Random Back Issues #163 - Spider-Woman #19

If that's her skin, shouldn't she have a sucking chest wound? Shapeshifting is so inconsistent. The last time we looked at this series, Spider-Woman was fighting a scientist who made a bunch of crazy clones of grandmother. That might be preferable to today's issue, which is a Devil's Reign tie-in.

The Kingpin, now Mayor of NYC, is cracking down on vigilantes. He already had his Thunderbolts beat up Jessica's friend Lindsay McCabe, but as it turns out, the Skrull Queen from Secret Invasion somehow survived getting her head kersploded by Norman Osborn, and has been in custody all this time. And Fisk thought it was a good idea to let her out, just to mess with Spider-Woman? He definitely fits into the current era of abusing political power to settle personal spats.

Veranke's imitating Spider-Woman and picks up her son, Gerry, from the Night Nurse, who gets suspicious about Gerry being so unhappy a little too late. Spider-Woman also shows up a little too late, as the armored van rolls away, leaving her to punch it out with Veranke. The comedy sound effects stop partway through, so Jessica takes that as the cue to chase the van (fortunately caught in traffic, the goon complaining about being, 'baby chauffeur'), but when she arrives, Gerry's not in the back. But Iron Man showed up to help!

I'm sure there's a time that would be cause for excitement, but not today, especially as it's Veranke. Fighting resumes, the Skrull taunting Jessica about how none of her friends trust her, while Jessica is more concerned Veranke made out with Tony back during that mess. (Pacheco also keeps trying to do the editor's notes for these things, but doesn't remember the specific issue, forcing assistant editor Lindsey Conick to add another editor's note.)

Then the van goes hurtling off a bridge! Gerry's not in the back of the van because he somehow crawled into the cab and zapped the guard, who's unconscious body slumped on the accelerator. So now they're fighting on a garbage scow. Spider-Man swings past, saying Night Nurse got in touch with him, and Jessica zaps him. In her defense, Veranke said the same thing when pretending to be Iron Man. Also, judging by the costume, that's Ben Reilly during that stretch where he was the Beyond Corporation's Spider-Man?

Then Carol Danvers shows up, holding Gerry. Or wait, did Carol just arrive behind Jessica? Unable to be sure, Jessica tells Gerry to, 'zap-zap bad Auntie Carol,' which is the latecomer. Carol flies away with Gerry, and, ding-ding, it's Round 3.

Veranke starts a spiel about honoring Jessica by believing her strong enough to be a leader, and that's why Veranke impersonated her. Why the fuck did she think that? When had Jessica Drew ever been a leader, of anything? Because she "ran" a two-person detective agency? She had even led the Champions, or the freaking Defenders, let alone anything serious.

I know the reason she'd think that, Bendis liked Spider-Woman, but that doesn't work as a Watsonian excuse. "I did you a favor!" failing to gain traction, Veranke shifts to Clint Barton (as Ronin), accusing Jessica of making him watch his wife die. Does she mean the Skrull that got killed by Mephisto in West Coast Avengers, or the one that died in the Savage Land during Secret Invasion? 

Either way, Jessica can punch Clint just fine - told him he shouldn't have cheated on her in Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye! - so Veranke tries Gerry, but doesn't even get as far as changing her skin color before getting flipped on top of a flat-screen TV. Finally she tries a battered Lindsay, again not bothering to stop being green as she blames Lindsay's injuries on Jessica, and Spider-Woman just zaps her skull. With piss-poor strategy like that, I'm starting to think the Skrulls backed a stupid horse.

Carol returns with Gerry, Jessica hugs her kid and asks if they can just leave Veranke in a fridge on the garbage scow, which Danvers agrees to. Also, Jessica calls Carol "Kirk," and Carol calls her "Spock," which is just nonsense. Jessica Drew is waaaaaay too angry in this run to be Spock. She's McCoy all the way.

These are the only Devil's Reign stuff I own, as Moon Knight had the decency to tie-in via a one-shot outside the monthly series. Of course, this book is getting canceled in 2 issues, so they had nothing to lose. 

{10th longbox, 160th comic. Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #19, by Karla Pacheco (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)}

Saturday Splash Page #137

 

"Gastrointestinal Distress Signals," in Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #1, by Karla Pacheco (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

In the first year of volume 7, Perez usually draws the first page as a series of images of Spider-Woman against an entirely black backdrop. Like we were catching glimpses when a flashbulb went off. The second year, he shifted to a splash page that usually summarized what was happening, with a sound effect or some other large lettering forming part of the background. It's not quite Adam West Batman sound effects, but there's a bit of that feel, given the lighter tone of many of the stories.

But Spider-Woman's symbol formed out of acidic vomit is a hard image to top, so here we are.

Karla Pacheco's run started in 2020 with Jessica Drew feeling like crap and making little effort to hide it. She's wearing a new, mostly black costume - which Jessica comments makes her butt look amazing, but I fail to see a difference in how Perez draws it; must be some "black is slimming" thing - because she needs money and doesn't want to wear her traditional costume for playing bodyguard to some rich guy's daughter. The jacket and goggles of the Hopeless/Rodriguez runs vanish into the aether, though the motorcycle is around some of the time.

As it turns out, the rich guy, Michael Marchand, is Jessica's brother. Her parents had another kid after escaping HYDRA, but when he used their experiments on infusing arachnid traits to save his daughter from cancer, he forgot about keeping her from dying of the radiation. So after dosing Jessica with a serum that removes the regenerative abilities that protect her from the radiation, convinces her to help search for a cure because this same problem could manifest in her son, Gerry.

This is as much as Gerry, or Porcupine for that matter, factor into Pacheco's run. She literally sends them to a farm upstate for the first year, then has Jess dispense with any of the trust she put in Roger to help her fight in year two, so that he leaves right when he was about to propose. Fine, you don't want to deal with the status quo Hopeless left you (except to use the baby as a lever to make the main character do what your plot requires.) I get that. But once Roger's out of the book, Jessica constantly foists care of her child onto other characters, who nonetheless all reassure Spider-Woman she's not a terrible parent. 

Sure, compared to Magneto or Wolverine, she's awesome.

While the experimental drug Marchand's developed (but is unwilling to test on his daughter) boosts Drew's powers and restores the pheromone power (albeit to Bendis' version, where dudes fall for her, rather than the original version, where people instinctively don't like her), it also makes her increasingly angry and erratic. Jessica steadily alienates her friends by screaming at them, stealing their stuff, injuring them when they get in her way. She steals from Stark on behalf of her parents' old HYDRA colleague and attacks War Machine when he catches her. When Carol Danvers enlists her to help fight symbiote dragons in the obligatory King in Black tie-ins, because Danvers has to save her juice for the Final Boss (which ended up losing to an Enigma Force-using Eddie Brock anyway, and that might be the stupidest horseshit I've typed on this blog, thanks Donny Cates!), Jessica gets angry enough to break Danvers' arm.

Pacheco writing Spider-Woman as really angry all the time doesn't bug me. Hopeless wrote her with a temper - she wailed on an entire bar full of villains when she thought Roger was dead. So did Claremont if someone she cared about was hurt. And Danvers knew that Drew using her powers would kill her faster, and made her do it anyway, for one dragon. That's fine. I just have never cared about the strange muddle of HYDRA and the High Evolutionary that makes up Jessica Drew's origin. So the first year revolving heavily around that - Octavia Vermis being an old colleague of both Jess' parents and the H.E., there being homicidal clones of Jessica's mother in late-stage Clone Saga-level quantities, Marchand being her brother with ulterior motives - I ain't got time for that. Especially the High Evolutionary. If John Ostrander couldn't make me give a shit about that dude in Heroes for Hire, Pacheco had a less than zero chance. All his dialogue might as well be how the adults talk in Peanuts.

The storyline concludes with Jessica back to normal. Her friends forgive her for her behavior. She shelves the new costume, which was transmitting data to Vermis the whole time and goes back to the classic look for year 2. Which is much more about Jessica Drew fighting random enemies. Marchand does pop up again, having given himself powers at the urging of his new girlfriend, but otherwise it's enemies like Lady Bullseye or two brothers who share a pair of enchanted swords and claim to be from Toledo, so Jess can make a bunch of terrible jokes about the city in Ohio.

That becomes her "thing" in the second half of the book, making bad puns and jokes. OK, sure. As long as the High Evolutionary isn't involved. Pacheco brings back Claremont/Leialoha supporting cast member Lindsay McCabe, who I don't think had been used since the (I think) Spider-Man annual story in the '90s where she enlisted Julia Carpenter to retrieve Drew's soul from the limbo where it resided.

The stories are a bit more lighthearted. Even if Rebecca Marchand has to help Jessica fight her dad, she does so in her own super-suit and with the aid of a dinosaur that I think they and Vermis either created or bred with the High Evolutionary's work. She rides it like a big, jagged-tooth pony! No feathers, though. Comic artists still hewing to the scaly hide conception of dinos. McCabe's doing stunt work in a Western and gets attacked by ninjas because she's hasn't paid off a debt to some Madripoor gangster. Bit lower stakes, more chances for bad jokes by Drew.

Drew gets some upgrades to the classic costume, so now the web gliders under the arms can detach and be used like those fighting fans in kung-fu movies. Perez and Pacheco seem to have fun with the fight scenes, having Spider-Woman use a variety of styles, although characters really seem to like arm locks. Lots of people gets arms broken or dislocated, it felt like. They take advantage of the settings, bring in surprise or random interference when it's appropriate.

I don't like that Perez seems to de-age Night Nurse. I liked how Marcos Martin drew her in Dr. Strange: The Oath, where she was probably late '30s. The outfit was loose enough she could move, but not to where it might impede movement or get caught on instruments. Now she's wearing a form-fitting nurse outfit all the time.

The last story is a two-parter where a bunch of the villains from the run try to form essentially a "League of Spider-Woman Haters" to get revenge, but they're chumps, so it mostly ends in hilarious disaster. Vermis can't get Stegron the Dinosaur Man to stop flirting with her, the Brothers Grimm are arguing with the swordfighter brothers about stealing their bit. Of the two halves, I definitely prefer the second part, even with the Devil's Reign tie-in where we find out the Skrull Queen from Secret Invasion somehow survived Norman Osborn exploding her head. Yeah, I don't know.

Random Back Issues #123 - Spider-Woman #10

Who hasn't wanted to toss a crying baby into a vat of molten lava? Be honest!

Up to this point, Spider-Woman's been working with an old enemy, Octavia Vermis (???), to find a cure for an experimental serum she was dosed with. The serum boosted her strength, but made her unstable, to the extent she chewed out and pushed away all her friends. Which leaves her to contend with Octavia's sudden but inevitable betrayal, alone.

Octavia's already run the High Evolutionary (written as more sane and down-to-earth than I've ever seen) through with a lance and killed her daughter. Again. But Ophelia's a clone, so she'll just make another. Jess was cured in the previous issue, which means she's not under Octavia's control, but she's too shitty of an actress to fake it and keep the element of surprise.

Cue the fight scene, with each of them trying to hurt emotionally as well as physically. Jess' contention she has people who love her is countered with the fact absolutely none of them are here right now. Octavia's argument she made something of her kids is rebutted with the point they might have sucked because they're clones of a shitty person.

That one's a palpable hit, but it earned Jess a kick in the old joybox, so. . . Palpable hits all around. Then Octavia suggests Jess would do the same to her own son, make him a perfect obedient copy. Jess responds by getting Octavia in the face with a venom blast, so Octavia sics an army of clones of Jess' mother on her.

Jess kicks a control device into the lava and the clones, programmed to retrieve it, follow. She gets the lance out of H.E.'s chest, he activates his array, Jess kicks Octavia into it, and she's turned into a possibly mindless dino-person. The Evolutionary keeps Octavia around while he rebuilds his lab, and Spider-Woman goes home.

First to her son, because he's her kid, but also because she's going to use him as a shield when she apologizes to her unhappy friends - Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Night Nurse, Luke Cage and War Machine. It works, because none of them are prepared to go through that terrifying facsimile of a child, but there's still one more person to make up with, and Carol's not in the mood. She accuses Jess of always denying her problems or running away from them. I feel like Carol Danvers does at least as much denying or running from her problems as Jessica Drew - the whole alcoholism thing, anyone? - but that doesn't jibe with Marvel's current conception of her character, where her only fault is she's just too awesome and people resent her for it, so whatever. They hug it out.

{10th longbox, 176th comic. Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #10, by Karla Pacheco (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #263

 

"Cat Burglar 2.0" in Iron Cat #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer)

Ultimate March may be over, but oxidizing showers bring rusty flowers, because it's Iron Spring!

Iron Cat was part of Jed MacKay's seeming attempt to keep writing stories about Felicia Hardy, which is A-OK by me. It brings together several points from the two volumes of Black Cat he wrote.

One, that while the Black Fox was teaching Felicia how to be a thief, he had another apprentice, a young woman named Tamara, who was Felicia's girlfriend for at least part of that time. Two, that Felicia ultimately betrayed the Black Fox after he tricked her into handing over Manhattan to the Gilded Saint in exchange for immortality. Third, that Felicia borrowed Tony Stark's facilities to build a suit of armor to intimidate Odessa Drake with during her war with the Thieves' Guild. A suit Stark ultimately got back and then upgraded, and which Tamara subsequently stole to kill Felicia.

Stark's technology being stolen and abused is enough to drag him in to even up the firepower disparity, but MacKay throws in a plot about the digitized intelligence of Stark's enemies helping Tamara as part of its own plan to destroy Stark's name and legacy forever. I mean, good luck. if Stark himself hasn't managed that by now. . .

There are inevitable betrayals, plus Tamara and Felicia both trying to pull misdirection ploys on each other before joining forces against the greater threat. Watching Felicia try to banter with her ex and actually somewhat succeed despite Tamara's best efforts is kind of cute, but the further into the mini-series you get, the more the story becomes an Iron Man story Black Cat happens to be mixed up in, which is not ideal from my perspective.

Pere Perez' art is solid, able to keep things clear when there's a whole mess of Iron Man suits zipping around firing repulsors at each other. He draws the Iron Cat armor different from how C.F. Villa did, though, and I'm not a fan of the changes. Took a lot of the individuality out of it by shrinking the ears, making the claws more like physical claws rather than some sort of laser/plasma projection, and removing the glowing ponytail thing on the helmet. Guess in-story that could be chalked up to Stark, though.

What I Bought 10/26/2022 - Part 1

I got most of the books that came out this week I wanted. The remainder, plus the ones I was still looking for from earlier this month, ought to be here by early next week. So I should be good for comics reviews into the second week of November. Huzzah!

Moon Knight Annual #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Federico Sabbatini (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I guess Marc's been forced to skimp on the silver after he lost most of his money.

MacKay brings Marlene back, as their daughter's been kidnapped by Jack Russell, the old Werewolf by Night. Jack's got his eyes on a prophecy that will enable Khonshu to be killed, since he blames Khonshu for there being werewolves, what with the whole moon connection. Seems to me there's probably more than one god of the Moon - hasn't Artemis got that title in one of the mythologies? - but maybe one's as good as another.

Hunter's Moon clues Marc in to the prophecy, and even agrees to help, although he insists Khonshu's fists are not supposed to have children. Like, what, Khonshu creates a mystical condom any time they get freaky? Don't let Fox News hear about this pagan birth control. Either way, Marc (or was it Jake?) slipped one past the goalie, so the prophecy is in play. While Marc keeps Russell occupied, Hunter's Moon is supposed to be rescuing Diatrice. Or he's supposed to be obeying Khonshu and killing the potential threat.

Sabbatini draws Khonshu in a variety of ways. A reflection in a mirror Badr walks past. A shadow on the wall. An actual physical form leaning over Badr's shoulder. There's probably something that represents each of Khonshu's styles or phases. Otherwise, Rosenberg maintains a fairly consistent look for the book compared to when Cappuccio is drawing it. Sharp divides between dark and light, especially on Moon Knight's costume. Sabbatini's character's are more rounded, almost gentler looking than Cappuccio's. Cappuccio's Marc looks like a wreck under the mask; Sabbatini's looks like Paul Rudd: a kind of scruffy goofball.

I thought this was a solid-enough done-in-one. Presents a problem, a couple of them actually. Provides resolutions, at least temporarily since I figure the alignment can't be a one-off, so Russell could always try again. MacKay has mostly dealt with how Moon Knight sees himself, and to a lesser extent, how people that have only recently come to know him - Reese, Soldier, Hunter's Moon, Zodiac - see him. Marlene is someone who's known him longer than all those people put together, and known him in better times and worse. I know some fans who will definitely disagree with some of her statements - especially the one about loving each of Marc, Jake, and Steven - but it's still an interesting alternative perspective.

Iron Cat #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - The faceplate on the Hulkbuster armor makes me laugh. It's like a grumpy, chubby baby face.

Felicia and Tony's plan appears to have crapped out, since it relied on Tamara and she got killed. Yep totally dead. No doubts. Not a fakeout.

Oh, wait, it was definitely a fakeout, and Tamara pops up with her plan. The Sunset Bain causing problems is a copy of the real deal. A copy that was supposed to free the real deal, but surprise! did not. The real deal is rather irate and Stark sets her loose in the system against the copy, then purges the system while they're occupied. Kind of hilarious that works, but smart people can be dumb as hell. Just look at Tony Stark.

The two cats fight Sunset in the Hulkbuster armor until Stark can upload the original, and I feel like MacKay overplays Tamara's competence versus Felicia's a bit. I know they say she's supposed to be better at everything, but Felicia should definitely have more experience with this sort of insane superhero stuff than Tamara, which oughta count for something. Also, I liked how Villa drew the energy claws on the armor as very long, but Perez draws them as short little things, closer to the talons Spider-Man 2099 has.

Sunset's beat. Tamara accepts Felicia's explanation for why she sent the Fox to the Gilded Saint. The fact Felicia presents it as the Fox asking her because Tamara would have been too smart to be fooled probably helped. Tamara escapes with the black-and-white armor, plus the diamond Felicia was trying to steal when this all started. Stark makes an extremely funny pouty face when Felicia tells him he'll never catch Tamara.

If the Annual felt like a solid one-off story, this mini-series felt thin. I think it could have been fine in four issues. If Mackay was trying to draw parallels between Tamara/Felicia and Bain/Stark, I'm not sure it works. The former pair's history kind of gets shoved aside for all the flying around in armors blasting stuff. It feels like an Iron Man story, but one not focused on Iron Man. Like neither story really coexists easily with one another, because Tamara just wants to strike at Felicia, but Bain is willing and eager to harm the entire world. It helps present Tamara as not irredeemable, but the scale of things gets skewed.

What I Bought 9/21/2022

Wednesday was not a great day. Only found 1 of the 2 comics that came out. According to Diamond's page, instead of close to 8 comics next week, I'm looking at only 3, for reasons I am unclear on. And the calipers on the brakes on my car locked, producing a really unpleasant burning smell and costing nearly a grand in repairs. And that's why I'm a skinflint about buying frivolous things, despite my friends rolling their eyes about it. So I can just pay for this kind of shit when it crops up without an excess of heartburn about my financial stability. 

Also, it means I have money to help them out, so they should really be grateful I lived in self-imposed austerity.

Iron Cat #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Tony is really losing all composure on that cover. You'd think he'd never by attacked by weird pseudopods while in some strange cyberscape.

It's Tony, Felicia and Tamara trying to stop Sunset Bain from causing nuclear disaster with all Tony's reactors. She also has all Tony's armors to get in their way. Felicia and Tamara, after 3 pages on bandying about various names (such as "The Time-Traveling Ombudsman") for various schemes, split up. While Tony and Felicia try to get to a secure server to purge Sunset, Tamara needs to recover a thing to help with that.

I do enjoy how Felicia immediately starts trying to be playful like Tamara like old times, and while Tamara tries to hold out, she's soon throwing out ideas and perfectly in sync with Felicia again. Perez keeps most of that as broad rectangular panels,, but when they're attacked, switches to a page of  3 tall panels, tilted and narrow. Really makes the characters feel hemmed in by all the repulsor blasts.

Tony and Felicia seem to have achieved their end, although Sunset's got a Hulkbuster. Perez draws all the armors with Bain projecting her face over them, which does look suitably off-model. You kind of expect the face of an Iron Man suit to look a certain way, and a leering semi-transparent human face is not it. Anyway, it's all moot because Tamara got blown up. Oh no. Definitely not more misdirection.

My theory is Stark and Felicia are actually doing the distraction to let Tamara, who is more tech-savvy than Felicia, get to a different server and purge Bain while she's busy trying to kill the other two. Bain could never conceive of Stark letting someone else do the genius day saving. Frankly, it's hard for me to picture, but I'm calling my shot.

What I Bought 8/17/2022

The weather's actually been quite nice this week. A pleasant change. I was even able to keep my air conditioning off for a couple of days. I found both books I wanted that came out this week. If it weren't for work, and, you know, the general state of the world, things would be sunshine and unicorns.

Above Snakes #2, by Sean Lewis (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - that's a suitably scowly-looking person.

Dirt goes on a date with Annie, the lady who last issue proclaimed that they were the only two of the vengeance-seekers that had the guts to actually take vengeance. I guess everyone needs a holiday, so they have a talk and some drinks on a grassy hill overlooking a town. A talk about who they've killed, or will kill, and why. Sherman uses a lot of purples and blues, cooler colors for that part. Dirt and Annie are glaring from beneath hats. It's all sort of mellow and playful.

Wouldn't you know it, the guy Annie wants to kill happens to be exiting a place at the bottom of the hill. She chases him into a stable, Sherman shifting to a more natural color scheme. No heightened blues or reds, just a lot of dark shadows and dull browns as Annie learns her father tried to sell her to buy drugs from the guy who killed him. She gets him down, and finds she can't pull the trigger. So Dirt does it. Which suits Speck the vulture just fine, but apparently is a mood-killer for Dirt and Annie.

So Annie's vengeance wasn't so clean cut, surprise surprise. Though a drug dealer's claims that he provided a service killing the man is a bit much. But is that why Annie didn't finish it herself, or is that saying you'll kill someone is easy, but actually doing it is hard? 

Assuming that's true, of course. It is easy to say you'll take a life, but the mechanics of the act aren't all that complicated, in that human bodies will fail pretty easily if damaged in certain ways. It's willfully doing causing that damage which is supposed to be the catch. Doesn't appear to be bothering Dirt much. He didn't even have any personal grudge against this particular guy, and he blew the guy's brains out without flinching.

Iron Cat #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (penciler), Jordi Tarragona Garcia (inker), Frank D'Armata (colorist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - This is not the kind of catfight that's going to get the big internet search traffic.

Tamara dives right into the yacht party, where it turns out all the guests are heavily-armed LMDs planted by Stark. Good plan, except that Madame Menace is in Tony's systems and easily turns the LMDs against him. As Tony observes, now his ex is trying to kill him with super-science.

I would ask when Tony dated Sunset Bain, but I don't actually care. I'm reading this for Felicia's relationship drama, not the ongoing disaster that is Tony Stark.

In more hilarious news, Felicia's guys, Bruno and Dr. Korpse, infiltrated Stark's place as janitors and hijacked his plant to build Felicia another suit, this one in traditional Iron Man colors. I gotta be honest, red-and-gold Iron Man armor with cart ears looks kind of dumb. Tamara clearly got the good armor in the break-up, and proves it by still kicking Felicia's ass. I guess most of Felicia's experience was piloting the thing remotely, she's not used to actually dealing with the g-forces. Also, she's probably not fighting to kill, only to stall long enough for Stark to handle the LMDs.

Plans within plans. The back-and-forth between Felicia and Tamara, knowing each other and being able to anticipate one another is kind of lovely. And Perez does a nice job with the two pages of armored fighting, having Felicia's maneuvers lead from one panel to the next. Then Tamara slams her through a wall and the page fragments into a bunch of small panels of them fighting up close.

Unfortunately, Tamara decides that rather than accept defeat, she's going to let Madame Menace off the leash entirely. And the AI immediately declares she's going to make every Stark reactor on the planet go critical. Gee, who could have guessed a grief-stricken person teaming up with a megalomaniacal AI would have dire consequences? That's how you do a story about the dangers of vengeance.

I'm joking. Somewhat. I don't know for sure that's the point Lewis is trying to make in his book, after all.

What I Bought 7/30/2022 - Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I Bought 7/8/2022 - Part 1

Let's get to some comics from June! Yeah! We've got eight comics to discuss over the next week+ and they made it so easy to pair them up. Like today, we're looking at a couple of first issues of five-issue mini-series.

Agent of W.O.R.L.D.E. #1, by Deniz Camp (writer), Filya Bratukhin (artist), Jason Wordie (color artist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - I'm surprised he didn't shoot any of the robots in the green bubble with the eyeballs. Seems a logical target.

Philip works for W.O.R.L.D.E., and an agency that is supposed to only operate in wartime and capture or destroy 'destructive elements' (that's the D.E.). Except their motto is, 'it's always wartime,' so yeah. After keeping a different organization from getting their hands on a 25th Century super-genius (by killing them and the super-genius), he gets sent to Russia to deal with some Cold War scientist who's built himself a robot army/family. The issue is resolved, but Philip is obviously getting tired of doing this. Small wonder, since he has himself a secret family.

It's a matter of when Camp decides to have Philip try to make a clean break from the W.O.R.L.D.E. He's already established a rival agent that Philip will no doubt have to fight at some point, a Brit named Kilgore Kincaid who stole stuff from a weird pocket dimension, after killing the rest of his team. He's the one who embraces what he's asked to do without reservation, while Philip questions and feels bad about it, but ultimately still does it. As Kilgore notes, does that make them any different to the people they kill?

The art is very detailed. The designs of the robots, showing the rivets and different joints, but also the remains of the town that sat around the old Russian "science city". Bratukhin uses lots of little dots to shade or give things a sense of depth and texture. It works, but it's a little distracting that everyone has these dots scattered over their faces like an unfinished connect-the-dots. 

Also, I wonder if it's a style that necessarily matches the book. I don't think Camp is going for an absurdist take so much as just wanting to emphasize how weird the stuff Philip deals with is, but he does have Philip use a jetpack powered by, 'atmospheric emotional energy known as orgone.' So it's not entirely serious, either, so would the book benefit from a less detailed, more cartoonish style? I'll see how I feel after the next issue.

Iron Cat #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I actually went with the Ron Lim variant because I could get a copy for a buck cheaper. I'm not paying $5 for a comic if I can avoid it.

Felicia's attempt to steal a diamond she's been after for a long time is interrupted. First, by Tony Stark calling to yell at her about stealing back the Iron Cat armor she used to threaten Odessa. Then by the person who actually stole the armor, who is trying to kill her. And it's a real problem, because Tony Stark can't help tinkering with things, so the armor is much more dangerous and better-armed than it was originally. 

Felicia's attempts to stay alive as she's chased across Manhattan are intercut with flashbacks to a previous attempt to steal the same diamond, when she and her then-girlfriend Tamara were both still apprenticing with the Black Fox. Perez uses a different shading style on those parts, and D'Armata goes with a softer coloring style. Not sepia-toned, but the contrasts are faded, lines are softer. It's a fond reminiscence, basically. 

Anyway, with the Fox still locked inside the Gilded Saint's vault, three guesses who's inside the armor? So Felicia's going to need some help, and since Tony Stark upgraded the suit because he has no better coping mechanism for his alcoholism, guess who's going to help. Although MacKay again seems to be shelving her bad luck abilities, because Felicia notes all she has going for her is a lot of rope and moxie. Which at least continues a trend from his second Black Cat volume, of Felicia not using the quantum probability doohickus when it's a personal matter. This does seem like a time to break that rule, and Felicia's a thief, she should love breaking rules.

I feel like it's been a while since I bought something Pere Perez drew. I was thinking the Stephanie Brown Batgirl, but it looks like it was when I bought the first two issues of the Rogue and Gambit mini-series 3+ years ago. Perez' work seems to have shifted to something closer to Sean Chen's now, especially in some of the postures characters take while moving. The faces are still more fluid and expressive than Chen's, less teeth-gritting, but it feels like Perez has continued to pare down his style. Less busy, but also maybe less exaggerated.

Random Back Issue #7 - Batgirl #17

Maybe ask the Green Lanterns for tips? There's Grumpy (Guy), Sleepy (Kyle), Dopey (Hal), and Doc (John). That tracks, right? I bet there's a lot of disagreement about which of them is Dopey, but we know it's Hal. Maybe Kyle is Bashful?

Just one issue shy from the Valentine's Day team-up with Klarion the Witch Boy! Damn. Instead, Steph is stuck teaming up with the little psychopath, Damian. The issue starts with the brat being rude to Alfred and dissing his cooking. Miller's really trying to get us on the kid's side here, clearly. I gotta wonder what Alfred did to piss off Bruce where he gets stuck taking orders from this little shit.

OK, I promise to stop referring calling the twerp mean things.

Well, shit. Whatever.

Some goons have decided to kidnap a bus full of schoolkids while they're on a field trip. Steph was assigned the case, while Damian stumbled across while watching other kids. The only way to keep close tabs on the kids is for Damian to pretend to be a regular kid. His greatest challenge yet, to Steph's. . . distress? Amusement? Little of both, maybe.

The kidnapping is stopped with the biggest problem being that neither of our heroes seem to have put any thought into how to deal with stopping a bus full of hostages. Or else Talia left bus driving off Damian's curriculum. It really feels like each of them is trying to show up the other by constantly criticizing whatever approach they take. Still, the day is eventually saved, which leaves time for Steph to take Damian to actually have fun. Fun that doesn't involve stabbing people, I mean. I am sometimes sad I'm too old for moon bounces. On the other hand, as a functioning adult, I could just rent one all for myself.

This is the best way to deal with Damian as a supporting character. Have someone who simply refuses to take his arrogance and bullshit seriously, who is there to agree with the audience that the kid takes himself far too seriously. That's how I took it. Unless you want to pair him with someone who simply knocks him down a peg, which is how I figure Cass would have handled it. Just whoop his butt in 3.2 seconds, see if that shuts him up.

[Longbox #2, 112th comic. Batgirl (vol. 2) #17, by Bryan Q. Miller (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Guy Major (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)]

What I Bought 2/9/2018

I only planned on buying one book from last week, but, in a moment of weakness, I bought another one as well. Like most decisions made in a moment of weakness, it was a mistake.

Rogue and Gambit #2, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Leave it to Gambit to strategically tear his clothes to create a boob window.

Say hello to the moment of weakness! Our couple hash out some differences, starting with a disagreement over their first meeting. The Shadow King is involved in the confusion, because of course he is. Later, they try sneaking back into the doctor's office to snoop, and are attacked by several mutants. Things explode, but the doctor and her mysterious villain cohort don't seem terribly concerned.

You might be able to tell I'm not super interested in the actual plot. Watching Rogue and Gambit legislate their messy relationship history is kind of hilarious. Seems to be what I'm tuning in for. Not sure why, exactly. Thompson writes good banter, and makes their relationship discussions feel emotional without being too overwrought. Although seeing Rogue use the word "particular" without any sort of accent to it was odd. Most of this is from an era of X-Men comics I have no fondness for, but the melodrama's entertaining. Not entertaining enough for me to try a third issue, mind you.

D'Armata (or maybe it was Perez) cut back on the shadows during the flashbacks, and lightened the colors as well. It gives things a bit of faded look. It's less noticeable in the second flashback, which is relating the time Gambit counts as their first meeting, a day or so earlier than what Rogue counts. Even though it takes place at night, the shadows are still less noticeable than in the present-day break-in scene that's happening concurrently. With the color issue, I think the villain's stealing their memories somehow, so the faded nature is it being drawn out of them? It doesn't happen on the second memory because they aren't in a therapy session. The lack of shadows because time smooths out the contrasts, so we just remember the broad strokes?

Giant Days #35, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (penciler), Liz Fleming and Jenna Ayoub (inkers), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell - Who is the mysterious mastermind spying on our heroes?

Ed did not die. He did concuss himself and break both ankles. That's good injury hustle right there, Gemmell. Esther returns home feeling hungover and sad to find her old friend Sarah and her little sister Charlotte there for a visit. Esther passes out, and Sarah takes off to meet a boy, leaving first Daisy and then Susan to try and handle Charlotte. Who is very inquisitive and very opinionated (I love her "J'ACCUSE" sound effect when she points at Esther), and forces Daisy to confront unpleasant truths about her and Ingrid's relationship.

So, there is no big conversation between Ed and Esther about last issue's reveal. Ed didn't remember telling her, Esther didn't mention it, and when Ed saw her pub run checklist made a reference to it, he shredded it. So it's going to fester between both of them now. Fun! On the other hand, Charlotte may have pushed Daisy to lay down the law on Ingrid, and let Susan and McGraw experience being adults. They were not prepared, but why should they be any different from the rest of us?

As usual, there's a lot of small gags and jokes in here that make it a fun read. It's really impressive to me how much I enjoy a comic that's nothing but people talking and having emotions. And being funny. The two-page conversation between Sarah and Esther was a particular favorite. It's funny, and a little touching, and the banter between them feels very real for a pair of friends. And it gives Sarin a chance to show off some facial expressions. In the span of three panels, Esther goes from a sad look cast towards the heavens, a strain face as she pulls on jeans, and then a sly grin as she brushes her hair. It's amazing how quickly Esther shifts between them, but it fits her personality.

There's a bit in here where McGraw brings in groceries and Susan crams them all into a cupboard. Then later in the issue, we see McGraw has returned to the kitchen and is organizing the foodstuffs. A little window into their personalities. There's also a page where Charlotte, revved up on a massive frappucino Daisy bought her in a depressive funk, is asking questions Susan is unprepared to answer. In each panel, Charlotte's spiraling yellow pupils get larger and larger, until Susan hurls the drink into the distance.

I don't know what's going to happen next, but I remain excited to find out.

What I Bought 1/6/2018

I went running this morning, fortunately before the front moved in and the wind chill went below zero. I had to hop off the road because of an approaching vehicle and as my stride was bringing my left leg forward, my right leg slipped in the snow and slid right in front of the left. So my left knee has bruised the hell out of the right calf. Fun and games.

Let's jump into some comics from 2018. I have all the books I wanted from the last two weeks, so we'll work through those over this week and early next week. Going to start with a couple of mini-series.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer and design) - I'm sure they'll prove useful, but those little robots creep me out. Make me think of ticks, bleh.

People are continuing to barf out robotic guts and collapse, and CERES is not getting anywhere figuring out the cause. Maybe if they spent less time taking down footage of the events from the Internet they'd get somewhere. Robo is continuing to receive the data secretly and recognizes the same signal ALAN, the sentient computer that was going to leave Earth (and eradicate all life in the process) used, and heads to Hashima Island to investigate. He encounters some strange creature, and what's worse, Helsingard in an even stranger body. Yes, stranger than his usual brain in a jar mounted on a robot body.

I still feel this is someone trying to cause a panic, and Helsingard would seem a likely choice, except causing fear isn't really his style. He tends to conquer or kill. Dr. Fischer got accidentally taken along. We'll see if he drags himself from the depths of depression to make a contribution (or if Robo actually notices and tries and address that). Robo's really been a lousy boss this entire mini-series, or maybe he's always been bad at being a boss.

 Wegener has a tendency to simply his style when the characters in the panel are in the middle or far distance, because he uses a thick line, and to attempt to add too much detail would turn everything into a muddle. But there are a few panels in here where things are almost vague shapes more than characters (the panel after the creature tears through the plane, for one). Also, whether it's Wegener's job or Clark's, they need to add a pupil to characters' eyes in those panels as well. Sometimes they get away with it, and others it like my eyes are drawn immediately to the empty white spaces that are their eyeballs. There's one of Lang and Vik in particular that bothers me. I can't concentrate on anything else in the panel.

That said, I like the design on the robot, and the fight between it and Robo is good (although I still wonder how Robo's not better at fighting after all these years). It's brief, but there's a flow to it. Let Robo and the creature fight it out for a couple pages, establish what they're up against. Then Foley gets involved with the grenade launcher, which adds another element (and they break up the fight by cutting to a panel of her doing something or reacting every three panels or so). Then throw in the surprise, last-page arrival of possibly the villain. Things go bad, things get better, things go bad ahead, things get better, or possibly worse. It's well done.

The best part was Robo stealing Richard Branson's plane to get to Hashima, and referring to himself in third person when Branson does the same while asking why he's stealing the plane. I like that as a little bit of revenge for all the grief Branson's giving them. Even better, the plane was wrecked five seconds into their arrival on the island.

And I'd love to see Robo outfit himself with a rocket punch. Why not? Oooh, and some of those gravity boots like Samus Aran has, so he can double-jump! I'm being entirely serious.

Rogue and Gambit #1, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - It seems like bad tactics for Rogue to be arriving at the thing she's going to punch at the same time Gambit's exploding playing cards get there. Let one set up the other, right?

There's a couples' therapy island where mutants are vanishing, so Kitty (who looks strange with short hair) sends Rogue and Gambit, since it would be better if the duo actually have relationship issues. Now let's face it, you could pick any of about 50 X-Men, and find at least 10 others they'd have relationship issues with, but yeah, those two have a mess of them, and Gambit is in theory good at sneaking, so sure, why not? He keeps trying to rekindle things, Rogue keeps trying to maintain distance. Because she's a reasonably intelligent woman. The last page looks bad, but is probably a misdirection.

Basically a set-up issue. Get the pieces where they need to be, explain why they're there, establish current dynamic between them. The book does that reasonably well, although I can't disagree with people who say this relationship needs to be left in the past. I think Rogue's experienced enough that she can tell Gambit is never going to be someone she can count on in a relationship. He insists that they could try just being friends, but can't stop flirting and hinting that she must still be into him. Then he gets indignant about her kissing Deadpool, and Rogue points out she's had to hear about his escapades from other X-Men plenty of times. Gambit is always going to be that kind of person.

(To be fair to Gambit, not a phrase I expected to type, he brought up Deadpool because Rogue is back to using her powers as an excuse to maintain distance, and he pointed out she had her powers during her little session with Deadpool. Although perhaps Gambit should take the hint.)

But even if this mini-series tries to draw a line under that relationship, and there's no guarantee it will, we know someone else will come along eventually and try to start it up again. The same way writers have kept drifting back around to Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, even when that is a terrible idea (although thankfully that one has been mostly left alone the last 10 years, since one or the other of them has been dead or Ultron most of that time). So is there a point to this whole exercise then? I guess hope it can be entertaining.

And there were some parts I liked. Rogue deciding, if Gambit is going to bring up Deadpool, to use Wade to hit Gambit in his ego, where it'll hurt the most. The Danger Room session, where apparently Rogue/Gambit is a topic of much discussion among the students.

Pere Perez does a double-page splash of the Rogue and Gambit seemingly at each others' throats that is foreshadowing something. The background is one of those fragmented mirrors, where the shards are showing different moments from their shared history. There was one panel I thought Perez was trying to mimic one of the Kubert brother's '90s art (if you flip through the issue, it's the one in the lower right, with Gambit being carried by Rogue, and he's wearing a high-collared jacket), and maybe a couple of the others, but I can't be sure. Since most of the issue is talking, there's a lot of panels or people just sitting and talking, but Perez does a good job of making the body language clear and work together with the expressions and the dialogue. His work looks smoother than I remember the last time I saw it, which was either the Bryan Q. Miller Batgirl series, or that Power Man and Iron Fist mini-series from 5 or 6 years ago. But D'Armata's colors work also seems more varied and with greater depth than what I remember the colorists of those books doing, so maybe that's what's different.

Overall, I don't think there's anything wrong with the writing or art. Everyone involved is doing solid work. I'm mostly unsure about the point of it, I guess, and whether I care enough at this point to pick up the second issue.