What I Bought 1/30/2021 - Part 2

It took until early February, but I feel like the cold's finally starting to set in. At least to the extent I started thinking about turning up the heat in my apartment. I didn't do it, but I thought about it.

Kaiju Score #3, by James Patrick (writer), Rem Broo (artist), Dave Sharpe (letterer) - Don't be worried, Palmiero. I'm sure that knife is meant for someone else.

So there's two giant monsters, and they hate each other. This is bad. But, they need two hours of build-up to get ready before they'll actually fight (and destroy the city in the process). Given that, I find it strange they'd even bother to fight. Just eat and leave. I guess kaiju are as stupid as humans.

This gives Marco time to modify his plan. Instead of getting Gina down to the vault, they're going to hook cables to the vault and a support pillar in the nearby mall, lure one of the kaiju with chum so it hits the wires, and that will pull the vault out to them. That is some Wil E. Coyote-ass nonsense and I love it, but Mujara goes the wrong way. So Marco drives in front of her and makes an impassioned plea to either take the other street, or eat him.

She takes the other street. Maybe the wind shifted and she picked up the scent. And the cables hold, the vault is out, but it's monster fightin' time and Pierson is making his own play to bolster his retirement portfolio.

 

While the plan's being putting in motion, there's a nice conversation between Marco and Gina about doubt. Gina wondering if Marco ever allows himself to doubt, or question whether he's just not cut out for this, and admitting that she has doubted herself. She also admitted she's growing to like being Gina, which could be foreshadowing for a lot of things. Broo does some good work with the expressions and body language, where Gina is trying to look casual, sprawled in a chair smoking a cigarette, but she keeps pulling her arms and legs in, and she and Marco are rarely looking at each other directly. If one of them is, the other either has their back turned, or is watching them from the corner of their eye. Both hiding something, or trying to.

Sympathy for No Devils #4, by Brandon Thomas (writer), Lee Ferguson (artist), Jose Villarrubia (colorist), Simon Bowland (letterer) - Raleigh does not seem like he's got a firm base there, especially in the middle of a rainstorm.

Raleigh and Winston got thrown off the same bridge, but Raleigh fishes Winston out. Then he admits that mobster's got him in his pocket and they argue a bit, and figure out Winston's assistant was spying on them. But Floyd's busy visiting the Mayor and confessing his love. That doesn't go well, so he kills her, which may have removed Winston's luck. Too bad, because Jacinda's out for blood and Winston's down a hand.

Well, I was definitely right that she was bad news, but it's a noir so no credit for knowing the tearful widow's trouble. I kind of figured she wanted to use Win to get rid of Raleigh and keep her own hands clean. Hence jumping into the water after him last issue, but apparently not. The conclusion of the thing with Floyd's unrequited love and idealization of the Mayor kind of happened abruptly, but this story doesn't seem like it can decide what it wants to focus on. The mystery of the dead colossals, or the whole thing with Floyd, or whatever. So it swings from one to another, and I don't feel like they're ever build much momentum. 

It's probably unrealistic and too neat for all the threads to be interconnected and dovetail. But if they did, I think they'd be able to support and build off each other better than they have up to this point. Maybe if I read it all in one go after the next issue it'll hold together better.

 

I did like the set-up of the page where Jacinda does her big reveal, even though I made the mistake of reading it from the top down initially. I think you're supposed to go from the last panel of the previous page to the one directly opposite it, then go diagonally up the page so you're back at the top when you flip the page and get the payoff. Ferguson's art is definitely the selling point for this series.