Sunday Splash Page #432

"Beauty and the Bowl Cut," in Amazing Mary Jane #1, by Leah Williams (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Carlos Lopez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

In late 2019, Marvel tried giving Mary Jane Watson her own ongoing series. I'm not clear on the thinking, maybe her fans were getting annoyed by all the focus on Gwen Stacy (albeit an alt-universe version with super-powers), or Marvel just figured there'd be enough carry over from people who bought Amazing Spider-Man to make it work?

Whatever the reason, they tried it. Whether due to sales or shipping disruptions with COVID, the book solicited 9 issues, but only shipped 6. The first 5 were collected into a tpb that I reviewed in November of 2024. Those issues involved MJ being cast as the love interest in a Mysterio biopic that turned out to be directed by the actual Mysterio, posing as auteur director Cage McKnight, who Mysterio suckered into visiting the Falklands to find the perfect penguin to use for the "Jaws of penguins."

MJ decides to go along with this insane idea, and ends up basically saving the film by managing Mysterio's over-the-top temperament, finding them a new backer when their funding gets pulled, covering for the actor playing Spider-Man when he chickens out over a little thing like irate super-villains attacking the set because they don't like their likenesses being used in the film.

(Although Cobra? Stegron? Tarantula? Really digging the bottom of the barrel there, Mysterio. Was Hypno-Hustler considered too cliche?)

Williams leans into Mary Jane's charisma and knowledge of the world of movies as things that keep filming rolling, along with the idea that hanging around Peter Parker has given her a commitment to helping people try to make the best of second chances. I'm not clear on what MJ and Peter's relationship status was, other than they're on good enough terms to talk regularly over the phone, but there's also an element of guilt for MJ that, while Peter knows she's working on a movie about Mysterio, he doesn't know Mysterio is actually the director. She's doing something she believes in, but recognizes there's a risk that it could damage her connection with someone really important to her if it backfires.

While it stretches my suspension of disbelief MJ can hold off the entire "Savage Six" by herself (with some help from robots of the Original 5 X-Men Mysterio built previously for some reason) long enough for the movie to finish shooting, I definitely prefer Williams' writing here to the work she did on Gwenpool Strikes Back, which may be the only other thing she's written that I've read. Meta-commentary humor is a tricky needle to thread, so maybe that's to be expected.

Carlos Gomez's art is very clean and expressive, really capturing the dramatic personality Mysterio has, as well as Mary Jane's range of emotions. When she decides they need to leverage Mysterio being much angrier than the actual Cage McKnight, she hams it up a little to appeal to Mysterio's ego. When their equipment is being repossessed, she plunks herself in the director's chair with a megawatt smile and chats with the repo guys like old friends. When she discusses the risk she's taking trusting Mysterio is genuine about this with a member of the crew, she draws in on herself and stops making eye contact.

I'm not sure what Williams had planned beyond this - I think issue 6 is a premiere for the film back in NYC, so presumably Peter was going to learn the truth at some point - but I wouldn't have minded seeing more.

Sunday Splash Page #371

"Composite Defender," in Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1, by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada (writers), Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Joe Carmagna (letterer)

After Magnificent Ms. Marvel was canceled at 18 issues, Kamala kind of slid into the background for a few years. She got a Disney+ show, which I watched two episodes of and which also completely changed her powers. Then she was added as a supporting cast member to Zeb Wells' Amazing Spider-Man run, seemingly so she could be killed off perfunctorily for the purposes of having a "shocking" death in the story.

I think she was dead for two months, maybe three, in our time, before being resurrected by the mutant nation of Krakoa. Apparently Kamala was a mutant all along, albeit one whose x-gene never activated. And she got resurrected just in time for the whole Krakoa thing to fall apart and mutants to be forced back into hiding. Kamala's advised to just lay low, but refuses to stand by and do nothing.

Which brings us to this mini-series, where Kamala accepts admission to a summer program at a big university. . .which is actually a front for ORCHIS. While Kamala tries to deal with the fact that her attempts to show mutants are not worthy of hate just for existing aren't working, there's a doctor in ORCHIS' basement lab trying to use Kamala to basically destroy all the telepathic mutants. Something about a Trojan horse implanted in her brain by a drone that can access the telepathic network the X-Men communicate with, if Kamala can be tricked into letting it in. The virus appears in her dreams as her mutation, (depicted as a lavender glowy version of herself) trying to making Kamala feel as though the X-Men won't accept her without it. I was surprised they didn't go ahead and give her the MCU powers right then.

(I feel like it's odd that Dr. Gaiha's plan is to attack the X-Men via telepathic communication, but we never see Kamala communicate with them through telepathy, just communicator earpieces. But I guess ORCHIS doesn't necessarily know that, while they do know the X-Men have a crapload of telepaths.)

This isn't a mini-series about Kamala trying to juggle school with helping the X-Men in a world that now hates and fears her. It's outright mentioned she hasn't been to any of her classes yet. It's mostly Kamala struggling with the unresolved issues of her having died and been resurrected (none of her friends or family remembering this, thanks to Emma Frost, though she tells Bruno everything), and feeling like she needs to be too many things to too many people. Part of the reason Dr. Gaiha's virus almost works is because Kamala's been having the same dream about who she really is for 10 consecutive weeks (the entire time she's been resurrected.) The virus initially just feels like an extension of the dream.

Vellani and Pirzada do a good job capturing Kamala's hopeful, determined, slightly goofy, personality. That she'll rush to meet a threat without worrying that people might react badly to someone with an "X" on their costume showing up. That she'll critique the attacker on their poor punching form as she knocks them down, but then hold off on attacking any further until it's needed.

That said, I find it hard to believe the negative public reaction to her being a mutant would stun Kamala that much. Granting she was a big X-Men fan from the beginning, she's been hunted by the government, she's been accused of working with gentrifiers (who were actually HYDRA) by her friends, she's been pulled out of line by the TSA just because her last name is "Khan", and they got a security warning about a "Khan." As she notes more than once, she's a lot of different things rolled into one, and many of those things have gotten her hated or viewed suspiciously for no good reason. So why people disliking mutants so much is shocking, I don't know.

Bruno's the only member of her supporting cast that gets any real page space, and he's pretty much as usual. Dedicated to helping her with hastily conceived super-science, supportive of her desire to help others, but worried about her getting hurt. The both of them firmly insisting they're just friends, and not a couple. Bruno also shows no signs of the injuries he sustained trying to stage a jailbreak in the Civil War II tie-ins. He was supposed to eventually lose the ability to walk, but I don't know when that got erased. I can't remember it being a factor in the few issues of Magnificent Ms. Marvel I read.

I think, having seen his art on Fantastic Four, that Carlos Gomez mostly draws Kamala's waking hours, while Gorham draws the dream sequences. Gorham's work (seen above) is rougher and looser than Gomez's, and if he doesn't play with the weird physics of dreams in how things look, he does capture Kamala's frustration and confusion, and how ragged she feels.

Gomez's art is slicker, and at times the expressions feel like they fall in the uncanny valley, or like I'm seeing actors trying to hold a pose that suggests they're doing something, rather than feeling natural as it would if they were actually doing it. Gorham's version of Kamala is closer to how she originally was drawn by Alphona or Miyazawa, while Gomez kind of generics her appearance (her nose is significantly smaller, for one thing.) Gorham also draws her in her classic costume, while Gomez draws the new X-themed outfit, where the lightning bolt is reduced to a tiny thing on her left shoulder. And it's not like they put anything on her torso in its place; it's just blank yellow space.

Show Biz'll Kill Ya

You've heard of a bull in a china shop, now here's Rhino in the dressing room!

Down in Flames, Up in Smoke is the first 5 issues of the Amazing Mary Jane book Marvel had going in 2020. Mary Jane as the lead actress on what is a Mysterio biopic, and discovers in the first issue that the film is not being directed by the famous Cage McKnight, but by Mysterio himself.

(Mysterio assures us McKnight is fine, scouring the Falkands to find just the right penguin to star in, "Jaws, but with penguins.")

After an impassioned plea by Mysterio, who requested her for the lead role (for reasons I'm never entirely clear about), MJ agrees to stay on the film because she believes he's genuine about trying to make this film, and that's he's giving other former criminals or villains an opportunity (and paying them at industry-standard rates, he assures her.) From there, it's MJ helping Quentin Beck troubleshoot the various complications that arise in shooting the film.

The people financing the movie get cold feet and withdraw their money, forcing improvisation on a tighter budget. The guy playing Spider-Man loses his nerve and leaves. The guy playing Mysterio leaves when the big budget does. Several of Spider-Man's other enemies keep trying to sabotage the film, because they aren't happy with their portrayals. Which does result in a fairly ridiculous bit at the end where MJ, sans any powers or Iron Man armors, holds off six super-villains - Vulture, Rhino, Cobra, Stegron, Tarantula, and Scorpion - while the crew finish the last day of shooting.

While Mysterio put her through a sort of boot camp when she took over as Spider-Man for the last scene, and insisted on practical effects, including X-Men robots - which really seems like more an Arcade thing - it still seems a bit much she held them off solo as long as she did.

Williams writes MJ as extremely adaptable, able to think on the fly, and work with sudden complications. Whether that's due to her past experience in Hollywood, or her experience being in a relationship with a super-hero, I'm not sure. But she pretty much keeps the movie on track and is near constantly helping Mysterio make it better, whether that's with make her character more well-rounded, with her own motivations, improving the dialogue, or leaning into the fact Beck is way more hot-headed than the actual Cage McKnight.

Carlos Gomez, who draws all 5 issued (with Lucas Warneck assisting on issue 3) goes all-in on the dramatic poses for McKnight/Beck, whether he's hitting tables or shaking his fists at the sky. Mary Jane, in contrast, is drawn as much more relaxed and upbeat. Constantly having to rein Beck in and keep his eyes on the prize.

Mysterio's written as extremely passionate about this project, to his detriment, as that's how he loses his primary funding, but also with very specific notions on "art", and that what he's creating is going to be art. He hates the idea of using illusions to compensate for the budget cuts, because he feels it compromises the genuine nature of the film. He seems like he would simultaneously be great to work for (enthusiasm and work ethic undeniable) and terrible to work for (temperamental as all get out.) Williams has him make reference to possibly not having much time left, but I have no idea what that refers to. MJ's character also seems to be based on a woman who influenced or supported him at one time, and I have no idea who that is, either. Sure hope it wasn't Karen Page! 

Gomez's work reminds me of Mark Brooks', back when Brooks drew Cable/Deadpool. Especially in how he draws Mysterio, the shape of his head and jaw, the way he shades things. It's fine, overall; the story doesn't give him the chance to stretch himself the way he has on Fantastic Four. He's mostly drawing regular people, and a lot of the time they're talking while walking through sound stages or riding in golf carts.

Williams and Gomez mix in periodic phone conversations between MJ and Peter Parker, who knows what movie she's working on, but not who is actually directing it. I'm not clear on their relationship status at this time, other than they're at least on good terms. At one point, MJ starts playing music over the phone and insists Peter dance with her for 20 seconds, while he's in the grocery store, so I'm guessing things were in a decent place.

What I Bought 9/11/2024 - Part 2

I happened to catch an episode of Columbo over the weekend, and he was making a peanut butter and raisin sandwich. I started eating those periodically back in elementary school, and I can't recall ever seeing anyone else do it. Now I'm wondering if Columbo gave me the notion.

Fantastic Four #25, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Uh-oh, a planet of floating islands. Those platforming levels are always tricky.

Dr. Doom's erected a magical dome over Latveria. Naturally, the FF try to poke it and end up on an unfamiliar world full of intelligent, friendly aliens. Gomez draws the aliens as having a bit of the "big head and eyes" grey aliens, but on a long stalk neck, with multiple little noodle limbs and red spines sticking out of their backs (the purpose of which I was not clear on.)

The locals agree to let Reed use some resources to build a rocketship to get home (which looks very old-timey, even moreso than the original rocket Kirby drew them taking into space to get bombarded by cosmic rays.) Meanwhile, Johnny's hit it off with the liason, named (or translated to) Angelica of the Shore.

Everything's proceeding well until the clouds clear enough Reed can calculate their position by the stars. Turns out, they're still on Earth, but an Earth that was never hit by another planetary body, causing the formation of the Moon. Turns out the FF aren't the only ones who poked the dome. Reed can make his rocketship into a time machine and stop Doom's magic trick from doing this, but that means Angelica and her people won't exist, which is not OK with Johnny.

North continues to come up with clever bits of science to use as a basis for stories, but this is undercut by how easily Reed seems to solve these problems. Sure, he can make his rocketship into a time machine, too. Confronted with the problem, Reed builds a thing to solve the problem in about two panels. He's continuing one spiel throughout, so it's not like there's a timejump.

I guess there wasn't supposed to be any doubt they'd figure something out, so the real conflict was Johnny fighting with the others about how they can't get rid of Angelica's world to save their own. Then hie and Angelica having to sacrifice their happiness to make the solution stick. The internal narration boxes for this issue are Angelica's, which probably helps to plant their connection in the foreground and make this more than just another doomed relationship for Johnny Storm.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I bet moon-fire is cold.

Marc owes Khonshu a favor. Not for bringing him back to life, but for that time he got Marc and Tigra a shortcut so they could save Reese and Soldier from Zodiac. And the favor is to kill the false Moon Knight, the Shroud.

So he does, after a brief fight, albeit with a lot of panels as Pramanik and Rosenberg have one page of 16 panels, slanted and staggered, showing the main stretch of the fight, against the backdrop of a, I thought it was a crescent moon, but it's actually two crescent moons, one matching the symbol Shroud Knight wore, the other matching Marc Knight's. One shatters, the other remaining whole. Premanik's Moon Knight feels like more of a physical presence than Cappuccio's. Bigger, body less obscured by the cape, a lot of focus on his fists or legs, his instruments of pain.

Marc's talking in a very stilted manner, calling Shroud "Moon Knight", reminding him he disrespected a god, impressing on him that this is a fight for his life. Didn't impress it on him enough, as Marc brings Shroud Knight's costume to the villain bar and pins it on the wall as a message. Or two messages: a) he's back, b) the other guy is dead. That said, I don't believe for a second the Rhino is scared of Moon Knight. Come on, tell me McKay didn't actually tell Pramanik to put him in those pages. The Jester, the Shocker? Sure. The Spot? Guy probably wees himself around Moon Knight. The Rhino takes punches from the Hulk. Same with Piledriver, except replace "Hulk" with "Thor."

Anyway, Shroud's not dead. He was, but you know, Hunter's Moon is a doctor. Hearts stops, hearts restart. Easy-peasy, right? Khonshu's pissed, but Marc makes an argument it's a fitting symbolic sacrifice, and points out Khonshu can't strike at Reese or the others in retaliation, because he owes them for getting him out of Asgard Jail. And that's were the book ends. Khonshu's back, Marc's back, with an uneasy detente at best.

What I Bought 8/28/2024

The heat and humidity this week has been like someone smothering you in a sauna with their towel. There was a brief reprieve Wednesday morning thanks to some clouds, so I decided to walk to the store after I got home, instead of driving there after work. Almost as soon as I got going, the clouds vanished and the sweaty towel was back. I had to hang my shirt up to dry a bit before chucking it in the dirty laundry and it was still damp 7 hours later.

Fantastic Four #24, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Don't be alarmed; contrary to what the cover suggests, the Inhumans don't appear in this comic.

The surviving alien, while requesting help in being shot back into space, explains that their people had wanted to travel to the stars, but found it too difficult, given the scale and energy requirements. Until they discovered a particle in the heart of their star that let them shrink and return to normal size. So they shrank down and repurposed photons from their sun as spaceships, so they could travel at near the speed of light. And because of that relativity thing I don't understand, they would only perceive a short period of time passing while journeying to other stars.

But it costs a lot, and you can't steer, so only the people with money to afford it could go. Then it turned out their star was dying, so the rich used it as a way to escape. And that's when the alien attacks Reed because he's not finishing prepping the particle accelerator. Because it turns out the people left behind as their star died aren't too happy with the ones who bailed, especially because it was all those exotic particles they harvested that killed the star.

(What I'm taking from this is we need to convince the billionaire dumbasses to get their asses to Mars before Earth is irrevocably fucked, so we can all have a good laugh while they suffocate or suffer massive and lethal genetic mutations from radiation exposure.)

So there's an unpleasant surprise on the way, and the alien wants to get gone before it arrives. The FF kind of look like chumps against what is basically a person-sized talking squid. Granted, a fireproof (why is it fireproof?) person-sized squid, but they took out Doc Ock a lot easier than this, and he's got super-strong metal arms. I guess it serves mostly to break up all the info dumping Sue and the ones decoding the transmission trailing the escape ships are doing. Zrixa escapes, Reed manages to catch up via another accelerated particle, but it's too late.

Not for Earth. Earth's fine, or as fine as the current state of the planet allows. Reed notes (and the issue is written from his perspective, trying to be precise, describe only what can be described and verified), the rest of the team have 4 dozen ways to handle the incoming problem. But the particle ship is flying towards nothing until the proton degrades, by which time, again with the relativity, the universe will be empty.

But, as usual, the universe finds a way to keep Reed Richards from dying, so he ends up back on Earth shortly after he left. I half expected them to encounter whatever the machine intelligence they encountered earlier this tried to contact, but it's something much different. At least Reed acknowledges he has no clear memory of how or why, and thus can't properly describe what he vaguely feels, but is just grateful to be home.

What I Bought 8/14/2024 - Part 2

Now that Blood Hunt's over, it's safe to return to a couple of books I steered clear of the last two months. One of them is getting canceled soon (only to be rebooted immediately, because Marvel), but oh well.

Fantastic Four #23, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Hey, the FF found the world that produces the probe from Star Trek IV!

Sue and Johnny are taking Nikki and Jo on a shopping trip to New York. I guess Arizona doesn't have the right kind of salsa for their refined, East Coast palettes. Interrupting a fight between a couple of dudes and some vampires (who can all walk around in daylight now), the city comes under barrage by some invisible force.

It's happening across the world, as Reed figures out when it wrecks the device he was testing to see if it would detect magic once Doom inevitably starts throwing some around. The shape Gomez draws Reed's head when it gets hit is appropriately weird and goofy-looking. Since this issue is narrated by Johnny, he simplifies Reed's explanation to, "the Earth is being hit by subatomic particles moving incredibly fast, except they aren't harmlessly decaying on impact like normal."

The FF shrink to the "preonic" level, and find a black sphere. Someone's turned these particles into starships. Except, as it turns out, the aliens inside are all dying or dead. They do find one alive, and manage to translate that it wants to get off Earth. Yeah, you and every billionaire.

It's a decent little science mystery, the kind of thing the Fantastic Four are better suited for than the other superteams, so that's good. North is trying to incorporate the new status quo, because of course Reed would be concerned about Sorcerer Supreme Doom (and of course he'd be certain magic has to obey the laws of science as he knows them.)

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - See what happens when you let Khonshu loose? Giant Moon Knights, rampaging through the city.

The Midnight Mission has been sheltering people from vampires, and the vampires are ready to just blow the place up and be done with it. As Reese and Soldier make a last stand, the sun comes back, but it doesn't burn any vampires. Well, that's both cool and inconvenient for our heroes.

Oh, but Moon Knight's back, too. So they trounce a lot of vampires to spread the message to get lost, and Marc wants to continue his therapy sessions with Dr. Sterman, but first he's got to have a little chat with Khonshu, about what Old Bird Skull wants. And what Khonshu wants is the Shroud dead. 

Pramanik's art is a lot looser than Cappuccio's, tending to exaggerate hands or perspective to let one image or part of a character dominate a panel. So Moon Knight attacks a vampire, his legs are tiny things in one corner of the panel while his face and upper body command the rest. Pramanik's willingness to exaggerate sells the exhaustion of the characters. With Cappuccio, even when they're shocked or angry, the linework is stiff enough it feels restrained. Here, everything is looser, the emotions are bigger, Reese's hair is messier. She looks too tired to put any sort of calm facade.

Rosenberg's also keeping the colors less starkly defined. More blurring or mixing for the backgrounds. Especially when the sun comes out and the backgrounds are really just a mixture of overpowering yellows. Previously, even during daylight scenes, it felt as though light would be constrained to a narrow band of a specific shade, and that was it. Maybe all the characters are just too tired, or maybe it's a new day, where Marc doesn't feel like he's so constrained by his fears or the suspicions of others.

What I Bought 5/8/2024

I took a little driving trip Wednesday to run an errand and check out a few stores. Got the errand done easily enough, didn't find much of the stuff I was hoping to. But I did find two of this week's comics in a store I checked at random, so that's good.

Fantastic Four #20, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo (color artists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Crap, Reed's miniaturized HERBIE. At least Ben's got him under control. . .for now.

Ben and Johnny, independent of each other, get jobs at the same grocery store. Annoyed with each other, they each decide to win Employee of the Month. Johnny opts for cheesy flattery and shameless flirting, Ben by showing interest in the everyday lives of the customers. Sounds exhausting.

The first month ends in a tie, so the two keep it up into a second month, until some guy comes up wanting to writing a story poking fun at the Human Torch working a minimum wage job and living in a house with a large number of other people. Hey, that's environmentally friendly, or so I've been told by articles I've seen touting shared living spaces as the future! I mean, no thanks, I did my time on that shit, but if other people want to be close to their loved ones or total strangers, great. More elbow room for me, suckers!

Anyway, Ben comes to Johnny's defense, not that it stops the article from running, but the important thing is they care about each other, even as they fight like wet cats. Ben even compliments Johnny's mustache and implies Johnny would be an excellent exotic dancer. It makes sense in context.

So the story issue lives or dies on the bits North and Gomez get out of the framework, and it does pretty well. Ben and Johnny messing with each other is well-established, so it doesn't feel weird when they argue at dinner, or when Johnny annoys Ben by saying, "It's collaboratin' time!" Although the touch I like best is that Gomez draws the Thing with a regular pencil taped to his index finger. Presumably because it makes it easier to use than trying to hold it like most people would. (Gomez draws an excellent Thing. He avoids placing Ben's head too high up on his body, which is I think what Coello and Fiorelli did, which was why it looked like his head was barely connected to the rest of him sometimes.)

Now the book starts Blood Hunt tie-ins, so I guess I'll see it in later in the summer.

Deadpool #2, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Nice to see someone remember Taskmaster has a bow. Seems like you only ever see the sword and the shield these days.

Deadpool makes enough money killing people to afford to buy the place the guy he killed last issue owned to set up his new Mercs for Money operation. Understanding that he's lousy at organization, follow-through, details, budgeting. . .basically everything, Deadpool brings in Taskmaster for that, and Taskmaster brings in some guy from the previous run of Amazing Spider-Man (the one that ended with Ben Reilly as, whatever the hell he is now) as their IT guy. Taskmaster doesn't know much about Death Grip to justify wasting even the 3 or 4 panels spent on it, but they get a job protecting some loser at an "influencer-con", only to have Crossbones show up trying to kill. . .I think Deadpool? For Death Grip?

I mean, one Taskmaster's exposition panels actually shows Death Grip talking with Crossbones - about what we don't know, it's video footage from, somewhere - and then Crossbones shows up, which makes Taskmaster suspect set-up. Which I don't really get. They were hired by the influencer, because he thought there'd be an attempt on his life (or he thought they'd get him more notoriety.) But Deadpool was taking jobs that involved killing, not protecting. Why would anyone think that was going to draw him out?

Of more interest is the subplot with Ellie. She didn't hide the fact Deadpool gave her a phone to contact him, but she's annoyed he'd only come see her when she's in trouble. So she's figured out how to connect the GPS in one of Preston's LMD hands to the phone to find him. Which I thought meant Ziglar was changing her mutant power to some technomancer thing like Forge, especially after she said just watching a few online videos made it click for her. But she cuts herself and her hand heals in a couple of panels, so. . .it's still a change to her mutant power, but not as far off. I'm actually most surprised Preston is annoyed Deadpool wouldn't chat with her. I figured she was still kind of pissed at him from the end of Duggan's run.

Man, I hope Eleanor's not going to get herself in the crossfire and end up injured enough she combines with the symbiote dog. Although I could see a jealousy subplot that Wade has another "daughter" he does let hang around him all the time.

What I Bought 4/11/2024

I wasn't in the totality of the eclipse last week, but that's alright. The one several years ago swung right through town, so I didn't even have to go anywhere then.

Fantastic Four #18, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Once again, Sue's attempts to get Reed's attention fail.

It's Alicia as a private detective, trying to find the missing egghead Professor Richards on behalf of his main squeeze, Susan Storm. Ben (in his human appearance) works for/with Alicia. As either her eyes, or muscle, depending on the need.

The story follows the usual pattern of dead-end suspects. Johnny as the dissolute brother who is in debt to the local nightclub owner (role filled by the Mole Man.) Namor as an honest, but arrogant, cop that's hung up on Sue. Gomez doesn't shift his art style much beyond adjusting character's looks and fashion to match the motif. Maybe softens the lines around Sue's face, makes the eyes a little bigger to fit the "dangerous beauty" role. Johnny still has that terrible mustache, though.

Arbutov colors most of it in grey, with certain objects in color. Sue's dress, Namor's uniform, the lights and door of Mole Man's club. I don't really get the rhyme or reason of the choices of what to color. Why Ben's cup of coffee, or the seats in the diner where Alicia questions Johnny?

The whole thing ends up being the result of a Cosmic Cube falling into the hands of just about the last character you'd expect to get their hands on it. No, not Willie Lumpkin. No, not HERBIE. Just stop guessing! Reed turns out to be shielded from the effect (how is Sue's force field holding when she doesn't even know she can do such a thing?) to guide Alicia to it, and she undoes what was done. Though, in noir fashion, she does it knowing it'll erase her world, but that she's already lost a key part of it, so this is the least amount of losing she can end up with.

Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2, by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada (writers), Rob Di Salvo (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Joe Carmagna (letterer) - The cover list Di Salvo as artist, but the interior still says Godlewski. Oh Marvel, when will you stop being a clown car of a company?

Lila Cheney grabbed Ms. Marvel because Lila stupidly made a contract with Mojo, and when she didn't accept him rewriting the terms of said contract, he abducted her most loyal fans. Kamala was the only X-Man she could find, so here we are.

The rest of the issue is Kamala posing as a new member of Lila's group to keep Mojo occupied while Lila looks for her groupies. This starts with Kamala doing some truly terrible mugging for Mojo's cameras. Then, when it turns out the youth demographic really likes "Chord", Mojo throws her into a million different things while Lila's still trying to figure out how to detach her fans from some gizmos they're hooked into which make them, 'real-life engagement bots.'

I have absolutely no idea what that means. That they're forced to watch stuff to falsely pump up viewership numbers? Either way, Lila gets them loose eventually, while defeating a Spiral clone in a fight (and I call bullshit on that), but Mojo drugs her with something that tamps down her powers. Not enough they can't escape, but enough she can just barely send Kamala back home, where Red Dagger is waiting.

OK, Kamala has a space adventure. Fine, space opera is an X-tradition, and so is dealing with Mojo. But what was the point of this issue? We're halfway through the mini-series, and there was no progress on any major plot points. Not the cause of Kamala's weird spasms, not what the ORCHIS doctor lady is up to. She's getting shipments from ape-scientists (as in apes who are scientists), but if I'm meant to know who those apes are, I don't. Not the fact Kamala's friends think Ms. Marvel's a phony because they were mindwiped with regards to Kamala being Ms. Marvel and having been resurrected.

Literally any of that - Bruno helping Kamala test her powers, difficult conversations with Nakia, Dr. Gaiha actually making an overt move - would have been a better use of 20 pages than this.

What I Bought 3/20/2024 - Part 2

So much time on the road last week. 300+ miles of driving on Tuesday, but it was a productive day. 400+ miles on Thursday, and it was a shitshow, as expected. 500 miles on Saturday, which was family-related, so it was, fine.

Fantastic Four #18, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I really wanted to see Ben Grimm clobber a meteor with a telephone pole.

Couple of reveals in this issue. First, once a year, Franklin Richards unlocks those crazy powers of his to look at what might be coming in the year ahead. This year, it was a swarm of invisible meteors, which he foresees his family not being able to stop. If you ever wanted to see Reed Richards pierced by dozens of meteors, this is your comic. 

Franklin uses his powers to nudge the meteors on a different course (that will not aim them at anyone else, which is a nice touch.) Then his powers shut down and he goes to sleep, not remembering any of it (until next year.)

Two, Nicolas Scratch and his terrible costume are watching the FF, so he sees Franklin's little show and reverses. Death by invisible meteors is go! Things start the same, but Alicia comes up with the idea of using the light Johnny generates with his fire, manipulated by Sue's powers, to create a laser which Reed and Ben guide visually. Death by meteors averted! Booooooo.

On the other hand, Jo-Nah asks if Johnny and Sue are going to visit to Cyclops and gloat about their cool laser eye power, and I think they should absolutely do that. Rub Cyclops' nose in the futility of his existence!

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - It'd be funny if he got the crescent blades tangled and whacked himself in the back of the head by accident.

It's Soldier's turn with the doctor, and he feels guilty. What a shock. He thinks he should have died instead of Marc, because that was his job, to die for his boss. Since it's a little late for that, he's taking his own approach to trying to stop the Shroud, I mean, this new Moon Knight. Which involves calling in a debt from the Chinatown vamps Marc helped out in the last year of his previous book.

I have a hunch Soldier's actually setting them up, too, since he had 8-Ball get him into the Bar with No Name to meet with someone Cappuccio keeps obscured. Could be wrong. Maybe he was setting up the 4 super-villains attacking the Midnight Mission because they think Moon Knight's there, to try and impress the seriousness of the situation, but that seems a little much. Soldier describes them as a "gang", and I can't see a gang encouraging someone coming onto their turf and unloading machine guns and flamethrowers. But I've not been in a gang, so what do I know?

Soldier also seems like he might be embracing his vampiric side. Reese knows the mist trick and whatnot, but she doesn't show her fangs as much as Soldier, who takes full advantage of the resilience and healing. He runs right into the gunfire, doesn't care if pieces of himself get blown off. Guess we'll see how far that attitude goes if he gets a crack at the new guy.

What I Bought 2/14/2023 - Part 2

With the announcement of a possibly forthcoming Fantastic Four movie - third (fourth?) times the charm! - I was thinking about who would make a good Dr. Doom. Who has the bombast, the dramatic demeanor. Then I read some concerns about Pedro Pascal as Reed, because the person just sees Pascal as himself now, rather than whatever role he's playing. They mentioned Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and my brain said, "Nic Muthafuckin' Cage as Doom."

Then I woke up on the floor with blood pouring from my eyes and ears. Anyway, comics!

Fantastic Four #17, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So it wasn't aliens that seeded Earth with life, but the Accursed Richards? Figures.

Sue's helping with an archaeological dig in Arizona (because North established or reiterated that's what she has a doctorate in) which has found peculiar skeleton. 20,000 years old, but with European skeletal features. Oh, and there are scraps on clothing made of unstable molecules on the body. Using invisibility to compare the remains to the FF's - Gomez's stretchy Reed skeleton is highly disturbing, but only present on a splash page, so I can't show it here - leads to the conclusion the body is Sue, somehow.

So then we get the somehow. Reed brought Sue back to a point when the earliest arrivals were passing by that point, as an anniversary gift. Sure, he's off by probably at least 100,000, if not 200,000 years, if The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is on the money, but it's the thought that counts. Anyway, Rama-Tut shows up to kill them, right after he promised to do so in 1963's FF #19. And he's going to cheat like crazy, as every time they thwart him, he jumps back to before that, until they're overrun with Rama-Tuts.

Reed and Sue retreat to their time (4 years after Sue finds the body) to concoct a plan. Which involves building a gun that does science stuff, but also 3-D printing facsimiles of themselves. Meaning Reed has a 3-D printer that creates human bone and tissue. That feels kind of creepy. Sure hope he doesn't hit the "Asgardian Thunder God" setting by accident (or "accident".) 

Anyway, when Rama-Tut uses time tricks to swipe the gun, after Reed spends 3 panels explaining exactly what it does, he unwittingly shoots the duplicates, kept invisible until then, instead of the real deal. North writes Rama-Tut as a big gloater. Bragging, talking shit, the whole nine yards. Gomez has draws several panels of Rama-Tut looking smug. 

There's some handwavey explanation for why Rama doesn't just try again when he eventually figures out it didn't take, but more critically, Future Sue invisibly communicates with Present Reed and Sue that there's nothing to worry about. Sue can apparently make Braille with her powers, which isn't that out of line for the level of power she's demonstrated.

Not sure what Present-Day Sue is going to tell the people who called her in for that dig.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #2, by Jed Mackay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Dead Pigeon Thunderdome.

It's Tigra's turn with Dr. Sterman, as she relates what happened in the confrontation with the new Moon Knight - she and Hunter's Moon got their asses kicked - and why she's convinced the new guy isn't Marc Spector. The latter of which involves a stroll down memory lane through her past lovers. We don't see any flashbacks, just her talking. Eyes darting away from Sterman's, or looking at something only she can see (figuratively). Fiddling with her hair or flexing her fingers, showing off the claws. Little tics, stuff like that.

As for the fight, this new Moon Knight has at least one new trick. Namely, he can envelop someone in total darkness, which he likens to the new moon. Rosenberg kind of blends purple with black for taht effect. That's how - combined with some pepper powder to mess with her nostrils - he can take out Tigra. Seems like that shouldn't help with a cat's hearing, but oh well. Reese dares him to prove he's Moon Knight by taking over the Midnight Mission, but the building rejects him. I think the building lifts from its foundation before dropping in an attempt to squash him, but it's not really clear. Either way he leaves, telling them to stay out of his way. 

It's the Shroud, right? Got the shadow powers, knows martial artist, wouldn't need light to fight anyway because he's blind, kind of nuts. It's the Shroud. Can't decide yet if this is better or worse than Mark Waid writing him as a pathetic stalker loser in Daredevil. See how MacKay plays it.