Saturday Splash Page #217

"Drive Thru", in Red Before Black #1, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer)

Val is a former soldier, looking for a job from her old comrade-in-arms, Miles. Miles works in drugs now, and there's a lady who was supposed to be establishing contacts for distribution, but decided to keep some of the drugs to sell for herself. If Val wants the job, she needs to eliminate this problem. And Val wants the job, since she's out of prison because an FBI agent thinks she's an "in" to the org Miles works for. For Val to stay out of prison, Leo needs to die. Instead, Val and Leo end up on the run together from Miles, the FBI, even a relative of Leo's that owns a gator ranch.

Val is prone to episodes where the world around her fades, shifts, is overlaid by a jungle. Sudzuka and Svorcina usually depict it in solid colors to start. Red vines twining around Val, tropical birds emerging from a purple chasm tearing apart the ground beneath Val's feet. Eventually it develops into a jungle, dense grass and trees, downed logs, all colored something close to natural. And somewhere in there, someone needs help. Usually it happens when Val gets violent, which is too bad, because being around Leo results in a lot of violence. Though the red tendrils appear during calmer moments a few times. 

Oddly, Leo is able to see the jungle - and thinks it's neat - though Phillips never explains that quirk. Leo has her own trauma, and Phillips shows the parallels in how neither of them got any support or help. Leo was dismissed as making it up by her family and the doctors. Val was turned away by the groups that were supposed to help people who had bad experiences serving overseas. Maybe that's the "why", but in that case, shouldn't Leo have a "jungle" of her own?

But Leo's more manic. She leverages it, in that she acts goofy or flighty to make people underestimate her.  Meanwhile, Val is repressing everything, trying to pretend nothing happened, nothing's wrong, all business. Until she's not. I don't think either character has addressed their problems, but Leo's more accepting of hers?

Phillips puts the work in building the peculiar relationship between these two. Leo seems so eager to have a friend, while Val starts out unsure if she wants to protect Leo, strangle her, or just get far away. It doesn't ever entirely end, because Leo seems so flighty and random to Val, but there's a gradual softening as the two save each other. Phillips slows the plot to allow for quiet scenes between them where they talk about something other than their impending doom. It's during those where we see the tendrils emerge from Val's chest, reaching towards Leo. They don't form into a full jungle, and it's not clear whether Leo can see them.

When the mini-series was coming out, I thought the pacing was off a bit. I think I was expecting more focus on a sort of cat-and-mouse chase between the Val/Leo duo and everyone after them. Spending an issue at Leo's relative's gator farm felt like an odd choice. Leo bringing Val to a spiritualist community, where two old women were waiting to tell Val she needed to stop running from her ghosts, only for Val to die like 10 pages later, felt like an odd choice.

Still does, a little bit, but I think the point is Val has been running all this time and refusing to acknowledge it. Isolating herself, throwing herself into things as distractions. All the people after them are a sideshow as far as Val's issues. Another thing she can use to avoid dealing with her past. So when she faces it, really looks at the guilt she feels, and the opportunity comes to possibly do it right this time, she seizes it. Not really sure where that leaves Leo, but Val's struggle is over, at least. 

What I Bought 8/4/2025 - Part 1

Let's jump into the books from July. Today we've got two mini-series that are wrapping up, each with an ending that makes a certain amount of sense, but neither that I loved.

Red Before Black #6, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Awww, they look so peaceful. Maybe too peaceful. . .

Leo brings Val to Cassadaga, the largest community of spiritualists and psychics in the world, where Leo stayed for an unmentioned period of time. She's not exactly welcomed, but these are the ladies that were expecting them at the end of the previous issue, and one of them has a message for Val. She's been hearing from the ghost of the woman Val made false promises to when she was in the Army.

While the seance drives Val into her mind jungle, Sarah doesn't appear, so it's not as though Val has a conversation with the dead woman she's so guilty over. Leo shows up again, with some notion that because she almost killed her sexually abusive father, she can see this weird place. They each carry guilt and a feeling they're alone, OK, that I follow. It seems like Leo should have her own "mind jungle" she would retreat to, rather than being able to enter Val's.

Either way, the key part seems to be each one offers the other some semblance of understanding they can't get from the people they feel guilt over, just in time for the feds to catch up to them. Then Leo's gator ranch-owning stepbrother shows up (having eluded the feds), and Val takes a bullet for Leo.

Like I said in the intro, the ending makes a certain amount of sense. Val's been on a downward spiral for a long time over her failure to save someone, and here's a chance to save a different someone. Save her for a most likely long stretch in prison, unless Leo can give the feds the information they wanted on that drug operation (doubtful.) But it didn't seem like there was going to be a happy ending for both of them, depending on how happy an ending you'd consider them doing a Thelma and Louise into the Gulf of Mexico to be.

Still, it feels like an ending that left a bunch of things unresolved. But, if I look at it from the perspective that Val was the main character - as the story started with her - then having it end with her makes sense. Maybe it just felt too abrupt, coming a scant 2.5 pages after Val and Leo are hugging it out in the mind jungle. A whirlwind of events.

Dark Pyramid #5, by Paul Tobin (writer), PJ Holden (artist), Sara Colella (color artist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - In every stampede, there's someone who trips, slips or twists their ankle, and it looks like it's gonna be Becca.

Hooky's not dead, and he sneaks aboard the truck Becca and Shailene are in during an attack by "wet hawks." I'm not sure what I would have expected based on the name, but Tobin and Holden went weird with it. Starts out looking like a hawk, turns into something like a purple bat made out of purple tissue paper you use to stuff gift bags.

Hooky survived his fall and found the Dark Pyramid. He found the hoats, and he found a naked lady that taught him at least some of the language. Enough to recognize when a stone has a warning about wet hawks, anyway. During all this backstory, Becca's led them to an entrance to the pyramid. Which seems like a terrible place to hide, especially since there are dead soldiers there, and Eve.

Except Eve is the naked lady that taught Hooky, and boy I figured Tobin was going for a twist that Hooky had been mind-warped by Eve, or one of the "mistake" creatures was a shapeshifter. In my defense, 'Yeah, I might have exaggerated or totally misled you or whatever, but she's really nice,' is the sort of statement that typically precedes the brutal death of someone almost too disillusioned to care.

Instead, Becca agrees this was a terrible place to hide, but that was never her intent. She wants to make a deal with General Cho. She, Shailene, and Hooky have done a much better job surviving these creatures than most of Cho's soldiers, so why not hire them to help keep things covered up? As Becca notes, they could never elude Cho forever, even if they got off the mountain and out of Alaska. Best way to survive, makes themselves useful. The whole sales pitch comes over two, 9-panel grid pages, and we rarely see Becca's face and that of anyone she's talking to in the same panel. If the panel's focused on Cho, we're standing behind Becca, looking over the top of her head.

Again, this makes a certain amount of sense for an ending. They probably couldn't stay ahead of a guy with the kind of resources Cho has to keep this hidden. And it's not like Hooky or Becca were some principled explorers, who would insist the world should know the truth. They have a travel Youtube channel or whatever. It's clicks and thrills and personal survival. And Becca seems like the one who kept things rolling, while Hooky was the guy on camera doing stupid crap, so not too surprising she'd take command. Although Hooky doesn't seem that excited even a week later, as Holden draws him not looking at Becca, his face in shadow. We never see or hear Shailene's thoughts.

Actually, while Becca asks both Hooky and Cho to hear her out, she doesn't make the same request of Shailene, who did save her ass more than once. I assume she's glad not to die, but she was disappointed she couldn't stay to watch the wet hawks kill the soldiers - entirely fair, the soldiers used her and Becca as bait, then shot at monsters without making an effort to not hit the bait - and would probably like to see Eve rip Cho's head off and spike it.

What I Bought 4/18/2025 - Part 1

As readers of the blog know, I'm not big on self-promotion. (Did I just self-promote my lack of self-promotion?) That doesn't mean I won't hype other people's stuff. With that in mind, I announce Alex's second album, The Catalogue (featuring Requiem) is available on most (all? He said Saturday he hadn't seen it on Spotify yet) digital music, um, sellers? Distributors? The places you can go online to listen to music, will have the album to listen to!

It's lo-fi jazz hip-hop, so mostly very chill. I'm particularly fond of "Sunflower Sam" and "Lofi Moomba" myself!

Batgirl #6, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Don't worry, I'm sure he's just using the sword to cut through the giant rubber band you're caught in.

Cassandra's rescue plan kind of isn't working, but she does learn why the Unburied are after Shiva. She cam to their underground world, seeking a challenge, and took the blue flowers. The Unburied realized hiding away wasn't letting them live in peace, and so they decided to seek and destroy.

Jayesh gets them free, then promptly dies at the blades of Neguri. Shiva wants to burn the flowers, Cassandra is determined to just get her to safety, and then be done with her. She takes a page from Batman's book and uses a colony of bats as cover to get through the Unburied, even briefly kicking Kalden's ass. Outside, Shiva tells Cass to find Bronze Tiger, then apparently falls covering Cassandra's retreat.

I say "apparently", because this really feels like a set-up. Kalden mentions the Unburied have a 'sublime leader.' Shiva says she doesn't know who it is, only that, if they're strong enough to defeat Kalden, they're someone she hopes Cass never faces until she's ready. And she sends Cass to find Bronze Tiger to 'help' her. When Batgirl carries the two of them out of the cave, after knocking Kalden on his ass in 5 strikes (the same number he needed to beat her in their first encounter), Shiva's looking at Cassandra with an approving smile.

When Cass asks Shiva why she bothered the Unburied, it's the "I am Lady Shiva. I am what I am." that Cassandra reads as truth. The rest is 'pain' and 'avoidance.' Shiva knows how Cass "sees", helped her regain it once. If David Cain knew how to obscure that, why wouldn't Shiva? So I really think Shiva is trying to improve her daughter, unfortunately in the way she defines that. Which seems to be making her a better fighter/warrior/weapon.

Random observation: I like how, after they pull themselves from the underground river, Miyazawa draws both of them with that similar strand of dark hair plastered across their face. Initially it's even running across the bridge of both their noses, though Shiva apparently quickly pushes her to the side, where it sticks to her cheek.

Red Before Black #5, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - People in the backcountry will build giant statues to anything.

At least some of Val's PTSD issues stem from an incident in Iraq, where she tried to get a pregnant woman, whose husband had been killed for aiding the U.S. forces, to give up the true name of the guy responsible. She did this by promising Sarah she and her family could come to the U.S., which base don Miles's reaction, was something she absolutely did NOT have authority to do. Quite possibly irrelevant, as they came under fire and Sarah got a piece of glass through the neck.

Interspersed with that is the present day, where Miles is about to kill Val. But first he has to complain about how he felt guilty, too, and betrayed by Val, and that he didn't sell her out in military court. Who knows if any of that is true. Obviously beside the part about Val betraying him, because that's what she's done. It's also largely irrelevant, because Agent Lamb shows up and shoots Miles through the back. Hilariously, he says Miles will get medical attention.

Dude, you almost certainly hit him in the heart. He's dead. Anyway, Val convinces Lamb to help her rescue Leo, except Leo already escaped and kicked her step-brother's ass. Then Lamb lets Val leave, calling him a bleeding heart as that weird jungle fills the room (though unlike Leo, Lamb doesn't appear able to see it.) Leo helps Val escape the cops, and then there's a couple of old ladies, who will apparently be important next issue.

The 'bleeding heart' comment was interesting, especially given where Miles was shot (the gunshot seems too low to perfectly mirror where Sarah's wound was located, but that doesn't mean Val wouldn't draw connections.) She thinks Lamb wants to bring her in, but in a way that gives her some respect. And she uses that apparent weakness to escape. The same way she used Miles' apparent guilt and camaraderie to get her foot in the door with his organization. The same way she used Sarah's hope of getting her family someplace, well, I hesitate to safe "safer" given the state of the U.S. at present, but that seems like the basic idea.

Use them up, get them killed, though in Lamb's case it's probably just his career that died. But Val got used by the U.S. government and military, then cast aside (see the flashback in the earlier issue where she's not allowed to sit in on a support group for veterans because she's a woman.) Don't know the circumstances that led her to enlist, but it seems likely she saw a chance for better prospects and took it. Then got used up and spit out.

How all that ties in with what's going on between her and Leo, I don't know. Other than she called Lamb a bleeding heart because like recognizes like, and she's trying to save Leo. Whether Leo wants or needs that is another matter.

What I Bought 2/1/2025 - Part 2

Every week feels 10 days long now. I get to Tuesday and think it should be Thursday already. I don't know if that's the weather, the current situation at work, the current situation in the world, or just my brain chemistry. But it's Friday now. Wednesday we looked at second and third issues. Today we've got fourth and fifth issues.

Red Before Black #4, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Val seems less bothered by the veins (vines?) than she did on the last cover. Or maybe she's tired from all the screaming she was doing on that cover.

Leo brings Val to a gator ranch run by a guy who is related to her in, some manner. Whoever he is, he knows enough about the people Leo worked with to recognize the name of the idiot Val killed last issue. Which means he has no moral compunctions about helping them dispose of a car, but also means he has no compunctions about letting Miles know where to find the drug dealer he wanted killed, and the old friend that was supposed to kill her.

We get another flashback to Leo's past, this time to her being confined to a mental hospital because she attempted suicide. Given her family apparently insists there's nothing to Leo's claims of her father molesting her, I'm not sure we can take any of that at face value. But maybe we're supposed to take from this that Leo's grasp on things in loose. Not really sure.

The most significant thing in the issue is a brief - 3 pages - conversation between Leo and Val. As Leo talks in general terms about parts of her past, that she tried to leave Florida a couple of times, but always returned home, those same of veins or vines sprout from Val's chest and begin to entwine Leo. Until Val suggests they split up and the vines withdraw. So it's something to do with Val's emotions. The fact that sometimes it's an entire jungle (and that Leo can see it, though she doesn't comment here) is the confusing part to me, unless it's the representation of Val feeling lost while also seeking a connection.

Babs #5, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - I'm trying to imagine the music, and my brain keeps refusing. Where did that sense of self-preservation come from?

Mork's buddies have finally figured out they're never going to actually benefit from helping Tiberius. Plus that possibly all the people he shipped off to his diamond mine were useful members of their society who helped things run smoothly. Right about the time Tiberius has taken the locals for all he can get and is packing up to leave. Boy, it'd be nice if assholes like this actually moved on. Now they you're never rid of them, like some infected boil.

Meanwhile, Babs and her friends stage an escape from Tiberius' diamond mine, although poor Culpepper's virtue may never be the same. Unfortunately, the other escapees aren't up for helping Babs stomp a mudhole in Tiberius, and her attempt to call in the skeleton army from a few issues ago doesn't quite work out. The army shows up, but they're less skeletons and more ghosts. Ghosts who don't know how to interact with physical objects, so no stabbing.

Ennis and Burrows play that scene pretty well. Babs with a profane and insulting speech when it seems to be just her and two others. Then the skeleton ghosts rise from the earth around them, Tiberius about shits himself, Mork and his dorks think Babs is super-cool. The first skeleton lunges and stabs Tiberius. Then you turn the page and find out it didn't do anything. It's a real *sad trombone* moment, but excellently laid out and paced.

Oh well, hopefully Babs will get to have the fun of murdering all of them herself in the final issue. She won't get rich that way, but it'll be good for a laugh.

What I Bought 1/11/2025 - Part 1

Well, I hoped to have these books this time last week, but various winter storms gave the postal service some trouble, so they arrived Saturday. I miss when I looked forward to snow for the time off from school and sledding and whatnot, whereas no I dread the snow because I have to drive to work in it.

Red Before Black #3, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - I didn't need to see a visual representation of Leo's browser search history.

After a flashback where Val is turned away from a support group for veterans because she's a woman, which may mark the first time she experiences her weird "mind forest" thing, we return to the present. Where Leo's driving with Val unconscious in the back, while Leo listens to Fifty Shades of Grey on audiobook. Thankfully Val wakes up and nearly strangles Leo, prompting an abrupt stop and exit of the car.

Then Val has another episode, and again, Leo can see the "magic jungle" too. Which doesn't seem to bother her, but confuses Val quite a bit, until she rushes off towards a voice she hears calling for help, and nearly gets flattened by a big rig. They stop at a gas station, the bald doofus from issue 1 tries to kill Val in the bathroom (because the bad guys know she's working for the feds, though the feds are now trying to hunt her down, thinking she's gone fugitive on them.)

Val ends up shooting the bald doofus, because Leo has her own flashback to a scene with her dad when she was a teenager, I'm guessing. I'm also guessing, given the wavy voice balloons and the faded colors used for that episode that it's Teen Leo calling for help that Val has somehow been hearing. Like their minds are connected by a subconscious thread via trauma?

Either way, Leo now knows Val was originally sent by the feds to get in close to Miles, so at least there's more honest in the impromptu partnership.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Remember Marc, it's seltzer water and lemon for blood. What am I saying? No way Marc does his own laundry. Probably foists it off on Jake.

Marc and Tigra's conversation about not hiding the fact her old lover is back from the dead will have to wait, because Drug Guy's henchlady just killed the Midnight Mission with her magic sword. Which means there's nothing to stop the cops from barging in and trying to arrest Moon Knight.

A Moon Knight who is very pissed off you just killed his magic home. Plus an Avenger pissed off her boyfriend's been hiding shit. Plus two vampires. Plus a reformed super-villain (8-Ball qualifies, barely), who probably still enjoys beating cops. Point is, this goes badly for the cops.

Still, they can't fight all the cops; it's not productive, so they run to the place Moon Knight fought and killed a guy in the first issue of the Ellis/Declan Shalvey run, where they're able to hook up the TV to learn the dealing of this new drug has been pinned on them. Dirty cops, you gotta love 'em! That doesn't sound right.

So they're fugitives. Seems to be a pattern with today's selections. Hopefully MacKay will spend some time on how the different members of the cast adjust to that. Feels like it would be more of a problem for Tigra or Badr (I assume this is going to cause issues for his medical practice) than some of the others. Plus, it probably enforces more close contact between some of them than is probably safe (Soldier doesn't seem to like 8-Ball, for example.) There's things to play with there, if MacKay will do it.

Carbone's artwork is less rigid than Cappuccio's. The looseness makes the characters look more rumpled, less put-together or composed than they usually are. Which is a good approach at a point when things are falling apart unexpectedly for them and they've lost the security of their home.

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 8/7/2024

There were two comics out this week I wanted. I only found one, but it's nice to have any new books after what a drag July was. There's possibly 5 comics out next week I might want! Five! Wow! And I was able to donate the stuff I pulled from my collection over the last year+, so that's a little more space freed up in my apartment.

Red Before Black #1, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), Ive Svorcina (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Are coral snakes arboreal? I guess they can be if they want to.

Val is in Florida, fresh off 8 years in prison, to ask her old platoon buddy Miles for a job. Not as a bartender, but for his other business - drug running. Miles blows a lot of smoke about how it isn't his call - mostly in a one-page stretch Sudzuka draws where Miles' body stays still and just his head and expressions change. Which makes him look a bit like a ventriloquist dummy someone's controlling. There's definitely an uncanny valley aspect to it. 

Eventually he comes around to a deal: An associate of his, a lady named Leo, stole a shopping bag full of cocaine, and is trying to sell it. Miles wants her dead, as a statement, and even knows a likely place to find her. Leo's attempt to sell the product goes south, and Val steps in to keep a bouncer from catching Leo. Given Leo took back the coke by driving an SUV into the room, I'm not sure why she didn't just, drive back out, instead of exiting through the club. I guess the vehicle was busted by then, although it isn't drawn like that. Maybe the point is that Leo is long on moxie, short on brains.

Anyway, Val has some sort of episode while fighting the bouncer, which Sudzuka draws as a fissure opening in the ground and Val being ensnared by a bunch of thin red vines, before ending up in a jungle. Svorcina sticks to muted colors for most of the issue, dull earth tones, but goes vivid red and greens as Val slips into the fugue state or whatever. By the time Val comes out of it, she's beating the bouncer senseless. Val is aware of what's happening to her, but not what's going on outside her head.

Out on the streets, Val passes up the chance to shoot Leo, then also declines the offer to get some grub at a diner nearby. Except there's an FBI guy waiting in Val's hotel room. She's out on a work release/Task Force X-style agreement, and FBI dude (OK, his name is Charles Lamb, but he's clearly a dick and we're not supposed to like him, so who cares) has no issue with Val killing someone if it helps him.

No, I don't think she can kill him if she argues presenting the corpse of an FBI agent would help her get inside Miles' organization. So that's where things stand. Miles wants Leo dead. Lamb wants Miles' organization brought down. Val wants to stay out of prison. I assume Leo wants to be rich.

What I Bought 6/28/2024 - Part 2

Wrapping up June's books with the final issue of a mini-series, and the midpoint of another mini-series.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #4, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Kind of surprised the symbiote doesn't cover Natasha's hair.

In the present, Black Widow shows up to rescue Hawkeye, Damon Dran hits both of them with hypersonics, but Natasha's able to pull through long enough shut it down so Hawkeye can shoot Dran with arrows made of the symbiote. Seems weird that would do anything, since Hawkeye shoots him with an exploding arrow in the Silver Age flashback and Natasha says that won't stop him. Maybe the symbiote's eating the guy from the inside-out.

The flashback ends with Iron Man smashing into the Soviet embassy to arrest Hawkeye and the Black Widow both for treason. So Natasha stabs herself with an arrow to exonerate Hawkeye and makes her escape. In the present, Hawkeye explains he realized during the diplomat's speech that the guy had been poisoned sometime earlier, so it was too late to stop the assassination. All he could do was kill the guy himself so it wouldn't be pinned on the U.S. government and used as a pretext for war.

The point being, rather than Hawkeye following the trend he and Natasha usually do, where one of them sacrifices themselves to protect the other, Clint asks if she'll accompany him back to the U.S. to help him face the consequences.

In theory, I like the idea of them breaking this cycle of alternating martyrdom, but does it really do any good here? Unless Black Widow found proof of Dran's plan we don't know about, there's nothing to exonerate Hawkeye. All he's got is his word, unless someone did an autopsy and found traces of a poison. Without proof of Dran's involvement in the poisoning, that brings about the result Hawkeye's trying to prevent.

Blood and Fire #2, by Aaron Wroblewski (writer), Ezequiel Rubio Lancho (artist), Es Kay (letterer) - Someone is setting up a very strange Valentine's Day surprise. 

The last remaining samurai squares off against four of the new shogun's men. He gets three before the fourth throws snow in his eyes and slashes him across the torso. Which brings us to where the first issue started, him on his knees, looking about to be executed. But as he tells a vision of his wife and daughter he'll see them soon, they become some angry shadowbeast that demands he fight.

So he does. He makes it home, but home is on fire. His wife and daughter are dead. The shadow insists he kill them all. Which he'll get to, once he's made a funeral pyre. More samurai arrive, and promptly start dying. Is it the last holdout doing the killing? The samurai's definitely around, cutting off horses' legs and a man's head, and by that point, Lancho is drawing him mostly as a shadow. Maybe a few places that aren't shaded so heavily to offer a hint of a nose or cheekbone.

But at least one of the enemy sees a small girl at the edge of the forest, who then vanishes. That guy winds up getting dragged into the forest by something we don't see clearly. It's on the edge of one panel, the outline of either long hair or tentacles, and in the last panel we see of him, there are two barely visible dots - probably eyes - above him further in the background.

What I Bought 5/22/2024

I finally saw one of those Cybertrucks in the wild a couple weekends ago. I only got a quick glimpse because we were going opposite directions on a divided highway, but I had to do a double-take to be sure of what I was seeing. 

Then I burst out laughing. It's just so bizarre, and ugly, it's hard to believe anyone would want to drive one, let alone pay 100 grand for the privilege.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #3, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Ghost of Hawkeye Past up there wondering, "What the hell happened to my fashion sense?"

In the present day, Hawkeye's not dying of poison, because the symbiote saved him. But it's presence is lingering, amplifying Hawkeye's inferiority complex. Probably in an attempt to get him killed and out of Natasha's life, symbiotes being greedy tar monsters. So Hawkeye tries to set up a meeting with Damon Dran - I've been flipping through my issues of Marvel Fanfare in preparation for that entry in Sunday Splash Page, so at least I know where Phillips got this dope and Snapdragon from - to bargain himself to save Natasha. Except, of course, Dran doesn't want Clint, so he's just turned himself into effective bait.

This mini-series, the present day portions at least, are not exactly doing Hawkeye any favors. It's him being mostly inept and incompetent so the Widow can keep saving him. Yes, the flashback sequences are about Clint storming the Russian Embassy to rescue the Black Widow, but even there, we see Natasha taking advantage of the confusion to free herself. Present Day Clint Barton is a hapless dope with apparently no peripheral awareness.

At least in the flashback we get to see him get Iron Man with an exploding arrow in the flashback sequence. That's after Stark calls Hawkeye "kid", and says it's better they let the Russians have Natasha, even though he agrees they'll kill her. Iron Man: Always ready to let someone else get it in the neck!

But seriously, there's one issue to go, and we haven't received an answer for how or why Hawkeye committed the murder. Or, in the likely event he's innocent - and sure I hope he is, I'm so fucking tired of stories about Hawkeye killing, and especially when it's somehow only a problem when he does it, while the X-Men are killing people willy-nilly like Garth Ennis is writing their book - how everybody got fooled. Or, how are he and Damon in contact in the first place?

Phillips has 20 pages left to work with, and presumably we also need some sort of conclusion to the flashback, but Phillips is not giving me a lot of confidence she can pull one of those off satisfactorily, let alone both.

What I Bought 4/18/2024

My dad's dog is getting better behaved. It certainly helps to not be constantly having to tell her to get off me. Though she still doesn't do great at sitting still when you try to pet her. Hard to pet her when she chases her hand around with her mouth.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #2, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Matta Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - What is it with people in the Marvel Universe getting a symbiote and letting it near fire? Did no one give them the "how to care for your alien slime friend" pamphlet?

Clint tells the Natasha to leave, she refuses. He insists he killed the foreign minister (who he was tailing on some covert job), both she and the symbiote know he's lying. The symbiote attacks him, Natasha reels it in. Hawkeye acts like he doesn't recognize a symbiote when he sees one, but also comments that it seems jealous he knew Natasha first. Well, Phillips has the "cocky and kinda dim" aspects of his character down.

Hawkeye gets hit with a poison dart by someone in an old helmet. The shooter escapes because Natasha makes the symbiote deal with the poison, which may or may not have worked, but offers a chance for a trip down memory lane. This flashback actually started last issue, when someone sent Snapdragon after Natasha not long after she defected, and Hawkeye got smacked around trying to protect her.

I don't know who the mastermind villain controlling (and killing as a precautionary measure) the shooter. Name is vaguely familiar, but I guess he's another ghost from the Black Widow's past. What a shocker.

Villanelli softened his lines a lot for this issue. Definitely compared to the Captain Marvel mini-series he drew last year, but even compared to the first issue, the faces of the characters look a lot softer, less sharply defined. Maybe Villanelli didn't ink himself as strongly, so Iacono's colors are overwhelming the lines? It gives things a bit of an unfinished, smudged look.

I could argue it works for all the murkiness in the plot, between Clint's insistence on his guilt and the awkwardness of their past history with the added mess of the symbiote. But if that were the case, I think the flashback's art should be more distinct, sharper defined as a time when things were clearer between Nat and Clint, which isn't the case.

Blow Away #1, by Zac Thompson (writer), Nicola Izzo (artist), Francesco Segala and Gloria Martinelli (colorists), DC Hopkins (letterer) - You're not supposed to go out on the ice. A very annoying woman at a park once berated me about that.

Brynne's on assignment in the Baffin Islands, trying to capture photographic proof of a pair of nesting endangered bird. 6 weeks in, she's got a lot of pictures of snow and a few of a hunter. Then the mountain climbers show up. We don't know why they're there, because what we see is always through Brynne's camera, and it's set up for long shots. When she does zoom in on the photos, they're blurry and there's no audio, so it's all conjecture on her part that "Blue" looks frightened at one point, or that they started fighting at the summit.

There's also some sort of messy business in Brynne's backstory, involving something called "Arson Media" and blood splatter. She also seems to have some self-worth issues that are hinging on her getting these photos of the endangered birds. How that's going to factor in going forward, I don't know. I also don't know if the person watching Brynne through a sniper scope at the end of the issue is the same hunter as early, or some new problem.

Izzo keeps us at a distance from everything, even Brynne. There are very few close-ups on her, and when there are, she's usually outside with her face covered. Inside her base camp, there are a lot of panels looking over her shoulder the shots the cameras got. If the focus is on her, Brynne is usually looking off to one side, and our view is from at least a few feet away. Nothing close, nothing that's being said directly. Everything's inference and conjecture, which probably contrasts with her trying to get this definitive proof the birds nesting. That has to be a sure thing or it won't be accepted.

What I Bought 3/13/2024

Welp, did not go to a comic convention last weekend. Did try a gaming store, but it was more collectible card games than video games. Also, they had a box of comics, but it was basically just The Walking Dead. Anyway, I'm typing this Thursday, waiting to see if a tornado shows up. Hopefully not!

Power Pack: Into the Storm #3, by Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Storm gambling the Brood are terrified of the color blue.

Franklin's apparent death is immediately revealed as a fake-out. The ship's just caught in a Brood tractor beam, and Franklin's body gets wrapped in some fiber stuff that would keep him asleep, if, you know, he wasn't asleep already. So while Franklin goes back to Earth and brings Storm in the ship, the Pack stage a rescue attempt.

The rescue is going pretty badly until Storm shows up and takes advantage of the large amount of lightning available on the alien world's atmosphere. The kids are free, but the storm goes out of control and causes the Brood ship to crash and explode. So for the second time since the end of last issue, the Power kids think someone in their little group has died. At least this time, we already know Djinna is a prisoner of her aunt, along with Franklin's unconscious body. Still, that feels like going to the same well too quickly.

Kofi insists on trying to save Djinna himself, but the effect of teleporting that far makes him easy prey for Mayhem. And the Pack and Storm are back on the alien world. So it feels like all that's changed is who is a hostage, and who's holding them. Mayhem seems to have plans to use the kids' powers for herself, just like the Brood. It's just that her plans don't involve planting embryos inside them.

One thing I notice is how quick all these kids are too try and take the blame for things when they go wrong. Alex tries to blame himself when they think Franklin is dead. Kofi thinks it's his job to rescue Djinna. Some of it is these are superhero comics, so the characters are going to care about doing the right thing (and Kofi's dad clearly places a lot of expectations on him as a future public figure.) But I'd expect kids to deny responsibility at least some of the time.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #1, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - That arrowhead looks weird.

Hawkeye's on the run from a lot of people, for killing a Russian Foreign Minister. Mockingbird's being watched too closely to help, but the Black Widow's not. Didn't realize those two had become pals, but why not? All superheroes are pals now. 

By the time she finds the guy released from Russian prison to kill Clint, he claims he already blew Hawkeye up. Wrong, but unfortunately there are other killers with the professionalism to try and finish the job. Just not before the Widow shows up. She tries to make Hawkeye leave Madripoor, but he refuses. In fact, he doesn't want her involved at all. So he's determined to solve it alone, since he's being hunted. Because he's stubborn and arrogant. Natasha's going to stick around, figuring he can't do it alone. Because she's also stubborn and arrogant.

At any rate, Clint's explanation is phrased in such a way as to imply he's guilty. I figure it's another fake-out where he was watching the press conference, and saw someone who looks just like him release the arrow that killed the guy. Or the whole thing is faked footage. A.I. generated crap that nobody's debunked for. . .reasons. Ominous reasons.

So far, the fact the Black Widow has a symbiote is something I can largely ignore. She uses it to get information - via symbiote spiders crawling into the guy's brain? - and to restrain one of Hawkeye's attackers. Which makes it basically a tool. Like her bracelets. I can deal with that. This "give everyone a symbiote" thing is still stupid.

Villanelli seems to have a lot of panels with close-ups on things. Clint's bow, Natasha's hand as the symbiote reforms around it, a mechanical hook arm that clasps Hawkeye's ankle. Sometimes they're smaller panels set against the backdrop of a larger establishing shot, and sometimes they're one in a sequence of rapid-fire panels. It works as a point of emphasis.

Friends Thru Time - Sort Of

That's what happens when you dither around too long about avenging your father.

Artemis and the Assassin was a five-issue mini-series (so far), about a time-traveling assassin named Maya, that is tasked with hunting down one Virginia Hall (code name: Artemis). Artemis works in the French Resistance during WWII, and was just given information on where the Allies intend to land and when. It's her responsibility to inform the other resistance cells, so they can hamper any Nazi counterattack on D-Day.

The attempted assassination does not go as planned. Artemis proves a little more difficult to kill than Maya anticipates, plus the Nazis show up to try and kill everyone in the general vicinity. In the confusion, Artemis triggers Maya's time travel devices, and things go from there. The two gradually build a friendship, mostly around saving each other's lives as, even when the locals aren't trying to kill them, Maya's fellow time-traveling assassins are.

Stephanie Phillips clearly sets some things up so this doesn't have to be the last we see of them. The man who trained Maya (and also wiped out everything she'd known prior to that) isn't dead, and has a new sidekick. Nothing was really explained about who is hiring these assassins, or to what specific purpose (if any). The most likely answer is people who think they'll make more money if history plays out differently, but who knows. We know Maya has completed missions successfully before, and we see one of the others do likewise, but we never see how that changes things.

Probably the biggest mystery is the mysterious books. Maya lived during the time of Emperor Ashoka and her people protected books that were said to contain all the knowledge in the world. Knowledge Isak seems to have used to make himself sort of immortal, and which may have something to do with a strange energy Maya can harness. Again, details are thin on the ground. 

Phillips does a nifty bit that I think plays off imperialist narratives, where Isak is responsible for destroying Maya's home and trying to turn her into a heartless weapon, but he presents it as some grand favor he did for her. He uplifted her to a better place. Megan Hetrick drew the first two issues, and Francesca Fantini the other three (don't know why the shift), and they both draw Isak as sort of a dapper Englishman type. Fancy walking stick, nice suit with a vest under it. He gets annoyed when it gets torn up by some Ancient Egyptians before he kills them. He makes a nice picture of the kind of guy who would insist conquering a place would improve it by bringing civilization there. The fattening of his wallet would just be a lucky coincidence.

The main thrust of the book is the friendship between Maya and Virginia. I guess it could be whether Maya is going to ultimately complete her mission or not, but I feel like once Virginia is pointing out that Maya could have just let some other guys kill her, you kind of know it's not happening. 

So, the friendship. On my first readthrough, I felt like it wasn't built very well. They seem to go from yelling and insulting each other to suddenly they're pals. But it's a friendship in the mold of any number of buddy cop movies, where the two characters start out antagonistic, but gradually grow to care about each other. The moments in Lethal Weapon where Riggs saves Murtaugh's life near the pool, and Murtaugh invites Riggs to dinner. In that sense it works, though it's still hard to see why it happens. 

Why does Artemis save Maya from a Nazi, when Maya's already killed several of her allies? Two pages later, she seems entirely ready to kill Maya. Why does Maya, in turn, save Artemis from the guys in the Old West? Is it simply to repay a debt, or did Virginia's act of compassion stir something in Maya? Or was it because they were both fighting for their lives? From that point on, they're basically in a situation where everyone is after both of them, so teaming up is kind of forced on them. That gives them time to build some sort of bond where Maya doesn't simply kill Artemis the moment Isak shows up and demands it. Prior to that, the story seems to require certain odd choices to keep things from concluding prematurely.

As mentioned above, I don't know why there was a shift in artists between issues 2 and 3. Hetrick's style is a bit more animated, a bit smoother. Reminds me a little of Ed McGuinness when he was drawing the Superman books, at least in the faces. Anatomy isn't anywhere near as exaggerated, and the linework isn't as defined, but it's very expressive. Fantini's lines are thinner, more of a realistic style. I feel like Artemis looks older in Fantini's art, but maybe that's because Maya is fleshed out and humanized, which makes her seem like less of a terminator. She's a wounded kid in a lot of ways, one who didn't realize how badly. Virginia's suffered, but she's had more time to come to grips with it. There are a few more panels during Fantini's fight scenes where the characters seem awkwardly posed rather than moving. Hetrick seems to have more of a knack for illustrating the flow of the action.