The Invisible Man 1.12 - Reunion

Plot: We find Darien in a reflective mood as the episode starts, looking over photos of him and his brother. We learn their parents died when he and Kevin were children, and they went to live with their Aunt Celia and Uncle Peter. This sad piano music accompanied trip down Memory Lane is interrupted by a call from the old family physician, Dr. Anthony, who tells him Kevin has been in an accident. Kevin, who died in the first episode.

Darien lies to the Official, giving him some line about his aunt being sick, and refuses offers of aid from Hobbes and Claire. Upon reaching Dr. Anthony's office, he's told Kevin fell down some stairs, but should be fine. By the time they reach his room, he's gone, having already called a cab. Fawkes visits the cab company, but his attempt to use his badge fails when the owner notices it's from Fish & Game. So he lets the air out of their taxis' tires and uses the distraction to go through their log book, which leads to the retirement home where Aunt Celia lives. She's happy to see Darien, and doesn't ask how he got out of prison. As they talk, Kevin, no sporting a manly beard, walks in. He and Darien see each other, and Kevin bolts. Fawkes pursues, but is almost hit by a truck, which hits a cop car instead, and the cop arrests him. Again the badge fails to save him, and so does the fact he knows the sheriff from their hellraising days. So Fawkes uses chow time to sneak out, only to get busted by Hobbes, who came to check after Fawkes' name was checked by the police computers. This leads to an amusing argument where we see things either from Hobbes' perspective - through his thermal goggles - or Fawkes' - through his Quicksilver vision. Either way, Fawkes can't shake him, so Hobbes is with him on the case.

In search of clues, they travel to Darien's old home, and while they don't find anyone, they do find evidence of recent habitation, and someone turned his uncle's lab upside-down looking for something. Darien can't determine what they were looking for, but he does find an old photo. It has 3 people in it: Uncle Peter, Dr. Anthony, and the Official. Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn! Dr. Anthony isn't terribly helpful, fearing vague reprisals. Darien is now convinced Kevin survived, and the Official is hiding him. Hobbes isn't sure about all this, but opts to stand with his partner. They find a hair on the pillow, juke the local cops with some nonsense about parapsychology, and head off to confront the Official. Back at the office, Claire confirms the hair belonged to Kevin, the Official explains that Uncle Peter's work was the early stages of the gland, and it was through Peter he met Kevin who took that early work to fruition. But, he insists Kevin is dead, and they agree to dig him up.

The grave is empty.

Fawkes returns to the old home, and stews over what he believed to be Kevin's death. Then he gets a call from Kevin, asking to meet where they used to go, which turns out to be an old cabin in the woods. Darien rushes in, and finds no Kevin. He does find three books that were missing from the house, and inside, are Uncle Peter's notes. Also inside by this point is Arnaud, somehow alive after last being seen standing in the midst of at least five live grenades. Arnaud faked the whole thing to try and find Kevin's notes. Used a voice modifier, dug up and moved the body, all of it. Arnaud has a gun, but Darien has Hobbes, who also has a gun. But Arnaud also has the guy who was playing Kevin, and he has a gun. There's some fighting, Darien pursues Arnaud, who realizes he won't escape running blind through the woods. So he gives Fawkes a choice: stop Arnaud, or save the notes as he throws them in the stream. Darien opts for the notes, but it's no good, because from them, Claire could only devise how to make a new gland, not remove one. She asks Darien if he'd like to get dinner, but he declines to attend Kevin's reburial, though he ends up doing the burying himself. And Hobbes shows up to help. Awwww.

Quote of the Episode: Hobbes - 'I think you are pulling up to Paranoia Plaza, and for me to think that you have got to be nuts.'

The "oh crap" count: 1 (17 overall)

Who's getting quoted this week? Charles Schulz, who through Linus opined that sisters are the crabgrass of life, which Darien figures applies to brothers. Also PJ O'Rourke, who noted that as you get older, you find the things that matter are the things your parents told you would matter. What a horrifying revelation.

Times Darien Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (5 overall). Pretty surprising considering how much he used it. The cab company, escaping jail, tricking the cops, chasing Arnaud.

Still Fish & Game.

Other: I really should have done a "Nearly hit by cars" count for this series. That's three in just the last two episodes.

I notice that Darien was absent from the photo taken at Kevin's graduation. I suppose he could have been taking the photo, but it seems more likely he was in jail at the time. I also noted that when he visited Celia, she motioned for him to sit down next to her, and Darien took a chair diagonal from her. Keeping a little distance.

Love that all the people in this show actually read what's on the badge, rather than accepting it at face value. Pity nobody respects Fish & Game, though. Also love that when Darien went into the Official's office to get leave to deal with the "family illness", he has his fingers crossed behind his back. One wonders if he'd actually try to use that as an excuse if they called him on his behavior later. Wouldn't put it past him, he still likes to take the easy path, at least as he defines easy. In this case, it's easier to lie and go lone wolf than explain he received a call from a family friend telling him his brother's alive and well.

Celia and Peter must have been loaded. That's a pretty nice retirement place she's living in, yet she hasn't sold the home or the old cabin. The home even still has electricity! Maybe it's some pension or life insurance Kevin set up for them? Not sure who else he'd leave the money to. Darien likely wouldn't have accepted it, there's no sign Kevin had a special someone.

Last week's episode ended with Fawkes saying he wouldn't end up like Simon Cole because he had all his friends at the Agency. This seemed a little strange since the episode started with them being extremely hostile and assuming Darien beat the hell out of the Fat Man. Not very friendly at all. This episode is actually a much better support for that argument, though it demonstrates Fawkes' continuing trust issues. Hobbes offers to go with him for this "family illness", and Claire offers to contact the doctors, see if perhaps she can be of assistance. The Official doesn't even hesitate to agree to give him compassionate leave. Once Hobbes shows up to investigate, he's on board with helping. Even when he thinks it sounds crazy, even when Darien's spoiling for a showdown with the Official, Hobbes sides with him. Claire does the DNA test with no apparent hesitation, the Official seems completely willing to dig up Kevin to prove Fawkes is nuts. Granted, he's not doing the digging, and they did it secretly at night, but he seemed quite willing to go along with it to try and calm Fawkes down. Maybe he's worried Darien will go invisible and beat the hell out of him again.

Or he's afraid someone pulled a fast one on him. He likes to joke about how Darien vastly overrates the Official's abilities, but the Fat Man definitely thinks he's pretty slick. That, "aw shucks, I'm just a humble public servant" stuff is a facade. He's got more than a bit of Amanda Waller in him. The idea that someone may have rescued Kevin and recruited him to their side, or that perhaps Kevin orchestrated the whole thing himself would no doubt be galling to him. And he was visibly shaken when the coffin was empty. He knew he had nothing to do with it, so who did? And he didn't know, which might have been the worst part of all.

And in related news, Arnaud is back! Yay! Arnaud might be one of my favorite fictional villains ever, up there with Arcade. Dr. Doom, and Gilroy from Season 3 of Burn Notice. It's been awhile since I'd watched these episode, so I'd forgotten he had an accomplice. I thought Arnaud was passing himself off as Kevin, which would have been impressive given the considerably different shapes of their heads. It is a strange plan, though. I can't tell whether drawing Darien in was always part of it, or an audible Arnaud called halfway through. Was he getting nowhere on other avenues and coerced Dr. Anthony, or did his lackey actually injure himself and once they learned Darien had been contacted, Arnaud just rolled with it? I'm guessing the former, but man, that's a lot of trouble. Kind of wished they hadn't done the flashbacks to Kevin's death, where they prominently feature Arnaud, there at the end. It maybe tipped the hand too much, but I guess we hadn't seen Arnaud since the Pilot, so they wanted newcomers to have some idea who he was.

Favorite DC Characters #7 - Amanda Waller

Character: THE WALL (Amanda Waller)

Creators: John Byrne, John Ostrander, Len Wein. Really tempted to say to hell with my alphabetical rule and put Ostrander first.

First appearance: Legends #1

First encounter: Probably the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, where she was so ably voiced by CCH Pounder. Then I wandered into the comics blogowhatchamacallit, and oh there were so many posts extolling the virtues of Suicide Squad. Dave Campbell, Chris Sims, so many others. That got me on the lookout for her, and the first comic encounter was probably the Suicide Squad: From the Ashes mini-series Ostrander wrote in late 2007 - early 2008.

Definitive writer: John Ostrander, and probably also Kim Yale since they wrote a lot of that together.

Definitive artist: Jerry Bingham. Now, so far as I recall, Bingham didn't draw a single issue of Suicide Squad. He did, however, draw that cover right over there, of Waller putting Batman in the corner. When I think of the Wall, that's what I see. Batman can be "I AM THE NIGHT!" all he wants, but guess what? Walls don't care whether the sun's up or not. They do what they do 24-7-365.

Favorite moment or story: Jeez, where do you even start? Waller taking no crap from Rick Flag, or setting Boomerang straight on who runs this show (those are both from Legends, judging by the art)? Her revenge on Boomerbutt for being the mystery pie thrower (Suicide Squad #37)? I know her smacking Granny Goodness is quite popular, though I think the more impressive moments come later, both when she blows off Darkseid's offer to resurrect her dead niece (knowing he would then be able to control Flo, Suicide Squad #34-36), and that after Granny threw her into the ground hard enough to make an impact crater, Amanda got up. She doesn't have actually super-powers you know; she's just that tough. There was the time Deadshot came in looking to kill her and she calmly talked him out of it, and hired him. Or the time he did shoot her in the chest and she shrugged it off, because if he wanted to kill her, he would have. Now they were square and he might accept a job next time she asked (Secret Six #18).

But there are two I really like, one silly, one not. The first is from a backup story in Suicide Squad Annual #1, when Waller comes home to find her daughter waiting in her apartment, complaining her husband is too controlling. Said football playing husband soon arrives (drawn by Keith Giffen as filling the doorway), and the couple bickers as Waller calls up the doorman and tell his he's doubly-fired for allowing another person up here without her say-so. When her daughter announces she'll be staying with Amanda, it's over. The Wall hits the roof, informing them they will work out their differences and respect each other's opinions, or she will retire and move in with them to make their lives miserable. At one point, while giving R.J. the straight talk, he tries to retort that she can't speak to him like that, he's a trained professional athlete. Waller blows that off with, 'You'll be chump change if you mess with me!' I like that for how completely unimpressed she is with him, and how irate she is at having her home disturbed by noisy children. I really wanted to find a scan of that, but the Internet failed me.

The other is from issue #39. After Lashina hijacked half the Squad and dragged them to Apokolips, Waller's out. She's played too many things too close to the vest, the Squad's being shut down. But there's the matter of the Loa, a drug cartel who has placed an additive in their drugs which will turns users into zombies they control, which they will use to extort the government. Waller's not having any of that, so under the table she recruits Ravan, Poison Ivy, and Deadshot. They'll all be getting locked up when the Squad's shut down, but if they help her, she'll let them go. They do, and the four cut a swath through the Loa's forces, right to their office. Once there, the drug pushers attempt to surrender, figuring they can afford lawyers to get out of jail. But Amanda has no official standing, this isn't a sanctioned mission, and she and Deadshot gun them down. That's pretty badass on it's own, and a valuable reminder that taking power away from Amanda Waller is as dangerous as giving it to her, but what I liked is she kept her word and released Floyd and the others. Probably not the best thing she he and Ravan would go out and kill people, while Ivy would grab control of Count Vertigo and set herself up like a prince, but she made a deal, and she kept it. Then she stayed behind to take the fall.

What I like about her: Everyone likes Amanda Waller. Well, except Captain Boomerang. She's not comic book super-scientist smart (ala Luthor), but she's still smart. She'll fight dirty when she needs to, play it honorably when she can (or has to). Like when Batman sneaks into Belle Reve to gain evidence to shut down the Squad, Waller is willing to threaten using the fingerprints he left to determine his identity and out him to the world. And Bats knows she not only would do it, she can do it. So he agrees to return the information he took, and she promises not to. And each knows the other will keep their word.

I don't like it when Waller is portrayed as Government Person Who Doesn't Like Super-Heroes. She's not DC's answer to Peter Gyrich (she's not incompetent for one thing). She can be an antagonist, certainly, and a good one, but it shouldn't be her default state, for a couple of reasons. One, Waller is smart enough to know placing yourself in direct opposition to super-heroes never ends well. She has a prison full of people - that she sends on dangerous missions in exchange for early release - who are proof of that. It can be unavoidable, but it's not the best route to take. Beyond that, Waller's pretty perceptive, and she knows most of these costumed heroes are actually trying to do good, and she respects it. Unless they make themselves an immediate threat, she's not going to concentrate on them. Making contingency plans for someone who might become a problem, someday, down the line, is for people with too much free time on their hands. Amanda Waller has dozens of threats right now that need taking care of.

I see Waller as not being on a constant collision course with the other heroes, but more a diagonal course. Sometimes their goals will intersect, sometimes their methods will differ, or their interests in a person will differ, and yeah, sometimes they'll be in direct conflict. But it can vary.

Beyond the fact she's crafty and vicious if need be, there's the simple fact she's tough. If she can't outsmart you or beat you fighting dirty, she may just roll right over you. She takes no crap from anybody. Even when she was pitching the idea of reviving Task Force X to Reagan, she took time to chide him for cutting a lot of the social welfare programs that had been so valuable to people in tough circumstances, such as Amanda Waller. She can give as good as she gets in an argument with Batman, survive a fight with mind-controlled Ted Kord, or talk calmly with a complete loon like Deadshot when he's just kicked in the door and said he's there to kill her.

She has her flaws. She takes on too much, she plays things too close to the vest, and sometimes she just makes rash decisions. She figured out Duchess was actually Lashina, but didn't tell much of anyone else, and whatever provisions she'd made were clearly not enough. And Flo died as a result. She gets a little too in love with the power she wields, which means she makes decisions based on holding on to that power, rather than using it well. She keeps people around to act as a check on her, but she makes that so difficult they tend to leave. Nemesis left, Dr. Lagrieve left, Rick Flag went off the deep end, killed a sleazeball Senator, and eventually blew himself up in nuclear fire (he got better, because comics). Nightshade left, Bronze Tiger had a nervous breakdown, Vixen left, came back, left again. Not all of that was because of Waller, but it's notable the people most likely to check her have trouble lasting, and it isn't because they die. Mostly.

Which is maybe the most important thing about Amanda Waller. Beyond how clever she is, how good she is at fighting dirty both politically and literally fighting, she endures. That's what a wall does. It stands in the face of all sorts of hardships, and it holds up whatever it's meant to hold. Amanda Waller believes she can help make the world safer, and she keeps moving forward along that path. Sometimes she makes a bad choice, alienates an ally, creates a new enemy, but she keeps going forward, learning from that, changing her methods. When she felt being part of the U.S. government was hampering the Squad (because of all the official oversight, and the stupid p.r. missions they occasionally had to do, like rescuing that writer in Russia), she took them freelance. If you can find them, and you can afford them, maybe you can hire the Suicide Squad. It gave her more freedom to decide which missions they took, and how they accomplished them. She adapts, but is always moving toward that same basic goal.

Marshall and His Generals - Stephen R. Taaffe

Marshall and His Generals is a book along the same lines as Weigley's Eisenhower's Lieutenants. It's not identical. It's 300 pages shorter, for one thing. Taaffe's book covers the entirety of the United States Army's involvement in World War II, rather than focusing strictly on the European Theater from Normandy onward. He's less concerned with describing specific tactical deployments and maneuvers, except when discussing a particular general's ability or lack thereof in that area. He sticks strictly to American generals, as those are people under Marhsall's command. So very little mention of Montgomery.

Taaffe is more interested in trying to determine what Marshall (and to a lesser extent, Eisenhower and MacArthur) looked for in a general, where there any common threads, and how successful were those selections. Marshall wanted younger men (meaning below 60) believing older fellows didn't have the physical vitality necessary to lead in combat. He wanted them to have a clear head, and he wanted them to be aggressive. That last one is the area where most American generals fell short, that or tactical creativity. Taaffe argues that's not a huge deal because the Army was working from a numerical advantage and as part of a combined effort with air and artillery, so they needed calm and competence first and foremost. And in those areas, most American generals did well. They didn't lose their heads if things went badly, or got bogged down, and they mostly kept their objectives clear in their minds. They just weren't typically innovative in how they accomplished them.

So it's an interesting book. Taaffe gets into personalities a lot, and for all that the guys at the top might claim they made their decisions on who to promote or assign on the basis of merit, there's a lot of cronyism. People are frequently requested for commands by those the came up the ranks with, or people they like, even if they aren't very good. Courtney Hodges certainly comes off as someone getting by because Eisenhower and Marshall think he's better than he is, while Taaffe takes Ike to task for constantly belittling Jacob Devers, who did quite well, especially considering he was at the end of the line for supplies (as far as the European Theater went, anyway. Still probably ahead of the guys in the Pacific).

That was one thing I learned in the book I appreciated. Weigley had made mention that Ike didn't like Devers, but didn't expand on it. Turns out that when Ike was in charge during the Sicily and Italy invasions, he asked for some bomber squadrons from England, and Devers turned him down. Which was enough to get him on Ike's shit list, apparently. So he denigrated him at every turn, and criticized him quiet unfairly. Which is why it's kind of funny Devers outmaneuvers Ike bureaucratically again later in the war. Maybe the problem isn't Devers, Ike. It's disappointing considering Devers did a good job working with the Free French forces, which required the sort of deft touch Ike should have appreciated, both from dealing with DeGaulle, and having to pull a similar juggling act between American and British forces (though of course, Ike felt Devers wasn't doing a good enough job of it). Devers may end up being my American version of Auchinleck.

Marshall's better, but even he has his favorites - Joe Stilwell among them - and there are times he seems too hands off. Marhsall's policy was to not try and force commanders on generals, because he wanted them to work with people they trusted and felt comfortable with. But that means you have Ike giving certain people much too long of a leash, or MacArthur selecting people based on whether they'll rob him of any spotlight. OK, that's unfair to MacArthur. A lot of times he simply prefers to go with men he trusts because he's seen them in action as commanders. But he does like Walter Krueger in part because Krueger hates the spotlight, which means Mac doesn't have to share.

The one other thing Taaffe brought up that was new to me was the idea that Patton's time spent in exile in Sicily (after some ill-advised comments at a dinner) had a positive effect on him. He used it for self-reflection, and when he gained the Third Army in France, handled his subordinates much better. He would still get impatient and yell, but he had a better grasp of which ones needed prodding and which needing supportive words. That isn't something I'd read about in any of the other books which have discussed that I've read this spring.

'Marshall looked for officers with integrity, initiative, a sense of duty, a can-do attitude, aggressiveness, and drive, which was a big reason why so many combat leaders shared so many of these traits - they were all cut from the same Marshall cloth.'

What I Bought 6/6/2014 - Part 2

Of the two books today, one is a consistent winner, and the other is a book I didn't order, but decided to hold onto anyway, rather than send it back.

Daredevil #3, by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid (storytellers), Javier Rodriguez (color art), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - That's a nice cover. The way Justice's two scales form DD's eyes, with the one slightly tipped and spilling forming a tear.

 So it really is the Owl in San Francisco. I'm just going to assume this takes place after Superior Foes of Spider-Man wraps up. Simpler that way. Matt scuffles a bit with the Shroud, who wanted to build his rep by beating Daredevil so he could draw out the Owl. Matt agrees it isn't a bad plan, but he doesn't trust the Shroud that much. He will, however, still help get at the Owl. By walking up to his estate as Murdock as presenting a subpoena. Which is really a restaurant order, but it keeps the bad guy distracted until the Shroud can slip in and get close. At which point the Owl flips the script by offering to help the Shroud find Julia. Meaning Julia Carpenter, second Spider-Woman. Which gets the Shroud to seemingly switch sides, and Matt, with no helpful cane, is falling into a pit of fire. Got to admire a villain who keeps a trap-door firepit in his office. That's old-school villain, right there. Also, Foggy Nelson dons a disguise to visit Kirsten, who is displeased he came out of hiding. The furious scowl Samnee gives her was outstanding, as was Foggy's disguise. Two legs in casts, the tattered Army jacket, the ridiculous beard. I do wonder where he found thos clothes, though.

I had completely forgotten the Shroud and Julia Carpenter were dating back before Civil War. Remembering that is the thing I mentioned that put me in a bad mood towards Carol Danvers when I picked up Captain Marvel #3 to read right after reading this. Because as you recall, when Julia declined to arrest her boyfriend and they had to go on the run, Carol (along with that loser Wonder Man) tracked them down and attacked them on a crowded freeway, endangering many civilians, which Carol blamed Shroud and Julia for, instead of herself for being so sloppy (or for being such a traitor she arrests her friends). Oh, and that led to the wonderful scene where Julia was arrested and dragged away in front of her daughter. Boo hiss. None of which is relevant to Daredevil #3, it's just something that came flooding back when I was reading this.

You'd think one of the Owl's goons would have inspected the subpoena, but it fits with this take Waid has on him. He's still vicious and murderous, but more calculating, more bent on acquiring information, then leveraging it in the way he sees fit. Given that, and that he killed one of his subordinates for learning Murdock's address, it makes sense none of them are going to risk looking at the subpoena and seeing something he doesn't want them knowing. I definitely prefer this version to the sort of buffoonish sadist in Superior Foes, though it's necessary he be like that in that book. A dope like Boomerang wouldn't have outmaneuvered this Owl.

Deadpool Annual #2, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Matt Milla (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I kept it because it wasn't a very big month otherwise, and Hastings and Camagni did the Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe mini-series I enjoyed last winter.

Deadpool is hang-gliding through New York, looking for empty penthouses to sleep in, when he's grabbed by Spider-Man, who is convinced Deadpool isn't Deadpool, and is going to try and stab Spidey. So Deadpool proves who he is by shooting himself. Which calms Spidey down enough to explain that people keep trying to stab him lately, then vanishing. He's sure it's the Chameleon, but he can't catch him, and the threats are so constant, he can't risk sleep. Some maintenance guys come onto the roof and Spidey flees into the building, so he doesn't see that one of them is the Chameleon. Soon enough Spidey's attacking a woman in an office because he saw her change from the Chameleon (though how he got down there to that office first I don't know), and when wade talks Spidey out of doing something drastic, the woman stabs Spidey in the neck with a syringe. Wade attempts sending him splat on the pavement, but the web-slinger's just conscious enough to sling a few webs and prevent that before passing out. With no other option, Wade switches costumes with Spidey to draw out the Chameleon. One odd touch Camagni uses is that when Wade wears the Spidey costume, the mask has that same little bit of fabric sticking up near the back of his head Deadpool's mask normally does. Look at the cover to see what I mean, that little peak in the back. Must be something about the shape of Wade's head.

The plan doesn't entirely work at first, but Deadpool does save a woman from a mugger and delivers him to the cops (sort of). He also stops some ridiculous snake-themed villain who wanted to steal a ray that can turn any matter into mice. So he could feed all of his snakes. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Fortunately, as Deadpool notes, Spider-Man is a champion against dumb, and settles that guy's hash right off. Well, sort of. First the guy and all the snakes get turned into one giant mouse, but then Wade is able to swing a helicopter into it, causing a disruption that returns them to normal. Which does mean it rains snakes over an intersection for a minute. As Wade enjoys his triumph, the Chameleon sneaks up and stabs him. Then Spidey shows up in Wade's outfit, there's a bit of a struggle (Spidey must still be groggy from that nap if he's having any trouble at all with the Chameleon), then there are two Deadpools, but Wade figures out which is which. Then we learn Peter's still using Octavius' "improved" web fluid, which has an easily-traceable radioactive compound in it. Otto, whatever fictional hell you're hopefully rotting in, I hope you know I'm pointing and laughing.

Camagni really gets expressive with the Spidey mask, which is fine with me. I know it shouldn't probably be that obvious when he's smiling, and the eyeholes probably shouldn't change shape like that, but it's always a style choice I like. I also like that when Wade leaps out of a building and lands on a car, he crushes the roof, rather than landing lightly as Spider-Man usually manages to. Little surprised that didn't pulp his kneecaps, though.

So that's the story. Little slight, and Hastings' Deadpool skews more silly than Posehn and Duggan's, but he has that core of decency (slightly bent, but still there) I always like to see in Deadpool. He may not always make the best decisions, but he usually means well. OK, frequently means well. Sometimes means well.

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey - Edward Achorn

Not all the books my dad sends along are about war and killin'. Sometimes they're about baseball, and alcohol.

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey focuses primarily on the American Association's 1883 baseball season, and how the ideas the Association applied helped keep baseball from dying out. As described by Achorn, baseball was fading in popularity as it entered the 1880s, in large part because of several game-fixing scandals, and because it was being marketed to a more limited, upper-class (or at least middle-class) audience. One of the primary characters in the book is Chris Von der Ahe, a German immigrant who owned a brewery and took a chance on starting up his own team (the St. Louis Browns, who later became the St. Louis Cardinals, as opposed to the later version of the Browns, who eventually became the Baltimore Orioles, not to be confused with the Baltimore Orioles who were part of this American Association). The National League wouldn't let him in, so he found some other like-minded fellows who started up their own teams and formed their own league.

The American Association's key was to market the game more towards working class folk. Seats were available for a quarter, rather than 50 cents. Games were played on Sunday, the only day most laborers had off. And beer and whiskey were sold at the game (small wonder, considering several of the owners, like Von der Ahe, owned their own breweries or distilleries). They would offer contracts to players the National League had blacklisted, and even players still under contract to National League teams. All this was frowned upon in certain sectors (especially in the offices of those National League teams), but it worked, especially as they were able to lure more of the best players to their league, raising the standard of play, making it more exciting for the fans. Achorn focuses on the '83 season in large part because it's the first year where all those things come together well, and also because it's one of the seasons that perhaps best encapsulates Von der Ahe (think George Steinbrenner: Mercurial, hungry to win, willing to spend, inclined to meddle).

Achorn fills the book with the colorful characters of the era, detailing the difficulties teams had keeping their players from partying too much, and the inevitable media backlash  For all the things that were different about baseball then versus baseball now - no gloves, needing to throw 7 balls to walk a batter, fans sitting in the field of play when the crowds got too large, games routinely ending in 90 minutes - there were a lot of similarities. The connection between sports and alcohol, obviously. Teams would pay lip service to the idea of their players having strong moral character, but ultimately look the other way for talent. The media siding with management against the players (the fans do this, too, especially these days, which is one of the things I find most distasteful about other sports fans). Players will be "man" enough to hit other players with pitches, but not bold enough to admit it was done on purpose. Trying to influence umpires. Players will be criticized for doing things with too much flash (if it doesn't work, that is). Arlie Latham got some criticism for cutting in front of the shortstop to field balls, then flubbing them. Doubtless no one would complain if he'd made the play.

Achorn also expands the book beyond just the American Association, checking in on the National League when developments there impact the Association, and also devotes a chapter to the resurgence in leagues for black players at that time, which was unfortunately made necessary by racists pushing for segregation. Cap Anson plays a major role in that chapter as someone who pitched a fit when he had to play an exhibition game against a Toledo team that employed Fleetwood Walker, an excellent catcher who just so happened to be black.

It's an excellent book that recaps the important games of the pennant race with an appropriate tension, and gives a real sense of how quickly the public's interest in baseball was rekindled once they had the opportunity to actually go see games.

What I Bought 6/6/2014 - Part 1

Yes, comics arrived last week! Not everything I was hoping for, but most things! Enough to alternate with the book stuff for at least a couple of weeks! Rejoice that it won't just be books about World War 2 around here in the immediate future!

Avengers Undercover #4, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Kids, kids, kids, don't dress up like the adults. It just makes you look silly.

So, Arcade's dead. And as everyone celebrates, Cammi astutely notes that Arcade was no doubt recording and broadcasting everything that was happening worldwide. Which means everyone saw them infiltrate Arcade's place, likely heard their conversations about killing him, and then saw Hazmat actually kill him. So yeah, on the hook for premeditated murder now. The attempt to flee is short-circuited by SHIELD, who show up and capture all the kids. Great, where were you five months ago? If Marvel's current line is to convince us government-run superheroes are a good thing, they're doing a really shitty job of it. So incompetent.

In the holding cells, there's one interesting scene where Molly and the other Runaways have come to visit Chase and Nico, and Molly lays the blame squarely on Nico, which is true enough (excepting Bloodstone). The meat of it goes to Cammi and her mother, as Cammi urges her to cut her daughter out of her life, because she doesn't need this while trying to stay sober. Cammi's mother refuses, claiming caring for her daughter is what keeps her sober. Then Hellstrom teleports all of them away to Zemo's hangout, where he makes his big sales pitch. Essentially, there is no reason they should be reprimanded for using their gifts for personal gain, and that's all he and his associates are doing, so why not throw in? Cammi is having none of it, and most of the others are expressing doubts, but we'll see.

Well, Cammi's getting to shine with her particular brand of abrasive common sense, so I'm happy. Sure, it's painting an enormous bullseye on her, not just with Zemo, but the others (Nico already expressed frustration with Cammi presuming to speak for everyone, even though all Cammi was doing was arguing Bloodstone should have given people the choice to accompany him on his murder mission, rather than whisking them along).

Kev Walker's back, and the book looks good as usual. The conversation between Cammi and her mom, he keeps it simple. Just a lot of short, wide panels stacked on top of each other. But that works, because the focus is supposed to be the two characters, what they're saying and how they react to each other, so flashy layouts would just distract from that. Also, the look he drew on Cammi when Zemo appears, beautiful. That was a wonderful "DROP DEAD" scowl. He did interrupt a touching family moment, though, so it's understandable. Beaulieu's colors are also excellent. I especially like the purple shadow that covers the kids as they first enter Zemo's dining chamber.

Captain Marvel #3, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), David Lopez (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Carol tries to chase after her stolen ship, even knowing she can't catch it. She doesn't. Fortunately, Tic decides it's more important to try killing Star-Lord - because she blames his dad for all the people getting sick and dying - than to escape. So she keeps attacking the Guardians' ship, which gives Carol the chance to grab hold of her ship and assume voice control. Then she berates Tic for behaving dishonorably until the kid bursts out crying. They end up going to this planet, where Carol tries to talk to the leader person. Well, less talk more, not mansplain, she isn't a man, Avengesplain, maybe? The leader shuts that crap down, pointing out Carol understands nothing of their situation and has brought nothing useful. No doctors, no medicines, food, no army of superhumans to help. Just herself. I guess next issue I'll see whether "just herself" is worth anything.

You know, I read this issue initially after another comic (which I'll get to later in the week) which reminded me of some of her past actions I didn't like (think Civil War). After she made the kid cry, and especially after she accused the child of acting dishonorably, I was not well-pleased with Danvers. Lots of snarky comments being fired at the book. On the other hand, I give her credit for remaining calm as long as she did when that big guy kept punching her in the face. Also, pretty funny when Tic said Carol wasn't the one she went to Earth for, that was Spider-Woman, but Captain Marvel would be helpful, too. Mostly because Lopez did so well with the expressions, Tic's glee and Carol's dumbfounded shock. His best work might have been the scene where Tic started crying. He made sure to get her entire face into that, eyes, mouth, nostrils. No "few tears streaming down otherwise unchanged face" for David Lopez! Tic was gonna bawl, and that's what she did.

I'm not quite sure about this book. It's in that same sort of area as Harley Quinn, where I don't love it, but I feel like there's obvious skill on the part of the creative team, and it's good enough I don't want to bail yet. But it's in the back of my mind. Maybe if they get into this "Poison Planet" thing a little more?

The Limits of Air Power - Mark Clodfelter

I saw my dad this weekend, and you know what that means: Lots of and lots of books, mostly about military history! It's kind of staggering how many there are out there, you know.

The Limits of Air Power is about exactly what the title says, though as the subtitle explains, it focuses primarily on the bombing on North Vietnam, with some early discussion of World War II and Korea, as those experiences relate to American bombing doctrine.

One thing Clodfelter references frequently is the idea of positive and negative political goals. Negative goals are ones that limit application of military power. So LBJ's desire to not drag China or the Soviet Union in Vietnam, and how that tended to keep bombing south of the 20th parallel, would be a negative goal. Positive goals are ones that release limits on military power. In World War II, FDR's demand for total surrender by the Axis was a positive goal. It meant, ultimately, that the Allies could bomb the crap out of anything in the Axis countries, rather than being restricted solely to military targets.

Clodfelter examines the major bombing campaigns - Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I, Linebacker II - and assesses the relative success they had, their objectives, and what negative and positive goals were working on them. He notes that the military chiefs are of the opinion that Rolling Thunder failed because they were too restricted in what they could hit, and how often they could hit it, and they point to the success of the two Linebacker campaigns as proof.

Clodfelter argues the goals and situation Nixon faced when he authorized those were completely different from LBJ's for Rolling Thunder. Nixon was able to use diplomacy to exert pressure to convince China and the USSR to stay out of the way, and he wasn't trying to force North Vietnam to recognize South Vietnam as a separate nation with a legitimate government. He was simply trying to get them to stop trying to take it over, so he could withdraw American forces.

LBJ didn't have favorable situations enabling him to exert pressure on the major Communist powers (like the Soviets needing grain) in his favor. Also, he was pushing for North Vietnam to recognize South Vietnam as a legitimate separate nation, which they were not inclined to do. And even if they had been so inclined, the Viet Cong would not have cared if North Vietnam did agree. Bombing North Vietnam wasn't going to stop them, because they were already in South Vietnam, and the nature of their battle was such that supply requirements were very low. There was essentially no way the U.S. could do a sufficient amount of damage to North Vietnamese infrastructure to seriously impair their ability to supply a force that only fought an average of one day in 30, as Clodfelter describes it. When the bombing campaigns did have success, during the Tet Offensive and the later invasion by 12 North Vietnamese Army divisions, it was because the U.S. faced a force fighting a conventional war, the one they had been training to fight, and the supply demands placed upon that army were great enough the bombing could have an effect.

It's only about 210 pages (not counting notes and bibliography), so it isn't a long book. I already knew about a lot of the broad strokes of it - the U.S. not understanding the people they were fighting, thinking that strategies which would work against us would work just as well against them, choosing to view things that don't work as an aberration, rather than a trend to learn from, military and political leaders being hostile to one another and blaming each other for failure - but some of the specifics were interesting. It made me think of Neptune's Inferno, the book I read last year about the Navy's battles around Guadalcanal, in the sense of how the different services were interdependent. The soldiers needed the ships for supplies, and the ships needed planes to protect them from enemy planes during the day. But the planes need soldiers to defend the airfield from enemy ground forces, and ships to protect it from enemy fleets at night. Clodfelter doesn't really get into that, but there is a sense that the bombing campaign can't be the end-all, be-all. It has to be used in accompaniment with other forces, and even so, there are limits to what it can accomplish in regards to other goals.

'Ginsburgh's comment indicated the depth of the air leaders' conviction that their bombing doctrine suited the nature of the war. In fact, air commanders had molded the war to suit their doctrine. Most air chiefs viewed the war as a conventional conflict in which the enemy required essential logistical support, not as an infrequently waged guerrilla struggle. Those few who perceived Vietnam as a "people's war" thought that the North attached great value to its nascent industrial establishment, which included the transportation and POL systems. In like fashion, the air chiefs' emphasis on destroying the "modern" elements of the Northern state obscured Johnson's negative goals and caused many commanders to dismiss the President's fears of Chinese or Soviet intervention. Air leaders thus proceeded in Vietnam much as their predecessors had in World War II - they aimed to wreck the enemy economy to produce a prostrate foe. They seldom paused to consider whether or not their perception of the war was correct, or if it confirmed to that of their political leaders.'

The Invisible Man 1.11 - The Other Invisible Man

Plot: We open in the offices of the Agency, at night, as the Official burns the midnight oil balancing those books. Someone strides into his office, demanding to know where Fawkes is, then beats the Official to a pulp with a chair - after he turned invisible.

Morning finds us at Darien's apartment as he prepares for work. Which involves rapping about himself as he gets dressed. I have no clue how Ventresca managed that with a straight face, but he did. Fortunately, Hobbes is no more a fan of the white boy rap than I am, and bursts in to throw Fawkes on the ground and cuff him. He drags Fawkes to the Keeper's lab, where we learn they all suspect him of going Quicksilver Mad and attacking the Official. But the tattoo shows Fawkes is fine, and his handwriting doesn't match the note left with the Official's battered body. But there were Quicksilver flakes left at the scene (they last for 2-3 days, according to Claire). Fawkes maintains his innocence, and is more than a little pissed his friends have turned on him so quickly, but it's then Eberts mentions Simon Cole.

Simon Cole was the first human subject for the I-Man project, before Eberts transferred from the IRS. He doesn't know what happened, but he is able to find Cole's file, stating that he was a CIA assassin before joining the project. He also had a girlfriend, Ivory Thompson, so Fawkes and Hobbes seek her out. But she hasn't seem Simon in over a year. But just because you can't see an invisible guy, doesn't mean he isn't there, and Fawkes sees a ketchup bottle turn invisible. When he Quicksilvers his eyes, he's able to see a human outline and gives chase, but he's so focused on Simon he almost gets run over (Hobbes makes the save).

At this point, Darien is spooked, and asks for a gun. But the Agency has no arms budget, you have to furnish your own, and Hobbes won't give him one. So Darien sleeps with a hammer, which doesn't stop someone from sneaking into his room and leaving the skeleton of a lab rat from the project in his jacket pocket. Once Claire's identified it, she tells them all the rats were left behind at the original lab site - the place where Darien Fawkes had the gland implanted, and Kevin Fawkes died. Off they go, but while there are footprints in the dust, and even some Quicksilver flakes, there's no sign of Simon, save a diary Darien finds behind a bathroom sink. Most of it is love letters to Ivory, but after the gland's implanted, it shifts. The writing becomes erratic, and Fawkes tells the other two it's because Simon couldn't see his hand as he wrote. He couldn't turn the gland off, and the diary ends with him desperate to find Kevin Fawkes and make him fix this. But Kevin's dead, which leaves the Keeper. At least she has a Dirty Harry-sized hand cannon.

Back at the lab, we see the Keeper not terribly sympathetic to Simon, perhaps because he's causing everyone to act overly protective of her. Fawkes is obsessed with reading the diary, while Hobbes just wants to hunt Cole down. They go visit Ivory, but she bursts into tears when she sees them, runs, and is nearly hit by a car herself. At which point Fawkes spies Cole again and takes off in pursuit. Right then, the Official awakens long enough to write a single message to Claire: "1 GLAND". Fawkes pursuit leads him right through a window, and when he wakes up, he's back at the lab, courtesy of Hobbes.

OK, it's about to get weird. Fawkes' gland was originally Cole's gland, harvested after his death, when he went crazy trying to get the gland out. But some of his memory RNA is still in the gland, and the gland has sort of interfaced with Darien's pineal gland, and the Cole RNA is able to control Darien's body at night. Fawkes calls this bunk and flees, but eventually makes his way back to the lab, with Cole now in full control (even though Darien was awake?), to force Claire to remove the gland. He figures Fawkes is better off dead, but they're able to subdue him and Claire injects something into the gland that washes the mRNA out. Afterward, they sort of explain to Ivory what happened, and the Official accepts Fawkes apology, which is really just the Official sucker-punching him. Like Darien attacked him on purpose. It ends with Fawkes alluding to the fact that he's different from Simon because he has his friends at the Agency. Awwwwww.

Quote of the Episode: Fawkes - 'Well, excuse me if I'm a tad apprehensive over an invisible assassin.' Hobbes - 'He's just ticked off 'cause he's a sequel.'

The "oh crap" count: 1 (16 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Mark Twain, who opined being good will leave you lonely.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (5 overall). I know Claire said it wasn't Q.M., but come on. The gland caused him to assume another person's personality and nearly kill a couple of people.

Still Fish & Game

Other: I know Fawkes previously told Claire that if he went Quicksilver Mad again, they were to kill him. Still, I'm a little disappointed how quickly they became hostile. Hobbes especially. I thought they were buddies now, and he's cuffing Fawkes, constantly jabbing him with the gun, making aggressive wisecracks about '$6 million dandruff'.  I'm not sure those are the people you should count on to keep you from winding up like Cole, Darien.

Also, while we're at it, didn't the Keeper tell Fawkes the gland wasn't evil? I think that was episode 4, "Tiresias". It partially interfaced with one of the other glands in his brain and gave a suicidally depressed assassin control of his brain. Sounds evil to me. Keep might want to accelerate her research into getting the gland safely out of Darien.

Nice how the writers lampshaded the question of how Darien sees. It's a valid question. If there's Quicksilver over his eyes, and it bends light around them, how does any light reach his eyes for him to see things? Answer, he's seeing in other spectrums of light, ultraviolet apparently. I don't know if that jibes - how does Quickcilver alter his eyes so they can process ultraviolet light, doesn't UV tend to penetrate objects rather than bounce off - but at least it's an attempt. It's not a huge issue, but as a comic fan, I'm sort of predisposed to these questions (like how does Kitty Pryde see when phased if energy passes through her?)

I did like the stunt Darien/Cole pulled on one of the Agency guys, standing at the end of a hallway, letting the guy rush towards him, only to crash into the closed door Darien had Quicksilvered. Very smooth. It was a good idea letting him render other objects invisible. Allows for more creativity. Of course, it left behind a lot of Quicksilver flakes someone could use to pin something on Darien here in the next couple days.

Near the end, Eberts explains that it was after Cole's death that Kevin Fawkes and Arnaud were able to fix the gland so the recipient could turn visible again. I wonder if the problem with Simon wasn't that he couldn't become visible again. What if Arnaud had already built that flaw into the gland, the one that makes Darien need counteragent? How would you know? You couldn't see his eyes to tell they were red, and any abnormalities in his behavior could be chalked up to the stress of not being able to turn visible again. I'm sure that stress played a role, but there's a chance it was helped along by the narcotic in the gland.

That was a little hint of the answer to the mystery wasn't it. The fact they found Quicksilver flakes, yet Cole supposedly couldn't turn visible. If he was permanently Quicksilvered, he wouldn't leave the flakes behind. Not unless he was wounded (Darien spurted some Quicksilver when he was shot in "Ralph"), which wasn't the case.

I want to know the story behind why Eberts transferred from the IRS. He made it sound like a voluntary decision on his part. What made him come to this podunk little agency, that has to piggyback off other, larger departments with actual budgets, like one of the pilot fish that follow sharks?

Favorite Marvel Characters #8 - Stacy X

I expect this one to prompt some spit-takes and head scratching.

Character: Stacy X (Miranda Leevald)

Creators: Joe Casey and Tom Raney

First appearance: Uncanny X-Men #399

First encounter: Uncanny X-Men #399. I had read some Wizard special touting the new era for the X-books, with Morrison on New X-Men and Casey on Uncanny. Well, I didn't know either of those guys from a hole in the wall (I've really only started keeping track of creators in the years since I started this blog). What I did know was Morrison made a team of Xavier (don't care), Jean Grey (don't care), Emma Frost (don't care), the Beast (eh), and Cyclops (HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE). Joe Casey had Nightcrawler (they both were using Wolverine, so that's a wash). It was no contest, so I was in pretty much from the start. No regrets.

Definitive writer: Joe Casey. Not exactly a lot of choices.

Definitive artist: It probably ought to be Sean Phillips, but I'm not actually a fan of his art. I suppose it works for the stuff he does with Brubaker, but it isn't really what I like in a superhero book. So, Aaron Lopresti. *Abe Simpson voice* Now there's an art style you set your watch to!

Favorite moment or story: There was that time she got captured by the Church of Humanity and they tortured her for secrets on the X-Men and she gave them nothing (Uncanny 400). Sure, she hadn't been around long enough to know anything, but she fed them a lot of bull until she got tired of that and told them to take a long walk off a short pier. She took out the Blob once (Uncanny 406). We didn't get to see it, but Paige Guthrie and Jubilee both seemed impressed (of course, Chuck Austen came along and made Paige and Stacy rivals for Archangel's affections, 'cause girls always got to fight heatedly over guys, right?). There was the time she helped essentially the Marvel universe's version of Chef Boy-R-Dee, who was a mutant. He had the double whammy of crappy powers: He aged fast, and he was immune to drugs. His crappy cheap pasta was one of her few happy childhood memories, so she agreed to get his body to release so many endorphins or something that he'd be in a blissful haze (or a coma) until he died (Uncanny 408 and 409).

Why I like the character: OK, bit of real talk first. When Brian Cronin first did this "Top 100 Marvel & DC Characters) thing in 2007, he wrapped it up with a master list of every character that received even on point (meaning even a single 10th place vote). I thought he would do that again in 2011, and I wanted to see if I was literally the only person who would put Stacy on their list. Turns out he didn't release the master list this time. I'm not sure if I would have put her on the list without that impulse, but I figure I liked the character enough to care to try it, which has to mean something.

As to the character herself, I have a soft spot for the, I guess, bad girls with a good heart. Tough, cynical, slow to trust but steadfast once you earn their trust, had a shitty childhood, that kind of thing. Faith Lehane in the Buffyverse would be one example, Ryoko in the Tenchi Muyo series would be another. Draw your own psychoanalytic conclusions if you wish. So Stacy had that going for her.

One thing you see looking at the state of mutants in the Marvel U. is that non-mutants will tolerate mutants as long as they can exploit them. Nightcrawler is fine as long as they can gawk at him from their seats under the big top. Wolverine is fine as long as he kills the people they tell him to. But there's a limit to how much control the characters have over how they're being used, how far beyond that they're able to safely go (answer: not very far). With Morrison pushing the idea of mutant culture, and their impending ascendancy to the top, I think Casey started exploring how the dynamic might change, and the inevitable pushback from the existing entrenched power structure. You still see some of the old stuff - Chamber dates a pop star who is using him for publicity, then dumps him when there starts to be too much backlash to her dating such an obvious mutant. But now Archangel is important because Warren Worthington is rich, but they can't simply hunt him down and take his money. They have to invite him to economic summits and listen to his suggestions, which are going to involve how they treat mutants and work with them going forward.

Notice all the characters I mentioned above were part of Casey's X-team, as was Stacy. It's never explained who established the "X-Ranch", the mutant brothel she was working at. We learned of it because Worthington found out his company was investing in it, so it's a possibility mutants set it up entirely on their own. Find mutants with powers that can produce euphoric responses, set up a base, attract wealthy customers looking for something new, illicit, expensive. It's exploitation, but if Stacy and the other girls formed it themselves, are they being exploited, or doing the exploiting? It's absolutely a guy's idealized perspective on the sex trade (though there was apparently no actual sex, just powers simulating it), but it allows for a different backstory and perspective for Stacy. She had seen up close how non-mutants regard mutants with curiosity, envy, desire, fear, and she'd seen how it could be used to her advantage. She doesn't have a lot of formal education, but she's learned more through experience than even her teammates seem to realize.

Which was another reason I liked Stacy, because she took a lot of crap from some of her teammates. Not Nightcrawler, because Kurt's a generally cool guy (even if Casey wrote a traumatized Kurt), and Chamber wasn't entirely on board with being there, so he wasn't going to judge her for similar doubts. But Archangel and Iceman, especially. It was kind of interesting to see a couple of the original X-Men, ostensibly so dedicated to fighting prejudice against people on basis of genetics, be so prejudiced towards someone on the basis of their career choice. There's a point where Warren comments that people are just scared, and Stacy says they should be, mutants are the next step, they're on the way up, non-mutants are on the way out. Warren says something to the effect that he wouldn't have expected someone in her line of work to have opinions on such things. Not everyone can be born into money, Warren. I don't know if Casey was making a statement about the arrogance of dudes with privilege, or if it was just meant to portray Archangel as a douche, but it certainly put me in Stacy's corner. Logan tried to give her a speech about how if you want people to stop treating you like a whore, don't be a whore (his words). Except he uses himself as an example, how he was afraid to let the X-Men see him as anything other than a killer. But Logan, it's not like you stopped killing people, you just did it where the rest of the team couldn't see it.  But they don't boot you out, and they're still your friends (some of them, he butted heads with Warren a lot), so what's the problem if Stacy earns some dough for herself? She's supposed to remain dependent on Xavier's charity?

I can't decide if Casey was arguing Stacy didn't have to apologize or feel shame for what she did to make a living, or if he agreed with all the dudes. Certainly if the X-Men wanted her to stop having clients, they shouldn't keep encouraging her to use her talents to their benefit in the same way. They have her seduce the Vanisher (who has decided to become a big drug lord selling Mutant Growth Hormone, a mutant trying to get in on the exploitation), and basically pheromone him into a stupor for 2 weeks. But Stacy went along with it, so maybe that's her way of saying she's not ashamed of how she used her powers, and yeah, she'll use them to help the team stop this guy before anyone else dies using his product.

Another thing, perhaps owing to her life experiences - or maybe the fact that the second the X-Men entered her life, it was destroyed by bigots - was Stacy never bought into the X-Men thing. She went on missions, helped them out, but I don't think she cared about the idea of mutants and humans coexisting peacefully. Watching humans kill her friends with flamethrowers may have something to do with that. She signed originally to track down the Church of Humanity guys responsible for that, and then hung around because she liked some of the team (she almost had a sibling thing going with Chamber, the two that aren't true believers banding together), or because she didn't have anyplace else to go. She gets involved because she likes a fight, or someone attacked her first (the Blob), or she wants to help someone she cares about. The reasons are personal, rather than any larger ideals.

Doesn't make her a bad person, just means her reasons for getting involved, and her goals in doing so, are possibly different from the X-Men. She's not looking to betray them - if the team got involved in something she disagreed with, she just wouldn't go, rather than go and hamstring them - but she doesn't let big picture stuff run her life. She can be aware of it, but the impression we get is her life since her powers emerged has been her trying to survive and find a situation that isn't terrible, which tends to focus one on immediate matters. Like Faith, who didn't worry whether the source of her Slayer powers was dark, or if it was wrong to steal weapons when you need them, because she was on her own (or had crappy enough parents she'd be better off alone) and needed to focus on, you know, not dying. She might have thought about it, just as Stacy contemplated mutants being the future, but it wasn't immediately relevant to the problems at hand, so it was on the backburner. Buffy - with the comfy home, gainfully employed mom, support network of a half-dozen friends - she could spare the time to navel gaze over that stuff, and then cast judgments on the other person for not being so obviously concerned with it. Just like Archangel, I guess, casting aspersions from a comfy seat in the balcony.

One last thing. Chuck Austen couldn't wait to get Stacy out of Uncanny X-Men once he started writing it, and as we all know, Austen wouldn't know a good character, idea, or story if it walked up and kicked him in teeth. So his desire to get rid of her is a sure sign of her positive qualities. You can't argue that, it's science.

As Usual, When The World Needs Saving, Turn To A Band Of Oddballs

One problem I tend to have with JRPGs is the level grinding. As you progress through a game, the monsters and other foes get stronger, and you have to get stronger as well. But that can be time consuming, and since I'm never sure how strong the next boss will be, I'm caught between wanting to fight enough that the battle will be winnable, and wanting to skip all that and get on with the story.

Which is why, outside of Persona 3, I don't tend to revisit JRPGs after I beat them, even if I otherwise enjoyed them a lot. The grinding is too much hassle. I haven't tested it, but I think Tales of Vesperia is going to be one of those I'll actually play again.

Vesperia has the sort of RPG story outline I'm accustomed to. Yuri is a surly, cynical guy who frequently gets in trouble with the authorities because deep down he actually cares a lot about people and hates seeing power abused. While escaping from a stint in jail, he meets your standard naive princess who very much wants to help people with her impressive healing abilities, but has never been outside the castle. If you wanted to take a moment to ponder why they put their jail in the palace, which is presumably full of people that you'd want kept away from criminals, that's fine. I'll wait.

*whistles Cheyenne's theme from Once Upon a Time in the West*

Estelle (that'd be the princess) was looking for a Knight friend of hers, who also happens to be a friend of Yuri's. He wasn't there, but an assassin was, so the two set out on a quest to find their friend and help him. As things usually do, the threat escalates. There are piece of ancient technology called blastia which can't be recreated, but can be used for all sorts of things, notably creating barriers which keep monsters from overrunning all human settlements. Someone is going around stealing the cores which power these, and someone else is flying around on a dragon destroying others. This soon rises to a threat to the political structure of the world, and then a threat to the existence of the world itself.

As this is happening, Yuri and Estelle meet a cast of oddball characters who throw in with them for various reasons. Each character is caught in a situation or place dictated by earlier decisions, and being part of this group seems to help each decide whether that's really what they want to do and generally change their outlooks on life. So there's a lot about friendship, desire, dreams, resolve, stuff like that. There's also quite a bit of humor, as certain characters end up being the butt of jokes frequently, or there are running gags (Karol's knack for coming up with terrible names, Repede and Rita tormenting each other over their respective phobias, pretty much everything about Raven).

Though the game can be too gabby at times, I did find myself invested in the characters. Each one has a defined personality, and the game is long enough the player is able to watch as prolonged exposure to the rest of the cast changes them in different ways. There are a number of villains I hated in the game. Most of them aren't completely evil - the game makes sure to demonstrate such absolutes don't exist - but they are annoying in ways that makes me really want to beat them up. The game also has skits that will run at certain times, or after certain events. You don't have to watch them - when one is available, the game will let you know it can be triggered with the "back" button, or you can skip it once it starts - but they do add to the overall experience. Some are sweet, most are funny. I liked their inclusion, because it's a quick way to see the characters interact in different ways, and also serves to flesh them out.

As for the beating up part, the game has a very nice combat system. Eternal Sonata had a set-up where during battles, characters could move around, either to get near or away from given enemies or allies. This was different from most of the other JRPGs I'd played, where you tell a character to attack, and they do, but then return to their original spot once they're done, without consequence if they run right past another enemy. But it was still turn based. You moved on your turn, then that character sat motionless until it was their turn again.  

Tales of Vesperia took the moving approach and made it constant. Everyone involved in the battle is doing something all the time. You can give general commands to the other characters in your party, but the computer will determine how they follow it. So there's more of an ebb-and-flow. You can see everyone going on full attack against a boss, but then if there's healing needed, maybe Estelle falls back and focuses on that. If we're getting trounced really badly, maybe other characters fall back as well. The boss may try to press the attack, but I can use Yuri (or whoever) to try and keep him occupied and hope the healers keep me from dying in the interim. In, say, Wild Arms 3, if a monster wanted to attack Jet, there wasn't a whole lot Gallows could do to stop them, unless his turn came first and he could kill it.

I wouldn't say I mastered the combat system by any means. I never figured out the Mystic Artes (which are each character's ultimate attack, that's what Rita's doing up above), and I was usually only comfortable controlling Yuri. I didn't understand Fatal Strikes until probably 30+ hours into the game. The good news is you can still win battles without understanding that stuff. It's a little slower, but it's still possible.

I mentioned level grinding is a thing I struggle with on JRPGs. So it pays for a game to have some way to entice me to fight lots and lots of battles against cannon fodder enemies. Vesperia earns points with me right off making those random encounters visible on-screen so I can try to avoid them if I wish. The other thing the game does is the idea of Synthesis. While there are stores that sell lots of different things, some items and weapons can only be obtained by creating them through synthesis. Which means you have to find the ingredients, many of which are dropped by monsters you defeat. But they won't drop the thing you want every time, so you may have to fight the same kind of monster many times to get enough of the thing you need. But if it's a good enough item, I'll do that, and I'll level up in the process.

Synthesis isn't new. Dragon Quest 8 had the alchemy pot, which is basically the same idea. But the alchemy pot could only produce one thing at a time, and you had to wait what seemed an eternity to get that one thing. Tales of Vesperia does require you visit a town and find the local Fortune's Market, but once you're there, you can make anything you have sufficient ingredients (and money) for, instantaneously. That's service, and encourages me to grind, because I know the instant I have what I need I can zoom over to a town and make the sword I want. I won't be stuck waiting for it to finish cooking or whatever. 

Another thing I like about Tales of Vesperia is all the additional, optional things the game provides. You can synthesize accessories which serve no function or than altering your character's appearance. Make them look goofy, badass, hot, whatever you want. I was able to make a Black Hat for Yuri that was pretty awesome, and he wore that the rest of the game.

There are also a lot of optional sidequests. I completed at least 20, but there were probably that many I missed. I completed the Fell Arms quest (which also makes the final boss fight much harder, fyi), but barely scratched the surface of the cooking sidequest. I'm not sure how I was supposed to know about them, short of visiting each town and talking to every person after every major story event, but that's why they're optional. A lot of them are silly, and only offer new titles to adorn your characters with (though the titles sometimes come with a new outfit if you're feeling bored). But they also serve as an opportunity for more character interaction and development, and it's another excuse to level grind, because you usually have to travel, and traveling means you may have to fight things.

That's what I really need in these games, a reason to be fighting monsters other than a transparent attempt to get strong enough to kill the final boss. I need things that make fighting feel like a natural part of the story. Running around in the same field for an hour killing monsters simply because I'm worried I can't beat the next boss is boring. Killing those same monsters because I'm trying to acquire some fur or claw I need to build a weapon for Repede, or to bring to someone else makes it feel like there's a purpose, rather than stalling. Plus, it helps flesh out the world around the characters by introducing me to more of the people in it who are at risk.

I would easily put Tales of Vesperia in my Top 5 Games for the 360, were I to make that list right now. Top 3, actually.

Some Rambling About Killing In Superhero Comics

This is about killing in superhero comics. Not death, which is a punchline these days with how often one writer kills a character for a cliche "big, shocking moment", and how swiftly some other writer wipes that out, but the act that leads to a character being dead. There were three mostly unrelated scenes in comics that brought this to the forefront of my mind:

- This one's old, dating back the post-Secret Invasion Dark Reign stuff. But it was Ms. Marvel (when that was still Carol Danvers) opting not to kill Iron patriot/Norman Osborn, and declaring that choice to be what made her better than him. Really, it's that she's unwilling to kill Norman, but had no qualms about killing Skrulls during Secret Invasion.

- The fact the Beast won't stop busting Cyclops' chops about killing Xavier while under the Phoenix' control, but Hank is part of the Illuminati that are blowing up other Earths (which are inhabited as far as I know), ostensibly to protect his Earth. He's probably killed more people by now than the Phoenix Force did on its way to Earth in Avengers vs. X-Men.

- I didn't see all of it, but when Captain America broached the subject of the considerable number of corpses Wolverine has left in his wake, Logan tells Cap he has no business doing that, because Cap killed people in World War II.

Superhero comics have had this approach to killing for a long time where, if you kill, that makes you no better than the bad guy. Additionally, there was the idea that if a hero killed a villain once, he wouldn't be able to stop himself. I think one of the Batman animated movies - Under the Hood, perhaps - offered this as the explanation for why Bats doesn't kill the Joker. Because if he did it once, then he'd obviously kill the Riddler next time they met. Then Bane, Killer Croc, etc.

This seems sort of a Silver Age product. Back in the earliest days, late '30, early '40s, Batman would shot people for awhile, even Superman jumped into the tailgun of a plane and shot up Japanese fighters. Or the bad guy was getting punched and falling into his own death trap. Stuff like that. Maybe it was a response to the Comics Code that cape comics ditched that, or simply a matter of expediency for the writers and artists. If they don't kill of a villain, they can reuse him, rather than having to come up with a new guy.

I don't think it's a bad thing to try and instill in kids - who were still the primary audience, certainly at the beginning of the Silver Age - the idea that heroes don't kill, that it isn't the way to solve a problem. But I think the other key factor is the heroes were shown to find other ways to triumph without needing to resort to killing. Superman, the Flash, Batman, Spider-Man, whoever, they found ways to save the day, stop the villain that didn't require that. Typically, they used their brains and powers in some creative manner to outmaneuver the baddie. Nothing wrong with teaching kids to be creative and think laterally while also teaching them to stand up for what's right.

It also probably helped that the villains usually were a little more creative with their goals than simply "kill lots of people". Joker might commit worthless crimes to convince people he was nuts, so he could be put in an asylum near a man who stole a lot of money, but couldn't recall where he hid it, so Joker could find some way to get the money out of him (guy talked in his sleep, it turns out). That's devious, but hardly something where you'd argue Batman ought to think about offing the guy. Recently, it appears the Joker kills at least 5 people every time he gets loose, and he's always getting loose. Joker might as well be Shadowcat, turning intangible and walking through the walls, for all the trouble he has escaping Arkham Asylum. But Batman can't kill him, because that would make him as bad as the Joker. For the record, I don't want Batman to kill the Joker, I just think the writers ought to tone it down so I'm not wondering why some cop hasn't gotten fed up and emptied his gun into the clown after Batsy drops him off.

It's developed into this odd situation where killing 1 person, regardless of who or why, is as bad as killing 3,000, or 7 billion. In fact, if the 1 is an important character, it can get treated as worse than killing faceless masses. So Hank can bring younger version of the X-Men to the present to make Cyclops feel bad about killing Xavier, then turn around and blow up entire planets with Stark, Richards, T'Challa, and the rest. You would think if they could devise a weapon of planetary mass destruction, they could devise a way to fix things that didn't involve killing billions. But those billions aren't named characters, and Xavier was, so he's the one that matters.

Or you get Wolverine trying to argue there's no difference between Captain America killing some Nazis to try and free an invaded and conquered nation, and Wolverine killing a dozen ninjas that are mad at him for killing a dozen more of their brethren the week before, who he only killed because it's Tuesday and that's what he does on Tuesday.

In some ways, it's a fairly impressive philosophy, to argue that no one life is more important or deserving than another, so killing is killing, regardless of the reason or number. In other ways, it's blindingly stupid. Marvel and DC both published war comics, and characters in those killed, but weren't browbeaten for it. Because they were presented as people doing their best to do what they believed was right, but not taking any pleasure in it. Sgt. Rock didn't get excited about shooting Nazis, but he was a soldier trying to help free countries from tyranny, and that unfortunately required some killing. But there weren't suggestions Rock was just going to start killing indiscriminately now that he'd killed one person.

Those characters weren't superheroes to be sure, but they were still "good guys", so the disconnect is kind of interesting. Perhaps it owes to superheroes having means and abilities a normal soldier doesn't, so they can accomplish their goals without killing. Soldiers do the best they can, but some times it's unavoidable.

Of course, the idea that each life is equally important kind of goes flying out the window when you see how easily some of them go around killing things that they apparently don't count as human. Carol Danvers kills a bunch of Skrulls. The New 52 Justice League kill a bunch of Parademons. Yes, even Superman, who apparently smashes a bunch of them to pieces by hitting them with a bus. But it raises the question of why, for example, if Carol is OK with killing these Skrulls, she balked at killing Osborn when he called himself Iron Patriot and was using a government post to let his criminal allies run wild? She clearly thought he was a significant threat, enough of one she felt it necessary to mention she could kill him. She argues that she won't because she's better than him. But the way comics seem to figure morality, she isn't. She killed Skrulls (or farther back, the Master of the World during Busiek's Kang story), which means she's no different than Osborn is for having killed Gwen (or Ben Reilly, or whoever).

So what's the difference that made killing Skrulls no biggie, but Osborn off-limits? Is it as simple as Osborn not leading an invading army, because he was able to sucker the morons of Marvel-Earth into giving him power? Invading seems to be an important factor. If they're invading, it can be like a war, and since soldiers kill in wars, then superheroes can as well. But when it's not an invasion, it isn't allowed.

I guess a fair portion of the strangeness of it owes to the nature of the comics. The shifting creative teams, writers and artists with different visions, beliefs, and interests. Mark Gruenwald notably had Captain America claim to have killed no one during World War II, despite his comics of that era showing him killing people. Most other writers who address it, especially the more recent ones, seem to agree Cap killed at least a few Nazis. The movies took that approach as well, but that's different perspectives and times coming into play. But the shift is curious, though still not particularly nuanced.

It seems like it ought to be. A hero who killed was often told they weren't in fact a hero, and none of the clean-cut hero types wanted to work with them if it could be avoided. See Captain America, Spidey, or Daredevil's reactions any time they had to work with Wolverine or the Punisher in the '80s and '90s. I guess the nuance was in the non-killing cape not trying to take in the one who kills, but that did happen, and there was usually some reason it wasn't pulled off (too beat up, Punisher slips away in the confusion, whatever). Now there's more variation, but it just seems muddled and arbitrary, which is I guess what you get when looking at dozens of books written by hundreds of different people across a span of years. The heroes who kill are more tolerated, even welcomed (see Wolverine or Venom being Avengers). The heroes who didn't kill still mostly don't (see Spidey), but don't seem as bothered working with the ones who do. Killing is OK, except when it isn't, but once you've killed, you can't criticize anyone else who kills, regardless of the difference in body count or reasons behind the act. Unless they killed a named character and you didn't, in which you lord that curious moral high ground over them forever.

Expecting a more nuanced approach from superhero books is probably a fool's errand, but it is curious that for all that you see an insistence that comics, even cape stuff, are not just for kids these days, the creative teams can't do better. But that goes to the issue of what they consider as making a book "mature", which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Deadpool Should Leave Game-Making To The Professionals

Thanks to my own procrastination and the sheer number of other people here using the Internet, it is now very late as I start typing this post about the Deadpool video game. So let's make it quick.

Deadpool: [I'm all about quick, except when I'm about slow and painful. And er, neither of those apply to the bedroom, ladies.]

Well let's poll the audience. Sir, do you like Deadpool?

Audience member: Not really, I find his act tedious and his body count unappealing.

You probably won't like this game. How about you ma'am? Do you like games that are nothing but shooting and stabbing people?

Audience member: No, I'm into real-time strategy games. Civilization forevah!

This game probably isn't for you, either.

Deadpool: [Now, wait a second. . .]

What about you, young man, do like games that frequently present women as sex objects?

Deadpool: [Hey, that is extremely inflammatory phrasing! Those women are only presented that way because that's how I see them! Er. . .]

Audience member: No. I like looking at pretty ladies, but I'd prefer there be substance to it.

You should probably give this a pass, then.

Deadpool; [Now wait a minute! You're leaving out all the cool stuff that's in my game! Like Cable, he's in there. People like Cable, right?]

Not the last time I checked. And your villain was Mr. Sinister, who is a lameoid, which makes his Marauders lamewads. You couldn't even get Magneto or Sabretooth as a boss fight.

Deadpool: [Well, Wolverine's in it! People love Wolverine!]

He spends all his time growling at you, or being slapped in the face repeatedly by you while he's unconscious. To be fair, I did enjoy slapping him.

Deadpool: [See?]

Yes, but Wade, I do like you, even if this is the Daniel Way version with the dueling narration boxes in place of an actual supporting cast. And I do like games that are essentially "enter room, kill everything, go to next room and kill more people". As for the pretty ladies, well it's perhaps mitigated by the fact you're a delusional idiot, so we shouldn't take your perspective on things as being appropriate.

Deadpool: [Hey!]

Wade, you somehow confused Cable for a large-chested nearly naked girl waving a sign stating she was your #1 fan.

Deadpool: [Have you seen Cable's chest? Totally understandable. His steely gaze, rippling muscles . . .]

Wade, come back to Earth.

Deadpool: [What about my teleporter? That was cool.]

Eh, Alice: Madness Returns did it better with that nifty "turn into butterflies" move. The counter system wasn't bad, but it's a little awkward that it was mapped to the teleporter button. Sometimes I just wanted to escape, but I end up attacking. Other times I was looking to counter, but the game decided I really wanted to escape.

Deadpool: [That's just nitpicking.]

Wade, I appreciated your enthusiasm to present us with a game, and there are some bits I thought were funny. But I've played a lot of games that were just enter room, kill people with bullets, explosives, or blades. And most of them tried to add something else. Wet added the style points for wall-running, or sliding, or slow-motion shooting while leaping through the air.

Deadpool: [I had slo-mo!]

For one scene, which lasted as long as it took me to kill 5 dudes. What it boils down to is that I probably enjoyed the game about as much as someone could, but I completely understand why all the reviews have been giving Deadpool scores of 6 out of 10 or thereabouts. You don't have a bad game, but it is short - I finished it over the course of about 3 days - and there's nothing in the gameplay I haven't seen in other games. And you know it, you alluded to it in those hints during the load screens.

Deadpool: [Ok, fine, ya got me. We were gonna have a better game, but that first level was so awesome, the budget just couldn't keep up. Also, I got bored.]

That I can believe.

The Invisible Man 1.10 - It Hurts When You Do This

Plot: Fawkes and Hobbes are on a case involving the illegal transport of animals into the country for use in experiments. When they go to make the bust, the bad guys run, and Hobbes pursues them up a fire escape, where Fawkes is waiting. With nowhere left to run, one of the guys turns and boots Hobbes off the escape, and he hits his head on the pavement below. At the hospital, we learn that he'll survive and that the neuroscience wing here is under the supervision of a Dr. Carver, who is an old acquaintance of Claire's. As Darien's guilt is making him a little cross, Claire departs to find her old friend, leaving Fawkes and the Official. Darien explains he let the guys get up the fire escape because he thought they'd be easier to trap one flight up. The Official agrees this was a sound decision. Then Fawkes admits he also did it because he thought it'd be fun. The Fat Man doesn't say anything to that, but the look he gives Darien means he doesn't need to.

There are two important things to know about Hobbes' situation: One, he has no working memory, so there end up being a lot of gags about him forgetting something he's been told (or said) several times. Two, there was a shortage of rooms, so he'll be sharing a room with Sarah, a young artist who lives on the streets and just had her appendix removed. Or as Hobbes puts it (frequently), he has a chick roommate.

Besides being used for the comedy of Hobbes not remembering he asked Fawkes to bring him the pastrami on rye Fawkes brought him, the lack of working memory means Hobbes can't remember why he's in the hospital. So he shifts between assuming he's been captured, and assuming he's undercover. While sneaking around, he makes his way on to the neuroscience wing and observes Dr. Carver cutting into someone's brain, and sucking something out. He's discovered, but Carver doesn't care, because Hobbes won't remember it anyway. But Hobbes did struggle with the orderlies, and Fawkes notices the black eye the next day. Which gets him suspicious, and sends him up to the same wing, where he also observes Carver cutting into someone's head. There's a moment where Fawkes rubs the spot on his skull where the gland was implanted. When Hobbes goes missing, Fawkes panics, only to learn that Carver has done something which restored Hobbes' working memory, though Carver's a real dick about it. So Hobbes is all better, and Sarah's been discharged, but didn't say good-bye. Our boys decide to seek her out, and find her at a shelter, where she doesn't recognize them. And she (and several other residents) have scar behind their ear just like Bobby's.

As Claire explains (slowly), Carver is removing Schwann cells from the brains of homeless people who come in with severe problems, and implanting them in people with nerve cell trauma like Bobby, because the cells help regenerate the myelin and you don't care. It's bad shit, OK? Off the go to the hospital, where Carver is impressively unrepentant, claiming that people like Sarah can survive without Schwann cells (sort of true, depending on your definition of "survival"), and that it's more important to help what he considers contributing members of society. Needless to say, this argument carries little weight with Bobby, Darien, or Claire. They make Carver replace Schwann cells from their frozen stock into the brains of all the people they can find he stole them from. Unfortunately, they run out before they get to Sarah, and Carver's still an unrepentant dick, telling Fawkes that this has accomplished nothing, because it's barely scratched the surface. Basically, he's really proud of the large number of people he gave brain damage. While everyone has to hold Fawkes back to keep him from killing Carver, the doc bolts, only to stop just past the door on one of those connecting walkways between buildings. Fawkes kicks the door open going after him, it hits Carver in the back, he pitches over the railing, and is terminal injured. By this stage, Claire's seen the procedure enough she can use Carver's Schwann cells (he's a donor, relax) to restore Sarah. Then Sarah gets a job with one of the other doctors trying to do community outreach, to maybe help the other people Carver mutilated.

Quote of the episode: Fawkes - 'I cornered some guys, and they knocked you off a fire escape, and then you fell on your head.' Hobbes  - 'I don't remember that.' Fawkes - 'That's because you fell on your head.'

The "Oh crap" count: 0 (15 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week: He quotes an English diplomat about how the ends must justify the means. At the end he quotes Shakespeare and about how the evil men do lives after them, and he hopes Shakespeare was wrong about the good lingering only briefly.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (4 overall).

The Agency is still with Fish & Game. However, from Hobbes we learned that before that, they were under the FDA. Before that, it was the National Park Service, and before that, the Department of Education.

Other: I find it strange that Hobbes was wearing scrubs when he stumbled upon Carver's butchery, but Fawkes was wearing his usual attire, and sat in the same room, no farther in the back than Hobbes, and they didn't notice him at all.

I did like it when Darien was snooping around invisibly, and there's an emergency and a bunch of people crash into him. Because they can't see him. Really surprised that hasn't happened more often so far.

There's a bit near the end, when they're trying to get back into the neuroscience wing to get at Carver, and Claire has Darien play a double-amputee who claims to be able to feel his arms. It's a variation on the stunt Fawkes pulled a few weeks ago when he pretended to be missing both legs so he could eat his burger parked in a handicapped spot. Better reason this time around.

There's one other funny bit, when Claire explains the significance of Schwann cells. She says she'll do it in overly simplistic terms so Fawkes and Hobbes can follow along. Fawkes and Hobbes begin bantering: H - 'Was that an insult?' F - 'I wouldn't know.' H - 'I think it was an insult.' F - 'I think I'm too simplistic.' H - 'You're not too simplistic. It was an insult.' There's a very Howard Hawkes vibe to the whole thing I was greatly amused by, and so was Claire, judging by the look on her face. This is one of the things I enjoy about this show, Hobbes and Fawkes doing their little routine while someone else looks on. Sometimes that person is annoyed, or bewildered. Claire is tickled by it. It's that building of the relationships I enjoy.

It's strange there are so many funny bits, not to mention all the attempted funny bits. Your mileage with "Hobbes can't remember recent stuff" may vary. It's an episode about a doctor essentially setting himself up as God, deciding who needs or deserves their Schwann cells and who doesn't. It's the danger of unchecked power and ego, an entire section of humanity being deemed worthless except as raw materials to keep the people considered "valuable" in top condition. And Carver has no qualms about it, no regrets. He believes his actions are completely in the right. When he tells Fawkes that the people they've restored only scratches the surface, he was practically gleeful. Think of those comics where the villain does something and when the hero defeats him, the villain gloats that the hero has really accomplished nothing, because the villain's goals will echo through time, etc. That was Carver. There were many people out there on the street, wandering without reacting to hardly anything, and Carver was glad, because those people represented the "important" ones that he'd saved.

Where's Captain America to punch a guy in the face when you need him?

So the humor is strange. I enjoyed much of it, and the majority of it came before the full realization of Carver's actions, but it does create a considerable tonal shift in the episode. Kind of weird viewing experience.