What I Bought 1/31/2024

I've been trying to rewatch the DVD in my movie collection. I tried last year, but sputtered out fairly early. I'm not that far along yet - the last one I watched was Crank - but I've been sticking to it. Progress!

Coda #5, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/colorist), Patricio Delpeche (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Yes, Hum, cling to that leg. For. . .protection.

Hum and Serka seem to have resigned themselves to the presence of Mildew and his sucker brigade, until the gnomads show up with their army, ready to wipe these "deluded fanatics" away. Hum makes a final appeal to Mildew, and Serka does likewise with the gnomads. Neither works. Even with Hum showing the truth about the false moon, and Serka pointing out Mildew's followers aren't going to try and fight, neither side is swayed.

Spurrier and Bergara lay those scenes out on facing pages, Hum on one side, Serka on the other, with the panels borders along the spine getting increasingly tattered and distant as no progress is made. The religious take Hum's arguments as tests meant to sway the, and the gnomad believes you "save" people whether they want to be or not.

This is the point where, if this was FallOut, I'd leave both sides to their slaughter and go do something else. Or kill both sides myself and then go do something else. Hum and Serka consider sitting it out, but they can't quite reconcile themselves to not trying to make the world a little better by doing something.

So they pull the old switcheroo. Serka knows about following a charismatic leader who promises the world but offers only death and ruin. So she knows how to short-circuit it. And Hum knows about being sneaky, about playing to win, even if it means playing dirty. I still feel like having his unicorn storm the gonamd's camp and trash everything is triumph through force of arm, but I guess the key is, he took the tools that made killing easy away from them, but left them alive. If they want to establish order through strength, they'd have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Of course, it's not a clean resolution. Doesn't work like that in their world, or ours, which is the rough point Spurrier's trying to make. Always be people looking for someone to promise them an escape, or looking for someone to push against and wrest control from. Do the best you can while keeping hope alive, something like that.