What I Bought 10/23/2025 - Part 1

I was out of town for a week on a trip with Alex, and only returned two days ago, after we drove 20 hours straight. It was a fun trip, all told, but I now deeply despise the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

I did have the opportunity during the trip to stop in one comic store, and found the three books from the last two weeks I wanted, so let's dive in.

Hector Plasm: Hunt the Bigfoot #1, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - It was only as typing this post that I noticed the cheerful ghost fetus at the bottom of the cover.

I picked up the previous Hector Plasm books out of back issues in preparation for this mini-series a couple of months ago, but the first page does a quick recap of Hector's origin, purpose, abilities, and allies. Then Cereno and Hunter move immediately into Hector fighting a shotgun-wielding lumberjack ghost that had been killing teenagers. The ghost isn't much trouble, but the situation is complicated by a witch that was controlling it.

Still, after only 7 pages Hector's being thanks by a Professor Jervaise, who had contacted him, and is willing to spot Hector the room for a night at the local motel. As it turns out, Jervaise researches early human activity in the area, though it's the Bigfoot wing of the museum, maintained by Philippa "Lip" Dyson, that keeps the lights on. The area is deep in Bigfoot lore, including a legend about a mining camp being attacked by apelike humans who hurled rocks and possible abducted a woman.

Hector nonetheless turns down Lip's request to hunt Bigfoot, because even if it exists - and he doesn't believe it does - it isn't hurting anyone, and his duty is to maintain peace between the living and the dead. Then a body turns up - which Hunter draws with big "X"s over each eye - and the sheriff does not want to oddball stranger leaving town just yet. So Hector reluctantly agrees to help Lip with the search.

Cereno sets up most of the characters, and enough backstory to keep it mysterious as to what might be important later. I'm pretty sure Lip confirming the local community college has a 'robust occult section,' will be relevant, but was the witch's concern about the purity of their bloodline something with greater significance? The sword Hector was so taken with in Jervaise's half of the museum is definitely going to play in. Chekov's Giant Obsidian Sword.

I'd been trying for days to think of what Hunter's art reminds me of, and settled on the side scrolling Scott Pilgrim game. The shapes of the faces, but all there's a rough exaggeration to the characters that reminds me of the pixellation, without the art actually being pixellated. The exaggeration leans more to the comedy side of things, so that Hector's control of his bodily humors isn't as disgusting as it probably could be, but it works so far. I expect the truth behind the murders is going to be something personal rather than earth-shattering, so not getting too photo-realistic and serious with the art is a good call. Also, Cereno writes Hector as sort of an awkward goof, rather than a scarred, distant sentinel, and Hunter's art works with that. Hector can look cool, but can also make a fool of himself when he realizes he's a stranger in a small town, standing next to a corpse and talking to the sheriff.

Every soul creates their own Hell

Neverending Nightmares puts you in control of Thomas, a man caught in a string of unsettling nightmares. The gameplay, such as it is, involves you walking the halls of whatever location your nightmare has placed you. It may start innocently, with Thomas deciding to go downstairs to get some milk, but things go downhill fast. The hallways are full of doors, which take you through bedrooms, bathrooms and studys that seem to loop back on themselves. Or you enter a room, find it to be a dead end, and re-emerge on a hallway that isn't the same as when you went in.

The shadows may grow thicker, obscuring your view, or the darkness may swallow everything. If you're lucky, the game grants you a lit candle, but for at least one stretch, you're stuck watching a black screen as you walk, ears alert for the sounds of anything else.

Because Thomas will encounter things. Sometimes what seems to be his baby sister, bloody-eyed and dragging an ax. Men with no eyes wrapped in straitjackets, or porcelain dolls that close in if you dally too long in a room. During the nightmares set in the asylum, you're sometimes chased by a maniacally grinning version of yourself, wielding a cleaver.

You don't have much recourse in these situations, except to try and make it through a door. Harder than it sounds. You can make Thomas run by pulling the right trigger, but he's slower than Alan Wake and tires faster, too. Although sometimes, if you meet a danger, you can elude it by simply going back the way you came until you can't hear it any longer. Then when you resume your original course, the danger has mysteriously vanished. One of the game's creators was apparently trying to capture their experiences with mental health issues, but I'm not sure what that would represent, if anything.

If you're caught, you die, but just wake up in a bed and step back out in the hallway where you died. You can't get out of the nightmare that easily. There are different endings depending on which direction you go at certain points in particular nightmares. Step through one door and get your Achilles tendons cut by your sister, step through another and walk off the porch into a void. Sometimes your sister is your sister and a small child. Other times she's your doctor at the asylum, a cold and distant one at that. In one sequence, you wake up in bed with her and she says she's your wife (Thomas is as confused and disturbed as I was, which is nice.)

While Thomas always "wakes up" with a start and breathing hard, his expression through the game doesn't suggest fear so much as confusion, or maybe weariness. His life has blurred into an endless stretch of misery and loneliness, broken up by pain inflicted either by others or himself. The encroaching darkness doesn't bother him. Neither do the monsters; Thomas doesn't see them and quail in terror, though he usually screams at the moment they "kill" him. Which probably says something about his true mental state and that he's not so eager to let go as he might believe.

I don't think I was ever scared while playing; once you figure out he's going to pop back up in bed if he dies, still trapped in his nightmares, it's hard to feel too worried about screwing up and getting him killed. Unnerved maybe, at some of the things Thomas encounters. Amused, that the art style reminded me of the intros to Mystery! on PBS I remember from when I was a kid. Exasperated, definitely, both at how slow Thomas is (though that tracks with a lot of my nightmares, moving like I'm in molasses) and how long it sometimes took to get to the point where something different happened.

It's like, you're walking, you're walking, try this door, oh another cobweb strewn bathroom, onto the next hallway, you're walking, try this door, bloodstain on the wall, you're walking, you're walking, wasn't I just in this bedroom? there's that creepy doll, you're walking, oh I'm back in the dining room, hey things are looking more worn down, maybe we're getting somewhere, still walking.

As a metaphor for feeling trapped in a headspace where every day is empty, save old memories and regret, and there doesn't seem to be an exit from the maze, it's effective. But it's not exactly engaging as a game you're playing. The monsters show up and at least they're something to try and escape or elude. 

The Quiet American (1958)

Set in Saigon in the early 1950s, it revolves around Fowler (Michael Redgrave), a middle-aged British journalist, his girlfriend Phuong (Giorgia Moll), and a young American that abruptly enters their lives (Audie Murphy.)

The American quickly falls for Phuong, is convinced he loves her and wants to marry her, but thinks it wouldn't be "fair" to make a play for her without informing Fowler. So he catches a flight, then drives through Communist-held roads at night to an outpost the French military brought journalists to, all so he can tell Fowler (and deliver a telegram.) He made it by borrowing a Red Cross jeep, confident that, of course, no one would shoot at a Red Cross jeep.

So as the American woos Phuong, Fowler steeps in bitterness that he's going to lose her one way or another. He's been promoted, but it requires moving back to London. His wife will not grant him a divorce. It's against her religion, and besides, he's waited so late in life she wouldn't be able to find anyone else at this stage, so fuck him, the selfish bastard (paraphrasing.)

My dad loaned me a book - I haven't read at the time I'm writing this - that apparently discusses government interference in the making of this movie, which resulted in more focus on the love triangle than the political aspects. Although, because it's framed from Fowler's point of view, we don't see much of the courting between Phuong and Pyle. So the romance is still almost in the background. Unlike in the book, Murphy isn't playing a CIA agent. He's an idealist, a believer in the idea the U.S. can help bring democracy and self-determination and security. In the same way that "uninvolved" is a word that comes up repeatedly with Fowler, usually in describing himself, "secure" is a word Pyle uses frequently. He wants Phuong to be able to feel secure and have a future, preferably with him.

There's not much focus on Phuong as an actual character. Pyle and Fowler have entire conversations about her, while she's in the room, as though she's not there. Pyle may actually love her, though, again, the lack of time they spend together on screen makes it seem more like she's a charity case. Someone he's going to save. Phuong tells Fowler that Pyle told her he loved her, was willing to let himself love her, unlike Fowler. Who knows if that was legit, but she believed it, for what that's worth. Fowler is using her as an escape from a life back in England he doesn't want. A solution to a mid-life crisis, that also keeps his apartment tidy. I thought she'd learn his duplicity from the letter Fowler's wife sent, because it would turn out Phuong's English had progressed far beyond what Fowler believed (Pyle was apparently working on it with her.) Instead her sister read the letter for her, which I guess could be a part of the safety net of family in the culture that Fowler didn't account for (but certainly should have expected, the sister was a presence he was well used to by then.)

But neither man really understands her, too caught up in their own visions. Pyle was shocked to learn Phuong was once a girl that you could pay to have dinner and dance with you if you went to a certain restaurant. It's something he needs to "save" her from, not recognizing that for Phuong, it was a way to make a living, to survive from day-to-day. Not something that she's ashamed of, just a necessity of her life. But he can't see outside his own upbringing and culture.

(This is a larger issue for Pyle, as he keeps pounding on the notion of "natural democracy" for the country, not recognizing most people in the country are more focused on keeping a roof over their head or food on their table, and don't have time to worry about what type of government controls the country.)

But Fowler treats her like a child. When Pyle tries to explain his feelings, with Fowler translating whatever Phuong can't follow in English into French - he says she and her people have no concept of "future." At least not the way Pyle means it, where he wants to give her a more secure future. Fowler attributes it to her being focused on that day-to-day necessities, but when he asks Phuong if she'd prefer to leave him and go somewhere else, she replies "never." Which, as Pyle notes, suggests she has some conception of the future after all. But that's not what Fowler wants from her. She cleans up after him, makes him feel smart, makes him feel like he's more than a drunken, cynical reporter running from his responsibilities. She's a crutch, but it only works like that as long as he can keep things as is.

If Pyle's guilty of falling into the line of thinking that every country would be improved by being more like the United States (more accurately, the fantasy version of the U.S., where all the ugly history is swept under the rug) and applying it to Phuong, Fowler's guilty of old European colonialist thinking, where Phuong is a resource best controlled and managed by him, because she can't take care of herself. That he benefits immensely is, of course, just a coincidence. 

I'm only a little ways into Graham Greene's book, but based on the introduction, Murphy's version of Pyle is pretty close to how Greene apparently saw Americans. That you can't hate them because they're 'innocent,' where innocent really stands for "ignorant." Murphy's version of the American is quick to introduce himself or speak with anyone about what he wants or hopes for. He's soft-spoken and polite, eager in an open, almost childish way. (Although the description of him as "quiet" in the book is meant to be a joke, or ironic. The only quiet American is a dead one, apparently.) 

He won't leave an injured man behind, even if that man tells him to. If asked for a cigarette, he'll offer the remainder of the pack. He's got a carton still at home, after all. He's generally polite, and talks a lot about being "fair," although that's based on his definition, and Fowler would no doubt feel what Pyle saw as fair was already tilted in his favor. He thinks capitalism's going to be a big help for the Vietnamese, to the point he's importing a bunch of plastic so they can manufacture toys and masks for Chinese New Year.

In the Michael Caine/Brendan Fraser version, and I assume the book, that's a cover for him bringing in plastique to be used in bombings. Here, that's what Fowler is led to believe is happening, and while he might find it appalling, he ultimately gets "involved", i.e, consigns Pyle to death, for a more personal reason. And it turns out he's been fooled. Pyle was what he appeared to be, and if he was indeed ignorant of the forces and cultures he was putting himself in the middle of, too blinded by his belief he could help people just by his good intentions, Fowler was no less a dope. For all his affected wisdom and experience, he got used by people he never suspected of ulterior motives.

Redgrave's version of Fowler isn't so old as Michael Caine's but he's more pitiful. Looks shabbier, looks more worn down and ragged. It seems as though he's already fallen a long time before the end of the film, when he's really left with nothing. My dad was trying to figure out why the French detective was, in-story, going to such pains to lay out all Fowler's mistakes, even taking him to see Phuong so Fowler could manage one final, spectacular faceplant. He was unconvinced by my French vs. British "national rivalry" theory. Nor was he impressed with my theory the detective has the intelligence resources to know Phuong's no longer available to Fowler, and dislikes the man enough to want to watch this last flameout up close and personal. To be fair, the detective doesn't look like he's enjoying watching Fowler humiliate himself, but he wouldn't be the first guy to enjoy a present more as a hypothetical than a reality.

2 Fists Plus 1 Face Equals a 10 Count

Is Karan actually a math savant? Is Zem a fantastic tutor?

When last we checked in on Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World, the Survivors were gearing up for a "bareknuckle math" battle against Nick's ex-girlfriend and her new (old?) beau, a tigerman named Leon. "Gearing up" involved Nick was fistfighting werewolves in a cave, while Karan tries to learn math.

Over a third of volume 5 is the actual contest. Where the previous volume focused on Nick's efforts to prepare for the fight, we really only see enough punching to establish Leon's strategy. He plays defense, passing up opportunities to do major damage to Nick, while just throwing enough punches not to be suspicious. That's because he's counting on Claudine to win the math challenges, each of which will grant him a free hit at the start of the next round.

So the focus is on Karan - struggling to do math in front of a crowd, Nick taking hits every time she falls short - and Claudine. With Claudine, we learn why she operates like she does, and it's essentially because she doesn't think she's good enough at anything to succeed in a straightforward manner. Not a strong fighter, not a brilliant mind, not that pretty, not that slick a thief. These are her assessments, not mine. So she does what ever it takes to get ahead, and resents people who try to hold her to their morals, like Nick.

The denouement comes when Tiana suggests they hurry this along by combining all the math rounds into one. Sure, that means the loser will take multiple rounds worth of punches, but Nick's fine with it, and Leon is too. For good reason, as the Survivors have figured out how Leon's group is cheating (thanks to a little investigating Zem did by talking to club hostess girls), and use the added pressure and time of the tougher questions to push Claudine to use it, so her lifeline could get caught in the act.

The funny bit is, the guy helping via "telepathy orb" isn't even a math whiz. He's still having to use textbooks and an abacus to figure out the answers. At least he can read. Most of the spectators were amazed at the fact Karan and Claudine can do basic arithmetic.

With Leon's crew seemingly locked up for all their scams, and the people they cheated lining up for recompense, it's time for relaxation. Nick has another conversation with the idol he's so obsessed with, then gets dragged to a casino by Tiana, who encourages him to find more to enjoy in life than just idol concerts. That seems like a violation of the rule the party established about not judging or interfering in how the others spend their share of the funds, but it also shows how Tiana and Nick's relationship is different from Nick and Karan's, which was so much the focus in the first 3 volumes.

Where Nick was watching out for Karan and helping her feel more confident, Tiana comes off as the experienced adult when dealing with Nick. She seems to have made peace with her fiance's betrayal, unlike Nick with Claudine or his old party. She could just be better at hiding it, but she admits she's not the sort to hold back her feelings.

It may be she's realized married life with her fiance wasn't going to be fulfilling, that she has a better sense of what she wants in life than Nick does. Nick doesn't even seem entirely sure why he was so hellbent on getting his old party to a higher rank, let alone what he wants for himself. But he is, as he and the rest of the party note, a worrier, always thinking about what can go wrong. Which is a trait I share, and means Nick's as uncomfortable in a casino as I am.

Sunday Splash Page #398

"Riot," in Oh S#!t It's Kim & Kim #4, by Magdalene Visaggio (writer), Eva Cabrera (artist), Claudia Aguirre (colorist), Zakk Saam (letterer)

The 3rd, and thus far, last Kim and Kim adventure finds the "Fighting Kims" trying to be professionals. And failing miserably. Their boss has been hired to protect a famous painting, and sends the Kims to distract a renowned socialite art thief, so she won't steal it. They cook up a scheme to steal a rare recording of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" from Kim Q's dad, a very dangerous dude. It's supposed to be a fake theft that he lets them pull off, but Furious Quattro is a dick who still refers to his daughter by her pre-transition name and gender, so Kim never gets around to asking and they just steal it outright.

And get betrayed by the thief and dumped on a ship headed to a prison planet. Their eventual escape is messy, unplanned beyond Kim Q gaining enough control of the prisoner factions to make them riot, and only succeeds because Furious sent two of his guys - one of whom, Saar, was Kim Q's best friend as a kid - to rescue another of his agents (a talking corgi-man.) The Kims track down the thief, hoping to both recover the recording and rescue their boss, who got caught trying to retrieve the painting because the Kims failed to sufficiently distract said thief.

Given Xue was pretty into Kim D, who was also clearly into Xue, she probably should have just tried a marathon sex session as a distraction instead. Especially since the Kims fail. They get their asses kicked, don't recover the painting, and only walk out with their lives and the recording because El Scorcho (who Cabrera draws as either a pterodactyl-man or a dragon-man, though a name like "El Scorcho" suggests dragon), doesn't want to ruin his business arrangements with Furious by killing his kid. On the other hand, Saar is officially out of rope with Furious, so he's probably dead. Or in El Scorcho's clutches, which I assume is like being dead, but more painful.

In the second mini-series, Visaggio has Kim D's shitty ex ask what she's doing, living like this. She always had plans and goals. Now she's living in a space van, bumming money off her parents. It feels like Visaggio ramps that up, teasing the end of the partnership, as Kim D is pretty pissed at how things are going, and specifically pissed at Kim Q by the end of this story. Understandably so. Most of their problems are a result of the fact Kim Q not only can't get a handle on her impulses or temper, she doesn't even try.

When they're looking for Xue at a casino, Kim Q gets in a fight with a guy because she figures he's cheating. He is, but it causes a huge scene when they're supposed to avoid that, and means he picks a fight with her when he spots her in the crowd aboard El Scorcho's ship. She can't even pretend to get along with her father long enough for this one job. Furious is a complete dick to be sure, and we get some flashbacks to Kim's childhood that explain a lot of her attitude - the entitlement, the aggression, the inability to know when to let something drop - courtesy of her upbringing, but his cooperation was necessary for their plan, and she not only didn't get it, she didn't tell Kim D she didn't get it until they were already pulling the theft.

She pushes Kim D to use necromancy to rescue their boss, even knowing that's a really unpleasant experience, then completely fails to uphold her part of the deal by getting in the fight with the cheater. Not great, making her friend deal with unhappy parts of their past, when she failed utterly to do the same, putting them in this circumstance to begin with. Especially when you then lose all the fights you're getting them into, costing them money, hurting their rep, putting targets on their heads, getting other friends killed.

Basically, Kim Q comes off as a terrible friend in this story, the worst of kind of self-involved jerk, and Visaggio would have to do something pretty big to reverse that trend if we ever got another adventure for these two.

Saturday Splash Page #200

"Time Bandit," in Runaways (vol. 4) #1, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Kris Anka (artist), Matthew Wilson (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

After the conclusion of the 3rd volume, things didn't go so great for the Runaways. They got folded into Avengers Academy about the time I dropped it. Then Chase and Nico were thrown into the meat grinder that was Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover. Nico Minoru lost a hand, replaced by a magical gauntlet, while Chase mostly got his butt kicked (which was at least enjoyable for me.) There was a mini-series during Secret Wars, but I have no idea what it was about. Nico did end up on one of the million Avengers' teams for a hot second, as did Victor Mancha (a different one of the million Avengers' teams.)

Finally in 2017, they got another ongoing series, this time written by Rainbow Rowell, with Kris Anka and Matthew Wilson as the initial art team. The group, family, team, whatever you'd call them, has broken up. Nico is living alone in an apartment, but she got her hand back! Somehow. (It's addressed eventually. Very eventually, as Rowell doesn't advance any plots quickly.) Karolina's attending college and dating Julie Power (Lightspeed from Power Pack.) Molly's living with her grandmother. Victor is a disembodied, deactivated head in a box, courtesy of Tom King's Vision series. 

Chase? Chase apparently went back to the Hostel, which was much bigger than they thought, and got it livable. Then he somehow refueled Gert's parents' time machine, and traveled back two years to save Gert. Being Chase, he fucked up by not getting there prior to her being stabbed, but Nico's able to stumble through magically saving Gert's life by abducting a podiatrist.

Also, Old Lace is alive again. Somehow. 

So Gert's back, a lot's changed, everyone's split up and gotten older, and she doesn't like it. But like there's a magnetic pull between them, the group comes back together. Victor's only pretending to be deactivated, because he doesn't want to deal with what he did. No judgements, I wouldn't want to deal with having been in a Tom King-written book either. Molly's grandmother turns out to be a creepy scientist who created telepathic cats, among other things, so Molly can't stay there. Karolina begins neglecting school and Julie to hang out with her old friends. Everyone gradually moves into the Hostel. A Doombot Victor knew from his Avengers team shows up, and sticks around as the closest thing to parental supervision they've got, although it is interesting watching Chase and Nico try to be responsible adults when they and Gert are still so adamant all adults suck.

(It takes Rowell 11 issues to bother answering what happened to Klara, only getting to it after torching the Karolina/Julie relationship so she can eventually put Karolina and Nico back together. As for Klara, she was adopted by a gay couple and lives in a nice home in a suburb where she has her own garden. Demonstrating more brains than anyone else, she does not want to go back to a life on the run where shit constantly blows up and people die. So that was it for Klara. No one comes back to visit or stay in touch. Like she escaped their creepy cult and now she's dead to them.

At least she fared better than Xavin, who is, so far as I know, just dead.)

The book's pace is clearly written for the trade, only marginally compensated for by the number of subplots Rowell has going at any given time. A particular issue may spend a few pages on Victor's resistance to getting a new body, or Doombot's struggle with self-determination, a few on Molly and her BFF at school, a few on Karolina's failing grades or Nico's issues with her magic. None of the threads advance much, but they all advance a little, which makes a less irritating read than Rowell's She-Hulk was, where the pace was equally slow but there was only whatever was going on with Jack of Hearts.

Alex Wilder, sorta resurrected in Avengers Undercover, shows up with a warning the children of the Gibborrim are here, expecting a sacrifice from the Pride. And this is where those threats by Nico in volume 2 to tear out Chase or Victor's hearts if they turned traitor seem ludicrous. Alex has literally betrayed them, tried to kill them, made Nico waste dozens of spells while mansplaining the "one use" thing was a mental block on her part and not an actual condition of the magical instrument she wielded that he never understood, and at one point here, tries to sacrifice Victor against the wishes of the others. And they. . .just let him walk away. Don't do a damn thing, even later, when they think he abducted Molly (she went with him willingly thinking he could help get her parents back.)

At the end of the day, Alex was there at the beginning, so apparently nothing he's done since is ever going to earn him an ass-kicking. He's still one of them in a way Xavin or Klara never were, even though he seems to find the way they go about things as insane as Klara, albeit for different reasons.

Anka is the regular artist for most of the first 18 issues, then giving way primarily to Andres Genolet. It's a very pretty book. Wilson and later, Dee Cunniffe, tend to warm tones. Strong, but not overly bright or garish. It doesn't overpower any of the pencilers' linework, instead enhancing everything.

Anka and Genolet uphold the Runaways' tradition of giving the characters distinctive and unique looks, although Anka's work there is stronger. Fashion seems to be a real strength. Nico wears different stuff from how she dressed in the earlier volumes, but with enough similarity you can see a throughline of her preferred styles in her clothes, adjusted for growing older. With most of the cast having aged two years since Gert (nearly) died, the artists play up size differences a bit more, most of the cast now towering over Gert. Even Molly gets a growth spurt late in the series where she shoots up closer to Nico or Karolina in height. There aren't a lot of fight scenes, but those there are, while brief, are usually well-illustrated.

The book seemed to run out of momentum in the last 10 issues, though that may just have been COVID messing with the release schedule. Gert and Chase were awkward around each other, given the age difference, so Gert drifted to Victor. Chase briefly considered dating an employee at a superstore, but that got immediately dropped by the arrival of an older Gert from the future, who later abducted him. The X-Men show up to haul Molly off to their mutant prison, I mean, mutant utopia, and Nico seems about two seconds from making out with Pixie. (Nico Minoru may be hornier than Deadpool, which is a staggering notion, but the evidence is strong.) Nico and Karolina were arguing about Nico's magic and a particularly bad bargain Nico made to ditch the "one use" aspect, before Karolina went off into space, taking the Staff of One with her. 

(Writers always come back to Space Stuff with Karolina, but we never actually see any of it. Her friends never insist on coming along. How has Marvel resisted the siren call of Molly Hayes & Rocket Raccoon meet-up?)

The one member of the Gibborrim who decided they liked humanity and sided with the cast, starts going to high school with Victor and Gert, but that barely got off the ground. Alex was lurking in the shadows, making his plans and whatnot. A few of those things got picked up in the tie-in mini-series to One World Under Doom that just wrapped up, but I'm not sure how much actual resolution we're going to get.

Random Back Issues #163 - Spider-Woman #19

If that's her skin, shouldn't she have a sucking chest wound? Shapeshifting is so inconsistent. The last time we looked at this series, Spider-Woman was fighting a scientist who made a bunch of crazy clones of grandmother. That might be preferable to today's issue, which is a Devil's Reign tie-in.

The Kingpin, now Mayor of NYC, is cracking down on vigilantes. He already had his Thunderbolts beat up Jessica's friend Lindsay McCabe, but as it turns out, the Skrull Queen from Secret Invasion somehow survived getting her head kersploded by Norman Osborn, and has been in custody all this time. And Fisk thought it was a good idea to let her out, just to mess with Spider-Woman? He definitely fits into the current era of abusing political power to settle personal spats.

Veranke's imitating Spider-Woman and picks up her son, Gerry, from the Night Nurse, who gets suspicious about Gerry being so unhappy a little too late. Spider-Woman also shows up a little too late, as the armored van rolls away, leaving her to punch it out with Veranke. The comedy sound effects stop partway through, so Jessica takes that as the cue to chase the van (fortunately caught in traffic, the goon complaining about being, 'baby chauffeur'), but when she arrives, Gerry's not in the back. But Iron Man showed up to help!

I'm sure there's a time that would be cause for excitement, but not today, especially as it's Veranke. Fighting resumes, the Skrull taunting Jessica about how none of her friends trust her, while Jessica is more concerned Veranke made out with Tony back during that mess. (Pacheco also keeps trying to do the editor's notes for these things, but doesn't remember the specific issue, forcing assistant editor Lindsey Conick to add another editor's note.)

Then the van goes hurtling off a bridge! Gerry's not in the back of the van because he somehow crawled into the cab and zapped the guard, who's unconscious body slumped on the accelerator. So now they're fighting on a garbage scow. Spider-Man swings past, saying Night Nurse got in touch with him, and Jessica zaps him. In her defense, Veranke said the same thing when pretending to be Iron Man. Also, judging by the costume, that's Ben Reilly during that stretch where he was the Beyond Corporation's Spider-Man?

Then Carol Danvers shows up, holding Gerry. Or wait, did Carol just arrive behind Jessica? Unable to be sure, Jessica tells Gerry to, 'zap-zap bad Auntie Carol,' which is the latecomer. Carol flies away with Gerry, and, ding-ding, it's Round 3.

Veranke starts a spiel about honoring Jessica by believing her strong enough to be a leader, and that's why Veranke impersonated her. Why the fuck did she think that? When had Jessica Drew ever been a leader, of anything? Because she "ran" a two-person detective agency? She had even led the Champions, or the freaking Defenders, let alone anything serious.

I know the reason she'd think that, Bendis liked Spider-Woman, but that doesn't work as a Watsonian excuse. "I did you a favor!" failing to gain traction, Veranke shifts to Clint Barton (as Ronin), accusing Jessica of making him watch his wife die. Does she mean the Skrull that got killed by Mephisto in West Coast Avengers, or the one that died in the Savage Land during Secret Invasion? 

Either way, Jessica can punch Clint just fine - told him he shouldn't have cheated on her in Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye! - so Veranke tries Gerry, but doesn't even get as far as changing her skin color before getting flipped on top of a flat-screen TV. Finally she tries a battered Lindsay, again not bothering to stop being green as she blames Lindsay's injuries on Jessica, and Spider-Woman just zaps her skull. With piss-poor strategy like that, I'm starting to think the Skrulls backed a stupid horse.

Carol returns with Gerry, Jessica hugs her kid and asks if they can just leave Veranke in a fridge on the garbage scow, which Danvers agrees to. Also, Jessica calls Carol "Kirk," and Carol calls her "Spock," which is just nonsense. Jessica Drew is waaaaaay too angry in this run to be Spock. She's McCoy all the way.

These are the only Devil's Reign stuff I own, as Moon Knight had the decency to tie-in via a one-shot outside the monthly series. Of course, this book is getting canceled in 2 issues, so they had nothing to lose. 

{10th longbox, 160th comic. Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #19, by Karla Pacheco (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)}

Sanibel Flats - Randy Wayne White

So I gave Randy Wayne White a second chance. The Man Who Invented Florida was the 3rd of nearly 2 dozen books starring Marion Ford, so I went back to the very beginning, to be certain the irritating good old boy character wouldn't make an appearance.

The book starts with Ford making a hasty exit from the presidential palace in fictional Latin American nation Masagua, before shifting to Florida, where Ford is trying to get his biological supply company up and running when his old high school buddy Rafe contacts him. When Ford goes to meet, he finds Rafe hanging from a tree. But that leaves Rafe's son still in the hands of whoever Rafe pissed off, and ultimately requires Ford to return to Masagua.

Besides Ford, White introduces Tomlinson, an aging hippie that lives on a boat nearby, plus a couple of other guys who work in the same bay where Ford lives. Tomlinson ends up being the most relevant to this book, as stray comments by Ford get him interested in learning about Mayan history, language, beliefs about time, which becomes critical later and necessitates Ford bringing Tomlinson along on the rescue mission.

There's also two different women Ford sleeps with over the course of the story, plus it turns out he and the Masaguan First Lady fell in love. Which is why he was fleeing the palace, nearly caught during a late-night assignation. White plays coy about what happened with Ford and Pilar for a while, but it was pretty obvious. And given neither of the other women were still among the cast by the third book, it appears White's going to pull a James Bond and just shuffle in women that Ford eventually pushes away.

Which is how it's presented (except with Pilar, who breaks it off for a higher calling.) Ford's written as someone, whether naturally or via the training he received (he insists he wasn't CIA, but I figure close enough) keeps things close to the vest. He listens a lot, saying just enough to encourage other people to keep talking without letting much of himself slip. His reactions are restrained. Jessica, a painter nearby that wanted to just stay friends then changed her mind, used him as a subject for a painting, and he really doesn't offer much of a response, which has to be frustrating. Put yourself out there and he gives you nothing. Plus, he gets suspicious and contacts some old coworkers to look into her past, which is not a great basis for a relationship.

In terms of the characters, there's no one whose presence annoys me as much as Ford's uncle did, so call that a clear win. The plot feels untethered, swinging from rescuing a boy, to the possible cover-up of a murder by land developers, to the illegal sale of Mayan artifacts, some of which might prove of great importance in the power struggle in Masagua, to Ford's suspicions about Jessica. White manages to tie a lot of it together in one way or another, but it sometimes feels like too many spinning plates. I think he wanted to establish the Florida locale for future stories, but span further away (and into Ford's past) to establish the main character. And the way he does it pretty well closes off that part of Ford's past, presumably anchoring him more firmly to the western Florida coastline he's calling home.

'Ford drove through the sterile downtown area, immune to the tacky Polynesian facades and cutesy boutiques. He took the address from his sports coat pocket and found Sandy Key Funeral Home; a beige stucco box on a sodded lot with palm trees.

There were a few cars in the parking lot, and Ford stepped out into the heat.

Some place for Rafe Hollins to end up.' 

Arrowhead (1953)

Ed Bannon (Charlton Heston) is a civilian scout for the cavalry. He spent a few years as a child living with a group of Apache, which left him both well aware of their beliefs and tactics, but also deeply distrustful of them, to the extent it tips into hate.

Certainly, most of the soldiers in the cavalry units he works with think so, especially when he kills three men who were supposed to escort the cavalry to arrange a peaceful meeting between the cavalry and their tribe, and then that tribe attacks the unit on the way back to the fort, killing the commanding officer. Bannon is convinced the talk of treaty was a sham especially when he hears Toriano (Jack Palance), who Bannon was raised with during that stretch with the Apache, is on his way back from a school in the East. 

I mean, I'm sure any talk of peace was a sham, but I expect the U.S. government to be the ones failing to live up to the terms of the agreement, based on, well, this country's entire history. 

Everyone keeps telling him it'll be fine. The guy who runs the Wells Fargo station is blood brothers with Toriano, gave his son the middle name "Toriano," he's sure it'll be fine. Captain North (Brian Keith), in command after the colonel's death, has orders to make the peace happen, and keeps throwing Bannon in the guardhouse when he shadows Toriano. Nita (Katy Jurado), who handles Bannon's laundry and fools around with him (except when he's mooning over a white lady at the fort North also fancies) will listen to Bannon's theories, but she and her brother (who are each half-Apache) both seem to feel there'll be peace, too.

Of course they're wrong. Toriano is trying to play the prophesied invincible warrior who will come from the East to destroy the white-eyes. He leads a series of raids (we just see a few burned out buildings), then there's an offer to meet and discuss peace. Which North accepts, resulting in his walking into a very shitty trap.

(Seriously, it's the dumbest trap. Toriano has guys ahead and behind North's unit, then just lets the cavalry scramble into the trees at the base of a bluff without even trying to stop them, then just sends waves at them. I thought for sure he had guys waiting in the woods, or positioned atop the bluff, that he'd learned well back East how the Army worked and was using it to run them into the jaws of an ambush. Nope.)

There could have been something to this movie. That Bannon's experiences have so tainted his view that he needs the Apache to be untrustworthy killers, so he applies pressure, causes trouble, hounds Toriano and (figuratively) poisons the well until violence does erupt. And that violence gets Apache and soldiers alike killed, including Bannon's one friend, and Nita's brother, leading to her trying to knife Bannon. And Bannon in his hatred, insists she'll be imprisoned for a long time, apparently anathema to Apache (which he knows), and she kills herself rather than endure it. And the violence climaxes with Bannon in a fight to the death against the man who was once his brother.

But that's not how it plays out, not that I would expect it from a Western from the '50s. Bannon eventually reveals the circumstances under which he left (escaped?), and that he was hounded after that. Every place he started to build a life, the Apache catch up and destroy. So he decided he destroy them first, and helping the Army was the best way he saw to do it. So actually, his hatred is self-defense!

At no point is Palance subtle about the notion he has plans. He always has that intense look, and when he's dressed in a suit and tie, looks deeply uncomfortable, like he's about to crawl out of his skin. He's so happy to whip off his hat to show he didn't let his hair get cut short like the whites wear it while he was back East. Nita turns out to have been a mole all along, trying to get info about the Army through Bannon, and always despised him. The apparently loyal Army Apache scout turns out to have been on Toriano's side all along as well. The guys set to meet the cavalry at the beginning were hiding war paint under their hair, so obviously it was a trap.

On the one hand, the notion that pushing people into your schools or your military is no way to make them love you is solid. But in the movie, it basically means the Apache are a monolithic unit, all of them suspect. So Bannon was right about everything, everyone else that believed there could be peace was wrong, or a sucker. It's not helped that Heston plays Bannon as a complete dickhead. The fact most of the soldiers taunt him about being a white Apache, or blame him for violence, along with his reveal of how long he's been running (which comes when he's drunk and falling apart) are supposed to explain it. A defense mechanism to keep people at arm's length so their words don't hurt, but watching the movie, the back third feels like it's saying, "worst guy you know has a point."

Insane Devotion has Its Perks

These were the funniest panels in the entire volume. It's the combination of the phrase, her weird expression, and Renji's reaction.

Volume 3 of Yakuza Fiance starts with Yoshino planning when she'll bring Kirishima to Osaka to meet the folks. Writer/artist Asuka Konishi will circle back around to that at the end of the volume, setting up some of the trainwreck we saw unfold in volume 4, but it's what happens in between Yoshino's planning and the actual finalizing of the schedule that's more entertaining.

Starting with Yoshino getting weird vibes off Kirishima. I mean weird for him, not a regular person. He seems more distant, until the moments where his intensity makes Yoshino feel like he's ready to kill her. Turns out, he really doesn't like her mentioning Shouma, but doesn't even realize it's making him jealous until she points it out.

Which is odd because, assuming we take him at his word, he doesn't have a problem with Yoshino cheating on him (even though they aren't officially dating at this point), so as long as he gets to a) watch, and b) kill the guy after. Yowza. He offers to pretend to behave normally, but Yoshino tells him he might as well act like himself, instead of half-assing being "normal." Which does fall in line with her previous comment that she admires how unapologetically himself he is. This seems to settle something in the roiling, deep-sea hydrothermal vent that is Kirishima's mind, and he's back to doting on her.

Just in time, because Yoshino catches a summer cold (normal for her), but it gets really bad. I give Kirishima a lot of grief - because dating him seems roughly as bad an idea as dating Deadpool - but he really does work hard to look after Yoshino. Gets her cold packs, fluids, foods that are easy on the stomach. Checks in regularly via text. When he returns late that evening and she hasn't responded for hours, he at least texts that he's worried and going to pick her lock to check on her before doing it. And he apologizes for taking her to the hospital, because Yoshino hates hospitals for reasons not revealed. Though Konishi also has Yoshino make this absurd noise I think is supposed to be her saying "no" in a groggy or stuffed up state whenever Kirishima suggests it.

The remainder of the volume revolves around Kirishima (and us) meeting Yoshino's friend and cousin(?) Tsubaki. Tsubaki's grandmother was one of Renji's mistresses, with Tsubaki's mother allegedly the result of that affair. Which does not keep Tsubaki from declaring Renji a 'work of art crafted by a god,' and being extremely hot for him.

But Tsubaki might just be saying it to get a rise out of Yoshino. They get along, but Konishi definitely writes Tsubaki as someone who loves drama. If there's none happening organically, she'll stir it up, to the extent of mentioning she thought of sleeping with Kirishima if Yoshino had already done it, so they could be 'lay sisters.' Between Tsubaki saying stuff like that with a coy smile and a giggle, and Kirishima's general, everything, it's amazing Yoshino's hair doesn't go grey from trying to deal with both of them at the same time.

As it turns out, Kirishima came along on this trip specifically to speak with Tsubaki. He figured out she helped arrange the removal of Yoshino's kidney. Except it wasn't actually a kidney, though Yoshino doesn't know it. Kirishima wants some answers, basically.

When I reviewed volume 1, I commented it kind of undercut the power move by Yoshino, but I've reconsidered. Yoshino doesn't know that's what happened, and what she actually lost - 1.5 liters of blood - could have killed her. But as Tsubaki puts it to Kirishima, 'She said she would rather die than let you think she was a joke. So she risked her life. To get even.'  That's pretty intense, and speaks to Yoshino's determination, as well as something Kirishima mentions in a phone conversation with Renji (that Yoshino is unaware of) in this volume. He says, rather than flee a dangerous situation, Yoshino would do her best to adapt and live normally. Of course, Kirishima mentions it as something that compromises her ability to judge risk, which is probably true.

The whole story also gives Tsubaki the opportunity to show her loyalty to Yoshino by threatening Kirishima with the prospect of never seeing Yoshino again. Though it's undercut later by her sending him a photo of Yoshino (slurping ramen while in a swimsuit) in exchange for scans of those photos of young Renji and Gaku that were mentioned in volume 2. That girl is always starting shit.

Sunday Splash Page #397

"Welcome to Knowhere," in Nova (vol. 4) #8, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writer), Wellinton Alves (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Richard Rider, aka Nova, was I think, Marvel's attempt to create Spider-Man in the '70s, via combining "teenager gets powers," with Green Lantern's "part of an interplanetary police force." Kyle Rayner, but 15 years earlier. Also less successful. Rich's first series ran just 25 issues, but I've not read any of it. There were two attempts in the '90s, running a combined 25 issues, the last (Erik Larsen's attempt) canceled after just 7. I've read a few issues of volume 2, the "Time After Time" crossover with New Warriors and Night Thrasher, but none of volume 3.

After, Nova's part of Jay Faerber's New Warriors, but he's written as overly concerned with his image. Trying to get a movie deal, resisting rejoining the Warriors because he feels it's a demotion. He's still banging that drum in Zeb Wells and Skottie Young's reality TV show mini-series. In neither book does he look competent enough to ever reach the "big leagues" of super-heroing to which he aspires.

And then, Keith Giffen made him a central figure in Annihilation. The only member of the Nova Corps to survive the assault on Xandar by Annihilus' Negative Zone army, Rich is forced to take on the entirety of the Nova Force, despite having seen up close (in the mid-third of New Warriors volume 1) how that drove Garthan Saal mad. But Rich has the Xandarian Worldmind, a vast repository of knowledge and experience, to help him use the power, and keep him on an even keel. Nova learns to fight a war. He learns to lead an army. Kills Annihilus by pulling his digestive tract out through his mouth.

Nova, volume 4, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, is what he does after. In a universe reeling from a war that wiped out the Skrull Empire and tore up half of the Kree Empire, with all the destabilization in communication, trade, and stability that implies, there are lots of people that need help. Rich has the power to do it, but he's only one man. So there's a push-and-pull between the Worldmind, which wants to rebuild the Corps and be housed in a safe storage bank, and Richard, who wants to help the people in danger now, and needs all this power to do it.

Abnett and Lanning keep it from being as simple as Richard wanting to be the big hero. A lot of it is trauma from the war. All the people who died because there was no one alive to help, or there were other, bigger crises to fight. Plus, rebuilding the Nova Corps isn't as simple as just giving people power and a bucket-hat. You have to teach them how to use it, how to survive, else you're just creating corpses. That takes time to do properly. Time Nova doesn't feel they can spare because, again, people are dying now.

Most of the stories take place in outer space, against threats big enough Nova is still outclassed, or close to it, even with all the Nova Force. So, periodically, the plot takes Nova back to Earth. This includes the first 3 issues, drawn by Sean Chen, where Nova gets a look at his home post-Civil War. Spoiler alert: it sucks! Rich is as flabbergasted by "Speedball as Penance" as I am! We do get a bit where Iron Man, unaware of everything that went on in space, even though Nova sent a warning to Reed Richards, asks what happened to Annihilus. Nova's response? 'I pulled him inside out and saved the universe. What have you done lately, Tony?'

Alongside the issue of JMS' Thor where Thor beats the piss out of Iron Man over creating a cyborg murder-clone of him, it's my favorite example of characters giving Tony Stark the business for his bullshit.

Where was I? Right, the trip back to Earth serves to show how far Rich has come, with other characters reacting to how different he is, and how easily he handles problems. A Thunderbolts squad with Moonstone, Venom, and Radioactive Man want to try and arrest Nova for being unregistered? He can shrug off everything they throw at him. He can take out one of his old enemies, Diamondhead, in one panel. Iron Man shows up on his parents' doorstep with a few dozen SHIELD agents? Nova isn't freaked out, nor does he rush to an attack. He's calm, and very clear to Stark this better not happen again.

From there, it's back to space, straight into Annihilation: Conquest tie-ins, and Abnett and Lanning's biggest misstep. They introduce Ko-rel, the highest-ranking survivor of a Kree ship downed during Annihilation, trying to keep her crew alive while waiting for rescue, hoping to get home to her son. Worldmind taps her to protect Rich from the Phalanx when he's badly injured. She fails, her crew dies, and while trying to kill Richard and keep the Phalanx from getting the Worldmind, hesitates and is knifed in the back by Gamora. The guilt over this (plus the little bit of Nova Force he gets back with her death) is what finally gets Richard to shrug off the Phalanx control.

So she dies, so he can feel bad. Boooo. Abnett and Lanning do, sort of, bring her back later. When the Worldmind's been corrupted and needs a new sort of interface set-up, it picks Ko-Rel as the template. So the Worldmind becomes less clinical and drily sarcastic, but more prone to bust Rider's chops since he did, after all, get her killed.

Still, I think there was potential in having her help Richard so he could escape, even if reduced in power, and her doing her best as a lone rookie Nova trapped inside the bubble the Phalanx used to seal off the Kree Empire. A person on the ground view, from one not as accustomed to the craziness as the rest of the characters. After that, you can have her kid alive, where Ko-Rel wants to be decommissioned and Rich is for it while the Worldmind objects, or she can stick around as the first trainee if you figure the kid is already dead.

This is also where the book's struggle to maintain a consistent artist starts coming into play. Chen draw parts of each issue of this story, with Brian Denham handling the rest. Chen's art is solid, a heavy line, squared-off characters, a little Sal Buscema in it, where Denham's is slicker, thinner lines, glossier color. Chen shows Nova's speed and power by having the ports on his uniform almost constantly venting orange smoke, like rocket exhaust. Denham gives Nova more of a fiery aura, like Cannonball's blast field. The division of pages seems to be set so each artist handles a different perspective. If Chen draws pages focused on Ko-Rel, Denham draws pages focused on Gamora. (Denham also, during a scene set in Richard's mind, shows us there was a Nova Corps member who was a blue Pikachu, which was a cute touch.)

Richard regains control and escapes Kree space, but these are still unofficial Conquest tie-ins, since a Phalanx-controlled Gamora and Drax are on Nova's ass as he tries to find a cure for the transmode virus raging inside him. (In this case, rather than pit Nova against an outer space threat where he's outclassed at full strength, Abnett and Lanning nerf him by having most of his energy spent holding back the infection.) At which point Wellinton Alves becomes penciler. Alves draws the two issues that introduce us to Knowhere, the mecca set within a severed Celestial head floating at the edge of the universe, and Cosmo the Spacedog, head of security for Knowhere and a very good dog. Alves will remain primary penciler for most of the next 14 issues, minus the two set on the Technarchy homeworld drawn by Paul Pelletier.

Alves has a thinner line than Chen, his Nova is slimmer, more angular. The energy tends to crackle from his ports along his body like lightning, and there are also a lot of faint, arcing lines visible. Like someone faintly traced over the page with a Spirograph. Never sure what those were meant to convey. Scott Hanna inks, and goes heavier on the shadows for Alves than he did with Chen, but Alves, in the early-going, is drawing more horror-themed stories. The visit to Knowhere coincides with an alien group of heroes trying to dump their worst foe off the edge of the universe, and somehow being turned to zombies by him instead. Once Conquest is finally done, Nova ends up trying to save a world's inhabitants from Galactus. Not the world; he accepts that's doomed, but to give the people a chance to escape.

The Surfer lends a (reluctant) quiet hand, but Nova doesn't want to abandon anyone, so he stays, against the Worldmind's suggestion, seemingly trapping them and dooming them to die. I didn't really get that part. OK, something about Galactus' machine makes forming a stargate impossible. Nova is a Human Rocket; he can't fly fast enough to hit escape velocity? Anyway, there's also a creature that trails after Galactus, feeding on the psychic terror he causes in the worlds he visits, drawn as jagged black lines floating above its victim, which is the horror element as Rich tries to apprehend it for murder.

Rich escapes the planet, but the Worldmind seems to crash, leaving Rich on his own to make it home when he learns about Secret Invasion from Super-Skrull. That leads him to Project PEGASUS, where his little brother Robbie is working as a scientist, and Darkhawk is head of security. (Another opportunity for Nova to show off, as he's much calmer and more tactical than Darkhawk.) It's also when we and Nova learn the Worldmind has been secretly recruiting new Novas and setting itself up inside Ego, the Living Planet. (A page of that was going to be my fallback if this double-page splash didn't turn out well.) During this stretch, Geraldo Burges is co-penciling the book with Alves, but either his pencils are very similar, or Hanna's inks mute the differences to where it isn't always easy to tell.

This is where the ideological conflict between Richard and the Worldmind comes to a head. Richard worries the Worldmind is recruiting too many people, plucking them directly from the streets, including his little brother. It's too fast, and feeding combat info into someone's head isn't the same as them knowing how to fight. But maybe Richard just likes being the big hero too much. Doesn't want to go back to just being another Nova, same as all the others, including his much smarter little brother. Maybe he's just too traumatized by all those deaths to recognize one man can't do it alone. Especially a reckless man who regularly endangers the Worldmind and all that it holds.

Rich is stripped of Nova Force entirely, and learns his body was altered from holding so much power, he can no longer survive without it. Too bad Worldmind-Ego took off for deep space with all its Novas, to get involved in War of Kings. The book has a real weak spot, not necessarily its fault, that it constantly sprints from one status quo to another, with little time to explore any of them. The effects of Annihilation are really only addressed in the first issue, and Conquest barely gets any play before War of Kings, and what issues there are, most are spent on Earth dealing with Secret Invasion. There's always another event banner to slap across the top of the cover.

And now, here's Andrea Di Vito as penciler. Di Vito is the closest the book gets to a regular artist, drawing 10 of the final 15 issues. (Alves drew parts of 12 issues, but was only credited as sole penciler for 6 of those.)  His style is cleaner than Alves or Chen's, closer to Pelletier's, but not as exaggerated in body types or facial features (Pelletier does a great job drawing Warlock as extremely expressive with his body.) The colors for Di Vito's issues are also brighter shades and tones. Which is perhaps an odd choice for issues about a bunch of rookies being thrown into a war where neither side wants them there, and Vulcan has a black ops Imperial Guard that commit war crimes like killing surrendered enemies. The image of a pile of empty, busted Nova helmets is effective.

Richard makes it to the fight with an assist from Quasar (currently a being of quantum energy), gets the Worldmind free of Ego's influence (this is when Ko-Rel "returns"), and reclaims the title and power of Nova Prime. Then rockets into battle to find his brother, who is trying to bring in essentially a female version of Gladiator on his own. This also gives us a funny scene where Nova talks his way out of a fight with Blastaar by loudly praising his kingly wisdom, while whispering threats he'll do to him what he did to Annihilus. Sadly, we never got a showdown between the two.

Most of the Novas are sent home, minus a handful who ask to stay and get proper training. There's now a huge tear in space-time, and a ship drifts out of it. Kevin Sharpe (who drew one fill-in during War of Kings) handles a two-parter involving an old Nova lost in another universe for decades, Monark Starstalker, and a gang of Mindless Ones, called the Black Hole Sun Gang, led by a not-so Mindless One. The gang is dealt with by dumping them inside an awakening Ego, Starstalker sets out to do his own thing, and Zan Philo (the Nova Centurion) sticks around to train the new kids and offer wry comments, while his ship acts as the Worldmind's new home.

(Abnett and Lanning also start a subplot involving the Shi'ar named Nova Prime in Rich's absence, who is captured by Gladiator and apparently forgotten by the Corps, being approached by Garthan Saal about starting their own "Super-Nova Corps." That never went anywhere, probably just as well. The book didn't need its own Sinestro Corps.)

The series wraps with Nova running into 2 versions the Sphinx within the tear in space-time, fighting each other over the power of 2 Ka Stones. Abnett and Lanning use the odd properties of the Fault to bring back Namorita, albeit one I'm not sure could have existed. She's very affectionate with Rich, which didn't kick off until she left the team in the middle of volume 1 and started physically changing, but she's in the classic white, blonde, green swimsuit look. But hell, I was just glad Millar's nonsense was undone one way or another.

Then the book was canceled, and Thanos Imperative kicked off. Like I said, the book never really settled into a status quo long enough to dig into it. Always on to the next event, but it was also selling pretty low, so do what you must for survival. Better to get three years of good issues, even if it leaves some untapped potential on the table.

At 36 issues, plus an Annual, this is the most successful run Nova's had so far. Jeph Loeb created a new kid after Thanos Imperative, Sam Alexander, who found out his dad was part of some black ops branch of the Corps. That lasted 31 issues. Sam got a second volume post-Secret Wars, which ran 11 issues, and looks to have been derailed by Civil War II tie-ins. Another volume, pairing Sam with a returned Richard Rider, died after 7 issues. I didn't even stick with it past issue 4. Sam got some run as a Champion, and on at least one New Avengers squad. Richard has mostly stuck to space, appearing in various Guardians of the Galaxy books. Plus, he was on Mars during some of the Krakoa stuff. But he's getting another shot at a solo series starting next month. Jed MacKay's writing it, so it'll probably last at least a year.

Saturday Splash Page #199

"House on Fire," in Runaways (vol. 3) #13, by Kathryn Immonen (writer), Sara Pichelli (artist), Christina Strain (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

So the kids got back from the early 1900s at some point and returned to L.A. for volume 3. The initial creative team was Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos, but I don't have any of those issues, not being a particular fan of Ramos' art. I gather they set up shop in a beach house owned by Chase's parents at one point, that aliens came looking for Karolina, which resulted in Xavin pretending to be her and getting killed, or hauled off to stand trial for something and probably be killed.

I have the last 5 issues, the first of which is a fill-in where Molly takes a trip to San Francisco to see if she wants to live with the X-Men (she doesn't), and the team plays Truth or Dare and Nico hatches an evil magic serpent egg hidden inside a Sons of the Serpent staff Karolina stole on a dare. You can either blame Nico for shitty aim, or Chase for refusing to sit still and play the game properly, take your pick.

After that, Kathryn Immonen and Sara Pichelli have a 4-issue arc where the older kids hold "prom" in the house for themselves. The house gets hit by a drone being used by some military guys to smuggle things under the radar. I think it was redirected by Victor, looking for music for the "prom" and hacking into some encrypted channel, but that's not made clear. Old Lace dies, Klara freaks out, Chase freaks out, Chase's uncle - who actually owns the house - shows up.

That stuff I said last week, the original six having a little bubble no one else can fully breach? In full effect here. Nico's idea of comforting Karolina about Xavin being gone, possibly dead, is to say Karolina was more teacher to Xavin than partner, and if Xavin really is dead, then it was for Karolina, so she should make the best of it! *slow clap* Bra-vo. Would have been better off brandishing the Staff of One and shouting, "Therapy!" 

When dealing with the magic snakes, each of which that births an egg which quickly hatches and repeats the process, Chase dares - as part of the game - Victor to eat one, which kills it. Chase admits he didn't know that would happen, he just figured if it didn't work, Victor is a machine, so they can just rebuild him. Chase is angry about Old Lace dying and talks about killing Klara. Nico tells Victor at one point to make like a suicide toaster and jump in the ocean.

When Chase's uncle finds the package the drone was carrying and offers it to them as a way to have some money, after also helping them find transportation, Chase uses the weird interdimensional box that's holding the package to trap his uncle, and just walks away. Can his uncle survive in the box? Who knows? Certainly not Chase. The uncle, Hunter, does survive, and somehow still wants to help Chase after that.

It's funny, because Immonen refers back to the story Chase told during their volume 2 NYC jaunt about killing a hobo who tried to steal his van (which Chase later insisted was a lie he convinced himself was true.) Now, the "hobo" was his uncle, who may have just been trying to talk to Chase after he bailed during a fight with his parents, and he didn't die, though he has an artificial hip from being run over. By Chase. Who then just kept driving. Chase apparently flew past Guilt over this some time ago, and settled firmly in Anger.

The book isn't helped by miscommunication between Immonen and Pichelli. The drone hitting the house and seeing Old Lace dead freaks out Klara, who causes a bunch of vines to grow and trap them. But it's unclear if they're under the house or still within it. Concerned destroying the vines might somehow hurt Klara, Nico tries a spell I assume is meant to make the vines transparent or crystalline (Nico says "Crystal Light"), so they can see their surroundings. It's drawn like she either disappeared the vines, or teleported everyone onto the beach. The house is nowhere in sight. Seeing a handful of military guys, Nico magicks up a giant log cabin ("Abraham Lincoln"), but it looks like they're just standing in a purplish void with some rubble. When really, they're still somewhere in the remains of the house, because Hunter leads Victor to an underground hanger with some vehicles to escape in.

Really just a mess of a run, top to bottom. Immonen's work occasionally has these issues, where it feels like she either left too much unsaid, or didn't make sure the instructions to the artist were clear, but it's especially bad here. At least it ends with Chase getting hit by a van because he followed a girl he thought was Gert across a busy street. The last page is him getting treated in a hospital while the rest of the cast sits around waiting for him to show up again. Every dark cloud, eh?

Random Back Issues #162 - Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 #5

We looked at the first issue over 5 years ago, but today we're looking at the conclusion. And frankly, MODOK's plan to steal the Hypernova from a group of advanced entities seems to be circling the drain.

Of the crew he hired, Mentallo was disposed of by the Chameleon, actually an "Ultra-Adaptoid" controlled by the current head of AIM (and one-night stand of MODOK's back when he was just some dweeb), Monica Rappaccini. Spot turned out to be working for the current Mandarin (son of the old Mandarin), but wound up sucked into his own spot. Rocket Racer's the one holding the hot potato, and he's taking it to SHIELD.

Rappacini brings down Racer short of the finish line with some hex bolts, but it turns out he's been carrying a hologram all along. Back at the wreckage of Mandarin's spaceship, he's minus a hand, but game to kill three of the crew - Puma, Nightshade, Living Laser - for standing in his way. Once the Ultra-Adaptoid crashes the party, the 4 unite, but seem sorely outclassed until Living Laser realizes it's being controlled remotely from a satellite in orbit. The core of the Mandarin's ship is made of material that can block any radiation.

Rappacini's in the middle of a big speech about how MODOK had no money, but she'll let them live, when she's cut off by Puma pushing that core down the slope onto the robot. Then Armadillo shows up and crushes the inactive android.

One problem solved but, where's the Hypernova? Well, Living Laser had it cloaked all along, because he intends to use it. He can convert all that stored energy into mass, getting a real physical body back. Which he figures will be worth it, even if the others kill him a second later. There's a flash of light, and he's gone.

4 days later, MODOK's getting this report from what's left of the crew - Nightshade, Puma, Armadillo - but it turns out he has the Hypernova. He calculated a 78% chance one of his crew would betray him, so when Puma passed it through one of Spot's err, spots, MODOK swapped it with a fake in the Dark Dimension (looking very Escher-ish here.) Well, AIM's probably going to figure that out, right? Certainly, especially since MODOK contacted them.

A Dreadnaught busts in, Rappacini controlling it remotely, but she offers one billion dollars, and a truce, for the Hypernova. MODOK, seemingly wistful for lost love, says once he'd have given it to her for nothing. Isn't she sorry she broke up with him? Monica reminds him they were never dating, while some unseen goon who is sure to be dead soon snickers in the background, and they make the swap. MODOK pays the 3 survivors their shares, plus the rest of the crews' shares, and they go off happy. MODOK's still got over $960 million, Monica's got the Hypernova, everyone's happy.

Or not. The Hypernova's in a "temporal bottle", which decays once removed from the place it was kept, and MODOK delayed contacting Monica long enough her scientists can't erect a containment field before the bottle dissipates, so. . .

(Even being 'one with all,' Living Laser looks like a Ken doll made of bubblegum. What the hell was MODOK's fake Hypernova, to do that to him?) 

And this was apparently MODOK's plan from the beginning. Use the lure of the Hypernova to not only destroy his greatest enemy, but get said enemy to pay him a billion dollars to do it. I think Rappacini survives somehow. Pretty sure I've seen her in comics since this came out, and Marvel can use more evil scientist women, anyway.

{11th longbox, 40th comic. Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 #5, by Fred van Lente (writer), Francis Portella (penciler), Terry Pallot (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer)}

Coastal Missouri - John Drake Robinson

This is a collection of essays Robinson's written about his travels through the state of Missouri. He has apparently driven every mile of highway in the state in his car, which he named Erifnus Caitnop. It took me several hours past the point I finished the book to realize it was "Sunfire Pontiac", the type of car he was driving, spelled backwards.

Most of the writing is focused around rivers, specifically around Robinson floating those rivers, and what you find along the way. Stories about traveling on a few of the remaining paddleboat steamers that travel the Mississippi River, or about a man who built his own barge to sail from the headwaters of the Mississippi all the way to the gulf. He can't sail it alone, so he needs volunteers, and Robinson signed on from St. Louis to the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. There are also stories about encountering angry drunks on gravel bars in the Ozarks, or pushy ducks that know damn well you have food, so fork it over, buddy.

But you have to drive to most of the places you'd put a canoe in the water, so Robinson also talks about the roads he and Erifnus have traveled, and the towns - if you can call some of them that - he went through along the way. Places to eat - he doesn't have a wall-calendar scale like William Least Heat-Moon, but he certainly places a lot of stock in out of the way eateries - places he and a band he's part of played. Swinging bridges and a brief biography of the man who built them, or visits to one of the handful of covered bridges still standing in the state. Efforts to revitalize communities in different ways. I had never thought about how installing fountains is a way for a town to make some cash off all the people making wishes.

Also on the list of things I learned, apparently many spots in the Missouri River are named after steamboats that hit snags and sank there, a common occurrence.

Robinson alternates smoothly between humorous and informative. A little folksy at times, other times he lets anger or frustration show through when writing about people just throwing trash wherever they want. The parts where he discusses trying to cut from one blacktop road to another via gravel roads felt extremely familiar. Although where I'm usually tense with concerns about potential disaster or, gasp! being late, it's more of an adventure to him. Clearly its not untrammeled ground, but at least to him, it's a journey into the unknown. The road might dead end at a field or bluff or a river that's overtopped its banks. Or it might lead him exactly where he wants to go. He won't know until he drives it.

'Deeper into the woods we drove. Erifnus' motor groaned, and her tires ached, as signs of civilization dwindled to a single power line fastened to poles older than Methuselah, more crooked then Bernie Madoff. Using the sun for direction, I angled eastward, looking for pavement. But ahead, gravel, gravel everywhere, surrounded by heavy forest.'

It's My Life - in Music

It's been 5.5 years since the last time I did a movie soundtrack for my life, so I think we're due. As always, open your music library and set it to shuffle. The first song plays during the first scene on the list in the movie, second song during the second scene, and so on. I've added a lot of music to the collection since then, though I don't think much of it made it in.

Opening Credits: "A Lesson Learned," Limp Bizkit - As usual, not off to an encouraging start. While this is a much quieter song than you might expect, given the band, it's Fred Durst singing about how things haven't turned out the way he expected, becoming a big-time music star, and it doesn't feel great. He got swept up in all of it, hurt some people, and he's figured it out too late. The last line: 'Fortune and fame are disguised as your friends, but I'm lonelier now than. . .I've. . .ever been.'

On the plus side, hopefully this means I at least get a fortune! I can take or leave the fame.

Waking Up: "She loves you," The Beatles - That's some tonal whiplash right there. Also, kind of an odd song to wake up to. I guess if these scenes aren't necessarily in this order, it can work. I wake up, and to my surprise, the one I love hasn't moved out. Or she moved back in. I thought she was done with me (or was I done with her?) But no, she hasn't given up on us.

Although, I could go a darker route with that, if I was trying to get her to go away. The song does say, 'and you know you should be glad,' which, little ominous. Maybe this is an unhappy marriage and I want to divorce and get with my secretary. I will not allow Movie Calvin to be a philanderer, so he's got to do this properly if he's going to shack up with a much younger girl in a futile attempt to stave off the cold fingers of Death. 

First Day of School: "Joker," Requiem - This is from Alex's first album, The Electronomicon EP. Give a listen here! That's Jim Mahfood art in the background, too!

As to how it relates to my first day at school, hmmmmm. I could play the first 35 seconds, where it's building, over the trip to school. All the other kids on the bus are excited, but I'm feeling increasingly antsy, unsure what I'm getting into. After that, maybe a sped-up montage where certain things come into sharp focus for an instant, before receding into the blur.

Are the things that snap into focus good or bad? Eh, we'll play that by ear. Maybe I'm excited for coloring, or I don't line up properly for the slow march to the cafeteria and get yelled at. Maybe I make some friends, or I rip my pants messing around on the monkey bars.  

Falling in Love: "Come Over," Estelle - Estelle's singing to her lover to encourage them to go further with the relationship. While she's willing to give a lot, she's also willing to be patient, and accept if they can't give her as much.

So, who's who in this scenario? If I'm the one falling in love, then I should be the one making that sort of offer. I'll give myself to them, and it's OK if they can't give as freely. Anything they offer is enough. Of course, if we go with the darker interpretation of "She loves you," then I fell in love with this person because they give so much for so little in return, and later broke up with them (or tried) when I got bored/found someone else.

Simply for the sake of not being an ass, I prefer Option 1. Also, I think it fits better with "A Lesson Learned," where I'll eventually learn I can't continue in such a relationship, letting people use me, because it leaves me feeling sick and empty.

First Love Song: "Tigerlily," La Roux - A song about two people trying to have a forbidden relationship. They're trying to hide the attraction and desire, stick to shadows, fearful of discovery, questioning whether it's better to go along with what everyone wants, in exchange for being able to live a less stressful life.

Following Option 1 from the previous song, I'm reading it as my lover doesn't give as much because they're afraid to. For whatever reason, I'm not an acceptable romantic partner. Am I the, gasp, mistress in this scenario? I'm the one being strung along with promises that one day we'll be together openly. Just, not today. How awful. I never thought I would end up as Margaret Houlihan to someone's Frank Burns. I better be hella rich to put up with this shitty turn of events.

Breaking Up: "O Green World," Gorillaz - There's not a lot to this. Mostly guys chanting in the background while the lead singer keeps asking the "green world" to not desert him now. So I had it being the other man and broke it off, and my lover is pleading for me not to leave. Saying we complete each other and a lot of blah blah and I ain't having it. I've got my self-respect! *starts checking pockets* Well, I had it a minute ago. . .

Prom: "getcha groove on," Limp Bizkit - The title certainly fits for a dance, and it's a much more up-tempo song than "A lesson learned." However, it's mostly warning people not to mess with them. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, and if you don't like it, well, fuck around and find out.

Which sounds like a perfect lead-in to a break-up. Either that, or one of us tried to get back together at Prom, and the other was not having it. There was probably some, "you need me," insistence, and then my contrary genes kicked in and I said, "just watch me, asshole." Then I dumped an entire bowl of chip dip on their head. The principal was aghast.

I'm actually starting to dig the direction this movie's going. Very dramatic. 

Mental Breakdown: "Just the Way You Are," Billy Joel - And we're back to something soft and slow. Well, if I had a breakdown, I probably need to avoid overstimulation. After my big display at the prom (or some other event), I tried really hard to be a different person. To show I didn't need that jackass. But all I succeeded in doing was putting a lot of pressure on myself to "win" the break-up, or whatever. Eventually, I collapsed under the pressure of doing things I wasn't really enjoying, because I felt like I had to do them.

Now someone, a steadfast friend or maybe the therapist, is insisting none of that is necessary. I don't have to change to not end up with a jackass like Former Lover, or be successful in my career, and I won't make anyone happy trying to do that. I just need to be myself, and find what works for that me. 

Driving: "Crawl," Staind - This feels like it has to take place before the Breakdown, if only because it's such an ugly song about someone confidently asserting they know what I'm like. Plus the part where he talks about crawling while the other person spits. Oh, and can't forget where he screams, 'Everything falls apart, EVE-RY-THIIIIIIIIING!!!!' Definitely doesn't suggest a great mental state.

I suspect this sequence ends with me upside-down in a ditch, or maybe ramming headlong into a bridge support. Trying to prove this person wrong, to not give them the satisfaction of seeing me crawl back to them and their superior attitude, is really fucking with my headspace. Also, I probably got in a lot of trouble for dumping the bowl of dip on their head. I was the sort of student who would absolutely stress about getting in trouble at school.

Flashback: "Tomorrow Comes Today," Gorillaz - Another appropriate title, given the scene. I think this takes place prior to Breaking Up. Or during the Mental Breakdown stretch? That could be a fun shift. 

At some point, I have to replay everything that's happened, trying to figure out where I mis-stepped. What was the mistake? Even though I can't go back and fix it - or can I? - it would still be a very "me" thing to do, to endlessly stew over mistakes. The question is, am I realizing it was a mistake to ever entertain the notion of a relationship with this person, or telling myself the mistake was breaking up with them? Or is it something else? I should have ditched my job a long time ago, because it was making me miserable?

Getting Back Together: "Oh Yeah," Daft Punk - The song is basically an electronic beat with someone occasionally saying, "oh yeah." Not as a question, not as an exclamation, either. Almost like someone reminded them they already saw that new Channing Tatum movie last week. "Oh yeah, I forgot. *laughs sheepishly*"

How does that relate to Getting Back Together? It's not incredulous, like, "holy shit, how am I back with this train wreck of a person?" But also not cause for celebration. It just sorta, happened. Which makes me think the friend who was helping me during the Mental Breakdown and I got together. Maybe we dated at some point, or hell, maybe getting back together just means splitting the rent. We used to be roomies, and I lost my place during the stretch when I lost my mind. No car, no home, probably no job. They're letting me stay with them until I get rolling again, and even once I did, I just stuck around. We like living together, so we keep doing it. We're in a groove, so we're just rolling with it.

Heck, it cuts their bills in half, and I'm not a messy roomie. I don't like cleaning, but I keep my stuff out of everyone's way and don't take up a lot of space in the fridge. You could do a lot worse for a roommate!

Wedding: "Inner Universe," Orgia - I know this as the opening theme to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, although the version I have is 5 minutes long. I don't know what the singer is saying, having never bothered to seek a translation, so I go by what her tone and the music prompt in me. 

And that's a sense of falling. Given the length of the song, it's falling from a very high altitude. Like I jumped from the edge of Earth's atmosphere and now I'm plummeting headfirst at the ground, trying not to burn up. Then, at the very end, I stop like I canceled gravity, my nose just above the ground. (Certain songs, I have extremely particular visuals that accompany them. This is one of them.)

All of which is to say, there's not going to be a wedding. Maybe I almost let Former Lover (or some other dickhead) talk me into it, and I just went along. I didn't fight the pull, either because I didn't see it happening, or just didn't think I could. But at the last second, I'm going to realize this is not some universal constant force, and I can exert control.

On the plus side, abject humiliation for the Former Lover, as I go sprinting out of the chapel like my pants are on fire. Actually, given my aversion to religion, they just might be. I tend to spontaneously combust on holy ground.

Or there's the option where I'm wistfully watching two people get married, thinking it could have been me, if only my lover's family had approved. Then I see how much of a hell my mother-in-law would have been and realize that actually, I dodged a bullet there. 

Birth of Child: "Addicted to Love," Robert Palmer - Having decided I can pull an audible and ditch the wedding, Movie Calvin is not having a child. So, this is my roommate's kid with their romantic partner. I'm there when the kid is born, because I'm a good friend and I don't mind driving them to the hospital so the docs can handle all the messy stuff. And they're so incredibly lovey-dovey with each other as they coo over the baby that it's almost nauseating, but hell, I'm glad to see them happy.

If we're going the personal growth ("lesson learned") route, the couple having the kid are the duo I watched getting married and I realize I'm not only OK with not being married to whichever of them I fancied, I'm happy for the two of them to have found happiness together in the family they've created. 

Final Battle: "Sheena is a Punk Rocker," The Ramones - OK, this is taking place before the kid is born, but after the wedding. Former Lover makes one last play to try and suck me in, but it's with the same bullshit they always spewed. That I couldn't do better, that they knew best, that I wouldn't find anyone else.

But just like Sheena's not being guilted into visiting the discotheque a-go-go with her friends when she wants to rock around in the punk scene, I'm not having any of this crap. Whether I find anyone else is up to me, but I'm sure as hell better off alone than with this jerk. Do I throw something? Do I punch them? Do I dismiss them and walk away, and when they try to chase, they trip and land facefirst in something unpleasant? I'd be fine with that.

Or maybe the final battle is with myself, finally coming to terms with the kind of life I'm going to live versus the expectations everyone had for me. And I kick those expectations' asses! 

Death Scene: "Crimson and Clover" Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - If this is my death scene, I feel like the results of the Final Battle were a lie. I never got over that lover, or never really made peace with not living up to everyone else's expectations. Singing about not really knowing her, but thinking she could love her feels like it's of a piece with Estelle promising to do most of the loving in the relationship. I'm charging in headlong, offering all of me, and if I've bothered to consider whether the other person feels the same, would do the same, I haven't let the possibility the answer is "no" deter me.

Which, does not sound very much like me. Apparently Movie Calvin is much more a person to trust their instincts than Blog Calvin. That's not the worst thing. Maybe I died as the result of an impulsive act to save someone I saw was in danger. I didn't know them, not a thing, but I decided they were worth trying to help. And I died.

The moral is, never try.

Funeral Scene: "One by One," Chumbawumba - This starts with singing about a union leader who visited striking dockworkers, but dismissed their concerns. He had his eyes on a seat in the House of Lords, which I understand to be like the Senate with mandatory drinking, or maybe a frat house for old men with non-functional prostates. Which, to be fair, also describes much of the U.S. Senate.

So, people with the power to do something chose not to, because they stood to gain more by doing nothing. I feel this does not entirely go with Death Scene, certainly not if I died acting impulsively to save someone I barely knew. Unless I acted when others who were better equipped did not. Aw hell, did I run into a school shooting to rescue my friends' kid while the cops sat around with their thumbs up their tactical gear covered asses? Those bastards!

Or, rolling back around to "A lesson learned," there were a lot of people who could have helped me, but didn't. Which suggests maybe I had another mental breakdown, and this time there wasn't anyone close enough to pull me out of the spiral. I decided I could go it alone, but that means when I actually needed someone, there was no one. So maybe I slipped in the shower and busted my skull open. An ignominious end, but one that took place because I lived on my own terms. That doesn't keep my pallbearers from feeling guilt. 

End Credits: "Go Go Gadget Flow," Lupe Fiasco - This feels like the complete reverse of the Opening Credits. Very up-tempo, not necessarily loud, but louder certainly. Lupe telling us he's not done, he's barely begun, you can't stop him, you can't even touch him. 'My tank on full, your tank on "E",' or, 'look good on you, look great on me.'

How the hell do I reconcile that with, well, everything? Not the least of which is that I'm dead, so I most certainly am going to S-T-O-P. It doesn't feel like the kind of movie where you play this as an ironic joke. Unless. . .OK, I got it.

The Former Lover turned vengeful, and arranged my death. I was not the first paramour she did this to, and I won't be the last. The police don't suspect, and even if they did, she's too slick, too clever, too able to out-maneuver them in any number of ways for them to catch her. So the credits roll over a shot of her, looking impeccably dressed, walking away from my funeral, giving her current lover - my roomie? someone else? - a look that can only be considered contemplative, as the audience is left with the notion that they know who is next.