What I Bought 8/29/2026 - Part 1

August has dragged on forever. So sick of this month. It doesn't help that we're experiencing yet another full week of hellish temperatures. Today we're looking at two books from early in this miserable, interminable month.

The Deadman #3, by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martin Morazzo (artist), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Good Old Neon (letterer) - Well, at least he's dressed in the right color for the party.

Deadman descends into Hell to ask Lucifer about the demon he faced in issue 1. For some reason, Rama Kushna makes him take along the ghost kid, Bobby, that tags at his heels in Purgatory. So down they go.

This issue really seems like an opportunity to for Morazzo to do a lot of different stuff. I mean, I'm sure there's some deeper significance to the version of Hell that Prince has opted for, but whatever theological or literary references he's making are lost on me.

So the first level, dubbed "Button", a place for those who, 'let the elevator door close as someone ran towards it calling, "Wait!"', is done like, what I'd think of as the art in a Middle Ages church. Oddly-shaped figures and animals, drawing hair like a depiction of the wind. There's a page of mostly prose that adds a little backstory to the man using the demons to keep himself young, with just one image along the right side of the page.

When Deadman and Bobby reach level 6 "Full Stop", they find the fracking magnate Deadman supposedly sent to Heaven in issue 1. Turns out Lucifer's got veto power, and the guy gets to spend eternity having his organs ripped out and devoured by Cerberus, only to for everything to regenerate. Anyway, there's a page of charts and graphs - this is apparently level 7 - that depict the course of the man's life and show that he should, in fact, be damned. Frankly, it's a messy page, but it figures Hell would be full of people who don't know how to properly organize a powerpoint slide.

The page of the 8th level is all negative space, white outlines against a solid back backdrop, before they reach Lucifer. Who laughs at the idea anyone other than him gets final say on whether someone is damned or saved. Wait, they're letting the Devil decide? What idiot made that system? Oh, right, God. The same moron that allegedly created this fucked-up place we live in. "Lucy" gets a good laugh at Deadman's notion that Rama Kushna wouldn't tell him about this arrangement, so now Deadman's going to yell at God. Good luck with that.

Chachu #1, by Iman Vellani (writer), Marianna Ignazzi (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Lucas Gattoni (letterer) -  Strong "teen trying to look cool," vibes. To her credit, she's doing a lot better than I would have managed. 

In 1979, Leila has come to Los Angeles. She's starting college soon, but she's really here to look for an uncle she's never met, who left home for reasons no one can agree on (or they won't tell her the truth if they do.) She finds him, he notices her, she panics, her car collides with his wife's car as said wife tears ass away from their home.

They talk, though she doesn't get the answers she's looking for. Well, it wouldn't be a mini-series if it was that easy, would it. Her internal narration, or her diary, whatever form the caption boxes are meant to be, is definitely overdone. 'His mustache sat too politely under his nose - like it was there to chaperone his more boyish features.' It's a nice line, but as my dad would says, veers too far into Raymond Chandler territory. Leila's also obviously trying to appear more mature than she is, thinking of this as some grand adventure of discovery, so it fits.

Leila is woken in the night by a gun in her face. Her Chachu has a visitor, his father-in-law, who is a movie producer, I think. If so, it's in the sense it makes a convenient cover for criminal activities and threats. Hence the armed goons and the midnight visit. He wants to know where his daughter went, because she needs to be there for a big movie premiere.

And while Leila's shaken enough to almost start crying, she's recovered enough confidence by the next day to insist her uncle can't use her car without taking her, too. So it's off to Vegas, where Cleo is visiting old girlfriends when she gets attacked. By people very interested in stealing her wedding ring. Fortunately some lantern-jawed leading man shows up and chloroforms her, so he can carry her to safety. Which is not doing much to dispel Chachu's notion this is all a publicity stunt his father-in-law engineered.

Ignazzi's art reminds me a bit of Chris Samnee's. Not as squared-off, bit softer in the linework, but a similar vibe. Also not as heavy on the solid blacks, but this story isn't quite as dark as some of the stuff I've seen Samnee draw. At least, not yet. I really like how Ignazzi draws Leila, with the huge sunglasses and the coat with the massive fur trim collar. It could be meant as a disguise, but it comes off like a child wearing their parents' clothes. She wants to project the image of an adult, but it just comes off as an obvious act. Her face is also more rounded than anyone else's, her eyes bigger relative to her face. She's still just a kid, but she wants badly to be an adult. Get the answers she thinks everyone withholds because she's too young.

Sunday Splash Page #442

"Cap-Snake," in Avengers Assemble #4, by Steve Orlando (writer), Valentina Pinti (artist), Sonia Oback and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo (color artists), Cory Petit (letterer)

After the whole mess with Blood Hunt, Captain America decided they needed a crew of Avengers that were always ready to respond to any crisis. I'm pretty sure that was kind of what the Avengers were for. Confronting threats no single hero could handle alone? What the hell are the regular Avengers, in the main book, doing if not that?

So Cap's Avengers Emergency Response Squad - AVENG.E.R.S., yes, they turned just the last three letters into an acronym - use the old Avengers Mansion as HQ, and whoever is there when a call comes in rolls out to face it. So, again, it's the Avengers, just more haphazard about who's on duty?

Cheap shots at the concept aside, this wasn't bad. The team is a nice mix of long-standing Avengers and new ones. Besides Captain America, you've got the Wasp, Hawkeye, Hercules, Wonder Man, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau (going as Photon), Living Lightning, Shang-Chi, Night Thrasher and Lightspeed. A little light on scientists - basically Night Thrasher - and not much magic - basically Hercules - but it's a good blend of personalities, and a big enough roster Orlando can grab a different group of 4 to 5 in every issue to confront whatever the immediate crisis is.

In issue 1, the Red Skull's daughter gets hold of some helm from a goddess of hate, and it starts to amp up Cap, Wasp, and Monica's natural assertiveness until the three of them are butting heads and sniping over who should be giving orders. Shang-Chi's the one with enough spiritual awareness to fight the pull and get them back rowing the same direction.

Issue 2, an entire town is swarmed with ghost apes, so you end up with Cap, Hawkeye, Night Thrasher and Hercules. Herc being a demi-god means he can actually punch ghosts, and apparently understand all languages? Thrasher's the one who detects a lot of cosmic radiation. Hawkeye's the one actually trying to interpret what the apes are silently saying, because of his experience being deaf and all.

The overarching plot is the revitalized Serpent Society is using these crises as cover for smaller heists, and the AVENG.E.R.S slowly figuring that out. Specifically, the Society is stealing weird crap to create some potion that turns people into snake-people, in service of Mephisto (the "true Serpent"), who they now worship. I tend to prefer the Serpents as crooks who work together to improve their odds of pulling off a score rather than cultist wack-a-doodles, but it's not the worst set-up, I guess. Orlando adds a couple of new serpents, including a big one called Titanoboa that Viper treats like some genius of the human mind because he correctly predicted Captain America would throw himself on a vial of the toxin to protect a teammate.

I guess given the usual pinheads that work in the Society, even that basic level of observation is considered noteworthy.

Orlando also makes sure to devote a few pages each issue to interactions between the Avengers at the Mansion, awaiting the next crisis. In issue 2, we get a page of Lightspeed fangirling over the Wasp, and being assured that she can handle being an Avenger, plus a couple of pages of Living Lightning making Shang-Chi watch some apparently terrible movie starring Schwarzenegger and Wonder Man. They're little things, but it's a way to establish personalities and let the characters bounce off each other outside combat.

One thing that doesn't work in the book's favor is the churn of art teams. Every issue has a different artist. Besides Pinti, you have Cory Smith, Scot Eaton, Marcelo Ferreira, and Jose Luis. Most tend towards a more grounded, realistic-leaning style. Nothing wildly exaggerated. Likewise, Oback's colors tend to be muddy and dulled. Nothing leaps off the page and demands your attention.

I don't like that approach for this book. This isn't some gritty, back alleys, espionage-focused squad. It's confronting people dressed as snakes, the ghosts of tormented apes, and groups trying to kill those turned into vampires against their will, with whoever happens to be available. Hercules is hitting people with a glowing adamantine mace. Monica Rambeau is doing a better than terminal velocity crash into the Red Skull's daughter with Captain America's shield. That sort of stuff should lean towards four-color, bright and dynamic art.

This ran for 5 issues as a mini-series, after which it became an online comic. Or Infinity comics, whatever they were calling them. I didn't follow it - see my comments two weeks ago about not being big on reading comics online - so I don't know what happened after.

Saturday Splash Page #244

"Not Their Mess," in Unstoppable Doom Patrol #5, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

A 7-issue mini-series originally solicited as a 6-issue mini-series in 2023, Unstoppable Doom Patrol took place in the aftermath of, I think, Lazarus Planet. A DC event where the entire planet got rained on with Lazarus Pit juice and gave a bunch of people new powers. Something like that; I pay less attention to DC's Big Events than I do Marvel.

Point being, there's a crap-ton of new people with powers, many who can't control them, or are being exploited. The Doom Patrol find them, rescue them, bring them back to a massive underground facility - lovingly depicted in cross-section by Burnham and Reber across two pages in issue 2 - where they can be safe, and also learn to control their powers. Hmm, where have I heard most of this before? Eh, maybe the Doom Patrol have a long history of that sort of thing; I know there's the occasional influx of new characters, who are usually slaughtered by the next writer. *glances in Keith Giffen's direction*

The core roster is Robotman, Elasti-Woman, Negative Man, a new character called Beast Girl that can affect the fight or flight part of your brain, and a person with new powers that run off anger who gleefully calls himself Degenerate. The Chief is now one of Crazy Jane's various personalities. Long-time characters like Niles Caulder and Mento are around, but Caulder's sidelined into an advisory role, and Mento spends most of his time in a tube, and is limited in what he's allowed to do. Which doesn't feel very much like taking care of a metahuman to me. At least, not in a way different from how the people experimenting on Degenerate would.

Culver really leans into the idea of the Doom Patrol as outsiders from the rest of the superhuman community. They butt heads with Batman in the first issue, which is also where I learn that, at least as far as the Chief is concerned, the Flash is the only metahuman on the Justice League. Aliens, Atlanteans, and Amazons don't count. I assume that would extend to sorceresses, androids, and guys who drink a potion that lets them stretch, or however it is Dibny's powers work. Aren't Aquaman and Wonder Woman kind of mutants by the standards of their people? What about Metamorpho, or Firestorm? Black Lightning? Oh well, it's just the Chief gatekeeping who gets to be part of the community. Nothing troubling about that!

In issue 3, Robotman and Negative Man haul ass cross-country, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner on their heels, because their latest rescue is a guy that seems to be getting along with the Starro clamped to his face.

The primary antagonist is a government agency, led by Peacemaker. Still outfitted like he is in the comics and the John Cena TV show, including the bedpan helmet, but not nearly as much of a dumbass. More a sadist, who figures anything is acceptable to "protect" his country. Including giant robots with "PEACE" stamped on them. At least the giant robots aren't purple. 

Running in the background, at least until it steps into the foreground, is a plot by certain parts of the Brotherhood of Evil. Mallah turns on the Brain and sides with General Immortus in a plan involving candle wax, a magic ritual, and the grave of former Doom Patrol cast member Dorothy. Something about humanity's fear of the world's end via nuclear fire using her powers to take physical form, and now it's back, in Immortus' body. His withered, decrepit, nasty body.

A big fight spans the last two issues, but it's more about the actions the Doom Patrol take. The Chief trusts Caulder not to work behind her back to retake control, and they encourage Mento to fully let loose with his powers, and trust that they'll keep him from abusing that. The Chief also steps back to let Jane talk with The Quiz - every superpower you've never thought of, does it reset after each fight? - and convince her to help them. When Peacemaker shows up at the end, Degenerate chooses to cover everyone's retreat, trusting they'll rescue him later.

The mini-series went from 6 to 7 issues because DC decided to have some weird mini-event during the summer, where almost everyone on Earth was magically put to sleep, Robotman being one of the few exceptions. So Doom Patrol got a one-shot Burnham drew, and this book got a mid-series fill-in with art by David LaFuente. LaFuente's art is much more exaggerated than Burnham's, but the issue is focused on the team's mental health professional, who uses her power to access the 5th dimension to help people deal with what's on their minds by projecting it. So it's what people feel or perceive, rather than what's true, so more realistic art wouldn't really fit.

Burnham handles the other 6 issues (Reber colors all 7). His style is closer to realistic, but not in a constrained way. He can draw weird, and get detailed, both of which seem essential if you're going to draw a Doom Patrol book. The blob monster up there was an attempt by a corporation to create a superhuman that automatically adapts to threats presented to it. As you can see, it needed a bit more testing. The Brotherhood have a lady with tiger heads for hands, there's a creepy little girl with living, curly, blonde hair. Burnham draws those without them seeming out of place. In the Doom Patrol's world, stuff like that is normal. Degenerate's body morphs and shifts depending how angry he is. Mostly in terms of getting spikier, but also bulking up. Beast Girl has an adorable, fuzzy look that matches her bubbly, eager personality.

The one downside is the book, after a panel promising the Doom Patrol would return, ends with the "Eternal Flame" being dumped into the Bleed and encountering Danny the Street, who is being tortured by the Batwoman Who Laughs. *weary sigh* I never understood why "Batman who is a Joker" was supposed to be such a multiversal threat, so I really don't understand why Batwoman Who Is A Joker is what someone thinks is a good dun-dun-DUUUUUN teaser for the Doom Patrol. Not that it matters; there's a new Doom Patrol book starting up soon, and I can't tell that it's going to pay any attention to this mini-series. 

Random Back Issues #174 - The Power Company #11

Gumbo's Eats-A-Teria, where the food is as terrible as the name! And most of the customers are ex-cons, looking to get thrown back in the stir, I mean, looking for work. Unfortunately for three of them, they had their discussion one booth over from where Bork and Sapphire were enjoying their dinners. So those two, plus Manhunter, invite themselves along to the meeting.

It's going smoothly, no real challenge, when suddenly, there's smoke, and drums. Someone knows how to make an entrance. Someone big enough to toss Manhunter around like a doll. Someone who can, to Manhunter's surprise, use "effrontery" correctly. Too bad the guy couldn't pick a better name than "Mourn."

Worse for him that Firestorm shows up, and takes Mourn out in 4 panels. After which he apologizes he didn't do something flashier. Right, flashier than making the floor mist, causing a water pipe to open, then turning the water to steel, except for the part closest to Mourn's face, which got turned to chloroform. Dull as dishwater. Manhunter assures him he did fine, and even though this gig didn't pay, he's very happy.

The reason becomes clear at a press conference meant to introduce Firestorm as the newest associate of the company. Manhunter interrupts to explain the men they busted were part of Shadowspire, some apparently notorious group that once infiltrated the federal government and even killed two Senators. Shadowspire was supposed to have been taken down years ago, but the files the Power Company found today may (load-bearing word there), once they've been studied, suggest Shadowspire's back, stronger than ever.

But the Power Company will be happy to help! And it won't cost one cent more than regular consultation fee rates.

All of which is news to Firestorm. These guys were still recruiting small-time hoods. They were based in a garage! They stole the Mourn suit from a government warehouse! Exactly, they've already resumed infiltrating the government through its most vulnerable point: un-monitored storage facilities.

Before he and Skyrocket can discuss it further, it's time for Firestorm to meet the press. Ronnie explains it as, he was initially unsure about Manhunter and Witchfire's offer, but they talked it out and reached an agreement. What we see is he was flat broke, JLA stipend (from Batman, or is it Atlantean and Amazonian gold?) burned on back rent and tuition, dreading eating another relish sandwich. Manhunter, after making a crack about getting to Firestorm after Blue Beetle turned them down, shows Ronnie what his starting salary will be and, well. . .

After how he handled Mourn, maybe Firestorm ought to ask for a raise. I like Blue Beetle, but Ted Kord isn't changing water into steel/sleeping gas. 

In the background, Skyrocket and Manhunter have an angry, whispered conversation about how he's lying just to drum up business. Manhunter argues nothing he said was false. It was Shadowspire, they did do the things he said, the files may, in fact, reveal the organization to be far larger and better organized than they appeared today. But if it is fraud, then it certainly wouldn't be in the company's best interests if someone, say another major shareholder like Skyrocket, to denounce him publicly.

Then he steps forward to help a floundering Firestorm with the press, leaving Skyrocket to stew over what she can actually do to counter this kind of stuff while Josiah Power's in a coma. She decides to contact Witchfire. As the third shareholder, she's the deciding vote, and firmly in Manhunter's, "all about the Benjamins" camp, unless Skyrocket can convince her otherwise.

But the pop star-turned-sorceress is in Louisiana with Striker Z, trying to track down a magic sword for the Lords of Trinius, who will pay well. Striker's a little concerned if it's smart to give the sword to these guys, who might enslave the world with it. Sensing he's thinking too much like Skyrocket, Witchfire plays the, "I saw you like Nickelback. I can bring you to meet them next time they play in L.A." card.

No doubt summoned by that cursed name, some many-tentacled thing with a lot of teeth sneak attacks. As Striker Z gets dragged under, Witchfire's surprised to find one of her arms missing, and the stump is just glowing yellow energy. 

{8th longbox, 90th comic. The Power Company #11, by Kurt Busiek (writer), Tom Grummett (penciler), Prentis Rollins (inker), Guy Major (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)}

Giving Thanks The Solicit Table Isn't Entirely Barren

November's solicitations were better than I expected. 2025, I was down to almost nothing by the end of  the year, and then it built back up (briefly) in the spring. There aren't a ton of new things I'm interested in, but "any" is better than "none." Although, I would swear when that Hector Plasm mini-series wrapped last year, Cereno said there was another one coming out this year. No sign of it so far!

What's new? Marvel has the first issue of Friendly Neighborhood Mary Jane, where MJ is now a producer, trying to get a project off the ground, despite sabotage attempts by the Chameleon. So it feels like Ashley Allen is taking a cue from the short-lived Amazing Mary Jane series, where MJ was basically acting like a producer and problem-solver for Mysterio's biopic. Not the worst idea, although I'm not enthused about Phil Noto as artist. But on the plus side, I saw a Venom solicit that said the symbiote's back with Eddie Brock, so maybe MJ's out of symbiote hell. Fingers crossed! 

Red 5 has The Agony of Stars, a 4-issue mini-series by Kim Ousley and Etienne Derepentigny about a serial killer targeting the retired members of an elite police squad. And Antarctic Press has Fang Hunters, which sounds like a humorous Western crossed with horror elements, in outer space. It could be a complete mess with all that stuff (one of the vampire bounty hunting crew may be a gorilla, if the cover is accurate), but it might work.

Abrams has Lantern Pass, by Serge Lehman and Peeters. It seems like kind of the standard plot of some investigators from the city coming to an insular community and stirring up things the locals would rather keep buried, but the cover was very cool. So if that's representative of Peeters' work, it might be worth it for the atmospheric art alone. 

What's ending? Generation X-23 wraps at 10 issues, to the surprise of, probably, no one.

And the rest? I am, however, surprised that Marc Spector: Moon Knight isn't wrapping up at 10. I figured this entire run was building to some new Midnight Suns book MacKay was going to write, but nope. Instead Moon Knight and Tigra are teaming up with Hank Pym, no doubt so Marc and Hank can compare who's fucking up more lately. D'Orc's 10th issue also involves the title character teaming up with someone better off being avoided, but it's a golem that wants to kill him.

I don't think The Deadman is ending at 6 issues, although the solicit saying 'last first adventure' makes me wonder. Batgirl 25 bring David Cain into play, so I guess Brombal's going for a mirroring of Cass' first ongoing, where it was mostly focused on David, but the 25th issue was a throwdown with Lady Shiva. Daimon Scott's going to be drawing some of it, at least.

Fantastic Four is done with DNX tie-ins, and North is not going back to the time travel well - yet. Vampyrates! is wrapping up its first arc with the pirate (pyrate?) crew learning a big secret, but under fire from a hostile fleet. Chachu and The Matron are both on their fourth issues, and Lilith: Blood and Burlesque 2 has the title character fighting for her life against a demon butler.

Marvel's also releasing one of those facsimile versions of Emperor Doom,  an OGN I had been toying with getting. This might be cheaper than the versions I see in the places I usually look, so maybe I'll get that.

Eephus (2024)

A pair of adult rec league baseball teams meet for the final game at their local field, before it's paved over to make room for a new middle school. The game carries on from the afternoon into the night, with the few fans, the umps, and even some of the players drifting away. The rest keep playing, determined to see the game through to the proper ending they think the field deserves.

The film moves at the pace of a baseball game, which is to say, leisurely. We see a lot of the game action. The actors were expected to at least approximate playing, and you can tell which ones had more experience, especially when it comes to sliding. But these are mostly middle-aged guys, playing a game they loved for decades. Greying beards, scraggly hair and beer guts. They shouldn't look graceful, and they sure don't.

Apperson Paint's leftfielder could do a pretty convincing Santa Claus impression, based on his body shape. The Riverdogs' pitcher has a goofy windup that suggests he saw Craig Kimbrel and decided to look even stupider. Apperson's back-up pitcher has the mustache and pitching motion of an escapee from the Dead Ball era. Their catcher, by the later innings, is sitting on a footstool behind the plate, because his knees can't take it. 

That's part of what's perfect about the film. In a sense, this game means nothing. The teams aren't playing for anything other than bragging rights. Guys on the same team are all wearing different shirts, united only by colors. Apperson's coach leaves (reluctantly) mid-game because he was about to miss his niece's christening. Another guy gets fed up and just drives away. Yet that guy also got incredibly pissed when the other team, knowing he was on a diet, started taunting him by calling out different types of food while he was batting. Then the ump made them cut it out. 'Am I in a deli? Am I trying to sell you ham?' was my favorite line.

The Riverdogs' first baseman keeps bragging about the fireworks he bought to set off after the game, even lying about what a deal he got on them. Their goofy pitcher, after taking a line drive to the chest, ices it down in between innings with a beer. When their coach tells him not to put that one back in the cooler, Troy shrugs and pops the beer, taking a long swig. When one player finds no coach at third base to advise him, he decides to just be his own third base coach, including having fake conversations with himself. This does not go well.

Later, when Troy says he needs a breather, a random guy (actually former major leaguer Bill "Spaceman" Lee) who just showed up because he played on this field decades ago and wanted to see it one last time, agrees to pitch an inning. In his slacks and polo shirt. Then Troy resumes pitching the next inning like nothing happened. Despite one player pimping his home run to dead center with a nice slow trot around the bases, or another guy screaming at his teammate for being too conservative in whether to send runners or not, this is nothing like a serious game.

And yet, given multiple opportunities to call it, they keep playing, unwilling to let it end in a tie. The first baseman tries bribing one of the umps to stick around longer, using pork loins he won in a meat lottery. When it gets too dark, they drive their cars onto the edge of the field and use headlights. The scorer tries to ump from the empty press box. Players wander the woods retrieving baseballs because they're running out. Whether for pride, or just a refusal to let go of something that's been a big part of their lives for who knows how many years, they won't just, stop and say enough. The game ends only when it truly ends.

Which makes it sound like some horrible, purgatorial existence. I don't think that's the vibe intended, but watching them stagger around like blind men, trying to field baseballs they can't even see, has a certain feel of torment to it.

But release is no blessing. The losing pitcher sits down on the mound, head between his knees, dejected he couldn't pull off the win. Even though he was probably the victim of an umpire who couldn't actually see anything by that point. (I wasn't sure if the ump/scorer was blinking so much because he was getting sleepy, or he just had bad night vision.)

There are frequent asides in between innings. Two children of one player wondering why these adults care so much when they're not actually any good. An elderly man who has probably been coming to this field for decades, explaining to the mother of the children that you don't eat pizza at ballgames, and why do they need a school anyway? The kids can get experience working at a ballgame, flipping burgers or selling hot dogs. Two stoners spend a couple of innings standing beyond the outfield fence, asking snide questions of one of the players.

All of them wander off into the wider world long before the game concludes. It was just a temporary diversion, and once they got bored, or cold, or hungry, they decided to find something else to do. The only ones left were the players, and even if the winners are too weary to really celebrate, their dugout is significantly more talkative afterward than the losers. They're tired, they're sore, some of them will be hungover tomorrow. Some of them are already hungover. But hey, they won. If this is the end, they go out on top.

Simple Soul's Afire

This is probably not true, but I might as well believe it, as I have more faith in John Allison than whatever an internet search would tell me.

Volume 3 of Bad Machinery, The Case of the Simple Soul, finds Tackleford beset by a series of fires over summer vacation. Unfortunately, our mystery-solving squads are less than full strength, as Jack and Shauna are now in luuuurve, and spend all their time smooching or staring into each other's eyes.

Disgusting, and yet, it opens up new avenues for investigation. In between discussing whether being dismembered is an activity better shared, Shauna and Jack discover a large, shirtless man who lives under a bridge. What sheltered existences, that they've never seen a meth addict. Jack doesn't want to interrupt his summer of luuuurve with an investigation, so Shauna passes word to Charlotte and Mildred. 

Who promptly decide what this guy needs is some spiffing up, so he can meet a nice lady. I, uh, eh, but, sigh, OK. I now see what Shauna brings to the table: she's the only one not completely bonkers. Though Mildred and Charlotte seem to get along, Mildred doesn't have the pull on Lotte that Shauna does. At least in terms of distracting her from disastrous ideas like washing a fox. Meanwhile, Sonny and Linton are, despite their best efforts, being drawn into investigating the fires by the new kid at school.

Colm, when not nicking things from the store for thrills - I assume that's what, 'for the craic' means - develops an immediate and doomed crush on Charlotte. Although he seems to get his head turned by most every woman. The French assistant, the local scandal rag writer Erin Winters. Just like a real teenage boy! I miss those confusing, hormonal days. Well, mostly I miss my hair, and my shoulder not making clicking noises when I rotate it. Also, I note here that according to Linton, Charlotte's derisive nickname is Potty Grote. Which makes me think, given childrens' desire to rhyme, her last name is pronounced "grotty,", when all this time I assumed it was "groat."

Anyway, when things aren't progressing fast enough, Colm passes the info about Troll on to the fire department. In John Allison's world, firemen are apparently what cops here in the U.S. are like: Aggro lunatics with too little supervision and too much access to dangerous implements. But it's the girls' unsuccessful attempt to send the big fella on a date that gets a full-blown mob going. This does allow Shauna and Mildred's dads to show they're sensible people who recognize the dangers of mobs, but does not help Miss Perks find a proper fella.

From there, we get a few red herrings before a last-second, out of left field reveal of the true firebug. Incidentally and totally not significant, wink-wink, this is the first story that involves Charlotte's future mystery-solving sidekick Claire. Who has a huge crush on Colm and is the daughter of the fire chief. This story demonstrates a side of her I'd not seen any evidence of in Wicked Things, so it was quite surprising seeing how she started.