The Invisible Man 2.10 - Flash to Bang

Plot: Hobbes and Fawkes are staking out some building. Well, Hobbes is sneaking around at ground level, while Darien struggles to climb many flights of stairs. Chrysalis agents drive up with a truck with a laser cannon on the back, which they fire into the clouds, only to have Hobbes leap out and try to arrest them, which results in gunfire. On the roof, Darien finds some sort of spire or antenna, just as the two scientists attending it leave because they get the report about the gun battle. So Darien's the only one the there when the storm started by the laser releases a bolt of lightning attracted by the antenna, which then jumps over a strikes Darien. I assume being Quicksilvered kept him from being badly burned, but when he awakes in a hospital, he doesn't remember his name (though he recalls he says "oh crap"), and the Agency has no idea where he is, until Eberts locates a John Doe admitted in hospital records..

The nice nurse lady, Doris, takes his picture to put on the news so perhaps his family can find him. But Jarod Stark finds him first, and tells Darien they are old friends who work for the CIA. Darien's pretty stoked about this, especially when he sees Stark's limo, but then Hobbes and Alex arrive, bullets start flying, and Darien steals the limo. He almost immediately drives into a dead end, but his panic causes him to secrete Quicksilver, so invisible Darien runs. By this time, though, the news report about him has aired, and who should see it but Arnaud, who has a lot of pictures of himself around his apartment.

Darien, meanwhile, is so confused, he decided to go to the police for help. Which was a bad idea because he still has his criminal record. So he gets locked up. Hobbes and Alex arrive shortly, get static from the desk sergeant, which leads to Alex and one of the cops arresting each other, while Darien is figuring out how to control the invisibility and escape, only to be sucker-punched by that one big Chrysalis goon that keeps popping up and brought to Stark. Darien is understandably suspicious of such behavior from a friend, and asks Stark a question to establish his bonafides: What does Darien always say? Stark botches it, which doesn't change much until a self-driving car appears. Oh wait, no, it's Arnaud dual-wielding machine pistols. Darien seizes that car in the confusion, only to find out Arnaud is still in the backseat. And he's passing himself off as Kevin again. Only this time, he and Darien are both test tube babies, grown and given different Quicksilver glands as part of an experiment.  And "Kevin" needs darien's help to bust out their third brother, "Vinnie", from prison. That'd be Huiclov.

The Agency is aware Arnaud's involved by now, because they received a call from Stark telling them they may have retrived Fawkes, but it forced them to reveal the existence of their other invisible agent. Claire is pretty sure Darien's memory will come back in time, as everything resets itself after the massive shock. In the meantime, Arnaud's just unable to not be an ass and gradually wreck what he's trying to build with Fawkes. Hobbes visits Huiclov, who insists Arnaud never visits. However, another person does, every month, and Hobbes tracks him down. This fellow gets paid by Arnaud to visit, and Arnaud stands next to him invisibly, using him to pass along info to Huiclov. When Arnaud calls to set up another meeting, the guy insists Arnaud bring him the money now, and when he does, Hobbes jumps him. Except Darien takes out Hobbes with a vase. He does at least keep Arnaud from killing Hobbes, so he's alive but tied up when Alex arrives.

By then, Darien and Arnaud have freed Huiclov, except he doesn't want to be freed, and Darien's starting to notice the inconsistencies in the Arnaud's story, like "Vinnie's" accent. Oh, and he's going into Quicksilver Madness. But not before a) they get Huiclov out, b) Hobbes and Alex arrive, and c) Darien remembers who Arnaud really is. He gets his hands around Arnaud' throat, but the Q.M. kicks in, and the weasel escapes while Darien's on the ground clutching the back of his head. The episode ends with Stark tracking down Arnaud and the two forming a partnership. Have fun with that, Darien.

Quote of the Episode: Fawkes - 'I'm just finding it hard to believe my friends would just punch me in the face and drive me out in the middle of nowhere, you know what I mean?'

The "oh crap" count: 5 (20 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? No one.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (4 overall).

Other: I like that it was Hobbes using "oh crap" as Fawkes clocked him that gave Darien pause.

I think Arnaud looks so much skinnier to me this season because his hair is much more unruly and poofed out. Last season it was always slicked back, but now it's out much further from the sides of his head, so it makes his face look slimmer. Either that, or the makeup people are really overemphasizing Bissonette's cheekbones.

That being said, his "Kevin" accent is really whiny and irritating. I don't now if that was intentional, him mocking Kevin's memory when he knew Fawkes wouldn't recognize it, or Arnaud just can't do a better "American" accent. I did love his explanation for "Vinnie", that not only was he a control in the experiment (thus no gland), but he was raised in Switzerland to be trained as a super-soldier who would be neutral under all circumstances. That's some pretty good off the top of your head lying, in the sense that it was very entertaining. Not a very plausible lie, just from looking at Huiclov. It is always nice to see Huiclov, though. The part where he started screaming before Darien even began Quicksilvering him was funny. He's a nice, kind of dim guy who simultaneously loves and is terrified of his brother. Nice counterpoint to Darien, having the younger brother that wanted to look after him, Huiclov has the younger brother who delights in tormenting him.

The scene in the hospital, when Darien asks Doris if she thinks he might really have a daughter, and seems pleased at the idea, that was interesting. Darien's never particularly struck me as someone who wants kids, even considering episode 1.3, "Ralph". He became friends with the girl, but I don't know that he wanted to be a dad from the experience. Perhaps it was the idea there was someone out there who cared if he was missing.

I don't understand why they have Darien's eyes go black when he only Quicksilvers them, but it was very appropriate in this case, since it came right as he remembered everything and oh look, there's Arnaud right in front of him. It's suitably ominous and badass. Do find it curious Quicksilver Madness dropped him with the headaches this week, when we didn't see any of that during its onset last week. You think the Evil Doctor might have noticed that during the run-up to her assassination attempt.

So clearly Arnaud and Stark each plan to betray the other. Question is, who tries first, and who succeeds first? My money is on Arnaud to make the first attempt. He's too cocky, and too impatient. Stark is supposed to be playing the long game anyway. Though I question the purpose of a lightning creating machine. Maybe it makes sense for a group that engineers lethal plagues, but it seems a little obvious and flashy, with the laser cannon and all. A little COBRA, you know what I mean? Also, them making lightning by firing lasers into the clouds, causing a storm to form from the heat made me think of Naruto, since I'm pretty sure Sasuke pulled off the same thing when he fought his brother.

Is Everything Just A Response To Something Else?

The comics were sent to his address, meaning my comic guy's. I'm going to assume shoddy handwriting, and it has been suggested I send him some mailing labels, but I'm not sure if that would come off as asshole behavior. Hardly seems like it, considering this is the second time we've had difficulties with the Postal Service reading his handwriting, but you can never tell with people.

To other business. I was reading this Grantland article by Alex Pappademas about 2001: A Space Odyssey, done in part because of the anticipation over the new film Interstellar. I mean the article was done because of that, not my reading it. I don't care about Interstellar one way or the other. Frankly, I'm not that big a fan of 2001 as a film. The book was fine, but the movie was ponderous, dull, and I didn't care about any of the characters. I'd have been better off rereading the book (which probably would take me less time than watching the movie).

The point I noticed was #4, where Pappademas argues that every 'realistic, adult sci-fi movie' since 2001 is a response to 2001 in some way. Which strikes me as ridiculous, because he's assuming every one of those people has seen 2001 and had some kind of significant reaction to it, since he asserts in the footnote that even films which envision the future looking much differently (such as Alien, or Blade Runner), are a rejection of Kubrick's clean, sterile vision of the future and space travel. Though really, it's Arthur C. Clarke's vision, isn't it? The massive ships or structures, the idea there are vast intelligences out there with plans we can barely fathom (if we can understand them at all). Clarke used them in his Rama series as well, so attributing it to Kubrick doesn't seem right. Unless we're going to argue Kubrick influenced the guy wrote the book Kubrick adapted

Honestly,even if you're talking about films, it isn't as though 2001 is the first one to posit that space is a hostile place, full of stuff humans probably aren't ready to be messing around with. Look at Forbidden Planet. Guy finds a host of alien technology, uses it to make himself seem smarter and then whoops! turns out his subconscious mind is taking physical form and killing people, running off the vast power sources the aliens left behind. The movie doesn't focus on the immensity of space, and there's even indication the aliens were destroyed by this technology as surely as humans nearly are, rather than the Monoliths which are equipment for monitoring the human experiment. But the sense it would be very easy to get in over our heads is there for sure. I mean, all the humans can do is run get the hell off the planet, basically. No clever, "reverse the polarity of the tractor beam to short out the connection to his id" strategy. Perhaps Forbidden Planet doesn't qualify as an adult, realistic sci-fi movie, but Pappademas brought up Star Wars in the conversation, and I wouldn't use "realistic" to describe that film, either, so blame him, he started it.

I'm guilty of this thinking, too, more with Westerns. I tend to compare most Westerns to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But I don't take the approach that every Western since then is in some way a response to it, only that it's my favorite Western and how much do I like others compared to it. Yeah, there were many Westerns made in the '70s trying to ape Leone's style to cash in, and Leone himself was influenced by John Ford's work. But not every Western necessarily is a response to Leone, and for whatever inspiration John Ford's work had on Leone, his films are still clearly his own work. Viewing them strictly - or even primarily - in relation to an older film is fairly reductive. One, it's assuming we know what the filmmaker was thinking, and two, it's not really assessing the film on its own merits. Maybe it's unavoidable, compare one thing to something else we either liked or found similar. I just hate generalizations like that. They're too, well, general, and over-simplified.

Massive Schools And Asteroid Bases Aren't Cheap

Back in the spring/summer, there were these photos posted online of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart roaming Coney Island and such, generally having good times and being solid chums. And one of the pictures was the two of them sitting in front of a big pile of garbage. Which I thought was kind of strange, but whatever floats your boat, right? For some reason I was thinking about those photos again recently, and I thought of Charles Xavier and Magneto sitting on a sidewalk, begging for change.

So a wealthy banker walks by and Xavier is all, 'Spare some change for the mutant cause?'

Wealthy banker: Get lost, mutie bum!

And then Magneto lifts the guy's wallet by attracting all the loose change. And Xavier criticizes him for such methods, and Erik defends it as being a small act that will help many, and that was as far as I went with it.

A Hodgepodge For A Disappointing Wednesday

I have no idea where my comics are. He says he sent them last Wednesday, they aren't here. Did he not send them, or is this a case of his handwriting being illegible again, or are they lost? I don't know. You'll know when I do.

So a week or two ago I had some questions about the Spider-Verse thing. The Internet has provided the answer to one of them. The Assemblage of Spider-Folk do have a cosmically powered Spider-Man in their midst. In fact, it's his universe they've established their base in, because the Morluns apparently are smart enough not to challenge him, after all. And yes, apparently he'd lose his powers if he left his home universe, so that explains not rounding up an army of them and sending them after the Morluns.

So, one mystery solved, at least.

This is an insubstantial post, so I will briefly discuss Silent Hill: Shattered Memories to give you more bang for your buck. I thought I talked about it briefly a few years ago, after watching an acquaintance of Alex' play it, but I can't find that post anywhere. So, oh well. A man's driving home in a snowstorm with his daughter when he loses control and crashes. When he awakens, his daughter is gone. He starts trying to find her, but her location keeps changing, there's another family living in his home. Oh, and sometimes the entire world seems to freeze over and become inhabited solely by monsters you have to avoid until you can reach whatever arbitrary place the game deems safe. This is broken up by sequences in a therapist's office, as he asks you questions.

Supposedly the game takes your responses and uses them to craft a game experience that will more effectively terrify you. I can't speak to that, since I think you'd have to play it through more than once to compare and contrast, and I didn't even beat it once. I will note that at one point the therapist said family was very important to me, immediately after I'd given an answer to a question that suggested strongly this is not the case. Who knows, maybe it's commentary on the American psychiatric industry.

I got frustrated with the monster portions almost immediately. I think it's because when that isn't going on, there doesn't seem to be anything to be scared of. You just walk around and investigate things that make you flashlight flicker or your cell phone give off static. Then the game flips a switch and now you have to be on guard constantly. I dreaded it, but more in a sense of resignation than actually being scared. Maybe I didn't care about him enough yet. OK, the real issue is I already know how the game ends, and that impacted my perspective. Anyway, I was thrown off the first time, because his daughter called and told him he couldn't fight, just run. I did that, but found out later I could have tried sneaking past them instead of running, and maybe they wouldn't have chased me. Would have been nice, considering this guy runs only slightly faster than Alan Wake did. And if they catch you, then it's time for an annoying button pressing quick-time thing to shake them off. Which got tedious fast when one latches on as fast as I shake another one off.

Needful Things (1993)

One of my coworkers, in an effort to spur on our Halloween horror moviefest had offered the use of her extensive collection. And I picked Needful Things. I guess because nothing else really looked interesting, and I had seen and read the story in the past, so I could count on it to be a little entertaining. Plus, I'm generally a fan of Ed Harris in films. He's normally plays a solid guy that I find myself liking, even when I probably shouldn't (Enemy at the Gates).

For some reason I thought Donald Sutherland played Leland Gaunt, but no, Max von Sydow. It's fine, he's charming when he needs to be (though people tell him things far too easily), but always a little too big on physical contact. Makes him just creepy enough in those early stages before everything goes to hell in more obvious ways.

The movie does accelerate things a lot. It's been many years since I read the book, but I remember much more of a slow burn, a focus on the way all the favors people do for Gaunt slowly wind people up. The way the movie presents it, all these people were missing one green light away from completely losing their shit anyway, Danforth Keeton in particular.  Even Gaunt himself was rushing things. He was way too cavalier with his abilities. Appearing inside Polly's diner even after she'd locked the doors, or inside her bedroom. I guess the Devil's arrogance is often his downfall in stories, but if his whole shtick is this kindly old man who always has just what you want, at an absurdly low price, maybe don't show off preternatural abilities so much. Subtlety.

Also, we don't get any particular focus on the thought processes of any of these suckers. Brian Rusk's OK with throwing turkey crap all over Wilma's sheets, then smashing all her windows with apples. But then he's not OK when people start dying, and the next time you see him, he's about to shoot himself. Yeah, Gaunt prodded him along somehow, but it might have helped to see what he said that did it. I'd like to think when things went crazy that the actors at least had a good time screaming and acting like lunatics. I imagine it might be fun to do that, assuming you didn't have to keep shooting the scene over and over again.

One other thing I remember from the book I enjoyed was the idea all these people only thought they were getting the thing they wanted most. In reality it was some piece of junk. Brian's pristine Mickey Mantle card is really some beat up card for some nobody player (I forget who). Just a little extra twist of the knife. Given the Sheriff saw Brian's card as a signed Mickey Mantle card, I guess they thought that would be confusing to the audience. Unless the Sheriff asks Brian about it, and then Brian explains it's a signed Mickey Mantle card, and the Sheriff's all like, "Uh, got some bad news for you, kid."

A Farewell To The Woods?

{Last time, the trip to the cookie factory in the tree didn't go so well, as Deadpool lost several fingers. While the Ghost of the Forest - and its Fribsee - were found, Calvin was covered in the residue of melted down objects of hatred, and is now possibly a creature of pure negative energy. Also, he has a chainsaw.}

Clever Adolescent Panda: Calvin? Calvin, say something!

{Calvin's only response is to tighten the grip on the panda's throat. Deadpool starts to move forward, sword drawn.}

CAP: Wade, no!

Deadpool: [No?]

CAP: *choked* No stabbing!

Deadpool: [You notice he's trying to kill you, right? Pretty sure neither of you will be happy about that. Me either, for that matter.]

CAP: Let. .  me. .  try something!

{Clever Adolescent Panda pulls itself free of Calvin's grip slowly, the darkened, steaming fingers, relinquishing their grasp unwillingly. Then the panda lunges forward and wraps both arms around Calvin's midsection.}

CAP: C'mon, Hug!

{Calvin writhes and emits an awful and familiar to the panda, screeching. The violet residue bubbles and retreats for a moment. Then Calvin grabs his longtime friend by the scruff of the neck and hurls him into Deadpool, sending the two tumbling.}

Calvin: *low rasping hiss* {Nooooooo. . . huuuuuugssss.}

Deadpool: *slightly dazed* [Great plan, there, Care Bear.]

CAP: Shut up, it was working!

Deadpool: [In the same way Hair Club for Men works for me, sure. Look out!]

{Calvin shambles forward, swinging the chainsaw as Deadpool rolls to the side with CAP. Wade draws a pistol.}

CAP: Wade, no!

Deadpool: [What now?]

CAP: No shooting Calvin!

Deadpool: [Not even kneecapping?]

CAP: No shooting, period!

Deadpool: [Oh come on, he's a magical smoking hate monster now. With a chainsaw. Bullets probably don't even affect him. Watch!] *Deadpool shoots Calvin in the foot*

Calvin: {Owwww, I wasn't aware of it until now, but I HATE BEING SHOT!}

CAP: Wade!

Deadpool: [He sounded more like himself! We need to give him something concrete to focus his hate on! Then he'll burn it out!]

CAP: No, that can't be right. Can it?

Deadpool: [Sure it can, I'm a master tactician when it comes to dealing with monsters. Who had the bright idea to bring Dazzler from the '70s to kill vampires? I'll prove it. *walks towards Calvin* Hey Calvin! I shot you in the foot because you're such a loser I wouldn't waste a bullet on shooting you in the face! Waddaya think of that?]

{Calvin hisses, and swings the chainsaw at the tree neck to him. The chainsaw smashes the trunk as much as it cuts through it, and as it falls, Calvin drops the saw, and catches the tree easily. Then he swings it at Deadpool.}

Deadpool: [Aw crap.]

{Deadpool goes flying back up and over the hilltop. Clever Adolescent Panda splinters the trunk with one blow on the next swing and spies the little bakers scrambling away along the hillside.}

CAP: *shouting* Ghost, can you keep him busy? I need to talk to them!

{The only response is the Frisbee, which begins spinning around Calvin, prompting a series of wild swings at it. Clever Adolescent Panda turns to give chase and quickly catches up, bringing all of them to the ground with a single leap, which leaves them all squashed beneath it.}

Mercanser: Oof, get off, fatso!

CAP: Tell me how to undo this!

Dwiddel: How the heck would we know? I used to be a garbageman!

CAP: *pause* What?

Stevedolino: I was a middle-manager at a factory that made roofing shingles.

Mercanser: I used to work at a burger joint.

CAP: *gets off them, sits back* You're joking.

Dwiddel: *stands, pats off dust* Look, my real name is Tyrone. We all had other jobs we didn't like, and they offered really good pay to bake cookies, and I thought, "What the heck?" The only downsides were you had to work in a tree, and we had to be shrunk down to fit inside the tree, and we have to use these stupid names when we're on the clock. But we get back to normal-size on weekends, and there's good health benefits and retirement packages.

Mercanser: And we get free cookies!

Dwiddel/Tyrone: That too.

CAP: So, none of you are magic gnomes, or know anything about magic?

Mercanser/Lucille: No, they just showed up how to operate the machines, told us not to touch the extract without gloves, and that was it. We'd gone over 200 days without a workplace accident until you guys showed up.

Stevedolino/Seraph: And that last accident was just Joey asking someone to hit him with a rolling pin to see if it hurt.

Mercanser/Lucille: Oh yeah, Joey. *chuckles* He wasn't very bright.

{Clever Adolescent Panda feels despair creeping in, but then notices one of the bakers has been silent throughout, lingering in the back. One wearing a big pointy purple hat with yellow stars on it.}

CAP: What about you?

Purple Pointy Hat: Me?

Tyrone: Ha, Lufonz never talks about what he did before. Considering Caroline owned up to directing dog food commercials, he must have done something really bad. Probably a Congressman.

Lufonz: *tired* I've told you before, I've seen a lot and just wanted to get away for awhile. The Purple Thunder-Pachyderms of Penzance, the Magnetic Prison Mines of Magmoor. . .

CAP: Wait, are you saying you're a. . . robot wizard?

Lufonz: That's ludicrous! *evasive* Everyone knows robot wizards were declared a heresy and destroyed in a joint effort of robots and wizards centuries ago! Even though the robot wizards would have combined the orderly minds and quick processing of robots with the spiritual connection and cleverness of wizards, making a single one more than a match for a thousand of their inferior predecessors.

CAP: You definitely run off at the mouth like a wizard, and lie as badly as a robot.

Lufonz: *outraged* How dare you! I'll smite you for such insolence! Rocket Punch! {A tiny fist launches forward, Clever Adolescent Panda snatches it out of mid-air, then flattens Lufonz under one paw} Release me!

CAP: Not unless you help me!

Lufonz: *scared* If I use magic, they'll notice me, and I'll be hunted down! I don't want to die!

CAP: You can come stay in my hometown. We don't have any problems with robot wizards.

Lufonz: I could stay in the Panda Citadel? You've got a deal! I need a closer look at your friend.

{CAP picks up Lufonz and they rush back the other direction. The other bakers remain where they are. Calvin is still swinging the chainsaw at the Frisbee as a wind whips it around him in dizzying arcs. His lack of success does not seem to have diminished his enthusiasm. Finally he catches it and carves the toy in half. The wind stops immediately, and there's a strange, sad silence that descends. Curiously, Calvin lets the saw fall silent as well, and actually catches one of the pieces as it falls. He stares at it, and sinks to his knees for a moment, head bowed. But the residue seems to pulse, the smoke coming off it intensifies, and he rises, the screech rising in pitch as it scrabbles its way out of him.}

Calvin: {I HATE CHARACTERS THAT DON'T VOCALLY EMOTE!}

Lufonz: Interesting, the residue has a sort of consciousness. Basic, probably just a reflection of all that ill will. It's encouraging him, but asserts control when he bucks against it. It's like a more clumsy malevolence hack spell.

CAP: Can we get it off him?

Lufonz: A possibility. My greater concern is doing so without being carved in half, or having to do too much magic. You and your idiot friend did have some parts of it figured right. The hate is general, because that extract is from so many items, there's no focus. He does need to focus on something specific, but not with hate. Can you maintain that hug on him for longer this time?

CAP: Without help to keep him busy, I don't know. We need Wade.

{They retreat up the hill, leaving Calvin to his blind rampage. They find Deadpool, still dazed, with a lot of splinters in his chest.}

Deadpool: *woozy* [I like peas, but no carrots. Domino stabbed me with one at our last dinner at Cable's. I just asked if she wanted to see my Bugs Bunny! I do a great impression!]

CAP: Wade, get up, we need you.

Deadpool: [Nope, just wanna lie here for awhile, look at the clouds. Send over a nice waiter with a coconut drink.]

CAP: Are you gonna let Calvin beat you up? What are Shiklah and Eleanor going to think?

Deadpool: [Your transparent ploy to play on my fears of not being masculine is right! I can't get beat up by Calvin. Certainly not with shrubbery!]

CAP: Great, let's go.

{They don't need to go far, Calvin has begun moving to the crest of the hill, and advances steadily in their direction.}

CAP: Wait, while I'm hugging and Wade's keeping his arms pinned -

Deadpool: [I'm doing what now? Did you see him swing that tree? I can't reenact the Black Panther pinning the Silver Surfer from McDuffie's FF run!]

CAP: Don't you have bolos or something you can throw first, to help?

Deadpool: [Non-lethal, non-painful weapons? Anything is possible.] *starts rummaging through pouches*

CAP: *turns to Lufonz* Now, what are you doing during all this?

Lufonz: I can give you one spell. Either I can boost your physical strength, so you can hold on longer, or I can attack the extract, try to render it inert, so it can't try and attack you.

Deadpool: *without looking up* [So text your vote in now to determine the next top spell!]

CAP: Why just one spell?

Lufonz: Sanctuary is great, but I'd prefer the Robot Overlords and the Mage Masters not even know they need to be looking for me. One spell could still slip under the radar. It's what I'm giving you, besides my considerable wisdom and experience. You want it or not?

CAP: Fine, deal with the extract. Wade, did you find any bolos?

Deadpool: [Nope, but I tied a couple of cue balls to several sets of extra boot laces!]

CAP: Fine, just throw them, he's right there!

{Deadpool throws the makeshift bolos, and they work surprisingly well. Perhaps that sudden gust of wind gave them a little extra oomph. Calvin's arms are pinned, and the cue balls knock the wind out of him for a moment by hitting solidly in his midsection. CAP dashes forward and slams into Calvin, though Calvin recoils, he doesn't fall. Undaunted, CAP commences hugging, focusing all its thoughts on positive things. Deadpool has circled around and charges up from behind, wrapping arms and legs around his former source of mini-pizzas. Lufonz mutters under his breath and moves his hands in a few precise motions, almost faster than the eye can detect. Calvin thrashes and hisses, but this time the residue covering him doesn't bubble and boil. Almost immediately, it's eerie glow begins to dim, the creeping shine fading, and it begins to flake off Calvin's skin. His thrashing ceases.}

Calvin: {That. . . really sucked.}

CAP: Calvin! Are you OK?

Calvin: {Maybe. Why did you tackle me so hard?}

CAP: I thought it if you were knocked down it'd be easier to control you?

Calvin: {Really? How was Wade going to help then? Use his impressive tunneling powers?}

Deadpool: [I'm all out of grenades.]

CAP: Fine, I got a little caught up, OK? My adrenaline was going! Just be glad I didn't let Wade shoot you!

Deadpool: [Except in the foot.]

Calvin: *flatly* {Yeah, except in the foot. Which really hurts, by the way. I use that for walking, you know, Wade.}

Deadpool: [Walking's for squares.]

CAP: Hey, Lufonz - Calvin this is Lufonz, the robot wizard - could you do a spell to heal Calvin's foot?

Lufonz: No. I told you, one spell. I did the spell. Call a doctor, if your fleshy friend is in need of medical assistance.

Deadpool: [Do you have to keep your promise to help him?]

CAP: *glumly* Yeah, I do. *looks around* Where'd the other bakers go?

Lufonz: I imagine they fled some time ago.

CAP: Dang, I wanted to ask them about the company they worked for.

Lufonz: Well I can't tell you much they didn't already. *looks down hill* You destroyed the factory? My lunch was in the break room! I was really looking forward to that fried egg sandwich!

Calvin: *standing gingerly by leaning on Wade's shoulder* {Ooh, sorry. Guess I was carried away.}

CAP: *suspicious* Break room? Was it a really nice break room?

Lufonz: Yeah?

CAP: With a string quartet, and a fountain, and nice cheeses?

Lufonz: We had cheeses, but no fountain.

CAP: *disappointed* Oh.

Lufonz: They were talking about getting a jug band in there, because we exceeded projections for the quarter:

CAP: *through clenched teeth* UnCalvin. . .

Lufonz: *impatient* Look, whatever, are you getting me out of here or what? I don't fancy being here when the seekers come looking for the source of that spell.

CAP: Fine. Let's go. I have to leave, guys. Wade, will you get Calvin back home safely?

Deadpool: [Sure! Have I ever let you down before? *flexes, loses grip on Calvin, who falls down* Ignore that cheap gag right there.]

Calvin: *picks self up* {Wade, why don't you head home? See your wife and daughter? Or at least one of them. I need to chat with the Ghost.}

Deadpool: [Even better plan. *teleports*]

{Calvin stands by himself for a moment, looking around, listening.}

Calvin: {Ghost? You still here? *silence* I'm sorry about the Frisbee.}

{The wind swirls a few leaves around his legs, and continues to lift them up until they are just brushing Calvin's face.}

Calvin: {I can bring you a new one -} 

*the leaves are blown in merry loops*

Calvin: {- before I have to go.}

*the leaves drop*

Calvin: {The job's ending, I have to move on.}

*no response*

Calvin: {I'm not sure when I'll get back down here. You could come along, see where we end up next.}

*no response*

Calvin: {I know you can, you came to visit last winter.}

*no response*

Calvin: {But you're attached to this area. One of these days, we really do need to find out what holds you here.} 

*the leaves flutter slightly*

Calvin: {I'm going to say good-bye to Cassanee later this week - not that I'm sure she cares - and I'll ask her to visit. Please don't drop any trees on her.} 

*the wind blows several leaves directly in his face*

Calvin: {Heh, fair enough. Not making promises you aren't sure you can keep, a spirit after my own heart. *awkward pause* Well, so long.}

{Calvin places the chainsaw back in its case and begins the trek back to the housing, limping the whole way. Everything is silent for the first few minutes, and then the wind rises again, and his hard hat is blown off. It floats up into the sky, rotating slowly until it stops, right side up. It drifts down next to Calvin, at a level even with his own head. Calvin watches all this quietly, then smiles.}

Calvin: {Nah, they won't miss it.}

{He resumes his slow walk, the helmet floating next to him silently the whole way.}

The Invisible Man 2.9 - Bad Chi

Plot: Darien pursues some guy, but in the process of catching him, aggravates his back. At the Agency, Claire explains she's had three orthopedists in to look at Darien, and none have found anything. Hobbes suggests acupuncture, and how it helped his kidney stone, but the Official says "no." So Darien goes anyway. The acupuncturist, Dr. Charlene Jay, does help, since her teacher is struggling with stomach cancer, but in the process, she accidentally triggers the gland. So Darien has to explain that. Charlene promises to keep it to herself, but advises making a follow-up appointment. When he does, she jams some needles into him she can use to deliver an electric shock, and tell hims he's going to help her steal some fabled acupuncture needles from a museum exhibit, so she can use their mystical abilities to heal her master. Fawkes, having perhaps learned from his return to prison last week, is reluctant, but, you know, ZZAP!

So they steal the needles (and the guards' last slice of pizza), but the needles don't help. Her mentor says they are cursed. Charlene is sure he means because Wallace Gilliam, the man who created the exhibit, stole a piece of Chinese history. I think he meant because she inflicted pain on someone else to force them to steal for her, but whatever. Now she's convinced Gilliam must die to remove the bad energy. She can't do it because then she'll be afflicted and unable to use the needles, which means, ZZAP!. But Darien is close to going Quicksilver Mad, and has to explain his need for counteragent. So she makes a video of him, where he explains this to the Agency, and ships it to them. It's been a couple of days now, so they've been looking for him, under a series of silly operation names devised by Eberts. Even Alex was brought in, though she isn't happy, and complains a lot. Upon seeing the video, Hobbes is the only one who believes Darien isn't pulling a scam. And he's vindicated, because while Charlene and Darien do escape with the counteragent, Darien was able to leave behind some silver case with Charlene's name on it (given to him by her master, along with some advice about the lesser of two evils).

Of course, by the time they reach the office, Charlene and Darien are already headed to Gilliam's. But once they arrive, it turns out that sneaking in invisibly pushed Darien over the limit, because he didn't take the counteragent. And Crazy Fawkes doesn't mind the ZZAP! Alex and Hobbes burst in, Hobbes beats up Charlene, Alex takes out Fawkes, he gets some counteragent, the whole thing is resolved. Well, except for the fact Charlene's teacher is still dying of stomach cancer. And Gilliam really is a slimeball.

But Darien's back is all better.

Quote of the Episode: Hobbes - 'Bobby Hobbes does not gloat, he merely celebrates all victories, great and small.'

The "oh crap" count: 2 (15 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? There's a line about wisdom coming from suffering, and something else I wrote down I can't read.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (3 overall).

Other: I think of all Eberts' operation names, I like "Lame Dog" the best.

I was surprised by Claire's catty comment about Alex. When she and Hobbes are sent to investigate the museum robbery - which Alex learned about separately through her channels, which irritated the Official enough to make her take Bobby along as, I dunno punishment or a way to exert control - Alex says 'Saddle up, cowboy.' After she leaves, Claire mutters that her character is as real as her hair color. Ouch. I thought the two of them had been getting along fairly well in limited interactions up to this point. Sure, Alex pretty much tried to bribe her right off (the offer to get her a totally awesome computer in "The Camp"), but they'd at least seemed cordial. But Claire rarely appreciates the Official's smugness, and so perhaps Alex' arrogance irritates her as well. Or maybe she doesn't appreciate how Alex teases Bobby.

I can't decide whether I'm happy that Quicksilver Mad Fawkes is so much less dangerous this season. On the plus side, no extremely uncomfortable scenes of Fawkes menacing a barely clothed lady. On the minus side, it makes Quicksilver Madness seem less like something for others to be worried about, and more just Darien being kind of silly, but taking it a little too far into creepy. A Fawkes who is still at least as intelligent as he usually is, just more amoral, that's scary. One that doesn't turn visible to gloat after sucker-punching you, but just keeps attacking. Dangerous. That guy would be a handful, though I'd still expect Alex to be able to handle. Fawkes, really can't fight very well at all. I guess there's a fine line, and the show isn't treading it terribly well, unless the implication is supposed to be that Darien's doing a better job reining it in. He's Mad, but he's just in control enough to keep from going invisible or really hurting anyone else.

At least Monroe didn't immediately decide to shoot him. She just kicked his ass, and yes Fawkes, you did get beat up by a girl. There's no denying it.

Oh, I almost forgot, the Agency has thermal glasses now, rather than the clunky goggles Hobbes used to wear.

The episode is a little bit of a return to Season 1's "The Devil You Know", with another person using the gland as a way to control Darien. Though in that one, it was Darien's hatred of the way the Official used counteragent as a leash, and his fear of going mad, that gave the guy leverage. Here, it's Charlene's knowledge of how to use her knowledge to cause pain, and Darien's trust in her. He really has to stop trusting people who say they'll help him. But then where does that leave him and Claire? I didn't much like Charlene. The people who force others to do the dirty work they're unwilling to do are never my favorites. Get your own hands dirty. And it was pretty obvious Charlene had a preexisting grudge against Gilliam, so I'm not sure she wasn't using the needles as an excuse, ultimately.

Return Of The Random Movie Soundtrack Post!

It's been 7 years since the last time I did this, so I think it's fair to try again and see what comes up. A quick refresher: Open your Music Library and set it to shuffle, then hit play. Each song that comes up is the one that plays during a particular scene in the film of your life.

Opening Credits: "Shiver", Coldplay - Great. A song about a guy who is endlessly devoted to someone, will do anything for them, but that person doesn't give a damn about them, and is not at all secretive about this. Yet the guy doesn't have the sense to pack it in and move on. To be honest, I keep this song in my playlist mostly because I like the guitar parts. It makes me think of the end of Trigun for some reason. Which was certainly more upbeat than this suggests my life is going to be.

Waking Up: "I Don't Have Anything", VAST - Detecting a theme here. A song about a guy who feels devoid of any purpose or feeling without his lover. So either this movie is going to start somewhere in my adult life - maybe near my death, when I'm an aged widower or something - and then go into a flashback of my entire life. Unless we start with me as a little kid, who has one particular stuffed animal he really likes. I did have one of those, a stuffed koala.

First Day of School: "Another One Bites the Dust", Queen - See, now I had this for the opening credits last time. Which was maybe more appropriate. I'm not sure any of the implications of this song playing as I go to school are pleasant. All my illusions of how great school is gonna be are repeatedly shattered - unfriendly teacher, bullies, bad food, hit in the face with a dodgeball in gym. I guess we could go a funny route, and have me answering question after question correctly. I was that sort of nerd in elementary school, but I became to cool and jaded to give answers to questions in class without prompting.

Falling in Love: "Schizophrenic Conversations", Staind - A song about someone who doubts themselves and their judgment constantly, but doesn't feel the other person understands that. This really seems like a song that would better suit breaking up, but I guess it could be about an internal argument whether to ask the person out, what to say, what to do, whether to keep going, whether the feelings are genuine or not, whether their feelings for me are genuine or not. But maybe I open up and they understand and it's all good.

First Love Song: "Honky Tonk Woman", The Rolling Stones - My question is, would this song be about the lady in question, or just be a song that was playing as we met? It seems a little on the nose for the lady I fall in love with to be a "honky tonk woman", however you care to define that, and oh look, that's the song playing. So let's say it was playing on the jukebox in some bar I was hanging out in, probably with Alex, and we wound up playing pool, and there you go.

Breaking Up: "I'm Just a Killer For Your Love", Blur - Yikes. So I've officially gone psycho stalker. Sure, it could refer to her, but let's be honest, after those first two songs set the tone for me being really obsessed and fixated, it's probably me. I'm not liking Movie Calvin very much. I think he needs a smack upside the head from Blog Calvin.

Prom: "Baroque-A-Nova", Mason Williams - Uh, I got nothing. It's at least a very light, airy song, with lots of, what do you call it when people just make sounds instead of words, vocalizing? Lots of 'bah, bu-bah, bah, bah, bah". Seems kind of strange after that previous song. Maybe I recovered quickly and found someone new I'm happy with in a vague, undefined, and silly way. That's assuming, of course, this is the order these things would occur in the film. Maybe prom comes before the break up.

Mental Breakdown: "Ride With Me", Steppenwolf - Well, the guy singing seems to be very confused about a lot of things. It seems like he wants to work towards some goal, equality, or rights, something, but he's uncertain what to do, or how to do it. Where to go, who to trust. But there is one person, his baby, who he wants to ride with him to the end of the day. So I could find myself at a crossroads, and I turned to her to help me. If we're broken up, she's not there, or even if she is, she can't help, so I fall apart. Wow, this is a seriously depressing film. It is gonna win so many independent film awards, and I would totally win a lot of Oscars if only Academy Voters had any balls (I read some piece on Grantland yesterday about that eternal argument, how certain films should have won, but didn't because the voters lack "balls").

Driving: "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", Daft Punk - Yes, I would certainly drive places with this song playing, though that's true of every song since everything in my library gets a turn in my CD players at some point. In seriousness, if we treat this as happening after the breakdown, it could be me trying to get my head right again, by traveling, or just running simple errands to restore my confidence that I can actually handle decisions. Or it could be me trying to ignore my apparently deep-seeded emotional problems by focusing on improving myself physically. So I'm driving to the gym. Or to the canyon (with the top down), where I'm going to jog.

Flashback: "You May Be Right", Billy Joel - This song again? At least it isn't my final battle music this time. So I was a guy who took a lot of stupid chances and had been getting lucky, and I knew it, but I didn't care. If there was any real sense that the recognition that the other person was right was prompting a change in my behavior, this could be me reflecting on all the things my lost love (or friend, or whoever) tried to warn me about, and how I should have listened. But the song is fairly gleeful in the fact that it doesn't care if it's behaving self-destructively. So I'm going to decide recapturing that spirit is the right move? To hell with spiritual growth or whatever I was doing to get harder, better, faster, stronger. It could be about Alex, reflecting on all those times I advised him to slow down, and deciding he's glad he didn't listen. I'm probably making a mistake in focusing the songs too much on me. There have to be other characters with growth and development (or at least some attention paid to why they aren't growing).

Getting Back Together: "Ruby Tuesday", The Rolling Stones - So we're getting back together to a song about a woman that's leaving because that's just how she has to be, and you accept that? So we're in an open relationship? Friends with benefits? Long-distance relationship? Or we're reuniting by one of us quitting our job at a Ruby Tuesday and moving someplace else. If that's the case, I vote for her to be the one who was working there. I refuse, even in a movie where I had a mental breakdown, to work in the food service industry. I am completely unsuited for it, temperamentally.

Wedding: "Hey Lawdy Mama", Steppenwolf - Man, really? This isn't even one of my favorite Steppenwolf songs, and it's hardly the sort of thing to play on a wedding day. Maybe for the honeymoon, the constant moving about, searching for something. But even then, it's not a very happy song. Kind of a "Wherever you go, there you are" song. Our attempt to flee food service has apparently not solved everything.

Birth of a Child: "42", Coldplay - We're having a kid? What the hell, Movie Calvin?! I didn't agree to that! Then again, the song opens with, 'Those who are dead, are not dead, they're just living in my head.' Which, not unlike the wedding song, is hardly a joyous thing to be thinking. I guess one of us could have recently lost a parent who would have loved to have seen their grandbaby, and so we reflect upon that. The music picks up in tempo for the last minute, but the lyrics are still talking about someone thinking they're a ghost, because they didn't make it to Heaven, so again, not cheerful. Add another 5 Academy nominations into your calculations.

Final Battle: "We Hate You, Please Die", Crash & The Boys - Now we're talking! That's the kind of visceral emotion we need for a final battle! No namby-pamby, "you might be wrong, but you might be right" stuff here. This is from the Scott Pilgrim movie. It's only a minute long, so someone's gettin' steamrollered. If we assume I am the hero of this picture - and practically every other song to the contrary, I contend I am - then I must have won. The bad guy would drag things out (see the nearly seven minute song I died to the last time I did this), whereas I will simply beat his ass and move on, because I'm not a vengeful person. Ha.

Death Scene: "Pinball Wizard", The Who - So in my waning moments, I have come to accept that there are strange and glorious things in this universe I can't really comprehend, I can only enjoy them for what I can perceive. I don't know, that's what I'm getting from this. Unless I'm going to become a messianic figure of awe and reverence based on my skill at some particular thing. Ooh, ooh, I want it to be playing pool! Unless this movie involves me getting Spider-Man powers, then using them to be awesome at basketball, in which case, let's go that way. Note: The film probably won't involve me getting me Spider-Man powers.

Funeral Song: "Ramblin', Gamblin' Man", Bob Seger - If this song is the summation of my life, then Movie Calvin is a very different creature. The "ramblin'" part isn't entirely untrue, for a given range of ramblin', but gamblin', and the part about not bein' shy, yeah, those are pretty different. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, given some of the other stuff Movie Calvin's gotten into, with the stalking and beatdowns and all. At least it sounds like my funeral will be pretty swingin'.

Ending Credits: "Green River", Creedance Clearwater Revival - OK, that's creepy. Out of nearly 800 songs, the shuffle pulled up the exact same song for the ending credits I got last time. On the other hand, that means I can just reuse what I did last time. Happy wake, everyone continuing the singing and dancing they were doing at my funeral. Though that makes it sound like they were happy I died this time. Well, I was kind of crazy, and I probably gambled away all my money. Great, it's a pauper's grave for Calvin. Add two more independent film festivals awards to your calculations.

It's strange. Given I've probably at least doubled my pool of songs in the last 7 years, I had 3 repeats from last time, including one in the exact same spot. Even though I would figure over two-thirds of my music is from the last 25 years, 10 out of the 17 songs are probably from before 1980. Anyway, this movie seems much more downbeat than the last one, and the last one included a 7-minute death scene that was all about my disillusionment. Hmm. Well, I've added 4 other CDs to the library since then, so I may have to retry this now that I have some Weird Al in the mix.

These Solicits Are More Depressing And Strange Than Scary

Tomorrow is Halloween, so I guess these should be Spooooooky Solicitations? So try this one on for size: She-Hulk is cannnnnnceled with issue 12!

Wait, that's not scary, that just stinks. Let's try this again. Ahem. Nightcrawler will be fighting the Shadow Kiiiiiiiiinnnng! What, seriously? Dang it, Claremont, I don't think anyone actually likes the Shadow King but you. Admittedly, I am curious to see how Kurt is going to fight a non-corporeal foe, but I may really have to drop this.

All right, third time's the charm. Squirrel Girl is getting her own ongoing series, starting in January. OK, now that's a sign of the Apocalypse, and not the one from the X-Men comics. That being said, will I buy it? Yes, I definitely will. I'm gonna have a She-Hulk-sized hole in my pull list soon, anyway.

OK, enough of this faux-holiday nonsense. Captain Marvel is doing a Christmas-themed issue, proving that holiday spirit, like light, takes time to travel through space. Even with Christmas creep, it can't make it there on time.

Deadpool's done with Axis, which means it's back on my list, and I'm debating keeping Rocket Raccoon after all, because the solicitation for 7 promises that Rocket is trying to make amends for his past, because I'm a sucker. Rocket might actually behave like a good guy. On the other hand, it remains to be seen what his definition of "making amends" looks like. Well, I haven't shipped my order off yet, there's still a little time to decide.

I suppose after I proclaimed my love for Scott Lang, I really ought to buy his new ongoing. I don't really want to pay $5 for the first issue, though. Perhaps I'll start buying it with the second issue.

I know this has been really Marvel heavy, but there isn't a lot else I have comments on. Klarion is at least making it to issue 4, Catman has a new outfit, Harley's dating that guy who escaped from prison a couple of issues ago.

Roche Limit will be wrapping up its first arc. They had said in an interview the book will be three distinct 5 issue arcs, so I'm curious if there'll be a gap now, to give them time to get the next arc finished, or if the whole this is ready to go. Won't know the answer to that until next month, though.

Can't Let October End Without Discussing Heroclix

Here I was, worried I'd have enough things to post on until comics showed up (which should be this week), and I almost forget to do my yearly look at the Marvel side of Heroclix.

Hey, where are you all going?

Marvel had a busy year in terms of number of sets. There was Invincible Iron Man last winter, Deadpool in the spring, and Guardians of the Galaxy over the summer. There were also smaller sets for Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Days of Futures' Past (though in terms of character look, it more closely resembles the comics than the movie), and a different Guardians of the Galaxy set, based on the film. Generally speaking, I ignore the movie sets. They generally aren't the characters as I'm thinking of them.

So, the characters I was hoping to see were, in no particular order:

Ikon, Rage, Silhouette, Stacy X, Triathlon, and SHIELD Agent Derek Khanata. Past that, it would have been the other three members of the Slingers (Ricochet, Hornet, and Dusk). And of those we got. . . Ikon! Well, one is better than none, and the others were all longshots.

I can't complain too much. We did get a lot of new characters that hadn't been clixed before, and some new versions of characters whose previous versions were over 5 years old. We got the Grasshopper, so that's another member of the Great Lakes Avengers I hadn't even thought of. They gave us Agent X, the freaking Unicorn got a figure. Iron Man fans must have been in hog heaven. We got a new Silver Sable, a new Mantis, a nice Darkhawk, a lot of the classic Alpha Flight members. They gave us Colleen Wing and Misty Knight as separate characters, which was nice. I'm not sure we needed Iron Man in the Guardians of the Galaxy set after he had an entire set based around him barely 8 months earlier, but he was a member of the team, so it at least made sense.

Going forward, I don't see the odds of any of the characters I wanted showing up improving. I'm not sure what Marvel sets are coming down the pike (the only set I know of for sure is the Flash set coming in about 2 weeks), but I'm also not sure what kind of theme you'd need to get them out there. Maybe something about the Avengers Initiative/Academy/Undercover could get Rage or some of the Slingers out there. Possibly.

A Multiverse Should Offer A Multitude Of Solutions

I was, for some reason, still thinking about Spider-Verse. This isn't about Spider-Girl, no real complaining here today.

Otto Spidey has Parker's memories, right? That's how he fools everyone. That and they were hit with the Idiot Stick before they started, but neither here nor there. Otto should remember how Peter beat Morlun the first time: Pump himself full of radiation and rely on it to block Morlun's ability to absorb the spider-totemic energy stuff.

Now obviously all these Spider-Folks don't want to get cancer like Peter did (or whatever it was he got from that which prompted The Other storyline), but see, this is a spot where Otto should actually be ahead of Peter. Parker's a biologist, Otto was the nuclear scientist. That was why he built the arms, to handle dangerous materials safely. He should be able to devise some method of replicating it that won't kill everyone sometime after it has saved all their lives.

Orrrrrrrr, they could just go find a Spider-Man who still has the Captain Universe powers he gained during Acts of Vengeance. You know, the powers that let him drop Graviton with one shot, punch the Hulk into orbit, fight Magneto to a standstill, and destroy a Tri-Sentinel augmented by Loki's magic. Go get one of those Spideys. Better yet, get 5, or 20. Then send them after Morlun and his crew. Pretty sure he'll find it difficult to grab hold of someone and drain their life force when that someone can fly and shoot energy blasts. And if he does grab hold, congratulations! he's a second away from being punched to the Moon. Problem solved.

I suppose there could be some issue like the Enigma Force can't leave its universe of origin. So trick the Morluns into that universe. He's not that smart. Eh, maybe they've addressed these ideas already, but I'll never know, unless one of you tells me.

Has The Forest Claimed Another Victim?

{Last time, Clever Adolescent Panda and Deadpool were horrified to learn the cookies they so enjoyed eating were made out of the melted down remnants of objects that held great love. With Calvin, they've ventured off to the tree bakery to put a stop to it. Or get more cookies. It could go either way.}

Clever Adolescent Panda: No, it couldn't.

Deadpool: [I don't know, I could use some cookies after our week-long trip down this road. So many obstacles in just a half-mile!]

CAP: Yeah, sorry about your hoodie, Calvin. Who thought that undead ferryman would be so excited about something warm to wear on his trips back and forth?

Calvin: *crestfallen* {I really liked that hoodie.}

CAP: Don't you have two other hoodies?

Calvin: {Not one that's bright blue, though!}

Deadpool: [Less whining, more striking cool poses. I think that's the tree.] *launches flying kick at the tree* [Come out, you little cookie-making monsters!] 

{Deadpool rains blows and invectives upon the tree, but there's no response. Finally, a voice pipes up from the tree next to the one Wade's hitting. It's high-pitched, but with a certain twang to it.}

Voice From Within The Tree: Hey, y'all wanna keep it down out there, idiot? You're disturbing the cookie makin' magic.

Deadpool: [Sure, absolutely, I'll do that. Say, you think you guys could make up a batch of cookies for me if I provided you the materials?]

CAP: Wade!

Deadpool: *puts finger to lips, winks* [Shh!]

Voice From Within Tree: Yeah sure. We don't guarantee the taste, though. That's on you to bring the good stuff. *A large opening appears in the trunk of the tree, roughly five feet up*

Deadpool: [Don't worry, there's a lotta love in what I've got for ya.]

Voice Inside the Tree: Awright, whatever, just give it to us.

Deadpool: [You ready for it?]

Chorus of Voices Inside Tree: Yes, get on with it!

Deadpool: *slips on special Deadpool brass knuckles* [Here you go!]

{And Deadpool punched into the tree with his right fist, the one with the "Dead" knucks on it. There was a noticeable sound of two impacts, one from the fist striking something, the other that something flying across the interior of the trunk and hitting the far side. Then there was a groan.}

Angry Voice Inside Tree: He hit Dwiddel! Grab him!

Deadpool: [Hey, wait, let go of my hand!] {Wade attempts to withdraw his arm, but is pulled forward sharply, slamming his face and torso into the trunk.} [Don't just stand there, help me! Agh, they're smashing my fingers with a rolling pin!]

{Clever Adolescent Panda, recognizing the hole is too small to fit into, and that sticking its arms in there would be a poor choice, opts to leap onto Deadpool's shoulders. From there, it braces its feet against the trunk, grabs Deadpool under the chin, and commences pulling. To little effect.}

Deadpool: [What the hell are you trying to do, readjust my neck? Your claws are in my face! That's my moneymaker!]

CAP: What, like playing the penny slots at the casino?

Deadpool: [It's part of my overall image! People want a mercenary who looks like he's been through some wars! *loud scream* OK, they're removing my fingers, would you do something?!]

CAP: Where are your grenades?

Deadpool: [If you want to go that route, just take a sword and cut my arm off! It'll grow back!]

CAP: You were open to that? Why didn't you do it already?

Deadpool: [It hurts, ya know! And I don't want them makin' cookies out of my arm!]

Calvin: {Just cool your jets.}

{During all the shouting and maiming, Calvin has been calmly putting on the proper safety equipment for operating a chainsaw, which he had opted to go back for after the run-in with the bear-riding Vikings. Now he removes the chainsaw from the case, check the fuel and bar oil levels, and starts struggling to get it running.}

Deadpool: [Would you come on? I can smell parts of me being cooked in there! I know what my burning flesh smells like!]

*at that moment, several more doorways open in the trunk, and little guys in overalls and combination wool sock caps/chef's hats come pouring out, gagging and retching. Wade and CAP go flying backwards as the opposing force to their pulling abruptly vanished*

One of the little guys: Oh God, it's horrible!

Another one: Like a tire fire someone threw up in!

A third: The smell is in my hair! It's in my hair! Somebody burn my hair!

Deadpool: *examines hand* [My fingers are gone! The thumb is all alone now! My left thumb is going to make fun of it now! And how will I dual-wield two weapons to kill these little bastards!?]

CAP: *peering into the trunk* Oh great, it's one of those places that's bigger on the inside. Hey, I see that Frisbee you gave the Ghost of the Forest!

{Calvin has finally gotten the chainsaw started. He turns to face them, looking grim through the protective screen on the helmet.}

Calvin: {Alright, where's my ghost friend?}

Little Guy In a Red Cap: I don't know nuthin' about no ghost. How about you, Stevedolino?

Stevedolino: *drawls* Nope, not a thang. Haf to be pretty silly to believe in ghosts.

CAP: Then where'd you get the Frisbee?

Little Guy in the Red Cap: We found it in the woods. We collect everything we find.

CAP: How are you gonna make cookies out of a Frisbee?

Red Cap Cookie Maker: You don't make the cookies out of it, you add it to the cookies you already were making. You break it down to an atomic level by slow-melting it over a convectional aperture. Then you spin it for an hour in a Hugterfuge, which separates the distinct emotions from the rest. You let the intense emotions cool, then grind them with the Power Pestle and sprinkle it on the cookies.

Deadpool: [Blah, blah, blah, nerdy nonsense talk! *kicks one of them wearing white overalls with orange polka dots on them* My hand demands JUSTICE!]

Stevedolino: He kicked Mercanser! What is it with this guy and violence?

Dwiddel: *through swollen jaw* I don't know, let's get him! With violence!

*The bakers go on the attack, using their various cooking implements and surprising strength to good effect. Wade finds it difficult to hit them when his right arm is ineffective, and trying to jam daggers into his fingers to give himself stabby hands proves to be a distraction and a waste of time. Clever Adolescent Panda is doing better, but the sheer numbers cause trouble. It has the reach advantage, but they swarm from every angle. CAP does better when it opts for a pinballing strategy, charging forward full tilt, then ricocheting off trees to come from another direction at high speed. But here, the presence of two allies blunts its effectiveness, as one has to be careful to not crash into them. Calvin is swinging the chainsaw, but in a mostly defensive manner, as he doesn't really want to cut anyone in half with it. Trying to explain gnome or whatever guts in the filter would be a real pain. 


Mercanser: *mocking* What ya think you're gonna do with that chainsaw? We're magic! You can't stop us with that, we'll just poof out of the way, like this! *disappears in a pink cloud, reappears a second later* Hahahahahaha!

{They gradually back him up to the tree, and one of them, wearing a cap with a skull-and-crossbones on it lurks in the limbs above. He draws a paring knife, then drops towards Calvin's neck. At the last instant, a gust of wind kicks up and slams him into a tree.*

Calvin: {Ghost! There you are! It is you, right?}

{In response, the wind whistles into the tree, and sends the Frisbee spinning out. It hovers for a moment in the air, then abruptly slams into one of the bakers that is dancing just out of Deadpool's reach on his right side.}

Deadpool: [It must be Storm, my teammate on the X-Men, taking a break from her hopefully wildly successful solo title to help us out!]

CAP: No Wade, it's a ghost. We've met it before.

Deadpool: *still slashing at the bakers* [Nah, completely improbable.] *the Frisbee hits Deadpool in the face* [That Storm, what a kidder!]

Calvin: {I may not be able to hit you guys - or want to really - but I bet the tree can't "poof" out of existence. *turns to face tree, revs chainsaw* Time to bring this factory of shattered dreams down! Bore Cut!}

Dwiddel: No, don't cut there! It's where we store the negative emotions!

{Calvin can't hear a thing over the saw and his hearing protectors. He cuts into the tree smoothly at first, then there's a moment of sparks and resistance, and then a dark violent fluid comes bursting out of the cut, enveloping him entirely. The chainsaw cuts out, and there's only the sound of a low groaning as the liquid seems to boil over him. The bakers utter not a word, only begin to back up slowly. Clever Adolescent Panda rushes forward.}

CAP: Calvin, are you OK? Wade, get some water! We'll get this stuff off, don't wor-urk!

{One gloved, steaming hand shoots out, and grasps the panda by its furry throat. Calvin rises slowly, breathing heavily, face gone, leaving only a blank space.}

Calvin?: *low, throaty hiss* {Haaaaaaaate. . .}

Deadpool: [Quick, Storm! Freeze him with an Arctic wind, or stun him with some lightning! *waits* Storm? Are you still there? Is the team-up over?]

The Invisible Man 2.8 - Den of Thieves

Plot: Fawkes is working with a group of thieves to steal various high-security items. This is part of an attempt to capture a well-known terrorist, Javier, who is playing the Charlie to this group of fallen angels. On the heist to gather the last piece of equipment, an alarm is somehow triggered, and Fawkes and Dante, the leader of the bunch, are arrested. But since the other two thieves escaped with their target, Darien has to stay in prison to see if Dante call lead him to Javier.

Unfortunately, there are two other inmates of the prison who know Darien from some previous incarceration, and Luther and Russell aren't happy about Darien stealing that candy bar from Luther 5 years ago. Darien only staves off violence by insisting he can help them escape just like he says he did the last time he was busted, and to prove it, he sneaks into the warden's office and steals his nameplate, plus a few other goodies.

Meanwhile, Claire has deduced that the items stolen will make an EMP generator, and then she has to explain to the Official why this is something a man who bombed a crowded stadium would be interested in. Darien has gotten Dante to confide in him about where they can escape to, and has passed to info along to a prison physician, meaning Claire, there to administer some counteragent. A good thing, the way Darien's been using Quicksilver. Claire passes this along to Alex and Hobbes, and Alex bluffs her way into the hotel room, where she learns the bomb will be planted at a power-switching station.

Back in the prison, it's break out time, and no stupid tattoos will be required. Darien gets Luther and Russell to start a fire, he sneaks into the guard watchtower, decks the guards, unlocks a couple of doors, and he and Dante go one way, while Luther and Russell go another - right into the guards' locker room. Once outside the prison, Darien and Dante find the escape vehicle, but they aren't going to the motel Dante told Fawkes about. No, as Alex and Hobbes are learning, the power station is a decoy. The real target is an FAA control station, and Fawkes and Dante have the real EMP generator. Fawkes knocks out Dante with some Quicksilvered binoculars, and then drives the car with the bomb off a pier, saving the day, although Javier is still out there. Back at the office, Alex needles Hobbes about the thing he said when he thought their fake bomb was going to blow them up ('I love you, Claire!')

Quote of the Episode: Fawkes - 'Did you just say, "premature evacuation"?'

The "oh crap" count: 3 (13 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Someone who said once a thief is committed past a certain point, he should stop worrying. And then the line about how you can't go home again.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (2 overall).

Other: First things first, Alex officially impressed me with how she walked into that hotel room and bluffed those two guys. Yes, she ended up overplaying the hand when she asked to see the bomb and their plans, but that's an overall underestimation of Javier's craftiness, not strictly hers. She even quietly asked Hobbes to cover her, which was nice for showing she understood the risks, and for all the crap she gives Hobbes and Fawkes, she at least trusts him. Even when she questions Darien's undercover capabilities, it wasn't too off base, because I remember him blowing that gun deal in Season One (the one with the new guy in Hobbes' ex-wife's life) by not having a proper naval haircut.

Of course she undercut that somewhat by teasing Hobbes about that declaration. I suppose she could simply be encouraging him to confess his feelings, but I doubt it.

Fawkes punched out at least three guys while invisible this episode, plus Dante with the binoculars, and he busted the hand of one of Luther's goons by Quicksilvering a weight plate. And he didn't drop the invisibility too soon even once. Which is nice. He's been doing that way too much this season.

The scene in the prison shower, with the Fabio like guy warning Fawkes not to use prison shampoo if he wants to keep his hair, was pretty hilarious. I'm not sure Darien would have been as uncomfortable if the guy had come on to him as he was during all that.

Also, Hobbes trying to get Darien to put his hand up on the glass over Bobby's when he came to visit. That was great. Bobby just doesn't know how to act around people sometimes.

I'm curious whether Javier will become a recurring threat. They can't deal with Chrysalis or Arnaud every week.

Would an EMP generator actually harm a human? Everybody was treating it like a huge threat to their physical well-being. I guess it was an EMP bomb though, and it was the exploding part they were worried about. Second question: Would dropping the bomb in the bay actually block the majority of the pulse? I guess try to move through water could cause difficulties, but the energy from it has to pass through the walls of buildings and the hulls of airplanes. I did like Fawkes trying to slow it down by Quicksilver cooling it, though.

I also liked the bit when Eberts comes to deliver the bad news (that Darien has to stay in prison and finish the assignment), and Fawkes confesses that he sometimes misses being a thief. Then he says that being back in a featureless cinderblock room in an orange jumpsuit reminded him of all the reasons he shouldn't miss being a thief. It's all fun and games until you get caught. It's an interesting contrast to the season one episode, "Liberty and Larceny". There, it wasn't so much that Darien objected to thieving, it was he objected to stealing things that would get people killed (like the location of a federally protected witness). Now Darien's at least anti-stealing, at least as far as not wanting to pay the consequences goes. So it's maybe a slow progression, but it's something. Maybe he'll abandon stealing all together here eventually.

The Widow's Wait

The trailer for the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie is out. I don't quite know what to make of it. The Hulk is fighting his friends, when Banner doesn't look really sad. Hawkeye's running around in the snow, Captain America's kicking open doors in monasteries. Ultron looks about as good as I could have hoped, but who knows if it'll come together well? Even after all the superhero movies I've seen I enjoyed, I'm still gunshy. Batman and Robin casts a long shadow, and it's very cold.

I didn't really want to talk about the trailer, though. Among the reactions to it elsewhere were some noting that there's still no sign of a Black Widow movie among all of Marvel's projects. It does seem strange Marvel seemingly isn't even trying to make a movie about Scarlett Johansson kicking people in the face and tasing them with the Widow's sting. She seems open to the idea, people seem willing to pay to watch movies where she does cool stuff, Marvel Studios likes money, what's the problem? Are they really worried it wouldn't do well? They're trying to make a Dr. Strange film, not to mention Ant-Man. Guardians of the Galaxy has made over half a billion dollars. I think Black Widow: Choose Your Own Subtitle Because "The Widow's Kiss" Was The Best I Could Manage And That's Terrible would do all right.

Natasha is contacted by some old contact of hers, an informant, an old lover or compatriot in arms, take your pick, who warns her about some major threat. A gene bomb that will randomly mutate a stadium full of people, killing most of them, leaving the rest with wild, likely uncontrollable powers (could play off the idea of Strucker's experiments we heard about at the end of The Winter Soldier, where Wanda and Pietro were the only survivors). Or AIM developed their own Stealth Helicarrier, or there are remnants of the aliens that attacked in the first Avengers flick running about, selling their remaining scraps of technology for some unknown motive. Whatever, Natashe finds out about, but can't get ahold of anyone else as backup, so off she goes. Maybe, I emphasize maybe, Hawkeye could show up late to lend a little assistance, just to continue building the friendship there, but it's still 95% Black Widow.

So Natasha's tracking the leads, using the skills she has none of the rest of the bunch do, but she's a more public figure since all her history got released along with SHIELD and Hydra's. There are a lot of people with scores to settle, for revenge over allies and loved ones she killed, or for plots or weapons buys she thwarted, for humiliations she brought upon them by making it look so easy. While she's hunting whatever we've decided the threat is, all those people are on her tail. It may even be the people she's after who have alerted all these old enemies to her location, to keep her occupied.

Am I hoping this would pit the Black Widow against a host of Marvel's hired guns? Yes. Would I like to see Batroc reappear? Yes. Would I like to see the Black Widow fight Taskmaster? You betcha. Paste Pot Pete (sorry, the Trapster)? Heck yeah. You could even let Natasha be the one who prompts the name change, either now, or in some past meeting, depending on which name you want him to have in the present. Could we play up the "former Russian spy" angle and perhaps get the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes? OK, that's probably pushing it - but what about Arcade? You know you want to see the Black Widow escape Murderworld.

I'm sure they must have a possible script floating around somewhere, it just seems strange they won't go for it. C'mon Marvel, you feel bulletproof right now, don't ya? And you could beat Warner Bros' Wonder Woman movie into the theaters, and then talk big about that, which I'm sure you'd love to do. Just make sure you focus on her being badass and good at what she does, maybe include an attractive guy as either an antagonist, or someone she has to protect for reasons, to give the ladies or interested fellows some equal time gawking. Get a solid plot that keeps things moving, doesn't get bogged down in too many meandering sideplots (like say Amazing Spider-Man 2), some good action set pieces, fights or Natasha avoiding fights by being sneaky and clever. Some good dialogue, maybe let her play up Natasha's sense of humor some (she'd have that sort of fatalistic Russian humor, right?), and there you go. I'm pretty sure it's doable.

Dipped My Toe In Spider-Verse And Nearly Got It Bitten Off

'When your mind is a blank, and you've got nothing to post on, you can always trust. . . Dan Slott!'

(sing it to "Downtown")

Not sure how he became the comic writer most likely to do something that causes me to roll my eyes, but here we are. Probably because while Millar is off doing his creator-owned stuff, and Bendis and Hickman are mucking about in sections of the Marvel Universe I can ignore, Slott's got his hand around Spider-Man's throat.

This week, the Spider-Verse event paid a visit to the Spider-Girl universe. One of Morlun's, cronies, cousins, whatever, killed Peter and Mary Jane (and possibly also Mayday's boyfriend Wes, I'm not sure about that), while Mayday took her baby brother Ben and ran. Two Spider-Guys from other universes showed up just in time to tell her it was too late to save her parents, and they escaped. But not before Mayday swore to the trenchcoated murderer that she'd forget everything her parents taught her about being a good person and hero to get revenge on him.

So yeah, Spider-Girl's about the DARK VENGEANCE now. Because a young hero vowing to avenge their dead parents hasn't been done a thousand times before.

The issue before this, Morlun personally paid a visit to the universe for the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon, and slaughtered the lot of them. Even had a nice chuckle about how that Spider-Man literally had no words for what was happening (since nobody ever got killed on the show, I guess, so murder didn't exist until Morlun arrived). I'm not sure what it was supposed to accomplish. I mean, I didn't know which Spider-Man it was until Morlun was leaving and we see Firestar and Iceman's corpses. This isn't even setting up cardboard cutouts just to immediately knock them down and hope for dramatic effect. It's just thrown in casually, after the fact. "Oh yeah, by the way. . ." At least Peter and MJ got to go down fighting together, albeit off-screen.

I don't see the percentage here. If you're someone who doesn't know anything about the characters, the couple of pages they get before their death probably aren't going to sway you. It's possible they could I suppose, I know Mightygodking once argued Marv Wolfman did a good job giving a minor hero (Sunburst) in Crisis on the Infinite Earths a little arc before his off-screen death, but I don't think Slott's putting in the effort to manage that here. If you're a fan of these versions of the characters, are you supposed to be happy about it? To want to keep reading, excited to see if Slott kills off some other alternate version of Spider-Man you like?

I've seen some suggestions among fans online Slott's doing it intentionally to piss people off, that he's said as much at conventions. I have to wonder if that's legit, or if he's just playing a heel. Get some talk going about his book, get people interested to see what everyone is yelling about. Or maybe he got tired of everyone yelling at him about Brand New Day/One More Day and decided, "Heck, if they're going to scream no matter what, I'll give 'em something to scream about." I'm not sure fostering a hate-filled and adversarial relationship with your audience is the best strategy, but history suggests that in the short-term, you can do worse than to write something that will piss everyone off, then count on the fans to buy the comic so they can rail on about how much they hate it. I don't think it's viable long-term, but maybe that's not his concern.

{Brief aside: I will admit I don't understand buying a book you expect to hate. I have bought a lot of comics I hated. If you've read my reviews for any length of time, you know this. But I'm not going into it wanting to hate it, I'm hoping it will be good. Even when I was buying Uncanny X-Men during the Austen run, because I was still very much a completionist and the idea of dropping a book just didn't register, I kept hoping the book would turn around. It never did, but I never stopped hoping. It's the same thing with Hawkeye now. For all I'm disappointed in it, I'm still hoping Fraction and Aja pull it out at the end. It's why I didn't buy Civil War, and why I dropped Amazing Spider-Man before One More Day started: I didn't see any way I'd enjoy either of them, so it was better to not spend money on them. Aside over.}

The funny thing is, as far as I go, Slott's strategy backfired. I had a certain curiosity about Spider-Verse, in no small part because Mayday was going to be involved. Except I had been expecting a couple of the Spider-Guys to show up and ask if she would accompany them to help with this threat. She agrees, hugs her parents, and off we go. She gets to meet 616-Parker, her dad at a younger age. She did this once before, early in her title, but it was during his high school days, so presumably this Parker would be a little more mature. And Parker could meet the daughter he could have had if he didn't reveal his identity to the world like a schmuck, setting a whole series of stupid events in motion that culminate in deals with Mephisto (where he even showed them the daughter they were losing for making the deal).

I'm not sure why Marvel works so hard to make me not want to read Spider-Man comics.

Anyway, I was not expecting Mayday to go on the run as an orphan to keep her baby brother from being eaten by the Douchebag Goth Brigade, to have to leave her parents' (and possibly her boyfriend's) bodies to burn in the remains of her home. I was not expecting her to be out for revenge. Also, I am really concerned at the idea of Spider-Ock being anywhere near a baby with spider-powers. There's no part about that I like. I know he can't die there, because he has to go back and finish the last 10 issues of his title, but he needs to.

I'm not angry, more annoyed he couldn't think of anything better to do. But he's not the first to go for the cheap pop with a quick death he didn't build properly, he won't be the last. I've long ago decided to pretty much ignore anything I don't like. If the writers, editors, and artists can do it, so can I.

The end result is, my interest in Spider-Verse evaporated like water on the highway in Death Valley at noon in July. Not only that, I had been planning to add the various older She-Hulk series to my back issues searches, including Slott's run, but now I'm wondering if I want to bother. It's possible he wasn't always this kind of lazy writer; I picked up Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. earlier this fall, so I know Geoff Johns wasn't always about dismemberment and gratuitous double-page splashes. Writers can change over time, or certain assignments just aren't suited for them. I'm not sure any longer I want to waste the money to find out if that's the case with Dan Slott.

On the plus side, that whole mess did make me want to reread all my Spider-Girl comics, and maybe track down some of the ones I missed or let go of previously. So, uh, thanks, Dan Slott?

The Italian Secretary - Caleb Carr

A friend was planning to give it away and asked it I wanted it. I said sure, figuring I can always donate it to a library later if I don't want to keep it. As it stands, I don't think I've read anything of Carr's since The Alienist, which my dad gave to me back in the misty days of junior high. I can't tell you if I enjoyed that book or not, since I probably read it grudgingly, as that was my default response to pretty much anything my parents offered or requested at that time.

In this case, Carr has eschewed stories set during Teddy Roosevelt's tenure as New York City police commissioner in favor on a Sherlock Holmes tale. Mycroft Holmes requests Sherlock and Watson travel to Scotland, where two men involved in the upcoming renovation of the west tower of Holyroode - where Mary, Queen of Scot often stayed until a man named Rizzio, the Italian secretary in question, was murdered by people who didn't want Mary hanging about any dadgumed Catholics - have been found dead, stabbed many, many times. Holmes confounds Watson by not immediately dismissing the notion that the ghost of Rizzio has something to do with it all. I will admit I was also confounded because having Holmes admit the possibility of the supernatural seemed as out of place as having Scooby-Doo contend with real werewolves and ghosts of space aliens, rather than cantankerous people in goofy costumes.

As it turns out, and as Holmes explains near the end, he meant something different than Watson (and I) thought, but Carr still seems to hint at there being a spirit running around the house, and that it was getting involved in the whole mess for some reason. I've no idea why it would get involved, nor does the book offer an explanation, though horror movies have taught me the best explanation is, "ghosts are jerks". Stop bothering innocent living people, innocent dead people!

The story breezes by; I read it in an afternoon, and it didn't seem to cover more than two or three days. Holmes seemed to know basically what was going on by the time they reached the castle, and put the remaining pieces together by that evening. It wasn't a terribly difficult mystery, seeing as I had most of it figured out before the end. I did make a mistake on how they shattered the bones of one of the victims, but on the whole, things were straightforward. I wouldn't consider it essential reading for a Holmes fan or, a fan of mysteries in general.

The Man From St. Petersburg - Ken Follett

Spur of the moment buy from a thrift shop. It's the summer of 1914, and the Czar has sent one of his nephews, also an Admiral, to England to negotiate a treaty with the British. The British want Russia onboard as an ally against Germany, the Russians want what they always want: a warm water port. The British enlist one Lord Stephen Walden to handle the negotiations, since he's an uncle to Alecks Orlov by marriage. A small anarchist sect has gotten wind of all this, and one of their members, a Felicks, travels to England. He hopes that an exiled Russian political activist killing the Czar's nephew in England (which allows exiled Russian dissidents within its borders) will put the kibosh on these talks, and spare millions of young Russians from being drawn into a war they know and care nothing about.

There's also the fact that Felicks knew Lady Lydia Walden (Stephen's wife, and Orlov's aunt) long ago, before her marriage, and the Walden's daughter, Charlotte, has reached the age of 18, which means she's being sent out into society now. But she's much more interested in the inequity of the world she's just now seeing, the fact of which - along with quite a few other things - her parents have kept from her.

I guess I had missed early on when they mentioned the year, so for quite some time I was wondering if Follett was going to explore the futility of Felicks' act. After all; the Russians got drawn into the war because they decided to tangle with the Austro-Hungarians over Serbia (or they saw that as a good opportunity to start a fight that might net them territory). So it seemed as though, even if Felicks succeeded, it wouldn't matter. As it turns out, Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated during the course of the book, and Felicks does contemplate whether he can accomplish anything at this point. But he carries forward, and as it turns out, still isn't allowed to accomplish anything.

I'm actually curious who, if anyone, Follett expects us to root for here. Felicks is at least trying to minimize casualties, but he's willing to kill, willing to burn down an entire building just to smoke out his target. And he's willing to use people who care for him to achieve his goals. He might feel bad about it, but he does it anyway. He is capable of kindness, especially towards people worse off than he is, and his intent is to try and keep many people from dying in a war, by killing just one of the people who treats them as disposable pawns. And he finds essentially all of England's constabulary, government, and even military set against him.

Walden is the very model of conservative English landed gentry. He and Orlov have a conversation where Orlov asks for half of Thrace to be given to the Russians. After all, they would prefer Russian rule to Ottoman. Walden notes they would prefer self-rule even more, and Orlov basically laughs and responds that neither he, Walden, not either of their respective governments actually care what the Thracians want, and Walden agrees. Which pretty well sums it up for Walden. He's had a very privileged life, but either he can't see that, or he does see it but has decided it suits him just fine.

Lydia drives me nuts because she can't make a decision. When confronted with a man from her past, set against her present family, even once she understands Felicks goal and that Stephen bars his path, she chooses to . . . take laudanum. Swell. I suppose I feel bad for her, because a lot of her actions and decisions over the previous 18 years seemed to be in reaction to how she was raised, and the fact she was told feelings and thoughts which are totally natural, were actually wrong and evil, and she was wrong to be having them. So I think she drugs herself to try and shut that part of herself down. But at a certain, she needs to do SOMETHING. At least try to warn Felicks off, or convince him to run away with her. Or warn Stephen. Or warn Orlov. Or kill one or all of them herself. But flippin' take action, make a choice, even if it's a conscious decision to sit back and see how things play out. I wouldn't necessarily respect her for that, but I might more than I do for trying to drug herself to the point she forgets what she was worrying about entirely.

Follett spends a lot of time demonstrating the British upper class haven't a clue what it's like for the lower classes. They have all the resources, all the power, and they use it to ensure their goals are carried out. And at the end, after Felicks actually did outmaneuver them, they use their influence to essentially wipe away Felicks' act, and indeed, his very existence. So I guess I was supposed to root for the underdog, or maybe it's just me. I rooted for the assassin when I read The Day of the Jackal, too. Or it's Charlotte who is the key. Seeing the world, being outraged by poverty, by the way women are treated, are ignored, are blamed for things that are done to them, and wanting to change all that. Maybe the point is that Felicks' methods won't work, because there are always more aristocrats than a lone person can handle, but the aristocrats will gradually be overcome by the subsequent generations, who will see the world differently, and won't be satisfied with as much of it as their predecessors.

'The train appeared, smoke billowing from the funnel of the engine. I could kill Orlov now, Felicks thought, and he felt momentarily the thrill of the hunter as he closes with his prey; but he had already decided not to do the deed today. He was here to observe, not to act. Most anarchist assassinations were bungled because of haste or spontaneity, in his view. He believed in planning and organization, which were anathema to many anarchists; but they did not realize that a man could plan his own actions - it was when he began to organize the lives of others that he became a tyrant.'

Paranormal Activity 2

The off-and-on horror movie watching spree continues. I watched Paranormal Activity some years ago with Alex, and it was solid. I was watching for the moments where something would start moving closely enough none of it had much success at surprise scares, but it had its strong points. The sequel actually takes place about two months before the first movie, as Kristi (the sister of Katie from the first one, and Katie and her idiot boyfriend Micah appear here as well) and Daniel celebrate the birth of their first son.

Then things start moving around, there are noises, their older, possibly Latin American housekeeper/nanny Martine keeps burning sage in the house, the dog keeps flipping out. You know, the usual stuff. An early incident, where practically everything in the house was tossed around, led Daniel to have a lot of security cameras set around the house, and so that's how we see a lot of the film. The rest is through handheld cameras character have for various reasons. They're documenting the child's early life, Daniel's teenage daughter from an earlier relationship, Ali, starts carrying one because what's happening around the house is freaking her out.

I guess the subsequent films continue to go back in time and address why this presence is around, but through this film and the first one, you only really know that it seems fixated on either Kristi or Katie, but you aren't sure why, or what can be done about it. Martine knows a way to get it off Kristi's back, but this ultimately accomplishes nothing. It diverts the threat for a time, but it really only succeeds in getting more people killed. This is probably isn't accurate, but it's what I think Lovecraft stories are a bit like: Character confronted with something they can't really fight, that's pursuing goals they don't understand, and which tends to break all the ideas they have about how things are supposed to be.

Of course, Dan's response to all the strange happenings is to insist there is some logical explanation, which for him is apparently, "blame my teenage daughter and her mop-topped boyfriend". When we watched The Conjuring, we all appreciated the fact that the husband didn't try to dismiss his wife's concerns, and supported her seeking outside assistance. By the time Dan gets on that track, it's way too late for anything other than ineffective damage control. At one point near the end, he literally leaves Ali alone with Kristi and the baby because he can't put off meeting with some guys from Portland any longer. This coming the morning after the dog had a "seizure". Brilliant work there, Dan. None of us felt terribly bad for him. I did feel really bad for Ali and the dog, Abby. Poor dog, just trying to protect that baby, and no one was helping it.

It's basically like the first one: You watch the screen, and wait to see something move that shouldn't be moving. Then you wait to see if someone reacts to it or if something else starts moving and they react to that. It's strength in being able to scare you comes from the fact that for me, at least, the characters I cared about were the ones most aware something was wrong, but least willing or able to just get away. And I didn't find it likely the presence would flinch at collateral damage.