Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Now well into later years, to say nothing of the mileage, Indy gets roped into looking for the famed "Archimedes Dial", which is being sought by his goddaughter (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridges), and a Nazi scientist (Mads Mikkelsen) that helped the U.S. put men on the Moon.

It's, fine, I guess. Didn't need to be 2.5 hours, certainly. The last act, the whole thing on the plane and the time travel, that all goes too long. Why is Boyd Holbrook's character machine-gunning Roman trimeres? I guess so he's not involved in the fight in the back of the plan between Harrison Ford, Mikkelsen and Waller-Bridges, and because he's an idiot whose first response to anything that mildly inconveniences him is, "shoot it." But it felt unnecessary. Just have do the bomb bay doors bit earlier and have him fall through, too. Nobody was going to be sorry about a few less scenes with that character.

Of course, I'm not sure how Mikkelsen's character survived getting knocked off the Nazi train in 1945 by colliding with one of those mail bag hook things. Not just survived, the guy doesn't even look like it scratched him. I expected them to at least give him a disfigured face when he popped up again in the 1960s.

There's a few set good pieces in there, though. Indy's escape on horseback through the parade. The chase through Tangiers, complete with Waller-Bridges' jilted mobster fiance. Mangold seems to take the same approach to those that Mel Brooks takes with jokes: If you didn't like one, just wait a moment and there'll be another.

Ford gives Indiana a proper amount of weary, sour old man energy The gripe about how going to the Moon is like going to Reno, except no blackjack, cracked me up. His students aren't distracted because they want to bone him, they're just bored. Their eyes are on the future, while his are only on the past and what he's lost. He doesn't ever really seem excited until the end, when it looks like he's going to stay in the past, in a literal sense. Mikkelsen's not much different, except he's certain he can change the past.

(I appreciate the movie did not do a thing where Indy has to decide whether to let Mikkelsen kill Hitler or not. I was very concerned that was the direction they were going for a minute.)

So it falls to Waller-Bridges to bring a little spark of joy to the proceedings, which she does fairly ably. She's a bit of early - Temple of Doom/Raiders of the Lost Ark - Indiana Jones. "Fortune and glory," though it's more "fortune and excitement" for her. Or maybe just fortune. But she talks fast, and with a quick wit, keeps her cool even when Tangiers cops are trying to keep her in one spot until said-jilted mobster fiance arrives. She's tried to wall off her heart from people she's lost, or who disappointed her (Indy's been remiss in his godfather duties), treat people as tools to use to get herself out of trouble. But she can't quite manage it entirely. For a good chunk of the film, you're left wondering (I was, anyway) if she's just waiting for the right moment to betray Indy, which is a nice bit of ambiguity.

Monday, February 17, 2025

A Match Made in a Nightmare

Leave that kind of information for your anonymous tumblr.

Yakuza Fiance is about Yoshino Somei, the granddaughter of the head of a Osakan crime family, and Kirishima Miyama, the grand-nephew of the head of a Tokyo crime family, considering getting engaged, as a sort of peace accord between eastern and western Yakuza.

In the first volume, Yoshino a year in Tokyo as sort of a "get-to-know-you" thing with Kirishima, even attending the same school, leaving her in an unusual position. On the one hand, people here don't avoid her like they did back home, because none of the students know she's essentially a mafia princess. But it also means the girls that swoon over Kirishima feel free to bully and gossip about the new girl that everyone apparently thinks has call girl, or 'divorced mom'(?) looks. And Yoshino is in enemy territory, so to speak, with no friends or family, no one to rely on but Kirishima. And while he smiles pleasantly a lot, every so often she catches a glimpse of something that makes her wonder.

In those scenes, writer/artist Asuka Konishi typically either shades Kirishima differently, or replaces his typical, closed-eye smile with one where his eyes or narrowed. Or, once he reveals his true colors after saving Yoshino from some creeps, draws him with one eye narrowed more than the other, like he's either in pain or nuts (see the image at the top of the post.)

Shaken by what she's learned and been told - Kirishima explains he's bored of her already, because she's not the vicious bitch he hoped for, and suggests she sell her body to be useful - but ordered by her grandfather to hang in there for a year, Yoshino finally shows her own true colors. Konishi's kept her being extremely polite with Kirishima and everyone else, but the scenes of her with her grandfather showed she's prone to dramatic reactions. Still, with no choice but to meet Kirishima's crazy with her own, Yoshino responds with a move that made me stop and go, "Oh shit." Unfortunately, that only convinces Kirishima she really is the kind of girl he hoped for, and now he's infatuated.

(Konishi will undercut Yoshino's big moment in a couple of volumes, which was disappointing, but probably a wise decision in the long run.)

Yoshino hasn't exactly leveled the playing field, her internal narration and behavior still shows she's extremely nervous around this lunatic masochist, but she's not holding herself back out of fear of disgracing herself. Konishi has her slip into less formal speak - the word "youse", for example - as a sign of her Kansai dialect, or shorten words by leaving off the "g", which is what Kiyohiko Azuma used for Yotsuba's grandmother. (The English dub of Azumanga Daioh gave the character from Osaka a Texas accent to distinguish her speech from the other characters.) Konishi also adds either a dark aura around Yoshino, or covers the background in shadows that seem to bleed down the panel.

The story's concept is interesting, although Kirishima is so off-putting, even after he's smitten, that it's hard to want to see he and Yoshino interact. Putting a tracker in her electronic dictionary is just creepy, and since Yoshino yelling at him doesn't seem to produce any noticeable change in behavior, it's not exactly satisfying. But I do like Yoshino, who seems kind, but with a stubborn and contrary nature that makes her fun to read about.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Sunday Splash Page #362

"Sea Monkees," in The Monkees #9, by Jose Delbo (artist), writer, colorist, letterer unknown

These wider splash pages are always a pain, but you can click on the image it you want to see it without it being cut off.

Anyway, courtesy of my dad's collection, this is the only issue I have of the 17 the book ran, but I assume it's fairly typical. Three short stories where the band gets involved in hijinks that allow the creative team to do a montage of gags based around one theme or the other. Like the Monkees using all the communication possibilities of the late-1960s to spread the word about a hot dog stand to help its business.

I covered this comic in greater depth in Random Back Issues #44, so you can check that out if you're dying for more info. I compared it to Family Guy, but honestly, the attempts at humor here at least relate to the plot of the stories. It's just the plots are wafer-thin.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Saturday Splash Page #164

"Jungle Idol," in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle #2, by Marguerite Bennett and Christina Trujillo (writers), Moritat and Dimi Macheras (artists), Moritat and Casey Silver (colorists), Thomas Napolitano (letterer)

I never really got into the whole "jungle hero" genre. Even beyond superheroes, I gravitated to Westerns or detective stories (as you've no doubt surmised if you've read this blog for any period of time.) Tarzan didn't interest me, and while the Savage Land is a cool setting, I always more interested in seeing characters that didn't normally hang out there get thrown in the deep end. If Ka-Zar or Shanna show up, that's fine, but I'm not doing cartwheels about it. 

But, what the hell, give it a try. Dynamite does so many variant covers, it's not hard to find a copy of a given back issue cheap, put together a run of a series that only went 11 issues, counting the 0 issue. I don't know how much of what Bennett and Trujillo are doing here is well-established lore and what's new stuff they came up with, but it's definitely a lot weirder than I expected. Like, a ruthless corporation flouting the law to try and exploit natural resources? Trouble with the local wildlife? Yeah, I expected that stuff.

Temples that have doorways to other realms, realms full of beings that attempt to copy and replace whatever they encounter? Sheena's dagger is made of some special metal that can hurt them and/or seal the doorways? That I wasn't expecting.

Bennett and Trujillo also have Sheena encounter one grandparent from each side of her family, and neither meeting goes well. Her paternal grandfather is the head of the evil company, and doesn't realize the odd young woman he derides as a 'violent primitive,' and uses a shock collar on, is actually the daughter of his son, who died in a plane crash in the mountains. Her maternal grandmother, on the other hand, understands who Sheena is straight off, or at least that she's a descendant. But Grandma - who has aged very gently - is of the opinion all outsiders ("Cowodi") need to die. Which includes the goober on the ground up there, who became a determined, if not competent, ally for Sheena. In both cases, the grandparent is too blinded by their own pain and loss to recognize or appreciate who's in front of them, refusing to accept anything other than someone who thinks exactly like them.

The series also brings up - and again, I don't know if this is established lore or something new - that Sheena's parents met because her mother was forcibly removed from her tribe in the Amazon and put in one of those school like they have here in the U.S. where they wanted to sever any connection between Native American kids and their own culture. It makes me wonder about the nature of the relationship Sheena's parents had, something she either doesn't know or just doesn't think about.

Moritat last about 4 issues as artist, and then is replaced by Maria Sanapo (with the occasional assist from other artists.) Sanopo's a bit more consistent on figures, faces less exaggerated. Feels like there's a strong element of Frank Cho in her work, albeit with 90% fewer panels focused on a woman's ass than you'd get with Cho. Moritat tends to treat proportions and whatnot as suggestions or vague guidelines. The looser approach works well for the more monstrous or inhuman elements than Sanopo's steadier art. Unfortunately, the Face-Stealers and Death Blossoms and whatnot don't really become prominent until after Moritat's departed.

There's been at least one more Sheena series from Dynamite since, but I don't know if it's following up from this one, or just kind of its own thing.

Friday, February 14, 2025

What I Bought 2/12/2025

The snow we got this week was kind enough to fall on the day I had off. That's not sarcasm, I would rather it fall on a day I don't have to go anywhere. I can just sit and watch it, or take a leisurely stroll (or a brisk run, because I'm like that sometimes), rather than risk being on the road with people who don't know how to drive in crap weather.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Are we letting Vermin be a fist of Khonshu now? Standards are dropping all over the place.

While Marc was fighting Vermins last issue, the rest of the cast were out trying to do the work. So he didn't send them away to run the risk of being caught, he was just being a sulky baby and they got tired of waiting for him to snap out of it.

Badr and Soldier tried to pay a visit to a woman with a sick kid, only for her husband to refuse the medicine because the news says they're bad guys. Tigra, Reese and 8-Ball were fighting a gang of Frankensteins that come around to cause trouble every year. Although it looks like the real fight is about to be between Tigra, who is ticked at Marc, and Reese, who can't stop putting her two cents' worth of psychoanalysis into everyone else's business. Kind of want to see Tigra haul off an bust her one in the chops.

By the time they get back to the underground lair, they find one Vermin (who looks like a white guy, did people forget Edward was black, or did that change at some point?) handcuffed to a pipe. Marc, meanwhile, is fighting the drug dealer. And it's interesting that, after he seemed at odds with Steven and Jake in the previous issue, they're all on board with this fight. Or maybe the other two just figure that if Marc's gonna do this, they want him to do it right.

Which he doesn't, because it turns out this Achilles dude is an Asgardian. And I guess Marc either doesn't get boosts in strength based on phases of the moon any longer, or that's not enough to cut the mustard here. Pramanik occasionally switches from basic rectangular panels to these arced panels that bend over or around one larger panel. I thought initially it was to signify a shift in the fight's momentum, like one style when Marc's got the upper hand, the other for Achilles, but I don't think that's the case.

It's more that it switches to curved panels when one of the voices in his head is putting in their two cents. So the perception of the fight is being filtered through their way of seeing it, maybe? The last time it gets used is when Khonshu's pointing out Marc hasn't paid enough attention, or done enough research on what he's fighting, and draws attention to the fact this big goon doesn't have any scars. I guess a gold tooth doesn't count.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Good Enough to Dream - Roger Kahn

Roger Kahn had written several other books on baseball, most notably The Boys of Summer, about the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, but in this one, he's focused on the minor leagues. Specifically, the 1983 Class A (meaning, at least three levels below the majors), independent (meaning, unaffiliated with any major league franchise) Utica Blue Sox.

Kahn's writing about them because he, in a series of events that are largely not interesting enough for the amount of pages devoted to it, becomes president of the team. So, in addition to talking about the players and managers, and the fights with umpires and the grind of a season with no off-days for over two months, he also talks about the challenges of running a minor league team that doesn't have any financial backing from a big league club.

Kahn has to pay off the $3,500 debt the team's previous owners owed the power company, has to arrange for a bus service to get the players to road games, has to devise promotions to bring in more fans, sell advertising, on and on. The people helping him are varying degrees of competent and relatively new to running a ball team, so the lack of knowledge factors in.

During a critical game late in the season, Kahn is informed by his general manager that she didn't purchase enough baseballs, and the team may risk forfeiting if they run out. Which leads to Kahn calling sporting goods stores until they locate a guy willing to drive back to his store and sell them more baseballs, all the while the game is still playing. Or the attempt to honor one of their players on his birthday by turning off the field lights and having the fans hold candles and sing "Happy Birthday", runs a-cropper because nobody thought about the fact the field lights have to cool off after being shut down before they can be turned back on. Leading to a nearly 20-minute delay which nearly made the Blue Sox forfeit.

Kahn's an engaging writer, witty at times - the kangaroo court sequence on the bus is hilarious - thoughtful at others, willing to poke fun at himself when his big ideas (like the birthday stunt) fail. He captures the interpersonal forces at work on the team. The players whose nerves get to them, or who worry about how being so far from home could end their marriage. The players' frustration with the manager, Jim Gattis, who is never satisfied and constantly haranguing them about something. Is that driving them to play better in the hopes he'll shut up, or does it cause them to burn out? If he's giving them grief when they win 80% of their games, how much worse can he be when they go on a losing streak? Kahn, at least as he presents himself here, is trying to walk the line of supporting his manager and not pulling rank, but also trying to get the man to ease off for the good of the team. Of course, as he presents himself here, I'm not sure how effective he is, especially at reining Gattis in.

One bit on a purely baseball note that interested me, was the sense the Blue Sox had that the rest of the teams resented them for making the other teams look bad. After all, the Blue Sox's roster was full of players those same franchises had either discarded or never considered at all. For the castoffs to beat the ones deemed worthwhile made all the guys whose business was to recognize talent look bad. It's not so much the pride aspect that intrigues me, but that the other teams wouldn't jump at the chance to grab a guy one of their opponents discarded, especially once he showed he had a little juice. Maybe things were different in the '80s, less analytically cutthroat. Or maybe it's just the difference between getting outsmarted by someone you regard as a peer (a guy with the same job as you, but for a different big league club), versus someone you think is a piker compared to you (an independent team.)

I wonder how much of that was real versus perceived by the Blue Sox. Gattis is presented as clearly believing the league is conspiring to keep them from winning the pennant, and Kahn relates a few occasions where he tries to talk up some of his players to people in the offices of those other teams, only to be blown off. But Gattis seems perpetually aggrieved, and most of the Blue Sox are old for the level of competition. Maybe only by a year or two, but that is regarded as significant sometimes.

'Barry Moss found himself in a perplexing role. Gattis wanted to show the other players that he indulged no favorites. Even though Moss had grown up with him and even though Moss was his confidant and coach, Moss, the player, was a favorite target. Sometimes, in one of Gattis' daily sermons, he paused and turned to Moss and said, "Barry, in the fourth inning you looked real horseshit chasing that low inside pitch." Pause. Inhale. "Real horseshit."'

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

What I Bought 2/5/2025 - Part 2

I had Weird Al's "Your Horoscope for Today" stuck in my head most of last week. 'The position of Jupiter says you should spend the rest of the week facedown in the mud,' seemed particularly resonant, and I'm not even a Cancer. As to whether I'm a cancer, that's a different question entirely.

Batgirl #4, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Wayne Faucher (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - The guy at the store asked if Cass was using those throwing stars or if they were thrown at her. I asserted it was probably the second option.

So Cassandra trusts basically none of the people Shiva's thrown in with, but while they argue, the Unburied launch a surprise attack on the train. In the form of one of their guys blowing himself up while inside the train. Brombal introduces two more "grandmasters" to go with that Kalden guy. Chodak's a big guy whose voice balloons have thicker-than-normal lines, suggesting a deep voice. Nergui speaks in whisper and carries giant golden (magic?) scissors. The designs are distinct from each other, while sticking to the general pattern the Unburied followed, but nothing wildly creative.

That's about all we get on them, besides the fact they can fight pretty well. Shiva tries to withdraw with Batgirl, and it turns out Shiva has a few of those special flower petals. What a shock, he said insincerely. But she does confide in Cassandra that she thinks everything that was "soft" in her went into Cassandra, and not wanting to acknowledge that part of herself may be why she left her daughter to David Cain. Before that conversation can go anywhere, the grandmasters catch up, Cass gets KO'ed in one hit by Kalden, and Shiva's a prisoner. Cass used to be able to take more of a punch than that.

One thing Brombal keeps coming back to, either in Cassandra's captions boxes or Shiva's comments, is who is Cassandra, really? In this issue, she keeps trying to think of what Batman (who she calls her father, and I don't love that, given how much of a controlling dickhead he was back in her first ongoing series) would do. But it doesn't seem to be working well for her. Either she can't come up with a plan fast enough, or the "plan" is just "beat everyone up." Cassandra's been defining herself as being different aspects of the people who matter to her, or by rejecting others, but it's like trying to map a territory via negative space. You might get the boundaries, but the specifics are lost.

I have no clue what conclusion Brombal will have Cassandra reach, but I guess that'll come when this arc concludes.