It's Spooky How Busy October Might Get

October's not looking too bad, depending on where you look. Not much of anything new or promising at the larger publishers. Marvel's a mess, with a bunch of new X-Books I don't care about. Fantastic Four's still tying into DNX, so that's a no-go. DC's trotting out some more new series, but I'm not really interested in a horror-themed Jonah Hex book, or James Harren writing/drawing an Etrigan series. At least the smaller publishers are trying to come through for me.

What's new? Marvel's doing another all-splash page fight comic, along the lines of last year's Marvel All-On-One, except it's Doom All-On-One. Also, they picked Alessandro Cappuccio as artist. He is not someone I'd associate with fight comics, compared to Ed McGuinness on last year's offering. Plus, the book is $8, so unless I can find it cheap down the line - and I still haven't managed that with the previous one - it's not happening.

Ruptura has the first issue of Diego Agrimbau and Pietro's Fergus: Advertising Detective. I can't really parse what's going on, because it mentions the city might be subjected to essentially real-world spam, constant bombardment by in-person ads, and that this is bad. But also Fergus is trying to keep his jinxed friend, who agreed to be a walking advertisement but is killing their value through his jinxed-ness, from being assassinated.

Vault is starting up another round of Corin Howell's Lilith with Blood and Burlesque. I bought the tpb of the first volume in January, I'll get to it in the Monday reviews at some point. Cosmic Lion has Ghostman Haunts Again, but 1) it's $10 (albeit for 56 pages) and 2) I never got around to buying the earlier issues, so I don't really know if I'd dig it.

Titan Comics has a 25th anniversary collection of Mat Wakeman and Jamie Hewlett's Phoo Action. I have no idea what that is, I was just drawn up short by the 25th anniversary of something I've never heard of. And Oni Press has Jonathan Djob Nkondo's Wandering, about one person who roams the endless desert the surface world has become, and another who lives in the cities built underground. Which sound pretty much the same as what we have above ground now, but I guess humans stick to what you know. 

What's ending? Nothing.

And the rest: Marc Spector and Generation X-23 are both on issue 9. Assuming I'm still buying the latter, the cast is on a road trip that goes south. Could they maybe skip the two months of Wolverine guest appearances and jump straight to that instead? Batgirl is still tying in to whatever Poison Ivy's doing to Gotham, while The Deadman takes a trip to a soulless future.

D'Orc's also at issue 9, on the run from a necromancer and looking for the Bone Witch. Didn't we just finish 5 issues of him looking for the Bone Witch? D'Orc, you promised if we got you a Bone Witch, you would take care of it, and now look what happened. Vampyrates is on issue 4, and Chachu is on issue 3. In the latter, things are not going too well in Vegas. Do things ever go well in Vegas? It is a city, much like Peggy Hill observed of Phoenix, that should not exist.

This was actually in last month's solicits, but volume 12 of No Longer Allowed in Another World is out in October. Wanted to remember to mention that this month. 

Deep Water (2026)

A commercial airliner crashes in the middle of the ocean through a variety of factors. Such as, poor maintenance, disregard for regulations by both the captain (Ben Kingsley) and the guy at the x-ray machine for the luggage, and a particularly selfish and conceited dickhead (Angus Simpson) that stored flammable shit in his suitcase.

Despite the best efforts of the first officer (Aaron Eckhart), the plane's belly gets caught on a coral reef during the ditch attempt, upends, and falls to pieces. The survivors are scattered between various sections, dealing with injuries, the sort of poor decision-making that comes with terror, and a lot of really hungry sharks.

You got a hodgepodge of brave stewardesses, two e-gamers that can't confess their feelings for one another, an aggro jock and his more reasonable teammate, a recently re-married couple and the kids each is bringing into the relationship, a grandmother and a dorky guy who repeatedly tries and fails to be cool.

I'm going to tell you right now, Dan the Dickhead dies. That's one thing you'd have to look forward to if, for some reason, you watched this. And he does so without demonstrating a single redeemable trait or action through the entire film. So at least he stayed consistent. No last second recanting on his deathbed!

Alex rented this on Amazon Prime, then called me to tell me to watch it. At the time he was watching, the plane was still in the air. When I texted him after I finished watching it, he responded, 'Yeah, as soon as Ben Kingsley died I knew the budget had gone downhill.'

The breaking up of the plane does allow for a few varieties of peril, except they all boil down to needing to stay out of the water because of sharks. Eckhart, one of the flight attendants, and the stepsister are near the cockpit. The dork, the grandma, the stepbrother and another stewardess are in a submerged section of the tail, as the water slowly rises. The rest are trying to stay in the central cabin, watching the water come in from either end as the reef collapses under them. That's what coral bleaching will get ya, structurally unsound support for your crashed airplane.

Eckhart's character is running from trouble at home, trying to focus on not losing his job by strictly following the rules, and I guess takes the stepdaughter on as a surrogate child to protect in lieu of the son he can't help. Does he break the rules in some of the things he does to try and save as many as possible, and that's his arc? He stops being afraid of failing and acts? Or is it seeing how much the girl misses her family makes him decide to stop running away?

Most of the deaths aren't too surprising, though I did expect the dorky guy, who swam out of the submerged section to try and find help, would make it back to help the grandmother. They had a rocky first interaction, and she kept giving him shit afterward, calling him a "five". As in, "out of ten." Maybe six, if he cleaned up. Yeah, I bet her granddaughter was just counting the minutes until Grandma showed up to criticize her posture.

Props to that one flight attendant for hauling herself into a life raft and applying a tourniquet before passing out. That is a remarkably cool head under pressure. It did seem like we saw a lot of the women get bitten - though not always killed - while more of the guys died off-screen. Not strictly that dichotomy, but it felt like the men we did see die via shark mostly died quick. The women tended to get chomped on the calf or thigh, and maybe they could swim to safety, but maybe they got torn to shreds. Either way, a lot of panicked flailing and screaming. I don't know, just something I noticed.

Animal Control's Out of Its Depth on This One

My dad told me he learned as a teacher to never intercede in a fight between girls. The last time he tried, his shirt pocket got torn off and the assistant principal gave him a lot of shit for some reason. But assistant principals are known to be cocks, so that part's no surprise.

The Case of the Good Boy, the second Bad Machinery collection, again finds the boys - Linton, Jack, and Sonny - and the girls - Shauna, Charlotte, and Mildred - on seemingly unrelated paths that end up intertwining. The boys, mostly spurred on by Jack's desire to solve a "manly" mystery, investigate the rash of baby disappearances in town, which point to some great, hairy beast that lurks in the woods.

Meanwhile, Mildred guts her way through winning a rigged carny game to get a pencil said to make whatever it draws come to life. Only for her artwork to be soundly mocked by Shauna and Charlotte. Then Charlotte's attempt to demonstrate how to draw a dog shows up rummaging through Mildred's garbage. When the boys get a picture of the baby-stealer, it bears a remarkable resemblance to Mildred's attempt at drawing a dog. Clearly, Mildred's fears the pencil's power could be a Monkey's Paw situation were well-founded. Which raises the question of why she was so determined to win it. 

Also, the pencil was stolen in the confusion of the school's cricket shed being burned down. Horrors! The pencil being stolen part, not the cricket shed burning down part.

Allison mixes some of the characters into different combos this time around. Sonny and Mildred are cousins, so they hang out together at one point. Allison has Mildred seize every chance she can to do the things her parents forbid at home. Chocolate in the previous story, video games here. Charlotte spends time with Shauna's little brother, Humphrey, who she coos over and has no problems being seen in public with, unlike Shauna. One consistency, both between Shauna and Humphrey, and Jack and his old sister: the older sister wants nothing to do with the younger brother. Neither interaction is lengthy or deep, but they set up another line of connections between characters that could get used later.

Jack has a bit of a rough go this time, as he gets targeted by a bully, and screws things up with Shauna by getting so caught up in the mystery he forgets to meet her at the movies. But maybe the bullying earns him some sympathy points?

Linton's also riding Jack's ass about the Shauna thing, and between that and giving Sonny grief about being in the Naturecraft Folk (which proves useful in tracking the baby-snatcher), Linton's a pretty unlikable dick for two-thirds of this story. Jack snaps back at him - and inadvertently pushes him over a bridge - while Sonny just absorbs the snarky comments and focuses on beast hunting.

Also, Shauna and Mildred are not entirely on the same page, and Charlotte's left trying to mend fences or be the connective tissue. Something load-bearing. Mildred's issue seems to be that she feels like she's not really included, or maybe she's the third wheel. I did have the impression, reading this volume, that when either Shauna or Charlotte starting jabbing at Mildred, the other joins in. If they're jabbing at each other, Mildred usually doesn't get in on it. But Charlotte and Shauna have been friends long enough to have an entire list of things they aren't allowed to argue about - which now includes magic pencils - so it makes sense they'd have their own patterns. Which admittedly doesn't do much for Mildred's feelings of exclusion.

I don't want to let the review pass without mentioning Shauna's continued dogging of her stepdad for enjoying Velvet Underground. I have no actual knowledge or opinion about Velvet Underground, I just like that she keeps making digs at him about how bad she thinks they sound. Kids will find a weak point and exploit it ruthlessly.

The ending is strange. In some regards, it's treated as happy. Shauna's "dog", which was originally Mildred's "dog", which was what Charlotte drew, gets to go home. But I'm pretty sure the "dog" Mildred drew ate a lot of babies. Which seems horrifying, yet glossed over. Makes reuniting Archibald with his family bittersweet. Unless Allison is making some comment on parents not keeping a closer eye on their kids. Don't encourage helicopter parenting, John Allison!

Sunday Splash Page #437

"Broken Hearts Club," in Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers will Save the World, ch. 1, vol. 1, by Shinta Fuji (writer), Masaki Kawakami (artist)

Nick's a light warrior who, after he finds evidence another member of his adventuring party stole from them, is kicked out by the leader of said party. The leader's reasoning is, he raised and trained Nick, but Nick's grown to the point his values no longer align with the group's, so Nick needs to find his own place. Then Nick's girlfriend breaks up with him, because she was really only using him. In a depressive funk, he throws himself into worshiping an idol (which are like pop stars, I guess? I've never understood the "idol" thing) and soon exhausts all his money. He needs to join a new party, but how can he, after his trust was abused so badly?

Well, he can meet three other people, also drinking away their sorrows after having their trust abused. Each of them is also broke due to their vices. Gambling for Tiana the mage, women for Zem the excommunicated cleric, food for Karan the swordswoman. Nick proposes forming a party based specifically around not trusting each other. They'll only interact enough to clean out dungeons and collect things to sell, divide the money, then go their separate ways, free to blow their shares on whatever they choose. He even devises a plan where all of them are involved in guarding the money, so no one can cheat each other.

Obviously, this is not tenable for combat. They have to trust each other enough to describe their skills and weaknesses, or they won't be able to make a strategy. That sharing bleeds into other interactions. Tiana drags Nick with her to a casino. Nick teaches Karan math, because otherwise she won't be able to tell if the others are swindling her.

The arc is, at some point, they'll learn to trust each other fully, and that will make them invincible, as all of them turn out to be exceptional in their fields. Nick's former leader was the supposed greatest fighter in the world, and if Nick doesn't have the build for heavy weapons, he's probably the best around with a dagger. Karan is a dragonian, and carries the fabled enchanted broadsword of her people. Tiana knows multiple forms of elemental magic, and Zem has all kinds of spells to heal or buff the others' abilities.

They're eventually sent to investigate some ruins, looking for a magic weapon, the Sword of Bonds. Which turns out to be a sentient weapon that can essentially fuse those whose hearts are in tune and make a new warrior, one exponentially stronger. Except it's never worked between more than 3 people, and they were triplets. But the sword is certain there must be adventurers out there with that sort of trust and connection! Hint, hint.

The "Survivors" as they call themselves, don't really want the sword, but it gets them out of the ruins alive, so they agree to keep it. Just in case.

I bought the first 5 volumes before I stopped, though I think it's only gotten as far as volume 6 (the light novels it's based on may be further along.) The 5th volume gave Nick a chance for some payback against his ex-girlfriend and her party, where he not only beats her tiger-man boyfriend in a fistfight/math quiz, but the "Survivors", as they dubbed themselves, expose the Iron Tigers as cheaters and get them arrested. Then the back cover of the 6th volume said the Iron Tigers were coming back for revenge. They just got rid of them! How are they back already!? Are prisons in this world as porous as Arkham Asylum?

Mostly, the direction the series focused wasn't really doing it for me. It felt heavily centered on Nick, and to a lesser extent Karan. Not unreasonable since Nick's the most experienced adventurer, the one who suggests forming a party, the one who keeps putting himself out there in an effort to get them to work together and trust him. And Karan was left to die in the lowest level of a dungeon by her previous party because she was too naive to recognize they were using her, so her trust issues are the most severe. But the idea is the 4 of them growing to know and trust each other, and the series hadn't done anything with Zem - dude was basically a healing lamp who likes to hit nightclubs - and was just barely starting to dig into Tiana's backstory.

Maybe that's a reasonable pace if the series expected to go 15, 20, whatever volumes, but I didn't really feel like hanging on long enough for it to get there.

Saturday Splash Page #239

"Legion of Losers," in The Weakest Contestant of all Space and Time, ch. 5, vol. 1, by Masato Hisa (writer), KRSG (artist)

Hitomu Yoshizawa is an office drone, remarkable only in how little he can actually accomplish. He doesn't want to go to work, but doesn't want to get in trouble for not going to work. So he lays on a park bench and daydreams about how that could happen. Maybe a truck could crash into the building! Oh, but he doesn't want the driver to get hurt. Maybe the truck is hijacked! By terrorists! But the hijacker has a heart attack and dies painlessly. Oh, and the security guard is patrolling elsewhere in the building so he doesn't get hurt. And on and on, an endless stream of pointless hypotheticals.

So the god of his reality deems him the most useless person in the entire universe, and dumps him into a death battle tournament against dozens of other realities' candidates. Hitomu dies, again and again. He doesn't even try to fight back, the fear of doing anything, even to defend himself, too overwhelming. Finally, it comes down to him and 4 other contestants who also lost all their matches. Hitomu basically has a breakdown, but in the process, deduces the arena floor is not one solid piece and there's a lever that will open it, dumping all five of them into another world. Unfazed, the former god who arranged the contest says this was a planned alteration. Those five will now be hunted by all the other contestants, and this time, death will be permanent.

At the end of the first volume, Masato Hisa says this is the first time after 16 years as an artist they're writing a story. Rather, it's the first time the draft was actually accepted, because apparently the editors wanted Hisa to also draw the story, and I guess Hisa didn't figure they had the time? For whatever reason, having KRSG draw this one was acceptable, although it seems to have ended/been canceled after just 2 volumes.

The basic formula is, Hitomu is repeatedly presented with moments to try and fight or kill his opponents. He rejects them, choosing to flee instead. On the rare occasion he considers fighting, he fully expects to die. Fighting is just a way for him to give up without necessarily looking like he's giving up. All the time he spends pondering hypotheticals apparently makes him good at noticing little details and putting them together into plans. So he leverages the skills the other 4 have to make their escapes.

You have K, from a reality where war has grown so pervasive everything has been conscripted, including cleaning robots. He talks big at first to disguise the fact he has no actual ability to fight. (Hitomu calls him a "war virgin" and draws uncomfortable parallels to his own behavior when he invited a girl he liked in school back to his room.) Tofu Brat is some mythological figure that obsesses about his hat and his plate with tofu on it, always muttering snide remarks, then denying he said anything. Godden is some sort of Pokemon caterpillar-thing that passes out at the drop of a hat, spewing a strong, flammable silk in the process.

The slime girl was originally just a basic slime, like you'd see in a DragonQuest game, but some of Hitomu's blood got on it and it changed shape. To resemble a naked slime girl version of the girl Hitomu demonstrated no game with back in high school. Yeah, I don't know. It wasn't like Hitomu was thinking of her at the time he was bleeding. And he gives the slime girl the same name as that girl, Sayaka.

The gods are presented as capricious and cruel. While there's some talk of contestants being awarded "useless points" for fucking up particularly badly, the gods don't care about the outcome. They just want to be entertained by how pathetic the contestants are. Like one of those obstacle course competition shows, except everybody's really out of shape.

When one god gets happy his representative showed ingenuity and looks ready to actually make a kill, the others are embarrassed by his enthusiasm. When he tries to subtly interfere, causing his scarecrow to fall into a river, his entire reality is erased. This all seems to be part of some plan by the former god who arranged the tournament, to show how petty the gods are and make people disgusted with them, but I can't see the point.

If they can erase an entire reality just like that, what was Hitomu going to accomplish? He certainly isn't going to kill the gods, that would go against his whole nature by involving doing something. But even if he convinced every other contestant to refuse to fight, so what? When a cartoon pig questioned the point of the contest, his god - who I would describe as Liberace Abe Lincoln - rips the pig's face off and screams at it not to question him. I don't think Hitomu could Rube Goldberg his way out of something like that.

What I Bought 7/22/2026

What they told us a few months ago at work, if we didn't sign the agreement, we wouldn't have to use the AI, was not entirely true. We seem to have the option not to use it (for now), but still had to sign the agreement. And watch training videos, which were funny for how much they try to tap dance around the worthlessness of AI without actually saying so.

Use it for research, but make sure to verify what the answers it gives you. Why not just do the research myself then? Have it summarize e-mails or presentations, but double-check it didn't add anything just plain untrue. Don't put any proprietary or restricted information in there, because it could then share that information with anyone. If you use it, whatever you produced has to state that. So it's really just extra hassle across the board.

The video did end with a survey asking how often I expected to use AI for certain tasks. As, "when Hell is both empirically proven to exist, and then freezes over into a rainbow Popsicle," was not an option, I put "rarely, if ever" for each question. And the video responded, "That's OK. It's not for everyone!" No shit, tell that to the fools cramming it down our throats.

Moonstar #5, by Ashley Allen (writer), Edoardo Audino (artist), Arthur Hesli (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Every time I look at this cover, I feel like Dani's head is not centered on her body. Is it the sword, the shoulder plate? Something makes it look like it's off-kilter. 

Final battle for all life on Earth. Though Kian's burning up what life he's got on spells strong enough to make some sort of difference, while Kyrion keeps trying to goad Dani into taking the sword from him. It's the only way to stop him, but then she'll have to feed it two souls. His and, well, there's only one other person around.

Dani keeps refusing, firing off her psychic arrows and using spells. Which are very colorful, so that's nice. Hesli uses them to break up the depressing, deep-red that drenches everything else. Dani insists evil's always part of life, and so is chaos, you just have to learn to embrace the opportunities it holds. Chaos that is, not evil. Although it's not like evil doesn't have opportunities, too. Then she picks up the cursed sword, determined to be the one at the wheel

Dani doesn't want the sword's power, so she won't give it but one soul, the one trapped inside. Which is what sustains the sword, so it'll break. And Dani figures that's OK, because she can guide all the other souls to wherever they're supposed to go, being a valkyrie an all. I'm not clear on if that's back to their bodies, or to the other side. Maybe both. Her parents are back up and living, but I assume some of those souls no longer have bodies to go back to. Also, the part of the sword that was speaking gets ejected as well, which doesn't entirely make sense to me. I need to go back and re-read how the sword works.

Day is saved, parents saved, Dani's going to help Kian and Yansa with some of their society's work for at least a little while, and then Beta Ray Bill shows up to say thanks for handling the whole, evil Norse sword thing. Too busy off snogging with Sif or something, Bill? Not Cyborg-Horse-Thor's best moment. Also, he's carrying a big sword instead of a hammer. It just looks wrong. Do not approve.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #6, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Marc likes to give himself a handicap, so he's going to try staking vampires with blunt instruments.

This is a "get the team together" issue. Clea does the old Secret Defenders bit where the cards tell you who you need, and Moonie goes out to get them. Blade's easy. All Marc has to do is mention "Midnight Suns" and Blade's in. Well, he also had to kill some vampires to get Blade's attention. Couple of nice bits by the Pramanik/Rosenberg team here. One panel from inside a vamp's mouth before Moon Knight decapitates it, and the page where Blade agrees to help is three panels where the frames of the windows in the skyscraper act as the panel borders, with a full moon reflected off them. And the last panel is Blade stepping out through the window as he says, "Now let's go."

I'm also trying to figure out why Rosenberg colors the interior of Blade's coat as just solid red. No shading, shadows, or gradation. Just a solid red wall, every time. Feels significant, but heck if I can figure out what it would mean.  

That was the easy pitch, sandwiched between two harder sells. Although Robbie Reyes really just needs a chance to vent about, I guess, how badly he got treated in Jason Aaron's Avengers' run? Saving everything and getting left behind? I don't know, I didn't read any of the comics mentioned in the editor's notes. Nice intro for Moon Knight, though, reflected in one of the side mirrors of Robbie's car as he approaches. Robbie's not interested in doing any more world saving, but Marc just wants to save the people who pass for family with him, and that's enough to get Robbie on board.

And then there's Daredevil. Really?! Matt's being his usual holier-than-thou self. "Oh, I feel so bad about that one person I killed, and you don't feel bad about anyone you killed, blah blah." Yeah Matt, but as someone's who's read plenty of your history can attest, feeling guilty has never stopped you from doing another similarly dumbshit thing later. Just ask all your exes. The ones that are still alive, at least. Still, Moon Knight sells DD on demonstrating good choices, since Matt says he's one bad choice away from becoming Moon Knight. Pramanik uses Moon Knight's heartbeat as the top panel border a few times, showing it spiking as Matt keeps talking shit.

Of course, as they go charging in, it appears Moon Knight and Clea aren't being upfront with their new partners. Surely that won't come back to bite them (literally, with Blade around.) 

The Good Demon - Jimmy Cajoleas

Clare shared her body with a being that Clare calls Her. Emphasis on past tense there because, due to events we aren't privy to until two-thirds of the way into the book, She was recently exorcised by a local preacher and his son. Clare feels adrift without her closest - only, really - friend, until she finds a message with three clues She left behind. Certain the message will help bring the two of them back together again, Clare works to decipher it, and carry out its instructions, but learns some complicating factors along the way.

Cajoleas frequently flashes back to different point in Clare and Her's friendship, painting a picture of what their relationship was like. How She would sometimes whisk Clare away to a place in her mind to get away from the stress of an unhappy home life, or tell stories or play games together. But She would also sometimes take control of Clare's body and refuse to explain why after. It's a little odd and unsettling, because She often uses the sort of apologetic tone you hear about abuser's using to manipulate their victim afterward. Pleading forgiveness, claiming it was only to protect Clare, that Clare is special. Her Only.

And Clare tends to use that same language and rationalizations herself. That She was Clare's Only. The only one who understood, the only one on her side. Life seems lonely and pointless without Her. But we also see enough of her current life - and some past hardships - to make it clear Clare hasn't really had anyone else in her life she could count on. Her father was an addict, and died from it. Her stepdad is frustrated with how life is going, and Clare's odd behavior makes her an easy target. Her mother is too weak or too much of a mess to make more than a token effort to be there for her daughter. Clare remarks that her mother often seems more concerned with them appearing to be a happy family than anything, because she knows they can't really be one.

And Clare tends to repeat those behaviors. She befriends the preacher's son, but it's because he's part of what she needs to reunite with Her. Clare even grows to like Roy, but it's still a conditional affection. He says something hurtful and she turns away, then uses his guilt against him. Which leaves me feeling like the ending, where it appears Clare and her mother are going to have a stronger bond going forward, feels unearned. Her mother's shift appears largely off the page, and I don't know if we really see enough of a shift in Clare for me to buy that anything has really changed.

There's a bit of a mystery, as Clare steals a box for a strange old woman who may know more about what Clare's after than she lets on. This ends up tying into the history of the town, and some group of people using dark magic to prop themselves up. I think Hide did a much better job fleshing out the thinking of that kind of group out than The Good Demon does, but you could argue the thinking of the group was more of a critical part of that book. What motivates them to throw all these people into, essentially, a wood chipper?

Here, I think it's enough for them to function as a glimpse of a possible future for Clare, depending on what choices she makes. The Paradise Society are an example of what she could be, but they aren't a force or driver of the plot. They don't push at her or try to hinder her; they're only aware of her because she makes a brief attempt to speak with them and is scared enough not to try again. But the end result of that is they feel incidental enough that I'm not sure you really needed them in the story at all. I think there was enough cautionary tales with Miss Mathis, Clea and Kevin.

'I could tell you this was the story of the fourth time She took control over my body, but that would be a lie. I did this. Me and her did it together.'