I was Promised There Would be No Math

Is that like algebra? 1+2 = KO?

Having found the Legendary Sword of Bonds, then allowed it to join their party, The Survivors spend volume 4 of Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World dealing with Nick's old relationship drama.

While at dinner with Karan and Bond (the sword in its disguise as young person), Nick spies his ex-girlfriend Claudine scamming a young noble in much the same way she did Nick. Nick calls her on it publicly and she withdraws, which seems to end it. Until she shows up at the inn and dumps a mug of beer on Nick's head.

She's got her boyfriend and party leader, a tiger beastman named Leon, backing her up, but when he and Nick take it outside, Leon changes his tune. He offers Claudine to Nick, even suggesting Nick could sell her to a brothel if she's too much trouble. Nick finds the whole thing offensive and throws a punch, but the fight's interrupted before it gets too far by the head of the Adventurers Guild.

Vilma wants this dispute settled with rules, and in a way that isn't strictly brawn. Thus, a combination fistfight/math bowl. Nick and Leon will fight, but another member of each party takes a math quiz between each round. The winner's fighter gets to throw a free hit before the next round begins. And Karan, who just started learning math from Nick, draws the short straw.

Rather than spend a lot of panels showing Karan working hard on math, most of the remainder of the volume focuses on Nick training to fight a much larger, stronger opponent bare-handed. Since Tiana's accompanies him to the labyrinth where he's training, it's also used as an opportunity to delve into her past a bit. Not so much the broken engagement that damaged her ability to trust, but what came after that. It's nice to see a character other than Nick or Karan get a little focus, even if the plot itself remains firmly tied to those two.

Sunday Splash Page #345

 

"Self-Aggrandizing," in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7, by Tom DeFalco (writer), Ron Wilson (penciler), Bob Camp, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Dan Green, Armando Gil, Chic Stone (inkers), George Roussos (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

The last, and best-remembered, of Marvel Two-in-One's 7 Annuals. The Champion (at this point presented simply as a powerful being from another dimension, rather than as the Elder of the Universe he'd become in Engelhart's Silver Surfer) wants to test Earth's worthiness in a challenge of athletic competition, as befits one who devoted himself fully to that pursuit. So he gathers a bunch of the physically strongest heroes on Earth to face him, one at a time, the Earth's survival on the line.

(I know Genndy Tartakovsky did a version of this in a "Dial M for Monkey" cartoon on Dexter's Lab, but I wonder if Akira Toriyama knew anything about it when he had the Cell Games in DBZ.)

Of course, like any guy that talks big about wanting people to bring it, the Champion's very specific about the rules and conditions under which it can be brought. Vision's disqualified for not being within the Champion's prescribed 'life-class.' Namor is sent away because he refuses to train, Doc Samson because he gets kayoed by the training-bot.

Well, OK, hard to argue with that one.

For all his claim of skill, the Champion restricts the challenge to boxing, rather than open it up to any type of fighting. When the Hulk charges, intending to manhandle Champion, he's disqualified because Champion won't soil his hands with a 'mindless brute.' Thor's out for using a weapon, even though he's made it pretty clear he's not putting down the hammer (and can't because he'd still turn into Don Blake in 60 seconds if he did.) The only ones who really box against the Champion are Sasquatch, Colossus, and finally, The Thing.

Beyond that, DeFalco really plays up the challenge, as Reed Richards' devices confirm the Champion is more powerful than Galactus, and the Champion can erect an impregnable force dome around the boxing ring that no one can get through. The first hit Ben takes, he declares was a harder punch than the Hulk or Silver Surfer ever landed on him.

I think the story is usually lauded as a great Thing story for his unwillingness to give up. The ref calls the fight after the 3rd round, but Ben drags himself across the ring, leaving a bloody spit trail behind him, still insisting he hasn't lost. But the Champion touts The Thing as the best among the heroes because he's the only one who understands the spirit of competition, possesses the spirit to play by the rules, to survive and win at any cost.

Setting aside some of that seems contradictory - Can you be willing to pay any price to win and follow the rules? - I'm not sure it tracks. I can see the argument Namor and Thor were too haughty and proud to play along, even with the world at risk. Thor's more insulted at the boxing trunks he has to wear than anything else. But I think most of the others understand the stakes. The narration makes clear the Hulk's been trying to keep his temper reined in, that Colossus and Wonder Man are scared (for different reasons) but going to try their best. I guess the point is Ben Grimm's the only one actually excited at the prospect of this fight, but even that, Sasquatch also talks about having been a world-class athlete and how he's missed pushing his limits. But that's more about challenging himself than testing him against someone else, maybe?

Ron Wilson drew several issues of the monthly Marvel Two-in-One, and would draw plenty of issues of The Thing's subsequent solo book, but the gaggle of inkers doesn't help him here. Some panels are pretty good - the one of Ben, hands taped, marching towards us, the knockout punch Champion lands on Sasquatch - other panels look half-finished or the characters are awkwardly posed or positioned. I don't know which inkers did which pages, so I don't know who to wish Wilson had been able to work with for the entire issue.

And there's a lot to get through, between the set-up, the training, the build for the fight, the other heroes' attempts to intervene, and the actual fights, so much of the story is crammed into small panels, alongside a lot of dialogue. But Wilson works around it, using short, wide panels to demonstrate the Champion's strength, when he knocks Ben the length of the ring (and the panel) with one hit. Or zooming in for a close-up on Ben's battered face (weird to see him with a black eye) as he climbs out of a hole in the ring.

Saturday Splash Page #147

 

"Spiders Unite," in Spider-Girls #1, by Jody Houser (writer), Andres Genolet (penciler/inker), Triona Farrell (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Spider-Geddon was, as best I can tell from reading the credits page, the second time a bunch of Spider-people from across the multiverse teamed up to fight JMS and Romita Jr. creation Morlun and his extended family of 19th-Century-finery wearing energy-vampires. This mini-series is the one and only thing I bought from that event. Why did I do that?

Probably in part because 2018 was the year the amount of stuff Marvel published I was interested dropped off sharply. They'd been solidly in the low-70s each of the previous three years, but in 2018 dropped into the 50s. Which is where they've languished ever since. So I likely hadn't adjusted and was taking chances on things I normally wouldn't.

Beyond that, this mini-series promised to focus on a small cast. Mayday Parker (going by Spider-Woman now), Anya Corazon (formerly Arana, now Spider-Girl, with predictive visions), and Annie Parker, the daughter of Peter and Mary Jane in the Renew Your Vows universe. Free of the literal armies that made up the main storyline, Mayday might get some actual focus. One of Morlun's family killed her parents in the previous event, leaving Mayday an orphan responsible for her infant brother. 

Which wasn't an isolated thing; Slott killed a lot of Spider-characters in that event. Not even in ways that really upped the stakes. Just to make numbers. Here's a one-page comic of Hostess-Fruit-Pie-Ads Spidey trying to stop Morlun with mass-produced pastries! And he's dead. Wasn't that great? Now let's spend more time on Octavius running around in Peter's stolen body!

(I have seen arguments online that's a different Mayday because the eye color is wrong. As though Marvel's paying attention to that. They can't even remember big events from a given character's past consistently.)

I thought maybe there'd be something to Mayday interacting with a younger version of both her parents (she met a high-school-aged version of her dad in a time travel adventure early in her solo series), but Peter and MJ are quickly drafted into the larger fight. Outside of a brief scene of MJ thinking about how they lost another daughter in childbirth years before Annie, nothing comes of it. Most of the mini-series is Mayday, Anya and Annie trying to figure out what Annie's powers are telling her while surviving against two of Morlun's siblings. There is a bit where Anya and Mayday try to use some sort of Green Goblin-themed battle armor to fight, but the goths completely no-sell it, so it's kind of a dud.

What I bought 10/17/2024

Can't go a day without somebody wanting me to drive halfway across the state to help them with something. People have apparently decided I'm someone at my job who can be counted on to help solve their problems. It wasn't intentional, I swear.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight: he'll hit you with sticks. Daredevil's gonna sue for trademark infringement.

Moon Knight (or Mr. Knight) is on the streets, trying to shut off the flow of a new drug, which may in fact be fairy dust. The path leads to some former boxer turned Mista Big named Achilles Fairchild, who also has a chief enforcer named Carver. Carver doesn't talk, just carries a big magic sword, but Achilles talks enough for both of them. The conversation doesn't produce results, but it's probably more of a pissing contest, I mean, marking territory, I mean, a friendly warning.

Cappuccio keeps Fairchild sitting for the first half of the conversation, which means it was a surprise when he stands up and he's got several inches on Moon Knight. He didn't look that big, but it plays well as the moment when shifts from cordial businessman to hard-nosed drug pusher.

MacKay intersperses bits of a conversation between old Moon Knight supporting cast member (former) Lt. Flint, and a new cop, a Detective Frazier. Frazier is the cop who Doesn't Want to Play Nice with Vigilantes, and is openly scornful of Moon Knight's crew, who will therefore have to learn the error of their ways. Or die, I'm good with dying. Especially since Frazier is, gasp, working for Fairchild! Because she's hooked on the drug. I don't know, a bent cop is a pretty farfetched notion to expect me to swallow in this comic about a guy who dresses all in white and beats to shit out of people for his Skeleton Bird God.

I'm not sure if it's Rosenberg or Cappuccio, but the characters are less sharply defined than they were in the previous book. The colors tend to smudge and blur a bit, softens them a little. Or makes them dirtier, I suppose. Although maybe MacKay's going to have Moon Knight ease up a bit after his most recent death. Try a little compassion. You know, not hit people where it causes permanent disfiguring. Only temporary disfiguring.

Avengers Assemble #2, by Steve Orlando (writer), Scot Eaton (penciler), Elisabetta D'Amico (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I know Red Ghost can turn intangible, but his positioning on that cover is awkward. It looks like he's punching Night Thrasher, or waiting for Thrasher to run into the back of his knuckles.

A Massachusetts town is being haunted by ape ghosts. Lots of ape ghosts. Is it Silver Age DC month at Marvel and no one told me? So it's Captain America, Hercules, Hawkeye and Night Thrasher to investigate. Herc's the only one able to actually hit ghosts, so it's just as well the apes don't seem to be trying to hurt people. The heroes eventually figure out the apes are smart enough to speak, and that they were the Red Ghost's early test subjects. No powers, save enough intelligence to speak and plead for their lives. Pleas that were ignored.

The Avengers locate Red Ghost's house, let the apes torment him until they're satisfied and then Herc uses his mace's ability to absorb energy(?) to draw in the radiation holding the ghosts in the realm of the living. Another crisis averted, although the Serpent Society stole some bone fragments soaked in magic moonshine, so that's. . .concerning. I guess? I'd say the vocal dissent of members of the Society is going to short-circuit that plot before too long.

Anyway, credit to Orlando for an interesting problem for the team to confront. The ghosts of unethical animal experimentation. I didn't quite understand why, if Hercules can apparently understand the ghosts courtesy of the "All-Speak", why he let Hawkeye keep trying to read their lips. Did Hercules just not think of trying to understand their spectral cries? But that wouldn't explain why he's still letting Hawkeye have first crack even after that. I guess he just thinks it's a good challenge for Clint.

Oback keeps the colors murky while the team is dealing with the apes, then brightens things up considerably once they find the Red Ghost. Maybe because, once the team has a sense of the cause, things aren't so dire. Eaton's ghost apes are suitably anguished and angry looking.

Fear of the Dark - Walter Mosley

Paris owns a bookstore in L.A. in the '50s. It ought to be a quiet life, which is what he wants. When his cousin Ulysses stops by, Paris sends him away. Because Ulysses - or "Useless" as everyone but his mother calls him - always brings trouble with him.

But Paris can find his own trouble. Like sleeping with a girl whose previous relationship is not quite as over as she claimed. Paris takes to his heels, and when he returns to his bookstore hours later, the boyfriend's dead on the floor. As the boyfriend and lady were both white, and Paris is black, this could be a real problem were the cops to find out. Especially with Paris not knowing why the guy is dead.

The murder is connected to Useless' visit, but the whys and hows and what-fors are teased out slowly over the course of the book. There are plenty of digressions, as Paris roams the neighborhood, giving us peeks into the different lives and cultures of the city. Sometimes the enclaves different groups make for themselves, but also where they mix and coexist. Having never been a terribly community-minded person, the grand cultural map of the city, or the city as an organism, isn't hugely interesting to me except for how it impacts the story. I take more from it for the opportunities it gives Mosley to introduce new characters and sketch a quick, but interesting, background for them.

Mosley doesn't write Paris as brave, or at least, Paris doesn't think of himself as brave. Paris contrasts himself with his friend Fearless Jones (who has apparently been the protagonist of a couple other books Mosley wrote, not sure if Paris was in those, too.) From Paris' perspective, Fearless is never flustered, never afraid, can speak calmly with anyone, from a hired killer to a frightened mother to a white pastor. When they're put in a holding cell with a bunch of other guys, Paris is almost grateful to feel safe from the threats of the outside world, while Fearless is, as the names suggests unperturbed by the whole thing.

But even if Paris doesn't particularly care where Useless is, and is only dragged into the search by his aunt, he does keep digging. He keeps asking questions and trying to piece things together, whether his aunt is pressing him or not, whether Fearless is there to back him up or not. He was a likeable enough main character. Clever when he's got time to plan his approach, stubborn enough to keep digging, able to do something dangerous if it's really necessary, even though he's terrified. Although I especially liked the part where he hits his limit with his aunt and gives her a verbal dressing down. Mosley wrote that really well, the way the dam burst and it all just flooded out.

'Somebody overhearing our words would have thought that I was going down the wrong road. But that someone wouldn't have been listening between the lines. In his own estimation Tommy was a superior specimen. He only dealt with white people and was better educated than 99 percent of the Negro race. He would have felt he could dismiss me unless I intimidated him physically or intellectually.

Tommy could have kicked my ass up and down the block, so I used the only muscle I had.'

5th Passenger (2017)

An escape pod from one of a series of ships transporting some of humanity to a new world is discovered with only one survivor, one of the navigation officers. And she's comatose. Fortunately the ability to see a person's memories by slapping a pair of fancy blue goggles on someone's face exists, so we and the rescuers, can maybe learn what happened.

OK, so one thing that nags at me throughout this movie is that, even though we're allegedly seeing Lt. Miller's memories of the events, we often see Lt. Miller herself. As though we're actually seeing the memories of some 6th, invisible, passenger who was in the pod.

Now, it is pointed out or alluded to by more than one character that memory is not an ironclad thing. People remember what they want to, and memories are affected by perception. This, as you no doubt have guessed, factors into the answer to what happened. That said, it still bugs me that Lt. Miller's memories are to involve her being apart from herself.

The movie has the grounds for a good pressure cooker atmosphere, full of tension and frayed nerves. Earth seems to have been divided into "citizens" and "non-citizens." The latter aren't excluded from the ship - Lt. Miller, the livestock herder and the doctor on the pod are all in that category - but they're treated essentially as slaves or tools. Their uniforms even have a label on the sleeve that states "non-citizen". The two citizens expect them to be silent unless spoken to, and are indignant at the notion of even sharing an escape pod with "roaches", as one of the two describes them. The pod was also only supposed to hold 4 people, so they have less oxygen and food stores than expected. And Lt. Miller's pregnant with the livestock herder's kid (though he doesn't learn that until halfway through.)

Like I said, there's some fertile ground here, especially as Miller appears the only one with skills that might save them once the pod is sent off-course. But then they find another, damaged, pod, and it seems like there was an experiment on-board, and now it's on their pod, and it's almost Baby's First Alien flick. The addition of a monster doesn't entirely sabotage the social strata friction, but it looks so fake and so goofy it does a fair bit of damage. The writing doesn't help either. Lots of, lines that are clumsy attempts to provide exposition, plus some acting that thinks putting extra emphasis on every word creates extra emotion, too.

Burning Leaves and Burning Sands

Depends how good a dancer they are, and if you're in the mood to laugh at another's misfortune.

Having defeated one of the Seven Fallen Angels and repaired Tama's relationship with her father, volume 4 of No Longer Allowed in Another World finds Sensei and the others having stopped in the village of Toneriko, located in the shadow of the great tree Weltenbaum. But the village isn't doing so well, since a gang of Otherworlders set up a casino across the river, and have begun selling the leaves of the great tree as a narcotic to their fellow Otherworlders. Even one of the locals, a woman named Esche believed to possibly be a witch, has opened up a bar beside the casino and is raking in the money. She's even snared Sensei, not that he was a difficult catch.

Fortunately, an Otherworlder named Yamada, who fancies himself a protector of justice and honor, has arrived to trounce these wicked Otherworlders. And he does, even destroying their casino. Sensei's not impressed by Yamada's binary view of the world. As the villagers refuse to listen to Sensei's explanation of Esche's actions and run her out, then offer to pay Yamada to protect the village while they get down to the business of selling Weltenbaum's leaves as a drug, it would seem Sensei's correct.

Sort of. It's presented to us that all the money Esche made was essentially protection money she gave "Boss" to restrict his business to Otherworlders and leave the villagers alone. But right about the time Yamada destroys the casino, Boss was already planning to have his guys abduct some of the villagers and forcibly get them addicted to the drugs and gambling. So Esche's approach of conciliation was about to fail. Because Boss was never going to honor his word past the point it suited his purposes. That the villagers turned out to also be opportunists, simply lacking the vision to see the chance until someone else did it first, doesn't make Boss less of a scumbag or a threat.

Anyway, it turns out Esche was much more than she appeared, and the villagers are shit out of luck. Sensei, on the other hand, receives a gift to ease his distress. From there, the story ventures to yet another new region, the Samstag Desert. This is a Nir-focused story, since he's from here originally and brings the party to the orphanage where he grew up. Things are rougher than you'd expect, even for an orphanage in the middle of a freaking wasteland. Another gang of Otherworlders terrorize the region, making me believe that damn Isekai Jackpot Truck has been running people over like it's playing Grand Theft Auto, plus there's a terrible beast roaming the sands at night.

On the plus side, someone keeps leaving baskets of food on the door every night. Nir, who's struggling to match the stories he's told the other orphans of his being a great warrior, takes some solace in helping Mr. Saito collect food from an oasis for the kids. The orphanage comes under attack by the gang, and Nir demonstrates his courage, although not in battle exactly.

It's a pretty good arc, as Noda shows Nir's been defining courage too narrowly, thinking of it simply as someone who will charge into battle and crush enemies. When Sensei begins to take apart Mr. Saito's image of himself, it's Nir who leaps to the man's defense, and his own, since the things Sensei says are the same things Nir thinks of himself. We also see that even when Nir's down on himself, Annette and Tama each give his confidence a boost in their own way.

There's also the aspect that Sensei isn't necessarily correct about everything. Up to this point, his instincts have been right on, whether it was sensing the truth that there was something behind Suzuki's actions in volume 2, or that there was more to the story of Tama's estrangement from her father in volume 3, or recognizing Esche was not the collaborator the villagers believed her to be. I don't know if that's because he's from another world, and so he sees this one without preconceived notions of its inhabitants, or some innate sense for conflict or character arc that marks him as a writer. Probably the latter, since he admits that, in being so quick to label Mr. Saito a coward, he misjudged the man.

Takahiro Wakamatsu shows off his design skills more in the desert section of the book. Boss and his gang are sort of a bunch of stereotypical gangster types, with the dark coats and fedoras and thin mustaches. Not much to them. The guy leading the desert gang seems based off the Kuwabara character from YuYu Hakusho, but at least it makes him stand out visually, and his cheat skill to somehow turn animals into vehicles, is at least weird and kind of cool. Also, Wakamatsu draws a damn nice werewolf. Someone should send scans to the folks drawing that Werewolf by Night book and see if they take a hint.