The Comic Hamster Wheel

The Stanley Parable: DeLuxe Edition is an expanded version of the original game, where you play as Stanley, some faceless office drone who one day finds himself alone in the office, save for an unseen Narrator, who tries to direct Stanley on where to go and what to do.

His effectiveness is up to you. Narrator can tell you to take the left door to see if everyone is in the conference room, but if you take the door to the right, he can't do anything other than comment that maybe Stanley just had to check out the break room first. To appreciate it.

The funny thing is, the first time I played, I stumbled on what I think is the ultimate ending. I ignored Narrator's instructions to enter the super-secret room and instead took the hallway marked "Certain Death." Which soon put me on a conveyor belt towards two massive, crushing piledrivers, only for a different voice to intervene. That voice pleaded with me to recognize that all these "choices" are really just an illusion and neither Stanley or Narrator have any free will, and I should go outside. Easy for her to say, from whatever ivory tower disembodied voices exist in. It's humid outside, and there's bugs, and sunlight, and, ugh, people.

Stanley eventually winds up on the conveyor again and gets crushed to death, only to find himself back in his office. Which is where you always find yourself, eventually. There are changes here and there. The door to the broom closet will open, but if you go inside too many times, Narrator boards it up on the next respawn. He grants you a bucket you can carry to feel better, but then decides he wants the bucket, or wants you to destroy the bucket, or the bucket seizes control of Stanley's existence. The game eventually calls itself Stanley Parable II, because Narrator thinks he can do a better job of making a new version of the game than this. I don't know about that, the Jump Circle was pretty fun.

There's a lot jokes about doing things in games just to get an "achievement." Narrator adds little trophies for you to find, but it's meant to be just for the satisfaction of finding them, not because it unlocks something. Narrator enjoys the experience so much, he creates a museum within the game for you to relive the experience of finding them. Then he wants to try reliving the experience in reverse, so he has you go backwards through the museum collecting the trophies another time.

One actual Achievement says to click on a particular door 5 times. If you do that, Narrator complains that you can't really feel like you accomplished something, and runs you through a series of hoops (not literal hoops, just extra tasks) before the game will mark you as having completed the Achievement. I didn't mind, I found the whole thing hilarious. Laughing my ass off while I climbed on someone's desk and stood there for a few seconds before running down the hall to click on a different door three times.

Stanley's relationship with Narrator varies, or maybe it's just Narrator that varies. (Stanley has no more personality than I ascribe to him as I make him do stuff.) Sometimes he's insulting, even cruel when he can convince Stanley to follow orders. Other times, he tries to be helpful, and can sound hurt when Stanley won't cooperate. In one stretch, in an attempted show of good will, he guides Stanley to a room with gentle music and shifting lights, like you're having a (relaxed) freakout in a sensory deprivation tank.

You can stay there as long as you want, but the game doesn't progress, so eventually you guide Stanley away from tranquility and harmony to. . .a staircase. A staircase to nothing, which you keep walking Stanley up and off and back up again until he dies, Narrator asking if you really hate him that much. I'd have felt bad if not for all those times he mocked Stanley when I had him do what Narrator wanted.

I played the game for one day, but for several hours straight. Just running Stanley through different paths, down different trails, trying things to see if I could find still more trails. Hey, can I drop from the top of this shelving unit to the warehouse floor? Nope, that killed me. Let's try hitting buttons on this keyboard. Let's try to take the bucket through the door that prohibits buckets. So on and so forth. Now we'll see if the PS4 still works in a decade, so I can unlock the Achievement "Super Go Outside" by not playing for 10 years! That oughta shut that Uber-Narrator up, friggin' buzzkill. . .

October's a Time for Gambling

Well, October's solicitations had a bunch of things that at least merited a second look. I don't know how many I'd actually buy, but that's still an improvement, I guess.

What's new? Let's dispense with the big event stuff first. Marvel's got some X-thing that's running 16 mini-series. It got to the point, scrolling through the solicits, I wondered if they'd just canceled all their regular books for the duration of this mess, ala Hickman's Secret Wars.

Anyway, I see comparisons drawn to Age of Apocalypse, but the way it's set some ambiguous stretch into the future, with everyone being a mutant now, reminds me more of Earth X. There were a handful of mini-series I glanced at, but once I saw the creative teams, I usually lost enthusiasm. X-Avengers? Written by Jason Loo (writer of that lousy Dazzler mini-series). Pass. Binary? Stephanie Phillips, who is less "hit-or-miss" with me, and more just "miss" (pending the conclusion of Red Before Black.) Pass. Longshots? I'm more a fan of the concepts Jonathan Hickman introduces than how he writes them, and I'm not sure Gerry Duggan being collaborator to offset that. Undeadpool? Don't love the concept, and I've not read anything of Tim Seeley's I found really satisfying (West of Sundown had a lot of potential I thought was left unexplored.) Radioactive Spider-Man? Not the biggest Joe Kelly guy, although I do like Kev Walker's art.

Eh, there's another two months of solicits before any of this comes out. Maybe one of the books can sell itself a little better before then.

Stepping away from Marvel, there were a few things. Matt Kindt and Tomas Giorello have Save Now, through Bad Idea, about a guy who can rewind to the past, but hasn't been able to avert the end of the world. Apparently each trip back gets added onto his life, so if he was 30 and traveled back to when he was 6, by the time he got back to when he was 30, he'd actually be 54. I'm not clear on how that manifests, and I didn't love Kindt's Apache Delivery Service when I read it last year, but, you know, maybe?

Oni Press and EC are releasing an Outlaw Showdown anthology book. I only paused because it had a nice cover and I spotted Ann Nocenti as one of the writers. $9, though. Image has the first issue of a 3-issue mini-series by Benito Cereno, Derek Hunter and Spencer Hall, Hector Plasm: Hunt the Bigfoot. I might want to track down the earlier Hector Plasm stuff to see if it's my jam, but put it down as a strong "probably." IDW had Tuatha, a one-shot by Gavin Fullerton about a woman transporting the head of her dead king through what's left of their civilization. Stronger odds than Save Now, worse than Hector Plasm?

IDW also had a graphic novel, Jonas Thorne's Bridge Planet Nine, which is a heist on a supposedly uninhabited planet that goes wrong. The cover was definitely eye-catching. Pow Pow has The Mongoose by Joana Mosi, a graphic novel about a woman proving it is a mongoose trashing the garden she's taking care of. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's my primary takeaway at this time. Titan has a tpb of Shannon Eric Denton and David Hartman's Kraken, which seems like it's about a pulp hero-type who was lost in another dimension for 3 years and has returned significantly altered by the experience. Of the three, Bridge Planet Nine, then The Mongoose, then Kraken in terms of likelihood. How easily I can get them may decide things.

What's ending? Runaways, though One World Under Doom still somehow has another month to go. If they must waste our time with Big Events, they should keep them 6 issues of shorter, because it just drags out something no one believes will have any significance long past the point it becomes annoying.

Bronze Faces is also supposed to conclude in October. Given its erratic release schedule so far, I'll believe it when it's in my hands.

And the rest: Batgirl's checking back in with the crew in Gotham, Moon Knight Fist of Khonshu's dealing with the Wrecker, Black Cat and Fantastic Four are on their third and fourth issues, respectively.

So right now, it's looking like 7 comics, 8 or 9 tops, plus a graphic novel or two, maybe. Hope they're more "treat" than "trick".

Fear Blood & Gold (2022)

Oscar Malle (Oliver Caspersen, also credited as writer and director) escapes someone we never see that's got him shackled in a barn somewhere in the continental U.S. of 1846. There's another man there as well, who tries to escape when Oscar frees him, but fails. This man, whose name is Santiago Robles, but who Oscar calls "Sancho Panza", deserted from the Mexican-American War, but then Oscar somehow took him as a slave.

(Santiago says he fought on both sides of the war, so I'm not sure which side he deserted from last.)

Oscar wants to travel to California to look for gold, so Santiago's coming with him. They find a cave with gold in the walls and floors, then spend a bunch of time dithering about how they're going to get it out without tipping someone off that it's there. An odd old man wanders in, figures out they've found gold, possibly cheats at cards to get brought into their little plan, then gets decapitated by Oscar. Oscar and Santiago walk to a trading outpost the old man mentioned, Oscar goes upstairs with a sex worker, and she shoots him in the head for his bounty (which I thought he said was $50.) Santiago carries on alone, and 40 years in the future has opened a bank named after Oscar, presumably using the gold in that cave to fund it.

I'd been thinking about what were going to be the best and worst movies I'd watched this year, as very early prep for the end of the year post. I'd been leaning towards The End as worst, but damn, did this movie blow it out of the water. What a mess.

Santiago clearly does not like being Oscar's slave, because he tries to escape as soon as Oscar uncuffs him, resulting in a very low-speed, silent chase over the hills and through the woods, with Oscar never shouting at him to stop or threatening to shoot him or anything. Santiago later puts something in the beans causing Oscar to hallucinate, shown with everything colored red or green, distorted voices and stretched out film, plus visions of tigers and some dark-haired woman Oscar later describes as having known earlier that may or may not have been a succubus. Setting aside whether Oscar, who admits to having only one year of schooling, even knows what a tiger looks like, Santiago doesn't try to kill Oscar or escape with all the gear and the guns.

(Later, Santiago openly offers Oscar a hallucinogenic mushroom, and Oscar accepts it! Santiago doesn't escape then, either.)

There's a lot of dreamlike imagery, blurred lines between reality and dream. Multiple scenes where Oscar peers through a spyglass, and while he says there's something to look at, all we ever see is trees. At best, there's one time with two blurry outlines of men on horses, who Oscar eventually shoots. When he fires his revolver, he holds it sideways, for no apparent reason. 

Oscar keeps drifting into memories of a young blonde woman he knew before all this, who died while they were mining in Missouri. If he and Santiago are walking along a rail line, Oscar may see a flash of her walking ahead of them and smiling back at him. For a while he says she'll be waiting for him in California, before admitting she's dead. I guess since he ends up dying in California, maybe she was waiting for him there. I assume the dark-haired prostitute that kills him is somehow related to the thing about the succubus, but by the time he and Santiago had that conversation I already deeply regretted watching this movie.

The old guy has a sort of a slow-motion Don Knotts air to him, but is still on the ball enough to see through the lies these two goobers try to spin. His main purpose seems to be telling them about the outpost, so Oscar can meet his eventual demise, but it feels like the momentum of the film (such as it is) grounds to a halt while these guys talk. I guess he's also there to highlight the difference between Oscar and Santiago. Oscar talks a lot - a lot - about ideas and ideals and whatever, but at the end of the day, he's just a small-time killer who does what he pleases and justifies it afterwards. The two men he shoots are dismissed as bandits. Are they? I don't know, we've only got his word on that. Might have been bounty hunters, might have been cowboys for a Spanish rancher trying to run off trespassers.

Santiago doesn't like the man, any more than he seems to like Oscar, but is either too scared or too, something, to kill either of them. It's hard for me to think he has a deep and abiding respect for life. He didn't help Oscar in the shootout with the "bandits", which Oscar suspected was an attempt to let Oscar be killed. Probably true; I think we're meant to read Santiago as smarter of the two, low bar that is to clear. He can actually read a bit, tricked Oscar with the poisoned beans, pretends for a long time not to know English without Oscar catching on, wears glasses when sitting around the campfire, which feels like coding for him being more intellectual. It could simply be Santiago figures if he's patient, the problem of Oscar will be solved for him, but I suppose it could be he doesn't want to kill anyone.

Either way, at least within this film, Santiago keeps him hands free of blood, if only by inaction, and Oscar doesn't. Oscar ends up dead, and Santiago ends up owning a bank.

Cripes, I feel like I'm talking myself into this film, which is not what I intended. It actually makes me angry, so, to be clear: The movie is dull for long stretches. Oscar is very annoying in his voice, his manner of speaking, everything. Santiago's actions require a lot of after the fact rationalization on my part to make sense. The hallucinations feel like an attempt to induce a psychological element better off implied or demonstrated through things Oscar actually did, rather than him getting drugged - I can't stress that enough, he lets himself be talking into being drugged, after already being tricked into it once - by Santiago and seeing things.

What I Bought 7/26/2025

Last summer, we usually only had 3-4 really shitty summer days in a row. Not this year. It's been a hot, humid, miserable mess - heat indexes over 100 - for 10 days straight now, with at least one more to go, maybe two. Like a damn steam room fell from the sky and squashed me, ala Wizard of Oz. Don't even want to try going outside for anything.

In other news, I really hoped my visit to the comic shop in the next town over would have netted a few more of the 8 books out so far this month, but no. Two books is what they had, so that's what we've got to work with for now.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #10, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Out of the fog of the past, Moon Knight.

Moon Knight and his crew storm Fairchild's high-rise. Fairchild tries to get some mysterious person to give him a hand, but the person says no. Still, Fairchild brought in a group of guys who fought Moon Knight in the past - Zaran the Weapons Master, Killer Shrike, Cubist (who already beat up Moon Knight once in this run), the Jester, and Deadzone (who I only know from his Marvel Universe Series 4 trading card) - to help him out. 

So this is basically one big fight scene, as different characters square off. Moon Knight takes Deadzone, and at one point, Pramanik uses the way Deadzone's whips lash across the page to function as panel borders, which was an approach I really liked. Hunter's Moon gets Killer Shrike, because Tigra figures anyone still wearing a topknot is a creep, and she's not fighting a creep. Except then she ends up with Zaran, and he's got something similar, so, as she puts it, this is a pervert convention.

You'd think being a superhot cat-lady, almost every day would be a pervert convention for her. Either way, she beats up a guy who survives fighting Shang-Chi, so that's nice. MacKay and Pramanik even let her tank some damage to show off her superhuman toughness, which is not something Tigra gets to do much, I dig that.

8-Ball gets the Jester, who tries giving him grief about switching sides, but it's preferable to having Moon Knight cut your face off. Reese and Soldier find Cubist who - opts not to fight. He already got paid and there's Magnum P.I. episodes to stream. Can't argue with that, even if it's kind of an odd way to handle the guy you already had humiliate Moon Knight and Hunter's Moon once. I guess it does demonstrate Fairchild's muscle are just hired guns with no loyalty, whereas Moon Knight's a got a crew that's ride or die for him.

And it goes both ways, because Fairchild's using all the confusion to try and run. Moon Knight probably could have just dropped from the sky without warning and impaled the Asgardian with the possessed sword, but he had to make a show of it, and Fairchild runs through a door and escapes somehow. My guess is, the person he was talking to on the phone, who we see at the end of the issue, has their own Midnight Mission now, and keeps it moving around. But we'll see, eventually, I imagine.

Runaways #2, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Elena Casagrande and Roberta Ingranata (artists), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) -  Remarkable that Chase returned from the future with facial hair straight out of the worst of the late-90s.

Chase is back - from the future! And he's kind of a dick! Swell. He does help drive off the Doombots, with some help from Gert with a car. What is Doom making these things out of? She didn't even hit it hard enough to trigger the airbag. One Doombot leaves to get reinforcements - what kind of Doombots are these, DOOM needs no reinforcing! - so the team flees back to Gert's old family home. What's left after the feds and the wildfires got done with it.

Chase is, as Future People do, being hostile and bossy while explaining nothing. He's harsh towards Gert because of whatever future things happened, not respecting their Doombot's bodily autonomy, yelling at Nico for not using magic (to be fair, he was in the future by the time she gave Karolina the Staff of One.) When Gert uses the time machine to return to their hideout the day before and grab the Pride's journals for possible ideas, Chase then blows up the time machine.

I have to admit, it's a little hard for me to feel bad for Gert, who is always so judgmental about other people's actions, but can say with a straight face they don't have time for ethics whenever she decides the situation is dire enough. She and Victor are never going to last, if only because he's going to get sick of her crushing his idealism, or she's going to get too frustrated with it. Maybe that's why he killed her originally? Couple fight?

So, Chase is a dick, Gert's sad and angry, Nico's angry and feeling useless, Molly's unconscious, Victor's damaged, and more Doombots will no doubt soon locate them. But Karolina's returned home just in time to find no one but Alex, cosplaying as Doc Justice. I forgot about that plot thread. Rowell's really trying to tie up all her loose ends, isn't she?

Casagrande is replaced as artist halfway through the issue by Ingranata. The latter's work is less detailed, with a heavier line. I feel like Ingranata minimizes some of the body type differences between the cast. Not a lot, but Gert seems to get abruptly taller and slimmer.

Sunday Splash Page #385

"Revenge of the Wraiths," in New Warriors (vol. 1) #74, by Evan Skolnick (writer), Patrick Zircher (penciler), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Joe Rosas and Malibu (colorists), John Constanza (letterer)

The 75-issue run of the first volume of New Warriors can be split into 3 creative chunks: Nicieza/Bagley, Nicieza/Darick Robertson, and Evan Skolnick/Patrick Zircher, each between 20-30 issues (give or take a few issues with guest artists.) I only have 14 of the last 50 issues, evenly split between the latter two teams, so we're handling them all in one go.

The overarching theme of those 50 issues could be, "growing up is hard." It seemed like the Warriors had things pretty well under control after they stopped Tai's plans and Night Thrasher got to avenge his parents' deaths with the help of his friends. But things start going south soon after. The Warriors return to the States to learn Marvel Boy was found guilty and is getting sent to the Vault. Chord's still got brain damage from his attempted suicide, which is difficult for Silhouette, since he's her dad. Rage gets kicked out of the Avengers for swiping a Quinjet to help the Warriors (and then the Quinjet gets stolen from them.)

Namorita takes over a team leader while Thrasher gets her head straight, and it doesn't go well. They get involved in a civil war in Trans-Sabal (the nation I think Peter David created in his Incredible Hulk run, where Rick Jones assassinated the tyrannical god-king), and makes some not-great decisions in a situation more complicated than they were ready for. She's one of the Warriors that gets controlled by a guy with a deep connection to the Darkforce Dimension, and then her body starts mutating, setting off a long-series of writers and artists shifting her between white-skinned and blue-skinned looks. She also trusts the wrong guy, the team's identities get leaked, and Rage's grandmother is killed, while Firestar's ends up in the hospital.

Garthan Saal shows up looking for Nova's bit of the Nova Force, and ready to destroy the Earth to get it, which sets off a theme of Rider losing his powers, then getting them back (he goes through that cycle at least twice in the last 3 years of the book.) Vance gets paroled, now calling himself "Justice", then joins into whatever that thing was where the "Gamesmaster" had people targeting New Mutants and Hellions. The team gets caught in a war across time between two Sphinxes, Original Sphinx, and the lady Sphinx that did the time-warping in the Nicieza/Bagley run.

The team gets involved in a conflict in a different country during Skolnick's run, and she's presumed dead, but the mastermind of the thing (who Zircher draws like the Timmverse Batman's Clayface, but with big sharp team and goes by "Protocol") actually sticks something in her neck that makes her his puppet. That takes about 20 issues to resolve. Something's up with Speedball's powers, and a girl shows up with dire visions of his future. 

The roster swells to the point they had a cover (issue 51) with all the characters straining to fit. Dagger's on there, Darkhawk, too. During Skolnick's run, Alex Power swipes his siblings' abilities and joins as "Powerpax" (groan.) The Scarlet Spider joins, which seems to have been the book getting lumped into the "Spider-Man" family of books at the time. Skolnick tries setting up a love triangle between Scarlet, Firestar, and Justice, but I can't tell it ever got anywhere. Eventually he brings the Dire Wraiths into play, which I guess sort of makes sense, given two characters were sharing the Torpedo armor (calling themselves Turbo) since early in the Nicieza/Robertson run.

In a bit of a surprise, Skolnick brings back the Mad Thinker, referencing his appearance in the 3rd issue of the series, when he was hired by Gentech to investigate the Warriors, but clearly had his own motives for doing so. What Skolnick reveals is the Thinker has a nephew with powers dangerous to himself that he gained because he got too close to one of the Thinker's experiments. The Thinker can't cure him, and the kid already killed his mom with these powers, so he'd hoped the Warriors could help him learn control. But, as he puts it, they became hardened faster than anticipated, 'youthful exuberance' eclipsed by 'grim ferocity.' 

Well, yeah, it's rough out there for the young hero teams. The old guard never go away, due to marketing and sales demands.

Saturday Splash Page #187

"Phrasing," in Secret Six (vol. 4) #5, by Gail Simone (writer), Dale Eaglesham and Tom Derenick (artists), Jason Wright (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

I may regret this choice in splash page when Blogger disappears this post for "inappropriate content", but it was too funny not to use. 

Three years in, DC's New 52 wasn't working for me. Everything I bought when it first started - Resurrection Man, Grifter, Suicide Squad - was either canceled or I dropped it long ago. Ditto what I bought - Green Arrow, Dial H, Batman Beyond Unlimited -  as those books phased out. In 2014, my DC purchases were basically Conner and Palmiotti's Harley Quinn, the first 3 issues of a Klarion series written by Ann Nocenti (canceled at 6 issues), and the first issue of Gail Simone's return to Secret Six.

Six people - Catman and Black Alice, a Talon from the Court of Owls named Strix, an elderly lady Ventriloquist, a thief named Porcelain, and the refugee from a '40s B-gangster flick there called Big Shot (who is actually an existing character under an assumed identity) - wake up in a metal box at the bottom of a harbor. "Mockingbird" wants to know which of them stole something, but won't specify what was stolen or when, which would seem to complicate matters needlessly. Catman already spent a year locked in a cave, though Ken Lashley (artist for the first two issues) gave the guy such a huge grin you'd figure it had to be the Joker. (It's not.)

Anyway, they escape and hide out at Big Shot's place, which is a cheerful little two-story house in suburbia. It is a stark change from the first two issues, which were very murky and dark, but there was also about a 5-month gap between issues 2 and 3, and when the third issue did show up, the Eaglesham/Derenick art team arrived. I don't know if Lashley had some health issue or something else, or if Simone changed the direction of the book to suit the new artists, but it's hard to picture what we got working with Lashley's art, which is jagged and rough.

It works for a book about 6 broken individuals, trapped and on edge and ready to shatter, but not so much for stories where Batgirl (in that "Burnside" look era) is offering Strix her bright yellow boots, or fighting Catman with a panel that takes the old cartoon "fight inside a dust cloud" approach. Eaglesham and Derenick seem comfortable distorting anatomy or faces for comedic effect.

They're also comfortable drawing Catman as apparently hot to just about everyone. Scandal Savage shows up as part of a smaller, for-hire group with Jeanette and Ragdoll. Scandal's married to both Knockout (who the Six rescued from Hell late in the previous volume) and Liana (the exotic dancer the rest of the team hired for Scandal's birthday when she was really depressed over Knockout's death at the start of the previous volume.) When the ladies decide they'd like a child - I'm not clear who's actually carrying the kid - Catman's the one Scandal calls. (Their pre-New 52 history seems gone, so this is based on their brief interactions in this series so far. But I guess if you just need a sperm donor, his genetics suggest you could do worse.)

The last 12 issues of the book are the Six forming this distaff little family in a suburbia only one of them is familiar with, and protecting it against all manners of outside threats. Black Alice is apparently draining the magic from the world with her powers, which is going to weaken barriers meant to keep out some ghastly tentacled horror from realms beyond. So a bunch of magic-users try to kill her before it's too late, and eventually even call in Superman. Except this is New52 Superman, with the high collar look, and his requests they stop fighting feel more like arrogance borne of overconfidence than a real desire to avoid fighting. Shiva shows up to recruit Strix to take her place in the League of Assassins, and the rest of them have to rally to rescue her, storming the League of Assassins' HQ (or one of them, at least.)

And, SPOILER for a 10-year old comic, they find out Mockingbird is the Riddler, and he's looking for a big diamond he was showing off at a party all of the Six were present at (for different reasons) when the diamond was stolen. A diamond he was going to use to propose to Sue Dibny, who was with Ralph (as in, they were married and he was standing right there) at the time. Oh, and Big Shot is Ralph, which is one way to use stretching powers, I guess. Honestly, Elongated Man against the Riddler in a battle of wits sounds pretty cool, but that's not what we get here. I guess because Scott Snyder tried to make Riddler a Big Boss type, it's all threats and goons and explosions. There's nothing clever about any of it.

Also, he apparently coerced Scandal's group into attacking the Six by abducting Knockout and Liana, and I'm sorry, there is no fucking way the Riddler took a Female Fury of Apokolips captive. Absolutely no way, I don't care how hard Snyder tried to set him up as a dangerous figure on par with the Joker. Who, to be clear, I would not believe could capture Knockout either. She trades punches with Barda, and is more than willing to rip either of those doofuses into pieces! Just ludicrous. 

But Elongated Man's presence in this book is weird in general, even beyond him shifting his body to look like a big, hyper-muscled goon 90% of the time. Simone writes him as being deeply in love with Sue, and protective of the others - trying to provide love and stability - but he's not trying to rein in their violent impulses. When they go to rescue Strix, Alice borrows Giganta's powers and crushes people in her hands, Catman is cutting people up (he has mechanical claw gloves, except sometimes he also seems to have actual claws?) Ralph seems, totally fine with this. I guess if he thinks of them as family, then it's a matter of what you'll do or accept for family. 

Random Back Issues #157 - Our Army at War #225

Peculiar brand of mirages we're having today.

We're in the stretch of Our Army at War where Joe Kubert took over writing Sergeant Rock, with Russ Heath as the artist. In "Face Front", Rock's stuck babysitting Iggy and Gus, new guys in Easy Company who somehow wandered off during the night and got lost. This was apparently not desertion, just incompetence, but either way, Rock went out alone to find them. Now they're under attack by 3 FW-190s, so Rock's probably wishing he stayed in bed. Then again, Rock shot down more German planes than any actual American fighter pilot, so it's no surprise they down 2 of the fighters, but they still have to catch up to Easy.

On foot. During the heat of the day. In North Africa. While Gus and Iggy won't quit comparing their situation to things back on the home front. "Oh, we're stuck hiking while they're rationing gas back home." "You gotta have a ration card to buy shoes back home, but my boot's got a hole in it." 

Rock's probably happy the surviving fighter plane radioed the base to send out a halftrack full of Nazis (in shorts) to find them. Gives him someone to beat the crap out of, which they do, after tricking them with the bit where you prop up your helmet and disguise sticks as rifles. By the time the Nazis figure it out, well. . .

And we're still walking, but it's night, in the desert, so now it's cold. Which gives Iggy something else to whine about. Rock is saved from fragging his own men - who, again, are in this mess because they wandered off for some reason - by finding a Nazi fuel supply depot. Rock's gonna take it out, and when Iggy and Gus protest the odds, lets them have it (verbally) for spending all this time complaining how easy it is for folks back home, but refusing to do anything to help "Easy" Company. It's a strained analogy, but Rock's an infantry sergeant, not captain of the debate team. Iggy pretends to surrender, drawing attention so Rock and Gus can plant grenades around the fuel and the explosions catch Easy's attention and that's the end of the issue.

Second story, one of Sam Glanzman's U.S.S. Stevens tales, about a young sailor's first experience being on a ship under fire. While the experienced sailors calmly assess how close the planes are getting by what guns the Stevens crews are firing, the rookie decides to go topside for some water. This is a bad idea, and the rookie dives back down the ladder and jams a bucket over his head, thus the name of the story, "Buckethead". We're assured he turned out OK eventually.

Third, Ric Estrada writes and draws a story about some slaveholder hunting cranes in the swamps of Florida. "Mastah Chad" dismisses notions there might be "Injuns" around, which is when some Seminoles open fire from the shore. Chad avoids dying initially, which is more than his slaves manage, but only by getting himself lost in the swamps. His corpse is found 3 months later by soldiers. The story ends with the caption, 'Amid Florida's splendors--violence is common during the Seminole Wars of the 1830s!' on one side of the panel, and "KIRBY IS COMING" on the other. Well, hopefully he'll take care of all this violence in Florida then.

Lastly, Bob Haney/Joe Kubert bring us, "Anchored Frogman", about a frogman who, in the process of attaching an explosive charge to the hull of an enemy ship, gets his leg caught in a link of the anchor chain. Over the remaining 4 pages, as he reflects on how there's all this open water around him but he's trapped, he unsuccessfully tries to squirm free, fails to cut the chain with his cutting torch, and is in the process of being choked out by a Nazi frogman when the anchor starts to get raised. Before he can be squeezed through the hawser hole, his charge explodes and the shock throws him free of the chain. As this ship (and presumably all aboard) sink to the sea floor, he reflects that the people who taught him were right, there really is all kinds of room in the sea. Not if you keep sinking ships.

{8th longbox, 10th comic. Our Army at War #225, by Joe Kubert, Sam Glanzman, Ric Estrada and Bob Haney (writers), Russ Heath, Glanzman, Estrada and Kubert (artists)}

The Man Who Invented Florida - Randy Wayne White

An old boy named Tucker Gatrell claims he's discovered a Fountain of Youth on his property. Well, he hasn't actually done any testing on it, but he and his old Cicela friend Joseph both feel better after drinking it. And the state government is about to take the land to add to a state park, pending a hearing being held on Tucker's property. And it's not as though Tuck actually owns the land where the artesian spring is located, as he sold it to some mysterious blind trust.

But all that's irrelevant, if he can just get his marine biologist nephew to help him by running some tests on the water to prove his claims. Except Marion wants nothing to do with him, but Tuck figures he can work around that. Maybe get Sally down the road, fresh off a divorce, to do some photography in the bay outside Marion's home.

I really don't know how to describe this book. It feels like White describing the kind of weirdos that apparently inhabit Florida. The non-tourist Florida, the backwater Florida. The areas where the last stubborn holdouts of a Florida that barely exists between the tourism, rising sea levels and the protected wilderness (what isn't overrun with invasive pythons) live.

Tucker lives in a crumbling house surrounded by the detritus of a varied life, in a town that's largely been deserted. His friend Joseph lived alone in a shack in the woods, and got sent to a shitty nursing home after he collapsed one day. Marion was apparently a sports star in college, spent time in government intelligence, then moved back 30 minutes from the uncle he lived with for 3 years, but has apparently avoided ever since.

But Tucker seems like the protagonist, or at least, he's the character that drives everything. Bothers Marion, nudges Sally, prods Joseph to flee the nursing home, gets a whole media thing going about his "special" water. And this is a problem, because I can't stand him. He is the sort of good old boy bullshitter I have to deal with at work. Always superficially charming, always got a story, always got an excuse, always got a complaint about the mean old government, and how he's just not appreciated and he's just trying to make a honest doll-blah blah blah.

This guy literally sets up traps to foul the boats of two government environmental inspectors sent to survey the property, so that they'll get stuck in the middle of nowhere and a crazy old friend of Tucker's can "save" them. By which I mean he sticks them in a hole and makes them cut sugar cane for him to "pay off" the debt they owe from him saving them. OK, that's kidnapping and slavery, and I'm supposed to, what, admire Tuck's cleverness and ingenuity manipulating everyone to complete his scam? Fuck that.

The writing is solid, there's some good turns of phrase. The themes of people struggling with the ruts they fall into, how its easy to look around and realize years have past, the world has changed but you haven't. But also it seems like most people fall easily back into those ruts. Marion and Sally hit it off, but they can't fit comfortably together, so Sally deludes herself about her ex. Tucker is still a bullshitter, Marion's hippie friend Tomlinson briefly tries to change, then decides it's not for him. Maybe Marion changes, I guess if there was another book that might come out. And if the book doesn't involve Tucker Gatrell, I might even want to read it. 

'But soon Joseph Egret, who in his entire life had never allowed regrets to linger, began to recover from the shock of being dead. If he were a ghost, his new form might offer certain opportunities that his old living form had not. He studied the possibilities as he walked past more nice houses. He could steal money most probably. Take from the rich and give to his friends. That would be nice. And he might make a visit to the women's shower room at the local college. He had always dreamed of a chance to do that. Maybe being a ghost wouldn't be so bad, after all. He'd become a phantom Robin Hood - with hobbies.'

Overdue Movie Reviews #2 - 28 Days Later (2002)

Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakes from a coma in a London that appears deserted. It's not actually deserted, but most of the inhabitants are crazed, homicidal maniacs (infected by rage, which essentially makes them fast zombies.) Jim is saved by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark, though Mark doesn't last long, and Selena makes it clear she's not all that worried if Jim does, either. Selena and Jim spot Christmas lights flickering from an apartment balcony and meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). Frank wants to travel to the source of an Army broadcast claiming there's a cure for the infection and can provide safety. Frank was waiting until there were others to go with them, to look after Hannah if something happens to him.

Well, something happens, leaving Jim, Selena and Hannah in the care of Major West (Christopher Eccleston.) His cure is not quite what they hoped, and the safety only extends so far, that with conditions. He's trying to keep his men going by promising them women, the radio broadcast the lure. This does not end well for him or the soldiers. 

Alex and I were going to see this in theaters, but we didn't check show times beforehand, so it was going to be over an hour wait. We ended up watching Terminator 3 instead. What a horrible mistake. T3 isn't the worst movie Alex and I watched in theaters together - I'd award that honor to Saw, Drillbit Taylor, or the 2nd Fantastic Four movie - but relative to what we could have been watching, it's pretty shitty.

The quote that feels like it sums the movie up is when they're preparing to drive through the tunnel to reach the broadcast and Jim says, 'This is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.' 

That's what the movie feels like: characters making bad decisions that are really obviously bad decisions (though bad for who varies), because they can't think of a better one. Jim being determined to try and cross a city he now knows is full of insane hordes that will tear him to shreds if they catch him, on the off-chance his parents made it. Selena and Mark knowing it's a bad idea, and Jim is a risk to them because he hasn't had time to adjust to the new reality, and going anyway. Frank taking a chance on a broadcast promising sanctuary, even though it's clearly a recording set on repeat. The animal rights' folks at the beginning, if for no other reason than opening the door of a cage on a wild animal you've been told is infected with something, without wearing protective gear, is stupid. The researchers, for trying to infect something with "rage" to understand it. Major West keeping Mailer, one his soldiers that's now infected, around on a chain to "learn" about the infected, meaning he's let the threat to them inside the building.

(Considering it was Jones' getting ready to commit suicide that convinced West his men needed women in the first place, which led to Jim, Selena and Hannah arriving, you could argue West stopping Jones from killing himself was a shit idea. Probably a really obviously shit idea, considering Jones fucks up everything he's supposed to do in the entire movie, from cooking the celebratory meal with bad eggs, to botching the execution of Jim and Sgt. Farrell, to spraying all his bullets into the ceiling like an idiot while one of his squadmates is getting infected by Mailer.) 

There are certain shots that stick with me, and with 28 Days Later, it's always been during the scene where Jim lures Major West and one of his soldiers to the barricade. They're searching in the rain, split up, and as the soldier walks through behind a lorry, the camera pans right over Jim in the foreground, staring at us with eyes that are cloudy, unfocused and glazed over. Blurring the line between the proper "infected", and regular old humans who, as West noted, having been killing each other in large numbers for pretty much as long as there were enough humans to kill large numbers of them.

When Jim tried to intervene with one of the soldiers getting grabby with Selena, he did so in a rather halfway manner. Just trying to push the guy back a bit, and quickly ended up with his face smushed into the floor. When he returns, there's no half-measures or talking. He sets Mailer loose as a distraction, sticks Jones with a bayonet the same way the other soldier intended for Farrell. And when he catches up to that guy and Selena, he bumrushes him, slamming his head against the bricks while snarling inarticulately before throwing him to the ground and gouging his eyes out (which is another of those shots that sticks with me, Cillian Murphy with the cords in his neck sticking out as he buries his thumbs in the guy's sockets.) The only difference between Jim and Mailer in that moment (besides Jim not puking blood on the guy) is Jim being more coordinated in his violence. The infected seem to flail and swipe a lot, but there's no concrete plan of attack for their victims.

(There's also the symmetry of Jim dropping in through the ceiling, just like one of the infected came in through a skylight during the attack at Jim's parents' home. That was Jim's first real introduction to the violence of this new world. Jim didn't do anything to fight back then, but he's an animal now.) 

(It's a nice touch when the infected have gestures or expressions they might have used before. When we're first introduced to Mailer, after West leaves, Mailer is on the ground, but he reaches towards Jim, as though asking for helping getting up. Is that some vestige of the old Mailer, or the virus co-opting the mannerisms?)

But there were a lot of things I hadn't noticed on until I rewatched the movie last week in preparation for this post. First and foremost, that West and his men must have been at the barricade before Frank got infected, if they could be so well hidden in the woods and have vantage points from above already. They waited for an excuse to get rid of the one they figured was the biggest roadblock to their plans for Selena and Hannah. Beyond that, the way the soldiers do doughnuts in the driveway with Frank's taxi while Hannah's mourning her dad. How, when West lays out his scheme to Jim, he offers him some of the liquor Frank grabbed during their grocery shopping. Frank was no doubt saving it for a celebration, for when they found safety and hope. West has simply co-opted it for his own purpose, to make the crap he's decided is acceptable go down a little smoother. The same way he took Frank's hope of safety for him and his daughter, and twisted it into what would be a nightmare for Hannah, if it goes as West plans.

Murphy does a good job with Jim, moving from befuddled to terrified to optimistic to sarcastic to ruthless, although the shift in him after nearly being executed is a bit abrupt. He's running for his life, then he falls and while staring at the sky, realizes Farrell was right about the rest of the world going about its business while England burns. From then on, he's like Rambo.

Naomie Harris is excellent, with her outwardly cynical air, but still showing it's only skin deep. For as caustic as she can be, asking Jim if he wants the two of them to just fall in love and fuck, she never actually abandons him. Maybe because she figures you need someone to watch your back, and he's all that's available, but when Jim asks if she's got a can of Tango, she actually looks through her pack, rather then tell him "No" and give him one of the other cans. After the soldiers find them, she's not worried about Hannah because of the soldiers, she's worried about Hannah because the girl just lost her dad, and Selena doesn't want her to have suffered that loss. And, of course, when confronted with a Jim who seems like he's infected, Selena hesitates, after she told him she wouldn't.

But really, that's probably because the movie is about not abandoning the better parts of human nature, or humans being social creatures, just because things looks bad. Selena does need people, even if she tries to frame it in terms of simple survival. Jim, Mark, Frank, they all needed people. Hannah needs someone, especially once her father's gone. Someone who will try to look out for her, whether by fighting for her, or trying to give her enough pills she can endure what the soldiers have planned.

Even Major West is enacting his awful plan because he doesn't want to be alone, and his men are all he's got. Maybe it's a sense of responsibility to those under his command, but that didn't stop him from having his sergeant executed when the man objected. Ultimately, those soldiers are his family, so he tries to hold together the ones he can, even Jones, who's a useless twit, and Mailer, who's a time bomb. Everyone else is fuel for the fire to keep his family warm. Frank, Selena, Hannah, Jim, they're trying to find other people to band together with. Major West is looking for people - resources, really - to exploit.

Greed and Sacrifice

You've heard of cat cafes, this is the, well, I don't want to say logical progression, but it's definitely a progression of sorts.

It's been 9 months since we looked at volume 4 of No Longer Allowed in Another World, but volume 5 picks up with the main cast in the dwarf stronghold in the desert, currently under siege by the Fallen Angel of Dejection and his armies. The dwarves have the aid of one of Annette's fellow priests, an elf mage named Wolff, but when the battle starts anew, he freezes up when instead confronted with the Fallen Angel of Greed, a young woman he once mentored with who drains his strength and abducts him.

Castle under siege, the dwarves can't spare manpower for a rescue, so it's down to Annette, Tama, and Nir. Sensei gets left behind because their ride (the curly-haired guy from the previous volume, now reformed and running a bus service) refuses to give a lift to the guy who killed his scorpion/motorcycle. But an elderly lady with some connection to Wolff insists they go, so Sensei gives in, if she'll explain why.

As it turns out, the elderly woman (Hikari) and the Fallen Angel (Yuriko) are sisters. In their world, Yuriko was the elder sister, and Hikari the younger. Hikari was always sick, and Yuriko's parents forced the role of caretaker on her, even pulling her from school. When the Isekai Jackpot Truck hit her, Yuriko figured she finally had a chance to be seen for herself by Wolff, and tried her best to unlock her cheat. Except then Hikari appeared, seeming to instantly seize Wolff's attention. Bitterness and resentment bloomed, and here we are, Hikari with a skill that lets her take what she desires, while believing she killed her sister when her skill unlocked.

Sensei finds the whole tale wonderful, demanding to know what it was Yuriko desired, specifically. He especially likes the part where Wolff focused his efforts on Hikari because she asked him to. Because she knew what her sister sacrificed for her in the other world, and wanted Yuriko to be able to live as she pleased, then and now. But, it's too beautiful a tale to be penned by him, so he rips it up and sends them both back home (Hikari restored to normal when Yuriko releases all the lifeforce she's taken.) 

Except they wake up back in their home, Hikari in bed, Yuriko sitting by her side. So Hikari's back to a life of debilitating illness? Wouldn't they be better off still in Zauberberg? Hikari was healthy there, and now her youth is restored. Yuriko can just, you know, stop being one of the Fallen Angels. It's funny, because at the end of the volume, Wolff expresses doubts about His Holiness' plan to bring Otherworlders here to fight for them. These people supposedly weren't happy in their worlds, but who decided that, or that they'd be happier here (a point Sensei made when her first arrived)? Setting aside how many Otherworlders are becoming criminals, warlords or general nuisances themselves, many aren't finding greater happiness here than they were are home. All true, but I'm not sure Sensei sending some of them back to the same old lives is doing them much good, either. Sometimes a fresh start really is needed.

But hey, that's two Fallen Angels down. And the Fallen Angel of Dejection crashes the proceedings, so Wolff can finish him like he said he would! Or not, the guy's armor being immune to magic. And he's strong enough to just catch Tama's best attack with his hand. But Nir's sword is able to shatter the Angel's weapon, and the guy withdraws, looking pleased about the whole thing. Which leads me to suspect he's Nir's dad, and that used to be his sword before whatever got him so dejected happened.

Then, right at the end, Sac-chan, the young woman Sensei intended to commit suicide with, makes an appearance. And he's ready for them to throw themselves out a window together right now, but she says he's not the same man she knew, and they can't be together. So she leaves, rejoining the remaining Fallen Angels, but Sensei takes it well.

Or not. 

Sunday Splash Page #384

"Test Case", in New Warriors (vol. 1) #2, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Andy Yanchus (colorist), Michael Heigler (letterer)

Aw yeah, now this is my jam. For the next several weeks, it's Sundays for the '90s!

The second issue of New Warriors was my first encounter with the team. I don't think I knew anything about any of the characters prior to that, so they were all new to me.

(Possible exception: I might have gotten Namor the Sub-Mariner #6 in the same batch of comics as this issue, so I would have had two introductions to Namorita.)

Other than Night Thrasher, all of them were pre-existing characters. Nova had his own series for two years in the '70s, Namorita appeared off and on in Namor's books. Firestar fought the X-Men and the New Mutants, courtesy of Emma Frost's excellent mentorship. Marvel Boy (or a version of him) was part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, off saving the Solar System of the 30th Century. Speedball was the most recent creation, and he'd gotten a 10-issue series a couple of years prior.

Again, I knew none of that going in, though Nicieza covers a lot in the first issue. Nova lost his powers, but they were really just buried deep inside. Firestar was trying to hide her abilities, Marvel Boy wanted to join the Avengers but got turned down. Namorita's in college, outspoken about environmental issues, and not hiding who she is. Speedball gets the biggest makeover from the absolute square he was under Ditko, as Nicieza turns him into a hyper-active chatterbox, looking for an escape from his parents' tense marriage.

But let's look at the new character, because in many ways, the 25 issues that mark Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley's tenure as creative team are about Night Thrasher's arc. The first issue establishes he's high-tech enough to hack the Massachusetts Academy's files to learn about Firestar (and SHIELD's to learn about Nova), but street-level enough to pay a hot dog cart guy to let him know who enters and leaves Avengers Mansion. Ruthless enough to blackmail Firestar into meeting him, or drop Nova off a roof on the chance the stress will trigger his powers (if not, Rich is street pizza), and enough of a dick not to apologize for it after. (He does apologize to Firestar, but phrases it like Nova and Marvel Boy were part of it.) He's also flexible enough not to fight it when his 4-person team picks up two more members during an impromptu fight against a, Terrax homunculus, basically.

His costume is black armor, with some red on the helmet, the belt, the pouches to break it up. Plus, the entirely unnecessary ribbon around his thigh. He carries a variety of weapons, and yes, he's a black character with a skateboard, but it was the early '90s, and I tell you, the skateboard was a major point in his favor with me - nerdy white kid from the 'burbs - as far as making Night Thrasher seem "cool."

The second issue delves more into Dwayne Taylor's backstory, what's driving (and eating) at him. It also sets the tone for a lot of the interactions between he and the rest of the team over the Nicieza/Bagley run. Dwayne's basically Batman. His parents were gunned down when he was a kid, and he's devoted the family fortune to fighting against the kind of people that would do that. He's intense, driven, not always in control of his temper. Given he's in his early 20s, it makes a certain amount of sense he's not always calm and collected, especially given revelations that come later.

Critically, he's not the best with other people. He tends to push them, or expect them to fall in line with what he thinks or wants, and doesn't keep his equilibrium when they don't. And either because Batman's dealing with Justice Leaguers who are a little older than the Warriors, or because Nicieza's not as committed to making excuses for Night Thrasher's behavior as writers are with Dickhead Batman, Dwayne's teammates don't take his outbursts and controlling tendencies with as much equanimity. Nova, in particular, pushes back, loudly. Maybe because he's got experience fighting wars in outer space, or because when you're used to flying full speed through obstacles like a human rocket, you don't do tact. Or maybe it was the whole "dropping him off a roof" thing.

The other Warriors are quieter, but no less capable of sticking to their ideals. Marvel Boy's typically got a well-researched and prepared argument for why they should do something. Namorita's level-headed, but also seems to best understand the code driving Dwayne. Maybe that's the result of seeing her mother killed in front of her. Nita's more likely to butt heads with Marvel Boy ideologically than Night Thrasher. When Thrasher seems ready to make deals with drug lords to get information he needs about dirty crap his company's been involved in, Firestar and Speedball are the ones who object to the ends justifying the means, and they not only don't back down, they sway Nova to their side (Nita and Marvel Boy are not present at the time.)

So Night Thrasher quits. More accurately, he declares the team disbanded and goes looking for answers alone. The rest of the team promptly ignores him and keeps doing their own thing. When they start to piece things together from another direction, their paths cross, and Dwayne has to not only rely on, but act to save these people who've become his friends. You can see the halting steps he makes in that direction at earlier points, especially when it comes to Speedball. His mentor, Chord, opines at one point Speedball is useless until he learns to actually control his powers. Dwayne's response is a hesitant remark that the, 'others seem to like him.' He might agree with Chord from a tactical standpoint, but he sees the value Speedball's lighter personality brings, maybe even to himself.

Outside Night Thrasher's broad arc of trying to emerge from a past that turned him towards vengeance, there are several other threads. It's the early '90s, so there are a couple of stories about the environment. One where Roxxon plans to dispose of nuclear waste by shooting it at the Moon (killing the Inhumans in the process), another where an environmental group has super-powered agents attacking and killing logging operations in the rainforest.

Nicieza and Bagley do a 3-issue "Days of Future Past" involving a new version of Nova's old enemy the Sphinx. Although a 3-issue test run for Age of Apocalypse might be more accurate, since it involves Sphinx rewriting the past to create a different present. It doesn't entirely make sense to have Captain America and Iron Man analogues in a world where Egypt dominates, but as narrative shorthand for the conflict a young Nova feels about risking his position as the token white guy on this version of the Avengers to do what his heart says is the right thing, it works.

Firestar gets a chance to confront Emma Frost and tell her to get lost. (Emma would, of course, repeatedly ignore this over the next few decades. Definitely a person to let be around kids!) Speedball makes some halting steps towards improving control of his abilities, even getting to punch a more-complete Terrax through a skyscraper. Namorita, while generally the one doing the best job keeping her shit together (she has real Cool Older Sister vibes in this stretch), also gets to show hints of how out-of-place she feels above and below the sea. Not truly at home in either, but trying to make it work.

The biggest single story is the trial of Marvel Boy. Vance, in the process of protecting himself from his abusive, bigoted father, kills his dad and is put on trial for it. Despite getting Foggy Nelson as a defense attorney, and having the Thing as a character witness, Vance is found guilty. It's especially rough since, with the whole mess with Night Thrasher reaching a crescendo, Firestar's the only member of the Warriors there to have his back. (Though that does play into their burgeoning romance, which would carry through the next 15 or so years before they split up.)

The team picks up a couple of new members partway through in Darkhawk and Rage, although neither is on the team long enough at this stage to do much. Well, Rage helps them steal a Quinjet and lie to the Cambodian Air Force. That was pretty cool! Silhouette, another new character and part of Dwayne's past, doesn't necessarily get a pronounced arc. When introduced, she seems to have settled into a quiet life, coping with the loss of the use of her legs. After crossing paths with Dwayne again, she's drawn into his world, and learns a few things about her past in the process of helping him with his own. I don't know if she gets closure, since the revelations open up new cans of worms, but she gains some connections. She'd shunned her brother, so her world might have been pretty lonely. Like Dwayne, the Warriors are a new family.

The costumes, never Bagley's strength, are a mixed bag. We already discussed Night Thrasher's. Bagley sticks to Firestar's original look, and Marvel Boy's costume is initially just Vance Astro's, but with a cape. Later, he ditches the cowl to let the hair flow freely. Maybe Speedball was feeling self-conscious as the only guy with flowing locks (the only real change to his costume from Ditko's design is the hair's longer.)

Namorita rocks a variety of green swimsuits, minus a few issues where she wears some Atlantean blood revenge armor. There's no mention of separate male and female versions of the armor, but I can't picture Namor wearing it. Still, it has a jagged and organic look that would suggest is was made from coral or shell and sharkskin or something similar. Nova's look is the biggest change. Initially, the red-and-yellow version seen above, it later shifts to something approximating the color scheme of Wolverine's tan-and-brown costume, before ultimately going back to the blue with yellow starbursts on the chest. So, kind of a mixed bag.

Bagley's strengths are, as usual, the clarity with which he depicts action and emotion. He never does anything flashy with page layouts, but conveys a lot with faces or body language. Thrasher broods a lot, rarely demonstrative (until late in the run where he feels like his life is falling apart), where Nova is constantly leaning into people's space, waving his fist in their face. Speedball tends to perch on stuff when his powers are active (the easier to fall off and trigger the kinetic field, I assume), but slouches a lot when he's regular Robbie Baldwin. Namorita walks or stands confidently. Chin up, calm, whereas Firestar is more tentative, almost hugging herself when she's getting caught up in her thoughts. Even when there's over a dozen characters involved in a fight, Bagley knows when to pull back and show the full battlefield, and when to zoom in on just a couple of characters.

I wasn't buying comics monthly back then, so I would have only picked up issues here and there. Still, this run stuck with me. Probably because they were younger heroes, closer to my age (although even Speedball was still several years my senior), but not true kids like the Power Pack, and not a "minor league" team, like the New Mutants or, to an extent, X-Force. The New Warriors were their own group. No telepathic bald guy inviting them to his school, or turning them into footsoldiers in his private war like Cable. Thrasher might have tried that, but he was in the same age cohort as the rest of them, he couldn't pull it off. They were a team because they wanted to be, but they still got to argue and disagree and almost fight each other sometimes. But crucially, they could do those things and still save the day. Nova did call in the Fantastic Four to help against Terrax (and the FF called in the Silver Surfer), but for the most part, the Warriors handle things themselves. They get to be good heroes, but still with their own causes and ideals they're passionate about.  

Saturday Splash Page #186

"Bad Connection", in Secret Six (vol. 3) #19, by Gail Simone (writer), J. Calafiore (artist), Jason Wright (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

The original Secret Six was a series in the 60s about 6 individuals who completed missions for a mysterious "Mockingbird." It ended after 7 issues, but the concept was brought back in the run-up to Infinite Crisis mini-series, Villains United. This time, the 6 were super-villains - Cheshire, Deadshot, Ragdoll, a Parademon, a re-imagined, more, feral? earthy? Catman, and Scandal Savage, who I think was a new character - who declined to join Luthor's (actually Alexander Luthor in disguise) Society of Super-Villains. They took orders from their own "Mockingbird" (who turned out to be actual Lex Luthor) on missions to hamstring the Society.

Cheshire wound up being a traitor, while Parademon was killed by '90s Superboy enemy/love interest Knockout. Knockout turned out to be the Six's mole, and Scandal's girlfriend. There was a follow-up mini-series the next year (that's volume 2), by Gail Simone and Brad Walker. Parademon and Cheshire were replaced by Knockout and the Mad Hatter, respectively. Following the trend of turnover, Ragdoll chucks the Hatter off a cliff at the end, because he won't share the nutball roll on the team. Simone and Nicola Scott followed that up with an arc in Birds of Prey, now with Harley Quinn as the 6th member.

There were no deaths in that arc, but Harley departed shortly thereafter of her own volition. Straight into Countdown to Final Crisis, which might be worse than getting chucked off a cliff. It wasn't getting chucked off a cliff, but Knockout got killed not long after (I think tying in to Starlin's Death of the New Gods?) which brings us to here. The Six get an ongoing series, written by Simone, with Nicola Scott as artist for most of the first 14 issues, then J. Calafiore for the remaining 22. Which is a heck of a shift in artists. Scott has an extremely smooth style which makes everyone look younger and hotter. Possible exception for Ragdoll, but even he's less malicious-looking and more playful under Scott's pencil than Calafiore's. Calafiore goes with harder, sharper lines and edges. People aren't so much sculpted as chiseled. The latter better fits the level of violence in the book, but Scott's art was equal opportunity objectification - especially when it came to Catman - which appealed to the fanbase. 

With the crew back down to 4, Simone adds Bane, and Jeanette, an old friend of Scandal's. Scott dresses Jeanette as though she had a fine time during the reign of Louis the XIV. Simone has Bane renounce using Venom as part of some desire to not do immoral things. Yet he's working for this crew, who take jobs like busting people out of super-villain prisons and assassinations.

That incongruity seems to be part of the theme of this book. Characters standing on a line, trying to decide which way to go, wondering if they can be better. Catman had returned to Africa sometime between this series and one of the earlier stories, and mutilated some people poaching lions. He questions if that was the right thing to do or not. Bane's fine with breaking limbs, but also decides Scandal (extremely depressed over her girlfriend's murder) needs a father figure and tries to be that to her. Deadshot. . .well, his version of a moral crisis is worrying he might be getting too eager to pull the trigger, losing control. I guess his justification that if he's come to kill you, you did something to deserve it, is important to him. 

Mostly though, the tension plays out in how often the team is at odds with itself. Just about every story involves one or more members turning against the others. Deadshot steals the extremely valuable card they were supposed to deliver in the opening arc. To sacrifice himself and spare the others, true, but he also gutshoots Scandal and hits Catman with a limo, so he wasn't exactly polite about it. The team splits in half in the next arc, where they're working for a prison owner who enslaved Amazons.

When Catman goes on a revenge kick later on, part of the team gives chase, while Jeanette and Bane pull together another roster to take paying jobs. The two groups end up caught in a power play over Skartaris, between Amanda Waller and the Spy Smasher character Simone introduced in Birds of Prey (Spy Smasher loses, as she should.) It's very rare the entire group is on the same page for more than 5 minutes.

They betray and backstab (sometimes literally), and yet, somehow, put it aside when necessary. Deadshot and Catman have a whole thing going around Deadshot liking how Catman makes eggs, but Deadshot also calls him "Tomcat," and Catman lends Deadshot a suit for a date. Deadshot and Jeanette end up on opposite sides over the prison thing, but continue their odd relationship. Ragdoll and Scandal form an odd friendship, even if Ragdoll is a walking Too Much Information hazard. Black Alice eventually joins the team and gets a crush on Ragdoll, who doesn't actually encourage it, but remains supportive and protective of her. It's a book about people who do horrible things to other people, and sometimes to each other, but also have formed bonds where they can rely on each other, if no one else. 

Maybe the incongruity was why my opinion of the book varied so wildly. I would go from loving it in one arc, to considering dropping it in the next. I loved "Cats in the Cradle", which started with the issue the splash page is from, but that got followed by the Skartaris story, which was a big mess of plot inconsistencies and issues that felt like running in place. Ultimately, though, I bought the book all the way from issue 1 to its cancelation at the dawn of the New 52. The book ended with Six having seen that all their vacillating and justifications didn't mean a thing. They were bound for Hell, and decided if the universe was going to cast them as villains, they'd lean into it. By trying to wipe out Batman's entire merry crew of sidekicks. Look fellas, I know we call him "Bat-God", but I don't think he can consign you to eternal damnation.

Simone did have a recurring issue of the team (mostly Catman) getting frustrated that no matter what good they might do, the self-appointed "heroes" always looked down on them as scum. So part of it might have been to show the self-righteous just what the Six could be if they decided to act as "evil" as the heroes believed them to be. A little petty and spiteful, but if you figure you're already bound for Hell, why not go down swinging in the biggest way possible?

Random Back Issues #156 - Tick New Series #4

You'll care about the oceans when your unrealistic depiction of '50s Americana is swallowed by the rising sea levels. 

As The City experiences record rainfall, it's Board Game Night in Arthur's apartment. This confuses the Tick, because Board Game Night is Friday, and tonight is Thursday, which is Patrol Night. Or is it?

Yes, it is Thursday, though I find it hard to believe every night isn't Patrol Night for the Tick. Bumbling Bee and Rubber Ducky arrive, but find the game selections a bit, eclectic. Instead of "Monotony", they have Confectioner Tycoon, a game the Tick created by combining Monotony with Candyland - you know what, just behold this panel of him explaining it.

Rubber Ducky would rather play a game that was nothing but stabbing him with knives and setting him on fire. I'm unclear if the stabbing is supposed to set him on fire, or that's an unrelated action. Gotta define the rules clearly to avoid loopholes!

Outside, the rising sea level has kicked off a war between a bunch of parody water-themed characters, all documented by Fishboy, to later be turned into a blog post. Look, this came out in 2010, blogs weren't entirely dead yet, especially under the sea. Whatever, point is, you want to see Sgt. Fury mashed up with Ariel, fighting jellyfish in domino masks, or a 1-page Hulk vs. Thing fight, repackaged as "Jumbo Shrimp vs. Oysters Sockafella", this is your comic.

Enough of that! Back in Arthur's apartment, Tick's attempt to sneak off by saying he needs the bathroom is thwarted by the fact he broke their toilet last issue. Salvation comes in the form of Bumbling Bee getting way too intense about World of Risque, allowing Tick to simply walk out the door and observe the big sea battle.

Which is about to get bigger with the arrival of Ichthuhuu, Plunderer of Flesh! An enormous creature with a crayfish(maybe?) head and horses for arms. Not seahorse, actual horses, that have complete sets of fingers for teeth. If I were much younger, that concept would probably traumatize me, especially when the Tick is swallowed.

No big, though, he immediately gets puked out because Ichthuhuu just wanted to talk. The creature finds all this fighting really lame, because no one cares about the oceans. He thinks all these characters should be working to make people care about oceans, or they'd never be able to stop him when he inevitably decides to destroy their homes and eat their children. Properly chastened, they return to the depths, Ichthuhuu stops the rain, answering the question prophesied by CCR, and the Tick can't convince Arthur any of this actually happened. 

{11th longbox, 192nd comic. Tick New Series #4, by Benito Cereno (writer), Les McClane (artist)}

Little Green - Walter Mosley

I picked an odd spot to get into Mosley's extensive run of Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, as he starts this book in a months-long semi-coma after getting wasted and driving his car off a cliff in drunken depression. But he's awake (mostly), and his friend Raymond needs Easy's help finding the son of a woman he knows for reasons he won't explain.

As these types of situations typically do, things get complicated. The boy is mixed up in something he doesn't entirely understand, because he was drugged out of his mind after a girl slipped him LSD during a kiss. So even after Easy finds the young man, he has to figure out what's going on with the bag full of bloody money.

This book feels like a book of transition. Mosley often has Easy remark about how he feels like he's awoken in a different world. There's a line where Easy remarks that the man he was seems to have died in that crash, and now he's a different man each time he wakes up, emerging from the husk of the last. It was a nice line, and Mosley works with the idea that sometimes things can change in a relatively brief time.

Easy's case means he spends time around hippy, free love types, and many (though not all) seem to be trying to move past the kinds of unspoken rules Easy has lived under his whole life. Rules about his being black, about how he has to behave around police, about who he can be seen walking around with and how he can afford to react towards people being hostile to him. He's not steady on his feet in the early going, and when some cops hassle him just for stumbling on the sidewalk, basically the entire staff of an auto mechanic shop, white and black, come out and give the cops shit. And the cops back down.

It feels to Easy like maybe these younger people don't care about the things that hang over his life, are trying to change things, and might just pull it off. And Easy sees the family he's gathered around him (he seems to have at least two teenage or older children he's adopted or taken under his wing) and realizes how much he has, and how much he nearly threw away. People that would have been heartbroken if he hadn't survived.

I'm not sure having the woman he was heartbroken over change her mind and come back is really necessary, but I don't know all their history. Maybe it fits. I also don't know if that translates to Easy handling things differently. He certainly seems to try and handle things with talking or making smart preparations, but he seems smart enough to have been doing that regularly. It probably isn't safe for a black man in 1960s L.A., even one the cops occasionally rely on, to be involved in too much violence.

But when he learns why Raymond is concerned with this missing boy (and no, it's not because Ray is his dad), he understands how things are going to play out, and he works to avert it. I don't think he changes Raymond's nature, but at least this one time, he convinces him to handle things differently. To not let it come down to some macho need to "settle" things. Unmake the fist.

Of course, at the very end, Easy is attacked in his own home by a white man with a gun, and kills him. And he knows that's bad news, so he and Raymond dispose of the body with the help of a voodoo priestess lady named Mama Jo. So maybe things haven't changed so much after all.

'On the back bench sat an ancient human being clad all in faded rags who was leaning sideways, maybe asleep. This person could have been either a man or a woman. The race was also a thing of speculation, but the napper's place in the world was definite. He or she had been descending for decades and was very near toppling over.'

Leaning Into the Skid

I've rewatched the Harvey Dent transport chase scene from The Dark Knight a few times recently. (This version, mostly because it was the first I tried and it was good enough.)

It's a good sequence with the big truck with the spray-painted "S" turning "laughter" to "slaughter", the escalation of the Joker's weapons, the Bat-cycle (Bat-pod, whatever it's called). The Joker staggering out of the up-ended truck, spraying bullets to clear any obstacles between he and Batman. Gordon's big surprise moment at the tail-end, where it at least looks like for once, the Joker couldn't anticipate every move they made.

It still bugs me that Batman swerves around the Joker, though. I'm not saying he needed to run the Joker over, then do a tire burn on his face (although now I wish we'd gotten something like that in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.) I'm staunch in my desire to not see Batman killing people, though that's been a lost cause in pretty much all the movies save Schumacher's version (which have other issues for me.)

But there's a big gap between that and, I dunno, doing a controlled skid into the murder clown and busting his hip or something. The motorbike is clearly nimble; we see the front tire rotate 90 degrees so he can come flying out of that alley already aimed at the Joker's truck, plus the bit where the bike rolls up the wall and pirouettes. So I don't buy there's no way for him to just clip or bump the Joker.

It's not like Batman was showing much caution up to that point. He announced his presence during the chase by driving his Bat-tank right under the garbage truck and slamming its cab into the tunnel's ceiling. Considering how thoroughly the roof of the cab was pressed down, and how quickly it happened, I wouldn't bet on the driver surviving. And Batsy didn't show any hesitation to blow up those cars that were parked in his path. Sure hope nobody was taking a nap before driving home after a long shift bartending or sweeping streets!

(Also, why does he need to shoot the glass in the doors when he drives through that underground mall place? Can't his bike just bust through? Lower odds of hurting someone if he doesn't shoot anything.)

Heck, he was willing to flip the truck the Joker was driving. I don't know if any of the Joker's gang were still in the trailer, but if so, that was a rough ride for them. Kinda doubt the Joker encourages his guys to wear proper PPE. So why the hesitation when it comes down to mano-a-mano (or clowno-a-bikeo?) All I could figure was he thinks it's so important for Gordon to be the one who catches the Joker, that makes Dent's grandstand play a success, that he essentially throws the fight. It would fit into Batman's notion about possibly retiring because Dent can rally the entire city into a better era. Dent looks brave, Gordon looks awesome. Batman? That dude in the goofy costume who wiped out on his bike? Who needs him?

I guess it's a plan, and we all know how that version of Joker loves to mess with plans, so I guess it fits. But it feels weird to be talking myself into "Batman lost on purpose" as an explanation.