What I Bought 9/13/2017 - Part 2

Decided to group the two books from last week that were wrapping up storylines, so here they are.

Ms. Marvel #22, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Marco Failla (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Oh that's adorable Marvel's putting ads for their Inhumans TV show that is apparently complete garbage. When will they learn?

Josh lets Kamala escape and may be realizing he's actually a bad guy. Congratulations Josh, you're only about three times slower on the uptake than Deadpool, a man whose brain has had to literally regrow holes punched in it by bullets, multiple times. While Tyesha and Nakia confront Lockdown's goons with the combined force of a court order and the cops, Lockjaw reappears (about damn time) and helps Kamala refuel for the big fight, which ends with Lockdown in cuffs and Josh. . . I'm not sure. Lockdown says he snuck away to avoid arrest, but in the last panel he's standing in the middle of the street, watching Kamala and Lockjaw walk away. Presumably someone will notice and arrest him? Hopefully? Pretty please.

That wasn't a bad ending. I doubt this is the end of HYDRA's efforts in Jersey City. They'll try again; Lockdown's too stupid to quit, and the people who blame Ms. Marvel for the stuff happening in town aren't going to get any less convinced of that. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully Lockjaw is going to stick around. He's wasted on all those Inhumans titles no one reads.

I'm not so sure about Josh's sorta face turn once he learns Kamala is Ms. Marvel. Like he goes from mocking her when he's hurting her to talking about how he's not gonna shoot the hero who never kills in the back? But once I thought about it, it's just the, 'I didn't care until it affected ME' attitude. I encounter it all the time, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Herring continues to use yellow to represent resistance, or things turning in favor of the heroes. There's almost no yellow in the first several pages, right up to the point Tyesha point outs the cops are on her side, not K.I.N.D.'s. But after that, it starts to pop up more and more. The Mayor comes rushing from her office, hustling to get down there, and she's emerging from a room colored bright yellow. When Lockjaw appears, he's backlit by yellow. Most of the moments of Lockdown and her schmoes get punched are set against solid yellow backgrounds. It's a nice visual cue that Herring uses. At the end, it's more of an orange, which is a little gentler, the fight is over for the moment.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #20, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - C'mon denizens of the Marvel Universe, a girl with a gun and a sword leaping from a void in the sky is hardly cause for alarm. At least it isn't the Hulk, or Iron Man on a bender.

Evil Future Gwen tries to teach Gwen how to use her powers, while realizing her own past is being retconned by the interference of the other time travelers. The time travelers gradually realize trying to kill Present Gwen is only making her more aligned with Future Gwen but then they get killed, by Future Gwen, as a point she's trying to make. That Gwen is no longer a tourist, she is a character in the Marvel Universe, and she's subject to some of its laws. One of which Future Gwen has interpreted as trying to push Gwen to be evil. So she went with it. Present Gwen decides that is Not Cool, and resolves to not break bad. Which will probably get her killed in the background of a throwaway panel in a Big Event in a year or two, but kudos, anyway.

Well, this explains those solicitations for the next few issues a little better. And it was an interesting story. It addressed the fact Gwen has been gleefully committing a lot of murders since she got here, and hopefully she'll cut back on that going ahead. Which ought to be enough to go hero. Wolverine didn't even cut down on the number of people he killed, and he got to be an Avenger (still one of only two characters I will not accept as an Avenger, and they were both put on there by Bendis). Hastings brought her brother into the picture, as someone for Gwen to try and seek out and it'll be interesting to see what steps he takes going forward. There's the question of whether Gwen could even get back to her universe if she wanted to at this point. The question of if, assuming there is an editorial force that shoves her in the direction of villainy, she can actually resist that? Or at least get it retconned away later as mind control so she can go back to being good?

I love the visual representation of editorial diktat. "Gwenpool Can't Kill Spider-Man," indeed. A cyclone is about right for Marvel Editorial. Some shit gets destroyed, some escapes unscathed. How is it determined which is which? Who the fuck knows. Also, Evil Gwen diving outside the panels to reappear at the bottom of the cliff to save Present Gwen. Gurihiru just did an excellent job with showing Gwen using this power to hop outside the pages. It was very enjoyable and it makes for a memorable visual. Hopefully future artists can do as well with it.

Kind of a strange arc, but not a bad one.

What I Bought 8/9/2017 - Part 2

My downstairs neighbor left a note on my door last week, a full page front and back, complaining how I kept her up all night with loud music and banging noises. Except I went to be bed at 10:30 on the night in question. I think she means the people in the apartment behind mine, but I can't be bothered to find out. But it did put me in a sour mood that day, especially since the note informed me she had told management about my (nonexistent) transgression. I haven't heard anything from them,
so I presume they're taking it even less seriously than I did. I have the impression she complains to them about everyone around her a lot.

Ms. Marvel #21, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Marco Failla (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Nice use of the lightning bolt symbol there, especially in contrast to the electricity crackling off the bad guy's gauntlet.

Kamala, her brother, and the other people set to be booted out of town fight back and try to find safety in the local mosque. HYDRA Lite barges in, the fight continues, Kamala ends up in the bathroom with the masked bad guy who turns out to be that blond jock, Josh. Who has turned his feelings of inadequacy into violence against others. Brilliant.

Kamala and Josh stopping to have a heart-to-heart in a bathroom while there's a huge fight between hate mongers and a bunch of innocent people going on outside seems like a curious decision. Yes, Kamala wants to understand why he's doing this, and she's worn out, but maybe deal with understanding after the innocent people are out of danger? It's a little hard for me to see Josh recognizing the error of his ways and switching sides in the twelfth hour. I did like how, in the flashback, Lockdown tells Josh she knows he isn't bad, he just had a bad idea, and he's really a leader, when she had been the one insisting he had to be locked up because he might cause an explosion at the school. Josh, you gullible asshole.

Failla draws Kamala a little taller in this issue, even on the page where she briefly surrenders. Possibly because she was in fight mode most of the issue, so she was always making herself a little larger. Or maybe he's drawing her a little skinnier than usual, which makes her look more stretched out. It's less noticeable as the issue progresses, because she's getting worn down, and can't keep up the pace, and a lot less noticeable once she and Josh are sitting and talking, what with her being out of fight mode entirely.

Yellow is the color Herring seems to use for when Kamala's going to fight. The panels get a prominent yellow tint when she takes heart from her brother and decides to keep resisting. It's not the first time, it's been pretty consistent across both volumes, yellow is the color for moments when she puts her doubts aside and stands up. Which feels a little strange to me, since yellow gets associated with cowardice, having a yellow streak and all that. But yellow's also a bright color, associated with light and life, which are things she'd be protecting. And her lightning bolt's yellow as well, of course.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #23, by Ryan North (writer), Erica Henderson (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I feel like Henderson's emulating something with these covers, but I don't know what. Covers of old pulp adventure novels. The coloring is just making it look odd to me.

The equipment that sustains the Savage Land is failing, and the problem is believed to be some programming issue with the alien robots that maintain it. Thus bringing in clever programming students to try and figure out the problem. But, as watching character do programming stuff is really boring, the issue instead focuses on Nancy and Stefan's tentative relationship. Their differing opinions on Doom are causing some issues, but may not be insurmountable. Romance subplot done for now, the story returns to hot programming action, now with Dinosaur Ultron. Which is an outstanding addition, and something I didn't know I wanted to see until now. I hadn't even thought of him taking a form like that, but it's outstanding. Much better than that time Frank Cho drew Ultron as looking like the Wasp because . . . well, because it was Frank Cho drawing it I assume.

So that was a pretty good reveal for the final two pages (not counting the actual final page, Kraven's continuing struggle with the Poachmaster General). The two-page spread of Doreen helping Nancy through her doubts about the possible relationship covered some important character work, but didn't take up so much space we were denied Dinosaur Ultron. Also, I like the touch of having Doreen write her name as "DOREEN!" on her name tag, while Nancy opted for "Nancy Whitehead".

However, I must take issue with something. The Squirrel Girl Bathroom Update about Doreen trying to return the baby pterosaur to its parents clearly states Doreen's shirt got torn at the shoulder, and yet there was no battle damage when she returned to the dinner table, having unfortunately missed out on exciting relationship developments. Not Doomesque, dude. I demand continuity be maintained between the main story and the jokes at the bottom of the page!

Lotta good jokes in this issue, too. Latverian slang, the bit about programming montages being boring, the menu jokes, Squire Pete as the (nonexistent) character find of 2017. Unless Squire Pete is going to show up to help in this story arc. Still funny, though. Although knightly armor would have to be unpleasant in a tropical jungle. Chafing issues galore. Nothing funny about that.

As usual, Squirrel Girl's a highly enjoyable book.

What I Bought 7/19/2017

I must be going into the store I buy comics from enough they recognize me, as the guy behind the register mentioned the store does pull lists. I don't think I can go back to that, although I do miss hanging out in comic shops shooting the breeze with other customers. Haven't done that regularly in a long time.

Ms. Marvel #20, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Marco Failla (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - That's no way to hold a superhero. She's going to hop right out of your grasp if you slack-ass it like that.

Aamir is being interrogated for his one-time occurrence of powers, and will possibly be deported, or maybe disappeared. Kamala is trying to pull herself together and fight back, but isn't haven't much luck against the considerable resources HYDRA is bringing to the fight. It might be going better if she abandoned her attempts to reason with the angry shouting crowds, but she's a better person than me, so she keeps trying.

Gotta love the panel of Discord standing there in his ridiculous outfit, insisting they are getting rid of superheroes to get things back to "normal". Shades of Max Lord nattering on about needing to get rid of superhumans so "regular" humans could determine humanity's course, and saying this while using his mind control powers to keep from getting beaten up. It's also reminiscent of any number of unpleasant real world examples of hypocritical jackasses, but I'm trying not to think about those every moment of the day.

I don't understand how the brief skirmish between Kamala and Discord/Lockdown was a stalemate, but I do appreciate the absurd amount of firepower on the hovering whatever that tried blasting Kamala. That's the kind of overkill you want to see your municipality waste tax dollars on. I'm wondering if the giant clock at Chuck's rally will be a recurring theme. "Time running out," or something similar. Regardless, good on Failla to show that time is progressing during the fight. A little touch, but a nice one. I wonder if the clock is to keep track of whether the trains are running on time or not?

There's a stunned look Failla gives Kamala in one panel, as Chuck's spewing his crap and then the crowd responds with a resounding "Yeah!" It's that realization there actually are a lot of people buying into the nonsense, a lot of people who think she's making their lives worse, who aren't super-villains. It's an effective scene, for how what Hallucination Bruno said about her being alone on this one.

What I Bought 6/16/2017 - Part 2

Alex' roommate wanted us to watch this Netflix show, Haters Back Off. We made it through a little over one episode, and it is the worst goddamn thing I've watched this year, which is saying something. Painfully unfunny. Maybe Clint was getting revenge because we don't clean his grill enough after using it? But we share the barbecue with him! Anyway, comic books.

Ms. Marvel #19, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Marco Failla (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Must have been a lot of worked to stitch all those faces on there. Kind of complicates the costume.

Kamala's family attempts to celebrate Eid Al-Adha, but those HYDRA dopes are at it again, having managed to get that Chuck Worthy twerp installed as mayor without the pesky hurdle of winning an election. The wannabe fascist Becky, from the Civil War II tie-ins, is working with them, and has herself a henchman, who is extremely smug and self-righteous. And it looks as though Wilson is going to address the whole thing about Aamir getting super-powers right before Secret Wars maybe rebooted everything. Only took almost two years of completely ignoring it.

I would be a lot more impressed with Discord's attempt to play on Kamala's compassion if we weren't dealing with a group that's being run and/or supported by Dr. Faustus. Who mind-controls people? Who showed up in this book originally with some mind-control soda pop thing? So I can pretty easily dismiss all those "angry" people who support what HYDRA's up to as being mind-controlled.

Or, they're not being controlled, they're just idiots. Or assholes with abhorrent views. In either event, I don't care what they want, so I hope we're not going to spend a lot of issues of Kamala doubting whether she should get involved because the side rounding people up on no good grounds has supporters, too. But we'll see.

Failla's faces tend to be elongated with chins I find distracting, and there are times I'm not sure what expression he's going for. The panel of Kamala, Aamir, and Tyesha I assume fighting over a chocolate in the car, I assume it's supposed to be kind of funny, them all grabbing for it, but the looks are so intense and weird it doesn't really feel funny. The page of Kamala stretching out of the way of a bunch of attacks was really good, though.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #21, by Ryan North (writer), Erica Henderson (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Brain Brain's logo reminds me of something, but I can't remember what. It may be the current Batgirl's logo, between the large yellow emblem against a purple outfit, but I'm not sure that's it.

Ken, Tomas, and "Brian" are confronted with a series of crimes being pulled off by people dressing up as villains and heroes. The heroes pretend to arrest the villains, but are actually sneaking off with the loot. There are so many heroes in New York, it'll be hard to know if the ones they see are real or not, but Brian has worked out an algorithm so he can better distinguish faces and this lets them tell who's a fake or not, and capture everyone.

Most of the trouble for our heroes comes from Brian's attempts to initiate hanging out protocols which ruin everything. Although that teacher giving Ken math problems to perform in class in front of everyone for 5% of his grade is complete bullshit. I'm sorely disappointed in Tomas for not stepping up on Ken's behalf and giving that tool an earful. I exempt Brain Drain because he would have rolled out some soliloquy about how math, though a vital tool in demonstrating the ultimate descent into nothingness of the universe, can't fill a man's heart. Maybe that would have crushed the professor's spirit, as he realizes he has wasted his life in academia.

I was debating whether the Doctopus was really a good analogue for Steel (since each of the Octopals is representing one of the guys who popped up after the Death of Superman), but Steel took the "Man of Steel" thing and made a man-shaped suit out of a steel-like material. So a Doctor Octopus with a literal octopus on his head is appropriate, although it can't be much fun for man or gastropod. Also, Doctopus was carrying hammers, so totally a proper analogue to Steel.

I appreciate the touch that Brian's eyes simply float wherever they want in that jar. So they can be in the top half, bottom half, swing way over to the side. It's fun watching where Henderson sends them from one panel to the next. As is Brian's questionable fashion sense. That cool dude outfit was awful. He ought to be hanging out with friggin' Brad wearing that.

And at least fake Spider-Man remembers he has a spider-sense, even if Spidey's own clone apparently does not.