Sunday Splash Page #303

 

"Hide and Seek," in Legion of Super-Heroes #122, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft

Welcome, to The Year 3000! I don't have much Legion of Super-Heroes stuff, and it's all from the Abnett/Lanning team, but we're giving it the next 5 weeks here on Sunday Splash Page.

After a main feature story in Legion of Super-Heroes Secret Files #2, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning took over writing both Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires. I know, I'm struggling to conceive a world where the market supported two Legion books. Although it only did that for another 4 months, so maybe I shouldn't bother.

Most of the brief runs on both books were taken up with the "Blight" storyline. A fore swoops in and takes control of the Earth, isolating by disabling the stargates. The Blight takes control of members of the Legion, using them to bring captives to "The Stem" a mysterious tower where no one is sure what's going on. A few Legionnaires are left hiding in the shadows, doing their best to bring civilians to safety, but running low on hope, until reinforcements arrive.

Abnett and Lanning used a similar outline for Annihilation: Conquest when they were writing for Marvel about 7 years later. It's not a perfect mirror. The Blight are a species so advanced the only thing left to conquer was death. So one of them seems to have contacted Entropy itself, turning them into essentially vampires. The Phalanx didn't have much of a goal until they encountered Ultron's consciousness and were subsumed. And he was trying to work towards the perfect melding of organic and technological. But the heroes being scattered, outnumbered, cut off from any retreat. Faced with former friends forcibly converted to enemies.

The Legion, being the Legion, find a way to free a sort of sentient energy species the Blight had enslaved, enabling it to reach the next stage in its life cycle in a brilliant display of light and color (although it doesn't really come off in the art. A few panels of a cream-colored ribbon traversing a stellar sky.) Whereas the Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova basically wrecked Ultron and did their best to wipe out the Phalanc, so different strokes for different folks.

There are a lot of characters, but Abnett and Lanning tend to break the team up into smaller groups and focus on one or two. Maybe write an issue from one specific character's perspective. I don't know most of the casts' backstories, but I get enough about their powers and personalities for it to work. There's a fair amount of romantic drama and general angst flying around in the background. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad thinking about marriage. Ultra Boy being a little too clingy with Phantom Girl. I didn't feel wildly invested in all that, but it adds depth, and helps to illustrate the personalities.

Saturday Splash Page #105

 

"Dead Lock," in Superman #213, by Cary Bates (writer), Curt Swan (penciler), Jack Abel (inker), colorist and letterer unknown

After DC's various war comics, Superman books probably made up the largest chunk of my dad's comics. Most are near the tail-end of the "superdickery" years. Superman still occasionally plays tricks on Lois or Jimmy, or we get the "imaginary" stories where Superman's married with kids, or loses his powers and memories for years because he got exposed to 14 kinds of Kryptonite all at once.

But in most, to the extent he's played as a god thwarting silly mortals' attempts to best him, he tricks the villains instead. In this story, Superman needs the mysterious vault open, for. . .reasons. And for other reasons. . . he needs someone else to do it. Enter Luthor, who considers the fact the vault will open on the occasion of Superman's death a bonus.

In one of the others, Superman matches wits with a pair of mysterious bombers, whose clues require him to research an absurd amount of information on everything from coins to trains (at one point he reads the entire contents of the Library of Congress.) The bombers turn out to be aliens, who intend to drain all the (useless) knowledge from Superman's mind to place it in slaves. Superman thwarts their brain drain with, sigh, super-willpower, but lets the aliens escape thinking they've won. His reasoning (as explained to hapless dope Jimmy Olsen) being, they'll fill those slaves' minds with the equivalent of static, making them useless. Those that buy these people will be really pissed with the ones selling them. So the problem takes care of itself, Jimmy!

Yeah, great work there Superman. Sure hope no one kills those slaves out of frustration or anything.

Clearly, the Superman stuff is not my favorite. Even as a little kid reading these, the notion of "super-willpower" was just too silly to roll with. When it seems like half the stories have to take away or otherwise nerf his powers just to make the conflict take more than five panels to resolve, that seems like a problem. So it's probably not much of a surprise the only other issue of Superman I own isn't really about him. It's the issue #660, where Kurt Busiek positions the Prankster as a showman who devises distractions for other criminals. Superman shows up, but he's almost like the ultimate audience or critic. Someone the Prankster has to keep sufficiently engaged, a true challenge.

What I Bought 12/27/2023

Well, I hoped to have more than one of the three books from this week for today, but no luck. I should have some more of the last holdouts from this month by Monday, but we'll have to see if I make it back from traveling to another gig with Alex this evening.

Coda #4, by Si Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/colorist), Patricio Delpeche (color assists), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Hum looks like he needs some coffee.

This issue is related to us, via Serka telling it to the Lunar Magus, upon whose prophecies Mildew is basing everything he's used to build his cult. So it details how Serka and Hum went searching for the Magus, who of course has three different hideaways. Serka is rather excited for the adventure, the monster fighting, puzzles to decipher and traps to avoid.

Hum is busy insisting they aren't on a quest and wondering why Serka's intent on doing this. Each of them is wondering about both Mildew (preparing some big show for his starving fanatics) and the Gnomads (gaining forces on their march to kill Mildew and his bunch.) Shown via glimpses through some crystal ball thing they brought to find the Magus. 

But really, it comes down to the child. Or children. Each of them wants this to time to be the time that works, and each wants a better world for their child (or children.) Hum thinks the way to that is forgetting all the magic and prophecies and just focusing on living and working. Though he doesn't turn away from the trip, doesn't try to talk Serka out of it. Serka doesn't want there to be another Whitlord, the dark kings that sold her people on a great reward in another world if they helped destroy this one.

There's a couple of lovely double-pages with small panels on either side of them couple talking. There's always a panel on the left side that shows one of their faces and just beside it, part of a larger image, in a faded colors of memory, is the same character as they were before. Serka as a crazed warrior in obsidian armor, spurred on by her Whitlord. Hum, an uncertain bard in the shadow of his king as said king proclaims they'll all fight to the death. Neither of them wants any more of that.

And I think Serka also hoped this would make certain the child (or children) survived birth. I don't know if she hoped the Lunar Magus had the skills to help a half-urken, half-human child survive, or if it was a belief that the quest itself would somehow carry the day. She mentions thinking this would make each of them their best selves, so maybe she thought that would help.

It didn't, so all that's left is to go home and watch another cycle of bloodshed gear up.

Drummed Outta Dunwall

Dishonored 2 is set years after the first game. Emily Kaldwin's ruled for some time when she's overthrown by a consortium of influential people, led by a woman called Delilah. Delilah has strange powers like Corvo did. More critically, Delilah claims to the illegitimate daughter of Emily's grandfather, who was cast out alongside her washerwoman mother after Emily's mother pinned the blame for a broken dish on Delilah.

I suppose it's meant to challenge the image Emily has of her mother, who was assassinated to kick off the first game. No doubt, Emily had nearly deified her mother's memory since then, but the game overestimates how much we as the player do that, or how much we care. Jessamine was herself a child when she wrecked Delilah's life. I didn't listen to the Heart very often, so if Jessamine went in-depth on her motivations for telling that lie, that it was something other than a child making a panicked decision in a moment of fear, I missed it.

Nor did I particularly care. The story takes Emily to a land far south of Dunwall, where Delilah built her power. It serves to show Emily the rot that's been allowed under her rule, that's she remained ignorant or unconcerned with because ruling is so often boring. But it also strongly suggests neither Delilah or her cronies have the best interests of their new subjects in mind. Duke Abel works them like slaves in silver mines while he resides in a delightful coastal villa. The doctor at the medical hospital, in addition to having developed some Jekyll/Hyde serum, experiments on the patients. Jindosh uses people as prey for his mechanical men.

That's what I was concerned about, ousting them. Whatever Emily's mother may have done decades ago didn't matter to me at all. Delilah could go cry about it in Hell.

That said, I did try to apply non-lethal approaches for the first two (the doctor and Jindosh,) on the grounds they might be useful. The doctor was working on something to control the bloodfly epidemic, and I'm sure Jindosh could have managed something. After I botched both attempts, I decided to just kill the lot of 'em.

You get the choice of playing as Corvo again, or Emily (who's been trained by Corvo for years.) I chose Emily because, what the hell, I played as Corvo in the first game. Having not played as Corvo in this game, I don't know if Delilah tries to sway/taunt him with her tale of injustice. My feeling is, Corvo would give less of a shit than I did. But, having been falsely accused himself, maybe not.

The game also gave the option of rejecting the Outsider's offer of power and assistance. I did not decline the offer, because I struggled mightily just getting out of the castle to a friendly ship that would carry Emily to safety. I'm not sure how I would have gotten through some of the later levels without powers. The Jindosh estate in particular, was a complete clusterfuck even with powers.

At least, if you're trying to remain undetected and limit the fatalities, which I was. A few missions went pretty well - attacking the coven of witches in the museum was fairly quiet - and others would go well until a certain point. Then I'd make noise in the wrong place and either end up running (which attracted a lot of attention) or fighting my way out (which attracted a lot of attention.)

I know, I could just load from my last save. I did that a few times when things had been going particularly well or felt I'd boxed myself in (Jindosh's manor.) But the load times were lengthy enough (not a patch on Metro: Exodus in that regard, but still) I didn't want to go to that well too often.

The gameplay's much the same as the first game. First-person perspective, lots of different ways to get from Point A to Point B. Kill people with swords or guns or explosives. Choke them out, or put them to sleep, or just go around them. If you accept the Outsider's gifts, then you've got options with all the different powers. Though, I didn't unlock several of those, because they seemed more complicated than I wanted to bother with.

I expected a little more from the Outsider at the end of the game about the effect my choices had. Like how killing the doctor meant that entire district became overrun with bloodflies, those who could escape doing so, the rest dying. Maybe it would have focused on those sorts of things if I'd left them alive. The game says taking the nonlethal option results in a less cynical ending, but I never took the nonlethal option for Delilah's crew, and it didn't seem all that cynical.

I did avoid allying with either the Overseers or the Howlers when I needed into Artemis' manor. The Howlers are a gang of thugs (some also empowered by the Outsider), and the Overseers are religious zealots. I didn't have to kill anyone for either group, which suited me fine. I'm not proud of how long it took me to figure out the riddle of the Jindosh lock on the manor door, but it's not like it was timed. The important thing is, I got it.

Make March Marvel?

Marvel solicited several mini-series for March that I'm at least interested in. Which is good, because I'm just not seeing a lot anywhere else that's catching my eye. Feels like the proportion (if not the raw total) of publishers aimed strictly at young readers is up. Which is a good idea - get kids to enjoy reading - but not helpful to me.

So, what's new that's coming out? Let's start with the stuff that's not Marvel. Mad Cave has the first issue of Morning Star, by Tim Daniel, David Andry and Marco Finnegan. A mother and her kids travel to the forest where her firefighter husband perished the year before and are menaced by something. The solicit is pretty vague on that count. Scout Comics has Michela Cacciatore, Lesa and Trent Miller's one-shot Commercial Space, a couple trying to keep an office park they inherited from being foreclosed.

MIT Press has Robin Cousin's The Phantom Scientist, about a secretive research facility where there's some stuff going on that has some catastrophe every seven years.

OK, Marvel stuff. Stephanie Phillips and Paolo Villanelli are working on Black Widow and Hawkeye, a 4-issue mini-series where Hawkeye's accused of assassinating someone. There's also Jackpot and Black Cat, another 4-issue mini-series, and holy crap, MJ's superhero costume is not great. (Also, what's going on with the ladies' faces in that Adam Hughes cover?) Still, I don't know Celeste Bronfman or Emilio Laiso, but it might be worth a look. There's another Ms. Marvel, I don't know if it's a mini-series of what, with the writers of the most recent mini-series, but also Copperhead artist Scott Godlewski. I'd rather just have the last few issues of Copperhead, but don't expect I'm ever getting it.

Jed MacKay's bringing back the old Secret Defenders bit in Doctor Strange, using the characters he's written a lot recently: Black Cat, Hunter's Moon and Taskmaster. I didn't love his Taskmaster mini, but if this is a one-off, I might grab it.

Marvel also solicited issue 1 of a new Deadpool book, by Cody Ziglar and Roge Antonia, but it doesn't actually come out until April. They did the same thing with the 4th issue of Vengeance of the Moon Knight, and I would like them to knock it off. Just list the books in the solicitations of the month they're actually coming out.

Anything wrapping up? Deer Editor should be shipping its third and final issue, but that's it.

What's that leave? A Haunting on Mars is at issue 4, but only half the crew are dead. That's a low mortality rate. Vengeance of the Moon Knight is up to issue 3, and Fantastic Four #18 is focused on Franklin Richards.

Power Pack: Into the Storm was finally revealed to be a 5-issue mini-series. Likewise, Night Thrasher is apparently a 4-issue mini-series. Not sure why it took 3 months to reveal that about Power Pack. Were they going to extend it is pre-orders were really high? What am I saying, of course they would. Run it into the ground, that's the Marvel way.

Volume 6 of The Boxer has Yu trying to rise up the weight classes, while volume 5 of No Longer Allowed in Another World has Sensei dealing with one of the outworlders fixing to take over everything.

And that was about it. Just not a lot going on at the moment.

Room for One More (1952)

Cary Grant and Betsy Drake play a married couple (they apparently were married at this time, so maybe not that much acting?) with a busy house. Three kids, a big dog, a cat that has a bunch of kittens. Into this chaos is added first one child, then another, because Drake's heart must have more holes than a colander from how much it bleeds.

Jane (Iris Mann) bounced from foster family to foster family, and it shows in her hostility and wariness towards any action. Hiding leftovers from dinner under her pillow, reacting to being asked to help with clean-up by insisting she's no servant. She sleeps with the light on, and recoils from Drake's initial displays of affection. Later, they add Jimmy John (Clifford Tatum). Initially just bringing him along on their 2-week vacation. He wears legs braces, talks very little, and spends his time between the hospital and school.

In each case it's Drake who manages the thaw, as Grant maintains a skeptical distance, at one point asking in relation to Jane if Dillinger ever had a kid. With Jane, Drake helps her get some babysitting jobs to have money of her own. With Jimmy, she takes the more unconventional route of taking him for a drive, asking if he can drive, and when he won't respond, taking her hands off the steering wheel.

Grant plays the father as put-upon and sarcastically grouchy. Horny too, as his attempts at some alone time with Drake are constantly thwarted by one kid's issue or another's. When he tries to explain to Jimmy where babies come from, Drake finds the diagram he drew (which we don't see) in the sand of a woman. When told it's a poor drawing, Grant replies, 'I was working from memory.'

Still, he's slowly won over, especially as he sees all the kids starting to get along. The movie glosses over some of that development, which makes it seem a little abrupt, especially with Jane. But we see the start of the thaw, and by the time Jimmy's added to the mix, we see how well Jane's integrated into the family.

What I Bought 12/22/2023

I know it's already passed for some of you, but if you celebrate, Merry Christmas. Or a pleasant and/or unobtrusive December 25th. I was hoping to pick up both comics from last week on the way to my dad's, but only managed one.

Uncanny Spider-Man #5, by Si Spurrier (writer), Lee Garbett and Simone Buonfantino (artists), Matt Milla (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Kurt, the suit was a gift. Try to take better care of it.

The captured Nightcrawler is, to the surprise of no one other than ORCHIS, actually Mystique. Nightcrawler is pretending to be the mutantphobe on Silver's team. Kurt, his mom, and his girlfriend fight it out with a techno-organic'ed up Vulture and the Hounds. It's not going well until Kurt and the Bamf ghost free Warlock, who can at least cure the Hounds. Vulture's more of a problem, but Kurt's magic sword takes care of that.

Buonfantino takes over the art chores right after Kurt defeats the Vulture, so at least they waited until we're into the wrap-up. Everyone's a bit sharper-edged, bigger eyes. For Garbett's part, either he or Milla obscure or blur his linework on Warlock, especially when he's first freed. Makes him a bit seem malleable, suggesting he's not really holding a distinct shape in that moment. Things are shifting and rearranging.

After, Kurt decides he's got to get back into fighting for mutants, but Spidey lets him keep the suit. And the Bamf ghost is a part of Legion, while the rest of him hides. . .somewhere. I'm assuming the part about hiding with Kurt's heart and hope was metaphorical.

So, what do we got now that this is done? Kurt's rediscovered his resolve after having his self tampered with and manipulated. He's willing to get back in the fight. The specifics of Nightcrawler's birth have been retconned for at least the third time, with at least partially the goal of making Mystique less of a shit parent, and I guess codifying something Claremont says he always intended or wanted to do.

You could argue ORCHIS was dealt a loss, but the X-writers seem so unclear about how ORCHIS was planning to go about their goals (or even what their goals are, since the machines would ostensibly have a different goal than the "humanity defenders") that's difficult to square. How big a deal was infecting mutants with the techno-organic virus to make them mutant hunters to ORCHIS? How much does losing that actually hurt them?

My impression of the current situation is there are a bunch of different forces fighting a bunch of different parts of ORCHIS all over the place, with very little coordination on either side. Which could be the heroes dealing with problems as they arise, as has historically been the case in superhero comics, while ORCHIS is some kitchen nightmare scenario, with a dozen cooks all running in a dozen contradictory directions. So nobody's really making any progress in any direction.

Sunday Splash Page #302

 

"Clank the Mecha-Dragon," in Legend of the Shield Annual #1, by Adam Blaustein (writer),  J.J. Birch (penciler), John Lowe (inker), Tom Ziuko (colorist), Clem Robins and Albert DeGuzman (letterers)

The Impact! line lasted long enough for one round of Annuals. As was the custom at the time, pioneered by such beloved storylines as Atlantis Attacks! and Bloodlines, all six annuals were part of a larger, overarching storyline called "Earth Quest."

As outlined in the first of the annuals (The Web Annual), a villain called the Templar wanted to bring about ecological catastrophe in his belief that would prompt the emergence of "the Grail", actually an alien device that could restore the entire world. The Templar hoped it could do the same for him, since he was a large dude who looked like a 2-armed version of Goro from Mortal Kombat.

The other annuals only sort of stuck to this. For the Shield, the "ecological catastrophe" is in the background, as it's snowing in Arizona when it's supposed to be 60 degrees out. Isn't that winter in Arizona? (Yes, I know they get snow in the mountains, I've been to Flagstaff. Lowell Observatory, represent!)

The "grail" part comes in as Joe wrecks some robot Vikings meant to be part of some big sci-fi/fantasy convention thing and has to help out to pay off the damage. The son of the guy behind it was a techno-villain in The Comet, and someone sent him a "grailquest" program to add, which unfortunately, is a rapidly evolving artificial intelligence that thinks it really is supposed to kill the "intruders" (read:convention-goers.)

The Annuals also shared secondary stories, as there's one with an academic discussing the history of The Black Hood as a notable figure through the ages, and another about the legacy of the Shield in the years between the original and Joe Higgins. Although the Shield's own Annual doesn't have a chapter of that history, oddly enough, instead using an adventure of the Web set in 1965, revolving around a space capsule falling out of control. I wonder if that was a mistake and the chapters got switched, or they didn't want to overload either book with past adventures of the lead heroes?

Saturday Splash Page #104

 

"Echo Chamber", in Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 #5, by Fred van Lente (writer), Francis Portella (penciler), Terry Pallot (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer)

Released in last 2007/early 2008, MODOK's 11 was, as the title suggests, a heist story, but with super-villains. MODOK recruits a bunch of villains or mercs - Armadillo, Chameleon, Nightshade, Living Laser, Mentallo, Puma, Rocket Racer and the Spot - to infiltrate a highly-sophisticated other-dimensional research vessel called the Infinicide, and recover the Hypernova. With a name like that, it has to be cool.

In return, the thieves will receive 5 million dollars, which all of them need for one reason or another, as van Lente and Portella outline in the first issue. Nightshade needs it for research. Puma needs it for his legal defense. Rocket Racer (who van Lente writes as a stuttering, cowardly mess of a momma's boy for some reason) needs it for said momma's medical bills. Armadillo just wants to stop wrestling for pesos.

You might notice that, even counting MODOK, I didn't list 11 characters. Fittingly for a heist story, there are wildcards involved. At least one character is not who they appear to be, and the loyalties of others are in question, because MODOK's not the only one who wants the prize. van Lente leverages the double-crosses and reveals pretty well, especially because after a while, even some of the crew are getting frustrated with their backstabbing coworkers.

Portella's work is reminiscent of Steve McNiven's. Not as detailed or photorealistic. I don't think it's as confident with the linework, either. Gets a bit fussy around people's faces sometimes, unnecessary lines. but able to handle a variety of different characters. Lots of fights to draw, but also a lot of reaction panels, what with all the betrayals. So many outraged faces to draw.

Random Back Issues #121 - Avengers #1.1

He's fuckin' awesome. Next question.

This was basically a mini-series, retconned into the Avengers' past to set up a larger story Waid was doing with the actual Avengers book (I think this was the volume where Spider-Man was funding the team, before Peter lost all the money Ock made him.) It starts with the four original Avengers trouncing a Masters of Evil consisting of the Enchantress and Executioner (good choices), but also the Melter and Black Knight (oof).

"48 Hours Later," Iron Man's handing the keys to the mansion to Captain America, because the rest of the team is taking time off. They have too much personal stuff to focus on being Avengers, but Cap has no personal life, so he's the perfect choice to lead the people they accepted onto the roster without asking him! Captain America doesn't even know who any of them are, which is kind of hilarious.

Even better, Iron Man set up a press conference for two hours later, so Cap can introduce the team (which he describes as a 'carny with a bow and arrow, a super-speed keg of dynamite and a bombshell whose powers sometimes backfire') to the world. But he takes too long, and Hawkeye seizes the initiative, creating opportunities for each of them to show off their abilities.

One reporter's not on-board, pointing out Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were working with Magneto just last month. Everybody was in a big hurry in the 1960s. Cap tries to wave it off with them being pawns, but doesn't have an answer to a follow-up question about the Avengers' vetting process. Because, "Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp accepted the first costumed folks to knock on the door" wouldn't do much to quell concerns.

Hawkeye does a little better when asked about attacking Stark Industries (and that reporter doesn't know it was on the say-so off a Soviet spy), but his smooth answers get the media wondering if he's trying to take over being the leader. Especially when Captain America's sticking to stiff no comments, and Wanda storms off after being questioned on whether she took an oath to subjugate humans. This leaves all three newbies are considering bailing, but Wanda convinces Pietro they need to see this through. Clint, meanwhile, is won over by the fact he's got a butler now. Poor Jarvis (he gets some revenge later.)

No time for lobster (which would probably be Namor's pals anyway), here come the Frightful Four! Fresh off crushing the FF on some deserted island (Fantastic Four #38, according to a by-Gawd editor's note), the Wizard wants to make more of a public show. So he, Medusa, Sandman, and Paste-Pot Pete show up on the Avengers' lawn. Cap makes a lot of wrong calls on who should fight who - weird to see a version of Captain America inexperienced enough at this stuff to make that sort of tactical goof - the Kooky Quartet demonstrate zero teamwork, and the fight's over in two pages.

The Four don't even bother to kill them, content to leave the Avengers beaten in their own driveway. The team would engineer a rematch a few issues later, but they're getting an artificial boost which makes it a cakewalk. Too bad, it feels like a really interesting match-up, 4 vs 4.

{2nd longbox, 9th comic. Avengers #1.1, by Mark Waid (writer), Barry Kitson (penciler), Mark Farmer (inker), Jordan Boyd (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)}

Seek the Rime and the Reason

On the grind from moon-up to moon-down.

Rime begins with a boy washing ashore on an island. There's a path leading from the beach uphill, and a white tower seemingly just beyond, but you don't have to go there. At least, not right off. You can pick your way along the beach to the right or the left, even swim a bit in the ocean (the jellyfish will let you know when it's time to turn back.)

But at some point, you scale the hill and find a statue missing some pieces that go around it. Finding the pieces brings a cheerful little fox to life to guide you, but it turns out that tower is much further away than you first thought.

This first part of Rime is serene. The fox may yip to encourage you to follow, but you're free to go any direction you can manage. Take your time, enjoy the scenery. Day and night will pass whether you're going anywhere or not, but it doesn't impact the gameplay. This is not the Castlevania game where everything becomes much more difficult at night. There's no permanent death; if you fall from too great a height, you simply reappear where you were before the plunge. If it visually reminds me a bit of Ico, the pace reminds me more of Journey.

As you roam, you may find other objects. Children's toys, or mysterious conch shells you play a tune with. Odd keyholes you peer through for a vision of. . .something. The story of a boy with a red cloak not unlike yours. The only problem I had was, at times it isn't clear when a path leads to something like that, or to the next place you need to go to advance. So there were things I missed simply because I picked the path that leads you forward and couldn't find a way back later. Granted, that's only a problem if you have that desire to collect all the things, as I sometimes do.

There are puzzles, but most aren't complicated. Doors that open when in shadow, so you need to create a shadow. Arrange blocks to access a switch or statue that reacts to you shouting. Move glowing orbs between different pedestals to get things open the way you need them. Sometimes it's a matter of climbing along ledges or steps to reach a different access point. Again, there's rarely a ticking clock on these things; you can usually stand there and study it as long as you want before actually trying.

I thought, upon reaching the tower, that I was basically done. In which case, it wouldn't be a very long game. But that's only the first step. You still need to climb the tower. Things get a bit more complicated, but not to a degree where you're likely to struggle. There is a large angry, skull-headed pterodactyl that torments you for a time, as well as some odd shadow things. But again, if the pterodactyl grabs you (because you were out from under cover too long) you just reappear the last place you were safe. 

The shadows shy away from you at first, even as you cringe at the sight of them. Later they become aggressive. Pursuing you and draining the color from you if you get too close. You can disperse them with a burst of light from certain orbs you find, but in most cases, they reform quickly. By the end, as you run around a labyrinth of walls, stairs and arches in the pouring rain, they simply watch you pass.

It's not a relaxing game, because the camera will often make you aware of how frightened or tired your character looks as they trudge through the rain or dark caverns full of angry shadows. You want to try and push the kid forward to a safer place, but also not drive him into the danger that's in the way (even knowing he'll just pop back up if you screw up.) It is a lovely game, though.

What I Bought 12/15/2023

Owing to tagging along with Alex on the Quest for Archaic Turntables, I hit up the comic shop in the next town over again last week, and found both the comics I wanted. Was that worth the 5 hours in the car, dealing with every driver on Interstate 70 having lost their minds? Eh, hard to say.

Moon Knight #30, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Come on Marc, you get let a little thing like multiple bullet wounds stop you?

Plesko monologues about how he just really likes to study the horrible things people do to each other. He worked with Bushman after the guy appeared to kill Marc, then helped Moon Knight later on. But he's tired of being an observer, hence the plan to drive the entire city murderously insane. Although that feels like he's still an observer, especially since he flies off in a helicopter, but I guess it's a matter of how much control the average person will have over themselves and what they do when the plan goes live.

Either way, no one can get to Marc to help, and he's bleeding out. Rosenberg, who has mostly kept the colors starkly defined in this series, matching the sharp edges of Cappuccio and Sabbatini's art, does a lot more blurring here. Not just the bloodstains on Marc's costume, or the smudged look of Zodiac and Plesko's masks. There's a lovely couple of pages of Marc asking Khonshu for help as he tries to move. Where the bid-skeleton's mostly been rendered in sharp detail up to this point in the series, here he's swirls of light and dark taking the shape of a beak or talons. Moon Knight's cloak seems to get bigger and heavier, weighing him down. It's a lovely couple of pages of a self-destructive guy at the end of his rope.

But with Jake and Steven urging him on, Marc drags himself to the control panel and blows the whole thing up, and him with it. Right. Sure. I note here that in issue 28, we saw Eight-Ball crawling through ventilation ducts without an explained purpose, then never saw him again until the last page of this issue, when we see he and the rest of the cast are apparently keeping the Midnight Mission going.

As for Zodiac, he didn't realize there's no more resurrection for Moon Knight, and makes a deal with the Midnight Mission where it lets him leave. To hunt and torture Plesko to death, apparently. So he's still on the loose, which is, unsatisfying to say the least. I hope he's not going to start calling himself Moon Knight, that would be obnoxious, even if it feels fitting for such a wannabe edgelord character.

Blood Run #1, by Evan K. Pozios (writer), Stefano Cardoselli (artist), Lettersquids (letterer) - I would say parallel parking that thing would be a pain, but I imagine the driver just blows up cars until there's a line of open spots.

Blood Run is a car race between a bunch of weirdos and their souped-up, heavily armed machines. There's a near constant string of commentary by an unseen announcer, making a constant string of sly jokes (using the term loosely) and puns. So, about as annoying as your typical pro wrestling announcer.

The main character, to the extent there is one, is Avalon Red, a bubblegum popping redhead in a boxy muscle car, but Pozios and Cardoselli surround her with a bunch of other unusual vehicles, their drivers given some brief introduction. Ice cream man, sheriff, mortician, trashmen, genius daughter of a time-traveler and a horndog stock car racer. Wait, what?

There's not much to it beyond the announcer describing these characters and the action, while we alternate between overhead or profile views of the cards (which are mostly muddy-colored outlines) and close-ups of the drivers. For most of them, that means close-ups of their deaths, while for Red, it mostly means close-ups of her glaring or blowing a bubble. Cardoselli still has an exaggerated, selectively simple style. Meaning, when he wants to go into more detail, the design on Red's shirt, the specific number of teeth one of the trashmen has, he'll do it. But when he doesn't think he needs it, stuff can really become just vague shapes in one color.

There's a few pages near the end about a specific grudge Red has against the trashmen (and vice versa), but characterization and plot are thin on the ground. The last page offers a reason for that, and I don't know how I liked it. Taken on its own terms, it works with the comic, it's that my expectations going in didn't match what Pozios and Cardoselli were looking to do.

The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man - W. Bruce Cameron

Ruddy McCann's life is going nowhere fast. He's working as a repo man in the small Michigan town where he grew up, trying to deal (or not) with a big mistake he made in the past. Then he has a strange dream about being coldly murdered by two men he's never met, and not long after that, he starts hearing a voice in his head. A voice that insists its name is Alan Lottner.

Slowly, grudgingly, Ruddy starts to dig into the matter of whether Alan really existed, and if so, what happened to him. This among attempts to get a vehicle from a stubborn guy, and to help the people closest to him in his life. Ruddy's sister is trying to make the family bar more upscale, more family-oriented. His friend Jimmy can't stop doing dumb shit. The middle-aged married couple that come to the bar can't stop coming up with terrible get-rich-quick schemes they want Ruddy to help with.

It's a curious approach, because it paints Ruddy as someone who wants to try and help the people he cares about, even though there's little going on in his own life to suggest he's got any business doling out life advice. It also means Cameron goes through long stretches where Alan's situation is less of a mystery to be solved, and more an excuse to have a character to give Ruddy grief inside his head. Not so much a heckler as a harsh critic.

Cameron also establishes Alan can only see what Ruddy's looking at, and while Ruddy hears Alan inside his head, Alan can't hear Ruddy unless the repo man speaks aloud. So there are a lot of scenes of Ruddy getting annoyed and then realizing people are looking at him like he's crazy. Each one is usually over quickly enough to not be too annoying, but your mileage may vary.

None of the bits that seem intended to make the reader laugh landed with me, but they do establish the usual stakes in Ruddy's life, and also that Ruddy seems content to stay right where he is. Everyone else in his life is trying to improve their lot. Granted, most of them are doing so in the stupidest or laziest ways possible, but they're trying to grab something that will bring them happiness. Ruddy's content to chug along in the rut he occupies.

Point being, there are times you'd forget there was a mystery to solve at all. Unless it was the mystery of how Ruddy can un-fuck his life. But Cameron doesn't write Ruddy as unusually bright, or terribly interested in solving a crime. Probably because he is bright enough to know this is out of his wheelhouse. So the missteps, the screw-ups, the constant putting of foot in mouth around the sheriff, those at least fit someone who is trying to do the right thing with a minimal investment, at least at first.

There's also a subplot where Ruddy met Alan's now grown-up daughter before Alan's voice appeared. So Ruddy's fumbling about, trying to be witty or charming while Alan alternately mourns missing her childhood, or tsks disapprovingly about Ruddy - whose life Alan's become well-acquainted with -  getting near his daughter.

'"No. You're right. I didn't create you out of my imagination. You lived, you sold real estate, you ironed your pants."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've just never seen so many creases on a living person. You looked like you could give someone a paper cut."'

Second Course

Universal Soup Philosophy is gaining wider acceptance, although there have been recent schisms about whether the firmament is cream of chicken or french onion. We don't speak of the tomato soup heretics.

Volume 2 of Crazy Food Truck starts with Gordon and Arisa escaping Gordon's former subordinate, Lieutenant, I'm sorry, Major Kyle. It briefly seems like this might become a manhunt story, but because Arisa acts in a manner never before observed in the "dolls", Kyle requests to back off and just observe for the time being.

What that means in practice is most of this volume is still short adventures of Gordon and Arisa making different kinds of food out of the bizarre wildlife. A trip through the remnants of an old volcanic eruption nets them some crabs. It also nets Gordon a cold, which carries over into their attempts to capture a "camelpig." That story's notable in that Arisa looks after him while he's sick, furthering the behavior that intrigued Major Kyle, and Gordon starts teaching her how to prepare food rather than just inhale it.

Ogaki also devotes one chapter to what Major Kyle and his second Tanaka get up to when they aren't chasing a general that's supposed to be dead. They're part of some larger organization that insists its job is to manage, not control (at least, that's how the Major defines it.) This seems mainly to be charting possible resources and trying to troubleshoot with hostile communities.

Added to their little troop is Myna, Arisa's younger sister. Ogaki writes her as very serious and thoughtful, possibly because people treat as the young child she (chronologically) is. But she's also undergone extensive learning since she was 2, including over 1,000 hours of 'simulated tree and mountain climbing.' Which also neatly hints at what her life (and Arisa's, prior to escape) must have been like.

The two groups meet up again at the end of this volume, after Gordon and Arisa's quest for sushi runs afoul of a small kingdom that doesn't welcome outsiders. But that conflict won't be resolved until volume 3.

Sunday Splash Page #301

 

"Compromising Position," in Legend of the Shield #10, by Grant Miehm (writer/artist), Mark Waid (writer), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Albert DeGuzman (letterer)

When DC decided to try and revive the old Archie heroes, Legend of the Shield was one of the first two series. It ran 16 issues, which was middle of the pack for the Impact! line, and was centered primarily on Joe Higgins, once a promising young officer, until railroaded under false charges.

Grant Miehm, who was plotter as well as artist for most of the series, goes somewhere between The Fugitive and The Incredible Hulk (TV show) style story. We learn in the first issue Joe's paranoid, authoritarian bully of father, General Higgins, was behind his conviction, because Joe could only be considered for the Shield project as an enlisted man, not an officer. Joe learns this by the beginning of issue 3, and spends the next 10 issues on the run, using the Shield armor to help reporters, politicians, kids in trouble from gang violence, while also trying to find some allies to help clear his name.

The fugitive thing does end, as Joe confronts his father in a kangaroo court and partially clears his name. The original Shield is involved, which has Mark Waid's (who is credited with dialogue most of the time) fingerprints all over it, as Joe's armor is the best the military could do to re-create the original version.

Joe's has some bulletproof alloy, but also can create an electromagnetic field if he clasps his hands together. I guess it's like completing a circuit. I like the design (which I'm guessing was Miehm's work) better than the original's. The shoulder/chest piece being smaller looks better to me and doesn't raise as many questions in my mind about how Joe manages to bend at the waist.

The book pivots briefly to a different character wearing the Shield armor, but it never feels like it's going to stick, and it doesn't. Although once Joe's back in the suit, he's rocking one of those terrible super-long '90s ponytails like Nightwing had for a while. Just awful.

The abrupt end of the line, like with The Jaguar, left several threads unanswered. While Joe was evading his father's attempts to kill him, there was a secretive crime lord industrialist type trying to figure out how to use the Shield to his own purposes. Joe confronts him once, but is forced to help him. There's never any conclusion to that. They don't really explain why Joe kept having weird visions of the original Shield trying to speak to him, either. So it goes.

Saturday Splash Page #103

 

"No Candy Apples at This Fair," in Swords of Texas #4, by Stephen Scott Beau Smith (writer), Flint Henry (artist), Sam Parsons (colorist), Tim Harkins (letterer)

There were two mini-series set in the years between Tim Truman's Scout, and his follow-up, Scout: War Shaman. We'll get to New America eventually, but for today, we've got Swords of Texas.

Swords of Texas was 4 issues, with a lead story and a back-up. The lead story, written by Chuck Dixon, with art by Ben Dunn, Mark McKenna and Sam Parsons, was about a gun runner named Banner and his crew agreeing to supply arms to a revolutionary seeking to overthrow the joint Soviet/Japanese Communist government that ran Mexico and locked peasants up in work camps under threat of not seeing their families again. That was not, in practice, an approach that did much for production or worker morale, but they figure there are always more workers, so who cares?

It's a real "politics make strange bedfellows" story. Banner would prefer to not get mixed in politics and stick to profit concerns, but finds that difficult. He's being bankrolled by both Israel and a Navajo politician working on making what had been the southwestern United States an independent nation. Having Baja splinter off from Mexico and feel indebted would be at least one less pressure for all that. The Japanese governor of Baja has a whole samurai mentality, albeit one where it's perfectly honorable to run a prison camp calling itself a factory. The guide arranged for Banner's group - because as a real American, Banner has learned no Spanish despite living in the Southwest - is a Jewish-Hispanic New York cab driver.

It's got a very '80s action movie feel to it, with a few smaller gun battles prior to the big fight at the prison, which includes some vaguely Robotech-looking mechs (although they don't shift into a jet or anything cool like that.) Lots of tough guy dialogue, with the occasional one-liner or banter scene to lighten things up in between the shooting.

It doesn't end neatly. The workers are freed, but there's no guarantee they'll be able to set up their own government and make it stick, even if they can hold off the army. Banner and his crew are not seized by revolutionary fervor to ditch life as gun dealers. They haven't even gotten paid yet by the end of the mini-series.

There wasn't really a great splash page from that, so I went with the back-up story, by Beau Smith and Flint Henry, revolving around what feels like a Beau Smith self-insert character named Beau LaDuke (who had, to be fair, been a regular supporting cast member in Scout.) Beau must hurry back to West Virginia, picking up the rest of his siblings and some other people along the way, to help his dad defend the family amusement park from some scumbags looking to pull a insurance scam/land grab with government help.

The help includes a preacher who machine-guns those unwilling to turn from their sinful paths, and a private security guy Beau's dad calls C.I.A. as short for "Chuckie-in-Action." Flint Henry's art is pretty much perfect for this, with the little background details, the way he can make everyone look rabid or deranged, and the cartoonish energy he brings to violence. There is a panel is this where the preacher shoots a bunch of guys while driving one of the bumper cars, and another where Beau, while attempting to bear hug a general he crossed paths with previously, gets big chunks of his chest hair ripped out.

It also ends with LaDuke encouraging people to write in and request a Beau LaDuke series while what I assume are the Eclipse editorial staff try frantically to white out that panel.

Round And Round We Go

With this post, we mark the end of Year 18 at Reporting on Marvels and Legends. It was a quiet year, largely devoid of weather, automotive or health mishaps. Not even any real travel disasters to speak of, although I also didn't fly anywhere this year, which no doubt helped.

The blog chugged along as it has for the last couple years. Tuesday became movie review day, while Thursday was for books (and I read a few more of those than I have recently, but we'll get to that at New Year's.) I also, thanks to Alex's largesse, have a Playstation 4 now, so I've been able to resume playing new video games (new to me, anyway) and reviewing those.

Saturday Splash Page made it from pre-issue 200 Uncanny X-Men to Tales of Suspense. Only two letters completed, a big step down from 5 the year before. I won't get to Supergirl until early January, so I was a little off on my prediction there. Sunday Splash Page made it from The Hood to Lead City. We're also a couple of weeks away from Legion of Super-Heroes, so didn't quite make it that far either. Still, I finished 6 letters in total over the last year. 18 down, 8 to go.

Unfortunately, we won't be making as much progress next year, as we're about to hit 2 of the 4 busiest letters. Right now, Saturday Splash Page will make it to Spectacular Spider-Man, maybe to Smooth Criminals if I spend fewer weeks on one book than I'm currently thinking. Sunday Splash Page, well, we should at least get past books that start with "Marvel", if only just.

The number of new comics I've bought has dialed back from last year, especially since late summer. Which has meant a few more Random Back Issues (23 over the last year, versus 21 the previous year), and lately, it's also meant more reviews of tpbs, graphic novels and manga. Why, I'm almost through all the ones I bought in 2022, just in time for 2023 to end!

I'm actually thinking about going ahead and shifting tpb review day to Wednesday from Monday. I've already done it a couple of times in the last month, and I'm more likely to have new comics to review on the latter than the former. Make Monday the day for assorted odd thought posts and solicitation rundowns.

As to the oddball posts, in February I tried to figure out what Benjamin Percy's driving at with his extremely evil, extremely incompetent Hank McCoy. In March, I theorized that when fighting much stronger opponents, Spider-Man wins just by getting them to engage. Late March also brought an early, mostly successful, pranking of Pollock. In May I posed the question, who has worse taste in guys, Hellcat or Tigra, and also wondered about why Peter David retconned John Byrne's retcon to Lockjaw. In June, I wrote about the incredible uselessness of Vegeta, which was really satisfying. He's the $-1 from Gravity Falls as a person. In July, I analyzed the dream worlds of the different guys in Moon Knight's system. With August, I talked a little about why I don't like tanking in sports. November brought Blogsgiving, where too much sugar caused me to nearly destroy the (fictional) universe.

Currently, there's no plans for any new features. I've got a pretty good groove going, and I'm just planning to try and maintain it. We'll see how it goes. Thanks to everyone who still drops by, even if you're a soulless algorithm!

What I Bought 12/8/2023

So, because I met Alex to help with one of his gigs (and keep him company while he got his new stomach tat shaded), I had time to swing by the comic place in the next town over. Which had not only the one book from last week, but the remaining book from last month I hadn't found yet. Huzzah!

Fantastic Four #14, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Reed Richards is so awful, even the Sinister Six want in on kicking his ass.

The FF have returned to New York, to await the return of their home and their kids. But someone's building a receiver dish (out of wood?) in the middle of the lot. Worse, none of the people doing it know why. They're just doing things a phone app game tells them to in return for rewards. Not like, cash, rewards in the game.

This includes the Lady Sinister Six, Sinister Syndicate, whatever that group from Nick Spencer's run called themselves. Who the FF beat in 2 pages? Oh come on, I've seen the FF struggle with teams led by the frickin' Wizard for multiple issues.

Anyway, this is all the work of some tech billionaire dipshit who is using the app as some form of Asimov's psychohistory, getting people to do little things to create a future he wants. Little things, like giving a guy an extra day's vacation, which results in a supply chain shortage somewhere else. Except, billionaire guy doesn't know anything about any construction at the site of the FF's home. Someone else is using his app for their own ends. I suspect the app itself. It's one step towards the singularity, or the Dominion, or whatever goofy-ass thing is supposed to be waiting in the future according to the X-books.

Reed takes the plea to help as a chance to delete the app and all the data, then Johnny torches the servers. Problem solved! Except for the part where Reed mentions he might try making a 'simpler' instance. Just to predict when another app like this might appear. And to predict when he needs to start building another Negative Zone prison, probably. For the second time this week I ask, are we just forgetting Civil War happened now? I'm pretty OK with that, but less so when it lets Richards off the hook.

Oh, and their home didn't appear like it was supposed to. Guess somebody forgot to carry the one.

Space Outlaws #2, by Marco Fontanili - Guys with mustaches, oversized guns, a frightened horse. It's either a western or a '70s film you shouldn't let children watch. Which describes a lot of Westerns, now that I think about it.

F-24K spends most of the issue being chased by Texas Rangers, as it's spent it's limited time on Earth killing, robbing, and generally having a grand old time. One of the rangers manages to shoot it, and F-24K wakes up tied to a table, about to be chopped up and, possibly eaten?

The alien just tears its way out of the body its wearing and kills the lot of them with a lot of severing of limbs and heads and bisecting bodies and whatnot. When there's only one guy left, he prays for deliverance. Instead he gets some super-science bomb chucked into the cabin by the kill-bot chasing F-24K. It kills the man but not the alien, so next issue will be the big showdown.

Yeah, not a lot of plot. Fontanili switches from the magenta he used as his primary color in the first issue to more of a luminous, golden-yellow. It seems to mirror the sky with the setting sun behind the chase on pages 2 and 3. After that, the usage varies. Sometimes Fontanili still uses it for backdrops. Other times he colors in the entire character (except the white of their eyes) and leaves the background in a greyish-blue or black. Sometimes everything is in the golden-yellow. I can't peg a pattern to it. The flashback to F-24K's activities since hitting earth is all in heavy blacks and greys. Like the acts already lost their luster and it's on to the next hit of excitement.

High-Rise (2015)

Tom Hiddleston plays a brain surgeon who moves into a new high-rise tower, one that seems meant to be a little community. It has pools, gyms, squash courts, supermarkets, probably some other stuff. The architect behind it (played by Jeremy Irons) has four more towers planned, all set around a lake so that the whole thing looks like a hand reaching towards the sky. He also thinks this is going to be like some petri dish to engineer changes to society.

Perhaps he should have spent more time focused on the wiring, because the building is a shoddy piece of crap. As the power goes off and on, as people ignore the rules about what you can and can't put down the trash chute, as the lower income families are turned away from the pool because they're too noisy for the wealthier residents, things fall to pieces. The different floors start turning into their own societies, having parties or orgies. The folks on top pass around wild plans to seize the lower floors by turning them against each other, decrying the lower folks actions while abducting pregnant women, while walking around in gaudy tracksuits like they escaped from the Fraction/Aja Hawkeye series.

The building is like a microcosm for the world. It doesn't show a way to do better, simply plays out the reality of the situation in miniature. No one from outside the high-rise ever shows up to help restore power, sanitation, or order, just like nobody's coming to Earth to save us from our own stupidity.

Hiddleston's character drifts through the chaos. Everyone seems to be interested in him, mostly because of what they decide they see. That he, 'hides in plain sight,' that he's a social climber, that he's the one to watch out for, because he keeps it all locked up inside. It's hard to know how much of that is accurate. People seem to want to talk to him, want him to attend their parties, but he's rarely articulate or funny. A kind of pleasantly bland and polite canvas people for people to project onto.

He attends a party Irons' throws because he was invited, but no one told him they were dressing up like visiting Louis the 14th, so he stands there awkwardly until the chief goon chucks him out. He tries to act parental or wise to the son of a woman he occasionally fucks, but that falls flat. The kid has a much better idea of who he is and what's going on than Hiddleston's character. He's caught up in his own mind, possibly related to a dead sister, exacerbated when he tricked a coworker into thinking he had an inoperable tumor and the guy did a Peter Pan off the 30th floor of the high-rise, that he seems unable to process. Just retreating further into some mania of his own that has him beating a man senseless over the last bucket of paint in the supermarket.

Irons' character is just as disconnected from reality, but in the same way as John Hammond in Jurassic Park. So caught up in what he thinks his grand design will bring about, he barely notices the descent into chaos until he walks into the middle of a party in his apartment and realizes he has no idea where his wife is. To the end, he's convinced that he'll get everything right the next time, that he understands the kinks that need ironing out.

I couldn't get invested in the movie. Maybe because Hiddleston feels so much a passive observer, and a lot of the characters (especially the guys, who all various shades of big imbeciles with '70s facial hair) blurred together. Or because it spends so much time charting the breakdown in circumstances. I was waiting for him, or the film in general, to do something. Advance all this towards something beyond people being self-interested shits, or get to the inevitable conclusion of people being self-interested shits. Whichever.

What I Bought 12/7/2023

The late nights when I help Alex with a gig definitely take more of a toll than they used to. Lot harder to drag myself out of bed in the morning. Or maybe I'm better about recognizing I don't need to get up, so take the extra sleep. Yeah, let's go with that.

For today, two mini-series that wrapped up last month.

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #5, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Java Tartaglia (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Carol's wondering who threw water on an electrical fire.

There's a lot in this. Blake's robot did finish patching up Nada last issue before rushing to Blake's aid, and now bot and creator are sort of woven together. No mention of the bot planning to swipe some of Nada's power or the threat that it's mind is linked across servers allover the world. Also, Nada's changed her helmet design and lost the trenchcoat. I didn't think much of it initially, but it's not a bad shift by Villanelli. The helmet covers everything except her mouth, which is maybe her real weapon. The rest is shielded, and she's ditched the coat that sort of billowed and hid her. She's ready to act openly, and expecting a fight.

The "ferals", minus the anthropologist, follow Nada to Earth, but the three kids don't agree with her plan to destroy power plants because that would shut down hospitals and kill people. They're more frustrated that technology was supposed to free people from drudgery and let them create, but it's being used to create art instead. So Nada rolls with it, telling Blake-bot to tamper with a quantum computer. Which is a different kind of machine, so it causes satellites to fall from the sky and fires in lithium battery factories, along with power outages. Which is probably fine with Nada, since I think her goal is just to convince Earthlings to destroy themselves and their world as revenge for what was done to her world.

There never is any resolution to the, "Earth was using Nada's world as an illegal landfill," thread.

Carol's late getting there because she got blindsided by Nitro, who is really just frustrated because he gets blamed for kill Mar-Vell. He didn't think the guy would jump on a radioactive bomb and get cancer, but now everyone hates him. Carol taking the name Captain Marvel just reminds him or how his notable accomplishment (I guess we're ignoring him blowing up a school in Civil War), made him a pariah. It's pitiful and sort of hilarious that he won by a complete accident, because he couldn't grasp Mar-Vell acting differently than Nitro would in that situation. What a moron.

Spider-Woman and the others show up during the fight with Nitro to help out and get Carol home. There's a bit where Carol is buried under an avalanche, where she wonders if she pushed the kids too hard, and that's why Nada was able to (initially) turn them. Maybe she's too bossy. By the time Spider-Woman shows up, Carol immediately gives her an order (even before the "glad to see you hug".) The panel above, the second and third caption boxes, that's basically the extent of her questioning whether she's off-track before doing the Principal Skinner, "it's the children who are wrong" meme.

She does set aside catching Nitro so they can get back to Earth, and leaves Nada to the ferals because she's best equipped to deal with plummeting satellites. So there's an ability to prioritize, to recognize which threat has to be dealt with by her, but I don't think she had an epiphany about how now everyone responds well to being bossed around or told to haul themselves up by their bootstraps.

There's something there about her demanding a lot of others, but no more than she expects of herself, but I don't think Nocenti pulled off what the story tries to suggest, that Carol did reach the kids. The three teens had their own notions of what's wrong with the world and how to fix it. Nada gave them power, but they wouldn't just follow her tune. Nada even acknowledges she chose people who were too willful. I think we needed one more real conversation between Danvers and the teenagers, after they've got their power and Nada's made her pitch, for me to believe Captain Marvel really impacted them.

Grit N Gears #6, by Angel Fuentes (writer), Nahuel SB (artist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer) - Unlike some other comic covers that promise things like dead Cyclops, this scene does actually happen.

Maple reaches town as Razorfist has the reverend crucified. her attempt to get Screw Driver up and moving only makes her a target, and as Screw Driver tries to shield her, this triggers some latent programming which causes Maple's body to transform into a Gatling gun arm to replace Screw Driver's missing limb. Which brings a swift end to Razorfist and sets what's left of his gang to running.

Fuentes and SB have that sequence span two pages, with three rows of panels. The transformation is on the top row, while Screw Driver turning Razorfist to scrap takes the middle row, which gets probably two-thirds the page space. There's part of me that gets this is the big deal, the end of the antagonist, and so it deserves the most space. But it feels like the transformation is more significant in light of later developments, and it's confined to three small panels in the upper right corner. Some of that might be SB's thick lines and rough coloring can't quite give it enough weight. There's no sense of triumph or surprise really in the art. It just kind of happens.

Anyway, Screw Driver collapses and Maple reverts to her usual form. The reverend, in all the show of humanity and gratitude I'd expect of a man of the cloth, insists they be destroyed. Maple's brother objects, as does the marshal and at least some of the other residents. Marcus keeps the residents from fighting by taking Maple and Screw Driver home. Screw Driver gets a new arm, but Marcus still leaves to help his grandfather fight the laws making automatons illegal.

So it's Maple and Screw Driver, together, the way Maple's mother apparently intended, as we learn via a message she tried to send into the future before setting out to look for Screw Driver. They never do explain how Screw Driver or Razorfist could see or learn of songs from the future, but Maple's mother figured that must mean there was a way to send messages from the past.

That's basically where it ends. The singing cowboy (automaton), his adopted daughter/weapon mod, and their big insectile robot steed. Roaming the west together, no doubt staying one step ahead of that reverend. It's not a bad ending. Some light at the end, but not all tied together neatly.

Sunday Splash Page #300

 

"Safe as Jailhouses," in Lead City #4, by Eric Borden (writer), Kyle Brummond (artist)

4-issue mini-series about a farmer trying to move his family to California, and entering a peculiar town's death tournament to get the money to treat his wife's sudden illness.

Unlike The Quick and the Dead, this tournament isn't any sort of a bracket, but a free-for-all, held in a second town constructed solely for that purpose. I guess it might also be used to fool the forces of the nefarious Hedley Lamarr if he tries to run the railroad through their town. Either way, it means this farmer (and former Union soldier) is up against 7 wanted criminals.

There's a brief scene in issue 2 before the killing starts where everyone involved enters the fake town together, so the reader can at least get a sense of who's who. Even so, the characters are drawn in broad strokes. A crazy redneck who likes bludgeoning people with a hammer. A black former Union soldier who survived a lynching and speaks to a doll he carries. A lady, who seems the kindest of the bunch, which never means anything good. But one's dead by the end of the issue, and another's on his way, so why waste too much time fleshing them out?

The only one who gets much development is Colman, the farmer, since the entire first issue focuses on him. What we know largely boils down to what I summarized in the first paragraph.

Brummond has an angular line, sharply defined jaws and chins, stark shadows. Alternates between keeping the worst of the violence off-panel - the first to die has his throat slit but we only see the swing of the weapon not the contact - and in your face graphic. The penultimate death is a full-on view of a guy's head being blown apart by a bullet. Dislodged eye, brain matter, hair all mixed together. I guess that could have been because they figured the audience would be glad to see that particular character get it. But while he's maybe a bit more sadistic than some of the others, it's a matter of degrees. 

Brummond also sometimes draws body parts like they're woven together. The farmer's palm in one issue, a different character's brains in this issue. I don't understand the reasoning, it's a weird affect and he's not consistent with it.