The Mexican

Brad Pitt gets sent to Mexico to retrieve a legendary (and supposedly cursed) handgun, as a final menial task to get himself off the hook with a mysterious Mr. Margoles (whose identity is revealed late in the movie and was a complete surprise to me), who is in prison because Pitt's an inattentive driver. He's already in dutch with his girlfriend (Julia Roberts), because the last job was supposed to be the last job, so she moves to Vegas without him.

Except they sent a guy who doesn't speak Spanish to a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, and he keeps losing the pistol and getting back. Meanwhile, Julia Roberts is saved from one gunman taking hostage by another gunman who takes her hostage, played by James Gandolfini. And they end up talking a lot about relationships while Pitt's running around Mexico in a beat to shit pick-up with a very surly dog in the back, trying to get this gun and get home.

I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, and unlike Stranger Than Fiction, it didn't let me down. I had a good feeling a couple of minutes in, when Roberts and Pitt are having an argument as she throws his stuff at him from the balcony and he points if he doesn't go on this job, he gets killed, so really, if anyone is being selfish. . . She fires back, 'Blame-shifting?! You're blame-shifting?!'

It's weird, because Roberts' character has this strong vibe I'd describe as "Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2." Where she gets ramped up and goes on these impassioned spiels that remind me of Pesci screaming about how 'they fuck you with the drive-thru.' (Which is probably my favorite line in all the Lethal Weapon movies.)

It feels a little like a Coen Brothers movie at times, except Pitt's character is more unlucky than stupid or incompetent. Plus it gradually becomes clear there are forces farther up the organizational ladder working at cross-purposes, and that's left him caught in the middle. 

The end is a little strange, not so much for itself, but the fact the movie feels like it reaches the climax 30 minutes earlier, but then you get some more exposition and then the movie tries to ramp up for one more climax, which doesn't really work because no one is going to take the character in question seriously as a threat. I mean, it wraps things up in a little neater bow than was really required, but I also wasn't as interested in the tortured, multiple choice origin of the gun, which factors in.

The shaky ending doesn't ruin the film by any means, though.

What I Bought 1/4/2021 - Part 1

Work is gonna suck today. Nothing like getting yelled at by hysterical morons for two hours over shit that is beyond your control. The last 2020 comics to review have arrived. Current plan is to start Year in Review posts next Wednesday, and go from there. But we gotta get through these first. Two second issues to look at today.

Sea of Sorrows #2, by Rich Douek (writer), Alex Cormack (artist/colorist), Justin Birch (letterer) - Would the flesh even decay, trapped inside a sealed container like that? Especially with it being so cold deep in the ocean?

They found the sub, the found the gold. Problem being, the sub is on the precipice of a deep undersea trench, and it won't take much shift in weight for it to go over. And it's too damaged to haul up with a crane. So no taking gold until they address those problems. Which they're gonna do through the making of big balloons they'll inflate inside the sub. I feel like this was the strategy they employed in Raise the Titanic! Or maybe that was a superlight foam they pumped in.

Other problems: The main dive guy, Nick, probably has a death wish. Scratch that, definitely has a death wish. Not really who you want leading the show in such a hostile environment. The different parties on the ship are definitely not getting along. The siren is starting to pick people off, above and below the waves.

I'm not quite sure why there are so many sharks around the sub. Feels like Cormack draws three or four in every panel set underwater. Unless the siren can command sharks, too. Seems like they'd just be competition for food. This issue seems more focused on establishing mood. The rapidly decaying mental state of several people. Get people on edge (or more on edge in Nick's case), then turn them loose on each other. But it doesn't make for a very exciting issue.

 

The art on the undersea parts is nice, though. The way their lights don't illuminate much, but what they do is almost washed out in the glare. Like how I'd assume those lights would play havoc with night vision. The constant bubbles, the sometimes vague outlines you can barely make out. There's one that is probably a shark, but maybe it's the siren. The graininess of the work gives the blood kind of a peculiar texture, like its trying to partially solidify under the cold and pressure. Just a different way of depicting blood than I've seen in other comics set underwater.

Is that enough to make me want to keep buying it? *waggles hand indecisively*

Kaiju Score #2, by James Patrick (writer), Rem Broo (artist), Dave Sharpe (letterer) - I see she has her Rubik's Cube. Little known fact that kaiju are fascinated by those. Also easily infuriated by them, though.

They get an opportunity to pull the heist. The kaiju's even sleeping right near the museum. But Marco's figured out his ace safecracker isn't who she says she is. Rather, she's a small-timer trying to save the lives of her crew by sneaking into this job on behalf of the Romanian mob. However, he doesn't any choice but to roll with it. Unfortunately, Pierson decided to audible and just kill the security guards, including their inside guy, which I'm sure won't come back to bite them. And the one thing Marco always overlooks rears its gigantic head.

Of the two, I like this second issue a little better. There's more going on, it's not relying so heavily on my investment in the mood to carry it. It spends a little time on the other characters, their motivations. Pierson isn't being a dick strictly because he's convinced Marco's going to botch this. I mean, he is a dick, that's clear, but he's also just unhappy with this situation. He's supposed to be on vacation, and he just wants to get it done as quickly as possible. So he's going to cut corners anywhere he can, because he doesn't give a shit about whatever beautiful design Marco had in mind. It's not about that for him, or protecting a family, or rebuilding his rep. It's just shit work. I been there.

While Rem Broo does an excellent job making it look completely disgusting, I could have gone the rest of my life without the concept of "ticks, but for giant monsters" in my mind. Yikes. I guess next issue we might get to see how Broo handles drawing a giant monster fight. Or at least part of it, since I assume that'll be in the background while Marco and the others try to make this work.

Suddenly

Frank Sinatra is hired by somebody to assassinate the President, and opts to do it by sniping him from a house on a hill that overlooks the train station where the President will be disembarking. The house isn't empty of course, so he and his cronies end up with first three, then four, and eventually five hostages. The hostages range from an old man who used to be in the Secret Service, to his widowed daughter-in-law and her young son, the town sheriff (Sterling Hayden, who apparently only took acting jobs when his boat needed fixing), and eventually the TV repairman.

Sinatra's playing a World War 2 vet who's a little off his nut. He found a certain knack for killing in the military, and was even praised and rewarded for it (he keeps mentioning his Silver Star), so he keeps at it. It made him somebody worth noticing, after all. The assassination has no political meaning to him beyond that. In fact, he thinks the people paying him are suckers because you kill the President, so what? They just make the Vice-President the President. Big deal.

There's time to waste, so the sheriff spends a lot of time trying to argue with Sinatra, to distract him and gain an opening. he also spends a lot of time arguing with the mom, who he's sweet on, but she's extremely protective of her son, and bitter that her husband died fighting overseas. She's not big on the idea of there being something noble about giving your life in service of a cause, so getting her on board to make some suicidal push to stop Sinatra is a challenge. But they manage it, because it's the duty of every good American to die when ordered to.

There's some weird, abrupt cuts, like they did the most slapdash, rushed edit possible between one character speaking and another. They have Sinatra speak directly to the camera when he's monologuing sometimes, which is just weird. So the production values are kind of junk, but there's a fair amount of tension.

It's A Lopsided Kind of March

So the March solicits were pretty lousy. Outside Marvel, I hardly found anything. 

DC's kicking off their Infinite Frontier thing, which has largely amounted to them drastically slashing their number of titles. Which, on the one hand, is probably smart. Focus on books you think can actually survive. From my perspective, it's not great, because the books they're going to publish aren't ones I'm interested in. Not that that's a new thing. The closest was the anthology Bat-book, Batman: Urban Legends, that might highlight non-Batman Gotham types. But even then, it'll depend on which characters they pick.

Oh, and Ryan North and Derek Charm are doing some kind of Lil' Constantine graphic novel, which is an. . . interesting choice. Not one for me, but I'm sure for somebody.

As for Marvel, Black Cat is finally out of King in Black tie-in hell! Whoo! But with yet another artist. Sigh. Black Knight and Beta Ray Bill are each getting mini-series. I don't know the Daniel Warren Johnson that's writing and drawing Beta Ray's book, but Si Spurrier's teaming up with Sergio Davila on Black Knight. Between Spire, Coda, and that Marvel Zombies Secret Wars tie-in mini-series, Spurrier's usually worked out for me. The Larry Hama Iron Fist mini will be up to issue 3, The Union up to issue 4, and Taskmaster will be on its last issue. Runaways is supposed to finally ship that issue where the mutants to to convince Molly to come to their shitty weird sex-cult island, so she can hang out with cool dudes like Magneto and Mr. Sinister. There was no sign of Deadpool's ongoing; instead there's some giant-sized 30th anniversary issue of his first appearance. 

Pass.

Like Taskmaster, Sea of Sorrows will be on its last issue, if I'm still buying it at that point. White Lily, about the Soviet fighter ace lady, will be on its second issue. The only new thing I saw that looked interesting was by Louis Southard and David Hahn, called Midnight Western Theatre, about two strangers marching into a town held hostage by some outlaw and his gang. One of them has sharp teeth on the cover, so I'm guessing vampires.

Sunday Splash Page #147

 

"The Hulk Goes to Not-So Pleasantville", in Defenders (vol. 2) #12, by Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Gregory Wright (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

After the first volume of Defenders wrapped up around issue 150, there was a brief Secret Defenders series in the early '90s (which we might look at in 8-10 years), and then in the early 2000s, Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen teamed up for another Defenders series, with all of the Big Four - Strange, Hulk, Namor, and the Surfer - involved.

We talked a little bit about the challenges of having a team comprised of grumpy (or whiny in the Surfer's case) loners in Sunday Splash Page #143. Steve Engelhart took the approach of having them get roped into a series of missions, one bleeding into the next. After that, they're never really together. Len Wein shuffled the Surfer off, and Gerber sent Namor away, although Kraft brought him back, but not until after Strange bowed out. Instead you got a few mainstays like Valkyrie and Nighthawk, and eventually Hellcat, and a bunch of temporary folks like Luke Cage, Red Guardian, or Moon Knight.

Busiek and Larsen decided to lean into the idea these guys didn't really want to hang out, by making it something beyond their control. Hellcat warns them that an old enemy named Yandroth is up to something, and they grudgingly thwart him, arguing constantly. Yandroth dumps a death curse on them, tied to the Earth's life force. Any time Earth is threatened, the four of them get yoinked (with a "POIT!" sound effect) from whatever they were doing and deposited where the threat lies. And they can't leave. If they get too far away, the curse just POITs them back.

As you can imagine, none of them love this development, and the longer it goes, the surlier and more irritable they get. But you can only enjoy reading about a team of people who increasingly despise each other for so long, so Busiek and Larsen were smart enough to add some other, more cheerful characters. Hellcat sticks around, feeling a little guilty that she was the one who alerted them to Yandroth. Altough Larsen reverts Patsy's costume to the primarily yellow one she's mostly had, getting rid of the frankly-very cool-looking one Norm Breyfogle gave her in the Hellcat mini-series he and Steve Engelhart did (which we'll probably see in a couple of years). 

Nighthawk jumps at the chance to get back in the superhero game, and at one point admits he prefers the Defenders to trying to join the Avengers because the Defenders don't waste time on charters or rules. They just go deal with the problems. And the first mission after the curse involves Pluto and Lorelei trying to manipulate a Valkyrie. Nighthawk also had a statuesque blonde bodyguard who seems connected to the Valkyrie deal and that turns into a whole thing. Anyway, those three serve the valuable function of being a) likeable, and b) able to function as a team. Hulk and Namor spend as much time fighting each other as anyone else, and Strange and the Surfer spend most of their time acting like exasperated parents.

After issue 12, the book becomes The Order (although it maintains its numbering) for six issues, as the Big Four seemingly hit their boiling point and decide the best way to protect the world is to subjugate it. That story, and the series, wrap after 6 issues.

I guess the book didn't get a positive reception at the time. They put a quote from Comics International on the cover of issue 8 where it was called 'the worst comic ever produced.' Which seems ridiculous. I mean, what about all those shitty attempts to copy the Ninja Turtles that came out in the 1980s, or any number of Image series with unintelligible plots or indecipherable art? 

It's not Busiek or Larsen's best work, certainly. Busiek was writing Avengers simultaneously with this, among other things, and I think Larsen was struggling with pneumonia for part of the time. Ron Frenz steps in once or twice, and Ivan Reis a couple times as well. Matt Haley draws most of The Order. 

I think trying to force the Surfer in there as a permanent piece was a mistake. He's not really the sort to get drawn into the Hulk and Namor's bickering, and Strange doesn't really need someone else to hang around and be exasperated with him. So he mostly just complains about how insane humans are, which, granted, is 85% of all Silver Surfer stories anyway, but just makes him kind of annoying.

The Best and the Worst of My Non-Comics Entertainment

As we have finally escaped 2020, it's time to look back at the best and the worst of books and movies I tried using to stave off the bad vibes. We're skipping video games again, because the only game I really played this year was Chrono Trigger on the DS.

Books

20 books total this year, split almost exactly between non-fiction (11) and fiction (9). Most of the fiction is John Dos Passos, with the other three books being Don Quixote, Lords and Ladies, and Caves of Steel. So clearly I'm not into contemporary fiction.

Lords and Ladies is probably at the top, and then probably One Man's Initiation: 1917. The latter isn't as polished as some of Dos Passos' later stuff, but it also avoids the stylistic approaches I didn't love in those later works. Don Quixote could be in the running, it was definitely better than I expected. But it's also incredibly long, and that starts to wear after awhile.

The Big Money would probably be my least favorite. Not because it was terrible, but it's just very depressing watching the characters make the exact same mistakes, and since it's the longest of Dos Passos' books, there's lots of time for them to repeat those mistakes, again and again.

Of the non-fiction, my favorite was The Beak of the Finch. I loved reading about all the selection pressure on the birds, the way they've adapted to the specific habitats of each island. After that, Desert Solitaire. Abbey's crankiness about people can get a little trying at times, but his descriptions of the landscape and the wildlife, and his float trip down the river with his friend, were really engaging and interesting.

Worst was the two volumes of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway I read. There's some letters in there that over a real glimpse into Hemingway's mindset, like watching him get frustrated with his mother's insistence he's got to financially carry everyone, but there's a lot more that's just not very interesting.

Movies

67 movies this year, and so much crap in there. What else is new. But it's not all bad. I got around to watching John Wick Chapter 3. The Weather Forecast was kind of odd, and pretty sad, but it was a solid movie. The Death of Stalin was hilarious, even allowing that all these idiots are going to keep backstabbing each other because they don't know any other way of doing things. Train to Busan was a fun little zombie apocalypse movie.

But my two favorite movies of the year were The Mad Miss Manton, which managed to have a decent mystery, while also having zany hijinks and a lot of funny bits in it. Maybe that's a matter of me having lower expectations for it than some of those others (although I didn't have any expectations for The Weather Forecast or Train to Busan I can recall.) And the other is. . . Armour of God. 

Does this Jackie Chan movie make any sense whatsoever? Not really. But when you've got Jackie Chan fighting four dominatrices in a spooky cave, or trying not to get run over by a bunch of stereotypical guys on dirtbikes, concerns like story logic or consistent characterization, all just fall away. I'm too busy going "Holy shit, did he just do that?!"

Worst movies? Session 9 felt like it couldn't decide what kind of horror film it wanted to be. Lockout was undercut by Guy Pearce's inability to convey any emotional depth or feeling beyond a smirk. The Cheap Detective did what I think they set out to do, but felt incredibly lazy. Likewise, Hamburger Hill was the most generic-ass Vietnam War movie I've ever seen. Again, I think it did what it set out to do, but what it set out to do had already been done better in plenty of other movies. Stranger than Fiction was just a letdown.

Tempting as it is to put Hamburger Hill as one of the two worst, I'm going with Hurricane Heist and Ghosts of War. The latter was going pretty good until the last twenty minutes, when the big surprise twist completely tanked the movie. Hurricane Heist was just dumb, but not in a fun way, like those Jackie Chan movies, where the story is just trying to get you to the next ridiculous action sequence. Hurricane Heist is just so aggressively stupid with some of the decisions it makes, and it feels like it's trying to take everything seriously, while doing things to absurd to take seriously.

Music

I actually got a lot of CDs this year (you can't be surprised that I still purchase physical media), so we can have this category. Granted, most of the CDs I got were things from my mom's collection, because she figures she's got the stuff she wants ripped and saved elsewhere, but that's OK.

I tried use it as an opportunity to branch out slightly. She had a couple of country CDs, and I reaffirmed that I don't have much use for country music. I bought a BB King album to see if I could get into the blues. That was a mixed bag. Also found out I'm apparently not much of a Bruce Springsteen guy. I thought he'd be a little more hard rock, but most of his stuff seems very, mournful? For the amount of songs on the 3-disc set she let me have, I didn't like many of them.

Best of the year was naturally Alex' album, The Electronomicon LP.  It's only six songs, but he did each one in a different style. So if one song doesn't work for you, maybe the others will. Other than that, maybe the Best of David Bowie, or Big Boi and Dre Present. . .Outkast. All I can really go off is the number of songs I liked relative to the total number of songs on the albums, and I think those two did pretty well by that measure, so there you go.

The Mad Miss Manton

Barbara Stanwyck plays wealthy heiress Miss Manton, who sees an old friend drive away from an empty house one night, and when she goes inside, finds a dead body. She rushes out to call the cops, and by the time they reaches the scene, the body's gone. 

At that point, I figured it was going to be a movie about her being caught up in a string of murders, while the killer tries to make her look nuts to discredit her. But that's not it. A very young Henry Fonda plays a newspaper editor who writes an unflattering article about Miss Manton and her friends flaunting their wealth and wasting police time, and ends up in her crosshairs.

Manton convinces her friends to help her investigate, despite the police alternating between trying to warn them off, pin the murders on them, or use Manton as a decoy to lure out the killer. Fonda keeps trying to get involved, and keeps his getting ass kicked by the society gals. 

You know, some people would pay good money to be beaten and tied up by a lot of rich, attractive young women. All he has to do is start talking.

Fonda apparently decides he likes rich women who aggravate and confound him, and tries his best to woo Stanwyck, who is mostly annoyed by his attempts to "protect" her. 

It's a fun movie. The murder mystery is fairly clever, with clues and false leads. Stanwyck and her friends are hilarious, excited to investigate the murder, until they start running into actual dead bodies. The lead cop on the investigation is played by Sam Levene, who usually plays smart-mouth, dim-witted cops. He's as out-matched in the battle of wits by Stanwyck as Fonda is, which is entertaining. Stanwyck plays Manton as determined and clever, but not brilliant or fearless. She gets scared and nervous, but she's too curious and stubborn to give up.

I don't know if I buy the romantic tension between Stanwyck and Fonda, but I've mentioned before I'm not a big fan of relationships based on two characters who fight and bicker all the time. Fonda's good at playing a guy who's besotted with a lady that also frustrates the hell out of him. It's funny watching them argue and annoy each other, at least.

Never Research the Fates of Minor Characters

In Random Back Issues #50, I mentioned I wasn't sure what Cammi had been up to since Dennis Hopeless let her go back into space at the end of Avengers Undercover, and that I was a little leery of trying to find out, because Donny Cates probably killed her during his Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Well, I did end up looking into that weekend, and well, Donny Cates didn't kill her in his Guardians of the Galaxy run. She popped up in that Drax series CM Punk wrote, and then in Asgardians of the Galaxy, a book I had blessedly forgotten existed. And then Dennis Hopeless killed her in Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider, which is, when you think about it, Donny Cates' fault, because he created that stupid character.

I mean, a Ghost Rider in space? OK fine, the '90s Guardians of the Galaxy series established that was a thing, and Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider was all about how there were a bunch of Ghost Riders just on Earth. But then you write him as a) working for Thanos, and b) so nutty I thought it was supposed to be Deadpool. Which would at least make sense for a) if you figure those two characters each have a thing for Death.

But no! Cosmic Ghost Rider is actually Frank Castle. Yes, the guy who kills murders and drug dealers for killing or even just preying on people works for the guy who killed half the people in the universe. Because he decided he couldn't kill him, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Which sounds so entirely contrary to Frank Castle, I'm not sure where to start, but it makes me think Donny Cates and whoever lets him write for a living should probably be ostracized (in the Athenian sense of being exiled for 10 years.)

And from what I can tell looking online, Cammi let her soul be sent to Hell to save Frank's (wasted effort there), and then when he got her out, her soul was devoured by some other thing, and now it runs around in her body.

So, Hopeless offed her so Frank can. . . be angry about someone who got killed and want to kill the one responsible? Frank Castle's already like that, all the time. It's his entire existence, killing people because he's mad his family got killed. He doesn't need more deaths to be angry about.

Back when Avengers Arena came out, I knew I would've been one of the folks angry with it if Hopeless had offed one of the characters I really liked. Meaning either Cammi or Darkhawk. They dodged that bullet, but when you're a third-tier character or worse, it's always just a matter of time before somebody offs you for cheap dramatics.

Fargo

I'd never actually watched this, and going in, I thought the movie was about William H. Macy's character hiring two guys to kill his wife, who was the sheriff, played by Frances McDormand. Don't know how I got that idea, but that was my impression.

So actually Macy hires Steve Buscemi and Peter Stromare to kidnap his wife to hold for ransom, and they end up killing some other people along the way, and that's how Frances McDormand gets brought in, investigating these killings near her town.

And everyone other than her is as much of a fuck-up as I'd always heard. Macy's a putz trying to run a financial shell game so he can build a freaking parking lot, and he couldn't get his father-in-law to loan him the money. He loses control of the situation almost immediately, if he ever had any control to begin with. Buscemi runs his mouth constantly, but always makes things worse by doing so. He can't help himself. 

Why argue with the parking attendant guy over $4? Why argue with Stromare over paying him half the value of the car, when he knows there's a briefcase with another $920.000 waiting for him? Because he's having a bad day, due to his own stupidity, and he can't help himself. Stromare actually mostly keeps his cool, but goes to violence far too easily, which adds to the body count and just makes things.

One thing I wasn't clear on was why Buscemi's character was there at all. Shep only got Macy in contact with Stromare, and doesn't even know who Buscemi's character is. And he and Stromare don't seem to be pals or anything, so I'm not sure how he got into this.

I didn't really understand the point of the subplot about Mike Yanagita. He wants to reconnect with the sheriff, but she's faithful to her husband - them being a happy and supportive couple was very sweet - and he lies about having married one of their old school acquaintances and her dying of leukemia? I guess it's meant to mean he's another person unhappy with his lot in life and grasping desperately for what he thinks will improve it. Like Macy, who wants to be a success on his terms, feel in control, even as he's trying to both beg and bilk his father-in-law out of a lot of cash. Or Buscemi and Stromare, who want money and in Buscemi's case, probably respect or something too.

And then there's the sheriff, who sounds like a yokel, but thinks calmly and clearly. Doesn't get stressed, doesn't get flustered. She just moves forward methodically, following leads, asking questions, and then pulls everything together. I'm not sure whether these guys being complete idiots makes that easier or harder. Probably easier since they leave trails and clues everywhere, but on the other hand, can you operate your case under the assumption the criminals you're pursuing are the dumbest people on the planet?

What I Bought 12/18/2020 - Part 4

The last new comic reviews of 2020. Not the last 2020 new comics that will be reviewed, mind you, since there's still a few things I'm waiting on from these last couple weeks. You know what I mean. Fittingly enough, it's the final issue of a series.

Sera and the Royal Stars #10, by Jon Tsuei (writer), Audrey Mok (artist), Raul Angulo (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - That's it everybody, look thoughtful for your senior photo.

Everybody fights. The Draco siblings turn themselves into a big, two-headed dragon. No symbiotes, though. The Royal Stars are on "E", so the fight's not going too well. The best they can really manage is to keep the dragon from taking to the air, blind one of them in one eye. Which I actually like. They can't just find some special wellspring of extra power to fight on equal terms. What they've got is all they've got, and they have to make do. Keep the Dracos focused on them and give Sera the chance to use the big sword. So I like how the fight plays out.

And it enough for Sera to cut them back into two, and then run Rastaban through. Which turns him to stone, kills him, something. The sword vanishes, too. Nobody wants to keep it as a souvenir? Eltanin flies off swearing vengeance, but the seal on the Stars is broken, so they can go chill in their actual stars and recover. The seasons can return, and life on Earth is probably safe. For humans to wipe out themselves, I mean. Hooray!

 

Surprisingly, Sera, her sister, and their mother decide they can't return home, since Sera's sketchy uncle is running Parsa now. It might cause succession issue questions, which could cause a rebellion. So they'll let the guy prove he can do the job, and if not, then they'll show up and kick his ass. I mean, if they wanted a vacation they could just say so. It's perfectly understandable. 

Also it leaves them open to the possibility of more adventures as they travel, in case Tsuei and Mok decide they want to come back to this book someday, I imagine.

One thing I'm left wondering about is, Mithra took Sera's heart and replaced it with Regulus' gem thing. Now Regulus seems to be back to his old self. So did Sera get her heart back? Or does she still have the gem thing, which got cracked by Eltannin a couple of issues ago? I'm guessing the gem, because she still has the red striping under her eyes from when she sort of fully claimed Regulus' power last issue (which I feel like raises questions about him of its own). That wouldn't seem like the best thing to be relying on for keeping yourself alive.

I liked the series. I would have been fine with it going on for longer, and if we do get a sequel someday, I'd almost certainly give it a whirl, assuming the same creative team is on the books. I thought there were going to be a lot more Stars, but Tsuei kept it to four, which made it easier to give them distinct personalities, and tended to have the heroes split into smaller groups, which lets you advance the plot in multiple places and gives everyone a chance to be useful in some way. Mok's work isn't anything terribly flashy, but it's expressive and I really like the character designs. How the Royal Stars have certain similarities in their clothes, but each is different. Same with the Dracos, same with Sera and her family. It makes them look cool and distinctive.

Sunday Splash Page #146

 

"Don't Get My Hopes Up, Norriss", in Defenders Annual #1, by Steve Gerber (writer), Sal Buscema and Klaus Janson (artists), D. Warfield (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

This is effectively the end of Steve Gerber's run on the Defenders. There was one more issue of the ongoing after this, but this wraps up all of what Gerber had been doing with the Headmen, with the strange "Bozo" movement, and with Jack Norriss' abrupt departure a few issues earlier.

Norriss somehow got it in his head that at a point when the Defenders had knocked unconscious by the Headmen in a previous fight, they were given subliminal commands to make them do seemingly bizarre, random acts of destruction or mischief. These would instill fear and unease in the populace, and help the Headmen conquer the world through economic and political means. So he got a bunch of money out of Nighthawk to go try and play secret agent. Complete with knockout gas cuff links. Which prove entirely ineffective against Ruby Thursday. Great hustle, Norriss, ya putz. 

Meanwhile, you've got Nebulon the Celestial Man convincing everyone they're bozos and should abandon individuality and free will to do what he says, granting him control of the world.

The Defenders end up in the middle, and mostly look like chumps, getting shrunk down and put in some tiny city under a dome. Then at the end, they manage to at least defeat the Headmen in a fight. Norriss naturally can't resist raining on the parade by pointing out it does nothing to undo all the damage the Headmen have already done. 

Nebulon gets driven off after Doc Strange does the old, "make him experience all of humanity at once" trick and Nebulon decides we're all too nuts to try and save and bails. Must be nice to be able to just jaunt off across the universe to get away from it all. I'm stuck relying on the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.

What I Bought 12/18/2020 - Part 3

It's Christmas. I'm at my dad's, since it'll be just us and his dogs in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully you're able to be with someone you'd like to be around.

For today, we got a couple of first issues. That's good. They're both King in Black tie-ins. That's probably not good.

The Union #1, by Paul Grist (writer/penciler/inker), Andrea DeVito (penciler), Drew Geraci and Le Beau Underwood (inkers), Nolan Woodward (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - What' Union Jack doing with Atomic Robo's revolver?

I would say it's an introduction to the team issue, but it's barely that. Most of it focuses on Union Jack trying to get some regular joe soldier guys through some sort of training exercise, except the team has taken most of them down already. There's a little bit of discussion after, some tension between the costumed types and the soldiers, some tension between Britannia and some stupid tech bro guy that's sponsoring/funding them, and then a symbiote dragon shows up, and Britannia gets impaled on its tail the same time she cut its head off.

I get the impression she'll be back shortly. Probably has a life-force tied to England and can't remain dead or something. But at this point I know Kelpie has some kind of water manipulation power, The Choir has something voice-based, and Snakes talks in diamond-shaped speech balloons. That's pretty much it. Why these characters, or anything else about them really, I don't know. I think there's a Paul Grist variant cover that provides a tiny bit more information, but you should probably try and do a little more in the first issue.

 

DeVito gets two different inkers, which I assume is because this was originally supposed to tie-in to Empyre, and they had to take out pages of invading plant-people and replace them with pages of invading symbiotes. There's a couple of spots where DeVito's work looks more like Tom Grummett's, especially in the faces, than I'm used to. I think Geraci and Underwood were lighter inkers than what I'm used to seeing on DeVito's work. Which would mostly be Annihilation and the Abnett/Lanning Nova series, where DeVito inked his own work.

It's pretty standard superhero comic art. Nothing really flashy about layouts or designs, very straightforward in that sense. But clean, easy to follow art. Gives you all the information it's supposed to (as far as I can tell). The dragon could probably stand to look weirder. It mostly just looks like it has really wrinkly skin from being in the tub too long. You'd think a symbiote-wearing dragon would look more monstrous.

Black Cat #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - The Villa variant cover was the only I could find that wasn't King in Black related, and actually emphasized what I'm buying the book for, Felicia stealing stuff.

Cat was going to rip off some guys who heisted an old SHIELD laundered cash location, but the symbiotes came crashing through the ceiling and ruined that. She reluctantly jumps in to help Captain America, and is feeling pretty good about their chances until she watches Dr. Strange get captured. Cap tells her to bail and get Strange back, and so that's what she's going to do. Steal him back from Knull with the help of her crew and some scientist guy I assume was part of Venom's supporting cast recently.

I wouldn't say much more happens in this issue than in The Union, but I think MacKay does a better job at least explaining who the doctor guy is and why Felicia is bothering to recruit him. And makes sure to make a nod towards the plotline left over from the last volume about her plan to rob the Thieves' Guild vault. Plus, this is at least a sort of tie-in that makes sense. The Black Cat isn't going to be on the front lines, she's going to be working behind the lines.

 

Like with DeVito, Villa doesn't do anything really outside the box or wildly creative. Again, though, the art is solid, clear, easy to follow. You can understand the story, and it looks nice enough. The expressions on Felicia's guys to her mission on the last page are pretty good. Villa's dragons are possibly even less distinctive than DeVito's. Basically just dragons that are all black, except the membrane for their wings, which is red. Occasionally in a close-up, you see tendrils and threads of the symbiote flicking around the dragons' mouths, but that's about it. It makes more sense, given the symbiotes usually are presented as becoming skin-tight outer coverings, with maybe a few tendrils, but it still feels like a letdown.

But I'd just as soon be done with the tie-ins as soon as possible, so as long as they get through them on time, that's fine with me.

The Prisoner (1990)

In theory, this Jackie Chan movie is about a warden who fakes the execution of his prisoners, then promises them a new identity and freedom if they perform a simple job for him. In practice, that gets almost entirely ignored after the start of the movie, when a cop gets himself arrested for assault and thrown in prison, until the last twenty minutes. 

A lot of the film gets taken up with Sammo Hung's character, who keeps making escapes to see his son briefly, and is trying to figure out some way to get away for good. On top of that, Jackie Chan ends up in prison after a truly ludicrous sequence of events that had nothing to do with the "use convicts as mercs" thing.

As an aside, I like some of the odd professions Jackie gets in his movies, when he's not being a cop or secret agent. Like how he was a TV chef in Mister Nice Guy. In this one, he's a professional pool player who dates a fashion model. 

Jackie ends up in prison, dodging assassination attempts set up by the scumbag brother of the scumbag Jackie was convicted of killing. Really, the guy fell on his own knife like a dumbass, but try telling his brother that. 

So the movie jumps back and forth between those, and takes time to introduce the cop's roommate, a geeky guy who keeps a mouse he calls Goliath, and who dies horribly in an attempt on the cop. There's also one particular inmate who looks like an accountant, but apparently is a serious hardass. Although that's undercut when the warden threatens him and he responds, 'You're the kind of guy who farts, but ain't got the shit to back it up.' Um, OK?

I wouldn't say everything comes together at the end, but they at least remember what the movie started with, and make an attempt. Of course, the attempt comes via a wild shootout at an airport, where four men with handguns hold of dozens of soldiers with machine guns through the magic of killing someone with every single shot. But it's still an attempt.

What I Bought 12/18/2020 - Part 2

I will never understand sports fans bemoaning their team winning because it hurts their draft position. In this case, Jets' fans being angry they actually won a game. If your team is so incompetent they can't win a single game, why would you have any hope a high draft pick is going to improve anything? The idiots that built the shitty team are still there, so either they'll pick the wrong player, or coach, or fail to put good players around him. I never root for my team to lose. Take any win you can get.

Deadpool #9, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler), Victor Nava (inker), Chris Sotomayor (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Well, it's not Wade's first relationship with someone who sucks the life out of him.

Wade's fighting the Bone creatures with the added power of the Bloodstone. But the infection in it is killing him, and it lets the Queen read his mind. You'd think that would be enough to incapacitate her right there, but no. Elsa's getting the kids and Jeff (who loves getting to carry a knife in his mouth and stab things, apparently) to safety, but can't quite bring herself to abandon Wade, who has let the Queen eat him. Then he blows himself up from the inside. And because he's dead, the Queen's infection is somehow burned out of the Bloodstone? So Elsa can put it back in her hand and fry the Queen. 

Despite being just a head, Wade is not dead, and says he still wants an apology from her. When Elsa points out her forgave her already, Wade counters she was dying at that time, of course he said that. Now that she's not, and he blew himself up to save her, he wants another apology. Instead, Elsa threatens to leave him there, but ultimately carries him in a baby bjorn. Which means he gets to rest next to her chest. I'd say getting to second base is as good an apology as he's likely to get.

And unfortunately, we don't get to see monster softball next issue because they have to do King in Black tie-ins. Or as the preview of next issue's cover describes it, 'Venom Nonsense.' Boo, boooooooooo.

 

So, that happened. It was OK. It makes me wonder if Elsa couldn't simply have pried the Bloodstone out of her hand and let it sit for a while to get rid of the infection. If the infection was in the stone, and using it infects the person, but taking it away removes the infection, like it did with Elsa, then that would seem like the obvious answer. I guess you could argue Elsa is too attached to it to surrender it willingly, since it's part of her legacy, and I'm not sure what Elsa's got in her life if she isn't killing monsters with the power of an ancient rock.

I'm really more interested by Deadpool trying to run a nation. Hard to see when we're going to get much of that, unless we see him rallying his people to fight symbiotes. Not that I want a lot of minutiae on bureaucracy, but just watching him try to be a leader. He's probably bad at it, but he can care deeply about people, and he'll go to the wall for them, which aren't the worst qualities to have. Certainly better than most of the elected officials here in the United States. 

(Really, could Deadpool be any worse at diplomacy than Trump? I guess if you consider killing foreign dictators bad, then yes, possibly.)

Taskmaster #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Vitti (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - It's fine, I'm sure Taskmaster has copied how to do the superhero landing if Hyperion lets go.

Taskmaster goes to Coulson's favorite comic shop to copy his kinesics, but is uncovered by his love for Alpha Flight. He tries to bail, but Hyperion shows up, and Taskmaster trying to fight him goes about as well as you'd expect. Fortunately, Fury had himself some Krypto- sorry, Argonite, and Tasky attached it to a Boomerang arrow for the win. Kind of disappointed he didn't go ahead and slit Hyperion's throat. There's like 47 of them running around. Instead of the Captain Britain Corps, the Hyperion Corps. Anyway, that's one of the three down, but Black Widow found Fury's hidey-hole, so she knows who they're after. Oh no, that'd be really concerning if I wasn't still convinced this was all a trick to get Taskmaster to do their dirty work.

Fury and Taskmaster keep calling Coulson "Cheese". Like "Phil"ly Cheese slices? I don't know. Nobody explains it, and honestly, it doesn't matter, it was just weird. I was just grateful Taskmaster is apparently the one person who doesn't like Phil Coulson, and was happy to punch him in the face a couple of times. I knew there had to be someone. (Yeah, Deadpool killed Coulson, but that wasn't personal, he just figured Captain America had good reasons.)

 

I still think Vitti's artwork is a little too busy, too overdone. Too many little lines, everybody's way too muscular. Like, even Coulson looks kind of jacked, and Taskmaster's practically got Thor arms, which is a little much. I guess since this is supposed to be a sneaky spy thing, so people need to look squinty and weathered, but I feel like maybe don't apply that to Hyperion, who is probably supposed to act like your stereotypical superhero. If he wasn't, he'd had just punched Tasky's head off with the first swing, instead of holding back enough he still hadn't knocked him out after multiple punches. So let him look different.

So, did I like this enough to get issue 3? I don't know. I'm kind of debating skipping Deadpool's King in Black tie-ins at the moment, let alone whether I care enough to watch Taskmaster fight the White Fox. If either book had an artist I liked better, it would be an easier decision, but they don't.

The Rainmaker (1956)

Not to be confused with the movie of the same name with Matt Damon and Jon Voight, thank goodness. This one is set on a drought-riddled farm in the early 20th Century Midwest. 

Katherine Hepburn plays the plain (they use that word a lot) daughter, who has not found a guy interested in her, that she's also interested. Her father H.C. (Cameron Prudhomme) insists there's nothing wrong with her, and she's beautiful, and she'll find someone. Her younger brother Jim (Earl Holliman), a hot-tempered idiot, insists that to get a man, she's got to act the way that makes a man want to be got. Meaning act air-headed and compliment their height, or their clothes. Her other brother Noah, played as a sour-faced pragmatist by Lloyd Bridges, says she needs to accept she's just plain, and that she'll end up an old maid. But hey, he's just telling it like it is. Thanks a lot, Captain Bringdown. I see why you're also single.

Into all this comes Burt Lancaster, playing Starbuck, a huckster who insists that for just 100 dollars, he will make it rain within 24 hours. Hepburn and Bridges insist it's hokum, the father and Jim and all for it. The dreamers take it, and Starbuck sets to work. Since he's got 24 hours, he spends some time trying to get Hepburn to like him, too, and when she refuses in the face of his charm, says she's got no dreams in her and that no one will ever like her as a woman, because she doesn't see herself as a woman.

OK, lacking in tact there. No wonder he's had to run from more towns than the guy that sold the Monorail to Springfield. At one point he tells her you have to hold onto dreams, tell yourself it's black, even when your eyes say it's white. Is that what the people insisting Trump won the election are doing? Holding onto their dreams?

Lancaster gets the fun role, dispensing truth bombs and bullshit with equal charm and energy. Hepburn feels wasted, honestly. She's fully capable of being a charming, engaging character, but it's all shrill yelling and self-doubt.

What I Bought 12/18/2020 - Part 1

Pretty good haul this go-round. Out of the 8 books from the first three weeks of December, I found 7 (the last issue of Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists is the lone outlier), and just managing that many comics at all is a minor miracle considering how this year's gone. Figured today we'd look at the last issues of a couple of mini-series.

Spy Island #4, by Chelsea Cain (writer), Lia Miternique (cover/designer/supplemental art), Elise McCall (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The rare skull-blood fern, which makes delicious tea. Or is it the rare blood-skull fern, which is a deadly poison?

So Louie, the Freud sisters' father, is digging up sunken artifacts off-shore using an army of sand fleas for back-up, and Nora has gathered most of the other secret agent types on the island to stage a scuba assault and bring him down. Quite why that required faking the stupid Brit guy's death, I'm unclear. Why it requires outfitting Brit guy's corgi with scuba gear, I'm also unclear. The mermaids, who are sick of Louie's excavations disturbing their sleep, join in to help, and Nora placates the Kraken (also woken up by all the noise and unhappy) with a bottle of wine, and there you go. Louie's still pretending to be a mime, but now he's running an ice cream stand. Truly a fate worse than death.

I don't know. Being a spy is really about daddy issues, for both women and men? Meetings with estranged parents are always ultimately unsatisfying, because they still have the same flaws that led to the estrangement in the first place? In other words, Louie's still a selfish, conniving asshole. Life is a series of things (or people) you find to do to keep from being bored off your ass?

 

I did grin at Nora's annoyed 'unbelievable' when Louie tells Connie she's his favorite daughter. And the panel where the mermaids and the sand fleas leave as quickly as possible as the Kraken wakes up. Actually, the panel that shows the Kraken as this enormous eye that looks like matter collapsing into a event horizon or something was pretty cool. Although how the hell did it get into that cave if its eye is as big as the entrance?

And the bits where they're using what I assume is not accurate sign language to communicate underwater. Although I gotta wonder about Connie's wetsuit having the same symbol on it as Louie's knockoff Deep-Sea Doctor Octopus (with flailing tentacles action!) diving suit. I guess it's what they had available. Brit Guy is out there in flippers, a bucket over his head, wearing his swim trunks. I would think the bottom of the ocean is pretty cold, even around Bermuda. Oh well, not like the cold would damage anything important.

Amethyst #6, by Amy Reeder (writer/artist), Marissa Louise (color artist), Gabriella Downie (letterer) - Uh-oh, she's activating Extra-Glowy Hyper Mode. Shit just got real.

Amethyst and her friends try to hold off Dark Opal and his combination throne/spider-mech. Even when Maxixe's people showing up to help, and the folks from Emerald and the Banned she offered haven to, things are going poorly. Especially because the Diamonds decided to play Switzerland (or the United States for most of World War I) and just sit back and watch. Amy is running through all this stuff in her head about the properties of different crystals, and hits on black tormaline, which banishes negative energy. If you say so

Which takes down Dark Opal, and frees all of her people, but also may have wiped out all the amethyst present. If you figure her parents' general shittiness, and the fact their entire people where imprisoned within amethyst, I guess I could see the stone being banished as a source of negative energy. 

 

Her newfound birth parents are not pleased, but the Diamonds, largely ineffectual Johnny-Come-Latelys they are, are hauling them off for questioning, so tough shit. So Amy's meeting with her parents went horribly. See my comment in the Spy Island review about there usually being reasons for parties being estranged. Lord and Lady Amethyst were conceited, arrogant snobs, only concerned with their status and that hasn't changed. With no amethyst, I guess that makes them kind of a joke, and that's not OK.

But there still seem to be plenty of people who want Amy to be their leader, so that's good for her.

I'd been under the impression people in Gemworld could only do magic through their own types of gems, each with their own specialties and whatnot. If Amy can channel her power through something that's not amethyst, maybe not. Or maybe she's unique. Ugh, I hope they don't turn her into a Lord of Order again. That was such a terrible decision the first time they did it. I would think that the complete dissolution of one of the Houses of Gemworld would be an issue, but as DC has upended everything now, I'm guessing we'll never know.

Most of the time in this issue, Reeder keeps the panels as square or rectangles. Flat, level, thick black borders. But when things start to get more tense, usually when Amethyst is directly confronting Opal, or Opal is gaining the upper hand, Reeder has the panels start to tilt or slant. I don't think there's a pattern to, them tilting one way when Amy gets the edge, the other when Opal does, it's just something I noticed. I did like how Amy throws the gem and there's a tiny "shiiing" sound effect, and then her magic hits and the panel itself is a massive "CHA" effect. Although I half expected the sound effect to continue on the next line down. But I think it's been well-established by my repeated gushing over Marcos Martin that I'm a sucker for those kinds of things.

Sunday Splash Page #145

 

"How Come Valkyrie Doesn't Get a Cool Adjective?" in The Defenders (vol. 1) #50, by David Kraft (writer), Keith Giffen (artist), Don Warfield (colorist), John Costanza (letterer) 

Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema left the book after issue 41. Gerry Conway wrote the next couple of issues, then co-wrote the next two with Roger Slifer and David Anthony Kraft. Then Slifer and Kraft did a couple of issues together, and finally in issue #48, Kraft took sole writer duties, and remained on the book for another 20 issues, although several of the last few were co-written with Ed Hannigan. 

After Buscema's departure, Keith Giffen stepped in as penciler for the next 12 issues, his style varying pretty widely depending on if he's inking himself (like the picture above), or it's being done by Klaus Janson or someone else. Then it fell to a variety of artists. Carmine Infantino, Ed Hannigan, Jim Mooney. Buscema returned for the "Defender for a Day" storyline.

Dr. Strange leaves the book, because he feels it's distracting him from his greater duties, and the team relocates to a farmhouse/riding academy Nighthawk owns in the country. Luke Cage bows out, and the Red Guardian returns home because the KGB is threatening her mother's life. It turns out to be some mysterious genius/asshole named Sergei who wants her to be his obedient bride as he turns them into energy beings. Just get one of those anime girl pillows, dude. Or invent them if they didn't exist yet.

(It surprises me that's stuck all these years later. I mean, Busiek used Sergei/The Presence and Tanya in his Avengers run, and as far as I know, it's still the status quo that those two live alone together in the radioactive zone in Siberia Sergei created giving them their powers. Tanya's more interesting of a Red Guardian than the usual model, which is just Soviet Captain America, which is probably not all that different from Mark Millar's version of Captain America, now that I think of it. A jingoistic asswipe.)

It's not all defections, though. Hellcat shows up in the last story before the other three depart, ultimately becoming one of the characters I think of as a core Defender. Certainly more than the Surfer, who hasn't appeared in almost 60 issues by the end of Kraft's run. Namor swings back in because of the damage to the oceans Sergei's work is causing. Moon Knight pops on for one story. Claremont writes a fill-in issue, so naturally Carol Danvers guest-stars.

"Who Remembers Scorpio?" is probably the best known story from this run, as Nick Fury's older brother, stuck in a mid-life crisis and dealing with feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy next to his brother, tries to create his own Zodiac of artificial beings to have someplace to belong. It doesn't work. 

After that, it's probably the aforementioned "Defender for a Day", where a college film student and would-be auteur, called Dollar Bill of all things, does a film on the Defenders and claims anyone can join. So a bunch of heroes show up to join, and decide they should capture their new teammate the Hulk (always a good idea). Meanwhile, a bunch of villains run around calling themselves Defenders and committing crimes.

Kraft makes Nighthawk team leader after Strange bows out, to mixed results. Kyle's gung-ho, but struggles to really assert any control, and with his temper, doesn't have the light touch Strange and Valkyrie can use with the Hulk. Val is encouraged to enroll in college and broaden her horizons, which is how Dollar Bill gets in the picture, and is how Kraft introduces annoying antagonist Lunatik, a guy who beats people with pipes and speaks in song lyrics. Where's that damn Elf with a Gun when you need him?

Lunatik's story gets concluded after Volume 3 of Essential Defenders ends, but I recall there's multiples Lunatiks, who are all part of some guy originally from another dimension, and they're connected somehow to the Nameless Ones from the Defenders' creation.

You can definitely feeling Kraft trying to follow in Gerber's footsteps, while maybe not emphasizing the futility of superheroics in a world of problems they can't solve quite as much.

Random Back Issues #50 - Avengers Undercover #4

Even for a guy who wears an '80s aerobics legwarmer over his head, that armband is tacky as shit.

So, for our big 50th Random Back Issue we got, the follow-up series to the much-derided Avengers Arena. Not much-derided by me, but the larger critical consensus was it was terrible. Which gets you a coffee at Starbucks, assuming you have five bucks on you.

 

The previous issue ended with Hazmat seemingly killing Arcade for what he put her and the rest of them through in that prior series. Even as a huge, huge fan of Arcade, I can't find fault with that act. Only problem, they attacked him in the middle of his new set-up, where people get to pay to slaughter others (or be slaughtered), while other folks pay to watch online. Meaning a whole bunch of people watched them commit murder.

Cammi's the only one thinking straight and suggests they run, but SHIELD naturally shows up and arrests them. For killing Arcade. It's no big, I'm sure they've got Logan locked up somewhere nearby for the 375 Yakuza guys he murdered earlier that week. What's that? Logan is being given a free pass for his frequent murders? Right, right, I forgot. 

 

Amid the rest of them having awkward greetings with anyone who bothers to visit, Cammi and her mom have a heartfelt conversation where Cammi tells her mother she should give up on her, because mum just got herself shit together, and trying to protect her daughter is only going to drag her down.

I already liked Cammi quite a lot from Annihilation, but Hopeless really cemented it. I have no idea what she's been up to since this series, and I'm a little terrified to look it up. Donny Cates probably killed her in his Guardians of the Galaxy run or something equally stupid.

The kids are magicked away to the fictional villain harboring nation of Bagalia thanks to Daimon Hellstrom, who is in full shirtless villain mode here. Hopefully Patsy Walker doesn't show up. if she sees him like this, she'll probably make another horrible decision. Then Zemo makes a sales pitch for them to join up with what he's got going. Stop worrying about using your powers altruistically, and use them for your own benefit. OK, I'm listening. He does say no one is asking them rob banks or 'man their moon base death ray.' Which implies he has a moon base death ray and if I'm going to be a villain, that's where I want to be.

Besides, less chance of being eaten by Galactus if you're stationed on the Moon.

The kids spend the next issue looking around, and decide the only way to clear themselves is do a big heroic thing. Meaning pretend to join the villains, and bring them down from within. Yeah, no possibility that will go horribly awry, but they're traumatized teens. Their judgment was going to be shit no matter what.

[2nd longbox, 102nd comic. Avengers Undercover #4, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)]

The Big Money - John Dos Passos

The third and final book in his USA trilogy, The Big Money looks primarily at the post-World War 1 United States, as people return home and chase the almighty dollar, and the belief their happiness and success is out there, just waiting.

In practice, this means an endless series of the characters pursuing the same things, again and again, and for it to fail, again and again. They meet someone, are instantly enamored, then just as instantly disenchanted. Or they marry them, and live in misery for years. They chase jobs, money, and leave a string of broken friendships behind. Always justifying it, of course, and shocked if anyone treats them the same way.

So it's a situation where I'm reading about characters I mostly don't like, making decisions I think are stupid, for nearly 500 pages. I keep wanting one of them to figure out that what they thing is a ladder their climbing, is actually just a hamster wheel. They've all been convinced what matters is wealth and status, but they're in a system where they can't really get to it. 

Even when one of them is financially successful, like Charley Anderson, it's a house of cards that comes crashing down with almost no stress. But again, it's hard for me to feel bad for him when it does, because I think he had it coming. He got some success, and immediately began stepping on people, and claiming these folks intended to step on him.

Dos Passos also continues to look at the struggle of labor, through both the Communist movement in the U.S., and just strikes in general. As always, the era of prosperity leaves some people behind, and the people who benefited are in no hurry to address that. Unless you count discrediting the strikers as un-American in the press and giving the police free reign to beat the shit out of them. Not much has changed in a hundred years, obviously.

'And Agnes would tell about the wedding and the orangeblossoms and the cake and how Margie's mother Margery died when she was born. "She gave her life for yours, never forget that."; it made Margie feel dreadful, like she wasn't her own self, when Agnes said that.'

Don't Let It Behind the Wheel

Reporting on Marvels and Legends starts Year 16! Just a couple of more years and I'll be yelling at it that mid-term elections are too important.

It's weird. I named this blog after the comic store I went to when it started, and now that store hasn't existed for half of this blog's existence. But as The Fortress Keeper once noted, 'at least the store wasn't named Joe's Comics.' Very true.

So what happened in Year 15? Oh right, the global pandemic. Certainly messed with reviews of single issues of comics, with the two-month stretch where there were no new comics. Things have gradually come back, although I keep expecting there to be another shutdown. More out of pessimism than any faith elected officials would do the smart thing and try to look after their citizenry's well-being. 

The tradeoff to that was a major uptick in posts reviewing trades and manga compared to past years. It helps I bought a lot more of both of those. It's been the usual mixed bag of good selections and bad ones. Although with a lot of the manga series, I didn't buy enough volumes to know which they are yet.

Also had a lot more Random Back Issues posts, but I enjoy those. Especially the older comics (which for me usually means the '90s) where there's just a ton going on to discuss in each issue, even if half of it makes no sense whatsoever.

My apartment didn't get wrecked by nature, even if the kids downstairs continue to disrupt my tranquility. But not enough to cause any blips in Sunday Splash Page, which made it from Bone to Steve Gerber's Defenders. My rough estimate at the moment is that by this time next year, I'll be most of the way through the Fs.

Otherwise, things were much the same as they have been. Book and movie posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, some sort of comic-related thing Monday, Wednesday, Friday. For whatever reason, I felt like I had more ideas for random musings or theories than I had the last few years. Not sure why. Maybe the isolation forced my mind to come up with anything it could to stay occupied. Or I've just lost my filter entirely.

Tried to do Sketchtober again this year. It took into early November to actually finish all 29, but I got through them. Some turned out well, some of them are complete garbage. Business as usual. 

Didn't really do much writing with the cast of characters this year, outside of the traditional April Fools and Blogsgiving posts. That's one thing I'm hopefully going to rectify in Year 16. I have some ideas, I just need to focus on them instead of the fanfics I've been working on since November of last year. Or I could try juggling them all at once. Not sure I have the mental energy for that.

I don't foresee ending this blog any time soon, barring either my demise or civilization's. I've been looking at some of the other blog templates, to see if there's one I could use to make the posts wider. That way the double-page splashes for Sunday Splash Page could be a little more impressive looking. I haven't seen one I really liked so far, though. So best to assume Reporting on Marvels and Legends will retain the same look until the day you show up and it's actually different.

Thank you to everyone who reads and comments. Yeah, even the spam comment bots. I delete their comments, but I'll never forget that time they left a note about great casino opportunities in my post about Emma Frost being an unpleasant person. *sniff* It was so heartwarming and sincere.