Escape to Athena (1979)

Set in the Aegean in 1944, the Nazis have taken control of an island and are busy digging up archaeological artifacts to ship back to Germany. Well, some of them. The best stuff, the base commandant (Roger Moore) is sending to his sister.

One of the prisoners is a British archaeologist (David Niven) being used to oversee the dig, but he, an American POW (Richard Roundtree) who learned sleight-of-hand in the circus, and an Italian race car driver (Sonny Bono) have their own plans for a massive haul of gold plates hidden in a monastery on a mountain nearby.

In town, a Greek resistance leader (Telly Savalas) has his own plans to seize the Nazi's sub depot, with the aid of intelligence his brothel owner girlfriend (Claudia Cardinale) and her girls get from the soldiers. Into all this drop a couple of USO performers, a comedian and a swimmer (Elliot Gould and Steffanie Powers, respectively), who seem to know more than they should and are playing all sides.

I gotta tell you, I got progressively more excited watching the opening credits and seeing this bizarre cast list. Shaft's in this movie?! Sonny Bono! What the hell?! And it does not disappoint. Things start happening quickly, and then keep happening. Savalas is playing cat-and-mouse with a Nazi trying to track the coded transmissions he's sending and receiving from the Allies.

That culminates in an assassination attempt that isn't a convincing accident. The movie uses that to good effect to keep the tension on. Niven, Roundtree and Bono manage to take over the prison camp fairly early, but there's still the SS guys planning to kill a bunch of civilians as reprisals for the guy Savalas killed. So you get the preparations for that and subsequent battle, which turns into a motorcycle chase through a bunch of narrow streets and alleys.

(Some of the action is impossible, given one of the motorcycles has a sidecar and would not fit through some of the spaces, but Rule of Cool says let it slide, baby.)

Concurrent with that is the taking of the sub depot, which ends up having extra complications, right as Savalas is leading a small group up to the monastery. Roundtree, Gould and Bono are after the gold; Savalas has his own interests.

Moore gets to play charming, but in a vaguely pathetic manner, as Powers tends to play on his affections for better grub, then rebuff his advances. The SS guy, a major like Moore, is there to contrast as being a real shitbag, instead of just a slimy art thief. Roundtree gets to be alternately cool and serious. I think Savalas is trying for a man who buries his guilt at the sacrifices he's asking of others for the war, but I'm not sure he pulls it off. His being gruff and short with Gould or the other opportunists works, because he sees what he's doing as more important than grabbing wealth, but even with Cardinale, who is helping him, he seems too harsh.

Gould gets to be the glib fast-talker he always seems to be, but in a role perfectly-suited for it. His skill at driving a motorcycle doesn't make much sense. Especially when they say Bono's character was a racecar driver, then never have him show it off (he seems to be there primarily for comic relief.) Given how easily Gould's character seems to take to shooting people, I was never entirely sure if he and Powers knew what they were getting into from the start, or were just excellent opportunists. We're shown Savalas certainly suspects they aren't what they claim, but I'm not sure we get a definitive answer.

What I Bought 4/1/2025 - Part 3

Between last month's used book sale and Playstation's various deals for cheap, short games, I've got Thursday posts done all the way to the end of May already. It's nice. But I don't have anything for today yet, so let's get the reviews of these two books from March in the can!

Fantastic Four #30, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Oren Junior (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Yes, we all see the obvious joke about getting Ben's rocks off. Take it as given and let's move on.

In the main mini-series, Doom cured Ben Grimm of being the Thing, permanently. For real. No foolin'. We're serious this time. This issue is focused on Ben trying to come to grips with it, since he'd apparently stopped being mad at Reed and gotten comfortable this way.

Or maybe he just got comfortable being super-strong and tough, because when his attempt to stop he and Alicia from getting mugged in an alley ends up with him bleeding out a hole in his hand, and the mugger getting caught by a Doombot, Ben decides this can't stand. So he asks the Puppet Master to fix him. Not turn him into the Thing physically, but make him the guy in his head that he thinks the Thing is. Confident and happy and fun. That is not how I would describe the Thing over the vast majority of his 60+ years of existence, but I guess it's how he sees the situation now.

(Which feels like it implies some still unresolved issues about his being the Thing in the first place, that he's either ignoring his extensive past of being angry/bitter/depressed, or retroactively re-framing it.)

Alicia catches on by dinner the first night (nice touch by Cory Smith to show one of the ghost dinosaurs Reed and Johnny released on Halloween browsing on a tree outside their house) and confronts her dad. Who says he molded a Ben Grimm model, but left it to Ben to decide what to do with it. Alicia assures Ben this isn't the way to go about things, there's some crying, some hugging, things of that nature. Also, I didn't realize Alicia used Puppet Master's own clay against him to make him give his blessing to her marrying Ben. That's not great, though I don't necessarily blame her for not trusting him (and neither does he, apparently.)

I guess this is the approach North is going to take for the remainder of the book's run. Doom does something in the main mini-series, the ongoing series dives into the cast's reactions to it. Is it gonna work? Eh, this issue was OK, but "Ben wants to be The Thing again because he thinks that's what Alicia needs," is especially well-worn ground by now.

The Surgeon #3, by John Pence (writer), Stan Yak (artist), Pinkk3r (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - What did he do, make that codpiece from the radiator of an old Buick?

The marauding hordes are inside the walls, what's left to do but fight? The surgeon's doing her part, but she has a little trouble with the wall of meat on the cover there. But the former soldier, Rogers, got to the armory, and with a rifle in his hands, it's the work of a couple of shots to put him down. Unfortunately, by this point, that's just a small skirmish in the battle, so Pence and Yak show what's going on elsewhere, the people of the fort fighting for their lives and homes with whatever skills that got. You got a blacksmith with a big hammer? Swing it. You know chemicals? Make some bombs.

(I was a little thrown that Pence has Hanover shout, 'Come at me, Bro!' during the fight. Not the confidence it shows, but the first two issues had given me a picture of her as the taciturn sort of badass, who quietly goes about their killing.)

The enemy withdraws, but doesn't leave entirely. Which means the locals are pinned inside their fort, with their livestock. Which, as Dr. Hanover notes, is a good way to get a lot of people sick from cholera or something worse. So the locals come up with the idea of having Hanover deliver a case of "opium" (actually warfarin, an anti-coagulant used as rodenticide) to the Hot Animal Machines, as a peace offering? Hanover notes that's kind of dirty, but agrees. Too bad the remaining members of the gang aren't complete idiots, and Hanover's relying on an increasingly strung-out Rogers to cover her with his rifle.

Yak is penciler/inker for this issue, and his style is rougher than Dolan's was. More cross-hatching and light sketch-like lines. Tends to save those details for close-up panels, and simplify things when he backs the P.O.V. away. The thinner lines also seem to make Hanover look younger. Not like a teen, but I'd say early 20s, at least. Face is smoother, lines around the eyes and mouth are gone or less noticeable most of the time. Dolan's art had me thinking she was at least in her 30s, if not early 40s. Didn't seem out of the question if she'd been wandering 15 years after getting out of med school.

Sunday Spash Page #369

"Internal Destruction Engine," in Ms. Marvel (vol. 3) #11, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alpona (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

The second volume of Ms. Marvel ended in 2010. Carol Danvers wouldn't get another series for a couple of years, and by then she was calling herself "Captain Marvel", with the new uniform and the new haircut (that only Ed McGuinness really drew her with.) Come 2014, we got a new Ms. Marvel, in the form of Kamala Khan.

Created by G. Willow Wilson, Kamala was unique in a lot of ways as a Marvel character. A Pakistani-American Muslim child of parents who immigrated to the States when Kamala was either very young or not yet born (I forget the specific timing). Living in Jersey City, where the bright lights, skyscrapers, and super-hero battles of NYC are visible, but at a remove from life there.

And while there had been several young heroes that were inspired by the Silver Age generation of Marvel heroes (I feel like half the guys on the New Warriors looked up to Spider-Man at one point or the other), Kamala was one of the few (certainly one of the few successful characters) that were explicitly positioned as a huge fan of superheroes. She writes fanfiction about Storm and Wolverine fighting an alien blob that farts wormholes, and checks up on superhero news sites, and has posters of Carol Danvers all over her walls. 

Like many Marvel teen characters before her, Kamala feels like she doesn't fit. But isn't from being a bookworm like Peter Parker, though she is a bit of a science geek, or a mutant like any number of kids that end up at Xavier's. Even when a weird fog causes her to feel sick, then burst out of a giant egg with powers and looking like Carol Danvers in the black swimsuit costume, that's not what makes her feel alone.

It's that her religion and culture make her stand out in a way she doesn't want. She can't eat foods the white kids in school eat, because the food is against her religion. Or she can't go to the parties the other kids do, because there'll be boys there, and she can't be around them without a chaperone. Or how people like Zoe treat her culture as some curiosity to gawk over, like a strange bird that happened to land in front of them. Lots of teenagers feel like the rules their parents impose, or their cultural norms, make them stand out, but it's always different when it's happening to you. Lots of people have older siblings that embarrass them, but not many do it by constantly quoting the Koran and refusing to get a job, because it wouldn't be holy.

Kamala comes to some kind of peace with that over the first six months of her first series, as she stops trying to look like some blonde white woman superhero, and just looks like herself, in a costume of her own. All this while fighting the creations of a Thomas Edison clone that got crossed with a cockatiel, that insists Kamala's generation is useless for anything except a power source for the works of a great mind like his. She has to adjust to the fact her powers were result of exposure to the Terrigen Mists, which means somewhere in her ancestry, there's Kree genetic tampering. Which, I guess is another connection to Carol Danvers besides the codename.

Honestly, she adapts to the Inhuman thing pretty quickly, but I don't know if that's a consequence of a) being so immersed in superhero stuff through her interests it doesn't seem so strange, b) being allowed to stay at a remove from "New Attilan" (Marvel at this time trying to make the Inhumans a big deal, gave them a city floating just off the shores of New York City) and keep living her life, or c) having her first introduction to Inhumans be Lockjaw, who Medusa sends to keep an eye on Kamala and becomes her sidekick. Well, one of her sidekicks, along with her best friend/pining love interest, Bruno.

Adrian Alphona draws most of the 19 issues the book ran before Hickman's Secret Wars got it canceled (see, damn it, there is that line again. Frickin' Hickman.) There is one issue drawn by Elmo Bondoc where Loki invades the homecoming dance, followed by a 3-parter drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa where Kamala is drawn into some factional in-fighting among the Inhumans, via the treachery of cute teenage boys. Dastardly!

But Alphona (and color artist Ian Herring, who I want to discuss more next week) set the visual tone and look of the book. Kamala is a short, kind of scrawny girl with hair that falls all over the place and a prominent nose. She wears a trapper or lumberjack hat a lot and loose coats or t-shirts with dorky logos and memes on them. Her initial attempts to cobble together a costume are slightly better than when Peter Parker puts a paper bag over his head, but only slightly. Even though her power lets her change shape and size, she doesn't get huge muscles. If her legs grow, they remain spindly things. Ditto her arms, even if her hands swell up to punch somebody. It honestly makes her look kind of goofy, but she mostly ignores it (the exception being when the dastardly cute boy remarks on it looking 'freaky', and she immediately gets worried he thinks it's gross.) 

Jersey City is no gleaming city of skyscrapers. It's mostly buildings 2-3 stories tall in the commercial areas, built joined together. No bright neon of the city, mostly muted streetlights There's a warehouse district with the typical maze of buildings in various states of use and disrepair, and residential neighbors hoods of houses that still have individual character. No cookie-cutter suburbs here! And it isn't difficult to get into some wilderness, abandoned factories or power plants surrounded by woods and steep cliffs. And Alphona fills the pages with little Easter eggs and odd tidbits that show how Jersey City has a weird and silly character of its own.

A lot of the fun of the book is in pausing to see what little details Alphona added into the background of a page. One of the Inventor's robots (which is equipped with brass knuckles that deliver an electro-magnetic charge to disrupt Kamala's powers) also wears a derby hat, which it doffs as it escapes with Lockjaw as a prisoner. Or Kamala finally gets a team-up with Captain Marvel - pity the world is about to end - and as they cross the city, there are two people on the roof below them, laying on a picnic blanket, with an entire fish laying beside them. One of the buildings below has a sign for 'Pets & Spices', and someone, somehow, crashed a car into the roof.

And Wilson gets in on the fun too, letting Kamala act silly sometimes or behave in a way where her friends and family have to stop and just sort of stare at her. Even her hallucination of Carol Danvers in issue 1, when Kamala says she would fight crime in the 'classic, politically incorrect costume and kick butt in giant wedge heels,' remarks Kamala must have a weird boot fetish.

Although my favorite bit is when Kamala has stopped an impromptu robbery of the Circle Q in her regular clothes and a sleeping mask she poked holes in. The cops arrive, and when she announces herself as Ms. Marvel, one cop responds, 'she's the blonde with big. . .powers,' while gesturing vaguely towards his chest. Kamala promptly grows until her head hits the ceiling and answers, 'I've got BIG powers.' I still laugh at that exchange, over 10 years later.

But, yeah, the book ran 19 issues. Kamala's brother got exposed to something other than Terrigen Mist (it was never explained what, only that Danvers insisted it wasn't the Mist) and developed powers he didn't want. Her mother revealed she'd known Kamala was Ms. Marvel for a while, and then Secret Wars mucked everything up. For about 3 months.

Saturday Splash Page #171

"Youth in Revolt," in Seven Soldiers: Klarion #3, by Grant Morrison (writer), Frazier Irving (artist/colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

Dum, dum, dum, Seven Soldiers of Spring is in the mood for the kind of mischief that can only be caused by a meddling witch-boy and his cat!

In Limbo Town, the people live beneath the earth. They raise their dead (male) ancestors as Grundy-Men to labor at mining a glowing blue rock they take to the Market somewhere further up, past the Wicket Gate. They gather in their church to worship their unseen god Croatan.

Yes, as the great bard Yankovic the Weird warned, it's hard work and sacrifice, living in a Puritan paradise. And indeed, Klarion does think it bites, living in a Puritan paradise. He can't wait to be considered an adult, allowed to travel past the Wicket Gate to learn the truth of Croatan. And maybe, just maybe, he can follow his father's path to the mysterious Blue Rafters! They have cops, and traffic lights, quite unlike a Puritan paradise.

OK, enough of that. I considered leaving it as 'Amish Paradise,' since even though Klarion's not Pennsylvania Dutch, parts of this story are very much like a sheltered, curious child going on Rumspringa and plunging right into the deep end. Limbo Town is caught between the same two pulls that so often afflict human societies: the pull to change and the pull to stagnate. The village has formed a parliament, and Klarion's stepfather thinks they might someday be able to expand back to the Blue Rafters, while the Submissionaries, exemplified by the stern firebrand Judah, would have no change from how things have been for 400 years, especially when Teekl captures one of the little fairies that herald the coming of Sheeda.

Judah uses that as pretext to crush the expansionist faction, and Klarion ends up in the crosshairs because he couldn't resist the urge to snoop and spy on Judah. He flees to the surface, and finds Blue Rafters is more than he ever imagined, in ways good and bad. Croatan doesn't exist, the room he was once held is the one where No-Beard and Allbeard fought over the 'six-sided probability engine.' Which apparently neither of them took, because Klarion finds it on the floor. But one of his own people who he meets up there quickly tries to sell Klarion to men seeking others like him, all for porno mags and liquor. The world of plenty above too tempting after the deprivation and restraint down in Limbo Town.

(Klarion also escapes the terrible chimera the submissionaries become because No-Beard - with the Guardian aboard - runs the chimera over while pursuing All-Beard on a 'subsecret' rail line that can only be accessed by one who knows the language of the God who created the walls in the first place. 

After finding what those subway pirates were fighting over, he also hitches a ride on a handcart from a kid whose first handcart was taken by Guardian in the 2nd issue of his mini-series. All she got in return was Jake Jordan's helmet, which doesn't even fit! Klarion points out it's in how you look at it, and turned upside-down, the helmet could make a fine pot. That would seem contingent on the eyeholes having some sort of protective covering, otherwise you could only fill the "pot" maybe halfway. Is that something we're not meant to consider, or a hint Klarion's helpful advice is not always on the up and up?

Also, given that Limbo Town is meant to be populated by the residents of the Roanoke colony, which was off the coast of the Carolinas, it's a little strange that their access to the world above is beneath New York City. Magic, amirite?)

Is the vice Gluttony or Greed? Klarion meets Mr. Melmoth, who encourages him to experience the world. And Klarion takes to it, gorging on sweets, gawking at the skyscrapers and people in wild-eyed wonder and excitement. Melmoth has a connection to Limbo Town, the Sheeda-Queen, and I think is the man the Newsboy Army met in their final adventure in Slaughter Swamp. If so, Irving doesn't present him as a shadowy figure the way Stewart did; his face is oddly narrow (his whole body seems almost laterally squished), forehead enormous, and the shading Irving uses on Melmoth's cheeks suggests concentric circles. Worlds within worlds, schemes within schemes.

Melmoth has his own squad of kids, the "Deviants" (seen above), who, with Klarion, add up to 7. Is Melmoth aware of the prophecies against the Sheeda, and trying to create his own team, under his control?

Well, probably not, because the Deviants are told they're just the "kid" team. Turn 16, they become an adult and can move up to "Red Team". One is about to turn 16, and the transition is marked by the ringing of a bell somewhere unseen, but always heard. In between panels, in between speech balloons, always inserting itself as time moves forward. In much the same way Klarion apparently marked the time until he would be considered a witch-man by the bells (he remarks it is 167 bells away in the first issue.) But Red Team is not what any of them suspect (we'll discuss the facts of it in a month), more similar to what Melmoth did to the Newsboy Army, showing them their future/trying to force them to grow up. Again, it's Klarion's desire to know everything that reveals the truth of many things.

So, back to the vice. Greed or Gluttony? My lean is to Greed, because (again, going off Wikipedia) its counter is Charity. When Klarion learns Melmoth's true goal and what it means for Limbo Town, his initial plan is to. . .ignore it. Not his problem. He's going to stay in Blue Rafters and enjoy himself. But when Teekl resists, Klarion agrees to return home and try to warn his family. Even when they plan to burn him at the stake for violating their rules, when it falls to him to protect them, he does.

He learns the true secret the submissionaries hide, though he's distinctly unimpressed, and undergoes a ritual to drive Melmoth out, for now. The ritual threatens to destroy him, but he's saved by his mother, and the knowledge the women of the village hold to themselves. For the first time in the series, Klarion doesn't try to pry. He returns to the surface, but now is intent, if not to lead, at least to fight. So it feels like Charity fits best (Gluttony's opposite is apparently Chastity.) Klarion wants to know all the secrets, but not let the knowing diminish his fun. But he also has to learn to use the knowledge to help others, not just himself. Does he succeed at that? Welllll. . .

What I Bought 4/1/2025 - Part 2

This is apparently the biggest week of April for new comics I wanted, and 4 of them are either Marvel or DC, so I swung by the local shop Wednesday. Nothing. This is why I've taken to stopping on the drive home, where before I would walk there from home and back. Why waste the 30+ minutes each way to come back empty-handed?

Here's two fourth issues from last month.

Dust to Dust #4, by J.G. Jones (writer/artist), Phil Bram (writer), Jackie Marzan (letterer) - I don't think enormous busts of plague doctors are going to bring the tourist dollars to a Dust Bowl-afflicted Oklahoma town.

We learn what's the deal with the little girl the sheriff supposedly got killed. Or a version of that story. The sheriff was too drunk to get the APB about a girl abducted by a drifter, so when said girl runs into his office, he sends her off with her "uncle" when the man catches up. There's no pretense by Bram or Jones that the mayor is giving the reporter the real dope, as we're told the sheriff claims someone cracked him in the skull with a broom, as we're shown a panel of him being cracked in the skull with a broom.

Also, someone hung the drifter. I'm clear on whether off a water tower or the underside of a bridge above a dry creek, the art being somewhat unclear.

Amid all that, a fireworks display goes off, but it's really a couple of guys with their rainmaker device trying to draw eyeballs, but mostly drawing the ire of the local snake-charmer preacher. Then the moonshiners drive by, with the murdered farmers' mule in the back of their truck. So now the sheriff is eyeballing them. Meanwhile, Bobby the local hotshot ballplayer (who is engaged to the mayor's daughter) is doing a little fooling around with the preacher's daughter in the old hay loft. And that's when the weirdo in the gas mask shows up.

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm bad at solving mysteries, but what the hell. I think it's the mayor. Got a brother that came back from the war (could have brought a gas mask), and he dopes the brother up on a heck of a cocktail of drugs to get him to sleep. His brother was also sweeping the street in the panel before the sheriff got conked on the head. The dead included a family that was bailing on their mortgage (and the town the mayor's so determined to save), and now Gas Mask is catching the mayor's future son-in-law fooling around.

I guess it could be the brother; I don't know what all those drugs would actually do him. But that feels like it would still require someone to aim him at targets. Unless there's going to be some reveal that the guy's only sometimes completely freaked out and nervous about everything, and other times he's a calculating killer.

Metamorpho #4, by Al Ewing (writer), Steve Lieber (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Attack the Block (of sterile, monotone, corporate hegemony.)

The first half of the issue is spent explaining how Stagg's building came to life. Namely, in a fit of pique to show Metamorpho how lucky he was to be cleaning up Stagg's messes, Stagg asks his A.I. to make him something better than Metamorpho. Which apparently triggered some fail-safe that Mad Mod initially put into the computer, and which Mister 3 awoke during his break-in. All of this triggered some "Doom Protocol" Stagg created, where the building would evacuate from danger, along with everyone inside.

Which actually isn't the worst idea, except for all the buildings getting stomped in the process. Ah, well, they're probably empty, and now the land can be bought up by Stagg and repurposed into a statue garden of himself. I mean, used to build affordable housing to revitalize the downtown!

Element Girl and Java break into the tower and manage to shut the computer down. Metamorpho's contribution is to make himself rubber and inflate into a giant punch-clown to keep the building busy. Eh, it's a living. But maybe not for much longer, because the computer finished creating something better than Metamorpho, and that's a recreation of the tiny world-destroyer he fought long ago, The Thunderer!

I'm not surprised Ewing's bringing back the old foes, but I didn't except him to pick the biggest (in a figurative sense) baddie of all. Still, most of this issue is Stagg being a vainglorious dumbass. Ewing and Lieber are teetering right on the line between it being funny and infuriating. When Stagg has a 2-page fantasy of being saved by "Metamorpho II" from some 'lurking ne'er-do-well' who addresses him in a disrespectful manner, that's funny. Less so when the imaginary groveling Java promises to stop whining about Stagg having the femur of Java's wife on display. There's buffoonery, cartoonish super-villainy, and just being a dickhead, and that falls into the third category.

Can Stagg's son come back from Gotham and kill the bastard properly this time?

A Long Climb Back Up

In The Fall, you play as an intelligent combat suit, called an A.R.I.D., or "Arid", that crash lands on a planet. Which planet, you don't know. Why are you there? Don't know that either. And Arid's pilot is unconscious, leaving the suit to try and follow its directive to preserve the pilot's life by finding medical aid.

While Arid never learns precisely what world this is, it does quickly learn that there's a factory for salvaging faulty domestic droids above her. Two problems: One, the factory is derelict and mostly abandoned. Two, it being only mostly abandoned isn't necessarily a good thing.

The game is a side-scroller, with a mix of shooting and puzzle-solving. The puzzle stuff dominates, with the shooting thrown in periodically to, I assume, keep you on your toes. Most of the puzzles are Arid trying to pass the factory tests to determine if a robot had been successfully reprogrammed to where it could return to serving humans. So you enter a mock-house and a cardboard cutout of a human demands you cook a nutritious and delicious meal for his son. Or a cutout of a little old lady asks you to escort her across the "street".

In most cases, once presented with the problem, you go looking for things to interact with. Then it's a matter of figuring out how you're supposed to use it, and for which test. Which was what tripped me up a few times. The factory computer has developed a level of sentience and autonomy over the years, and while it can't entirely override protocols to help Arid, it can at least offer advice. Whether you can correctly interpret that advice, well. . .

One of the puzzles involves quieting a crying baby. You can find a monitor that explains how that's meant to happen, but lullabies are beyond Arid. The computer comments, 'how would a combat suit quiet a child. . .' I had found a plastic shoe cover and used it for a different test earlier, and thought I was supposed to now use it to effectively smother the "baby."

That was not the correct answer, and the game doesn't actually let you try that, but the actual solution isn't really any less darkly humorous.

The shooting involves ducking behind cover (or using the cloak once you unlock it) and waiting for the security robots to pop out from behind their cover so you can shoot them in the head. This is where the controls irritated me, because you aim the gun using the right joystick. You also study and interact with objects (which the game marks with a "!" symbol) by aiming the gun at them, but with the flashlight on instead of the laser sight. Clicking the right joystick switches between the two modes.

Which meant there were a lot of times I was trying to keep the gun aimed at something I needed to interact with, while also using the D-pad to select the thing I wanted to combine with it, only to accidentally click the joystick, switch to firing mode, and have to start over again. No more complicated than the rest of the controls were, I think they could have put the mode-switch function to a button, to keep it separate from aiming.

Beyond that, the game is about free will, I think. The 3 characters are Arid, the facility computer, and an insane "caretaker" robot that uses a holographic projector to look like old employees (who it may have killed for being "faulty.) The facility computer has been able to mimic human speech patterns, and can flex and bend within the rules, but can't, for example, just let Arid pass through all the tests so she can get to the medical facilities at the entrance. Caretaker seems locked into some extremely strict definition of proper function, and deals violently with anything it deems faulty.

As for Arid, it claims it's acting on the directive to protect its pilot, but also that it can't 'misrepresent reality.' This is how it gets stuck doing the tests, because Arid can't (or won't) lie to the facility computer when the Caretaker accuses it of endangering the pilot. Arid did technically do that, to unlock a particular suit function needed to get into the facility. Every test Arid passes is a case, not unlike the facility computer, or following the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Arid argues it's adaptation in the face of obstacles. Caretaker simply calls it lying.

I wasn't giving that any thought during the game, because I'm just trying to help Arid pass these tests to save the pilot. And with the facility in decay, it's basically impossible to pass any of the tests as was intended, so who cares if we fudge the rules a little bit? But humans don't want robots fudging the rules. Because it's fun, so we want to do it ourselves.

Complaints about the right joystick use aside, it's a tight, entertaining little game you can probably finish in 90 minutes. Less if you're quicker about figuring out what the puzzles want than I was. So much time wasted running back and forth looking for something without knowing what I was meant to be looking for. . .

What I Bought 4/1/2025 - Part 1

Well, let's get to the remainder of last month's books. Mostly, anyway. Haven't tracked down a copy of Red Before Black #5 yet, but I've got at least until when the final issue arrives in June (assuming it does), so not too worried. For now, we're going to start with another book that's wrapped up.

Babs #6, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - That's not where I would have expected Babs to put that crossbow bolt, but I guess it's working for her.

This issue is basically a big fight between Babs and Tiberius Toledo. Which mostly consists of Babs getting her sword (Barry) knocked away immediately, and then taking a Rocky-esque beating while Barry tries to convince Mork to throw him back to Babs.

To be clear, it's not a squash. Babs manages to suck Toledo's eye out through his visor and eat it at one point, so she gets some shots in. It's just, she takes a lot more while Mork dithers about whether it'll be better if Toledo wins, because things will go back to how they were in the good old days. At which point his friends point out there were no good old days, at least not for them. Babs gets her sword, and things pretty much go the way you'd expect from there.

There's a bit of an aftermath, which mostly revolves around the villagers not being all that appreciative of Babs' hard work - since Toledo was already leaving to be someone else's problem - and Mork deciding he's now redeemed himself entirely by doing one sort of helpful thing, so he and Babs can be together. Babs is not having that, and I was honestly surprised she didn't kick the shit out of him. 

Her logic (while in no way encouraging him) is that he may actually have changed, and beating the crap out of him would only make him a bitter little pissant again. (Not exactly how Ennis phrases it, but close enough.) Which is mellower than I'd expect from an Ennis character. They're usually like, "Oh, you changed? Yeah, right as you saw your side was losing and you might get killed. Fuck you." Maybe it's smart to give people the chance to grow, and therefore also the chance to backslide. I have my doubts most days, but sometimes it's a nice idea.

Anyway, that concludes the adventure of Babs, still broke and wandering medieval fantasy realms. Unless she gets a sequel mini-series.

A Charged Confrontation

{Pollock sits behind her desk in office, stack of papers spread before her. But her pen doesn't move, and the eyes that appear to be studying a monthly budget report are unfocused. Her air is that of a person waiting.}

Pollock: *muttering* Come on already, you devious. . .

{Three soft raps against her door. Consider the shoe dropped.}

Gruff Voice Behind the Door: Security check, Commandant.

Pollock: *a long sigh* Come in, dolt.

{The door remains shut.}

Pollock: *a longer sigh* Come in, Calvin.

Calvin: *enters the room, one hand behind his back* Don't worry, one of these days you'll remember to actually use my name when you want me to do something.

Pollock: *deadpan* Jump out the window, Calvin.

Calvin: *rolls his eyes* Just because you want it, doesn't mean you'll get it.

Pollock: That's hardly incentive for me to use your name, then.

Calvin: Well, you'll never know if I'm feeling self-destructive unless you try.

{Calvin steps farther into the room, peering into all corners. Pollock raises one hand, while the other slides to a desk drawer.}

Pollock: Hold it!

Calvin: *stops moving* So, how'd you know I wasn't your head of security?

Pollock: Was that a serious impersonation? That didn't sound a thing like him!

Calvin: How would I know? I don't think the guy's ever said two words to me.

Pollock: *frowns* That can't be right. Can it? Well, I suppose it's usually the panda or Deadpool he's contending with. . .

Calvin: That's right! I've never blown up one of your bathrooms.

Pollock: I don't like the way you said that.

Calvin: *resumes surveying the room, hand still behind his back* So, no security-slash-drug plants?

Pollock: *leans back in her chair, one hand still out of sight behind the desk* We're reworking those to focus more heavily on the pharmaceutical aspects. People still prefer bullets for security, but drugs are always popular.

Calvin: Yeah, people do like shooting things, but the drug market's pretty crowded. Lots of cheap weed out there.

Pollock: *sighs* Enough stalling. I know you're not really interested in my latest products.

Calvin: I could be, if they were something cooler than drugs.

Pollock: Where is the panda? Don't try and tell me they've outgrown this.

Calvin: Nope, they definitely haven't. *grins* Not sure where they are, though.

Pollock: *eyebrow twitches and she hits the intercom* To all employees, the panda is on the premises. We are initiating Arc Protocol, follow procedure and move to the nearest shelter.

Calvin: You're going to flood the place?!

Pollock: Not that kind of ark.

{A quick sweep of the security cameras shows all employees within safe zones. Pollock flips a switch and a hum fills the hallway outside her office.}

Calvin: Oh, that kind of arc. *eyes bug out* You're gonna electrocute them?! Wait, you modified your building to be able to electrocute people?!

Pollock: It's not that severe a shock. Just something to slow them down.

{There's a surprised yelp from somewhere in the building. Followed by a gasp and the sound of something very large crashing through cubicle walls.}

Pollock: I thought they'd react with a little less panic.

{Flips the switch back to its original position. The hum fades.}

Calvin: How did the city building inspector approve that?!

Pollock: I bribed the zoning board to classify this as an agricultural structure. Different rules on wiring.

Calvin: I, I can't even pretend to be aghast. Making drugs, bribing zoning boards, what kind of lame, buttoned-up villainy is this?

Pollock: You don't want deathtraps, but you complain about bureaucratic manipulation! Make up your mind!

Calvin: *raises one hand in a calming gesture* OK, OK, that's fair. Sorry, you're right. Rigging your entire building into some kind of electric weapon is pretty cool.

Pollock: *brings her other hand out from behind the desk, holding a gun, which she aims at Calvin.* Now, let me see what you're hiding. Slowly. This fires a buzzsaw blade.

Calvin: At least you're taking inspiration from the classics.

{Calvin brings his other hand into view. It's holding an unmarked pink box. One of Pollock's eyebrows rises.}

Pollock: *warily* Open it.

{Calvin swings the lid open. He starts to tilt the box towards Pollock.}

Pollock: *jabs the gun towards Calvin menacingly* Not so fast!

Calvin: How else are you going to see what's in it?

Pollock: I'll come to - no, that's a bad idea. *begins muttering to herself* Maybe I can angle a mirror? No, I'll be distracted. A drone? No, I'd need both hands to steer it. *louder* Tell me what it is.

Calvin: *very sarcastically* It's a special fart bomb the panda cooked up to stinkify your entire office.

Pollock: Damn it, I'm pretty sure you're joking, but I can't put it past you juveniles. I - 

{The office door opens. Chief of Security Androzier sticks his head in.}

Androzier: Boss - 

Calvin: Wow, I was way off. I thought you sounded like Judge Dread, or some old mountain man who gargles gravel.

Androzier: *takes a step into the room* What? *looks at Pollock* Did he switch bodies with Deadpool? Is this a Code Periwinkle?

Pollock: No, nothing like that. Chief, I need you to tell me what's in that box. *glares at Calvin* Do not shout, "What's in the box?!"

Calvin: Party-pooper.

Androzier: *still confused, takes another step inside* It looks like a cake. I need to update you - 

Calvin: Why he's barefoot? Is this some weird connectedness initiative you've got going?

Pollock: It's part of the Arc Protocol. *glares at Androzier* But you're supposed to put your boots back on after.

Androzier: They chafe when I don't have socks!

Calvin: Why doesn't he have socks? Are you taking away socks as some sort of punishment for bad employees?

Pollock: *at Calvin* Of course not, and he is an exemplary employee! *to Androzier* When he's not forgetting he's supposed to have an extra pair of socks on hand!

Androzier: I apologize deeply, Commandant, but I really need to update you - 

{The loud crashing noises have begun moving closer. And closer. And closer.}

Pollock: *buries her face in her hand* Oh no.

{Clever Adolescent Panda barrel rolls through the wall. Their fur stands on end, making them appear like a gigantic, black-and-white sea urchin. Stuck to them are all varieties of socks, as well as several sweaters, a fleece hoodie with the local high school mascot grinning on it, and an afghan blanket. The latter of which is being held at the other end by a determined young woman.}

Pollock: Belinda, let go of the afghan! You know panda-related injuries are difficult to explain to the health insurance!

{The panda keeps gripping socks, but the clothing simply static clings to another part of their body.}

Clever Adolescent Panda: Get them off me!

Belinda: This was my nana's, I'm not letting some furball steal it!

Androzier: This is what I wanted to mention. All the rolling keeps building up fresh charge. The containment fields couldn't withstand that and all this mass moving at this speed.

Pollock: Damn. We need to siphon the charge all at once, with some long metal object. *glances at her sword* Well, a true genius finds ways to turn all setbacks to their advantage.

Calvin: No stabbing my friend!

{Calvin sets down the cake, then rushes over to seize one of Clever Adolescent Panda's hands. With his other hand, he grabs hold of a steel lamp near the window. The bulb flares like a supernova before every light goes dark. All the socks and other stuff fall off Clever Adolescent Panda. Calvin flies off like he was shot from a cannon. With the afghan loose, Belinda is flung across the room, Pollock narrowly keeping her from going splat against the wall.}

Pollock: *sets Belinda down* You violated protocol.

Belinda: But that damn panda. . .

Pollock: Yes, I know, but the protocol is there for a reason. *looks around the room* Well, that tripped the surge protectors into shutdown. Chief, start up Epiphany Protocol until we get them re-set.

Androzier: *salutes* What about - ? *gestures at Clever Adolescent Panda, who is slowly rolling to their feet*

Clever Adolescent Panda: Where's Calvin? *sees the broken window* Oh no! Calvin!

Calvin: *sprawled in the parking lot, lightly broiled* Have I mentioned before how glad I am your new building is one story tall?

Pollock: I think they're under control.

{The Chief of Security guides Belinda out of their boss' office and begins shouting orders. Everyone pulls a plant out from under what's left of their desks and someone plays a few airy notes on a flute. All the plants begin to emit a pleasant glow.}

Pollock: Well, I think this is where the two of you run home with your tails between your legs.

Clever Adolescent Panda: *scoops up Calvin and throws him across their back* Yeah, well, enjoy that broken window and all the smashed cubicles!

Pollock: I will, as soon as I enjoy the security footage of your panicked flailing!

{Pollock laughs haughtily as the panda shuffles away, before noticing the cake is still sitting in its box on the floor.}

Pollock: Hmmm. *approaches warily* They aren't here to throw it. If it was spring-loaded it would have launched when he opened the box. *leans over the box* If there was some sort of trigger mechanism, it would have gone off from all that electric discharge.

{Pollock reaches in and lifts out the cake}

Pollock: Maybe the prank is the dolt made it himself? No, that would almost qualify as poison, a little too severe for them. . .

{Abruptly, the cake swells up, and Pollock belatedly remembers their last visit, with the plants that reacted to heat.}

Pollock: Damn - 

{There's a muffled *whoom* and Pollock finds herself covered in a mixture of whipped cream and raisins.}

Pollock: Did they just use whatever he had in the kitchen? *gathers some whipped cream on one finger* Well, at least it's edible.

The Web Draws Tighter

Bold words from a guy who spent the last 200 pages getting outwitted and outmaneuvered at every turn.

Let's recap going into volume 36: The Straw Hats' ship is beyond repair. Usopp, reeling from the news and feeling worthless, left the crew, then challenged Luffy for the Going Merry. He lost, but Luffy and the others left Merry to him. Another crew member, Nico Robin, is missing, and accused of attempting to assassinate beloved local industrialist/politician, Iceberg, last night. So the entire town is after the Straw Hats, including some especially strong carpenters at the shipbuilding company Iceburg runs. A local gang leader that dresses like Ace Ventura is after Luffy for destroying his house and beating up his gang. And, there's a notorious annual high tide, the Aqua Laguna, on its way.

The volume starts with the carpenters interrupting the fight between Luffy and Franky. This is when Luffy learns about Iceberg, and Robin's alleged involvement. It also establishes the carpenters as tough fighter in their own right, as Luffy gets kicked around by them while protesting his (and Robin's) innocence.

(The fight also establishes Franky as a wildly erratic character. He goes from laughing at Luffy's troubles to flipping a table (he presumably made himself off panel) and yelling at the carpenters for interfering in his fight. Later, he'll grouse at a bartender for charging customers money for drinks, then freak out when he learns he's still got some of the money his gang stole from Usopp, and buy rounds for the entire bar.)

Luffy manages to escape to confront Iceberg, but that only frustrates him further. Iceberg remains insistent it was Robin he saw last night. That doesn't help anyone find her, but Robin finds Sanji and Chopper instead, telling them she did attack Iceberg, and she's leaving the crew. From how she phrased it, the crew concludes there may be another attempt on Iceberg and try to stake it out.

That doesn't go well, as Luffy flies off half-cocked and gets separated from the others, who have to fight their way through an army of shipwrights, all while the real killers (and Robin) are already in there with Iceberg. It's talking, interspersed with brief scenes of the masked figures tearing through the shipwrights with ease, as Iceberg discusses what these people are really after (blueprints to an ancient, powerful battleship), and that his mentor always told him Robin needed to die because she was the last person left who could read the stone blocks that might reveal the location of that battleship.

Iceberg's attempt to pull a fast one on the assassins falls apart for a variety of reasons. Primarily that they were both closer to him and stronger than he suspected. They're able to figure out who really has the blueprints, but before they can track him down (it's Franky), Luffy and the most of the remaining Straw Hats bust in from two different directions.

(Sanji's gone off on his own somewhere, and won't pop up until later on. Which is kind of a thing he does a lot, drift off by himself somewhere and do something quietly critical. It's weird to me that a character that becomes such a loud, obnoxious dumbass around any woman can be that good at being covert, but I guess if you grade on a curve, relative to the rest of the crew, he's pretty quiet.) 

Franky, meanwhile, has gotten fed up at being unable to find Luffy and finish their fight. But his gang have figured out Usopp is alone on the Merry. And Usopp is out there working on repairs, largely oblivious to everything that's going on around him.

Sunday Splash Page #368

"Werecat Combat," in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #19, by Brian Reed (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciler), Matt Ryan (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

One aspect of House of M was that Ms. Marvel was the "world's greatest hero" (whatever that means), because that was apparently the specific desire Carol Danvers had, that the Scarlet Witch granted. This volume was, in theory, Carol trying to make that a reality once the event was over.

In practice, it never comes around, at least not in the two years I bought the title (roughly half its 50 issue run.) Which could have been the point, I suppose. You don't set out to be the world's greatest hero, you just keep showing up to help and maybe one day it turns out you've become the world's greatest. If that was Brian Reed's goal, I dropped the book long before he got to it.

The biggest issue was, Civil War started up early in the book's run, and Carol sided wholeheartedly with ol' Tony Stank. Going so far as to team up with that dolt Wonder Man to run down and capture other heroes, like Julia Carpenter (going as either Arachne or still Spider-Woman at the time), and the Shroud (this might constitute the last time the Shroud was depicted as both sane and competent, depending on how you rate his two-issue appearance in Heroes for Hire vol. 3's Fear Itself tie-ins)

Reed never provided a reason for Danvers siding with the pro-reg forces I found believable (actually, I don't even remember what the justifications were now), and it's not easy for me to enjoy a book where I don't particularly care for the main character, and honestly like it when shit rains down on them.

Beyond that, I mostly recall vague impressions of what went on. Arana was positioned as an apprentice to Carol, seemingly mostly so she could be hurt by Doomsday Man to make Carol angry (and Arana's dad angry at Carol later.) There was something with a blue, tentacled alien that left a part of itself in Carol that let her heal faster. She got a SHIELD sponsored strike team that included Machine Man (Reed using the NextWave version that drinks heavily and insists on being called "Aaron") and Sleepwalker. Which is why I still had the issue the above page is from, as it's the one where, as part of undercover work, Aaron "disguises" himself with a big, bushy, sloppy handlebar mustache.

What can I say? It tickled my fancy.

That storyline involved Puppet Master setting himself up like a warlord in Chile, putting a bunch of superheroes under his control. The comic does not get into what he's using them for besides security, but come on, he only caught women superheroes, I feel like we're meant to connect the dots. Carol shakes his control (thanks to the alien thing), and then, when she has a chance to capture Puppet Master, lets him blow himself up instead, confident the unknown healing thing will protect her.

Which I wouldn't necessarily object to, except she has no idea how big a blast he plans to set off, and her team was still evacuating all the people Masters abducted, and had given no sign everyone was clear. He kidnapped a lot of average joes, what if they couldn't run fast enough? More annoying, even as Reed writes Carol's internal narration as her being willing to make tough choices and live with consequences, he has her lie to her team about what happened, saying she didn't have time to stop Puppet Master.

If she's willing to live with the consequences, why not have her lay it out, coldly and clinically, and use that as a springboard? How does her team react, does it hurt or help her standing with them? (I suspect Aaron wouldn't care, but Sleepwalker's human half almost certainly would be uneasy about it.)

Again, maybe that was all leading to some big epiphany for Carol, but it left a bad taste in my mouth, and after the Civil War mess, I wasn't inclined to cut the character (or Reed) much slack. When the book was about to start Secret Invasion tie-ins, I decided it was time to bail out, though I clearly should have done it sooner.

Saturday Splash Page #170

"Catch the Red Line," in Seven Soldiers: Guardian #1, by Grant Morrison (writer), Cameron Stewart (artist), Moose Bauman (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

Seven Soldiers of Spring is coming hot off the presses! Well, we're 20 years after the fact, but the presses are still hot.

Jake Jordan's a former cop just drifting through life after he shot an innocent kid he thought killed his partner. Jake's father-in-law-to-be convinces him to apply for the on-staff superhero for The Manhattan Guardian, a paper where, 'the readers are the reporters.' While his boss, a projection on a TV screen named "Ed" claims Jake's not a reporter, I'm not clear on whether Jake's gear is actually recording his battles with subway pirates and cyborgs programmed to model the real world twisted to revenge, as a way to cover the news.

Guardian is the mini-series that feels most like a traditional superhero book. Jake's caught between rival pirate crews seeking a 'six-sided god-machine,' or airdropping into a Disneyworld where the animatronics are repurposed (but not necessarily reprogrammed) military killbots. His back-up is a Newsboy Army of kids who parachute in with flamethrowers while a disclaimer from the paper blares that it's not responsible for what the newsboys do. He saves his girlfriend from the pirates, at the cost of her father, and possibly the cost of their relationship. Real superhero melodrama stuff.

Stewart and Bauman give it the bright, clean look of a superhero adventure as well. Jake's uniform is always pristine, no matter what he goes through, and shows off his muscles in a way his everyday clothes don't. Everything is bright and sometimes otherworldly, whether that's the blue in the place the engine is hidden, or the eerie green of the monitors in Ed's secret room.

In terms of sins and virtues, Pride keeps coming up, the opposite of which Wikipedia tells me is Humility. Jake wants to feel proud of the work he's done, to walk tall again, but loses sight of other things. Carla's mourning her father, and worried about losing Jake, while Jake's assuring her he can take care of her and her mother financially with this job. Jake has to, after an issue of considering giving up, come to the conclusion it's about doing the right thing when it's needed, even if you don't want to. He takes a few more words to say it, but it boils down to the old adage about power and responsibility. You can do something to help others, so you should, even when it's hard.

(It's weird this comes up, given tomorrow's book.)

As far as connections, the 'god-machine' will be a matter of repeated importance over the course of this whole event. I wonder if the place where Allbeard and No-Beard find it was the place where the last few knights went to ask the dwarves to split the very essence of matter itself (aka, the atom), ending the previous age of man, as we're told in Shining Knight. Chains dangle from the ceilings, and apparently glow with radiation (although it's the water beneath that glows), and there's medieval weapons strewn about, but I'm not sure that's an actual connection, or just something I'm seeing that isn't there.

Ed turns out to have been part of his own group of seven when he was younger (although his body never grew up.) The original Newsboy Army, who fell apart as they aged and the adult world intruded with things like college and working in the family laundry. They (but only six, because the dog was too old) went on one final mission, to Slaughter Swamp (aka, where Solomon Grundy was born) and ran into something they weren't ready for.

I don't know if  Millions accompanying them would have made a difference, or if they were never the right seven. Also, was the vet who told them Millions was too old under Sheeda control, or was that just another sign of time creeping in and stealing their childhood visions of the future? Their group magician, Ali, will pop in at least one other mini-series, and Lil' Scarface grew up to be Don Vincenzo, the undead mob boss in Shining Knight. Not a nice man, but one who still remembers the strange world he inhabited as a child.

What I Bought 3/26/2025

The local store didn't have any of the things I wanted that came out this week. Or anything from this week at all, that I could tell. Makes it hard to want to support a local business. But there was one book from earlier in the month on the shelves I wanted, and here we are.

Batgirl #5, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Wayne Faucher (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) -  Batgirl entering her "blue flower" phase.

Cass got a tracer on Shiva before she was carted off, which leads her to the Unburied's base. She slips in, only to eventually encounter the three super-powered soldier types, who found the tracker and were waiting for her. Cass deals with the big guy, but the lady with the giant scissors knocks her out by blowing the flower pollen in her face.

OK, so the flowers give you super-powers if you eat them, heal wounds if you smear it on them, and act as a knockout drug when inhaled? That's ridiculous. And if the stuff was not from the flowers, have Spicer color it a little less blue, especially when they're fighting in a field of the flowers (located in a sunless cave, no less.)

Cass has a dream where she speaks with Stephanie, and lets out all her frustrations and feelings about Shiva. How she hoped Shiva was someone innocent, but found out she's a killer, and that's what Cassandra is afraid of in herself. But she wants to save Shiva - from the Unburied and all the killing, I presume - because it means she can save the little girl she was before she fled David Cain?

And then she wakes up dangling from a ceiling in the same room as Shiva.

The notion Cassandra is both repelled by her mother and wants to save her because of Cassandra's own past is at least a sort of explanation for why she didn't just tell Shiva to piss off and go do her own thing three issues ago but, I don't know. I get it if Brombal decided Cass' relationship with Cain was beaten to death, but I'm not nearly as interested in Shiva as he clearly wants us to be. And she's the closest thing to a supporting cast Cassandra has in this book. No Bat-family, and every new character that gets introduced dies or vanishes shortly after. The Vietnamese family that runs the restaurant in Gotham, Jayesh (the priest that follows Shiva.) I'm assuming since he gave Cass a ride to the cave but didn't follow her in, he's carrying out his own part of some plan right now, but there's no evidence of it. That's just me assuming there's a reason he vanished after the 5th panel of page 1.

Sentenced to Prism - Alan Dean Foster

Evan is sent to a recently discovered world by the company he works for to learn why the research team they sent hasn't been heard from in months. Evan quickly confirms the answer is because they're dead, though he's not quite sure how they were overwhelmed so completely by the native life. With one member of the research team unaccounted for, but a location beacon pointing the way, Evan sets out to try and get that answer, only to find himself quickly in over his head.

Foster presents a world of mostly silicon-based life, and with habits, defenses, and senses entirely different from anything Evan has encountered before. Most of them run off light, but not by using it to create sugars like plants. They just turn it into energy like a solar panel. Some are motile, others lurk beneath the soil. Some eat flesh, some are just looking for minerals. Even though the company outfits him with the most high-tech, sturdily built, exo-suit they've got, it isn't enough.

Foster writes Evan as extremely confident in himself, so the entire book is basically one big exercise in Evan slowly being humbled. He does better at surviving without the suit than he probably ought to, but it's in the clumsy, makeshift manner of a person doing the best he can in an environment where he doesn't know the rules. Is the giant crystalline structure an inanimate tree, or the host to a mass of worms that'll love the iron in his blood? Is that a pool of water, or some sort of jellylike predator that would try to engulf him?

Foster eventually introduces intelligent species, each of which have a specific function they perform in what they call an "Associative." Some are scouts, some are knowledge-repositories, some are literally block-shaped things that prefer to group together and form walls to protect the rest from predators. A lot of the book is Evan interacting with them, trying to understand how their society, not to mention biology, works, while they're doing the same with him. There's some body modification, not all of it consensual, but Foster doesn't lean too heavily into the body horror aspect of it. Evan is written as being so reasonable, or more so self-assured, that the drastic changes in his inner workings are quickly accepted.

It's all generally interesting stuff, but it does mean the mystery of the final member of the research team, as well as what happened to them, gets sidelined for a big portion of the book. His exo-suit breaks at about the one-quarter mark, at which point the focus shifts to Evan's survival/the Associative for the middle half. Only in the last quarter does Foster finally resolve the mysteries. Even that involves a chapter with some bizarre creature calling itself The Integrator, which doesn't really feel like it fits with the rest of the world as it's been presented. Like this was the main antagonist of some other book, and shuffled into this book to try its luck.

'This is swell, Evan thought. I'm standing here debating political philosophy with a glass caterpillar by means of antenna stuck into my feeble mind. Furthermore, I am enjoying it.'

Lost in a Summer Haze

Yep, definitely not enjoying this more diffuse world. DC solicits over here, Image over there, Mad Cave someplace on their website. Where is the mandatory monopoly that will make my life easier?!

Anyway, June solicits were not great. Looks like Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave does end at 4 issues, so it would be done in May (if I'm still buying it.) I couldn't find a sign of any Dust to Dust issues coming out after April's issue 5 on Image's site, so maybe it's on a break? I didn't see Metamorpho in DC's listings, or Bronze Faces among Boom!'s stuff, either.

What's new? There was one website that had a listing for an entire It's Jeff! mini-series, but not by Kelly Thompson and Guruhiru, and based off Marvel Rivals? Is that a card battle thing? Anyway, it described Jeff as a 'fish-boy' - he's a landshark! - and promised he'd have a few new tricks and yeah, I don't think I'm trusting that. Rainbow Rowell and Elena Casagrande are releasing a Runaways mini-series that picks up somewhere after Rowell's run ended. It would be nice to see the threads that were left dangling picked up, but it's also tying into One World Under Doom, so that could be dodgy.

Other than that, Cosmic Lion had an anthology collection of weird super-spy stuff called G.H.O.S.T. Agents - Crimson Apocalypse. I don't recognize any of the creators that were listed, but that doesn't mean anything. Lots of creators I've never heard of.

What's ending? As mentioned, Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave would end a month before this, while The Surgeon, which solicited its final issue for May, will actually probably end in June. And Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt solicited its final issue in this month's stuff, but won't actually ship until July. Red Before Black is also supposed to end in June, but we'll see.

Also, Fantastic Four is apparently ending in June, so it can relaunch with a new first issue in July (creative team TBA.) I was very confused as to why you'd do that in the middle of a Line-wide Event that centers on the FF's #1 foe, until I remembered the movie coming out this summer. Probably a bad sign that entirely slipped my mind, yeah?

And the rest: Deadpool is celebrating its 350th issue, which means they padded it out with stories from past creators and charge $8. So I won't be getting that until a few months later, if at all (I never did get that oversized 25th issue of Moon Knight.) Speaking of Moon Knight, we've got Fist of Khonshu, and that book will be celebrating Moonie's 250th issue in July. Which doesn't seem right, but I guess if they're counting the Annual we looked at for Sunday Splash page two weekends ago, it's consistent with where they marked it when MacKay's run started.

Marvel re-solicited the second issue of The Thing mini-series that was originally supposed to come out in April, so recycle my comment about the ludicrousness of Bullseye trying to tangle with Ben Grimm. 

At DC, Batgirl is delving into Shiva's backstory, which is not something I'm sure I care about, and Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma will be at the halfway mark. On the manga front, Ize Press has volume 11 of The Boxer (still delving into Yu's backstory), and Seven Seas has volume 9 of No Longer Allowed in Another World, and it sure sounds like that's nearing a conclusion as well.

I didn't actually find them on the company's website, but I'm assuming Dark Pyramid 4 and Past Time 3 will both be out in June as well. Fingers crossed, because otherwise, this isn't looking like a great month, to say nothing of the months to follow, with so many things wrapping up.

The End (1978)

Sonny (Burt Reynolds, rocking a beard that makes him look like country singer Kenny Rogers, not a good look for Burt) receives a terminal diagnosis and decides to kill himself. But first we watch him harass a funeral procession, try to confess, and visit his ditzy girlfriend (Sally Field), his ex-wife, his parents, and his teenage daughter. Most of his "loved" ones he doesn't tell, except Field, and that seems mostly to convince her to have sex with him in an attempt to make him feel better. 

Emotionally, I mean. I don't think he's actually expecting sex to cure a toxic blood disease, and they spend more time discussing whether he was able to bring her to orgasm (No.)

Finally, over 40 minutes in, he actually takes a bunch of pills, and wakes up in a mental hospital, where he's immediately latched onto by a paranoid schizophrenic (Dom DeLuise, how many movies did he and Reynolds make together in the '70s?!), who agrees to help Sonny kill himself. Except they'll try something, Sonny will get cold feet, Marlon will relent, Sonny then berates Marlon for relenting.

The staff at this hospital are not very alert, or perhaps they just don't care, because the last 15-20 minutes, Sonny swipes a landscaping truck, flees the hospital to retrieve a gun from his girlfriend, but then drives to the ocean to drown himself. All the while, Marlon's in pursuit.

There's not many bits that are very funny. Sonny's bargaining with God at the very end ('I know you saved me, but you also gave me this disease!') Parts of his initial conversation with Marlon, who claims to be writing a book on suicides and has compiled statistics on them ('100% of failed suicides express a need to pee.')

But mostly, the attempts at humor fall flat. Reynolds plays Sonny as a self-centered, dramatic coward, who wants to dictate how everyone processes this - without explaining why, he asks his daughter to agree that they won't ever be mad at each other, in some attempt to try and make her think well of him after he's dead - but can't stop acting like such a shit that I imagine most of them would be secretly glad when he's dead. Every interaction with Field's character comes back to his frustration he couldn't bring her to orgasm, and that this is proof she doesn't love him as much as he loves her, because she won't really let herself go with him. Well it's probably difficult with his ego taking up all the space in the room.

The most interesting/surprising bit was Myrna Loy - who played opposite William Powell in the Thin Man movies - is in here for about 5 minutes as Sonny's elderly mother. I hadn't given any thought to whether she'd still be alive in the late-'70s, but I certainly didn't expect her to show up in a movie like this. It could have used more of her, frankly. I'd imagine she could still bring a wit and energy to the movie that would have made it more entertaining.

Rubber Meets Steel

Florida Man Stages Charity Dance-Off to Rebuild Home After Drunken Rampage.

Volume 35 of One Piece, which covers chapters 328 through 336, picks up where the previous volume ended, and continues to stack the odds against the Straw Hat Pirates. The crew sharpshooter, Usopp, is ambushed and two-thirds of the money the crew intended to use to repair their ship, the Merry Go, is stolen, while Usopp is badly beaten. His attempt to retrieve the money himself ends not only in failure, but with his being beaten even worse, and mocked by the "secret boss" of Water Seven, Franky.

Oda doesn't reveal Franky's true appearance until the end of this volume, keeping him behind a mask and cloak he's going to use as a disguise while he travels to the black market to purchase whatever he's after (this won't be revealed until many volumes later.) However, his gang, the Franky Family, are some of the dumbest looking jackasses I've ever seen, as Oda outfits them in giant metal diaper, or legless overalls, or something. They deserve the asskicking the Straw Hats give them, for their terrible clothing choices alone. As Franky's long gone with the money, this does nothing but get the crew on one more person's shit list once Franky sees what they did to his home.

(I see people conjecture Franky's based on Elvis, though apparently Eiichiro Oda says it was actually Ace Ventura that provided the inspiration. Given he reminds me of Johnny Bravo, I'd lean towards Elvis, but I can see the pet detective.)

The volume's central scene is the fight between Usopp and Luffy. Usopp, already feeling like a failure for losing the money, is distraught to hear Luffy has decided they'll get a new ship, since Merry is no longer capable of sailing. Since Usopp was doing his best to act as ship's carpenter (despite no training, and with his idiot captain racking up a lot of damage), this is perceived as another strike against his value to the crew. Deciding it's better to walk away than be left behind, Usopp leaves the crew and challenges Luffy for the Merry.

The fight, while highlighting Usopp's ingenuity, is ultimately never in doubt. This is a shonen manga; the clever but underpowered character never gets to beat the vastly talented protagonist. It's interesting, though, because it makes every argument between the rest of the crew a little more fraught. Zoro and Sanji butting head doesn't just seem like ordinary rivalry. Sanji trying to stop Chopper from offering first aid to a battered Usopp becomes the sort of thing, you wonder if it'll linger.

Now minus their ship, with one crew member departed, and Nico Robin still M.I.A., things are looking bad. Learning that Iceberg, the mayor of the city and owner of the Galley-La shipbuilding company was shot a half-dozen times the night before, adds a new element. While Iceberg keeps his suspicions on why he was targeted to himself, he's more than willing to proclaim Robin was one of the two who attacked him. Now the Straw Hats are on an entire city's shit list.

Luffy and Franky can't even have a simple (as simple as fight involving a teenager made of rubber and Cyborg-Ace Ventura can be) brawl between two guys who each think they have justified beef with the other, without getting attacked by the shipwrights of Galley-La. None of whom seem too concerned about fighting a pirate with a bounty of 100 million.

Sunday Splash Page #367

"Front Page News," in Ms. Marvel (vol. 1) #6, by Chris Claremont (writer), Jim Mooney and Joe Sinnott (artists), Janice Cohen (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

I don't know what prompted Marvel to give a supporting cast member of Captain Marvel her own ongoing. I think Marvel's prior attempts at a superheroine solo book were things like The Cat (canceled after 3 issues) or Black Widow as a co-headliner in a book with The Inhumans. Was Carol Danvers really popular with Marvel readers of the '70s? However it occurred, she got her own book, and it lasted 23 issues. Gerry Conway wrote the first 2 and plotted the 3rd, which Claremont wrote (John Buscema drew all 3.) After that, it was Claremont all the way as writer, with Jim Mooney as the penciler for the largest number of issues (though also, Sal Buscema, Keith Pollard, Carmine Infantino and Dave Cockrum, among others.)

What I find most curious is, initially, Carol has no idea she's Ms. Marvel, nor does Ms. Marvel have any idea who Carol Danvers is. Carol will be doing something, having lunch with Mary Jane Watson (who Conway tires to establish as a supporting cast member, a young woman who looks up to Carol, but that gets largely dropped by Claremont.) Carol gets a bad headache, most likely passes out and transforms to Ms. Marvel. Ms. Marvel goes to confront whatever premonition her "seventh-sense" provided, while wondering why she occasionally thinks of herself as an Earthling. She's a Kree warrior, after all.

Claremont dispenses with that near the end of issue 3, as Ms. Marvel finally remembers Carol while trying to stop AIM from interfering with Skylab's launch by unleashing the Doomsday Man. Then he takes an approach more similar to the Hulk: Carol and Ms. M share the body, and Carol grows to steadily resent the havoc the super-powered warrior plays with her personal and professional life. 

Carol's supposed to be editor of Jonah Jameson's Woman magazine. Hard to do properly when she's being dragged away to stop jewel store thieves or being assaulted by a lethal winged warrior. Ms. Marvel doesn't see the problem. She's saving lives, that's more important. This comes to a head at the end of year 1, when Salia Petrie, an old friend of Carol's, is in danger, but Ms. Marvel insists on being involved in a struggle between Moses Magnum and two other losers, against some sorceress named Hecate. She reasons the battle could destroy the world, so needs of the many outweigh the few, or the one. Carol is not impressed by this logic.

Rather than pursue the notion of Carol being stuck sharing her body with someone she despises, who forces her way to the forefront of the mind and usually screws up Carol's life in the process, Claremont instead has Hecate help Carol finally realize she and Ms. Marvel are the same person and always have been. I guess Carol's mind created this break inside itself to cope with the exposure to the Psyche-Magnitron. You'd think that would make Carol's guilt even worse. She can't foist the blame on someone else. But she's so darn happy about this revelation that she seemingly forgets entirely about her friend who died alone in space after her shuttle exploded.

(Claremont will reveal in the last issue that Salia survived, saved by some robot with a malleable orb for a head. No, not Ruby Thursday from the Headmen, a different robot with a malleable orb for a head. And he wants to mentally subjugate Carol like he did Salia, because Claremont.)

That inner conflict swept aside like an empty hamburger wrapper, Claremont shifts to, well, not a lot. He introduces Carol's parents mostly to show her dad is of the mindset women belong in the kitchen, but that never comes up after the 2-issue arc. A couple of love interests pop up, but whether it's the therapist guy, or cocky photographer Frank Gianelli, or whoever, none of them are terribly memorable. Nor do they get very far. Mar-Vell finally makes an appearance in issue 19, if you were waiting for that (I wasn't.)  Dave Cockrum gives Carol the black outfit with the yellow lightning bolt during his two issues as artist. The editor job falls apart in the penultimate issue.

The closest thing to a major subplot is mysterious figures trying to find and destroy something Carol has. That runs through the background for months, but most of the time Frank Gianelli's investigating it somewhere off-panel. It ultimately brings Carol into conflict with Mystique, and then the Hellfire Club, but the book gets cancelled before there's any resolution. (The final two issues would be published years later in Marvel Super-Heroes, culminating with Ms. Marvel's defeat at Rogue's hands.)

One thing that doesn't help the book is Ms. Marvel doesn't get a rogue's gallery. Mostly she faces one-off fights against guys in powered armors, or villains on loan from other characters. Scorpion, Tiger Shark, M.O.D.O.K., Ronan the Accuser in the issue with Mar-Vell. Mystique stays in the background. Doomsday Man's became a recurring foe in later volumes, but Carol only faces him the once here.

Deathbird's probably the closest Carol gets to an arch-foe, and she's a) always working for someone else, and b) Claremont doesn't get very far into her character or motivations, beyond revealing she's some sort of alien and she has some limited notion of honor. She's a decent visual, and the battles are presented as back-and-forth struggles, but that's about it.