What I Bought 8/2/2024

Alex visited over the weekend, and while we were discussing the lack of a direct route from our current Point A to the desired Point B, described the town as, 'like Cincinnati fucked San Francisco on the outskirts of Hell.' But real estate is so cheap on the outskirts!

Only two books from July, as the second issue of Rogues did not appear. Not giving me much confidence that Scout Comics got their shit together.

Blow Away #2, by Zac Thompson (writer), Niccola Izzo (artist), Francesco Segala and Gloria Martinelli (color artists), DC Hopkins (letterer) - Such natural beauty. Be a shame if someone were to spoil it with a murder.

Brynne falls down a ravine, somehow survives smacking her head against a ledge, and wakes up in a cave with the mysterious, masked hunter. The hunter seems to be lying, although it's hard to tell what is actual lies and what's Brynne's paranoia. She thinks he stole her glasses, presumably to make it harder to identify him, but why would she expect her glasses to stay on her face after a fall like that. Izzo draws her without them when she faceplants on that ravine, which presumably is by design and not a miscommunication.

But Thompson finally goes more fully into the flashbacks, everything colored by Segala and Martinelli with almost a kind of glaze, like looking through glass that's been stained by years of smoke or fumes. Brynne found stories detailing some popular TV personality had been abusing kids for years. Her bosses pressured her to kill the story because they were paid by the same company as the personality. Brynne put it out there anyway, the guy killed himself in her office rather than face the consequences of his actions.

At least, that's what we've got up to now. We'll see if there's a shocking twist reveal in the final issue. Brynne makes her escape, and the fact the hunter tries to shoot her (forgot to reload his gun) lends credence to the idea he's up to something. She finds some sort of shelter/shed, gets hold of her boss, is helicoptered into town, and is finds herself being investigated by the sheriff. Because she has been hiding evidence, and one of the climbers finally turned up, describing a terrible accident that he was fortunate to survive. Brynne's convinced it's a lie, so we'll see how that goes.

I don't think Nick - the survivor - was actually the hunter, although I wonder about the black eye after Brynne clocked the hunter with a rock. It would explain why he vanished around the time the climbers showed up, if Nick had been scouting, then flew home to meet Andrew and came back together. Unless Andrew is the hunter, trying to escape an unsatisfying life by faking his death? It would fit Brynne's persistence leading to destruction if she wrecked that for him, but I think they found Andrew's body, so that's no good.

Either Brynne's paranoid, trained by past experience to see cover-ups at all times, and she's going to get herself in bigger trouble, or there really is something there. I kind of think she's chasing ghosts. The 9-panel page of her and the sheriff, Brynne seems like she's always looking at something off-panel, like she can't face the truth. Or she's seeing what no one else does.

Blood and Fire #3, by Aaron Wroblewski (writer), Ezequiel Rubio Lancho (artist), Es Kay (letterer) - Halfway to dead.

The lone samurai reaches Lord Kiyotane's castle and begins his assault. But it's not only him the defenders have to worry about, as there are spirits with their own business to settle. Wroblewski flashes back a couple of times to show why the spirit is killing a particular guy - why shoot a person through the throat with an arrow? Just asking for painful retribution - and Lancho depicts only parts of the spirits coalescing into distinct features, the rest like puffs of smoke.

The samurai cuts down the last of the lord's defenders, who refuse to yield even when he gives them the chance. Leaving just Kiyotane himself, who is very surprised to be confronted by a dead man. Yep, the samurai died in the second issue - seriously, why do they keep shooting people in the throat? - and was brought back by the need for vengeance. Kiyotane is dumb enough to think this makes him safe. Kill him, and the samurai has no unfinished business to keep him here. As he gets hurled out the highest window to the cliffside below, that was a false assumption.

The notion that the samurai would rather be dead than let this guy live isn't exactly a shocking idea, but I like the way Wroblewski frames it. Kiyotane is used to people following his orders, even before he made this power play, he was a feudal lord. People die for him, but they fight with their very lives. So he expects that will save him, the need to survive to continue to serve. But for the samurai, all the people he considered worth serving, worth continuing to live for, are already dead. He failed in his duty to protect those people, so he's supposed to be dead. If Kiyotane's continued existence is what stands in the way, well, that's easily rectified.