What I Bought 1/2/2023 - Part 2

Welcome to Friday, unless it's already Saturday where you are, you lucky devil. Today we're looking at the second issue of one mini-series, and the conclusion of another.

Nature's Labyrinth #2, by Zac Thompson (writer), Bayleigh Underwood (artist), Warnia Sahadewa (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer) - Find all the creatures that want to kill you! Trick question: Everything is lethal!

J. Roe and Nasir reach a checkpoint, where the surviving five contestants wait. It's time for Round 2, or the next stage, and everyone gets a present. Weapons! One for each. you get a handgun, and you get a katana, and whoops, the katana guy gleefully decapitated the guy with the gun. While katana guy gets immolated by flamethrower guy, J. and Nasir keep moving, only to encounter a path full of hallucinogenic flowers. Then they're ambushed by a stereotypical big game hunter with a glaive.

The hunter gets distracted, because he's not the only one besides the contestants roaming around in here. There's at least one feral looking child who ran into flamethrower guy, but the outcome of that is unclear. Flamethrower guy, who is apparently a notorious arsonist, his fate is made much more clear when he catches up to J and Nasir.

The fight is pretty brutal, but some of the proportions and perspectives seem off. Jane slices his throat open with a combat knife, but she looks unusually small, like she's far away or off to one side. Which doesn't make sense, because the panels before that establish they were facing each other and she charged right at him, but he's not even looking at her by the time she cuts him. Then in the next panel, he's uppercutting her in the chin. And I'm very surprised he can fight for that long with what looks like a jugular cut open.

Whatever, he's dead now, so depending on whether he torched katana guy long enough, we may be down to four contestants. I'm curious to see what Nasir's going to do with a Gameboy, as that was the weapon provided to him. Everyone else is given more obvious killing tools, so it kind of sticks out. Is he going to hack their environment with a 30-year-old game system?

Blink #5, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - New definition of "cam girl."

Wren does not kill the one waiting for her. Instead, she's stuck playing witness and ghostwriter as he lays out his life, what he tried to accomplish here, and what he's unlocked. Of the latter, Sebela's going with the, "there are gods for everything," including gods for surveillance and (involuntary) transparency. I'm looking at these pages, and trying to decide if Sherman did the panel layouts to resemble the symbols of major communications or entertainment companies. All these polygons overlapping each other. There's one with a circular panel of Wren, overlapped at 10 and 2 o'clock by smaller circles. Kind of looks like a Mickey Mouse symbol.

Or it's just meant to be all the different cameras. Hundreds of different angles of the same conversation, letting you see it from anyway you choose. Every significant twitch, raised eyebrow, dramatic flourish with a handgun.

Wren learns she had to be drawn back, because the key to bringing this god through was in her. Cy, the monster from her dreams. So much for my theory the monster looking thing that saved her previously was her father, captured and turned into one of the Signal. It was Cy, back in a physical form once he was in this nightmare realm.

The guy behind it kills himself, although Wren turns off the camera right before the end. Given the number of other cameras, it seems kind of pointless, but I guess it's a ritual, and those are meant to be done a certain way. The god wants to see everything, so he offered it even his death. Either way, since Wren didn't kill him, the Static don't get what they want. Unless they kill Wren, who is meant to be in his place. But it's not Wren, it's Cy, and everyone dies except him and her. So Wren flees, but it may be too late for that to matter. Although Sherman shifts back to more ordinary rectangular panels as soon as she's back out in the world, but the more paranoid she gets, the more the angles we view her from start to get weird, and eventually the staticky backdrop in the gutters comes back.

So, where does that leave us? That people don't consider what getting the "whole truth" would really entail? Wren gets that chance, the chance to see everything from where she was born, and all it cost was everything else she had. She's afraid to go outside, she's wrecked her career, her relationships, her life, over this obsession. And she's helped bring some surveillance god into the world directly.

Or that people don't think about how much power they grant others over them with constantly recording themselves, or being recorded. Or they don't even know how much of their life is out there, things they don't remember seeing or doing, but somebody, somewhere, saw it, knows about it.

What I Bought 10/29/2022 - Part 2

I do love autumn. I'd love it more if my boss hadn't sent us out on inspections today. What the hell, like any of us want to be out in the field when we could be starting our weekends early. Let's roll on with a couple of books on their penultimate issues.

Agent of WORLDE #3, by Deniz Camp (writer), Filya Bratukhin (artist), Jason Wordie (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - I think he's got one of the robots arms, but it really looks like he's fighting them with a lute.

The issue plays out in reverse, as Philip and yet another agent are sent to capture a former agent of WORLDE who has escaped with certain pieces of equipment, including eyes that can see future events, and some sort of living combat suit. Which Philip shoots with a bullet designed to give the suit, 'Fast-Forward Alzheimers.' Bratukhin illustrates this by having the suit taking on a fleshy tumorous appearance like something out of a Berni Wrightson illustrated horror story, where it was previously like an overly-detailed Iron Man suit.

As it turns out, the former agent had desired to start a family of her own. Surely, Philip, with a secret family of his own, would be sympathetic? Well, if you consider knee-capping her with armor piercing rounds after his partner kills her family, then hooking her up to a machine so the precognitive eyes only show her certain happy moments from her life over and over, sympathetic, then sure. A bundle of compassion this one is.

I don't really know where Camp is going with all this. What am I supposed to feel towards Philip? In terms of the question posed in issue 1, whether he's any better than the other agents because he feels sad about the things he does, my general response is, "no." He still does these things, and then goes home to the happy family he, but none of the others, get to have. Why? Because he's smarter, so he's earned having his family?

But he seems to be irritating his higher-ups with his recent actions, so maybe it's all going to come to a head. WORLDE is a vicious, cruel, dehumanizing organization that feels it has the right to control everything, and Philip is, in that sense, as much a victim of it as the people WORLDE sics him on. But he is still helping line people up against the wall, so I can't muster much sympathy for him.

Blink #4, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (color artist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - Behind every terrified person stands a succession of creepy weirdos.

The Static are quite insistent Wren must confront "Oz" and kill him, it, whatever. Wren tries to convince them to find a way out, but the Static feel they understand this world, and they won't make it out there. And if Wren won't help, they'll kill her. So she's down the rabbit hole, sneaking around the monsters' backs as they watch footage from myriad points in the history of this place. The way the Static describe it, Blink itself is a living place that provides for them, independent of whatever "Oz" is doing. That backstory is outlined in a couple of pages that Sherman draws where the panels are either bordered by of VHS tape, or are drawn as like pieces of skin or hide stretched out with wires. 

One has to question, given that, Oz apparently saw the Static and Wren coming, whether it is behind all that as well. Giving the Static enough to keep them going against the Signal, because all this is going towards some goal it wants. Wren takes an endless dumbwaiter ride to a white room with a pyramid of TVs. My immediate thought was whether where in the Matrix, or that one episode of Cowboy Bebop with the weird cult leader guy. Wren smashes open a screen, and crawls through to find herself looking into the barrel of a gun.

The big reveal of the issue is that one of the Static, presumably the one constantly pushing her, is one of her parents. Which Wren only finds out as said parent falls to a likely death. I guess that's a hell of a way to find that out, and not much of a reunion. My guess is the one monster that protected her in an earlier issue was her other parent, captured at some point and changed. That wouldn't explain to me why Wren was seeing him in her sleep before she ever returned, since he hadn't been captured when they got her out. I really hope this is not going to end up as "all a simulation, even the part outside the building." I might throw the comics in the trash on principle if it is.

Wren's constantly doubted whether she can do anything, yet also constantly been able to keep going. Keep moving, keep fighting, even take command and figure out how to get to the dumbwaiter when the Static didn't know what lay ahead. Somehow that feels connected to the way the Static told her they couldn't go back to the basement and try to escape. That there was no going back to the past, Blink wouldn't allow it. That doesn't feel entirely accurate, seeing as returning to this place was Wren returning to her past, but if we're meant to see her life since then as drifting or hiding, maybe she had to go back to move forward. I hope this all makes some sort of sense after next issue, but I don't remember feeling like I understood Test, either, so I'm not confident.

What I Bought 10/30/2022 - Part 2

Well, great. I can't get images to load properly in these posts. It was working fine Tuesday when I typed up Wednesday's post, but last night, I could upload from my computer, I could select, but it would not put the images in the freaking post. I got them in by switching to HTML mode, but now the spacing is wonky. Although I fiddled with an upcoming Saturday Splash Page and it looks like I can just drag and drop from my computer into the window, so maybe I'll go with that if this problem persists.

Blink #3, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - The plumbing in that place must be a nightmare, assuming anything bothers to use toilets any longer.

Wren is rescued by a bunch of whispery people wrapped up in tinfoil calling themselves "the static." They will give Wren answers, if she follows them, so for lack of any better options (unless being killed by the monster-things is something you consider better) she follows. This quickly turns into a flight for life from the monsters, which Sherman draws as a twisting, topsy-turvy flight through narrow hallways that stretch forever above Wren.

And I mean, twisting. The first page starts with a panel in the upper left, and then the panels fall in an arc across the page, seeming to rotate as they do. By the last panel in the arc, you've turned the book on its side, and you could be at the start once more, but a different start. And this sort of thing recurs across six pages. The panels overlap, and at times, it almost seems like you could choose one of two different paths to take that would represent her panicked scramble for safety. At the end, the panels tilt once more so that you're holding the book as you normally would. It's very effective at creating disorientation and the sense of finding it hard to interpret all the information when there's a stressful situation.

Wren was nearly captured, but saved by the monster she sees in her dreams. Which looks like most of the others, but she's sure she recognizes it. Then comes the information, displayed through a bunch of panels presented like closed-circuit camera footage. That, when the people who agreed to take part were told they wouldn't be released as promised, some people tried to take away the cameras to force a response. Others chose to defend them cameras, and there was fighting and death. The ones protecting the cameras gradually became monsters, and took the dead to make them into monsters as well. The resistance decided their only protection was to hide their identities. If they couldn't be distinguished, the one watching couldn't track numbers or tell what they were up to. From what they say, it doesn't sound like that's been particularly successful.

Wren's parents got her out, the only escapee, and so the static are convinced she's the only one who can get them out. To do that, she has to confront the source, the one behind all this, and kill him. Except the source, or some sort of staticky ghost thing is watching all this, which doesn't bode well for her success.

What I Bought 9/3/2022 - Part 3

I was thinking about going to a comic convention tomorrow, but I don't really want to drive 3 hours. Plus, I'd probably pick up a bug while I was there and I've got an elderly relative's birthday to attend next weekend, so maybe next year. In the meantime, here's two second issues.

Agent of WORLDE #2, by Deniz Camp (writer), Filya Bratukhin (artist), Jason Wordie (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - Weird how there are dead bodies wherever this guy goes.

Our protagonist teams up with another old acquaintance, Ares Hill. He gets along better with Ares than Kilgore last issue, as they spend part of the story reminiscing and catching up while retrieving the MacGuffin. This action is interspersed with scenes from Phil's quiet home life watching movies with his daughter and talking her through nightmares.

At the end of the issue, Ares intends to use the MacGuffin to make things how he wants. He'd been undercover, with an entire implanted psyche and a family. A family he killed when the mission was over, per his orders. He wants that back. Phil kills him and tells him he ought to have grown up, or come to Phil for help. Before he dies, Ares asks if Phil would have done the same if their situation was reversed? Judging by Phil's expression, I'm guessing the answer is no.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of Phil. He claims he sees everything a person can be, which Bratukhin shows with all the tiny little sepia or greyed-out panels that surround the main action as Phil walks through a mess of enemies, killing a bunch of them. And he seems sad about this, but, as Kilgore noted in issue 1, that doesn't stop Phil from doing it. So what's the difference? Those people are dead whether Phil feels bad about it afterwards while he tucks in his daughter (that he hasn't had to kill).

Camp seems to position Ares a bit like the old friend from college that never grew up or beyond what they were then, while Phil has matured in worldview with his additional responsibilities. Camp's good at writing them as old friends who had a lot of good times once. But Phil's worldview seems to be to kill whoever WORLDE tells him to, then go home to his family. They were arguing earlier in the issue about movies and how Ares can't enjoy the special effects spectacle because he knows it's fake, while Phil says he can see the wires, but enjoys it anyway. Which seems to suggest he knows he's in a crappy world, and helping make it crappier, but he doesn't really care. "Fuck everyone, I got mine," ain't a particularly mature worldview either.

Blink #2, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - Can you turn the sound up? It's hard to hear over all this demonic chittering.

Wren and Joel run from the creatures, but their way out is sealed, and they can't find another. Not that Wren is willing to go. She wants answers, even if it kills her. I don't know if I can follow that thinking, that the life she built was 'hollow' as she puts it, because she doesn't have these answers. But my situation is not her situation. I know where I came from, at least enough to satisfy me. 

Wren doesn't know anything, and the next set of security monitors don't tell much. People agreed to stay in this place for six months back during the Y2K freakout. But whoever set it up changed their minds and wouldn't let anyone out at the end. The creatures find them again, Wren and Joel run, Joel gets a knife through the skull. Bye Joel.

Wren finds her way to a hall full with photographs, then some immense cathedral. Where she's captured by a creepy whispering guy in a hood. Good luck with those answers.

All the panels are set against a backdrop of TV snow or static, streaks of pixels. Some of the panels themselves have those blurring effects, like we're watching this through those same broken-down monitors Wren and Joel found. Sherman uses a lot of panels that are focused tightly on Wren. He might pull back for an establishing shot, to give us a sense of what she's found. Then he draws in close immediately afterward to make her feel trapped. Some pages, the panels fit around each other like puzzle pieces, in others, they're arranged as a giant arrow when Wren gets dragged down. He plays with the sense of space, in that you can't tell if Wren's pushed up against a wall, or flat on the floor. The panels may point down, but which direction is that at this point?

What I Bought 7/30/2022 - Part 3

Hi, you've reached Reporting on Marvels and Legends. I'm not here, but you can still read these posts and leave a comment if you want. Or go someplace else. It's a big internet. Or go outside and enjoy fresh air before you have to start paying for the privilege.

Blink #1, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - Inside every person lurks a camera and a bunch of creepy hands. It's remarkable how life works, when you think about it.

Wren's a freelance journalist. As a child, she was found wandering a street with blood on her. No one knows what the blood was from and she couldn't lead them back to where she came from. She's been trying to find answers ever since, while dealing with the fallout the experience made of her life. She gets a clue, a brief glimpse of a website with a bunch of camera feeds of a place that looks familiar. Wren and Joel find the building and sneak into the basement, but it's not as deserted as it first appears.

Sherman uses a lot of panels that overlap just a little. Like tossing out a pack of playing cards on a table and drawing the arrangement. It makes a cluttered, untidy feel that mirrors the fragments of memories Wren has, or thinks she has. Sebela has Wren acknowledge that she's been trying to piece things together so long, she's not sure what she remembers that isn't actually something she made up. 

Lot of using camera views as panels, and some of those show the past, some the present, some just static. Gaps in the recall that Wren can't abide. Which is another thing I appreciate about the writing. Wren has a husband, partner, person she lives with named Nico. She knows or fears she's messing things up with Nico by getting sucked into this. But while Nico thinks things were fine, thought she was fine as she was, it's different for Wren, viewing it from the inside. While they're having that conversation, the panels are set against a backdrop of electronic static. Wren's need for answers is a backdrop to their lives together whether Nico realized it or not.

So, yes, I'm very intrigued by the first issue. I like these stories about exploring creepy places and trying to piece together a past.

Iron Cat #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I don't like the gold shoulder pads on the Iron Man armor. Too much uninterrupted gold, I think.

A lot of the issue is focused on Tamara, Felicia's ex and the one running around in the Iron Cat suit. How she and the Black Fox first met, her perspective on Felicia and how they're different as thieves, the start of their relationship. D'Armata again using that softer shading on the colors for the flashback parts.

Also explained, how Tamara was able to steal the armor from Stark. The answer is she made a copy of Sunset Bain, who is apparently now an AI called Madame Menace. This also explains the problems Stark's having with all his systems, because the Madame is running amok in there. Perez chooses kind of an interesting angle for the panel that introduces her, where we seem to be looking down slightly on her. It makes her eyes seem unusually far apart, and the straight ahead look (not at us, but at Tamara who is positioned somewhere lower than our viewpoint) and the grin make an unsettling combo. She never looks quite as inhuman as in that panel.

As for our two leads, Felicia convinces Tony to set a trap by having a big public party on a yacht to draw Tamara out. But it's one of those, "your trap has fallen right into my trap," situations. Exactly how that works will wait for next issue. There's not much else to it, since MacKay focused a lot on Tamara. Which makes sense, as she's the new character in this and the one whose desire for revenge is driving this whole thing (although I won't be at all surprised if she decides Madame Menace has gone too far at some point.)