Sunday Splash Page #430

"A Fractured Mirror," in All-New Wolverine #1, by Tom Taylor (writer), David Lopez (penciler/inker), David Navarrot (inker), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Around 2016, Marvel killed Wolverine. Marvel, being Marvel, didn't let the concept lay fallow. They pumped out more Wolverine books than ever. Wolverines, about a bunch of characters that weren't that particular Logan, but liked to carve things up with claws, so close enough. Old Man Logan, because some dumbass thought we needed more of Mark Millar's bullshit in the Marvel Universe. And All-New Wolverine, which was about Laura Kinney trying to take on the legacy of her genetic donor. I hesitate to apply the label of "father" to Logan, given how bad he was at it.

Tom Taylor wrote the title, which ran for 35 issues, plus an Annual. It had a host of artists, because of course it did. Pretty much a different primary penciler for each arc. David Lopez on the first six issues, Marcio Takara and Ig Guara splitting the next six, Nik Virella and Djibril-Morissette-Phan on the third story, Leonard Kirk on the fourth arc, Juann Cabal on the fifth, and mostly Ramon Rosanas in the sixth arc, some "Old Woman Laura" thing I didn't keep, as should be self-explanatory given my comments in the previous paragraph.

Taylor's focus is on Laura trying to branch out and build a life, with friends and loved ones, while also moving beyond her past as a weapon. He starts by establishing Alchemax - this was when Alchemax was a thing in the present, rather than just in 2099 - cloned Laura. The clones were implanted with nanites to block their healing factors and lack claws - or so it seems - but the few survivors are trying to take out the ones responsible before they die. Of the four, only one appears to survive, the youngest, named Gabby (later Honey Badger or Scout.)

Gabby's the one constant presence throughout the run, despite Laura often trying to handle things alone to protect her new kid sister. Taylor writes Gabby as very quick to get excited about things and equally quick to judge. She's usually got some funny or clever remark ready, but a lot of Taylor's writing seems to revolve around that kind of quippy dialogue. It probably works here because Laura is mostly subdued. She's the quiet core all the more bubbly or outgoing characters orbit.

Besides Gabby, Maria Hill and Nick Fury (the one they put in the Marvel Universe that looks like Sam Jackson, 'cause Whitebread Nick Fury was/is busy being a Watcher) show up a few times, usually with something they want Laura's help with. Critically, Taylor makes these tasks Laura trying to rescue or help people, rather than kill. In the second arc, they need her to look for several missing SHIELD agents. In the fourth arc, it's a dying alien child who said Laura's name before keeling over of some engineered plague. People wanted her to kill, to take advantage of how much punishment the healing factor would let her take, but now she's using it to save lives.

To that end, Taylor uses the third arc to get rid of the "trigger scent" that sent Laura into berserker furies. As far as I know, nobody's undone that yet. Fittingly, that arc is the one that seems to delve most into previous Laura Kinney stories, as she's being hunted by Kimura, the woman who trained and/or tormented her in the Facility, and Gambit shows up for support, after being a big part of Laura's first ongoing series.

There's also the fifth arc, where a group of people who lost loved ones to various Wolverine-themed characters formed a support group to hunt down and kill them with bullets made of broken shards of the Muramasa Blade. Laura has to convince them she understands what they lost, because she lost part of herself being made into a killer, so she wants to help them by finding and punishing the ones who did that. Which is swell, but doesn't really address the fact she saved Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike or Daken, who don't have the excuse they were kids when they were slaughtering people, nor have they demonstrated much regret.

But regret never stopped Logan from killing people. Why should the knockoffs be any different?

At times, though, the book feels like Wolverine Team-Up, as every arc has some guest star. Dr. Strange and the Wasp both appear in "Four Sisters", as well as the time-traveling teen Angel, who at least has the excuse of being Laura's boyfriend. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl shows up in the story Marcio Takara drew, which is a fun little team-up about rescuing a squirrel that Laura's actions endangered, and then Old Man Logan and HYDRA-Cap show up in the obligatory Civil War II tie-in. You've got Gambit and Teen Jean Grey in the third arc, plus Tyger Tyger, Maria Hill and Nick Fury, then Laura travels to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy to find the source of the sick alien kid.

It's old hat for the new kid to meet up with established characters and get their stamp of approval. In the '90s, Spider-Man was a lock for a guest appearance by issue #3 in every new Marvel book. But it feels like Taylor spams that particular button. I guess the point is to use people who knew Logan to contrast Laura to her predecessor, but if the idea is her reinventing herself to be someone who protects, then maybe the focus could have been on non-super powered characters that were being saved by her?

I know, that's silly. All supporting cast members must be supers themselves now.

As far as the artists go, I'm always partial to Lopez's art. He's got that clean linework with expressive body language and faces I enjoy. It works with Taylor's tendency to do 3-panel sequences of "action-silent panel-reaction." Laura tells Angel not to hug her until her ribs heal. He pats her head instead. She asks if he did that, he freezes, then acknowledges the obvious. Or Taskmaster catches Laura's kick, talks shit, she extends the claw in her foot through his hand, he screams in pain.

Takara's work is a lot rougher, the characters more blocky, but the art captures Squirrel Girl's cheerful and earnest personality, as well as Gabby's excitement and Laura's resignation that she needs to make things right. Kirk, I think is like Rick Leonardi: He needs a strong inker or his figures get a little like a wax figure left in the sun. Things kind of stretch and elongate abnormally. There are four different inkers in that story, including Kirk himself, and sometimes the details start to slip, but mostly it works. The Guardians of the Galaxy look appropriately alien, if there's slippage, it's when Laura gets emaciated because her healing factor is overworked by the alien plague. Deadpool and Gabby hit it off and are all smiles with each other.

Cabal's work is a little stiff in the fights, but he's good with emotion and he's the only artist I've seen that leans even a little into the fact part of Laura's DNA comes from a stocky, burly man. Laura's traditionally drawn as sort of a waif. Partially (OK, mostly) because it's usually guys drawing the comics for guys and they want the girls to look the traditional sort of cute or hot. But also somewhat so she looks like this unsuspecting girl, who turns into a tornado of murder. It's not as though Cabal gives Laura body hair, or a square head, or hair swooped into little wings, but he does give her more musculature, especially in the shoulders and back, than I can recall most artists doing.

Logan came back eventually, somehow. Laura went back to being X-23. Then she was Wolverine again, at the same time as Logan. Now she's back to X-23, but still dressing like Wolverine? I don't think they've ever given her a brown-and-orange costume like Logan had. It's only ever the yellow-and-blue, or sometimes black-and-red when she's in X-Force mode. I'm not sure what that means, if anything. The artists want to use colors that are more sharply distinct? 

Saturday Splash Page #232

"Batter Up," in Yakuza Fiance ch.24, vol. 6, by Asuka Konishi

As far as I know, Yakuza Fiance isn't finished, but it's been over 18 months since volume 8 was released in the U.S., and I haven't seen a listing for volume 9 in months. So, rather than wait indefinitely. . .

Somei Yoshino is a high school student and granddaughter of Somei Renji, a major figure in the yakuza that dominate the Kansai region of Japan. Renji announces he's looking into Yoshino possibly marrying the grand-nephew of his old friend Miyama Gaku, a major figure in the largest yakuza org in eastern Japan. It's decided Yoshino will live at the Miyama house for a year and get to know this Kirishima.

What she gets to know is there's something off about him. He's a sadist, a masochist, hiding all that behind a polite facade until he gets bored and tells Yoshino she's too normal and boring too interest him and should just go into sex work. Or run home and report to her grandfather what he said so there'll be a turf war and Kirishima might get killed. Yoshino refuses to let herself lose to this guy, but in revealing her inner mettle, shows him a side of herself - read: violent - he finds incredibly appealing. Now he wants to marry her, while she finds him alternately infuriating and terrifying.

Yakuza Fiance is a weird reading experience, because I really like a lot of it. I like Yoshino, who is mostly very polite and even a little socially awkward, but has an explosive temper in the right circumstances. Plus, her hair sometimes covers one eye and I'm a sucker for that a lady with look. I like her childhood friend Shouma, who broods a lot, but has good banter with Yoshino and is generally a sarcastic smartass. Renji's goofball exterior is more of an act than Yoshino's, but it's still funny. Yoshino's friend Tsubaki is the kind of person who just loves drama, and will try to create it if it doesn't happen organically, but she legitimately cares for Yoshino and tries to help her.

There are some funny parts, and a fair amount of hand-to-hand fighting that Konishi depicts very cleanly and with a nice mixture of acrobatic moves and people just wailing on each other with whatever limb is available. There's a mystery Konishi's slowly been peeling back around the death of Yoshino's father, and some sort of internal power struggle in the Kansai crime families that I'm curious to see a resolution to, even if I don't understand all the relationships involved. So much of this book is enjoyable.

Just not half of the co-protagonists. I'm sure Konishi intends for Kirishima to be unsettling. Certainly in the first volume when he makes his abrupt shift in character, but I've never really stopped finding him unsettling. Even as Konishi shows how besotted Kirishima's become with Yoshino, or delves into Kirishima's past to show he's never been able to find someone that really understands him and what he wants, he still creeps me out. He's slipping tracking devices into Yoshino's electronic dictionary, or hacking her phone so he can follow her or track her social media.

And it's not like Yoshino doesn't tell him to stop. She does. Repeatedly. She gets new phones and he's immediately got the unlock code. She can't outmatch him physically, she's not smarter than he is, not savvier than he is, not luckier than he is. The only edge she's got is that he's apparently in love with her enough that she can maybe keep him in line, but, again, it's not like he does what she says all that often. He goes behind her back constantly, and while some of that is due to the real reason she's living with him (which is related to that mystery), I guess I don't expect that to change if the threat passes. 

Kirishima certainly seems dedicated to protecting her, but so does Shouma, who at least tends to keep Yoshino in the loop about what he's doing when it involves her. And yeah, Kirishima seems charming and pleasant towards her, hanging on her every word, but he acts that way to almost everyone, and that's all it is with those other people. An act. The same act he put on for Yoshino, until he got bored. He can say that won't ever happen, but given his whole personality, that's hard to take at face value. Tsubaki sees that he just agrees with whatever other people say, because he doesn't really care. He's just letting them talk, and most people are fine with that. Yoshino knows that he apologizes for things when she yells at him, but doesn't actually stop doing those things. What he says and what he means or does are wildly different.

It's weird, because I know I'm doomed to disappointment. There have been a few bonus chapters that show us glimpses of the future, and Yoshino and Kirishima are living together. This is, somehow, going to work out between them, and yet, I haven't stopped buying the series. The positives, thus far, have outweighed the negatives.

What I Bought 6/1/2026 - Part 2

Unfortunately, my boss is out on various vacations most of this month. It's good he's taking time off. I shake my head in amazement when he mentions he came in on weekends to take care of stuff, given how often he reminds us not to stress overly about things (I am maybe 50% successful at this.)

However, him being on vacation means I become him in the interim, with all the irritating phone calls, e-mails, and other mind-numbing crap that implies. Will I make it to the end of the month without running screaming to the South Seas?

Fantastic Four #11, by Ryan North (writer), Stan Sakai (writer/artist), Pat Boutin (penciler), Serge LaPointe (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The FF don't fight enough dinosaurs.

The Four are trying to decide what this new Future Foundation they're going to build with Maria Hill will be. If Hill's involved it'll be. . . a disaster! *rimshot* Reed, Sue and Johnny are all disagreeing, but Ben excuses himself from the discussion, claiming he's just the muscle. As opposed to Johnny? I'm pretty sure only one of the two of you qualified to be an astronaut, unless they've revamped Johnny's origin significantly.

Tempers are still high the next day when they find a mechanical T-Rex robbing a bank, and it seems like the FF can't get on the same page, until Ben realizes the robot's got the device Doom used to incite emotions and make people attack at Reed and Sue's wedding. I figured Psycho-Man was trying something new, but no, it's some guy the FF haven't seen in over 500 issues that bought his gear from some "super-weapons" auction. Then Ben tries writing a mission statement for the Future Foundation, and it's about everybody working to better things instead of just the "elite."

Whatever, it's fine. I was here for them fighting a robot T-Rex, although from the solicitation, I was really hoping Crimeasaurus Rex was actually a sentient Tyrannosaur, committing dino-crimes for dino-reasons. Maybe North would have fun with the FF trying to reason with a lizard intelligence that operates differently from a mammalian one, or something. Given that hope, "robot controlled by total loser," is kind of a letdown.

Then there's the Stan Sakai story, which is a pretty standard old-school FF adventure where a building falls into a big hole, so the team travels underground to confront Mole Man. Except he's not the problem, it's just a big creature that likes to dig. The FF work briefly with Mole Man to confront it, then everybody uses their powers and their current location in a plan to defeat it. Then Mole Man tells them to get lost like he's Namor or something. It's pretty close to the distilled essence of the FF, but mostly it's a chance to see Stan Sakai draw them, if that's of interest to you.

Is Ted OK? #4, by Dave Chisholm (writer/artist/letterer) - They shoulda put that cover behind a content warning tag or something.

The lady in the van that seemed to be waiting for Ted and Sarah is doctor Christina Paganini. She wants to destroy Ayn-Styne, because she knows weird stuff is going on there. Because she used to work there. Further explanation has to wait, because Man-Bun Idiot is after them, in an admittedly cool mech-suit, with a bunch of other robots or mech-suits. He catches up and asks Ted to come over and sign a form for paid time-off, or else. Then he does a countdown. When that doesn't work, he brings out the stray cat Ted likes, and starts the countdown over.

Which made me think of Woody Harrelson asking Sam Rockwell to please "go back to 5," when he was trying to get his gun to work in Seven Psychopaths. Ted agrees to surrender, if the cat is given to Sarah (who is maybe remembering this scene while she leaves another voicemail for whoever she keeps calling, this time about how 35% of our memories are shit our brain makes up to fill in the gaps.) Cat released, Ted starts asking Brody what this is about, Brody behaves like a dick, Ted, loses it and releases a massive burst of energy that fries all the mechs. And Brody! Good.

It's a nifty scene, although I was trying to figure out "PPPPPPPPPP" as a sound effect, until I realized on the previous page, he clapped his hands to demonstrate how quickly he died earlier, and the discharge came from that. So it's the tail end of an extended "CLAP" sound effect. Nice work on the layouts, albeit in a way that doesn't lend itself to scanning. A pair of two-page sequences, the first, with the clap, one panel running across two pages, getting shorter as it moves right, while on the second, it gets larger as it progresses. Under each of them, a bigger, irregular 4-sided panel, one of the machines, outlined in blue, the other of dark brown and green wreckage.

And then a few panels at the far right on both pages. In the first two-page sequence, it's 3 panels, stacked on top of each other. Brody's "oh shit!" face, Sarah running with the cat, and the doctor looking on in stunned horror. The second two-page sequence, it's 4 panels, and they're all basically focused on Ted's reaction to what he just did.

After that, there's some sort of answers from Christina about what Ted is, at least in the sense this Noah had something to do with it, rather than aliens. Meanwhile, the reporter follows Noah around, trying to ask questions, or at least question Noah's self-aggrandizing bullshit, without much success on either count. And then Noah takes him inside the Dome, where radiation cooks the reporter almost instantly, but Noah is completely fine. I say that, because I assume the ranting about 'meat-suit husks' and 'spaceship Earth' are everyday shit for this guy.

The yellow tone Chisholm uses inside the Dome seems very similar to what was used in Ted's nightmare at the start of issue 3. And Ted's posture as he rants over the reporter is the same as the blood-covered Ted's in the nightmare as he loomed over a terrified version of himself. What that means? I have no idea.

The Obstacle Course - J.F. Freedman

Set in the first six months of 1957, The Obstacle Course follows Roy Poole, ninth-grader in a little Maryland town. Roy's a smart-ass, a liar, a small-time hoodlum, a king in his own mind. In other words, a teenager. Roy plans to get accepted to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and some day become an officer who commands a great warship.

To that end, he often sneaks away to run the obstacle course at the Academy on weekends, hitching rides there and back if he can. His parents don't know, neither do his friends. That's the way Roy keeps his life, compartmentalized. He builds model ships, and only his parents and the guy at the model shop know. He robs washing machines in an apartment complex to get the money for the models, and only his pals Burt and Joe know, because they play lookout. He makes friends with a retired admiral, and no one knows, and what the admiral thinks he knows about Roy, save his interest in the Navy, is lies. Surely, this intricate web of falsehoods can be sustained indefinitely.

This was the last book from the pile I grabbed at the book sale in March. I figured, at a glance from the back cover, that the obstacle course was metaphorical. That this was your typical thriller about a man who learned something he shouldn't, and must run through a gamut of foes and danger.

And in the sense that Roy thinks he's the slickest thing ever, that he can be all different things to different people, and everything will work out his way, it is. He doesn't try in junior high because that wouldn't be cool, but it's fine. He'll just start trying in high school to get his grades up enough to be accepted into the Naval Academy. The admiral thinks his grades are better than they are, and that Roy's dad has a good enough job he can afford to send Roy to a military school that would make it easier for Roy to get into Annapolis. Every day is him trying to only show a certain specific face to each individual person, always with the purpose of tricking them into giving him something or thinking he's something more than he is - smarter, tougher, richer, cooler.

Except he either can't see how he's working at cross-purposes to himself, or doesn't care. Roy won't talk about the academy with his parents, won't stop stealing, won't stop picking fights. He tries wheedling homework answers out of classmates, or breakfast out of midshipmen, but he won't stop needling or embarrassing the kids who help him, or insulting the midshipmen who won't.

Halfway through, the fact everything was going to collapse around him was obvious enough I lost interest, so I flipped to the back and starting reading from the last chapter forward. Got through another quarter of the book that way, right about the time things fell apart with the admiral and, in frustration over that, Roy starts being even more hardheaded, burning all his remaining bridges while insisting none of it matters, he's forging his own course.

Which, judging by the last chapter, may be accurate. Roy's played a particular role so long everyone has pigeonholed him as a certain way, and his attempts to step outside it isolated him to the extent there's no choice but to go it alone. I have no idea how that's going to work, because he still seems determined to get into the Academy, but that's how it ends. Roy, alone, sure that he can just keep pushing ahead and he'll get what he wants. I can't tell if Freedman expects me to be impressed, or pity the kid.

'They're my best friends, Burt and Joe, but I'm not going to tell them everything about me. I never once mentioned the admiral or any of that, that's a secret I'll take with me to the grave. What they don't know can't hurt them.

Can't hurt me.' 

What I Bought 6/1/2026 - Part 1

As we begin June, I now have the last four comics from May I was looking for. Busy couple of weeks, comicswise, for me. Four books out last week, and potentially six(!) this week. And then just 1 over the next two weeks combined. Having big weeks and empty weeks isn't weird, but May was pretty even throughout. 3-2-2-4 comics from the first week through the last.

So it goes. For today, a last issue and a first issue.

Spirit of the Shadows #5, by Nick Cagnetti (writer/artist/colorist), Daniel Ziegler (writer), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - The one Kirby monster is drooling all over poor Erik's leg. Gross man, he doesn't need marinating, just eat him!

Helena's about to kill Erik for good, per his wishes, but the spell that brought out all these ghosts brought back her sister. I note that while Elizabeth has a monster-hand in the Spirit Realm, as she's been there too long and was starting to turn, her ghost has regular human hands. She only remembers she had a sister, nothing about her, but is still horrified by what Helena is doing. So Helena relents, the spell ends, the ghosts go back where they were and Erik follows.

Which puts him in position to save Elizabeth from the angry father that had him killed in the first place, now basically a red, 4-legged monster, with an Arnim Zola face. Erik figures he'll be that way soon, too, but Elizabeth finds the last pages of his book and insists they take the carriage to the Judgement Hall. The last pages also reveal how Erik died at the start of the series. Katrina's ghost reached out to him, via some weird scepter and begged him to stop trying to bring her back. So he had the doc work out something to kill him for real.

So, the Realmkeepers, a couple of giants in robes and opera masks with their colors swapped. They also have lizard-looking guys dressed like the Nutcracker, but with no legs, for doormen/guards. Neat design choice by Cagnetti, he really let himself get bizarre with some of the creatures in this mini-series. The Realmkeepers start to review Erik's case, and he tells them to skip it. He's guilty, but Elizabeth's a good person, please let her into the Sacred Realm. This causes them to ponder their system of judgement, they let her in, and Erik gets a role as someone who roams the Spirit Realm, seeking others who might have been misjudged. He does get to accompany Elizabeth long enough to speak with Katrina, and then it's off to work. First person we see him protect - and it's strange Erik talked about remembering having powers in life, but we only see him use them in the Spirit Realm - the doctor that resurrected him in the first place.

So Erik accepts his loss and tries to make amends. I'm not really clear on why Elizabeth was sent to the Spirit Realm in the first place, and since her book is gone, presumably she doesn't know either (though she claims her memories are coming back.) The story ends with her ghost visiting Helena (now setting up shop in the mansion where Erik and the doc lived) and admitting she doesn't even remember this argument she had with Helena, which Helena blames for driving Elizabeth into the night.

Which is a little bit of an odd way to end. Not the idea that the disagreements we think are so important in life really aren't. But Cagnetti and Ziegler have Katrina says she wasn't even aware of it. I guess the point is it doesn't matter what they disagreed about, it wasn't what killed Katrina, and it didn't mean Helena needed to go around killing people and seeking vengeance. But something about framing that way is sticking in my craw. Maybe that it leaves open the possibility Katrina regains the memory later and changes her mind.

The Matron #1, by David Bowles and Drew Edwards (writers), Monica Gallagher (artist), Hary Saxon (color artist), Stephen Kok (letterer) - Great, now she's tracked blood all through John Byrne's Alpha Flight blizzard fight issue.

The issue shifts between February of 1975, and February of 2021. In 1975, Rozina Krenek was apparently a cannibalistic serial killer called The Matron, who killed people. Possibly only criminals, possibly only men. That's just going off what we've seen so far, plus a "FBI file" on a murder from the 1950s as some extra material.) One potential victim, who hadn't really been on board with robbery anyway, escaped and told the sheriff. Who Rozina seemed confident would look the other way, being a relative.

He didn't look the other way this time, for reasons presently unclear. There was a shootout, Rozina got lit on fire, she died, although she killed two or three cops first. The rest of the family except her granddaughter died too. The granddaughter works in a diner and still carried a grudge. Her granddaughter Roz is attending college and is friends with the great-granddaughter of the sheriff, to the displeasure of said grudge-holding grandma.

That's where we're at. There may be a supernatural element. The Matron's axe has some runes on it, and when she captures the reluctant robber a storm seems to have started from nowhere. When he escapes, she yells something at the sky that Kok puts in much larger, bolder letters, and the rain turns to snow. 

During the shootout, Rozina is still standing while on fire, only falling after the sheriff's last bullet bounces off the mask. Doesn't penetrate it, doesn't crack it break it, nothing like that. But if comes loose, and Rozina falls in a creek. Or maybe it's a moat. It seems very straight and very deep for as narrow as it appears.

Gallagher depicts Rozina's strength casually. She hauls the reluctant guy - old enough to have gone to 'Nam and returned, so we're not talking about a child here - out through the window of his truck with one hand. She cuts through both of a cop's legs with one swing. She's as tall or taller than anyone else and tends to dominate panels she's in, either taking up the foreground or looming over other characters. Roz is similarly tall, and has the same hair and facial structure, so that's either foreshadowing or just making clear the familial bloodline.

The Devil's Own (1997)

Rory (Brad Pitt) is an IRA soldier that travels to New York City to try and buy some Stinger missiles to deal with the British Army's helicopters. A friendly judge sets him up to stay at the home of Tom O'Meara (Harrison Ford), a New York cop.

While Rory is pretending to work construction and cleaning up the boat that'll be used to haul the missiles he's going to buy from a sleazy arms dealer (Treat Williams), O'Meara is doing the family man thing, going to work, trying to get his teenage daughter (early career Julia Stiles) off the phone, or score a little alone time with the wife, Sheila (Margaret Colin.)

We also see how Tom does things as a cop, where he tries to use minimal force, tells a guy stealing radios from cars to throw his gun away so he (meaning the thief) won't get shot. Except Tom stops to collect the gun, and his partner catches up to the guy and shoots him in the back. Tom doesn't agree, but ultimately lets his partner drop the gun next to the guy he shot.

(As there are several scenes where Tom runs, I was able to tell my dad my observation on how strangely Harrison Ford runs. I thought I mentioned it in one of my reviews of the later Indiana Jones movies last year, but apparently not. Point being, Harrison Ford runs weird, like he's trying to run without fully committing to it, or he's got bad plantar fasciatis. My dad's contention is it's not strange, Ford just runs flat-footed, and also never wears sneakers or other athletic shoes. He's always in boots or what I'd call dress shoes but my dad calls "proper" shoes.) 

All that's meant to contrast with what we see of Rory's life. Rory's father was shot at the dinner table by a masked man when Rory was a kid, just for having rumored Republican sympathies. When a team of plain-clothesed guys in cars can't catch Rory, the British military rolls in the armored vehicles and soldiers. One of his comrades is already dying of a gunshot, and when he won't give up Rory's location, an British Intelligence officer shoots him again, just because, basically. 

In Rory's life, being unarmed offers no protection. Relying on the honor of the people against you is a fool's bet. Even keeping a simple photo a friend took of Rory dancing with the sympathetic daughter of the judge that helped him ends up being a mistake, helping Tom pick up his trail. The only choice is to arm yourself and hit back.

And Tom, for all that the movie gestures at the potential for a surrogate father role towards Rory, doesn't get that. He decides to retire over covering for his partner murdering that guy, feeling dirty and unsuited to what he thinks being a cop is supposed to be. Rory's the one who has to retrieve Tom from the bar, and they talk a bit, but you can see Rory doesn't entirely get why Tom is so bothered. Tom's ancestors might hail from Ireland, but he's taken very different pieces from it. The beer, the food, the religion. Things you can take with you across an ocean, keep alive from a distance. For Rory, it's a place to fight for until its free, or die trying.

And then there's Williams' sleazy weapons dealer. Always smug, always trying some line on Rory, who he clearly sees as some dumb hick kid. Rory's got a cause and his anger. Tom's got his family and his own values. Williams just loves money. Tom doesn't want Rory to kill more people, doesn't want to kill Rory. Williams doesn't give a shit. He'd just like to get paid for the missiles more than once, if possible. If killing Rory makes that happen, then kill him. Violence has no meaning beyond getting him what he wants. 

I was a little surprised the movie didn't do more of Rory interacting with Tom's family, but I think it really wanted to keep the focus on Rory and Tom, their differing outlooks on life and violence and what's acceptable as shown through how they spend their time. We mostly see Tom's life during the day, and Rory's at night, though it seems significant the two almost always interact at night. They're traveling in Rory's world, whether Tom knows it or not.

The Terms of the Engagement

Somei Yoshino: Mom Friend, or Probation Officer Friend? 

Volume 6 of Yakuza Fiance starts with Kirishima going to great lengths to start a fight with Shouma. He steals Shouma's lighter - a gift from Yoshino, that says "Stop Smoking" on it - then announces he and Yoshino are dating, so Shouma's place in her life belongs to him now. Then mocks Shouma for refusing to fight him. Just really acting like a dick.

Yoshino has an idea something's up, and Shouma hasn't returned the GPS tracker she put in the stuffed animal keychain she gave Kirishima, so she hunts them down and starts swinging a bat. And missing. The whole sequence is kind of confusing.

Kirishima supposedly picked the fight to try and disguise the fact Yoshino's grandfather kicked the crap out of him (and Shouma) last volume for endangering Yoshino. Setting aside the fact Renji is the reason Kirishima is in Yoshino's life to the point he can endanger her, why bring knives to what only needed to be a fistfight? (Plus, Yoshino knows her Gramps beat them up, so it's a futile effort.)

Then you've got the fact Kirishima supposedly likes getting beat up, but dodges all Yoshino's swings. I get he won't answer her questions about why he did this because he likes her yelling at him, although it runs against his claims of how important she is to him, and how devoted he is. Maybe the masochism even explains why he refuses her order to fix Shouma's torn shirt (Shouma also refuses, so Konishi undermines the notion Yoshino has much control over either of them.) But she was willing to yell and physically injure him, which is apparently arousing to Kirishima, so why dodge?

Konishi does subsequently give Yoshino the upper hand. She knocks Kirishima on his heels by explaining she agreed to be his boyfriend so he'd stop picking fights with Shouma out of some insecurity about his position in her life, relative to her lifelong friend. In her words, 'Shouma's the reason you're my boyfriend. never forget that.'

The real power move comes once they return to Tokyo, when she employs *ominous drums* The Silent Treatment. For three days, she pretends as though Kirishima doesn't exist. It's funny, watching them walk home from school, Kirishima at her heels jabbering the whole way, Yoshino acting as though she's alone. Kirishima soon resorts to desperation baking in an attempt to get her attention. Because, see, this version of punishment isn't fun for him. Which again raises the question in my mind of why he didn't take the hits with the bat.

Once the three days are up and Kirishima understands the land mines that now surround him, they have a conversation about their new relationship. OK, that's a reasonable thing to do. Kirishima asks if they can hold hands, which seems benign. Yoshino even expresses concern about a scar on his hand from an old wound he didn't get looked at. That's sort of sweet. She offers some lotion for his hands, wearing a bizarre facial expression. I can't even guess what Konishi was going for there.

Kirishima proceeds to dump the lotion in Yoshino's palms and licks it. And then she headbutts him, which he takes without blinking. Oh, so now he wants to get hit? It's just another weird sequence all around, even allowing for how fucked in the head I think Kirishima is.

After a brief chapter hinting at infighting within the Kirigaya family (the group Renji's part of), and some hints about creepy scar-face bastard Azami's next plan, there's a school culture fest! Great, I loved the culture fest episodes of Azumanga Daioh! But it's really more about Shouma showing up as an escort for Yoshino's heretofore unseen mother, Hitomi. Hitomi seems like a spacecase and a klutz, but we're told she had a nervous breakdown when Yoshino's dad died and her mental health has waxed and waned ever since, especially if she gets stressed caring for Yoshino. Hence, Yoshino living with her grandfather.

Mostly this serves two purposes. One, showing Kirishima will behave himself around Shouma now, suggesting he's possibly actually listening to Yoshino. Two, offering another hint towards the circumstances surrounding Yoshino's father's death, as Kirishima privately mentions to Hitomi he knows how horrible she must find it, Yoshino staying with the Miyama family. Which makes me think Gaku killed Yoshino's dad in a botched attempt to kill Renji, and that's the thing he thinks he owes Renji for (which comes up in volume 8, whenever we get there.)