Sunday Splash Page #405

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday Splash Page #404

"Hellcats and Dogs," in Patsy Walker: Hellcat #3, by Kathryn Immonen (writer), David Lafuente (artist), John Rauch (color artist), Dave and Natalie Lanphear (letterer)

Patsy Walker gets sent to Alaska as part of the Initiative. Proving what a genius Tony Stark is, he only sends one hero to the biggest state in the U.S., and it's one who can't fly, teleport, or run fast. At least Patsy didn't have to worry about a having a Skrull infiltrator as a teammate!

What Patsy does have is an ability to sense magic and a nose for trouble. She's quickly on the trail of some suspicious bears, who lead her to a group of shamen (sha-women? Google says "shamaness," assuming I can trust it, which I probably can't), who task Patsy (or as they dub her, "Double-clawed Cat Full of Red Hellfire with Her Head Against the Wind and Comes Not Quietly from the Great Sea Road") with recovering their daughter, Ssangyong, from the terrible beast that has taken her.

It's a quest then, complete with an assortment of allies and an irritating guide that, like Navi in Ocarina of Time, Patsy just wishes would shut the hell up. With magic involved there are rules and traditions, but Immonen writes a Patsy Walker who is both well aware of these things, and confident/flighty enough to interpret those rules as she sees fit. At one point, to draw out an ally she requires but pissed off earlier, Patsy is told to 'lie by a grave.' Once the grave is located, Patsy stands atop it and announces that everyone loves her. Which is, of course, a lie, and the angry, antlered bear appears.

Things are not what they seem, the young girl (whose parents named her after a car, ouch) less an abductee and more a runaway. In a way, this makes Patsy even more qualified to help, as she's well-acquainted with an overbearing parent who tries to control your life. Two, if you count Moondragon's "mentoring," which mostly took the form of berating Patsy, if what I saw in Defenders was any indication. So she can try to reach Ssangyong through some oblique references to her own poor life choices and, when that fails, get frustrated, slug the girl, and haul her out like a sack of potatoes.

This was my favorite mini-series of 2008 (though the last issue got delayed and didn't come out until January '09.) It was funny and absurd. Crossing a chasm via a bridge made of little white rabbits, or Patsy arguing with herself about Iron Man blaming her for burning down Alaska. Lafuente's art is exaggerated without getting too loose or uncontrolled. You can tell who you're looking at or that Patsy's dealing with, even if circumstances alter them. He's got a good eye for detail in the clothes or the settings - Ssangyong's living in the wreck of an old sailing ship at the base of some frozen tower, with a Sasquatch who wears plaid pants and suspenders. (Phil's a real sweetie.)

Immonen's Patsy Walker is so many things, though I think most of all she simply follows her whims. If some creepy guy in a bar is bothering her, and dares her to chuck her mug at him, she'll do it without blinking. If the local guide is reluctant to help, she slides a big wad of SHIELD's cash at him to change the attitude.

She's able to adapt quickly or brush off disappointments. When Iron Man calls, she asks if she'll be assigned to Miami. He corrects her that it would be Florida, which causes her to shriek ecstatically until he tells her she's going to Alaska. One panel of a devastated Patsy, staring into space in a dress she's modeling for her neighbor, and then she's over it, asking who else is on the team and envisioning her and Beast skiing together in a daydream where Lafuente exaggerates his art a bit more for imagination effect. Did she want to apologize to the antlered bear, or track down the water lemming that kept smacking her in the face? No, but she needed them for the quest so she got over it.

(And when the bear demands she properly bury the dead body she lied beside, she tricks the wolf into attacking the bear to create the grave via impact crater. Again, she knows how things work, and knows how to bend the rules to her advantage without breaking them.)

The mini-series ended with Patsy's managing to broker a truce between Ssangyong and her mothers, and Ssangyong warning Patsy that she's got more magic inside her than she realizes. Immonen never got the opportunity to explore that, but another writer would. 

Sunday Splash Page #332

 

"Diagnosis: Misery," in Marvel Divas #1, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer), Tonci Zonjic (artist), June Chung and Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic (colorists), Cory Petit and Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

Basically, Hellcat, Firestar, Photon (I forget which codename Monica was using then) and the Black Cat happened to meet at a speed dating event and became friends. So this is some sort of Sex in the City with superheroes, in what was one of Marvel's typical clumsy tries at "appealing to women", or something.

I feel like the oddly proportioned, cheesecake J. Scott Campbell cover for the first issue (and the tpb) works at cross-purposes, but that's why I described it as "clumsy."

The two main threads, which end up tied together, are Firestar's cancer diagnosis, because she stopped wearing the suit Pym designed in the Busiek/Perez Avengers to help her deal with the effects of her powers, and Daimon Hellstrom being an insecure loser about not getting mentioned in Hellcat's latest book about her life. Dr. Strange is, of course, doing one of those "there are things magic can't fix" deals, but Hellstrom's got no such compunctions about promising to help, as long as it gets Patsy on an (almost literal) leash.

It's kind of a weird book, continuity-wise, because Aguirre-Sacasa's clearly referencing either current status quo (Brother Voodoo is now Doctor Voodoo, Sorcerer Supreme, Patsy's time being dead, Firestar's relationship with Vance), but he's either selective in how he does it, or flat-out ignores certain things. I mean, patsy already wrote a book about being dead, she was on a book tour at the start of the Busiek/Larsen Defenders run. It gets framed as Vance ended things with Firestar, which is technically correct, but it was because she didn't really seem to want to get married.

Monica's, whatever she wants to call it with Doctor Voodoo lurks in the background, but briefly steps to the forefront since he's the one who helps the others get into Hell to rescue Patsy. The Black Cat's attempts to get enough money to open an investigation agency, without relying on a gift from then boyfriend Thomas Fireheart (aka, the Puma) remains on its own track, never dovetailing with the other stories. Which isn't really necessary, but it adds to this feeling that Felicia is an awkward piece Aguirre-Sacasa couldn't quite make fit.

And maybe that works with her having operated on both sides of the law. But her subplot concludes with her taking a loan from the freaking Kingpin. Who screwed her over when he gave her bad luck powers, which seems like something she'd remember (see my earlier comments about a selective approach to continuity.) Rather than anything about her friends helping figure something out.

I don't know fashion, especially not women's fashion, and especially especially not women's fashion from the late-2000s, so I don't know if Zonjic does a good job there. It seems like each character has a particular style they favor for civilian clothes, and each is distinct, but hell, I don't know. He does give Hellstrom an look of someone trying real hard for casually sexy, but who just comes off as really sleazy. "Messy" hair that has to be carefully styled, always with the shirt halfway unbuttoned, assuming he's even wearing one, always stretched out over something. Even Gambit think Hellstrom needs to tone it down.

What I Bought 7/28/2023 - Part 1

I didn't manage to get everything from July. A couple of books I couldn't find, and there was no copy of Moon Knight for a price I was willing to pay. Maybe I'll find them next month. Of the six I did find, they kindly break out into neat categories, so let's start with a couple that are wrapping up.

The Great British Bump-Off #4, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Borras (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Look, it's a nice cake, but it's not that nice.

The contestants present their movie themed cakes, although the one guy made Downton Abbey. Isn't that  TV show? What should be grounds for immediate disqualification, is not. Corruption amongst the judges! Corruption most foul! Eh, what am I saying? It's a fake baking show, who gives a turkey? Shauna's just about got the mystery solved, but she might also be about to get eliminated.

A fortunately timed protest saves her, and she lays the whole thing out. I guess it makes sense. As much as any other answer would. At any rate, props to Sarin and Borras for making the most visually interesting, "detective explains everything" scene I've ever seen. The expressiveness of the characters, the swirl of hearts following Shauna's fingers, the shift in posture of one of the guilty parties when the jig is truly up.

We even get a chase scene I would never have expected, plus the phrase, "Cake Jail is no picnic." And while none of Shauna, Sunil, or Maisie win, we find out on the last page they took a vacation to Switzerland together and had a good time. Proving the real Bakery Tent prize was the potential friends they kept from getting murdered along the way.

So, this was nice. Not my favorite thing Allison has written, but nice. I never particularly felt like I was drawn into the mystery, that Allison wanted the reader to try and solve it, but it was funny, even though I know next to nothing about baking or cooking competition shows. And I love Sarin's art, so all good.

Hellcat #5, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), Kj Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - The cover says, "After Pacheco", but I have no idea what Carlos Pacheco cover Pere Perez is supposed to be homaging here.

Let's get this over with, I got an appointment with a bottle of turpentine to blot this from my memory.

Patsy didn't kill the Stupidly Named Love Interest. She saved him from Blackheart, but he used the door-thing, saw Patsy as she "really" is, went nuts, and killed himself. Rick Sheridan knows this because. . . the Imaginator recorded it, but it's busted, so I don't know. Sleepwalker stopped hiding this info from him, I guess. He lets Patsy read it from his mind, she freaks, blasts Daimon into the sea. Daimon doesn't show up again, nor is there any sort of resolution of that in this comic. Just shuffles off to Buffalo.

Rick convinces her to walk through the door thing, and she turns back into a human again, but she's out of it. Rick watches over her, Hedy uses a spell to exorcise Patsy's mother's ghost from her home, which. . .seems like something you would discuss before doing unilaterally. At the very end, Patsy puts on the costume, still appearing to be out of it. She keeps muttering, "Good. Bad." then continuing in internal monologue, "Who's to say?" Which makes it seem like she probably shouldn't be leaping around rooftops.

Also, it happens one page (albeit an indeterminate amount of time) after She-Hulk and Stark ask Rick to watch over Patsy. Great job, Rick!

Oooooooooooooof. This thing is just a mess. The door shows your true form (and Demon Hellcat is still a boring design.) But it doesn't show your true form, because people are different things and Patsy's too locked into binary thinking. Or it's because "Hell is lies." In which case it wouldn't be a "True-Form Door," would it? Hedy banishing Patsy's mother's while Patsy's lost in her own head, why? Because Patsy was never going to do it herself? No closure or any sort of conclusion between mother and daughter (granted we've seen that 40 times over the decades)?

Oh, and we're told Daimon and Blackheart probably just lost interest in Patsy because she appears broken. That's this mini-series in a nutshell. Too much stuff, so Cantwell just chucks some of it in the trash at the end. Because he either didn't have a better plan when he included it, or he's shit at pacing and didn't leave himself enough room.

What I Bought 6/21/2023 - Part 1

I had a nice visit with my friend in Florida, but the drive down there and back was hell. 14 hours one way. New record for the longest drive I've done solo in one go. I definitely ran out of patience on the drive back with about three hours to go. Also, I've never seen as much lightning as I did in Florida, as though the universe itself was telling me to stay away.

Hellcat #4, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), KJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Looks like Tigra with the stripes filed off. Yet another case of Patsy stealing Greer's style.

Spalding was building a gate for Blackheart, but Hellstrom tricked/convinced him to build a different kind of gate, one that would restore a person to their true form if they passed through it. So if, a half-demon trapped in a stuffed rabbit went through, he'd be restored to his pentagram-tattooed chest self.

Blackheart attacked Spalding for double-dealing, but Patsy kicked his ass by tapping into. . .something. What Daimon considers to be her true self, aka the lady on the cover. Who emerges after he chucks her through the gate while she's in a trance Sleepwalker put in her to try and figure out what the crap was going on. Also, Sleepwalker seemingly being able to stand toe-to-toe with Blackheart but getting one-shotted by Hellstrom reeks of bullshit. Or perhaps that's just sulfur.

And, in the flashbacks to Patsy's high school years, we see Chet dealt with being expelled by yelling at Patsy for being overruled by her mother, getting drunk, killing one of Buzz' friends with a broken beer bottle, and crashing his car into a tree. Also, Cantwell's still playing coy about who killed Spalding, other than it doesn't seem to be Blackheart.

So what's the point of all this? Patsy has always been trapped by the whims of people who thought they knew what was best for her, or who she really was? Her mother, Hellstrom, even this Spalding (god what a stupid name), who cast a spell to muddle Patsy's telepathy because he didn't want her to know what he was. Or is it that she's actually always been a monster under the skin and it's a convenient excuse to blame it on others, as characters in this mini-series have suggested?

It isn't just Hellstrom, who is still parroting that line about Patsy walking out of Hell, which, no, is still not accurate. Hellstrom tricked Hawkeye into doing it once, and the second time, Mephisto couldn't spare the energy to fight her, but she knew she'd be back there some day. Now, it could be this is just Hellstrom gaslighting her, but Cantwell also writes Hellstrom saying, 'To me, my Hellcat,' so it's entirely possible he's just a lousy writer.

The demon-Cat design is underwhelming to say the least, but Lins manages to make a stuffed rabbit look ominous, so credit for that. The flashback pages and the ones where people are just calmly chatting are all done with nice, straight rectangular panels. Once we start delving into Patsy's memories or anything with Sleepwalker, they start to tilt or grow irregular. A couple of panels in her memory wave and flutter like a sail as she falls into or out of the dream.

What I Bought 5/26/2023

I tried to watch the 2011 Three Musketeers movie last week. The one where there are airships, and I think Orlando Bloom plays Lord Buckingham and declares Louis the XIV's outfit "retro"? Just complete trash, and you've seen some of the stuff I've watched. Every time I un-muted it, I instantly regretted the decision.

Will I regret buying these two comics? Let's find out.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #3, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Pat Brosseau (letterer) - Guy, Kyle, you could just use your ring to grab the car for you.

Robotman and Negative Man are transporting some guy whose metagene caused him to bond with a Starro in an unusual way. The kind of way that makes him call himself "Starbro". The Green Lanterns want to haul him in, so the Doom duo has to outfox them. Because nobody is willing to listen. That's pretty much it, minus something at the end about some guy named Mr. Droo received Brain's robot gorilla skull and being happy about it.

Lot of stuff in this issue we have to take on faith. Negative Man can scramble the Lanterns' rings so they can't track them. How? Don't know, not explained. Starbro can somehow hack the rings to send a fake distress message. How? Don't know, not explained. Starro's have mind control properties, but a ring's technological. The Negative Spirit can be kept at bay with a big green energy bubble, but goes right through the glowing energy field around them. What's the difference? No clue. Has Culver earned that much credit, that I just shrug and say, "Sure, makes sense?" I don't know.

That said, I did enjoy the gag where Robotman detours through Smallville, thinking the Lanterns won't cause a ruckus in Superman's hometown, only to forget he's dealing with Guy Gardner, who could not give less of a shit.

Burnham's art works better on unconventional characters. Robotman and Negative Man look fine, but Guy's face is just off-putting. Too much hatching on his lips or around the cheekbones. Falls into the uncanny valley, like I'm looking at a Howdy-Doody puppet of Guy Gardner. Maybe that's the point, since the Lanterns are the antagonists here, unwilling to see past Starro to the Starbro underneath. They dehumanize Starbro, reduce him to a potential threat, and in the process dehumanize themselves. Except it's not really an issue in Burnham's portrayal of Kyle, so maybe masks are Burnham's friend.

Hellcat #3, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), RJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Patsy again testing whether cats can land on their feet in a void.

Patsy dies of gunshots, then returns from the dead and beats up the cops. Hedy won't take her to this lighthouse, so she goes herself and finds Sleepwalker and a pretty pathetic Blackheart fighting. Spalding was trying to build some gate for Mephisto, or for himself, before he died. Daimon's involved, while still insisting Patsy's the big deal. He also says she got herself out of Hell once before, and the editor's note references Thunderbolts Annual 2000. Hawkeye got Patsy out of Hell, at Daimon's insistence. I own the damn comic, Cantwell, I know what happened in the story, don't try to snow me.

Of course, maybe Daimon's just lying, like he lied to Hawkeye. He approached Spalding (such a terrible name) at some point during the gate construction. He keeps saying Patsy's the one with the power, but the flashback to her teen years show her attempt to take the fall for writing other peoples' papers was undone by her mother. Too focused on maintaining the squeaky-clean image of Patsy in those comics she wrote. Which suggests Patsy's always been at the mercy of others' whims, but they keep telling her it's her fault things happen.

That feels like giving Cantwell too much credit.

There's also discord between Sleepwalker and Rick Sheridan, because Sleepy's been keeping Rick out of the loop on the "investigation", because of Rick's feelings for Patsy. There's a photograph that Spalding took that features prominently there, although the way Lins draws Patsy in the photo, versus how she appeared in the panel earlier in the comic is somewhat different. Besides the weird aura and the marks on her body. The robe's a fair bit more open in the photo. Don't know if that's supposed to be a reveal of her true motives and desires, or just more "sexualization = darkness" stuff.

Spin the Romance Roulette

With Hellcat's engagement to Iron Man apparently in the dustbin where it belongs, and Tigra deciding to date Moon Knight, it's time for the game called, "Romantic Apocalypse"! As in, which character's taste in guys is worse?

Let's break it down:

Patsy Walker married her high school sweetheart, Buzz, who later went to work for the Brand Corporation. They drifted apart, he got the Squadron Supreme to attack the Avengers, let himself be experimented on by Roxxon, and started picking fights with all sorts of heroes, including Patsy.

Then she married Damion Hellstrom, which went fine, until it didn't. By him driving her mad until she killed herself (although Cantwell's version of Damion is trying to re-frame that to absolve himself and man, that better not stick.) He tricked Hawkeye into bringing her out of Hell, as part of some scheme to overthrow Mephisto, and has periodically fucked with her life since then.

Most recently, she got engaged to conceited asshole, interdimensional warden, and weapons designer Tony Stark. I don't know what ended things between them, other than it seemed to involve Hellstrom, but whatever the cause, bullet dodged. Then there's the dead guy in her current mini-series, who she'd been dating for a month. He'll probably turn out to be a dream demon or something.

Tigra's husband was a cop who formed a vigilante group of other cops called the Brethren of the Blue Fist. He was later killed by his "brethren" for not being willing to go further with their illegal actions. 

Steve Englehart had her ping-ponging between Hank Pym and Wonder Man for a while, when she wasn't just generally written as reacting positively to anything with a dick*. Hank was in the midst of trying to convince himself he didn't want to be a superhero any longer, and despondent enough that Tigra telling him she wanted to focus on herself and just be friends seemed to be the last straw on his deciding to commit suicide. Meanwhile, Wonder Man beats an Ultron by himself and becomes the most arrogant person on a team that had Tony Stark and Clint Barton. At least the ego trip seemed to keep things from going beyond playful flirting there.

Tigra did end up with Pym for a while in the late 2000s-early 2010s. I'm not counting the Skrull who impersonated Pym, because as far as she was concerned, he was Hank Pym. Which, given Hank's erratic history and questionable decision-making, is still not great. Plus, you know, the whole domestic abuse thing with the Wasp.

Speaking of, "erratic history and questionable decision-making", now she's going to try dating Marc Spector. (Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm assuming the relationship is solely between she and Marc, and doesn't involve Steven or Jake.) Marc tends to react to all stressful situations with violence. Often extreme violence. And he's apparently self-loathing and deeply envious of the other two fellows in the system for being more likeable and balanced than he is. He doesn't get to see his own daughter except when she's kidnapped by vengeful werewolves, because Marlene thinks he's that dangerous to be around. Which is more self-loathing fuel for the extreme violence fire.

So, on the one side, loser super-villain for hire, the manipulative son of a devil, and a guy who describes himself as a "futurist" and expects people not to laugh. On the other, bent cop, scientist with inferiority complex that feeds into mental breakdowns, and mercenary/priest with wild swings in mood and reversions to extreme violence.

It feels like Patsy picks the worse guys in terms of their capacity for harming others (although Pym creating Ultron makes it close), but Greer picks the worse guys in terms of the red flags they're throwing up as potential romantic partners. I mean, Pym and Spector are poster boys for people who need to focus on finding some sort of equilibrium within themselves, before trying to create one with another person.

Still, though, Tony Stark. That's pretty poor judgment. I mean, Pym and Spector have both, at different times, tried to address their issues. It never sticks, because of the cyclical nature of the storytelling, but the effort is there. Stark just seems to get more arrogant, but somehow it's not gonna backfire.

I gotta go with Patsy.

* I read a quote from Englehart discussing his giving Greer's old "Cat" costume to Patsy and he dismissed The Cat series as "pandering" and "not very well done". So of course when he wrote a book with Tigra, he had the cat lady perpetually horny for the first 15 issues of his run. Which certainly seems like pandering, albeit to a different audience.

What I Bought 4/26/2023 - Part 1

Two Fridays ago, I went to check one of the handful of Twitter accounts I read (mostly people who used to blog regularly about comics), and the whole site was down. I had an excited moment of thinking Musk had finally killed the site through his spectacular incompetence. Then I checked later and it was working again. Maybe next time.

Here's two comics from last month, starring ladies with a feline theme.

Hellcat #1, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), KJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Hellcat in the headlights.

Sleepwalker convinces Rick they need to investigate this murder, rather than wait to be found guilty. They travel to a lighthouse that was mysteriously important to the dead guy, and find Blackheart, just sort of chillin'.

Meanwhile, Patsy is having a lot of conversations. Her mother's ghost insists Patsy was a good girl, and that those comics about her weren't lies. Daimon Hellstrom (apparently sealed inside a stuffed rabbit), and Hedy both disagree with this, insisting basically that Patsy's awful and willfully oblivious of the damage she causes to everyone else. Hedy also called the cops, and they show up and shoot Patsy. Only twice, though. Must have forgot to reload after some shooting earlier that night.

Is that what Cantwell's trying to do with this? Tell us Patsy's horrible, actually? Because I don't think it's really borne out by. . .any of her depictions in much of anything at least since she met the Beast (I can't speak to the Archie-style teen hijinks stuff.) Maybe it fits with what Cantwell did with her in his Iron Man run, but to put it bluntly, I'm not buying his take on the character over Englehart, Gerber, Kraft, Busiek, Immonen or Kate Leth's. This is the guy that had her get engaged to Tony Stark, after all. Oooh, she accepted money from other kids in high school to write essays for them! What a delinquent!

Because the other option seems to be this is all someone messing with her head somehow. We got a demon involved, a dream creature, whatever Hellstrom is, her mother's ghost just hanging around. Spalding seemed like he was too good to be true, which means he probably was. Patsy losing her balance around him, right as she's saying she never does that, could be her playing a role to flirt, or it could be him messing with her somehow. Or someone else messing with her.

Diaz colors that flashback in light greens and blues, whereas the rest of the issue is at night, drenched in dark colors. Patsy's still bruised and bandaged up. Lins draws the sash around her waist more like an actual cat tail. She's crouched in front of Hedy's window and the thing is somehow curving in an arc towards the sky. Her gloves also seem more like paws, especially in how the claws set in them. The fingers are very thick near the end, the palms broad. I was going to say, "tell me we aren't getting a Hellcat becomes a real cat story," but then I remembered the solicitations.

Sigh. The real question is whether I care enough about the mystery to stick around. A pity I like mysteries.

Mary Jane and Black Cat #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Vincenzo Carratu (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I don't think I've ever seen MJ depicted with so many freckles.

Felicia and MJ return to Belasco and reveal they know that he left out the part about his sword bonding to whoever grabbed it, which would mean he'd have to kill them to get it back. So they present him with the question of which one of them fell on the knife. MacKay's dialogue presents it as them being playful about it. Feigning shock and surprise as they lay out Belasco's scheme to him. Carratu draws Felicia along those lines. Mostly restrained in her gestures, maybe putting her hand to her mouth in shock at what MJ's said. But he draws MJ more aggressively, leaning forward, arms out wide, very angry. Doesn't quite match how the scene reads.

As it turns out, MacKay used Mary Jane getting reality-altering powers on that last "pull" for more than reviving S'ym. They split the sword, so they're both carrying it. Which somehow means it can't bond to either of them? Forget it, Calvin, it's Limbotown. They trounce Belasco, and let S'ym, take possession of the swords.

This is presented as good thing, S'ym declaring that Limbo needs an "opposition party" to Maddy Pryor. Are we just ignoring that it's because of S'ym that Maddie became Goblin Queen in the first place? he approached her in a dream, let her think that's all it was when they made the agreement, and twisted her around. And I'm just supposed to be like, "Yay! MJ and Felicia made a new friend!" Maddy should have flayed this bug, purple fucker the first chance she got. Then every chance after that.

Whatever. MJ and Felicia get to go home, Mary Jane is still being vague about what's going on, mentioning only that she and peter were apart for much longer than six months and Felicia gets introduced to Mary Jane's family, whose names I don't know or care to learn. Like, I could almost care enough to want to know the names of Ben and Alicia's adopted kids Ryan North shunted a year into the future, but these kids? Nope, don't care, didn't love 'em, didn't need 'em.

What I Bought 3/22/2023 - Part 2

I feel as though I should get out and explore the local businesses in this town more often. Been here over six years, and still lots of restaurants and whatnot I haven't tried. Haven't even bothered to get a library card. On the other hand, I could just lay around in my apartment and review the first issues of two mini-series.

Fallen #1, by Matt Ringel (writer), Henry Ponciano (artist), Toben Racicot (letterer) - I think the green, leering face detracts somewhat from the neon sign, if you want people to visit the business.

At some point the gods descended from their plane to live in the mortal world. Not as mortals, just among them. The Greeks and the Norse at minimum. As this is set in the '80s, it means Zeus dresses like he's starring in Miami Vice and getting annoyed at Apollo for selling watered-down Ambrosia to mortals as a drug. Incidentally, Loki's pitching the same idea to Odin, although the Norse gods are a biker gang.

Casper, who dresses more like someone John Wick would kill, is Zeus's errand boy, a mortal granted certain gifts. He's out on the balcony while Zeus dresses down Apollo, but then a mysterious figure with a spear shows up and impales Zeus, blasting Casper into the river. He survives, and the remaining pantheon doesn't kill him, but he is kicked out of the club, so to speak.

Lots of questions, lots of possible hints and clues scattered about. Athena mentions not all the gods have made it to Earth, with Apollo's sister (I'm assuming Aphrodite, but who knows with the way the Greek gods fucked around) specifically mentioned. Which raises the question in my mind of whether there are gods sneaking around the others don't know about. Ares' is apparently a big weapons dealer. The possibility of conflict over the Norse also making a version of their sacred drink for the mortals.

A lot of pages with just 2-4 panels, meaning a lot of large panels that span the entire page and half its height. I thought maybe it was meant to suggest the gods' power and presence. That even these large spaces can't contain them, but outside a few examples, there's usually lots of space in those panels. Ponciano also tends to draw Casper so we're looking at his back, and when we're not, he's usually looking at the ground. We don't know much of anything about Casper yet, so maybe that's by design. The gods are dismissing him, making him seem irrelevant, but he's the one to watch.

Hellcat #1, by Christopher Cantwell (writer), Alex Lins (artist), KJ Diaz (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - The city is on fire, but Patsy's more pressing issue would seem to be that she's floating in open space.

Patsy's back in her hometown, and she's a suspect in the murder of a guy she met a month ago at one of Hedy's parties. Patsy was at the scene, her gloves are covered in blood, the body, which we see in panels shaded entirely in red, was badly mangled. Patsy's also living in her childhood home, which is haunted by her mother. And Patsy's self-medicating with booze and pills. She returns to the scene of the crime and finds Sleepwalker's badge. She visits Rick Sheridan in a psychiatric hospital and he explains Sleepwalker is suspended because he's a suspect in Patsy's boyfriend's murder. Because Rick's in love with Patsy.

Well, shit Rick, why didn't you do us all a favor and kill Tony Stark when she was engaged to him?

In a vacuum, the strange murder mystery aspect of this is cool. And teaming up Hellcat and Sleepwalker, neither exactly a mage or sorcerer, but each sort of mystic-adjacent, also potentially cool. But man, do I feel like I'm missing a lot of pages. Not just that Patsy and Rick are apparently old pals. Patsy mentions that "something" has been messing up her psychic abilities for months, so she can't read minds.

When the hell could she read minds? Sense magic, sure. That's been a thing since at least when she came back from the dead, and I think it's how she found the badge.

This Patsy seems so defeated. Even more than when she returned from the dead and found it difficult to care about anything because she was certain she'd just end up there again. Even then, she put up a cheerful front and pushed on out of sheer irritation she was mixed up in a war over the various Hells. Now, even when she was supposedly so happy with this guy, Spalding Grantham, what a name, still with the booze and pills. Maybe Cantwell figures it's a more realistic reaction to the crap she's been through, but it just looks odd from this angle.

That said, I like Lins and Diaz' combined artwork. Lins brings rough, kind of squishy texture to the art when Patsy's in costume that makes her look wilder and a little broken. Like Stuart Immonen, but a little busier, bit sketchier look. It goes away when we see her with Spalding (jeez, that name). Linework is more solid, character faces are less cluttered, less hatch marks. Everything's a little simpler.

Diaz colors those scenes in more moderate tones. Or less contrast. The ones set in the present, Patsy's in a squad car with blurred lights coming through the windows, or bright blood clashing with the dark blue of her gloves. Or she's in interrogation, with some unpleasant yellow light making everything look sick. The flashbacks are more pleasant, no jarring combinations. Almost too good to believe, one might say.

Sunday Splash Page #236

 

"Into the Fire," in Hellcat #2, by Steve Englehart (writer), Norm Breyfogle (artist), Tom Smith (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

So in 2000, Marvel brought Patsy Walker back from the dead. In a Thunderbolts Annual we'll see in Saturday Splash Page some time next year. After a subsequent appearance in the Avengers Annual of that year, Patsy got this 3-issue mini-series by Englehart and Breyfogle, where Hellcat finds herself caught up in a war for control of the realms of condemned souls.

Patsy herself is struggling with finding meaning in life. She'd committed suicide and wound up in Mephisto's realm, didn't really get asked to be brought back to life, and isn't sure there's any point in it. And while Dormammu's spearheading the invasion, two of the realms being invaded are ruled by Mephisto, who claimed her soul, and her second ex-husband, Daimon Hellstrom. So she's got to help two people she doesn't particularly care for.

Englehart ramps up Patsy's abilities somewhat, as her time in Hell has taught her to both sense magic and be able to evade/slip free of it. She's no spell-slinger, but actually getting her with a spell is hard to manage. Breyfogle and Smith give the magic that gets tossed around a vivid, tangible presence, coiling around victims, which lets Patsy's ability to avoid it be more visually interesting than simply dodging it.

They also, as you notice above, revamp her costume, essentially swapping the blue and yellow. I like it personally, makes her look more sleek, but when Busiek and Larsen pulled her into their Defenders run, they immediately reverted her to the original look (though they retained the magic-sensing abilities). I don't remember them doing a lot with Patsy struggling with her past suicide, either, but a lot of the focus of that book was on how much the Big Four hated being forced to work together.

Englehart wastes what I feel is a lot of pages on the idea that actually, Satannish was created by Dormammu, as a double agent for when Dormammu inevitably invaded these Hell-realms. At the very end, we find out that actually actually (yes I typed it twice on purpose), Hellstrom is the Son of Satannish, because he was Dormammu's second double agent, in case the first time didn't work. Which feels like the sort of needless continuity patch Roy Thomas or Geoff Johns would do, and also seems like much more subtlety than Dormammu would bother with. If he was able to create Satannish back when Mephisto first came into being, why not just crush Mephisto then?

It seems like Englehart really wanted Patsy to figure this all out, like a goofy twist on the soap operas she used to love (according to what she says in this mini-series), and needed an appropriately convoluted reveal.

After this, it was 8 years before Patsy got another mini-series of her own, and 7 years after that before she got an ongoing. We won't see either of those for a few years (probably late 2025.) She will pop up in an ensemble mini-series in a few weeks, however.

Random Back Issues #80 - Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #10

Just so long as she doesn't date Matt Murdock. Or Logan. Or Scott Summers. Or Gambit. Or. . . maybe just keep taking a break from the dating scene?

This was Patsy's post-Secret Wars (Hickman's version) ongoing. At this point, Patsy's gotten the rights to her likeness back from old arch-rival Hedy Wolfe with Jennifer Walters' legal assistance. Except She-Hulk's in a coma, courtesy of Thanos and/or Bendis, so there's no big green help when Hedy sics both of Patsy's ex-husbands on her.

So Patsy's stuck in Belial's realm where Hellstrom sent her. She runs into a fake She-Hulk, who tells Patsy this is her own fault, but that she always blames things on other people. The scene shifts to her old school, but the way it was portrayed in the comics her mother got published about Patsy, Hedy, and the rest. Patsy wants out, but keeps getting reminded of bad stuff going on back in her real life. When Patsy tries to argue none of this real, just overly sanitized fluff, fake-Buzz asks if that means she never felt anything for him.

That leads into a whole trip down memory lane of her relationship disasters, and how things are never neat and tidy. Fake-Buzz tries to blame her for his transformation into Mad Dog, and then it's on to marrying the Son of Satan. Patsy's taste in guys is legendarily terrible. Belial uses a false Hedy to makes his pitch: Patsy has a lot of mystical power in her, what with traveling between Hell and Earth a few times, and she could do a lot with it, if only she embraced her anger.

Because Patsy is not a dumbshit, traumatized teenager like Anakin Skywalker, she just kicks false Hedy in the gut, and Belial finally reveals himself. Patsy gets him to take her back to Earth, if he wants to prove he's got so much juice.

During all that, Patsy's friends, including her new assistant Jubilee (still a vampire at this point), are trying to convince Hellstrom and Buzz they got suckered and to get Patsy back here. Mostly via Jubilee verbally murdering those idiots. She points out to Buzz if Patsy really had something that could cure him, wouldn't she help Jubilee, too? And if she wanted revenge on Daimon, she could 'take the trash out.' Unfortunately, it's Belial's domain, so Hellstrom can't pull her out, no matter how much Jubilee threatens to bite him. Which may or may not make him a vampire. 

That's when Patsy and Belial show up, and Jubilee immediately punches the demon in the face. Love that even Belial is offended Hellstron jumped the gun. There's going to be a lot of gossip around the, well, they probably don't have water coolers in Hell. Hot cocoa dispensers? That would be suitably cruel, right? Can't be warm beer, some people like that. Maybe warm soda? Point being, all the other demons will get a good laugh at Daimon's expense.

Belial's still determined to have Patsy, because she has too much hate in her to resist unleashing it, but her friend Ian telekinetically levitates Belial into the air, and Daimon sends him packing. Both exes apologize, and that's pretty much it. The next arc was the worst of the run, as it involved the Black Cat in her "Queenpin" phase, targeting Patsy and her friends using friggin' mind control magic or some shit. Blech.

{8th longbox, 15th comic. Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #10, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Megan Wilson (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #39 - Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1

Patsy Walker: taking no shit from creepy dudes since, um, well at least since she came back from the dead after her second marriage. Spending time in Hell: It's a real eye-opening experience!

It's my favorite mini-series of 2008! The issue opens with patsy modeling her downstairs neighbor, Rueben's final project for his degree in fashion. The fun times are ruined by a phone call from Tony Stark, not yet fired from his Boss of All Heroes job. Stark immediately demonstrates how unfit he is for the position by assigning Patsy to be the only hero in Alaska.

Great idea! Give the largest, most difficult to traverse state in the country to a hero who can't fly, teleport, or run superfast. It's not as though Alaska is home to a wealth of mineral resources, abundant places to hide secret bases, or enormous amounts of mystical energy.

(Alpha Flight was always fighting some supernatural thing related to the Gods of the North. You can't tell me those beings give a shit about international borders. They are definitely present in Alaska, too.)

I could sit here and shit-talk Tony Stark's intelligence all day, but let's talk about Patsy instead. She hitches a ride with a SHIELD jet up to Alaska, and gets a bad vibe from some bears she sees. Because she has an extra sense for mystical trouble. She decides to enlist the aid of some locals in exploring the wildlife, although it takes a lot of money to get some cooperation. Which is also when she runs into the creep in the first pair of panels.

Her guide - the guy looking a gift hellcat in the mouth up there - advises her hitting a lecher with a plastic mug is a bad idea, which means he's not much of an ally. 'He's not a bad guy, really. Just old-fashioned!' They've barely been snowmobiling around any time at all before they're attacked by the two bears. Who now have antlers. That can talk. Well, that's clearly some mad science at work.

Patsy ditches the civilian duds to fight the bears, and toboggans down a slope on one of them, after slinging the other one around by its antlers until it kind of poofs out of existence. Sounds fun! They go over a cliff! Could still be fun. Into the mouth of some kraken-looking thing while a couple of weathered old ladies look on! Not fun.

[8th longbox, 60th comic, Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1, by Kathryn Immonen (writer), Daivd Lafuente (artist), John Rauch (color artist), Dave and Natalie Lanphear (letterers)]

Maybe I Should Just Tear The Cover Off

I haven't done a tpb review in a few months.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonjic's Marvel Divas mini-series was one of those occasional, stuttering steps Marvel makes towards what they think will to get more women to buy their comics. I have no idea if it works or not, they never commit long enough. This particular series was described as like Sex in the City, but with superheroes, which is not typically something I'd be into, but Sacasa and Zonjic have both done work I enjoyed, and it had Felicia Hardy and Patsy Walker in it.

Of course, the trade paperback has that J. Scott Campbell cover that "graced" the first issue. Yeesh. Either the Patch Zircher cover for issue 3 (seen at the left) or the Jelena Djurdjevic cover for issue 2 would have been vast improvements. One step forward, one step back as always, Marvel.

The four of them all happened to try the same speed dating event and decided to start hanging out, and now they do best friends stuff together. Which is nice. In this story, best friend stuff involves a lot of discussing guy problems and dealing with dissatisfaction about how things are going in their lives. Felicia's trying to get an investigative agency up and running, and while she doesn't have the money herself, she's also not going to let her boyfriend pay for it for her. Monica's trying to decide if she wants a relationship with Doctor Voodoo. I feel like Monica got short changed compared to the others in terms of being the focus, but maybe that means she has her act together the most of the four.

Patsy's published a book about her life (it's at least her second, because I know she wrote one when she came back to life), which has brought Daimon Hellstrom back into the picture, because he's miffed he didn't get a mention. Such a dramatic boy. Unfortunately, Firestar's developed cancer, which gives Daimon something to use as leverage against Patsy.

Having never watched Sex in the City, I can't speak to whether this is at all like that, but overall, I enjoyed it. They're an odd quartet, though I was hard pressed to think of another heroine that any of them would consider a friend that was still alive*. But I bought in to the idea they enjoyed just hanging out, shootin' the breeze or watching movies. And this extends to helping each other out with problems, whether it's moral support or charging half-cocked into Hell on a rescue mission. I like friendship stories. There are some decent one-liners, a couple of funny lines I chuckled at. There are a couple of jokes about how Doctor Voodoo tries letting a lady know he's interested, but those work on the basis of Zonjic's art.

Zonjic has a minimalist style, gets a lot done as far as expressions with relatively few lines. Each character has their own distinctive style and body type, which isn't revolutionary, but you and I know a lot of artists who would fail that criteria. I wouldn't say the art is drawn with a female gaze, but Zonjic makes the effort to make the main male characters at least attempt to look attractive. A lot guys walking around with the top button or two of their shirts undone. Except Doctor Voodoo, who rarely bothers wearing a shirt.

The body language Zonjic gives Daimon is outstanding. He keeps popping up around Patsy, obviously obsessing over her, but he's always trying to look casual. Lounging against a bookcase, leaning on a couple of racks of clothes, stretched out across some chairs. But he still looks sleazy, in that way Gambit does, where he's trying for charmingly unkempt, but it doesn't land. Really conveys how for all that he's trying to act cool and in control, he's just barely avoiding a tantrum. Oh Patsy, what the hell were you thinking?

One thing I enjoy with reading these types of mini-series years after they were published is the snapshot they provide of moments in the fictional universe's history. Those glimpses or references to other editorial directions that have since been abandoned or forgotten. Felicia is dating Thomas Fireheart, aka the Puma (which I believe Aguirre-Sacasa started in Sensational Spider-Man), and mentions her stint working for Heroes for Hire. Monica's NextWave stint isn't too far in the rearview mirror, along with the story where she helps the Black Panther fight vampires in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina from Hudlin's Black Panther book. Hank Pym appears briefly, in the costume he wore when he was going with the codename "Wasp" to honor Jan. Doctor Voodoo is Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange is not, and Stephen's hanging out with Night Nurse a lot. Patsy's stint as Alaska's only super-hero gets mentioned. All those little stories or changes to the status quo that don't stick, either getting reversed or simply ignored and fading away.

* She-Hulk would be an exception, but I get the impression most people get along with her, like how most people get along with Ben Grimm or Nightcrawler. She's not really anyone's exclusive best pal, you know? I figure one of Patsy's oldest costumed set friends was Valkyrie, and I can't remember if she was alive when this came out. With Firestar I'd figure Namorita, but I'm almost positive she was still dead (or recently alive and still in deep space in the pages of Nova). And I have no idea who Monica was particularly close with. Would she consider Elsa Bloodstone or Boom-Boom "friends"?

What I Bought 5/3/2017 - Part 1

One comic that I wanted came out this week, and I was pretty sure neither store in town would have it, so I didn't even bother to go look. But I do have books from last month, so let's look at those, starting with the last issues for two books.

Great Lakes Avengers #7, by Zac Gorman (writer), Will Robson (artist), Scott Hanna (inker), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I'm surprised Deadpool doesn't have his own weight loss supplement, aka him coming to your house and slicing parts off.

The team defeats Dr. Nod with Maneuver 33, which really needed to be accompanied by the phrase, "My immortal brain needs beer,", but Mr. Immortal is an alcoholic, so probably it'd be more a call for help. Fresh off their victory, which has given Detroit bragging rights over Green Bay - well it's not like the Lions or the Pistons have done anything for Detroit on that front in the last 10 years, or 50 in the Lions' case - they're told they've been fired by none other than Deadpool. And that's how the book ends, the team sitting in stunned silence as they learn of their cancelation.

When Bertha is fighting Dr. Nod at the start of the issue, she's a couple stories tall. During the fight, the drugs wear off and she shrinks back down while fighting her agent and the doctor's assistants. And it's about that time the wolf-girl shows up. But since Robson didn't really draw anything around them to give a sense of scale, I thought Good had gotten into the drugs to become a huge wolf-girl, rather than Bertha having shrunk to closer to her normal size. The agent and the goons show up in a van full of the drug, so i figured they loaded themselves up before fighting, and you can see in the panels where they fight Bertha is various large people and some bricks. There's nothing to give it scale.

Having Dr. Nod's teeth apparently not grow with the rest of his flesh, so that he's a blobby-looking monster with a huge mouth and relatively tiny teeth was kind of nifty. I'm not clear on how Bertha's powers work, beyond having control over her mass. Presumably she'd need to increase bone density to support the extra mass, but would that extend to teeth? Anyway, it was a little touch of the absurd to the visual I liked.

The book was probably always doomed to a short life, but I would have liked to see it come together a little more. I'm still not sure what Gorman's overall plan was for the book. He had something in mind, but it didn't get very far along. Oh well.

Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #17, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Playing as yourself in a video game would have to be strange and frustrating, especially if they made you a joke character like Dan Hibiki, or Phoenix Wright in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. "My attacks are better than that! Iron Man doesn't have a huge shoulder cannon!"

Patsy receives a letter from Jennifer Walters, telling her Jen negotiated her an excellent deal on various rights related to her childhood adventures and so she's freaking rich. Patsy takes her friends to the mall, where they are menaced by a couple of her fans pretending to be villainous vampires, who actually have crushes on each other. So things are resolved with a minimum of fuss, as Jubilee notes Patsy hasn't sent many of her enemies to jail over the course of this title. Ah well, HYDRA Captain America would probably just let them out again, so why bother?

So the book ends on an upbeat note. Like the GLA, Patsy doesn't seem sure what she's going to do next, but she has options, and she satisfied with where she's at in life. A check for an amount so large you doubt its validity will do that for ya. I'd hope she would keep the temp agency going, even if she hired someone to run it. Probably a lot of people using that to help pay the bills.

I appreciated the letter from Jennifer Walters bit. Reminds me of Cable sending Deadpool a psimitar in the last issue of Cable/Deadpool (after Cable had been absent from the book for the final 10 issues thanks to Mike Carey's X-Men run). I don't think Jen leaving the book was entirely Leth and Williams' call - I imagine they could have kept her in, given Marvel's lax approach to inter-book continuity these days, but it might have been an awkward clash with Jen's new title - but it's nice to acknowledge these characters are friends. And friends wouldn't just entirely forget about each other. If a person really matters, you'd at least check in with them somehow.

The fashion sequence thing was a cute callback to Patsy's earlier books I assume. And it got Jubilee back in the classic yellow jacket and huge pink sunglasses, which is appropriate for a return to her mallrat days. And Williams draws it very well, like I figure there are certain artists it would be a weird look, but with Williams it doesn't seem out of place at all.Also, in looking at the panel of her room, I notice there's a picture of her giving Dr. Strange bunny ears while Ian laughs and Wong, well Wong is probably suppressing the laugh. The shock lines combined with the brighter, deeper color in the panel where Patsy's tossed the cross at the Somnambulisters was a good attention-getter. Then the color fades to a duller pink in the next panel because these aren't actual vampires and they can't keep up their acting. The defeated posture and 'Ahhh, help,' were a funny combination.

So the Patsy Party is over, but it lasted longer than I thought it would. That's something.

What I Bought 3/25/2017 - Part 1

I ventured to Columbia Saturday and was able to find most of the books from this month I'd missed. There was one I couldn't track down, but I should have it by next week. For now, let's start with the two comics that are about to be canceled. Time to wrap everything up!

Great Lakes Avengers #6, by Zac Gorman (writer), Will Robson (artist), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Homage to that Excalibur cover with the apologetic janitor?

Doorman is trying to carry out his duties for Oblivion, but the ghost of Greg Garlick is really taking advantage of his good will to remain on this plane. Elsewhere, Bertha has some trouble dealing with Dr. Nod, who has taken way too many of his pills based on her powers. And a couple of, I don't know if they're hipsters, but they seem like jackasses, try to buy the GLA's RV. Then the team assembles to fight Dr. Nod.

The parts about Doorman trying to do his job, but not even being sure how old he is any longer was probably my favorite part. That whole thread about how much being a servant of the manifestation of some cosmic force can mess with your sense of perspective is just very interesting to me. The rest, not so much. I'm curious about Gorman's attempts to have the team interact with the local community in their own peculiar way. That felt like it was building to something, but not much chance of a successful resolution there, I imagine.

I really can't think of much else to say. The ghost of Greg reminded me of the Violator from Spawn, when he was in his creepy clown form. When Dr. Nod clocks Bertha and leaves, I think she's meant to be losing consciousness, but initially read it as her not bothering to try. A "why bother?" 

Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #16, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Somehow I can't imagine Jessica Jones being much fun at a pajama party.

Patsy's magical sneezes are getting worse, but Hedy is dating Belial as a result of Hellstrom trying to get some payback for being suckered, and the two of them actually attempt to help Patsy. By Belial giving her a quiet place she can talk about all the stuff she's bottling up, because the stress is wearing her down and mixing dangerously with her own magical abilities and all the other magic shit she's been mixed up in so far.

Gotta love Hedy trying to dodge responsibility for sending Daimon after Patsy. Oh, you told Son of Satan his ex was out to get him and you're surprised when invokes Hell as a pre-emptive strike? Also, I know this is something likely beyond Leth's control, but Jennifer Walters is out of her coma. She's not checking in with any of her friends, letting them know she's OK. She's not, but certainly trying to convince herself and everyone else she is.

The issue has to have a lot of exposition, with the need to explain what's happening to Patsy, plus how Hedy started dating a demon. But it's still funny in places, and fairly interesting. I didn't really understand why everyone was glaring at her in that one panel before she sneezes them into Hell. As opposed to the panel of everyone glaring at her one page earlier, right after she insists she's fine. They're on her about keeping stuff bottled up, then she's supposed to just let bygones be bygones for all the crap Hedy's pulled, and then they're telling her to calm down, and my sympathies were firmly with Patsy. She's clearly been trying not to explode, not to let stuff out, and frankly, she deserves the chance.

Williams drew some great expressions for Patsy, pretty much the entire time she was at Hedy's. The screaming, "I AM RELAXED!", followed by a moment of trying to get herself together, then frustration, then despair in the course of 3 panels. Or the near-eruption at Hedy and Belial's nauseating lovey-dovey talk. That "w h a t" panel, and the way Cowles put that word in their helps. Catches the eye, though I admit I don't know if it's meant to be she can barely get the word out she's so pissed, or that she's still trying to rein herself in. I can't quite figure America, Jubilee, and Bailey all being extremely into Hedy/Belial, but Williams gave them some pretty great looks for the panel. I think Sharon's, "I'm not sure how to react to what I'm seeing," would most closely resemble my reaction.

I'm surprised Marvel gave this book as long a leash as they did, but I'm glad they did.

What I Bought 2/18/2017 - Part 1

I made a trip to visit Alex over the weekend, and took the opportunity to visit some comic shops up there. And was able to get all 5 of the comics I had missed over the previous two weeks. Hooray!

Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #5, by Jonathan Rivera and Gerard Way (writers), Michael Avon Oeming (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Clem Robins (letterer) - Is Wild Dog demonstrating feet of clay there? Falling apart under the pressure of the circumstances?

The thing that caused terrifying visions last issue is some sort of demon trapped within a crystal the Muldroog once worshiped, but now try to keep sealed up. The elder Bornstein, the goo monster, is after it, and used initial interactions between his people and the Muldroog to get someone in to try poisoning their water supply, which reduces the resistance he'll face. he was after Chloe because he needs someone with Muldroog blood to open the vault to the Whisperer. Although he captures her grandfather during an assault on the stronghold, so never mind, problem solved. Most of the crew of the Mighty Mole 2 realize this situation is fucked up and defect, but Cave's plan to call Superman flounders on the rocks of Superman not bothering to send Cave a text that he changed his phone number.

Which is hilarious the more I think about it. That Way and Rivera go to the trouble of saying Cave is buddies with Superman, just to have his attempt to call in the Kryptonian cavalry fall flat on its face. On a different note, I appreciated that there isn't some big scene of Cave and his in-laws arguing and being hostile to each other. There's grief, but there's understanding. Mazra was an adult, she made a choice to go with Cave and live on the surface, no point in a lot of anger about it. It's nice to avoid that mess sometimes.

Oeming and Filardi continue to combine for some strong art. The strange masks Bornstein's people are wearing, with the huge ears and the red eyes remind me of something, maybe an old Golden Age hero, but I can't place it. There's a bit at the beginning where Cave, Chloe, and Wild Dog are listening to the story and eating hallucinogenic pudding, and Cave isn't fully affected because the cybernetic eye's perceptions aren't altered. So half of him has this stretched, yellow outline pulling away, and the side with the eye doesn't. I'm a little concerned about Wild Dog. Between the page showing he's reliving the various misfortunes that brought him to this point, and him having cut off the head of one of Bornstein's guys with a large knife, which seems more visceral than simply shooting them. Plus, the background for that panel is an extreme close-up of his face, like his spirit or something is looming out of control. Cave's getting the opportunity to try and deal with his shit, but I'm not sure he isn't messing his friend up worse in the process.

Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #15, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Fire sneezes or no, I think America is going overboard with an entire sink. Think of the security deposits.

Patsy has convinced all her temps to have a multi-holiday party at the office, which is ruined when Patsy's magic sneezes go out of control. She alters people's clothes, summons America Chavez from bed, apparently, brings forth the physical representation of her childhood imaginary tiger friend, and makes Jubilee tiny. Patsy does calm down Mister Sniffles, but her next sneeze makes him a giant, they say bee, but I thought wasp or hornet. The problem is dealt with, but then she makes the entire building vanish. Whoops.

America's jacket being changed to have the Canadian Maple Leaf on it cracked me up. Canada Chavez was a natural joke just sitting there, and Leth and Williams reached out and took it. Bravo. And this is a great issue for Williams to draw various horrified or stunned faces. Sharon's reaction to a giant bug smashing through the door. Or everyone else's reactions when Mister Sniffles was turned into a giant bug (scowly pink cloud Jubilee is great). Patsy's various looks of illness-induced dementia. I wonder if she's loaded up on various medicines or what. Being sick just makes me grumpy, in addition to being tired.

I have to assume they'll call in Dr. Strange to try and deal with this. I guess they could call someone else, but Stephen and Patsy are old friends, so why not contact him? I'm not sure how he fixes it, but it involves magic, and based on some of what was discussed in the issue about Patsy spending time in Bailey's bag while wounded, it's an illness. So magic illness, who do you call other than Dr. Strange?

On another note, I just noticed Ian is entirely absent from the episode. Maybe he wasn't in a party mood, or he and Tom needed some time. But I was a little surprised. You get used to a supporting character just always being there.