What I Bought 5/5/2025 - Part 1

I saw a list yesterday of alleged Millenial things that Gen Z find cringe. Based on the age range the article provided, I'm a Millenial, but there was not one thing on the list I do or was ever interested in. Taking pictures of my food? Harry Potter? The phrase "adulting"? The fuck outta here with that nonsense.

Anyway, here's two 5th issues to kick off our run through the remainder of April's books.

Dust to Dust #5, by JG Jones (writer/artist), Phil Bram (writer), Jackie Marzan (letterer) - I feel like the report really looks based on Cate Blanchett on the cover. Which is not necessarily true inside the book. Maybe it's just the eyes and brow ridge.

The sheriff visits the moonshiners to accuse them of killing that family. His evidence is that they have the family's mule. His attempt to collect the evidence gets him beat down, and he's only saved because the mysterious gas mask wearer (or a gas mask wearer, I suppose there could be more than one) blew up the still. Then kills the moonshiners and lugs the sheriff's unconscious body to the rainmaker's truck and leaves him there.

Meanwhile, the reporter agrees to take photos for the mayor's daughter's bridal shower (unlikely to happen since I suspect her ballplayer boyfriend is dead now), and in payment, she wants to do a feature on the town. Not on people abandoning it, oh no, on the resilience of the town under difficult circumstances. Whether that's bullshit or not, taking the photos gets her access to a darkroom, where she can develop the photos she took when out with the sheriff, confirming there was a gas can alongside the burned up car. Sure hope the sheriff is in any condition to make use of this information! 

Jones mostly only breaks the sepia tone for blood, or the fire of the still blowing up. The lone exception is the panel of Sarah in the darkroom, done entirely in shades of red. It's also the panel where she sees the sheriff was right about the gas can, which makes it significant in at least one sense.

It's hard to tell whether the sheriff's little dust-up and the reporter's chat with the mayor happened concurrently or not. I'm guessing they did, which would alibi him for the murders out at the still. Which seems to point the finger back around at his brother, the PTSD-afflicted veteran. I'm still wondering about the drugs the mayor gave his brother, though. Were they to help him sleep, or wind him up? The mayor's clearly still in image control mode.

Metamorpho the Element Man #5, by Al Ewing (writer), Steve Lieber (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Nice of Metamorpho to let his guest stars have the more dynamic poses.

The (artificial) Thunderer helpfully explains that stars used to fight for dominance, but the eventual winner of their great contest decreed it was too dangerous to their worlds. So each star would have proxies who could fight in their stead. Of course, the losing star gets destroyed, so I'm not sure how that's an improvement, but the point is, the Orb of Ra is how Earth's Sun empowers its champions.

Metamorpho shows up about then, but even with Urania's help, he seems outclassed, so he retreats. To recruit Element Woman(?) and the dog that got Metamorpho powers in The Terrifics, and then his old enemy Algol shows up. Metamorpho's enemy I mean, not the dog's. Although maybe Muttamorpho's been having super-cool adventures all his own, and we just haven't seen them. It could happen! Of course, the first two aren't happy about being sidelined all this time - the gag about Element Woman not knowing how to turn into lead when the Justice League fought Red Kryptonite Man got a chuckle - but at least Algol understands what's going on. Apparently the instruction manual for being a Solar Champion got thrown out at some point.

Which is too bad, because it would have kept Metamorpho from goofing. Battles between proxies are 1-on-1, so the Thunderer can defeat any of them and claim victory. While this raises the question of why there can be more than one proxy at a time if only one can fight at a time, the important thing is the Thunderer disintegrates Algol's head. At least he didn't hurt the dog.

But now Rex will never have the chance to make things right with Sapphire! I mean, the Sun is doomed! Doomed to be overtaken by the leader of C.Y.C.L.O.P.S., Solaris, the Tyrant Sun. I'm not sure how it was running an evil organization when it needed the Sun to collapse to exist, but I guess intelligent, evil stars can multi-task more efficiently than humans.