Taking the Plunge

At least with Tsubaki's infatuation with Renji, I can be confident Konishi won't pull an "enemies to lovers" thing with these two. 

It's been about 5 months since we looked at volume 4 of Yakuza Fiance, with Kirishima and Yoshino on Yoshino's home turf around Osaka, dealing with a bunch of goons out for revenge after they got humiliated in volumes 1 and 2. Yoshino tried clearing a path for Kirishima to get at the guy who seemed to be masterminding it, and Kirishima promptly ignored her in favor of his own plan. Which is to lure the goons to a street that's crowded after a fireworks festival, then ambush the idiots one at a time. Simple, time-consuming, but probably ultimately effective.

But while he's doing things the slow way, Yoshino's still following the pretty boy, who confronts the main goon about not following the plan. More critically, Pretty Boy reveals someone is pulling his strings. A guy named Azami, who eventually confronts Kirishima.

Kirishima recognizes him once he gets off the surgical mask Azami wears to cover a facial scar, though how he knows him is not revealed. But Azami's not here for Kirishima. In fact, despite the knife fight with no clear victor, and Kirishima ending up with a bite on his forearm, Azami insists no one except trash like those goons would care about Kirishima. Azami was here to meet Yoshino. Why? Again, unknown, though the guy with the squirrel's nest hairdo fighting Shouma hints there's going to be some big turf war soon.

While the boys are having inconclusive fights, Yoshino manages to bring down the main goon, even if it isn't the prettiest win. He knocks out one of her teeth and bloodies her nose, while she bangs up her knees when she does a bike jump into his face. Still, she makes it work

With Azami and Squirrel Nest receding into the shadows, the goon squad back in the hospital, and Pretty Boy blackmailed into backing off, Yoshino now has to deal with the consequences of her bet with Kirishima. He did wrap things up before midnight, though it would have gone smoother if he just worked with Yoshino. Either way, between that and Yoshino losing at rock-paper-scissors, they are now officially dating.

Of course, Yoshino has no idea what that entails, and there's also the fact she's trying (and failing) to keep her grandfather from finding out what they were up to. . .

So the volume draws a line under a few minor things. I assume after this second ass-kicking these goons will finally get a clue and stay away. Kirishima presumably won't be sleeping with other women if he's dating Yoshino. But it's more about foreshadowing. We see Kirishima and Renji together, and Konishi also fleshes out some more backstory between Renji and Gaku (Kirishima's great-uncle.) Though I don't see the sharp resemblance between Gaku and Kirishima that Renji claims is their. Even the flashbacks to Young Gaku, his eyes are narrower and his forehead rounder.

I think that sequence is mostly to reinforce the idea of Renji as this sort of goofball, who stole his friend's car and wrecked it, then showed up with a bicycle he found abandoned and got his ass kicked. All of which set-ups the reveal he knew all about what Kirishima and Yoshino got up to, and he's not so mellow a guy as he appears. He knows something big is coming, and he may not be able to protect Yoshino from it. Or maybe from himself, as it's heavily implied he knows his son's death was no accident, but held off from going for revenge for some, again unknown, reason. 

Besides all that ominous stuff, we see more of Yoshino and Shouma's relationship, where he wants to look out for her, but also busts her chops when she does something like borrow the family truck for surveillance. The part where Yoshino explains how she figured things out, and Kirishima admits she slipped a couple of things past him was nice. Contrary to what Kirishima says about how he'd do anything to make her like him, he's always the one that seems to have the upper hand. It feels like Yoshino ought to get a win once in a while.

There's also a somewhat random reveal that Shouma and Tsubaki hate each other. I guess Konishi wanted a different kind of friction than between Shouma and Kirishima, since those two are quick to move to violence. And lo and behold, the volume ends with the two of them meeting in an empty park.

Sunday Splash Page #407

"Big Trouble," in Spider-Man #22, by Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Gregory Wright (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

We're getting to this book now because eventually (75 issues into its 98-issue run), the book's title became Peter Parker: Spider-Man. When they restarted the Spider-titles at #1 after "The Final Chapter", they kept that title, and I bought that book for a couple years (see next week), so that's where this got stored.

But before all that, the book was a Todd MacFarlane vanity project. Todd Mac was the hot name in comics, so Marvel gave him his own book, either to capitalize on his popularity, or just to try and keep him around. If the latter, it didn't work, since MacFarlane was one of the seven who founded Image Comics, and departed with issue 16.

I've discussed in Splash Page entries for Spectacular Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man, that it's hard to see any real principle that distinguishes those books from Amazing Spider-Man. Spectacular might have started with a notion to focus more on "Peter Parker", but the civilian side of Peter's life is such a big part of the Spider-Man formula that doesn't really do anything. Amazing wasn't exactly ignoring the Peter Parker side of things.

The best you can probably get is a writer who pursues a particular interest and puts that stamp on the book. J.M. DeMatteis eventually focused Spectacular on the psychological trauma that causes someone to put on a costume and fight or commit crimes. Likewise, I might say Gerry Conway leaned Web heavily into organized crime stories, jostling for territory or dominance (albeit in a very superhero way of big, public battles for Spider-Man to get involved with.)

If I were to try and summarize MacFarlane's run on Spider-Man, it'd be horror. He had basically 4 stories, not counting the final issue crossover with X-Force. You get Spider-Man being attacked psychically by Calypso, who is also controlling the Lizard to make him more feral and vicious (to attack Spider-Man physically.) Or Spider-Man is caught between Ghost Rider and a version of Hobgoblin that's fright mask is his face, but thinks he's a servant of God out to punish sinners. Or the Wendigo shows up, or Spider-Man has to deal with Morbius ruling a sewer kingdom of homeless people with mental health issues. It's all monsters, with at least a hint of the supernatural to them.

Also guest appearances by popular characters like Wolverine and Ghost Rider. Can't forget that!

I'm going off vague impressions. I only had a few issues of MacFarlane's run. Apparently, Nineties Calvin wasn't looking for horror in his Spider-Man comics. But once Todd Mac leaves, the book's adrift. For 30 issues, it cycles between creative teams, each popping up for one story, then moving aside. Erik Larsen's "Revenge of the Sinister Six" is the only one that goes beyond 3 issues, it and the one-shot by Ann Nocenti and Rick Leonardi that precede it are all that I still have.

Issue 45 marks the point where Marvel starts doing a lot of stories that run across all the monthly Spider-titles. Spider-Man becomes less a book of its own - for what that's worth - more a cog in a larger mechanism, especially as The Clone Saga revs up. It's Howard Mackie and Tom Lyle for ~20 issues, then John Romita Jr. takes over as the regular penciler for the most of the last 30+ issues. Through "Ben Reilly is Spider-Man", the return of Norman Osborn/end of the Clone Saga (which is when the book adds "Peter Parker" to the title), and the generally directionless last two years of the book.

I own scattered issues. Peter and Ben fighting Sentinels during Onslaught. Spider-Man getting on the Juggernaut's bad side for an issue. Identity Crisis. The closest thing to an overarching theme I can find is Norman Osborn making life difficult for Peter and Spider-Man. There's some other stuff about Captain George Stacy's brother and his two kids, Jill and Paul, showing up. I think Paul turns out to be a bigot, but I can't pretend I care.

Saturday Splash Page #209

"Chessboard," in Rocket #5, by Al Ewing (writer), Adam Gorham (artist), Michael Garland (colorist), Jeff Eckleberry (letterer)

After Skottie Young's Rocket Raccoon, there was Rocket Raccoon and Groot, also written by Young, but drawn by Filipe Andrade, whose art ensured I didn't last past issue #1. Post-Secret Wars, there was a brief Rocket series when the Guardians were stuck on Earth for some reason. And in late 2017, we get this, ultimately 6-issue mini-series, about Rocket being duped into pulling a heist, then trying to pull another heist to balance all debts.

Most of it feels like Ewing using Rocket to write a noir/heist story. You've got Rocket getting fooled by a lady otter from his past into stealing land deeds for a corporation. He ends up working with another dangerous, amoral woman and her crew (Gatecrasher and Technet.) There's a prison break, one much quieter and less chaotic than Skottie Young's, although the freak out Rocket fakes to kick off his plan feels like a play off Young's feral, hyper-violent version.

The art mirrors the tone. Gorham's Rocket is similar to Young's in proportions and stance, but this isn't a book for exaggerated reactions, so there's none of that. A lot of the people involved are wearing nice suits or dresses like you'd see on Earth, rather than anything alien. The prison Rocket's stuck in is (with the exception of its version of solitary) much like an Earth prison.

Ewing's Rocket has some charm and plenty of self-confidence, but mostly accepts double-crosses and bad outcomes with muttered curses and weary resignation. He's not shooting wildly or hamming things up for the hell of it. If the book isn't necessarily drenched in shadows like a noir, Garland keeps the colors dulled. The setting being outer space may be strange to us, but it's old hat to Rocket. There's nothing bright or whiz-bang about it these days.

Even a group of oddballs like Technet is treated as something that isn't noteworthy or odd. Not that they're played as a joke, just that, with the exception of Joyboy (who's more malevolent in Ewing's hands than I remember from Alan Davis' Excalibur), their powers and their shtick are not considered strange. They aren't adversaries, even when they cook up a scheme to keep busting Rocket out of prison so they can turn him in again for the bounty. They're businesspeople, who can be negotiated and bargained with, if you speak the language. So they aren't (again, excepting Joyboy), drawn as particularly menacing.

In the last issue, Ewing's tries to make most of the past Rocket Raccoon stuff fit. The events of the Mantlo/Mignola mini-series did happen, no longer just some stuff in a book Rocket scoffs at. Rocket was the protector of the Keystone Quadrant. He fought killer clowns and lethal clouds to protect the Loonies, alongside his pal Wal, and his lady love Lylla. They left their home, and in the wider galaxy, Rocket stopped being so heroic, fell in with Otta, got arrested, met Star-Lord. "Blam! Murdered you!" gets referenced, though this Rocket is more cerebral, playing with him being an innate tactical genius. Never busting out any ludicrously large guns, and mostly trying to avoid killing.

(The series doesn't address the back-up story in Annihilators where Halfworld is still a psychiatric planet, and only Rocket actually left, and that because there's a dangerous bit of info stored in his mind, although Ewing does have Lylla and Blackjack O'Hare end up married, which was a part of that.)

Ewing doesn't really explain how Rocket ended up like this beyond "people change." Stuff keeps happening, time keeps passing, and one day, you aren't the person you used to be. At least, that's what Rocket tells himself. It's apparent at least part of the guy he used to be is still in there. Otta manipulates him by making him think they're helping the little guy, and even after all that, he still tries to reason with her. So if that guy is still in there somewhere, was it the rift with Lylla that caused Rocket to try and bury that part of himself, or did the shift cause the rift? Or are they simply unrelated outcomes of being thrown into a much wider, more dangerous universe?

I want to add the book isn't all misery and betrayal. There's a gag with Rocket's attorneys in issue 2, and there's a Deadpool team-up in issue 4. Granted, Deadpool is running from his fuck-ups during Secret Empire, but Ewing gets some mileage out of 'Pool trying to pretend to be a gangster, and Rocket getting absolutely none of his references. Well, why would he? All of Star-Lord's are from the '80s, and Deadpool's are even more dated than that!

Random Back Issues #165 - Guardians of the Galaxy #10

That's King Monkey-Face, to you, beardo. 

Last year, we looked at 3 issues of this series from around and after War of Kings. Here, the cast is still picking its way out of the mess Secret Invasion tie-ins caused, where it was revealed Star-Lord had Mantis telepathically nudge several members of the team into joining.

Given the roster, it's a miracle no one got stabbed, but Drax left to search for Cammi, Phylla-Vell in tow (they're not in this issue.) Earlier, the team fought the Universal Church of Truth, so Adam Warlock's decided to confront them, with Gamora. Warlock tells the "Matriarch" he's the messiah their religion foretells, and while she allows there is prophecy of a Warlock, how do they know it's him? Adam vows to prove himself by saving the universe from the "war of kings" his visions warn of, and departs.

This leaves the Matriarch with a conundrum: if Adam Warlock's out and about, who's in the cocoon the Church already has? Whoever it is, they don't appreciate the Matriarch touching the cocoon, but she still seems determined to have it opened as soon as possible. ('As soon as possible' won't be for over 10 issues, and it won't be her doing when it happens.)

Feeling guilty, Star-Lord went solo to investigate reports from Kree space and found them building a Babel Spire like the Phalanx had, as a potential defense. He objected, Ronan overruled, and Quill wound up dumped in the Negative Zone, into Blastaar's hands. Sorry, King Blastaar, busy trying to break into the prison Tony Stark and Reed Richards built, so he can invade their universe.

Quill agreed to negotiate with the prisoners (the guards fled through the portal and sealed it behind them.) He instead teamed up with former Captain America sidekick Jack Flag (in a wheelchair after Bullseye knifed him in the spine in Ellis' Thunderbolts) to try and get some help and keep Blastaar out. Unfortunately, one of the prisoners, Skeleton Ki, opened the prison gates, so Blastaar's inside and pissed at Quill. The Guardians - Rocket, Mantis, Major Victory, Groot, and Bug - tried to teleport to Quill's location, but the locator was in his helmet, which was he wasn't wearing. So they landed in the middle of Blastaar's army.

Quill and Flag are in the middle of fighting off three inmates they got into it with last issue when Mantis telepathically locates Quill and sends the coordinates to Cosmo, who beams them to Quill to make the save. Especially as King Blastaar Kool-Aid Mans through the wall just in time to watch the Guardians and Jack Flag teleport away. Still, Blastaar soon controls the prison, everyone either joining him or dying. On the joining side? Skeleton Ki, who is ordered to find a way to open that portal, or else.

(Abnett and Lanning never pay off Blastaar's anger at Quill saying he'll act as negotiator then immediately switching sides, but they also never did anything with any hard feelings about Mantis' continued presence on the team after her part in Star-Lord's manipulations.)

Later, the Guardians visit Earth to tell Reed Richards and a couple of those dickheads from the Initiative comic (the soldier with the bionic arm who always ran down the New Warriors, and the literal Nazi mad scientist) to never open the portal. None of the Earthers seem all that impressed by Star-Lord's explanation they're the Guardians of the Galaxy. Reed should at least know Mantis and have some idea who Major Victory is, right? Ben Grimm teamed up the with OG Guardians, and the future New Warrior version of Vance is Ben's buddy. Then again, Quill refers to them as the "Fabulous Four," so there's disrespect and ignorance flying all directions.

Back in Knowhere, a doctor fixed Jack's spine with space medicine, but he's got nowhere to go, seeing as he's a criminal on Earth, and hates 'cosmic stuff.' So he joins the team. And Major Victory visits the Starhawk (not one he knows) the team captured a few issues ago, who keeps speaking of an 'error' that signals the end of everything.

{5th longbox, 91st comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #10, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olazaba and Livesay (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick - Joe Schreiber

Perry Stromaire's a high school senior whose family in sponsoring an exchange student for the year. Gobija Zaksauskas - "Call me Gobi," she said - is quiet and unassuming, certainly not the hot foreign girl Perry might have dreamed of, but harmless enough.

Until she asks to attend prom in her last week with them, and Perry's father decrees Perry's taking her. That Perry's friend got their band a gig in Manhattan that night is of no relevance. Maybe worse than no relevance, since his father wants Perry to focus on getting into Columbia Law School, and with regards to Perry's life, what his dad wants, his dad gets. So, off to prom!

Prom's a bust, and they don't stay long, but it turns out, Gobi really wants to go into Manhattan. Also, Gobi looks a lot different when she lets her hair down and ditches the shapeless clothes in favor of the sort of stuff that gets bouncers waving you into nightclubs. Perry's a little too gobsmacked to react until a dead body lands on the hood of his dad's Jaguar, and we're off.

Schrieber blows through the premise set-up, Perry's backstory, his family situation, all that pretty quick. They're out of the prom in less than 30 pages, and the corpse is on the hood 10 pages later. But the book is only 190 pages, so there's not much time to waste, with 5 people that need to die, plus allowing time for Perry to freak out about all the killing, to try and figure out Gobi, and start to grow a backbone.

The book doesn't really focus on the violence, in the sense of writing gun fights and martial arts or anything like that. Because it's written from Perry's perspective, and at the start, he's not there when Gobi goes about her business. Later, he's there, but he's not aware enough to register that sort of thing. The gunfire is deafening, or his mind locks on the image of blood burbling from the mouth of a man she's just stabbed.

Instead, it's Perry vacillating between whether he's going to stick with this or not, trying to get something out of Gobi about why she's doing all this, as she casually pulls him apart. Occasionally their conversations are funny, when she teases him about things she overheard because she's tapped the phone lines, but usually it feels more like she's doing it to manipulate him. Goad him into defying his father, because it helps her. But she could just intimidate him. She even does a few times, to varying effect, but not always, and not always as her first approach. And so it's a bit of a mystery for us (I don't think Perry is thinking enough to wonder) of why she bothers talking or answering his questions.

Schrieber also has each chapter begin with a prompt from a college entrance exam, the university listed in parentheses. These are usually meant to reflect something about the chapter itself - the prompt for the chapter after the corpse hits the hood asks to reflect on a moment when thinking as usual wasn't possible, for example. It's a cute conceit, though it mostly made me relieved I don't have to deal with that crap any longer. 

'At first I didn't think I'd even be able to play - I had way too much going on in my mind - but to my profound surprise, my fingers didn't seem to care. Apparently, if you wanted to rock, it didn't matter if you had explosives in the basement, or a father with a chronic problem with keeping his dick in his pants, or a crazed ex-Blackwater employee with some religious conviction for ripping your head off.

Hell, it might have helped.' 

The Grey (2011)

The "Liam Neeson fights wolves" movie, though it would more accurately be described as the "Liam Neeson tries unsuccessfully to lead a group of people away from wolves," movie.

Because he does fail. Fails miserably. Of the six people, besides Ottway (Neeson) himself, that survive the plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness at the start of the movie, none survive. Not one. His rationale for leaving the crash site and trekking through the woods is, 1) no search plane will find them here before they starve, and 2) to get out of the wolves' "kill radius", an area too close to the wolves' den for them to tolerate outsiders.

Given that at the end of the movie, Ottway has wandered right to the den, I half-expected a cut to a full search and rescue team scouring the crash site at that very moment. A real twist of the knife, like the end of that one film adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist.

But, I suppose it fits with what his character wrote at the beginning of the movie, that he feels he's stopped doing the world any good. He tried, tried to rally the survivors, keep them together, keep them alive through injuries and fear and very aggressive wolves and one guy's contrary asshole tendencies. Put all this knowledge he's acquired somewhere to work preserving lives. And he failed. The injuries slowed them down and the wolves took them. Or their makeshift equipment failed and the wolves took them. Or they just ran out of steam and stayed down, and the wolves took them.

It's clever of the movie that, the further they travel, the more the ice and snow begin to recede. At first they're just in a world of swirling white, but when they reach the trees, we mostly only see the trunks. Or it's dark, some the limbs and pine needles are just a dark mass. But then we start to see green, and there's a flowing stream. They aren't bundled up as tightly against the cold. The sun is coming out! Even though their numbers are dwindling, it feels like they're closer to escape, and then, surprise! Wolf den!

At one point, as the other survivors discuss what they have waiting for them, Ottway mentions he can't believe in the afterlife or God, though he wants to. Eventually, he does shout at the sky, demanding some sign, but not until after everyone else was dead. Which made me wonder what kind of sign he was looking for. A lightning bolt to smite him? A care package airdropped from a search plane that cracks his skull open? Either way, I suspect we're meant to infer where he ended up as the sign. That, having failed at protecting life, this is what he wanted: one last chance to take life.

Although, there were times, when Ottway would awaken and the position of the camera showed only him, I wondered if he was actually dreaming again. Or maybe this whole notion anyone survived was a fever dream, and he was the lone survivor. (Or a concussion. It wound up being hypoxia, but I thought the one guy's problem might have been he took a bad knock to the head in the crash and maybe there was brain bleeding or something.) Ottway was always the one carrying that sack full of wallets, preserve their memories, if not their lives.

That's maybe a little Aguirre, the Wrath of God - a man whose obsession ultimately severs him from reality - but, I mean, the wolf waits for him to do his battle prep, when the wolves seemed content to attack any time they dropped their guard up to the point. Now they wait for him to get ready?

Re-Branding X-Ercise

Danger's stint on the Jean Grey Academy's debate team was brief and disastrous. 

"Not Brand X" covers the first 6 issues of All-New X-Factor, the 2014 series by Peter David (writer), Carmine Di Giandomenico (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), and Cory Petit (letterer), with Rachelle Rosenberg replacing Loughridge as colorist for issue 4.

X-Factor has, at various times, referred to a covert (in the sense they pretended to be mutant-hunters), corporate-funded attempt to find and train young mutants, a government-sponsored super-team, and a detective agency. This version is a bit of the first two, as the team (assembled haphazardly over the course of this tpb) works for Serval Industries, as their corporate spokepeople/mascot/troubleshooters.

So, the team comes together over the course of a few different missions. In one case, Serval has intel a noted researcher is experimenting on mutants for AIM, and so the team goes to make a rescue (and Serval's CEO gets to offer the scientist a job.) In another, someone manage to hack Serval's systems and swipe several million dollars. This leads them to a technomancer who's using Danger. As in, the sentient Danger Room that was yet another retconned piece of assholery added to Xavier's ever-growing list. One wonders when Chuck found the time to train any mutants.

David keeps each mission to 1 or 2 issues, while still allowing time to hint at other things going on where the heroes aren't looking. The CEO had some nanobot camera installed in Polaris' eye when she wasn't looking. He's also sleeping with his top assistant, but his wife knows about it. And there's the question of what he wants with the researcher the team captured.

The team is a peculiar mix of unstable personalities and loyalties. Polaris had apparently been acting unstable again recently, and seems to alternate between responsible adult and really aggressive and violent. Gambit decides this is more productive than pretending to be a teacher at Logan's school, and less restrictive on his thieving. He's still kind of a shitbag, but perceptive enough to realize Quicksilver's here to spy on them for the (Uncanny) Avengers, specifically, for Havok.

Alex Summers continuing to manage the impressive feat of being the worst Summers brother. How?! He's related to Cyclops! The bar to clear is so subterranean the Mole Man couldn't find it! And yet, still manages to be worse!

Danger's blunt, with limited respect for personal boundaries or discretion. In her defense, everyone keeps lying to her for various reasons. When it turns out a company Serval planned to acquire is actually run by Warlock's dad the Magus, and Warlock appears to be helping, the team goes to visit a suicidal Doug Ramsey, and that eventually brings Warlock (instantly smitten with Danger) into the fold.

Di Giandomenico's art is highly detailed. The individual wires, cables or metal plates that make up Danger or Warlock lovingly rendered. Or the creases in Gambit's leather jacket, or his stubble. Unfortunately, between there typically being a lot of panels on a given page, those details can get a bit muddled. It's not always easy to tell what's going on in panels with multiple characters or a lot of action. When there's more room, a broader shot, or a close-up focused on just one character, it's less of an issue, but there are times it's muddled. I don't really like the colored lenses Polaris and Gambit wear over their eyes, like sunglasses with no stem or connective pieces. At certain times, they almost seem like they are the characters' eyes, and it always feels wrong in a way that draws me up short.

Most of the time, Loughridge's colors run towards yellows and oranges - which seem to be Serval's company colors - which seems to work all right. But he seems to favor deeper or darker tones on his colors, to the point those yellows almost feel like a weight. And when he goes to darker colors, the purple he uses for Doug's nightmare, for example, it obscures the art to the point I can hardly tell what I'm looking at. (It doesn't help that Di Giandomenico's Evil Future Doug looks so little like his present day self, I would have never known who it was if Karma didn't say his name. He looks more like Trevor Fitzroy.)

David doesn't really explain whatever is going on in the characters recent history - I don't know why Doug's having dreams of an older version of himself turning evil and torturing his old New Mutants pals, or when Polaris got drunk and tried to kill Quicksilver - but those are apparently things that happened, and David uses them to create a roster that seems to be there either for lack of better options, or some misplaced sense of loyalty. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of unity among the cast, which is at least a way for potential future discord, or simply for them not to catch up to whatever Serval's really doing.

Sunday Splash Page #406

"Traffic Gods," in The Pedestrian #2, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (color artist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

The 4th issue promised there'd be more of this series, but it's been a year since then and I haven't seen even a solicitation for one, we're going forward. 

So, for around six months, there's been a vigilante roaming the streets of Summer City. Well, not the streets so much as the sidewalks. Crosswalks, too. He shows up, helps people in danger, and then speed-walks into the night with nary a word. What's his deal? Well, it has something to do with that assemblage up there, but it's unclear how much the man inside the suit is an active part of the whole thing. There's also an opposing force, represented by the big red hand in the "DON'T WALK" sign, and while The Pedestrian has one person in his corner - a veteran now working as a crossing guard - the opposition is grabbing all the new recruits it can.

With The Pedestrian a silent figure, likely in the thrall of forces larger than himself, and the other guy's identity a secret, a lot of Esposito and von Gorman's focus is on the regular people drawn into the orbit of these forces. Not only Kira, a young woman the Pedestrian saves from a mugging on her way home, but also James Tucker, the guy who tried mugging her. Twin brothers, Syndey and Jeremy, new to town and nearly run over by a drunk driver, who Kira ends up babysitting later. Randy, who The Pedestrian helps parallel park one time, and vaguely knew James in high school. There's a detective, investigating the vigilante, trying to figure out what his deal is.

Nothing is exactly working out for these people. Randy was pre-med, but dropped out after a year, due to a drinking issue. Now she works at seemingly the only pizza place in town. Kira can barely afford a studio apartment shared with 3 people, and loses her job because her being interviewed on the news about her mugging makes it look like the store is in the "bad" part of town. Jeremy and Sydney seem to have come from a school district with lots of extracurriculars, and that's not the case at their new school, so they feel isolated. James takes a lot of abuse as the cashier of a crappy local hardware store, and goes home every night to an empty apartment and orders pizza. Detective Sherwood is sort of a joke among her coworkers, and even her father thought she was a fool for thinking she could make the city a better place.

For all of them, Summer City is like a vortex they can't escape. Nothing seems to get better, no avenues for improvement of their lot in life are available. So it becomes a question of whether they fight the pull, or surrender to it. But they are, at the end of the day, regular people. Von Gorman doesn't draw any idealized bodies or figures. A lot of the characters slouch, or walk with a stooped-shoulders, defeated gait. The detective has some stress lines on her face, James has the kind of stubble that just looks sloppy, not whatever it is people who keep stubble and look attractive do for that effect.

That doesn't mean they're helpless, it just means it can be difficult on your own. The Pedetrian's opposing force seems to feed into resentment and frustration. Not so much power as revenge. James, once under its control, isn't interested in money, or getting out of town. He just wants to hurt people, to lash out. There are a lot of people like that in Summer City. They eventually become a horde, dressed all in black except for the handprint over their faces and the red glove. There's a scene where the twins have dragged Kira out on a search for The Pedestrian, and as they stand at a crosswalk, the red "DON"T WALK" sign flashes. With each flash, more of those guys appear across the street.

It's very effective, nicely done, and it emphasizes that even if you don't give in, that doesn't mean you can't get overrun if you try and handle it alone. The twins would have been in deep trouble if they had gone out without Kira, who couldn't have protected them much longer if Detective Sherwood hadn't shown up. When The Pedestrian's out of commission for a bit, it's Randy helping the crossing guard that gets him going again. It's connections, but also whether those connections are trying to help, or drag you down.

Saturday Splash Page #208

"Calamari's Revenge," in Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror #1, by Roger Langridge (writer), J Bone (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Tom B. Long (letterer)

The next Rocketeer mini-series after Cargo of Doom, Hollywood Horror focused a little less on the pulp aspects of the character, and more on the specific time and location (Hollywood in the late-30s/early-'40s.)

Betty's roommate, a reporter named Dahlia Danvers, goes missing, but not before calling Betty to alert her to the location of Dahlia's notes. As she never finishes telling Betty what to do with the notes, Betty opts to investigate what a missing scientist and a "spiritualist" named Otto Rune have to do with each other.

Cliff is, for a while, barely involved in this. Doc Savage sent his two guys to pick up the rocket for some tests. Cliff refused and bolted, so at a point when he's exhausted and waterlogged after crashlanding in the reservoir while keeping the dam from being sabotaged, they take it by force. Also, Betty is kind of cheesed off at him, not over an argument about him being the Rocketeer, but because she proposed helping him fight crime, and he forbid her from doing that. 

Yes, he actually used the word "forbid." It's amazing so many people can punch Cliff in the mouth with his foot always in the way.

Langridge and J Bone pepper the story with characters from both fiction and real life. Cliff runs into a guy on the first page, dropping his wallet in the process. The guy, who narrates the story, turns out to be Groucho Marx in everyday wear (no cigar, no big mustache, no glasses, etc.) Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man) are also investigating the disappearance of the scientist (who J Bone draws a bit like Einstein, though that just may be generic coding for "scientist" as much as anything.) I don't know that recognizing them does anything for the overall enjoyment of the mini-series - I didn't know that guy was Groucho until the book was almost over - but I assume Langridge and Bone found it amusing, and it doesn't detract from things.

The scientist's disappearance and Otto Rune turn out to be connected in what's ultimately a scam with potentially dangerous consequences. Like blowing up dams to convince people catastrophes are nigh, and if you want to live, put a dollar in the box! Betty turns out to not be very good at undercover work (sorry, we aren't accepting innuendo at this time), and Cliff has to get by for a time with a rocketpack Peevy built, mostly useful as a battering ram, since Peevy doesn't have access to the same lightweight materials as Doc Savage. And Peevy still thinks Howard Hughes built the rocket, until Savage shows up at the very end, looking to come to an understanding about the rocket.

I did buy the mini-series after this, a team-up with the Spirit. But I didn't find the Spirit added much to my enjoyment, so it was long ago excised from the collection. There was at least one more anthology mini-series, but it's long gone, too. At one time there was going to be a mini-series (drawn by Javier Pulido) set in the present day, with a young woman as the new Rocketeer. But it never appeared, so here we'll leave the Rocketeer.

What I Bought 12/17/2025

One of the floors at work had their holiday party on Tuesday, and I don't know what it was, but something I ate turned my stomach inside-out for about 18 hours. Didn't get more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep Tuesday night, because my stomach would keep informing me it was once again time to visit the bathroom. But it seemed to settle down by the time I went to the comic store Wednesday so you heard it here first: Comics cure gastrointestinal issues.

Black Cat #5, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Gleb Melnikov (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - What are the units of measurement behind her? I'm guessing one is inches, but what's the other? Can't be centimeters, because 69 inches would be a lot more than 70-odd centimeters.

Not only does Felicia get caught by a bunch of cops in an empty house with a bunch of marked bills, Tombstone even has the house listed in her name. So it's a walk of shame past a bunch of reporters, with Felicia in vain trying to protest innocence. She ends up in jail until Mary Jane posts bail, they talk, Felicia is too wrapped up in her stuff to notice something is bugging MJ, and goes off to yell at Tombstone.

This turns into a fistfight between the two of them, and then he explains that money she was caught with will be booked as evidence until it vanishes and makes its way back to him. Then he just sort of, wanders off.

I mean, there's something to the idea Felicia wasn't just trying the hero thing so it would be easier for her to rob people once they were less fearful, that she liked the idea of being praised. But the way Wilson presents it, Felicia took such a half-assed approach. Once things didn't go how she anticipated, she starts charging into things. Especially weird after Wilson has Felicia talk about how everything about her, from the physique to the gear to the appearance, takes work.

Why is she being so much sloppier about heroing than she would be about thieving? Why is she trying to fistfight Tombstone, after throwing a bunch of half-assed insults into his face, rather than stealing something from him, or getting him busted doing something illegal? How did she give him a black eye? I thought he was supposed to have stone-hard skin. It's possible to write these situations as not going according to plan, and Black Cat having to wing it, without writing her like she took a page out of Homer's book and stuck a crayon too far up her nose.

Hate to say it, but I'm done with this book.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #15, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moonie's not had a good time of it on the covers for this series. Always getting stabbed or stomped into the ground.

Moon Knight manages to get the possessed Wrecker into the Midnight Mission, where he at least can't hurt anyone but Moon Knight, while Scarlet Scarab and Reese try to reason with the Executor to release the ghosts he's using against the Wrecker. Because Marc's brought out the enchanted sword, and it would be perfectly fine gobbling up all those spirits.

Still, it's not until the Executor buries his ax in Reese's chest, and believes he's killed her, that he releases the spirits. Which is a pretty nice image or this green ooze pouring out of the Wreckers mouth and over the side of the crescent emblem he's standing on. And you can see screaming faces in the ooze. Very nice work by Carbone and Rosenberg.

The Executor retreats, promising he won't fight back if Reese's ghost comes after him. Reese, of course, is not dead, because she's a vampire. Ax to the chest ain't nothing. The Wrecker's pretty happy it's all over, then he and Moonie argue about if Moon Knight's really any less blood-stained, with Marc arguing he isn't, but at least he's trying to be better. Then Clea shows up and drags Wrecker off to the Dark Dimension for, torture I guess. Marc and Layla make tentative plans to team-up again some time in the future, she leaves, and Marc gets tranq darted and hauled off.

It'd be an abrupt end if I didn't know we're getting another Moon Knight series in two months. I'm not sure I see a throughline in this book's run, though. Marc fights an Asgardian farm boy turned drug lord, and then protects the Wrecker from a guy who let his frustration push him into revenge.

Executor seems meant to contrast with Moon Knight. Moonie did bad things in his past, and tries to atone with better actions in the present and future, while Executor was a firefighter, someone who helped people, but has let the ugliness of others turn him into someone who focuses solely on revenge. I guess he was closer to Moon Knight once, but has drifted nearer to the Wrecker, someone who cares only about himself. I'm not sure what Fairchild was supposed to reveal about Marc.

Bury the Ashes of Your Past

Henry takes a summer job manning a fire tower in a remote national forest in Wyoming. For the next three months, he's on his own. Just him, and the bears, and the drunk college girls messing with fireworks. Oh, and Delilah, the woman manning a tower to the north. At night, Henry can see the lights from his tower, though it's her voice he'll become very familiar with, and she's contacting him over the radio all the time. As it turns out, there may be more people in the woods than Henry knows.

Firewatch is people running from their pasts. The game starts with Henry making his way to his tower, interspersed with text describing the course of his relationship with his wife. Though you can choose between options in certain cases - the first thing you said to her, what kind of dog you get - it all leads to the same place. Early onset dementia for her, and a flight to a remote fire tower for Henry.

Most of the game is you talking with Delilah while you wander your section of forest on one task or another. Or, depending on how you play it, Delilah talking at you, while you wander your section of forest on one task or another. The game gives you anywhere from one to three responses depending on the situation, but there's also a time limit to respond, so "silence" is also an option.

The game will point when you've reached something Henry finds noteworthy or confusing, - aspens, an abandoned backpack, beer cans - and you can contact Delilah to report it, if you want. The third time through I triggered a dialogue where Delilah mentioned how some firewatchers talk all the time. When Henry asks if she means him (because not all Henry's dialogue is chosen by you), she confirms it. So the fourth time around, I gave her the silent treatment. I only reported what the game required to advance the story. (Also, there was one time she was freaking out thinking I committed arson, and it got annoying enough I finally replied to shut her up.) Likewise, I withheld any personal information about Henry. In that playthrough, Delilah knows, or assumes she knows, that I'm running from something or someone, but doesn't know who or why.

I also, on that last playthrough, tried to withhold the truth of what I found in the cave from Delilah. I thought that would have been an interesting choice, to just leave it there, a secret held by two people that have never conversed, or really even met, and will never meet again. The game wouldn't allow that, refusing to advance until you told her.

When I started playing, a coworker said the game really messes with your head. I didn't have that experience. I think, after Henry got clocked on the skull, and I realized it wasn't something I could avoid, I stopped worrying. It felt like, whatever happened was unavoidable, so it was pointless to stress. No matter how close I am to my tower when Delilah reports there's someone up there, I can't catch them in the act. Also, I replayed the game to try playing differently in terms of how immediately I completed objectives, or how forthright I was with Delilah, to see if I could change the behavioral report you find in the latter stages of the game. It didn't work, which increased the feeling of being on rails.

(Somewhere, the obnoxious Uber-Narrator from that one ending of The Stanley Parable DeLuxe Edition is yelling at me that all the choices are illusions and I should go outside. It's friggin' cold out there, lady!)

I probably should have taken more time to just wander. You can only go so far in any direction before you hit terrain the game won't let you climb or cross, but whatever objective you've got will keep. You're not going to be killed by a puma if you dick around in the woods too long, the story simply won't advance until you finish that objective. If you want to take a bunch of photos of the lake with the disposable camera you found before checking if the firefighters are at the old campground, do it. Doing extra exploring was how I found my pet turtle!

 

(If you alert Delilah to your find, you get three possible names to give it. If you keep it to yourself, it's just "Turtle." But he'll always be "Turt Reynolds" to me.)

The game gives you the option to push for a romantic relationship between Henry and Delilah, but I never felt comfortable with that. He's still married, even if it's unclear how often his wife remembers who he is. I'm of the opinion Henry needs to sort that first. Considering how commitment-phobic Delilah seems, it doesn't look like a great plan anyway. Both of them, as well as the "third man", out in the woods, are trying to hide from things they don't want to face, but it's not going to work. Even if you keep running, the past follows along.

Overdue Movie Reviews #7 - El Dorado (1966)

Cole Thornton (John Wayne) is a hired gun with an offer to get involved in a range war. The local sheriff, J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), is an old friend, so Thornton declines the job, but not before word that he's around reaches the other family in the war. Through a series of unfortunate events, the MacDonald family ends up with one dead son, and Thornton ends up with a bullet against his spine.

The local sawbones can't remove the bullet, so, ignoring advice to find a more skilled doctor, Thornton rides off to another job. When that concludes some months later, he runs into another gunfighter, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George), who plans to take the job Thornton turned down. McLeod figures now is the time to strike, as Harrah's become a drunk after getting dumped. So Thornton, with a switchblade-chucking, fast-talking kid everyone calls Mississippi (James Caan) hustles back to save his friend's neck, and maybe settle this range war in the process.

At least when talking to my dad, this movie gets grouped with Rio Bravo (which we'll get to one day) and Rio Lobo (which we probably won't) as an unofficial trilogy of Westerns director Howard Hawks did with John Wayne, due to certain similarities in plot, characters, and structure.

I don't remember Rio Lobo well enough to compare, but between this movie and Rio Bravo, both feature a friend of Wayne's character that's become a drunk off-screen over a woman, there's a quirky deputy (Arthur Hunnicut here, playing I guess an old cavalry scout who's always talking about bad feelings he got when there was gonna be Injun trouble), and a hotshot kid who has no connection with the mess but deals himself in anyway. The bad guy is a big rancher with a lot of money to hire guns to do his fighting for him (Ed Asner here.) There's a part where the good guys adopt a siege mentality, trying to hunker down in the jail with their prisoner until a federal marshal arrives, a part where the drunk gets to confront and show up the guys who scoffed at him, and a romantic subplot.

Of course, there's a lot of ways you can go with all that. El Dorado is a more diffuse movie than Rio Bravo, as it takes nearly half the running time for Thornton and Mississippi to return to the town of El Dorado and see what's become of Harrah (as Thornton puts it, 'a tin star, with a drunk pinned on it'.) The heroes' attempt to hunker down falls apart quickly here, mostly because they don't stay in jail, and they actually lose their prisoner in the process. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The romance subplot is perfunctory, and split between Thornton and a local saloonkeeper (played by Charlene Holt), and the beginning of something between Mississippi and the youngest daughter of the MacDonalds (played by Michele Carey), who is also the one who shot Thornton in the back. Hawks reuses a line from Rio Bravo - 'I always make you mad, don't I?', but gives it to Caan rather than Wayne's love interest. The bad guys actually have, in McLeod, a guy played as a credible threat, especially with Harrah still drying out and Thornton erratically losing feeling in the right side of his body. I was not clear why a bullet against the left side of his spine was fucking up his right side, but it does.

The benefit of the more diffuse nature is it allows a greater sense of stakes. Thornton isn't just there to save his friend, he also feels a debt for what happened with the MacDonald's son, and knows McLeod's presence will tip things decisively in Bart Jason's favor unless there's someone to counter him, i.e., Thornton. McLeod, beyond being there for the money, has an urge to see who's faster between he and Thornton. Harrah doesn't just have to prove to himself and his friends he's worth something, he has to prove it to the town. When he arrives on the scene after another of the MacDonalds is wounded, the father is incredulous at the idea the sheriff is going to do anything. No one speaks against that notion in Harrah's defense, because he hasn't shown he's worth it.

The climax is a surprise, mostly because McLeod gives Thornton the chance to step down from the wagon he's driving to try and prove he can outdraw McLeod with a useless gun arm. The rest of the heroes use this distraction to sneak in and free a hostage, then Thornton dives off the wagon and shoots from the ground, behind the horses. It feels like a dirty trick the antagonist would pull, but it's John Wayne doing it, to a guy who was willing to give him the chance to settle things man-to-man. Granted, we don't know if McLeod would have been so sporting if Thornton were fully healthy, but he ignored Bart Jason's orders to just kill the man right off, so I think he would have. He wanted to know if he could win, but there were higher stakes than either man's ego, so good sportsmanship is sacrificed.

Caan's character is mostly there for comic relief. He gets a decent introduction, as one of McLeod's guys is the last man responsible for killing Mississippi's father figure, and Mississippi kills the guy with a switchblade hidden in his collar. (I thought, when they were sneaking in, he might show off the knife throwing again to silently take out a guard, but no.) After that, it's all jokes about how he can't shoot worth a shit, even with an extremely-sawed-off shotgun, or about his hat, or how no one can remember his real name. He has to introduce himself to Harrah three times, as the man's brain is so pickled he's lost the capacity to remember faces or voices.

Mitchum is plays a sour-faced, ill-tempered wreck, but he sells it. The man really looks like he's been living without a care for himself. Big bags under the eyes, greasy hair, walking around in his raggedy, ill-fitting undershirt. John Wayne is pretty much your standard "John Wayne in a Western" performance. The biggest presence in the room, gruff and frequently annoyed with the foolishness around him, but able to smile occasionally.

Two Decades

This marks 20 years of Reporting on Marvels and Legends. The comic shop that provided 60% of the name has been gone for over a decade, but this blog remains. Most of the people whose work convinced me I could have a blog about comics have either moved on to other media platforms, or vanished into the aether, but I'm still here, plugging away on Blogger. Ah well, I've never been what they call an early-adapter. If something works for my purposes, I'm usually content to stick with it.

Let's see, the past year of the blog. I didn't end up shifting the schedule around after all. No big surprise (see the previous paragraph re: sticking with what works.) Monday remains a day to review manga volumes, standalone graphic novels, and trade paperback collections. Wednesday is still for whatever random notions I might feel like posting about, plus solicitations once a month. Tuesday is for movies, including my new "Overdue Movie Reviews" series, where I get around to a bunch of movies I ought to have properly reviewed long ago. Friday is for Random Back Issues, 22 in the last year, same as the year before, and on par with the two years prior.

Maybe the routine makes it easy to keep going. There's less scrambling for a topic, or to choose when to discuss something. Accepting it's no big deal to skip a day here or there helps, even if I didn't actually skip many days this year. With all the short video games I beat, I had a lot more topics to fill up Thursdays than the year before. It was mostly Wednesdays that were silent. In the past, that would have been the day for posts with speculation or guesses about storylines in the comics I was buying. I usually throw that stuff into the reviews now.

Sunday Splash Page made some actual progress through the alphabet this year, going from Mekanix to Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat. Saturday Splash Page wasn't nearly as successful, starting with Slingers and ending with Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom. At least we finished the letter "S"!

You'll notice that, with another 4 letters complete, the two series have almost reached one another. Current projection is mid-April. After that, I have a splash page theme that'll run across both for 3.5 weeks. Then, it's back to their respective beginnings. It'll have been 7 years since I finished "A", and there's a lot of new stuff to go over. By this time next year, Sunday Splash Page will probably be on one of Juan Diaz Canales' Blacksad stories, while Saturday Splash Page could be up to Hector Plasm, depending on certain mangas that aren't currently finished, but might be by the time I loop past again.

Like last year, I struggle to understand what prompts certain posts to get a (relatively) ton of views compared to others. I get the reviews of popular movies that led certain months; Clue in October, 28 Days Later in July, maybe Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in June, if you stretch "popular". Why the review of solicitations for August's releases topped May is beyond me. Or why the Saturday Splash Page on Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle got 3 times the views of the previous week's entry (Seven Soldiers: Zatanna), and twice the following week's (Seven Soldiers: Bulleteer.) And I have no idea why my apparently most popular post of 2025 was Saturday Splash Page #188. Yeah, the one on Secret Defenders. The Internet loves early-90s Roy Thomas, apparently.

For those who still come around, or just started to drop by, thanks. I don't have any plans for new features, but I wasn't planning on Overdue Movie Reviews or Random Back Issues until I started them, so I guess you can't tell. I may develop an obsession with some new hobby - potato-based liquors, perhaps - and it will come to dominate the blog.

OK, this probably won't become a boozy spud blog, but something else isn't impossible. Maybe I'll do more traveling next year and start posting photographs again! Or maybe I'll decide the outside world is scary and stay inside.

Sunday Splash Page #405

"Farewells at the Fountain," in Patsy Walker, a.k.a Hellcat #17, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

In 2015, Marvel canceled all their ongoing series as part of Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic's Secret Wars (since the universes all those books took place in were gone.) Even before the event was over, Marvel began relaunching the books. Because the mini-series was behind schedule, plus Marvel probably worried they weren't flooding the market sufficiently with just tie-in mini-series.

The number of books I was buying did not recover to where it was the year before, and most of what I did buy were titles I was buying that Marvel canceled then restarted. Duggan and Hawthorne's Deadpool. G. Willow Wilson and Takeshi Miyazawa on Ms. Marvel. Ryan North and Erica Henderson's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. There were a few new titles, but Joshua Williamson's Illuminati died in about 7 issues, and I dropped Waid and Samnee's Black Widow after 6. Which leaves this book, also part of one of Marvel's periodic attempts to possibly broaden their market. Maybe draw in some younger readers, maybe draw in some readers who, gasp!, aren't dudes.

Charles Soule and Javier Pulido used Patsy in their She-Hulk series, Hellcat acting as Jennifer Walters' investigator. But the client list is kind of slim, and Patsy has to seek other employment. Where she's confronted with the fact that a) she's not cut out for retail, and b) people know who she is.

On the former, in addition to her low tolerance for unpleasant customers, she's too prone to changing into costume to pursue thieves, though that brings her into contact with a telekinetic named Ian, who eventually becomes friend and roommate. His using his powers to commit larceny because there were limited other employment opportunities gives Patsy the idea of starting a temp agency for people with powers. So they can pay bills without breaking laws!

On the second point, the issue becomes people know her not as Hellcat, but as Patsy Walker, star of all those comics about her teenage years. Comics which are being reissued by her old rival Hedy, who finagled the rights from Patsy's medication-addled mother. This forces Patsy to face a past she would rather flee, an image of idyllic teenage years that were followed with a lot of heartbreak and bad decisions. That Hedy later tricks both of Patsy's ex-husbands into attacking her, resulting in Hellstrom sending Patsy to Hell, doesn't help.

The book loses She-Hulk thanks to her grievous injuries at Thanos' hands in Civil War II, so Kate Leth brings in Jubilee (still a vampire and single mom) as an assistant for Patsy. Outside the sometimes-visible fangs, the main aspect of her vampirism is turning to mist, which art team Brittney L. Williams and Rachelle Rosenberg depict by drawing Jubilee as a fluffy pink cloud wearing her trademark sunglasses.

Most of the conflicts end up resolved with at least some talking, but also some punching. The main antagonist usually gets the latter, the flunkies the stern talking-to (or a kind ear, depending how stupid they were being.) Which is kind of funny since Leth writes Patsy as very eager to jump into action. But she's also willing to listen. Truly, Patsy Walker contains multitudes.

There's also a lot of magic. Magic and mysticism have been a big part of Hellcat's deal since at least her return from the dead, if not going back to Moondragon trying to train her mental abilities. Englehart and Breyfogle's mini-series gave Patsy a better understanding of magic and how to avoid it, via time spent fighting in Hell. Immonen and Lafuente's mini-series suggested Patsy had a lot more going for her than being able to simply sense magic.

(Christopher Cantwell will lean way into this in his 2022 mini-series, with Hellcat being a drug-addled mess haunted by her dead mom, and a "true form" that looks a lot like Tigra, but as that description should make clear, that mini-series was trash and is better off chucked into a black hole.)

Anyway, Leth and Williams keep bringing Patsy into conflict with magic. An Asgardian goddess using unhappy mortals with powers to commit crimes. Hellstrom dumping Patsy in another demon's realm. Even when Leth brings in the Black Cat - unfortunately in her terrible "Queenpin" phase - Felicia is out to steal a set of magical claws that let her control people if she slashes them. Finally, Patsy seems to catch some sort of other-dimensional flu that, when she sneezes, makes weird magic crap happen. Her favorite stuffed animal appears as a giant tiger that claims to represent all her fears. America Chavez's costume gets changed to rep Canada.

(That ends up resolved by Patsy talking about feelings with a demon, and accepting she can't try to hide away in an ordinary life.)

Williams tends to keep the art simple, though there's a lot of attention paid to clothes. Sometimes it's simplified even more, like when Patsy gets really excited and starts bawling or hopping around, eager to punch things. With most of the other characters drawn as significantly taller, she looks like a child wound up on energy drinks. It's a little strange to see in stories where Patsy's tormented with poor life decisions, or Ian runs into his abusive ex-girlfriend, but those are usually the times where Williams sticks to the stronger lines and stable designs, which gives the book about as serious an air as it can achieve.

The book ended at 17 issues, with Jennifer Walters sorting out the rights issue around the comics off-screen, making Patsy independently wealthy. It's unclear if she'll abandon the temp agency idea, but if her discussion with the demon was anything to go by, she's going to embrace being Hellcat again. Whatever that means when she was regularly changing into the costume during this series. I guess she might join the Avengers again or something?

It feels a bit like the end of Dennis Hopeless' first Spider-Woman series, where the Black Widow chides Jessica Drew for ditching the Avengers to go help people on Ben Urich's list. Like superheroics only matter if you fight the big fights, the ones that already have 50 heroes facing them down. Focusing on small-scale problems, people stealing purses to pay the rent, that doesn't count.

Saturday Splash Page #207

"Jetpacks, Ray guns, and Dinosaurs" in Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #3, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

The actual amount of Rocketeer comics Dave Stevens wrote and drew is surprisingly small. The "Complete Collection" consists of around 140 pages, total. Once IDW started having other people make Rocketeer mini-series, they probably blew past that in a year or two.

There were a couple of Rocketeer Adventures minis, anthologies that were often pretty to look at, but not much else. But in 2012 we got Cargo of Doom, a full-fledged mini-series by the writer and artist that had recently been killing it together on Daredevil. A mysterious cargo ship sails into L.A., the man in charge with an important cargo, but also another goal: Take the rocket pack from Cliff Secord.

Cliff, meanwhile, has other problems. He punched out a federal inspector who was getting handsy with Peevy's niece, which does nothing to dim Sally's crush on Cliff. The new inspector is much bigger and unaware of the reasons, so he's quick to goad Cliff into trying to punch him. And Cliff is quick to comply.

Waid really leans into the pulp influences. The dinosaurs were collected on Skull Island, and there's a reference to King Kong's disastrous stint on Broadway. The guy who captured the dinos is Doc Savage enemy, John Sunlight, who is working for some other shadowy figure (a Mr. Trask) that can't see the possibilities in stealing the rocket. Dinosaurs with rocketpacks. The world we could have had.

Samnee goes with the vibe, too. The dinosaurs are old-school. Massive, scaly reptiles. No feathers (minus the giant bird) or quick reactions, just big and powerful things that stomp around. The same could be said of Sunlight's goons aboard the freighter. Big and powerful things that stomp (on Cliff.) Cliff does get beat up a bit, but also manages to use the rocket in some clever ways to get out of trouble.

I don't like how Waid handles Cliff and Betty's relationship, as he writes Betty as being the manipulative and jealous type, who gets mad when Sally starts mooning over Cliff. He tries to paper over it at the end, that Betty is used to having the upper hand, I guess because guys drool over her. She didn't like that the tables were turned, with Sally swooning over Cliff, and that's why she was jealous. I don't think it tracks. Did Betty really have the "upper hand" in the Stevens' stories?

Cliff is the insecure one, yes, the one chasing after her. But that's a function of his insecurity, that he thinks every moment she's not with him, she's with another guy. We never see Betty actively flirting with another man. She's trying to get her career off the ground, so it's not as though Cliff was a kept man. He just doesn't like the way she's going about it. He's always suspecting Marco - with good reason as it turns out - and taking it out on her. Sometimes Betty tried to reassure him, and sometimes she gave it back at him with both barrels. She gets annoyed with him if he tries to control her, or forgets a date, especially during the stretch where she doesn't know he's fighting crime as the Rocketeer.

I think Stevens wrote Betty as reasonable with Cliff as he deserved, if not more, so I don't know where Waid was coming from with his take.

What I Bought 12/11/2025

The seventh issue of Dust to Dust, originally solicited for October, then pushed back to December, has since been pushed back into late January. J.G. Jones apparently waiting for the universe to end, restart and for time to once again reach the 1930s before he finishes this mini-series.

Nova: Centurion #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez and Matteo Della Fonte (artists), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - If you didn't spot the red suspenders, you'd think Nova was fighting Drax.

Cammi relates everything she went through preparing to pull this heist, before someone who might be Ravenous decided just blast his way in. Nova has another passenger on his ship, an Accuser who works for the Kree-Skrull War because she believes it's the best way for their people to work together: A group full of people who spent their lives up to then trying to kill each other.

Prediction: "Ravenous" will actually turn out to be a Skrull member of the group, maybe the leader from their side, maybe not, and Yr-Kett will be disillusioned by this betrayal.

They track down Ravenous, stealing power from a grid on some weapons disposal planet. Nova fights like a dumbass, needing several pages to be informed Ravenous is absorbing the energy he's throwing around. And Yr-Kett's not much better. I should have known things were gonna go badly when Nova got clean-shaven because he wanted to make sure Ravenous recognized him. The guy was on par with a Herald. Focus on winning, worry about introductions after.

We're two issues in, and Lopez is already sharing artist credit. Even for Marvel, that's a really quick bait-and-switch. Fonte leans harder into solid blacks, and Iacono's colors shift to duller or darker shades on those pages. Maybe the latter is just because they're fighting on a messy planet. On the other hand, Lopez makes Cammi look like a middle-aged woman, while Della Fonte doesn't. I don't know how much time has passed since Annihilation, but it can't have been that much.

I'm still not clear on this recurring mention of Nova and the Worldmind having limited power available. This was not a problem the last time I was watching Rider carry the entirety of the Nova Force. Where were they getting the power to "recharge" during the entirety of the Abnett/Lanning run?

The Partial Pieces of the Family Tree

What Remains of Edith Finch details the title character's return to a family home she hasn't seen in years. Not since her mother took her away, leaving her great-grandmother Edie (actually Edith Sr., but "Edie" is going to be easier to differentiate her from the younger Edith) behind.

Edie vanished. Presumed dead, but there's no body, no trace of her. Edith hasn't returned in the idea of finding her, so much as maybe trying to understand what the hell is going on with her family. Because pretty much everyone dies under bizarre or disturbing circumstances. Her mother's response was to seal off almost every door in the house, and Edie's response was to drill peepholes.

As it turns out, there's one, mostly empty, room still open, and it's there Edith learns there are other ways to get into the rooms. So you move from room-to-room, studying the lives of people who mostly died decades before Edith was ever born. The rooms were preserved as is even before Edith's mom started closing them up like she was entombing someone who she perceived as insulting her family's honor, which makes it feel less like Edith is roaming through a familiar house, and more like she snuck into a very strange museum.

In each room, there's some item, that once Edith finds it, triggers a vision or recreation of the person's end. These are the parts that are most like a game, as you have a little more control. Great-Aunt Molly's diary details her waking up and feeling so hungry since she was sent to bed without supper, that she turns into a cat, chasing a barn swallow through the tree branches outside her window. Then she's an owl, and you guide her over snowy fields, before making her swoop down to snatch rabbits and swallow them whole.

Edith's older uncle's epitaph is a poem her mother wrote about him refusing to participate in their father's wedding to his second wife, opting to fly his kite instead. You guide the kite across the sky scattering the words of Dawn's poems, or knocking them loose from where they're wedged against a wood sculpture.

The visuals shift depending on whose story you're exploring. Great-Aunt Barbara's story is told as a comic book, with cell-shading that reminds me of that Gamecube game Killer 7, where you wield a crutch as a weapon. Edith's younger brother Milton's is a flip book, with simple cartoon characters. The depiction of the fantasy world her older brother used to escape the drudgery of his job seems artistically like Journey, though maybe that's just the robes the ancillary characters wear.

The game tells me I found all the stories, which means I don't know what's going on with this family. Edie's father left Norway to escape the ill fortune that dogged the Finch family, but tried bringing his house with him. They both sank. Dawn seemed convinced the stories Edie would tell were somehow responsible for what was happening, but Edith never learns what that means. So we're left with questions. Where the hell did Milton go? What actually killed Barbara? I'm left wondering why there was a train line on a remote island to where Walter could get run over by it. Edith gets there by ferry at the start of the game, so what the hell was the train connecting?

I don't have the answer, and I don't think Edith does, either. Which is too bad, since she seemed to be there looking for something to pass on. I guess it provides a lesson that you lose people, and you may not ever understand why, or even how. I figure there's probably something in not following either Edie or Dawn's approaches.

There are all these pieces or sights that suggest the house was slowly coming to a halt. Each time someone died, the place associated with it was fenced off, to be left unchanged and sacrosanct. But at a certain point, what's left for anyone to live in? At the same time, Dawn seems like she's following "out of sight, out of mind." Whatever she thinks is picking off Finches one after another, she also thought could be contained by closing doors. Literal, in terms of the house, and figurative in how she closes off from Edie and keeps Edith from any answers.

Which leaves me wondering how to interpret her giving Edith a key that would unlock the secret passages. A recognition avoidance was no answer? Edith mentions she hadn't been back since they left, and that, once she gets there, she realizes the feeling she always had at seeing the house was fear. So it seems like there was little chance she would have gone back snooping on her own, if Dawn was worried about that, and figured she might as well give Edith a safer way to explore.