Sunday Splash Page #422

"The Big Chair," in Punisher: The Cell, by Garth Ennis (writer), Lewis LaRosa (penciler), Scott Koblish (inker), Raul Trevino (colorist), Randy Gentile (letterer)

While Ennis was writing his MAX imprint Punisher ongoing series, he also wrote an assortment of one-shots and mini-series. The Cell takes place at an undefined point in Frank's story, where he surrenders himself to get into a prison with five particular mob guys, who are finally all together after many years.

Most of the story is spent on Frank engineering circumstances so he can get time with the five of them. Which involves manipulating the sadistic head guard - not difficult, the man's both aggressive and aggressively stupid - and igniting a race war among the prison population. The reveal at the end - coming after Ennis writes a bit where 4 of the 5 admit to something awful they each did, even by their standards, in the idea they need to confess to atone, but really feels like Ennis either going for shock value or to really sell us on the notion Frank should kill these guys - is these 5 are responsible for killing Frank's family. The consiglieri tried to whack the don, there was a lot of shooting without regard for anyone else in the vicinity by the hitman and the two bodyguards, people died.

The five die, although even in a MAX book, the violence is kept largely off-panel. Frank kills the brothers that were the don's bodyguards by beating them with a nightstick, but LaRosa just shows us the nightstick rising and falling as blood flies. He also continues to use Eastwood as a visual reference for Frank (and Danny Trejo for one of the bodyguards.) The don chokes out his consiglieri himself, but has a heart attack in the process. As he dies, Frank tells him that he can escape the prison whenever he wants, and go right back to killing criminals, until there's none left. Which is in conflict with what he told himself in The Slavers arc, that he knew he couldn't stop them, any more than he can the drug trade. He knows there's always going to be more of these guys.

Also, the don strikes me as a person that wouldn't really care what happens after he dies, but whatever. Frank's having a ball, I guess. "Look what you unleashed on your people, old man."

But it makes for a interesting tie to Punisher: The End, which Ennis did with Richard Corben. I don't own it, but I read it when it came out. Basically, some point much further down the line, the world is dying. Nukes, I think. Frank's been locked up a long time, but with everything falling apart, another convict helps him escape, hoping Frank will protect him long enough to find an underground bunker the wealthy have somewhere in the city.

Frank ultimately kills the people in the bunker, I think because they helped engineer all this. Even when they plead they've heard nothing from the other bunkers, meaning they might be the last of the human race. That done (and the convict who led him there also killed) Frank, dying of radiation exposure from the journey, heads back onto the surface, to spend his remaining time killing any other criminals he finds. There's no such thing as extenuating circumstances, no reprieve or possibility of redemption. That's something he told Micro in the first MAX arc, after Micro helped the CIA catch Frank to try and sell him on working for them. Frank ended up blowing Micro's head off.

At least in that sense, Frank does keep his promise. He keeps killing until all the men like that godfather are dead. Unfortunately, it's possible everyone else is dead, too. If so, to him, that just means there's no one left who requires punishing. The mission is complete, or he's dead. Which, in a sense, is also a way of completing the mission. Frank might not see it that way, but he almost certainly meets his own definition of needing punishing. During The Cell, he doesn't acknowledge that someone could be incarcerated and actually be innocent. He kills one guy simply because the man is a cellmate of the guy Frank wants to kill to ratchet tensions in the prison. Doesn't even know the guy's name, just kills him because he's in the way and in prison, so he must be guilty. 

Saturday Splash Page #224

"Question of Faith," in The Question #3, by Dennis O'Neil (writer), Denys Cowan (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Tatjana Wood (colorist), Gaspar Saladino (letterer)

Steve Ditko created The Question at Charlton, but I've not read his work with the character. DC bought Charlton, and Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan went a very different route with Vic Sage.

O'Neil's Sage is a reporter, in Hub City, a rotting post-industrial city that is a national joke for its crumbling infrastructure, drunk mayor and bent cops. Cowan shows us dirty streets, apartments with holes in the floor, peeling wallpaper, boards over windows. The streets aren't crowded, but most of the people we see are either looking to commit a crime, or appear too exhausted to even contemplate that. Just worn down, lines etched deep in their faces.

Vic has a rep as a reporter who is fearless in exposing corruption, with the Question as his method to get information, but also as a cheap thrill. An excuse to release the anger inside him through violence. He gets in over his head after Lady Shiva beats him nearly to death, and then gets shot, but something about Sage impresses Shiva enough to bring him to Richard Dragon.

The Vic who returns to Hub City a year later is a changed man, at least temporarily. He moves differently, thinks differently. Speaks in circles. When people ask who "No-Face" is and he replies, "A good question," you wonder if it's a joke, or something he doesn't know himself. Zen, letting answers and paths come to him, rather than always trying to force his way through. As I said, at least for a while, but we'll come back to that.

Sage's supporting cast consists of basically three characters: Aristotle "Tot" Rodor, an elderly professor who serves as Vic's Alfred. Patching him up, asking questions so Vic can explain things to us, providing information from his various backgrounds. Myra Connelly, an old flame of Vic's who begins the series married to the useless, drunk mayor, but later runs for mayor herself. Lastly, Izzy O'Toole, a particularly bent cop who cleans up his act after the Question saves him from being killed by a couple of crooks Izzy objected to robbing a suicide victim. 

If I had to summarize the foes the Question faces, it would be people looking for meaning, or maybe acceptance. The Reverend up there is looking for some meaning in what he saw as a chaplin in Vietnam. He uses a bomber at one point, a thin, glasses-wearing, quiet, boy, desperate to live up to his father's idea of what a man is. Desperate enough to burn his own face with acid, to prove he's not a "sissy boy" for a father he loathes, a fat, sweaty, ignorant brute who taunts his son for being shy around girls. Disillusioned soldiers, trying to prove their strength, or that their strength has some meaning or purpose behind it. A doctor who treats patients with great humanity - and kills the ones who hurt them because he thinks there's a balance to redress. A sadistic Latin American drug kingpin that hopes to use a particle accelerator to transmute himself into something better, like turning lead to gold.

How effective the Question is in dealing with these threats in up for debate. Many of them end up dead, though not by his hand. (The reverend dies by Myra's hand.) Perhaps by his voice. Vic Sage is a bit of a silver-tongued devil. Maybe it's something about what he went through that opened his perspective. Grants him greater understanding of others, but also lets him see the flaws in their philosophies. The doctor didn't consider that the people he killed were not simply evil, that they could change, as Vic had changed from his directionless, violent youth. The soldiers realize they're not following a man with some higher purpose, just one with a desire to prove he wasn't weak when he broke as a POW. But all of them end up dead, so what purpose did the Question challenging their perspective accomplish?

That's something Sage struggles with, the limit of what he can do, and how best to do it. Because as the series progresses over its 36-issue run, Vic backslides. His anger returns, his calm recedes. He may not go out as the Question for thrills, or strictly to hurt people, but he begins to see problems only in the manner in which he can use violence to solve them. He ignores what he can do as a reporter speaking to the people of Hub City to make them aware of issues. When Myra's opponent in the mayoral election hires a bunch of bikers to try and intimidate people at the polls, Vic opts to try and fight an entire, massive gang, rather than make it publicly known this is happening. Given the choice between using his fists to do all one man can, and using his voice to possibly get thousands to act, he chooses to go it alone.

Myra wins, but it's questionable how much Vic or the Question had to do with it. She fires her campaign manager - I think replacing him with her make-up artist - speaks honestly, speaks bluntly about the problems the city faces. The Question does convince Izzy, who's by then built his rep back up as an honest cop, to give a public message supporting her, but it's ultimately Myra who gets herself elected. A real poisoned chalice. When we first see her, Cowan draws her like a fashion model. Long hair with lots of bounce to it, sweaters that hug tight to her figure. She's more Vic's old flame than anything else, a woman trying to survive a bad situation for the sake of a daughter that stays at an orphanage. By the time Myra's running for mayor, her hair is cut short, she wears suit jackets and business skirts. Cowan's lines get harder, making her jawline sharper, the bags under her eyes more prominent. She's trying to seize control of her life, do something with it, but being mayor of Hub City is like buying a house while it's in the process of burning to the ground.

And that's maybe the most interesting thing O'Neil does with the book: Hub City breaks Vic. The Question can't save the city, and he can't use fighting for it (or in it) to save himself. The questions he has about himself, where he came from, who his parents were, why they didn't want him? He's not getting those answers, and that uncertainty about himself erodes whatever foundation Richard Dragon helped him build. Ultimately, he has to be carried out and taken away. To South America, if I remember the stories in The Question Quarterly right. Myra stays, Izzy stays, to keep fighting for the city, but for Vic, it's over.

What I Bought 4/8/2026

I feel I've hit a wall on most of the games I'm playing. Granted, I'm not playing anything all that often, but whenever I try, it seems like a lot of quick deaths and no progress. I'm learning things in Outer Wilds, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the information I'm learning.

D'Orc #3, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - Well, pull on a dwarf's beard and you ought to expect them to try and drive you into the ground like a tent peg.

The angry dwarf is hunting D'orc. This plays out as D'orc doing helpful things and the dwarf then killing the people D'orc helped. A white mage offers some new intel, but it doesn't help the dwarf. Except in terms of giving him more people to terrorize, which was probably not the mage's intent, since the mage is actually D'orc.

I'm unclear on what D'orc was hoping to accomplish. He says he's ready to deal out a beating to the dwarf for the damage he's done, but dude, some of those people got damaged because you sent him in their direction! Why didn't you just kick his ass sooner?

Oh, because you can't actually kick his ass. All attempts at sneak attacks fail, but the beating gives D'orc a chance to swipe the potion meant to erase him, and hit the dwarf with it instead. The dwarf says it's supposed to burn away any mistake it's hit with, but he just kind of falls over the cliff when he takes it in the face. So, did the Bone Witch who made it sell him a bum deal, or is it just a strict definition of mistake? 

Moonstar #2, by Ashley Allen (writer), Edoardo Audino (artist), Arthur Hesli (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Aw crap, Papa Smurf has gone to the dark side, and he's grown to enormous size!

Moonstar and Kian travel to China, because there's some vessel deep in a cave that will let Kyron collect more souls. There's some arguing, and then they reach the bottom and - the vessel is gone. Great work! There's a meaningless fight with some undead - unless each of them saving the other at some point is going to be significant later - and Kian stalks out to try and contact some people.

And then Dani's grandfather appears, carrying the cursed sword and talking about how she didn't avenge him, so he's gonna do it himself. By killing Dani? I know I'm not well-versed in her backstory, but I think I'd have heard about her murdering family members.

OK, it's actually Kyron, trying a disguise. They fight a little, Dani grabs the sword, gets some sad backstory for Kyron about watching a sister die of some illness and him not accepting that nothing could be done. And then the sword got it's hooks into him, with some spiel about how it would keep everyone he cares about safe inside it forever, rather than letting their souls go wherever it is souls go in the Marvel Universe, I don't even know any more what the theological cosmology is after Ewing made such a big literal thing about The-One-Above-All in his Hulk stuff.

Anyway, Kian saves Dani from getting killed, but the sword still took her soul? I think. Well, Strong Guy ran around without a soul for awhile, right? No big deal. Though I guess he lacked empathy, which might be an interesting twist on what we've seen of Dani so far. If she didn't care about the cost of being wrong, and just dove into whatever plan she'd settled on. Though there'd still be the question of why she was bothering to stop him at that point. 

The Many Faces of Art Forgery - William Casement

Casement divides his book into 3 parts. The first is a broad history of art forgery, what we know of, anyway, going to back to people in Rome creating sculptures and then carving the names of famous artists of ancient Greece on them. This section covers not only forgers, but what he calls "copyists", who apparently make reproductions of famous pieces, but are open about it. You know it's not an actual Rembrandt or Donatello, but something done to look just like one of their pieces.

As he moves into the 20th Century, he delves into greater detail about the backstories of known forgers, their techniques, preferred styles to work in, their trials (if there were any.) This was the part that dragged the most for me. He includes photographs of forgeries in the book, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about art to be able to tell anything, even when he puts a picture of the original alongside the fake.

Part 2 is largely a discussion of the concept of forgery, or perhaps the idea of what makes the actual artwork. Early on, Casement discusses how some people define a "fake" as someone reproducing an original, a copyist that doesn't admit it, while a "forgery" is when you make an original painting, but in the style of a more famous artist, and try to pass it off as one of theirs. Yet others would reverse those definitions. So Han van Meergen made Vermeer paintings, including one, Supper at Emmaus, that Vermeer never actually painted. Forgery, or fake?

This was the part I found most interesting, as it also looks at the notion of work-for-hire, or having "studio" artists like Rubens or Warhol, who may create all or part of the actual painting based off a conceptual sketch or design by their boss. From there, it looks at the notion of appropriation, first in taking an image or work someone else created and repurposing it into something else, and eventually cultural appropriation, in terms of who gets to make art in the styles of various cultures, but also, who gets to define what is the art of a given culture.

Casement talks a lot about Indigenous Australians in that section, and a Richard Bell who points out there are many Indigenous Australians who live in urban settings and whose work reflects that life. Does that mean their art isn't part of their culture because it doesn't match the conceived notions of what their art is "supposed" to be?

Although the main takeaway I had from Part 2 was that I consider conceptualism, where guys like Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons argue they're the artist even all they contribute is the idea and someone else actually paints or sculpts it, bullshit. When I go to a comic convention and ask someone to draw me a picture of a character, I'm not the artist because I suggested the idea, the person who actually drew it is. But Hirst and Koons come off as hypocritical tools in this book, arguing it's fine for them to appropriate other people's work, then getting huffy at the slightest hint someone might be doing the same with their work.

Part 3 is a discussion of moral arguments around forgery. Those used by forgers or others to justify their actions, but also the question of authenticity and historical value. Little bit of a Ship of Theseus situation over at what point in restoring an old painting is it no longer the original, but in fact a reproduction? Is it more important to leave the painting as is, allowing it to degrade over decades and centuries but always being the work of the true artist, or touch it up to try and maintain something approaching its original state, recognizing it may be subtly altered in the process? That gets into a discussion of the "perfect fake", whether such a thing can exist, the relative aesthetic value of such a fake relative the original, and so on.

The aspect I hadn't ever considered was the potential historical damage. On a individual scale, a forger can provide a false impression of an artist's style or focus based on the forger's level of skill and what pieces they choose to reproduce or create. If Vermeer didn't actually create many paintings, but van Meergen paints several that he passes off as heretofore unknown Vermeers, that gives people the wrong idea about what Vermeer was doing. Or suddenly we think van Gogh's "blue period" was much longer or more prolific because someone makes a bunch of fakes in that style.

But Casement also discusses a guy who created fake sculptures of Mesoamerican peoples that we don't necessarily have much art from. And in some cases, the sculptures weren't based on anything other than the man's own whims. Not knowing those were fakes, archaeologists and historians were reconstructing belief systems for those people that incorporated deities and styles that were never part of that culture. So that was a new thing to consider.

The writing is a little dry at times, but Casement seems to be pretty thorough in examining the different sides of arguments and theories, providing direct quotes from forgers, artists, art historians, critics and legal statutes, where applicable. And the book certainly did not fill me with the desire to create forgeries, especially since it sounds like the actual forger usually makes a fraction of what the art dealer who sells the forgery does. 

'Eric Hebborn, in making a thousand fake Old Master drawings, capitalized on the fact that the artists he faked seldom signed their works on paper. He was known in London and Rome to be knowledgeable about art and active in searching out old works, and often approached potential buyers with "finds" while leaving the determination of authorship up to them.'

What I Bought 4/1/2026

I traveled to the KC area for work today, and for once, the weather wasn't crap. Typically - doesn't matter the time of year - I draw the short straw. Unseasonable snow, 50+ mph winds, heavy rains, always something. Results had to change eventually, I guess. Let's get into April's books.

Nova: Centurion #6, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Going to try and shoot the most damage-resistant of the 3 first, huh? Bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it works.

Last issue, so Nova's got to kill the alien parasite infecting Cammi. He was going to use all that stolen Mysterium, but the parasite crumpled up his ship and chucked it into space. So Rich uses the promise of the Nova Force to lure it inside entirely inside him, then unleashes said Nova Force and incinerates the thing. While making a speech about how he's not just a Nova, he's the entire Corps, and it can't beat all of them.

It is with disappointment I report that, when Lopez draws a page showing dozens of Novas, as representative of the legacy of the Corps that Richard is the inheritor of, he doesn't follow Brian Denham's lead and draw a blue Pikachu Nova. Tsk, tsk.

Anyway, parasite dead, Cammi saved (thank you for that, Jed MacKay.) The Kree-Skrull War are still barking threats, and Nova reminds them that is pretty stupid considering he could kill them both in an instant. Of course, now he needs a new ship and energy for the Worldmind, both of which require money. But he's got his combat accountant and Cammi, so he ought to be OK.

So, obviously things got rushed. We never really got much about Aalbort (the accountant), and MacKay clearly had more in mind for Star-Lord, since he makes sure to throw in a page about Quill regretting backstabbing Nova and how this time, he's going to do the right thing instead of the smart thing. I assume there was going to be more build up to Quill coming through for Nova in a key moment, especially since he doesn't really get to do anything other than be there in this circumstance. Rich and the Worldmind handle the parasite by themselves, the others are just an audience.
 

Batgirl #18, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - I bet the phosphorescent skeleton knows the best party spots in town.

Cass, Tenji and Jaya leap into the portal to Spirit World. Where they find the guy with a big old gunshot wound in the back of his head, minus the wound and saying he's been waiting for weeks. Turns out the Bloodmaster's father is trying to hijack his body to live again. Because apparently the tradeoff for the blood powers is you only live once. No reincarnation.

This is presented as something Cassandra should be very concerned about, though I can't tell that she is. She just wants the powers gone, but they have to talk to whoever granted the family these powers, and there's some angry lady with big teeth, that I guess Cass met in that Spirit World mini-series, waiting for her.

Cassandra is also, in between being trained to form the blood into weapons and stuff, arguing with Tenji about whether they should look for Shiva here and see if they can bring her back. Tenji wants to try, arguing they're supposed to honor their family in this world, while Cass brushes it off. So the same argument they've been having basically since Tenji was introduced, and I'm still on Cassandra's side.

There's just a sense of obligation Brombal's implying with all this, that Cass has to acknowledge a "family" that has never been there for her in any significant way, if she wants to progress, advance, whatever the hell it is she's actually supposed to do, that I think is horseshit. Family is what and who you make of it, and to be considered family by someone is, like respect, earned, not given. But, hey, Batman seems just about as irritated as me, so maybe the family Cassandra actually chose is going to step in and try to help.

The Frighteners (1996)

Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) is a psychic investigator that's only partially a fraud. Partially in that he can see ghosts, but he convinces some of them to do fake hauntings so he can bilk people out of money. Unfortunately, the town he lives in is experiencing a spate of deaths that initially look like heart attacks, but the hearts show no signs of damage. And Frank is starting to see glowing orange numbers carved in the foreheads of random people, that are not the doing of his pals Cyrus (Chi McBride), Stuart (Jim Fyfe), or the Judge (John Astin.)

I've watched part of this at some point in the past, but I didn't realize there was so much going on in it. Probably too much. Frank's not dealing with his wife's death. His scams. Lucy (Trini Alvarado), a nurse who thinks Frank is legit and whose husband ends up a victim. A ghostly killer (Jake Busey.) An FBI special agent (Jeffrey Combs) gone entirely round the bend from too many years investigating paranormal cult shit. A woman kept trapped in a house by her authoritarian mother. There's even a bit of a subplot about the local newspaper publisher gunning for Frank.

Peter Jackson really tries to make it all fit, shifting focus from one thread to another. The newspaper publisher as another suspicious nail in Frank's coffin, removed from the table once we've got the FBI agent as an immediate physical threat to go with the supernatural one. And then saving the reveal of the truth about the woman and her mother for late in the film, to introduce a different physical threat. Lucy's there as the one person who believes in Frank, including Frank himself, but also to provide medical knowhow required later on.

(Curious to me Frank keeps watching people's hearts stop in front of him, but never considered trying chest compressions.)

But I don't think Jackson quite pulls it off. When characters die, or whatever you'd call it in that case of the ghosts, it doesn't feel impactful so much as them just sort of, dropping out of the film because Jackson ran out of use for them. The ghost of Lisa's husband feels pretty important in the first half, and then his spectral face gets ripped off and he's just gone. Even if he clearly had a different impression on the health of their marriage from Lisa, he did care about her in his own way, but he's just tossed aside. It felt like Cyrus and Stuart's sendoffs should have gotten more emotional heft as well, considering they were the closest thing to friends Frank had for several years.

Maybe that's just because I enjoy Chi McBride in everything he does. Always a delight. 

Fox actively tries to suppress the cocky charm he traditionally brought to roles, and I think he pulls it off. Frank is too surly towards the ghosts, and mostly too lazy in his interactions with other people, to really be charming. He's just going through the motions, everything is a script designed to either quickly get to the part where they give him money, or quickly end the discussion. Lisa's husband is freaking out about being dead, and Frank is describing how he'll have another chance to go into the light in a year, and he's going to excrete ectoplasm until then with the air of a man late for a bus.

I'm less sure Fox pulls off the turnaround to "guy who does care, actually," in the final stretch. Frank still just seems kind of tired, but maybe that's the point. He at least understands what happened to his wife, so now he got no objections to joining her. He has to get some closure on that front before he can really open himself up again.

The special effects and CGI are, well, it's the mid-90s. Some of the stuff with how the ghosts' bodies are manipulated (getting temporarily flattened by car tires, for example), doesn't look too bad. The "Reaper" look for Busey is pretty good, as compared to the translucent blue glow thing most of the ghosts get. The bits where ghosts are interacting with physical objects, picking up children or post-it notes, well, Who Framed Roger Rabbit did that stuff better in the '80s.

What I Bought 3/30/2026 - Part 2

Alex invited me along for another weekend jaunt to Chicago in a couple of weeks. Let's see, the first time I did all the driving and wound up on an entirely incongruent sleep schedule as him and everyone else. The second time I got friggin' motion sickness or something from the Uber driver we used getting back from dinner one night. Am I doomed to disaster, or is third time the charm? Find out in a couple of weeks. Assuming I survive.

Spirit of the Shadows #3, by Daniel Ziegler (writer), Nick Cagnetti (writer/artist/colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Great, Bunnicula leveled up its vampiric powers to include wings.

So Erik's back from the dead - again - thanks to the witch that wants revenge for killing her sister. The sister who is still wandering the afterlife, gathering the pages of the book of Erik's life. Which is how we learn that his previous return was by the same doctor the witch attacked previously. And once Erik was back, he was deadset on reuniting with Katrina, only to find she'd married in the 2 years that passed. So he killed her husband, and showed off his corpse to Katrina. That went as well as you'd expect.

Hellena, however, is more interested in the fact the doc is the one who knew how to resurrect people. So she traps Erik in some magic bubble and rushes off the combine her magic with the doctor's science and - Erik escapes the bubble, disrupts the spell, and rather than Hellena's sister being resurrected, a bunch of ghosts start rising from the graveyard. Whoopsie.

Nobody could let things go in this world, apparently. Erik kept trying to either get back to Katrina or bring her back, causing more harm in the process. Hellena keeps trying to get back her sister, hurting others in the process. Katrina's father - who apparently killed Erik - is back as a ghost and ready to kill Erik again. Maybe the Doc realized it was a mistake bringing back Erik, but that didn't stop him from helping Erik use more women in his experiments. Nobody lets go, and nobody learns anything. Cyclical, except the orbit is widening, and the damage is spreading wider.

I am curious to see if any of these ghosts end up with weird powers, considering there's been no explanation for why Erik came back looking like he did, or why he can make a glowing green violin that produces notes that knock back supernatural creatures.

Is Ted OK? #2, by Dave Chisholm (writer/artist/letterer) - That's a strange choice for a design on your sunglasses. Most people just go with a skull, or a flag. 

I don't have the first issue yet, which is too bad, because apparently Ted either spontaneously combusted or flat out exploded. But he's OK, folks! In that he's up and moving around again the next day, to the confusion of Sarah, who was assigned to watch him. She's either not doing a good job, or doing too good a job, because Ted notices her following him, but recognizes she tried to help him.

So they talk, because Sarah thinks he needs a friend. Ted thinks the company he works at is actually staffed by aliens. And when things happen like his computer's mouse bleeding when he clicks too hard, or him finding a mysterious silo somewhere inside, you gotta wonder. But also, Sarah is able to see him no matter where he goes, thanks to something her computer is connected to. And there are worm like things that can possibly do something to specific memories in your head if you name what you want focused on?

It's all weird, is what I'm saying. There's a big guy with a manbun (never a good sign) that works with Ted and tends to loom threateningly. He also speaks in the sort of generic phrases that seem ominous when Chisholm constantly draws the guy so we're looking up at him. 'I'm sure we'll meet again soon.' that kind of thing. Still, Ted slips the leash long enough to see some things he's not supposed to, then get tranq darted. I'm not sure what they were, even looking at them, or I'd describe them. I'm as confused as Ted, which is probably a good move by Chisholm.

Although the issue ends on some reporter interviewing - and I use the term loosely, the reporter talks for 21 caption boxes or voice balloons, across 2.5 pages, without actually asking a question - some tech mogul trillionaire who somehow saved the world from some horrible devastation wrought by some terrorists in the Ukraine. The fact the tech mogul points out the guy hasn't asked a question 17 balloons in doesn't make it less annoying, but there it is. The mogul's got some big announcement, but whether that's going to be bullshit (probably), or something to do with what Ted found, I've got no idea.

Chisholm also uses a heavily orange color scheme for the tech mogul parts, after mostly sticking to greens, purples, and a sterile, whitish-blue for Ted's workspace up to that point. Without seeing the first issue, I don't know if there's significance to that. It's not quite the same shade as the clip we see of Ted on fire at the start of the issue - that orange has more red in it - or in the above panel - which has more yellow - but it's got a similar fire/sun vibe to it. So is fire going to be significant? Fire of knowledge? A Prometheus-type thing, where Ted learns something and is punished for it? Or is Sarah the one that's going to learn that awful thing, and it's about Ted?