Monday, March 18, 2024

Reforged

Maybe it's because you saying things like, "You women."

Volume 1 of Kaare Andrews' Iron Fist: The Living Weapon, left Danny Rand with two broken hands, K'un-Lun burned to the ground, and a little girl with a baby dragon on the run from a now partially cybernetic Davos.

Volume 2, which covers the second half of the series and is subtitled "Redemption" is, as you'd expect, Danny trying to get his shit together and stop a catastrophe. In some cave in a snowy mountain range, Sparrow and a crazy old inventor named Fooh try to get Danny back on his feet and with a little fight in him. Meanwhile, the strange hybrid of his father and The One, the killer robot Danny beat to officially become the Iron Fist, have reopened to Rand skyscraper, and are rebuilding it into. . .something.

In keeping with the first six issues, Andrews continues to play the "everything you knew is wrong" card, as Fooh tells Danny he's not only the only Iron Fist ever to rely solely on his fists, but that he only defeated The One because Yu-Ti had it programmed to lose. Because Yu-Ti figured Danny as Iron Fist was a controllable outcome. I assume because he knew Danny would choose to leave K'un-Lun to pursue Harold Meachum, and thus couldn't be any sort of problem for Yu-Ti's plans.

Except going back to Danny's earliest adventures, through his Heroes for Hire years with Luke Cage, and into Immortal Iron Fist, Danny has repeatedly returned to K'un-Lun and fucked things up for Yu-Ti. Culminating in Danny helping Lei Kung and Sparrow oust Yu-Ti from his seat. Which would seem to suggest either Danny was more of a wildcard than Fooh is giving him credit for, or that Yu-Ti was kind of a dumbass. Or we're meant to believe all that was some Thanatos Gambit where, every time Yu-Ti appeared to be thwarted, he was actually winning, and no, sorry, not buying that nonsense.

More effective is issue 8, where Danny (possibly) travels to some level of Hell to free his mother. Which actually involves letting the memory of her go. Letting go of his anger that the archers of K'un-Lun didn't save her, too, the anger at himself for not protecting her, etc., etc. Andrews colors the issue in stark black-and-white, reserving color for the sound effects and the steampunk gauntlets Danny is wearing to reinforce his arms.

Issues 9 through 11 are an extended battle in and around the Rand skyscraper as Danny and Sparrow try to stop The One/Wendell Rand. Like Danny, he's had trouble letting go. Unlike Danny, he's prepared to go to ludicrous lengths to "fix" things. Andrews also continues the character regression of Davos. He's not even the arrogant, entitled guy he's been in the past. Now, he's more of a craven opportunist, bailing out at the first sign of trouble, but still expecting people to rally around him for it.

I guess it's a contrast to Danny. Fooh says Danny never earned or deserved the power he's had, whether financial or the chi of Shou-Lao. So now Danny is trying to do one or the other, I assume "deserve." He's got the Iron Fist, so use it for more than revenge (which, you know, he's done plenty of times protecting the innocent, but I guess we chalk those up to Danny doing that as an excuse to exercise his rage.)

Davos wasn't handed power or wealth like Danny, but because of who his father was, he's always thought it was his by right. He hasn't deserved it, and certainly hasn't earned it, but still persists in thinking he has.

Anyway, Danny channels the chi of all the surviving people of K'un-Lun into a weapon potent enough to defeat a God of Order. Becoming one with them, instead of holding himself apart. Which, for all my grousing about the writing, Andrews draws as pretty, even if it doesn't last. Andrews pulls the bait-n-switch of, "the hero's got it! No, no, nevermind, he doesn't," at least a couple times during the battle. Enough to where it feels like perfectly good chances to wrap things up are missed to marginal gain. There is a nice bit where Andrews has close-ups on Wendell-One's face as it shouts threats, then switches to a profile shot of the god leaning in, and Wendell-One is a little blot with a speech balloon whose words you can't read. Emblematic of the arrogance, of how blinded by his insane goal Wendell-One is.

The last issue is set-up for a status quo I don't think much of anyone used. Sparrow leads the survivors back home, but leaves Ping Mei with Danny, as he's now the Thunderer to her Iron Fist (although he still has the Iron Fist, too.) The dragon gets revived, but Danny's attempts to open his hear to the reporter with mysterious skills goes poorly. Danny's trying to move forward, but not everyone is ready to go along on his fantastic voyage.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sunday Splash Page #314

 
"The Door of Horrors," in Locke and Key: Clockworks #1, by Joe Hill (writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (artist), Jay Fotos (colorist), Robbie Robbins (letterer)

The fifth volume of Locke & Key starts with a trip to the 18th Century, to see how the keys first came into being, and where they came from. For the latter, from the things on the other side of that portal. For the former, from a young man determined not to let his parents' deaths be in vain.

The second issue shows how Tyler and Kinsey were able to see past events, and also what Dodge is getting up to inside Bode's body. It's bad. His actions do force Kinsey to reclaim her tears and fears. That's good! And their mother is going to AA meetings. That's definitely good! But Dodge found the Omega Key. That's bad.

But Tyler wants to see their dad, so the other 4 issues detail how everything fell apart for that group. Why Dodge is the way he is. Why Ellie had a bottle with one of Dodge's memories hidden in her wall. What the hell happened to Erin (though I'm still not clear why the experience turned her hair white.) Why we haven't seen any of Rendell Locke's other friends through the entirety of this story. Why Rendell moved so far away in the first place.

(One thing I'm curious about is how Rendell explained so many of his friends just disappearing, or what the hell happened to Erin. Fine, he might forget because the house had a key magic that makes you forget past a certain age, but other people would still notice their kids, part of a small clique, being reduced by two-thirds.)

Hill plays up the similarities between the generations of Locke kids. Rendell tries to threaten Duncan to keep him out of things just like Tyler tries with Bode, even though, like Bode, Duncan's the one who usually finds the keys. Doesn't work any better for Rendell than it will his son. And Rodriguez plays up the similarities in Rendell and Tyler's appearance, especially as Tyler starts wearing glasses more often. And Rendell makes the same mistake Tyler made: he tries to use the keys to impress a girl. Except Rendell fucked up even more spectacularly than his son did.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Saturday Splash Page #116

 
"No-Frills Commuter Flight," in Sub-Mariner (vol. 1) #35, by Roy Thomas (writer), Sal Buscema (penciler), Jim Mooney (inker), Jean Izzo (letterer), colorist uncredited

The three issues of Namor's late 1960s-early 1970s series I own are courtesy of Essential Defenders Volume 1. The first picks up from the final issue of Dr. Strange's first series, as Strange enlists Namor's helps defending Earth from the Undying Ones. That issue starts with Namor returning to Atlantis, but having lost his gills as a result of some aliens abducting and experimenting on him 4 issues earlier.

Roy Thomas resolves that within a handful of pages and then sends Namor off to help Strange, although it ends with Strange sending Namor back to Earth and staying behind to fight the Undying Ones himself (the Hulk would later help Strange escape, but Barbara Norriss gets left behind.)

The other two issues involve Atlantean scientists realizing the U.S. Army is building a device which could screw up the entire world's weather. No one's going to listen to Namor with all the times he's attacked the surface world, so he'll have to stop the device by force, and that means allies. The Silver Surfer buys in on the premise of protecting this world of madmen (after the customary misunderstanding fight with Namor.) The Hulk's busy destabilizing a Latin American dictatorship because they decided to shoot at him, but he's on board for smashing some different soldiers.

The two-parter sets the tone for a lot of Defenders stories. Minus Dr. Strange's (or later Valkyire and Hellcat) more level-headed demeanor, Hulk is less a teammate than a natural disaster you can gently nudge in a certain direction. He fights the Army, Namor, the Avengers when they show, Namor and the Surfer again when he tries to just smash the machine rather than letting the Army agree to more study before implementation. The Surfer spends a lot of time moaning about human tendencies towards violence, but is he any better for responding in kind. Certainly not any less annoying. Namor tries to just order everyone around, which goes as well as you'd expect.

Friday, March 15, 2024

What I Bought 3/13/2024

Welp, did not go to a comic convention last weekend. Did try a gaming store, but it was more collectible card games than video games. Also, they had a box of comics, but it was basically just The Walking Dead. Anyway, I'm typing this Thursday, waiting to see if a tornado shows up. Hopefully not!

Power Pack: Into the Storm #3, by Louise SImonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Storm gambling the Brood are terrified of the color blue.

Franklin's apparent death is immediately revealed as a fake-out. The ship's just caught in a Brood tractor beam, and Franklin's body gets wrapped in some fiber stuff that would keep him asleep, if, you know, he wasn't asleep already. So while Franklin goes back to Earth and brings Storm in the ship, the Pack stage a rescue attempt.

The rescue is going pretty badly until Storm shows up and takes advantage of the large amount of lightning available on the alien world's atmosphere. The kids are free, but the storm goes out of control and causes the Brood ship to crash and explode. So for the second time since the end of last issue, the Power kids think someone in their little group has died. At least this time, we already know Djinna is a prisoner of her aunt, along with Franklin's unconscious body. Still, that feels like going to the same well too quickly.

Kofi insists on trying to save Djinna himself, but the effect of teleporting that far makes him easy prey for Mayhem. And the Pack and Storm are back on the alien world. So it feels like all that's changed is who is a hostage, and who's holding them. Mayhem seems to have plans to use the kids' powers for herself, just like the Brood. It's just that her plans don't involve planting embryos inside them.

One thing I notice is how quick all these kids are too try and take the blame for things when they go wrong. Alex tries to blame himself when they think Franklin is dead. Kofi thinks it's his job to rescue Djinna. Some of it is these are superhero comics, so the characters are going to care about doing the right thing (and Kofi's dad clearly places a lot of expectations on him as a future public figure.) But I'd expect kids to deny responsibility at least some of the time.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #1, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - That arrowhead looks weird.

Hawkeye's on the run from a lot of people, for killing a Russian Foreign Minister. Mockingbird's being watched too closely to help, but the Black Widow's not. Didn't realize those two had become pals, but why not? All superheroes are pals now. 

By the time she finds the guy released from Russian prison to kill Clint, he claims he already blew Hawkeye up. Wrong, but unfortunately there are other killers with the professionalism to try and finish the job. Just not before the Widow shows up. She tries to make Hawkeye leave Madripoor, but he refuses. In fact, he doesn't want her involved at all. So he's determined to solve it alone, since he's being hunted. Because he's stubborn and arrogant. Natasha's going to stick around, figuring he can't do it alone. Because she's also stubborn and arrogant.

At any rate, Clint's explanation is phrased in such a way as to imply he's guilty. I figure it's another fake-out where he was watching the press conference, and saw someone who looks just like him release the arrow that killed the guy. Or the whole thing is faked footage. A.I. generated crap that nobody's debunked for. . .reasons. Ominous reasons.

So far, the fact the Black Widow has a symbiote is something I can largely ignore. She uses it to get information - via symbiote spiders crawling into the guy's brain? - and to restrain one of Hawkeye's attackers. Which makes it basically a tool. Like her bracelets. I can deal with that. This "give everyone a symbiote" thing is still stupid.

Villanelli seems to have a lot of panels with close-ups on things. Clint's bow, Natasha's hand as the symbiote reforms around it, a mechanical hook arm that clasps Hawkeye's ankle. Sometimes they're smaller panels set against the backdrop of a larger establishing shot, and sometimes they're one in a sequence of rapid-fire panels. It works as a point of emphasis.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Waiting for the Sun to Rise

Eight friends gather at a remote house in the mountains, one year after their last gathering, when two other friends - younger sisters of another member of the group, who is voiced by Rami Malek, and he must have some serious molars, because he chews the scenery like his very life depends on getting all possible nutrition from it - went missing in a snowstorm.

As soon as they arrive, weird shit starts happening. The lights act strangely, there are weird noises and doors closing for no apparent reason. One of the friends is pulled through a window into the snow, and there's a maniac in a clown mask drugging people and playing games out of Saw. There's someone with a flamethrower roaming the woods. You periodically adjourn to a strange room to chat with a psychiatrist - voiced by Peter Stormare - who asks you what you're more afraid of, and what you value more in a person, loyalty or honesty? 

Until Dawn is a game that changes based on your decisions. In theory, anyway. You jump between different characters over the course of the game. Mostly you walk from one place to another, keeping alert for clues or other items. How many of them you find can also affect the game at certain points.

Or at least unlock different cut scenes. The game feels like it's always going to arrive at certain story beats. I couldn't avoid Chris and Ashley getting knocked the fuck out by clown maniac, or keeping Emily and Matt out of the fire tower. I didn't seem able to avert a certain confrontation at the very end of the game. I guess there was always the option to get all the characters killed before reaching that point.

When you aren't walking, you're usually talking, and the game will give you two options on how to respond. Usually one is kind or humble, while the other is blunt or cruel. You select by moving the right thumbstick one direction or the other. These affects your relationships with the character you're speaking to, although I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes, either. A few times I tried being very blunt or rude. Basically acting like a dick to see what happened. It didn't seem to have that big an impact on the plot.

Outside walking and talking, there are a lot of quick-time events. You're climbing a wall, and you have to hit a button or you lose your grip. You're fleeing something through the woods, hit the triangle button when it tells you or you'll get clotheslined by a tree. Sometimes it's about hitting or shooting something. There'll be a little targeting reticle, and you have to move your controller over it in the time allotted.

One thing the game does, that I had to make myself remember, is give you the option to not do anything. Not all the times, but just because there's a reticle over something, doesn't mean you have to attack. Just because the game offers two choices of what to do, doesn't mean you have to take them. Those moments are marked by the choices having a ring that shortens as time ticks away. If there's none of that, you're gonna have to choose or the game won't advance. But there were a few times "doing nothing" was the best call.

Along those lines, there's the "DON'T MOVE!" challenges, where you have to hold the controller very still, or you'll be detected. When I knew they were coming, I found having my forearms resting on my knees took care of that challenge pretty handily. If you have shaky hands though, I imagine it would really get frustrating. Maybe you could set the controller on the floor or a table before it started.

My first play-through, I tried to find everything, still missed several things, and ended up with only 3 survivors (plus one character that was alive, but everyone probably assumed he was dead.) And all the deaths happened in the last 20 minutes or so of the game. Two because I chose poorly, two because I botched consecutive "DON'T MOVE!"s.

Second try, still only 3 survivors, but mostly different survivors. I didn't make the same wrong choices, and I passed the "DON'T MOVE!"s, but then I had Sam run for the light switch too soon. I knew Mike was gonna get blown up, but I saw Chris run outside and figured everyone was clear. The game doesn't always show you everyone's movements. When Mike is traversing the old hospital with the wolf, there are some times I don't know how the wolf got ahead of Mike, considering the door was locked, but it managed some how. So I assumed that was the case here and, nope, blew Ashley and Emily right to hell.

So I tried that last chapter again, and managed 5 survivors. Mike still bought it - no big loss there - but I was annoyed in the credits cut scenes where Sam blames herself because Mike told her not to move and she didn't listen. That's bullshit. I stood perfectly still, and Mike still got his neck snapped.

So there are obvious limits to how much the game recognizes and adapts to the choices you make. And that seems to manifest most obviously in terms of Matt. Matt is Emily's current boyfriend, after she and Mike broke up some time in the year interval. And Matt seems to be there mostly to be yelled at by Emily, or feel insecure that she might still be hooking up with Mike. He's also the only black character in the game.

They end up in a fire tower that is tipped over into a mine shaft. First time I played, I made one attempt to save Emily (dangling from a railing above a void), and then had Matt leap to safety before the thing collapsed. Then Mike doesn't show up again for a couple of hours of gameplay, after having barely been a playable character up to that point, and only when he encounters another character, who also hadn't been seen in a few hours, but also got more time as the main earlier in the game. Emily survived the drop, because a rope somehow looped around her ankle(?), and you play as her for at least one very long stretch before ever seeing Matt again.

Second try, all right, let's have Matt be resolute in his attempts to save Emily. I kept trying until the tower fell into the void. They still get separated, Emily still survives the fall. Matt ends up on a different level of the mine shaft, but I'm playing as him much sooner. Progress! Walk for five seconds, cut scene, matt is attacked and killed.

When checking the "Butterfly Effect" info screen, I note it points out Emily kept the flare gun Matt found, so he had nothing to defend himself with. OK, goddamnit, third try. Emily, give Matt the flare gun. Now he'll have a weapon when the tower falls.

Matt immediately turns and shoots the flare gun into the night sky of a howling blizzard when they're alone on the fucking mountain. The tower falls, I try to save Emily, Matt lands on that ledge, Matt dies seconds later. Why did the game make the point that Emily keeping the flare gun meant Matt had nothing to fight with, if he wasn't going to have it to fight with anyway?!

You might be saying, 'Calvin, why not just, not try and save Emily?' Well, because when I went the "jump to safety" route the first time, Matt's lack of a weapon never came up as a critical factor. So it didn't seem like whether he'd ever had the flare gun or not was going to change anything.

The game has some effective jump scares and suspenseful moments, but part of what it sells itself on is how you can replay it to make different choices and see what that changes. Setting aside my frustration with the apparent limitations of the butterfly effect, if you keep replaying it, the scares wear off, because you've seen them before. I'm not nervous about the wendigo being inches away from Sam, because I know as long as I don't fuck up the "DON'T MOVE!", she's fine for the next few seconds. Sudden movements don't startle me. So there's a bit of tension between those two sides of the game.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Last Course

That's why he's the perfect choice. Anyone who wanted the job couldn't be trusted with it. First rule of politics.

The third and final volume of Rokurou Ogaki's Crazy Food Truck picks up where volume 2 ended. Arisa's been taken captive by the leader of some minor principality that isn't interested in being part of the larger global community. So Gordon has to team-up with his old subordinate Major Kyle, Kyle's subordinate Tanaka, and Arisa's little sister Myna, to rescue Arisa.

That's dealt with in one chapter, thanks to a heavily modified, even crazier food truck, and the soldiers not being too excited to fight when they learn they've been guarding giant eels for generations.

The remainder of the volume is about Arisa, and the terms of her existence. She's part of a major genetic engineering project that a lot of resources were invested in. More than that, her accelerated healing and other abilities need a periodic injection to maintain. An injection she's not getting while she's cruising around the wasteland with a man who's supposed to be dead.

(There's a few pages in there detailing why this famous general is supposed to be keeping a low profile. It also introduces a couple other members of Gordon's officer clique who we never see otherwise.)

Vald wants her back for the signs of progress. Colonel Sarah wants her back for Arisa's safety. Even Gordon agrees Arisa will be better taken care of if she returns, but Arisa disagrees. She'd rather stay with Gordon and eat his cooking, risks and all.

After that, it's pretty a running fight, as Gordon and Arisa try to survive a massive armed force, with a couple of assists. I'm surprised Ogaki didn't use this as the chance to bring in those other two characters he'd introduced. Have Kyle or Sarah give them a ring and see if they show up to help their old general out. We only know that Gordon's five subordinates were enough to help him survive one battle against overwhelming odds, but we don't see the battle. Maybe Ogaki originally intended for this to go more than 3 volumes? Or maybe he just liked the idea of Gordon having other friends that don't show up here.

I find myself more confused than ever how old Arisa is supposed to be. We're told she's 17 in volume 1, but here we learn her cells are "activated" cells, based off Colonel Sarah's. But Sarah admits she only started her involvement with this project after Gordon's "death." Which means 3 years ago. It's possible Arisa already existed and was enhanced by the injection of the cells, but Ogaki makes it explicit that she looks like Sarah (something Gordon hadn't noticed). Which makes it seem she's a child that was aged at a greatly accelerated rate.

All of which is to say, her and Gordon having sex seemed a questionable decision to me, not to mention unnecessary. Ogaki's established she likes traveling with Gordon, and she really likes eating his food. Gordon likes having her around, and likes how much she enjoys eating his cooking. Why does it need to be more than that?

I don't know if Gordon and Arisa's fate is meant to be sad or inspiring. They aren't trying to interfere with the grand plans of the people in the big chairs, but the planners still won't leave them alone. I think it's supposed to be inspiring, but it might depend on how the reader feels about "live free or die." It didn't really hit me any which way, which is surprising. I expected to feel something about it.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Action Point - 2018

"Jackass, but it's an amusement park," essentially. Johnny Knoxville plays an elderly grandfather, telling his granddaughter about the amusement park he used to own back in the days before pesky things like safety regulations and health codes. 

So most of the movie is Knoxville, minus make-up and grey hair, running his park - or being run over by the attractions in his park - and day drinking constantly. Setting aside all the parts that are just about watching someone get hurt, whether it's Knoxville being blasted down the water slide by a firehose, or thrown through the side of a barn by a trebuchet, or an employee being shot in the butt with one of those automatic tennis ball shooters (which they have built into a little motorized tank for kids to use on the go-kart course), or - 

Where was I going with this? Oh, right, the parts of the movie other than the slapstick comedy/personal injury. A good portion of it is Knoxville trying to save his park from an annoying land developer working with a new, larger, more modern park. This takes the form of various bits; coming up with new attractions, sneaking an ad on the local TV broadcast. The sort of stuff from movies with similar plots in the '80s and '90s. I did rather like the one where they pretend to be people protesting how dangerous the park is to make people want to come.

The other half, placed in conflict with saving the park, is Knoxville's attempts to be a good dad for his daughter, Boogie (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), who is visiting for the summer. He tries to encourage her creativity and for her to take an interest in the park, but that's the problem. Between the park and Boogie, Boogie keeps losing.

The resolution of the two conflicts is not at all what I expected, but still satisfying. Knoxville's character makes a decision about who is most important to him, and what he has to give up on to stay in her life. But he manages to do so in a way that is still juvenile, petty, and ruins the day of the worst people.