What I Bought 8/18/2021 - Part 1

I only went to the store expecting to get two comics written by Jed MacKay that came out last week, but I found something else I wanted I didn't expect to find. We'll get to that on Wednesday, and for today, we'll just stick to the Marvel stuff.

Moon Knight #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I actually bought the Peach Momoko variant. Nothing against this cover, even if McNiven seems like he's trying to channel a '90s artist vibe, just a spur of the moment decision while I was staring at them on the shelf.

Someone is controlling the elderly in Moon Knight's territory and making them attack people. A local everyone calls Soldier shows up beat to hell, saying his mother was among the afflicted who attacked him. They return to his building, and Moonie finds himself surrounded, including by Soldier. The janitor's sweat allows him to control people, see through them, and he's been putting it in the building's water supply to steadily dose people. He, or the person giving him orders, wants to see Moon Knight beat the shit out of all these people he's supposed to protect. Instead, he's offered a challenge. Moonie'll take the sweat directly, and see if the janitor can control him. As you might guess, it ends badly for Groundskeeper Willie.

Mackay used this to offer a little more on this notion Moon Knight's brain is irrevocably altered by Khonshu's influence. Granted, we don't have any other examples of what the mind of a person who doesn't have that problem looks like, but Cappuccio draws it as a shadowy void, save for the circle of a full moon, from which emerges a huge Moon Knight. A Moon Knight that keeps sarcophagi that hold Spector's other personalities, one of which that now holds the janitor's mind. Does that mean Moon Knight can secrete mind-controlling sweat (gross) if he lets that guy out for a while?

This issue also does a little with the person trying to push Moon Knight to embrace his violent nature, and Reese's struggles with being a vampire. Have to figure those are going to intersect at some point. Try to drive her to a blood frenzy, force Moon Knight to choose to kill her. Assuming Hunter's Moon doesn't do it first, since he doesn't seem fond of vampires.

Moon Knight's "mission" is oddly empty. There's cabinets and a bookshelf in one corner, but they look like they don't hold anything. Probably nothing, but I remember his office where he spoke to the doctor is issue 1 was a bit more furnished, so maybe it's something about the face he puts forward.

Black Cat #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - You'd expect the villain to be the one who refuses to hold a facial expression, but Star is probably still trying to get people to take her seriously.

Having retrieved Star from Nick Fury Jr., Felicia makes her pitch to Star. Felicia's client needs Monica Rappaccini, former Scientist Supreme of AIM's, cancer treated for. . . reasons. The Reality Gem inside Star, could do the trick. Star appears to agree, then uses her power to listen in on Felicia saying they need two other people with gems to give her the boost necessary. Which sets Star's gears turning, while Felicia "rescues" the next guy, who has the Time Gem, from her own guys, posing as Lil' Fury's boys.

I have never heard the term "Vermont Smorgasbord," which Felicia uses to describe the sandwiches and champagne she offers Star during her sales pitch. Internet suggests it's a line from White Christmas? My mom likes that movie, but hard pass from me. This story is going to hinge on whether Felicia accounted for Star listening in on her. It seems obvious she would, given she knows the Gem allows Star to bend reality to her whim, and that she's a former reporter. Meaning she's nosey. Yet Felicia left her unsupervised in that building, after mentioning she knew a way to give Star's powers the necessary boost, but refused to tell her.

On the other hand, knowing someone can alter reality doesn't mean you can fully prepare for what that means. And Felicia could potentially still be off her game after the whole mess with the Black Fox. It doesn't seem likely - she gave Fury 2.0 the slip pretty easily, bullet in the leg aside - but nobody's perfect. Except Doom, of course.

I kind of like the shifts in how Felicia presents herself for her two pitches. Not just the differences in food offered - Time Gem Guy gets buckets of fried chicken - but she changes her outfits a bit. She has a, maybe poet top when she talks to Star, versus a white tank top for the other guy. Changes up what she wears around her neck a little, different kinds of bracelets. The one she wears around Star looks more expensive, but also seems more like it could have hidden tools. Like she's expecting more trouble from her. It could just be she changed clothes because it's two different days, but I like the notion that it's all part of the research she did for making her approach to these two.

Sunday Splash Page #180

 

"Print Media is Going Out with a Bang,' in E-Man (vol. 3) #4, by Mike W. Barr (writer), Joe Staton (artist), Wendy Fiore (colorist), Ken Bruzenak (letterer)

There actually is another volume of sorts in between the original 10-issue run and this 25-issue volume published through First Comics. But it's just a reprinting of six of those original 10 issues so I don't even know if it should count.

Where the original series was closer to a straightforward superhero adventure, with a bit of "fish out of water" stuff thrown in, the 1980s E-Man book leans more into comedy and at times, melodrama. Which probably reflects the changing aspects of superhero comics on the whole. Issues 2 and 3 are basically a parody of The Dark Phoenix Saga, where Nova (who gained powers identical to E-Man's late in the previous series) is targeted by the creepy Ford Fairmont (Chris Claremont in a wheelchair) and his "F-Men". There's an issue that combines the Smurfs with Elfquest and the nightmare that was '80s children's programming. Later on, E-Man encounters the fugitive merc squad "The B-Team", and the member of their team with mental issues spends a couple of issues running around calling himself the Golden Gopher. 

I can't tell if that's a spoof on Mike Baron's The Badger, or the creative just attended the University of Minnesota.

There are certainly others, but those were the most obvious to me. As with all those kinds of parodies, it pretty much demands you have some knowledge of the thing they're making fun, enough to get the references and hopefully find them funny. On the last point, I'd say the success rate is much closer to 0 than 100. 

I enjoy the book more when it just focuses on its own characters and it's own weirdness. For example, issue 12, when Nova and Alec move to Chicago because she's taken a job as host of a late-night horror movie program for a local station, and Alec ends up dealing with dedicated Communist revolutionary Tyger Lily, who has teamed up with a giant, talking alligator crimeboss name Big Al, in a plot that involves a giant gator-bot and dangerous fusion reactors. Or issue 19, "Hoodoo Blues", where a famous blues player who was murdered before he could play his set is brought back from the grave.

Martin Pasko writes most of the first year's stories, working with Paul Kupperberg in the latter parts of that stretch, before Staton takes over writing for most of the second year (with Rich Burchett becoming Staton's inker, presumably to free up some time for Staton to work on writing). Nicola Cuti returns for the last two issues, an origin story for Michael Mauser, and one where E-Man gets tangled up in something with some island gods while trying to sort out his feelings about Nova (this series is marked by a fair amount of will they/won't they between those two.) It would be nice if you could draw a simple line between the two writer teams, but it's not that simple. The F-Men was under Pasko's pen, the B-Team and "Smelt Quest" were Staton's doing.

Staton's artwork seems less cramped in this series than the first one, though I'm not sure why. His page layouts don't look too noticeably different in terms of the number of panels. But the first book, with it's monster of the week aspect, might have leaned into horror a little more, wanting the reader to feel trapped. Or maybe it's just Cuti was a more verbose writer than Staton, Pasko, etc, and Staton's art had to allow for that. He definitely favors a stronger, more sharply defined line in this series, while simplifying and in some cases exaggerating figures for effect. Mauser gets considerably shorter and pudgier here, where he's halfway a spoof of the disreputable private investigator, compared to the first volume where I think he just was a disreputable private investigator.

The tone of this volume (and probably the quality of the printing) also leads to Fiore using brighter colors generally, which keeps things from feeling as dark and claustrophobic. There aren't a lot of narrow panels set in ominously dark alleys in this book.

Random Back Issues #67 - Marvel Zombies #4

I was under the impression parents weren't supposed to make kids choose sides.

Years after Marvel ran the whole "Marvel Zombies" concept into the ground, they brought this out as one of the "Battleworlds" mini-series published during Secret Wars. Set on the world Doom cobbled together from the bits and pieces of different universes he was able to save during Hickman's Avengers run.

Here, Elsa Bloodstone was one of the people who defends Doom's realms from the hordes of the undead, but she got dropped from the shield wall into the zombies' turf. Where she found an odd child, who led her to a coastline, where they encounter a version of Elsa's dad from a different reality. He's a zombie, but able to maintain a sense of self from all the bloodstones he collected from other realities' versions of himself or his kids. There's only one piece left and this Elsa's (who has been gradually realizing what an asshole her dad was) got it.

Elsa tries lopping his head off, but it doesn't take. She's ready to destroy her stone, but it turns out the "child" is actually the manifestation of her stone's power. Somehow it took a form that could convince Elsa to come to this place, something the bloodstones can do, apparently. Elsa tries for the big hero play, and gets her arm bitten off, causing her to start turning into a zombie. She also has the flashback at the top, which is the aftermath of her being too slow to kill some monster, and her father ordering her to leave its toxic blood on her head, staining her hair permanently red. When her mother objects, Ulysses shows her the monster in the basement, driving her mad, so he can have her locked away as the abusive parent.

Mystique and Bruce Wayne are impressed with that level of shitty parenting.

Elsa makes a speech that distracts Ulysses long enough for the little kid-thing to grab her gun and shoot him in the chest. It wouldn't kill him, but it does knock a big chunk of the stones loose, which Elsa gobbles like Jughead diving on a plate of cheeseburgers.

While all this has been going on, a group of zombies led by Mystique have been watching. They'd been pissed at Elsa because she killed their endless source of brains - Deadpool - the issue before. Also, they knew the child didn't turn when they bit it, so they wanted more of that. Now, with their minds falling apart rapidly from lack of brain food, they call up some big mutant with a cannon strapped to his back and take a shot. Elsa, now with a hand made of bloodstone, just blasts them to dust. Worried about having too much power, Elsa uses most of it to revert both herself and this version of Ulysses back to living humans, leaving her with just one piece of stone in her palm.

She tells Ulysses she'll accept his judgment might have been skewed by both the bloodstone and his mullet, and she's giving him a second chance. Which she will rescind by beating him to death with his own face if he screws up. Does she mean just the skin, or like she'll break off the facial portion of his skull as well?

The two of them head towards the wall, ending on Elsa suggesting 'Let's go exploring.' Which would be the strangest Calvin and Hobbes reference I've ever seen.

[7th longbox, 31st comic. Marvel Zombies (2015) #4, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Kev Walker (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)]

The Last Mercenary

Jean-Claude van Damme is a former legendary French secret agent turned freelance merc named Richard who specializes in rescuing people's abducted kids. He arranged an immunity deal and lifetime allowance for his son, but when an idiot bureaucrat cancels it, Archie ends up arrested on charges of being a drug and arms dealer. So "The Mist" has to return to France and clear his son's name, while eluding the French authorities, run by a guy very angry about Richard sleeping with his wife on a mission decades ago.

It's not a very serious movie, as you may have guessed. There's a whole thing about how the real arms dealer was hooked up with Archie's identity to help him out, but that criminal is also a complete dumbass who watches Scarface constantly and thinks it's a documentary. There's a lot of gags of Richard wearing disguises, fake mustaches or wigs, even though, you know, he still looks the same. Also, he can perfectly mimic anyone's voice, like a Terminator as Archie puts it.

Most of it is really about Richard trying to connect with Archie when they've never met before. Archie thinks of the many who raised him as his father, and his biological father as a jerk who didn't want a son to cramp his style. And van Damme has to adjust to his son being a mid-20s unmotivated slacker who takes advantage of the monthly allowance to just stay in college. So there's a core of something, with Richard being so anxious he keeps waiting to tell Archie who he is, and even wrote a letter because he's not good with speeches. Archie has to try to overcome his resentment to someone he long ago concluded didn't care about him. It's basic stuff, but they made an effort.

Van Damme is starting to show his age in the fight scenes, at least that's the impression I got. A lot of camera shots from behind during the kicking, where you can't see his face, then a quick cut to the front to show it's him during a punch, then back to the shot from behind. Which is understandable, dude's no spring chicken, but it was noticeable during the fights.

If you decide to watch this, which I wouldn't really recommend, you should probably try it in French with subtitles. I went with English with subtitles but the dubbing is horrible. It reminds me of some of the Hong Kong Jackie Chan movies I've watched over the last year.

Not Every Dog Gets to Have Their Day

One thing I like about the Marvel and DC universes is that even though there's a hierarchy, the big-time heroes and villains and the street-level types, almost any can beat any other character on any given day. The advantage of the shared universe concept, I guess. Decades of different writers and artists working in the same sandbox. Each with their favorites, or their axes to grind, or whatever.

So you end up with a situation where yes, Spider-Man has lost to Stilt-Man - twice! - but he's also beaten the Firelord and stopped the unstoppable Juggernaut. Good day for him, or bad day for Cain Marko, doesn't matter, it happened. And heck, the next time Spidey sees the Juggernaut, he might get trounced

Even if when there's Jim Starlin insisting that Thanos totally never lost ever to anyone other than himself or Adam Warlock, no way, or Jeph Loeb creating the Red Hulk who can beat up everyone, there's gonna be another writer later on that's going to, restore equilibrium, let's say.

It's something I was thinking about in contrast to shonen anime, another thing I generally enjoy. The problem there is the hierarchy is much more rigid. There are boss villains, and they are basically only going to lose to the main character. Krillin and Yamcha are never gonna get to beat the planet-threatening menace of the moment. The best they can hope for is maybe they get to score one good hit.

I sorta touched on this, jeez, fourteen years ago, but I like the notion that if the Big Hero isn't there, the others will find a way to save the day without them. And with Marvel or DC, where plenty of the heroes who can't juggle planets get their own books and their own time to shine, we get to see that. With manga or anime, where there's one series, with largely one creative vision behind it, not so much. The answer to, "How will they win without Series Protagonist?" is apparently, "They won't, they'll just die."

Maybe my issue is that the main characters are usually ridiculously fast and strong and so it feels like they win because they're faster and stronger. That's fine and all. Sometimes it's fun to watch or read a beatdown, especially if the character's got it coming. But I also enjoy characters winning against those sort of odds, whether it's through being sneaky, or clever, or just really determined. (To be fair, there's no shortage of characters in shonen animes winning fights because they're really determined.)

Sometimes, it's just nice to see an unassuming character save the day, get the big win. Even if it was a little lucky, or they just had the approach to exploit a particular weakness or whatever.

The Suicide Squad

It's certainly better than the first one, low bar that is. Disjointed impressions and thoughts, with SPOILERS ahead.

It's about two hours long, if you don't include the ten minutes of credits at the end. It still drags in places, notably around the time where they're trying to abduct Peter Capaldi to get them in the huge illegal research lab. It's not a bad part of the movie exactly, because it's when the survivors start to actually come together a little as a team, and watching them sneak around in plainclothes after the mission has gone a bit awry feels appropriate for a Suicide Squad story (in the same way as the Squad blundering in and killing a bunch of people they didn't need to), but still. Maybe the camaraderie seems too smooth? They all just decide to get some drinks while they wait and they're pals (for the time being).

Idris Elba is meant to be Deadshot with the serial numbers filed off, since they either couldn't get Will Smith back, or didn't want him back. The dynamic between Bloodsport and his daughter feels more true to Floyd Lawton, but they've still not really put Deadshot up there. There's none of the "I don't care if I get killed" badass indifference to either version.

Viola Davis does fine with the Amanda Waller she's given to play (although her role is much smaller in this film), but it's still not really the Wall I want to see. For one thing, I'd expect Waller to be smart enough to recognize the danger inherent in a giant starfish that releases swarms of little starfish that kill people and manipulate their bodies like puppets, not just to Corto Maltese, but the entire world. Ostrander's Waller has principles, limited as they may be. Movie Waller, whether Ayers or Gunn are directing, is just a politician, and I mean that in the most insulting way. Everyone - not just the Squad, but basically every other person alive - is entirely expendable to her and her goals. She even plays golf with Senators for Christ's sake! Since when does Amanda Waller have time to waste golfing with shitheads? The part where her command center people stand up to her rang hollow considering the lot of them were shown taking bets on who would get killed during the opening credits. Oh, but now you're taking a principled stand? Pull the other one.

This movie definitely leans into the bodycount aspect of the Suicide Squad more than the first one. Which you had to expect, given the sheer number of characters present in the trailer. Some of those schmucks were gonna die, but Gunn wipes out a lot more of them than I expected, and a few I figured were safe. Which is kind of nice. Outside of a few - Bloodsport, Harley, Peacemaker because apparently he's getting his own TV series, which is definitely a thing we need in 2021, nationalistic gun-toting lunatic as a protagonist - I started to expect everyone was toast. Any time someone took a hit, or was in danger, I really thought that could be it for them. 

And since I actually found myself caring whether King Shark or Ratcatcher 2 made it, that means the movie must have done something right. Even if that was just making King Shark (aka Nanaue) a gorier Drax (with his difficulty in comprehending things, I think he's more Drax than Groot), making him a sort of comic relief character, and giving Ratcatcher 2 the sad backstory.

That said, the scene in the minibus where she lays out her origin involving her brilliant but smack-addicted papa felt a little ridiculous. I couldn't see that crew actually wanting to sit there and listen to that, or her being willing to just lay it all out that way.

I was hoping Polka Dot Man's polka dots would do different things based on their color, rather than all being the same. I guess that's more Rainbow Raider's shtick, but if you're going to the trouble of having a guy whose power is to shoot polka dots at people, why not?

Even if the first movie was straight garbage, I like that Gunn at least sort of uses it. Captain Boomerang is trying to trade jokes with Harley about how all the newbies are dead men walking. Mostly it's that  Flag seems more comfortable in his role. It's still frustrating for him, leading a team of lunatics who don't know, like, or trust each other, many of whom are completely unsuited for the work, but he seems to have adjusted. There's not the same contempt he carried, and he actually tries to be a leader. I'm not sure if that means he's in a mentally healthier space or not.

Likewise, it seems like Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn picked up a few things from the first movie and also Birds of Prey. The willingness to try and help her squadmates, and to be willing to try and do the right thing. Having decided not to ignore the red flags with potential love interests. But she's still the sort of manic energy who crashes a car into a bank. 

Randomly, I like that any time they start running, she's the fastest. Even when she's wearing combat boots and a dress, carrying a javelin, she outruns everyone else. I wonder if that just happened, she's just faster than Idris Elba and his dadbod (hilarious watching him sneak around in the mask and a tank top and slacks), or if they wanted that for some reason and told everybody else to run a little slower (like in Major League where they shot all Wesley Snipes' scenes running in slo-mo to make him look faster). It wouldn't surprise me Margot Robbie is a fast runner, she seems to be in good shape, I just wonder. Same way I wonder if Stallone was doing the physical acting for Nanaue and they just CGI'ed him into a shark.

The violence is more cartoonish, with Peacemaker using exploding bullets, and Bloodsport having a gun that keeps growing and changing as he slaps more accessories on, until it looks like something Cable or Rocket Raccoon would use. Nanaue rips a guy in half (seems wasteful for someone who was always hungry) with blood spurting out that looks like jelly from a doughnut. It probably suits the tone of the movie better than more "realistic" violence would have. I don't know why Gunn went with the flowers and cartoon birds hallucinations in place of blood during Harley's escape, though.

The wrestling fan in me was amused by how much more Peacemaker struggles in fights against one opponent than when he's killing an entire room full of people, because it's well known John Cena is unstoppable when he must Overcome The Odds.

I cannot believe those astronauts would just float there in a room with a giant alien starfish, and not flee when it started to produce little starfishes. I thought astronauts were supposed to be smart.

Who Has Time For Super-Villainy

That is. . . an oddly anatomically specific threat.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I discussed Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General, (cripes that title) Volume 1. Well, now we're up to volume 6. Jin has been slowly expanding the fictional world since then. Adding other villain organizations that had loose cooperative relationships with RX, as well as a larger hero organization that Braveman is part, including some trainee heroes. Volume 4 revealed there was another, far more covert villain organization that infiltrated the heroes and crippled them, forcing the General and the rest of the RX Organization (now up to 12 members) to actually save the city.

Then Jin spent what felt like 90% of volume 5 making tentacle sex jokes after Scientist-San's tentacle monster took human form (now called X-Chan) and became infatuated with the rebellious teenage son of one of the city's greatest heroes. Fortunately, Jin mostly leaves that behind in volume 6.

Look, I said mostly. There's only two bits about it in this volume, thank goodness, as Jin seems more interested in setting some things up for whatever is coming next. One of those is that the police have established their own squad to deal with villains and monsters, since confidence in the heroes isn't real high. We only meet two of them, a rabbit in a trenchcoat and fedora, and his partner, a loud, hyperactive lady with superpowers and an extremely revealing costume. I don't care much about that, with the rabbit going on about how in his eyes, the heroes are just as bad as the villains. OK, thanks Gyrich, fuck off.

The other development is that more members of the shadowy villain organization pop up, including a scientist who cloned the General after being impressed with her energy and abilities. Ultimately three of the clones escape and try to decide what to do next. Which leads to them trashing the General's reputation as they are introduced to the harsh realities of capitalism. 

That part works better for me, because the clones, even when they're the focus, don't seem to hijack the story as much as the cops. The rabbit just keeps talking and no one gets a chance to rebut anything. With the clones, there's an opportunity for back-and-forth, which works more to a comedy angle. The rabbit cop and his hyperactive partner aren't very amusing. Plus, it gives the general an opportunity to show that she's not a particularly evil person, just obsessed enough with Braveman to make really bad decisions.

Beyond that, it's a lot of brief one-off chapters, mostly about different relationships between coworkers. One chapter is all the henchmen and Scientist-San's creations having a private party/bull session. Or the General trying to learn hypnosis, and accidentally making Secertary-Sama confess her feelings for their leader. Braveman agrees to test a new energy drink a scientist in their organization devised, which makes him susceptible to suggestion and nets the General a date. A couple of trainee heroes spot the General on her day off, and tail her because they suspect she's up to no good. Basic set-ups that allow for a variety of jokes. Some meta, some lewd, some just people behaving like morons.

For the most part, despite their various hang-ups Jin depicts the RX group as being fairly tightknit, which I really like. The Boss isn't some brutal overlord, he's actually sort of a putz, but one who works a part-time job to try and help fund their schemes. Secretary seems cold and businesslike, but other than certain breaches of etiquette, she handles being surrounded by morons pretty well. They're allegedly villains, but other than the General making Braveman's life hell, they don't really do anything evil. But you can see how the work environment would convince them to stick around, despite everything else.

I was wondering, after volume 5, if I just needed to give up on this series. If Jin was going to spend all his time on tentacle jokes, I was done. This volume was a nice return to form, and hopefully he can build from here in volume 7, which comes out in this fall.

Sunday Splash Page #179

 

"This Date's Going Downhill in a Hurry," in E-Man (vol. 1) #7, by Nicola Cuti (writer), Joe Staton (artist), Wendy Fiore (colorist)

I'd seen the ads for the E-Man series published through First Comics in some of the GrimJack issues I've got, and we'll get to that next week (E-Man, not GrimJack. GrimJack will be next summer), but that's not where things started.

The first E-Man series, by Cuti and Staton, started in 1973, but was published sporadically (five issues in two years) until '75, when it settled into a bi-monthly schedule for the final five issues. E-Man starts as a sentient energy being that stumbles across a spaceship on its way to Pluto and decides to make friends. He learns the ship is piloted by a giant brain on a mission to test new weapons for some distant space empire, but his added mass throws the ship off-course and it heads towards Earth. The energy being winds up getting trapped in a light bulb of the dressing room of part-time exotic dancer and archeology major Nova Kane, who becomes his first friend.

So it's got a bit of the "strange visitor from another planet" vibe, and unlike Superman, E-Man (who adopts the name Alec Tronn) has to learn about Earth as an adult. Cuti and Staton eventually add a private detective, Michael Mauser, who can get Alec involved in different sorts of trouble than Nova, and brings a different sort of personality to things. Nova's caught between trying to protect Alec and being attracted to him, while Mauser seems more interested in how Alec can help his business. He's also probably trying to make Alec a little less naive.

The comic almost settles into a "monster of the week" format. The Brain is a recurring foe, given his purpose was to test new weapon prototypes, but he's usually in the background until the end of the issue. There's also a wealthy businessman named Boar trying to dominate the world by controlling sources of electricity. But you've also got an issue where Nova goes to the Middle East to study some Egyptian ruins and they end up traveling back in time to learn Egyptians were actually advanced alien species killed out by a flea-borne disease. Which they help identify but somehow has no effect on their timeline.

It feels like Staton is still trying to settle into a style, but it makes for interesting viewing. Sometimes his work looks rougher, less refined, gives it a bit of a wilder energy. Other times it's fairly clean and neat, makes me think there's a bit of Curt Swan influence in it. Maybe not Swan specifically, but artists of that era. I could be off, but I don't feel like I see Neal Adams or Gil Kane in there. Maybe the Adams is there in the perspectives used in the panels. His characters don't have that angular, beady-eyed look I associate with Ditko. Staton's very good at weird stuff already, though. When the monster of the week is an actual monster, he knocks it out of the park, and his character work is highly individual.

I bring up Ditko because one of the other interesting bits of this series is there are usually back-up stories and several of those are by Ditko. A couple of spy features, Commie-smashing and the like, but also of a costumed hero called Killjoy, who beats up criminals, all of whom spend a lot of time crying about how they deserve others' money precisely because they did nothing to earn it. That gets old, very quickly. There's also some early John Byrne work about a robot cabbie called Rog-2000, with stories usually written by Cuti.

Cuti tries to write about topical issues without being too blindingly obvious, or that may just be me looking back on stories written in the '70s about '70s issues without having lived through them. But energy as a commodity that will be desperately needed, and can therefore be hoarded by greedy individuals. Using other locations as places to test destructive weaponry without regard for the locals. There aren't many attempts at humor in the writing, and the ones that do don't really work. The delivery tends to be flat, and Staton's art doesn't really sell it, but that's not what the book is trying for. It's just sort of an earnest book about trying to help other people rather than wallowing in greed, self-doubt, or grief.

What I Bought 8/11/2021

I went to the comic stores Wednesday, hoping to get five books. More realistically four books, since Count Draco Knuckleduster was a real long shot. I only managed to get two. Bummer. Also, it's been hot as shit all week, which has really put a crimp in my vacation. Not that I wanted to actually go many places, but it's made it where I haven't wanted to do hardly anything. Oh well, I can use the sleep.

Defenders #1, by Al Ewing (writer), Javier Rodriguez (artist/inker), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Cory Petit and Jay Bowen (colorists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Strange looks like he can't figure out who farted.

Strange gets a visit from the Masked Raider character Ewing created a few years back. Seems the guy was trying to stop some evil scientist, said scientist tried to escape with a magic spellbook, Raider shot the book, guy has landed somewhere in time, likely planning to alter history. Apparently you can change things if you time travel with magic, but not science. OK, sure, I'll roll with that.

Strange busts out the old Secret Defenders tarot deck to find some allies, but it's not a great draw. Every card is reversed, which I think is bad, and nobody seems terribly happy to be there. Not that the Suilver Surfer (restored to his classic look) is ever happy. Also, Strange drew Cloud, who is a sentient nebula now compressed into a house, so he's about to destroy the world. Oh, this is one of those stories about how trying to avoid destiny brings it about! Or not. Strange averts that disaster, but the team is thrown into the previous universe to Galactus' homeworld. I thought they were two universes on from that one after Hickman's Secret Wars? Didn't Ewing have an entire series about this, where it was a new universe, so Galactus could have a new role or something?

OK, so on the last couple of pages, when they're on Taa, Ewing does that thing people do when they homage or parody Jack Kirby. Where there are quotation marks around certain things they say? Example: 'So! "Space-time Hoboes," are you? Well, you "Made It," friends!!' I kind of hate that stuff. With Kirby, I suppose it felt like a genuine thing he thought he should do, whatever his reason, but when anyone else does it, it just feels like a kid trying on their parents' clothes. Throws me out of the story. 

But maybe I should expect this thing to be extremely meta-textual. In the Raider's flashback, when the evil scientist is trying to use the spellbook, the three candles he has lit around him are cyan, magenta and yellow. The three true primary colors, the ones used in color printing. The smoke drifting up form them is the same colors, and so are the pages in the book. So Zota's going to mess with the text of the Marvel Universe? It's not as though he could mess things up worse than Bendis or Mark Millar.

So I'm not totally sold on the writing, but it's a lovely comic to look at. Petit and Bowen's color work is vivid and varied, able to go blindingly bright when needed, or tone it back to something more subdued when that's what is called for. Rodriguez' work is detailed without being fussy, and the colors mesh with it, making sure we don't lose any of his or Lopez' linework. The page that tells the story of Raider's mask through clouds of steam rising from Stephen's tea cup is excellent. The two pages of Strange trying to keep Cloud from destroying the world, where all the panels are converging on the location where their mass is about to form a star.

If nothing else, the comic will be well-illustrated.

Runaways #38, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Andres Genolet (artist), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So long kids. Hopefully the next time we see you it isn't as cannon fodder in some bullshit event comic.

The comic is ending, so all dangling plot threads must be at least sort of tied off, or at least brought to a place where there's some idea what to do next. So, in no particular order: Gert's parents appear in their time machine right in the middle of everything, muttering about instability, and Nico banishes them.

Karolina's people are actually here to help treat her injuries, since Xavin got her acquitted of whatever she did wrong previously. Or so they say, the last page showing Xavin (drawn by Kris Anka) is giving off strong "evil" vibes. I've never seen a fictional character that does the "hands clasped behind their back while someone calls them General" pose yet that wasn't bad.

But Karolina doesn't know that, so into space she goes, after some relationship drama with Nico that resolves mostly peacefully, and ends with Nico telling her to take the Staff of One away.

Future Gert convinces Present Gert and Molly they should help her abduct Chase to the future to keep him from becoming a Mad Max cosplayer. Well again, we see that's the future, but Future Gert doesn't actually tell them, which is odd when she says she made no promise to protect the timeline's integrity. Then fucking tell them what happened, you asshole! Either way, Future Gert and Chase both poof!

Alex is wearing that Doc Justice guy's costume and watching all this (in a page drawn by original Runaways series artist Adrian Alphona, whose are looks grainier than I remember from Ms. Marvel.) Molly may still be considering visiting Krakoa, but Clara (still happily living with her foster parents) is not interested. At least one character in this book isn't a moron.

And that's pretty much it. The crew for now is Present Gert, Molly, Victor, Doombot, Gib, and Nico minus her staff. Which leaves Nico and Doombot as the closest things to responsible adults. Wait, am I implying Chase was a responsible adult? That can't be right.

Of course, the next writer can handwave all that if they want to. Bring Karolina back, with or without Xavin. Bring Chase back, changed or not, never reference his time in the future if they wish. Do something with Alex or not. Do other people have old friends they no longer like who won't take the hint? Because for someone as smart as Alex is supposed to be, he sure hasn't caught on they want him to get lost. 

I'd expect Doombot will get ejected into limbo by the next writer, much as Rowell (mostly) did with Clara. Gib, too, most likely. "Oh, he didn't receive sufficient sacrifices from the kitties, so he died and we never speak of him." I could be surprised, but I doubt it. It's a little frustrating, because we only saw hints of how things were going to play out. I was curious what the end result of the time shenanigans was going to be. The Xavin thing is less interesting to me, because I just sort of vaguely remember Xavin being around. I'm guessing a lot more happened with the character after BKV stopped writing the series, which is the point I stopped picking up used copies of the trades.

Genolet's art is really better suited to smaller panels. When the tried to go for the almost double-page splash of Future Chase squaring off with Future Molly, it's kind of blurry and lacking in his usual crispness. Like taking a small image and blowing it up a couple of times. Plus, there really wasn't much on the page that justified the need for that much space. Could have kept it to a single-page splash and been just fine. Other than that, this issue is Genolet's usual solid work, and it was 28 pages of it, which might explain last issue being short.

The Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Everything I've read by Marquez has been enjoyable at the least, fantastic at the best. This is apparently the exception. 

It's about the death of some incredibly old general that ruled over a Latin American nation for decades after being installed by either the British or the Americans. He seems to have been controlled by his fear for at least part of the time. Fear of being assassinated, which is an understandable fear when you are the sort of person who secretly observes the funeral of your double so you can see who celebrates or speaks ill and then have them killed or imprisoned.

I can't say much more about the story itself because I only got 45 pages in before tapping out. The stylistic approach Marquez takes is horrendous. Every chapter (and the first 45 pages are the first chapter) is just one long paragraph, which is made of ridiculously long sentences. I tried reading one to Alex as an example (the quote below a small part of it) and stopped after a page, because the sentence continues for another 2.5 pages beyond that.

It's not quite a stream-of-consciousness, ala Tristram Shandy or Michael Pera's character in Ant-Man. It isn't a thread being constantly derailed by irrelevant details. There is a method to how the information is related. As though the narrator is trying to tell it in a rush before they are executed. Which they may be, the narrator is another general who was a trusted friend to the deceased, but it's exhausting to read. There's no point that lends itself to taking a break to process any of what we've been told because they just keep talking. Even when there's a conversation going on, it's not really a conversation. It's someone relating what the two characters said to the reader in the worst way possible.

'. . .that I can tell you now that I never loved you as you think but that ever since the day of the filibusters when I had the evil misfortune to chance into your domains I've been praying that you would be killed, in a good way even, so that you would pay me back for this life of an orphan you gave me, first by flattening my feet with tamping hands so they would be those of a sleepwalker like yours, then by piercing my nuts with a shoemaker's awl so I would develop a rupture, then by making me drink turpentine so I would forget how to read and write after all the work it took my mother to teach me. . .'

Don't Downplay the Value of Revenge

So I watched the Loki series as it was coming out last couple of months. It's enjoyable enough. I actually finished all of it, unlike Falcon and Winter Soldier, where I never watched the last episode. OK, SPOILER warning thing for the end of Loki, even though it's just the jumping off point.

Final episode, Loki and Sylvie confront Kang, the one behind the TVA, the organization that decided they both needed to be erased to preserve some Sacred Timeline, which Kang just so happens to be in control of. Blah blah, greater good, blah blah, avoid multiversal war, blah blah. Since they've moved past some critical point where Kang no longer knows what's going to happen, Sylvie takes her revenge and kills the guy responsible for saying she needed to be imprisoned or erased, rather than accepting his offer for her and Loki to run the TVA in his place. The latter being what Loki wanted, but she booted his butt backed to the TVA so she could take care of business.

Sylvie is then shown alone in the citadel looking forlorn after killing Kang, so at least a couple of different reviews I saw comment how it's showing revenge is a hollow pursuit, and, you know, let's just hold on there a second.

I'm not going to claim revenge cures all ills, but I don't think getting payback on someone who wrongs them (and I'm speaking of revenge on a specific person who actually harmed them, not just lashing out at everyone) is without merit. The notion one isn't just a powerless pawn, who can be fucked with or tormented by some joker who thinks he's got the right, that's got some value. That they can push back, even if nobody is on their side. Revenge doesn't have to be killing them. It can be financial ruin, or simple public humiliation or exposure. Appropriate to the level of the wrong committed.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. "Two wrongs don't make a right, Calvin." First off, stop wagging your finger in my face like you're Marge Simpson and show me the math behind that statement. Secondly, that's the beauty of revenge. You're not worrying about "right" necessarily. At least not any objective form of the term. It's like in space, right or left is relative to your position.

The argument seems to be that if you devote your life to revenge and you get it, what's left? The answer is usually presented as "nothing," but I think it's actually, "the opportunity to figure out what comes next." If someone is fixated on revenge to begin with, they probably aren't open to seeing anything else anyway. They've been hurt, and in all likelihood, the person or persons responsible skated scot-free for any number of reasons. Until that's addressed, there isn't anything else for them anyway. They could try to pick up the pieces and go forward, but if their life was turned upside-down, and seemingly no one cares, is there a point? Couldn't it just happen again, especially if the one responsible is out there? You have to deal with the instability in the ground before you can build anything new.

The mistake is I think people figure if revenge is really meant to be worth something, the person should be immediately fulfilled, joyous at the culmination of their struggle. And maybe they should, but if it's been a long, difficult time, they may need to process. For me, with things I've spent a long time trying to accomplish or complete, the moment they're done isn't always one where I celebrate ecstatically. Sometimes I'm stunned it's over, sometimes I'm just relieved. That's for things far less serious than trying to take revenge on someone.

It's fine to have stories where the character achieves their revenge and feels lost or empty after. But sometimes people are going to be happy after they get their revenge, or at least finally able to move on.

The Accidental Spy

Jackie Chan plays an exercise equipment salesman who learns the father he never knew what a Korean spy. Before the man dies, he leaves Jackie some things which lead him to Turkey, where he gets tangled up in some huge search for a new, extremely potent version of opium. Or heroin, something like that, it was hard to tell because the voices were all very soft. I normally have the volume on my TV set from 17-24, and I dialed it up to 45 and it was still hard to hear. And the DVD had no closed caption options. 

How dare this 8-movie DVD collection I bought for 5 bucks not have more bells and whistles? Seriously, though, it made it difficult to follow the story beyond that. There's an evil drug lord named Li that worked with Jackie's dad, but there's also a group of Turkish guys who I think actually grew the drugs. Their boss is always yelling at Jackie in Turkish, no matter how many times Jackie makes it clear he doesn't speak the language. I thought only people from the U.S. did that. 

Either way, the end result is Jackie keeps getting attacked by different large groups of angry people. At one point his taxi drives into a open field and guys jump out of nine more taxis and attack him. Later he's attacked at a Turkish bath and winds up running through a bazaar butt-naked, fighting a bunch of guys who are very determined to not let him cover himself. Also led to Jackie trying to cover himself with a bowl of cayenne pepper, which couldn't have been pleasant.

And because there's a hit new drug at stake, the CIA is involved. Because they want to keep that drug out of the wrong hands. Yeah, I don't believe that either. Rather disappointed Jackie never kicked the CIA guy in the face. Perfect opportunity was right after the guy berated him for giving the drug to Li and how he should have left Jackie in the Turkish jail. Jackie was emotionally raw and out for vengeance by that point anyway.

But it's always about the cool stunts and creative lunacy they come up with. I got very excited when Jackie got on a motorcycle and played chicken with a small airplane. There's just so many ways that can go and they're all awesome.

A Hidden Ace

Of all the various manga series I've tried for the first time this year, Cross Game stands as my favorite of the bunch. It's also the first sports manga I've ever tried. It's not a new series, the first volume was released here in the U.S. in 2005, but other than vaguely remembering some reviews on the old Comics Should Be Good CBR blog, it was new to me.

Volume 1 is massive, over 570 pages starting when the main character Ko and his friend Wakaba are in fifth grade. Ko comes off as either lazy, or just at that stage where different things grab his interest suddenly and for a short period of time, baseball not being one of them. He convinces his friends to form a team so they'll buy their equipment and uniforms from his parents' store. Wakaba's the second of four daughters, born the same day as Ko, generally sweet and friendly, well-liked by most everyone. That includes the toughest kid in their grade, Akaishi, who's looming presence spooks Ko into actually playing a his first game of baseball just for safety in numbers.

Then, having introduced several of the key players, Adachi kills Wakaba 150 pages in and shortly after, jumps the book ahead four years. Look, it's a 15+ year old series, and most of it revolves around that event, so I'm not worrying spoilers here.

The time jump allows Adachi to change things up from what we'd briefly been introduced to. Aoba, Wakaba's younger sister, baseball lover and Ko's harshest critic, plays on the junior high team as a pitcher, but Ko himself still seems to have no interest in baseball. His friend Nakanishi, who loved baseball, isn't on the school team, but Akaishi is, having abandoned fighting entirely. Over the next ~400 pages, things are gradually teased out. What changed for Akaishi. What Ko's really been up to. The goal that's going to, as far as I can tell having read volumes 1 through 3 and 5, drive the story forward from then on.

It's also a chance to introduce a pair of antagonists. One is the new high school coach, Daimon. Think all those college basketball coaches that win everywhere they go, but leave under a cloud of rules violations. John Calipari mixed with Jon Voight's asshole football coach from Varisty Blues. It's actually impressive how well Adachi conveys what an arrogant, cruel jackass Daimon is. Completely emotionless when he's telling a player they're off the team if they can practice because their arm is sore. Telling players they're nothing but fertilizer for the varsity team. At most, there's a smug smirk on his face. Having read the later volumes, it's intensely gratifying to see him get his comeuppance.

The other antagonist is Azuma Yuhei, who is the stereotypical extremely gifted, arrogant jock dickhead. He's not a loud braggart, but just constantly condescending and rude. He treats his own teammates like servants and admits he doesn't bother to learn names of people he thinks don't matter. When Daimon asks how many of his teammates' names he's learned, he says five.

The problem for me, having seen those later volumes, is Adachi's going to try and give Yuhei a past tragedy of his own to explain his personality and drive, but still be a dickhead. Maybe it's meant to be a very dry sense of humor, but he's so stone-faced most of the time it doesn't feel like it. As of volume 5 I still can't stand the character and want to see him fall on his face. I mean, Ko, Aoba, and Akaishi are all affected and driven by a loss far harsher than Yuhei's, and they don't act like assholes. Well, Aoba does towards Ko, but there's all sorts of other stuff tied up in that.

The writing and the art work for the scenes that are sad and solemn. In the aftermath of Wakaba's death, Adachi uses largely silent panels that focus on the characters' faces and their isolation. The way each of Aoba, Ko, and Akaishi try to deal with the loss and their grief. Most of the funeral service is shown as Ko trying to peer past all the adults in mourning clothes to see Wakaba's shrine, but there's only a single panel of it. It's a clear panel that dominates the page, but it's like that was all the glimpse he could get.

There's more humor than sadness, although Adachi highlights how memories of people you lost will crop up at surprising times. Ko and another character named Senda (a loudmouth braggart that repeatedly gets shown up, so I don't mind him the way I do Yuhei) receive the brunt of the humor, but Adachi pokes at himself occasionally. Characters do plugs for his past series, or when he wastes pages making jokes about his editors having no idea how difficult 18 pages can be to complete someone in story will complain about. I could do without the upskirt shots, even if I could be charitable and allow some of them are meant to be from Ko's perspective and it might speak to where his mind is at in 9th grade. But that argument definitely wouldn't work for all of them

Adachi's approach to drawing the actual baseball is to break it up into small, individual actions (see the page at the top of this post). A panel of the ball, then one of bat and ball. Or a panel of the ball bouncing into the outfield, then one of someone rounding a base. The game is one of a lot of small, individual actions happening on the same field, so it works pretty well. If it was basketball or American football, where so much of each play is reliant on how all the players move in concert or in reaction to each other, I'm not sure it would. But the having the panels tilt lets them lead the eye naturally to the next one, and he's able to do so in a way that feels like it matches the characters' movements. Like the tilt down and to the right is part of Ko's windup as he prepares to throw the ball.

Sunday Splash Page #178

 

"Those Puns Are the Wurst," in Elongated Man #4, by Gerard Jones (writer), Mike Parobeck (penciler), Ty Templeton (inker), Rick Taylor (colorist), Bob Pinaha (letterer)

I think this might be the one of only two titles in my entire comic collection written by Gerard Jones, and it comes up two weeks after the other one. Well, same warnings apply as mentioned in Sunday Splash Page #176 regarding Jones.

Set during Ralph's time on Justice League Europe, the story involves some mysterious party trying to disrupt a big European Unity conference, through the magic of nation-specific super-villains. Like the sausage-wielding German guys up above. Ralph loves a mystery, leaving Sue increasingly annoyed as he ignores her to, from her perspective, chase phantoms. Which grants an opening for the ruler of Modora, who seems to have a lot of the same weapons as the villain Sonar, to try and woo her.

I've heard Ralph and Sue compared to William Powell and Myrna Loy from the Thin Man movies, and I can sort of see it. Although I think Sue is Powell, where she doesn't really want any part of this crime-solving stuff but keeps finding herself in the middle of it. Ralph, who is ready to jump into action at the hint of anything suspicious, seems more like Loy. Either way, the whole thing is kind of charming and sweet.

Parobeck's art here is far closer to what I think most fans think of. Much more streamlined, fewer and stronger lines than in El Diablo. Some of that might be Templeton as inker. Not having seen Parobeck's pencils on their own, I don't know for sure. Very expressive, and with Taylor's colors, not too grim or serious. It fits with the overall tone of the story, which is ultimately just some second-rate Doctor Doom trying to protect his little kingdom from the dangers of working together for greater economic strength. For its own good, of course.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 3

It was nice to have a few days where I could sleep with the window open. But that's over for probably another month. Oh well, it hasn't been an awful summer here, outside of a few three-day stretches. And that one week in June when it rained like crazy.

You Promised Me Darkness #4, by Damian Connelly (writer/artist), Anabella Mazzaferri (letterer) - I will never understand people who gets tattoos, and that includes Alex, who has something like 70, according to him. I hate needles too much for that shit.

Yuko and Sebastian took off on their own to confront the Anti-Everything. If they can find him. It takes some work, and the assistance of Drake Limbo, Weird Detective, but they get on the right track. Of course, by the time they get there, Sage has his merry band there already, and the Anti-Everything has done something to a bunch of people to make them into. . . zombies maybe? Their teeth appear rather pointy, and their eyes are white pinholes, but the faces are otherwise muddled.

That's basically it. All the different sides making final preparations and getting their pieces in place for the big fight. The plus side is, Sage said he lost his power of meta-narration, so no more of his annoying caption boxes. Unless Sage was lying. I don't have any real sense of how this might go. Which could be a good sign, that the book doesn't feel predictable. 

It feels more like I just don't get what Connelly's driving at. The story seems to drift from setting to setting, with the notion of an apocalypse hanging over everything allegedly driving the action, but it doesn't feel like it. Maybe because Sage is so sure of his plan, but there's no sense of urgency to his actions. Sebastian is supposedly important, and presumably Yuko's close ties with him mean she is as well, but nobody acts much like it. The Anti-Everything isn't making a concerted effort to find them.

I don't know, next issue is the conclusion of the first arc at least. Maybe it'll come together then. Plus, I'll see how Connelly gets around his apparent indifference to drawing action scenes if there's going to be a big fight.

Black Jack Demon #1, by Nick Hermes - Ah, the waving handprint on the door. A sure sign of friendly folk. Wait, I'm being informed that's a bloody handprint, which is a sure sign of being in a Silent Hill game. Whoops.

After a massive explosion at their mine, Silas' father is killed and skinned by someone. The sheriff is no help, so Silas hires a lady gunfighter named Humphrey to hunt the killer down. Despite being on foot, the culprit stays ahead of them for days. When they finally get to where they can lie in wait, they get more than they - or at least Humphrey - bargained for. Silas is left alone again, with another skinned body to bury.

Hermes' art, besides making Silas look like a young Man in the Big Yellow Hat, tries evoke the style of the old EC horror comics. The deep shadows around the eyes and the exaggerated expressions. The panel backgrounds that are usually just a solid color, lacking in any details. Unless he's trying to create a sense of setting, in which case it's still sparse, but that's due to the landscape they're traveling in. The lettering on the sound effects is typically big block letters that also seem out of a much older comic.

It certainly creates a kind of mood. People alone, fighting something they don't understand and are ill-equipped to deal with. And it lends weight to the question of why Silas is so hellbent on pursuing this if he's so frightened. Humphrey points out that his family mine will be taken by greedy interests in town since there's no one there to run them off, and Silas basically ignores her. What's so terrifying about that to make him decide chasing a demon is a better alternative? Hermes draws Silas at a distance from other people. Even when they're in the same panel as him, there's a gap. He's in the background or they are. Nobody's looking the same direction as him. His gaze is always on its own thing.

A Low Down Dirty Shame

This is one of those movies I'm unreasonably fond of because I watched it too many times when I was much younger, because it was on one of our cable movie channels all the time (Showtime, I think). Like Bio-Dome, Virtuosity, or City Slickers 2. But I hadn't watched it in over 20 years, so it's kind of an interesting experience now, with more awareness.

My first thought re-watching it was it's kind of a noir at the start. A disgraced cop turned down-on-his-luck private detective who runs his mouth too much (Keene Ivory Wayans). His old cop buddy (Charles Dutton, who almost gives Shame the speech he gave Rudy), now with the DEA, giving him a chance at the case that ruined him, and a reunion with the femme fatale (Vivica Fox) that broke his heart. His plucky gal Friday secretary (Jada Pinkett, probably the first movie I saw her in) who has a crush on him.

There's also a lot of late '80s-early '90s action movie stuff. The kind of stuff all the McBain clips on The Simpsons make fun of, right down to the drug lord being named "Mendoza". The movie does not end with Shame laying out everything to everyone. It does end with two separate fistfights. Bad guys with Uzis firing craploads of bullets and hitting nothing. The private detective having a set of really nice clothes and really nice firearms to pull out of mothballs when he needs to kill a bunch of people. A happy ending where the two main characters end up together and all the bad people are dead or going to jail.

There's probably a lot in it that owes to blaxploitation films, but that's a part of film history I still don't know well enough to speak confidently on. I feel like the main character's name being "Shame" has to sort of be a nod to Shaft. I think there's reference to one of Wayans' earlier films when a character mutters "I'm gonna git you, sucka," which was the title of said earlier film. I would have expected Shame to have more trouble with cops, but other than a lieutenant who just seems exasperated by Shame (like every frustrated, shouty police captain ever), there isn't much.

There's more homophobic jokes than I remembered. I knew there was some, because I remembered a scene where Shame causes a break-up between Peaches' roommate and his boyfriend by acting like a stereotypically flamboyant gay man who is dating said roommate himself, but I'd forgotten several other moments.

The interplay between Wayans and Pinkett is the high point. They seem to enjoy arguing back-and-forth, him teasing her about reading tabloids that tell you dogs won't attack if you sing James Brown, or how they met when he caught her stuffing CDs in her pants. Her giving him grief about his clothes or still owing him money. There's an easy chemistry to it where you can believe their characters are attracted to each other, even if Shame thinks he's not good enough for her. It's not as great between Wayans and Fox, which you could explain with her heart not being in it because she knows they're going to end up set against each other, but he doesn't really seem that hung up on her, either.

It felt like Shame gets serious a little too early in the movie. Switches to the nice car/clothes/firearms about halfway through, rather than in the last quarter. Like visually he's moving into the climax before the plot is ready to get there. He's dressed to kick ass, but he's still just trying to get information.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 2

Yesterday was just one of those days where everything seemed to piss me off. A constant string of people bugging me for stuff, or failing to get stuff to me they were supposed to turn in weeks ago, or people not being around when you need them for something. When the weather is as unseasonably nice as it is this week, it makes a person question why the hell he's working.

Anyway, related to comments made during last week's October solicitations post, I did end up tracking down the first two issues of Everfrost.

Everfrost #1 and 2, by Ryan K. Lindsay (writer), Sami Kivela (artist), Lauren Affe (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Gotta appreciate a unique approach to prison construction.

Van is a scientist on a frozen, dying world, trying to find a way off. Her current approach involves trying to incubate offspring of some immense, star-traveling creature in the bodies of local fauna she killed. With some promising results, she sets off to a place called the Precinct to try and check in with some other researchers she knows. What she finds is that she's somehow been gone much longer than she thinks, and someone is selling clones of her deceased son.

I would suspect this one blonde on the latter, who we see in flashbacks killed an earlier clone of her (their?) son in front of her because someone or something called "Ward" learned what they did. Then Van shoved her husband over the balcony into the ocean, but we know that never kills people.

There are also a couple of factions fighting it out in Ward's apparent absence. The Warlords, who seem to have been servants of Ward and run things in his (or her or their) absence, and The Bloom, who seem to be determined to challenge the Warlords who they feel are hiding some sort of important knowledge. Van knows both groups, but I get the feeling neither is exactly how she remembers, either.

One thing that comes up quite a bit in the first two issues is the difference between how Van categorizes her actions, and how everyone else does. She says she went into the wilderness to find a way everyone could leave the world. Her companion, a talking monkey-like thing, says she came out there to die. Others say she went out there to hide. She asks around about her mother because she was hoping to find some information, her mother (or a computer hologram of her) says she really means she was planning to take whatever she could find. She forms an temporary alliance with The Bloom, and jeopardizes it almost immediately by decapitating one of their lieutenants, who is another clone of her son, and therefore a mole. 

But maybe she's wrong, she's been gone a long time, and I wonder if that's going to be the point. That she went off, telling herself it was to save the world, when it ultimately became her turning her back on it, whether that was what she really intended or not. She may have a solution to the problem she knew, but the world hasn't stayed still waiting. There may not be anyone who wants her solution any longer. And Lindsay writes Van as, if not fully aware of that, at least recognizing she's on unfamiliar ground at times. Although her internal narration is a little odd in that she sometimes seems to be telling someone this story, like when she refers to something as being 'the point in the story when.' Other times, it's like she's just talking to herself inside her head. Maybe that's just where she's at mentally. Not unhinged or anything, just out of practice with other people.

Kivela draws the world as almost locked in ice, but the towns and people are a mixture themes and levels. People carrying swords or wearing helmets that wouldn't be out of place in Skyrim, side-by-side with energy shield you can wear on your wrist and little flying robot attack drones and tasers. People on both sides of the Warlord/Bloom divide fly what look like dragons carved from blue marble. Van looks like she's wearing a spacesuit, probably for protection against the cold. The Precinct has some buildings which feel like maybe a Middle Eastern feel, but also more Gothic industrial look. The outskirts consist of thrown together tin structures and big tanker ships that are icelocked.

It's kind of a bizarre hodgepodge, and I'm not sure it gives the story a strong sense of place because the pieces don't necessarily fit together in a coherent whole. But it does suggest a civilization used to one way of doing things, that had to adapt quickly, in whatever ways they could manage. And if I figure Van is supposedly fixated on getting off this world (although she seems more interested in killing all clones of her son) then the places around her don't really matter to her. Just places to get what she can from, then get away.

Bleeding Steel

This, on the other hand, is not a good movie. Most of the fun Alex and I got out of it was joking about all the things that reminded us of other (mostly better) movies. That the main bad guy, who is a former special forces guy used a guinea pig to create a "bioroid", reminded us of the bad guys in Dark City. In terms of how he looks, not in any other way. And that his henchmen look like either the characters from the video game Destiny, or Daft Punk. The hypnotist reminded Alex of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

We tried to get a lot of mileage out of that because the movie itself wasn't doing it for us. So the bioroid (which really just makes me think he's got hemorrhoids) was a special forces guy (named Andre of all things, terrifying) used as a guinea pig in a test of blood that helps make someone superhuman. Which required cutting out his heart and replacing it with a mechanical one. Quite why he had to be awake during that procedure I don't know, but the blood is killing him from the inside.

There's an improved version of the blood that lets you heal like Wolverine, but the human rights violating scientist put it inside Jackie Chan's daughter as she was dying of leukemia (after Jackie wasn't there because he was trying to protect said human rights violating scientist, what is with Jackie Chan playing cops who neglect their children?) This procedure somehow transferred the human rights violating scientist's memories inside Jackie's daughter, while wiping or suppressing her own. And Jackie went deep cover to protect her, so she went into the foster care system while he performed various menial jobs to watch over her. Like handyman at the orphanage, or food court cook.

Meanwhile, he's got an arsenal in his house that looks like something out of the weapons bunker in Terminator 2, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or, hell, I don't know, take your pick of movies with a room with a shitload of guns on the walls. And he's got a secret passage in the fireplace, and an automated security system to blow up the house, and he's presumed dead by the bad guys. 

So why the fuck can he not just raise his amnesiac daughter on his own in his Australia, instead of having to go through all these hoops to try and watch over her? The only reason Andre's able to find her (after 13 years) is because the human rights violating scientist's memories are emerging in her dreams and she's seeing a "witch" who puts her under hypnosis, then sells the recordings of the stuff she says about special blood and bio-engineered hearts to a fiction writer, who then publishes a novel about it. Wouldn't it have been better for her to have a support system to help deal with the emerging memories in a controlled, supportive setting?

And how the fuck does Andre have some giant flying battleship that apparently no one has detected and shot down in over ten years?

It's not like movies can't get away with this sort of nonsense, but it tends to require them to keep things moving fast enough you don't have time to question anything. This movie doesn't maintain that sort of pace. And it's trying to play mysterious with this one teenage boy character who is very interested in Jackie's daughter. You know, who he is, why he's interested in her. But the last thing a movie like this should encourage you to do is ask questions, because you aren't going to stop at the ones they want you to ask.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 1

Since I was out of town last week (which turned into its own little disaster), I tried ordering last week's books online. I only found three of the ones I wanted, and they arrived Saturday. I was already out that, and managed to find one of the other books I was looking for, plus a couple of others we'll get to Wednesday. For now, I figured I'd start with the two Marvel books, because I'm very tired and there's less to explain.

Black Knight #5, by Si Spurrier (writer), Sergio Davila (penciler), Sean Parsons (inker), Arif Pranto (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Man, that helmet looks even dumber in profile.

Dane's bleeding out, Jacks was disintegrated, Elsa flew off, and Mordred combined the remaining ebony items in a crown, which he's hooked into the files from the e-therapist app he created. That gives him access to everyone else's pain, fear, doubts, resentments, which grant him great magic while those people pay the cost. Guy should be an attorney with his ability to exploit loopholes. In the midst of this, he stumbles across the recording of Dane's final words, his confession that he bailed on his his college girlfriend when she went to England for cancer treatments. Which she did not survive, because she refused radiation. Because she was pregnant, with Dane's kid, who is, drumroll, Jacks! Ta-da! Meaning she's part of Arthur's bloodline too, so the Ebony Blade brings her back, confused and full of rage.

I figured, with her being able to speak with Merlin's raven, she had to be tied to Arthur's line somehow, but I figured she might be a distant descendant some other way. Maybe Mordred's great-great-great-grandaughter. I guess if he was so focused on making sure there'd be no one to challenge him for the throne, he wouldn't be careless about those sorts of things. Or, as Dane says, he'd just dismiss the possibility of a woman being a threat. 

(I'm betting that doesn't jibe with any number of Arthurian legends that would point out women being dangerous and capable as hell, but I'm not reading through them to confirm that.)

Anyway, while Jacks and a returned Elsa throw down with Mordred, Dane's recording is chipping away at Mordred, too. Because the Chalice made sure Dane saw all this coming. Including that Mordred listening to Dane's voice while wearing the crown would enable Dane to sort of resurrect in that strange place Merlin banished everything he didn't want around, and then sort of emerge from inside Mordred, like a bug molting. I don't entirely get that part, but end result, Dane and Jacks are alive, Mordred isn't (for now.) Dane tears apart the crown and turns it into a chair to use to see bad things coming. As Elsa notes, just want an unhinged person needs, right before she steals the Atomic Steed. Jacks suggests she and Dane split the job. Takes turns wielding the sword, while the other directs from the chair. Maybe together, they won't go nuts.

Or when they do go nuts, they'll just take each other out.

I guess as far as a new direction for the character, it's fine. It requires someone to actually use the Black Knights going forward, which I can't see happening much. But I could be wrong. 2022 could be the year of the Knights. I do like that Jacks did modify her armor to match Dane's, and came up with the helmet to mask their faces, if they want to keep people from realizing there are two of them. Especially since the armor that formed on her during the fight with Mordred gave her the boob plate look. I guess it's magic armor, so maybe it still works find that way. Also glad Dane broke down the crown, because it looked dumb as hell. Davila trying too hard to make a Kirby-style headpiece. I guess it fits if you figure it as an expression of Mordred's feelings of inadequacy or something.

Black Cat #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - I actually went with the Peach Momoko variant, since it was the same cost and it looked cooler. There was a cheaper copy of some connected cover variant that showed Felicia fighting Blade, but it didn't look that great.

Felicia's done grieving or more likely avoiding doing so, and on a job stealing something incredibly valuable. Stealing it from Nick Fury, the one that looks like buff Sam Jackson, not old white guy Nick Fury. Fury shows up mid-heist with some spiel about how warning labels are useless because it just makes people want to investigate more. 

Well yeah, because people know other people are liars. Just because you tell someone, "Oh, nothing valuable or cool in here, it's actually super-dangerous," doesn't mean they're going to believe you. Especially if it's super-spy Nick Fury telling you this. He's a professional liar, it's his job.

Felicia wasn't actually planning to take the object from the shipping container, though. instead, Bruno's got a big helicopter with a magnet on it, and they just take the whole container. Fury objects, but Felicia's determined enough to charge at him and get shot in the leg, all for the chance to throw his ass out into the river. Or the bay. Or maybe the Atlantic? I'm not sure what NYC-adjacent water body that was. Either way, hahahahahaha, eat shit Fury. If only it could have been Maria Hill, but honestly, I'd be insulted on the character's behalf if Maria Hill gave Felicia that much trouble.

Turns out the prize is a new character I think is named Star. She's a villain, maybe tangled with Carol Danvers a couple times? Manifestation of one of the Infinity Gems. Whose genius idea was it to make the Infinity Gems actual people now? Is this Gerry Duggan's fault? Anyway, I'm assuming Felicia has some ill-advised plan to get either the Black Fox or her father back using these people, and that's why she's determined enough to, 'punch out Galactus,' to complete this job.

Villa's artwork looks a little different from before, especially on faces, but I can't place what the difference is. Basically, the lines of Felicia's face are softer than before, her face looks rounder a bit. Either Villa is using a lighter line to outline characters compared to the King in Black tie-in issues, or Reber has shifted his coloring style slightly. The shading seems more gradual, less stark, which might be softening or blunting Villa's lines. Or, like I said, it might be Villa changing up. This is a different story situation from those earlier issues. Instead of a situation she had nothing to do with that's already terrible that Felicia's trying to fix, it's a case of her actively making trouble for herself.

Either way, it was nice to see some action after three issues of people just talking.

Sunday Splash Page #177

 

'Dangling by a Thread," in El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, vol. 3, episode 13, by Hidetomo Tsubura (writer/artist), Lillian Olsen (translation), Dan Nakrosis (letterer)

This was a 3-volume manga series that was released in digest form in the early 2000s, but was originally released in the U.S. as single issue comics. The same dimensions and general page counts as an issue of Spider-Man. Which is something I vaguely remember seeing every once in a while back then, but I was mostly confused. What are these weird comics? I don't understand these titles! There's a strange lack of "X" or "Bat" in them! The manga is based on the anime El-Hazard (which is a little odd, I think it's usually the other way around), which was created by Hiroki Hayashi and Ryoe Tsukimura in the early '90s, who also created the Tenchi Muyo! series a few years earlier.

Which, if you're familiar with Tenchi Muyo, you can see the similarities. The main character being a shy, but kind teenager who finds himself abruptly surrounded by a lot of women with incredible power, many of whom develop an immediate interest in him. Including a princess and an alleged "demon" named Ifurita, who is really an artificially-created weapon who defies her controls out of love for him. Makoto's even able to access and control things which are only meant to be used by people of a particular royal bloodline.

It's not all the same. The romance/harem stuff is wedged in around a war that's going on between the so-called Allied Kingdoms and the Bugroms, who are bug creatures. Rather than trouble coming to him, Makoto falls into the middle of this via an abrupt sinkhole in front of his school. And this passage somehow grants him the power to access royal stuff. And it isn't just him. His schoolteacher falls in and gets super-strength if he's sauced. Or is it if he's sober? A fellow student, an egotistical ass named Jinnai falls in, too, and becomes the general of the Bugrom. Heck, there are even a few women that don't fall in love with Makoto.

Despite the fact the entire manga takes place during an apparently planetwide war, the tone remains light. The story starts with Jinnai chasing Makoto, who started a petition to have Jinnai expelled as student council president for abuse of authority and massive corruption, and got everyone in school to sign. And it keeps a certain amount of that silliness throughout, especially when Jinnai is around, chewing scenery like crazy, and just generally being a petty asshole. Even when Ifurita is fighting against a manifestation of her programming inside her mind, things feel more melodramatic than tense.