Saturday Splash Page #154

"Call Me Killa-B", in Smooth Criminals #5, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith, and Amy Roy (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Raven Warner (inker), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer)

The most popular publisher for me other than Marvel or DC tends to rotate. When this blog started, it was Digital Webbing. It was probably Red 5 during the years they were publishing Atomic Robo. It had been Scout Comics the last few years, but that appears to be ending. From 2017-2019, it was Boom!, on the strength of 3 series. We looked at Coda in 2020, and Giant Days in 2022. Which just leaves Smooth Criminals.

Brenda, a computer science major in 1999, is tasked with cleaning out a storage room and finds a weird tube in the back. Inside the tube is a lady, frozen, who quickly becomes unfrozen thanks to Brenda's curiosity. Said extremely agile lady turns out to be Mia Corsair, jewel thief extraordinaire, not seen in 30 years.

For lack of anything else to hang onto, Mia decides to try and finish the job she was preparing for when she got put on ice, stealing the Net of Indra (see above image.) Brenda, for lack of anything else to do, and really wanting a friend, offers to help with all the hacking and technical requirements, seeing as Mia is decades out of date on that stuff.

The mini-series ran 8 issues, but I would swear it was originally solicited as 12 issues. And you can see it in the pacing. The series spends a lot of time on Mia trying and failing to get past Talky Bears, since their motion sensors are a decent substitute for what she'll face in the heist. Or on a former rival of Mia's, who is still young in some way that doesn't involve becoming a Popsicle, getting subtle digs from his two henchmen. There's a lot of humor and character interaction between Brenda and Mia revolving around Mia not knowing about video games, or Friends, or Brenda only having online friends.

But there's a romantic subplot for Brenda that gets rushed, and a subplot for Mia and her mother (who was herself a thief, and has been in prison for decades) that feels like there's was going to be more to it. Mia's rival is after the Net of Indra as well, plus he clearly has issues with his wife that are barely tapped.

There's a decidedly blitzed through team up and a big fight that gets crammed into a 16-panel page that doesn't do Riddel any favors. There's just no room to really let what should, in some way, be Mia's big moment of payback for the 30 years she lost, breathe. But it feels like the book was leaning towards a "steal from the thief," ending and had to go straight to a fight because it was faster. Riddel's art is loose enough to allow for exaggeration, and can generally handle Mia's acrobatics, when Mia gets the opportunity to show off a bit.

I really would have liked to see this book with a full 12 issues, assuming I didn't just hallucinate that notion.

What I Bought 8/23/2019

Every time I go on a road trip for work, I tell myself I'm going to use the time in hotels to work on creative projects. Sketch or write, something. Then I almost never do it. By the time I get to the hotel, I just want some food, and then to sit and watch TV or read or something.

In other news, my allergies have kicked in with a vengeance, much to the amusement/concern of my coworkers. They spent most of yesterday saying I looked like I'd been in a fight, or that I needed drugs. Everyone trying to give me pills. I thought peer pressure to do drugs ended with high school!

Magnificent Ms. Marvel #6, by Saladin Ahmed (writer), Minkyu Jung (penciler/inker), Juan Vlasco (inker), Ian Herring (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - When you show the new costume assembling itself like that along all those seams, it really starts to remind me of the New 52 costumes. Boo.

Kamala's dad has a very rare new disease with no current cure. That's a lot to absorb, but he doesn't want everyone to be sad and encourages her to go meet with Nakia and Bruno for study group adventures. They don't get far into that before Deathbringer, the lame villain she beat off-panel in issue 1 calls her out, with a busload of hostages. But it's night now, so he has actual powers of. . . I'm not sure. He makes a big darkness bubble and strange monsters rise from the ground. Kamala's new costume tells her his mask powers all this, and she uses the costume to break the mask. Then Iron Man shows up and tells her he has people working on a cure for her dad's condition, but nobody's got anything yet.

Deathbringer makes a point of telling us he doesn't have powers during the day, but at night it's a different story. Except the sky before and after Kamala fights him is colored orange (see the middle panel above), like it's close to sunset, but the sun clearly hasn't gone down yet. So the question is, screw-up or intentional? Kamala says the mask stores solar energy during the day and creates these things at night, that it isn't magic. That Deathbringer is trying to act like he's some dangerous magical being, at least at night, but it's not true. But again, it wasn't night yet when they're fighting. So it shouldn't be doing anything. And why would the mask store energy during the day, but not be able to use it then?

The rest of the issue feels like the pretty bog-standard thing you get in comics when the main character learns a friend or loved one is sick. But the Deathbringer fight detracted from it. There's supposed to be a point in there about how it isn't a sign someone's out to get you when multiple bad things happen all together, but I don't see that as much comfort or reassurance. Just let Kamala spend some time with her friends, or her brother.

Smooth Criminals #8, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith, Amy Roy (writer), Leisha Riddel (artist), Joanna LaFuente and Goncalo Lopes (colorists), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) -The Shadow Men are back. For the first time, for the last time.

I was pretty sure this was a 12-issue mini-series, but maybe not, because this issue says "The End" on the last page, and it sure as hell has the rushed air of something ending faster than intended. We're straight into Mia and Brenda trying to steal the Net of Indra back from Hatch, with full support of the feds. None of the prep work or information gathering we saw with the first attempted heist. No banter between them and the feds. Just straight to it. They get in, trigger an alarm, and then have to fight Hatch. Who injects himself with something and turns into Red Hulk for a couple pages until changing back and starting to die?

Well, this is set in the 1990s, he probably got into Mark McGwire's locker.

Hatch spills the beans about the whole freezing thing, then tries to take Brenda hostage to win, only to get suckered by Mia whispering sweet nothings. Man, and his fiance was right there, too. She's gonna be pissed, assuming Hatch lives long enough for it to matter. Apparently turning into Hulks is bad for your health in this universe. Brenda and T-Blue join the FBI as computer experts, Mia and her mom sail off to the Caribbean. And that's it.

You know, if you're going to try and cram 5 issues worth of stuff into one 22-page issue, maybe don't waste 2 of those  pages on Brenda's extended Reservoir Dogs dream sequence. Christ. I mean, Riddel had to fit the fight with Hatch Hulk into two 16-panel pages. It actually works pretty well, especially Mia's combo rush at the end, but I wouldn't have minded giving it some more space. Maybe if I cared more (at all) about Tarantino I would have cared more. It was a funny bit on the initial read, because I didn't know then how vital those pages were going to end up being.

At least give us the final fate of Hatch's two henchmen! They seemed like halfway decent guys. Or at least not complete scumbags. They understand their boss is a freaking egotistical dork. Still, at least we got an ending. I've pretty much abandoned hope of ever seeing the end of Copperhead or The Seeds.

What I Bought 7/19/2019 - Part 2

The other two books from last week. One is a mini-series moving into its second half, and the other is the first issue of what I assume is an ongoing series.

Smooth Criminals #7, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith and Amy Roy (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Jamie Loughran, Adam LaFuente and Goncarlo Lopes (colorists), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - Freezing Mia didn't work, so now they've shrunk her, I see.

The feds try to get Brenda to talk, to no avail. Mia confesses, or agrees to confess, to protect her, and for the chance to speak to her mother. Brenda isn't happy Mia portrayed her as an innocent dupe, but realizes this means they're friends and. . . tries to rob a bank to be thrown back in jail with Mia. That is one way to go about things. Then they make a deal with the feds to help them catch the guy who stole the Net of Indra from them, and that's where the issue ends.

There's also a two-page sequence in there of Hatch acting like a complete dumbass while celebrating having the Net of Indra. He sings part of "Ice, Ice, Baby" to it (incorrectly) for God's sake. Thank goodness his fiance comes in and points out he didn't actually steal it, Mia and Brenda did all the work. It's getting harder and harder to take Hatch seriously, although I feel worse and worse for his two goons. I hope one of them was taking photos to blackmail him with later.

That part, and the bit where Mia is picturing Brenda in prison are the two high points. Although that second one is a little odd. The feds are trying to scare Mia by talking about how badly it'll go for Brenda, but Mia is picturing her working out, making friends, exploring prison fashion and tattooing. Seems like Mia thinks Brenda will do pretty well in prison. Still nice of her to try and take the fall solo. Helps these two feds are dumber than a sack of hammers.

Sera and the Royal Stars #1, by Jon Tsuei (writer), Adurey Mok (artist), Raul Angelo (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Hey, I think I found a crystal just like that in a pile of stuff left over from an old smelting operation last week! Where's my magical quest?

Sera is a princess, working with her siblings to lead their father's armies and try to defend their kingdom from their uncle's forces. There's also a mysterious third group who wear hoods with goat horns on them watching and waiting. Unfortunately, a being named Mitra has tagged Sera to free some "royal stars" to get things back on the right path. Sera tells her to pound sand, but Mitra removes her heart, puts that crystal in its place and tells her all her loved ones will die if she doesn't do this. Apparently this world doesn't have lots of stories about what happens when you strongarm someone into doing stuff for you. Movies tell me it tends to backfire. By the end of the issue, she's found one, but they're in the process of being attacked by lizard men, so hopefully he's of some use.

There's some stuff here, a lot of it about Sera's family. Their uncle is the one waging war on them. Her mother was the last one Mitra tapped for this quest, but she apparently failed. Mitra's response was only that 'we chose incorrectly before you.' Oh, well, that's great, but you didn't do her family any favors, so maybe show a little contrition?  Her younger sister is pretty ticked she's taking off, and her brother's a little worried, since Sera's apparently their best tactician. So you wonder if there'll be anything left of her home by the time she gets home, if she does. Mitra didn't guarantee her family wouldn't be killed if she did go on this quest after all, and seems like the kind of deity to omit that.

I like Mok's artwork. There's a light touch to the linework, not a lot of excess pencil lines. Even with the old man Sera finds in the temple, Mok uses just a few wrinkles lines here and there to suggest the rest. Keeps things clean and easy to read. I like the designs for their uniforms as well, though I'm not sure what the influence is. My brain keeps saying Indian subcontinent, but I'm not sure of that. "Hormuzd" is Middle Eastern, or at least the first result on Google is for Hormuzd Rassam, an Assyrian archaeologist that found clay tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The village in the vast open plain Sera passed through on the way to the temple made me think Mongolia (I remember reading something about the Eternal Blue Sky as a religion in that Weatherford book about Genghis Khan), but again, I'm guessing. At any rate, it's a good design, not too complicated, but distinct, Angelo makes it colorful, it works. The variety of landscapes offers a lot of possibilities, especially since I suspect Sera's going to venture into places most people have forgotten about.

I'm going to buy issue 2, and that's the goal of a first issue, so mission accomplished.

What I Bought 5/29/2019 - Part 2

I don't tend to think of myself as having a lot of stuff. Probably because I manage to keep most of it organized in bookshelves, unlike my dad. It hasn't reached the point where my stuff was just piled up wherever there was room, so it seems managable. Still, once I started actually moving all the longboxes, and finding enough boxes for all the books, things look a bit different. I need to learn to teleport.

For today's selections, we have one book reaching the midway point, and another on issue #2.

Ghost Tree #2, by Bobby Curnow (writer), Simon Gane (artist), Ian Herring and Becka Kinzie (colorists), Chris Mowry (letterer) - That's what happens when you stand in one place staring at your phone for too long.

Brandt is enjoying talking to the ghosts about their problems, and possibly helping a few of them.  His grandfather tries to give him some pointers, and to warn him about some of the risks. Which include demons, of a sort. The ghost with no face, called Zero, is supposed to be the one who drives the demons off, but it may have problems of its own. And Brandt receives a nighttime visit from the ghost of a girl he met the summer he spent here ten years ago. Arami doesn't know why she's still here, but maybe it has something to do with her suspicion that something's happening around here.

We're still in the early going, and things are so open at this point, I'm very interested in most everything that's happening. Not just how things work with the ghosts, and whether or not what Brandt is doing will help them move on. And not just what's going on with Zero, or how it might be resolved. Curnow brings back Brandt's cousin from issue 1, and brings her husband along for good measure. It's only two pages, but most of it is Mariko saying her husband can clean the gutters for grandma, and him absently saying, "I don't mind," while continuing to eat. Considering the decaying state of Brandt's marriage, and the fact his grandfather is most likely hanging around because he feels guilty for being so caught up in the tree he neglected his wife. It feels like a significant choice to portray it that way, but I'm not sure what it means yet.

The design for the demon is like a centipede crossed with a Xenomorph (the latter only because of the face within the mouth of the bigger face). Cool, though. For the most part, Gane is drawing regular people taking, but he does enough with the expressions, combined with Curnow's dialogue to make it work. Brandt's understated reaction to the samurai's tale, the poor guy with the melted face. Herring and Kinzie's colors help, as scenes all have their own background color. The parts with the demon are reddish hues, the conversation between the Brandt and Arami has that eerie green against a night backdrop. The conversations with the ghosts are in a placid, slightly washed out green, with a yellowish tint. It's not a warm color, but it's calm. Things are going OK when the colors are like that.

Smooth Criminals #6, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith, and Amy Roy (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (color artist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - Brenda, pull your knee back, if your torn jeans lose any fabric, it could trigger an alarm!

The Net of Indra is being sent to new York abruptly, so the heist will have to happen sooner. Problems: Mia can't get through the motion sensors in the time allotted. The feds know she's after the Net and are trying to trick her mother into helping them. And Hatch knows she's after it, too. Basically, waaaaaay too many people know about this heist ahead of time. They actually get through the security system, despite Brenda's crush runs IT at the museum, but Hatch trips the alarms to flush Mia to the roof. His goons beat her up, he takes the prize, she and Brenda get arrested.

That went about as badly as possible, short of Mia or Brenda getting shot or blown up. I guess contact with Hatch could have given Mia an incurable disease. He strikes me as the kind of guy to contract incurable bone-itis and not warn people. Jerk. I can't imagine Mia's mother is actually stupid enough to believe the feds will honor their deal, so I'm guessing she just wanted to be reunited with her daughter so they can escape together. I hope she isn't that stupid. I mean, I know better than to trust the feds on something like that, just by virtue of having watched The Rock.

The interlude on the roof, where they stumble on the marriage proposal, was odd. I know they decide at the end of it the roof was a bad idea, and at the end of the issue it turns out, yes, running to the roof was a bad idea. I'm just not sure why they stumble on a marriage proposal. And yes, the guy's spiel was pretty awful. Do they want it to come from the heart, or have something ghostwritten? I hope that wasn't ghostwritten. If it was, he should demand his money back.

For two pages, as Mia's descending into the display while Brenda tries to keep T-Blue from figuring out what she's doing, Riddel lays out the pages to take advantage of the two being in radio contact to show things are happening simultaneously. The first page has two panels of Mia descending slowly, one above the other. They're sandwiched between panels of Brenda trying to distract T-Blue and then alert Mia. On the next page, as Mia gets spooked, one panel of Brenda is set so it overlaps the first and second panels of Mia on the page. She's in another location, but in touch with Mia, and her response carries between the span of moments in those two panels. It's something a bit out of the ordinary for Riddel, who usually does more conventional layouts. So it works well here as a brief change of pace.

What I Bought 5/8/2019 - Part 5

We're back with more comics, both from Boom, both 12-issue mini-series. One of them is almost to the end, while there other is almost to the midpoint. So they're both putting the pieces in place for a big moment.

Coda #11, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist), Michael Doig (colorist assist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - That's a placid, yet ominous scene.

The Murkrone is prepared to make her move, with a magic-powered airship. Oh, those never end well. There's no place to go but down. Serka and the assorted remains of Ridgetown, Thundervale, and the Urken are trying to devise some sort of strategy, but don't seem to be getting very far. Hum agrees to be the chronicler who will preserve the Murkrone's version of history to save the little kid, but actually frees said child and sends her away on Nag. He forced to drink the same potion the Murkrone made for Serka. Which is not a poison so much as a mind-control drug. I guess that explains he being able to talk with Serka through the war-gibbon last issue. I assumed that was some unrelated magical long-range communication thing.

In a lot of ways, it feels like the preparation for the big showdown next issue. But I think it's also Hum's big moment. When he chose to get off his butt and act to try and do some good for others. To save the kid (and Nag). To at least try and keep his promise to that poor, tormented ylf by killing it and ending its suffering. The kind of thing he would have sneered at, or done only as it brought him closer to his goal of "helping" Serka, previously.

I'm not expecting him to play much of a role in what comes next, which seems fitting. Things are settling into familiar patterns of someone trying to bring the world to heel, and a few brave, desperate, or angry souls trying to stop them. It's not the sort of thing he would be involved in, and as it stands, it's unlikely he will be now. A bystander, or a meat shield the Murkrone tries to use to slow Serka down at best. After all, he always asserted it was Serka who could truly help make the world a better place, not him. He did a little bit of good, and maybe that's what he should have been trying all along.

A few random things I enjoyed on the art side this issue. The kid's confused look when she learns the magic words that will let her ride Nag. How, when Hum speaks the word that causes the combustion charm to ignite, it's not written as a word, but as a symbol in his mouth in the same green shade as the acker that powers his magic. The contrast between the Murkrone, sparkly and smiling, making her pitch, while right next to her is a grumpy looking Urken carving bloody pieces off an emaciated ylf to throw into a squat, ugly furnace. The way her speech balloon about how said ylf is not simply a 'tawdry treasure', carries the eye to the line of blood from the entrails, and then down to the screaming victim. The casual dismissal of him as anything other than a resource, because as she's said, all that matters is the story people believe, not what actually happened.

I do hope she dies painfully next issue.

Smooth Criminals #5, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith, Amy Roy (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Raven Warner (inker), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - I hope Mia warned Brenda about landing properly. Otherwise you end up with a superhero landing, and that's hell on your knees.

Brenda and Mia take a break at an arcade, where we learn Brenda has a crush on someone she plays against online. Because Brenda can't focus, Mia drags her to an open mic night T-Bird is playing at so they can meet in person. This does not go well, and leads to an argument between them, but they want to make the heist work, so they put that aside. Problem(s): the feds were checking out the net of Indra exhibit, and catch a glimpse of Mia. And Mia's old rival found her training area and has designed his own to copy it. Which at least gives us a funny scene of him being thwarted by the Talky Bears, and chastised by his henchmen for referring to Mia and Brenda as "girls", rather than "women". It's disrespectful, you see.

Kind of a sad thing when your stoic henchmen are more well-mannered than you are. What kind of classy thief is he?

Raven Warner handles some of the inking this issue. The only thing I really noticed was that sometimes Mia and her rivals' faces got much rounder looking for one or two panels. Also that there would be a lot more shading around the nose. There was one page where it looked like Mia had stuck her snoot in a coal bucket, for no apparent reason. Weird.

I like Mia demonstrating that they do have a plan for the heist by jumping around all over the arcade, as a way to both show off a bit, but also to put Brenda at ease and not let her use it as an excuse to avoid meeting her crush. It doesn't really work, but it seems like the kind of approach Mia would take, as someone who gives the appearance of being self-assured and confident. Or maybe she's just one of those people who talks with her hands, a highly acrobatic thief version.

What I Bought 3/2/2019

We had snow again over the weekend. Not as much as they predicted, a couple of inches, but this feels like the snowiest winter we've had in a while. Every weekend it's at least a little something.

I went to town for comics from the last two weeks, but only managed to find two of the five I was looking for. Bit of a disappointment, but work with what we've got.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3, by Tom Taylor (writer), Juann Cabal (artist), Nolan Woodward (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Welp, he missed the title logo with his webline, he's doomed. Sorry everyone, no more Peter Parker Spider-Man comics, he's dead.

OK, there's a city beneath New York called Under York, which looks like New York and had some sort of contact with the surface until the '40s, when they went isolationist. Leilani was either from there and escaped to the surface, or someone came to the surface from there and met her, and they had kids. I think it's the former. Pete and Marnie find her, take out two guards, but Pete takes a bullet for Marnie. Then, when the elevator is shut down, he climbs three miles straight up with the two of them on his back. So they reach the surface, but there will likely be people after them soon.

I liked this issue more than the previous one, since they got into the story a little more. Plot advancement actually helps, what a bizarre concept. Cabal and Woodward do some lovely work in this issue. The full-page splash of Under York, even though it's really just New York with magma around it instead of water. The page of Peter and Marnie descending a spiral staircase where Cabal lays the page out so the panels descend in a spiral, the support pillar in the center also forming a line through the center of the page. Woodward still does that thing for Spider-Sense with the very bright blue outline against a magenta background from the first issue, but it's less weird when Peter has his mask on, since we can't see his eyes glowing.

I enjoy some of the quips and comments Peter makes, the one in response to Marnie's rhetorical question about who among us hasn't dated an underground despot in particular. Although I feel like some of the comments would serve better as internal monologue. The one where he apologizes to Marnie for yelling 'Get Down!' instead of 'Noooooooo!' when he took a bullet for her. That feels more like a thought that would run through his head than one he'd actually say out loud.

Smooth Criminals #4, by Kurt Lustgarten and Kirsten Smith (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - I suspect Mia's not going to have much luck getting Brenda to wear a skintight leather outfit during the actual heist.

There are three scenes running through the issue. One is the FBI questioning Mia's mother about why Mia suddenly appeared again, and what she's after. The elder Ms. Corsair was quite the thief herself back in the day, and I don't know yet if she told the feds anything they'll be able to figure out how to use. Mia and Brenda are using the storage space where Brenda found her to practice getting through the security systems. Mia's struggling a bit with adapting to motion sensors, especially under a time limit. And Hatch is still fuming about how Mia could be back after all this time. The answer to how he hasn't aged seems to be a sort of blue drug he gets injected periodically. Tsk, tsk, performance enhancing drugs. The Thief Hall of Fame will not be happy when they hear of this.

The theme of the day seems to be time. How it continues to pass and how characters lose track of it. Which means, when they have things that need doing, there's less time to get done than they think. Hatch thought he had a free and clear shot at the Net of Indra with no Mia around, enough so he could wait 30 years to get around to stealing it. But here Mia is, so perhaps not. But his attempt to examine her cryogenic tube leads him to her and Brenda's training ground, which means he's more onto them than they know. Their window is closing faster than they think. And Ms. Corsair is 30 years older, left wondering what's going on with her daughter, but not in any position to do anything about it.

Now watch, she'll break out of prison next issue.

Riddel's artwork maintains its level from last issue, so I'm really lost as to what happened in issue 2. I like the variety of clothing styles. Brenda tends to stick to t-shirts and a sweater wrapped around the waist, but Mia's going with the t-shirt and overalls look, which is a big change from what's she been in so far. Ms. Corsair has this absolutely perfect expression in one panel after one of the feds loses his temper and starts yelling about how Mia could appear looking no different than she used to. One of those 'picture of innocence' looks where the smile is a little too big to actually be innocent. What I'd describe as almost feline.

What I Bought 1/26/2019 - Part 3

Like I said on Friday, it was about 6 degrees for a high on Wednesday. Yesterday it was in the 60s. Chaotic! Temperature started dropping again midday today, though. Which won't be too bad if it'll at least stay in the 20s.

Mega Ghost #2, by Gabe Soria (writer), Gideon Kendall (artist/colorist/letterer), Julie Peppito (color assist) - Usually it's the other way around isn't it, the secret identities fighting in the foreground, and their superheroic alter egos looming in the background.

The blond kid on the cover, Fausto, is a spoiled rich brat who demands a toy that doesn't exist for his birthday. His dad finds a different battery-powered robot toy that Fausto loves, even as he begins to act very strange and buildings in the city are being randomly flattened. Martin figures out the toy's possessed, and anything it does to the replica of their town happens to the real thing. So he gets Mega Ghost to be toy-sized and away we go. The day is ultimately saved, but the mad scientist from last issue looks like has a lot of possessed toy to go around, and Martin's sister kept one of the weird batteries that powered the toy, which could be good, could be bad. I didn't really get enough of a sense of her character in this issue to decide what she might want it for.

I guess the real question is what's Ultraghoul's endgame. Working from the shadows, providing occult weapons to idiots who will unleash them with no chance of controlling them. What's he want to accomplish? Is it just a trial run for his stuff? Does he want to destroy the city? I'm sure he wants to get rid of Mega Ghost now, but he didn't know that was going to be an issue when he started. It's hard to say because the occult doesn't seem too unusual, in that Martin isn't some weirdo because he's interested in it. Plenty of other people seem to be as well. So you'd think the authorities would be getting suspicious about all this recent activity, but apparently not.

I dunno, I'm mostly trying to think of things to say about this issue. There's not a mystery to what's happening to Fausto, for us or Martin, so there's not much suspense there, and the fight is fairly brief. The idea of getting the ghosts to be action-figure sized is clever, although it seems like Martin could have just let them smash the toy while they were at full-size. I guess this preserves a secret identity. I like Fausto's "flunky", as Martin calls him. He dresses like a butler, but he's this broad-shouldered, crooked nose, scowling looming presence standing just behind Fausto most of them time. For some reason I like the design for him. It fits his role and the general supernatural air of the story. Could see him working for a vampire or some mad scientist in their castle.

Smooth Criminals #3, by Kurt Lustgarten and Kirsten Smith (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - Not everyone can make the big sunglasses work without looking like a grandma at the beach, but Mia Corsair is one of the few who can.

Two main scenes to this issue. The first is Mia and Brenda tracking down Mia's old fence to learn who told him the "Ice Man" had such a huge stash of diamonds. Turns out it was Mia's rival Hatch, the one engaged to the Ice Man's daughter in the present day. Second scene is Mia and Brenda making it to the unveiling of the Net of Indra so they can scope out the security measures, and running into Hatch. So he knows Mia's out and about, seemingly un-aged after 30 years.

So the gears turn a little more. The feds are also asking Mia's mother some questions from her prison cell. Seems like she should be older, since I'm figuring Mia had to at least be in her early 20s in the 1960s. The elder Corsair should be pushing 70 at least, and I would figure prison helps one age gracefully. But I guess some people are lucky that way.

Was "baller" a common phrase in the late '90s? No wonder Alex laughed so hard when I randomly decided to use a few years ago. I didn't think it was that passe. Even for me, that's a bit behind the curve.

After last month's rather abrupt downturn in the art quality halfway through, this issue marks a nice rebound. There's the occasional oddly shaped face, but that seems to be down to a few angles causing problems. Riddel does use a lot of small lines for shading on things, but it doesn't make things too fussy, and usually helps convey an elevated emotional state. Not necessarily panicked or furious, just not calm. The backgrounds are much more detailed than last issue. I wonder if Riddel prefers drawing one of Brenda and Mia more than the other. Brenda's the one who gets to be more animated and expressive, since Mia's almost certainly older and used to planning heists. The differences in their formal wear is interesting.

What I Bought 12/21/2018 - Part 1

Current plan is that the last two comics from 2018 I want will be here next week. Review those by the end of that week hopefully, then spend the following week on the Year In Review posts. We'll see if things go according to plan. I found basically all the new comics I wanted that came out this month last Friday. All six of them. Yeesh. Anyway, let's get started on those.

Spider-Girls #3, by Jody Houser (writer), Andres Genolet (penciler/inker), Cris Peter and Jim Campbell (colorists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I have to wonder what Annie thinks that webline she's shooting is going to stick to.

While Mayday and Arana try briefly and futilely to delay Morlun's siblings with a goblin-mech suit, Annie somehow uses a scroll to open a portal and cure the mutated spider-people. The ones that hadn't been killed already. The ladies go through the portal, and maybe figure out that Annie can do something with some mystic web thing on the world they landed on that might save the day, in a different mini-series. I don't know. I have a vague idea of 40% of the shit they're talking about in this issue, but trying to explain it? No chance.

There is a nice moment between Annie and Mayday, near the end. Watching Mayday and Arana try to figure out the goblin-mech was kind of amusing, if they'd played it up a little more. But I guess these bad guys are supposed to be too serious to do a sequence where two people try to pilot a suit they're unfamiliar with, while not getting their asses completely kicked.

Genolet normally draws Annie with the blank white eyeballs, except for one panel, because I guess it was necessary to show she was rolling her eyes. So I suppose it was for a good reason, but it was kind of a surprise. Also, several instances of two of the characters discussing one thing, and the third abruptly cutting in with some other statement. Usually Mayday and Arana talking to each other, and Annie wants to get their attention about something. It's not quite a recurring gag, since they aren't funny, but it feels a little like that's what was being aimed for.

Smooth Criminals #2, by Kurt Lustgarten and Kirsten Smith (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - That guy is a little too smug about his hair. Needs to have an accident with a weed-whacker.

We find out a little about how Mia wound up frozen, which involves trying to steal diamonds from a so-called "Ice Man", who may be the blonde guy on the cover, who is also having a building at Ospina's university dedicated to him. And his daughter is engaged to the guy who was Mia's top rival, who does not look nearly old enough when he shows up at the end of the issue. Oh, and the special diamond thing Mia wanted to steal will be on exhibit in town next week, so our protagonists are going to try and steal it. What can go wrong?

So we have a mystery of why Mia was frozen, rather than just killed. I'm also guessing Hatch (the rival) was frozen, but by choice or because he got caught as well? And whether Mia can teach Ospina how to pull a heist, or whether Mia can even still pull one, given technological advances in security. So that's a fair amount of plates spinning, which is nice.

Ospina tries to get Mia caught up on late '90s culture with magazines and man, I didn't know what a "riot grrl" was then, and I still don't know now, so Mia might officially be more in the loop than I ever was. Low bar to clear there, but we have to grade on a curve since her brain might have freezer burn.

I'm a little concerned about the art, because around halfway through, things start to get a lot sketchier and rough-looking. The linework is looser, the backgrounds and other characters get less detailed. You can still follow what's going on, distinguish the important characters, but it's like Riddel didn't have time to finish inking everything. It's worrying, considering this is only issue 2. The bit in the middle of the book where Mia has an abrupt, nightmarish flashback (as seen above), is kind of nifty. The distorted perspective, the swirling colors, any spoken dialogue is in big, red letters. It's distinct from the rest of the book, even the other dreams and flashbacks Mia has during the issue.

What I Bought 12/6/2018 - Part 2

Does it feel like a lot of board games for kids lately are about bodily secretions? I saw one about popping pimples, and another about dog poop. I guess either one would be better than Mouse Trap. Could hardly ever get the dang Rube Goldberg trap to function properly. We have two mini-series to look at today. One is wrapping up, and the other is just starting. The cycle of life.

Smooth Criminals #1, by Kurt Lustgarten and Kirsten Smith (writers), Leisha Riddel (artist), Brittany Peer (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) - How difficult is it to apply those dot things she has under her eyes? Also, necklaces seem like a bad accessory for a cat burglar.

Brenda works in a computer science lab for a loser of a boss who makes her clean up some disused storage space. Where she finds a cryo-tube with Mia Corsair, cat burglar, inside. Mia bails, but Brenda hacks a bunch of stuff to guide her to where Brenda is so they can talk. Ultimately they agree to work together to steal some diamonds, but the government (or guys in black suits and sunglasses, anyway) know Mia's loose. And Brenda's shitbag boss pinned it all on her. That's not a bad bit of set-up for a first issue, certainly by today's standards.

Could you actually have done all the crap Brenda did - messing with street lights and fire stations and ATMs - in 1999? Were there enough cameras around all over the place to be able to track a lady running as fast as Mia that easily back then, especially given the resolution of security cameras then? I know the Nineties were the time of movies like The Net and Hackers or whatever, where computers were Magic. But I was also under the assumption those movies were written by people who did not understand the Internet or computers any better than I do. Which is to say, not at all.

I like the art. I can't assess the accuracy of the fashions, but I can never do that. Lot of motion lines getting used for emphasis, but that's OK. They aren't distracting, just something I noticed. I like the contrast between Brenda's awkwardness in most situations, and her almost maniacal grin whenever she can start messing with computers. I'm surprised she's as calm teasing a lady she thawed out of a weird tube as she is in the restaurant, but maybe she's riding the adrenaline high after maneuvering Mia where she wanted her. Riddel used more small panels for the conversation in Brenda's room, compared to earlier in the issue. Seems to play up how small her room is, and how tightly the two are now crammed together. They're making a partnership but, whether they wanted to or not, they're going to be in this together.

Stellar #6, by Joseph Keatinge (writer), Bret Blevins (artist), Rus Wooton (letterer) - She looks pretty mad. I think not enough of you bought this series and she's coming to destroy your illegally torrented fan-translated manga scans.

Stellar resumes trying to kill Zenith, but is halted by the old, other universe version of her, who married Zenith. Even after he eventually explained everything about how he and Stellar try to kill each other, and they're from other universes. She tells him to show Stellar he still has the gateway machine. He does, then tries to kill Stellar. That doesn't exactly work out for him, and she ends up back where she started the series. Or maybe not, since he said he destroyed that place. Maybe his machine went to still another alternate universe. Or he was lying, just to be a dick.

You know, there was that whole thing in the first issue about time behaving oddly, and they never came back to that. Little disappointed by that. I would say the series is about the futility of not letting go of the past, but I'm not sure about that. Stellar seemed like she was at least considering letting it drop, then Zenith took his best shot, and it backfired. He could never accept that she had her reasons for wanting him dead, and just letting it drop. If she hit him, he had to hit her back, only more. Which only seemed to convince her she still needed to kill him.

But was she right? He said he'd abandoned building killer robots, wasn't trying to conquer or destroy this world. The question is whether we're supposed to believe him. I mean, he has a robot in his home, but maybe it isn't a killer robot. If so, and if he could have just trusted his wife's sales pitch to Stellar, then let her go home, he might have been home free to enjoy his life. Or Stellar could have given up looking for him decades ago and just had a life of her own. But neither of them would quit, although things seem to have worked out better for her than for him. Unless his healing abilities are really impressive.

Zenith certainly seemed sorry or perhaps ashamed in the panels where his wife is trying to convince Stellar to let it go, but once it's just to the two of them in the garage, he's back to that maniacal grin. I could almost see it as him believing that she just would not leave it, and so he had to try just to preserve what he'd built, but he was enjoying it too much. He was monologuing and shit-talking and everything. If it was really just about protecting what he had, he'd have done it quickly and been finished. So he really couldn't change, although that raises the question of why the two of them can't? The criminal Stellar caught in the first issue and brought to that little sanctuary was still there at the end, and seemed a somewhat changed being. Is it something intrinsic to Stellar and Zenith being able to live as long as they did? Decades feel like only weeks or months, and they could have dropped it given a couple of centuries? Seems unlikely.