Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned - Walter Mosley

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned is a collection of short stories, loosely connected about Socrates Fortlow. Scorates spent 27 years in an Indiana prison for killing 2 people. When he got out, now 50 years old, he moved to Los Angeles, and has, as of the point when most of these stories take place, spent the last 8 years living in a two-room shack in an alley.

Mosley has a few recurring characters across the stories - a partially paralyzed WW2 veteran, a young boy named Darryl that Socrates sort of becomes a surrogate father to - but the stories remain focused on Socrates. In many cases, it's about him struggling with the anger and urge to do violence that a nearly-three decade stint of incarceration did nothing to dissipate. "History" is, I think, set during the riots that followed the verdict in the Rodney King trial, and Socrates deliberately keeps himself inside his home the entire time, because he's afraid what he might do if he goes outside and joins in.

But Mosley also uses that story for a flashback to an earlier time in Socrates' time in L.A., where there was a bookstore he frequented that helped him come to a conclusion about who one should be angry at, and who they want you to be angry at, and who is really following the "rules," which he thinks of as acting in ways society deems acceptable, but might in the way most people might think of it. It's a little like the Joker's spiel in The Dark Knight, about people and their "plans", but from the perspective of a man who feels like he foolishly followed those plans and is only now realizing it, rather than the guy bragging about how he's too smart for all that.

The stories also often deal with the difficulties of going through life as a black man, whether that's being hassled by cops, or debating whether it's OK to tell the police you know who's setting fire to abandoned buildings now that people have started dying as a result. Or just the hassles of getting a regular job, or even just getting an application from the supermarket where you'd like to work to try and apply. These often tie back into Socrates' anger, his desire to meet the disrespect or humiliation the world tries to heap on him with violence. Just how much crap can he be expected to take, and how much is the world going to throw at him?

They aren't all like that. In one case, Socrates realizes he's never gone to see the ocean in all the time since he moved to L.A., so he goes to the beach and ends up meeting a couple of people who share a bonfire with him for a time. It's still not entirely cheerful; Socrates is motivated by thinking of a younger man he beat up not long after he moved to L.A., who he's watched slowly descend through life, and that he wishes he'd apologized to, maybe tried to explain himself. And if Socrates would have asked that young man why he didn't get out of there and do something better with himself, then shouldn't he try to do the same? Go somewhere else, even just for a day, and do something different?

Regret is a strong element in the stories as well. Regretting not apologizing to that young man, or writing to a young woman he knew before prison, or that his mother died long before he served his sentence. The regrets gnaw at him sometimes, waking or asleep, in different ways. Which might be why so many of the stories also revolve around him trying to talk to someone younger and maybe set them straight. Maybe he can't help them, but he doesn't want anymore regrets about not trying. 

'C-plus, Socrates thought to himself when he returned to his back-alley apartment. In those days he was still sleeping on three area rugs piled one on top of the other. He wrote the grade down on a piece of paper. For years he gave himself a grade every day. Anytime he wrote down failure somebody had been hurt by those big rock-breaking hands.'

Little Green - Walter Mosley

I picked an odd spot to get into Mosley's extensive run of Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, as he starts this book in a months-long semi-coma after getting wasted and driving his car off a cliff in drunken depression. But he's awake (mostly), and his friend Raymond needs Easy's help finding the son of a woman he knows for reasons he won't explain.

As these types of situations typically do, things get complicated. The boy is mixed up in something he doesn't entirely understand, because he was drugged out of his mind after a girl slipped him LSD during a kiss. So even after Easy finds the young man, he has to figure out what's going on with the bag full of bloody money.

This book feels like a book of transition. Mosley often has Easy remark about how he feels like he's awoken in a different world. There's a line where Easy remarks that the man he was seems to have died in that crash, and now he's a different man each time he wakes up, emerging from the husk of the last. It was a nice line, and Mosley works with the idea that sometimes things can change in a relatively brief time.

Easy's case means he spends time around hippy, free love types, and many (though not all) seem to be trying to move past the kinds of unspoken rules Easy has lived under his whole life. Rules about his being black, about how he has to behave around police, about who he can be seen walking around with and how he can afford to react towards people being hostile to him. He's not steady on his feet in the early going, and when some cops hassle him just for stumbling on the sidewalk, basically the entire staff of an auto mechanic shop, white and black, come out and give the cops shit. And the cops back down.

It feels to Easy like maybe these younger people don't care about the things that hang over his life, are trying to change things, and might just pull it off. And Easy sees the family he's gathered around him (he seems to have at least two teenage or older children he's adopted or taken under his wing) and realizes how much he has, and how much he nearly threw away. People that would have been heartbroken if he hadn't survived.

I'm not sure having the woman he was heartbroken over change her mind and come back is really necessary, but I don't know all their history. Maybe it fits. I also don't know if that translates to Easy handling things differently. He certainly seems to try and handle things with talking or making smart preparations, but he seems smart enough to have been doing that regularly. It probably isn't safe for a black man in 1960s L.A., even one the cops occasionally rely on, to be involved in too much violence.

But when he learns why Raymond is concerned with this missing boy (and no, it's not because Ray is his dad), he understands how things are going to play out, and he works to avert it. I don't think he changes Raymond's nature, but at least this one time, he convinces him to handle things differently. To not let it come down to some macho need to "settle" things. Unmake the fist.

Of course, at the very end, Easy is attacked in his own home by a white man with a gun, and kills him. And he knows that's bad news, so he and Raymond dispose of the body with the help of a voodoo priestess lady named Mama Jo. So maybe things haven't changed so much after all.

'On the back bench sat an ancient human being clad all in faded rags who was leaning sideways, maybe asleep. This person could have been either a man or a woman. The race was also a thing of speculation, but the napper's place in the world was definite. He or she had been descending for decades and was very near toppling over.'

Fear of the Dark - Walter Mosley

Paris owns a bookstore in L.A. in the '50s. It ought to be a quiet life, which is what he wants. When his cousin Ulysses stops by, Paris sends him away. Because Ulysses - or "Useless" as everyone but his mother calls him - always brings trouble with him.

But Paris can find his own trouble. Like sleeping with a girl whose previous relationship is not quite as over as she claimed. Paris takes to his heels, and when he returns to his bookstore hours later, the boyfriend's dead on the floor. As the boyfriend and lady were both white, and Paris is black, this could be a real problem were the cops to find out. Especially with Paris not knowing why the guy is dead.

The murder is connected to Useless' visit, but the whys and hows and what-fors are teased out slowly over the course of the book. There are plenty of digressions, as Paris roams the neighborhood, giving us peeks into the different lives and cultures of the city. Sometimes the enclaves different groups make for themselves, but also where they mix and coexist. Having never been a terribly community-minded person, the grand cultural map of the city, or the city as an organism, isn't hugely interesting to me except for how it impacts the story. I take more from it for the opportunities it gives Mosley to introduce new characters and sketch a quick, but interesting, background for them.

Mosley doesn't write Paris as brave, or at least, Paris doesn't think of himself as brave. Paris contrasts himself with his friend Fearless Jones (who has apparently been the protagonist of a couple other books Mosley wrote, not sure if Paris was in those, too.) From Paris' perspective, Fearless is never flustered, never afraid, can speak calmly with anyone, from a hired killer to a frightened mother to a white pastor. When they're put in a holding cell with a bunch of other guys, Paris is almost grateful to feel safe from the threats of the outside world, while Fearless is, as the names suggests unperturbed by the whole thing.

But even if Paris doesn't particularly care where Useless is, and is only dragged into the search by his aunt, he does keep digging. He keeps asking questions and trying to piece things together, whether his aunt is pressing him or not, whether Fearless is there to back him up or not. He was a likeable enough main character. Clever when he's got time to plan his approach, stubborn enough to keep digging, able to do something dangerous if it's really necessary, even though he's terrified. Although I especially liked the part where he hits his limit with his aunt and gives her a verbal dressing down. Mosley wrote that really well, the way the dam burst and it all just flooded out.

'Somebody overhearing our words would have thought that I was going down the wrong road. But that someone wouldn't have been listening between the lines. In his own estimation Tommy was a superior specimen. He only dealt with white people and was better educated than 99 percent of the Negro race. He would have felt he could dismiss me unless I intimidated him physically or intellectually.

Tommy could have kicked my ass up and down the block, so I used the only muscle I had.'

Saturday Splash Page #85

 

"Bad End," in The Thing #1, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer)

Released in late 2021 through early 2022 with the subtitle, "The Next Big Thing," this was a six-issue mini-series set at some point in the FF's history, written by novelist Walter Mosley. In it, things go wrong for Ben Grimm very quickly. He comes back from a fishing trip to find the rest of the FF away and Alicia having a pleasant afternoon with the owner of an art gallery. Ben gets aggressive, then gets arrested, and Alicia breaks up with him.

So he accepts the offer of a pink fairy-looking thing to use their dating service to find someone, and is matched with an attractive and creative 'choreographic clothes designer' named Amaryllis. At which point, people start attacking him. Ben doesn't know why they attack him, but is all too willing to punch them.

Amaryllis is obviously more than she first appears, and the two of them meet a young boy who is endlessly curious and wise beyond his years. He also turns out to be more than he appears. The Thing, however, is still The Thing. Not a genius, but not an idiot. He can tell there's stuff going on with Amaryllis and the boy he doesn't understand, even if he can't figure out what. He's not about to let Doom have a robot army, but he will help him try to recover his mother's soul. (Curious how this and Clobberin' Time both have The Thing team-up with Dr. Doom.) He refuses to give up, which is both a strength and a weakness, especially when combined with his temper, which Mosley seems to amplify. Mosley's version of Ben rarely strikes in response to being struck. Instead, he strikes first.

During the frequent fights, Reilly often goes to series of small panels of hits being landed, which Bellaire shades in the same manner as the splash page above. The fights aren't graphic, exactly, but the Thing's opponents do a fair job getting blood from a stone. The rocks that make up his outer layers aren't stripped away, but they are often pierced or cut, suggesting a certain brutality, as though the opponents respond to his increased aggression with their own.

I think the story ends the way it has to, for who Amaryllis is and who Ben is. He's not going to accept her, not yet. Won't have a choice some day. For now, he and Alicia find their way through the forces trying to manipulate or separate them, and Ben agrees to try getting some anger management.

What I Bought 4/9/2022 - Part 3

Saved the one comic that was wrapping up for last, so it could get its own post. Do I have enough to say to justify that? Let's find out.

The Thing #6, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - The only copy the store had was with the Mahmud Asrar variant cover, which is Ben glaring at us while holding a big sandwich. Like I'm gonna try to steal the Thing's sandwich. Be like stealing beer from Wolverine.

So Amaryllis is Death. She takes Doom, and she already has Alicia. If Ben wants Alicia to be free, he's got to give himself to Death. Conversely, he and Bobby could take Doom's deathless robot army and storm Death's realm themselves. They opt for "B", which is good, because it's much more fun to read. They fight some dead warriors, Ben takes care of Mot (who was Death's lackey I guess, rather than just Death in another disguise) and they rescue Doom, who has experienced the time as centuries of torture. 

Death has been kind enough to give Doom a new mask after Ben smashed the previous one, although it looks like it was made from a potato sack, so it's probably not an act of kindness. Makes Doom look like a scarecrow. His mother shows up, basically telling him to suck it up. She was kinder than that when he rescued her from Mephisto, but I guess she's learned what he got up to since her death in the interim.

Alicia, meanwhile, is handling being in the realm of the dead rather well. Turns out being a living person has certain advantages, as Alicia trounces some dead warrior bent on chopping a child up with an axe. Bellaire colors Alicia as brighter than everyone and everything around her. Sometimes with an actual glow, but mostly minus the grimy filter that everyone has. Then she confronts Death herself and they have a bit of a throwdown, which Alicia wins long enough for them to leave. I guess because, by fighting her, none of them are willing to accept Death, so she can't hold them. Everyone gets home, though Doom's mama stays behind, 'cause she's dead. Ben and Alicia get back together, and Bobby takes the Champion's teleporter belt and goes, somewhere.

Right before Alicia shows up, Ben has to fight another monster, who doesn't offer a name and looks like he might be out of Hindu mythology, based on the headgear Reilly draws, mostly. Ben can't beat him by fighting, but once he admits he just wants to find Alicia, the monster seems stymied. I think it's a misplay by Mosley, because Ben doesn't figure this out on his own, the weird orb/helmet thing he's wearing tells him that's the key. 

All through this story, Ben has met every challenge by punching first. Just two pages earlier, he wants to fight his way through the next wave of Death's forces rather than take off to find Alicia because he doesn't want to be a coward. Maybe it would have been unrealistic for Ben to just suddenly realize that refusing to fight is sometimes the smart move. That not every person that bars your way need to be met with violence. But he has shown intelligence and insight at points. Enough to recognize there was something unusual about Bobby and Amaryllis. Enough to get in touch with the Silver Surfer to take the Champion someplace else.

Maybe the point was he needed it pointed out to, in a way he couldn't dismiss. He and Alicia have a brief exchange near the end that suggests she's brought up his temper before, and Ben hasn't taken the conversation to heart. I do like that, at the very end, when he promises to try to be better, to get anger management, and rescue Alicia from Hell, Ben says the last one is the easy part. The grand gestures and declarations, the one-off things, those are easy to do. It's the everyday stuff that's hard, because you have to stick at it. But Ben doesn't give up, so maybe he can pull it off.

What I Bought 3/4/2022 - Part 2

I hope last week was the end of the snow. I'm tired of people freaking out and rushing to the store because oh my gosh, two inches of snow! What will I do? It's so scary!

The Thing #5, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Ben, just because you took that belt off Champion, does not make it a championship belt.

Ben fights the Berserker, while Terrax pursues Amaryllis and the Faceless One (who might also be the Bodyless One) chases Bobby. The Faceless One dies beneath a barrage of acid spewing spiders. Bobby stays to watch because when is he going to see that again? Amaryllis takes offense to Terrax calling her a crude name and stabs him with a knife she got from Dr. Strange. It's a nasty little weapon. Ben, meanwhile, just beats the Berserker down and takes his weird staff-weapon thing. He also collapses. 

Ben's collapsing a lot in this mini-series, but the fights don't seem that hard. Don't know if that's important or not.

Bobby and Amaryllis return, although Amaryllis' story of how she survived does not match reality. And it's about then Dr. Doom shows up. Doom was commanding the other three, and the army of Warbots are his, and he really doesn't want to fight Grimm. He's out to rescue his mother's soul, which did not go to Heaven after Doom and Strange's efforts in Triumph and Torment. Mama Doom was captured by Death and is being held in some other dimension.

Ben's pretty sure Doom defeating Death on her own turf would be bad, so he beats Doom down, but refuses to kill him, against Bobby's suggestion. Instead, Ben offers to help Doom rescue his mother, if Doom will leave Death alone afterward. Bobby fears this will sunder Ben's soul, and Bobby's apparently part Watcher (???) so maybe he would know. Amaryllis is not OK with this plan either, both because she loves Ben, and because she's Death. And Alicia's weird boyfriend, and the little pixie that dragged Ben into this in the first place both either work for her, or are her.

Great, now Ben's going to have Thanos and Deadpool after him for stealing their gal. Whatta revoltin' development. I guess her being Death explains both her constant casual suggestions they kill enemies, her treatment of things like breakfast as novel, the Surfer's confused reaction to her. The way Reilly shadows her face in this issue when she mentions she read the Berserker cannot die. I made the mistake of thinking the mysterious cloaked figure was something other than just Death. I think mostly because Reilly drew Death with more flesh on her face than usual, and because the being looked male to me. My bad making assumptions.

This all kind of makes the shift in Ben's appearance make sense. She's been putting him in situations that give him the chance to armor himself. Gain weapons, gain power, gain tools that would send him to where she needed him. A place Doom would have to face him, and then Ben would crush him and his goal of rescuing his mother. I guess that's what the nightmares are about, too. Try to make him feel like, if he doesn't keep fighting, everyone's going to die and it'll be his fault. Then he keeps running into people he's traditionally fought, so that's what he does. He fights them, and she believes he'll just keep fighting, no matter what.

So I like the fact he defies that, refuses to kill even Dr. Doom. Then offers to help Doom. That feels very true to Ben Grimm. He doesn't want Doom attacking the Earth with those machines (I like his comment Doom would try to conquer the world over a Labor Day barbeque), but he gets wanting to rescue a loved one's soul. I don't see how Bobby can think this decision will sunder Ben's soul. Killing Doom, especially when Doom was beaten, that seems like the sort of thing that would wreck him. Unless he ends with his heart broken.

What I Bought 2/10/2022 - Part 1

Major League Baseball announced they're going to implement the designated hitter in the National League permanently next season. Assuming the labor strife gets sorted, of course. The DH sucks, and I will brook no argument on this fact. You want to hit? You need to play an actual position? You want to pitch? You need to hit.

Oh well, with the time I used to waste caring about baseball freed up, maybe I can get some sketching done. Or play video games, if I ever buy that PS4!

The Thing #4, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Dear God, Ben's falling through a 1960s overhead projection of a presentation on the Solar System!

Alicia has a bad dream, but worse, her boyfriend is somehow connected to the weird, spectral entity that's going to bring doom. Bad for her. Back at the FF's headquarters, the Silver Surfer shows up to help with the Champion. He takes him somewhere, but agrees to leave his matter transmitting belt behind. It gets triggered during breakfast, and Ben, Amaryllis and Bobby end up on the Blue Area of the Moon. Ben fights an insect robot, just one of thousands and wins (maybe), but gets mangled pretty badly. Some food Bobby finds fixes him up, but the rest of the bug-bots activate, and then Terrax and two other guys show up, so Ben gets ready to fight them.

Champion makes reference to Bobby's lineage, but still not being able to grasp the power the serves an Elder of the Universe. Which still strongly suggests Bobby's much more than a simple kid, but what? The personification of Curiosity? Even the Surfer got momentarily googly-eyed over Amaryllis, then shook it off in the next panel. 

The Amaryllis in Greek mythology became infatuated with a beautiful but cold-hearted man and shot him with a gold arrow. Is she trying to pull Ben away from Alicia for some reason? Are she and the cloaked Decay/Death whatever on the same side, rather than opposed? She and Bobby argue briefly over Death during breakfast (complete with Black Wheat-os! Natasha got her own cereal?). She describes Death as an ideal where perfection can exist. Bobby counters death is a 'negative ideal', and she argues that's only if you see Death as a negative. The old, "no life without Death" chestnut.

I still feel as though Ben is somehow messing up by continuing to press on, by always being ready to fight. Because each fight seems to just bring on another fight. Or maybe he's not being "perfect", and that's the important thing. It isn't perfect, because, contrary to what Bobby says, life isn't perfect, ideal or no.

Moon Knight #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  Everybody loves to perch on that gargoyle. The owner ought to start charging them.

Moon Knight's in jail because of Devil's Reign, so Hunter's Moon has taken over the Midnight Mission. An old cop friend of Marc's brings word that people are marking a "S" on walls to call out Stained Glass Scarlet, who kills the ones those people request. Except she's supposed to be dead. Hunter's Moon heads to a church and gets attacked by Stained Glass Scarlet, who has become a sort of living story or urban legend. That's not something a mortal can punch, but it is something his god, even in a reduced state, can fight.

So Stained Glass Scarlet became something like Bloody Mary? You follow the ritual, summon her, she does your bidding for this one thing? And she grows stronger because that's another person to spread word of her around. Interesting, and I guess it's good Dr. Badr was there, because Marc sure as heck can't call on Khonshu. It's a temporary solution, as Khonshu mentions. You can't kill a legend, although legends can probably be forgotten, or changed so significantly they no longer resemble their original form. Either way, I like Cappuccio's design for Stained Glass Scarlet. The red robe with the faceted yellow body and face, the multiple arms, each with some way to harm.

The other bit in the issue is, right at the end, Badr apologizes to Reese for trying to kill her for being a vampire, even though she didn't ask to be turned and never fed on anyone. Stained Glass Scarlet brings it up as a reason she can take his life without anyone asking her to, because he harmed the innocent. And Reese doesn't immediately forgive him just because he's being helpful, which I always appreciate.

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 2

Damn, that Chiefs/Bills playoff game was insane. Sucks if you were playing defense for either team, because you ended up looking like a chump, repeatedly, but fun to watch. Feel

Batgirls #2, by Beck Cloonan and Michael Conrad (writers), Jorge Corona (artist), Sarah Stern (colorist), Becca Carey (letterer) - So the car is possessed, is what I'm getting from that cover.

Steph and Cass have to run for their lives from the three Magistrates, who Oracle tells us all about during a 4+-page long fight/exposition sequence. The fight's going on while she's yammering through the walkie-talkie about each one and what they can do. Except Steph dropped the radio right off, so nobody's listening, and it never occurs to Oracle to stop and take a breath to actually see if either girl would like to tell her anything. It helped me have some idea who these characters are, but it's a clunky method.

Also, the Magistrate designs kind of suck. Valentine is this skinny little girl with these huge bionic or just armor things on her legs that look like they were stolen from a Rob Liefeld character. And they have these really busy armor designs, but 85% of the armor is this blah grey, with a bit of color here and there.

Anyway, the Magistrates think their leader is not dead after all, but the hologram they're listening to is this Seer person. Still not clear on what the Seer's beef with the Batgirls is. Oracle's going to try tracking her down, while the girls try to investigate the serial killer in the neighborhood. They don't get anywhere with that, but find a bunch of people bringing stolen junk to the docks to build - something. Maybe it's a Boom Tube! This book could use a little Kirby bright colors. 

Then they run into a gathering of people listening to this "Tutor" guy, and Steph seems to fall under hypnotic control. Probably because she's been in touch with the Spellbinder gallery. The Tutor has a lower face that lacks skin, and wears a gas mask that pumps green gas to him. Which could be a lot of things - fear toxin, Joker gas, Poison ivy pheromones - but none of them good.

I can't say Cloonan and Conrad aren't putting a lot of things in motion, even if I feel like I lack context for half of them.They're trying hard to create a sense of the cast being hemmed in and under siege, while also trying to make the Hill feel like a real place. Work in progress on both those fronts, but at least they're trying. I feel like the coloring could stand to be a bit brighter. I know it's Gotham, it's dirty as hell, they operate mostly at night. But Stern is doing some interesting color combinations, they're just murky. The Tutor's art doesn't pop nearly as much as it should, even with all the surrounding buildings being drab.

The Thing #3, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Interesting that Ben can get a black eye. Wouldn't think rock would bruise.

Ben, Amaryllis and Bobby make it back to the surface and find the cops waiting. Ben remote calls the Fantasticar and they bail. They head to Brusque's apartment the next day, and when Ben touches the poster of Amaryllis, the Champion of the Universe pops up. Cue 7-page fight across the city, ended when Amaryllis smacks the Champion in the head with the weird light vial. They flee the cops again, and chat with the Champion in Reed's interrogation room. Champ says he was hired to protect someone for the Matriarch, and he's there to save the universe.

So Ben's figured out, if he hadn't already, his two new friends aren't what they seem. Credit again to Mosley for writing Ben as observant and smart. Amaryllis seems connected to the weird pixie that got Ben in the dating app, and Bobby's having conversations about the burden of life without end with the Champion when they think Ben's not around. Are they both manifestations of some abstract concept? Bobby as Curiosity or Wisdom, Amaryllis as. . . I don't know. They can't be just everyday people, but beyond that I got very little. What's their interest in Ben Grimm?

How's it going to relate to his temper and unwillingness to give up (things he mentioned in his profile for the dating service)? As Champion notes, Ben attacked first, though it's hard for me to see Champion not throwing a punch if Ben held off. Is there a point Ben's going to have to give up, accept that some things, (like death, for instance) are inevitable?

What I Bought 12/22/2021

Merry Christmas Eve morning if you're on this side of the date line! I tried that comic store near me, and it had the one comic I wanted from last week, and one of the two from this week. It'll probably work for the weeks where I've mostly got Marvel or DC, but I don't think it's going to be the place to go for the smaller publishers.

Moon Knight #6, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Come on now, Marc's either a believer in Khonshu or he's Jewish, he can't be doing a Christ pose, I don't care how seasonally appropriate it is.

Moon Knight's not in any condition to fight Zodiac, by Hunter's Moon shows up to help and Zodiac bails. Then Dr. Badr patches Marc up while offering up his backstory. During this, Marc is in some dream realm, dressed as Moon Knight, walking past Badr's memories. They lead to a temple, where a statue of Khonshu towers above Marc beneath an open sky. Contrast to Marc, who keeps a more modest Khonshu statue in his office, where it never sees the sky.

Badr talks about how he studied religion all his life, but grew frustrated that he couldn't find the connection so many others did. He figured he said the prayers, followed the rites, why wasn't it working? Then Khonshu saved him after he was attacked by vampires (which at least explains his antipathy towards them), and finally, he felt the actual presence of god. So it pisses him off Spector seemingly just threw it away.

We know from last issue Spector was raised in a religious family, by a rabbi. Like Badr, he couldn't feel it, either. I think in both cases it's a lack of belief, not being able to feel the presence of god. Though Badr saw others who could and wondered what he was missing, while Marc couldn't understand how his father could continue to believe given all the shit the world rained down on them.  That's the difference. As Badr said, he's searched for this his whole life. Marc was saved by Khonshu and so he served him, but it was nothing he'd been seeking. 

So when he felt Khonshu went too far, Marc turned from him. "Thanks for saving my life that one time, but you and me are done-zo." From Marc's perspective, being Moon Knight has done him as much harm as good, because he looks at it purely from the physical (mortal?) plane. The friends he lost, lovers estranged. For Badr, it's a spiritual thing, so he hasn't hit the limit of his gratitude, and maybe he never will. But I think it's definitely something he doesn't understand about Spector.

Anyway, Marc's feeling a lot better after a day of being wrapped up like a mummy and sleeping in a sarcophagus, and he's ready to defend the territory he's sworn to protect, whatever Zodiac tries.

The Thing #2, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Getting punched by a dude using tires for boxing gloves might be the most embarrassing moment of Ben's career.

Ben's doing OK fighting Brusque until the glow of the weird vial takes all his strength. Ben gets flattened, but is kept from being noticed by the cops by a kid covering him with a sheet. Because Ben's under house arrest. Like there wasn't a big crowd of people who all saw the Thing. Anyway, the kid, Bobby Spector, knows where Brusque went with Amaryllis, which is a "New Manhattan" under the regular one. Ben and Brusque fight again, Ben gets saved by Bobby throwing his a white cloth that turns into a steel glove, Brusque loses the vial, and then his dark heart erupts from his chest. Then the guy who runs the underground community tells Ben, Amaryllis and Bobby they have to stay forever, but he has a heart attack and dies.

This is definitely one of those things where shithead gods fuck around with mortals because of some stupid bet. I don't know why, I don't know what the rules are, I don't know who Bobby or Amaryllis are in all this. Bobby seems to know too much and is too vague about how to trust. Amaryllis is usually less suspicious, but every so often she does or says something that feels like she knows more about what's going on than she should. Trying to stab Brusque with his little glowing vial. It's a blunt plastic tube. Why would she think that was going to work? Jabbing a finger in his eye woulda worked better. Unless she knew something. Plus, he comment about the guy being so filled with evil glee it killed him feels really on the nose. Also seems odd Ben just shrugs off the guy keeling over like that.

At one point during Ben and Brusque's rematch, Bellaire starts coloring all the panels where they're actually fighting in this solid orange-red. Not quite as red as the panel where Ben sees all the corpses of the people Brusque killed down there. It does have the effect of making even the moments when Ben is trying to be gentle seems brutal. There's a panel where Ben takes a piece of rebar from Brusque and wraps it around him to pin his arms, and between the coloring, the veins in Brusque's arms and the blood, it sure looks like Ben bear-hugged him to death.

I liked how, in their first fight, Brusque clocks Ben across the face and the tires leave a tread mark across Ben's face. Only for a single silent panel, before Ben uppercuts hard enough his shirt explodes, but it's a nice detail.

What I Bought 11/29/2021 - Part 1

The third issue of Deadbox never came out in November, which may have settled whether I'm going to bother buying it, and Giant-Size Black Cat got shoved back to at least next week, so I got a grand total of 4 comics for the last three weeks of November. These crap months are getting on my nerves. They might make me do something rash like start buying Spider-Man comics again!

The Thing #1, by Walter Mosley (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Ben Grimm has no time for your sketch variant covers.

Ben comes home from a fishing trip to find himself all alone. Johnny's off at a car rally, Reed and Sue are at a scientific conference. Alicia's off at a gallery showing with some guy who wants to have an exhibit on her sculptures. Ben shows up, makes an ass of himself, gets maced, wrecks a car while flailing blindly and winds up in some special cell with Hercules. When he gets out, he finds out Alicia's ending their engagement, but there's a little pixie thing offering him a chance to utilize their matchmaking service. Oh Ben, don't trust fairies, they're jerks. But he does, and they connect him with a dancer, who seems to have a jealous, super-strong fan, who is being manipulated by a shadowy figure Ben saw in a dream (and that Herc can see looming over Ben's shoulder.)

This feels like it's going to be one of those stories where the larger fundamental forces use the main character as a pawn in one of their disagreements. You know, "I say all humanity is irredeemable!" "I say every person has good in them!" That sort of thing. I don't know exactly which fundamental forces Ben's getting jerked around by, but maybe hope and despair? The shadowy figure reaches into people's chests and turns their hearts black. Shows Ben a vision of everyone dead (are Celestials normally that much larger than Galactus? I guess I remember a Thor story where one of them is described as being over 20,000 feet tall, so maybe so.) Seems significant.

Not sure how the dating service thing fits in. Ben has to show he's willing to not just wallow in his loneliness. Live up to his description of his greatest strength (and greatest weakness) as never giving up.

Reilly's Ben Grimm is big (it's weird to see panels of the early FF and realize Kirby drew him as shorter than Reed Richards. It's like every time Ben gets cured, then turns back to the Thing, he gets larger), but expressive. The slump of his shoulders or the angles of his eyebrow ridge-thing says a lot. Although there are panels, especially when Reilly draws Ben's face from a three-quarters view, where it looks like his face is awkwardly stapled to his head. Like it's the face mask on Iron Man's armor, but it didn't seal properly. Might the way he inks along Ben's cheekbones.

I like the sound effects. The fonts, the placement. Don't know if they're Reilly's work or Sabino's, but either way.

Moon Knight #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Sure, using Pym Particles to escape form being chained up sounds like a good idea. . .

Reese's friend Terry shows up at the Mission, telling Marc he's figured out who is sending people after Moon Knight. Soldier, the guy who came for help dealing with the janitor with mind-control sweat (gross). Marc roams about, looking for Soldier and ultimately finds him in his own office, chained up with a bomb somewhere nearby. He's not the mysterious villain, and the real mysterious villain wants to see what Moon Knight will do. Cut and run? Or try to save a guy who used to be in HYDRA? 

At the end, we learn who the mysterious villain is. It's not Bullseye, or anybody else I would have ever suspected. I'm not clear on how this guy works enough to know what this is going to be like. There was a villain with this name that fought Ghost Rider in the '90s, but also another one who had his own mini-series during Fear Itself (does anyone even remember Fear Itself?) I'm guessing this guy is more like the latter than the former, but what that means I'm unsure about.

Marc also has another therapy session where his doc calls him out on only giving her surface answers to her questions. He goes into a bit about his faith, or lack thereof. His frustration with how Judaism seemed to him about just persevering while the entire world lined up to dump shit on you. I did not know Marc Spector was Jewish, but it is makes for an interesting conflict, him turning away from it and embracing an Egyptian god at the moment he was about to die. Given the whole, "enslaved by the pharaohs" aspect of history. To me, it says Marc's a survivor, and he latches onto what can keep him going. Right now, trying to use being Khonshu's fist as a force to help people, rather than Khonshu, is the thing he's holding tight to.

I'm curious to know what the mystery villain actually wants Moon Knight for. When the issue ends, he's got him over a barrel, could probably kill him easily enough. But I doubt that's what he's after, so what is he going to do with this opportunity?