Sunday Splash Page #406

"Traffic Gods," in The Pedestrian #2, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (color artist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

The 4th issue promised there'd be more of this series, but it's been a year since then and I haven't seen even a solicitation for one, we're going forward. 

So, for around six months, there's been a vigilante roaming the streets of Summer City. Well, not the streets so much as the sidewalks. Crosswalks, too. He shows up, helps people in danger, and then speed-walks into the night with nary a word. What's his deal? Well, it has something to do with that assemblage up there, but it's unclear how much the man inside the suit is an active part of the whole thing. There's also an opposing force, represented by the big red hand in the "DON'T WALK" sign, and while The Pedestrian has one person in his corner - a veteran now working as a crossing guard - the opposition is grabbing all the new recruits it can.

With The Pedestrian a silent figure, likely in the thrall of forces larger than himself, and the other guy's identity a secret, a lot of Esposito and von Gorman's focus is on the regular people drawn into the orbit of these forces. Not only Kira, a young woman the Pedestrian saves from a mugging on her way home, but also James Tucker, the guy who tried mugging her. Twin brothers, Syndey and Jeremy, new to town and nearly run over by a drunk driver, who Kira ends up babysitting later. Randy, who The Pedestrian helps parallel park one time, and vaguely knew James in high school. There's a detective, investigating the vigilante, trying to figure out what his deal is.

Nothing is exactly working out for these people. Randy was pre-med, but dropped out after a year, due to a drinking issue. Now she works at seemingly the only pizza place in town. Kira can barely afford a studio apartment shared with 3 people, and loses her job because her being interviewed on the news about her mugging makes it look like the store is in the "bad" part of town. Jeremy and Sydney seem to have come from a school district with lots of extracurriculars, and that's not the case at their new school, so they feel isolated. James takes a lot of abuse as the cashier of a crappy local hardware store, and goes home every night to an empty apartment and orders pizza. Detective Sherwood is sort of a joke among her coworkers, and even her father thought she was a fool for thinking she could make the city a better place.

For all of them, Summer City is like a vortex they can't escape. Nothing seems to get better, no avenues for improvement of their lot in life are available. So it becomes a question of whether they fight the pull, or surrender to it. But they are, at the end of the day, regular people. Von Gorman doesn't draw any idealized bodies or figures. A lot of the characters slouch, or walk with a stooped-shoulders, defeated gait. The detective has some stress lines on her face, James has the kind of stubble that just looks sloppy, not whatever it is people who keep stubble and look attractive do for that effect.

That doesn't mean they're helpless, it just means it can be difficult on your own. The Pedetrian's opposing force seems to feed into resentment and frustration. Not so much power as revenge. James, once under its control, isn't interested in money, or getting out of town. He just wants to hurt people, to lash out. There are a lot of people like that in Summer City. They eventually become a horde, dressed all in black except for the handprint over their faces and the red glove. There's a scene where the twins have dragged Kira out on a search for The Pedestrian, and as they stand at a crosswalk, the red "DON"T WALK" sign flashes. With each flash, more of those guys appear across the street.

It's very effective, nicely done, and it emphasizes that even if you don't give in, that doesn't mean you can't get overrun if you try and handle it alone. The twins would have been in deep trouble if they had gone out without Kira, who couldn't have protected them much longer if Detective Sherwood hadn't shown up. When The Pedestrian's out of commission for a bit, it's Randy helping the crossing guard that gets him going again. It's connections, but also whether those connections are trying to help, or drag you down.

What I Bought 12/3/2024

Well, due various holiday and shipping issues, these two comics from last month only arrived yesterday evening. I was hoping to have Red Before Black #3, but the shop didn't have it, possibly due to other shipping issues, so maybe I'll be able to find it somewhere else.

Babs #4, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - At least let the cyclops finish digging for nose gold before decapitating him.

So, Babs is on a ship full of very pointy-eared elves (whose cheekbones give them a slightly wasting look) that can't stop singing songs, with a sword that gets seasick. She's not getting much of anywhere finding out what happened to her friend Izzy. She thinks she's onto something when the captain invites her to a private function in his quarters, but nope, it's just an elf orgy. Did Ennis read my posts about that one D&D campaign I was in?

There is one, very old, famous elf that's willing to help, but she gets killed by some lackey of Tiberius', via a frog that can spit green bubbles that disintegrate people, assuming you jab your finger up its, well cloaca, I assume. Burrows draws the frog as looking particularly determined in one panel, not that that saves the guy using it. I'm not sure what joke Ennis is going for, that sharks are called "Sea Bears," but bears, per issue 1, are called "Land Sharks." People in this world unnecessarily complicate everything?

Babs did get a small lead, but decides to scarf down on some snacks the elves gave her, which knock her out and she wakes up in the same mines as her friends. I half-expected her to realize she was shackled and simply use them to kill the guy lashing her, given how quickly she reacted to the surprise attack on the ship. But she actually seemed quite flummoxed by this turn of events. Maybe she's one of those folks who needs a while to wake up.

Also, Mork's buddies seem to be slowly realizing working for Tiberius is not getting them the things Mork promised. So we'll see if they try a last-minute face-turn, or just end up dead once someone decides they aren't needed. Could see Mork turning on them himself, since he doesn't seem to have accepted the perks he imagined aren't coming.

The Pedestrian #4, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer) - He's taking "barefoot running" to a new, and unnecessary, level.

Pedestrian shows up to fight all the hand-faced lackeys of the weird red guy. The other people try to help with street signs, which do repel or maybe even burn the lackeys, so the weird red guy goes after one of the kids and Pedestrian. . .I'm not sure. Pushes the red guy's influence away from Syd with the power of stoplights?

Either way, that seems to have given Syd access to the weird floating green light Pedestrian saw in issue 3, which sends the lackeys into retreat. Floaty Red Guy (Klutch?) tries chasing Pedestrian across a crosswalk and is. . .disintegrated? But promises more is coming. Also, it looks as though the Pedestrian is more of a force that possess - or maybe displaces - a person, at least for a time.

The last few pages check in on some of the characters. The former valedictorian checks in on the would-be mugger, recovering from his time as a lackey, and tries to encourage him to not play into peoples' worst impressions of him. Except the charity hospital he's at is a front for whatever messed up stuff is going on here, and Jeremy and Syd's dad is involved. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Syd are trying to get Kira to help them make sense of the Pedestrian's deal.

So, I don't really know what's going on in this book, beyond there are forces that want everyone to just accept things are awful and give up on doing anything better, and those that are trying to resist that. Why those forces are symbolized by crosswalk symbols, and why road signs help Pedestrian, I'm not sure. His symbol is one of movement, steady progress in a direction. I can sort of see signs indicating which way to turn being helpful, but why does the "Stop" sign work against Klutch's guys? Their symbol is a don't walk sign. No progress, no movement, just stopping dead, but that's what a stop sign makes you do.

Supposedly there's going to be more, so maybe it'll make more sense to me then.

What I Bought 10/28/2024 - Part 2

You may have noticed last Friday's post vanished for about a day. It was, for some reason, flagged as spam. Odd, considering it's a type of post I've done literally hundreds of times previously. I did go ahead and send them some feedback that it would help if they could provide a little more detail into why a particular post was violating community guidelines, because otherwise it's hard for me to know what I messed up, so I can avoid going through this whole mess again in the future.

Anyway, with that spectacular start to the week out of the way, and the latest chance to see whether the ramshackle, bastardized form of democracy in this country will survive still to come, let's talk about comics.

Babs #3, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy and Lee Loughridge (colorists), Rob Steen (letterer) - Everybody's just waiting for the show to begin.

Babs kills a few stragglers of Tiberius' guys, who have taken all the dwarves prisoner (along with their silver), thanks to Mork the Orc's info (I keep expecting Ennis to spell "Mork" with a "c", to match "orc".) Burrows draws it violent, if cartoonish, considering one guy gets his face neatly sliced off, but there's not entrails flying around or anything. Which Mork and his buddies are busy showing to Tiberius, because Mork's still convinced that a group of orcs, goblins and trolls working with a bunch of guys who want to drive non-human races out can't possibly go wrong. Shades of that Our Dumb Century headline, "Japan Forms Alliance with White Supremacists in Well-Thought-Out Scheme."

One of the group manages to track at least part of Babs' history through various vague sources, so we get a quick recap of her life. Essentially, she's kicked a lot of ass, usually without intending to draw attention to herself, but she has a real knack for picking losers. Makes money, blows it on gambling or land speculation. Works for a doomed side in a war, and not, apparently, out of some desire to help the underdog.

Meanwhile, Babs is arguing with her sword while rescuing the dwarves (and killing more of Tiberius' guys.) Barry objecting to being stuck in the ground as a placeholder made me laugh a little. In addition to the dwarves having nothing to pay Babs with - but they're good for it, they swear - Tiberius' guys seem to have taken Babs' friend Izzy prisoner as well. So she's going to have to give chase, on a boat full of elves. Which is apparently a horrible fate.

The whole thread with Tiberius and Mork, I'm just waiting for their inevitable and humiliating deaths. But watching Babs kind of blindly hack her way through life, careening from one situation - I almost called them adventures, but feel like that's not really what they are - to another, is entertaining. She seems to simply act on her first impulse at gaining any new piece of information, and that's a lot of fun.

The Pedestrian #3, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer) - Stop, in the name of not getting harassed by creepy weirdos in masks.

The, whatever the thing with all the hands is, drops Jimmy at the same place where those two young boys' dad works. Meanwhile, the boys are talking their babysitter, Kira (the girl who Jimmy tried to mug in #1) into investigating a place they think The Pedestrian will show up next. Instead, they run into a bunch of the guy on the cover, in a nifty sequence by von Gorman where the Don't Walk signal flashes, and it appears on their faces each time (and more appear each time), but then vanishes when the signal goes dark.

The cop lady shows up to help, though I feel like von Gorman has the most trouble drawing her face. Like he's trying to add a few more lines to show she's a bit older than Kira, but mostly makes her face seem kind of indistinct, or like her lips are pressed on, Mr. Potato Head-style. Whatever, she's going to drop everyone where the boys' dad works, but it's closed. That's ominous.

Randy, having been fired after nearly getting killed by Jimmy, is helping the crossing guard lady get Pedestrian up and running again. By gathering a bunch of road signs. Relax, they're from a salvage yard, she's not committing vandalism. Just in time, because the cop and the kids get attacked by a whole mess of the mask guys, who the kids' dad has been recruiting for, some reason.

I don't think he is the entity, which said it needed to find a real dirtbag, but he's clearly working in concert with it. Jimmy seems to have accepted it because he's tired of feeling like he's just there to be manipulated by the "important" people, and wants to make over people feel helpless, too. So I'm guessing the doctor gave up the idea he could provide for his sons while doing something good, and accepted doing this crap for a good paycheck.

What I Bought 9/27/2024 - Part 1

This is the start of three consecutive weeks with a lot of time on the road. It's a nice time of year for it, but I can't say I'm excited. Although if my luck runs true to form, my being in the field is just the thing to prompt people to send me paperwork I've been waiting on for weeks or months, along with agitated e-mails about how soon I can reply to them.

Red Before Black #2, Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Ladies please, this is an IHOP. Save that behavior for the Waffle House.

The first third of the issue is a flashback to 3 weeks ago, when Val ends up in solitary for using another inmate's face to put a divot in the shower wall. The fed shows up with his deal, and then it's back to the present. I feel like most of what gets said between Val and the fed was covered or implied at the end of last issue, but maybe the significance was Val was having one of her episodes (flashbacks? panic attacks?) in the shower, when a blonde inmate was about to get beat up. So the episodes and her hesitance to kill Leo are tied to something that happened with a blonde lady in trouble, maybe?

The rest of the issue is Val and Leo in the diner, where Leo reveals she knows Val works for Miles and is supposed to kill her. Which at first just seems like good instincts, but in the subsequent fight, when Val hesitates to shoot Leo and gets stabbed in the gut as a result, she has another episode. Interesting how Svorcina shifts the colors to these solid blocks of reds and greens initially, then back to something more shaded and variable - not realistic in colors, moreso in shading and tone - once Val's in the episode. Only this time, Leo comes walking through the bushes, remarking on how interesting it all is.

So Leo has some ability to go inside people's heads? She didn't so much read the situation of Val's miraculous appearance last issue and draw conclusions as she's been in Val's memories? That would sort of jibe with the way she mentions the kids dining at the table nearby are gonna need a lot of therapy if they see someone shot right in front of them. Clearly Leo doesn't actually give a shit about that, considering they'll probably also need therapy after seeing someone stabbed, but she knew it would give Val pause.

Oh, and the kid working the counter at the motel where Val's staying passed along a photo of her talking with the fed to one of Miles' associates, so that cover's pretty much blown.

The Pedestrian #2, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (colorist), David Bowie Rendon-Gorman and Micah Williams (additional artists), Shawn Lee (letterer) - Charging ahead, on a path marked for all to see!

Esposito and von Gorman introduce Sophie in this issue, the crossing guard who pulled one of the two kids nearly hit by the drunk teacher to safety last issue (The Pedestrian saving the other.) Sophie goes about her day, helping people in little ways, while wondering if it matters, or if there's some force out there making sure every kind act is countered by a cruel one.

The one cop notes that Sophie moved to town the same time the mysterious hero showed up, and visits her apartment. Sophie's a bad liar, but the cop didn't see The Pedestrian sitting on Sophie's couch, sharing pizza, so she can't prove anything.

In the meantime, the mysterious figure with the red hand on their face visits Tucker, the guy who botched his mugging attempt, in jail. He places his mark on the guy, and the guy somehow escapes jail, beats his old boss to death with a hammer, and then attacks the failed med student-turned-pizza delivery girl. The Pedestrian arrives in the nick of time and seems to have things under control (von Gorman draws road signs illustrating how he avoids attacks) then - 

I'm not sure. There was what I assumed was a specter or mental projection hanging around Tucker, but it suddenly appears behind Pedestrian. He slaps a hand over Pedestrian's symbol and the guy is thrown into some strange space full of floating giants with stoplights for heads. Back in the real world, the delivery girl clocked Tucker (and the symbol disappeared from his face), but red hands emerge from his back to carry him away, leaving delivery girl and Sophie to get the hero out of there.

So this is turning into some battle between anthropomorphized representations of abstract ideals? But I assume it's going to come down to what specific individuals do. I wondered if Esposito was going to keep having Pedestrian interact with different citizens, but it looks more like he introduced the key players in the first issue, and will circle back around to them as the story progresses. Kira (the near mugging victim) got fired for being interviewed about her mugging in front of the store, and is now babysitting the two boys who nearly got hit. The boys are very excited about Pedestrian, and Kira's curious about him, but they all seem to agree he's a good guy. Tucker surrendered to anger and resentment, the delivery girl is on the verge of giving up on herself (she describes returning to this city as "the walk of shame"), but did help Sophie get Pedestrian to safety. We'll see what the cop does once she catches up to all this.

What I Bought 8/31/2024 - Part 2

Wrapping up the last of August's stuff with a pair of first issues. Did either of them light my world on fire? Spoiler alert, not really. Did either of them do enough for me to buy issue 2? Let's find out.

The Pedestrian #2, by Joey Esposito (writer), Sean von Gorman (artist), Josh Jensen (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer) - And then he gets run over because he wandered into GTA Online.

The book appears to be trying to establish Summer City as a place with larger forces, unseen but felt, at work. Four different characters make reference to the city being cursed, or doomed, or a place you need to escape from. Only one of them, a cop, seems to think that can be changed at all. The others feel resigned to the notion their lives are failures. They're all drawn with slumped shoulders and awkward expressions, rumpled clothes. People just dragging through life, definitely not winning. von Gorman makes lips very prominent somehow without making them the focus, oddly pursed or almost blow-up doll lips. It's kind of distracting.

The Pedestrian (though he's never called that) is a silent, inscrutable figure. He shows up to help a potential mugging victim, to help a pizza delivery person parallel park, and saves a kid from getting run over by a drunk (or possessed) teacher. Esposito never has him talk, and von Gorman keeps him expressionless. Most of the time he seems to be looking over the other characters' heads (and his eyes are hidden behind goggles, before he speedwalks away. He does have a home, but what we see is sparsely furnished.

He returns the mugger's wallet to him, but also tipped off the cops that the guy was the mugger. We don't see the end result of the officer's visit to the man's apartment, though the mugger certainly thinks he's screwed. There's also another figure, who wears a mask with a big red hand (the Don't Walk symbol) over it, who appears briefly, and is somehow connected to what that teacher did.

Other than the cop, I'm not sure if any of the non-costumed characters are significant. The delivery girl dropped out of pre-med, the schoolkids are new in town and struggling to fit in. The almost-mugger and his almost-victim are both lifelong residents that couldn't get out. Are they our windows into a struggle for the city's soul, or were they just one-offs to demonstrate how The Pedestrian works? It's all a big mystery, though I wonder if it wasn't played as too vague in an attempt to be mysterious.

Werewolf by Night #1, by Jason Loo (writer), Sergio Davila (penciler), Jay Leisten, JP Mayer, and Craig Yeung (inkers), Alex Sinclair (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I bought the Saturday Morning Cartoon variant by Sean Galloway. It was the same price as the regular cover, why not?

Jack Russell set up shop in the castle that appeared in the Rocky Mountains in the Werewolf by Night one-shot from last year. He's got a little life building there, working as ferry captain, contributing to poetry slams in town. Too bad all the Blood Hunt stuff, and the emergence of the Moon at some point, seems to have driven him mad and made him kill a couple of locals. By the time Elsa Bloodstone shows up, investigating reports of a murderous beastie, Jack's shackled himself up in the basement, waiting to starve to death.

Unfortunately, Elsa's Bloodstone, which is colored glowing purple instead of red, somehow triggers another transformation. The two of them fight a bit, Elsa being much more restrained than I'd expect, even allowing that she doesn't want to kill him, kick him in the face a few times. She does subdue him, and now they'll try to figure out what's going on, because Jack admits the scent at the scene was off from his own.

In other plot threads, some group of loser mages are trying to figure out a new plan after the Blood Hunt thing went sour, when who should walk in but '90s Ghost Rider reject villain Deathwatch. Loo is nice enough to offer a little expository dialogue explaining this guy's powers. And he's working with, oh geez, The Hood? *drops head on table in defeat*

Jed MacKay did us all a favor when he killed the guy, and then Benjamin Percy just had to bring him back as a damn Spirit of Vengeance. Loo references the latter storyline, though not why Parker Robbins head isn't currently on fire. But at least he's trying to explain how these characters are in their respective positions and relationships, rather than trusting everyone's read everything these folks have appeared in recently. Anyway, Hood's got a couple of magic trinkets to empower the losers so they'll follow he and Deathwatch, and help them collect the pages of the Darkhold.

I don't know why this needed the "Red Band" label. There's no violence here that's even on par with what I've seen in various Deadpool comics. It wouldn't even reach the level of the Ennis and Steve Dillon Marvel Knights Punisher stuff, let alone the MAX imprint. We don't see Jack's two friends attacked, only the aftermath, and while there's some ribs visible, Davila and Sinclair mostly make the insides look like spaghetti with too much sauce.

Also, Davila draws Jack's wolf form with more of a gorilla face than a wolf-face, which I don't like. The nose is not prominent, the snout non-existent. Werewolves should have canine heads, like on the cover!