What I Bought 10/14/2026

I've continued playing DREDGE since beating it, out of the completionist urge to catch all the fish and their aberrations. One thing I noticed, beyond how difficult it can be to get the aberrations of some of the crabs, it's less harrowing for your character's sanity to sail at night with the lights off. The moving curtains of purple-red lights don't appear, don't chase you. You'll see some wavy, black-and-white shapes, but they don't really seem to bother your guy.

Obviously it's dangerous to do in areas with a lot of rocks, but I was mostly cutting across open ocean from one potential Moonfish location to another. There wasn't much risk of collisions.

Generation X-23 #9, by Jody Houser (writer), Marco Renna (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Here we see Laura, desperately trying to fend off the dread Cancellation Crab.

Set 3 months after the previous issue, Laura and Gabby have been training the 3 remaining Generated and letting them do neighborhood patrols to beat up the apparently roving gangs of anti-mutant, I'm not sure how to describe them. They're adult-aged white guys, all wearing matching white polo shirts. Anti-mutant Latter-Day Saint Groups? The guys starting petitions to ban books from the high school curriculum?

I also notice the captions describe them as living in "Logan's Safe House." I thought Laura and Gabby moved into a place of their own partway through All-New Wolverine, after Laura was able to save all those people from the alien plague? They made sure to bring their weird pelican statuette with them; they had it in the subsequent X-23 series. I guess Laura might have given up the apartment when everybody moved to Krakoa. Terrible idea, I bet that place was rent-controlled.  

The fight's a quick way to show the progress in the characters. Port actually talks now, Renna draws Time Bomb's little explosives with less energy flaring off them than Laiso did, which could be a sign she's got better control. Surprise! can turn her arm into a sword strong enough to break a knife. Everybody's getting better. But there are issues, and not just that I can't figure out how, if Laura kicked her feet out to either side in the panel below, she kicked the guy in the foreground. I guess she's not actually kicking with the foot on the right side of the panel, only the other leg, which swept in an arc, hitting Foreground Guy and the the guy on the left side of the panel.

The information they found in that nursery suggests Time Bomb, Port, and Surprise! were all humans experimented on to gain mutant abilities. Which makes them like Deadpool, basically, though no one mentions that. Just as well, considering how poorly the X-Men usually treat Deadpool. Laura says there are files on each of them, but she won't look at them unless they want to. After 3 months, Time Bomb does, then wants to visit the family she had. Port wants to go along, Surprise! is less enthusiastic, fearing she's going to lose the family that's formed around her.

And when Laura gets them a minivan, X-80 (the time traveler) is already inside, albeit with no awareness she helped them a few issues ago, since she hasn't done it yet. So a half-dozen people and Jonathan the wolverine pile into the minivan to drive to Maryland, and they get attacked by X-Infinite and his crew. Which includes the bird-girl's upper half grafted onto that robo-scorpion, what I think is one of the Cuckoos, and, I have no idea who the lady with white hair and a red "X" painted on her face is.

I assume Houser won't kill off all the new characters she created in the final issue, but I wonder if X-Infinite's going to eat it. If Apocalypse is taking a different approach these days (or is he? I can't keep track), and Mr. Sinister is hopefully on ice for a long time, the X-Books could use an antagonist who claims they're trying to improve mutants through science, dressing up some curiosity about taking things apart as more altruistic. Worst case, you turn him into a patsy for someone a little more clever or experienced.

Passing - Nella Larsen

On a visit back to her hometown of Chicago, Irene Redfield runs into an old acquaintance, Clare Bewell (nee Kendry.) Clare moved to a different part of town after her father's abrupt death, and while the rumors were thick, no one was certain what had happened. Or, well, lots of people were certain they knew, but it was all based on speculation, gossip, and conjecture. The best kind of sure to be.

After a particularly awkward afternoon tea between Irene, Clare, and a third old friend, Irene decides she'll have nothing else to do with Clare. And yet, Clare starts showing up in New York whenever her husband is away, and Irene keeps letting her in the front door. 

This was the second piece of fiction Larsen published. It's probably a novella, at right around 100 pages in this collected edition. According to McDowell, Larsen wrote a short story after this, but was accused of plagiarism. Though she managed to make a convincing case to some it was a coincidence, she never published anything again.

The title refers to the fact that Irene, Clare, as well as their third friend, Gertrude, are all of mixed race. I'm not sure if in each case it's their parents, or if it was in some cases earlier generations. Unlike Helga Crane in Quicksand, they are able pass for white, at least among white folk. Irene mentions, in conversation with some white author who wrote often about what he perceived as the problems with black people, that black people can always tell, after a while. That there's a certain something they pick up on whites either don't, or simply don't care to look for.

Irene, Clare, and Gertrude are each married, and each is in a different situation. Gertrude married a white man, but he knew her from long back, and knew of her heritage. Clare married a white man who has no idea of her background. A virulent racist no less, which is the reason the afternoon tea is so awkward. He shows up and promptly calls Clare by a nickname he gave her, "Nig." Because she seems to get darker all the time. Then he goes on, at length, about how much he hates black people. As you'd expect, that's not the term he uses, but I'm not looking to get this post yanked by Blogger's "standards" violations.

Irene, meanwhile, married a black man. I don't know if he knows about her background, and they have bigger issues with their marriage anyway. Maybe more than one, if Clare and the psychic toll she seems to take on Irene is to be counted. Maybe because Clare reminds Irene of herself in ways she would prefer not to think about. Irene accuses Clare of, essentially, being willing to do anything to get what she wants. Smile a little too provocatively at a waiter. Cry, if pity will get the response she wants. When Irene won't respond to her letters, Clare takes the direct approach and simply shows up at her house.

And yet, Irene seems equally determined to get, or rather keep, what she's got. Her husband appears to like to wander, and at one point, wanted to move to Brazil. Irene convinced him, somehow, to stay in Harlem. When she suspects he's growing dissatisfied with his medical practice and looking towards distant horizons again, she starts trying to find some way to nip it in the bud. She tries bringing up concerns about their sons as a segue into maybe having Brian take them to Europe for a few months, but it never gets off the ground. She never stops fretting about it, or trying to come up with another way to keep things the way she wants them. Late in the story, she acknowledges security is what she craves most. For the things she has to stay as they are. And Clare is an element she that threatens all that, in several ways.

Because Irene is certain that, as Clare has spent more time around, she and Brian have something going. Maybe Clare is more amenable to Brian's desire to roam. Or maybe Irene is projecting her own feelings onto Brian. He certainly seems quick to show concern for Irene's mental state at the very end of the story, more than I would expect if he was grief-stricken over his mistress' fate.

There is a sense Irene is attracted to Clare, but unwilling to acknowledge that. Irene spends a lot of time describing Clare's eyes, or her lips. How attractive they are. And Irene's inability to stick to her resolution to stay away from Clare seems like she's attracted but unaware. Clare shows up, and Irene feels overcome with emotion, thrown out sorts. But it's not anger, or even frustration. At first, before she perceives Clare as a threat, Irene is glad when Clare comes to visit. She doesn't object if Clare's lets herself into Irene's bedroom while she's changing. Clare kisses her on the bare shoulder at one point, although there's no particular attention drawn to that by anyone. Maybe that was a common greeting between women in the 1920s?

Yeah, I don't think so, either, but I'm trying not to project too much. Not without acknowledging I'm doing it, at least.

I think like Helga, Irene ultimately chooses stability, the sure thing, over the uncertainty of what she really wants. To pursue that was to take a step into a void, and neither of them could ultimately make that step. Irene drew back, or maybe flung the uncertainty away from her, to her husband with his sights on the horizon and their sons. Helga married a preacher, thinking matrimony was the safe way to explore what she wanted, and found herself stuck in what sounds like a horrible life she no longer had the strength to escape.

'The words came to Irene as she sat there on the Drayton roof, facing Clare Kendry. "A having way." Well, Irene acknowledged, judging from her appearance and manner, Clare seemed certainly to have succeeded in having a few of the things she wanted.'

What I Bought 10/9/2026

I've had this song I got from my college roomie for years. He used it as part of his soundtrack when he played GTA 3. Having either not caught the name, or not been told, I titled the copy in my files, "Made for GTA." It finally occurred to me this summer to ask Alex to use the app on his phone to identify the song. It's Rammstein's Eskimos and Egypt (instrumental edit). Nice to finally know.

The Deadman #5, by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martin Morazzo (artist), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Good Old Neon (letterer) - Someone didn't put their cables back neatly.

Deadman - now alive again - has landed in some future where souls stopped moving to Heaven or Hell. So people stopped believing in their being consequences for their actions, and somebody called "Master" took control. Some people get to live in a city of constant connectivity, and everybody else is in some sub-realm, their souls, or their bodies if souls no longer exist, getting picked off by those creatures.

Getting some guidance from an electronic Swamp Thing and the "Photon Stranger" - because I guess light still exists, but spirits don't -  Boston travels to the city and finds the 10th story of a 9-story building. Brand makes it into "the Index", which is, I have no idea. It says "The Beast" or "True Evil" were other names, but I kind of thought Lucifer was "The Beast", and I'm pretty sure this isn't him.

Foe whatever reason, it makes Brand dead and sends him back to the neighborhood where he hangs out while off-duty. Though it also reminds him that words, like, say, "custodian", can have more than one meaning. I'm guessing in this case, that he's a caretaker, not just a janitor. But we'll see, because the creepy guy has showed up with a whole bunch of the soul-devourers.

I'm sure Prince intends for this issue to be significant to Deadman's journey into truly accepting his role, but it felt like an unnecessary detour. Maybe it's meant to show why it really matters that this soul-devouring needs to be stopped, beyond just preventing people from ending up in some afterlife. That it has downstream effects on us and how we handle things.

I feel like that's ascribing more value to religion, or maybe faith, than I'm prepared to grant it. People do things I'd consider awful all the time, thinking that they will actually be rewarded by their faith for it. And if they aren't, if all these megachurch Bible-humpers and evangelist shitheads actually end up in Hell, we don't know it. Where's the value?

Batgirl #24, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - That weed will get out of the way if it knows what's good for it. 

Batgirl crosses Gotham with the dying child and a stab wound of her own, but keeps getting sucked into other problems. Plant monsters attack her, then the cops. Then she has to save the cops from the plant monsters. Well, she doesn't have to. She could do triage and conclude saving Mimi is more important, but she chooses to. Then a cop car comes blaring past. I was a little confused when someone inside tried to shoot her with a Thompson machine gun, but as Nightwing and Damian explain during a brief reminder this is part of a Batbook-wide event , it's something to do with Scarface.

I feel like Miyazawa does something a little different with his art when drawing Nightwing and Damian versus Cass. Maybe it's just that their masks don't cover their entire faces, but it feels like the linework is thinner and sharper for them than Cass. Her outline seems almost gradual or rounded. She also seems to be in motion constantly during the brief conversation, while they spend most of the panels almost posed, fists on their hips like they're waiting for a photographer.

Through the issue, Batgirl wonders why any of them do this. Fight for a city constantly on the verge of throwing itself into a bottomless chasm. A city that will more than likely kill all of them. The conclusion is nothing too revelatory. They want to be good, and feel like if they stopped helping, the idea they could be good would wither. Which seems staggeringly detrimental to one's mental health - just look at that model of sanity, Batman - but is at least on point for Cass' own doubts about her soul, and her general indifference to her own well-being.

Granted, I'd thought that was getting better, but I guess in times of stress, people fall back into old patterns. And her she is, dismissing Nightwing's concern about her injuries as being stabbed, 'only slightly.'

Meanwhile at the restaurant, Tenji and Jaya try to rally everyone inside to defend themselves if the plant monsters barge in. Mostly, Tenji, who is hellbent on making a name for himself. So he keeps making speeches and talking tough, but he is on the front lines when it's time to fight. And he does get the kid who stabbed Batgirl to not give into guilt or despair. There have been worse starts.

Anyway, that's it for event tie-in issues. Next month, back to family drama storylines. 

Overdue Movie Reviews #17 - The Quiet Man (1952)

Sean Thornton (John Wayne) has left America to return to the land of his birth, the Irish village of Innisfree. He intends to buy the home his late mother spoke so fondly of in his youth, and build a life there. A life he quickly decides he'd like Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara) to be part of. But her brother, Will (Victor McLaglen), is a swaggering bully who has it in for Thornton for buying the land the house stood on when Danaher wanted it. There won't be any marriage without a lot of static and resistance from Will, and a lot of assistance from the locals, especially when it comes to Mary Kate's dowry. A dowry very important to her, but meaning nothing to Sean, to her frustration.

John Ford really wanted to make this movie about Ireland, set in Ireland. The story I've heard, probably on Turner Classic Movies, is the studio required him to direct 4 Westerns before they'd give him the green light. Those 4 made money, and then The Quiet Man won a bunch of awards.

Ford clearly wants to highlight the country itself as a place. So many shots of green, rolling hills. Just the green of everything in general, the shade Sean paints the door of his home or the train he takes to get there, leaping off the screen. The omnipresent rock walls, breaking things up, making getting from one place to another a challenge, mirroring all the roadblocks in the romance between Sean and Mary Kate. The quiet little village with its cobblestone streets that look wide enough they can only be considered crowded if the entire town gathers in one spot, such as when they put on a show of support for Reverend Playfair so the bishop won't transfer him. The blustery winds and idyllic pastures.

I did find the framing of Sean's arrival for the first night in his new home curious. It's framed as an ugly night, the house shrouded in darkness, the trees that have grown up around it waving violently in the wind. It's the kind of presentation you expect for the Scooby gang to investigate a mystery. A forbidding night for his big return to his childhood home. I guess the tempest outside is meant to mirror the tempest inside, once he finds Mary Kate there, tidying up the long-abandoned house in an act of Christian charity, and the sparks start flying. By sparks, I mean he kisses her without permission and she tries to wallop him. She needs to shorten up the arc of that haymaker, telegraphed way too obviously.

My coworker watched this for the first time last year. Came away from the experience horrified, utterly confused how it was so well-regarded. I can't entirely disagree. Even by the standards of John Wayne movies, the gender politics are terrible. Even making allowance for when the film came out, and when and where it was set, it's rough. Given my dad's fondness for Wayne and John Ford, it isn't a surprise I saw this when I was in my teens, maybe earlier than that. I love the climactic fistfight, it was at one time one of my favorite movie fights, but even then I recognized how bizarre everything leading up to it is. Sean dragging Mary Kate 5 miles, to the great enjoyment of seemingly every person in the county, judging by the enormous crowd following. The old woman giving Sean a stick to beat Mary Kate with, and this being played as funny. I may not have internalized how messed up it was, but it definitely registered as strange.

(But I've also never understood in Westerns when the whole town gathers to watch a man be executed by hanging. I get there's no radio, TV, or internet, and most of them probably couldn't read a newspaper if they had one, but damn, they got nothing better to do than watch a man die ugly?)

The friction I don't feel the film addresses is, not only does Sean not understand the cultural practices, he doesn't try to correct his ignorance. He doesn't want to follow the rules about the courting process. Why, in America, he'd just drive up to the girl's house and honk. What's all this chaperoning and observing the proprieties? Sure, it's annoying Mary Kate's loudmouth prick of a brother can block their relationship, purely out of spite, but Sean doesn't try to bargain or find a way to make things work. He acts like it's a stupid custom, and when that approach unsurprisingly fails to change things, starts sulking and riding his horse around the countryside angrily. It's the rest of the town that trick Danaher into changing his mind. Late in the proceedings Reverend Playfair tries to explain the importance of the dowry tradition. Sean gives no sign he's paying any attention.

Sean built the idea of life in Innisfree as a dream to make true. An escape from his guilt over how he made his money boxing. He never considers Mary Kate has her own dreams or worries. He doesn't get why she'd scold him over planting roses instead of vegetables. Well Sean, because she figures you're supposed to grow food to help feed your family. That's how it's done in Innisfree, that's how she understands things to be. He calls her 'mercenary' for wanting her furniture, for wanting the money she earned and inherited.

But those are part of her dream for married life. Mary Kate probably spent years escaping the drudgery of feeding her oaf of a brother and his employees by daydreaming how she would decorate her home, once she had one. How the money would be something she'd bring to the marriage, maybe make certain she wasn't totally subservient if the husband was a jerk. I'm not entirely clear on the importance of dowries myself, but I get that it mattered to her.

Sean looks at it as, what's the big deal? He has money, he can buy her new furniture. He never comes to understand it, he simply decides to play by their rules out of spite. Drags her - literally drags her, when she loses her footing and he just keeps marching - back to her brother and demands the dowry. Danaher refuses, so Sean throws Mary Kate at his feet like some truant kid that busted his window with a rock. 'It's your custom, not mine.' Does that make him the perfect example of the Ugly American? Come to a foreign country, throw a tantrum when they don't do things how he likes.

It works, of course. The fact he drew the line in the sand at all is apparently enough. She just wanted to see he would actually fight for something that mattered to her, even if it didn't matter to him. Ass-backwards way of doing it, humiliating Mary Kate versus just marching up and beating Will Danaher's ass until he forks up the dough. But if we allow that Sean's worried about punching another man to death, then I guess he didn't want to be the one who swung first.

And Danaher obliged. Actually, counting the scene at the wedding, he obliged twice. With a sucker punch attempt both times, no less. So Sean really should have just stepped in and thrown down.

I still love the fight, the whole messy ridiculous spectacle of it. The way it immediately turns into a free-for-all until Michaleen (Barry Fitzgerald) restores order. Danaher agreeing to Marquis of Queensbury rules, then kicking Sean in the face. The guys with the bucket splashing water on whoever gets knocked down. The old man leaping from his deathbed as the sounds of the fight reach him. All the religious figures looking on in delight rather than stepping in to stop the violence. The whole argument in the bar about who's paying.

McLaglen makes a great oaf, as always. This time it isn't tempered with any soft-heartedness he shows in a lot of Ford's other films. No sweetness around kids, no easily wounded heart when a sharp-tongued woman rebukes his polite greeting. He's an insecure jerk, making a show of having his lickspittle write names of those who offend him in a book and cross them out. Trusting money, or his size, will make people back down. He's got a great face for sneering, and there's always a derisive snort at the tip of his tongue. 'You can buy me a drink at your wake, and not before,' is a great line, delivered beautifully. And he makes for a good balloon to be punctured by Wayne's dry comebacks. 'Mind you, I'm fresh as a daisy! You look more like a black-eyed Susan.'

It's a mixed bag for O'Hara. I think she shows the conflicting impulses Mary Kate is caught between. She likes Sean, the tall, handsome American who isn't put off by her temper or sharp tongue. But there's a lot that's been drilled into her as proper or required, and she can't quite break free. 

I'm not sure she entirely wants to. She's ultimately on board when it comes to kissing Sean before they've finished the going out in public together section of the courting. Still, there's a lot of her culture and upbringing she wants to maintain, and the guy she fancies doesn't think much of any of it, or what her culture says is expected of him. To stand up for her and what she's earned or owed. So she gets frustrated, because she thinks he loves her, but if so, why won't he do this for her? And that brings out the temper and the sharp tongue. And after, the regrets, because she doesn't like hurting him.

At the end of the day though, she's playing the romantic interest in a John Wayne movie. He's going to get his way. By the end of the film she's fine with it. He's met the requirements. He fought her brother for the dowry, showed she mattered at least that much to him. She was already physically attracted to him. He goes to church. He provides financially. When he's not pissed off at her about things he finds unimportant, he seems doting enough. Still doesn't seem great to me, but I'm not an Irishwoman who did not appear to have a surplus of suitors, in a movie set in the first half of the 20th Century.

Most of the humor comes from the kinds of side characters Ford populates his movies with. The Catholic priest (Ward Bond) trying to catch that big fish, or being outraged at the notion of Mary Kate making Sean sleep in a sleeping bag. The guys at the train station, always running hours late because they can't stop arguing about some piece of Irish history. The reverend and his bishop making bets on the fistfight. That one older guy at the pub who's always sitting in one spot reading the paper and never moving. Michaleen Oge Flynn, with his drinking and wry comments, the oversized outrage at any number of things. 

Fitzgerald's character is almost the centerpiece, given the prominent role he plays. He always seems to pop up like magic. He's at the train station to give Sean a ride, though Sean clearly didn't call ahead for him. He acts as matchmaker for Sean and Mary Kate, but has a horse that knows enough to stop at the bar to give the couple some time alone. He's sitting on the bench beside Sean's front door in the morning, to tell him Mary Kate's decided to leave him. He left the pub to figure out which way Sean and Mary Kate were going, but he's right there at Danaher's for the fistfight, to bring some sense of order to it. While trying to make money off it, naturally. Michaleen seems like a guy who has a lot of fun watching other people's lives go off the rails.

Given that, I'm surprised Ford went with Bond's character as narrator. Maybe he thought Bond's deep voice had more gravitas than the gleeful tone Fitzgerald was using?

What I Bought 10/5/2026 - Part 2

I often find riding with Alex to a gig when he's late - and he's always running late - a good way to test one's acceptance of their mortality. This weekend put a twist on it, since his car experienced engine trouble. Once he limped it into the parking lot at my place, we had to move all his gear to my car, then haul ass, because the wedding was in about 90 minutes, and we had a lot of miles to cover, stuck behind slow big rigs for a decent chunk of it. I don't drive as fast as him normally, but I take curves in the hills faster than I probably should. Couple of close calls in there.

Let's look at the last two books from September, and the last issue of Babs we'll see for a couple months, since the final issue is apparently pushed back to December. 

Babs: The Black Road South #5, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - That's all Barry can do, so he might as well do it as hard as he can.

Babs is trying to find the Triple-Orb and taking shit from Barry about her continued poor life choices. She does run into the punch-drunk dragon that gave them a lift, and the two fight off what pass for Nazgul in this realm. In the process, they may have come to the attention of the guy that theoretically rules this place, but he'd have to leave his stupid, imposing tower before that'll matter.

Most of the issue is the Samwise parody relating his tale after the great quest went so badly. Which involves sex work as a way to get information on Babs, her whereabouts, her habits (lying and stealing) and her fence. It definitely feels like padding, as I didn't need to know anything about the guy other than what we already did. He was in love with the Frodo parody, and hates Babs for accidentally knocking Elijah Wood into a volcano. Though I'm starting to suspect the hobbit may have survived, just so "Samwise" here can get a nice emotional gut punch in the final issue when his friend sees what he's become.

It is a nice turn to see Izzy actually objecting to something Babs is doing. That Babs was willing to just sell a mystical weapon that could do what it's done to Mordynn. Sell it to whoever. Babs didn't have a specific buyer, just a fence (that is a giant owl-man) with people willing to buy. And Babs actually seems guilty about it, though I suspect that's more for being caught than anything else. This does not seem like one of Ennis' works where people realize what a jackass they've been and try to do better. 

Actually, does Ennis have works like that? It mostly seems like his characters are asses, but try to do something redemptive with their asshole tendencies. Tommy Monaghan didn't stop being a killer, he just went down killing a bunch of scumbag covert government types.

Chachu #2, by Iman Vellani (writer), Marianna Ignazzi (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Lucas Gattoni (letterer) - They're linked by blood. And emphysema.

Having reached Vegas, Chachu's first stop is at Cleo's grandmother, who raised her after her dad went off to fight in 'Nam. Unfortunately, Grandma's cheese ain't on the cracker, mistaking Chachu for her deceased husband and providing no useful leads on Cleo's location. For the record, Cleo's got her ankles bound in some bedroom, being brought runny eggs by the mustachioed leading man.

Over some diner grub, the two leads talk. Chachu explains how he came to L.A., looking for work, for an opportunity to prove himself. He got hired by a private investigator, and eventually took over when the Larry died. Either Ignazzi used a version of duotone, or Bellaire colored it look that way. It's not a sepia-tone, exactly. The color feels a little stained, or faded maybe. Photographs yellowing with age?

Eventually, Cleo's dad, through a middleman, hired Chachu to find Cleo, who was trying to get away from movies, only to trust the wrong guys. This is bullshit, as Leila tells us he's cribbing from The Lady from Shanghai. So it's colored the way it is because it's phony, he's washed all the details out.

After that, when Leila's pressing for information about her father, she can tell he's asking what her mother said as a way to gauge how to 'tailor his next tale.' Leila says her mother won't tell her anything. Assuming that's true, it's an approach I find a little curious. Admitting that leaves him open ground to fabricate whatever he wants. And she'd established that he wasn't being entirely truthful four panels earlier. Maybe she figures he'd see through a lie, or that being open like that will convince him there's no need for dissembling.

Or maybe it just matters that much that she drops the glib, sarcastic teenager act and shoots straight. Because I think this is less about meeting this mysterious uncle who lives in Hollywood, and more about getting to know a father she doesn't remember, through his brother.

Sunday Splash Page #448

"Inheritance," in Battle Chasers #2, by Joe Madureira (writer/penciler), Munier Sharrieff (writer), Tom McWeeney (inker), Christian Lichtner, Aron Lusen, and Liquid! (colorists), Richard Starkings and Dave Lanphear (letterers)

The anthology collection I bought doesn't mark when one issue ends and another begins, so I'm guessing on the issue number by counting pages.

Battle Chasers! Joe Madureira's creator-owned project, after he became a hot name with his manga-influenced art on X-Men titles. I was pretty much entirely unaware of it when it came out. The late-90s were a low point in my interest in comics, and forget about anything outside Marvel. The most I knew about it was Wizard did one of their "who would win?" between Red Monika and Lara Croft, with the punchline being Monika never shows up. The joke went right over my head.

Set in a medieval fantasy world, it revolves around Gully, daughter of the legendary warrior Aramus. As with most legends, Aramus is dead, and the magic gauntlets he used make their way to her. Which makes her a target. She ends up with a ragtag group of defenders: Calibretto, a war golem (basically a robot.) An old wizard named Knolan, and eventually Garrison, an old family friend who has to drag himself out of his drunken grief to pick up his sword again.

There's also Red Monika, a thief and old acquaintance of Garrison's, but her plot thread - involving a job breaking a pirate out of prison she was better off not taking - only just started to connect with everyone else's before the book went on a two decade hiatus. As I understand it, when it started again (briefly) in 2023, it was a whole new storyline. Which seems nuts to me, but they're Madureira's characters, he can play it how he wants.

Madureira and Sharrieff (I'm not sure who gets credit for what when it comes to writing) throw a lot of different threats and tease various future developments. Monika's employer was some sorcerer Knolan is acquainted with, who tends to speak in grand pronouncements and refers to himself in the 3rd person. Wears a metal mask and a cloak. Not-Dr. Doom is out for revenge on those that imprisoned him, and Knolan's the last one standing, though August (that's his name) doesn't seem in any hurry to tie off the loose end. A guy claiming to be Gully's half-brother shows up after the gloves. That doesn't go well for him (the gloves have a "hands off" policy for unapproved users) or for her, since it shatters her idyllic view of their father.

There's something about magic, or maybe the mana to power it, running dry, or getting wonky. Some of Knolan's spells don't work the way he intends. Garrison's sword has some weird power. The kingdom where most of the issues take place is ruled by a king who seems incredibly untrustworthy. Always with the ominous smiles, the manipulations, the shadows across his face making him look sketchy. Really feels like he ought to be stroking his goatee while making a scheming face.

That said, when Monika's heist results in a prison break and the city comes under attack from a bunch of weirdos with a grudge, the king does tell his army to avoid engaging and focus on rescuing wounded, rather than sacrifice them in a futile struggle. But maybe because he wanted a ragtag band of heroes to emerge? Or maybe he's just pretending he manipulated everything, I dunno.

Madureira's artwork is all exaggeration. Broad shoulders, big hands, big chests (especially Monika's.) When Gully's half-brother gets ahold of the gauntlets, he seems to swell in size (or Joe Mad just draws him taking up more of the panel), and his emotional control slips. He starts screaming and doing rictus grins so you can see at least 17 of his teeth (I counted.) The flashback to his last encounter with Aramus, his father and his knights are wearing these ridiculous suits of armor that look two sizes too big for them. Aramus' shoulder pads would be a sled for at least two kids, and the helmet has horns that surely meant he couldn't turn his head more than about two inches to either side. Completely impractical, but as a depiction of him as the terrifying force those he crushed no doubt saw him as, effective.

It's kind of interesting the gauntlets don't change size to fit the person wearing them. So you have this slip of a girl with gloves that make each of her hands look as big as her torso. I suppose it's an effect in contrast, similar to how Calibretto is a hulking mass of metal plates and glowing yellow eyes, with no particular face, but also a gentle sort who likes feeding birds and wants Gully to teach him how to make stones dance across water (i.e., skip stones, which was a cute scene.) Or Garrison, once he takes up the blade again, is neatly trimmed, authoritative, and decisive, but internally, the guy is still a mess. Prone to wrecking his room and overreacting to any sudden threat.

Other-dimensional spaces, cursed bracelets with imprisoned demons inside, prisons set on narrow rocky spires and patrolled by guards on flying manta rays. If Madureira could draw anything he could think of or wanted to, it had some potential. I got to the end of the anthology and was curious how things would resolve, but it's ultimately unrealized.

Saturday Splash Page #250

"Forced March", in The Surgeon #6, by John Pence (writer), Omar Zaldivar (artist), Hedwin Zaldivar (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer)

Another 2025 mini-series. The Surgeon is set 15 years after some sort of climate disaster. Humanity has started to pick itself up again. At least, some of the folks living on the surface are doing that. The wealthy are living in FallOut-style bunkers underground. What, they couldn't get their asses to Mars and die there like ambitious pricks?

Jenny Hanover is the surgeon in question, someone who earned her medical degree before civilization collapsed, but hadn't established a career enough to pay off student loans, let alone afford to go underground. At least she doesn't have to worry about the loans now! She roams the frontier on her ill-tempered horse Paint, trading expertise for food or supplies. Since it's not an easy world for someone traveling alone, she's a pretty hardcore fighter, fully able and willing to hack through enemies with her saber.

Responding to a request for a medic on "Craigslist" - a series of watch towers - brings Hanover to Turtle Island, a fort community somewhere in the western half of the U.S., led by a variety of people with useful skills. Dr. Martinez is an engineer, Rogers is a Marine, Smithy knows forging, Ben knows chemistry, especially fermentation. Hanover sets up shop, saving a little girl from appendicitis during a tornado right off the bat. The community celebrates with a big party, and Hanover is goaded into making several promises while drunk. The community's rule is "word is bond," so she's on the hook. This includes training what passes for their militia in hand-to-hand combat, since Rogers knows marksmanship, not swordfighting.

That's one of those things Pence sort of hints at without discussing in depth. Mentions of learning from people who taught Chinese farmers to fight the Japanese, but other times saying she wasn't trained so much as she just learned. Like her discussions of different types of storms, or what conditions are like in the eastern half of the country. Alluding to her lengthy history surviving the apocalypse.

(Of the three pencilers the mini-series has - Zachary Dolan for issues 1 and 2, Stan Yak for issue 3, Omar Zaldiver for issues 4 thru 6 - Dolan does the best at drawing her as someone with years of experience who's been living rough. She graduated med school before society collapsed, and it's been 15 years since then. She's got to at least be in her 40s, but Yak and Zaldiver minimize her scars, give her shiny smooth hair, pretty her up a lot. Dolan's version smiles bigger, groans and stretches and slumps. Her hair is stringier, her skin's darker and lined, like she gets a lot of sun and doesn't have a lot of opportunities to bathe.)

There's a need for training, as the fort is soon targeted by a group Hanover is acquainted with, Fury Road rejects calling themselves "Hot Animal Machines." Seems like a contradictory name, but their motto is also, 'everyone dies tonight, or dies trying,' so we are not dealing with geniuses here.

Turtle Island wins the battle, a violent and bloody one with Hanover as the point of the spear (or the edge of the sword) but can't drive the invaders away solely by force of arms. Not without more casualties than they're prepared to accept, anyway. To win the war, they fight dirty, offering opium laced with warfarin. That gets the attention of the United First Nations, especially this she-devil doctor with a sword. Hanover manages to talk herself out of trouble, offering to help Chief Long and his people rescue others being sold as slave labor to the wealthy underground (in exchange for fresh drugs.)

Then she breaks her word and runs off with the chief's nephew. That decision doesn't turn out well for anyone.

Running through the book is the notion of ideals or creeds. The gap between what people say they believe in and what they do when the chips are down. Hanover explains the concept of triage to a young man at the fort named Abner, who shows interest in becoming a healer. That if a patient is beyond saving, she lets them die, to put that energy and resources towards someone that has a chance. If the patient has a chance, then she has to do all she can to help them, including remove an appendix during a tornado.

This becomes a sticking point between them, and to an extent between her and Turtle Island in general. Rogers is wounded during initial contact with the Hot Animal Machines. Arrow in the shoulder. He gets hooked on opium during the recovery; Pence does a nice bit where Rogers' internal narration agrees he should switch to liquid aspirin, but then he says aloud he's still in too much pain. It gets bad enough, he swipes some of the tainted opium without realizing it.

Hanover gives him all the blood she can, then leads Abner and some others out to see if the Hot Animal Machines took the bait. Which leaves her ill-equipped to fight when Chief Long's guys get the drop on her. After negotiating her release, she braves a torrential downpour, at night, to get back to the fort and check on Rogers. Abner sat around drinking and playing cards with the First Nation guys. Where was the commitment to healing? To Abner, it's not a 24/7 thing, he just wants to know how to patch someone up and then go on with his life.

Martinez keeps talking about "word is bond," and Hanover plays by those rules. She gives Turtle Island everything she agreed to - while heavily intoxicated - and more besides. The terms of agreement didn't say she would fight a war for them, or compromise an oath by offering tainted drugs, but she did that too. She fulfilled her terms of the deal, but Martinez gets pissed when she decides to leave, and when Paint brings her back, badly wounded, says to let her die. Smithy, the only one who points out she did as promised, disagrees and takes care of her himself.

Little Bird seduces her, then steals her sword and Paint. Partly as revenge for not letting him die of a wound, partly because that was how he interpreted his uncle's stories about counting coup to prove you're a warrior. Chief Long is not impressed, correctly noting Hanover is not someone you want for an enemy.

Not that Hanover is above breaking her word or bending her ethics. Maybe "do no harm" went out the window the first time she had to kill in self-defense, but she still raises it as an objection to the tainted opium, then goes along with the plan. She promises to help Chief Long on his rescue mission, then bails with Little Bird at the first opportunity, even though she seems to accept payment for aid she didn't provide.

And I think part of the conflict between her and Abner is a different notion of how to use medical knowledge. Hanover wanders, going where the work is. She's seen the world outside Turtle Island's log walls, and it's hardened her. She has at least 3 scars on her face and others on her arms. Probably more we don't see. She's missing a tooth, at least when Dolan draws her. She mentions not being able to use opium because she's addicted. She's probably performed uglier operations than that appendectomy in worse conditions than a tornado.

That's not Abner's goal. He wants to help the people of Turtle Island, and that's the extent of his interest. Maybe if someone rides up asking for help he'd offer, though he flatly declined to help Hanover when she returned, so maybe not. Maybe it is, as Hanover suggests, that he just liked the pretty idea of being a healer, and the reality is too ugly, too difficult for him. Or maybe he knows his limits. He wants to protect his world and the people in it, limited as that is.

Hanover seems willing to help people as she comes across them in need, or answer the call when it's put forth, but I'm not sure her world has anyone in it but her and Paint. Everything else is transactional. Which means, when she has nothing to trade, she's got nothing to rely on but someone's pity. If not for Smithy, she dies. Little Bird might be an asshole, but he's got friends. When she gets a shot at him, they ignore Chief Long and try to rescue their pal. Like I said, that doesn't end well for anyone. People get run over with wagons, bit by horses, take hatchets to the foot.

The mini-series doesn't end with any significant change in how Hanover's going to do things, either. She briefly considers going back to Turtle Island, but brushes it off after one panel. Can't imagine she's going to want to have any run-ins with the United First Nations going forward, and she and Little Bird made some enemies before he sprang his trap. Enemies everywhere, and no friends to be found.