Bunker Busting

Of all the anime from my rewatch project this year, Gundam Wing is the one I reassessed the most. I liked it before, but it hits differently now. I get more from the stuff that's not giant mechs destroying other giant mechs. I may post about some of that later, depending on how Thursdays play out this fall. 

For today, I'm just going to talk about the bunker scene at the end of Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Here's the clip the times listed below are referencing. Discussion points, in chronological order:

~00:33 into the clip - Back when I was doing Burn Notice episode rundowns, I talked about my annoyance with characters who use the, "Go ahead and shoot me, then," bluff, usually as proof they are not a snitch/cop/spy, and how it never seems to backfire, no matter how unstable the person they're daring is.

(I've been thinking about if Takagi's death in Die Hard qualifies as a time it backfire. I think that requires assuming he was lying to Hans Gruber about not having the password they wanted. I feel, near the end, there's enough desperation in his attempts to convince Hans that he wasn't lying, but your mileage may vary.)

Anyway, here we see Mariemaia Khusrenada learning that Heero Yuy is not the person to run that bluff on. I mean, he was clearly going to shoot anyway, but I love how there is no hesitation. The moment she dares him, it's 'Roger that,' and BOOM!

~00:53: The thing the rewatch made me re-evaluate most was Relena. When I was younger and fixated on the pilots wrecking shit, she seemed like she was in the way. That it was everyone else accomplishing things. I didn't appreciate how much she grew through the series, how much responsibility she shouldered in the wake of her father's death and learning of her heritage. She survives assassination attempts, leads a country, accepts what is intended as a figurehead position as "Queen Relena", then pulls off a bloodless revolution through empathy, idealism and force of personality. She grapples with the gap between her ideals and reality, and what can be accomplished, but never loses her resolve to bring those ideals to life and create a future different from pretty much the entirety of human history prior to that.

(Note that, for all his charisma and "the man on a horse" ego, Treize Khusrenada never tried to directly oppose Relena the way he did the Romefeller Foundation. He waits until Zechs makes his idiotic, "Earth is the problem," declaration and uses everyone's fear to seize control. He knew in a straight up confrontation with her, he'd lose.)

Most of all, she doesn't blink. She's surprised the first time Heero pulls a gun on her, but I wouldn't say she's scared. She certainly isn't afraid to shield him from Duo moments later. After that, after her father's assassination, Relena refuses to sacrifice what she believes in for her own life. (She surrenders the Sanc Kingdom so people won't die for her, which is not the same thing.)

And so you get Mariemaia, trying to puff herself up after Heero's first shot (probably the first time anyone has directly threatened her), only for Relena to see right through it. The deadpan delivery of, 'Are you afraid, Mariemaia?' is perfect. It's not really a question. She knows the kid is afraid. Everyone in that bunker is afraid, except Relena. All the guys in the magenta shirts and armbands are soldiers that, through luck or skill, survived the events of Gundam Wing. You figure they faced death before, but they weren't ready for this. Which brings us to. . .

~1:31: When I first watched Gundam Wing on Toonami, lo those many years ago, I used to joke about how often Relena and Heero would say each other's name. Often in a soft murmur, and often it was the only thing they might say at that moment. You could make a drinking game out of it. 'Heero. . .' Take a shot. But in this case, it's once again Mariemaia's reaction that's the selling point.

Relena was always key to Dekim Barton's plan, in much the same way as Mariemaia (who thinks she's running things, but it's Barton actually giving orders.) Mariemaia has the lineage to get the surviving Treize Faction idiots to support Barton's plans. She gets him the muscle he needs. Relena's the one person people on Earth and in space believe in. She'll legitimize his coup, get the people to accept it quietly. And, because she's a pacifist, in Barton's eyes (and Mariemaia's) that means Relena's weak. She'll do what they want.

Except they're wrong. She won't bend to them, anymore than the Gundams - even if all the pilots other than Heero are trying not to kill their opponents - so now her value is as human shield. Just one problem, Heero knows the depth of her conviction in her beliefs. There's a reason he tells her more than once that she's stronger than he is. (In the Blind Target manga, he tells Quatre she's, 'the strongest.') She's willing to die rather than help Barton set himself up as ruler of humanity.

Mariemaia's just now figuring that out. The little gasp and the shocked look, priceless. It's sinking in that, the beloved elader who is supposed to be her bullet shield, the one whose presence is meant to ensure her safety, has a murder/suicide pact with the same Gundam pilot about to blow his own ass up trying to kill them. Don't you hate when that happens?

~1:45: I did make the mistake of reading the comments on that video. I mean, I know better than that from 20 years ago when I'd watch Weird Al's "Smells Like Nirvana" video and the comment thread was just one person being outraged on Kurt Cobain's behalf, and then someone correcting that person by pointing out the Nirvana guys not only agreed about how unintelligible they were, but were thrilled to get parodied, ad nauseam, forever.

But, setting aside the dozens of comments to the effect that telling Heero that Relena's in there only makes him more eager to shoot - yes, that's why he visibly lowers Zero's buster rifle immediately afterward - there was some debate about the location of that last shot. Did he alter his target on the third shot, because of the memory of that little girl? There is the brief shot of his targeting screen where the reticle seems to shift, but it sure as hell looks like the third shot hits the exact same place as the first two. I think it represents him raising the buster rifle again and sighting in on his target.

I think it's more that Heero is being incredibly precise. The little girl with the flower died because Heero miscalculated where he puts some explosives, so a mobile suit got knocked into an apartment building by the blast, killing innocent people. He's not going to make that mistake twice, he shoots where it will tear open the shelter, but the people in the bunker will survive.

I could be wrong. Could be Heero figured he had to stop them, but he'd die in the process when Wing Zero blows up hundreds of feet in the air. From that view, he was killing himself at the same time as penance.

Instead, he survives, climbs down into the bunker, symbolically shoots Mariemaia with an empty gun, which I think is his way of closing the door on that period of his life, going by his 'I'll never kill again,' comment before he collapses. Which isn't in the video I linked to, but is worth mentioning for how it connects to what is.

The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

A power struggle between the CIA Director Ross (Charles Durning) and his ambitious second-in-command Cooper (Dabney Coleman), leaves concert violinist Richard Drew (Tom Hanks) caught in the middle of a plan to, um. . . I'm not really sure. Ross has 48 hours before he appears before a Senate inquiry, and somehow making Cooper think the "man with one red shoe" has testimony that will clear Ross is going to actually sink Cooper?

Maybe because it'll spur Cooper to deploy CIA assets on U.S. soil, which the CIA can't do, wink wink? It does work, because Cooper charges into the inquiry with a gun chasing Drew in an attempt to kill him before he can testify. Which makes him seem unstable and unsuited for the job, but also seems like a hard outcome to predict.

To be clear, this is not a case of Ross having principles and worrying what Cooper will do if he gets the big chair. Ross likes having the big chair, and doesn't want to give it up. He's fine playing dirty, he's fine having his subordinate pick some guy to be the bait, and he's fine if the bait dies. Probably would even help, in the fantasy world this movie occurs in, where people in the Reagan administration actually faced consequences for immoral acts.

Anyway, Drew is the unwitting witness/bait. So Cooper's attempt to figure out what intel Drew has turns into a comedy (I use the term loosely) of errors occurring around a largely oblivious Tom Hanks. They incapacitate Drew's dentist before an appointment, the agent replacing him planning to yank out all Drew's teeth in a search for concealed microfilm. Only for Drew to lose his nerve when he hears a patient freaking out and bail. One of the agents Ross has surveilling the whole thing had fallen behind and ends up walking into the trap instead.

Skipping the appointment means Drew returns home early, so the team tearing his place apart does a rush job putting it back together. Now the handles on the faucet in the sink control his shower, and the toilet controls the sink, his shampoo is in his toothpaste tube, and his chairs are structurally unsound.

Drew's also carrying on an affair with a flutist (Carrie Fisher) in the symphony. Her percussionist husband (Jim Belushi) becomes increasingly paranoid as the CIA teams grow reckless. But Drew's head gets turned by Maddy (Lori Singer), Cooper's top agent, who is herself charmed when Drew plays a piece of music he's been writing (and which Cooper concludes must contain a code.)

It feels like it ought to be funny, but it mostly didn't work for me. I laughed a lot more at Paint, or even Eephus, which is not a comedy, than this film. There is one poor agent wandering the sewers for hours, because Cooper thinks all the toilet flushing was Drew putting something down the pipes, rather than just trying to use his sink. The way that guy is forgotten, still down there alone in the middle of the night, lost and defeated, while Drew's wooing Maddy with his music, that was sorta funny.

Other than that? Not much. Tom Hanks can do comedy, but the way the movie is structured, he's the center of everything, but very little of it touches him. It's all going on around him without his knowledge. Like, the whole mess with his plumbing is revealed through him trying to use the sink and the shower turning on. There's a chance for some silly physical comedy, Hanks get sprayed or something, and the movie is just like, "Nah." Most of the humor is apparently supposed to be watching these agents tie themselves in knots trying to figure out what Drew is up to.

One bit that works is when he returns home from the aborted trip to the dentist and Maddy is waiting in his living room as a distraction until the team can tranq dart him and then flee. Except it takes 3 darts to put him out (I guess because seeing her in his apartment got him too worked up for the darts to work), with his speech getting increasingly goofy until he topples over.

Belushi plays his usual loud idiot, and I guess we're supposed to laugh he's the butt of jokes because he plays dumb practical jokes on Hanks all the time. Fake peanuts, exploding cigars, I'm sure whoopee cushions are utilized. He's also getting cheated on by his wife with his friend, and then starts finding dead bodies that keep mysteriously vanishing, until he goes nuts. Not before he thinks he's going to be killed by a gunman, mind you. I ended up feeling bad for him.

Fisher feels wasted by the movie, and I didn't see any particular chemistry between Hanks and Singer to carry their romantic subplot. Drew is just panting after a leggy blonde, while Maddy doesn't seem to think of him as anything other than a job until he plays that piece he wrote, which happens pretty late in the proceedings.

Also, Drew rides his bike everywhere, but does so wearing headphones, which is insane. He's entirely cut off his hearing as an aid to keep him alive, and he's biking on roads with cars. So either he's one of the cyclists who expects everyone to give way to them, or he's got a death wish, and I don't think he's got a death wish. 

What I Bought 9/2/2026 - Part 2

I have the day off! But it's still really hot outside! So I'm not going anywhere! Fortunately, we have comics to review! Two of them! I kinda like getting all my DC stuff for the month in one go! Exclamation point!

Batgirl #23, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - The plants would like a turn crouching dramatically.

Batgirl has brought Jaya and Tenji to the restaurant she hung out at sometimes before everything went to hell at the beginning of this volume. Very surprised that family survived the attack by the Unburied, considering Shiva's insistence that anyone Cass got involved would be in danger. Cass herself is lost in thought, maybe about whether being in this toxic city brings out the worst in her.

As Police Commissioner Vandal Savage - that is still one of the dumbest ideas - makes some TV spot advertising a reward if people narc on any of the Bats, the entire city is overrun by strange plants. Plants which will make the city hostile to human life. Cass can't get through to Batman to receive any specific orders, which really frustrates her. But there's a restaurant full of people to protect, and keep calm, and watch out for.

The kid wants that reward to save his sick mother, and Cass was distracted trying to convince people not freak out because she ran outside to save a guy being attacked by the plants and brought him inside, but still. Not a great start for Batgirl on this crisis. And one of the customer's kids sniffed the flowers and now she's poisoned. Cass vows to get the kid to a hospital, despite the stab wound, and trusts Jaya and Tenji to protect everyone else. Which at least will give Tenji that chance he wanted to make a name for himself as a hero.

I like this. It's not (so far) another exercise in unearthing new, never-before-seen secrets of Cassandra's past. The past history is there, and clearly weighing on her, but the immediate threat is something new. Miyazawa is back on the art. He gets a little rougher with his lines in the moments of panic, when plants start bursting through the floor, then smooths things out again in the quiet, tense moments. Batgirl's brief fight to save that man is drawn as quick and efficient, each move in the span of a few panels.

Is this event tie-in going to be my favorite story in this run so far? What a horrifying thought. 

The Deadman #4, by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martin Morazzo (artist), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Good Old Neon (letterer) - Based on the escalator, Heaven is either a mall or an airport. I'm hoping for the former, but only as long as they have a place that sells big, soft, gooey cookies.

Deadman has a bit of a meltdown about what he learned last issue, until Billy snarls at him to shut up, turning demonic in the process. Boston doesn't get any answers as to what that's about, instead heading for Heaven to try and confab with God about the situation. Billy follows.

While Billy gets some distressing news about himself from Zatanna's dad, which I guess explains his weird behavior when he snapped at Deadman, the Custodian of Souls spends most of the issue in God's waiting room, chatting with his secretary. Who is probably actually God, but whatever. The main point is for Deadman to decide that, even if he knew the souls he thought he helped wound up in Hell, he still would have tried to get them sent on to Heaven. Because it's worthwhile to try and help someone, even if it doesn't work.

So he leaves. I note that he didn't gain any insight into the creatures eating souls or who is manipulating them (which is some mysterious figure with either a cube or a book for a head), and therefore seems no closer to dealing with the problem than he was at the end of issue 1. And then he got pushed off the escalator by a panicked Billy, and lands in the clutches of some Cyber-Swamp Thing. Which is kind of a weird shift.

Until the point Deadman - or is he Aliveman now? - lands in that situation, the entire book is 9-panel grids. 18 solid pages of 9-panel grids. Not much change or in perspective or style within the panels. Monotonous. Quite the change from the previous issue, which offered so much variety. It's all the same, all very rigid and constrained. Sterile. The most pizzazz are the panels with Zatara, where's he got a smoke machine and a stage backdrop. A showman. That's two panels. Bleak commentary on Heaven, unless the idea is it gives you the time and space to find answers yourself.

Sunday Splash Page #443

"All Grown Up," in Avengers and Power Pack: Assemble #4, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Gurihiru (artist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Similar to some of Sumerak's other Power Pack mini-series, this one starts with what appear to be done-in-one stories, which later connect into a larger narrative. First, the kids team up with Captain America, despite his objections about their age, to stop Taskmaster after he swiped some data from a Stark Industries research lab.

Besides Tasky losing first to a bunch of elementary schoolkids, then senior citizens (WW2 buddies of Captain America, but still, no Infinity Formula for these guys), we also get a scene where he mocks Power Pack not only for being kids, but for their costumes. This while rocking his Udon Studios, "my good costume is at the dry cleaners," look.

Then Katie Power zaps him in the face. Deserved.

Second issue, AIM stole an experimental armor (thanks to the info Taskmaster swiped for them), and Jack gets it in his head that if they recover it, Tony Stark will pay them a big reward. AIM is, surprisingly, prepared for the kids, and in an escape attempt, Jack suits up in the experimental armor. Then accidentally attacks Iron Man with it. They free his siblings and stop AIM, but when Jack asks about a reward for rescuing the armor, Iron Man says they can just deduct it from the cost of the damage Jack did to said armor. 

Which is such a billionaire move. It's pocket change to Stark, but he'd rather come up with an excuse to stiff a kid and disguise your own incompetence.

In the last two issues, the Power family travels to New York City on vacation, and the kids try to help the New Avengers fight Kang and his army of guys in suits based on Iron Man's experimental armor, as he was behind the schemes in the first two issues. I guess this is his idea of fighting honorably, stealing period-appropriate technology to fight with. Minus his own futuristic stuff that freezes his opponents in place. So honorable!

How well known the Power Pack are varies from mini-series to mini-series. Wolverine knows them, but they'd been in at least one, maybe two, other mini-series with him by this point. Captain America apparently vouched for them to Iron Man somewhere between issues 1 and 2. Taskmaster knows them, and says they're a joke among the costumed community. As he's running around in a tracksuit and a skull mask like some doofus with an urban explorer Youtube channel, so glass houses and all that. AIM has heard of them, enough to have weapons prepared to counter their powers.

Kang, however, doesn't know them, dismissing them as innocent children, until they attack him. At which point they're flung into a future where Kang runs things and they must team-up with their older selves. How their older selves are there if they were chucked into the future, I don't know. Obviously they make it back to the mid-2000s, but then the dystopian future never comes to pass, so. . . 

I did a longer review of the mini-series 3 years ago. 

Saturday Splash Page #245

"Insult to Attempted Injury," in Union Jack #3, by Christos Gage (writer), Mike Perkins (penciler), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Laura Villari (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

I bought this 4-issue, late-2006, mini-series in back issues last year. Came up somehow or the other in the comments at House to Astonish, and it wasn't expensive, so I figured, what the hell?

MI5 gets word some new AIM splinter group called "R.A.I.D." wants to establish themselves as the #1 terror organization in the world, after Wolverine hacked up thousands of HYDRA guys in Millar's Wolverine run. R.A.I.D.'s staging a massive strike on England, via a crap-ton of C-list super-villains out to do as much damage as possible. By the time Union Jack's been contacted, there's only 8 hours until it starts. Excalibur is off on assignment elsewhere, and the folks in the U.S. are busy with Civil War.

So, besides Union Jack, you've got former Assistant Director of SHIELD Contessa Allegra Valentina de la Fontaine, banished to the hinterlands of England(?) when Fury fell out of favor and got replaced with Maria Hill. *cackles in disbelief* You've also got Sabra, and a new Arabian Knight. An Israeli and a Saudi. No tension there.

I'm guessing the Knight's new design is Perkins' work. He ditches the turban, in favor of a sleeveless tactical vest and fatigue pants. The flying carpet has been unraveled and turned into the clothes he wears and automatically hardens like armor to any attack, but does not give him the ability to fly, so I guess it was a tradeoff. I feel like the scimitar used to be on fire, which is not in evidence here, outside of one panel where it looks like there are blue flames following the arc of his swing. Being mystical, it can cut anything. Actually, the re-design of the Arabian Knight might have been the point of discussion at House to Astonish. Characters receiving updated, less stereotypical designs perhaps?

Gage positions Union Jack (Joe Chapman version) as a man of the people. His relationship with Spitfire fell apart because they're from different worlds, what with her being landed gentry and him painting houses for a living. I can't figure which of them objected, but if it was him, Joe might be a damn idiot. 

That said, he doesn't care about political divides. If people are willing, he'll take the help. When Contessa suggests that, given his past history of objections to mass murder (that time he turned on Mr. Hyde and teamed up with Captain America), Batroc might be willing to roll on his buddies Zaran and Machete, Joe's up for giving it a try.

He's also not one for compromises. When Arabian Knight offers to let Joe kill him, so he can use the Knight's mystic sword (because the Knight's too concussed), Joe refuses. He's not killing an ally. He also objects to the MI5 guy withholding news of the impending attack from the public. All the more when it becomes clear the politicians got the word, and blabbed to all their wealthy pals. Of course, while Jack does tell people to shelter in place, he's a fool to think they'll listen, creating a lot of gridlock which the villains exploit. But "the people" come to his aid, especially in the big fight against the final threat.

Speaking of villains, besides Zaran and Machete, you've got Crossfire and his Death-Throws, Shockwave, Firebrand, Jackhammer, Boomerang, Jack O'Lantern, Ecstasy, and the Corruptor. Like I said, C-list. More critically in this story, they're all in it for the money. None of it is ideological for them, and against this version of Union Jack, that's not enough.

He's almost suicidally determined to stop them. He gets stabbed in the chest, through body armor, by Zaran, and just keeps choking him until Zaran surrenders. He dares Bombshell to throw a bomb at him when he's so close. Risk ending up scarred because of her revealing costume on the chance his won't protect him. He goes after Jack O'Lantern hard enough the guy decides to run - which seems on point, Jack O'Lantern's always been a chickenshit, no matter which guy is wearing the flaming pumpkin - only to end up run over by a flying car. This after Jack gets repeatedly zapped by Shockwave, before risking electrocuting both of them by cutting open the suit while they were in a puddle of water.

I think Perkins and/or Gage oversells it in the final issue, when a multiple-story dreadnought kicks Union Jack across Trafalgar Square and into a building, hard enough to break some of the stone the building is made of. Jack gets up and stabs a flagpole into an opening created by the Knight and Sabra and hits the liquid nitrogen reserves. As far as I know, Jack is not superhuman.

The final issue is also when Jack puts it together that, though this wasn't an inside job, it had some help getting as far as it did. It boils down to another chance to show Joe Chapman doesn't compromise his ideals, and doesn't find the sacrifice of innocent people to further some amorphous idea of "security" acceptable. Even if it makes him persona non grata with government agencies going forward.

It's funny, the MI5 guy asks Union Jack if he's planning to rush to future crises on the bus. Setting aside I think the UK has a much better public transportation system than the U.S., it didn't look like Jack was getting much help at the start of the mini-series, when he was killing vampires by himself, and apparently spending half his paycheck on silver bullets. But, as a man of the people, maybe Jack can bum rides off delivery drivers and street racers he's helped in the past. It worked for Kim Possible.

What I Bought 9/2/2026 - Part 1

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from Internet Movie Database, telling me my account had been created. While I do use it as a resource for almost every movie post, I had not created an account, so I dismissed it as some sort of phishing scam. Until I went to the site a week later, and it showed me as signed in. Turns out, Amazon owns or is connected to IMDb, so if you have an account with Bezos' Money Machine, they make you one for the movie site.

I deleted the account. I'll decide whether I make an account on a website or not, thanks. Today we've got the first of three comics from this week. I wasn't expecting to find all three at the local store. Two at best, given I hadn't had much luck with FF or Deadman last month. I guess that's the advantage to getting there on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday.

Fantastic Four #16, by Ryan North (writer), Ramon Rosanas (artist), Edgar Delgado (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Think you're a little late with the cover-up attempt, gang. I do like the font as trying to evoke old sci-fi mags or something similar.

The FF are hiding on an alien world until they fix their 1950s-style flying saucer. The intelligent life is technologically around the "dirigibles and phonograph" stage, so I guess it's a Prime Directive thing. Johnny bought a "graphophone" so they can listen to music while they work, plus some clay for Alicia to work with. Which gives her an idea.

Apparently, there was a theory that if you can store sound by carving into a wax cylinder, other things could store sounds when you carved them, like clay. Earth's clay doesn't do this, but the clay of the alien world does. If someone hummed while they carved a vase, the vase stored the sound and it could be played. Disguised, the FF share this discovery with the world, figuring as long as it seems like their own people figured it out, and the locals are the ones who actually test the artifacts, it's fine.

It's not fine. People learn things about the great thinkers, creators, religious figures and whatnot, that they didn't want to know. Fights break out, people start trying to destroy elements of the past. Reed gets the idea if they reveal they're actually aliens and explain a few things, people will calm down. Reed is wrong.

As the FF can't keep the entire world from fighting each other, they try one last time, only this time they lie. Present another invention that "accidentally" reveals them as beings of malicious intent (instead of, let's be kind and said overly optimistic), and are "killed" before they can escape in their saucer. They return to Earth, now having to explain to their kids why it was OK to lie this time. I'm not sure I buy Sue's reasoning that it may not matter in the long run, as I suspect that even if a member of the species rediscovers the truth centuries down the line, there will still be pushback from reactionary forces who don't like having their worldview challenged. But I'm a cynical person.

I was trying to decide what was bugging me the entire issue about Rosanas' version of the Thing. I think it's he gives Ben a neck. His head is too high relative to his shoulders. Although judging by that first panel, the area between his nose and lips looks almost like a dog's muzzle. That ain't helping. Also, seeing him wearing the same costume as the others, instead of just the pants, is weird to me. I know he's done that at times in the past, and I don't blink when he wears sweaters or whatever during his time off, but the snug spandex look just didn't seem right.

Dredging Up the Past. And Fish.

You're sailing to a series of islands, but in the dark of night, in fog too dense to see, you wreck your ship. You wash up in the town of Greater Marrow, where the Mayor has an offer: If you'll agree to be a fisherman, they have a boat you can use. For some reason, the locals don't want the job.

You soon find there's more in the waters around here than just fish. Treasures, sure, but strange lights, too. Monsters. Things in the night that aren't what they seem.

Most of DREDGE is exploring and collecting resources. You putter around catching fish, or dredge for sunken materials. The materials can be treasures - rings, jewelry, sacks of doubloons - or building supplies. Wood, cloth, scrap metal. The treasures, like the fish, can be sold. The materials are for upgrading the ship. Enabling it to carry more lights, more nets or engines. You get all the upgrades of a certain level, then you can get yourself a bigger hull, so you can get the next round of upgrades.

Of course, you must pay to apply the upgrades once you collect the materials necessary to build them, and that's where the fishing and dredging for treasures come in. That's done through timing events. Fishing, there'll be some sort of pattern around a silhouette of the fish you're going to catch, and you hit the button when the cursor is inside the green area (or the yellow, if you want to catch a trophy-sized specimen.) For dredging, there are two concentric circles rotating, with irregularly spaced black bars in them. You hit the button to move your cursor from one circle to the other, avoiding the bars.

You know where to fish or dredge because there'll be disturbed water, bubbles marking activity. You can usually see an outline of what's there, so if you're looking for particular fish, or particular building materials, you can try to pick the right spots, without wasting valuable daylight hours on something you didn't want.

There are also surprises. Good ones! All the fish species have aberrations, mutated versions you occasionally catch. You can recognize those spots because the disturbances in the water give off green blips of light, like the bubbles and sparks from a cartoon mad scientist's latest potion. Eel species that sometimes are a "twinned eel", basically Siamese twin eels. The Three-Headed Cod. An octopus where each tentacle ends in a mouth of razor sharp teeth. OK, that actually sounds like a horrible thing to catch, but you can get more money for it. What are a few fingers when there's money to be made? There's also the option to leave behind crab pots or hang out a trawl net, and just catch fish as you sail, if you want to be lazy about it.

Sometimes dredging pulls up odd mechanical bits called "research parts." You use them to figure out how to upgrade your gear, the specific engines, fishing rods, nets and crab pots. Of course, unlocking the upgraded versions just means you can buy them from either the shipwright in Greater Marrow or the one with a floating dock that services the other islands. Hey, how is it I'm doing all the work, and they're making all the money?

Oh, right, all the shipwrights around here are sturdy women wielding pipe wrenches. I retract my complaint.

I kid, the shipwrights are actually very helpful and frequently show concern when I don't get enough sleep. There are several island chains within the game. Each usually has at least two places you can dock, and usually at least one person is looking for help with something. You know how it goes. Find my photography equipment. Help me reconcile with my brother. Lure in creatures capable of flaying your sanity so I can kill them with a mortar salvaged from a wrecked biplane.

Daytime is relatively safe, save the occasional monster that can damage your ship, if not outright destroy it. Nighttime is another matter. The fog closes in. Even the strongest lights only let you see so far, and where you can't see, your character's mind fills in the blanks. Usually in the least helpful way possible. As a general rule, if you see a wobbly purple-red aurora, try to avoid it. If it lets you.

There's a little dial at the top of the screen that shows the time and whether it's light or dark. If you stay out after dark, an eye starts to appear on the dial. The longer you stay awake, the wider it gets, and if you sail too close to one of those auroras, the eye starts to shift colors and vibrate as your grip on reality slips. I guess it represents your eyes darting about, looking at shadows in panic. Rocks appear and disappear at the edge of your lights, assuming your lights don't shut off entirely. You'll see the lights of other ships in the dark, or enormous, ghostly sharks will surge at you from the fog, tearing through your ship. Man, now I gotta pay to repair that! And if the hull is damaged, something, will dart in through the gap and start infecting your fish, which hurts my profit margin! Stupid ghost sharks!

The broad plot is you meet a mysterious man who lives alone on Blackstone Island, just south of Greater Marrow. He wants you to find certain items. Items that reveal themselves at night, via a pillar of the same purple-red light as the mind-shredding auroras. Items frequently guarded by monsters. The solutions vary in details, but usually require getting something for someone else. Help a researcher by returning her equipment, and she'll construct something to temporarily repel the tentacled horror resting near one item. Catch specific fish to place on altars to recover mystical flames. Avoid little fish that can slow down your ship, while they call for their big mama, who can do significantly more than that.

When you return the items, you get special skills. Haste speeds up your ship, though it risks damaging your engines and messes with your head. Manifest teleports you to the Collector's house, and really fucks with your head. Then there's Banish, which can dispel the visions haunting you, and, well, you get the idea. On the plus side, the slackening grip on sanity is represented by the hallucinations. There's none of the wobbly-screen stuff from The Sinking City that gave me such a headache.

I made the mistake of not asking more questions of the Collector, or I would have known not to spam Manifest as much as I did. Because using it brings you to the attention of things you'd rather not have notice you. Which would explain why, around the time I finally asked, I found myself being chased by a giant, ghostly stingray immediately after using it. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of it. But using Manifest makes it look like your ship self-destructed!

In general, I needed to question characters more often. If someone asked me to find certain fish for them, I would definitely ask for any info they had about them. What kind of water depth they liked, nocturnal or not, stuff like that. But I wouldn't always think to ask, for example, the lady with the floating dock, what she knew about the island chain I just reached. Would have saved myself some grief at Devil's Spine if I did as soon as I found her.

I tended to focus on collecting materials and money to expand the ship, without upgrading much of my gear, the exception being the fishing rods. That was because there are 7 different habitats the fish can reside in (coastal-shallows-mangrove-volcanic-oceanic-hadal-abyssal), and the rods available early on are only suitable for one apiece. I ain't fixin' to carry 7 damn fishing rods, so I put the research parts into unlocking two rods that, between them, covered all 7 habitats. It meant there was no room for the trawl net, but oh well. As long as I had a crab pot, I didn't have to worry about not having the tools to catch what I needed.

On the downside, my engines were weak for a long time. It usually took the entire day to get from the Marrows to any of the 4 major island chains. Which left me with the options of a) resting at some dock for the night, b) trying to sail through the night to get back home, or c) using Manifest to get to Blackstone Island, which was a short enough jaunt from the Marrows to seem manageable at night. You know, outside the increased madness and vengeful ghost stingray. But the fish go bad if you wait too long, and I didn't want to risk blowing a quest and having to catch another fish, so Manifest it was.

Later in the game, I added a couple more engines, and let me tell you, going from a top speed of around 37 km/hr to over 100 km/hr makes a world of difference. I could cover the distance between any two points in the day. If I needed to be out at night, I was fast enough to outrun the night's horrors.

If I were to play from the beginning, I'd probably upgrade the engines as I added more space for them, instead of waiting until the end. I'd also take more time to just focus on fishing and dredging. It'd be a necessity anyway, to get the money to afford better engines. The Collector isn't calling me up and demanding I produce results, so there's no time limit, unless there's some sort of speed run Achievement. (It took me around 190 days, in-game, to get to the endings.)

That said, I didn't feel invested in the overarching plot. Really, I was barely aware of it. There was clearly some weird stuff going on. All the mutated fish, for one. You find bottles with messages suggesting a doomed romance. The Lighthouse Keeper makes cryptic remarks and keeps giving you the stink-eye. Hey, there's a boat a lot like yours, smashed on some rocks near Blackstone Island! What a coinky-dink!

But as I played, I didn't associate that stuff with anything I was doing. It was more like, local color. I figured, maybe if I kept sailing around, I'd find a sidequest that would lead to answers. Obviously the Collector was messing with dark powers, but I didn't have any sense of what his goal was, or if I was anything other than his unwitting dupe.

Again, maybe I needed to ask more questions, but I don't think it impeded my enjoyment of the game. I liked just sailing around, fishing in different spots, seeing what I could catch. Checking out the islands and the assorted weirdos, or searching for little coves or hidden treasures. Trying to use the camera to take nifty photos. Mixed results on that last one, but it was fun to mess with. Reminded me of the more peaceful parts of Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, even if DREDGE takes place in a much less pleasant climate. A lot more rain, a lot rougher seas, blustery winds that carry those green blips of light like the magic's chasing you.

What I Bought 8/29/2026 - Part 2

I bought Outlast off the Playstation store several months ago. Fortunately when it was on sale, because I didn't get very far before I concluded it wasn't for me. I expected it to be tense, but I didn't realize how frustrated I'd get with the gameplay. I know I don't love first-person perspective for stealth games, but I guess Thief and Dishonored at least giving the option to defend yourself if you blow it blunted the dissatisfaction more than I thought. Not a choice with Outlast. All you can do is run, or hide, and it's just too tense. 

Vampyrates! #2, by Fred van Lente (writer), Luca Pizzari (artist), Adam Guzowski (colorist) Jodie Troutman (letterer) - Kind of wish the bats were forming into the jolly roger, or vice versa.

This issue is mostly former Empress Nira figuring out her current situation. She's on a pirate ship, with a captain (Akeyo) who knows Nira is who she claims to be, and not just some nut. Akeyo has no interest in letting Nira leave, to say nothing of following her commands. That Nira can't place Akeyo - meaning, she doesn't realize Akeyo was serving as a privateer for Nira, who got listed as an enemy because nobody told Akeyo the war was over - probably isn't helping. Or maybe it is. Akeyo could want the person she's angry with to actually remember her, and understand why, before taking revenge.

End result, Nira is part of the crew now. Specifically, part of a gunnery crew, with a little blonde vamp called Longlocks. And she's getting some practice in a hurry, because they attack a ship carrying tithes. Which is to say walking blood bags, aka, humans. There's also an area locked off, but it seems to be full, not of gold, but "rotters." Which I guess are vampires that are dead and mindless? Zombie vampires. Seems like they'd be easier to kill, lacking much in the way of thought or coordination, but still messy.

Fight scenes are brief, mostly implied by a panel of Nira looking on in shock as blood flies. That page is the only one where Pizzari's panels aren't square or rectangular, with the sides parallel to the edges of the page. They're slanted or angled instead, as maybe being this up-close to pirate warfare is unsettling to a coddled royal, even one that's good with a blade.

But Nira ends up saving one of the crew, and took care of the rotters by setting the ship ablaze (to destroy all the bounty posters with her picture on them that she found), so she's made some friends. Now if she can only figure out what Akeyo stands to gain by letting the humans slip away at night in a longboat.

So van Lente's throwing a lot of stuff in, and not necessarily stopping to explain all of it. Which makes sense. Odds are most of Akeyo's crew has seen all this before, and they aren't the types to stop and explain to the "crazy" newbie. But yeah, a lot of place names, a lot of concepts where I'm not totally sure of the context.

Paint (2023)

Carl Nargle (Owen Wilson) is the long-time host of a painting show on PBS-Burlington, known for his landscape paintings (mostly Mount Mansfield, highest point in Vermont), and naming the trees and bushes in his paintings. Also for his big, blonde afro and his brightly colored van, named Vantastic.

When Carl balks at the station manager's (Stephen Root) request he help boost their ratings by doing two shows a day, they bring in a new painter to follow Carl's show, Ambrosia (Ciara Renee). Who, on her first episode, paints a UFO pouring blood onto a tree stump*. Because that's what she felt like painting today. Soon, Ambrosia is the new hotness, and Carl misses all the blind adulation he once enjoyed. 

There are a few scenes of Carl trying to get people to love him again, but mostly it's him slowly - with a fair amount of help from people yelling at him - figuring out what went wrong in his life. He and the station's assistant manager, Katherine (Michaela Watkins), used to be an item, but it fell apart in a sad mixture of emotional neglect and infidelity, from both parties. Neither has moved on. Katherine really runs the station - Root is playing one of his nervous, awkward men, who somehow stumbled into a position he's unsuited for - but she doesn't seem to have found anyone else. Carl is still living in the past. Same haircut, same van, same shirt, same paintings of Mount Mansfield, again and again. Both of them struggle with intimacy, embarrassing themselves in front of potential partners at different times.

Which I appreciated. Katherine is good at her job, but Williams doesn't play her as some hyper-competent person, a complete contrast to a guy who is a walking disaster. She's smart, organized, but a little awkward and indecisive. Like Carl, when it comes to being honest with people, she stinks. Katherine couldn't tell Carl she was feeling neglected, Carl couldn't just talk to her about how her actions hurt him. Now she gets flustered around Ambrosia, blurting things out at inopportune times. Carl certainly enjoys the attention the younger staff members offer, but he gets anxious when one tries to put the moves on him and keeps trying to distract her. He can't just say he's not into her like that. Katherine can't just tell Ambrosia she's still in love with Carl.

There's a scene I like, after Carl's star has completely fallen at the station, where Katherine tries to return one of his paintings without being noticed. And Williams does a great job, the halting way she starts towards his door, then turns back, then dives into a snowbank to avoid being seen. The panicked flailing and instinctive (poor) attempts to hide, her visible terror at the thought of being spotted. You can tell she does not want to have to explain why she's there, maybe because she's not sure of the answer.

Along those same lines, Ciara plays Ambrosia as someone who can be very cheerful and friendly, but is not above getting competitive or frustrated. She's very respectful to Carl when they first meet, even as he's too absorbed in his own world to reciprocate. But when Carl pitches the idea of a fundraiser for the station where each of them paint a portrait of the biggest donor, she's all in. She's not playing the awed newbie for him any longer. Though Carl ultimately humiliates himself there, Ambrosia absolutely wanted to draw a higher bid than him, was frustrated she didn't, and also wanted to finish her portrait first. He threw down the gauntlet, and she was more than willing to pick it up.

As her relationship with Katherine falls apart, Ambrosia grows increasingly moody and spiteful, mockingly doing her own paintings of Mount Mansfield as a jab at Carl. But it's also a plea to Katherine. I can do these paintings too! I'll do as many of them for you as you want! Just forget about him! It's a nice contrast to Carl, who as he sinks into depression, just paints a canvas solid black (it's Mount Mansfield, at night) and seems disconnected from the world, needing several seconds to respond. He withdraws, Ambrosia lashes out, Katherine is just looking for the exit. 

Wilson plays the guy he usually does. Superficially nice, but self-absorbed in that clueless, idiot way a lot of his characters are. He tries to win the station staff back to his side by giving them gifts, but the gifts are just merch with his face on them. But when Ambrosia steps in and mentions she made a unique painting for each of them, Carl doesn't try to stop them from going. He knows it's a nice gesture, even if it burns him up how eager they are to get the paintings and discard his offerings.

That doesn't stop him from driving around town stealing newspapers with a lead article proclaiming him tired and unimaginative, while praising Ambrosia as a breath of fresh air, one of several scenes I found hilarious. Just the pitiful desperation, driving down the middle of a residential street in a van everyone will recognize, screeching to a stop every few seconds to dart out and steal a newspaper off someone's porch.

There were a couple of times I thought the movie was going a direction it didn't. Katherine mentions, while checking the recordings of Carl's old shows still play, that he used to draw a lot more stuff than just Mount Mansfield. Carl responds with some comment about following a dream, which I dismissed as just pap. It turns out to be relevant. I thought the disaster with the fundraiser was going to reveal he'd been painting landscapes so long he couldn't remember how to do anything else. Maybe because I remembered a Bob Ross episode where he mentions he wasn't very good at painting people, so that's why he stuck to landscapes.

The reason turns out to be something both deeper and sadder. It leads him to the Burlington Museum of Art, in pursuit of that dream he alluded to with Katherine. While that trip ended in humiliation, I thought, when he returned to the barn where he kept all his paintings, the trip would have opened his eyes to a new vision of what art could be. We were going to see Cubist Carl Nargle, or Post-Modernist Carl Nargle! And it would turn out nobody wants that. They just want him to paint the mountains. But also, they're tired of him painting mountains. So he would just paint for himself. Something like that.

And he does, eventually, take the advice he received from the museum curator to heart. But first, he flips out and throws paint everywhere, even using his afro like a brush. Which ends in another punchline that made me laugh. That was a pleasant surprise, that the movie was actually funny to me; I was worried it was going to mostly be cringe elements, like much of Dream Scenario, and I would barely be able to watch it. And there are times where Carl starts doing something you can see is going to be hugely embarrassing from a mile off and I had to look away.

But it turned out to be very funny, I think because everyone gets to be a mess in different ways. Stressed from a job they can't do, unsatisfied with the job they've got. Still guilty over a past mistake, or frustrated the person they love won't love them back. Pursuing what they think is a dream, only to find reality isn't as impressive as they hoped. Convincing themselves they're living that dream, when it only works so long as nothing changes, about them or anyone else. And they get to lash out, or act the fool, or be petty, and it frequently backfires. 

* People keep saying it's a painting of a UFO drenched in blood, but it isn't. The flying saucer is clean, all the blood is pouring from the center of it, straight down onto the stump.  

What I Bought 8/29/2026 - Part 1

August has dragged on forever. So sick of this month. It doesn't help that we're experiencing yet another full week of hellish temperatures. Today we're looking at two books from early in this miserable, interminable month.

The Deadman #3, by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martin Morazzo (artist), Chris O'Halloran (colorist), Good Old Neon (letterer) - Well, at least he's dressed in the right color for the party.

Deadman descends into Hell to ask Lucifer about the demon he faced in issue 1. For some reason, Rama Kushna makes him take along the ghost kid, Bobby, that tags at his heels in Purgatory. So down they go.

This issue really seems like an opportunity to for Morazzo to do a lot of different stuff. I mean, I'm sure there's some deeper significance to the version of Hell that Prince has opted for, but whatever theological or literary references he's making are lost on me.

So the first level, dubbed "Button", a place for those who, 'let the elevator door close as someone ran towards it calling, "Wait!"', is done like, what I'd think of as the art in a Middle Ages church. Oddly-shaped figures and animals, drawing hair like a depiction of the wind. There's a page of mostly prose that adds a little backstory to the man using the demons to keep himself young, with just one image along the right side of the page.

When Deadman and Bobby reach level 6 "Full Stop", they find the fracking magnate Deadman supposedly sent to Heaven in issue 1. Turns out Lucifer's got veto power, and the guy gets to spend eternity having his organs ripped out and devoured by Cerberus, only to for everything to regenerate. Anyway, there's a page of charts and graphs - this is apparently level 7 - that depict the course of the man's life and show that he should, in fact, be damned. Frankly, it's a messy page, but it figures Hell would be full of people who don't know how to properly organize a powerpoint slide.

The page of the 8th level is all negative space, white outlines against a solid back backdrop, before they reach Lucifer. Who laughs at the idea anyone other than him gets final say on whether someone is damned or saved. Wait, they're letting the Devil decide? What idiot made that system? Oh, right, God. The same moron that allegedly created this fucked-up place we live in. "Lucy" gets a good laugh at Deadman's notion that Rama Kushna wouldn't tell him about this arrangement, so now Deadman's going to yell at God. Good luck with that.

Chachu #1, by Iman Vellani (writer), Marianna Ignazzi (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Lucas Gattoni (letterer) -  Strong "teen trying to look cool," vibes. To her credit, she's doing a lot better than I would have managed. 

In 1979, Leila has come to Los Angeles. She's starting college soon, but she's really here to look for an uncle she's never met, who left home for reasons no one can agree on (or they won't tell her the truth if they do.) She finds him, he notices her, she panics, her car collides with his wife's car as said wife tears ass away from their home.

They talk, though she doesn't get the answers she's looking for. Well, it wouldn't be a mini-series if it was that easy, would it. Her internal narration, or her diary, whatever form the caption boxes are meant to be, is definitely overdone. 'His mustache sat too politely under his nose - like it was there to chaperone his more boyish features.' It's a nice line, but as my dad would says, veers too far into Raymond Chandler territory. Leila's also obviously trying to appear more mature than she is, thinking of this as some grand adventure of discovery, so it fits.

Leila is woken in the night by a gun in her face. Her Chachu has a visitor, his father-in-law, who is a movie producer, I think. If so, it's in the sense it makes a convenient cover for criminal activities and threats. Hence the armed goons and the midnight visit. He wants to know where his daughter went, because she needs to be there for a big movie premiere.

And while Leila's shaken enough to almost start crying, she's recovered enough confidence by the next day to insist her uncle can't use her car without taking her, too. So it's off to Vegas, where Cleo is visiting old girlfriends when she gets attacked. By people very interested in stealing her wedding ring. Fortunately some lantern-jawed leading man shows up and chloroforms her, so he can carry her to safety. Which is not doing much to dispel Chachu's notion this is all a publicity stunt his father-in-law engineered.

Ignazzi's art reminds me a bit of Chris Samnee's. Not as squared-off, bit softer in the linework, but a similar vibe. Also not as heavy on the solid blacks, but this story isn't quite as dark as some of the stuff I've seen Samnee draw. At least, not yet. I really like how Ignazzi draws Leila, with the huge sunglasses and the coat with the massive fur trim collar. It could be meant as a disguise, but it comes off like a child wearing their parents' clothes. She wants to project the image of an adult, but it just comes off as an obvious act. Her face is also more rounded than anyone else's, her eyes bigger relative to her face. She's still just a kid, but she wants badly to be an adult. Get the answers she thinks everyone withholds because she's too young.

Sunday Splash Page #442

"Cap-Snake," in Avengers Assemble #4, by Steve Orlando (writer), Valentina Pinti (artist), Sonia Oback and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo (color artists), Cory Petit (letterer)

After the whole mess with Blood Hunt, Captain America decided they needed a crew of Avengers that were always ready to respond to any crisis. I'm pretty sure that was kind of what the Avengers were for. Confronting threats no single hero could handle alone? What the hell are the regular Avengers, in the main book, doing if not that?

So Cap's Avengers Emergency Response Squad - AVENG.E.R.S., yes, they turned just the last three letters into an acronym - use the old Avengers Mansion as HQ, and whoever is there when a call comes in rolls out to face it. So, again, it's the Avengers, just more haphazard about who's on duty?

Cheap shots at the concept aside, this wasn't bad. The team is a nice mix of long-standing Avengers and new ones. Besides Captain America, you've got the Wasp, Hawkeye, Hercules, Wonder Man, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau (going as Photon), Living Lightning, Shang-Chi, Night Thrasher and Lightspeed. A little light on scientists - basically Night Thrasher - and not much magic - basically Hercules - but it's a good blend of personalities, and a big enough roster Orlando can grab a different group of 4 to 5 in every issue to confront whatever the immediate crisis is.

In issue 1, the Red Skull's daughter gets hold of some helm from a goddess of hate, and it starts to amp up Cap, Wasp, and Monica's natural assertiveness until the three of them are butting heads and sniping over who should be giving orders. Shang-Chi's the one with enough spiritual awareness to fight the pull and get them back rowing the same direction.

Issue 2, an entire town is swarmed with ghost apes, so you end up with Cap, Hawkeye, Night Thrasher and Hercules. Herc being a demi-god means he can actually punch ghosts, and apparently understand all languages? Thrasher's the one who detects a lot of cosmic radiation. Hawkeye's the one actually trying to interpret what the apes are silently saying, because of his experience being deaf and all.

The overarching plot is the revitalized Serpent Society is using these crises as cover for smaller heists, and the AVENG.E.R.S slowly figuring that out. Specifically, the Society is stealing weird crap to create some potion that turns people into snake-people, in service of Mephisto (the "true Serpent"), who they now worship. I tend to prefer the Serpents as crooks who work together to improve their odds of pulling off a score rather than cultist wack-a-doodles, but it's not the worst set-up, I guess. Orlando adds a couple of new serpents, including a big one called Titanoboa that Viper treats like some genius of the human mind because he correctly predicted Captain America would throw himself on a vial of the toxin to protect a teammate.

I guess given the usual pinheads that work in the Society, even that basic level of observation is considered noteworthy.

Orlando also makes sure to devote a few pages each issue to interactions between the Avengers at the Mansion, awaiting the next crisis. In issue 2, we get a page of Lightspeed fangirling over the Wasp, and being assured that she can handle being an Avenger, plus a couple of pages of Living Lightning making Shang-Chi watch some apparently terrible movie starring Schwarzenegger and Wonder Man. They're little things, but it's a way to establish personalities and let the characters bounce off each other outside combat.

One thing that doesn't work in the book's favor is the churn of art teams. Every issue has a different artist. Besides Pinti, you have Cory Smith, Scot Eaton, Marcelo Ferreira, and Jose Luis. Most tend towards a more grounded, realistic-leaning style. Nothing wildly exaggerated. Likewise, Oback's colors tend to be muddy and dulled. Nothing leaps off the page and demands your attention.

I don't like that approach for this book. This isn't some gritty, back alleys, espionage-focused squad. It's confronting people dressed as snakes, the ghosts of tormented apes, and groups trying to kill those turned into vampires against their will, with whoever happens to be available. Hercules is hitting people with a glowing adamantine mace. Monica Rambeau is doing a better than terminal velocity crash into the Red Skull's daughter with Captain America's shield. That sort of stuff should lean towards four-color, bright and dynamic art.

This ran for 5 issues as a mini-series, after which it became an online comic. Or Infinity comics, whatever they were calling them. I didn't follow it - see my comments two weeks ago about not being big on reading comics online - so I don't know what happened after.

Saturday Splash Page #244

"Not Their Mess," in Unstoppable Doom Patrol #5, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

A 7-issue mini-series originally solicited as a 6-issue mini-series in 2023, Unstoppable Doom Patrol took place in the aftermath of, I think, Lazarus Planet. A DC event where the entire planet got rained on with Lazarus Pit juice and gave a bunch of people new powers. Something like that; I pay less attention to DC's Big Events than I do Marvel.

Point being, there's a crap-ton of new people with powers, many who can't control them, or are being exploited. The Doom Patrol find them, rescue them, bring them back to a massive underground facility - lovingly depicted in cross-section by Burnham and Reber across two pages in issue 2 - where they can be safe, and also learn to control their powers. Hmm, where have I heard most of this before? Eh, maybe the Doom Patrol have a long history of that sort of thing; I know there's the occasional influx of new characters, who are usually slaughtered by the next writer. *glances in Keith Giffen's direction*

The core roster is Robotman, Elasti-Woman, Negative Man, a new character called Beast Girl that can affect the fight or flight part of your brain, and a person with new powers that run off anger who gleefully calls himself Degenerate. The Chief is now one of Crazy Jane's various personalities. Long-time characters like Niles Caulder and Mento are around, but Caulder's sidelined into an advisory role, and Mento spends most of his time in a tube, and is limited in what he's allowed to do. Which doesn't feel very much like taking care of a metahuman to me. At least, not in a way different from how the people experimenting on Degenerate would.

Culver really leans into the idea of the Doom Patrol as outsiders from the rest of the superhuman community. They butt heads with Batman in the first issue, which is also where I learn that, at least as far as the Chief is concerned, the Flash is the only metahuman on the Justice League. Aliens, Atlanteans, and Amazons don't count. I assume that would extend to sorceresses, androids, and guys who drink a potion that lets them stretch, or however it is Dibny's powers work. Aren't Aquaman and Wonder Woman kind of mutants by the standards of their people? What about Metamorpho, or Firestorm? Black Lightning? Oh well, it's just the Chief gatekeeping who gets to be part of the community. Nothing troubling about that!

In issue 3, Robotman and Negative Man haul ass cross-country, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner on their heels, because their latest rescue is a guy that seems to be getting along with the Starro clamped to his face.

The primary antagonist is a government agency, led by Peacemaker. Still outfitted like he is in the comics and the John Cena TV show, including the bedpan helmet, but not nearly as much of a dumbass. More a sadist, who figures anything is acceptable to "protect" his country. Including giant robots with "PEACE" stamped on them. At least the giant robots aren't purple. 

Running in the background, at least until it steps into the foreground, is a plot by certain parts of the Brotherhood of Evil. Mallah turns on the Brain and sides with General Immortus in a plan involving candle wax, a magic ritual, and the grave of former Doom Patrol cast member Dorothy. Something about humanity's fear of the world's end via nuclear fire using her powers to take physical form, and now it's back, in Immortus' body. His withered, decrepit, nasty body.

A big fight spans the last two issues, but it's more about the actions the Doom Patrol take. The Chief trusts Caulder not to work behind her back to retake control, and they encourage Mento to fully let loose with his powers, and trust that they'll keep him from abusing that. The Chief also steps back to let Jane talk with The Quiz - every superpower you've never thought of, does it reset after each fight? - and convince her to help them. When Peacemaker shows up at the end, Degenerate chooses to cover everyone's retreat, trusting they'll rescue him later.

The mini-series went from 6 to 7 issues because DC decided to have some weird mini-event during the summer, where almost everyone on Earth was magically put to sleep, Robotman being one of the few exceptions. So Doom Patrol got a one-shot Burnham drew, and this book got a mid-series fill-in with art by David LaFuente. LaFuente's art is much more exaggerated than Burnham's, but the issue is focused on the team's mental health professional, who uses her power to access the 5th dimension to help people deal with what's on their minds by projecting it. So it's what people feel or perceive, rather than what's true, so more realistic art wouldn't really fit.

Burnham handles the other 6 issues (Reber colors all 7). His style is closer to realistic, but not in a constrained way. He can draw weird, and get detailed, both of which seem essential if you're going to draw a Doom Patrol book. The blob monster up there was an attempt by a corporation to create a superhuman that automatically adapts to threats presented to it. As you can see, it needed a bit more testing. The Brotherhood have a lady with tiger heads for hands, there's a creepy little girl with living, curly, blonde hair. Burnham draws those without them seeming out of place. In the Doom Patrol's world, stuff like that is normal. Degenerate's body morphs and shifts depending how angry he is. Mostly in terms of getting spikier, but also bulking up. Beast Girl has an adorable, fuzzy look that matches her bubbly, eager personality.

The one downside is the book, after a panel promising the Doom Patrol would return, ends with the "Eternal Flame" being dumped into the Bleed and encountering Danny the Street, who is being tortured by the Batwoman Who Laughs. *weary sigh* I never understood why "Batman who is a Joker" was supposed to be such a multiversal threat, so I really don't understand why Batwoman Who Is A Joker is what someone thinks is a good dun-dun-DUUUUUN teaser for the Doom Patrol. Not that it matters; there's a new Doom Patrol book starting up soon, and I can't tell that it's going to pay any attention to this mini-series. 

Random Back Issues #174 - The Power Company #11

Gumbo's Eats-A-Teria, where the food is as terrible as the name! And most of the customers are ex-cons, looking to get thrown back in the stir, I mean, looking for work. Unfortunately for three of them, they had their discussion one booth over from where Bork and Sapphire were enjoying their dinners. So those two, plus Manhunter, invite themselves along to the meeting.

It's going smoothly, no real challenge, when suddenly, there's smoke, and drums. Someone knows how to make an entrance. Someone big enough to toss Manhunter around like a doll. Someone who can, to Manhunter's surprise, use "effrontery" correctly. Too bad the guy couldn't pick a better name than "Mourn."

Worse for him that Firestorm shows up, and takes Mourn out in 4 panels. After which he apologizes he didn't do something flashier. Right, flashier than making the floor mist, causing a water pipe to open, then turning the water to steel, except for the part closest to Mourn's face, which got turned to chloroform. Dull as dishwater. Manhunter assures him he did fine, and even though this gig didn't pay, he's very happy.

The reason becomes clear at a press conference meant to introduce Firestorm as the newest associate of the company. Manhunter interrupts to explain the men they busted were part of Shadowspire, some apparently notorious group that once infiltrated the federal government and even killed two Senators. Shadowspire was supposed to have been taken down years ago, but the files the Power Company found today may (load-bearing word there), once they've been studied, suggest Shadowspire's back, stronger than ever.

But the Power Company will be happy to help! And it won't cost one cent more than regular consultation fee rates.

All of which is news to Firestorm. These guys were still recruiting small-time hoods. They were based in a garage! They stole the Mourn suit from a government warehouse! Exactly, they've already resumed infiltrating the government through its most vulnerable point: un-monitored storage facilities.

Before he and Skyrocket can discuss it further, it's time for Firestorm to meet the press. Ronnie explains it as, he was initially unsure about Manhunter and Witchfire's offer, but they talked it out and reached an agreement. What we see is he was flat broke, JLA stipend (from Batman, or is it Atlantean and Amazonian gold?) burned on back rent and tuition, dreading eating another relish sandwich. Manhunter, after making a crack about getting to Firestorm after Blue Beetle turned them down, shows Ronnie what his starting salary will be and, well. . .

After how he handled Mourn, maybe Firestorm ought to ask for a raise. I like Blue Beetle, but Ted Kord isn't changing water into steel/sleeping gas. 

In the background, Skyrocket and Manhunter have an angry, whispered conversation about how he's lying just to drum up business. Manhunter argues nothing he said was false. It was Shadowspire, they did do the things he said, the files may, in fact, reveal the organization to be far larger and better organized than they appeared today. But if it is fraud, then it certainly wouldn't be in the company's best interests if someone, say another major shareholder like Skyrocket, to denounce him publicly.

Then he steps forward to help a floundering Firestorm with the press, leaving Skyrocket to stew over what she can actually do to counter this kind of stuff while Josiah Power's in a coma. She decides to contact Witchfire. As the third shareholder, she's the deciding vote, and firmly in Manhunter's, "all about the Benjamins" camp, unless Skyrocket can convince her otherwise.

But the pop star-turned-sorceress is in Louisiana with Striker Z, trying to track down a magic sword for the Lords of Trinius, who will pay well. Striker's a little concerned if it's smart to give the sword to these guys, who might enslave the world with it. Sensing he's thinking too much like Skyrocket, Witchfire plays the, "I saw you like Nickelback. I can bring you to meet them next time they play in L.A." card.

No doubt summoned by that cursed name, some many-tentacled thing with a lot of teeth sneak attacks. As Striker Z gets dragged under, Witchfire's surprised to find one of her arms missing, and the stump is just glowing yellow energy. 

{8th longbox, 90th comic. The Power Company #11, by Kurt Busiek (writer), Tom Grummett (penciler), Prentis Rollins (inker), Guy Major (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)}

Giving Thanks The Solicit Table Isn't Entirely Barren

November's solicitations were better than I expected. 2025, I was down to almost nothing by the end of  the year, and then it built back up (briefly) in the spring. There aren't a ton of new things I'm interested in, but "any" is better than "none." Although, I would swear when that Hector Plasm mini-series wrapped last year, Cereno said there was another one coming out this year. No sign of it so far!

What's new? Marvel has the first issue of Friendly Neighborhood Mary Jane, where MJ is now a producer, trying to get a project off the ground, despite sabotage attempts by the Chameleon. So it feels like Ashley Allen is taking a cue from the short-lived Amazing Mary Jane series, where MJ was basically acting like a producer and problem-solver for Mysterio's biopic. Not the worst idea, although I'm not enthused about Phil Noto as artist. But on the plus side, I saw a Venom solicit that said the symbiote's back with Eddie Brock, so maybe MJ's out of symbiote hell. Fingers crossed! 

Red 5 has The Agony of Stars, a 4-issue mini-series by Kim Ousley and Etienne Derepentigny about a serial killer targeting the retired members of an elite police squad. And Antarctic Press has Fang Hunters, which sounds like a humorous Western crossed with horror elements, in outer space. It could be a complete mess with all that stuff (one of the vampire bounty hunting crew may be a gorilla, if the cover is accurate), but it might work.

Abrams has Lantern Pass, by Serge Lehman and Peeters. It seems like kind of the standard plot of some investigators from the city coming to an insular community and stirring up things the locals would rather keep buried, but the cover was very cool. So if that's representative of Peeters' work, it might be worth it for the atmospheric art alone. 

What's ending? Generation X-23 wraps at 10 issues, to the surprise of, probably, no one.

And the rest? I am, however, surprised that Marc Spector: Moon Knight isn't wrapping up at 10. I figured this entire run was building to some new Midnight Suns book MacKay was going to write, but nope. Instead Moon Knight and Tigra are teaming up with Hank Pym, no doubt so Marc and Hank can compare who's fucking up more lately. D'Orc's 10th issue also involves the title character teaming up with someone better off being avoided, but it's a golem that wants to kill him.

I don't think The Deadman is ending at 6 issues, although the solicit saying 'last first adventure' makes me wonder. Batgirl 25 bring David Cain into play, so I guess Brombal's going for a mirroring of Cass' first ongoing, where it was mostly focused on David, but the 25th issue was a throwdown with Lady Shiva. Daimon Scott's going to be drawing some of it, at least.

Fantastic Four is done with DNX tie-ins, and North is not going back to the time travel well - yet. Vampyrates! is wrapping up its first arc with the pirate (pyrate?) crew learning a big secret, but under fire from a hostile fleet. Chachu and The Matron are both on their fourth issues, and Lilith: Blood and Burlesque 2 has the title character fighting for her life against a demon butler.

Marvel's also releasing one of those facsimile versions of Emperor Doom,  an OGN I had been toying with getting. This might be cheaper than the versions I see in the places I usually look, so maybe I'll get that.

Eephus (2024)

A pair of adult rec league baseball teams meet for the final game at their local field, before it's paved over to make room for a new middle school. The game carries on from the afternoon into the night, with the few fans, the umps, and even some of the players drifting away. The rest keep playing, determined to see the game through to the proper ending they think the field deserves.

The film moves at the pace of a baseball game, which is to say, leisurely. We see a lot of the game action. The actors were expected to at least approximate playing, and you can tell which ones had more experience, especially when it comes to sliding. But these are mostly middle-aged guys, playing a game they loved for decades. Greying beards, scraggly hair and beer guts. They shouldn't look graceful, and they sure don't.

Apperson Paint's leftfielder could do a pretty convincing Santa Claus impression, based on his body shape. The Riverdogs' pitcher has a goofy windup that suggests he saw Craig Kimbrel and decided to look even stupider. Apperson's back-up pitcher has the mustache and pitching motion of an escapee from the Dead Ball era. Their catcher, by the later innings, is sitting on a footstool behind the plate, because his knees can't take it. 

That's part of what's perfect about the film. In a sense, this game means nothing. The teams aren't playing for anything other than bragging rights. Guys on the same team are all wearing different shirts, united only by colors. Apperson's coach leaves (reluctantly) mid-game because he was about to miss his niece's christening. Another guy gets fed up and just drives away. Yet that guy also got incredibly pissed when the other team, knowing he was on a diet, started taunting him by calling out different types of food while he was batting. Then the ump made them cut it out. 'Am I in a deli? Am I trying to sell you ham?' was my favorite line.

The Riverdogs' first baseman keeps bragging about the fireworks he bought to set off after the game, even lying about what a deal he got on them. Their goofy pitcher, after taking a line drive to the chest, ices it down in between innings with a beer. When their coach tells him not to put that one back in the cooler, Troy shrugs and pops the beer, taking a long swig. When one player finds no coach at third base to advise him, he decides to just be his own third base coach, including having fake conversations with himself. This does not go well.

Later, when Troy says he needs a breather, a random guy (actually former major leaguer Bill "Spaceman" Lee) who just showed up because he played on this field decades ago and wanted to see it one last time, agrees to pitch an inning. In his slacks and polo shirt. Then Troy resumes pitching the next inning like nothing happened. Despite one player pimping his home run to dead center with a nice slow trot around the bases, or another guy screaming at his teammate for being too conservative in whether to send runners or not, this is nothing like a serious game.

And yet, given multiple opportunities to call it, they keep playing, unwilling to let it end in a tie. The first baseman tries bribing one of the umps to stick around longer, using pork loins he won in a meat lottery. When it gets too dark, they drive their cars onto the edge of the field and use headlights. The scorer tries to ump from the empty press box. Players wander the woods retrieving baseballs because they're running out. Whether for pride, or just a refusal to let go of something that's been a big part of their lives for who knows how many years, they won't just, stop and say enough. The game ends only when it truly ends.

Which makes it sound like some horrible, purgatorial existence. I don't think that's the vibe intended, but watching them stagger around like blind men, trying to field baseballs they can't even see, has a certain feel of torment to it.

But release is no blessing. The losing pitcher sits down on the mound, head between his knees, dejected he couldn't pull off the win. Even though he was probably the victim of an umpire who couldn't actually see anything by that point. (I wasn't sure if the ump/scorer was blinking so much because he was getting sleepy, or he just had bad night vision.)

There are frequent asides in between innings. Two children of one player wondering why these adults care so much when they're not actually any good. An elderly man who has probably been coming to this field for decades, explaining to the mother of the children that you don't eat pizza at ballgames, and why do they need a school anyway? The kids can get experience working at a ballgame, flipping burgers or selling hot dogs. Two stoners spend a couple of innings standing beyond the outfield fence, asking snide questions of one of the players.

All of them wander off into the wider world long before the game concludes. It was just a temporary diversion, and once they got bored, or cold, or hungry, they decided to find something else to do. The only ones left were the players, and even if the winners are too weary to really celebrate, their dugout is significantly more talkative afterward than the losers. They're tired, they're sore, some of them will be hungover tomorrow. Some of them are already hungover. But hey, they won. If this is the end, they go out on top.