The guy unhappy with the guy he let operate under his permit is now unhappy with how I'm attempting to resolve his problem. I mean, I knew he would be, but he's also been griping about wanting the guy gone for over a year, and I've been telling him for over a year I can't break the contract between the two of them, but he keeps griping, so I've taken the one option I am allowed by regulation to take. And he could avert it if he really wanted, but he doesn't.
In reality, Mitch has tried to step away from a life of heroics, settling in with a family and living out his remaining years. He sneaks off his deathbed to die in the woods, and resurrects as a young man again, with the same symbol he's got on his back on the cover.
He's got some power pertaining to time, and that means he's about to get sucked into something big. Someone claiming to be another Mitch Shelly arrives to prepare this Mitch to face some creature that will end the universe. RK draws it as almost angelic in shape, but with a hole in the middle and made of seemingly a bunch of intestines and scaffolding.
Turns out, Mitch is responsible for this, and we're flung into a flashback to 1945, where he was a prisoner of the Japanese army. (Ram V uses the old bit about Hitler using the Spear of Destiny to keep superheroes at bay, so much can be killed and return, but he doesn't get any powers. Which seems inconsistent, without even getting into the notion the Spear is extending its power to the opposite side of the globe.) It looks like, with the war winding down, the commandant of the camp called for a feast, which included killing and eating soldiers. Like Mitch.
Basically, Hitler died and the Spear stopped working as Mitch's corpse was both being immolated, and his organs being eaten by that commandant, and so the guy got some kind of ability. Enough to survive Mitch resurrecting with flame powers and burning Rabaul to the ground, anyway.
I don't know, I thought the deal with Mitch Shelly was, everybody kept thinking he was Vandal Savage's foe, the Immortal Man, but he was actually something entirely different. But I haven't read the first series in years, and aside from having the artist, Jackson Guice, draw the intro page, I have no idea how much Ram V's following that versus the New 52 version, or something else entirely. Or if he's using anything beyond the basic concept of "guy gets new power every time he dies."
Shauna's getting to borrow her uncles narrowboat to travel the English canals. She gets as far as Barton-on-Wendle, before a shoddy job of mooring, results in extensive - and expensive - damage. Now she needs the job to gets the moneys to fix the boat, or she's sunk.
After the requisite nervous breakdown, rendered beautifully by Sarin, a local poet - sporting Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 hair, true sign of a goober - helps her out. His mother owns a quilting supply shop, and needs someone who can make tea, make change, and put stuff in a bag, presumably without burning down the store. Shauna can almost certainly do those things!
I especially like that, when the confidence fades and desperation sets in, Sarin goes back to Shauna turning into a drippy, massive tear, as she did during her earlier breakdown. She's one road hazard away from complete mental collapse at all times, just like me!
The issue ends with someone lighting the car of the shop owner on fire. Or perhaps cars in England spontaneously combust often. Did England embrace the Ford Pinto as the peak of automotive design? I certainly hope not, they could at least go for a tempo. There's an '80s car that can. . .almost certainly get you up a small hill faster than a walking pace!
As you can see, the appearance of more Allison/Sarin comics has put me in a fine mood. Until that next road hazard, then I'm down like an old factory being demolished for hipster coffee bars and overpriced loft apartments.
2 comments:
Alas, I do not think we got the Pinto here. "Classic" 80s Fords here include the Escort, the Fiesta, and, if you were a bit "sporty", the Capri.
But if you're talking famously unreliable, then you want the ironically named Reliant Robin.
That article on the Robin is hilarious (especially the bit about Top Gear driving one's they purposefully fucked up to make it look extra unstable.) I think my mom had an Escort at some point in the late '80s/early-90s.
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