Sunday Splash Page #446

"Two Sides of the Coin," in Batman '89 #6, by Sam Hamm (writer), Joe Quinones (artist), Leonardo Ito (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

Reviewed a year ago, but briefly, the first mini-series continuing the universe of the Tim Burton Batman movies. A Batman that looks like Michael Keaton is still roaming the night, beating up muggers, to limited effect. He's not considered a friend by the Gotham City government, including its social climbing D.A., Harvey Dent. Dent is engaged to Barbara Gordon, the two of them working to stop Batman, even as they expect it to bring Barbara's father down in the process.

The story is about choices, those you make and those you don't. Bruce is still doing the Batman thing, but little else. This isn't even a Bruce Wayne that's a frequent subject of the tabloids, as evidenced by how blindsided he is by the media attention when he rushes into a burning auto repair shop to save Dent and becomes a major figure of public interest. As Batman, he stops an armored car heist, completely oblivious the real target was documents implicating several city and state politicians for siphoning federal aid funds into their own pockets, keeping Gotham in its miserable state. It's Catwoman who brings that to his attention.

Selina spent the year since the near-exhaustion of her nine lives in Batman Returns laying low, playing it smart. She still has the costume, but it's unclear how active she's been. Instead, she established a computer security firm, really just her, that gives her a way to bug those same systems and track everything in them. She's also going to therapy, though one questions how much good TV shrink Dr. Quinzel is doing her. Point is, Selina's evolved, at least somewhat. She still hates the Max Schrecks of the world, but she's not trying to attack them directly.

Selina makes a point Bruce's development basically arrested at age 8, but only because he was rich enough to get away with it. If he had to work for a living, support a family, maybe he'd have gotten his shit together. Stop thinking everyone could be saved, or that everyone needs to be saved according to his specific (and selective, often hypocritical) morality. At the very least, there'd be no Batman. I'm not sure about that last one. Selina's still running around as Catwoman, even with a job. But I suppose outside the cats, she's not supporting anyone. 

There's Winston Drake, a teenager living in the same Burnside District Dent hails from. (I read somewhere Quinones based him on Marlon Wayans, but can't confirm that.) Winston isn't above putting on a cloak and mask to beat up people causing trouble in his neighborhood (including Batman), but sees it's a dead end street. It's not inspiring people to do anything, except go out and beat up anyone they think doesn't belong.

Which doesn't mean he won't help people actively trying to accomplish something. When Burnside residents stage a peaceful march after Harvey's injuries, and Bullock (who I think Quinones bases on John Goodman) ignores Gordon's orders and brings out the riot cops, it's Drake who lends a hand, lobbing a big paint bomb at the cops from a rooftop, then providing spray paint cans to the protestors to help blind the cops. Meanwhile, Batman is chasing Catwoman, aka, sorting out his relationship issues.

And there's Harvey Dent. Dent is a man who, when rubber meets road, throws away principles for what he wants. Which is more power. He's going to do good things, really! He just needs more power than he has. He'll return to Burnside to show off his car, show the kids a successful black man that's not an athlete or a drug dealer, as he puts it, but he's there rarely enough the locals feel he's left them behind to move in white society. He won't let Barbara come with him to a rally in Burnside, because it wouldn't look good for the people of the neighborhood to see him with a white lady, even his fiance. But it's other peoples' expectations that make him do those things! It's what he has to do to get ahead!

The mini-series dips briefly into the difficulty for a black person to operate in a society where most (all?) levers of power are held by white people. Most of whom, consciously or unconsciously, think that's how it should be. Harvey probably wouldn't have gotten to District Attorney without "playing the game," so to speak. But he decided it was worth it, then tries to pretend he didn't, protesting when accused of not being around much for the people he grew up with.

Ultimately, the coin is, as Commissioner Gordon notes, just anothher convenient excuse Dent uses to abdicate responsibility for his choices. Dent used it even before his face was marked. Catching a purse snatcher and getting the guy's gun from him, Dent pretends to use the coin to decide whether he'll just murder the guy. To terrorize him, or maybe just make Dent feel big. Next morning, he's up at Wayne Manor, trying to sell Bruce on the idea they can't have Gordon's personal hit squad - he thinks Batman is multiple people, all taking orders from the Commish - roaming the streets. Vigilantism was fine for him the night before, as a momentary thrill, but today is for politicking.

Issue 3 starts with a hallucination of Harvey's about him saving Drake from the burning auto shop, while in reality his attempt went poorly and Wayne and Drake saved him. In the hallucination, everyone tells Harvey how swell he is. Drake admits he was wrong about Dent. Bruce Wayne says there's no way he'd have the guts to do that. Dent rides the wave of acclaim straight to Governor, loved by all demographics. Bruce admits he's funding Gordon's Bat-squad, Bruce and Gordon both go down, and Barbara loves Harvey for it.

Basically, in this dream world Harvey gets everything he wants, without any conflict or difficulty. He doesn't have to deal with anyone not liking him or calling him a sellout. He doesn't have to choose between a friend and his political career, or the woman he loves and putting a man he considers a criminal behind bars. There's no moral conflict or doubt, no one who can challenge him. He wants it all handed to him.

Even once he embraces being Two-Face persona, he bends the rules around the coin flips, when not outright ignoring them. He flips the coin to decide what to do about Boss Maroni and it comes up good head. So he does something nice - for himself, and shoots Maroni. The coin comes up good head when he flips it for Gordon, and Harvey kills him anyway.

(It's a major flaw in Bruce's big plan in the final issue to turn Harvey around. He's going to switch the coins and make the outcome what he wants. Great, except we've seen Harvey just decide to rationalize doing what he wants anyway.)

Once Two-Face is in the picture, Quinones starts using a lot of split panels. Not just to show the difference between the two halves of Harvey, but also Harvey seeing the way things are and the way they could have been. Like each eye is peering into a different universe. The climax in the Batcave is split down the middle of the page, the coin falling between the two columns. One where Harvey lands on a rock outcropping, another where he only barely grabs hold of it with one hand. The two threads continue on their separate courses across the top half of the next two pages, before coalescing into a single outcome on the bottom half. It's in the universe of Burton's Batman films, so take a wild guess how things work out for the bad guy.

Sunday Splash Page #445

"Priorities," in Bandette: The Six Finger Secret #1, by Paul Tobin (writer) and Colleen Coover (artist)

Bandette is not a series that utilizes splash pages. No doubt Bandette, the world's greatest thief, would find such things far too limiting. To be satisfied with a single large space to operate in, rather than many small panels from which she can appear and disappear, with almost Looney Tunes-esque defiance of laws of motion? What an absurd notion!

I am inconsistent with titles that were or are a string of mini-series. I've done a lot of the individual Atomic Robo minis, but one post for all of Dave Stevens' Rocketeer stuff, and one for all of Adventures of Dr. McNinja. But my original Sunday Splash Page on Bandette was rather more abbreviated than I would have liked. 

In my defense, I was out of sorts after the tornado that left me living at my father's house, my comic collection piled atop itself in one of the less-cluttered rooms of his house. Tobin and Coover have released two more volumes of Bandette since that post, so I say we're doing this.

So, Bandette. World's greatest thief. Lover of chocolates and art and cats and her little dog Pimento and harassing chain-smoking police officers. A young woman with, a complicated and scandalous lineage, the details of which I can't keep straight. Most every story makes some reference to her ancestors having posed for a sculpture or having deep alliances with the circus or something of that sort.

She is, as presented by Tobin and Coover, almost a mythological trickster figure. Brightly garbed, dramatic just for the fun of it. Always playing a game with people, carrying on monologues as she casually avoids attempts on her life from a variety of weirdos. Backflipping across car roofs while pursued by ninjas without ever breaking her thread of conversation with the mysterious underworld figure who sent the ninjas, or casually eating chocolate while walking across a wire between two buildings.

Even her friends and allies, and she has several people who drop everything to aid her, are often confused. She disappears from one side of a panel, only to reappear from the opposite side of the next panel. Steals the shoes off her rival's feet without his noticing, while he's driving. Pauses in the middle of explaining the history of some mysterious ring to answer the door for a cookie delivery. Even when she seems cross, it feels feigned, irritation with someone foolish who doesn't see the obvious. Like she's dealing with a child.

When I think about it, she's Bugs Bunny and everyone else is Elmer Fudd. Her opponents think they're competing with her for some specific prize, a painting or a secret. The outcome of that was never in doubt. Bandette was already at the finish line before they even started. No, Bandette's concerned with some more intangible goal. A matter of the heart, usually. The prize everyone else is chasing is just a carrot on a stick she uses to create the outcome she wants.

Which, admittedly, irks me at times. I've mentioned before I'm not a fan of stories where the protagonist or antagonist knew everything a character had planned before they even tried and perfectly countered it. That is very much in effect here, especially by volume 5. Bandette seemingly could have nipped The Voice's entire plan in the bud right from the start, as she had it all mapped out and knew everything he was going to do.

I suppose it doesn't bother as much as it did with, for example, Al Ewing's New Avengers, because Tobin and Coover are using their own characters, not someone else's. Also, Bandette does have some ulterior motive she's driving at that accounts for why she's doing things her way. Double-also, her tales, despite the frequent attempts of murder and blackmail, are generally light-hearted. Even if what The Voice or Absinthe seek could be extremely harmful to innocent people, there's no real risk. Bandette's operating on a different level from them. The stories are more about the fun she has along the way than the MacGuffin.

Coover's Paris is a perfect dramatic backdrop, full of steep roofs with chimneys for people to step dramatically from behind. Wires to use like a trapeze, old buildings full of secret passages and rooms. Seemingly an endless supply of cemeteries for tense meetings and museums with things for her to steal. Narrow alleys for ominous footsteps to echo through and make a person feel trapped, but also enough broad streets to have car chases on. Advantage of a city that's grown and expanded across centuries I suppose. Can be a lot of things.

It's a cute series. Charming, maybe. The things that should irritate me more, don't. It's hard to hold a grudge against someone enjoying life as much as Bandette.

Sunday Splash Page #444

"No Pleasure Cruise," in Babs #4, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer)

A 6-issue mini-series about a barbarian (former?) princess roaming a medieval fantasy realm, albeit filtered through Garth Ennis' particular sensibilities. Meaning profanity, graphic violence rendered by Burrows and Troy, and juvenile humor. Like Babs being introduced riding through a forest, grumbling and cursing, and it turns out to be because a chainmail top really chafes one's tits.

Babs has a magic sword, Barry, whose only special ability is he can talk. Oh, and his guard can act as little hands, though he doesn't do much with them besides gesticulate wildly and flip people off. Usually Babs, who grumbles about his uselessness, but doesn't get rid of him.

Her history, to the extent we can trust the accounts gathered by the geeks she beat the crap out of one night in the tavern, is of winning great wealth through some feat of killing or theft, only to lose said wealth in some idiotic way. Steal a necro-ruby by kicking the witch that held it into her own acid pit, gamble it away the next day. Make a fortune killing some troll king, lose it all on ill-advised real estate ventures. Based on what we see here, I have to question the geeks' research, because this Babs doesn't seem like she can plan or successfully pull off much of anything. She mostly just wings it. Maybe that's why she keeps losing her money.

Her friend Izzy's not much better off, as we see her steal an overweight dragon's hoard, only to have to pay it all in damages to a group of leprechauns (called something I'm not typing here) she plowed through with her chariot during the escape. Lots of blood, lots of little, green-clad limbs flying here and there. There's also Colin Culpepper, a useless goober of a knight that goes on (and on, and on) about purity and how he will protect any fair maiden. He also got knocked out by a bunch of orcs, one of whom took a dump in his helmet (because Garth Ennis), and the "holy flame" of his magic sword is just lamp oil.

To the extent there's a plot beyond Babs roaming about and getting in the middle of stuff, a guy in gleaming white armor called Tiberius Toledo and his knights of 'unblemished virtue', are convincing all the humans they'll be a lot better off once all these other races - dwarves, hobbits, etc., - are gotten rid of. And Tiberius will take care of that. He'll also take most of the townspeople's stuff while he's at it.

Despite half their group consisting of an orc, a goblin, and a troll, the geeks decide to help Tiberius. By providing the information they've spent their lives compiling, ranking (via a 10-point system for different attributes!) and arguing about. Very subtle, Ennis. Should I assume they'll soon have an Official Handbook of the Babs-verse, or a Who's Who? in the Babs-verse?

The geeks are led by Mork the Orc, a pencil-necked, spiteful loser who wants things to go back to how they used to be, when guys were always in charge, and who blames his lot in life on unseen forces keeping him down. Mork is the type insecure enough to buy a dick-enlarging potion (kept in a little blue vial), but too afraid of an ironic outcome to actually use it.

He and his cronies initially object to Babs because they thought she was some other barbarian princess that killed her father and took his clothes and his name. After she kicked all their asses, it was because she was part of the Deep Realm, a mysterious group conspiring to keep dudes like Mork from getting the money and women they're owed. To him, Tiberius will put things right, and get Mork on top where he belongs. That Tiberius doesn't give a shit about him or what he wants is not something Mork is capable of figuring out any time soon.

Again, Ennis not going for subtle. Which is fine, as long as it's funny, and it mostly is. Not laugh out loud - I laughed a lot more at Touched by a Demon - but I at least grin, or utter an amused snort. Burrows treads the line where the violence can be gory, but still exaggerated enough to be funny. Babs stopping in the middle of interrogating a guy by jamming a crossbow bolt up his nose to argue with Barry, who's complaining about being left stuck in the ground like a common shovel.

In the final confrontation with Tiberius, despite her plan not working at all, Babs ultimately wins the battle. I don't think anyone won the war, but definitely not her. Which, I suppose, is why she usually works for hire. Killing assholes for her own revenge, let alone based on some principle, just doesn't pay. Action is not her reward, and half a chicken isn't cutting it either.

There is a second mini-series, which was supposed to finish in June. The penultimate issue doesn't come out until this Wednesday, so who knows when it'll actually conclude. Not sticking to the schedule was an issue for this mini-series as well, but I don't know know the reason. Maybe they should switch to soliciting it as every other month? 

Sunday Splash Page #443

"All Grown Up," in Avengers and Power Pack: Assemble #4, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Gurihiru (artist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Similar to some of Sumerak's other Power Pack mini-series, this one starts with what appear to be done-in-one stories, which later connect into a larger narrative. First, the kids team up with Captain America, despite his objections about their age, to stop Taskmaster after he swiped some data from a Stark Industries research lab.

Besides Tasky losing first to a bunch of elementary schoolkids, then senior citizens (WW2 buddies of Captain America, but still, no Infinity Formula for these guys), we also get a scene where he mocks Power Pack not only for being kids, but for their costumes. This while rocking his Udon Studios, "my good costume is at the dry cleaners," look.

Then Katie Power zaps him in the face. Deserved.

Second issue, AIM stole an experimental armor (thanks to the info Taskmaster swiped for them), and Jack gets it in his head that if they recover it, Tony Stark will pay them a big reward. AIM is, surprisingly, prepared for the kids, and in an escape attempt, Jack suits up in the experimental armor. Then accidentally attacks Iron Man with it. They free his siblings and stop AIM, but when Jack asks about a reward for rescuing the armor, Iron Man says they can just deduct it from the cost of the damage Jack did to said armor. 

Which is such a billionaire move. It's pocket change to Stark, but he'd rather come up with an excuse to stiff a kid and disguise your own incompetence.

In the last two issues, the Power family travels to New York City on vacation, and the kids try to help the New Avengers fight Kang and his army of guys in suits based on Iron Man's experimental armor, as he was behind the schemes in the first two issues. I guess this is his idea of fighting honorably, stealing period-appropriate technology to fight with. Minus his own futuristic stuff that freezes his opponents in place. So honorable!

How well known the Power Pack are varies from mini-series to mini-series. Wolverine knows them, but they'd been in at least one, maybe two, other mini-series with him by this point. Captain America apparently vouched for them to Iron Man somewhere between issues 1 and 2. Taskmaster knows them, and says they're a joke among the costumed community. As he's running around in a tracksuit and a skull mask like some doofus with an urban explorer Youtube channel, so glass houses and all that. AIM has heard of them, enough to have weapons prepared to counter their powers.

Kang, however, doesn't know them, dismissing them as innocent children, until they attack him. At which point they're flung into a future where Kang runs things and they must team-up with their older selves. How their older selves are there if they were chucked into the future, I don't know. Obviously they make it back to the mid-2000s, but then the dystopian future never comes to pass, so. . . 

I did a longer review of the mini-series 3 years ago. 

Sunday Splash Page #442

"Cap-Snake," in Avengers Assemble #4, by Steve Orlando (writer), Valentina Pinti (artist), Sonia Oback and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo (color artists), Cory Petit (letterer)

After the whole mess with Blood Hunt, Captain America decided they needed a crew of Avengers that were always ready to respond to any crisis. I'm pretty sure that was kind of what the Avengers were for. Confronting threats no single hero could handle alone? What the hell are the regular Avengers, in the main book, doing if not that?

So Cap's Avengers Emergency Response Squad - AVENG.E.R.S., yes, they turned just the last three letters into an acronym - use the old Avengers Mansion as HQ, and whoever is there when a call comes in rolls out to face it. So, again, it's the Avengers, just more haphazard about who's on duty?

Cheap shots at the concept aside, this wasn't bad. The team is a nice mix of long-standing Avengers and new ones. Besides Captain America, you've got the Wasp, Hawkeye, Hercules, Wonder Man, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau (going as Photon), Living Lightning, Shang-Chi, Night Thrasher and Lightspeed. A little light on scientists - basically Night Thrasher - and not much magic - basically Hercules - but it's a good blend of personalities, and a big enough roster Orlando can grab a different group of 4 to 5 in every issue to confront whatever the immediate crisis is.

In issue 1, the Red Skull's daughter gets hold of some helm from a goddess of hate, and it starts to amp up Cap, Wasp, and Monica's natural assertiveness until the three of them are butting heads and sniping over who should be giving orders. Shang-Chi's the one with enough spiritual awareness to fight the pull and get them back rowing the same direction.

Issue 2, an entire town is swarmed with ghost apes, so you end up with Cap, Hawkeye, Night Thrasher and Hercules. Herc being a demi-god means he can actually punch ghosts, and apparently understand all languages? Thrasher's the one who detects a lot of cosmic radiation. Hawkeye's the one actually trying to interpret what the apes are silently saying, because of his experience being deaf and all.

The overarching plot is the revitalized Serpent Society is using these crises as cover for smaller heists, and the AVENG.E.R.S slowly figuring that out. Specifically, the Society is stealing weird crap to create some potion that turns people into snake-people, in service of Mephisto (the "true Serpent"), who they now worship. I tend to prefer the Serpents as crooks who work together to improve their odds of pulling off a score rather than cultist wack-a-doodles, but it's not the worst set-up, I guess. Orlando adds a couple of new serpents, including a big one called Titanoboa that Viper treats like some genius of the human mind because he correctly predicted Captain America would throw himself on a vial of the toxin to protect a teammate.

I guess given the usual pinheads that work in the Society, even that basic level of observation is considered noteworthy.

Orlando also makes sure to devote a few pages each issue to interactions between the Avengers at the Mansion, awaiting the next crisis. In issue 2, we get a page of Lightspeed fangirling over the Wasp, and being assured that she can handle being an Avenger, plus a couple of pages of Living Lightning making Shang-Chi watch some apparently terrible movie starring Schwarzenegger and Wonder Man. They're little things, but it's a way to establish personalities and let the characters bounce off each other outside combat.

One thing that doesn't work in the book's favor is the churn of art teams. Every issue has a different artist. Besides Pinti, you have Cory Smith, Scot Eaton, Marcelo Ferreira, and Jose Luis. Most tend towards a more grounded, realistic-leaning style. Nothing wildly exaggerated. Likewise, Oback's colors tend to be muddy and dulled. Nothing leaps off the page and demands your attention.

I don't like that approach for this book. This isn't some gritty, back alleys, espionage-focused squad. It's confronting people dressed as snakes, the ghosts of tormented apes, and groups trying to kill those turned into vampires against their will, with whoever happens to be available. Hercules is hitting people with a glowing adamantine mace. Monica Rambeau is doing a better than terminal velocity crash into the Red Skull's daughter with Captain America's shield. That sort of stuff should lean towards four-color, bright and dynamic art.

This ran for 5 issues as a mini-series, after which it became an online comic. Or Infinity comics, whatever they were calling them. I didn't follow it - see my comments two weeks ago about not being big on reading comics online - so I don't know what happened after.

Sunday Splash Page #441

"Caldera Sunset," in Avatar the Last Airbender: Ashes of the Academy, by Faith Erin Hicks (writer), Peter Wartman (artist),  Adele Matera (colorist), Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt (letterers)

I reviewed this 7 weeks ago, so we're not going too heavily into the story itself. It's about how reactionary forces will argue against changing things, usually on the value of tradition, or the importance of respecting the past. That if you try to change how something has always (for a particular value of "always") been done, you're saying everyone's ancestors were wrong, or the past is wrong, and why do you hate the past? Mostly though, the way things are suits them fine, and they don't want to even risk losing what they've got by changing anything.

That's not exactly news to anyone watching the world around us, so I'm going to talk about Mai. She is, after all, my favorite character in all of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

What, Calvin is fond of the drily sarcastic lady, who is also an ace at throwing daggers? A shocking reveal to be sure.

But I like that she's a quiet character, reserved with her emotions. Not by choice, mind; her parents drilled it into her from early on to be still and quiet and well-behaved, because it would reflect poorly on them if she didn't. In Ashes of the Academy, Hicks shows in flashback that Mai's father encourages her to makes friends with Azula because it would be good for him, before catching himself and saying it would be good for her. Which I think downplays how much her parents regard her a tool for social climbing.

For a long time, years, Mai obeys, but it's malicious compliance. When we first meet her, she casually remarks how there is no fathoming the depth of her hatred for the conquered Earth Kingdom city her father has been appointed governor of. She doesn't say it loudly. There's no physical demonstration. No stamping her feet or wailing or throwing anything. That would be unseemly. But she won't play ball and express any happiness for her father or what this means for their family in terms of status. She remains quiet, reserved, dignified, but also blunt.

Life with her parents is miserable enough Mai is glad for Azula to show up with a mission. It's just swapping out whose thumb she's under, and it's to someone more powerful and ruthless. Which Azula makes clear when she tests Mai during the proposed prisoner exchange. There's a silent beat after she mentions it seems foolish to trade King Bumi, powerful earthbender that he is, for a child (Mai's baby brother), where she watches Mai. Mai watches her back, knowing it's a test. If Mai insists on the swap, she's defied Azula, and revealed her little brother is important enough to her to do that. Which means he's leverage. Which means he's in danger.

Keep in mind, Azula has already tried shooting her own brother in the face with lightning by this point. Whatever her legion of apologists might argue - and they are almost as obnoxious as Vegeta and Scott Summers apologists - Azula is bad news for anyone that doesn't do what she wants.

But at least with Azula, Mai will get to travel and fight and see new things. Which seems to be a big deal with her, she gets bored easily. So it's a little surprising she's settled into working at her aunt's flower shop at the start of Ashes of the Academy. Most of the rest of the cast are roaming the world, settling disputes or rebuilding their homes. Mai's life seems to have stalled. The teaching is an opportunity to try something new, and in her own way, show the next generation there's a better way of doing things than treating your friends as potential enemies to undermine or settling disagreements with honor duels.

Because she does believe in what Zuko's trying to accomplish. She just isn't going to blow smoke up his ass or let him walk over her. She may have stood up to Azula out of her love for Zuko, but she also learns to stand up for herself. Which, given that he's the brooding, morally conflicted guy most of the fandom is hot for, means she takes a lot of shit for not being "good enough" for him. She threw something at him once! Yes, the letter he left behind to break up with her, and never mind that time Zuko threw a guy across the room and yelled at Mai for daring to talk to said guy.

She objected to his keeping secrets from her! Yes, the secret that he was taking advice on governing from his genocidal, abusive father, something Mai would surely have told him was a stupid idea. Because it was. Also, Zuko didn't tell her there'd been attempts on his life, because he seemed to think she needed to be protected from that, after she already risked her life to save him from Azula. But feeling that he doesn't trust her, and that she doesn't have to put up with that, is apparently unreasonable.

They're both damaged teens with basically zero adults to model a healthy relationship so, yeah, there's some hiccups. But Zuko gets googly-eyed basically any time he's around her in Season 3, and is still trying to show he trusts her in Ashes of the Academy, so he's clearly not given up on rebuilding a connection with her. And Zuko's basically the only one who gets Mai to genuinely smile in Season 3, and she does end up accepting the job as teacher, even though he failed to consult with her before nominating her for the position.

Which is the sort of theft of control that she should probably resent, given her history with her parents and Azula. Yet Mai only actually gets irritated when she thinks Zuko's checking up on the job she's doing. Basically, when she thinks he's doubting her professionalism and commitment. And the issue is resolved with a quiet conversation. As Ty Lee notes, no knives or firebending! Progress!

Anyway, I'd definitely buy more of these ATLA graphic novels if they'd focus on Mai. I've always kind of wanted to see one where she returns to Omashu to make amends for her family's time as invaders. Partially because it might be good for her, mostly because I want to see what weird tests Bumi would put her through as penance, that were really just him fucking around (and maybe trying to teach her something about herself.)

Sunday Splash Page #440

"Tremors," in Atomic Robo: The Vengeful Dead #5, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), DJ Chavis (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

After Dawn of a New Era, Clevinger and Wegener switched from monthly physical comics to a strictly online release. Which has never been my jam, and since the website requires I either subscribe or drop my ad blocker, neither of which are things I'm wont to do, I was at a bit of an impasse. Fortunately, they do release hardback collections of the mini-series. The Vengeful Dead is the only collection they have from after Dawn of a New Era from what I can tell on their website. Since I don't know when there might be another, let's talk about this.

Vengeful Dead finds Tesladyne mourning the apparent death of Bernard, while also trying to render their dimension - or at least their Earth - immune to attacks from the Vampire Dimension. Foley is still trying to get the students - now including ALAN - to learn to work as a team. Jenkins is trying to prepare everyone to fend off an invasion. Robo is trying to fend off Richard Branson's continued grousing about the noise.

(One thing I'll note here, Wegener draws Branson in a way that I found recognizable. I have a general idea of what the guy looks like, noticeable beard, vaguely leathery face, and this version is close enough. In Dawn of a New Era, Vik and Lang thwart Branson's HOA shenanigans by getting the other member, Twitter/SpaceX Boy, to vote in their favor, under threat of not letting him use Tesla's name for his cars. Wegener's version looks nothing like the actual putz. Not sure why.)

The students struggle to focus on both their actual assignment - improve the output of the facility's solar array - and what is mathematically possible for them to achieve. I still struggle keeping their names straight beyond Ben being The Guy, but they're at least developing more distinct personalities. Margot's the overachiever/perfectionist, Ben's easily distracted and sarcastic, Olivia's morally flexible and a little cynical. It's something.

The best bit is the friendship between Jenkins and ALAN. They spend a lot of time monitoring the vampires' attempts to breach the protective barrier around the planet, and Jenkins eventually gives ALAN a codename: Laughing Scorpion. Because he's funny. By Jenkins' standards. It's fun to see Jenkins' hyper-serious, all-go no-quit, attitude played off ALAN's knowledgeable but naive perspective. Because ALAN is either asking honest questions that sound sassy, or clever enough to disguise his sass within those questions:

Jenkins: Did you have an exit strategy for disobeying my orders?

ALAN: Are you asking because you didn't have an exit strategy for obeying them?

Jenkins: That's classified.

The vampires are not only repelled through ridiculous science, they can, I think, safely be written off as a threat going forward. This via an entirely different bit of ridiculous science. Ridiculously awesome science. And don't Neil Degrasse Tyson me about cheapening the word, if someone could actually pull that stunt off, it would be awe-inspiring. An artificially designed ley line field, powered by the Earth's motion around the Sun, hurling a bullet train through a breach in dimensions at nearly the speed of light at a planet full of vampires.

Except if this happened in our world, they'd probably screw up, hit Earth and doom us all. That aside, I especially like the panel where it shows what's happening, with a strikethrough the words "Vampire Earth."

Bernard shows up looking like he escaped one of Jack Kirby's stranger stories. Given the character commanding the vampires was introduced with Bernard (in volume 4, Other Strangeness), it's fitting. How far both of them have come from that point where their paths first, briefly, crossed. ALAN gets to learn some things about living among humans he never expected, or probably wanted, to learn. And, if the final panel is any indication, Tesladyne is set to get a new instructor/headache.

Most of the vampires are an indistinguishable mass, but the only one that really matters is Vampiricus Rex, so that's fine. Wegener draws him as appropriately beefy to look good tossing Robo around like a sassy sack of laundry. The rest are just there as a general threat the others have to fend off until the plan can take effect. The stuff that matters is there in loving detail from Wegener and Chavis, whose colors are a lot brighter than some of the later IDW mini-series were. Colors in those tended towards muted, often muddy tones, that sometimes overwhelmed Wegener's pencils entirely. Maybe he just has more time this way to focus on individual pages, but Wegener's art is pretty strong here. He's refined his style to where it's more efficient, a bit simpler, but still detailed in the places it needs to be.

Sunday Splash Page #439

"Hero's (Underground) Journey," in Atomic Robo: Dawn of a New Era #4, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (color artist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

Been a hot minute since we talked about Atomic Robo, huh? Well, more like 8 years. We left off with Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, the penultimate Robo story released through Red 5. Dawn of a New Era is the last story released through IDW. There were several mini-series in between, none of which had a splash page. Which wouldn't necessarily stop me now, but back then, when I was more rigid about the "splash page" thing, and after I'd spent several weeks on Robo already, was a good excuse to move on.

So what happened in the 5 years between those 2 mini-series? Briefly:

Knights of the Golden Circle: Dr. Dinosaur's "time bomb" (5 nukes he stole, tied together in the shape of a dinosaur) threw Robo back to the 1860s. 20 years on, he teams up with Bass Reeves and Doc Holliday to stop Helsingard from conquering the United States, before Robo's reactor runs out of power.

Ring of Fire: A group called ULTRA has seized control of every super-science organization on Earth, including Tesladyne, under the auspices of saving the world from the Biomega threat. What's left of Tesladyne have to find what's left of Robo, build him a body, and find a way to stop an entire living island without causing nuclear winter.

Temple of Od: Set in the 1930s, Robo's on a mission in Manchuria for the U.S. government, working with Chinese resistance (including old acquaintance Helen McCallister from Deadly Art of Science) to rescue a Chinese quantum mechanics expert the Japanese captured because he figured out how to harness zero-point energy, what Edison called the Odic Force, and which a Japanese physicist has turned into a weapon.

Spectre of Tomorrow: Robo has the new Tesladyne open, which is going to focus on science and not saving the world from random weird shit. Seriously, you guys. Robo means it! To prove it, he's spending all his time holed up in his lab, while Vik and Lang try to deal with Richard Branson's annoying Homeowner's Association Complaints. Then unknown cyborgs start breaking down all over the world, and that leads back to Hashima Island (from The Ghost of Station X) and ALAN.

Which brings us here. One of two big developments is gung-ho badass Jenkins appears for the first time since Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, looking a lot like Cable, with the cybernetic eye and hand. He's taking a break from waging his one-man shadow war against the forces that destroyed Tesladyne because he's worried about an invasion from the Vampire Dimension. He needs Tesladyne to help kick those bloodsuckers in the keister.

The Tesladyne Institute he finds is more of a school, with 3 students - Margo, Ben, and Olivia. Who immediately set to sneaking around the facility and trying to listen in on faculty meetings. As good, curious action scientists-to-be should. More troubling for Jenkins, Tesladyne has just 4 mentors. Great, in theory, ratio for teaching. Not so great for stopping an invasion from an entire planet of vampires.

In practice, it's not so great for the teaching either. Bernard, never entirely over losing the connection he had during the adventure in Hollow Earth (though at least he's past his apathy), is using mapping an extinct volcano as a test for a potential mobile robot assistant for future exoplanet exploration. Then he disappears (as far as everyone on the surface knows.) Vik and Lang (the latter rocking a white beard, making it look like he's aged dramatically since Spectre of Tomorrow) are supposed to be on vacation, but find an incursion from the Vampire Dimension at the particle accelerator. Jenkins? Jenkins is not suitable for young children. Or college-age students. Or anyone, actually.

Clevinger gives Robo a good line when Foley asks, in regards to what Jenkins might be able to teach, what the man does in his off-time. Robo's response? 'Intensifying isn't really an answer, is it?' 

Which leaves Foley, the youngest mentor, to do the teaching. Here, that's mostly about getting them to understand the difference between practical and impractical science. Being asked to design a paper airplane and coming up with a design that requires warp drive and hypothetical materials one Planck width thick is certainly creative, but not useful for getting you an actual paper airplane.

The other big development is the emergence of ALAN 2.0. Robo shot the computer that housed ALAN's brain with, as he put it, a lot of bullets, at the end of Ghost of Station X. But they needed its computing power and manufacturing capabilities to build Robo a new reactor power source in Ring of Fire, and that activated enough sentience for it to upload into some little drones Robo built during Spectre of Tomorrow that helped him keep Helsingard from taking control of ALAN's resources.

The rest of the staff are understandably pissed once they find out, given ALAN was going to use the Earth for fuel and irradiate the rest when he blasted off into space with the power of the hundreds of nukes he stole (and framed Robo for that theft, putting them on the run.) Robo argues this is the original version of ALAN Dr. Turing created, before decades alone in the dark. They can raise him to respect humanity, rather than regard them as a resource to expend if other things appear to take priority.

Lang's extremely hostile reaction is strong evidence Robo might have been right keeping ALAN hidden in his lab while he built him a body and taught him how to control it. When Lang comments it isn't reassuring to have one artificial intelligence vouching for another, everyone else looks either horrified or vaguely embarrassed at such a robo-ist comment. Even Jenkins is standing there with a frown like, "Yeah, that was over the line."

At least this version of ALAN can run if they decide to kill him. Initially he's just a box on a table, looking about like a Playstation 4 with one of those vertical stands. Wegener gives ALAN a much less formidable body than Robo's. Human-shaped, bilateral symmetry, opposable thumbs and all, but wiry (taller, too.) Which may not mean much when you're talking limbs constructed of who knows what metal, but it doesn't hurt. Robo outright says he gave ALAN a body like humans to make them at least somewhat more inclined to accept him, the same reason Tesla did that for him.

Wegener also gives ALAN a video-screen for a face, which can project various symbols. Smiley faces, question marks, things like that. Which is both more and less expressive than Robo's own face. Sometimes it's just a blank screen, which would be unnerving to look at, but Robo can really only show emotion through his eyes and body language. ALAN at least can project basic emotions.

By the end of the mini-series, nothing has been resolved as far as the vampires, or Jenkins' concerns regarding the lack of preparation, but ALAN is the newest student of the Institute, and his classmates seem to take well to him. And this makes Foley a good choice for the mentor, since she seemed the most in alignment with Robo's idea that helping ALAN feel like part of society would make him less inclined to see humanity as expendable.

Whether that's going to work out? Well. . . 

Sunday Splash Page #438

"Monster Mashed," in Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists #1, by Eric Palicki (writer), Wendell Cavalcanti (artist), Mark Dale (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

Lucas Lewis is hiking from Cleveland to Seattle, and nearly gets hit by a dunk driver. He carries the drunk driver to the nearest town, a little burg called Atlantis. Since the driver is the sheriff's niece, the sheriff agrees to let Lewis bunk in his office for the night. Can't have him out wandering the streets, Atlantis has a curfew.

Atlantis also has a vampire problem, as several of them barge into the sheriff's office that night to feed on the poor sap in the drunk tank. Lucas has some supernatural heritage of his own, and after establishing his bonafides (see above), joins the group. Sort of.

Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists came out in 2020. To some extent, my buying it was due to circumstance. I didn't know either Palicki or Cavalcanti's work (and I don't know what either has done since this mini-series), and the general concept - stranger finds himself in an odd little town - is not exactly a novel one. But lots of things were a mess in 2020, including comic shipping and distribution, so I wasn't necessarily overflowing with options. Here was this mini-series, the title is at least eye-catching, the concept, if not familiar, might at least have a unique spin, so sure, why the hell not?

Palicki adds a few twists and turns. Lucas is traveling cross-country to confront his father before embracing what he sees as a grim fate he can't escape. The grim fate makes more sense to me now, having played The Sinking City, than it did then. Lewis' mother being from Innsmouth didn't mean a thing to me in 2020. The situation between the vamps and the sheriff is not as Lucas suspects, and the drunk niece isn't what she appears at first introduction, either.

They aren't "gotcha!" surprises, where it feels like they come from nowhere. Even with only 4 issues to work with, there's at least a sense of some sort of build and logical reason for things to happen as they do, which is nice. The main reason for the surprises is people believe what they want to believe. The sheriff looked at a vampire wearing his brother's face, and believed it was still his brother. Lucas didn't catch on to that, because he doesn't see it that way. He knows what a vampire is, and what it isn't, the same way he knows what he's ultimately going to become (though I wonder if that's as inevitable as he believes it to be.) The sheriff looks at Lauren, the drunk niece, and just sees a young girl acting out and flouting the rules.

Cavalcanti's art keeps the story grounded. The vampires are just humans with longer nails and incisors. The most notable feature is probably the eyes being dark voids. What you see with Lucas up there is as strange as he gets, though he can bring the features out at will. For the most part, everyone looks like regular people. Maybe a little too neat - Lucas is one of the few sporting stubble - but the real problem in the town isn't the obvious monsters (though they are a problem.) It's the humans who chose to make deals with them, sacrificing others' lives in exchange for their own safety.

It doesn't feel like a coincidence that shadows are more prevalent around people than places. Large parts of the story take place during the day, but even the night scenes aren't colored or shaded too dark. Dale has no problem going to backgrounds of a solid, daylight color during action scenes, and letting the whole thing be clear and easy to see. Because there's nothing wrong with the town, just the people running it.

The concept feels set-up for future installments. Lucas is waylaid by one of the deputies on his way out of town. She wanted to be turned, live forever, and Lucas ruined that. She figures he owes her, and he can either help, or pay by getting shot. Plus she'll kill everyone in town. So there's the potential for the two of them to travel and encounter more problems and maybe help each other. Because Palicki also nods to there being a lot of different supernatural stuff out there, including a different deputy whose parentage might be as messed up as Lucas'. As far as I know, though, there hasn't been a follow-up.

Sunday Splash Page #437

"Broken Hearts Club," in Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers will Save the World, ch. 1, vol. 1, by Shinta Fuji (writer), Masaki Kawakami (artist)

Nick's a light warrior who, after he finds evidence another member of his adventuring party stole from them, is kicked out by the leader of said party. The leader's reasoning is, he raised and trained Nick, but Nick's grown to the point his values no longer align with the group's, so Nick needs to find his own place. Then Nick's girlfriend breaks up with him, because she was really only using him. In a depressive funk, he throws himself into worshiping an idol (which are like pop stars, I guess? I've never understood the "idol" thing) and soon exhausts all his money. He needs to join a new party, but how can he, after his trust was abused so badly?

Well, he can meet three other people, also drinking away their sorrows after having their trust abused. Each of them is also broke due to their vices. Gambling for Tiana the mage, women for Zem the excommunicated cleric, food for Karan the swordswoman. Nick proposes forming a party based specifically around not trusting each other. They'll only interact enough to clean out dungeons and collect things to sell, divide the money, then go their separate ways, free to blow their shares on whatever they choose. He even devises a plan where all of them are involved in guarding the money, so no one can cheat each other.

Obviously, this is not tenable for combat. They have to trust each other enough to describe their skills and weaknesses, or they won't be able to make a strategy. That sharing bleeds into other interactions. Tiana drags Nick with her to a casino. Nick teaches Karan math, because otherwise she won't be able to tell if the others are swindling her.

The arc is, at some point, they'll learn to trust each other fully, and that will make them invincible, as all of them turn out to be exceptional in their fields. Nick's former leader was the supposed greatest fighter in the world, and if Nick doesn't have the build for heavy weapons, he's probably the best around with a dagger. Karan is a dragonian, and carries the fabled enchanted broadsword of her people. Tiana knows multiple forms of elemental magic, and Zem has all kinds of spells to heal or buff the others' abilities.

They're eventually sent to investigate some ruins, looking for a magic weapon, the Sword of Bonds. Which turns out to be a sentient weapon that can essentially fuse those whose hearts are in tune and make a new warrior, one exponentially stronger. Except it's never worked between more than 3 people, and they were triplets. But the sword is certain there must be adventurers out there with that sort of trust and connection! Hint, hint.

The "Survivors" as they call themselves, don't really want the sword, but it gets them out of the ruins alive, so they agree to keep it. Just in case.

I bought the first 5 volumes before I stopped, though I think it's only gotten as far as volume 6 (the light novels it's based on may be further along.) The 5th volume gave Nick a chance for some payback against his ex-girlfriend and her party, where he not only beats her tiger-man boyfriend in a fistfight/math quiz, but the "Survivors", as they dubbed themselves, expose the Iron Tigers as cheaters and get them arrested. Then the back cover of the 6th volume said the Iron Tigers were coming back for revenge. They just got rid of them! How are they back already!? Are prisons in this world as porous as Arkham Asylum?

Mostly, the direction the series focused wasn't really doing it for me. It felt heavily centered on Nick, and to a lesser extent Karan. Not unreasonable since Nick's the most experienced adventurer, the one who suggests forming a party, the one who keeps putting himself out there in an effort to get them to work together and trust him. And Karan was left to die in the lowest level of a dungeon by her previous party because she was too naive to recognize they were using her, so her trust issues are the most severe. But the idea is the 4 of them growing to know and trust each other, and the series hadn't done anything with Zem - dude was basically a healing lamp who likes to hit nightclubs - and was just barely starting to dig into Tiana's backstory.

Maybe that's a reasonable pace if the series expected to go 15, 20, whatever volumes, but I didn't really feel like hanging on long enough for it to get there.

Sunday Splash Page #436

"The Whole World in Her Hands," in Ant-Man and the Wasp #5, by Mark Waid (writer), Javier Garron (artist), Israel Silva (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Didn't plan on this being a Mark Waid weekend, but nonetheless. A mini-series from 2018 pairing the 2nd Ant-Man (Scott Lang), with the 3rd Wasp (Nadia van Dyne.) Almost said "2nd Wasp," but there was that stretch after Secret Invasion where Hank Pym called himself the Wasp. Lang was out in space helping the Guardians of the Galaxy with something and needs a ride back to Earth, or he'll miss his daughter's birthday party. Nadia grudgingly agrees to help, via some process where she builds a device to catch Scott if he rides the beam projected by the Nova Corps transmission system as a tiny guy. Scott has to jump into the beam precisely when she says, or he could get lost in the Microverse.

Does Scott forget to pick up the plant he's bringing Cassie as a gift, then end up jumping into the beam a split-second too late, missing the receiver entirely? This is post Ant-Man movie Scott Lang, of course he does! Nadia gives chase, and so begins an adventure in the Microverse.

Waid's clearly having fun with how weird physics get at sub-atomic scales, though he's understandably selective about what gets explained. Nadia makes a point that she and Scott are breathing, despite being smaller than an oxygen atom, can see despite being smaller than a photon of light. And while she says this, she scoops up a handful of what looks like earth, but Garron depicts the parts shifting into a bunch of fluttery, glowing green, they might be bugs, or they might be like flower petals, or the sub-atomic equivalent of one of those. Point being, things work differently here, and Nadia, being the theorist, wants to be cautious. Scott - who says in response to Nadia's questions that he did think about those things, then made himself a sandwich because he didn't know the answers - wants to get home, and not let anyone get hurt along the way.

That's how things play out over the mini-series. Nadia mostly tries to remain serious and calm and understand the science of the different things that go wrong with she and Scott during their travels. Like when there are suddenly several of her, because they've become living quantum particles, existing in several states simultaneously. Scott mostly doesn't understand what she's saying, but does his best to help by forming connections with people - first, what passes for insects in the Microverse, then with a maligned experimental scientist in a Microverse society - and by grounding Nadia when her emotions start to hit too hard. 

That's the undercurrent, past Nadia's hostility towards the man who "stole" her father's work. Nadia is trying desperately to impress a father she never got to meet, who never knew she existed. Scott, for all this version's many faults, is a guy who tries really hard to be a good dad. To be there for his daughter, and not make her feel like his love is contingent on her accomplishments. And so, in his slightly panicky way, he knows how to keep Nadia calm when things get too much or she starts to doubt herself.

Garron is able to keep Scott and Nadia looking basically normal, while the things around them look very strange. The Microverse scientist - who Waid writes a lot like one of the scientists you'd see in Marvel's '50s era sci-fi/horror comics - is a bizarre conglomeration of tentacles, holes, teeth, and green things that might be eyes. The way they're arranged makes no sense to my eye, but that's kind of the point. Things works differently down there. In the first issue, they encounter a type of creature that looks a bit like sheets hanging from a single hook, that shift between colors. How they speak, how they move, what they would subsist on and how they get it is not immediately apparent. How the predator pursuing them steals the "red" from them, causing them to become a pile of grey dust stuff, is also unclear. But as Scott points out when Nadia advises staying out of it, those beings are alive, and they're in pain. So Ant-Man and the Wasp get involved.

Sunday Splash Page #435

"Norse God of Annihilation," in Ant-Man (2022) #3, by Al Ewing (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Released in 2022, this 4-issue mini-series centered around a mysterious future Ant-Man, who kept traveling back in time and briefly interacting with the previous holders of that title. His purpose, other than it has something to do with the ants they control, is kept a mystery until the final issue. By which time there are really much bigger problems to worry about (see above.)

Pym's story is set either prior to the formation of the Avengers, or very close to it, and involves him being targeted by a group of enemies from his solo book. No, the Scarlet Beetle wasn't invited. It also involves Pym and Jan's date at the movies being interrupted by a young Eric O'Grady, who throws popcorn at Pym. So Pym follows him into the lobby and sets ants on him. When Pym is captured, the Wasp finds him because Scott Lang is trying to break into the apartment and opens the soundproof window, letting out Pym's agonized screams.

Lang's presence is apparently to set up Jan letting him use Hank's old Manhattan lab whenever he wants as a favor, though Scott has no idea what she's talking about. How, exactly, he forgot meeting a diminutive flying woman while trying to break into an apartment, the occurrence of which apparently convinced him to move back to Florida, I don't know, but it certainly makes the whole thing feel needlessly convoluted.

Reilly and Bellaire try to modify their styles or approaches to mimic the eras the stories are set in. In this case, Bellaire uses mostly solid, basic colors, what would be bright colors, but the shades give the impression of being a little faded, or maybe yellowed? Reilly, meanwhile, has a sort of stiff, solid line to his figures - although his O'Grady has a wicked smirk straight out of Ditko's style - and straightforward layouts of 5-6 panels per page.

O'Grady gets the second issue, shortly after he stole the experimental suit, as he doesn't know it can generate Pym Particles (thanks to Skrull tech Skrull-Pym built into it), so he tries digging up Scott Lang's Avengers Disassembled-corpse. Because he's an idiot. Lang's is set in roughly the present day, and involves he and his daughter trying to shrink Ultron (at this point partially Hank Pym) into the Microverse inside some Asgardian-rune inscribed Vibranium coffin.

In the second issue, Reilly and Bellaire try to mimic Irredeemable Ant-Man. Reilly does a pretty good Phil Hester impression, with more heavy blacks and a stronger, more squared-off look to the characters. Some occasional pages of characters just sitting in one place for a bunch of panels in the same position, thinking over things. Bellaire uses a lot of a muddy orange-red that I definitely feel I saw regularly in Marvel comics of the mid-2000s. It's giving me New Avengers flashbacks, and I don't like it!

Third issue is closer to what I think of as Reilly's art style, at least based on Walter Mosley's The Thing mini-series. Much lighter line than Hester, busier than the Pym story, and Bellaire uses more variety in the shading here than the prior two issues. Softer shades if Cassie is a little embarrassed by her dad, or bright, sharp shades for explosions or lightning. The layouts are more dynamic and varied in panel count, there are more elements that jump across the page or through panels.

This is still the era of Lang being regarded a joke by most other heroes, so Stark and Thor are pretty disrespectful. No surprise from Stark, but I'm disappointed with Thor. Where's your humility, hammer-boy? Did you trade it to get back your arm? At least Cassie tells her dad to stop sucking up to them, and references Scott saving the world in World Hive, though he shares credit with her. Because he's a good dad.

They get interrupted by Black Ant (the robot duplicate of O'Grady from Remender's Secret Avengers) and the coffin gets flung somewhere in time. Ewing ties things into Age of Ultron, which I could do without remembering exists, but I can't tell what parts of the explanation were actually from that, and what are things Ewing bolts on for his own purposes. Either way, the four Ant-Men deal with an Ultron hopped up on Odin-sauce, and that's that.

This time around, Bellaire's color work really dominates. It's a lot of solid blocks of color, bright blocks, and Reilly's lines almost vanish under it. Which might be something about the mythic nature the heroes of the past have achieved in the future, that leaves them blurrily defined because there's so much that got lost over the centuries. (Future Ant-Man definitely wasn't expecting O'Grady to be like he was.) 

But what, exactly is Ewing driving at? There's a bit at the end, as they get ready to try their plan to stop Ultron, where Pym says all the World's Smallest Hero can do is 'think big.' The Ant-Man of 2549 found his "nano-swarm" couldn't fix an ecologically devastated Earth, so he cloned a bunch of extinct ant species. They lacked any natural instincts. So he fucked around in the timestream to measure how past Ant-Men controlled insects as part of some plan to install the instincts. His time traveling provided a guide for Ultron to find his way back into the timestream. Big plan, big fuck-up, big problem. Pym's own examples of overreaching are well-known, but after that, it feels stretched.

O'Grady is just trying to stay alive, and going about it in the dumbest way possible. Maybe the over-reaching is that the suit exists. Skrull Pym internal monologues that it was only Pym's need to prove himself that made the Skrull build such a suit (which contains Skrull technology that might give him away) in the first place. Lang, though, is trying to be careful. The Avengers don't like that he's bringing the coffin to New York, but he argues it's got the most precise equipment, and this is the sort of thing - shrinking a hybrid of a genocidal artificial intelligence and its creator into a micro-universe - you want to be precise about. As it turns out, Ultron-Pym figured out how to communicate on the ant-helmet's frequency and was subtly guiding Scott there, but it still doesn't feel like taking unjustifiable risks for uncertain gain.

So is it the inferiority complex thing? Pym, well, again, the history of his attempts to prove himself that end disastrously are well-established. I don't feel like Ewing accounts for '60s Pym meeting both an endpoint of an artificial intelligence he created and seeing what happened to himself. Although maybe '60s Pym's bold statement that if he ever does create and AI, it'll be a lot better, is the over-reaching thing again. Lang is constantly scrabbling for respect and to try and look cool so his daughter will look up to him. Zayn Asghar apparently wasn't content with a "nano-swarm" that could at least rebuild homes and stuff. No, he has to bring back ants to fix the planet's ecosystem, by himself.

But then there's O'Grady. A petty, selfish, small-minded, dim-witted putz. He's entirely realistic about just how likely he is to survive if he can't shrink to escape danger. It's not an inferiority complex if you are, in fact, inferior. He doesn't care enough about anyone but himself to bother trying to do something big to prove himself. There's Black Ant, who is planning on being a henchman for Ultron, and really wants to do a good job on this escape attempt, but still kind of half-asses it. He's boasting Lang won't be able to call ants for help because he bribed them with really good sugar, for Pete's sake. This is not a serious person.

Sunday Splash Page #434

"Bug-mageddon," in Ant-Man: World Hive #2, by Zeb Wells (writer), Dylan Burnett (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

A 5-issue mini-series released in 2020, World Hive finds Scott Lang still in Florida, now living in an ant-hill, where he has lots of passive-aggressive conversations with the colony's queen, named "Pam." The security consulting business he had during the brief, Nick Spencer-written ongoings a few years earlier is gone. Instead, he takes jobs like locating missing bees for the Florida Beekeepers Association. He patrols once a week with his daughter Cassie, formerly the Young Avenger Stature, now going by the "Stinger" codename she used in Spider-Girl's universe.

In the TPB, Burnett says he used Chris Samnee's Ant-Man design as a basis to model Cassie's costume. I can see it, in how the purple sections are sharply defined by rigid sections of black, but it mostly looks like the MC2 version's costume, with the amounts of purple and black switched and some ankle bracelets I can't perceive a purpose for. Cassie's helmet does get an upgrade later that causes it to sprout Kirby Hat-style antennae that let her project commands to bugs more forcefully. Which someone, I don't know if it's Burnett, Spicer or Petit, depicts as big, brightly colored words that take up most of a panel background.

To Scott's dismay, Cassie wants to move to California to join Kate Bishop's West Coast Avengers roster. Because it's hard for young heroes to get respect, and no one in the hero community is respecting Scott Lang. Not even when his search for the missing bees leads to The Swarm, the Nazi made of bees, who's on the run from several other creatures made entirely of types of arthropod, acting on behalf of the "Bug Lords", who decided they've had it with these damn primates thinking they run the planet.

The Bug Lords look like something that might have crossed over from a kaiju flick, especially once they get some Pym Particles. So maybe it makes sense Scott looks vaguely like Ultraman when he's fighting them in the final issue. Spicer makes them bright, almost neon, colors so they jump off the page, or maybe just dominate it, since they take up most of the page. Their emissaries, Thread (silkworms), Tusk (beetles) and Vespa (hornets) are a lot cooler. Burnett gives them body characteristics and styles that fit the types of things they're made of, but also draws them so you can see how they're comprised of lots of smaller bugs.

It's funny to think Mike Allred did a Fantastic Four run that culminated in Scott Lang kicking Dr. Doom's ass and showing how awesome he was, and within a year, it might as well never have existed, because a movie came out, and Scott's been written as a well-meaning (if he's lucky) loser ever since. Thanks, Paul Rudd!

This story does not break that trend. Again, Scott's living in an anthill. Not some miniaturized science lab next to an anthill. Not even a miniaturized trailer next to an anthill. Just, in the anthill, storing his Pym Particle capsules with the colony's eggs, getting nagged by the queen. Burnett draws him with constant stubble and bags under his eyes, and Wells has Lang act awkward, panicked, or stick his foot in his mouth all the time. (Though Wells writes Spider-Man as even more of a goober, getting jealous and snippy because the Black Cat seems to like Scott, and not even because they bonded as fellow thieves, which I would have at least found sort of understandable. Clearly a guy Marvel should let write Amazing Spider-Man for several years!)

That said, Wells does play up one aspect of Scott's character I've always appreciated: he actually cares about the bugs he asks for help. I never saw much of that in Pym, who has a detached perspective that seemed to treat them as test subjects, and Eric O'Grady flatly did not care. Controlling bugs meant he had a ready supply of cannon fodder to die for him. Lang names them, worries when the ant he flew (Chumley) to track the Swarm disappears, gets angry when a bee he enlarged to close a cave entrance gets devoured from the inside-out. The bugs, even when Pam is frustrated with Scott, seem to like and respect him. Enough to help him against a would-be world conquering insect guy.

There's probably something in there about how the bugs judge Scott by what's in his heart, what he intends, possibly something they can pick via the nature of how the helmet allows him to communicate with them. Meanwhile humans are judging him by what he looks like and how successful he is at what he tries to do. Although you'd think insects, especially colony species where every member of a hive has a specific role to fill, would be less forgiving of, "I tried my best, but I failed."

Scott also lets Cassie face the main bad guy herself, because he swiped her helmet and she feels like she needs to be the one who gets it back. Scott is worried and keeps almost jumping in, but when she tells him to wait, he listens. He shows faith in her abilities that the Avengers don't show in him. But it impresses Cassie, which is more important to Scott. At least until the next time he starts feeling insecure.

Sunday Splash Page #433

"Crystallized," in Amethyst (vol. 4) #2, by Amy Reeder (writer/artist/colorist), Gabriela Downie (letterer)

Released in 2020, Amy Reeder's Amethyst mini-series was about, I'm not sure. Not to believe in fairy tales, because things are rarely that simple? "Lies my parents told me?" Everybody loves to see a winner fall?

Given the sheer number of reboots, resets, re-brandings, whatever, I have no idea the specifics of Amethyst's situation in 2020. Reeder seems to incorporate the original Princess of Gemworld mini-series, but maybe nothing after that. Certainly nothing about Amethyst being a Lord of Order, which is one good thing. On the other hand, maybe there was some stuff from Bendis' Young Justice book reflected here? There's no explanation, for example, about why Amy's a blonde in all the flashbacks, but sports lavender hair here. But I sure wasn't reading a Bendis-written team book in the late 2010s, so I don't what, if anything, made carried over.

What we've got is, Amy's Earth parents are alive and aware she's a princess from another world. They're proud of her, even if Amy finds it embarrassing and can't wait to return to Gemworld. Where she finds her kingdom destroyed, and all her people missing. Worse, all the people she thought were her friends turn their backs on her requests for help, throwing in a lot claims about how they always suffer in Amethyst's battles, and then she just flies off on her horse, and they have their own problems. Basically behaving like a bunch of citizens of Marvel Universe's Earth.

Reeder increases the variety between the kingdoms. The citizens of Turquoise have four arms now, Aquamarine is much more of an undersea kingdom, the people sporting smooth blue skin. Sapphire is more of a Blade Runner look, with towers and neon lights and tubes that can transport you places (sometimes against your will.) 

Amy manages two allies: a young woman from Turquoise named Phoss (with a giant caterpillar named Stan, because Phoss' girlfriend thinks Earth is fascinating), and the alleged prince of Aquamarine, Maxixe, who rides on a narwhal. The further things go, the more Amy learns all those stories she was told about House Amethyst being the beloved protectors of Gemworld were lies. Not that Dark Opal wasn't a threat, more her parents weren't fending him off from the goodness of their hearts. 

And yet, in the '80s Amethyst books, everyone is always expecting Amy to handle everything. Yeah, she asks for help, but she's also always on the front lines, trying to deal with the problem, whether it was Dark Opal, or Fire Jade, or that creepy little Chaos kid. And it cost her plenty, even if some of that is no longer in continuity. But the Gemworld motto is, "like parents, like child," and so they all assume she's like her parents and expecting them to bow and scrape.

Reeder does write Amy as more than a little conceited, prone to making demands or ignoring suggestions from other people. So it won't surprise you that she's terrible at diplomacy. Again, these people she's asking for help have been expecting her to bail their asses out since she was 13, and even if she's older, she's not that much older. Reeder draws her as still a little gangly and awkward, all her expressions are big ones because she's not used to moderating her emotions. She never had to, other people handled the calm stuff, she handled the hitting stuff. So it's hard for me to judge her for being hurt they all tell her to hit the road.

(Also, somehow, the initial outfit Reeder gives her, while more successfully evoking "magic princess" than the '80s look, is somehow less practical for someone leaping around swinging a sword. High heels, a big flowy dress she has to hike up to try and run. I guess she was planning on a fancy party. Eventually she switches to something with actual boots and leggings, maintaining the shades of purple color aesthetic, but making it less eye-searingly bright.)

But hitting the road, rather than flying over it, exposes Amy to more of the "true" Gemworld, which is important for her to grow as a person. Apparently Gemworld, like me with my Skittles, segregates their different gems. Except for one ostracized community, called The Banned, who use all different types of gems and are generally being run out of one kingdom or the other.

End game, Amethyst saves her people, defeats Dark Opal, gets no help from most of the kingdoms that used to be her friends, learns her birth parents are dicks, but finds a new community of people who want her to lead them. Although I would have liked some explanation from the person from Emerald who said Amy was a natural at being a king. Because she fought? Because she tried to protect people who couldn't protect themselves? There are certainly worse qualities. Either way, Amy accepts and messy, happy-cries about it. 

Sunday Splash Page #432

"Beauty and the Bowl Cut," in Amazing Mary Jane #1, by Leah Williams (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Carlos Lopez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

In late 2019, Marvel tried giving Mary Jane Watson her own ongoing series. I'm not clear on the thinking, maybe her fans were getting annoyed by all the focus on Gwen Stacy (albeit an alt-universe version with super-powers), or Marvel just figured there'd be enough carry over from people who bought Amazing Spider-Man to make it work?

Whatever the reason, they tried it. Whether due to sales or shipping disruptions with COVID, the book solicited 9 issues, but only shipped 6. The first 5 were collected into a tpb that I reviewed in November of 2024. Those issues involved MJ being cast as the love interest in a Mysterio biopic that turned out to be directed by the actual Mysterio, posing as auteur director Cage McKnight, who Mysterio suckered into visiting the Falklands to find the perfect penguin to use for the "Jaws of penguins."

MJ decides to go along with this insane idea, and ends up basically saving the film by managing Mysterio's over-the-top temperament, finding them a new backer when their funding gets pulled, covering for the actor playing Spider-Man when he chickens out over a little thing like irate super-villains attacking the set because they don't like their likenesses being used in the film.

(Although Cobra? Stegron? Tarantula? Really digging the bottom of the barrel there, Mysterio. Was Hypno-Hustler considered too cliche?)

Williams leans into Mary Jane's charisma and knowledge of the world of movies as things that keep filming rolling, along with the idea that hanging around Peter Parker has given her a commitment to helping people try to make the best of second chances. I'm not clear on what MJ and Peter's relationship status was, other than they're on good enough terms to talk regularly over the phone, but there's also an element of guilt for MJ that, while Peter knows she's working on a movie about Mysterio, he doesn't know Mysterio is actually the director. She's doing something she believes in, but recognizes there's a risk that it could damage her connection with someone really important to her if it backfires.

While it stretches my suspension of disbelief MJ can hold off the entire "Savage Six" by herself (with some help from robots of the Original 5 X-Men Mysterio built previously for some reason) long enough for the movie to finish shooting, I definitely prefer Williams' writing here to the work she did on Gwenpool Strikes Back, which may be the only other thing she's written that I've read. Meta-commentary humor is a tricky needle to thread, so maybe that's to be expected.

Carlos Gomez's art is very clean and expressive, really capturing the dramatic personality Mysterio has, as well as Mary Jane's range of emotions. When she decides they need to leverage Mysterio being much angrier than the actual Cage McKnight, she hams it up a little to appeal to Mysterio's ego. When their equipment is being repossessed, she plunks herself in the director's chair with a megawatt smile and chats with the repo guys like old friends. When she discusses the risk she's taking trusting Mysterio is genuine about this with a member of the crew, she draws in on herself and stops making eye contact.

I'm not sure what Williams had planned beyond this - I think issue 6 is a premiere for the film back in NYC, so presumably Peter was going to learn the truth at some point - but I wouldn't have minded seeing more.

Sunday Splash Page #431

"Full Speed Ahead," in All-New X-Factor #1, by Peter David (writer), Carmine Di Giandomenico (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

In 2014, Peter David returned to the "X-Factor" concept for a third time. Having previously written a government super-team of dysfunctional personalities, then a detective agency of dysfunctional personalities, this time he took the approach of a team sponsored by a corporation, Serval Industries. Staffed by dysfunctional personalities, of course.

Polaris is team leader, but swings between trying to mediate amongst the others and getting extremely aggressive at the drop of a hat. (Or a scratch from a cat.) David doesn't ever explain what's going on there, just treats it as something everyone knows about. Even Warlock's dad the Magus knows about her mental instability. I don't know if David intended to delve into it later and the book got canceled first (20 issues, not a bad run for Marvel in the last 20 years), or simply considered it sufficient to establish the fact.

Similarly, he references Polaris attacking Quicksilver at some point prior to the book starting without ever explaining that. Despite this, Pietro joins, because if he didn't join teams of people who tried to kill him he'd have to be a hermit. He's there as a mole for Havok (currently leading the Uncanny Avengers), something Gambit, who decides this is a better gig than teaching at Wolverine's school, immediately picks up on.

Gambit's also apparently King of de T'ieves Guild, and one of his guys rips off Serval, which he pulled off by shackling Danger, Xavier's old sentient Danger Room. Once freed, but with her memories in disarray, Danger sticks around. Serval tries to buy out an up-and-coming company that turns out to be run by Magus, posing as a human, and working with Warlock. So the team visits Doug Ramsey, who is planning to commit suicide to avert dreams he has of becoming an awful villain in the future.

Why does Carmine Di Giandomenico (who draws all but two issues of the series) have Doug waking from these dreams with his eyes and mouth glowing? Why is Doug having these dreams in the first place? Why does he have a goatee in the dreams, wearing some mechanical suit with Doc Ock tentacles a bubble helmet that makes him look more like Trevor Fitzroy? Who knows, it's never explained! But he decides to join, with no indication he thinks this will avert the future, seemingly just because. Warlock decides he'd rather hang with his old buddy (and pine after Danger) than work with his dad, so he joins. Eventually the team emancipates a young girl with mutant powers from her wealthy, mutant-hating father. Without really asking her before doing it, but since her dad wants nothing to do with her (being a mutant) and her biological parents appear to die, she sticks around.

It's a haphazard roster of people who weren't happy where they were, and figured they might as well try this. Quicksilver seems to be there out of some desire to be a good brother to Polaris - David devotes a fair amount of pages to Pietro's moral conundrums and past messes - while Danger doesn't even seem to have a reason. She questions why they're a team, why they're doing the things they do. Then why are you there?! Watsonian, because being around people seemed to help her pull herself back together. Doylist, because David needed a character to be inappropriately blunt and it couldn't always be Pietro.

The antagonists are one-offs, dealt with over 1-2 issue stories. An AIM scientist drawing mutant power into himself to become (briefly) a mutant. A guy calling himself Memento Mori, who has a whole evil organization with loads of shell businesses and lots of power, who actually turns out to be sort of an offshoot of a spell gone wrong. An Egyptian death-goddess reborn in a child's body. Those all basically vanish at the end of their respective stories (the scientist ends up locked in Serval's basement, where the CEO makes a job offer, but we don't see him again.) Even Magus, or the technomancer thief that captured Danger, don't show up again.

If there's a unifying theme, it's each is drawing on someone else's life or strength for their goals. The technomancer couldn't get into Serval's systems alone, so he imprisoned Danger, to I guess draw on her computing power and adaptability. Hoffman is stealing power from mutants to make himself a (big, glowy, shouty) god. Memento Mori's a fringe case, because he doesn't know the truth about how he got the powers he has. His wife had, at the time, feared her own powers and pushed them off on him.

Granted, the Magus doesn't really fit. He willingly changed his approach, to keep the Technarch from extinction. He even employs humans at his company, embracing Warlock's ideas. When Warlock decides to leave, Magus lets him go. (It is really annoying Marvel has two different pairs of characters named Magus and Warlock.)

My guess is, the antagonists were to give the team something to deal with in standard superheroic style, while things were moving in the background with the CEO. Except the book ran out of time. Maybe if they hadn't wasted 3 issues on AXIS tie-ins. Shouldn't have taken half that. Longshot's powers shouldn't even work if he's now constantly using them for selfish ends because he got "inverted" or whatever it was called. Anyway, David reveals at the very end the CEO is connected to Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (also running around in the present at the time, also in a book written by David.)

As mentioned, Carmine Di Giandomenico is artist for all but two of the issues. I appreciate the level of detail in the surroundings, the depictions of Danger and Warlock's malleable forms. Individual cables or external plates are visible, and they shift in different ways as well. Danger largely sticks to turning limbs into cannons, while Warlock opts for more variety, turning into high-tech motorcycles or armor for Doug. One all-business and individualistic, the other whimsical and more cooperative.

I don't feel like there's great flow from panel-to-panel during fights, but the action within each panel is usually well-rendered. Di Giandomenico shows off Gambit's agility with a variety of flips and dodges, while Quicksilver's speed is sometimes depicted by having the movement handled off-panel (he beats Havok in a game of pool in the span of two panels, and we don't see a single shot) or with the light from the uniforms leaving trails in his wake. Quite why the costumes have glow-up parts on the ribs and back of the hands, I don't know.

Not a huge fan of the costumes, really. The color scheme is OK - yellow and grey is an unusual choice, at least - but I don't like the odd lenses Polaris, Gambit and later Cypher wear over their eyes. I guess the right angle lines are meant to simulate a business suit or something, or maybe a vest with the flap you can leave open like some British admiral, but it's kind of an odd choice for a team uniform.

I don't know if David ever played out the things he hinted at after this book ended. I'm guessing not, since it was about some amorphous future for Marvel, and I doubt Peter David had the clout at the time to set the tone for something like that at Marvel. That gets saved for someone's Big Summer Event Comic. Future Tensed. Forced Future. Something short and punchy like that. Plus, Hickman's Secret Wars was lurking in the wings to (briefly) upend the apple cart.