What I Bought 8/4/2025 - Part 2

I took my car in for some work at the beginning of the week, only to be told it didn't need the work. It was the same mechanic shop both that delivered the warning, but what I heard as, "this part is wearing out, replace it immediately," was really, "this part is wearing out, you'll need to replace it eventually." Which is relieving, but also kind of obvious. Everything on a car is going to wear out eventually. But now I'll know what it is when it happens, I guess.

Bronze Faces #4, Shobo and Shof (writers), Alexandre Tefenkgi (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - I bought a variant cover, the Chris Visions one, rather than this one. Same price, and it looked pretty cool.

This is kind of a regroup issue, after the apparently disastrous end of the heist last issue. Ogiso are hiding in a lighthouse in Senegal. Liam's looking after his injured brother in the top of the lighthouse. Tefenkgi uses the circular shape to put the two brothers dead center in a double-page establishing shot, with smaller panels showing their conversation reading clockwise across the two pages.

Cisse decides it's time to bail, but when he suggests to another member of the gang they do likewise, it turns into a fight. The lead-up to which Tefenkgi draws in 3 rows where there are no borders between panels on each row. Like it's all part of a single sequence that rolls without pause (although Cisse loses his pipe somewhere between the second row and when he avoids the bottle in the third row.) Liam intervenes and Cisse catches a hit upside the head, but the rest of the group just let him leave with a bag of their cash. And then Sango takes off alone, intending to rob the London Museum by herself.

Shobo and Shof give us some backstory on the detective, the case that hurt her rep and the pressure she feels here, but the most interesting part to me is the flashback to Sango and Gbonka's first meeting, when Gbonka moved into the house. Sango actually introduces herself and friendly and supportive. I get the feeling she received a similar speech from Timi's dad when she moved in. Still doesn't explain what caused the rift. Was it a difference of opinion on how to show their "fire"? Was it Timi, who isn't present in the flashback, but as he seems a lot younger than either woman, was probably in bed. Though it also fits with Timi's absence in the present. It's treated like he's dead, but I figure no body, no death.

Either way, it sounds like Sango's heading right into trouble, and Gbonka's got no plans to follow. Which is a good way for someone to wind up dead beyond any doubt.

Past Time #4, by Joe Harris (writer), Russell Olson (artist/colorist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer) - What's smearing blood on the ball do for the spin rate?

We get a flashback to the Western Front, where Henry took some shrapnel to the eye, but survived long enough to be bitten by a Kraut vampire. From there it switches to Jack Terry covering a ballgame at the Polo Grounds. Terry's the old guy that was questioning Ronny at a bar in the first issue, but now he's talking with a scout who's been assigned to check out a couple of players on the barnstorming circuit, which Terry's supposed to write about.

One of those players is Henry, the other the speedy second baseman who got knocked the fuck out by the crazy vamp last issue. Henry's pretty excited, but there's just one problem: the game the scout plans to attend is a day game. Whoops. Looks like Henry and Ronny (still trying to adjust to his recent change in status) will both be missing that game.

So Henry pretends to be a hired chauffeur, picks up the scout - Terry's absent for some reason - drives into the woods and wrecks the car, killing the scout. Because if the scout can't see him play, he won't see anyone. No, that's literally his stated reason. I'm not clear on if we're meant to infer this selfish attitude is the result of Henry being a vampire, similar to "saving" Ronny's life by turning him, or if it's just who he is. We've only gotten a couple of glimpses of his life before. The flashback to WWI, when he seems like a wide-eyed youngster too eager to see things for his own good, and the flashback to his college days, when he seemed less interested in baseball than reading the paper about the war. Neither really suggests a selfish dick out to spoil other people's chances if he can't get one.

But there's a couple of spots during the conversation between Ronny and henry where I'm not sure what the art was telling us, either. In the first, Ronny is wandering the field, picking up baseballs. he grabs one, then pauses as whispers, 'Sweet Jesus, what am I?' Was it something about how he found the ball, despite being blind? Because we've seen him perform this role before, apparently by tracking the sound of contact to figure out where the ball landed. Hell, he threw batting practice perfectly well. Best I can figure, even if Ronny's figured out the telepathy thing, the reality of the situation still hits him harder some moments than others.

The second time, Henry tries to play the, "I killed the guy you owed money, you owe me," and Ronny clutches his side and drops the bag. His voice balloon says he's laughing, but it looks more like he's in pain. I guess he just found the fact Henry didn't know about it being a day game really funny. Even if Ronny wanted to help Henry, there's nothing he could do about the sun shining even before it became as lethal to him as to Henry.

I don't feel like, even with the mini-series being one issue longer than I thought, that this book is really coming together. I guess there's still a chance for a ninth-inning comeback.