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.'

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Padraic (Colin Farrell) has a farm with his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) on a little island off the coast of Ireland. Their days are repetitive. Siobhan cooks, tries keeping the house clean (despite Padraic letting his miniature donkey, Jenny, inside), and reads. Padraic takes the animals to the fields, delivers milk across the island to the general store for money, and goes to the pub at 2 p.m. with his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson.)

Except one day, Colm declares he's not friends with Padraic any more. At least, not the kind of friends who speak to one another, or spend any time together. He's been thinking of mortality, and what he'll leave behind to mark his time on Earth. He thinks it'll be music, but if he's to do that, he can't waste two hours at a time listening to Padraic describe what he found in his donkey's - sorry, it was his pony's - shits. When Padraic fails to take the hint, continually trying to resume their friendship as though nothing changed, Colm ups the stakes. The next time Padraic speaks to him, Colm will cut off one of his own fingers. Fingers are kind of important for fiddle players.

Padraic can't figure out what's happening, Colm can't seem to explain it in a way Padraic will understand sufficiently to leave him alone, and Siobhan's being worn thin trying to protect her brother from his own faults.

The thing that keeps coming up in this movie is "nice." When Padraic asks people if he's dim, or boring, they tell him he's not, but they don't say he's smart, or interesting. They say he's "nice." And nice is, seemingly, never saying what you actually think or feel, at least not in front of the person you're thinking or feeling about. The shopkeeper - a noxious little gossip - wants to hear news from the far side of the island, but when Padraic, irritated by the local cop poking fun at him, spills the cop beat his son with a kettle in front of said cap, she dismisses that as 'shite news.' She'd beat Dominic (Barry Keoghan) herself, if he were her child! No doubt as soon as both Padraic and the goon of a cop were out the door, she was making a note to press the next customer for more details.

There's an elderly woman, Mrs. McCormack, who, with her pale, wrinkled skin and dark robes, makes me think Emperor Palpatine's on the loose. She roams the island, observing and making ominous comments. When she tells Padraic there will be a death on the island before month's end, possibly two, and she'll pray it isn't him or his sister, Padraic can only stammer out how that wasn't a nice thing to say. Her reply, 'I wasn't trying to be nice. I was trying to be accurate.'

Nice is a lie. Nice is a bland smile that hides contempt or hatred or pity. It's something confused with kindness, but it's probably more about the person being nice, than who they're being nice to.

When Padraic gets drunk at the pub one night and lets Colm have it for hanging out with a cop who beats and sexually abuses his kid, his finishing insult is that maybe Colm was never nice to begin with. Because to him, that's a horrible thing to be, not-nice. And Colm,who had his own spiel about how no one remembers people for being nice, they remember them for creating things of lasting beauty, like music, remarks that was the most interesting Padraic had ever been. When he was drunk and pissed and said what was on his mind without worrying if anyone would disapprove of him airing the cop's dirty laundry right in front of the entire village.

Padraic's an interesting character, in that I don't know what to feel about him, exactly. In some ways, he's completely guileless. A terrible liar, clumsy in his attempts to jab back at people who hurt him, and ultimately extremely self-centered. When Siobhan tells him she accepted a position as librarian on the mainland, his first two questions are, "But what about me?", and "Who's going to do the cooking?" And maybe that's a consequence of his sister looking after him all these years, shielding him, or maybe he just can't really think in larger terms.

There's something, in how literal Padraic is about everything, how he tends to focus on particular points of fact while ignoring the larger meaning, that makes me wonder if, had the movie taken place in the present day, he'd be diagnosed with some level of autism. When Siobhan responds to the question about cooking by asking if that's his first question, he points out his first question was, "But what about me?" Being technically correct, while missing the point she's trying to make, that he's not thinking at all about her. When Colm, trying to make his point about what lasts in memory, says everyone's heard of Mozart, Padraic immediately rebuts that he hasn't heard of him. Correcting Colm that he was discussing his pony's shit, not his donkey's, while not addressing Colm's larger point that it was not a meaningful conversation or what Colm considered a good use of his limited time on Earth.

It doesn't feel like an attempt to derail the conversation so much as Padraic's mind just seizes on these minor inaccuracies. Those he can actually address, so he does. Maybe in his mind, since that point was wrong, the whole argument is pointless or misguided? It really highlights the foolishness of Colm's threat, even beyond that he's gone well past "cut off your nose to spite your face." Padraic is never going to understand what Colm is trying to tell him by lopping off fingers. He's going to see it as his friend is sad, or mental. Try to get the priest to help him with his "despair. So they can go back to being pals and drinking at the pub together every afternoon.

I would say Farrell gives Padraic the energy of a yappy puppy that follows you around, begging for attention, chewing on her pant cuffs and pissing on the carpet, then looking hurt when you scold it. But even Colm's dog figures out what's what, at one point actively trying to drag the shears out the door and away from its master. But Farrell does this sort of befuddled, wounded expression so well, that I can feel bad for him not being able to understand, while simultaneously wanting to tear my hair out each time he tries once again to renew his friendship with Colm.

Gleeson wears a pinched, weary air whenever he's dealing with Padraic. The lines on his face get deeper, and he seems to grow pale, like interacting with Padraic drains the life from him. Or maybe that's just the blood loss. With other people he laughs, or listens attentively, leaned towards them and looking ruddy and healthy. Even if what they're saying is horrible, like the cop being excited to travel to the mainland as extra security for some executions tomorrow. Which side is doing the executions doesn't matter. Pity they're shooting them instead of hanging, but he'll see some people die and get paid for the privilege, what fun. And Colm listens, makes comments. He may think it's awful, but I guess the conversation is real, says something about people. This other man's indifference to cruelty, his gleeful avarice, is worth Colm's time in a way Padraic's chatter about shit is not.

Yet, part of him still cares for Padraic. Picks him up when the cop slugs him and loads him in the wagon, later punches the cop for behaving like a dick towards Padraic. He doesn't like hurting Padraic - who likes kicking a puppy? - but apparently the notion of picking up and leaving, going somewhere far away, like Siobhan ultimately does, where Padraic would never find him, doesn't track. Better instead to lop off fingers - and never bandage them, seriously, at no point does he appear to receive any treatment, big ups to that band playing his song while Colm presses a hand full of stumps to his chest and conducts with a bloody fiddle - in the futile attempt to drive the man away. 

Maybe the saddest parts are Padraic's interactions with Siobhan. Because Condon makes you see that Siobhan loves her brother (and Padraic does love her, as best he can) but has spent her entire life accommodating his quirks, and his schedule. Fighting a losing battle to not let the donkey in the house. Read a book that's sad, and be asked what it's about, or at least why she reads it if it's sad, be told she should read a book that's not-sad. And even though I don't think she particularly gives a shit about Colm - she dismisses him as just like all the other men on the island, tied up in petty grievances, and corrects him on when Mozart lived - she tries to keep Padraic away so Colm doesn't further mutilate himself.

(The Mozart thing I think is a rebuke of Colm's point. People remember Mozart's music, but they don't necessarily remember the man. Whereas, at least on the island, people might remember Padraic as the nicest person. Or, they would have, at one time.) 

But because Siobhan calls the shopkeeper out on being a nosy ass that opens people's mail then lies about it, or tells the cop it's none of his business what she does, she gets told nobody likes her. Because she's not nice. She reserved that for her brother, holding back her frustration with his satisfaction with the monotonous rhythms of their life, and it's eating away at her. One of the hardest scenes was after the cop told her that, when she's crying in bed. Padraic hears her, starts to sit up in his bed, then rolls away. Either he doesn't know what to say, or can't bring himself to try. He's probably never felt like he had to. Can't fault her for getting the hell out of there.

Most of the movie, Condon's hair is a stringy mess trailing around her head like a bush that's not been trimmed in years. It's only when she's decided to accept the job that the bags disappear from under her eyes, she starts to smile, works her hair into something neat. She's getting out, chasing what she wants and it brings her to life. In that sense, Padraic's letter back to her, while maintaining his usual self-centered niceness, is a gift. He doesn't tell her Jenny died. He doesn't tell her he burned down Colm's house, possibly Colm with it.

He does tell her Dominic died - and I can at least hope Dominic's shitbag father drank himself to death soon after - but only as a way of explaining why he can't come live with her, because Dominic is no longer an option to take over the farm. By keeping everything raging inside him locked away from someone who would care, who would probably come rushing back to try and keep her brother from getting killed, he grants her the peace to keep living the life she wants.

One thing that feels significant in a way I can't place comes during the final conversation between Colm and Padraic. All through the movie, characters use the word "feckin'." Feckin' mental, feckin' shitbag, and so on. In this final conversation, in response to Colm's apology for Jenny's death, Padraic says, very clearly, "I don't fucking care." The shift in word choice or pronunciation feels important, but I'm not sure how. The whole conversation does mark the shift in the landscape between the two. Colm seems ready to put things behind them, Padraic is not. They're both still alive, so nothing is over. Colm looks across the sea to Ireland and remarks there's been no shooting for a couple of days (this takes place at the tail end of the Irish Civil War in the 1920s), and maybe there'll be peace.

Padraic dismisses the idea. Doesn't nod along mindlessly or agree. They'll be back to fighting soon enough. A metaphor for he and Colm. This quiet conversation doesn't change things, even if part of Padraic still wishes it would. The way he nearly breaks when Colm thanks him for looking after his dog, like he can't tell if he wants to cry or throw up. I wonder if, in that moment, he was about to ask Colm if he wanted to go to the pub, and had to stop himself. Like he's learned a lesson, or this is the "new me" as he yelled at Dominic's back at one point, but the old him isn't entirely gone yet. Instead, he responds "Any time," and walks away. It's outwardly polite towards a person he hates, but it's also a threat. He could come looking to settle things with Colm at any time.

Trouble Comes in Threes

I guess those three could technically count as trouble. Like a bug bite. Not one in an impossible to reach spot, just one that's kinda awkward.

I don't remember why, or for that matter where, I bought volume 10 of Dragon Ball last year, but I did, so let's take a look. Volume 10 wraps up the second Dragon Ball hunt, which is probably better known as the Red Ribbon Army Arc.

By this point, Goku's already single-handedly trashed the entire RRA - as far as he knows - and is just trying to gather all seven balls so he can wish his friend Upa's father back. There's one ball to go, and while it was hidden from Bulma's radar, it's not hidden from Fortuneteller Baba's magic. And who's got it?

Yeah, the Pilaf Gang. They think they've got a good shot against Goku, and could almost be forgiven for the over-confidence. They trapped him successfully last time, and he only escaped because he transformed into a giant, berserker ape. They know his tail is his weak point, and they have three mech suits to exploit it! Except his tail is gone, and he's a lot stronger than they remember.

Look, I'm not showing any scans from the fight because the burned off Goku's pants trying to get at his tail, so he's fighting bare-assed most of the time. And a defeat like that just about draws a line under those three as characters of any significance. The only other thing they do in Dragon Ball is somehow find the rice cooker Demon King Piccolo is sealed in at the bottom of the ocean, and open it. Maybe Goku should have hurt them a little worse.

Dragon Ball retrieved, deceased father figure revived, and Goku even managed to catch his 4-star ball before it shot off over the horizon. Nothing left now but to prepare for the next Tenkaichi Budokai! Toriyama skips the intervening 3 years, although I know the anime added some filler episodes of Goku meeting some different martial arts experts and learning stuff.

But in addition to Krillin, Yamcha, and Jackie Chun, there's some new challengers to worry about. Roshi's old rival Master Shen is here with his Crane School students, a porcelain doll-looking twerp and a 3-eyed asshole. Tien talks a lot of shit, to Yamcha and Krillin's annoyance, but Goku's sure the guy can back it up.

And Yamcha finds out quickly that he can, suffering his second consecutive first-round defeat. To make it worse, Tien goes and breaks Yamcha's leg, just to be a dick. Yamcha's down already, there's no need for it. He just does it to prove a point. One thing that annoys me, after the Tournament is over, Yamcha brushes it off. Yeah, Tien apologizes, but I'd be a little pissed about someone doing that. But I tend to hold grudges. Maybe that's not in keeping with the true spirit of martial arts.

Also, Goku vows to avenge Yamcha in a match, then loses to Tien in the finals. Great job, Goku! Of course, years later Goku will promise Krillin that, if he lets Vegeta live, Goku will kick Vegeta's butt if he comes back to cause trouble.

*Looks at Vegeta helping Cell achieve his perfect form.*

*Looks at Vegeta helping Babidi release Majin Buu*

It's possible that, like "marriage", "promise" is a word that Goku doesn't actually know the meaning of. Or, in clickbait sports talk, Goku just isn't clutch. I'm picturing Stephen A. Smith on some show, yelling about how Goku always chokes when the stakes are highest. 'There is no question he's a great fighter. . .when the pressure is off. HOWEVAH. . .'

After a comedy match-up between Jackie Chun and a Man-Wolf angry he can't change back into human because of Jackie blowing up the Moon in the last tournament - pour one out for Boss Rabbit, stranded up there by Goku then blown to HFIL with no warning - we get another Turtle vs. Crane match-up, as Krillin's up against Chiaotzu and his weird bullshit.

But it's Goku blabbing his mouth about killing Master Tao (Shen's brother) that will kick things to another level of hostility. 

Sunday Splash Page #436

"The Whole World in Her Hands," in Ant-Man and the Wasp #5, by Mark Waid (writer), Javier Garron (artist), Israel Silva (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Didn't plan on this being a Mark Waid weekend, but nonetheless. A mini-series from 2018 pairing the 2nd Ant-Man (Scott Lang), with the 3rd Wasp (Nadia van Dyne.) Almost said "2nd Wasp," but there was that stretch after Secret Invasion where Hank Pym called himself the Wasp. Lang was out in space helping the Guardians of the Galaxy with something and needs a ride back to Earth, or he'll miss his daughter's birthday party. Nadia grudgingly agrees to help, via some process where she builds a device to catch Scott if he rides the beam projected by the Nova Corps transmission system as a tiny guy. Scott has to jump into the beam precisely when she says, or he could get lost in the Microverse.

Does Scott forget to pick up the plant he's bringing Cassie as a gift, then end up jumping into the beam a split-second too late, missing the receiver entirely? This is post Ant-Man movie Scott Lang, of course he does! Nadia gives chase, and so begins an adventure in the Microverse.

Waid's clearly having fun with how weird physics get at sub-atomic scales, though he's understandably selective about what gets explained. Nadia makes a point that she and Scott are breathing, despite being smaller than an oxygen atom, can see despite being smaller than a photon of light. And while she says this, she scoops up a handful of what looks like earth, but Garron depicts the parts shifting into a bunch of fluttery, glowing green, they might be bugs, or they might be like flower petals, or the sub-atomic equivalent of one of those. Point being, things work differently here, and Nadia, being the theorist, wants to be cautious. Scott - who says in response to Nadia's questions that he did think about those things, then made himself a sandwich because he didn't know the answers - wants to get home, and not let anyone get hurt along the way.

That's how things play out over the mini-series. Nadia mostly tries to remain serious and calm and understand the science of the different things that go wrong with she and Scott during their travels. Like when there are suddenly several of her, because they've become living quantum particles, existing in several states simultaneously. Scott mostly doesn't understand what she's saying, but does his best to help by forming connections with people - first, what passes for insects in the Microverse, then with a maligned experimental scientist in a Microverse society - and by grounding Nadia when her emotions start to hit too hard. 

That's the undercurrent, past Nadia's hostility towards the man who "stole" her father's work. Nadia is trying desperately to impress a father she never got to meet, who never knew she existed. Scott, for all this version's many faults, is a guy who tries really hard to be a good dad. To be there for his daughter, and not make her feel like his love is contingent on her accomplishments. And so, in his slightly panicky way, he knows how to keep Nadia calm when things get too much or she starts to doubt herself.

Garron is able to keep Scott and Nadia looking basically normal, while the things around them look very strange. The Microverse scientist - who Waid writes a lot like one of the scientists you'd see in Marvel's '50s era sci-fi/horror comics - is a bizarre conglomeration of tentacles, holes, teeth, and green things that might be eyes. The way they're arranged makes no sense to my eye, but that's kind of the point. Things works differently down there. In the first issue, they encounter a type of creature that looks a bit like sheets hanging from a single hook, that shift between colors. How they speak, how they move, what they would subsist on and how they get it is not immediately apparent. How the predator pursuing them steals the "red" from them, causing them to become a pile of grey dust stuff, is also unclear. But as Scott points out when Nadia advises staying out of it, those beings are alive, and they're in pain. So Ant-Man and the Wasp get involved.

Saturday Splash Page #238

"The Direct Approach," in The Web Annual #1, by Mark Waid (writer), M.C. Turner Alan (penciler), John Lowe (inker), Linda Kachelhofer (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

I discussed the one round of Annuals the Impact Comics line had when we looked at The Legend of the Shield Annual in 2023. The Web Annual was the first chapter of the overarching story of Templar - a massive guy with a Fu Manchu 'stache, whose legs look like he has water retention issues - trying to reveal the location of a holy grail (the Holy Grail?) via a series of ecological catastrophes. But, as I used a page from that in Sunday Splash Page #302, and the Web's part is only really significant in that it's the one time "Rad" Stiles gets to do anything of use in 15 total issues of The Web, I figured I'd highlight one of the other stories running through the annuals.

Across 4 of the 6 annuals, Waid charts the history of the Jackson family and how it intertwines with the original Shield. Who, by what passed for the present day in the Impact Comics-verse, had vanished decades ago, along with his super-suit. So in 1953, the Shield is bribed into rescuing the son of "Lucky" Jackson, a notorious mobster, with the promise of a written confession of enough crimes to put Jackson away for decades. Matthew, who has an eidetic memory and serves essentially as his father's ledgers, is less than pleased that the man who rescued him then hauls his dad off to jail.

The story jumps to 1958 Cuba, where Matthew is preparing to take over the organization from his father's right-hand man. If he can survive the rise of Castro, and the ample opportunities it provides for backstabbing. The Shield, even if there's not much he can do about the societal upheaval on the island, saves Matthew, who turns away from crime. We learn in the 3rd part that his son Tony is hanging with a bad crowd, idolizing his grandfather (still in prison), despite Matthew talking up how great the Shield was, and ends up doing a favor for a certain Mistah Big in their city. Deliver a package to a certain home by midnight on Halloween. Matthew, who is pretty much a stringbean in every chapter, throws on a Shield Halloween costume and saves his son from getting blown up by the bomb.

Which brings us to the 4th part. It was depressing, but a perfect fit for being in The Black Hood Annual. Set in the "present day" - meaning, 1992 - we find Tony still living in his hometown of Soundview. In part 3, we were told it was the 5th largest city in the country, a thriving place. Now it looks like another dying, post-industrial city, and Tony has taken all his father's talk about the Shield to heart in the worst way. He roars around on a motorcycle, wearing what's left of that Halloween costume over a leather jacket and calling himself the Shield. Tony's trademark seems to be, upon finding criminals, to say, 'Okay scum, it's Judgement Day,' then kick the door in and start shooting. Maybe spout some Schwarzenegger-isms while beating up the crooks.

He lives alone in a ratty apartment, smoking cigs and doing pull-ups. Says his wife is the streets, and she needs a firm hand, which is, not great. As the narrator puts it, when his father died, Tony went a little nuts. Even his grandfather, finally out of prison, can see this is bad, and is pretty blunt Tony is not the Shield. Which doesn't stop Tony from walking to a trap to rescue his grandfather, one set by an old friend. A trap that gets him and the friend killed. No one but "Lucky" comes to Tony's funeral. Well, except for one older gentleman with orange-red hair. Hint, hint *looks significantly at the splash page.*

The arcs don't quite line up. The Jackson family don't exactly get more decent, as Matt's probably the best man of the three, but circumstances around them seem to decline steadily. Lucky was the biggest wheel in what passes for Impact's version of Vegas (or maybe Atlantic City?), all glittering lights and fancy parties. Then Matt's trying to hold a casino together in a country about to be flipped on its head. Then the setting shifts to a different thriving city, that ten years later looks like a dump.

Is it that, the further you get from something's origin or true existence, the more distorted perception of it becomes? Lucky understood the Shield, who he was, how he acted, what he believed, enough to use him, and was just honorable enough to stick to his deal. But Lucky was never going to be the type to stick his own neck out. Matt comes to respect the Shield and what he stands for, but isn't strong enough physically to be him. His lone act of heroism gets him killed. And maybe, in an effort to distance himself from his and his father's criminal past, Matt got too lost in hero worship. He forgets there are limits to what the Shield, or one man in general, can accomplish. He understood that in Cuba, but by Tony's adolescence, he'd forgotten, and the Shield was nearly godlike to him. Tony's physically strong, but that aggrandized view of the Shield, plus his father's death, did a number on him. The vigilante he becomes can't save anyone, and it hardly occurs to him to try until his grandfather is endangered. He figured if he just kept beating up scum, it would fix things eventually.

What I Bought 7/15/2026

Google sent some notice a few weeks back that they wanted me to approve some thing or the other that would let them use anything I searched for to train their bullshit faux-AI. I, being the contrary sort, said no. So now Google and Google Maps don't recall anything I searched for previously. Which I suppose I have to admire, from a pettiness standpoint if nothing else.

D'Orc #6, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Frank William (color artist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - The fantasy world equivalent of a Ghostbusters containment unit.

D'Orc travels through some spiritual realm with a talking Super Smash Bros. logo that is apparently Fate. Fate shows D'Orc how he was conceived, but is vague about the identity of his parents, other than his mom was an orc and his dad a dwarf, the last 2 survivors of some big war, who shared one night of probably hate-sex.

Fate's more relevant point is that nothing is destined, because everyone is always making choices, and all those choices have consequences that overlap and react, so how could things be destined? Except Fate also implies it already knows what choice D'Orc is going to make as far as whether to help the bone witches (apparently there's an entire coven) burn the world down. Which sure sounds like something that's destined.

D'Orc escapes the crystal to find the Bone Witch, his shield, and the chicken are fleeing something. The something is the angry dwarf from a few issues ago, now minus part of his face. Which doesn't make sense, because the Witch's potion was actually supposed to trigger D'Orc's berserker fury so he would kill the dwarf, because the Witch hates him for something he did. Possibly sleeping with D'Orc's mom. Possibly never calling the Bone Witch by her name (whatever that is.) Probably something bigger than either of those. Regardless, why would a potion meant for that erase part of someone's face?

There's some fighting, there's some attempts at escaping, D'Orc is falling out of the sky into the dark half of the realm. Maybe? He was just supposed to head for the Scar - isn't that where he started the series? - but I guess he needs to see how the other side lives.

It feels like Bean finally did something beyond, "D'Orc runs into some random people and shit happens." There's some actual momentum towards, well, something. The Bone Witch Coven as someone for D'Orc to seek out. The angry dwarf deciding he's going to raise an army, which I guess locks him into Primary Antagonist role for the near-future. I was waiting to see if the book would actually give me a reason to look forward to the next issue beyond hoping the next issue would give me a reason, and I guess this qualifies. 

Fantastic Four #14, by Ryan North (writer), Ramon Rosanas (artist), Edgar Delgado (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) -  The glitchy effect on the logo made me confused whether there'd been a printing error, or my eyes were just getting really shitty.

Dinner at the Baxter Building is interrupted with Jo and Nikki find the rest of the family staring transfixed at a series of numbers on a screen. Or in Alicia's case, staring blankly as her fingers run over a series of numbers on a touchpad. Nothing can get their attention or pull them away from the numbers.

And people are sharing this string of numbers, which is apparently the furthest out anyone has ever calculated pi, worldwide, causing more and more people to enter this fugue state. And if they lose access to the sequence, say because their phone battery dies, or someone rips open the faceplate of their fancy-schmancy armor, they go crazy.

Yes, like that. Now Tony Stark has another excuse the next time he does something horrible, besides "booze" and "futurism."

The kids figure out this is like that time Reed explained that poison ivy pretty much only bothers humans, and this is not something to improve the odds of survival, just a weird, random development. For some reason, a particular sequence in pi fucks with humans' brains. And since the kids can't change the value of pi, they have to figure something else out.

The answer involves time travel to mess with human evolution, and goddamn does North seem to be going to the time travel well a lot. Mucking with time was a huge part of One World Under Doom, especially the FF issues, where it felt like there were no fewer than 3 different stories that involved time travel. He just sent Reed and Johnny to the Roman era two issues ago. Give the timeline a rest for a minute, man. 

So there's a clue in a particular something that's off in Rosanas' art throughout the issue, up to the point Jo and Nikki explain it. And then when they make their fix, it reverts things to what we would consider normal. Except it's more like they made that the new normal. I'm not sure if I have more trouble with that, or the idea this was supposed to be an entirely random thing, and not a targeted attack. Also, I can't believe that, "Hey, we calculated pi to 8 billion digits!" would get that much traction on social media. Not to mention all the people that would never see it on social media. Like me.

Not to mention all the people on Marvel-Earth who aren't humans or aren't entirely humans, that therefore shouldn't be affected. Carol Danvers is half-Kree now. Beta Ray Bill's apparently Thor now, he ain't a primate. Clea's mother is whatever the heck Umar is, which I doubt is "human," regardless of what she looks like.

Other People's Unfinished Business

Love yourself, and you'll never be lonely a day in your life. Wait, that's not right. . .

The Unfinished Swan finds Monroe adjusting to the death of his mother, who made many paintings of animals, but never finished any of them. Monroe could only keep one, a swan whose neck wasn't complete, but one night, the swan leaps off the canvas, and Monroe sets out in pursuit.

The chase leads him through a fairy tale world of castles and giants, towers and ships carried through the skies on balloons. Though some of the views are staggering, the world is frequently monochrome, save the swan's gold-yellow footprints. However, Monroe can chuck paint around to bring some color to his surroundings.

The paint helps him in pursuit of the swan, though the ways it helps varies. In earlier levels, it distinguishes the path. In a world where everything is white, how could you tell the wall from the hallway, or a wooden slat bridge from the pond it crosses? Well, by throwing paint around until the differences becomes clear.

Later, when the paint color shifts to a light blue, it acts like water. Plant life will grow towards it, providing vines Monroe can use as handholds to get from one place to the next. Still later, you enter worlds like blueprints through picture frames. There you use paint around to mark the dimensions of boxes or blocks, which appear in those spots in the real world once you return. I didn't enjoy that part; I'm not much for that sort of spatial puzzle. Never a big Lego or building blocks guy. My junior high computer lab had some game where you tried to construct a bridge across a waterway, and once you were done, the game would send a truck across to see if you did a good job. I never once managed to build a bridge that actually stayed up.

So gameplay where I need to create a series of stair steps, high enough to get me where I need to go, but not so high I can't jump onto them, but also extending across chasms, but not extending so far they block the next thing I need to build, was not enjoyable.

Not that there's any massive penalty for failure; if Monroe falls to his doom, he simply re-spawns at the beginning of that particular room. There are a few places where giant spiders lurk in the shadows, and they can bite Monroe, but other than making me feel bad I let this kid get hurt, there's no downside. There's no damage meter; there is one point where you need to climb before the water level rises (though again, you just re-spawn if you don't), but otherwise you're not working against a clock or anything.

It all feels like a dream that also somehow explains to Monroe his parents' lives, though it's hard to tell what's a metaphor and what's meant to be the real. There are gold letters stamped here and there, and if Monroe hits them with paint, they become a page in a story of a selfish king. The king made kingdoms for himself, but resented when his subjects demanded he add shadows so they weren't bumping into things. He eventually made himself a queen, who was uninterested in any of the gifts the king showered her with, except a paintbrush she used to paint animals she never finished. She left without warning, and the king, with no subjects or loved ones, started a monument to himself - Bender would be proud - until his magic paint powers faded.

Monroe meets the king, who refers to himself as Monroe's father, at the very end, as the king describes a dream he had - which you play through - where all the things he built were being covered in paint some boy was hurling about. The king gives Monroe his magic brush and says he needs to go home, and once there, Monroe paints a complete picture of a swan with two babies.

What does all that mean? Was his dad actually a king, or just some guy who was really creative, but only created for his own benefit? Who thought of everything as his, and that's why Monroe's mother bailed? And she loved painting, but the whole experience left her too soured on art to ever finish anything? Or she just painted for the fun of it, so it didn't matter that she finished? But the game says, after Monroe finishes his painting, that he knows him painting would make her happy.

Also, at one point prior to Monroe meeting the king, during the mess with me trying to make platforms, Monroe reaches a telescope in a tower that lets you peer back into the "real" world at a moon or planet in the night sky. We see two people holding hands. His parents reunited, even though the king is still inside the head of his own monument at that time?