What I Bought 11/16/2024 - Part 1

The local comic store's orders haven't been showing up, which is why no reviews of new comics recently. However, I went with Alex to a gig in Wisconsin last weekend. Maybe not the smartest idea to do a 1,000 miles of driving in 40 hours, ahead of a week of inspections, but oh well. Among other things, we checked out a comic store, and it had all the books from the last two weeks I wanted.

Which is only three comics, but is still a welcome result.

Batgirl #1, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - It feels like her foot is turned kind of oddly, but Cass is the fighting expert, so I guess there's a reason.

Shiva contacted Batgirl because they're both in danger from a group called The Unburied, but who basically look like The Hand's Blue Division. What the ninjas want, besides (apparently) Cass and Shiva's deaths, is not explained, but they're (apparently) dangerous enough Shiva decides it's better for her and Cass to run than fight.

I keep saying "apparently" because I can't shake the feeling Shiva's not to be trusted. Brombal and Miyazawa use this bit of smaller panels focused on Shiva's face or hand, with one-word captions describing what Cassandra is reading. Except Cass also mentions that her mother knows that skill, and knows how to deceive. And on the last page, when Cass leaps to Shiva's assistance, Miyazawa draws Shiva standing behind Cass wearing what I'd call a smirk. She was in a martial arts stance two panels earlier, but seems to have dropped it once her daughter gets involved. Is that because having someone to fight alongside her changes her approach, or because this is all part of her plan?

It looks as though Brombal's going to focus on Cass and Shiva's relationship. It's comparatively untouched compared to Cass' relationship with David Cain, and most of what we've seen is just them beating the crap out of each other, and temporarily killing each other. Shiva clearly enjoys pushing Cass' buttons, while Cass spends as much of the initial fight attacking Shiva in a way that lets them attack their opponents unexpectedly.

Calavera P.I. #1, by Marco Finnegan (writer/artist), Jeff Eckleberry (letterer) - Can he blow smoke rings with no lips?

In 1925, Juan Calavera is a private investigator who rescues a bunch of girls smuggling into L.A. for some rich white guy, with a little assistance from local reporter Maria Valdez and her trusty flashbulb. Despite the successful conclusion of the case, Calavera doesn't seem happy with the life he leads. So maybe it's fortunate that, later that night, his attempt to keep a grieving mother from killing herself or any innocent bystanders, ends in his death.

After that, Finnegan jumps ahead five years, where Valdez is running some kind of production company, when she gets a call that tells her to 'find the detective.' Oh, and she better hurry, because her son's been abducted by a clown. So she tries a ritual, and Calavera's back among the living. As a trenchcoat-wearing skeleton, which is kind of odd since we don't see him wearing a trenchcoat prior to this. But I guess even nights in L.A. can get cold with no blood or tissue wrapped around your bones.

Finnegan sticks with solid blocks of color on this book, but in duller tones than were used in Morning Star. I like the look of it, and his design on his characters seems more consistent. Doesn't feel like the colors swamp his lines, faces don't end up looking strange sometimes. The brief fight scene is laid out in a simple progression, but Finnegan uses yellow rectangles against a darker background for highlighting a point of emphasis. It's a nice touch, or maybe I'm just more interested in this story than I was Morning Star.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Dwight (Macon Blair) lives in his car on a beach in Delaware, until he learns the man who killed his parents 10 years ago is being released from prison. He goes to the prison, where we get a nice play in contrasts between this man living alone in his beat-to-shit Bonneville, with a ratty white-shirt, and a man who murdered two people, who gets picked up by a half-dozen family members in a limo. Dwight follows them to a bar, and clumsily knifes the killer in the bathroom. At which point everything goes wrong.

So it's a movie about revenge and how easily that can get out of control. How it's rarely anything like in action movies, how people don't stop to consider the consequences until after the fact. For all that his life seems to have come to a halt since his parents' death, Dwight's clearly not spent that time making plans. He tried buying a gun, but he lives off the money he makes recycling cans he finds on the beach. He's not getting a gun. He loses his car keys while killing the guy, which he doesn't realize until after he's cut his hand angrily knifing one of the limo's tires, which is too bad since that's the car he has to steal.

Which means his car got left behind. Which means the family knows who killed the guy. Which means his sister and her kids are in danger. Which means Dwight has to fix this, somehow.

Before and after, he walks around in kind of a wide-eyed daze. There's no urgency, but also nothing measured in his movements. He'll start towards one idea, then abandon it mid-stride for something else. Grab a pitchfork for lack of better weapons, then set it aside and decide to try and sneak out of the house and steal his car back instead. Hit a guy with the car, then go back and forth between throwing the guy in his trunk and taking the guy's gun. Which gets him an arrow in the leg. It could, in a different framing, be played for laughs, but here it shows how unprepared he is.

The camera angles sometimes so that the light flares in the lens and obscures him entirely from us, in the same way the voices of other characters often become indistinct as Dwight gets lost in his own thoughts. Everyone else we see has moved on with their own lives in one way or another, even if, like his sister, they still harbor some anger. He bailed on his friends without a word, and they grew up, got jobs. Now Dwight's just blown in and started all this, and they have to deal with it.

And Dwight knows this. Blair is soft-spoken, unsure, awkward and apologetic with everyone. Whether he's actually sorry I'm less sure of. He does seem willing to die if that would just end this thing (though that might be a death wish on his part), but he knows there won't be any guarantee the killer's family will leave it there. So where's that leave him? Ruining someone else's life like his once was, apparently.

Show Biz'll Kill Ya

You've heard of a bull in a china shop, now here's Rhino in the dressing room!

Down in Flames, Up in Smoke is the first 5 issues of the Amazing Mary Jane book Marvel had going in 2020. Mary Jane as the lead actress on what is a Mysterio biopic, and discovers in the first issue that the film is not being directed by the famous Cage McKnight, but by Mysterio himself.

(Mysterio assures us McKnight is fine, scouring the Falkands to find just the right penguin to star in, "Jaws, but with penguins.")

After an impassioned plea by Mysterio, who requested her for the lead role (for reasons I'm never entirely clear about), MJ agrees to stay on the film because she believes he's genuine about trying to make this film, and that's he's giving other former criminals or villains an opportunity (and paying them at industry-standard rates, he assures her.) From there, it's MJ helping Quentin Beck troubleshoot the various complications that arise in shooting the film.

The people financing the movie get cold feet and withdraw their money, forcing improvisation on a tighter budget. The guy playing Spider-Man loses his nerve and leaves. The guy playing Mysterio leaves when the big budget does. Several of Spider-Man's other enemies keep trying to sabotage the film, because they aren't happy with their portrayals. Which does result in a fairly ridiculous bit at the end where MJ, sans any powers or Iron Man armors, holds off six super-villains - Vulture, Rhino, Cobra, Stegron, Tarantula, and Scorpion - while the crew finish the last day of shooting.

While Mysterio put her through a sort of boot camp when she took over as Spider-Man for the last scene, and insisted on practical effects, including X-Men robots - which really seems like more an Arcade thing - it still seems a bit much she held them off solo as long as she did.

Williams writes MJ as extremely adaptable, able to think on the fly, and work with sudden complications. Whether that's due to her past experience in Hollywood, or her experience being in a relationship with a super-hero, I'm not sure. But she pretty much keeps the movie on track and is near constantly helping Mysterio make it better, whether that's with make her character more well-rounded, with her own motivations, improving the dialogue, or leaning into the fact Beck is way more hot-headed than the actual Cage McKnight.

Carlos Gomez, who draws all 5 issued (with Lucas Warneck assisting on issue 3) goes all-in on the dramatic poses for McKnight/Beck, whether he's hitting tables or shaking his fists at the sky. Mary Jane, in contrast, is drawn as much more relaxed and upbeat. Constantly having to rein Beck in and keep his eyes on the prize.

Mysterio's written as extremely passionate about this project, to his detriment, as that's how he loses his primary funding, but also with very specific notions on "art", and that what he's creating is going to be art. He hates the idea of using illusions to compensate for the budget cuts, because he feels it compromises the genuine nature of the film. He seems like he would simultaneously be great to work for (enthusiasm and work ethic undeniable) and terrible to work for (temperamental as all get out.) Williams has him make reference to possibly not having much time left, but I have no idea what that refers to. MJ's character also seems to be based on a woman who influenced or supported him at one time, and I have no idea who that is, either. Sure hope it wasn't Karen Page! 

Gomez's work reminds me of Mark Brooks', back when Brooks drew Cable/Deadpool. Especially in how he draws Mysterio, the shape of his head and jaw, the way he shades things. It's fine, overall; the story doesn't give him the chance to stretch himself the way he has on Fantastic Four. He's mostly drawing regular people, and a lot of the time they're talking while walking through sound stages or riding in golf carts.

Williams and Gomez mix in periodic phone conversations between MJ and Peter Parker, who knows what movie she's working on, but not who is actually directing it. I'm not clear on their relationship status at this time, other than they're at least on good terms. At one point, MJ starts playing music over the phone and insists Peter dance with her for 20 seconds, while he's in the grocery store, so I'm guessing things were in a decent place.

Sunday Splash Page #349

 

"Sunrise Over the City," in Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

After Nick Spencer's stint as writer on Amazing Spider-Man, but before Zeb Wells', Marvel handed the book over to a small team of writers. Peter Parker was laid up after getting hit with a lot of radiation (courtesy of the U-Foes, I think), and so Ben Reilly stepped in as Spider-Man in the interim while Captain America and the Black Cat tried to help Peter recover. Except Ben was being sponsored by the Beyond Corporation, and they messed with his head, and it all ended badly.

In the midst that was this one-shot, where The Hood, sans his namesake piece of fashion (courtesy of a Hawkeye mini-series I didn't read because it was written by Matthew Rosenberg, and he's on my no-buy list since that crappy Multiple Man mini-series), finds out Felicia Hardy's been visiting this loser photographer in the hospital and uses Peter as leverage to make her retrieve his hood. Mary Jane happened to be there when Felicia arrives, so she claims MJ is part of the crew she needs for this job to get MJ clear. Then the two of them work to track down the hood in one night while Peter sleeps through the whole thing.

Much of the part where they try to track down the hood is kept light and kind of breezy. MacKay's working the whole thing around the idea everybody wants something. Robbins wants his hood; Felicia and MJ want Peter to be safe; each of the people they question wants something in exchange. Except Mr. Fear and the Shocker, who just get their asses kicked. And I know Shocker's treated as a total joke these, but MJ really shouldn't be able to do anything to him with a baseball bat. The whole point is the suit cushions impacts!

Ahem. The heist comes when the trail leads to someone who doesn't want anything from them, it's set up in such a way Mary Jane's talents as an actress can play a role. Villa has a lot of fun with the expressions, as neither lady is happy with this set-up. So there's a fair amount of frustration and sarcasm on both their parts, as well as times where each of them is in their element and moving with total assurance and confidence.

The story does require me to accept the idea that Parker Robbins is any actual threat to Peter Parker, which is hard to manage. Yes, Parker's nowhere near full strength, but we're talking about an ordinary guy with one gun. No special magic cloak, no super-powered henchmen, or any henchmen for that matter. Just loser-ass Parker Robbins. (If the concern was Peter blowing his secret identity, that's another matter, but that's not how MJ explains her demand Robbins not even point his gun at the sleeping Peter.)

The important thing is, the Hood winds up dead. The long nightmare is over! Then Benjamin Percy brought him back in Ghost Rider. Booooooooo!

Saturday Splash Page #151

 

"Down the Barrel of a Gun," in Spectacular Spider-Girl #2, by Tom DeFalco (writer), Ron Frenz (writer/penciler), Sal Buscema (finished art), Bruno Hang (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

A 4-issue mini-series from 2010, where New York City is in the middle of a gang war between Black Tarantula and an old-school Maggia guy enhanced with cybernetics. No, not Silvermane. This guy calls himself Silverback. I guess DeFalco and Frenz thought Silvermane would have to be dead by now or something.

Mayday promised her parents she'd stay out of it, but it's not sitting well with her. But she's got enough problems as it is. There's a horribly-dressed weirdo named Wild Card who keeps kicking her ass and telling her to stay out of the conflict. I mean, the outfit is bad. Like he's trying to fight her by making her go blind. Her clone/sister April is really getting into her Mayhem identity, and is actually working for Silverback.

Oh, and Frank Castle came out of retirement (that he spent in South America, where he still periodically fucked drug lords up) because Silverback was a guy he left crippled as a message before ending his war on the mob. Years of reading Garth Ennis' Punisher leave me unable to see Frank doing either of those things. Not ending his war on the mob, and certainly not leaving a guy alive as a message. "People scare better when they're dying," is definitely a philosophy the Punisher subscribes to.

The story has a feel of DeFalco and Frenz clearing the decks. They probably know this is one of the last Spider-Girl stories they're going to write, and they try to definitively move the old guard off the board, both characters that existed before Spider-Girl, and ones that didn't, but are supposed to pre-date her. Silverback and the Punisher bite the dust. Black Tarantula opts to leave New York with Arana, basically removing him as an issue. Peter (once again) accepts that he needs to trust his daughter can handle things. Even the two goons of Silverback's that are based on DeFalco and Frenz (I guess they didn't de in the wilds of Jersey) end up turning state's evidence in the hopes of being able to start new lives in witness protection elsewhere.

Silverback turns out to be a puppet of another villain, and that villain gets killed by Mayhem. Which sets up April's continuing descent into a "lethal protector" type as Mayday's biggest issue. Especially combined with her desire to assert her individuality as the true, only daughter of Peter and Mary Jane, which would come to a head in Spider-Girl: The End.

And with that, Summer (and Fall) of Spiders draws to a close.

Random Back Issues #140 - Step by Bloody Step #2

Why does this happen wherever I go with my fiercely protective armored giant?

The giant and the girl continue their journey, though tensions are continuing to run high, since the girl still doesn't know where they're going or why. The giant forbids her from visiting a village in the distance, so she scales a bluff at the first opportunity, only to find the village of greenish, goblin-like people being annihilated by enormous black airships. By the time the giant catches up, one of the ships targets them, and she slips from the giant's grasp, only saving her self by catching a thorny vine.

Pricked by the thorns, her blood prompts a burst of plant growth, lifting her high enough the giant can grab her and haul ass into a forest, all of which is observed by men in a smaller airship, who have taken hostage a farmer who tried to befriend the girl last issue.

Eventually, the pair reach a beach. While the girl alternately splashes in the waves and sulks in the shadows, the giant kills more potential threats and builds a big raft to cross the ocean. The girl does, while carving a scowly picture of herself on a tree, find several more carving nearby. Mystery!

Unfortunately, being extremely single-minded and direct makes their course easy to predict, so at the far shore waits a group of armed men. One shot wounds the girl, and when her blood hits the water, the giant goes berserk. Too bad the ones in his path are more of the green people, noticeably shackled around the ankles. They're slaughtered, to the horror of both the girl and the farmer, but to the glee of the soldiers, one of whom takes aim at the girl. The farmer shoves him, spoiling the shot - no doubt saving all their asses from that pissed off giant - and they withdraw.

The girl sees something in the sea and tries to push the raft there, but the ocean itself rises to bar her path, much like the desert did at one point last issue. The giant insists they keep going forward, and the girl's resentment only grows. Meanwhile, the farmer's been hauled before the prince? general? that's been tracking the pair, and gets an ultimatum: Help us out, or see what we do to your wife and kid.

Well, when you put it that way. . .

{10th longbox, 209th comic. Step by Bloody Step #2, by Si Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist), Mattheus Lopes (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer)}

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf - John Muir

This is the journal John Muir kept on his journey from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico in the second half of 1867. He took a train from Indianapolis to the Indiana/Kentucky state line, then hiked to Savannah, Georgia, before taking a ship into Florida, then hiking across that state and ultimately taking another ship to Cuba.

While the book is broken into broad chapters, it's arranged within those chapters as daily entries he made. These can involve Muir describing different plants he saw, waxing at length about how palmetto groves lack the grandeur of Wisconsin oak forests, or fretting about alligators once he's far enough south to be stumbling about in a swamp after dark.

The book includes some pictures, albeit not ones Muir furnished, but they're few and scattered, so this is nothing like a field guide. It's more a travelogue, and interesting for the way in which he travels. Most of the trip he's reliant on strangers being willing to share food and shelter with him, so their personalities or topics of discussion may be the focus for a given day. Most want to discuss the recently-concluded Civil War, or complain about the North, but Muir occasionally meets someone that shares his interest in botany, or will at least listen politely while he talks about it.

He's briefly robbed once, only for the guy to return the satchel once he finds nothing worth taking. Later Muir encounters a gang of horsemen, and it's probably only his scruffy appearance that causes them to leave him be. There's a fairly lengthy section where, to save money until the funds his brother forwarded arrive in Savannah, Muir makes himself a little shelter in the Bonaventure graveyard. He describes how peaceful and clear he finds the air, and how the songbirds initially gather at the entrance of his shelter to raise the alarm, but gradually grow accustomed to him and go on about their days.

I found a person sleeping in a cemetery once. I assumed, once I was close enough to hear snoring and know they weren't dead, they were sleeping off a rough night. Maybe they were on their own trek to some distant coast.

Sometimes Muir digresses into thoughts on humanity, particularly man's relationship with Nature, or how certain people perceive that relationship. He's lightly amused by those who insist everything on Earth was placed there by God for Man's use, when it's abundantly clear there are plenty of plants and animals that weren't. Plenty of plants can kill a person if ingested, as can any number of animals. Yet the notion that all organisms, including humans, are part of an interrelated world, rather than a hierarchy with us at the top, doesn't track.

Even reminding myself of the era this was written in, it's still jarring when Muir comments favorably on how 'well-behaved' the black folks in Savannah are, because they take their hat off if they see a white man on the street, and leave it off until he's out of sight. Or when a couple share some water with him around their campfire and he sees their child playing naked in the dirt and regards the whole thing as some incredibly primitive thing. Maybe they don't want to have to wash the kid and the clothes, Muir? Maybe money's tight, and maybe there's a reason that would be the case for a black couple in the South in the 1860s?

When it comes to people, Muir might be better off sticking to plants.

The last 20 pages are actually a letter he sent after leaving Cuba for New York, then sailing from New York to California, and describe his time in the Yosemite region. The prose gets a bit too purple for me there, and something about the break in the tale threw me to where I couldn't get fully invested in that section. It would have been better served to act as the introduction of a book solely about his California experiences, and leave his departure from Cuba, or at least his arrival in NYC, as the end of this tale.

'I think that most of the antipathies which haunt and terrify us are morbid productions of ignorance and weakness. I have better thoughts of those alligators now that I have seen them at home. Honorable representatives of the great saurians of an older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of dainty!'