Thursday, September 30, 2021

Critical Condition

This movie feels like it has several entertaining directions it could go, and uses none of them. The cops plant a wire on Richard Pryor without his knowledge because he's going to meet with a loan shark. Since he agrees to deliver some diamonds in exchange for the loan, he gets arrested and sentenced to a year in jail. The loan shark doesn't believe he's an unwitting dupe, so here is the potential for a movie about Richard Pryor doing all sorts of crazy shit to avoid dying in prison.

But no, he fakes being crazy at his sentencing, which buys him three weeks evaluation at a hospital run by a penny-pinching, buck-passing administrator (played by Joe Mantegna). Pryor does befriend the others in the psych ward and one of the orderlies, but the doctor isn't fooled and he's about to be sent on to prison.

Then a hurricane hits New York, and the orderly encourages Pryor to steal his file from the Mantegna's office and flee. Except he's spotted by the weekend administrator, and mistaken for a doctor meant to be working in the ER that weekend. He can't escape because the rising water has taken out the causeway, so he has to pretend to be a doctor. Cue lots of scenes of his doing his best to avoid doing actual medicine (at least some common sense), while winning people over left and right. Some of the bits are funny, like the one with the helicopter, or Pryor helping the lady who is really sad because her boyfriend broke up with her. The one doctor constantly bringing up malpractice and the possibility of them getting sued is exhausting.

There's also an injured criminal running loose. It would have been so easy for the injured crook to be someone sent by the loan shark to get Pryor, in case he convinced the docs he was crazy. They couldn't even bother with that. And Mantegna's been taken hostage by the psych ward patients, but I'm not sure that plotline goes anywhere. I guess it's a way for Mantegna to be there while the causeway is still out, so Pryor can show he's a good guy by sticking up for the hospital staff, and then the staff can stick up for him. But the movie ends with Pryor being given his file and just sort of taking off, so do you really need Mantegna around for that?

I can't decide whether Pryor's character is a shrewd businessman who can't get a loan from a bank because of racism, or if he's kind of an idiot. His lawyer mentions Pryor convinced him to put up 5 grand of his own money for a 'offshore shopping mall', which sounds stupid. But maybe Pryor just needed a couple decades, until the Internet was more of a thing. But he wanted the 50 grand for a cineplex with 32 screens, with only 18 seats per theater. Can you do enough showings of a movie to make anything off it with that few seats?

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Reflections of a Teenage Bat - Inque

Inque, as we see her in the cartoon, is different from most of Terry's other foes. Most of his enemies are people with petty grudges or motivations. Feeling that they are owed more than they've received. Spellbinder is like that. Blight and Shriek as well. Then there are the idealists, the ones claiming to have some higher motivation. It may just be an excuse, but Mad Stan at least appears to have an ideology behind blowing things up. Kobra would fall in that category, as would Stalker, who doesn't go after Batman out of a grudge or for money, but because he wants a challenge.


Inque, though, is a professional. Her goal is money, but unlike Spellbinder, she's not trying to steal it because she feels unappreciated. You hire her, she does the job, you pay her, or else. She never seems to be fighting Batman because she's angry about a previous defeat. She's committing a crime, he finds her, they fight. Of his other foes, I think only Curare, a highly trained assassin, matches that approach. It's not personal. Batman is either a paycheck, or an obstacle, but not some scourge of their nightmares.

Inque tries to destroy Foxteca because Powers pays her. She fights Batman because he tries to stop her. She stows away on his Batmobile not out of some desire to unmask Batman and destroy his career because she hates him, but because it's valuable information.

When she escapes from custody with the help of the orderly that's fallen for her, she does capture Batman and use him to lure "the old man" into a trap. That could be viewed as revenge, because it was Bruce using the resources of the Bat-Cave to help Terry that beat her the time before. It could also be Inque knows he's out there and figures it's better to make him come to her at a time and place of her choosing, rather than give him a chance for an ambush. Batman's clearly not going to leave her be, and so the old man likely won't either. Better to just kill them and remove the obstacle.

(Curare's second appearance is similar in that she returns to Gotham hunting the last surviving head of the League of Assassins who put a price on her for failing a mission on her first encounter with Terry. It could be seen as revenge, but since they won't stop hunting her as long as they're alive, from Curare's perspective, it's a necessary step.)

Inque choosing not to kill Terry first, leaving him able to help Bruce when his heart gives out, does tip it into the revenge category, rather than simple pragmatism. But Ingue could argue Terry works best as live bait, and well, professional or no, Inque is more than a bit of a sadist. She enjoys toying with the dumb orderly, and she's fine with killing people by pouring herself down their throats until they choke or burst, or she tears her way out. Even though she could just cut them or strangle them quickly and efficiently.

Also, if Terry's alive, she might be able to use him as a shield if need be. In one of her last appearances in the series, she tries taking a hostage to make Batman back off. It's her poor luck she chose a disguised Superman.

Inque's one soft spot is her daughter, who she sends money, but rarely if ever interacted with until she needed help. It contrasts with Terry, who tries to maintain a presence in his mother and little brother's lives, even as being Batman pulls him away. He wants to protect them, but he doesn't want to do it like Bruce Wayne, keeping them at a distance, trying to control their lives. So even when they don't know what's causing him to be tired, or miss school, they still worry about him. As opposed to Bruce, who has basically alienated everyone who gave a shit about him by being a complete dick. Inque's daughter, who has only known her money through cash gifts, sees her mother's need for help as an opportunity to make some money. That's what she's been taught to value, and she's learned it well.

The brief Batman Beyond ongoing Adam Beechen wrote in 2011 established Inque had immigrated to Gotham from a country torn apart by civil war, and was then sold into slavery, sexually abused, escaped, only to later be experimented on while she was pregnant. Maybe that explains most of it. Not only treating people as a commodity, worth only what they can get you. But that if you have power, you take what you want. If someone tries to stop you, make sure they don't live to do it again.

Terry and Inque are both fight on behalf of others. Terry for Bruce, Inque for Derek Powers and his ilk. Terry takes to Bruce's mission quickly enough. Inque's more of a professional about it, because it's usually just business. She doesn't care why the person who hired her did so, just so long as they pay when she's done. Terry's been on the receiving end of people abusing their power, and decided to try and save others from a similar fate. Inque decided using her power for her own ends was the best way to go. If you can't beat 'em, get hired by 'em.

Inque, at a certain point, chose to be a weapon. Looked at the hand she'd been dealt, and decided she'd do what she was hired for. There's a freedom in that. She can choose who she works for, but she can also tell herself that whatever she does, it's not her. Someone would have been hired, if not her. Terry's more constricted. He's Batman, and that means working for Bruce Wayne, and doing things Bruce Wayne's way. But, for the most part, their morals align, so it works. Terry may not always agree, but their goals are the same.

But given how well he does as Batman with relatively little training, it wouldn't be too hard to see a path where Terry ends up a weapon like Inque. Maybe not a freelancer; more some bigshot's legbreaker. Someone that tells him the anger's fine, use it on the people I point to and you can do what you like. And once you're done, I'll pay you for it.

There's also the fact Inque was the subject of what were probably illegal experiments. She's a product of the same sort of ethically questionable work that Terry's father objected to. The same sort of work that got his father killed. So she's the cautionary tale of that. Terry fought a fair number of one-off enemies who were the result of accidents due to cost-cutting measures. Those people mostly lashed out in anger, and he had to try and calm them down, keep them from hurting anyone or themselves.

Inque's what happens when that person embraces the hand they were dealt, what can happen if that kind of work continues, and she's Terry's most dangerous opponent. The one I'm not sure he ever actually beats one-on-one. Bruce's involvement helps him twice, and Superman takes care of her once. Which should make Inque terrifying to Terry. Other heroes occasionally have that villain they can't beat alone. Venom was like that for Spider-Man the first several years of his existence. Bane took Batman apart the first time they clashed. But both of those guys were fixated on beating the hero. Venom wanted to kill Spider-Man for ruining their lives, and Bane wanted to test and destroy the Bat. Inque doesn't really give a shit about Batman, he's just in the way, or someone she's hired to kill. Makes you wonder what she would be like if it ever became personal to her.

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett

The three witches from Lords and Ladies (that I read last year), try to act as fairy godmother for a young girl in a lovely town far from their usual haunts. Well, Magrat is supposed to be the godmother, since the wand was left to her, but Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg basically commandeered the mission. And they aren't meant to help the young woman attend a ball and meet the prince, but help her avoid it.

That only really takes up the back half of the book. The first half is a retelling of the witches' trip to reach the kingdom of Genua. Which mostly revolves around Granny complaining about these foreigners and their ways, Magrat trying to figure out how to do something with the wand other than turn things into pumpkins, and Nanny trying to communicate with all the foreign phrases she knows, without realizing they're from different languages (or knowing what they mean.) Watching her butcher languages like some sort of oral slaughterhouse is pretty amusing.

Once they reach Genua, it turns into a matter of control. The person opposing them, the one determined that the beautiful young woman attend the ball and marry the prince, treats everyone as pieces in a story she's weaving. Which is really just a bunch of familiar, older stories lumped together, but everyone has to start somewhere with their writing. There is a voodoo lady of sorts, or just a witch by a different name, that's making slow plans to oppose her, but she just wants things so that she has control. 

The three witches are the ones actually concerned with the fate of the young lady, but they're struggling because there's some disagreement about how best to help her. Magrat really wants to use the magic to make things better, while Granny considers that dangerous territory, and foolish besides. She is right, that Magrat's not thinking through the implications, but I don't think Granny helps by constantly undercutting Magrat's every suggestion or attempt to assert herself. Nanny Ogg's a little better, or just gentler about it, but right at the end, when Magrat suggests going to visit a faraway temple said to be a seat of enlightenment or something, Nanny snipes at her, 'And what would you learn there you don't already know?'

And that irked me, because Magrat just meekly says "probably nothing" and goes along with them. But it's such a narrow view of things. Maybe Pratchett is going for the "Wherever you go there you are," approach. That a change in scenery isn't going to make you wiser, but I think that's nonsense. Going new places and learning new things can broaden your perspective, which can prompt a change. Maybe it won't work out that way, but you don't know unless you go.

Maybe we aren't supposed to agree with Ogg, but given the book repeatedly emphasizes that Magrat means well but doesn't know what she's talking about, and the other two witches know what's what, I don't think so.

Also, I deeply disagree that to truly beat someone, you have to leave them alive to know they've been beaten. That leaves the door open for them to come back and beat you. If you kill them, they may not know they're beaten, but you know, and they're dead, so that seems good enough for me.

'It was one of the weak spots of Granny Weatherwax's otherwise well-developed character that she'd never bothered to get the hang of steering things. It was alien to her nature. She took the view it was her job to move and the rest of the world to arrange itself so she arrived at her destination. This meant  that she occasionally had to climb down trees she'd never climbed up.'

Monday, September 27, 2021

What I Bought 9/24/2021

I was hoping to come away with more than one comic this week, but the store I typically used was closed Friday because the parking lot in the shopping center the store's in was being repaved. So I had to rely on the one that doesn't stock as many titles from smaller publishers. Damn asphalt crews.

Moon Knight #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - The gold kind of ruins the effect.

This is basically a fight issue. Dr. Badr, the other Fist of Khonshu, thinks the needs to teach Spector a lesson about how to fulfill that role properly. So they fight a bit, Badr seems to win and heads off to kill Reese and Ted, two of the vampires Spector spared in the first issue. Apparently, Khonshu doesn't like vampires because they kill people at night, during Khonshu's time. I mean, a lot of people kill people at night. Does that mean Khonshu doesn't like Blade, or the Punisher? Is Deadpool OK if he shoots people in broad daylight?

Anyway, Badr loses, but Spector lets him live. There's two main takeaways from this issue. One, Badr wasn't involved in what happened last issue. Which we already knew, but assuming Spector believes him, means Spector can know there's someone else out there gunning for him. Two, apparently all the other Fists of Khonshu, including Badr, got the memories of all the past Fists placed in their minds to teach them to fight a certain way. Spector's the exception.

Badr takes this as yet another sign Spector is a broken instrument he needs to set right, and Spector jokes that it must have been too crowded in his head already, but I wonder if Khonshu took a different approach. Maybe having all his Fists operate the same way was unsatisfactory. I don't know what process Khonshu uses to select them, but Badr is a doctor, and I assume was one before this. All he knows of fighting is what was placed within him. Spector was a fighter and killer by trade already. Maybe Khonshu wanted to see what happened if he just gave someone like that his blessing and left them to the work.

The fight's not bad, although, until the bit at the end with the bat, I don't really see what Badr is saying about the difference in how the two of them fight. He compares Spector's style to an animal, lacking the beauty he should have from all those past Moon Knights, but I didn't see anything particularly graceful in how Badr fights. They both like to lunge and throw a big haymaker. Moon Knight does uses his grappel thing to hit Badr in the face, but also does a leaping kick in the chest with both feet, which seems kind of fancy. Badr's the one who decides to leap off a roof and tackle Spector while he's dangling from a fire escape, sending them both crashing to the alley. Could be more proof Badr's not as hip to Khonshu's plans as he thinks.

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Sunday Splash Page #185

 
"Walked in Thru the Out Door," in Exiles (vol. 2) #3, by Jeff Parker (writer), Salva Espin (artist, left side), Casey Jones (artist, right side), Anthony Washington (colorist), Jeff Loveness (letterer)

The first volume of Exiles ended at #100, about five issues after I dropped the book. Marvel, being Marvel, immediately relaunched it as New Exiles, still with Claremont as the writer and a shiny new #1 on the cover.

It ended after 19 issues in early 2009. Undaunted, and having learned nothing, Marvel released Exiles two months later, now with Jeff Parker as writer, and a shiny new #1 on the cover.

It ended after 6 issues in fall of 2009. Same month as Agents of Atlas, actually. Not a good month for books written by Jeff Parker, or my pull list. Parker took the approach of seemingly pulling in an entirely new team of Exiles, and Morph was in the role of Timebroker now, handing out missions and explaining the rules. There was a Blink on the team, but she appeared not to know anything more than the others.

The book only had enough time for two missions. The first was for the Exiles to help Wolverine overthrow Magneto, currently ruling a Genosha that is a haven for mutants, but under repeated attacks from the rest of the world. The second, which started seemingly before the first was complete, was to help a world dominated by machine intelligences. I thought I remembered they needed something from the second mission to complete the first, but reading over my old reviews that was just what I thought was gonna happen. Instead, they completed the first mission by taking advantage of Cyclops being a lousy boyfriend. Which is better, frankly. Anything that shits on Scott Summers is A-OK by me.

Parker clearly had a lot of things he planned to tease out over time. Sadly, he didn't get the chance and had to spend most of the sixth issue trying to explain what was going on. It was an exposition heavy issue and not the most engaging, but I appreciate he didn't want to leave us hanging.

After that, Marvel let the Exiles concept lie until Saladin Ahmed and Javier Rodriguez pulled it back out in 2018. Unless you count all of Jonathan Hickman's multiverse Illuminati crap in his Avengers run. But considering the "geniuses" repeatedly failed to actually save any realities, they were the shittiest group of Exiles ever. 

Anyway, the 2018 run lasted 12 issues, which puts Ahmed 4th on the list of most Exiles issues written (behind Bedard, Winick, and Claremont, but ahead of Chuck Austen, Parker, and Calafiore.) I think Marvel may have trained their audience to care too much about "important" comics. A book that mostly dances around the fringes, barely ever interacting with the big guns, would be hard-pressed to get that kind of weight.

Full disclosure, I don't still have any of this series in my collection, and I was gonna just skip it. But I remembered that in Random Back Issues #5 I promised to post that double-page splash when I got to this point. So there you go. You can (as always with the double-page splashes) click on it for a somewhat larger version.

Friday, September 24, 2021

Random Back Issues #70 - Spider-Man #18

I don't normally post splash pages in these posts - that's what Sunday Splash Page is for - but I couldn't pass this one up, just for the absurdity of how all three characters are having entirely different conversations (click to see in greater glory.) It's the strangest improv troupe ever.

This is part 1 on "Revenge of the Sinister Six", following up on "Return of the Sinister Six" which ran in Amazing Spider-Man a year or two earlier. But before Larsen gets to that, he's got several pages of Spider-Man and Ghost Rider fighting a very confused cyborg.

The splash page is pretty indicative of the fight. Ghost Rider won't shut up about vengeance. Spidey won't shut up, period (his mouth is running at a rate I'd associate with Deadpool these days). The cyborg doesn't even seem to know what going on, constantly calling out to people named "Martin" or "Dominic". The battle moves to the skies, then eventually crashes through a water tower. The cyborg goes spiraling out of control and slams into what I assume was a condemned building, since neither of our heroes bother to go looking for any casualties. Ghost Rider is satisfied vengeance has been served, while Spider-Man worries they helped put an 'unintelligible, innocent man, caught in a machine. . . to his death.'

But he'll still give Ghost Rider a lift back to his bike. I thought Rider could call that thing mentally. And the cyborg's not dead anyway, as we see him pick his way out of the rubble as they leave. Elsewhere, Sandman is checking in on the family he used to board with when he was trying to keep a low profile. Doc Ock got him to join the Sinister Six last time by threatening him, and since Sandman turned against him, he worries about retribution.

Good call, because the house explodes right in front of him. Sandman finds at least one injured person in the rubble and and swears he won't quit until Ock is dead. He's even willing to team up with the rest of the Six as part of their scheme for revenge on Ock for suckering them last go-round. As for the villain in question, he's in the middle of reacquainting himself with a set of Adamantium tentacles he had made back in Daredevil #165 (thanks, editor's notes!) They were acquired by an extremely withered looking old man I don't recognize, with a lot of weapons and killer robots. Is it supposed to be the Tinkerer? He wants his money, Ock says he'll have it soon, which is no good. Cash on the barrelhead or GTFO, Octavius.

Yeah, I'm sure he's fine. Ock crows about how powerful he feels while his arms trash the robots, but afterward, he knows he needs more for his big plans. Keep in mind, in "Return of the Sinister Six", Ock's plan was to release a substance into the atmosphere that meant anyone who used cocaine would have horrible seizures, while he held the only antidote. (Turned out the substance he released also ate away the ozone layer). One shudders to think what his big plan is this time. So he helps himself to all the guns and sets out to acquire more.

Sandman's not a complete moron. He doesn't trust the villains who were all too eager to destroy him on Ock's orders last time, so he waits for Spider-Man at the Daily Bugle to ask for help. Spidey agrees, and so he's looking on from the rafters as Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, Hobgoblin and the Vulture confront Ock. Who has been expecting them. Electro declares it's all over, and Otto offers the standard, 'That's what I was going to say to you!' comeback. Right as Spider-Man notes they're laying it on pretty thick, he senses someone big lurking outside.

Before this story is over, Spider-Man will get a metal arm, team-up with 10 other heroes, get the shit kicked out of him at least twice, and the Sinister Six will kill over 100,000 people. But they were aliens in another dimension so it's fine. 

There's also a subplot about Mary Jane being offered a role in an "Arnold Schwarzenheimer" movie, but she'd have to do a nude scene. Peter's not real excited about other guys seeing her naked, and he's worried it'll give Aunt May a heart attack. Considering Larsen draws Aunt May so wrinkled and withered she looks like she'll blow away with a sneeze, I'm not sure that's much of an argument. The color patterns Wright uses on MJ's aerobics leotard can probably give Aunt May a heart attack.

[8th longbox, 24th comic. Spider-Man #18, by Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Gregory Wright (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)]

Thursday, September 23, 2021

The Quest

Alex mentioned liking this when he was younger, and I noticed it was free on Amazon Prime, and here we are. Apparently Jean-Claude van Damme's first time directing a movie.

He plays Christopher Dubois, who is some sort of street performer/pickpocket/leader of a whole gang of Artful Dodgers in 1920 New York. He manages to piss off a gangster and some cops, ends up a slave on a ship headed to Asia. He gets rescued by a former British naval captain turned smuggler and black marketeer (played by Roger Moore), who dumps Dubois on Muay Thai island because he thinks he has promise as a fighter.

By the next time Moore sees Dubois, he's fully embraced Muay Thai fighting and is an almost dead-eyed asskicker determined to compete in a tournament of the world's greatest fighters, for the chance to win a big gold dragon. So Moore "helps", by having the pretend to be porters for the American heavyweight champion, who received an invite. The champ figures out the ruse eventually, but is impressed enough to give Dubois his spot.

It's such a strange and convoluted way to get the character to that point. I guess the thief backstory is important because it not only gives him a way to piss off people that would make him need to run, but also makes him ethically flexible enough to work with Moore and his compatriot. And traveling with the heavyweight champ gives him time with someone with a more noble competitive spirit, who can encourage his better nature to come out.

I feel like it'd work better if he put some of that other stuff to use in the tournament. Maybe something he picked up from his brief fight with the champ, or the balance and acrobatics he used escaping the cops. Especially since the guy he fights last, a very large fellow hailing from Mongolia, had already crushed Siam's representative, who learned Muay Thai from the same guy as Dubois. How you gonna win doing the same stuff that already got the other guy's back broken? But if that stuff was there, I didn't see it. I mean, there's a sequence where he punches the big guy in the face a lot, but they didn't really seem like boxing punches.

There's also a weird bit during the final fight where he gets punched out of the ring and down the ramp. When he starts to get up, he sees all the people from the audience, gathered around the big guy, leaning in and staring at him. I thought it was some hallucination, Dubois fighting his inner fears in the form of all the doubters and people who keep expecting him to fold. No, everyone had simply moved over there to look at him like that. Then he got up, stepped outside, and the fight continued. Kinda weird.

It seems like van Damme made the movie I imagine most Street Fighter fans were expecting/hoping for from his actual Street Fighter movie. A bunch of fighters from around the world competing in a tournament to find the world's best fighter. Instead we got, whatever the hell Street Fighter was (pour one out for Raul Julia and make it rain Bison Bucks.) 

Also, they use a gong to signal the start of the fight, so I kept wanting someone to scream "MORTAL KOMBAT!" Since no one in the movie would, I had to do it myself.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Not a Bad End to the Year, Comicswise

I wasn't expecting the December solicits up until the end of this week, but I'll take it. As with November, it's shaping up to be a solid month, if not necessarily a lot of new stuff. Last issue of Defenders, sixth issue of Moon Knight. The Mosley/Reilly Thing book is a six-issue mini-series, don't know why Marvel waits until the second issue to tell us that.

Fourth issue of Deadbox, third issues of Black Jack Demon and Rush, second issues of Grrl Scouts, Lunar Room, Impossible Jones, and Tales from the Dead Astronaut

Vault Comics has a new series, End After End, about an unassuming guy who dies, then finds himself caught in a war against some dire threat to existence, and figures he must be the one who's going to save the day. I'm at least considering it. Something I won't be buying, but was surprised to see, was a Cowboy Bebop comic based on the upcoming live-action Netflix show. I'm sure the success of superhero movies has something to do with it, but this spate of live-action adaptations of animes always seems weird to me. Actors just look wrong to me in a way they don't necessarily when they're trying to look like Captain America or whoever. I dunno.

Biggest surprise is there's actually a couple of DC books I'm thinking about getting. The Batgirls book Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad are doing, although I suspect I'll ultimately run into that same issue I had with the Cass & Steph story in Batman: Urban Legends, where I can't quite track the changes between what I expect the characters to be like and where they're at now. But what the hell, might as well try. The other book is the Mark Russell/Steve Lieber One-Star Squadron, about a bunch of heroes, that you can hire. Makes me think a bit of Busiek and Grummett's Power Company series, but I suspect this will be slanted more towards humor.

Switching to collections, Viz is releasing a bunch of Akira Toriyama's earlier, shorter manga works in Akira Toiryama Manga Theater. I wish they'd included the titles of the stories. I bought Sand Land a couple of years ago, and I hate to double-dip. Digital Manga has The Crater by Osamu Tezuka, who was the writer/artist for Pluto. Seems like an anthology of different short works in various genres.

T Pub has Tabitha, by Neal Gibson and "Various Artists", about a mailman who also robs empty houses he delivers to, who finds one house isn't so empty. Which is vague enough of a description to allow my imagination plenty of room to picture things I'd find interesting. Will it actually have any of those things in it? Who knows? Lev Gleason has Red Leaves, about a mother and daughter in the wilds of Soviet Russia, waiting for the dad to return from Finland. It's written by Massimo Rosi, who's writing Locust, and the art's by Ivan Fiorelli and Lorenzo Palombo. The cover looks really cool, for sure.

Humanoids is releasing Carthago, about us idiot humans finding live Megalodons deep in the sea. But I've already read MEG (years and years before it was a movie starring Jason Statham), so do I need to read this? Finally, Blue Fox Comics has Gone, by Simon Burks and Juan Fleites, about a helper robot that wakes up on a spaceship devoid of any humans to help. Which is not how things are supposed to be. Could go a lot of ways with that, I suppose.

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

The Last Days on Mars

Your typical sci-fi horror movie about researchers finding evidence of microbial life on Mars. Which immediately infects them and turns them into monsters. Monsters which are still smart enough to use tools to smash things, mind you. The bacteria are also resistant to any antibiotic the researchers have available, and somehow able to keep a person's body moving while exposed to the Martian elements. Not at all sure how that works.

The infected aren't much different than your usual fast zombies. There's never any sense of what they're after. Are they killing people because the research team are considered interlopers, or just to propagate themselves? No idea. so like a zombie movie, the film is more about what people do under stress. As the analyst character oh-so-helpfully states early on, crisis situations don't change people, they just reveal what the person was like all along.

The movie spends just enough time introducing the characters to get a few broad strokes, enough to tell there's some cliques in play among them, before people start dying. So you have the character who starts the whole thing, by trying to sneak off and investigate to hoard the credit, and the other scientist who snoops through his files and finds out, mostly because she's pissed she thinks he's getting to play by different rules than everyone else. The sort of lazy, weary guy who gets dragged along because he's on the boss' shitlist, I think. The analyst turns out to be the type of person who abandons everyone else at the first opportunity.

Liev Schreiber's character had a close call on the voyage out to Mars, briefly exposed to space, that gives him flashbacks/panic attacks at various points. I guess surviving that because someone helped makes him determined to try and help everyone else survive, so that's the role he plays. The one who doesn't want to leave anyone behind, even when they're telling him to.

The movie ends without letting you know whether he's been infected or not. Given the amount of blood that was floating around in zero gravity, probably, but I guess it's left to our imagination whether he got incredibly lucky or not.

Monday, September 20, 2021

Does Logan Count as Adult Supervision?

Sorry Katie, you're a few decades late for a Godzilla encounter in Marvel Universe Japan. You can have an unpleasant team-up with Sunfire, or help Wolverine fight ninjas.

One of my back issue projects this year has been the various late-2000s Power Pack mini-series. The ones with all the Guruhiru covers? Turns out they're a bit tricky to find, at least where I've been looking, so I've only tracked down three so far. One of which is Wolverine and Power Pack: The Wild Pack. The four issues are loosely connected, but I don't think there's an overarching theme.

In the first one, Logan has to fend off the kids while they're under Sauron's control because Karl Lykos was giving a talk at the museum while Alex was trying to do research for a paper. The second issue involves the kids visiting the X-Men's school and helping fend off some Sentinels. Which does end with Cyclops admitting he was wrong to say Power Pack shouldn't get involved because they aren't mutants. 

The third issue (drawn by Scott Koblish rather than the Guruhiru team) is Jack Power and Franklin Richards using Reed's (obviously inferior to Doom's) time machine and inadvertently meeting sheltered young James Howlett. Then Jack's siblings and HERBIE (the robot, not the Volkswagon) have to rescue all three of them from some kidnappers. The final issue, the kids briefly try to help Logan fight the Hand, but it's really about whether Alex is going to use his gravity control powers to cheat at one of those Ultimate Ninja Warrior style obstacle course games.

At the end of the third issue, once everyone's back in their proper time, HERBIE tells the kids the shy boy they befriended was actually Wolverine. Not sure it's his place to mention that, but I guess it's OK. Then in the fourth issue, Jack briefly calls Wolverine "Jimmy" during the ninja fight, as sort of a tease. Logan gets kind of gruff about it and Jack backs off. This was from 2009, after Bendis did the House of M thing and gave Logan all his memories, but it's hard to tell how much these books worry about that. I don't know if Logan was confused by Jack calling him a name he doesn't recall, or he doesn't want them spreading it around. Or he knows his name but doesn't remember meeting all of them as a boy (you'd think a girl who leaves a rainbow behind her as she flies would be hard to forget, even with Logan's backstory).

Or Logan remembers all of it and just doesn't appreciate a kid needling him. Probably that. Jack does play the instigator role in the family. He encourages Franklin to use the time machine. He videotaped Alex using his powers to do parkour in his civilian clothes without his brother's knowledge, which is how Alex gets roped into the TV show. And Jack's the one eager to go to Lykos' lecture when the doc promises the chance to see a live dinosaur. 

In contrast, Julie's the one who gets the least focus. Sumerak doesn't really seem to have much for her to do. Jack's the troublemaker, Katie's the one who gets to be alternatively cute or afraid, Alex is the leader. Julie's gets stuck with the always thankless Team Mom role. The one who asks Katie what's wrong, or has to watch everyone's backs. She seems to be the most interested in education, as she's excited to sit in on some of the lectures at the X-Mansion, but it's the fact Jack only goes along with it when he can sit in on one Kitty Pryde is teaching that steals focus. The stories are mostly built for light-hearted action and humor, so a gung-ho loudmouth like Jack is going to be important, but he also gets irritating after a while.

There was an episode of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men where they discussed the Mutant Massacre ancillary tie-ins, including the Power Pack issue where the kids survive an encounter with Sabretooth in the sewers. How, while it made sense for the Power kids to go try and help their friends Artie and Leech, it was maybe not a good choice to pit them against a remorseless killer like Sabretooth. Either he ends up looking like a putz, losing to four grade school kids with no grasp of how dangerous he's supposed to be, or they end up dead. 

I thought about that a little in issue #2 when they're fighting the Sentinels, but at least there's an entire school of X-Men, and the Sentinels specifically do not attack the kids, even in self-defense. It came to mind a lot stronger in issue #4, once some mystic that was part of the Hand somehow neutralizes the kids' powers. Because at that point, it's four kids with no powers or particular combat training against ninjas who are trying to kill the guy with an unbreakable skeleton. That should not end well for our heroes. Sumerak gets around it by having Wolverine fight them all himself, although you'd think at least one would try to target the kids to get his guard down.

It does lead to a funny exchange where Logan says he doesn't need his healing factor or enhanced senses to beat the hand, and real power doesn't come from mutant genes of magic spells anyway. To which Katie replies, 'Duh, it comes from alien horsies.'

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Sunday Splash Page #184

 
"Infinity Danish", in Exiles (vol. 1) #54, by Tony Bedard (writer), Mizuki Sakakibara (artist), JC (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

I think Exiles is the first title I added to my pull list after I started this blog. The second volume of X-Factor would be a close contender, because I reviewed the first issue within the first week this blog existed, but I'd already decided to start buying it before then, I just hadn't been able to get the first issue yet. But given the increasing disappointment I was dealing with Bendis' New Avengers (not to mention Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run), I wanted some team book that was actually interesting.

Granted, I picked the title up during Tony Bedard's overlong "World Tour" arc, where the team chased the House of M reality's version of Proteus around, but at least there was an appearance that something was happening.

Judd Winick's run on the title (covering most of the first 35 issues), is generally regarded as the best stretch of the book about heroes from different realities thrown together to preserve the Multiverse, but by the time I'd started reading it, and could consider hunting down earlier issues, I was well-acquainted with Winick's writing from his work at DC. That work was not exactly a shining endorsement. So Bedard's 44-issue run is the one I'm most familiar with. I've seen the difference between the two described as Winick's being more character-driven, and Bedard's more plot-driven, for whatever that's worth to you.

As was normal for the title, Bedard kept the roster in flux. By the end of his run, only two of the characters up there are still on the roster (plus someone who thinks they're one of the people up there.) Most of the characters die, but a few are actually able to return to their home realities and pick up where they left off. Bedard also does a surprise reveal on the true identity of the mysterious "Timebroker" who moves the Exiles to and fro. In theory, it gives them more control over what they're doing, but in practice, they're still scrambling to pick up pieces.

While the "World Tour" story does drag on forever, in general, I think Bedard is pretty effective as shorter two or three issue missions that still feed into the larger arc of what he's doing. And he seemed to have fun with the concept. Like the issue above, in which the Exiles. . . buy a cheese danish. Or the one where the beings in charge keep recruiting teams of different Wolverines to try and save a reality. Or the one where Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Curt Conners, and Howard Trask are part of a super-science kaiju-fighting team, with Red Ronin as their Power Rangers style battle mech. I mean, Red Ronin vs. Fin Fang Foom, that's fun stuff. And Bedard seems to enjoy coming up with clever or unorthodox solutions. He manages to make Beak from Grant Morrison's X-Men run a useful character, no small thing.

At the start of his run, Sakakibara and J. Calafiore are the primary artists, which is an interesting pairing. Not really terribly similar in styles, since Calafiore has a very Sal Buscema-like approach, where everyone is sort of blocky, with extremely square jaws and shoulders, and sharp chins. Sakakibara's work looks quite a bit smoother, and I'd say the design elements for layouts are a bit more creative. Nothing staggering or mind-blowing, just a little more inventive. Eventually, Paul Pelletier takes Sakakibara's place. His work is more expressive than either, with more of an Ed McGuinness energy to it. Everyone has the big superhero physiques, but done up prettier than in Calafiore's work. I think Pelletier eventually left this book to work on Dwayne McDuffie's Fantastic Four run, which we'll get to in a few weeks.

Bedard left the book after the "team Wolverine" two-parter, handing writing chores off to Chris Claremont. Claremont, having just left Uncanny X-Men (replaced by Ed Brubaker coming off his X-Men:Deadly Genesis mini-series) immediately added Psylocke to the team. Because of course he did. I feel like he also added Vampire Storm later. I gave Claremont one arc, five issues, and then dropped the book. It felt like he was leaving out key bits of the story. Maybe that was for important reveals later, but it felt like plot holes at the time.

Friday, September 17, 2021

Random Back Issues #69 - The Thing #36

Doesn't come up much, but She-Hulk's butt can produce powerful electric shocks.

The last issue of the Thing's first solo series (second if you count Marvel Two-in-One, I guess), finds him in a bad way. He's been the big draw of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, but many of the other wrestlers got their super-strength from the Power Broker. Of course there's a catch. Unless they get regular supplies of a drug, they'll die from side effects of the procedure.

Dennis Dunphy (aka Captain America sidekick D-Man) already nearly died, and Ben's friend Sharon Ventura (calling herself Ms. Marvel while I Carol Danvers is out in space being Binary) just took the strength enhancement herself, so they need answers before she ends up the same way. Unfortunately, all the other wrestlers are after Sharon and Ben so P.B. will keep supplying them.

Power Broker's hideout is empty when Ben and Sharon arrive, the desperate wrestlers on their heels. Ben could normally cream these guys (one guy hits him in the head with the old interlaced fingers punch and barely staggers him, then Ben casually shoves the guy into a wall with one hand), but he's under the weather for unknown reasons, and distracted because Sharon isn't interested in him the way he is in her. He starts to mutate after Sharon tries to get him on his feet (by slapping him), pink boils or blisters appearing between his rock plates. One of the wrestlers describes him as feeling 'clammy' and 'gross', which is hard to picture, but disturbing to be sure. From that point on, Neary and De LaRosa draw Ben in shadow. You just see his misshapen outline and your imagination does the rest. All the wrestlers panic, thinking this is going to happen to them, too.

The Fantastic Four's origin has to be common knowledge, right? So they thought he was doping on top of being bombarded with cosmic rays? The ever lovin' blue-eyed idol of millions, a cheat? Never.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk's seen a news report about Ben running amok in L.A., and maybe feeling odd about how she got his spot on the Fantastic Four, and nobody's really talking about what happened when he returned from Battleworld, decides to go see him. Jarvis has to book her a commercial flight since the Avengers aren't in good standing with the government at the moment and can't launch Quinjets in Manhattan. Jen seeks out Ben's boss in the UCWF, who is stonewalling the press about what's going on with the Thing and all the wrestling being canceled. As soon as She-Hulk shows up, he blabs about the Power Broker, swearing he knew nothing about it. Which is about the time he gets a call Ben's in the hospital.

Ben ends up in the same hospital as Dunphy, who is already recovering. D-Man thinks the drugs weren't really necessary, Power Broker just told them that to get them addicted. Good news for Sharon, who hasn't had time to take them. Doesn't help Ben, since he never took them, and the doctors aren't sure how to treat him.

Just mentioning calling Reed Richards makes Ben flip out, so when Sharon spies She-Hulk headed their way, she figures he won't want to see his replacement, either. That might seem a curious leap of logic, but she's right. Ben figures Jen will just laugh at his current state. I mean, Joe Fixit would, he's a dick.

Despite the pain he's in, Ben starts trying to escape while Sharon tries to keep She-Hulk out. She's outclassed and Jen keeps casually pushing her aside until Sharon trips her and tries to put her in a chinlock. Patience exhausted, Jen decides to smash, and Sharon's on the run (She-Hulk decides she's near Captain America in athleticism). Considering Sharon only got super-powers last issue, not getting killed by a Hulk is pretty impressive.

Finally, Sharon suggests calling Ben's room to see if he wants to see Jen. Which is about when they hear his escape. By the time they get upstairs, Ben's gone. Sharon worries it's her fault for only liking him as a friend, which he never understood. Not your problem, lady. Ben gets mad about the friend zone, that's on him. Jen concludes Ben's always running away from whatever bothers him, and hopes he finally escaped it.

Meanwhile, Ben's tumbling off a dump truck down to the ocean, determined to find someplace quiet to die. But first, he's gotta make a brief guest appearance in West Coast Avengers #10 to save their butts, and then the storyline picks up over in Fantastic Four. I think. Haven't read those issues. Feels like this is the story where Ben gets his "spiky rocks" look, but he definitely doesn't have it in Fantastic Four #296, the 25th anniversary issue where he tries to move to Monster Island, that comes out about five months after this.

Honestly, the timeline seems screwy. I figured D-Man's hospitalization would be from what happened to him in Captain America #330, when Cap finds him and Sharon both receiving treatments from the Power Broker, and D-Man flips out and attacks Cap, then nearly dies. But as far as I can tell, that comic came out in summer of 1987, and this comic, WCA #10, and that FF story all came out summer of 1986, when Captain America was busy hunting the Scourge.

[11th longbox, 85th comic. The Thing (vol. 1) #36, by Mike Carlin (writer), Paul Neary (artist - breakdowns), Sam DeLaRosa (artist - finishes), Bob Sharen (colorist), John Morelli (letterer)

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Pyramids - Terry Pratchett

Always remarkable to me that, among all the Tom Clancy knockoffs, books about paranormal detectives and their werewolf/vampire/changeling boyfriends, and books about cats solving memories, the Dollar Generals will have Discworld books for 3 bucks.

Teppic has just passed his test to become an assassin, despite realizing he doesn't want to actually kill people. Before he can come up with a creative bit of thinking to excuse the taking of lives, he's visited by a seagull. because his father, who is the pharaoh of a once prosperous, now increasingly broke kingdom on the banks of a river. It's broke because they keep making increasingly elaborate pyramids for their dead rulers. 

The pyramids also collect time energy, somehow, and when you make too large a pyramid, bad things happen. I didn't really understand that part, when Time becomes width and whatnot. End result, they end up where all their many contradictory gods exist and it turns out once you're dead, being stuffed in a giant rock tomb isn't all that great, either.

The plot's not really that interesting to me, and Pratchett keeps jumping around between characters I don't particularly care about. The architect and his two sons, the embalmer, the whole thing about camels being Discworld's greatest mathematicians. I was mostly wanting to follow Teppic and the high priest Dios. The way things have become so set in stone in the kingdom that the ruler really can't change anything, even when he desperately needs to.

"There's something really weird going on over there," he said. "They're shooting tortoises."

"Why?"

"Search me. They seem to think the tortoise ought to be able to run away."

"What, from an arrow?"

"Like I said. Really weird. You stay here. I'll whistle if it's safe to follow me."

"What will you do if it isn't safe?"

"Scream."

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Reflections of a Teenage Bat - Mad Stan

It's been almost exactly three months since the first of these looks at Terry McGinnis' recurring enemies and what they reflect about him. I started with Spellbinder, and as promised, we're moving to Mad Stan today.

 
(Artwork by Norm Breyfogle and Andrew Elder) 

Stan might be a bit of a cheat, honestly. He's rarely the main villain. In one case, Spellbinder uses him as part of a plan to turn the police against Batman by making it appear Terry killed Mad Stan. In another, he's really just the excuse the plot requires for Terry to miss a date with Dana, so she can be approached by a mutated guy that lives in the sewers.

And that's because Stan's not a particularly varied character. He's always out to tear down the government or elements of bureaucracy, and he always takes the same approach: Blow it up. He reminds me of the Evil Midnight Bomber, What Bombs at Midnight from The Tick, although I think Stan is slightly more focused. Only slightly, as he was prepared to blow up a Department of Health building because they were going to raise the fee for licensing pets. Although I'm surprised Mad Stan would risk his chihuahua, Boom-Boom, being logged in "the system."

Stan doesn't have much of a backstory. He never got an origin episode or issue of the comics, so we don't know what, exactly, made him hate and decry governmental systems and their effect on people, or why he decided the best solution was high explosives. Maybe there's a tragedy, Maybe he read a book that really spoke to him. Maybe he just enjoys it.

Like Terry before he became Batman, Stan's anger is unfocused. Terry would lash out at Jokerz, his father, school bullies, whoever. Stan ostensibly targets "the government", doesn't there's no real plan behind it. No, "take this out first, to cripple response when I target this other thing." Across his appearances he tries destroying a library because there's too much information for people to process, then targets a re-election fundraiser for the district attorney, and the aforementioned attack on the Department of Health over pet licenses.

Stan is the adolescent who can see that there are things wrong with society around him, but can't see how to fix them. So he decides the proper response is to just destroy them instead. Maybe Stan has some big plan to build things back up properly after, but more likely he's not given it any thought. Or he hasn't since he decided tearing everything down was the best first step.

That's possibly the path Terry was on before his father died. Going through life angry for reasons he couldn't really explain, picking fights to give an outlet to that anger. Now he. . . gets to put on a strength-augmenting costume and beat people up. Typical caveats about vigilantism aside, Terry is generally trying to protect people from those intending direct harm. Stan probably thinks he's helping people by attacking the structures he believes are strangling their lives, but he doesn't seem terribly concerned if any of the people he intended to help get blown up in the process of him helping them.

At the end of the day, Stan decided to just indulge his anger to its full extent. His dog is safe, but anyone and everything else is shit outta luck if he decides to blow something up while they're nearby.

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

The Empty Man

The description said it was about an ex-cop investigating a series of disappearances, so I was very confused with the first 20 minutes taking place in the mountains of Bhutan, where one of a quartet of hikers finds a bizarre shrine/skeleton in a crevasse and ultimately brings about the death of the other three.

Then, the movie shifts to St. Louis, to an ex-cop who agrees to help a friend locate her missing daughter. His search leads him to something called the "Empty Man", which is one of those urban legends where you summon it by blowing through a bottle on a bridge while thinking about the Empty Man. It would seem difficult to accomplish since no one seems sure what the Empty Man is, but it works somehow.

Honestly, I'm still not sure what the Empty Man is after the movie was finished. Some other-dimensional thing that wants in to our reality is the best I can figure. Why it wants in, I'm still not sure. Why, once summoned it does the whole bit where you only hear it the first night, then see it the second, then it takes you on the third, I don't know, either. It would seem to deflate the threat because that means you as the audience know the first two times it appears are ultimately just a display. Nothing is going to happen, yet. 

In practice, I actually did get spooked when it rushed towards the camera, so I guess it's effective in spite of the apparent rules. Not like you can count on eldritch horrors to follow the rules. Plus, the movie likes creating the sense that something could happen at any moment. Lot of shots peering into an indistinct distance. Poorly lit hallways or foggy bridges, seemingly empty forests where you think something might happen. Although the best part was when he finds a bunch of cultists dancing around a huge flame and they notice him. Wouldn't have minded that chase going for a bit longer.

The movie is over two hours, and it does drag at points, but I'm not sure what to cut. There's a lot of him running from one place to another, but it's part of his journey deeper into the mess and confusion as the clock ticks away towards the third night. The scenes with the police are mostly irrelevant, other than I guess we'd expect the police to be making some token effort to investigate a bunch of disappearances turned apparent suicides.

Monday, September 13, 2021

Eye Contact is Overrated Anyway

So do I. It's called alcohol.

Volume 5 of Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World takes a different approach from the earlier volumes. Whereas most of the earlier volumes were focused on Kino's briefs visits to different kingdoms, this one focuses much of its pages on just one land, where the people can't look at each other.

Iruka Shiomiya (or maybe that's how it went in Keiichi Sigsawa's light novel originally) takes the approach of having Kino visit the kingdom, and find everyone wearing masks that can be adjusted to show expressions. Then there's a flashback to when the woman who taught Kino how to shoot, who insists she be referred to as "Master" (that's her with the dark hair up there), visited the country with a previous apprentice. What Kino finds is the end result of Master's solution.

After Kino departs, the prince from volume 3, Shizu, arrives some time later. He responds somewhat differently to what he finds than Kino did, which is nice. Kino tends to go with the flow. Unless someone or something directly threatens her life, she lets people live their lives as they wish. Shizu, maybe because he spent years exiled from his kingdom and determined to come back and set things right, can't help getting involved. And his attempt to help ends, well, it's either hilarious or creepy depending on how you look at it.

Then there's Kino's teacher, who we get our first real glimpse of here. She's willing to get involved, if you pay her, and she's very morally flexible. One of the other chapters is her some years ago, telling Kino about a visit to a land where a sniper lurks in the woods and kills people for money. Some people hired her to kill him, but other people hired her to leave him be. He settles disputes, so really, he's like a community service. Like a garbageman.

The other major story in this volume, which leads it off, is about Kino visiting a land that is supposedly incredibly unfriendly. Yet Kino is greeted warmly, so you know the other shoe is gonna drop. I already knew what was coming because this was story they used for the 13th episode of the anime, but that didn't make me any less sad when it played out as it did. It cast a pall over the rest of the volume.

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Sunday Splash Page #183

 
"Two Kinds of Hunger," in Excalibur #61, by Alan Davis (writer/penciler), Mark Farmer (inker), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

Sorely tempted to go with the page of Kylun barging through the bathroom door on a very surprised Nightcrawler from issue 46, but the Phoenix vs. Galactus throwdown here is too nice to pass up.

I've not read any of the earliest Excalibur, with Claremont as writer and Davis on art. From reading online, I know there was a Cross-Time Caper storyline that went on far too long, and that Davis departed around the time it ended. Replaced by a number of artists who were Not Alan Davis. Claremont left, there were several issues written by Scott Lobdell (never a good sign) and then Davis returned in issue 42, as writer and penciler.

The run lasts 26 issues, concluding with #67, although there are several issues in the 50s that are either only written by Davis, or lack his involvement entirely. Most of those are also written by Scott Lobdell, but are included in the Visionaries collections Marvel did for Alan Davis' stint on the book. Which is how I collected the run, most of a decade ago.

Davis' run feels like it's about identity, or maybe free will. Self-determination? The initial storyline, which runs up to #50, is about how Excalibur came together as a team in the first place. Whether they have any control over their lives at all, or if they're just puppets of higher powers. (The answer would seem to be, "You'll never know for sure you make your own choices.")

Captain Britain in particular has to struggle with feeling manipulated, since so much of that story revolves around Roma and Merlin, who created the Captain Britain Corps. He can't figure out why he was so much better at being a hero on his own than he is in a team. Even after that, he has to decide who he wants to be, and what's important to him. If he's going to be Captain Britain, then that's what he has to do, he can't half-ass it. If he's going to be in a relationship with Meggan, then he needs to amek sure she knows how important she is to him.

Beyond that, Rachel Summers has her own struggles with identity, not aided in the least by the Phoenix Force's sentience hanging around. If Rachel's mind withdraws, the Phoenix can take control of her body, and the Phoenix likes being around on this plane of existence. And Rachel likes having its power, but it messes with her mind, costs her memories of her life before reaching this time period. The Phoenix has to make a choice, and then Rachel decides she has to go back to her time, at least long enough to make it a better place. 

Meggan sets out, with Rachel's assistance, to learn more about her origins, and grows more confident in herself. Nightcrawler struggles with being team leader, a role that didn't usually go well for him in his X-Men days. Between adding interstellar traveler Cerise and sheltered wizard Feron to the cast, both of whom don't know much about the world they inhabit, Shadowcat's the most stable member of the team. Kitty doesn't seem to really go through any major trials or tribulations. I don't know if Davis just didn't have anything in mind for her, or figured Claremont put her through enough of a wringer it was someone else's turn.

It's not all deadly serious stuff. For a few issues, periodic foe/annoyance Technet ends up living in the team's lighthouse and are briefly molded into a team by an injured Nightcrawler when the rest of Excalibur's elsewhere. One issue is set in another universe, where reptiles are the dominant force, so their Excalibur are talking, costumed reptiles. Davis' first issue begins with the team being attacked by an angry baby chick named "Hawd Boiled Henwy". Which immediately blows up. So that part's not so funny.

Davis is working with Mark Farmer as inker, and Glynis Oliver as colorist, and so the book just looks lovely. Most of the characters are very pretty people, especially the heroes, but there's just a variety of looks and styles. All of Technet are wildly different looking beings, for example. Even when there's more than one version of the character, their body language and expressions can tell you how the personalities differ. He's capable of body horror when it's needed (within reason, we're not talking Junji Ito here) for the Jamie Braddock issues, and he has to sense of timing and small details needed for humor. I'm particularly fond of the three-panel bit where Cerise investigates "lip massage" with Nightcrawler, and Kurt's tail is making these loops and twists while the clock in the background shows they've been at it a while.

Farmer is able to lend a weight to Davis' work to keep things from looking to sleek all the time. Oliver's colors are brilliant. The psychedelic look she gives everything when we see the world the way Meggan can, as energy, or Jamie does, as all these threads he can pull on. Or during the battle between Galactus and the Phoenix, the use of white space to make the battle almost blinding to represent the amount of energy these two are throwing at each other.

When Davis left, Lobdell took over as writer for over a year, with a run that I'm pretty sure is beloved by no one. He threw Rachel Summers somewhere off into Limbo, and decided Cerise was actually some sort of Shi'ar war criminal. Then came the Warren Ellis run, which I bought the Visionaries collections of the same time I bought Davis'. I don't own it any longer; removed it from the collection within a year or two of buying it. I didn't know about him being a creep, so I can't claim it was some moral stand. I just didn't enjoy it very much. Constantly shifting art teams (and very Nineties art most of the time), more Pete Wisdom than I required, some Hellfire Club machinations I wasn't interested in.

Friday, September 10, 2021

What I Bought 9/8/2021

I joke at work my allergies are a psychosomatic response to being at work, but I really wonder. My allergies are fine at home, and as soon as I get to work, nose starts running. It's clearly a sign for me to run away from that place, but I want to save my vacation days for a better time.

In more relevant, but probably no more interesting news, I went to the store hoping for four comics. Five, if I was really lucky. I found two. Oh well.

Defenders #2, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez (storytellers), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - They only had the Quinones variant with Strange and Masked Raider looking at the tarot deck. Man, we could have had Valkyrie or Beast on this team instead of the Surfer and friggin' Cloud? Well, OK, Beast is a morally compromised trashfire at this point, but if he dies while they're in another timeline, we might get a non-fucked up version back in Krakoa's resurrection protocol. And Valkyrie is still good.

6th Universe's version Galactus is a problem, especially since Strange can't trust his magic to do what he wants. I feel as though I did not understand the whole "letting magic do as it will" thing from the first issue. 7th Universe Galactus' mom has a Mother-Cube (slams head repeatedly against desk) that will help Omnimax feel things, and hopefully make him stop eating their planet. If the Surfer can keep his herald occupied. That herald being the evil scientist guy they're after. The Surfer tricks him and steals his power, but gets sent home in the process. Meanwhile, the rest of the team, plus Galactus' mom, is sent back to the 5th Universe, which appears to be a Lovecraftian horror show. I thought that was the Cancerverse. Everything old is new again is old again, or something.

Interesting the Surfer's the one not coming along, since he apparently knows who the Masked Raider is, and knows the Raider has somehow anticipated everything Strange has done. Ugh, I hope the Surfer is wrong about that. I hate those, "I knew you would do exactly that thing, no matter how risky or imbecilic," type characters. And unlike the Surfer, I have no idea who the Raider is, so I don't have any particular reason to give him benefit of the doubt, or not hate him on principle.

Not ecstatic Taaia is going to be tagging along either, since that means more of the "Kirby Speak". It still just feels so forced and needlessly meta-referential. But what the hell, they're going to throw her into a universe dominated by magic, so we'll see how she takes to that. Plus, her baby boy is alone back at her place now. I hope he doesn't get hungry.

At least the book looks gorgeous. The color work Rodriguez is doing looks fantastic. The battle between the Surfer and Carlo Zota is particularly nice, but also the way Omnimax' face is always in shadow, matching the Surfer's musings that this Devourer lacks the reluctance and regret in his feeding that marks Galactus' feeding. Granted, I've never cared much for Galactus' excuses that he only does what he must, or he is of cosmic consonance or whatever bullshit writers handwave for why characters shouldn't kill Big G when they have the chance, but I suppose him feeling bad about all those lives he snuffs out counts for a tiny bit of something.

Deadbox #1, by Mark Russell (writer), Benjamin Tiesma (artist), Vladimir Popov (colorist), Andworld (letterer) - Where are the custodial staff? How am I supposed to check to spinner rack with all that warm, blood-flavored corn syrup on the floor?

Penny is running her father's convenience store because he's taken ill, and she can't afford to go back to college. So she spends her evenings at home, watching movies out of the mysterious "Deadbox", with films no one has ever heard of. In this issue, the movie is about the humans sending a perfect representative to an alien world we've befriended through long-range communication. But it's a long voyage alone for the human, and by the time he arrives, he's not what his hosts expected.

Considering her father appears to be wasting away, and we see a DVD called "The Vanishing Man" in the panel just before, I'm assuming the two are related. Which means the film Penny watched is related to her fate somehow. The person who stays behind in a community she doesn't have a lot of love for, the whole God n' guns thing, but maybe she can't get back, either. Whatever she had in college, she's not getting back to it, and it's already forgotten about her. On to the next person hoping they can get a degree that will get them a useful job without falling too deep into the debt hole.

Tiesma's art has a scratchy, rough edge to it. Makes everyone look a little threadbare and weathered, while Popov's coloring is mostly a muted, muddy tone. It's a dying community most likely, at least economically. Hard to say about it socially, so far. It's not changing, it just settled at a certain point and began to decay. Although even the coloring for the movie is kind of odd. The representative (or "volunteer", as the movie keeps calling him) looks a greenish-grey even before his physical and mental state begin to decay, and while Earth is comparatively brighter than everything else, it's not blindingly so.

Thursday, September 09, 2021

The Machinist

That movie where Christian Bale emaciated himself for the role of a machine shop operator named Trevor who's been struggling with insomnia for a year. He doesn't know why he can't get any sleep, and each time it looks like he's close, something wakes him up. He has two people he confides in, a sex worker named Sheila and the waitress at an airport diner. Sheila harbors hopes of maybe having a domestic life with Trevor, while the waitress is a single mom, just like Trevor's mother was.

Trevor unravels increasingly fast over the course of the movie. He makes a mistake, costing a coworker a limb and gets paranoid the other guys are out for revenge. He's sure there's a mysterious coworker named Ivan everyone insists doesn't exist. Someone leaves a post-it note on his fridge. He keeps forgetting to pay his utilities bill, even though he's always on time with his rent.

It took me two-thirds of the movie to piece together what was going on, but at a certain point, about the time Trevor lets himself be hit by a car, it becomes pretty clear what the deal is. Which is OK, the movie does some fun stuff with Trevor's perceptions as he gets increasingly shaky and paranoid. I did get irritated with the frequent shots were the camera is looking at Trevor, and then he suddenly spies something over our shoulder. He always leans and cranes his neck like he has to peer around us, and the director seemed to enjoy dragging out the reveal of whatever it was (usually another post-it or Ivan). I don't need to see Christian Bale act confused that much.

In some ways, the movie feels like a bit of a throwback. Mostly in the music cues, which feel very on the nose and a bit like something out of a '60s suspense/thriller film. But also in some of the symbolism, with the left path/right path choices. The contrast between the impeccably clean living of the waitress, or how nice the diner looks, and the dingy, sickly look of all the flourescent lit places. The machine shop, his apartment (until his power is cut off), Sheila's place. The lighting really enhances the sunken cheeks and bony limbs Bale's rocking (seriously, that could not have been healthy for him.) 

Some of the scenes of Bale chasing after Ivan's car in his truck, peering through the windshield while tense music plays, reminded me of Janet Leigh's flight away from the city with the stolen loot in Psycho. Maybe the music, or the tension in Bale as he's staring so doggedly out the windshield while cars rush past going to other way. Where he's chasing, but really he's running away.

Wednesday, September 08, 2021

Thankfully, Things Get Better in November

After the disaster that was the October solicitations, November's are a real improvement. Even if a lot of the things that interest me are larger graphic novels I probably won't buy for months. Might as well start with those.

Image releases the first volume of Shadecraft, by Joe Robertson, Lee Garbett and Antonio Fabela. About a young woman who thinks shadows are trying to kill her. I couldn't quite commit to buying it when it was coming out, but maybe as a trade, I'll be able to pull the trigger. From A14 Books, there's Martin Stiff's Tiny Acts of Violence about a schoolteacher in late-1960s East Berlin being pursued by something. That one's $35, so it might be a while unless I win one of those $10,000 prizes Missouri's awarding for being vaccinated and just go nuts with the money. Volume 1 of Steve Orlando and Matthew Dow Smith's Dead Kings is out through Aftershock, about a man enlisting the help of an old soldier to rescue his younger brother from a work camp in some dystopian world.

Is that all? Not even close! 1903: Manhunt is about a sheriff and his deputy trying to hunt down a killer who escaped prison to take revenge on his gang that betrayed him. Judging by the mouth on the shadow in the background of the cover, the killer is either Venom or Killer Croc. Anyway, that's by Federico Galeotti and Francesco Mazzoli, through New Friday (or Lev Gleason - New Friday). Magnetic Press has Carbon Silicon by Mathieu Bablet, about two robots designed to care for humans who are separated for 100 years. We get to see the fall of humanity through their eyes.

What do you mean I need to pick less depressing books? OK, how about this, Genghis Con by Oliver Ho, Daniel Reynolds, Ruth Redmond and Chris Peterson, about a grifter trying to help her sister by winning a rally race from England to Mongolia. Maybe there'll be Vikings with beehive catapults like Speed Racer! Probably not, but there could be. Or the second volume of Strange Adventures of a Broke Mercenary? I'm sure a down-on-his-luck merc taking a job from a mysterious princess can lead to nothing but good times!

OK, that's all the collected edition stuff. Single issues, Moon Knight is up to issue 5, Defenders up to issue 4. Giant-Size Black Cat is going to be the culmination of MacKay's time writing the character. And Walter Mosley and Tom Reilly are working on a Thing book. I'm not clear on if it's a one-shot or an ongoing, though. I'm not going to buy this, but I'll mention Marvel decided the proper writer to follow Al Ewing on Incredible Hulk is Donny Cates. Cripes, why not just bring Howard Mackie back?

Source Point has the fourth issue of Yuki vs. Panda, but that's of no concern to me now. Besides, the solicit says the panda might make a friend, and that is still not what I wanted. There's also Tales from the Dead Astronaut. I assume Jonathan Thompson and Jorge Luis Gabotto are using the astronaut corpse as the storyteller or narrator for a bunch of unconnected short stories. Like the Cryptkeeper.

Vault didn't have Deadbox listed, but the first issue was supposed to ship in August and I haven't seen any sign, so maybe that's why. There is issue two of Rush, and the first issue of a book called Lunar Room, about a former werewolf bodyguard being hired by a mage. Judging by the main character's clothes, it's going to be more of a present day setting than medieval, which suits me fine. Finally, from Image is Grrl Scouts, which is a series of mini-series Jim Mahfood's been doing since the late '90s, I guess. I should probably try to read some of the earlier ones before I commit myself to buying the newest one, but he did the cover art for Alex' album, so I ought to at least keep an eye out for this.

Tuesday, September 07, 2021

The Addams Family (1991)

I decided to watch this again for the first time in a couple of decades because of a post I saw online with an excerpt from a screenwriter's notes about how they wanted Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) to give off demonic levels of horniness in every scene they were in together. I was curious to see if that came off in what is basically a family comedy.

Of course, I Googled it last week trying to find that post, and it turns out the person who originally tweeted it made it up as a joke. Well, shit. But what the hell, watch the movie anyway and see if it's an accurate description.

I'd say, yes, pretty much. Maybe not every scene they're in; but the exceptions are understandable. When Gomez is depressed and lost over the betrayal by Fester, for example. Not really appropriate to the mood the movie is going for then. Otherwise, yeah, those two are pretty much down to fuck all the time.

It's fun to watch Huston and Julia flirt and swoon over each other constantly, though. Gomez is much more over the top, while Morticia is very composed, with a dry sense of humor. Huston lets a bit of the emotion out as needed, just glimpses to hint at what's lurking underneath. Meanwhile, Raul Julia's over here looking like he's having the time of his life leaping around with swords and doing Cossack dances.

The movie does, as far as I know, capture the feel of the old TV show and the New Yorker cartoons that, for all they're a little kooky, the Addams are a close-knit loving family. It's just that their idea of siblings playing together involves electric chairs and meat cleavers. And the actors play it all perfectly straight, because it is normal to their characters. 

Really, even the other characters don't act like it's too weird. Like the judge doesn't hate the Addamses because they're weirdos. He hates them because Gomez keeps hitting golf balls through his windows. Which is, frankly, kind of a dick move, and also kind of stupid to piss off a judge. Tully accepts Gomez wants to swordfight whenever he visits. It annoys him, just like the Gate catching his jacket, but he's used to it. When Gomez and Morticia get in a bidding war over the Chinese finger trap they put up for the charity auction, and it practically turns into foreplay, nobody in the audience blinks an eye. That's just how Gomez and Morticia act. (There's one notable exception, but I'll get to him.)

Which lets the audience react on their own terms rather than nudging them and going "eh, eh? Pretty weird, right? Bet you'd like to laugh at it, huh?"

The plot's kind of an odd duck. Not the part about someone trying to steal the family fortune and their home. I feel like 75% of all family movies in the '80s and '90s involved someone losing their house. Ah, for the days when people could actually dream of having a house to get stolen/robbed/bulldozed as part of a major commercial development. 

The bit where Fester's been missing for 25 years, and returns is a little more unusual. Fester's the one who does react to the oddness of the family. Which, since he's supposed to be an imposter initially, and isn't from around there, makes perfect sense. But even then Christopher Lloyd doesn't play Fester as grossed out, so much as just confused. Because Gomez keeps expecting him to remember things, and he doesn't know them. He gets scared when they travel down an unexpected slide, but it's because he was caught by surprise. Understandable reactions, especially if you factor in the eventual amnesia explanation, and figure some part of him feels this is normal.

I'm not sure why Christopher Lloyd decided to wear a "I just pooped" look through most of the movie, but he does. Interesting choice to be sure.

Monday, September 06, 2021

God, the Devil, and Fashion

Behold the Staff of God. *snorts and snickers*

I said I'd review the first volume of Eniale & Dewiela soon. Well, it's soon.

The chapters are a mix of the duo getting into trouble while trying to do their respective duties (saving souls for Eniale, buying them for Dewiela), and the two of them getting into trouble while just running around having fun. All the chapters are standalone, although a few of the characters will make a return appearance in volume 3.

Most notable of those is an Interpol agent who is also a trained exorcist. Unlike everyone else, he's convinced a giant poodle appearing in the middle of a city causing and calling forth for "mother" can only be the work of demons. He stumbles across Dewiela's possessed motorcycle while she and Eniale are loose in Paris replacing their wardrobes. He's hard to take seriously, not the least for the fact his robe makes me think he's some dropout from Harry Potter school. Oh, and he chases Dewiela and her blonde "hostage" across the city on a Segway. What a putz.

The other, and more touching, chapter with an eventually returning character involves Maria, a little girl whose mother is sick and dying. The girl has called on any higher or lower power she can, which brings our protagonists to her door. This was one where I really thought Dewiela was going to win, as Eniale admits that she is not an angel with sufficient power to actually do anything. All she can offer is to live a good life and maybe someday God will smile upon blah blah blah. You know what I'm talking about.

That's not how it goes, as Eniale cheats to sort of perform a great miracle on behalf of Maria and her mother, granting them a boon from the Archangel of Death. It's a clever move, but more than a little dishonest. I felt bad for Dewiela. Sure, she took advantage of desperate people in exchange for their souls, but those people made those bargains knowing what they were giving up. It's restraint of fair trade is what it is. Which means God's a socialist, which, yeah, that tracks, contrary to what Fox News and those mega-church dipshits say.