Intermittent Comic Showers in April

April's solicitations had several things from publishers other than Marvel that caught my eye. Some of them are even entirely new things! I can't help feeling like I was grasping at straws, though. Most of them provoked a "Might be worth a look," rather than, "I gotta read that!"

What's new? Zac Thompson and Nicola Izzo are releasing Blow Away, a mini-series about a wildlife photographer who may have witnessed a murder, through Boom! Studios starting in April. Thompson's Nature's Labyrinth mostly left me confused and vaguely dissatisfied, so a potential mystery written by him gives me pause.

Eli Powell's writing and drawing a one-shot called Still, published by Invader Comics, about a guy living alone in the woods, slowly being preyed upon by his past. It's a follow-up to something Powell did previously called Ravage, though. Maybe I ought to track that down first. Francesca Perillo and Stefano Cardoselli have Love Me: A Romance Story, through Mad Cave, about a robot cab driver that falls for a woman tangled up with the mafia. Sounds a little like Sweet Downfall, which Cardoselli wrote and drew and published through Scout back in 2020, although that robot was a hit man.

Speaking of Scout Comics, El Torres and Ruben Gil have the first issue of Loop, about two girls hiding in the midst of a school shooting. Or one of them is hiding and the other is receiving visions of the dying. Doesn't exactly sound like a feel-good tale, but, you know, might be worth a look.

Alien Books has the first volume of Momo: Legendary Warrior, which is a sci-fi epic based on a legend about someone called Momotaro. I'm not thinking this is a likely buy, but maybe I'd swing back around to it down the line if some of the other manga I buy wrap up.

Oh, and the Deadpool ongoing that Marvel listed last month does actually being in April. So throw it on the pile.

Is anything ending? I guess technically Still would end, since it's a one-shot. Otherwise, not that I'm aware of. That Dr. Strange story with Black Cat, Taskmaster and hunter's Moon is going for at least 2 issues, and I won't be surprised if MacKay stretches it out to 3.

What's left? Fantastic Four's doing a noir thing. Vengeance of the Moon Knight and Power Pack are both up to issue 4. Night Thrasher's fighting Silhouette in issue 3 of his mini-series. Jackpot and Black Cat, Ms. Marvel, and Black Widow and Hawkeye will all be on issue 2. I vaguely remembered the Widow got a symbiote, but I figured that was a one-off. Apparently not, and I'm feeling less confident about that mini-series all the time.

Outside Marvel, there's A Haunting on Mars #5, and Rogues #2. As far as manga, Apparently Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World volume 5, and Soul Eater volume 14 are both listed, from Yen press and Square Enix respectively. Although I've still not moved past volume 2 of Soul Eater, so that one may be a moot point. Also, these overlong manga titles are getting old.

Extract (2009)

Jason Bateman plays his usual easily confused, mediocre dude as the owner of a factory that makes flavor extracts. One of his employees is injured in a workplace accident, then convinced to sue them by a drifter (Mila Kunis) and hires a lawyer played by Gene Simmons. Meanwhile, Bateman is frustrated because his wife (Kirsten Wiig) is never in the mood, and takes terrible advice from a bartender friend of his (Ben Affleck.) There's also a whole subplot where their annoying neighbor won't take the hint and keeps bugging them about attending a Rotary Club dinner (at $55/plate.)

This movie never comes together, just lurching from one thread to the other with little connection between the two. Bateman seems dissatisfied with his life and eager to sell his factory, which presumably will give him more time around his wife when she might not be too tired for sex. But then Kunis shows up, and suddenly he's like, "well, having sex with this other woman would be just as good," not realizing she's a crook. So he accepts what may have been a horse tranquilizer from Affleck and deciding yes, hiring a gigolo as a pool cleaner to induce Wiig to have an affair, so he can cheat guilt-free, is a good idea.

This turns out to be a predictably terrible idea, but the movie focuses more on how the pool boy (who looks like dollar store Ryan Gosling as Ken) fell in love with Wiig and how much this pisses off Bateman. Then he sleeps with Kunis after figuring out she's behind the lawsuit and she starts crying. Which doesn't turn out to be her playing a trick. She sleeps with him, then just disappears (with the injured worker's pickup truck.) The lawsuit subplot peters out, the annoying neighbor subplot ends abruptly and absurdly at the end of the movie, and maybe Wiig and Bateman are going to fix things.

The movie wastes Wiig and Kunis, never really giving them much time to get into their characters and what makes them tick. It wastes JK Simmons, too. Affleck playing a loser, stoner bartender is the closest it comes to having a character that is actually funny.

He Carries a Reminder. . .

. . .of every blow, that laid him low, or cut him, 'til he cried out, "I am bleeding, I am bleeding!" but the paramedics stayed away, la la la lah la la la.

Volume 1 of JH's The Boxer starts with the "legendary trainer of five world champions", K, looking for his final project. Initially, it seems like it's going to be Bakesan Ryu, a prodigy with the reflexes, agility and flexibility to embarrass a trained fighter 4 weight classes above him. He even has the flashy and impractical moves that a crowd will love, not to mention the unusual hair color and style that marks your typical manga protagonist.

And then K notices a kid just letting bullies pummel him in an alley. JH doesn't explain what K saw until the very end of the volume, but K extends the offer to Yu to train him into a champion. Yu doesn't seem all that interested, however, so it would seem K's wasting a month waiting for him to show up at the gym.

After that, the story shifts to the local high school, where we see Bakesan uses his skills to bully and intimidate weaker students, particularly Injae, a meek kid with glasses. Injae seems to want to be friends with Yu, while Yu doesn't discourage it, he doesn't exactly encourage it, either. Although with him, actually speaking might qualify as encouragement.

About the time Yu saves Injae from being hit by a soccer ball kicked by Bakesan, JH switches focus to Injae. Injae's father was a boxer (career record: 13 wins, 12 losses, 2 draws), and Injae wants to be like him. Which he decides means he can't keep taking the bullying any longer, he has to stand up and fight.

(His father, when asked about fighting someone you know is stronger, makes a point that courage in a boxer and courage in someone who isn't are entirely different and equally admirable things, so it's not him imposing some toxic notion on his kid. He outright says it's OK to run.)

Unfortunately, Yu's interference has made him Bakesan's target now. Everything comes to a head in a series of fights as Injae stands up to Bakesan despite the difference in natural talent. In turn, this determination seems to spark some interest within Yu, and he gets involved. Which is when we get a glimpse of what caught K's eye.

JH has a relatively simple, clean style. Thin lines and basic character designs that distinguish the important players from each other, but also allow him to exaggerate for effect. The way he draws the face of one of Bakesan's hangers-on when Injae hits him with a jab, versus when Yu does the same thing, is entirely different. Injae's causes the guy's head to rock back slightly. Yu's reduces it to a blank square with force lines shooting off it like an explosion. When Yu hits Bakesan with a jab, JH draws it like someone took a hole punch to Bakesan's head, as a representation of what the punch felt like.

The book's an odd mix, because JH will add panels discussing or diagramming principles of boxing, like why you don't switch which punch you're going to throw in the middle of a punch. But then there's also a lot of figurative imagery. Bakesan's got a big head about his talent, so we see him as a giant seated atop a mountain. The "chosen one", while the tiny blurry outlines of lesser fighters reach futilely towards him from below. JH uses that a few times early on, then brings it back to different effect during his fight with Yu.

Yu's an interesting choice for a lead character, simply because he's so passive. We get a couple of glimpses of his past and current living situation, but not much, and he's not forthcoming, beyond the fact he doesn't recall ever really wanting to be anything or do anything. The later volumes (at least the 2 I've read so far), reveal how JH plans to use a character like that, though.

Sunday Splash Page #307

 

"Orbital Dynamics," The Legion #8, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Olivier Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

So after all of the events of the preceding weeks - Blight invasion, section of the cast hurled across the universe, Legion disbanded - Abnett, Lanning, Coipel and McCraw bring it back together in another ongoing series, starting with the rough arrival of the survivors of Legion Lost on an Earth different from the one they last saw.

Abnett and Lanning use the familiar play of bringing a 20th Century threat into the 31st Century, although Ra's al Ghul was a clever choice. His goals had shifted somewhat - not so concerned with preserving Earth, but with countless inhabited worlds know, it probably seemed less of a priority - but he's played as having all the advantages of years to prepare.

A little curiously, Ra's being traditionally a Batman foe, M'onel is set as his opposite. There's a whole thing that's only referenced about M'onel having been responsible for seeding life over the course of some amount of time on many of the worlds that made up the United Planets. So I guess that's the point of contrast: M'onel spent his time trying to help life to grow, but on its own terms, while Ra's wants to push life forward, but at a pace he determines, with little regard for cost.

After that, the book shifts to paying off at least a few plots that had been running in the background. The odd robot attack that was so fixated on Brainiac 5.1 in their first issue of Legionnaires, comes to a head with an artificial intelligence based invasion of Earth. It feels a bit like a reprise of the Blight invasion, although with most of the cast locked out of Earth, rather than trapped or turned to the other side. Shadow Lass, who had been written as withdrawn and hostile since being taken over by the Blight, gets a spotlight issue where she returns home to try and address some issues. Timber Wolf, who escorted Phantom Girl and her exceedingly powerful baby to Earth, joins the team. Though nothing ever comes of his apparent attraction to her, or whatever started to brew between Ultra Boy and Saturn Girl in Legion Lost.

(Nor is there any payoff to Phantom Girl's mother having her declared incompetent in Legion Worlds as part of a scheme to steal her grandchild. I would have at least liked to see the lady get punched in the jaw for that shit.)

Coipel remains as the primary penciler for the first year and change, still inked by Lanning, but with a smoother hand. There are still a lot of shadows and heavy inks, but the characters don't look as weary and battered. They're mostly back together, mostly feeling good, things are looking up.

Kev Walker starts to take the reins during the Robotican invasion story, and then Chris Batista handles the arc about a villain seizing the control of the vast telepathic communication network the UP were using. Those two artist don't have a lot in common stylistically, but much of the Universo story is an illusory world he tries to use to keep Saturn Girl occupied, so it looking much cleaner and smooth adds to the artificiality of it. Comparatively, Walker's art evokes the roughness of Coipel's during the Blight story. Characters even look a little wilder, if not quite as dark. Tom McCraw keeps the shades and tones a bit less washed out here than in some of the other books.

The third year of the book is more of a mixed bag, as Superboy (Conner Kent, Kon-El, '90s Superboy) is brought there from the past, but also Abnett and Lanning bust out a Darkseid story. Superboy is somewhat interesting, as he laps up the adulation of the public, no longer being compared to Superman and found wanting, probably because these people all figure he's just young Superman. But he also catches a lot of flack from Cosmic Boy in particular about being reckless and careless. Part of the problem of people thinking you grow up to be Superman, is they also expect you to behave like Superman.

This could theoretically have been used as some form of character development, but back in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, we got the whole thing about Luthor being the human half of his DNA, and then Superboy-Prime killed him.

Abnett and Lanning left the book around issue 30 or so, and so ends our time in the Year 3000. It's back to the rapidly approaching dystopian hellscape of the 21st Century for us.

Saturday Splash Page #109

 

"Roll Call," in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #6, by Landry Q. Walker (writer), Eric Jones (artist), Joey Mason (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

An updated, more comedy-oriented approach to Supergirl's arrival on Earth, which starts with the rocket carrying Kara Zor-El crashing through Luthor's latest giant robot focused attempt to destroy Superman. From there, we learn Kara hid on her father's rocket in an attempt to teach her parents a lesson for grounding her for asking them to pass the salt. . .wait no, I'm sorry, for telling her she couldn't be part of the cheer squad for the launch of the rocket because she got 72% in Temporal Mechanics.

Most of the six issues are concerned with Kara attempting to learn how to fit in on Earth while also adjusting to having superpowers, by attending a boarding school as "Linda Lee." This goes poorly, as she doesn't understand anything about Earth, like money for example. This allows Jones a lot of chances to draw Linda having daydreams about what she could do instead. Like flying to the Moon to become Moon Supergirl, who stops Moon Criminals from stealing Moon Money from Moon Banks.

Landry Walker adds several elements beyond the usual issues the new kid faces in school. Kryptonite rays filtered through an overhead projector can an evil opposite of her, who is popular and cruel and pranks Linda repeatedly. A piece of Kryptonite that gets electrified gives a cat super-intelligence and causes it to start kidnapping students. The one friend Linda makes at school turns out to be Lex Luthor's little sister. And the principal turns out to be Mr. Mxyzptlk, with some scheme to use collected Kryptonian emotional energy, combined with his 5th-dimensional magic to. . .let him rewrite all reality?

That part doesn't make a ton of sense, but Walker's Mxy is a more malevolent version, at one point implying he might have gone so far as to be responsible for destroying Krypton, just to engineer this entire circumstance. Still, the amount that gets crammed into the final issue, along with Belinda's statement that Linda was gaining more and more friends, which we don't see any evidence of, makes me wonder if things didn't get rushed by a premature ending.

What I Bought 1/24/2024

The sub-zero wind chills finally broke on Monday. Unfortunately, they were replaced with freezing rain, coating roads and parking lots in lovely, deadly ice. If I had any damn sense, I would have just called in sick on Monday, but I didn't. Anyway, the ice has melted, though now we just have regular rain. But the state's still in a drought, so I guess we can use rain.

But while it's damp and chilly, we can look at some comics from the last two weeks.

Fantastic Four #16, by Ryan North (writer), Francesco Mortarino (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Damn kids, always sneaking into the paintings!

I haven't gotten issue 15 yet, but apparently Reed's time travel stunt worked out eventually. He probably forgot about it being a leap year or something. The family is still living in Arizona (why?), but with a teleporter built into a closet to get to the Baxter Building if they need to. Choosing to willingly live in Arizona is a peculiar choice, but I guess the "science explorer" super-team is used to environments inhospitable to human life.

In the meantime, this issue's about the kids - Franklin, Valeria, Jo and Nicki - starting public school. The Richards' kids science teacher assigns everyone to discuss how the inventions Robert Boyle predicted that have come to be actually happened, but they decide to show off by solving one that hasn't. Namely, creating a universal solvent, without realizing if it eats through everything, how does one contain it?

The remainder of the issue is the kids scrambling around trying to solve the problem without alerting their parents. Like on one of those '80s sitcoms, when one of the kids gets paint in their hair and the others attempts to fix it only make the situation more ridiculous. Except with the fate of the world at stake, as opposed to being sent to bed with no dessert.

It didn't exactly make me laugh, but it's nice North's actually going to try and use the kids, after shuffling them off to Buffalo for over a year. Guess I should wait to make sure this isn't a one-off event before saying that. This is a dialogue heavy issue, but Mortarino's up to at least keeping it interesting with the body language and postures of the characters. The comedy beats North goes for are more dialogue-based than art-based, but I don't know if that's a reflection on Mortarino or just how the issue worked out. There's a couple in a silent montage of the kids trying to create the solvent, where we see them arguing, then consulting wikipedia in the next panel, but most of the humor is Reed glumly reflecting his tacos aren't as good as Raul Richards of Earth-234952.

It does work as a done-in-one plot starring these characters (at least as I understand them.) Valeria and Franklin are both used to seeing crazy science stuff and having it turn out OK, and they're at an age to be really interested in being popular, so sure, they'll try something like this. Nikki and Jo are still relatively new to Earth, and Franklin and Valeria are like older siblings, so they don't recognize when a bad idea is getting out of hand. They'll raise the possibility of telling the parents, but won't act on their own, only ask Frank or Val if they can.

Power Pack: Into the Storm #1 - Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I know it's because Alex is using his powers to cancel the effect of gravity, but man those postures he, Katie and Franklin are in just look strange.

The Power family vacation at the beach house where the kids first gained their powers. Franklin Richards is going to join them, but he's had one of his prophetic dreams about mean aliens. He doesn't want to bug his parents, so he waits until he's at the beach to warn the other kids. Which presumably means no FF around to help when a space pirate Snark shows up, chasing her cousin and the Power Pack's Kymellian friend, Kofi.

One space pirate doesn't seem too daunting, but it seems the bigger problem is going to be keeping the Power's parents from finding out about their powers. Simonson writes in a few arguments between the kids about telling their parents, to the extent Alex tries using the presence of the FF at lunch to gauge his parents feelings about if their kids had powers. (It doesn't go well.)

Kids trying to be what they think their parents want is likely to be a recurring problem, as Franklin's acutely aware that his powers frighten his parents, and the Snark princess Djinna admits that she's not the warrior that her parents need. She's clever, and an inventor, but her people's culture demands a fighter, and that's not her. The kids each confronting that problem is probably the "storm" they're going to encounter.

Brigman's child characters do look like kids, even the alien ones. Katie and Franklin are very round-faced, still a lot of the baby fat, and Djinna and Kofi have that gangly awkwardness in the length of their limbs that's normal in human kids, at least. There's a three-panel sequence where Franklin's watching his prophetic dream as his beds floats from one panel to the next. Woodard leaves Franklin colored the same as in the panels before and after, but the dream is covered by a brown filter, heightening that this isn't real (yet.)

The Eye in the Door - Pat Barker

A continuation of Regeneration, which I read last summer. This book is more focused on Billy Prior, who was another of the patients at Craiglockhart when Siegfried Sassoon arrived. Prior's working in London for the Ministry of Information, though what exactly he does isn't clear. Here, we mostly see him using his position to visit a childhood friend's mother, now locked up on charges of planning to assassinate Lloyd George.

But Prior's bigger concern is he begins losing time. He's still visiting Rivers, the psychiatrist from the previous book, but there's only so much that guy can do. Especially as Rivers still hasn't resolved the ethical conundrum of sending people back to fight and die in a stupid, pointless war, simply because they don't meet some vague criteria of being unfit.

Sassoon reappears in the back third of the book, having been wounded in France. He still lacks answers to the conflict between believing this war is pointless, yet feeling like he still needs to be there fighting. Barker writes him as a less dynamic force this time, pale and shaken and depressed with himself and his work.

Prior appears to be better off outwardly, but there's the gaps in time, and the realization he's almost split inside his mind to cope with what he went through. Or not cope, perhaps, so much as survive. Prior doesn't miss the fighting, but part of him is ashamed to have found a desk job in England, (even though his asthma's what keeps him there), and part of him resents the people who didn't fight at all. And he knows, to some extent, it's ridiculous to feel as though people might judge him for not being "over there", especially since he was once already, so that gnaws at him.

There's a whole background thread about a man who claims to have a list of 47,000 British citizens who the Krauts lured into homosexuality for the purpose of blackmailing them into undermining England's war effort. It seems in part an example of an absurd mindset. Rather than focus on what's actually happening in the war, the dying, concoct some ridiculous reason why the war isn't over already, that comes with a convenient scapegoat group. It's an easy way to avoid examining anything really going on.

Sassoon is friends with several people on the list, and Prior is picked up by a man who's receiving anonymous notes implying he's on the list. Prior is indifferent to the whole thing. Possibly a class thing, as that comes up a bit, that Prior is not of the "gentleman" class, only temporarily elevated by becoming an officer. So he's not likely considered prominent enough to be on any such list, but Prior also doesn't seem nearly as worried about being caught at it, whether he's with a man or a woman. Which may be related to the reveal Prior was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child by one of the parish priests, but seems to have been rewarded with entry to a better school later on. I don't know how to fit that in to the larger picture of Prior's hostility towards others and himself, or his attitude towards the fighting or anything else.

Maybe it all comes together in the final book, because this very much feels like the middle section of a larger arc. Nothing's quite resolved for Prior, Sassoon, or Rivers. Sassoon seems to be falling apart, Prior may have confronted one inner demon, but Rivers has a host of them he's not addressing. It's not clear how any of them will go from here.

'And of course there's always the unanswered question. Could you face it? Could you pass the test? But where I think we differ, Billy, is that you think that's a Very Important Question, and I think it's fucking trivial.'

Prior glanced sideways at him. 'No, you don't.'

It's a Lightweight, Watery World

I came across a thread somewhere back in the fall, discussing the size of the world where One Piece takes place. The model someone posted listed the diameter of the planet at over 61,000 km. That's 10,000 km larger than Uranus, half the size of Saturn, 5x bigger than Earth. A quick Google search revealed arguments that it's actually around 35,000 km, or maybe over 420,000 km (3 times the size of Jupiter.)

To be clear, I have no idea what any of these measurements are based on. Presumably any mentions of height or depth in the manga or anime. Almost certainly extrapolating from maps we see of specific places, combined with references to distances or travel times. Maybe some data books? Probably also based on how long it takes the Straw Hats to get from one end of the first half of the Grand Line to the other, which would be half the circumference of the planet, plus average sailing speeds for the different ships they used.

Not sure how you incorporate the time they were drifting through the air with a giant octopus for a balloon, or the Thousand Sunny being able to rocket through the sky, but I'm sure those folks manage.

Back to the original point. There's also the above still of the Library on Ohara. Some people take this as a model of their world, meaning it's orbited by several moon. So the notion floated in the thread was, this is the Doylist explanation for how ridiculously strong everyone is, since even the "weak" characters survive falls or being thrown through walls that would kill any of us. The planet is huge, the gravity is higher, so these folks are all really strong from moving under heavy gravity. Kind of like early Superman (before it became the yellow solar radiation powering him), or Charlie-27 from the OG Guardians of the Galaxy.

It doesn't really work, since those characters demonstrate their strength and resilience in places they move to with weaker gravity. All the One Piece characters are on their birth planet all the time, minus the crazy guy that flew his giant airship to the Moon because he thought it was the proper place for a god like himself. And he says he's traveling to the moon, singular, and no one asks him to specify which moon, implying there's only one. There's also never a sign of multiple moons in the sky during any night scenes, which wouldn't be difficult to do if that was actually a feature of the planetary system Trigun, for example, made sure to show more than one moon, because that was part of the setting.

It's more likely the image is the current conception of the entire solar system, and those poor suckers are still trapped in a geocentric view of the universe. It would at least fit with their society, where you have a bunch of "nobles" living in a city atop a mountain, proclaiming they control everything and everyone else is theirs to kill or enslave as they wish. Of course they'd insist the entire universe revolves around them.

I wonder how that impacts navigation in a world so dependent on traveling at sea. You rarely see anyone sail at night, for example, or reference using the stars, even before the main characters got to the Grand Line, where the special compass always points to another island. But the observed difference in the movements of the stars when assuming they orbit your world, doesn't seem like enough to impact navigation, based on a brief look online.

Back to the gravity. What I'm thinking, the peculiar physics and resilience seen in One Piece aren't a result of their growing up on a huge world with gravity several times stronger than Earth's. Rather, while their world may be much larger, its gravity is actually weaker, due to a low density. My example was going to be Saturn, because I remembered my old astronomy books stating its gravity was only 93% that of Earth's, since it was less dense than water. The old, "It would float in water, if you could find a tub to hold it" bit. They appear to have gained new data, and its gravity is actually 107% Earth's.

Still, the basic idea holds. The world is largely covered by water, which is theoretically only as dense as. . .water. The islands scattered about vary in size, but most seem like they could be crossed on foot within a week, if not less. I don't think there are many the size of Cuba, let alone Greenland or Australia. There's one continent, actually a mountain range that encircles the globe (albeit broken up occasionally by water.) It rises from the sea floor, which is known to be 10,000 meters deep, and extends to at least cloud level.

I can't find anything more concrete on the height of the Red Line, though there are cities on clouds 10,000 meters up, and we don't hear about those colliding with the Red Line, so it may not reach that high. Even capped at less than 20,000 meters in total height, it's well above Mauna Kea, which is 10,200 meters from the sea floor to peak. Lower gravity would allow for taller mountains, like Olympus Mons on Mars, which is 24,000 meters high.

Given the lack of larger landmasses on the planet, and the amount of surface area covered by water, I don't know that there's much tectonic activity. Certainly not many active volcanoes. No evidence of recent plate tectonics, which might suggest a cooling core and mantle. Which would likely mean little to no magnetic field. You could probably handwave in something about cosmic radiation and Devil Fruits if you wanted, but I'm thinking in terms of what this means for the internal composition of the planet. 

Earth's high density is the result of its iron-nickel core. Same for Mercury. One Piece's Earth might lack those elements, or lack them in great amount, or they're diffuse throughout the interior. Occasionally there's enough activity to push some through the crust and you get an island. If there's no spinning core to create a magnetic field, all you have are each islands personal magnetic field. Why this only happens on the Grand Line and not any of the Blues, I don't know, but I might as well guess while we're here.

The Grand Line is banded by two stretches of water with no winds or currents, which suggests some sort of weird thing. Maybe there was one major event that created the Red Line (some sort of internal contraction that crumpled the crust in the middle?) and broke up existing current and wind patterns, creating a stretch of geologic time with limited activity, forming the islands in the Grand Line. The disruption of global currents created new ones in each of the "Blues", and that created deposition zones where material collected and over a very long time, built islands out of sedimentary rock, rather than igneous. Different composition, no magnetic field.

End result, the characters run faster, jumper higher, fall from great heights, and its easy because the gravity is low. If the planet does lack in heavier metals, you could explain how easily characters are knocked through or destroy buildings as the available stone being less sturdy and metal being somewhat scarce. Lower gravity would likely mean lighter, more fragile bones, since supporting the body would be easier, too. But we do see characters (especially Usopp) wrapped up in bandages or body casts frequently, without suffering any long-term damage. So the bones are light and break easy, but possibly that makes them easy to put back together.

Yellowbeard (1983)

Yellowbeard's a notorious pirate, who's spent twenty years in prison while the British Navy tries to sweat the location of the treasure he stole from a delusional Spanish priest (Tommy Chong). He escapes, but the only remaining copy of his treasure map is tattooed on the scalp of a young gardener whose mother (Madeline Khan) claims is Yellowbeard's son.

So it's loosely a treasure hunt, with Yellowbeard's one-handed former bosun (Peter Boyle) and his conniving yes-man (Marty Feldman) after the treasure, along with the head of the British secret service, but it's mostly just a string of gags that occasionally remember to drift in the direction of a buried treasure. Yellowbeard is barely involved for long stretches, usually whenever he's taking a break from raping.

There are a lot of rape jokes in this movie, which is not great. Madeline Khan pulls some laughs with some of her comments ("I never left anyone I raped alive!" "I do remember it being rather rough. . .") Most of them feel like someone trying too hard to be shocking.

There were a lot of parts in the movie I did laugh at, though. John Cleese is in there as a blind informer, who Boyle and Feldman eliminate in a hilarious manner. During the attack on the priest's stronghold, there are a lot of gags about his chief lackey (Cheech Marin) berating the soldiers for overacting in their "death" scenes. The various attempts by sailors to sneak women aboard the ship, which including Feldman's giant crocodile. The British spymaster being announced as such at a party, before the crier reads the part that says, "don't say this aloud." Enough funny bits to keep the movie rolling and keep it from focusing on Yellowbeard, who's too one-note to be compelling.

Martin Hewitt, who plays the young gardener, is a nothingburger, but I imagine that's by design. He's the relatively sane one surrounded by lunatics and idiots. He eventually gets into the swordfighting and swashbuckling, but closer to the Errol Flynn version of movie pirates than the sociopath Yellowbeard is.

Dying It All Again

Somebody's spending too much time on certain online forums.

I'm not generally into the isekai genre of manga, where a character dies and awakens in some new (more fantastic) world, but No Longer Allowed in Another World seems to be the exception. A failed writer, who's only referred to as Sensei, is planning a double suicide via jumping in a raging river, when he gets hit by a truck instead. Awakening in Zauberberg, he learns he's expected to be some great hero, a task he has no desire to accomplish.

Sensei does, after nearly dying and in the process saving a cat-girl, decide on one thing he needs to do. The girl he was committing suicide with may have crossed over to this world as well, but not in the same chapel as him. He wants to find Sacchan, so they can get things right this time. As it turns out, she's thrown in with another group, but he doesn't know that yet.

I think what I enjoy about the manga is what I enjoy about the FallOut games. Not choosing the most unsettling or confrontational dialogue options. Or not only that. Hiroshi Noda writes Sensei with zero interest in any quest to defeat the Dark Lord, or great destiny. Besides finding Sacchan and successfully dying, he's content to wander the landscape with the few oddballs he's encountered and see if inspiration strikes. It's the way I prefer to play those sorts of games, wander around and look for weird stuff. If it intersects with the main plot, well, I guess I can deal with that. It might send me someplace new, to see more weird stuff!

We're told by a priestess that most otherworlders are abusing their "cheat" skills for their own personal gain. I would argue none of these otherworlders were asked about being dumped in this world and being expected to save it. As Sensei points out, what is the "Isekai Jackpot Truck" to decree someone will be "happier" in another world?  Point being, even if Sensei had any cheat skills - and other than his Poisoned status being transferable, none is revealed in Volume 1 - he doesn't seem inclined to do that. He'll ask Annette for money to buy a poison flask, or a coffin that she and "Tama" can drag him around in. But success there owes to Annette being either smitten with him, or having her outlook on life reawakened by his peculiar attitude.

That's one part I feel Noda doesn't really make clear. Tama's reasoning for sticking around is simple enough: Sensei did (inadvertently) save her life, so she figures she owes him. Annette had grown disenchanted with muttering the same platitudes to otherworlders. Sensei's complete rejection of the "gift" startles her, tot he point she resigns from her post to follow him. Possibly it's a protective instinct, since he seems incredibly weak and actually needs her protection (ignoring the part where he doesn't want protecting.)

Takahiro Wakamatsu adopts the Western medieval fantasy look for Zauberberg - Sensei notes on first awakening that if this is Heaven, it certainly skews Western in its aesthetic - but filtered through a manga style. Big, European style castles with high stone towers and Western-style dragons with great leathery wings and large legs and arms, rather than a more serpentine appearance. But knights wield oversized, Final Fantasy style broadswords, and the martial artists are girls with cat tails and ears who otherwise look human.

Sunday Splash Page #306

 

"Open Grave Space," in Legion Worlds #4, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Duncan Rouleau (penciler), Jamie Mendoza (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

A six-issue mini-series started a couple of months after Legion Lost concluded, Legion Worlds was an overview of what several other members of the Legion were getting up to in the year since several members of the team died in the big gate accident, and the Legion of Super-Heroes were disbanded under orders of the United Planets.

Each issue focuses on a different planet, and different Legionnaires, and is drawn by a different artist. This includes, to my surprise, Steve Dillon drawing issue 5 (which focuses on Karate Kid and Ferro Lad, hanging out on the equivalent of a monastery planet.)

The gist is, the United Planets aren't so united at the moment. The "stargate" system was taken offline after the Blight's tampering caused the massive failure that threw the cast of Legion Lost to the far side of the universe. Which makes travel and shipping difficult, which has ripple effects. The lightning siblings' homeworld of Winath relies on weather control technology, but it's harder to get parts to sustain it, and with longer shipping times, it's harder to sell produce.

Beyond that, a lot of it is setting up status quo for the next ongoing series. The new president of the U.P, a Leland McCauley, has his own team of superheroes, for which Mon-El decided to be frontman. Certain members of the Legion are working under-the-radar to be ready for the next big problem. There's some sort of advanced, artificial intelligence code working to purposes the people on Earth aren't sure of (though the people on Xanth sure as hell know.) Phantom Girl's pregnant with Ultra Boy's kid, and hanging out on his homeworld to hide from her domineering bitch of a mother. Which is also how Abnett and Lanning work to bring a new Timber Wolf into the picture.

Despite being build-up, each issue does also function as its own distinct solo adventure, with each character or characters having come to some sort of decision about what they're going to do next. The mini-series concludes with the lost Legionnaires reappearing in orbit above Earth, and that's where next week's entry will pick up.

Saturday Splash Page #108

 

"Judgement's Due," in Supergirl (vol. 3) #48, by Peter David (writer), Leonard Kirk (penciler), Robin Riggs (inker), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)

As mentioned last week, one effect of Crisis on the Infinite Earths was to make Superman the only Kryptonian again. But DC couldn't put the Supergirl idea away entirely, so we got the. . .unusual "Matrix" Supergirl. I'm only vaguely up on her backstory. Something about an alternate reality, a Luthor with a full head and beard of red hair? Made of pink, protoplasmic goo, has telekinetic powers.

I don't know where he got the notion, and I'm a little surprised DC let him do it, but Peter David combined Supergirl with a young woman named Linda Danvers, to create a composite person. Linda's memories, but filtered more through Matrix's perceptions and attitudes.

The first year is largely Supergirl figuring out what's happened to her, how it happened, and what things are going to be like for her going forward. This involves a lot of Linda's friends and acquaintances trying to figure out the 180 she's pulled in personality, and "Mae" realizing the girl she's merged with wasn't quite what she figured at first glance. It also involves a demon called Buzz, who is a persistent source of both advice and irritation for almost the entire series.

Around the end of the first year, Leonard Kirk takes over as regular penciler from Gary Frank. Kirk and Riggs' art tends to soften Supergirl's appearance relative to Frank's, who had more of a thin, sharp edge to faces and expressions (though he hadn't drifted into the overly busy and stiff work he would by the time he's working with Geoff Johns a lot.) While Kirk's fully capable of drawing a furious Supergirl, he rounds jawlines and cheeks, which allows for a wider range of expression.

I think David ramps up the humor and puns more once Kirk takes over the art duties as well, but that might just be the shift in the direction of the series. Once Supergirl has some handle on the basics of her new life in Leesburg, David starts to unravel the nature of what she is (or has become, maybe.) She'd already begun to manifest new powers - flame wings, literal flame (not heat) vision -and seems to be attracting a particular kind of weirdo. Oddly dressed little boys who claim to be God, demons, fallen angels, a lady who changes into a superfast cyborg-horse person (that is also physically male, and no I'm not talking about Beta Ray Bill. Different cyborg horse-person.)

Supergirl also has to deal with people looking up to her, worshiping her, and the expectations that come with that, on top of the usual subplot stuff of parental issues, relationship issues, work troubles. That all culminates in a huge battle in issue 50 against a being out to claim Earth for his own, by forcing God to renounce his hold on it.

At which point David and Kirk pivot again. Now it's just Linda, with Golden Age Superman power levels, and the white t-shirt look Supergirl was sporting in the Timmverse Superman cartoon, with no idea where her other, angelic half, is. The story becomes a quest of sorts, with Linda having to team up with Buzz, and neither seeming to bring out the best in each other. That leaves Linda wondering if all the good she did, all the good that was in her, was really that other being. And if so, can she really change? Can Buzz, and does he even want to? 

That builds to another big showdown in issue 74, this time in the Garden of Eden. David pulls together threads he introduced over 40 issues earlier, and even uses elements from his Joker: Last Laugh tie-ins (in general, I find the event tie-ins and crossovers to be the weakest issues, but those two issues were pretty enjoyable.)

It feels like the book should end there. All the major threads tied up as they're going to get. But the book hung on another half-dozen issues, now with Ed Benes as artist. David brings in the Silver Age Kara Zor-El, somehow diverted to this world, and has her and Linda interact, until Linda tries to take Kara's place in the Silver Age (Earth-1?) timeline, including the showdown against the Anti-Monitor. Doesn't work, natch, no thanks to the always useless Hal Jordan Spectre. Plus, there's some idiot in a Skyrim mask out to kill Linda, but he can't find her.

It feels less like a Supergirl story than David lining up his future plans for Linda's character, which would play out over the Fallen Angel series at DC and then IDW.

As for Supergirl the concept, DC would bring back "Superman's cousin" in a Superman/Batman arc by Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner, then prove to have absolute fuck-all clue what to actually do with the character. So she bounced from one concept to the next - Outsiders this week, hanging out in Kandor with Power Girl the next week - probably getting the most traction when Waid and Kitson used her in their Legion of Super-Heroes book.

Random Back Issues #122 - The Jaguar #7

Shot through the heart, and you're to blame, 'cause the cop is afraid, of cryptid dames. 

Maria De Guzman takes a walk in the woods outside the college town where she lives to enjoy some peace and quiet. It's also a chance to see what she can do as the Jaguar.

After spending a moment wondering how her costume transported itself from her closet to her body, she tests her long jump. A quarter of a mile's not bad, but only makes her question what she is even further. She sets off running and easily catches a squirrel, noting the animal didn't fear her when men did, and which is the wiser? Leaping to the top of a tree to enjoy the view, Maria marvels at how she can hear the students back on campus (which she described as 45-minute walk). But she also hears gunshots.

The shooting is the local sheriff and one of his deputies, plinking away at cans on a fence while another deputy takes the statement of a farmer about a break-in on his property last night. The shooters are a couple of dopes, as the sheriff tells the deputy that if those cans were 'international drug lords, they'd have fried you by now, Zimo!' Don't see the issue, the drug lords are clearly just selling to the squirrels.

Zimo responds he wants to live in frontier days, so he could slay savage Indians, but the sheriff objects to that talk. He's one-quarter Cherokee, after all! The deputy argues the sheriff, named Dal Zehnder, is German, but the sheriff insists his people crossed the land bridge from Asia 20,000 years ago! At least he's not buying into the Clovis hypothesis. He also doesn't know why Zimo needs a .44 Magnum, but Zimo argues it's for Bigfeet and Sasquatches, right about the time the Jaguar arrives to see what's happening. Zimo's immediate response is to shoot her. Credit to the sheriff, he's really sticking to his "one-quarter Cherokee" bit with the 'stupid white-eyes' remark.

Fortunately, the bullet didn't penetrate, sparing Zimo's hours of trying to figure out how a subliterate dolt like himself could fill out a report on the shooting. While Zimo and Dal tell the other deputy, Jaguar runs into the woods. The farmer says the only other damage was to the cover of his old well, and when the competent deputy offers to board it up, she falls in. The Jaguar's made it to a road and switched back to Maria. Maria can feel the pain of the gunshot, but also hears the shouts (the Jaguar abilities seem to be leaking over) and immediately switches back to the Jaguar to investigate, not watching to see what's ahead.

Ouch. Still, she returns to the farm, where the deputy (one of the other cops refers to her as "Rocky", but the other called her "Lucky") is alive, but partially buried. The Jaguar climbs down, but she's a lot heavier in this form, so the side of the well collapses, burying her, too. She begins to panic, unconsciously reverting to Maria as she curses her overconfidence for killing the cop. But Lucky's not dead, and not able to see who's with her, tells "Jaguar" how she was thinking of stories about dragons her grandmother who came from Japan told. About them being forces for good.

This lasts 3 panels, but is enough to spur Maria into transforming back and leaping to safety with "Lucky" in a scene I used for Sunday Splash Page #274. After that, there's one page of Maria back in her dorm room, noting her cuts healed within an hour, and that something about her made the people (especially the guys) afraid. I don't think Messner-Loebs ever delves into if she's got a pheromone thing going, like Jessica Drew used to, or if it's something magic or what.

{5th longbox, 7th comics. The Jaguar #7, by William Messner-Loebs (writer), Chuck Wojtkiewicz (penciler), Mike Manley and Bruce N. Solotoff (inkers), M. Hollingsworth (colorist), W. Schubert (letterer)}

The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere - Paulette F.C. Steeves

When I was in school, they taught that the first humans came to the Western Hemisphere across the Bering land bridge around the last Ice Age. What they didn't teach me was the notion these people, from Canada to Patagonia, where all part of one big culture called the "Clovis Group", based on a certain type of bifacial stone tool that had been found in different locations.

Just as well I didn't learn about that, since it's a load of crap. Steeves spends a couple of chapters in the middle of the book describing various sites across North and South America with archaeological evidence that humans reached these continents well prior to the Last Glacial Maximum. Many of these sites are in the 15-20,000 year old range, but there are still others evidently older than 40,000 years, and a few that are over 100 or even 200,000 years old.

Those oldest sites are located around what's now the Valsequillo Reservoir in Mexico, so if people were there at that time, it's certainly possible they were elsewhere prior to that, especially if they did arrive by crossing the Bering land bridge at some other point when it was above water. Or, as Steeves mentions, if people could reach Australia by boat 60,000 years ago, reaching the Western Hemisphere by island hopping across the Aleutians would seem more than manageable.

Steeves mentions a few other theories about how humans reached these continents, including by crossing the Atlantic instead. I'd have liked to read more about that, but that's not really what the book is about. Much of the focus is on the pushback by American archaeological authorities against any sites that would contradict the Clovis hypothesis. Disputing the interpretation of damage to animals bones, the aging of the stratum where the artifacts were found, denying they're artifacts at all, instead arguing it's just a bunch of rocks that broke a certain way under some natural process. Steeves agrees that there are a lot of sites that deserve further investigation and study, but she feels this immediate resistance without even examining the evidence actually shuts that down rather than encouraging it.

I'll admit I never fully grasped the point Steeves was trying to make about why these people were so hellbent on denying that humans reached the Western hemisphere further back than they first thought. There's a lot of discussion of entrenching colonialist interpretations to protect their power and status, and the need to challenge these interpretations, which often rely on little to no evidence. The book discusses how insisting on such a geologically recent arrival diminishes the claim of First Nations people that these are their ancestral lands.

12,000 years still seems like a long enough time to solidly establish that to me, but perhaps in comparison to Australia, for example, being settled 5 times longer ago, it doesn't. I just figure if the academic authorities couldn't use the argument of length of habitation, they'd find some other reason why the entire hemisphere was open territory and nothing was stolen.

But Steeves is also focused on how it impacts First Nations' communities, by disconnecting them from their heritage, traditions and culture, much of which has been passed down orally for hundreds or thousands of years. Having that be denied, being told it's incorrect, inaccurate, not the right kind of evidence, diminishes it and the people it's connected to. 

Steeves gives a few examples of oral histories of different peoples that pointed to major archaeological finds. That was another thing I'd have like to read more about, because I've wondered in the past how one parses through spoken word history to separate fact from myth. Again, it's a small part of the larger point she's trying to make about how there is abundant evidence that the Clovis/Last Glacial Maximum idea that's taught in schools here in the States is bunk, and that needs to be made more widely known and get less baseless resistance from the entrenched establishment.

I expected the book to delve more into the archaeology and past lives of the earliest people to live in the Western Hemisphere. In that sense, it wasn't really what I was looking for, but what it was wound up be highly informative in its own right.

'What I am implying is for an Indigenous group to be in the Amazon or Eastern Brazil over 22,000 or 50,000 years ago, they most likely had to have walked there and in doing so left their stories on the land in many areas on their way to, say, Pedra Furada in Brazil or Monte Verde in Chile, or to Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania or the Cerutti site near San Diego, California, which is dated to minimally 130,000 years ago.'

Easiest "Who's There?" Ever

As I understand it, John Ridley's Black Panther run concluded with T'Challa having not only lost his title as ruler of Wakanda (which I think happened earlier in the title), but even losing his citizenship and being exiled. Because the council that was ruling the country was sick of all his secret plans and general bullshit fucking things up for them.

Wait, you're allowed to hold people in positions of authority responsible when they do stuff like that? Huh, that's news to us here in the U.S.

Where was I? I think T'Challa was assumed to have died stopping a threat he was responsible for. Either way, no more Black Panther. Except now there's another Black Panther running around Wakanda, fighting evil and speaking with sage wisdom. And to at least Wolverine's great surprise, it's still T'Challa! But how, he's not allowed in the country?! Also, he's supposed to be dead, but whatever.

Set aside that we, as readers, are not surprised they didn't kill him off. At this point, how would any of the costumed set in the Marvel universe be surprised? This is the character with apparently a ton of contingency plans. The character who, when told by the governing body of the country he aims to protect to not interfere and make things worse, went ahead and interfered in cleaning up his past messes and made things worse. When told by the Avengers he wasn't being a team player and to stay out of it, made his own team and stayed in it. A guy, like Tony Stark, always convinced he's the smartest guy in the room and so whatever he does is correct. Of course that guy would ignore the fact it's literally illegal for him to be in Wakanda's borders and keep being Black Panther? Who else could protect "his" country? Certainly there can't be anyone else, or a group of someones, competent or qualified for that role

Worse, he's wearing basically the same costume. He added a panther-face shoulder pauldron, and he's got some throwing knives in a bandolier around his torso. Maybe there's a cloak sometimes? But, come on. It's the same costume. This is on par with Wolverine thinking an eyepatch is a disguise (which, as others have noted, might explain why T'Challa he to assure him they knew each other. The healing factor doesn't repair concussions, apparently.) T'Challa doesn't act different, doesn't speak differently. How do you hear there's a Black Panther and not immediately go, "Welp, guess T'Challa's still alive"?

It got me thinking about the "Identity Crisis" story the Spider-books did in the '90s. Say what you will about it being a cheap stunt that only lasted a couple of months, when Spidey decided to avoid all the people trying to cash in his bounty, he went all-in. Not just four different costumed identities, but ones that looked wildly different from his Spider-Man duds. He emphasized different aspects of his powers based on the identity. Prodigy got around with Golden Age Superman-style leaps and bounds, and relied primarily on super-strength. Ricochet was all about the speed, agility and spider-sense. The Hornet identity was literally him wearing a suit of powered armor the Prowler designed. Not only that, he acted differently too. Prodigy was a square-jawed, "Halt, evildoers!" type. Like the Tick, but less of a moron. Dusk was eerily silent and morally grey. Ricochet was hyperactive, running his mouth like Deadpool or Impulse.

Now, Spider-Man had the advantage very few heroes at the time knew who he was. And the ones that did - Daredevil, maybe Nate Grey, if he was still alive, Black Cat but she'd keep a secret - weren't exactly keeping close tabs. Even the superheroes who don't work with the Black Panther much, probably know it's usually this guy T'Challa, who is usually the king of Wakanda. Which makes it all the more important to try and confuse the issue. If the costume is non-negotiable, and fine, it's traditionally a nearly ceremonial garb in addition to a battle suit, act differently! Use common slang, swear, make dumb jokes, something.

It would be funny if, with all the different things he's apparently very good at, T'Challa just really sucks as acting. Brilliant scientist, gifted tactician, eh, maybe just a mediocre leader, but less acting range than Jason Statham.

Cross of Iron (1977)

What could be a better Christmas movie than what's probably Sam Peckinpah's last big film (after this, his only other films were Convoy and The Osterman Weekend)? Set in the late stages of World War II, on the Eastern Front, focused primarily on Sgt. Rolf Steiner (James Coburn).

The Nazis are retreating, and in various stages of acceptance of that fact, but Steiner and his squad are still covering the rear on those retreats, or even sometimes probing the Soviet's defense and eliminating entrenched positions. Steiner gets injured at one point and spends some time in a hospital, but heads back to the front as soon as he sees one of his men doing likewise.

Most of the movie takes place after that, and turns on issues between Steiner and the captain that assumed command earlier in the film, Stransky. Stransky's descended from Prussian aristocracy, and feels he must be awarded the Iron Cross, but neglects to actually do the sorts of things that make that happen. Instead, he claims credit for leading a counterattack he took no part in, and Steiner knows it.

Of course, the joke (if you can call it that) is Steiner barely cares. He has the chance to blow the whole thing apart before Stransky can backstab him, and declines. He has an Iron Cross, but it means nothing to him, so what does he care if Stransky gets one to uphold tradition or not? He just wants to keep his men alive, something which is basically impossible in this circumstance. Coburn carries an air of alternately weary disgust and desperation.

There are a lot of combat sequences, and Peckinpah keeps those focused at the scale of Steiner's unit. Small shootouts between a half-dozen soldiers on both sides, or a hurried retreat from a single tank in the middle of an artillery barrage. Fair amount of slow motion as guys get machine gunned or thrown into the air by explosions. There's the occasional cut to HQ, where Steiner's colonel and his adjutant (played by David Warner) are watching the entire situation disintegrate to offer a little sense of scale of the defeat, but that's not really what the film's about. I think it's more, "why are these guys still fighting at this point?"

Granted, it's unlikely the Soviets were going to be taking many prisoners, and surviving as a Soviet prisoner might be worse than death. But Colonel Brandt rallies retreating troops at the end and leads them back into the teeth of the Soviet offensive. Steiner and Stransky do the same, just the two of them. Stransky apparently wanting to prove he really does have what it takes to earn the medal, and Steiner just hasn't anything to go home to, so what the hell. He tried to get his men back safely, and that's over, so there's just the fighting.

The movie begins and ends with a song called "Little Hans", seemingly sung by a kid's chorus, about a boy who goes off to see the world and returns unrecognizable to anyone save his mother. Did all these characters really go off to war so unaware of what awaited them? Or maybe the point is they saw only the chance for glory or camaraderie, and never anticipated the horror of it all. It was a great adventure, and boy, won't all their friends and family be surprised when they get home, all grown up? Well, most of them don't get home, and the ones that do, nobody recognizes them, but it's nothing to be happy about.

What I Bought 1/6/2024

Well, the snowpocalypse didn't materialize. They went from forecasting 5 inches of snow on Wednesday to half an inch by Thursday evening. *sad trombone* It is, however, cold as a welldigger's bum outside, so hooray?

There were no new comics I wanted out last week, and I only found 1 of the 2 from the week before. As always, make do with what I got.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  Feel like Moonie stole Deadpool's mask design.

MacKay writes the issue as a conversation between Reese the vampire, and Dr. Sterman the, er, doctor. This makes everything we see Reese describe a flashback. The cast sitting shiva (with some help from Ben Grimm, I like MacKay went back to that bit about Ben always sending Moon Knight a card at Hannukah) for Moon Knight, with other heroes filling in.

And then the cast goes back to the work of protecting travelers in the night. Which includes protecting them from weird demons from Mark Waid's Dr. Strange run. I like that Hunter's Moon is devout enough to Khonshu he can act as a priest, though it's undercut somewhat when Marc, whose relationship with Khonshu was much more contentious, can do some of the same tricks.. And Rosenberg smears or sort of "vaseline lens"es the colors to give him a glow during the exorcism, making him seem blessed or a conduit for something otherworldly.

Tigra's apparently tearing up the various henchfodder looking for Black Spectre (who is probably dead at Zodiac's hands). Not handling her grief well, blood on the claws, looking kind of feral. It'd be more effective if we'd had more than 5 panels of Tigra and Moon Knight actually dating and whatnot. I'm wondering how much MacKay plans to play up the hostility between her and Reese. They've not gotten along since it came out Tigra was watching Moonie on behalf of the Avengers, but it's been limited to snide comments by Reese up to this point.

At any rate, the big development from Reese's perspective is someone claiming to be Moon Knight kicked the bejeezus out of 8-Ball and told them to get out of the Midnight Mission, and that's basically where the issue leaves off. The costume design is, fine? I don't know the significance of the crescent moon on the chest being tilted so the ends point at the ground. Marc's was usually angled so the open face pointed to 2 o'clock, and Hunter's Moon has a full moon symbol. Must mean something.

Sunday Splash Page #305

 

"Silence Speaks Louder," in Legion Lost #8, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

Legion of Super-Heroes ended with a squad of Legionnaires having given their lives in an attempt to stop a star-gate from collapsing and causing a massive explosion. Except, they hadn't actually died, they were just thrown very far away from home. To a section of the universe they didn't recognize or know, with no immediate sign of what direction home was or how to even get there.

Legion Lost was that group trying to find a way home. Abnett and Lanning actually start with an outsider perspective, as Shikari, a member of an nomadic, insectile species with remarkable tracking/pathfinding abilities stumbles upon the remains on the Legion's outpost while hiding from some vicious little pillbug looking guys named the Progeny. Some crystals left behind by Element Lad explain things to both her and the reader before the Progeny attack her, inadvertently awakening the Legion members.

That establishes early on that the Legion members are a) in a place they don't know, b) in the middle of one group's attempt to exterminate anyone they consider "variant", and c) that whatever Element Lad did to get them to their current location, he didn't make the journey with them.

From there, each issue is filtered through a specific team member's perspective. Monstress in issue 2, Kid Quantum in issue 3, and so on. It's a time-tested approach, but it serves to reinforce certain things (Night Lass/Umbra's increasing hostility is noted by just about everyone else), without seeming too repetitive by approaching it from different perspectives. Lightning Lad feeling as though there's a wall between he and Saturn Girl plays differently if accompanied by Lightning Lad's internal monologue, versus if it's Wildfire or Chameleon observing it from the outside.

Oliver Coipel draws most of the 12 issues, again with Lanning inking him for a rougher, darker look than Coipel's art would in later years. There's not a lot of opportunity for characters to show much emotion beyond glares and downcast eyes, but when Coipel can have Brainiac's cheeks puff out in a frustrated exhale, or two characters can share a laugh, he pulls it off. He's got a good sense for when to focus attention on a face by making the panel widescreen, large without necessarily using a lot of space. Or when to use a lot of space to show the immensity of a spaceship or some mysterious floating pyramid. When a battle between Umbra and the protector of an alien world (with Ultra Boy and Monstress in the middle trying unsuccessfully to play peacemaker) is tearing down a city, his panels shift to diagonal sides, tilted and slanted the like pieces of street being thrown up in the fight.

Pascal Alixe, who handles 3 issues, roughly every third one, doesn't quite have that knack. Tends to stick to 2-3 rectangular panels per row, 3 rows per page. Doesn't use widescreen panels for effect much, and sometimes when he tries to overlay smaller, more focused panels over a larger establishing shot, the ratio's not great. The panels are too close in size, too much overlap, which mostly doesn't give the scale for the larger panel or the focus for the smaller ones.

It also doesn't help Lanning seems to go nuts with the hatching and shading, especially on faces. It makes Alixe's art look much busier than it needs to, when he's already quite good at expressive body language and expressions.

Tom McCraw goes back to darker tones like in the Blight story as the group struggles to hold together in the face of long odds. McCraw and Lanning both pull back on it in issue 8, when it seems like the rest of the Legion's found them and they'll be home soon.

The story comes together nicely at the end. A few characters die, most get home. The team rallies behind their core beliefs to save the day, even though it hurts. I wonder if all of it - the reveal of their enemy, the deaths - had more oomph to longtime Legion fans. I think the beats work, but I don't have the history with the characters (plus I'm old and jaded.) So the deaths don't hit as hard, and I don't know if the turn of the final antagonist outraged anyone as out of character.

When Lightning Lad describes Element Lad as always having been 'spiritual', well, the character got about three panels of dialogue in DnA's run prior to this mini-series. I hadn't seen any spirituality. (Also, got to love Lightning Lad summarizing floating alone in the void of space for literal billions of years as 'experiences' which may have pushed Element Lad over the edge.)

But with (most) of the the lost Legionnaires back, what did they find on their return?

Saturday Splash Page #107

 

"Denial," in Supergirl (vol. 2) #21, by Paul Kupperberg (writer), Eduardo Barreto (artist), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Milton Snapinn (letterer)

I've got just this one issue of Supergirl's second self-titled solo book. I don't remember how it came into my possession. My best guess is in some random grab-bag of comics I picked up at a grocery store or something like that, but it may have been part of a gift from a family member that just knew I liked comics.

This issue is essentially the second part of a story that started in Superman. Supergirl follows some alien spacecraft to Metropolis and finds Superman tangling with the Kryptonite Man. His people species lived on Krypton long before, and were in hibernation when the planet blew up. The mountain he was in was thrown clear and turned to Kryptonite, which his body fed on. He thinks the later Kryptonians made the planet explode, so he wants to kill Superman. Supergirl's basically a throw-in, since he didn't know she existed until she gets involved.

There's also some mysterious group of aliens after the K-Man for stealing one of their ships, and they've booby-trapped it to kill him. They talk of themselves as some big wheel, the unknown movers and shakers in the galaxy, but they're played as a bunch of losers. Their played as indifferent to the lives of anyone other than themselves, to I guess make the K-Man look a little better in comparison.

I don't guess it's representative of the book as a whole, given no members of Supergirl's supporting cast appear, nor are there any updates or even allusions to any subplots going on in the book at the time. Of course, the book ended 2 issues later. Then Supergirl was killed off in Crisis on the Infinite Earths. Then DC decided they wanted to go back to Superman being the only Kryptonian, so no cousin that also survived (no Kryptonite Man either, presumably, unless you count Metallo.) That didn't mean they were satisfied keeping the concept out of circulation. . .

2023 Comics in Review - Part 5

As the first Snowpocalypse of the year descends, we conclude this review of last year's books by ranking them through my entirely arbitrary and undefined criteria.

Favorite Ongoing Series (min. 6 issues):

1. Fantastic Four

2. Moon Knight

That's it, that's the list. There are only three other titles that even shipped 6 issues, and those were all mini-series. This is not a strong category. MacKay didn't seem to have nearly as much plot for this Black Spectre arc as he had issues to put it in, which is why I went with Fantastic Four, where Ryan North stuck to 1-2 issue stories, with an appropriate amount of stuff. I do like the Cappuccio/Rosenberg art team more than anything we got on FF, but I had five issues of that.

Favorite Mini-Series (at least 50% shipped in 2023):

1. Coda

2. Great British Bump-Off

3. Unstoppable Doom Patrol

There ended up being 15 mini-series that met the criteria, but I dismissed a half-dozen of those on the grounds I didn't like them enough to keep them. Of what remained, some books were weak in story (Clobberin' Time, Space Outlaws), others were weaker in art (Grit n Gears), and some were just OK (Ms. Marvel - The New Mutant.) Coda isn't not done, Spurrier and Bergara could still flub the ending, but it's felt like such a well-done book on the writing and art I gave it the edge of Great British Bump-Off, which suffers from my disinterest in cooking shows, and a lackluster mystery.

Favorite One-Shot:

1. Werewolf by Night

2. Impossible Jones Team-Up

3. Blood Run

Things like Sudden Death and Deadfellows, which only shipped one issue but ended with "To Be Continued," did not qualify. Which limited the field somewhat. Blood Run was ridiculous in a good way, but let Cardoselli go nuts, and Impossible Team-Up had its moments, but Werewolf by Night felt like the strongest entry overall.

Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel (anything purchased in 2023):

1. Mage and the Endless Unknown - SJ Miller

2. Star Power and the Lonely War - Michael Terracciano and Garth Graham

3. The Terrifics: The Tomorrow War - Gene Luen Yang, Stephen Segovia, Sergio Davila and a lot of other people

Bit of a mixed year for tpbs. Lotta swings and misses, lotta things that were OK, but not great. A few winners, though. Mage and the Endless Unknown was a largely silent book about a mage exploring the world, encountering some nice people but also a lot of horrors and gradually being ground down by the whole experience. Not cheerful, but the simplified, innocent looking figures make the lousy stuff they experience hit a little harder. The fourth Star Power volume likewise got rough with its main character, but avoided being a joyless slog through the difficulties of stopping a war. The Terrifics collection was just a lot of comics with some concepts either introduced or used I liked a lot.

Favorite Manga (anything purchased in 2023):

1. No Longer Allowed in Another World volume 1 - Hiroshi Noda & Takahiro Wakamatsu

2. The Boxer volume 3 - JH

3. Planetes volume 1 - Makoto Yukimura

I did better with the manga I tried this year (still a few whiffs, though.) No Longer Allowed in Another World consistently cracked me up, and I greatly identified with a protagonist who isn't really interested in the great conflict raging across the land he's been dumped into. Volume 3 of The Boxer was about the point I figured out JH was using the main character more as a way to examine what responses he brings out of the people he faces, as we see what someone who understands what he's facing will do to try and meet the challenge. I bought the second Planetes omnibus on sale at a bookstore that no longer exists, in a mall that barely does, years ago. So it was nice to see how things got to the point they did.

Favorite Writer:

1. Hiroshi Noda

2. Si Spurrier

3. John Allison

This one was hard. There weren't many writers I bought more than one thing from, and the ones I did (Jed MacKay, Si Spurrier) were hit-or-miss. It's hard to judge off just one thing. I went with Hiroshi Noda because not only does No Longer Allowed. . . make me laugh, I like the way he plays around with how different characters behave and why and what they're running from (while wondering when we'll see what "Sensei" is really running from.)

As for Spurrier, Uncanny Spider-Man may not have knocked my socks off, but Coda's been excellent. Especially in what the characters do and don't say to each other or themselves. And even if I wasn't impressed with the mystery aspect of Great British Bump-Off, Allison's writing is always clever and funny, and that'll carry it a fair distance with me.

Favorite Artist (min. 110 pages drawn in 2023):

1. Chris Burnham

2. Alessandro Cappuccio

3. Henry Ponciano

Cappucio's got a very sharp-edged, clean style that I can appreciate, especially with Rosenberg's colors over it, but he tends to skimp on the details as a result, and while I think part of it is about Moon Knight having tried to keep his life simple and with limited attachments, it does work against the book at times. It's hard to feel like Moon Knight's protecting anyone when the streets and buildings he moves through seem deserted. Burnham's characters are a lot squishier, messier, and there's stuff going on all around. Again, I think it fits this book as Cappuccio mostly does Moon Knight. Unstoppable Doom Patrol was also about all the characters as people and their lives, desires, all that jazz. Nobody's much paring their life down to just work there. Ponciano's on here as much for his color work, because I thought it was excellent and really brought the imagery to life.

If I removed the page limit, Matias Bergara and Max Sarin would probably be 1 & 2 in some order.

And with that, we're done. Regular blog features resume tomorrow.

2023 Comics in Review - Part 4

As with 2022, 8 artists drew 110 pages this year, although no one broke the 154 page mark. Alex Lins (the closest thing to a high point that Hellcat mini-series had) and Alessandro Cappuccio at 110 pages each (though Cappuccio would be higher if I'd found Moon Knight #25), and Paolo Villanelli (Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest) at 111 pages. Federico Sabbatini drew 120 pages on Moon Knight, and then the other 4 artists are within 6 pages of each other. Henry Ponciano (Fallen) at 134, and Chris Burnham (Unstoppable Doom Patrol) at 135. Nahuel SB (Grit n Gears) had 139 pages, which left him one shy of the leader for 2023, Iban Coello, with 140 pages on Fantastic Four.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #5, 6: The wrap-up to the Bruce Cmpbell/Eduardo Risso mini-series sees Easy Company storm the targeted bunker, only to find an amped-up on steroids Undead Hitler! But that's no match for Rock's willingness to call in another bombing strike on his and Adolf's position. For some reason, in these issues Campbell gives Rock internal narration boxes, which he didn't do for the first 4 issues. No idea why he made that change.

Space Outlaws #1, 2: Written and drawn by Marco Fontanili, this is about a parasitic alien that escapes a Martian prison and flees to Earth (still in the Wild West), only to have what is essentially a Terminator sent after it. A book that's definitely more style than substance, but very stylish.

Sudden Death #1: Like Deadfellows, a first issue that hasn't, to date, received any follow-up. This one's about a man who's very nervous and unsure of himself, until he somehow comes back from the dead, completely uninjured, several hours after being hit by a car and becomes a celebrity. Of course there's a catch, though nobody knows it yet.

Tiger Division #3-5: While the title would suggest the mini-series is about the South Korean super-team, it's really just about Taegukgi, who is the flying brick on the team, and apparently spent a portion of his youth being a thief and running gambling rackets before getting superpowers and turning his life around.

High Point: I don't know, Dr. Doom showed up, pulled the rug out from under Taegukgi's childhood friend turned crime boss tycoon. That was an OK guest appearance.

Low Point: I covered it (repeatedly) while reviewing the issues, but I would have liked to learn more about the other characters, not just Taegukgi, but they're barely even in the book. Might as well be cardboard cutouts in the background.

Total Party Killer #1: I just reviewed this last week, but a young adventurer joins a party and finds it's not everything she hoped for, between the violence and general lack of compassion or camaraderie. But then there's a big twist on the last two pages that didn't do much for me.

Uncanny Spider-Man #1-5: Si Spurrier dresses Nightcrawler up as Spider-Man and has him avoid dealing with bigger problems to catch purse snatchers and flirt incorrigibly. That can't last, and it doesn't. Lee Garbett drew issues 1, 2, 4 and most of 5, Javier Pina drew issue 3, and Simone Buonfantino drew the remainder of issue 5.

High Point: Swashbuckling, wisecrack-attempting, charming Nightcrawler is my preferred version of the fuzzy elf, so that part was A-OK with me. I would have liked watching him contend with more Spider-Man enemies. Fight the Scorpion! Fight Hydro-Man! The various baggage - the magic sword, the little Bamf ghost - were not things I was terribly interested in, but Spurrier incorporated them without making a mess.

The retcon to Kurt's birth is something I'm indifferent to, so long as they aren't trying to pretend Mystique's not been a shit parent (also a shit person) her entire life.

Low Point: Spurrier's version of Silver Sable seemed too unprofessional. Vulture working for ORCHIS out of some (subliminally) stoked resentment over the mutants' immortality wasn't a bad idea, but the techno-organic virus is a bit out of his wheelhouse. Bring back one of the Symthes or something. Garbett's art was rougher, leaning heavier on thicker black lines, the further along the series got.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #1-7: Spinning out of Lazarus Planet (which I didn't read), and briefly interrupted by that weird summer event about everyone falling asleep, this was the Doom Patrol as classic X-Men concept of finding people with strange or dangerous powers and giving them a safe place to live, while also training them to protect themselves and maybe others. Chris Burnham drew all of it except issue 4, which was drawn by David LaFuente.

High Point: The annoying corporate techbro in issue 5, who thinks he's going to "disrupt" Caulder's method of superpowers via catastrophe into something more marketable. And of course, he's not fazed by a complete failure, but he's got plenty of government funding, even without results.

Burnham's designs for the new characters were distinctive, even if most of them didn't really get enough time to distinguish themselves as characters. LaFuente's more exaggerated, cartoon-like art fit the tone of issue 4, the psychiatric evaluations were we see the character's perceptions of themselves, very well.

Culver not doing the tired bit of having Caulder be so bitter about being usurped that he undermines the team.

Low Point: Having Peacemaker (somehow placed in charge of hunting down the Doom Patrol) with his own, off-brand, Sentinels for the Doom Patrol to fight was maybe winking a little too hard at the X-Men comp. But no, the low point is the reveal at the end of issue 7, where we see that the team may, in future adventures, have to contend with the Batwoman Who Laughs. Ugh, the whole concept needs to be chucked in the deepest, hottest burning trashhole there is.

Werewolf by Night #1: A one-off about an unexpected team-up between Elsa Bloodstone and Jack Russell, each on separate trails to a crazed sorcerer trying to bring an otherworldly horror to Earth. Fran Galan keeps everything except Elsa in black-and-white until after the fighting's done, marking her as out-of-place in the conflict. Which is kind of an odd approach for a woman from a line of monster-hunters, but Derek Landy writes Elsa as more of a thrill-seeker than a hardened, caustic fighter, so it fits.

West Moon Chronicle #2, 3: This feels like the start of what is meant to be a bigger story, seeing as Maddy needs to get back to that other world and rescue her child, and that doesn't happen. The best they can manage is keeping the fox spirit from stealing the dragon's, life force, I think. Anyway, Joe Boccardo really draws the hell out of it. There's a great couple of pages about Maddy's entry to the other world, where her experiences are a border around a larger image of her bursting through the water to the other side.

West of Sundown #8-10: Turns out trusting businessmen working for a mysterious benefactor (who wants to experiment on people) is a bad idea. Who knew? Seeley and Campbell leave the door open for further stories down the line (possibly involving Dracula), but who knows if they'll ever exist.

High Point: The visions of what Griffin sees in issue 9 after Moreau "prepares" his mind for the new parts he's going to provide is nice. Jim Terry mostly doesn't get too weird, even when drawing someone with the head of a bear attached to their stomach, but it does make the time he cuts loose more effective.

The different ways in which they have Rosa use her abilities. For example, having her use her command of night creatures to make the different ones that comprise Anne's body separate. It's gruesome, but points for creativity.

Low Point: After establishing that Rosa's working with these businessmen because they'll bring in scum Dooley won't object to her feeding from, that issue is never really resolved. I mean, the businessmen are dead, and so presumably is their promised railroad and all the scofflaws that would follow.

Also, I was never clear on why Dooley and the others needed to drink peyote and go wandering through the desert just to find Moreau's train. Seemed really inefficient.

Wild Cosmos #1: Another first issue from Scout Comics, about a captain of a crew of salvagers who agrees to rescue someone from a planet in exchange for his last surviving crew member. Again, no further issues have arrived, but this felt so thinly plotted and paced and visually uninteresting I wouldn't buy the next issue anyway.