Sunday Splash Page #438

"Monster Mashed," in Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists #1, by Eric Palicki (writer), Wendell Cavalcanti (artist), Mark Dale (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

Lucas Lewis is hiking from Cleveland to Seattle, and nearly gets hit by a dunk driver. He carries the drunk driver to the nearest town, a little burg called Atlantis. Since the driver is the sheriff's niece, the sheriff agrees to let Lewis bunk in his office for the night. Can't have him out wandering the streets, Atlantis has a curfew.

Atlantis also has a vampire problem, as several of them barge into the sheriff's office that night to feed on the poor sap in the drunk tank. Lucas has some supernatural heritage of his own, and after establishing his bonafides (see above), joins the group. Sort of.

Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists came out in 2020. To some extent, my buying it was due to circumstance. I didn't know either Palicki or Cavalcanti's work (and I don't know what either has done since this mini-series), and the general concept - stranger finds himself in an odd little town - is not exactly a novel one. But lots of things were a mess in 2020, including comic shipping and distribution, so I wasn't necessarily overflowing with options. Here was this mini-series, the title is at least eye-catching, the concept, if not familiar, might at least have a unique spin, so sure, why the hell not?

Palicki adds a few twists and turns. Lucas is traveling cross-country to confront his father before embracing what he sees as a grim fate he can't escape. The grim fate makes more sense to me now, having played The Sinking City, than it did then. Lewis' mother being from Innsmouth didn't mean a thing to me in 2020. The situation between the vamps and the sheriff is not as Lucas suspects, and the drunk niece isn't what she appears at first introduction, either.

They aren't "gotcha!" surprises, where it feels like they come from nowhere. Even with only 4 issues to work with, there's at least a sense of some sort of build and logical reason for things to happen as they do, which is nice. The main reason for the surprises is people believe what they want to believe. The sheriff looked at a vampire wearing his brother's face, and believed it was still his brother. Lucas didn't catch on to that, because he doesn't see it that way. He knows what a vampire is, and what it isn't, the same way he knows what he's ultimately going to become (though I wonder if that's as inevitable as he believes it to be.) The sheriff looks at Lauren, the drunk niece, and just sees a young girl acting out and flouting the rules.

Cavalcanti's art keeps the story grounded. The vampires are just humans with longer nails and incisors. The most notable feature is probably the eyes being dark voids. What you see with Lucas up there is as strange as he gets, though he can bring the features out at will. For the most part, everyone looks like regular people. Maybe a little too neat - Lucas is one of the few sporting stubble - but the real problem in the town isn't the obvious monsters (though they are a problem.) It's the humans who chose to make deals with them, sacrificing others' lives in exchange for their own safety.

It doesn't feel like a coincidence that shadows are more prevalent around people than places. Large parts of the story take place during the day, but even the night scenes aren't colored or shaded too dark. Dale has no problem going to backgrounds of a solid, daylight color during action scenes, and letting the whole thing be clear and easy to see. Because there's nothing wrong with the town, just the people running it.

The concept feels set-up for future installments. Lucas is waylaid by one of the deputies on his way out of town. She wanted to be turned, live forever, and Lucas ruined that. She figures he owes her, and he can either help, or pay by getting shot. Plus she'll kill everyone in town. So there's the potential for the two of them to travel and encounter more problems and maybe help each other. Because Palicki also nods to there being a lot of different supernatural stuff out there, including a different deputy whose parentage might be as messed up as Lucas'. As far as I know, though, there hasn't been a follow-up.

Saturday Splash Page #240

"Rocket into Danger," in Warlock #1, by Louise Simonson (writer), Pascual Ferry (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Steve Oliff (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

And we're on to the second of the three "Marvel Tech" line books. Doug Ramsey died in New Mutants, then Warlock died 30 issues later, presumably to make way for the kewl X-Force era. Some strange hybrid appeared years later, dubbed "Douglock," but turned out to just be Warlock with some of Doug's memories from those times they bonded.

After being used to create the Phalanx - oops - and being used by the Red Skull to take over that Helicarrier that X-51 got blown up stopping from crashing, Warlock's free and on a mission: Seek out and absorb all traces of the Phalanx on Earth. Unfortunately, he soon comes in contact with Esperanza (or Hope), a young girl who seems outwardly fine, but can infect others with the transmode virus. There's also a transmode-infected monkey that Hope befriends and protects from Warlock's half-hearted attempts to absorb him.

The trio face threats on two fronts. On one side, a person called Mainspring, a withered-looking grey guy with a big cranium and what look like camera lens or something fused into his skin. He ran the organization that was experimenting on the Phalanx traces, in some idea of advancing humanity through technology. To them, Hope is a great potential tool, especially when she proves able to infect inanimate objects, which, I guess was not considered possible previously? I don't know, I avoided the Phalanx stuff like a techno-organic plague. Warlock is interfering by denying them the material they desire.

On the other side, a group calling themselves Psi-Cops, led by a woman named Psiren, who Ferry draws as basically Amanda Waller if she shaved her head. Simonson gives her a fair amount of Waller's stubborn attitude and self-righteousness, though lacking the Wall's biting sense of humor. The Psi-Cops run around in white spandex and use various mental powers to destroy techno-organic beings and those who'd use them to endanger Earth. That Warlock also wants to remove all traces of the Phalanx, or that Hope didn't ask to be infected, is irrelevant. They have the potential to create more techno-organic monsters, so they need to be destroyed.

Ultimately, Psiren's younger brother, Psimon, disagrees and helps Warlock and Hope escape. After issue 3, they're on the run from both sides, with Psimon also using his telekinetic powers to help Hope learn to control her transmode abilities. Hope works on not letting her emotions get control of her, Psimon works on his confidence, on not comparing himself to his sister, and pushing his limits. Warlock struggles with guilt over being responsible for the Phalanx that infected Hope, and his own emotions around her and Psimon's friendship. Then Hope gets jealous when first Shadowcat, and then Wolfsbane show up, and Warlock starts acting different (presumably due to the aspects of Doug that imprinted on him.)

Simonson largely avoids jealous spats between the various girls, despite issue 7's cover implying Rahne and Hope were going to fight over Warlock. Kitty's just happy to see Warlock's still alive, and written as old enough to probably not see any rivalry between her and Hope, while Rahne's empathetic enough and open enough with herself to break down Hope's barriers (and also provide a nudge that helps Hope evolve her abilities in important ways.)

Simonson brings in Psycho-Man for one issue because Hope's power is messing with the Microverse somehow, to make everyone work on emotional control (with an assist from special guest-star Spider-Man!) Although Simonson's Psycho-Man is a lot more empty bombast than I was used to. More like a petulant child at times, but maybe the point is he never learned to control his emotions, because his machines do it for him.

Although Hope internal monologues at one point that Warlock barely changed shape once they ran into Shadowcat, it's a matter of degrees. Ferry's artwork is wildly different from Sienkiewicz's. Much rounder, much softer-looking characters, especially Warlock. There are no jagged projections of tiny metal bits jutting off at right angles. Instead, Ferry's Warlock is like a living toon. Highly malleable and using the ability almost constantly. Blimps with hands and feet, a T-Rex, puffing himself up with a Superman-style physique and chest symbol. Even when maintaining the form Hope describes as a 'boring old boy,' he'll still project a fluid-looking tendril from his forehead to interface with a computer.

Simonson keeps the threats coming. Mainspring finds Bastion's (siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh) severed, damaged head in the desert, and after a battle in the New York sewers where it had seized control of one of his robots, Mainspring strips away all the outer layers of programming to get to the core. And that's how I learned Bastion was the result of the amalgamation of Master Mold and Nimrod going through the Siege Perilous back in the Outback era of Uncanny X-Men. I had no idea, and didn't really care, but just throw it on the pile of things I learned I wish I hadn't.

Master Mold of course slips his leash, requiring help from the Avengers, but enough transmode-ing takes place to signal the Technarchy, so Warlock finishes his series - at 9 issues, shortest of the 3 M-Tech books - with a rematch against his father for the fate of the Earth. He wins, with a lot of help from Hope and even the Psi-Cops, and the trio (plus Rhane and the little monkey) decide to stick together and help Warlock remove more Phalanx infection stuff. Which was probably never referenced by any later writers. I don't even know if Warlock showed up in anything between this book (which concluded summer of 2000) and his appearance in the Abnett/Lanning Nova run in 2008, where he'd returned to the Technarchy homeworld (and where Paul Pelletier used Warlock's more classic look.)