Wednesday, July 19, 2023

What I Bought 7/15/2023 - Part 2

Have any of the five of you still using Blogger been notified one of your posts has been hidden because it violated their standards recently? I got that message last month - about a review of Deadpool #25 I did in January of 2017. It didn't say what the violation was, and all I had to do was edit the post and ask for a review to get that removed, but still. This AI, machine learning, algorithm stuff is such a load of horseshit.

Midnight Western Theatre: With Trial #1, by Louis Southard (writer), Butch Mapa (artist), Sean Peacock (colorist), Buddy Beaudoin (letterer) - Feel as though Ortensia might resent being drawn with flowers in her hair.

Southard and Mapa start where Southard and Hahn ended the previous mini-series, more or less. In 1848, Ortensia woke up on a slab in the woods, hair a different color and surrounded by the bodies of the men who killed her and her father. Turns out the morons summoned a different demon than intended and it, for reasons yet unknown, took their lives and gave them to Ortensia. They wanted immortality, but I wonder if that's what she got, or if she simply has to die 4 more times before it sticks.

From there, the story jumps ahead to 1857 (six years before she met Alexander). Ortensia is apprenticing or sidekicking for Sarah, the witch who found her wandering in the forest after the sacrifice. Ortensia hasn't developed her fashion style yet, and Mapa has her far more open with her emotions than Hahn did. Southard also writes her as more of a mouthy teenager compared to the brusque and frequently grouchy woman in the first mini-series.

But it's a different relationship between the leads. Ortensia and Alexander will be partners and friends. Sarah is a teacher and surrogate parent. Sometimes a little smug, like when she casually blows smoke off her finger after saving Ortensia, and sometimes gentle when Ortensia is sad. Sometimes exasperated when Ortensia insists on naming her horse, "Horse". But when those two are interacting, even if Peacock colors the room they're in red, the shadows on them are limited. Their faces are open and visible, whereas there are a lot more shadows when Ortensia's fighting zombies or Sarah's talking with the Plague Doctor.

The two of them handle various paranormal problems like zombies. Although Mapa draws Ortensia with a muzzle-loading rifle that she shoots several times without having to reload. My dad would be so annoyed, assuming the zombie stuff hadn't put him off anyway. They seem to get tips from the Plague Doctor that showed up on one page of the third issue of the previous series, and seems to have his own stuff going on in the background. Real "One-Who-Knows" vibe. Makes excuses for not mentioning important things sooner, that kind of guy.

The specific problem he only now mentioned is a demon that stole Sarah's soul has returned, and he's interested in Ortensia. And he's in the form of a well-dressed man of some local importance, though Sarah doesn't know this and if the Plague Doctor does, he ain't talking. And the demon already found Ortensia, who hasn't been taught not to trust someone who dresses all in white in the Old West. With all the dust and cow shit, they're either complete idiots or messing with dark powers to avoid looking filthy at all times.

So there's likely to be conflict between Ortensia and Sarah, the latter trying to keep the former away from Corson, who will either try to woo Ortensia or convince that he's a monster yes, but one who wants to do better. Could she please help?

2 comments:

thekelvingreen said...

I think the content warning thing happened to me on one post a few months ago, but just the once and not since. Good old Google.

CalvinPitt said...

As long as it sticks to just once, that's fine. Remains an amusing anecdote.