to veer into rictus grin range, if not quite, "dosed with Joker gas" territory.

We'll see how it goes from here.

Restorative Ecology

Flower, third and final game in the set. You play as a flower petal, that drifts among fields. There are other flowers closed up all around and as you pass by, they open and emit a musical note. If you open all the flowers of a certain type in a given area, it may cause more flowers (usually of a different type) to emerge somewhere nearby. Or it might cause new life to rush over the entire field, restoring color to your surroundings.

A bit like when you'd complete a big mission in The Saboteur, but with less profanity and Nazi-killing. Is that an improvement? I don't know. Depends what you're in the mood for. Watching flower petals make their way across a field can be pretty relaxing.

There's no timer to the game I can see. So, as with Flow or Journey, you can take your time. Nose around for flowers hidden in hollows or beneath rocks to bring life to the maximum extent possible. There may be some sort of scoring system? When a level's completed, you return to a room where there's a collection of flower pots. The flower representing the level just completed will open and some number of leaves will land at the base of the stem. I always got either one or two, and I don't know which is better, or how the number was determined. Not really the point of the game, I'd imagine, and if I'm trying to find every flower, it's out of some completist notion, or simple curiosity at what might happen.

You steer by tilting the controller. The joystick - or any button - can act like a gust of wind that sends you rocketing forward. Otherwise, you just sort of drift, adding petals from the other flowers as you go until you're really steering a big, swirling mass of different colored petals.

That does make it difficult to guide, because I couldn't always tell where the "central" petal was in relation to the flower I was trying to reach. I'd miss flowers and have to swing the mass back around. If you do that too tightly, it seems to sort of "crash" into itself and just float in place. The turn radius of flower petals is lousy, apparently. The game does allow some wiggle room, where it doesn't take touching every flower necessarily to restore or awaken an area.

There's some sort of a story, vaguely, as each level brings you closer to the burnt out, abandoned ruins of a city. The closest thing to an enemy in the game are the broken remains of what look like electricity transmission towers, that can char the petals if you aren't careful (which is where the steering difficulties manifest the most.) Further along, more of the burnt, rusted metal will burst from the ground or canyon walls around you, trying to impede the path. That said, in a straight-line course, it isn't that hard to avoid them.

Overall, Journey is certainly my favorite of the three games. Flow and Flower are pretty even. Which one has the edge probably depends on what I want from a game at a given time.

What I Bought 9/5/2023 - Part 1

The remaining books from August arrived yesterday, not that there were many. We're gonna start with the conclusion of one mini-series, and an issue I missed from July that I missed last month for another.

Grit n Gears #3, by Angel Fuentes (writer), Nahuel SB (artist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer) - Just an ordinary day in the life of a lawman-turned-fugitive.

Screw Driver (or RANGER ONE) rescues Maple from La Tortuga. Takes about six pages, most of those involving him beating up La Tortuga's gang while Maple clings to him like a baby koala. Nahuel uses a bunch of panels in uneven four-side shapes for that fight, although the art for one page is oddly pixellated. Like they tried to increase the size too much.

Rescue complete, Screw Driver's still left with the issue that Maple's mother is dead, and he's got to care for a child in an automaton body. So he does what he can, singing songs from writers that haven't been born yet and trying to keep her from falling down wells and off barns. There's a whole page of him trying to keep her from dying.

But he didn't go unnoticed, and that's how Razorneck learns where he is, so he can show up in issue 4, demanding surrender. What I don't follow is that Razorneck doesn't seem confused that Screw Driver sings songs that haven't been written yet. He's also talking about a "Cowgod", which could either be ominous or hilarious. I don't know which.

Something that didn't come up in issue 4 is that the priest out to kill all the automatons has a man under his command who decided to tinker with some improved designs of Glorianna's he found at her place. For a stronger automaton, and most importantly from the priest's perspective, one he can control utterly. Well sure, if the moron working for him can build it according to the specs.

Fallen #6, by Matt Ringel (writer), Henry Ponciano (artist), Toben Racicot (letterer) - That's not hygienic for anyone involved.

Having figured out the Egyptian gods are behind all the killing, and that Athena's working with them, Clay and the few survivors of the various pantheons try to get their shit together to bring it crashing down. Fortunately, Clay's still on good terms with Hephaestus (rocking a Hulkamania tank top), and he's able to melt one of those god-killing daggers into bullets. Six, to be exact. Better than nothing.

Hades has figured things out independently, so he joins in as they storm the tower. The Egyptians are trying to bring over the other members of their pantheon that didn't make it, because they believe the serpent that will end everything, that was the reason they descended to the mortal realm in the first place, is on its way and possibly killing those other gods. Not clear if there's proof beyond all these mythologies having something about a great serpent or dragon in them.

Clay stops Osiris, thanks to Osiris making the mistake of putting on his godly attire. Really pumped himself up, made the fall almost inevitable. Although I notice in the panel where he first aims the gun, the sound effect implies he cocked the hammer, but Ponciano draws it as uncocked. But rather than enter the afterlife to be with his family's that's been waiting thousands of years, he lets Hades talk him into coming back. Because Hades somehow didn't catch Athena. Then again, we've only seen snippets of Clay's life as a soldier in Ancient Greece, so it's hard to really full too much of a pull between him and his family.

Maybe the fourth issue, which I still don't have, would have explained it further, but the whole subplot about Loki and Apollo and their Ambrosia drug felt like it went nowhere. Kind of extraneous to the whole thing. Maybe it was just a hook Ringel used as a way for Clay to be reinserted into the gods' affairs after he was given the boot. Maybe it'll be relevant at some later point, because the bit with the FBI at the end implies the book might return at some point in the future. That, and Clay not staying dead because there's work to do. And his seemingly calling lightning as though he's got some of Zeus' juice.