Picking Up Where We Left Off. . .

Calvin: *monotone* {Well, now that Deadpool has finished destroying the coffee pot and my coworkers have finished cooing over you, Clever Adolescent Panda, we are free to continue over conversation from just a few minutes ago while continuing to eat delicious cookies.}

Deadpool: [That was the driest, most boring exposition ever. And it was a week ago.]

Calvin: {You're crazy, it is still Columbus Day! Stop being crazy Deadpool! Wait, what am I saying?}

Clever Adolescent Panda: It was a week. He really smashed that coffee pot.

Deadpool: [Along with the other two coffee pots and a breadmaker!] 

CAP: And a microwave.

Deadpool:*wistful*  [Oh yeah, I really smashed that thing good.]

Makes Brakes Fail Lass: *sarcastically, as she puts instant oatmeal in other microwave* Yeah, thanks a lot for wrecking the big microwave. Great work.

Calvin: {Yeah, those belonged to my coworkers, Wade. I'm gonna need you to replace those.}

Deadpool: [I'm not going to be doing that.]

Calvin: {CAP, if you please?}

*BONK!* *BONK!* *BONK!*

Deadpool: [OK, OK, I'll get new ones.] *accusatory* [I thought you weren't a fan of forcing people to be good.]

Calvin: {I'm not, but it has its uses.}

CAP: Forget that, what about me?! My fur is nearly gone from all that petting. And I feel all jangly, like it's weird nobody's petting me now. Somebody pet me and tell me I'm pretty!

Deadpool: [Aw, it's baby's first fetish! *sniff* Always a proud day for a parent.]

CAP: Ew.

Calvin: *sighs, leans forward, resting forehead against his fingers* {Yeah, sorry about that. It was a long week for them, too, and they have poor impulse control. It's over now, they'll keep their distance now that Wade threatened to drink all their alcohol, so we can get back to other matters. You wanted to pay UnCalvin a visit, right?}

Deadpool: [My unrequited? I mean, ex-unrequited, because I'm a happily married man.]

CAP: Does that count if it's in another continuity?

Calvin: {I frown on cheating, so I'm going to say yes, yes it does.}

Deadpool: [What about your tourism slogan: What's happens on Earth-58008, stays on Earth-58008.]

Calvin: {I told you, Deadpool, this is not Earth-Boobs if you look at the calculator upside down!}

CAP: Why wouldn't it just be Earth-80085? Why does it need to be upside-down?

Calvin: {You know, I don't remember.}

Deadpool: [Me, either, but that's no surprise.]

Calvin: {Something to do with how the numbers look on an old-style calculator? The 5 looks more like an "s" upside-down? I don't know. Anyway, we've padded this thing out sufficiently, so no infidelity for Wade, and a visit to UnCalvin pending?}

CAP: I can't show up with all these bare patches!

Deadpool: [Heh, "bear".]

CAP: *glowers* Wade, don't start with me. They'll all laugh at me. Her security is supposed to be terrified of me!

Deadpool: [You know, people used to laugh at me. But then I let them see who I was underneath the mask, and they started to scream. Then I stabbed them.]

CAP: What?!

Calvin: {Umm, what I'm going to take from that is, once you start tearing through them, they'll fear you again. And maybe you won't even have to fight. We could just show up and ask to see Blender Furby. I bet if we're polite, UnCalvin will just let us in to see it, so we go away without destroying anything.}

Deadpool: [I'd like to vote against this "ask nicely" plan, and speak in favor of maximum devastation.]

CAP: No, he's right, it'll probably work. But I still don't want to go out like this.

Calvin: {You can borrow my blue hoodie.}

CAP: I don't know. . .

Calvin: {Your choices are the hoodie, my rain jacket/trashbag suit, and this orange shirt I got from a dentist's office. Or you can take your chances with what's in Wade's pouches.}

Deadpool: [I almost definitely have clean underwear in here someplace. Also, Kevlar.]

CAP: Kevlar's tempting, but I'll take the hoodie. As soon as I get some more of these cookies. They're fantastic!

Deadpool: [I know, they taste like rum and cordite!]

CAP: I was thinking Kool-Aid and warm soup, but OK. You don't want any Calvin?

Calvin: {No, better I don't. The secret ingredient is love.}

Crowd noise: Awwwwwwww.

CAP: What the hell was that?

Calvin: {No idea.}

Deadpool: [Who cares? Gimme another cookie!]

CAP: Seriously, though what's in these cookies?

Calvin: {I told you, love. There's a bunch of elves, or gnomes, or something, down the road. They take things with strong feelings of love attached, melt them down, and stir them into the cookies.}

CAP: What?!

Calvin: {Well, they tried making them with hate. Plenty of that to go around. Overabundance, really, when the birders were here. But everyone complained the cookies were bitter and sour. Love's less abundant, which is what makes each bite taste so special. Or so they say. Could just be pharmaceuticals in there.}

Deadpool: [So I could be eating some little girl's happy memories of playing with her Big Wheel?] *pushes away from table* [THIS WILL NOT STAND!] *grabs another cookie*

CAP: He's right, why haven't you done anything about it?

Calvin: {Hmm, let's see. For one, I don't know where it is exactly. In case you haven't noticed, we're in a forest, there are a lot of freaking trees. I tried asking the Ghost of the Forest, but I haven't heard anything from it since. Don't even know if it went looking. Two, they're little magic cookie making forest critters. I'm not qualified to handle something like that. But you guys are, so yeah, let's go get 'em.}

CAP: But you don't know where they are.

Deadpool: [I've got it! We'll burn the whole forest down! I just need a jet fighter and some napalm!]

Calvin: {NO.}

Deadpool: [I can make it work with a crop dusting plane, lighter fluid, and some matches.]

Calvin: {Still no.}

CAP: He's right. We have to rescue all the items they've stolen, and return as many as we can. But we still have to find them.

Makes Brakes Fail Lass (Still waiting on oatmeal. "Instant", my eye): They're in a walnut tree at that bend in the road with the berm before you get to the mailbox, about 40 yards down the back slope towards the pond. I can show it to you when we get there.

CAP: How do you know?

Calvin: {She has very good vision.}

Deadpool: *flatly* [Really.]

Makes Brakes Fail And Sees Things Lass: Yeah, I also know exactly what time it is when I wake up without looking at a clock!

Deadpool: *deadpan* [Wow, Cyclops and Wolverine will be fighting it out to recruit you.]

Has The Power Of Lots and Lots of Powers Lass: Cyclops? Blech. What a loser.

Deadpool: [While I concur that he is terrible, you'll never get the cool recruitment visit gifts if you don't play them against each other. You want car dealerships to give you a new ride under the table, don't you?]

Has The Power of Lots and Lots of Powers Lass: I'd rather they paid off my student loan debt.

Deadpool: [Let's not gets nuts. We're talking about a pair of paramilitary organizations with state-of-the-art technology and security. Not some magical world where elephants sneeze platinum for peanuts.]

CAP: Let's get going!

Lots of Powers Lass: OK, just let me grab my oatmeal.

*opens microwave door*

*oatmeal explodes in her face*

Lots of Powers Lass: Dammit technology!

The Invisible Man 2.7 - Insensate

Plot: Darien comes home at night to find a strange little man in his apartment. Thomas Walker claims to be largely insensate, save for a sense of touch, and a sensor array that allows for some rudimentary sense of sight and sound through electrodes that connect to his head. He's looking for Kevin Fawkes, who worked on the project that made Thomas this way, along with a man named Augustin Gaither. Thomas was hoping Kevin could undo what has been done to him, but on learning Kevin is dead, is somewhat despondent. Darien on the other hand, is intrigued by the possibility this Augustin may have worked with Kevin on the gland, and so maybe he could remove it. In the meantime, though, Kevin directs Darien to a building filled with other subjects of the experiments, ones with no senses at all.

But Darien's snooping did not go unnoticed, and the man in charge of that ward (a real Heston/Rutger Hauer looking old man badass) is so powerful, even the Official is cowed by him when he comes a calling. I mean really cowed, like Charlie can't make eye contact. The Official orders Hobbes to find Darien and find out what's going on, but this results in the two of them and Thomas being grabbed by a bunch of guys in SWAT gear and thrown in a room. Thomas tells them they're prisoners of the SWRB: Secret Weapons Research Branch, which Hobbes insists is a myth, but the rumors are it has no oversight, reports to no one, and the people who work there aren't nice people. Some of those not nice people barge in and grab Thomas, despite Darien and Bobby's attempts to protect him. Fortunately, the Fat Man shows up and bails them out, then orders them to forget everything. Which Darien ignores, and he and Hobbes go back, and Darien rescues Thomas, tossing him in the van with Hobbes, then going back by himself to capture Augustin.

But the evil Rutger Hauer guy isn't Augustin. Thomas Walker is Augustin. Tommy Walker was the name of the project, named after the character in Pinball Wizard. Darien is able to talk his way out of this problem by leveraging the importance of the gland, and by promising to hand Augustin/Thomas to the SWRB guys after he finds out what he knows about the gland. As soon as the uncuff him and put him in a nice Humvee, Darien bolts. But Nameless Scary Guy anticipated this double-cross and slipped a tracker on Darien's jacket. Darien reaches the safe house, where Hobbes has made calzone for Augustin, who of course, can't taste it. Darien accuses Augustin of hiding his identity, but the man seems completely bewildered by all this, and then the SWRB blows up the house with some tiny tinkertoy looking plasma cannon. But Darien got them all out safely. Back at the Agency, the Official isn't happy but has agreed to set up Augustin in a basement cell, contingent on them finding a psychologist that can draw those repressed memories out.

Quote of the Episode: Thomas Walker - 'You'd be surprised how much you can remember when you have no place to go but inside your head.'

The "oh crap" count: 3 (10 overall)

Who's getting quoted this week? Shakesspeare said the thief fears each bush is a cop, Hitchcock said the terror is in the anticipation, and some Russian author whose name I must have written down wrong because I can't find him online said something about it being best not to recollect at all.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (2 overall). Surprising considering how much he snuck around this week.

Other: Second week of Fawkes trying for a way to get the gland out. They'd actually moved away from "Fawkes attempts to get gland out" story of the week for awhile, but it's come back a bit here. I also thought it was interesting that while Darien was horrified by Augustin's experiments (and was concerned Kevin had been a part of it), he never loses sight of that possibility Augustin is his way out. Sure, he wants to protect Thomas, but it's an open question whether he's more concerned with Thomas or himself. I mentioned last week that I'd be curious to see fallout from Kevin's decision to not get the gland out, and I wonder if this is the start of that.

I do find it interesting Darien keeps interacting with these evil overlord types, and keeps making agreements with them, only for Darien to immediately double-cross them. Stark a few weeks back, this nameless guy this week. These are the bad guys, but the hero is the one breaking his word. Sure, Nameless Guy was almost certainly going to kill Fawkes, Hobbes, and Augustin even if Darien played it straight with him, so I guess credit to Darien for striking first. Still, little odd for the good guy to not wait to be betrayed, then find a way to work around it. But it suits Darien being a thief, not entirely an honorable profession. He'd have learned to be ready for the double-cross from working with other thieves.

I don't have much else to say about this episode. I feel Nameless Guy would have worked better as an antagonist if there hadn't been all the hoodwinkery about him being Augustin. Like, what's his deal? How did he get in that position? How does he know the Official, and what's their backstory? It's hard to figure out his character, because the episode was so deliberately trying to obfuscate who he was.

He Doesn't Get A Spoon Until Issue 7

I picked up The Tick: The Complete Edlund collection a month or so ago. There are a lot of Tick comics, I was curious, and starting at the beginning seemed like the best idea.

I'm pretty sure I'd read some older collection of some of this in a bookstore in the '90s, because I remembered the Tick fighting lots of ninjas and being very confused by that (my only experience with the character having been the cartoon up to that point). Early on, Edlund pokes at Superman a little bit by having the Tick meet a Clark Kent analogue called the Caped Wonder (from the planet Otter Creek) who believes himself the protector of The City. Shortly after that, it shifts to more of a Frank Miller Daredevil pastiche with "Night of a Million Zillion Ninjas" (also, "Early Morning of a Million Zillion Ninjas". Complete with a lady ninja in a familiar (albeit color-swapped to yellow) outfit named Oedipus. Oedipus Ashley Stevens.

Arthur, the Tick's sidekick, doesn't appear until near the end of that story, and he asks to work with the Tick because he wants an extraordinary life and was finding that difficult to manage on his own, even with the flying suit. They leave the City shortly thereafter (because there's very little crime), get into a few hijinks on the road, and eventually reach New York City, where there are so many superheroes they have to reserve a section of street ahead of time to patrol, and there's still almost no super-villains to fight. By the end of all that, Tick and Arthur decide they want to go back to the City, though the next collection was Karma Tornado, and they didn't do it there. Because that was sort of a placeholder while people waited to see if Edlund came back to work on the characters some more. I wasn't as enamored with that one, maybe because it felt a little too obvious it was spinning its wheels.

It's interesting how different Tick is initially. Maybe it's due to the story opening with him escaping from a mental institute, but at times he's almost sinister. While he's working at the newspaper (as Mr. Nedd, the new crossword editor) he seems to delight in tormenting the Jimmy Olsen analogue, and in making life difficult for the Caped Wonder. I'm not sure how much of it is meant to be purposeful, and how much is the Tick unwittingly using his power of dramatics. Apparently his presence will make any situation more dramatic. So maybe he's behaving that way to try and spark a hero versus hero brawl. But when it nearly happens, he immediately breaks Clark's glasses, and here comes the Olsen analogue, so Clark has to stop fighting and come up with some ludicrous way to maintain his secret identity. It's like Tick's genre savvy without realizing it.

Some of the Tick's more ominous air is probably the inking. The book is all in black and white, and for the first half of it, the Tick's costume is basically presented as black. Which makes him this huge dark presence on the page. In the latter half, after he and Arthur have teamed up, he's mostly presented as being lighter, with occasional shadows where appropriate. He's a brighter presence at that point. In general, I think Edlund's linework gets stronger in the second half, and he cuts down on the hatching and some of the excess little lines, relies on shading more. I think it works better. The Tick plays out as kind of an old-style superhero, and so the more solid look, with fewer lines fits him well, as a square-jawed do-gooder.

Though the Tick's do-gooding is mostly incidental. As he remarks at one point, he doesn't want to stop crime, he wants to fight it. He's really excited when he gets a super-villain to fight. When an innocent person gets hurt, he responds by getting depressed, questioning his purpose, and then destroying stuff.

There was one sequence in the book I couldn't quite decide on. When Tick first accompanies Arthur back to his apartment, there's a moment where Tick becomes concerned Arthur is. . . funny. Arthur responds that no, he isn't. . . funny. They both agree heroes shouldn't be. . . funny. Then decide they need beers. Manly beers. So is Edlund commenting on the people who makes jokes about two guys in spandex living together, or on the writers and fans who are so eager to assert that no, there's nothing like that about it all, or is he making the "hurr, hurr, two guys in spandex living together" joke himself? The fact that it's Tick and Arthur each getting very eager to prove they aren't. . . funny, by getting beers makes me think it's the second one, but I'm not sure. I just could not decide what Edlund was going for there.

That brief bit aside, it's an interesting book for watching the shift in the Tick over time, and the second half of the book provides the kinds of Tick stories I was expecting. It also introduces a lot of characters and plotlines that made it into the cartoon (though they were often recombined in new ways on TV), as well as some that didn't, but that I would very much like to see followed up on. The first half of the book, while not what I was expecting, was still pretty cool just for seeing the Tick in a story where he seemed so out of place. A battle to preserve or destroy the soul of ninjutsu is perhaps more deep (or attempting to be deep) than what you'd expect for him. Bad guy tries to carve his name into the moon with a laser? Sure, that sounds like something for the Tick. A story about whether opening up something to any schmoe with a few bucks cheapens it, and whether that gives someone who truly loves it the right to destroy it, that's a little more heavy. So it's neat in that it's unusual, and it does give the Tick the opportunity to fight a whole lot of guys all at once, which is something that suits him.

Like Little Big League, But With A Horse

Having seen his handiwork throughout the NLCS, I'm pretty sure the Cardinals could replace Mike Matheny with one of those horses who picks football games by tapping the picture of the team, and it would constitute an improvement.

'OK Manager Buttercup (or Royal King, or whatever you name horses), we've laid out pictures of all the players. Now who bats leadoff?'

*horse taps Matt Carpenter's picture*

'Great! What position will he play today?'

*horse taps ground 5 times*

'3rd base, good call.'

Also, a manager might finally win an argument with an umpire. Imagine being an ump and a freaking horse comes charging out of the dugout to dispute your call. You gonna toss a hose from a game? I don't think so. Those things have big teeth. Also, they can stomp on you. Not sure what kind of suspension MLB would levy for stomping an ump to death, but as long as the horse is wearing MLB-approved gear, I'm sure it won't be too bad.

Mostly, I'm pretty sure the horse won't decide that in the 9th inning of a tie game the team has to win to stay alive, that it's a good idea to use a pitcher who hasn't pitched in three weeks. I can't even fathom the train of thought that made that seem like a sound decision, outside of "Man, I really want to start my winter vacation."

Of course, there could be some clubhouse communication problems, and they'd have to replace the dugout steps with a nice ramp so Manager Horse could enter and exit safely. Don't need a manager with a broken leg. But those are minor details, and the horse might enjoy it. I'm sure all the players would try to feed it apples and carrots in exchange for more playing time, and the team would be able to market all sorts of new merchandise for horsey-loving young girls and boys who would adopt them as their favorite team.

Yup, I really don't see any possible flaws in this plan.

Can Scott Pilgrim Overcome How Bad I Am At Fighting Games?

I finally went ahead and downloaded a game from XBox Live Arcade. Two actually, but the old Sega Genesis title Comix Zone is kicking my rear, so there's not much to say. I haven't even finished the second "page". So, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.

It's a game based on the comic storyline, styled as an old-school NES beat 'em up. The game doesn't waste any time on the whole thing where Scott was dating Ramona before he broke up with Knives, or the part where he got kind of whiny about the whole "attacked by evil exes" thing. Which means I didn't spend the majority of the game wanting to see him punched in the face like I did during the movie. Too bad it still happened a lot. Sorry, Scott.

You move through levels, fighting loads of various henchmen types, periodic mini-bosses, and eventually, each level ends with a fight against one of the 7 evil exes. You level up as you go along, learning new moves, and there are stores where you can step in to buy food to boost your health, or other supplies to boost your stats. I don't understand why the leveling up doesn't boost your stats, though. Isn't that pretty standard in games that have leveling up? You get stronger, faster, etc. Here, that only happens if you buy stuff to specifically do it. Oh, beating up people gives you money. I guess I rob their pummeled bodies. Hey, they attacked me first, unless I was able to get the drop on them.

I've never been much good at these sorts of games. Not fast enough, or I'm not smart enough about knowing when to stop attacking and start blocking, something like that. At least this game gives infinite continues, and allows you to save your progress. I appreciate that. I've managed to beat it twice so far, with Scott and Kim. The most consistently frustrating part is the battle with Gigadeon. He's the second stage in the 4 (or 6, depending on how you look at it) part final boss battle. He just never seems to die, especially once he knocks me off the ledge and I lose the really awesome sword. And he's really cheap. He punches me off the ledge, I fall, lose some health, reappear on the cliff. If I don't hit block instantly, he punches me off again. He'll keep that up as many times as it takes to kill me if he can. And, of course, he can just attack me while I'm in the middle of hitting him. I hate that kind of crap.

But it's usually a lot of fun. When I did manage to beat the game, I felt happy about that, even if Scott's ending didn't seem entirely right. You can go back and play earlier levels whenever you want, to level up some more, get more money, or just because you want to have easy fights. I liked the look of the game, it captures Bryan Lee O'Malley's art style, but also looks like an 8-bit video game. Each character gets their own variations on the basic style of attacks, and their own more specialized moves. Kim has this nifty attack when she's in the air where she can dive feet first at an enemy, then bounce back up in the air, and do it again and again, at the same person or a different target.

I love the music, it's all very good for wanting to run around and fight various people. There's even a generic big guy goon in the early levels with a douchey fedora. I really enjoy fighting him, maybe because he's a little bit of a challenge at low levels, so it's nice to see him later on, when I can take him out in one or two hits. Satisfying.

I'm definitely disappointed I have to shell out for downloadable content if I want to be able to play as Knives. She was my favorite character in the movie (her or Wallace, but he didn't do any fighting). She is the default support character, but that means she pops up for a second and helps when you call her. You can also fight and defeat her father, then he'll show up sometimes. Haven't gotten him to show up to help Kim yet. I think it's random. Anyway, it's a really fun game when I'm not getting frustrated enough with that one boss fight that I want to throw the controller.

The Horrifying Return Of The "Civil War" Post Label

So Marvel's thinking about doing Civil War with their movies, starting it off or building it up in Captain America 3. Which makes me not want to see Captain America 3, something I wouldn't have considered possible after I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Such is the awe-inspiring revulsion of Civil War.

And the comics, never one to pass up a half-assed opportunity to synergize with their cinematic universe, may be planning to redo Civil War in the comics as well. Sigh. Look, it's not that there isn't a potentially interesting story in there, assuming you hand the job to someone other than Mark Millar. That doesn't mean it's a story I want to see redone. You're not going to convince me government oversight of superheroes is a good idea in a fictional universe where said government is routinely infiltrated by the Red Skull and Mystique, which gives a Cabinet post to a drunken former weapons dealer (Stark), when it isn't handing government agencies to complete psychopaths (Osborn). Given the way things are going these days, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't trust our government to have control of someone like Spider-Man, let alone a Hulk, given how people with power seemed inclined to abuse it these days. Assuming they were ever allowed to do anything*, it would probably wind up being something awful.

There's also the downside that this news lead to other people describing Civil War in articles, and calling the New Warriors D-list, or implying they were totally outclassed by flippin' Nitro. Sure, the team that faced the Juggernaut, Terrax, and the Sphinx can't handle Blows Himself Up Guy. Well, not when Millar is writing, obviously, but see, now I'm angry about that all over again. I had pretty much shoved the general stupidity of that whole event into the back corners of my mind, and here someone went and dragged it into the light again.

I'm hoping it would be relegated to a small mini-series that exists off by itself. Something that can be easily packaged into a single trade you can put in a bookstore for people who see the movie and are curious. Not the huge, sprawling, invasive mess the original was. The last Civil War played at least a part in the decrease in Marvel comics I bought over a span of several years. The tone it established for much of the line, the fact it was a success, so Marvel did more BIG EVENTS which also derailed books I had been previously enjoying. I'd rather not have a repeat of all that.

* I have this picture of the alien invasion in the Avengers movie, and the heroes aren't there, because they have to wait for the President to get Congress to declare war against this invading force. But the Republicans want to use conventional military, and demand more funding for it, which they suggest can be found by defunding the Affordable Care Act. So nothing gets done and Manhattan is destroyed.

Dealing With Space Stuff Comes With The Name

At some point during this run on Ms. Marvel, I'd like for Kamala to meet a giant alien blob. Who farts wormholes. Yes, just like the one in her Wolverine-and-Storm-in-space fanfic. I leave it up to the creative team whether she encounters it because it read her story and was a huge fan (or was outraged by its portrayal), or for other, more mundane reasons. You know, like one of the wormholes swallowed her school with a bunch of people in it, including Kamala, and now they're on the other side of the galaxy in Badoon territory or something.

The Marvel Universe is a big, weird place. Why can't there be creatures who can create wormholes, whether consciously or not? Heck, there's probably at least one Inhuman who can do it among all the new ones. There are plenty of teleporting mutants, and ones who can open portals of a sort. Maybe the Blob has been creating wormholes for years when he breaks wind, it's just he doesn't notice, and everyone else in the area is dead from the smell, so they don't see them.

I Did This Today For One Joke

*We open on a familiar set of low whit buildings set atop a hill. The rain falls in vertical sheets as a lone blue truck with a white camper shell pulls up. One person steps out, covered in a set of shiny green plastic rain pants and coat, the hood obscuring their face. They swing a backpack over their shoulder and trudge through the rain into the building furthest to the west. Inside is the main living room, and we and the backpack haver find two figures flipping over couch cushions and going through cabinets frantically. One is a large, furry animal with black and white fur. The other is probably human, judging by the shape, carrying a lot of weapons, wearing a red-and-black outfit, and talking incessantly. The lone person observes them, unnoticed for the few seconds it takes for the door to slam shut behind him. When it does, the other two look up.*

Deadpool: [Gah! It's Trashbag Man! Stand back, little friend! I'll fend off his barrage of old Chinese takeout and dirty diapers with my, well, I don't really want to get that stuff all over my sword. I just cleaned it yesterday. Bullets would spray it everywhere. Maybe a couch cushion? They're already covered with waste.]

Clever Adolescent Panda (CAP, for short): Wade, I'm pretty sure that's Calvin. Also, put down the cushion. Even your healing factor may not be a match for what's on it.

Calvin: *exasperated* {What are you two doing here?}

CAP: We just wanted to visit?

Calvin: {Randomly, on a Monday? I am highly dubious.}

CAP: Umm.  . .

Deadpool: [We wanted to celebrate Columbus Day, so we barged into some place that wasn't ours, took anything we liked and trashed the rest. We forgot to bring diseases, though.]

Calvin: *sarcastically* {Really, between the anti-vaxxers and Ebola, that should have been the easiest part.}

Deadpool: *enthusiastically* [You'd think so, but. . .]

Calvin: {Wade, I haven't seen the sun in 5 days, and I've been rained on each of the last 4 days. I'm wet, my knee hurts, I'm not catching anything good, and I have a rapidly growing list of things irritating me you two are about to be added to if you don't get to the point.}

CAP: He must be angry if he's listing things. Just tell him.

Deadpool: *sheepish* [The last time we were here, those birders went through my pouches and I'm missing a lot of stuff. My super-bouncy ball, that TV Guide from the week Golden Girls premiered, the adamantium-tipped bullet I carry. . .]

Calvin: {Wade, that was 5 months ago. You're just coming back now?}

Deadpool: [Look, I have a lot of pouches, and I don't need everything all the time, so I didn't notice. Then you try remembering when you could have lost something with my memory. I was experimented on by Weapon X, you know. It was really traumatic.]

Calvin: {You're right, Wade. I'm sorry. Let me get out of this stuff, and we can look together.} *Calvin hangs up his keys and departs room*

CAP: Wait, did you say adamantium-tipped bullet?

Deadpool: [Probably. As much as I talk, the odds of any certain combination of words landing together are pretty good.]

CAP: Why do you need an adamantium-tipped bullet?

Deadpool: [To kill Wolverine. I'll be a comic legend after that.]

CAP: At least that explains why the Death of Wolverine event is running late. You screwed up your job.

Deadpool: [Look, I explained to Soule and Brevoort it was a bad idea to give me the bullet so far in advance. You know those kids, they give them one cookie and say they can have two more if they wait 10 minutes before eating the first one? I'm the one that can't wait.]

CAP: So you already used the bullet on someone?

Deadpool: [Bullet? I'm talking about cookies. But yes, I probably would have shot Flagsmasher with it if I hadn't lost it already.]

Calvin: *returns in a dry set of clothes* {Wade, the birders have been gone for almost three months. Their rooms are in the same hall as mine. You can take a look, but I bet your stuff got taken or else tossed.}

*After an extensive search, our three main characters return to the living room for cookies and beverages:  Milk for the panda, beer for Deadpool, and soda for Calvin.*

CAP: At least we found your garrote and a travel-sized thing of Kleenex.

Deadpool: [Plus, this skunked beer and some porno! And a surge protector! It's like a death auction for some redneck serial killer!]

CAP: Was that blood on the garrote when you lost it?

Calvin: {We didn't find it in the birder hall, so maybe not. Some of my coworkers were pretty stressed back in June.}

Deadpool: [Eh, maybe? Who can keep track? I have a lot of weapons to take care of, including the one in my pants.] *reaches into pants*

CAP: Wade, no! *buries face in adorable fuzzy arms*

Calvin: {Aw geez, we talked about public indecency!} *looks down at his soda, shields peripheral vision with one hand*

Coffeepot: Oh, real high class humor we got going on here.

Deadpool: [See? It's a handgun with an absurdly long barrel. Like that one Nicholson had in Batman. What did you think I meant?] 

CAP: Whew.

Coffeepot: *pfft*

Calvin: {Wade, are you sure you don't have any badgers on your person?}

Deadpool: [As sure as my tenuous grip on sanity allows. You are Calvin, right?]

Calvin: {Yes.}

Deadpool: [Then yes, I'm sure I don't have any badgers.]

CAP: What is it with you and badgers?

Calvin: {They're cool, and also, it seems like the sort of thing Deadpool would carry around to randomly throw at enemies.}

Coffeepot: Just run it into the ground, why don't ya?

Deadpool: [See here, that's animal cruelty and I would never engage in such an activity. Although it does sound pretty cool. You think if I called up Hank Pym, he'd shrink me down some badgers I could carry around and enlarge when I wanted to use them?]

CAP: No.

Calvin: {If you catch him at the right time. Get him in his Yellowjacket persona, he'd think it was a hoot.}

CAP: He'd also think it was a "hoot" to zap Wade with his biolelectric stinger thing, dress him up like Giant Man, and kill him as a way of killing himself.

Calvin: {Then Wade doesn't feel bad when he kills him.}

Deadpool: [That's true, I wouldn't.]

*During all this, one of Calvin's coworkers gets in from the field. It's Makes Brakes Fail Lass, who notices the firearm Wade has left sitting on the table.*

Makes Brakes Fail Lass: Oooh, that's a cool gun. Can I check it out?

Deadpool: [Why certainly! Still haven't tried that career change, huh? It can be scary, I know. I was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, until this old woman thought I was a robber and hit me with a broom. Then I realized print was dead and needed a new career. Or did I learn that from Ghostbusters?]

Calvin: {Wade, don't let her -} *barrel falls off* {- handle that weapon.}

Deadpool: *horrified* [What did you do?!]

Calvin: {Her powers mutated again. Now she makes other people's weapons break.}

Makes Brakes (and Weapons) Fail Lass: That is not true. I didn't do anything to that rifle of yours!

Calvin: {Really? Too bad I'm the one writing the story!}

CAP: *examining remains of the gun* This barrel looks like it detaches.

Deadpool: *slaps forehead* [Right. I forgot it does that because it's really hard to carry around with you otherwise.]

Coffeepot: Can't handle any real emotional weight, can you?

Makes Brakes (and Maybe Weapons?) Fail Lass: See?

Calvin: {Whatever.} *bites into cookie*

CAP: I've been meaning to ask, what's the deal with the coffeepot?

Calvin: {It's a Sarcastic Coffeepot. It makes cutting remarks or dismissive noises about things going on around it.}

CAP: That doesn't sound like a very good product.

Sarcastic Coffepot: Ooooooh, listen to the marketing executive here! A real visionary! Hey, 1947 called, it wants its talking animals with no pants back.

CAP: Hey, you shut up!

Deadpool: [I don't know. I've been in the market for an appliance that makes me feel bad about my life choices every morning.]

Sarcastic Coffeepot: That diet soda won't make up for those 5 cookies you just ate!

Calvin: *ignores Sarcastic Coffeepot* {Good luck with that. It could out-talk Deadpool. I'm pretty sure UnCalvin made it based off the Blender Furby.}

CAP: What? UnCalvin made this?

Deadpool: [What? You think it can outtalk me? I'll take that challenge!]

Sarcastic Coffeepot: You don't want any of this, you walking piece of chewed gum! You're gonna need all the self-esteem you can get after Marvel over-exposes you and then has to cancel your books because everyone gets sick of you!

Deadpool: [What do you know? You're just a stupid, one-note character with no redeeming values!]

Sarcastic Coffeepot: Game recognize game, is that what you're saying?

*Meanwhile, Calvin is trying to stop Clever Adolescent Panda from running out the door*

Calvin: {Just calm down. Another few minutes of insults and Wade will remember he can just shoot the coffeepot. Or unplug it. There's nothing to be ashamed of. You're following in a long line of talking animals that didn't wear pants.}

CAP: That's not it! I wear pants sometimes, when it's appropriate! UnCalvin experimented on Blender Furby! I have to stop it!

Calvin: {Are you sure? Maybe UnCalvin just studied it while fixing it and based these off the design.}

CAP: UnCalvin gave her word she'd fix it!

Calvin: *mutters to self, looks at ceiling distractedly* {Hmm, let's see. UnCalvin gave her word, which would suggest she'd honor it. But she's the opposite of me, and I typically honor my word, sp she wouldn't. But I occasionally don't, not that it comes up much, but still. And Uncalvin deviates from the pattern as convenient for storytelling convention. Carry the two. . . it might bear investigating.}

CAP: Then let me go!

Calvin: {At least wait until Wade's finished with his political roundtable over there and take him along. You can have another cookie in the meantime.}

CAP: *ears perk up* Cookie? That does sound pretty good. *returns to table*

Sarcastic Coffeepot: And moving in across the street from your daughter? Yeah, brilliant move. Next time Sabretooth comes knocking he won't have to travel far to find a chew toy. A couple of 'em, now that I think about Preston's son.

Deadpool: *very cold and serious* [Logan's not the only one who can use an adamantium-tipped bullet to the head.]

Sarcastic Coffeepot: Too bad you lost it, you putz. You're like yesterday's grounds: Cold, wet, dirty, and second-rate. They'd never let you kill Sabretooth.

Deadpool: [Turns out I didn't lose it. I found it in a different pouch when I was putting up the barrel of this gun. And I wasn't talking about using it on Sabretooth.] *Wade starts to load the bullet into one of his many firearms*

Sarcastic Coffeepot: *ENTER SELF-PRESERVATION MODE* Easy there, chief. Don't do anything stupid. Even though it's what you're best at. What? *SELF-PRESERVATION MODE NON-FUNCTIONAL* Those idiots, leaving my burner on all night!

Calvin: {Wade, don't waste that on this thing. It's not worth it.}

CAP: He's right Wade.

*Deadpool slowly puts up the gun*

Calvin: {Use this pickax instead. It's cheaper, easily replaceable, and smashing things by hand is fun.}

Deadpool: [I do like reenacting that scene from Office Space with things that can tell me how much they're suffering.]

Sarcastic Coffeepot: I'm not programmed to feel pain, jackass. *SMASH* Oh god, yes I am. Why?

Calvin: {UnCalvin can be really rough on her creations.}

CAP: *thoughtful* Yeah. Give me a turn, Wade!

Deadpool: [My turn's not done yet!]

CAP: *tugs Wade's arm* But you're gonna smash it all! C'mon, gimme! Calvin, make Wade share the pickaxe!

*More of Calvin's coworkers have gotten back, and are starting open-mouthed at the scene. Calvin shrugs sheepishly.*

Calvin: *unconvincing tone* {I don't know you, talking furry critter, but if I did, I'd tell you I'm not about to argue with Deadpool when he's swinging a tool with killing intent. Also, I think you're about to get hugged a lot.} 

*Three coworkers run over, squeeing over the panda. Clever Adolescent Panda finds itself being repeatedly petted and given big hugs, all the while it's demanding the pickaxe, to no avail. Deadpool is busy smashing the now-silent coffeepot across the room, then chasing after it to swat it again. Calvin sits back in a corner and just watches the show.*

The Invisible Man 2.6 - Brother's Keeper

Plot: We open with Darien charging into the offices of the Agency, Hobbes hanging on for dear life. Yes, it's Darien's first Quicksilver Madness episode of Season 2! Pity Alex isn't here to see it. Claire appears holding the shot of counteragent, and Darien charges at her, and she and Hobbes manage to keep him still long enough to administer the shot. After, we learn the boys successfully retrieved something from the Cuban Embassy, but Darien had to stay invisible a bit longer than expected and went nuts on the ride back. And he's sick of it. Later, Hobbes finds Darien standing at Kevin Fawkes' grave. Hobbes comments many people talk to the dead as a sign of hope. Fawkes opines that it's pathetic, and worries he'll wind up like Simon Cole. Which gives him an idea, a wonderful, terrible idea.

As Darien maps out on a whiteboard for the Official and everyone else, he wants them to inject some of Kevin's memory RNA into his gland, so that it will connect with the pineal gland, giving Kevin control of his body, just as Simon did. Claire tries to argue that Kevin has been dead over a year, but Eberts pipes in that all the scientists on the project were required to give samples which are still in storage. Which leads to the only "Shut up, Eberts" of the episode, as the Official declares that such activities will not be carried out on his time or his dime. He even has the agents watch Fawkes to ensure he doesn't break in and steal the samples. Well, at least he didn't accuse Darien of dishonoring his brother, and while everyone is watching Fawkes, Hobbes nicks the goods. Darien waits for Claire outside her apartment in the rain, and asks if she really meant it when she said she'd choose him over the Agency. So Claire is in, the material is injected, and voila! Kevin Fawkes walks among us. And he knew Claire from grad school. They dated for a year?!

Of course, this is a Kevin from earlier on, before Darien was brought into the project, but he's very excited that the gland worked, even if he's having a little trouble with it himself. Then the Official steps in, and any possibility of keeping this under wraps goes out the window with Kevin referring to the Fat Man as "Charlie", and commenting that he's lost weight. The Official confirms Kevin died at the hands of Arnaud, and at this point we switch to Arnaud, who apparently didn't kill his lady doctor friend, and is trying to wear a sort of plastic skin mask of his face. But he isn't satisfied, and he claims the only one who could fix the gland is Kevin Fawkes. And it so happens Kevin and Hobbes are looking for Arnaud, and tracking the doc. But Kevin's still having some trouble maintaining invisibility, and he doesn't know how to fight, and Arnaud would have killed him if Hobbes hadn't shown up.

Back at the lab, Claire doctors a cut on Fawkes' head, and then there's romantic tension between Claire and Kevin. Intimate hand holding, oh dead, there's hugging, and now there's kissing, geez. After that extremely uncomfortable scene, Kevin goes to sleep, which enables Darien to take control again. He is less than pleased to learn Kevin has not provided the answer to removing the gland, and that they're endangering his life going after Arnaud, and says something that pisses Claire off enough she slaps him and calls him selfish. Well yes, he wants his brother to get the fucking gland out of his head the way he promised he would before he was murdered by the terrorist he hired as an assistant because the Agency doesn't do thorough background checks. Anyway, Darien returns home and goes back to sleep, and when Kevin awakes in control, Darien has left him a videotape, pleading with Kev to get the gland out. But Arnaud is there and captures Kevin, bringing him to his place to demand his look at a model of Arnaud's gland and fix it. Then Kevin goes into Quicksilver Madness, and Arnaud gives him the counteragent. Except counteragent also somehow neutralizes the effect of the memory RNA (Claire mentioned something about it), so now Arnaud is dealing with Darien, and Arnie gets hurled out a window.

Back at the Agency, Kevin is back in the forefront, with Arnaud's computer (which Darien grabbed). Kevin is depressed the gland has hurt so many, but the Official arrives to make the sales pitch that Darien has saved many lives with it. Kevin asks for a quiet place to work, and as Hobbes escorts him, he talks a bit about how Darien has changed. How he even plants a little flag at Kevin's grave on Veteran's Day. Kevin locks himself in the lab, and writes Darien a note explaining why he can't tell Claire how to remove the gland, and then takes the thing that will flush him out of Darien's system entirely. Back at Kevin's grave, Darien is down, feels alone, and doesn't want any reassurance from Hobbes, leaving Bobby to plant a little flag at Kevin's grave.

Quote of the episode: Darien - 'Well, I have a gland in my head that makes me go insane if I don't get a shot. I just tried to kill you. I just tried to kill Hobbes. My life is driven by fear of me. That's not what's wrong. What's wrong is that it's business as usual.'

The "oh crap" count: 2 (7 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Thomas Mann said a man's life is more the survivor's affair than his own. Hobbes' therapist says to hear the past, live the present, dream of the future. James Beddell said if you have nothing to die for, you have nothing to live for. da Vinci said our life is made by the death of others.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 2 (2 overall).

Other: So I missed some dialogue this week because the background music from one of the ads during the first commercial break kept playing for the entire rest of the episode. This story is trying to be touching and I've got some stupid jazzy beat going in the background constantly. Was ready to kill something by the end of the episode.

Thought Darien's initial Quicksilver Madness was a little off. Like someone playing crazy, with all the barking and weird faces, more than actually being crazy. If Quicksilver Madness Darien doesn't want counteragent, why run directly at Claire, who has a syringe of counteragent, especially without even bothering to go invisible? I mostly prefer the Q.M. Darien from the end of Season 1: very dangerous and violent, but still capable of maintaining focus and being clever.

I really enjoyed Darien's big diagram detailing his plan to put Kevin's memory RNA in his brain. He was so excited about it. Also, it actually built off previously established continuity in the show. If it worked with Simon Cole's RNA, why not Kevin's?

Was something wrong with Joel Bissonette? He looked skinnier than usual, a little unhealthy. Maybe that was intentional, a combination of the limitations of Arnaud's false face technology, and his state of mind from being invisible all the time.

I'm confused as to why Kevin being knocked unconscious by Arnaud didn't bring Darien out to begin with. I honestly thought it had, because the initial exchange 'I don't understand. Why I betrayed you? No why someone would go to the trouble of crafting a face uglier than their real one?' screamed Darien. But I guess snarking at Arnaud runs in the family.

That whole scene between Kevin and Claire was really uncomfortable (though I do find it interesting Kevin didn't Quicksilver the way Darien does whenever he gets excited). It may be Kevin's mind, but it's Darien's body. It might explain a few things about why Claire as the Keeper. I know there was the whole bit about Gloria and that premature aging virus (1.5, "Impetus"), but was Claire also interested in what Kevin had been up to? It certainly causes her 'YOU ARE CERTAINLY NOT KEVIN FAWKES!' outburst at Arnaud in "Diseased" make more sense. Beyond his being a dick, confronted with the guy who killed someone she cared about (and is endangering another friend) without the slightest bit of remorse, Claire being pissed is understandable.

As for Kevin's decision at the end, it sort of fits with his attitude towards Darien. Kevin is used to being the younger brother who has to behave like the older one. He shows up with his guinea pig offer to get Darien out of prison. He pushes him out of the way of bullets. And now, he leaves the gland in. In each case, because he thinks he knows what's best for his brother.

Which is small consolation to Darien. Kevin wrote something in his letter I considered posting as a counterpoint to the quote of the episode: 'Even though you may fear it, I believe it's made you a better man, closer to yourself.' But Kevin kind of ignores the fact that he's essentially making Darien a better man at gunpoint. By leaving the gland in his head, Darien has to keep helping the Agency so he keeps getting counteragent, so he doesn't go irretrievably mad. While I would agree that Darien's reasons for being there are largely irrelevant to the people he's saved along the way (and notice the Official showing up to point that out right when Kevin was ready to get rid of the gland), I'm not sure this won't foster an environment of resentment and anger, possibly despair. I doubt they will, but I'd liked to see this followed up on in subsequent episodes, as a running subplot. Show Darien isolating himself from the others, being less concerned with getting the counteragent, with helping out. Have him backslide a bit as sort of a "fuck you" to his brother, who he sees as having not come through for him again. Eventually you can show that it's something he has to make real efforts to maintain, and when he doesn't he slides back into being a good guy because that's who he really is, but for the time being, this should produce some sort of fallout. Because Kevin may think bringing Darien into the I-Man project saved his life and is improving him, but there's no guarantee Darien sees it the same way.

I've Been In The Sun Too Long

Which is funny, considering it was overcast and rainy all day. But this has been percolating a long time in the back of my head.

Back in the spring, when I was reading far too many books on World War 1 and 2, a friend and I were discussing some video game (probably Singularity) that involved shooting at Russians. Except these Russians took cover, as all good first-person shooter enemies do these days, and my friend joked this was hardly in keeping with Russian tradition. I made a comment comparing Russia to a Pokemon. "Russia used Wave of Humanity. . . It's not very effective."

I followed that with, "Russia used Killing Winter. It's super-effective!" Then things spiraled out of control. Germany countered with Vladmir Lenin, which turns Wave of Humanity into a Bolshevik Revolution, turning Russia's attack damage against itself. Shut up, I know it isn't historically accurate. The British were going to get a Rousing Churchill/Royal Family Speech which would raise defense or fortitude, and yes, by this point I was shifting between world wars, but whatever. The opposition could try to sow Colonial Unrest to deplete Britain's manpower (or attack strength). For World War 2, you'd have to have something to represent the people who felt democracy in their countries needed to be replaced by fascism, and thus weren't real keen to fight Fascist nations. Perhaps call it "Short-sighted Idiots".

I particularly liked "U.S. Involvement", which drastically raises your attack power. . . in 5 or 6 turns once the U.S. gets its act together.

Manly Bonding Over Sports And Such

You think Peter Parker and Steve Rogers ever discussed baseball during that time Peter, MJ, and Aunt May were living in Avengers/Stark Tower?

I guess it could have happened some other time, but once you get past that stretch, you have the period where Steve was "dead", then there's the stretch where Otto had Peter's body, and you figure there wouldn't be much time during the non-stop barrage of big events that took place in-between those things. But they had downtime at the Tower. It was a Bendis written team book, what else would they do but shoot the breeze? Certainly not fight evil.

Lazy old jokes aside, Paul Jenkins, at the very least, established that Peter and Uncle Ben used to go to the Mets' season opener every year (what, like Parker was gonna be a Yankees' fan? Please), and that Peter had continued the tradition by himself. Why not? Plenty of nerdy folk like baseball. I read quite a lot of their writing about it online (I may also be one, depending on whether I'm smart enough to qualify).

Of course Steve Rogers likes baseball. He grew up in the 1930s, and I can't see him gravitating to horse racing or boxing, which were the other two major sports at the time, I think (professional sports, anyway, what with college football being "amateur"). I'm fairly sure it's established he was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, but regardless of when the sliding timeline says Steve was unfrozen now, the Dodgers had long since moved to the West Coast by then. Which wouldn't preclude him from continuing to root for them (though my father abandoned the now-Arizona Cardinals when they left St. Louis), but I think Mark Waid had Steve adopt the Mets as his team. Again, makes sense. Like Captain America is gonna root for the Damn Yankees.

There was an issue of "The Other" story arc, early on, that showed Steve and MJ shooting pool. MJ was kicking Steve's butt, which I love, and mimicking some move Tom Cruise did in Color of Money because she thought it looked cool, which seems appropriate for MJ, but eh, Tom Cruise. Anyway, I mostly mention it because I like Steve Rogers just casually hanging out with people.

I have this impression that a lot of people tend to get stiff and formal around him because it's CAPTAIN AMERICA, and Steve would rather people just relax, so he works to make a connection. It probably wasn't much of an issue with MJ, she's generally a friendly person, seems to get along well with people that are worth getting along with (read: not jerks), but you know Peter would be on edge around him. So Steve would want to find some non-costume related common ground, and baseball might be one. I'm not sure either guy would want to talk about their history of getting picked on, or losing parents at a young age. Steve's an artist, Peter's a scientist, though maybe Steve could comment on the composition of some of Peter's photographs. Anyway, baseball wouldn't be a bad ice-breaker. If Steve did adopt the Mets as his new team, Peter could give him a live perspective on some of the things he missed.

Harper

I found Harper out of the blue in one of those $5 bargain DVD bins at a store. Certainly looked better than all the other crap they had in there, though the cover was misleading. I guess my definition of "many fights" is different from theirs. Or maybe it's just our definitions of "fight" that differ.

Lew Harper (played by Paul Newman) is your typical private eye. Sleeps on the fold-out couch in his dingy office, reuses yesterday's coffee grounds, his wife, Susan (Janet Leigh) is divorcing him for the usual reasons: Never around, emotionally distant, spending all his time in a dirty world. You know the stuff. He has a job, courtesy of an old friend of his, attorney Albert Graves. A wealthy man named Sampson has gone missing, and his paraplegic wife, Margot (Lauren Bacall), wants him located. Harper doesn't have to bring him back, just figure out where he is, and who he's with. Things spiral from there into kidnapping, human trafficking, weird religious cults, drug use, torture, murder, etc.

I'm not sure I like Harper. He has that fictional private eye tendency to be cruel, but he doesn't always wait until the story has established the person really deserves cruelty. In the Maltese Falcon, by the time Spade starts mocking Brigid's pleas for help, we already know she got his partner killed, and that she's trying to wrap him around her finger as well, so to heck with her. I thought Harper was kind of needlessly mean to Fay Estabrook (Shelly Winters), because the movie hadn't yet established that she was crooked and more than a little racist. Up to that point, all we knew was she was a once-popular actress that had seen her career go downhill as she got older and put on a little weight (and I didn't think she was fat, like people said. She probably could have gone up a dress size and her clothes would have fit more comfortably, but she wasn't wide or anything). She's kind of sad, lonely, she's definitely alcoholic, but the whole time Harper's trying to get information out of her by playing at being a big fan, I feel like he's laughing at her.

Other times, he seems like a nice enough guy. Newman's quite good at having an amused twinkle in his eye, and he makes Harper someone who at least is measured and reluctant in the use of violence, if not harsh words. He clearly doesn't want to shoot people, or even hit them if he can avoid it. I think he'd rather take a few hits while stalling to make an escape than actually hit someone. Which is a little strange, but not a bad quality.

There's a lot about relationships in the film, very little of it is pretty. Mostly it's guys tossing women aside as they get older, or being expected to do so, and teased if they don't. Fay is in a loveless marriage with a sadistic nightclub owner who is less inclined to hide his contempt for her than Lew. I'm not sure why they stay together. I guess she fears she can't find anyone else, and drinks to ignore the scorn, but I don't know what he gets out of it. Power, maybe.

There's a jazz pianist with a drug problem dating a much younger, more conventionally attractive man, which seems like a legitimate happy relationship. But Lew ribs the guy about being with someone older, who carries the time she spent in prison obviously, which is one of the uglier scenes in the film.

Sampson's daughter Miranda seems to enjoy playing at being interested in different guys, including Harper, but if they look like they'll take her up on her offer, she backs off. Sampson tried to push her and Albert together, even though, as Newman notes, Albert could be her grandfather. I don't know if it's that bad, though the movie is from '66 and Albert and Lew served together in the war - the way they say it, I'm guessing WW2, but it could be Korea - but there's certainly a gap, and Miranda barely notices Albert. Not sure if she legitimately doesn't notice him, or if she knows he's infatuated so she focuses on the guys who aren't. For Albert's side of it, I think he just thinks she's really pretty and the idea of an attractive young wife appeals to him. He might really care for her, but keeping that framed photo of her in some bathing suit thing in his office desk drawer is really creepy. Note it isn't signed as being from her or anything, so I don't know where he got it. Maybe it's better not to ask.

Lew himself keeps trying to get Susan to reconsider the divorce, and there are moments his sense of humor and charm win her over. But inevitably, all the things she doesn't like about him reemerge. He mentions at one point she'll never understand why he keeps doing this work, as he explains to another character why he does it. But we never see him actually try to explain it to her (outside of a terse, 'because it isn't finished' comment), and he doesn't get that he's basically expecting her to put her life on hold whenever he needs someone to hold him. What he wants, and what she wants, are entirely separate things. It's also interesting that whenever Susan gets angry with him, she puts on these thick-rimmed glasses, which I'm guessing is some symbol of her intelligence reasserting itself over the emotional bond. They're like a shield she wears, except she keeps forgetting and drops her guard.

Margot's maybe the most interesting case. She's Miranda's stepmom, and the girl despises her. The feeling seems to be mutual. Margot delights in teasing Miranda, exerting her age and wisdom on the girl. Margot lost the use of her legs when she fell off a horse, and mentions to Lew that her husband found another woman a week later. She won't divorce him, no matter how many affairs he has. No, she's determined to outlive him and inherit his fortune. Her primary reason for wanting him found is to make sure he didn't sign away some ridiculous amount of money in a moment of drunken generosity.

I'd say she has a right to be bitter. A accident (one plenty of people walk away from, as Miranda notes) takes away the use of half her body, and her husband immediately turns away from her. She's in a house full of servants who are always up to something*, with a husband who ignores her to go booze, gamble, and whore around in Vegas, and a stepdaughter who hates her so much she suggests Margot may be faking not being paralyzed (and because this was a detective story, I kept that possibility in the back of my mind the entire time). Miranda openly mocks her to her face about her aging, and not being desirable any longer. Which is nuts, this is Lauren Bacall we're talking about, she could set me on fire with a look, but Margot doesn't so much for sultry, or that smoky look Bacall was so good at. She's cold and clipped in her speaking, largely removing herself from any emotions other than spite and bitterness. But that's probably a defense mechanism for the situation, where people insist she's without value now, and I couldn't help wondering if they were ever a happy little family, or if it was always a mess.

Anyway, Harper has a lot of good performances that try to elevate what is otherwise a fairly by-the-numbers detective thriller. If you're familiar with the genre, you can probably figure out the connections and whodunit just based on the patterns of these types of films. Which is good; you can spend less time following the plot, and more time watching the actors.

* One of the things I like about this film is the sense of castle intrigue, all the servants snooping about, spying on the masters of the house and reporting back, but you never know to who. Every time Harper shows up, the head maid is coming in from someplace, or going somewhere else while keeping a sharp eye on him. I always wonder what she's up to.

Which Lantern Cares About A Secret I.D.?

For some reason, I started thinking of JSA Classified #1, which was the storyarc Conner, Johns, and Palmiotti did which was supposed to explain how Power Girl's origin worked after Crisis on the Infinite Earths erased Earth-2. In reality, I don't think it did that (or rather I didn't see how reiterating she was from an Earth that had been made to never exist explained anything), but whatever.

I was thinking specifically of a scene from the first issue where Peej sees a boy in danger and bursts through the window of her apartment to make the save. She's reflecting on how bad she is at maintaining a secret identity, and recalls a conversation with Green Lantern. GL asked why she didn't wear a mask, she replied most people weren't looking at her face (and indeed the boy is gawking at her chest, as she tries to get him to redirect his gaze up and acknowledge the person who just saved his life).

So which Green Lantern was it?

I couldn't find the page anywhere, but I'm pretty sure Power Girl referred to the Lantern as "him", so rule out Jade, though she didn't wear a mask either, so she probably wouldn't ask. Those both rule out those alien Green Lanterns that stayed on Earth for awhile (Kilowog, Salaak, Katma, Arisa), so I figure we're down to the Earth boys. John doesn't have a mask, so I don't see him asking. Neither does Guy, though my guess is he'd be too busy leering or making an inappropriate comment to ask anyway. I can't see Peej being that flip if Alan Scott asked her.

Which leaves Hal or Kyle.

Hal's the most likely choice. For one, this is a Geoff Johns written story, he's going to default to Hal almost without fail. For another, Hal actually was on a team with Power Girl for awhile, and they were even close for a bit, I think (which is really poor judgment on her part, but let's chalk it up to all the origin confusion messing with her). I kind of see Hal not caring enough to ask. He worked with Black Canary, she never wore a mask, though I guess she had a wig some of the time. Wonder Woman doesn't wear a mask, neither does Superman. His best friend (or second-best, maybe Barry was his best buddy) Oliver Queen wears a mask, but everyone seemed to know who he was anyway. Hal probably wouldn't think anything of another hero not wearing a mask.

At the same time, Kyle strikes me as the one who would be more concerned about secret identities, even though he was absolutely terrible at maintaining his (hey, something they have in common!) Kyle unfortunately got a graphic lesson early on about what happens when bad guys know who you are in your off-hours. Not that Power Girl needs to worry about a dweeb like Major Force, or that she has many non-powered friends to worry about (especially back when this comic was written), but Kyle might not know that, and you can see why it might weigh on his mind. He's fought alongside a lot of those same heroes Hal did, but you know how Kyle for a long time felt out of place among them, so I think he'd have a hard time approaching Superman about it*. Power Girl might seem less intimidating, strange as that sounds, given the fact she can be a bit more prickly than Supes.

* I can't remember, in that story Mark Waid did, where the JLA split into two people, one their superhero identities, the other their civilian, did Kyle reveal he didn't think Superman even had a secret identity when he learned it? Or was that Batman?

The Usual Suspects

The crew has tentatively agreed on another October of watching scary films. Which on Thursday translated to watching Devil, but then they decided to watched The Usual Suspects afterward. That probably wasn't meant to be part of the "watch scary movies", so much as one person just felt like watching it. I hadn't ever seen it, but somehow, I knew the deal with the reveal of Keyzer Soze at the end, and I think that may have ruined the film for me.

If you haven't seen the film, and don't want that ending spoiled, you should not read this until you have watched the film. Or keep reading, your call.

Wait another moment or so. . .

. . .

OK, Burble (Kevin Spacey) is actually Soze, right? Telling this whole story of how he and the other four crooks got used by this Soze to ultimately eliminate a man who could identify him. He's telling it to a Customs official, a guy who knew one of the other crooks, Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), and is convinced that guy is Soze. And Burble strings him along, plays a dopey criminal with cerebral palsy (I think) who insists Keeton was his friend and really wanted out of the life.Which only invites sneers from the Customs guy. Everything Burble says just reenforces the guy's conviction that Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) was the mastermind, and the rest of them, especially Burble, were pawns. Which is exactly what he's supposed to think.

The thing was, knowing going in that Burble is actually the infamous Soze meant I kept seeing all the little clues peppered through. The fact we open on Soze killing Keaton with a gun held in his left hand, the focus on his cool, easy stride, which then naturally contrasts from Burble, who has a largely useless left arm and walks with a limp. After awhile, it feels overdone. Which I'm sure was part of the point. Burble/Soze doesn't think much of the Customs guy (and clearly thinks pretty highly of his own intelligence), so he plays it up in his retelling, beating that drum steadily into his listener's brain. "I'm just a schmuck with a weakened left side. I'm terrified, and I think there are things like loyalty and friendship in this line of work. Underestimate me!"

It's pretty impressive, though there were times I thought Soze veered into that annoying horror movie cliche of the omniscient villain. It seemed as though he was able to manipulate things, anticipate their responses too well. I guess Fenster deciding to walk and needing to be eliminated could be the thing that went against his plan, but the way he's played up, I'm not sure we aren't supposed to believe Burble/Soze knew all along one guy who rebel and be killed, which would mean one fewer guy for him to eliminate later.

It was still a good movie, most of the performances were solid. The five suspects were generally believable. Confident in themselves, generally motivated by greed they try to disguise as something else (love, friendship, ego). I do wonder though, if Fenster and McManus had stolen more money together than one of the other guys could count, why they still needed to be pulling jobs. How do you spend that much money? I know, exaggeration, but it was the thought that went through my head. I'm sure the film works better if you don't know the reveal going in. Or maybe I should have just gone to bed, instead of waiting up to see the way it actually played out. Impatience coloring my judgement and all.

The Invisible Man 2.5 - Going Postal

Plot: We open on Fawkes and Alex taking cover as Hobbes fires blindly through a door. Eventually he runs out of bullets, they rush in and at first, I thought he wasn't wearing pants, but he was just wearing those khaki shorts postal employees sometimes wear. In a psychiatric hospital, Hobbes insists he was attacked and was returning fire, but is told there was no one else in the room. So while Eberts and Claire are poking through the office, Dr. Day questions Alex, Hobbes, and Fawkes as to their versions of the day.

As it turns out, they were there because a friend of the Official's in the Post office says there had been a series of threats from the recovery center, and the Agency will get all their postal charges waived for a year if they investigate. Alex doesn't want to be there, but the Official points out if she's going to be part of the Agency, she has to help with their cases sometimes, it can't just always be the other way around. So they go through the day, seeing little of interest. Alex' version (shown as essentially hidden camera footage, complete with timer strip at the bottom) contends the boys made fools of themselves hitting on one of the female postal employees, then she caught them leering at a magazine, Hobbes blew up at her and Fawkes, stormed into the break room, and began firing. Then we find out Darien was listening in the entire time.

Hobbes' version is done up like some noir story, black and white with deep shadows and him as the gumshoe. He portrays himself as having suavely hit on Amanda, who was totally into him as he lit her cigarette, while Fawkes sat meekly in the background, the clumsy sidekick. Then Hobbes flipped a fedora with "U.S. Mail" onto his head. When he and Alex got into it, he says she apologized deeply to him, and Fawkes thanked him profusely and confessed his admiration. Then Hobbes went into the break room for a drink and was attacked by the guy filling the water cooler and some random woman with a machine pistol.

Darien's version, shown in a sort of cold blue light with lots of lens flare (so I guess it's directed by J.J. Abrams), is that Amanda was totally into him (also that her shirt was unbuttoned halfway down), and that he and Hobbes were looking at a '69 Mustang when Alex started giving them grief and Hobbes got irate. He also notes that Hobbes was quite taken with some old Christmas card, the one thing the is consistent across all three versions. Fawkes calls Eberts and asks him to find the card, but once he does, he goes nuts and takes hostages. Fawkes has to sneak in and take Eberts down while Claire and Alex try to keep him distracted through the megaphone. Alex opts to point out the building is surrounded by SWAT guys, Claire tries reminding Eberts how much they all care for and are worried about him. Anyway, no lives are lost, and the conclusion is that it turns out the card was one of many sent out by some pro-drug guy in the '60s to a bunch of conservative politicians, and that it was coated in some hallucinogen or something. So Hobbes is out of the psych ward, and all is well. I guess.

Quote of the Episode: Fawkes - 'Sure we got our way of doing things, but we get results.'

The "oh crap" count: 0 (5 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? The motto of the Postal Service for one, William Blake for another.

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

Other: The fedora with the U.S. Mail patch on it was great. Also the fact Hobbes' Amanda spoke French.

They've kept having Darien get close to Q. Madness this season, but it hasn't happened yet. Probably for the best. If Alex is around, she'll likely just kill him. I suppose she might just beat his ass and drag him unconscious back to Claire for counteragent, but I can't be sure.

I didn't realize how often Darien used "chick". I started to notice about halfway through last season he likes to use "I mean" and "You know" frequently, but the chick thing seems to be coming up more frequently now. I'm not sure if it's a defense mechanism, using it to deflect insecurities, or if it's a way to show he doesn't care for someone. I feel like he's used it more around Alex or in this episode, the doctor, neither of whom he's a big fan of.

I figure Alex is telling the truth about Hobbes and Darien's embarrassing attempts to impress Amanda, but I think Fawkes is telling the truth about how she reacted to Hobbes' eruption (Bobby's story, while the most appealing to me aesthetically, is of course, a total mess). And I thought Hobbes was, for the record, on the mark with his comments to Alex. They were phrased in a hostile manner, but she has pretty consistently treated them like children, like lackeys not worthy of knowing what she's got them risking their lives to do.

We, as the audience, have seen the things they've encountered. But all these missions she's supposedly done to earn her 5-star rating, we haven't seen those. It was the same with Bobby early on. He had a big chip on his shoulder and talked a good game, but we didn't have any reason to believe it until he started to show what he could do. It's been a lot of talk about how good she is, with little to show for it. Yes, she's a fine hand-to-hand fighter. So is Bobby (when he's not being showy). She's a good shot, but so is Claire. What else has she done? Hobbes came up with the idea of looking for a connection on the missing kids through their fathers. Fawkes was the one who tipped them off to an abduction, got DNA evidence to prove the ids at the camp were the missing ones, and negotiated with Stark. Alex' assistance was in getting impatient and barging in, triggering an alarm that convinced Stark the feds really would attack. That's a pretty Scooby-Doo version of success via incompetence. She was smart enough to insist Fawkes and Hobbes have back-up when they made the grab for the cyro-pod, got to give her that. By and large though, I haven't seen anything that backs up her condescension.

It's why I agreed with the Fat Man when he told her she had to start helping with their cases, even though he said it in that irritatingly smug and paternalistic way he has. Plus, he was right. If she's part of the Agency, there's no reason she shouldn't be helping with their cases, if they keep getting forced to work on hers.

So this wasn't a great episode. I don't even remember if they solved who was stealing the mail or not. It felt like they had the idea to retell the same sequence of events from multiple perspectives, giving them a chance to play around with styles a bit, and they just came up with something that would let them do it. The story is just something to give them an excuse to do all that. Hope for better next week.

Another Apocalypse That Forces Me Into Subways. Swell.

I finished playing Fallout 3 a few weeks ago, I just haven't gotten around to reviewing it until now. Well, I didn't finish everything. I tried the bonus mission with the space aliens and got sick of it, and I have no interest in seeing post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh, or getting swept up in some slaves' quest for freedom.

Look, I already killed the slavers that set up camp in the Lincoln Memorial so a bunch of escaped slaves could establish a new settlement there. Let someone else take a turn doing all the work.

I didn't buy it myself, it was a gift from a friend (the one I tried to reciprocate by purchasing Super Metroid for), because they were really intent on me playing Fallout 3.

Basic story is this: You grow up in a "Vault", basically a big fallout shelter after the a nuclear apocalypse as the result of some war between the U.S. and China. Though the war happened around 2080, the world is stylistically stuck in the 1950s. I guess for Cold War paranoia about nuclear holocaust, but it was a little strange. Also, the 1950s are not my favorite time period, aesthetically. Your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) works as a doctor there, until he abruptly vanishes around your 20th birthday. No one is supposed to be able to leave, so this puts you in a bit of a spot, and you flee into the Wasteland, seeking your father.

In theory. The nice thing is that, for a long period of time, you don't have to worry about finding your dad. I think if you want to reach the "end" of the story, you have to track him down, but you can put that off as long as you want. There are plenty of other people who want your help, people to rob or kill, things to explore. The game generally gives you the choice of how to proceed if you take on a quest. So a bar owner asks you to find a former employee he claims absconded with his money, in exchange for information on your father. You track down the lady, and then the choice is yours. You can make her give up the money and take it back to the guy, or keep it for yourself and tell him she didn't have it. You can give him your own cash and leave her be, or you could kill her and take the caps yourself (bottle caps are the currency).

After I did that mission and found out where my dad went, I ignored him for probably the next 30 hours of play. He went to Washington D.C., cities have bigger and meaner enemies, and I wasn't that confident in my grasp of the combat system. So I stayed in the Wastelands, where the foes were more scattered and not necessarily as hostile.

Which doesn't mean I didn't die. I did, frequently. It took me a while before anyone explained what use I was getting out of putting skill points into Repair (the instruction manual was a paltry 3 or 4 pages, thanks game designers). So my equipment was constantly breaking, or I had to waste caps paying to have it fixed. The VATS system took a while for me to really grasp, and until I had enough points into my various weapons skills, I wasn't doing enough damage for it to seem very effective. Use VATS, fire at enemy's head (or whatever region of their form I'd like to shoot) 3 or 4 times, watch enemy not die and continue shooting me. Woohoo. Eventually I leveled up and it started to work more frequently, but early on, I was more than content to avoid fighting. Except I didn't have enough points in Sneak to be able to do that well. So better to stick to open areas. It did bring some tension, because when the little heads up display showed enemies ahead, I might not know what they were, and I was never sure if it was a fight I could win. Heck, even when I was Level 30, I wasn't always sure I could win, if it involved Super Mutants. I suppose that's good, that I couldn't ever get too complacent, because the game might throw a Deathclaw at me any moment (I found the best bet with those was to target a leg. If they're limping, you can outrun them, or shoot them in the face while backpedaling).

For me, the fun was the roaming, nosing through the buildings still standing, finding old computer logs, letters, or tape recordings. Some of what I found was sad, some of it grimly funny, a lot of it was disturbing (the Vaults had an ugly backstory). There were some interesting people, eventually. Some of their stories were sad, some were funny, or disturbing. The things people grab hold of to keep going. I couldn't decide if they were nuts, or if they were experiencing a perfectly reasonable response to the circumstances. A lady creates a museum in her home to a popular soda, and wants me to track down a batch of the experimental flavor they only recently released before the end of the world. Is that nuts? Well, she seemed chipper, and still able to clothe herself, not hacking people to bits or anything. So maybe no different from the people we have who are obsessed with stamps, or comic books.

Early in the game, though, it felt like every person was a jerk or just annoying, especially in Megaton. It was an open debate whether I'd disarm the unexploded nuke in the middle of town, or detonate it and kill them all. I wound up disarming it. Even in video games I can't get into killing people I don't deem to have deserved it. I mean, you try to kill me, or betray my trust, yeah, I'll go after you (see Pavel in Metro: Last Light). But otherwise, not so much. Eventually their eccentricities grew on me. Also, I met other, more violent people I could take out my frustrations on. Not that combat was ever the selling point of the game for me.

I did enjoy that I just randomly found my dad later in the game. I wasn't looking for him, I skipped two or three stages in the search for him and there he was, in some weird facility under an old garage I was nosing around in. Of course, then I tried to kill him and the game wouldn't let me, which kind of put a damper on my enthusiasm. What? He abandoned me with no explanation under some b.s. theory I'd be safer in the Vault. Screw that guy. The game wouldn't let me do it. I did find it interesting (read: irritating) that later on, he had a task I had to complete because no one else was available. Why did he not have enough people, given I was supposed to be in the Vault? Really irritated the game wouldn't let me kill him.

I need to complain about the map system. The map for a given area shows an overall floor layout, but doesn't differentiate between floors. It might show where an objective is, but I can't tell if it's on the same floor, above or below me. Which, if the stupid Pip-Boy can show me the location, you'd think it could give me that much (the direction the marker arrow points might tell which it is, I'm not sure). It makes finding my way around pretty difficult. I really can't stress enough how much I got sick of that map's general uselessness.

Also, the game froze up on me at least 3 or 4 times, which has not happened with any other game I've owned, except maybe Red Dead Redemption once.

The game does react to your decisions, not only in obvious ways (such as not being able to buy anything in Megaton if you blow it up). Annoy the wrong people, and they'll hire mercenaries to hunt you. People you help may give you access to different things. You can listen to Galaxy News Radio on your Pip-Boy, and their DJ will periodically update the people with details of your exploits, with his own commentary depending on whether he approved or not. This did bug me, because at one point he criticized me for not helping some lone survivor of a giant ant attack find a new home (after I went and killed all the giant, napalm spewing ants by myself), while I was in the middle of a mission for him. I decided I had better things to do for the next several hours, helping people who aren't ungrateful asses. At another point he criticized me for not rescuing some people who had been kidnapped by Super Mutants. Except I had rescued them, but one of them just had to pick a fight with a Raider, and wound up dead. How is it my fault they're idiots?

Ultimately, that's the fatiguing thing, everyone seems to look to me to do everything. I'm not sure how any of these people survived before I came ambling along. Maybe the answer is by keeping their eyes peeled for do-gooder suckers like me. Which is an argument in favor of being evil, I guess, but I can never seem to commit to it. I just periodically do bad things.

There's a Karma meter in the game, which I didn't entirely understand. Stealing from someone is bad, or killing an innocent person. OK, makes sense. Taking things that belonged to people who have been dead a long time isn't. But, if someone you knew, who had given you a quest gets killed, and you help yourself to their supplies (which you likely would have received as payment anyway), that's bad. Um what? I didn't kill them. Usually if someone tries to kill you, killing them in self-defense and robbing their corpse is given a pass. Every so often, though, I'd get attacked by some Wasteland Settler, for reasons I didn't understand. Best guess was I'd accidentally shot in their direction while fending off wild dogs or a Raider. They wouldn't stop attacking me, even after I tried to run, so I'd defend myself. And I'd get bad Karma for it. That struck me as pretty unfair, especially since the game didn't bat an eye if I sought out the Raiders, killed them by surprise and took all their stuff. The game was making value judgements about these characters' existences without really letting me in on them, then judging me by how I acted towards them. I'm not really clear on what role the Karma played in the game, probably affected how willingly some people would talk to me, but I can't be certain.

The game did give me the option to have a friend tag along. I didn't have much interest in it until one character insisted, because I had saved their life. I felt they'd already repaid that debt, but they were quite eager, and quite large, and carrying a laser gatling, so I didn't press the issue. I did get very complacent about fights after they started helping me, but like I said, I wasn't playing to kill people (though I did, a lot), I just wanted to look around. And it was nice to let someone else do the heavy lifting for awhile. And once I got the stealth armor, I was mostly able to avoid fights entirely. Just sneak past and go on my way, though once I got the shocksword I couldn't resist the occasional sneak attack. Hey, it was only on bad people, graverobbers and cannibals swamp rednecks and stuff like that.. I know this because my Karma didn't take a hit for it.

The problem is, sooner or later you see everything there is to see. This was why Point Lookout was my favorite of the bonus content. It provided me with a whole new place to explore (unfortunately also a whole new set of jerks to contemplate betraying and killing). Most of the others felt extremely linear and concentrated on shooting people, so they turned into a slog. At least I got some good stuff in Point Anchorage.

I guess I could start over, see if I can be truly evil. I ought to be able to manage it one of these days.

Can You Fit A Cat Burglar Peg In A Super-Villain Space?

I saw some scans from the Hawkeye vs. Deadpool mini-series (Marvel: Constantly willing to flood the market with too much Deadpool stuff!), and it looks like the Black Cat is gonna be the big bad. So not only are other writers not ignoring what Dan Slott is doing with Felicia, they're picking up the ball and running with it.

Why do they always do that with the ideas I don't like?

I still can't say I understand it, but I had a possible explanation. Name the most prominent female villain in the Marvel Universe right now.

I'm serious, name 'em, because I sure don't know. I think a couple of Thanos' major lackeys were ladies, but I wouldn't say they're established enough yet. Medusa did the villain thing briefly early in her career, but she's mostly a hero (when her position as a monarch doesn't put her at odds with the FF or whoever). Emma Frost has been part of one X-team or the other for like 20 years now. Elektra's in a hero phase right now (as opposed to her "controlled by the Hand" phase).

I might expect Nebula to get a push after the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but if it's happened, I haven't seen it (Note: It is entirely possible I missed it). There's Titania, but being She-Hulk's most consistent opponent isn't necessarily gonna put you on the A-list. The new Beetle hasn't really done anything yet. I'm not sure what the Enchantress is up to these days, Selene popped up in that X-Event Necrosha a while back, but I haven't heard anything recently about her, either. I'm not sure where the Red Skull's daughter is. Madame Masque is appearing in more books, between her involvement with Zemo in Avengers Undercover and her attempts on Kate Bishop's life in Hawkeye. Maybe it's her. Viper's the one who sent everybody after Wolverine, though, that might vault her into the lead. There is certainly someone blindingly obvious I'm forgetting, and I'm gonna kick myself when you mention her in the comments.

Point being, I wonder if Marvel is trying to get a high profile female villain, and they picked Felicia? She's been in a morally grey zone before, they sort of gave her a half-assed reason to turn evil, I guess. If she becomes Spider-Man's arch foe for a time, that would get her a relative level of notoriety.

Dealing With Exasperation Is Its Own Super-Power

Jennifer Walters - 'So he wants to shrink me and then have me poke around to find his friend. I'm fine to do it, but I just thought, you know, if there's anyone you talk to before you get all tiny, it has to be Hank Pym. I mean, you wrote the book on this stuff. So. . . Do you have any tips or - ?'

Hank Pym - 'Do not do any of the things you just said you were going to do.'

She-Hulk #7. I laughed at Pym's line. The just immediate interruption, and specifying she not do anything. You know Hank has had similar conversations a lot over the years.

Which made me wonder, which Marvel hero has uttered some version of that line the most over the years? For my money, it has to be Dr. Strange. After all, there are a lot of science-type heroes who can field the ill-advised experiment calls, but fewer magic types. And Strange is the go-to, unless the writer is trying specifically to not use Dr. Strange. Spider-Man alone must have called him at least a dozen times.

'Hey Doc, it's Spidey, I found this glowing doorway to a weird place where everything is upside-down, and I think a hoodlum ran in there. I see a guy with a big, flaming head, too.'

'That is Dormammu's Dark Dimension, an extremely perilous domain, wait for me -'

'Sorry, Doc, people in danger!'

'Do not just jump through the - ! Damn.'

Seriously, think of all the impetuous types Doc knows. Spider-Man, Namor, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Namor. Hmm, listed Namor twice without realizing. What the hell, let's go with it. Even Hellcat, though Patsy's more sensible about magic than most. So Doc's my pick, but you might feel Reed Richards or Tony Stark among the super-science sect, or perhaps the Black Widow  in the world of espionage. Maybe even Wolverine, just for the sheer number of people he seems to know who are always getting into trouble. Though Logan kind of has an unfair advantage being so much older than the others.

What's your pick?

Those Cosmic Abstracts Need To Get Off Their Butts

Admittedly, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to what Hickman's doing in his Avengers books, but as I understand it, these Earths from other universe keep trying to roll in the the 616 and if they aren't stopped, the universe (or maybe the multiverse) will be destroyed. Which is how you get the Illuminati guys blowing up said other Earths, and Captain America getting bent out of shape over the, you know, widespread mass murder of sentient beings.

Stark, Richards, and the rest would presumably argue they looked into every other option and couldn't find one that didn't involve destroying the other worlds, so this was the only way to save existence. Which seems a little dodgy given some of the challenges they've overcome in the past, but that's on Hickman, not the characters. They're only as smart as he's willing (or able) to write them.

Here's my question: Where are the cosmic big shots? If one of these other Earths completes this "incursion", the universe goes poof. Where's Galactus? The Celestials have spent millions of years or more messing around with the genetics of various species. All the work goes for naught if the universe ceases to exist, and presumably, so would they. Yeah, they can move through time and space basically at will, but they still need some time and space to move through, you dig? The Stranger doesn't care? Eternity doesn't care? Isn't he the universe, wouldn't he therefore die when the universe did?

Are they somehow oblivious to all this? I can understand none of them caring if the Skrulls decide to conquer Earth. That's largely irrelevant to beings on the scale we're discussing. But this would affect them too, so you'd think they'd take an interest. And it isn't as though they'd object to destroying inhabited worlds. During Infinity Gauntlet, the Celestials threw inhabited worlds at Thanos strictly as an (ineffective) diversionary tactic. Like they're going to blink at wiping out a planet to save their skins. Hell, just sit Galactus in front of whatever tear in space the planets are coming through with a lobster bib, and tell him to go to town. At least someone will be getting something out of killing billions of people.