Outposts of Eden - Page Stegner

This is a collection of pieces Stegner wrote about the American West for various outlets in the 1980s. They're grouped into three broad sections: desert, rivers, and trying to support oneself off what the land provides.

It's similar, in some regards, to Edward Abbey's work. There's even a pull-quote from Abbey on the back, though the quote is more about how much Abbey dislikes most other nature writers for being, variously, equivocating, insipid, low-bellied, and rhapsodical, among other insults. The only thing he ostensibly says about this is it's a, 'real book written by a real writer.'

I cannot confirm Page Stegner is a real person, let alone a real writer - the picture on the inside flap of the back cover might be of anyone! - but I guess this is a real book, in the sense there are words, arranged into legible sentences on paper pages that you can hold and read.

Stegner's writing certainly has the cantankerous air of much of Abbey's writing, but is lacking when it comes to conveying what it is Stegner finds particularly appealing or beautiful about the places he's writing about. Because he's too busy griping about how everyone, save him and a couple of his buddies, are not appreciating the wilderness properly.

Guys on dirt bikes tearing around the desert? Scum. Environmental studies majors who get outraged about pollution from mining, but show little interest in the actual scenery? Dolts. People who regard the desert as an inhospitable expanse of greasewood to be hurried through at maximum speed to reach Vegas? Pitiable. Government agencies ostensibly tasked with protecting the land? Foot-draggers who are so incompetent or corrupt the wilderness would be best served by them doing nothing. People who go camping, but used wood fires instead of propane? Monsters who take it as an excuse to burn all their other trash while they're at it.

In a piece about a logging company town falling apart after the company was bought out by a bigger firm not operating on any notion of sustainable harvest or community, Stegner mentions the son of a friend is part of an Earth First! group that had set themselves up in redwoods to try and prevent their being cut down. The friend, knowing Stegner was headed that way, asked him to pass a message along. Stegner shows no interest in doing so and makes no attempt to find the kid. Another friend who came along is constantly miming they should leave and go fly-fishing. They both seem to think the best thing would be if the tree got cut down with the kid in it and he died.

Basically Stegner sneers at everyone who isn't him, until the final part of the book, which reveals Stegner as an incompetent dumbass. To be clear, this is a deliberate choice by Stegner, a series of descriptions of schemes to 'live off the fat of the land,' and failing utterly. Let's buy a couple of beef steers at auction and raise them on our friend's land, so we have our own steaks! Wait, what's the difference between a heifer and a steer? What do you mean, feed additives and inoculations cost money? There are wild boar on the friend's land, let's kill them and get cheap pork! Oops, the neighbor is a hog farm and we killed some of their sows. Let's get a boat and we'll fish! We don't know how to fix the engine, our anchor has no chain and the boat is too big for the trailer.

Reading those last 30 pages, I was left wondering who Stegner was to look down his nose at anyone else. He doesn't know anything. Not the geology, not the biology. Maybe a bit of history, in that he's clearly read Lewis and Clark's journals of their expedition (or at least the Cliff's Notes) but there's no sense he's an expert there, either. He gets lost enough to doubt he's got any idea where he's going, so it's nothing like an effective travelogue. And why would it be? If he described it in terms capturing the elements that appealed to him, the reader might want to go there. Then we might interact with it in some fashion he would consider unacceptable. Gasp! Horrors! 

It reminds me of some of Aldo Leopold's writing. That people should want to preserve nature and recognize its value, but, you know, from a distance. They shouldn't actually get close to it, or see it or anything. Just appreciate it as a theoretical thing they know exists, and that it's good it exists.

Except Leopold at least sometimes gushed over the beauty of his land when he did this. Stegner keeps talking about how so much of the West is owned by the government, and is therefore the People's Land. Shaking his head at the members of the public who don't recognize what they've got and consider it valueless. Yet he doesn't seem to want any of "The People" out there. Except him and his fishing buddies.

I can do "sneering condescension" in my sleep. I'm looking for an author to capture the mystique or appeal of lands that at first glance appear so uninviting. Which Stegner is either uninterested or incapable of doing.

'Three belligerent troglodytes in plastic goggles with plastic pots on their head. Spent a hard day out in the dunes churning up the burrows of kangaroo rats and kit foxes, no doubt. Observe the splayed feet for mashing brake and clutch pedals, the hairy forearms for strangling handlebars, the porcine, shock-absorbing buttocks, the opposable thumbs. Observe the havoc they wreak on the delicate soil, soil that in this climate takes a millennium to form. Good day to you, too, gentlemen. I hope that when you reach the interstate you may experience  what a famous outlaw biker once described as the ultimate in a two-cycle thrill - a high-torque, full-throttle, speedwobble across the highway divider into the oncoming grill of an eighteen-wheeler.'

Shuffling Into the New Year

January's solicitations were nothing too spectacular, but who has money to spend on themselves after the holidays?

What's new? Ahoy has Corduroy Road, a mini-series about a P.I./monster hunter investigating a case and learning some stuff about himself. The concept alone doesn't necessarily thrill me, but it's written by Eric Palicki, and I hadn't seen his name on anything since Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists. Robert Windom and Mirko Colak have Innen, a one-shot released through Image about a girl who finds a possessed helm that may help her take revenge, but she has to help the helm out first.

Ablaze has a hardcover of Arandal, by J. Philip Ignacio and Alex Nino, about a girl abducted by a pirate who learns a startling truth of her heritage and has to deal with that. Abrams has the 3rd volume of The Undertaker. I still haven't gotten the first volume, but it helps me to list these things out for future reference.

Oni Press has Mister Invincible Redux, which is a new printing of Pascal Jousselin's work, but with 48 new pages (out of 144, according to the solicit.) I don't know if that's enough for me to throw down 25 bucks, but if you don't already own the first collection, then you should buy this one.

I noticed Harper's Alley is publishing some graphic novel co-authored by James Patterson - so, more likely someone working for him - and Mr. Beast, who I am vaguely aware of as some sort of Youtube celebrity/goober. I didn't even catch the title of the book, nor am I going to bother trying to look it up again. 

What's ending? Nothing.

And the rest: Marc Spector: Moon Knight is still on its West Coast jaunt, while Fantastic Four contends with being sent to a dimension of stuff they can barely comprehend. I worry about Ramon Rosanas as artist for a story like that; never struck me as someone who draws really bizarre stuff.

Friendly Neighborhood Mary Jane sees MJ enlisting a thief to help steal back her playwright, while Batgirl is trying to stay ahead of her father. Can she not just kick his ass and be done with it? D'Orc is being taken to see the Dark Lords, and is not happy about it. That's what legs are for, D'Orc: Running from problems.

Agony of the Stars and Lilith are both on their third issues. In the former, the walls may be closing in on that special cop unit, while Lilith's got problems in the form of Ben knowing she's not a human. Ben needs to be more open-minded about the lady his sister wants to sleep with. The Matron is still running around killing people, but I think possibly the home intruder we saw spared in the first issue is going to try and stop her. Or it's an entirely different character.

Idle Hands (1999)

There's a killer on the loose in the town of Bolan, not that Anton (Devon Sawa) would notice. He can't even remember to put on pants before he staggers out of the house in search of weed. Which you'd think would hinder confessing his feelings to Molly (Jessica Alba), the bass guitarist who lives on his street he's been crushing on for years, but no. Apparently dimwitted stoners who look like they work in a slaughterhouse and haven't changed clothes in 3 days are her type.

What could be a hindrance is that he's the killer. More accurately, his right hand is the killer, because it's possessed. Because he's the laziest loser in town, and the demonic force seeks that out. The only help Anton has are his two friends Mick and Pnub (Seth Green and Elden Henson), which might be worse than no help at all. Oh, and there's a would-be demon hunter (Vivica Fox) trying to track down the hand before it completes a ritual to send an innocent soul to hell.

I did not have high hopes for this movie going in but, you know, it easily cleared the low bar of my expectations. I laughed at a lot of different stuff in here. Maybe the particular references struck a chord. I was not expecting a Red Shoe Diaries reference, that's for certain. David Duchovny's finest work lives on in the hearts of '90s teenagers who couldn't access real porn.

Anton hearing noises inside his house (which are never explained, now that I think of it) and trying to push his reluctant dog into the hallway ahead of him. To be fair, when he panics and hides under the covers, he encourages the dog to hide with him. Mick and Pnub coming back from the dead simply because the tunnel with the light at the end was too long of a walk, and the music was lame. The "Druid time" gag, complete with special watch, felt like something from a Mel Brooks movie. A random visual gag, and I loved it. The line, 'No Kevin Costner speeches.' Hallelujah, a movie that understands my antipathy to Kevin Costner movie speeches, which might equal my distaste for Mark Wahlberg!

Also, related to my discussion last month of 2013's Evil Dead, gore is used for comedic effect rather than a scare tactic, and I love it. Anton not noticing the knife he's using for his sandwich is covered with blood (and mayo, yuck!) Mick spending most of the movie with a bottle sticking out of his forehead. The various gags about Pnub's head being severed. 'At least you might be able to get a piece,' after Tanya's ugly death.

Although, I would have thought, when the fan started moving again, it would sever the whip she was dangling by before she could be pulled up into the blades. But I also wonder how Anton was able to buy dog food when he wasn't even wearing his own sweatpants. The internal logic of the plot is, not the best, to be clear. Anton trying to get high smoking oregano mixed with nutmeg was probably pulled from the writers' own experience.

I wasn't expecting the scene where Anton decides he must cut off his evil hand, after the attempts at keeping it busy by taking up knitting failed (another bit I enjoyed.) The movie had fun with that, as it turns out to be hard to cut off a hand that doesn't want to be cut off. The practical effects with the microwave were delightfully gross, plus we got microwave burrito jokes after.

It's a dumb late-90s comedy, but it knows that and seems to have fun with it. The hand hiding inside a puppet, and the puppet's expression mirroring the hand's emotions, for no discernible reason? Dumb, but funny.

What I Bought 10/21/2026

I spent last Monday at the property where I was doing dirtwork last month. Turns out, trying to move 16 tons of rock from a field to a big erosion cut, one 5-gallon bucket at a time, is a bad idea. My dad says I have a tendency to get locked into doing things a particular way, and just trying to brute force it to success. He's right, but I barely qualified as ambulatory the next two days. So at least I suffer for my hubris, even if I learn nothing.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - He just found out they installed a "No Moons" sign on the Midnight Sons clubhouse door.

Everyone is smashing away at the Mansion Ravenous, but none of it is vital damage. Clea senses something and marks the fault line in a page where Pramanik shapes each panel so they're increasingly pointed down, culminating in the panel where Marc hits the spot and breaks through to the "cornerstone" as he puts it. What Blade would call the "heart".

Pramanik and Rosenberg depict it as an immense pillar, black, shaded red around the edges. A mouth with ragged teeth barely visible and some glowing red eye in the center. We'll see what comes, but right now, it'd be a strong choice for the inevitable Splash Page entry on this series.

Despite Marc's best efforts, he's not having much success breaking it down, but Achilles Fairchild was freed by Clea's spell, and got a special glowy hammer, too. The two of them got to work like John Henry making a railroad tunnel, and the panel borders start to disintegrate. Fairchild tells Moon Knight to leave, he'll finish things. Because he knows he's dead either way, so he can kill an interdimensional predator, or get killed painfully by a pissed off Moon Knight. (Also, in the panel where he strikes the killing blow, his shadow is done up to look like Thor.)

So I was entirely wrong that either Magik or the Spot would rescue them. It's just the Midnight Mansion, which does occupy the same space as the Mansion Ravenous, so that makes sense. Seems silly to play so cagey with it then. The secret extra member is. . .just a regular member of the book's cast. Back in the world, Moon Knight lets Daredevil hit him until Matt gets tired of it, because Marc figures he deserves it.

Also, he's more concerned why he was abducted to be pumped for information about Frenchie. I had completely forgotten that was where this volume began. MacKay's been on this Mansion Ravenous thing for six months now. 

D'Orc #9, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Frank William (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - At least his weak spots are easy to see.

The Golem, named Olivine, is roaming frozen wastes looking for D'Orc. D'Orc sent the chicken off to see if he could find anything, but ends up captured by a necromancer. Didn't put up much of a fight. In this fictional world, studying necromancy actually makes you crazy. The longer you study, the crazier you get, and this guy, Count Daverus, has been at it for two lifetimes.

He asks D'Orc if he'd like to have a team-up. Soon his army of reanimated, mosaic corpses, will be ready to destroy everyone! D'Orc declines, after insulting Daverus for not having nipples and smelling badly. We've seen D'Orc nearly drowned in a bog and swallowed by a giant 3-headed pug, and he's been wearing the same outfit the entire time. Maybe he shouldn't be accusing others of being smelly, especially considering how often he bemoans being on his own.

Anyway, the Golem was already captured, on purpose. As part of a plan with Chicken. And so, D'Orc agrees to work with her to defeat Daverus. Oh, so you'll have team-ups with the lady made out of stone? I see how it is. As the Fresh Prince put it, another brother that just couldn't control his head. The other one. No, the other, other one. The ghost chicken one.

That's pretty much it. There's a lot of jibber-jabber that doesn't accomplish much. A flashback to how Olivine and Chicken made their plan - which involved Chicken's headless body being shoved inside one of the shuffling, reanimated corpses - but not much else. I do question that a reanimated corpse could get a stomachache from eating chicken that's still sort of alive, but decomposing. I shouldn't question it, because that way lies madness, but that's never stopped my brain before.

The designs of the "necroids" aren't anything too strange. Big, blue guys in loincloths with visible stitching. The giant eyes sown in, which Daverus uses to see what's going on, are a nice touch, though. Disturbing, but practical. 

Sunday Splash Page #450

"The Gilded Saint," in Black Cat (vol. 4) #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Michael Dowling (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)

So MacKay's first Black Cat series got canceled at 12 issues, because that's how Marvel does things. Then it was restarted almost immediately with a new #1. Because that's also how Marvel does things. The second go-round is not as strong. Despite having the culmination of the plot to rob the other-dimensional vault of the NYC Thieves' Guild, the book is mostly bogged down tying in to various larger events. 

The first 3 issues are a King in Black tie-in. While I enjoy Felicia dragging Eddie Brock as a loser and psychopath, and briefly wielding an Asgardian artifact of immense mystical power to shred stupid symbiote dragons, the heist part is of the storyline is fairly limited. Though the sight of Felicia riding a Goblin-glider with Dr. Strange's ghost-dog as a passenger, before diving into a writhing ball of symbiotes while wearing an Anti-Venom suit (because the symbiotes are acting as a prison for Strange) looked very cool.

The last three issues, "Infinity Score," are based around Felicia trying to steal or manipulate 3 people who essentially are Infinity Stones now, for a purpose she keeps hidden. The Stones being people is not an idea with much traction for me, and this was right after a terrible "Heroes Reborn" story - no, not the post-Onslaught one, a different terrible one - where reality got rewritten so the Squadron Supreme were the big heroes of the world. That version of Nighthawk is hounding Felicia, trying to get the Stones-people to make the world like that again, and thinks she'll go along with it, because they were a couple in that world. I would have been perfectly content if it was just Felicia running circles around Nick Fury Jr., but here was all this other crap.

I will add, that storyline outlasted this book, actually being wrapped up in Giant-Size Black Cat, which is just obnoxious.

C.F. Villa is artist for the majority of the book, but the issues he draws are the ones I just detailed in those two paragraphs, and I didn't want to highlight those stories. All that stuff about the glider and the ghost-dog, that was Villa. As well as Asgardian-magic-hyped Felicia shredding dragons with a swipe of her claws. His Felicia is very lithe and agile in motion, and that's where she seems to be most confident. It's when she has to stop that any insecurity or anxiety sets into her expressions or body language, which is a nice touch for someone who loves thieving for the excitement of it.

Michael Dowling draws the 3 issues that wrap up Fox's plan. Which is not to rob the vault, but meet with the Gilded Saint to bargain immortality for he and Felicia, with the deed to Manhattan (that Felicia swiped from Strange in the previous volume) as the chip on offer. Felicia, understandably, cannot let the idea of an entire city being dragged into a mystical, other-dimensional vault (that Dowling draws to look a bit like Mars, or maybe the redder parts of Arizona) stand. She fixes the problem, at the cost of Fox's life, and the enmity of her co-apprentice (and past lover) Tamara, as would play out in Iron Cat.

In general though, I find Dowling's work too flat and, for the actual human characters at least, too photo-realistic. Felicia always seems to be viewed through a gauzy filter, like an old movies where they smeared the lens with Vaseline. Stylistically, the look of Dowling's issues doesn't line up with any of the other artists on either volume.

The biggest development in this volume is Felicia and Odessa Drake actually starting up some sort of relationship. I wouldn't call it dating, and I'm not sure Felicia is entirely on solid ground with the Guild. Dealing with Fox cleared some debts, but I can't imagine she's going to play by their rules any more than she did before. Call them semi-antagonistic rivals with benefits?

At any rate, while Tom DeFalco had her in a relationship with a woman in Spider-Girl, I think this is the first, on-page relationship we see Felicia having with another woman in the main Marvel Universe (her past with Tamara is alluded to in these volumes, but not beyond a panel of them holding hands under a table while Black Fox yammers on about misdirection, and her showing up in a collage of Felicia's past lovers.)

This volume lasted 10 issues, so restarting the book and tying in to larger events did nothing to extend its lifespan. What a shock, he said, completely unsurprised. After this, MacKay wrote the aforementioned Giant-Size Black Cat, a one-shot team-up with Mary Jane, the aforementioned Iron Cat, a team-up mini-series with Mary Jane that was a tie in to Dark Web. That last one wasn't very good. Then there was (two-and-a-half years ago?! Cripes) a Jackpot and Black Cat mini-series written by Celeste Bronfman, about Felicia committing crimes on the orders of some AI threatening her girlfriend (not Odessa), and MJ trying to help with the knockoff H-Dial that Paul guy everyone hates built her. I didn't buy it past the first issue, but I read the girlfriend was behind the whole thing. Which doesn't make me feel I missed out, if it took 5 issues to get to that point.

Speaking of 5 issues, G. Willow Wilson is currently writing a Black Cat series I dropped after that amount of time. Wilson wrote Felicia as impulsive, which is fine. Also incompetent, which is not. The particular flavor of humor made it feel like a Harley Quinn pitch Wilson hadn't gotten to use. Since I dropped the book, it's had team-ups with Venom (Mary Jane edition), tie-ins to a symbiote-flavored Spider-event, and the recent solicits have teased stuff about Felicia being a mutant. Which is probably meant to be a clickbait fakeout, but also not the sort of idiocy I put past an increasingly desperate Marvel. None of it makes me regret dumping the book.

Saturday Splash Page #252

"Metal-Armed Mutant Jesus," in Soldier X #3, by Darko Macan (writer), Igor Kordrey (artist), Chris Chuckry (colorist), Randy Gentile (letterer)

An early-2000s Cable series about what the soldier does when the war he was raised to fight is over. At some point, Nathan Dayspring-Wet-Summers-Pryor-Conviction-Whatever killed Apocalypse like he was supposed to. Now he lacks purpose, waiting for someone to tell him what to do next. The techno-organic virus is also dead, so he's gradually sloughing off the metal covering on his arm, which he disposes of by hawking up bullet-sized bits periodically.

Blaquesmith, who looks like a shriveled child's corpse and is Cable's old handler/mentor/look, I don't know this guy's backstory (and it's not the real deal anyway), hands Cable a picture of a young girl in Russia and says to find her. So Cable goes looking for Magdalena, a mutant who can heal the sick or injured. Her father exploited it for financial gain, until her mother dragged her back to their native village, where it's all some holy crusade. A holy crusade that will kill her daughter, a gaunt, pale figure who is surrendering her life force helping these people. Mom doesn't care. If Magdalena dies, then she's a martyr, just as the Lord would want.

Cable shows up. An Armenian gang of imbeciles in tracksuits show up, thinking there's money to be made. They drag along Magdalena's pathetic wretch of a father. A crazy hunchbacked man with a metal arm named Geo shows up, pissed at Cable for, I think being all the things Geo isn't. Tall, handsome, having a metal arm actually the right size. Also because the Armenians know a guy with a metal arm killed some of them, and they think it was Geo, so they're after him.

Cable initially responds with violence, while trying to get in touch with Blaquesmith to be told what to do with Magdalena. She nearly dies, then learns how to use her power in reverse, to draw energy from others instead of offering her own. She doesn't become some kind of energy vampire like Sauron, she just doesn't see the point in helping people, when all it brought her was pain. Geo keeps ranting about globalization and the increasing homogenization of cultures into one bland, global burger chain (more or less.) When he's not punching Cable in the face, that is, and sometimes when he is. The gang torture people because they can, and generally behave like idiots of such staggering degree they forget fire is hot.

Eventually, Cable takes a different approach. He rescues Magdalena's mother from the gang by simply walking forward as they shoot. No telekinetic shield, just bullets tearing meat from his body, which is freaky enough they withdraw.

How effective a tactic this was, is fair to debate. The people who wanted Magdalena's healing decide Cable's the one with the power, and when touching him doesn't cure their wounds, decide he's judged them harshly and attack him. Geo is torn limb from limb trying to defend Cable, but maybe he gets to die a hero? Cable takes so long getting his ass up that, by the time they get Magda and her mother together, it's too late for Magda to save her, even if she could have gotten her power to go back the way it was. 

Seems like fewer people would have died if Cable just TK launched the gangsters into the next province, and set them down gently there. Which he probably could do, as Cable apparently decides there's no limit to his powers. He variably makes himself giant, turns a twisted steel girder into gold, gathers bioluminescent algae from some cave that is nowhere in sight to make a man think his hands have been turned to uranium, and physically alters another man into some winged abomination similar to Hulk's old foe The Harpy.

These things are done casually. After Cable drops the TK shield during his martyr walk, Kordrey and Chuckry make no further visible displays of his power. No hand gestures, no glowing energy field. He mostly just looks at something, sometimes not even that, and things change. A plane is stopped in mid-air like a still image. Nothing we can perceive is holding it, there is no visible sign of Cable doing anything, but it's frozen without falling.

Cable's drawn as bigger than everyone around him, but only when he's doing something. Fighting, mostly. Otherwise, Kordrey makes him look confused or frustrated. A guy who doesn't know what to do with himself without a mission. Furrowed brow, pursed lips, vaguely bewildered.

Macan incorporates, or makes up, I don't know what had been previously established, a lot about "Askani" teachings. The idea being Cable hasn't been following them up to now, focused on fighting constantly. It doesn't much have the feel of anything heavily thought out. They say, 'What is. . .is,' as some sort of pardon to the world, before changing it? The creative team's 8th and final issue is set in the future, an old woman and a young boy trying to follow the Askani way, and we're told Cable died at some point doing nothing, and thereby saved the world.

The kid finds that about as stupid as I do. All we're shown is a single page of Cable sitting cross-legged with a bunch of people standing around watching him. Fabian Nicieza would have Cable try to die a sort of death in Cable/Deadpool, burning out his powers in some grand display to inspire the world. Which is not exactly "doing nothing," but Macan never specified what doing nothing was saving the world from. Free real estate.

Macan's entire run is presented as a story Cable sent to reporter (and I suppose prior supporting cast member Irene Merryweather) on a CD, and which she's reading. Which means everything we're reading already happened, and Cable's just now gotten around to letting Irene know, which I'm not sure is the best choice, stylistically. Especially when Cable says things to her like, 'Most women, I'm told, are content simply to exist. It is not so with men. Men need a point.' Again, he's narrating this after the fact, it's not like this is his thoughts before he decided to become Mutant Messiah and save all the blighted souls of the world whether they want it or not. And that's the sort of stupid thing that really needs to be said to someone who can respond properly. If not Irene, Deadpool for sure needed to be there, asking what dumbass told Cable that? Sadly, this came out at the same time as Agent X, so Wade's still assumed dead, and cannot call on the powers of bro-mance to appear.

There are also two low-level SHIELD agents, Jordan and Dragonfly, trying to locate Cable. Jordan because some woman he loved died in some way connected to Cable. Dragonfly because, he was assigned to it? He doesn't care about the job, treating it as a joke. Combined with the leering green and shiny bald pate Kordrey gives him, makes him feel like a cross between Elmer Fudd and one of those old-timey Southern lawyers that like to pull on their suspenders.

The final appearance of all three is when Irene shows up with the CD at their office on the last page of issue 7. The agents already investigated the Russian angle, found Geo's arm, and concluded it was Cable's. Now they're gonna know they were wrong, but with the next issue being the on in the future, there's no follow up, making it all feel pointless.

Karl Bollers takes over a writer the last four issues. Cable hunts a former Special Forces-turned-domestic terrorist, who is precognitive. The guy has blown up jets and other things, as far as his followers know, to draw attention to how they need to get all the non-white people out of the U.S. In actuality, it's because he saw a vision of Cable when his mutant power first manifested, and this is how they meet. He thinks there's no changing the future. That, essentially, his life was on rails from the start and all his power did was let him see the entire track at once. A track that ended with his meeting with Cable.

Cable never disputes this, simply walking away, and the guy, for some reason no longer able to see the future, kills himself. Is Bollers saying the future really is fixed? Odd argument to make in a book starring a character constantly trying to change the future. Or this guy's future was fixed because he believed it, so once he had the meeting he'd pinned everything on, there was no next step?

The final two issues are Cable traveling the world trying to save humans from committing violence against each other, while a mutant teenager is jailed for killing her parents. When the federal court orders her put to death, overruling the state accepting a plea bargain in exchange for a life sentence, Cable busts in. To the prison, and the girl's mind. She's not guilty, but would rather die than let people think her father did a murder-suicide over having a mutant kid. Cable accepts her will and stays in mental contact when she's executed. At which point he hides in a cabin for a while and gets drunk, until Domino calls for help with missing mutant kids. He asks her to bring him big guns. That's how the book ends.

Between this and X-51, I'm not developing a high opinion of Bollers' writing. (He also forgets or ignores the T/O Virus is no longer a problem, having Cable state he's using 20% of his power to control it.) There's a chance, at the end of issue 11, when Cable learns the girl is a telepath and her mental shields initially keep him out. Render his power useless and make him actually talk to her with words. Deal with her person-to-person by removing the power imbalance.

By the start of the next issue, Cable's barging through her mind, brushing off her defenses and getting whatever information he wants. Or he could just act like a deity angered by some mortal's presumption at not following his will. Cool, cool. I see he inherited a lack of social graces from his sperm donor.

What I Bought 10/19/2026

Normally I wait until the last week of the month to order whatever books I couldn't find locally. This month, I ordered them last week. Partly because I have nothing coming out next week, and I was confident the local store would have the two books from this week (it did.) Mostly because the place I order from suddenly had the final issues of two different series I've been trying to piece together in back issue hunts, and I didn't expect they'd be there long.

Chachu #3, by Iman Vellani (writer), Marianna Ignazzi (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Lucas Gattoni (letterer) - I hadn't realized Leila's hair was that long, but she has spent most of the first two issues sitting down.

The search brings Chachu and Leila to Mina's bar, where Cleo was when she got abducted, though it takes a long time to get even that much information. Most of this is Leila trying to get a better picture of her uncle, and also trying to act like a different kind of adult.

When hit on by a guy that kinda, sorta, if she's drunk would look like a member of the BeeGees, she orders a martini with 4 olives. Because she heard another woman being hit on order it. She gets sloshed after 3 martinis. She's wearing a dress to look sexy, but her uncle didn't give her time to get properly sized. It doesn't stop men from leering at her, and she can't decide how she feels about that, or what they're thinking. I did find her internal monologue that, 'Trying to decode their glances was precisely the kind of childish thinking that held me back,' a curious comment. Does she think adults are supposed to have it all figured out, or that, when you're on the prowl, the motives of those around you don't matter? Because that is a line of thought that could get you in trouble.

We get another version of how her uncle and Cleo met. He ran into her hiding out in this bar, and they decided to run away from their problems together. The bit about him rescuing her was made-up after the fact, and that's what the new movie she's supposed to star in is about. I wonder if this version is any truer than what he told Leila last issue, or if it's tainted by Mina being annoyed Cleo ran from her, to him.

Ignazzi really emphasizes Leila's eyes in a lot of the panels. Compared to everyone else in the bar, there's a lot more of the whites of her eyes visible. That she's being exposed to new things and new perspectives she wasn't prepared for - pity she's so sloshed by the time Mina flashes that photo of her and Cleo, because I'd have been curious about her reaction - but it also makes her look younger than everyone else, whose eyes are narrowed and hardened by time and experience.

I'm not sure what she's learning on this trip, though her uncle told her a bit about Pakistan at the end, assuming she remembers in the morning. Hopefully she's getting something out of it, because they have a lead on the hotel where Cleo's at. Assuming they get there before she makes her own escape. 

Lilith: Blood and Burlesque #1, by Corin Howell (writer/artist), Warnia Sahadewa (colorist), Haley Rose-Lyon (letterer) - Getting a little too elaborate with the umbrella drinks.

Lilith was a succubus or demon or something similar that was banished from their realm, somehow, and has been trying to get back. In the meantime, she makes a career as a model and kills and eats people who mess with her. She met, Penelope, a geeky girl who runs a paranormal bookstore with her brother, Ben, and they have a book Lilith thinks could get her home. Except Penelope already used it once, trying to destroy a horrible creature trying to kill them, and it left a weird scar on her chest. Probably nothing to worry about!

At this point, Lilith is grudgingly working with Michael, another being like her, who was initially out to kill her, but changed sides. Lilith is much less grudgingly working with Penelope on the book, and is maybe figuring out Penelope might want to jump her. (Michael seems to be flirting with Ben, but Ben doesn't seem interested.)

Howell's art shifts between highlighting the attractiveness of the cast, their flawless forms, and a looser, more exaggerated style for the comedic parts. Huge eyes, or a mouth full of shark teeth. You get gory violence where people are torn open and we see their ribcages, and the kind of violence where someone gets punched by another person with steam erupting from their ears, and everyone is fine five seconds later. It's quite a contrast, but Lilith is portrayed as fairly arrogant and self-centered (less so around Penelope), so she just lets her emotions fly, whatever they are.

Sahadewa keeps the feel of the book consistent. The characters' skin are alabaster, like they all fell in the same chemical bath as the Joker, while almost everything else is various shades of red mixed with black. And the red, whether a dress or blood, pops against their skin.

For the purposes of this mini-series, it looks like one thread will be Lilith trying to help save the bookstore (damaged by the monster attack) by posing for a calendar. Assuming she and Michael can survive the other thread. Anniese, who rules the land Lilith hails from, would apparently like to downgrade her status from "banished" to "dead." And she's here in the city. Running some sort of club where she disembowels women while sexy dancing, and the crowd thinks it's all just a show. I know New Yorkers are said to be jaded, but damn, come on people. That's not warm, blood-flavored corn syrup she's bathing in from the luxury of her oversized martini glass!