Sunday Splash Page #179

 

"This Date's Going Downhill in a Hurry," in E-Man (vol. 1) #7, by Nicola Cuti (writer), Joe Staton (artist), Wendy Fiore (colorist)

I'd seen the ads for the E-Man series published through First Comics in some of the GrimJack issues I've got, and we'll get to that next week (E-Man, not GrimJack. GrimJack will be next summer), but that's not where things started.

The first E-Man series, by Cuti and Staton, started in 1973, but was published sporadically (five issues in two years) until '75, when it settled into a bi-monthly schedule for the final five issues. E-Man starts as a sentient energy being that stumbles across a spaceship on its way to Pluto and decides to make friends. He learns the ship is piloted by a giant brain on a mission to test new weapons for some distant space empire, but his added mass throws the ship off-course and it heads towards Earth. The energy being winds up getting trapped in a light bulb of the dressing room of part-time exotic dancer and archeology major Nova Kane, who becomes his first friend.

So it's got a bit of the "strange visitor from another planet" vibe, and unlike Superman, E-Man (who adopts the name Alec Tronn) has to learn about Earth as an adult. Cuti and Staton eventually add a private detective, Michael Mauser, who can get Alec involved in different sorts of trouble than Nova, and brings a different sort of personality to things. Nova's caught between trying to protect Alec and being attracted to him, while Mauser seems more interested in how Alec can help his business. He's also probably trying to make Alec a little less naive.

The comic almost settles into a "monster of the week" format. The Brain is a recurring foe, given his purpose was to test new weapon prototypes, but he's usually in the background until the end of the issue. There's also a wealthy businessman named Boar trying to dominate the world by controlling sources of electricity. But you've also got an issue where Nova goes to the Middle East to study some Egyptian ruins and they end up traveling back in time to learn Egyptians were actually advanced alien species killed out by a flea-borne disease. Which they help identify but somehow has no effect on their timeline.

It feels like Staton is still trying to settle into a style, but it makes for interesting viewing. Sometimes his work looks rougher, less refined, gives it a bit of a wilder energy. Other times it's fairly clean and neat, makes me think there's a bit of Curt Swan influence in it. Maybe not Swan specifically, but artists of that era. I could be off, but I don't feel like I see Neal Adams or Gil Kane in there. Maybe the Adams is there in the perspectives used in the panels. His characters don't have that angular, beady-eyed look I associate with Ditko. Staton's very good at weird stuff already, though. When the monster of the week is an actual monster, he knocks it out of the park, and his character work is highly individual.

I bring up Ditko because one of the other interesting bits of this series is there are usually back-up stories and several of those are by Ditko. A couple of spy features, Commie-smashing and the like, but also of a costumed hero called Killjoy, who beats up criminals, all of whom spend a lot of time crying about how they deserve others' money precisely because they did nothing to earn it. That gets old, very quickly. There's also some early John Byrne work about a robot cabbie called Rog-2000, with stories usually written by Cuti.

Cuti tries to write about topical issues without being too blindingly obvious, or that may just be me looking back on stories written in the '70s about '70s issues without having lived through them. But energy as a commodity that will be desperately needed, and can therefore be hoarded by greedy individuals. Using other locations as places to test destructive weaponry without regard for the locals. There aren't many attempts at humor in the writing, and the ones that do don't really work. The delivery tends to be flat, and Staton's art doesn't really sell it, but that's not what the book is trying for. It's just sort of an earnest book about trying to help other people rather than wallowing in greed, self-doubt, or grief.

What I Bought 8/11/2021

I went to the comic stores Wednesday, hoping to get five books. More realistically four books, since Count Draco Knuckleduster was a real long shot. I only managed to get two. Bummer. Also, it's been hot as shit all week, which has really put a crimp in my vacation. Not that I wanted to actually go many places, but it's made it where I haven't wanted to do hardly anything. Oh well, I can use the sleep.

Defenders #1, by Al Ewing (writer), Javier Rodriguez (artist/inker), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Cory Petit and Jay Bowen (colorists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Strange looks like he can't figure out who farted.

Strange gets a visit from the Masked Raider character Ewing created a few years back. Seems the guy was trying to stop some evil scientist, said scientist tried to escape with a magic spellbook, Raider shot the book, guy has landed somewhere in time, likely planning to alter history. Apparently you can change things if you time travel with magic, but not science. OK, sure, I'll roll with that.

Strange busts out the old Secret Defenders tarot deck to find some allies, but it's not a great draw. Every card is reversed, which I think is bad, and nobody seems terribly happy to be there. Not that the Suilver Surfer (restored to his classic look) is ever happy. Also, Strange drew Cloud, who is a sentient nebula now compressed into a house, so he's about to destroy the world. Oh, this is one of those stories about how trying to avoid destiny brings it about! Or not. Strange averts that disaster, but the team is thrown into the previous universe to Galactus' homeworld. I thought they were two universes on from that one after Hickman's Secret Wars? Didn't Ewing have an entire series about this, where it was a new universe, so Galactus could have a new role or something?

OK, so on the last couple of pages, when they're on Taa, Ewing does that thing people do when they homage or parody Jack Kirby. Where there are quotation marks around certain things they say? Example: 'So! "Space-time Hoboes," are you? Well, you "Made It," friends!!' I kind of hate that stuff. With Kirby, I suppose it felt like a genuine thing he thought he should do, whatever his reason, but when anyone else does it, it just feels like a kid trying on their parents' clothes. Throws me out of the story. 

But maybe I should expect this thing to be extremely meta-textual. In the Raider's flashback, when the evil scientist is trying to use the spellbook, the three candles he has lit around him are cyan, magenta and yellow. The three true primary colors, the ones used in color printing. The smoke drifting up form them is the same colors, and so are the pages in the book. So Zota's going to mess with the text of the Marvel Universe? It's not as though he could mess things up worse than Bendis or Mark Millar.

So I'm not totally sold on the writing, but it's a lovely comic to look at. Petit and Bowen's color work is vivid and varied, able to go blindingly bright when needed, or tone it back to something more subdued when that's what is called for. Rodriguez' work is detailed without being fussy, and the colors mesh with it, making sure we don't lose any of his or Lopez' linework. The page that tells the story of Raider's mask through clouds of steam rising from Stephen's tea cup is excellent. The two pages of Strange trying to keep Cloud from destroying the world, where all the panels are converging on the location where their mass is about to form a star.

If nothing else, the comic will be well-illustrated.

Runaways #38, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Andres Genolet (artist), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So long kids. Hopefully the next time we see you it isn't as cannon fodder in some bullshit event comic.

The comic is ending, so all dangling plot threads must be at least sort of tied off, or at least brought to a place where there's some idea what to do next. So, in no particular order: Gert's parents appear in their time machine right in the middle of everything, muttering about instability, and Nico banishes them.

Karolina's people are actually here to help treat her injuries, since Xavin got her acquitted of whatever she did wrong previously. Or so they say, the last page showing Xavin (drawn by Kris Anka) is giving off strong "evil" vibes. I've never seen a fictional character that does the "hands clasped behind their back while someone calls them General" pose yet that wasn't bad.

But Karolina doesn't know that, so into space she goes, after some relationship drama with Nico that resolves mostly peacefully, and ends with Nico telling her to take the Staff of One away.

Future Gert convinces Present Gert and Molly they should help her abduct Chase to the future to keep him from becoming a Mad Max cosplayer. Well again, we see that's the future, but Future Gert doesn't actually tell them, which is odd when she says she made no promise to protect the timeline's integrity. Then fucking tell them what happened, you asshole! Either way, Future Gert and Chase both poof!

Alex is wearing that Doc Justice guy's costume and watching all this (in a page drawn by original Runaways series artist Adrian Alphona, whose are looks grainier than I remember from Ms. Marvel.) Molly may still be considering visiting Krakoa, but Clara (still happily living with her foster parents) is not interested. At least one character in this book isn't a moron.

And that's pretty much it. The crew for now is Present Gert, Molly, Victor, Doombot, Gib, and Nico minus her staff. Which leaves Nico and Doombot as the closest things to responsible adults. Wait, am I implying Chase was a responsible adult? That can't be right.

Of course, the next writer can handwave all that if they want to. Bring Karolina back, with or without Xavin. Bring Chase back, changed or not, never reference his time in the future if they wish. Do something with Alex or not. Do other people have old friends they no longer like who won't take the hint? Because for someone as smart as Alex is supposed to be, he sure hasn't caught on they want him to get lost. 

I'd expect Doombot will get ejected into limbo by the next writer, much as Rowell (mostly) did with Clara. Gib, too, most likely. "Oh, he didn't receive sufficient sacrifices from the kitties, so he died and we never speak of him." I could be surprised, but I doubt it. It's a little frustrating, because we only saw hints of how things were going to play out. I was curious what the end result of the time shenanigans was going to be. The Xavin thing is less interesting to me, because I just sort of vaguely remember Xavin being around. I'm guessing a lot more happened with the character after BKV stopped writing the series, which is the point I stopped picking up used copies of the trades.

Genolet's art is really better suited to smaller panels. When the tried to go for the almost double-page splash of Future Chase squaring off with Future Molly, it's kind of blurry and lacking in his usual crispness. Like taking a small image and blowing it up a couple of times. Plus, there really wasn't much on the page that justified the need for that much space. Could have kept it to a single-page splash and been just fine. Other than that, this issue is Genolet's usual solid work, and it was 28 pages of it, which might explain last issue being short.

The Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Everything I've read by Marquez has been enjoyable at the least, fantastic at the best. This is apparently the exception. 

It's about the death of some incredibly old general that ruled over a Latin American nation for decades after being installed by either the British or the Americans. He seems to have been controlled by his fear for at least part of the time. Fear of being assassinated, which is an understandable fear when you are the sort of person who secretly observes the funeral of your double so you can see who celebrates or speaks ill and then have them killed or imprisoned.

I can't say much more about the story itself because I only got 45 pages in before tapping out. The stylistic approach Marquez takes is horrendous. Every chapter (and the first 45 pages are the first chapter) is just one long paragraph, which is made of ridiculously long sentences. I tried reading one to Alex as an example (the quote below a small part of it) and stopped after a page, because the sentence continues for another 2.5 pages beyond that.

It's not quite a stream-of-consciousness, ala Tristram Shandy or Michael Pera's character in Ant-Man. It isn't a thread being constantly derailed by irrelevant details. There is a method to how the information is related. As though the narrator is trying to tell it in a rush before they are executed. Which they may be, the narrator is another general who was a trusted friend to the deceased, but it's exhausting to read. There's no point that lends itself to taking a break to process any of what we've been told because they just keep talking. Even when there's a conversation going on, it's not really a conversation. It's someone relating what the two characters said to the reader in the worst way possible.

'. . .that I can tell you now that I never loved you as you think but that ever since the day of the filibusters when I had the evil misfortune to chance into your domains I've been praying that you would be killed, in a good way even, so that you would pay me back for this life of an orphan you gave me, first by flattening my feet with tamping hands so they would be those of a sleepwalker like yours, then by piercing my nuts with a shoemaker's awl so I would develop a rupture, then by making me drink turpentine so I would forget how to read and write after all the work it took my mother to teach me. . .'

Don't Downplay the Value of Revenge

So I watched the Loki series as it was coming out last couple of months. It's enjoyable enough. I actually finished all of it, unlike Falcon and Winter Soldier, where I never watched the last episode. OK, SPOILER warning thing for the end of Loki, even though it's just the jumping off point.

Final episode, Loki and Sylvie confront Kang, the one behind the TVA, the organization that decided they both needed to be erased to preserve some Sacred Timeline, which Kang just so happens to be in control of. Blah blah, greater good, blah blah, avoid multiversal war, blah blah. Since they've moved past some critical point where Kang no longer knows what's going to happen, Sylvie takes her revenge and kills the guy responsible for saying she needed to be imprisoned or erased, rather than accepting his offer for her and Loki to run the TVA in his place. The latter being what Loki wanted, but she booted his butt backed to the TVA so she could take care of business.

Sylvie is then shown alone in the citadel looking forlorn after killing Kang, so at least a couple of different reviews I saw comment how it's showing revenge is a hollow pursuit, and, you know, let's just hold on there a second.

I'm not going to claim revenge cures all ills, but I don't think getting payback on someone who wrongs them (and I'm speaking of revenge on a specific person who actually harmed them, not just lashing out at everyone) is without merit. The notion one isn't just a powerless pawn, who can be fucked with or tormented by some joker who thinks he's got the right, that's got some value. That they can push back, even if nobody is on their side. Revenge doesn't have to be killing them. It can be financial ruin, or simple public humiliation or exposure. Appropriate to the level of the wrong committed.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. "Two wrongs don't make a right, Calvin." First off, stop wagging your finger in my face like you're Marge Simpson and show me the math behind that statement. Secondly, that's the beauty of revenge. You're not worrying about "right" necessarily. At least not any objective form of the term. It's like in space, right or left is relative to your position.

The argument seems to be that if you devote your life to revenge and you get it, what's left? The answer is usually presented as "nothing," but I think it's actually, "the opportunity to figure out what comes next." If someone is fixated on revenge to begin with, they probably aren't open to seeing anything else anyway. They've been hurt, and in all likelihood, the person or persons responsible skated scot-free for any number of reasons. Until that's addressed, there isn't anything else for them anyway. They could try to pick up the pieces and go forward, but if their life was turned upside-down, and seemingly no one cares, is there a point? Couldn't it just happen again, especially if the one responsible is out there? You have to deal with the instability in the ground before you can build anything new.

The mistake is I think people figure if revenge is really meant to be worth something, the person should be immediately fulfilled, joyous at the culmination of their struggle. And maybe they should, but if it's been a long, difficult time, they may need to process. For me, with things I've spent a long time trying to accomplish or complete, the moment they're done isn't always one where I celebrate ecstatically. Sometimes I'm stunned it's over, sometimes I'm just relieved. That's for things far less serious than trying to take revenge on someone.

It's fine to have stories where the character achieves their revenge and feels lost or empty after. But sometimes people are going to be happy after they get their revenge, or at least finally able to move on.

The Accidental Spy

Jackie Chan plays an exercise equipment salesman who learns the father he never knew what a Korean spy. Before the man dies, he leaves Jackie some things which lead him to Turkey, where he gets tangled up in some huge search for a new, extremely potent version of opium. Or heroin, something like that, it was hard to tell because the voices were all very soft. I normally have the volume on my TV set from 17-24, and I dialed it up to 45 and it was still hard to hear. And the DVD had no closed caption options. 

How dare this 8-movie DVD collection I bought for 5 bucks not have more bells and whistles? Seriously, though, it made it difficult to follow the story beyond that. There's an evil drug lord named Li that worked with Jackie's dad, but there's also a group of Turkish guys who I think actually grew the drugs. Their boss is always yelling at Jackie in Turkish, no matter how many times Jackie makes it clear he doesn't speak the language. I thought only people from the U.S. did that. 

Either way, the end result is Jackie keeps getting attacked by different large groups of angry people. At one point his taxi drives into a open field and guys jump out of nine more taxis and attack him. Later he's attacked at a Turkish bath and winds up running through a bazaar butt-naked, fighting a bunch of guys who are very determined to not let him cover himself. Also led to Jackie trying to cover himself with a bowl of cayenne pepper, which couldn't have been pleasant.

And because there's a hit new drug at stake, the CIA is involved. Because they want to keep that drug out of the wrong hands. Yeah, I don't believe that either. Rather disappointed Jackie never kicked the CIA guy in the face. Perfect opportunity was right after the guy berated him for giving the drug to Li and how he should have left Jackie in the Turkish jail. Jackie was emotionally raw and out for vengeance by that point anyway.

But it's always about the cool stunts and creative lunacy they come up with. I got very excited when Jackie got on a motorcycle and played chicken with a small airplane. There's just so many ways that can go and they're all awesome.

A Hidden Ace

Of all the various manga series I've tried for the first time this year, Cross Game stands as my favorite of the bunch. It's also the first sports manga I've ever tried. It's not a new series, the first volume was released here in the U.S. in 2005, but other than vaguely remembering some reviews on the old Comics Should Be Good CBR blog, it was new to me.

Volume 1 is massive, over 570 pages starting when the main character Ko and his friend Wakaba are in fifth grade. Ko comes off as either lazy, or just at that stage where different things grab his interest suddenly and for a short period of time, baseball not being one of them. He convinces his friends to form a team so they'll buy their equipment and uniforms from his parents' store. Wakaba's the second of four daughters, born the same day as Ko, generally sweet and friendly, well-liked by most everyone. That includes the toughest kid in their grade, Akaishi, who's looming presence spooks Ko into actually playing a his first game of baseball just for safety in numbers.

Then, having introduced several of the key players, Adachi kills Wakaba 150 pages in and shortly after, jumps the book ahead four years. Look, it's a 15+ year old series, and most of it revolves around that event, so I'm not worrying spoilers here.

The time jump allows Adachi to change things up from what we'd briefly been introduced to. Aoba, Wakaba's younger sister, baseball lover and Ko's harshest critic, plays on the junior high team as a pitcher, but Ko himself still seems to have no interest in baseball. His friend Nakanishi, who loved baseball, isn't on the school team, but Akaishi is, having abandoned fighting entirely. Over the next ~400 pages, things are gradually teased out. What changed for Akaishi. What Ko's really been up to. The goal that's going to, as far as I can tell having read volumes 1 through 3 and 5, drive the story forward from then on.

It's also a chance to introduce a pair of antagonists. One is the new high school coach, Daimon. Think all those college basketball coaches that win everywhere they go, but leave under a cloud of rules violations. John Calipari mixed with Jon Voight's asshole football coach from Varisty Blues. It's actually impressive how well Adachi conveys what an arrogant, cruel jackass Daimon is. Completely emotionless when he's telling a player they're off the team if they can practice because their arm is sore. Telling players they're nothing but fertilizer for the varsity team. At most, there's a smug smirk on his face. Having read the later volumes, it's intensely gratifying to see him get his comeuppance.

The other antagonist is Azuma Yuhei, who is the stereotypical extremely gifted, arrogant jock dickhead. He's not a loud braggart, but just constantly condescending and rude. He treats his own teammates like servants and admits he doesn't bother to learn names of people he thinks don't matter. When Daimon asks how many of his teammates' names he's learned, he says five.

The problem for me, having seen those later volumes, is Adachi's going to try and give Yuhei a past tragedy of his own to explain his personality and drive, but still be a dickhead. Maybe it's meant to be a very dry sense of humor, but he's so stone-faced most of the time it doesn't feel like it. As of volume 5 I still can't stand the character and want to see him fall on his face. I mean, Ko, Aoba, and Akaishi are all affected and driven by a loss far harsher than Yuhei's, and they don't act like assholes. Well, Aoba does towards Ko, but there's all sorts of other stuff tied up in that.

The writing and the art work for the scenes that are sad and solemn. In the aftermath of Wakaba's death, Adachi uses largely silent panels that focus on the characters' faces and their isolation. The way each of Aoba, Ko, and Akaishi try to deal with the loss and their grief. Most of the funeral service is shown as Ko trying to peer past all the adults in mourning clothes to see Wakaba's shrine, but there's only a single panel of it. It's a clear panel that dominates the page, but it's like that was all the glimpse he could get.

There's more humor than sadness, although Adachi highlights how memories of people you lost will crop up at surprising times. Ko and another character named Senda (a loudmouth braggart that repeatedly gets shown up, so I don't mind him the way I do Yuhei) receive the brunt of the humor, but Adachi pokes at himself occasionally. Characters do plugs for his past series, or when he wastes pages making jokes about his editors having no idea how difficult 18 pages can be to complete someone in story will complain about. I could do without the upskirt shots, even if I could be charitable and allow some of them are meant to be from Ko's perspective and it might speak to where his mind is at in 9th grade. But that argument definitely wouldn't work for all of them

Adachi's approach to drawing the actual baseball is to break it up into small, individual actions (see the page at the top of this post). A panel of the ball, then one of bat and ball. Or a panel of the ball bouncing into the outfield, then one of someone rounding a base. The game is one of a lot of small, individual actions happening on the same field, so it works pretty well. If it was basketball or American football, where so much of each play is reliant on how all the players move in concert or in reaction to each other, I'm not sure it would. But the having the panels tilt lets them lead the eye naturally to the next one, and he's able to do so in a way that feels like it matches the characters' movements. Like the tilt down and to the right is part of Ko's windup as he prepares to throw the ball.

Sunday Splash Page #178

 

"Those Puns Are the Wurst," in Elongated Man #4, by Gerard Jones (writer), Mike Parobeck (penciler), Ty Templeton (inker), Rick Taylor (colorist), Bob Pinaha (letterer)

I think this might be the one of only two titles in my entire comic collection written by Gerard Jones, and it comes up two weeks after the other one. Well, same warnings apply as mentioned in Sunday Splash Page #176 regarding Jones.

Set during Ralph's time on Justice League Europe, the story involves some mysterious party trying to disrupt a big European Unity conference, through the magic of nation-specific super-villains. Like the sausage-wielding German guys up above. Ralph loves a mystery, leaving Sue increasingly annoyed as he ignores her to, from her perspective, chase phantoms. Which grants an opening for the ruler of Modora, who seems to have a lot of the same weapons as the villain Sonar, to try and woo her.

I've heard Ralph and Sue compared to William Powell and Myrna Loy from the Thin Man movies, and I can sort of see it. Although I think Sue is Powell, where she doesn't really want any part of this crime-solving stuff but keeps finding herself in the middle of it. Ralph, who is ready to jump into action at the hint of anything suspicious, seems more like Loy. Either way, the whole thing is kind of charming and sweet.

Parobeck's art here is far closer to what I think most fans think of. Much more streamlined, fewer and stronger lines than in El Diablo. Some of that might be Templeton as inker. Not having seen Parobeck's pencils on their own, I don't know for sure. Very expressive, and with Taylor's colors, not too grim or serious. It fits with the overall tone of the story, which is ultimately just some second-rate Doctor Doom trying to protect his little kingdom from the dangers of working together for greater economic strength. For its own good, of course.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 3

It was nice to have a few days where I could sleep with the window open. But that's over for probably another month. Oh well, it hasn't been an awful summer here, outside of a few three-day stretches. And that one week in June when it rained like crazy.

You Promised Me Darkness #4, by Damian Connelly (writer/artist), Anabella Mazzaferri (letterer) - I will never understand people who gets tattoos, and that includes Alex, who has something like 70, according to him. I hate needles too much for that shit.

Yuko and Sebastian took off on their own to confront the Anti-Everything. If they can find him. It takes some work, and the assistance of Drake Limbo, Weird Detective, but they get on the right track. Of course, by the time they get there, Sage has his merry band there already, and the Anti-Everything has done something to a bunch of people to make them into. . . zombies maybe? Their teeth appear rather pointy, and their eyes are white pinholes, but the faces are otherwise muddled.

That's basically it. All the different sides making final preparations and getting their pieces in place for the big fight. The plus side is, Sage said he lost his power of meta-narration, so no more of his annoying caption boxes. Unless Sage was lying. I don't have any real sense of how this might go. Which could be a good sign, that the book doesn't feel predictable. 

It feels more like I just don't get what Connelly's driving at. The story seems to drift from setting to setting, with the notion of an apocalypse hanging over everything allegedly driving the action, but it doesn't feel like it. Maybe because Sage is so sure of his plan, but there's no sense of urgency to his actions. Sebastian is supposedly important, and presumably Yuko's close ties with him mean she is as well, but nobody acts much like it. The Anti-Everything isn't making a concerted effort to find them.

I don't know, next issue is the conclusion of the first arc at least. Maybe it'll come together then. Plus, I'll see how Connelly gets around his apparent indifference to drawing action scenes if there's going to be a big fight.

Black Jack Demon #1, by Nick Hermes - Ah, the waving handprint on the door. A sure sign of friendly folk. Wait, I'm being informed that's a bloody handprint, which is a sure sign of being in a Silent Hill game. Whoops.

After a massive explosion at their mine, Silas' father is killed and skinned by someone. The sheriff is no help, so Silas hires a lady gunfighter named Humphrey to hunt the killer down. Despite being on foot, the culprit stays ahead of them for days. When they finally get to where they can lie in wait, they get more than they - or at least Humphrey - bargained for. Silas is left alone again, with another skinned body to bury.

Hermes' art, besides making Silas look like a young Man in the Big Yellow Hat, tries evoke the style of the old EC horror comics. The deep shadows around the eyes and the exaggerated expressions. The panel backgrounds that are usually just a solid color, lacking in any details. Unless he's trying to create a sense of setting, in which case it's still sparse, but that's due to the landscape they're traveling in. The lettering on the sound effects is typically big block letters that also seem out of a much older comic.

It certainly creates a kind of mood. People alone, fighting something they don't understand and are ill-equipped to deal with. And it lends weight to the question of why Silas is so hellbent on pursuing this if he's so frightened. Humphrey points out that his family mine will be taken by greedy interests in town since there's no one there to run them off, and Silas basically ignores her. What's so terrifying about that to make him decide chasing a demon is a better alternative? Hermes draws Silas at a distance from other people. Even when they're in the same panel as him, there's a gap. He's in the background or they are. Nobody's looking the same direction as him. His gaze is always on its own thing.

A Low Down Dirty Shame

This is one of those movies I'm unreasonably fond of because I watched it too many times when I was much younger, because it was on one of our cable movie channels all the time (Showtime, I think). Like Bio-Dome, Virtuosity, or City Slickers 2. But I hadn't watched it in over 20 years, so it's kind of an interesting experience now, with more awareness.

My first thought re-watching it was it's kind of a noir at the start. A disgraced cop turned down-on-his-luck private detective who runs his mouth too much (Keene Ivory Wayans). His old cop buddy (Charles Dutton, who almost gives Shame the speech he gave Rudy), now with the DEA, giving him a chance at the case that ruined him, and a reunion with the femme fatale (Vivica Fox) that broke his heart. His plucky gal Friday secretary (Jada Pinkett, probably the first movie I saw her in) who has a crush on him.

There's also a lot of late '80s-early '90s action movie stuff. The kind of stuff all the McBain clips on The Simpsons make fun of, right down to the drug lord being named "Mendoza". The movie does not end with Shame laying out everything to everyone. It does end with two separate fistfights. Bad guys with Uzis firing craploads of bullets and hitting nothing. The private detective having a set of really nice clothes and really nice firearms to pull out of mothballs when he needs to kill a bunch of people. A happy ending where the two main characters end up together and all the bad people are dead or going to jail.

There's probably a lot in it that owes to blaxploitation films, but that's a part of film history I still don't know well enough to speak confidently on. I feel like the main character's name being "Shame" has to sort of be a nod to Shaft. I think there's reference to one of Wayans' earlier films when a character mutters "I'm gonna git you, sucka," which was the title of said earlier film. I would have expected Shame to have more trouble with cops, but other than a lieutenant who just seems exasperated by Shame (like every frustrated, shouty police captain ever), there isn't much.

There's more homophobic jokes than I remembered. I knew there was some, because I remembered a scene where Shame causes a break-up between Peaches' roommate and his boyfriend by acting like a stereotypically flamboyant gay man who is dating said roommate himself, but I'd forgotten several other moments.

The interplay between Wayans and Pinkett is the high point. They seem to enjoy arguing back-and-forth, him teasing her about reading tabloids that tell you dogs won't attack if you sing James Brown, or how they met when he caught her stuffing CDs in her pants. Her giving him grief about his clothes or still owing him money. There's an easy chemistry to it where you can believe their characters are attracted to each other, even if Shame thinks he's not good enough for her. It's not as great between Wayans and Fox, which you could explain with her heart not being in it because she knows they're going to end up set against each other, but he doesn't really seem that hung up on her, either.

It felt like Shame gets serious a little too early in the movie. Switches to the nice car/clothes/firearms about halfway through, rather than in the last quarter. Like visually he's moving into the climax before the plot is ready to get there. He's dressed to kick ass, but he's still just trying to get information.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 2

Yesterday was just one of those days where everything seemed to piss me off. A constant string of people bugging me for stuff, or failing to get stuff to me they were supposed to turn in weeks ago, or people not being around when you need them for something. When the weather is as unseasonably nice as it is this week, it makes a person question why the hell he's working.

Anyway, related to comments made during last week's October solicitations post, I did end up tracking down the first two issues of Everfrost.

Everfrost #1 and 2, by Ryan K. Lindsay (writer), Sami Kivela (artist), Lauren Affe (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Gotta appreciate a unique approach to prison construction.

Van is a scientist on a frozen, dying world, trying to find a way off. Her current approach involves trying to incubate offspring of some immense, star-traveling creature in the bodies of local fauna she killed. With some promising results, she sets off to a place called the Precinct to try and check in with some other researchers she knows. What she finds is that she's somehow been gone much longer than she thinks, and someone is selling clones of her deceased son.

I would suspect this one blonde on the latter, who we see in flashbacks killed an earlier clone of her (their?) son in front of her because someone or something called "Ward" learned what they did. Then Van shoved her husband over the balcony into the ocean, but we know that never kills people.

There are also a couple of factions fighting it out in Ward's apparent absence. The Warlords, who seem to have been servants of Ward and run things in his (or her or their) absence, and The Bloom, who seem to be determined to challenge the Warlords who they feel are hiding some sort of important knowledge. Van knows both groups, but I get the feeling neither is exactly how she remembers, either.

One thing that comes up quite a bit in the first two issues is the difference between how Van categorizes her actions, and how everyone else does. She says she went into the wilderness to find a way everyone could leave the world. Her companion, a talking monkey-like thing, says she came out there to die. Others say she went out there to hide. She asks around about her mother because she was hoping to find some information, her mother (or a computer hologram of her) says she really means she was planning to take whatever she could find. She forms an temporary alliance with The Bloom, and jeopardizes it almost immediately by decapitating one of their lieutenants, who is another clone of her son, and therefore a mole. 

But maybe she's wrong, she's been gone a long time, and I wonder if that's going to be the point. That she went off, telling herself it was to save the world, when it ultimately became her turning her back on it, whether that was what she really intended or not. She may have a solution to the problem she knew, but the world hasn't stayed still waiting. There may not be anyone who wants her solution any longer. And Lindsay writes Van as, if not fully aware of that, at least recognizing she's on unfamiliar ground at times. Although her internal narration is a little odd in that she sometimes seems to be telling someone this story, like when she refers to something as being 'the point in the story when.' Other times, it's like she's just talking to herself inside her head. Maybe that's just where she's at mentally. Not unhinged or anything, just out of practice with other people.

Kivela draws the world as almost locked in ice, but the towns and people are a mixture themes and levels. People carrying swords or wearing helmets that wouldn't be out of place in Skyrim, side-by-side with energy shield you can wear on your wrist and little flying robot attack drones and tasers. People on both sides of the Warlord/Bloom divide fly what look like dragons carved from blue marble. Van looks like she's wearing a spacesuit, probably for protection against the cold. The Precinct has some buildings which feel like maybe a Middle Eastern feel, but also more Gothic industrial look. The outskirts consist of thrown together tin structures and big tanker ships that are icelocked.

It's kind of a bizarre hodgepodge, and I'm not sure it gives the story a strong sense of place because the pieces don't necessarily fit together in a coherent whole. But it does suggest a civilization used to one way of doing things, that had to adapt quickly, in whatever ways they could manage. And if I figure Van is supposedly fixated on getting off this world (although she seems more interested in killing all clones of her son) then the places around her don't really matter to her. Just places to get what she can from, then get away.

Bleeding Steel

This, on the other hand, is not a good movie. Most of the fun Alex and I got out of it was joking about all the things that reminded us of other (mostly better) movies. That the main bad guy, who is a former special forces guy used a guinea pig to create a "bioroid", reminded us of the bad guys in Dark City. In terms of how he looks, not in any other way. And that his henchmen look like either the characters from the video game Destiny, or Daft Punk. The hypnotist reminded Alex of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

We tried to get a lot of mileage out of that because the movie itself wasn't doing it for us. So the bioroid (which really just makes me think he's got hemorrhoids) was a special forces guy (named Andre of all things, terrifying) used as a guinea pig in a test of blood that helps make someone superhuman. Which required cutting out his heart and replacing it with a mechanical one. Quite why he had to be awake during that procedure I don't know, but the blood is killing him from the inside.

There's an improved version of the blood that lets you heal like Wolverine, but the human rights violating scientist put it inside Jackie Chan's daughter as she was dying of leukemia (after Jackie wasn't there because he was trying to protect said human rights violating scientist, what is with Jackie Chan playing cops who neglect their children?) This procedure somehow transferred the human rights violating scientist's memories inside Jackie's daughter, while wiping or suppressing her own. And Jackie went deep cover to protect her, so she went into the foster care system while he performed various menial jobs to watch over her. Like handyman at the orphanage, or food court cook.

Meanwhile, he's got an arsenal in his house that looks like something out of the weapons bunker in Terminator 2, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or, hell, I don't know, take your pick of movies with a room with a shitload of guns on the walls. And he's got a secret passage in the fireplace, and an automated security system to blow up the house, and he's presumed dead by the bad guys. 

So why the fuck can he not just raise his amnesiac daughter on his own in his Australia, instead of having to go through all these hoops to try and watch over her? The only reason Andre's able to find her (after 13 years) is because the human rights violating scientist's memories are emerging in her dreams and she's seeing a "witch" who puts her under hypnosis, then sells the recordings of the stuff she says about special blood and bio-engineered hearts to a fiction writer, who then publishes a novel about it. Wouldn't it have been better for her to have a support system to help deal with the emerging memories in a controlled, supportive setting?

And how the fuck does Andre have some giant flying battleship that apparently no one has detected and shot down in over ten years?

It's not like movies can't get away with this sort of nonsense, but it tends to require them to keep things moving fast enough you don't have time to question anything. This movie doesn't maintain that sort of pace. And it's trying to play mysterious with this one teenage boy character who is very interested in Jackie's daughter. You know, who he is, why he's interested in her. But the last thing a movie like this should encourage you to do is ask questions, because you aren't going to stop at the ones they want you to ask.

What I Bought 7/31/2021 - Part 1

Since I was out of town last week (which turned into its own little disaster), I tried ordering last week's books online. I only found three of the ones I wanted, and they arrived Saturday. I was already out that, and managed to find one of the other books I was looking for, plus a couple of others we'll get to Wednesday. For now, I figured I'd start with the two Marvel books, because I'm very tired and there's less to explain.

Black Knight #5, by Si Spurrier (writer), Sergio Davila (penciler), Sean Parsons (inker), Arif Pranto (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Man, that helmet looks even dumber in profile.

Dane's bleeding out, Jacks was disintegrated, Elsa flew off, and Mordred combined the remaining ebony items in a crown, which he's hooked into the files from the e-therapist app he created. That gives him access to everyone else's pain, fear, doubts, resentments, which grant him great magic while those people pay the cost. Guy should be an attorney with his ability to exploit loopholes. In the midst of this, he stumbles across the recording of Dane's final words, his confession that he bailed on his his college girlfriend when she went to England for cancer treatments. Which she did not survive, because she refused radiation. Because she was pregnant, with Dane's kid, who is, drumroll, Jacks! Ta-da! Meaning she's part of Arthur's bloodline too, so the Ebony Blade brings her back, confused and full of rage.

I figured, with her being able to speak with Merlin's raven, she had to be tied to Arthur's line somehow, but I figured she might be a distant descendant some other way. Maybe Mordred's great-great-great-grandaughter. I guess if he was so focused on making sure there'd be no one to challenge him for the throne, he wouldn't be careless about those sorts of things. Or, as Dane says, he'd just dismiss the possibility of a woman being a threat. 

(I'm betting that doesn't jibe with any number of Arthurian legends that would point out women being dangerous and capable as hell, but I'm not reading through them to confirm that.)

Anyway, while Jacks and a returned Elsa throw down with Mordred, Dane's recording is chipping away at Mordred, too. Because the Chalice made sure Dane saw all this coming. Including that Mordred listening to Dane's voice while wearing the crown would enable Dane to sort of resurrect in that strange place Merlin banished everything he didn't want around, and then sort of emerge from inside Mordred, like a bug molting. I don't entirely get that part, but end result, Dane and Jacks are alive, Mordred isn't (for now.) Dane tears apart the crown and turns it into a chair to use to see bad things coming. As Elsa notes, just want an unhinged person needs, right before she steals the Atomic Steed. Jacks suggests she and Dane split the job. Takes turns wielding the sword, while the other directs from the chair. Maybe together, they won't go nuts.

Or when they do go nuts, they'll just take each other out.

I guess as far as a new direction for the character, it's fine. It requires someone to actually use the Black Knights going forward, which I can't see happening much. But I could be wrong. 2022 could be the year of the Knights. I do like that Jacks did modify her armor to match Dane's, and came up with the helmet to mask their faces, if they want to keep people from realizing there are two of them. Especially since the armor that formed on her during the fight with Mordred gave her the boob plate look. I guess it's magic armor, so maybe it still works find that way. Also glad Dane broke down the crown, because it looked dumb as hell. Davila trying too hard to make a Kirby-style headpiece. I guess it fits if you figure it as an expression of Mordred's feelings of inadequacy or something.

Black Cat #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - I actually went with the Peach Momoko variant, since it was the same cost and it looked cooler. There was a cheaper copy of some connected cover variant that showed Felicia fighting Blade, but it didn't look that great.

Felicia's done grieving or more likely avoiding doing so, and on a job stealing something incredibly valuable. Stealing it from Nick Fury, the one that looks like buff Sam Jackson, not old white guy Nick Fury. Fury shows up mid-heist with some spiel about how warning labels are useless because it just makes people want to investigate more. 

Well yeah, because people know other people are liars. Just because you tell someone, "Oh, nothing valuable or cool in here, it's actually super-dangerous," doesn't mean they're going to believe you. Especially if it's super-spy Nick Fury telling you this. He's a professional liar, it's his job.

Felicia wasn't actually planning to take the object from the shipping container, though. instead, Bruno's got a big helicopter with a magnet on it, and they just take the whole container. Fury objects, but Felicia's determined enough to charge at him and get shot in the leg, all for the chance to throw his ass out into the river. Or the bay. Or maybe the Atlantic? I'm not sure what NYC-adjacent water body that was. Either way, hahahahahaha, eat shit Fury. If only it could have been Maria Hill, but honestly, I'd be insulted on the character's behalf if Maria Hill gave Felicia that much trouble.

Turns out the prize is a new character I think is named Star. She's a villain, maybe tangled with Carol Danvers a couple times? Manifestation of one of the Infinity Gems. Whose genius idea was it to make the Infinity Gems actual people now? Is this Gerry Duggan's fault? Anyway, I'm assuming Felicia has some ill-advised plan to get either the Black Fox or her father back using these people, and that's why she's determined enough to, 'punch out Galactus,' to complete this job.

Villa's artwork looks a little different from before, especially on faces, but I can't place what the difference is. Basically, the lines of Felicia's face are softer than before, her face looks rounder a bit. Either Villa is using a lighter line to outline characters compared to the King in Black tie-in issues, or Reber has shifted his coloring style slightly. The shading seems more gradual, less stark, which might be softening or blunting Villa's lines. Or, like I said, it might be Villa changing up. This is a different story situation from those earlier issues. Instead of a situation she had nothing to do with that's already terrible that Felicia's trying to fix, it's a case of her actively making trouble for herself.

Either way, it was nice to see some action after three issues of people just talking.

Sunday Splash Page #177

 

'Dangling by a Thread," in El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, vol. 3, episode 13, by Hidetomo Tsubura (writer/artist), Lillian Olsen (translation), Dan Nakrosis (letterer)

This was a 3-volume manga series that was released in digest form in the early 2000s, but was originally released in the U.S. as single issue comics. The same dimensions and general page counts as an issue of Spider-Man. Which is something I vaguely remember seeing every once in a while back then, but I was mostly confused. What are these weird comics? I don't understand these titles! There's a strange lack of "X" or "Bat" in them! The manga is based on the anime El-Hazard (which is a little odd, I think it's usually the other way around), which was created by Hiroki Hayashi and Ryoe Tsukimura in the early '90s, who also created the Tenchi Muyo! series a few years earlier.

Which, if you're familiar with Tenchi Muyo, you can see the similarities. The main character being a shy, but kind teenager who finds himself abruptly surrounded by a lot of women with incredible power, many of whom develop an immediate interest in him. Including a princess and an alleged "demon" named Ifurita, who is really an artificially-created weapon who defies her controls out of love for him. Makoto's even able to access and control things which are only meant to be used by people of a particular royal bloodline.

It's not all the same. The romance/harem stuff is wedged in around a war that's going on between the so-called Allied Kingdoms and the Bugroms, who are bug creatures. Rather than trouble coming to him, Makoto falls into the middle of this via an abrupt sinkhole in front of his school. And this passage somehow grants him the power to access royal stuff. And it isn't just him. His schoolteacher falls in and gets super-strength if he's sauced. Or is it if he's sober? A fellow student, an egotistical ass named Jinnai falls in, too, and becomes the general of the Bugrom. Heck, there are even a few women that don't fall in love with Makoto.

Despite the fact the entire manga takes place during an apparently planetwide war, the tone remains light. The story starts with Jinnai chasing Makoto, who started a petition to have Jinnai expelled as student council president for abuse of authority and massive corruption, and got everyone in school to sign. And it keeps a certain amount of that silliness throughout, especially when Jinnai is around, chewing scenery like crazy, and just generally being a petty asshole. Even when Ifurita is fighting against a manifestation of her programming inside her mind, things feel more melodramatic than tense.

Random Back Issues #66 - The Spectre #52

You and an unpleasantly large percentage of people in the American prison system.

Last time we looked at Ostrander and Mandrake's Spectre run, the Spirit of Vengeance was out of control because Corrigan couldn't deal with the pain of losing someone he cared about. Today's issue is from about 3 years later, and the Spirit of Vengeance is out of control because Corrigan's having problems.

I'm sensing a recurring theme here.

But first, a dream sequence. The Spectre has been resting inside the soul of Corrigan's cop partner, Detective Kane. This is due to a combination of factors including, but not limited to, the Spectre using his lifeforce to sustain Gaea during Final Night and the Spectre getting stabbed with the Spear of Destiny by the Avatar of White Supremacist America. Completely serious about that last bit, by the way. Also, we just missed the issue where Spectre tries to judge the Joker and ends up getting his power stolen by him. Damn.

Anyway, Kane finds himself in what he thinks is a dream, but soon realizes is a memory of Corrigan's. A memory that involves Jim shooting a woman named Julia Edmonds and her falling over the edge of the Manhattan Bridge. The Spectre denies any knowledge of this and sets out for another fine day of vengeance. 

And what finer place to punish the guilty than a prison? Boy howdy, does the Spectre get down to business. Starts with a guy who shanked someone in the prison yard just to get some quiet time in solitary. Crushes him between the walls of the cell. Then resurrects a bunch of guards to beat the shit out of one that beat a prisoner to death for kicks. And on and on, all except that guy up above, one Mihcael Lincoln, who is set to be executed tomorrow night. The Spectre says that's not his concern, and takes off.

Reverend Craemer is woken up a short time later by Corrigan, who admits to feeling a bit out of control. No shit. Corrigan can't figure out why he and Spectre aren't on the same page. Craemer suspects that Jim is growing beyond his cut-and-dried, black-and-white mindset, but the Spectre can't change. He's a spirit of vengeance, period, full stop. Which presents a problem without a clear solution. 

So Jim decides to table it, and focus on saving Michael Lincoln. He approaches Lincoln's public defender and learns the execution is still on for that night. The Spectre not killing someone, is not considered proof they are innocent of the murder they were imprisoned for. This is what happens when they won't let you put the Ten Commandments outside courthouses any longer, is probably something Mike Huckabee would say. Also, the governor doesn't want to look like he's intimidated by the Spectre, so execution, ho!

That evening, as they prepare to administer the lethal injection, the Spectre appears. He tells them, again, Lincoln is not guilty. The warden tells him he better not try to stop the execution. Real pair of balls on that guy, but the Spectre says he's not there to stop it. Mortal legal matters aren't his jurisdiction. However, he's told them Michael Lincoln is innocent, so if they kill him, that's murder. And we all know what the Spectre does to murderers! 

The doctor refuses to kill a healthy, innocent man. I don't remember the Hippocratic oath making any distinctions about guilt or innocence, but whatever helps you sleep at night, doc. The warden says they'll get another doctor. The Spectre will just show up again, with the same stipulation. Now the warden says they're just carrying out the wishes of the people of New York. So the Spectre replies, and I'd swear Mandrake's shadowing makes it look like part of his mouth might be smiling, that he would have to hold the entire state of New York accountable for the murder.

Keep in mind the Spectre already killed basically everybody in Vlatava already, 40 issues ago. The warden finally takes the hint, and Lincoln at least gets a stay of execution. Meanwhile, Kane's been busy digging into the Edmonds murder, and when the Spectre returns home and dives inside Kane's mind for the night, Kane readies a trap.

[10th longbox, 48th comic. The Spectre (vol. 3) #52, by John Ostrander (writer), Tom Mandrake (artist), Carla Feeny (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)]

Police Story: Lockdown

I think this is the fourth of Jackie Chan's Police Story films, released in 2013. This one deals with Jackie's Inspector Zhong Wen getting trapped inside a nightclub with a bunch of hostages (including his estranged daughter), by the club's owner, Wu Jiang (Ye Liu). Not all of the hostages, including Zhong Wen, are there by chance, because the club owner has a very specific demand.

First off, Jackie Chan with close-cropped hair looks weird. Second and more relevantly, I figured initially this was going to be "Jackie Chan's Die Hard," which you have to admit, sound fucking awesome. It's not that, though, as there's only a little bit of Jackie sneaking around and trying to ambush the goons. Just enough for him to pick up a few clues to hint towards what Wu is after. But the movie is honest about that, because Wu knows Zhong is a cop, and that his daughter is there (because he's dating her), so any idiot would know to use her as a hostage to force Zhong to surrender, and Wu's not an idiot.

So the movie becomes more of a slow mystery/thriller, where you're trying to figure out what Wu is after, why he wants to speak with this one particular prisoner. And at the same time, there's a battle of wills between Zhong and Wu. Wu is constantly testing how serious Zhong is about trying to save people, and how badly he wants to protect his daughter. Zhong in turn is trying to tease apart what Wu is after, and resolve the situation without anyone dying, while the SWAT teams are getting ready to bust in. Lots of talking, where Wu usually seems to be trying for a weak point, and Zhong is just staying on course.

The film does this thing where Zhong will consider a course of action in his mind, and we see it play out, then the camera cuts back to him and he ends up doing something different. Kind of like in the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies, where he'd visualize and narrate a fight sequence in slow motion first, then actually do it. Except this movie doesn't narrate it or slow it down, so you the first time, I got very confused about what just happened. The movie doesn't really do anything to tell you "this is in his imagination," which is a little annoying.

The end of the movie, when Wu gets his answers is kind of interesting, because the movie presents the story from multiple perspectives, with different people remembering different things, and of course trying to make themselves look better in their version. But I feel like there's also one more "surprise!" moment than the film really needs. I guess you could argue the film's been hinting there's something up with that character the whole time, but it feels like a contrivance to wrap the explanation up neatly.

Still, even if it wasn't "Die Hard, but with Jackie Chan," a pretty solid movie.

Lean Times Return with a Vengeance

The October solicits were real slim pickings. There was no issue of Black Cat listed, so Marvel was down to Defenders and Moon Knight. And I still haven't seen an issue of the former yet, so who knows if I'll like it.

Outside that, no Black Jack Demon or Impossible Jones (no surprise on either count, but it would have been nice to be surprised), and no Locust. There is an issue of Deadbox, so hopefully the first issue of that impresses me when it comes out in August.

In new (to me) business, Albatross ran the solicitation for the first volume of a book called Namwolf, by Fabian Rangel and Logan Faerber, which came out in 2017, about a young soldier who figures out he's a werewolf while fighting in the Vietnam War. Does seem like a good way to get shot at by both sides.

Black Mask Comics has an OGN, Eternal, by Ryan Lindsay and Eric Zawadski, about some viking warrior women who defend their village from some hordes led by a, 'loitering mystical scumbag.' There's also the fourth and final issue of Everfrost, written by Lindsay with Sami Kivela as artist, which has a very cool cover. The first two issues are already out, so I might go back and pick those up.

In addition to Deadbox, Vault Comics has another series called Rush by Si Spurrier and Nathan Gordon, about some weird goings-on in the Yukon Territory around the dawn of the 20th Century. It sounds pretty cool, and even if Black Knight and Way of X didn't knock my socks off, Spurrier's non-Marvel work hasn't let me down yet (Spire, Coda). Look, I have to get excited about something, OK?

As far as manga, the 7th volume of Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General (christ that title's exhausting to type) is coming out, and there's volume 2 of No. 2, about a council of beings created to keep the peace, but one of them has gone rogue for some reason or another.

The only other thing I saw was from Aspen Comics of all places, called Artifact One, By J.T. Krul, Vince Hernandez, and Romina Moranelli, about a curious explorer who finds some startling secret. I mean, that could go a lot of places, although they solicited issues 0 through 4 at the same time (although they also say 2-4 are going to come out before 0 and 1, which is a curious publishing strategy.) But even if I bought all five issues (a big if), plus Everfrost, Rush and the single issues I'm already buying, that'd only add up to 10 comics for the month.

On the Wing - Alan Tennant

Tennant was working on a project banding arctic peregrines along the Texas Gulf Coast in the late '80s. At that time, it was known where the peregrines ended up during the summer (Alaska/the Yukon), and roughly where they migrated in the winter (Latin America). The specific routes they took were only guessed at, since even with radio transmitters being attached, no one was bothering to actually follow them.

So Tennant gets the notion to try, and gets the 70-year-old pilot that was assisting on the project to buy in as well, and off they go. The actual tracking of the falcon he catches and tags - who he names Amelia, after Amelia Earhart - is only maybe a third of the book. Tennant spends the first 50 or so pages on the work he was involved with in Texas, his attempts to actually catch a bird for this, the trouble he gets himself into with the Army by running his yap. 

Tennant's not clear on why the Army is interested in project that's tracking falcons partially to take blood samples to check for incidences of health issues related to pesticide concentration in their bodies, but it's probably something nefarious. Some idiot that wanted to revive that World War 2 idea about releasing bats with tiny incendiary devices attached over Japan to start fires or something.

The book spends time on the issues of actually finding Amelia again several times, but how excited Alan and George get when they actually do pick up her trail. George seems to only agree at first because he loves flying, but he seems to get almost as attached as Alan. The hazards of flying a barely stitched together Cessna and using whatever tiny airstrip they can happen to find to land. The last third of the book, Alan tags a couple of other falcons the following fall and convinces George they should fly south and try to track them that way. Which leads to a lot of adventures in Central America with Guatemalan rebels and accidentally landing on a drug plane airstrip in the middle of a cane field.

The end is a little odd, because Tennant's been steadily pissing away his relationship with his girlfriend on this mad chase. Even when she seemed on board to go south with him, he wouldn't wait the day or two she needed to be ready. So right at the end, he has some kind of epiphany about how this hasn't really been about the falcons and tries to patch things up, but it's not a romantic comedy. It's a little strange, because he's spent almost 300 pages talking about what it is about falcons that attracts humans to them, causes them to be regarded so highly by us, and then it's almost like he regrets getting sucked in?

For the most part though, it's a fast read and Tennant offers enough description of the places and people they encounter to really give a sense of the scale of their trip, even if he and George can't follow their falcons all the way to the end.

'Winging along below, neither falcon felt herself embarked on some desperate southward journey; each was simply exercising her newfound freedom of movement through the air, hungrily chasing smaller birds when the chance arose. The only vision of a distant Caribbean shore was mine.'

He Needs a Therapist, Not a Muse

Hmm, steampunk dubstep. Terribly awesome, or awesomely terrible?

D-P Filippi and Terry Dodson's Muse was not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting a story about a woman hired as governess to a young boy with a vivid imagination, who finds herself drawn into said imagination, either metaphorically or literally. And the story does have that.

What I wasn't counting on was Coraline, the governess, would find herself having to escape being assaulted in each of these fictional worlds. An unexpected turn, but that's what happens, repeatedly. She wakes up in the middle of the night, finds a strange room with two men who give her outfits which show off her figure (if you're familiar with the women Terry Dodson draws, Coraline may be the apex of his style) in the back of her dresser, and is sent off into some fantasy where there's always a guy trying to get her clothes off. It's like Bizarro Chronicles of Narnia or something.

Oh, and during the daytime, Vernere is always trying to get her to drink some 'special brew' of his. Not drinking it seems to grant her more control in the dreams, or lets her wake up, I'm not clear which. Either way, yikes. And one of his two servants is constantly playing Peeping Tom on Coraline.

You might wonder why Coraline doesn't hightail it the hell out of there. If not after the first time, when she might be able to write off the thing with pirates as just an odd dream, certainly by the second, when some Tarzan analogue tries to cop a feel. Or the third, where Prince Charming asks her to give the sleeping princess a kiss, only for the princess to turn into him, wide awake and trying to kiss her. (She gives him five upside the head instead, which is her entirely appropriate reaction each time to this crap.)

Coraline took the job because she's looking for someone, so she has to stay until she can find them, but Filippi doesn't reveal that until 80% of the way through. He does drop plenty of hints that Coraline is far from the first governess, and that things with her aren't going as usual.

The conclusion is kind of odd. It basically suggests that, since Vernere was orphaned at a young age, he's trying to be an adult, but without parents around, he's emulating male protagonists in adventure novels? Especially in terms of how they get women? Is it a commentary on what fiction teaches men in general, about "winning" women, or about how people who retreat into fantasies are stunted and have unrealistic notions about interpersonal relationships?

You can certainly see Vernere does his best to avoid acting as a child might. He doesn't see the point in games. When Coraline suggests they build a treehouse, he trots out a treehouse-building machine he built some time ago to do it, but then is offended at the idea he might want to actually play in the treehouse. When he tries to dance with her on his birthday and she picks him up to make it easier, he gets completely embarrassed and storms off. He has a notion, maybe because of his intelligence, that he needs to be seen as an adult, and when Coraline tries to do otherwise, he gets angry. But he's still acting like a boy, in that he's trying to impress her to get her to like him. Showing off his inventions and trying to be cool instead of showing how he can do a handstand or whatever.

Which still doesn't explain how readily everyone seems to forgive and forget his repeated attempts at dreamworld date rape. That seems like something that needs correcting, but I guess we're meant to make allowances for grief.

In the comic adaptation of The Rocketeer movie, I think there's an entire page where Peter David just lets Russ Heath draw Betty (or Jenny, I guess in the movie) pulling on nylon stockings. Just absolute male gaze. This comic is that page, but basically nonstop for 100+ pages. Coraline in outfits that show off her chest. Coraline in lingerie. Coraline in the shower. Coraline with strategically torn "sexy" outfits. On and on, whether in the waking world or the dream world. 

You'd think the servants, if they're so intent on having the old Vernere back, would try to discourage his libido during the daytime, instead of handing Coraline outfits that would seem to play to exactly that part of him, but I don't know. They also never bother to explain to Coraline what they're hoping for her to accomplish, or what's going on with Vernere, so quite how they expected her to fix things I don't know.

Sunday Splash Page #176

 

"Knock Before Entering," in El Diablo #2, by Gerard Jones (writer), Mike Parobeck (penciler), John Nyberg (inker), Lovern Kindzierski (colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer)

I picked this up in a dollar bin search a few years back. About the time series writer Gerard Jones was being sentenced to six years in jail for possession and distribution of child pornography. I tend to assume the comic fans who read this blog are more aware of stuff like that than me (I hadn't heard probably a year after I bought this), but if you weren't, and it's a deal-breaker on having interest in this book, figured I should mention it up front.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to segue from that to talking about the book itself, but it felt weird to put that at the end, like "oh yeah, by the way. . ." Start with the bare facts, then. El Diablo ran 16 issues from fall of 1989 until the end of 1990. DC had an earlier character with the name, a Western hero created in the early 1970s, possessed by a vengeful spirit. And there's the later, pyrokinetic one that was in the Suicide Squad movie.

This version is non-powered city councilman named Rafael Sandoval, who uses his experience boxing to become a vigilante when he grows frustrated with the lack of help investigating some fires. Which probably explains why he's gotten the least traction outside his own series of the three. "Frustrated, civic-minded politician" doesn't quite stoke the imagination like "possessed gunslinger" or "remorseful firebug gang leader". Even if the energetic young politician being waylaid by the older, more comfortable members of his own party is depressingly relevant today.

Jones writes Sandoval as idealistic, but aware of the compromises and need for support that come with politics. The series takes place in a town called Dos Rios, close to the Texas/Mexico border. So racial tensions come into play a lot, especially during a multi-issue story about a series of child abductions. Everybody loves pointing fingers! Sandoval sometimes feels he's just a pawn in the mayor's (a good-old boy Democrat) attempts to court Hispanic votes. Sounds too intelligent for Democrats to me, but maybe.

We're still a few years away from Parobeck working as an artist on the Batman Adventures comics, or The Fly series for Impact!, or even his Justice Society work. His art isn't quite to that streamlined, very clean look we'd see on those books yet. That might be due to Nyberg's inks, although you see hints of the future look here and there. In the more exaggerated expressions, or sometimes the characters in the background, where there isn't going to be as much detail. (The mayor, who spends a lot of time with a big "aw shucks" smile definitely would have fit in Parobeck's later work.) Or it might be Parobeck feeling the book needs a somewhat more realistic look. The colors on El Diablo also aren't nearly as bright as they were on those books, but this is a different kind of book.

The series remains decidedly street-level. Other than El Diablo, the only other costumed type that shows up is the version of Vigilante that was a movie cowboy, not the owner of a chain of fried chicken restaurants. It's the late '80s, so drugs crop up a lot. Not just moving them across the border or selling them, but the crime that arises from addicts looking for money to buy more drugs. Immigration comes up in a string of dead workers not entering the borders through official channels. 

The series comes back repeatedly to the notion of community. El Diablo ends up with a small group of teenagers that agree to help for one reason or another, and the series deals with the fact they aren't always going to agree amongst themselves about what to do.

What I Bought 7/21/2021

Once again, basically all the comics I want this month are either at the beginning or the end. Only one book between this week and last week. But it's a first issue, so more pages (and also more costly).

Moon Knight #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I don't think McNiven should try to ape David Finch's style. But really, the store only had Skottie Young and Gabrielle Del'Otto covers available, so I went with Young's.

Moon Knight's carved himself out a section of the city as his, and those within it are under his protection. Whether that's from vampires that are part of a 'self-actualization pyramid scheme cult,' or Spidey's old foe Vermin (who has cloned himself, apparently?), or whatever. One person he rescued from the vampire cult is now his sassy personal assistant, and he's also seeing a therapist, who says that what Khonshu is, being touched by it has literally altered Marc's brain chemistry. I wouldn't have thought a merc would have a lot of MRIs laying around to compare pre- and post-Khonshu, but sure. 

At any rate, between Reese and Dr. Sterman form a couple of pieces of a supporting cast. MacKay also introduces a couple of threats. One is someone we only catch glimpses of, but they're very interested in Moon Knight and making him lose his faith. I kind of think its Bullseye based on his comment about his statements typically leaving lots of dead bodies. But they also seem to be a nihilist, which would fit Cletus Kasady, but I'm pretty sure he's sort of dead. Or a ghost in the shell in a symbiote, I'm not sure.

The other is a Dr. Badr, who has opened a clinic in Moon Knight's territory, and is apparently Khonshu's other fist. Calls himself the Hunter's Moon. Well, it's a good name, to be sure. I kind of thought that, since Marc's symbol is a waning crescent, Badr's might be a waxing crescent, but with that name, I guess it has to be a full moon. Otherwise he'd look ignorant, and that's not good.

So Mackay's taking the Immortal Iron Fist approach of their being all sorts of lore tied up in Khonshu that Marc is ignorant of. I eagerly await the arrival of Khonshu's heart, Blood Moon. I joke, but it's not a bad approach to take for a series. Obviously, since so many writers have used it with so many characters. It's all in how it's used.

Cappuccio's Moon Knight comes in two flavors: the classic version with the cowl and the cape, and the Mr. Knight version Ellis created where Marc wears an all-white suit. Mr. Knight sits and talk, and puts up his symbol on alley walls. Moon Knight beats the shit out of people. The Mr. Knight look is almost entirely white, while Moon Knight has a lot of shadows. The coloring plays up the contrast between light and dark there a lot more than in the Mr. Knight scenes. In general, Rosenberg's coloring is pretty stark, there's not much of a grade to it. Which might help bring out Cappuccio's linework, which pretty sharp and defined. There's not a lot in this issue that would be described as "soft".

I would like a little more detail in the city backgrounds. They make New York look remarkably empty. No vehicles on the streets, no pedestrians, no trash or wall art. There's nothing except the characters actually involved in the scene. We don't necessarily need the background details, but it might lend something to the setting. If Moon Knight protects travelers by night, then shouldn't we see more people out traveling, confident he'll protect them?

Twin Dragons

When I was out running errands in St. Louis a couple weeks back, I found this 8-movie collection of Jackie Chan flicks (including Operation Condor and Armour of God), for $5. Whoo! Alex was here last weekend, and it was funny to see him read the brief descriptions on the back of the box and keep changing his mind which one he wanted to watch.

In Twin Dragons, Jackie plays twin brothers separated a birth in an incident involving a badly injured criminal and some random cop who rappelled out a window on a bed sheet and got dragged behind an ambulance after getting shot in the shoulder. Even unnamed background characters in Jackie Chan movies are freaking badass.

The son who isn't lost returns to America with his parents, and John becomes an accomplished composer and pianist (and apparently Jackie Chan can play the piano, so he's doing at least some of the actually playing in this movie). The other son, found by some very intoxicated young woman on her way home from a night out, is named "Boomer" and grows up to become an auto mechanic.

Boomer's idiot friend Tyson gets them in trouble with some gang over a girl he likes (played by Maggie Cheung), at the same time John arrives in Hong Kong for a big performance. Cue misunderstandings, unintentional role swapping and romance hijinks.

Alex and I were pretty stoked when, within the first ten minutes, Boomer is fighting an entire gang of guys in some sort of karaoke bar that is decorated to look like a Paris streetside cafe, and he's using a microphone as a flail. The movie has fun with the notion that each brother can unwittingly control the other's movements during moments of, I guess extreme stress or concentration. So Boomer finds his fingers moving oddly during times when John is playing piano, or John finds himself bouncing around crazily when Boomer is in a high speed boat chase.

The effects they use to get two Jackie's on-screen simultaneously aren't bad. It's most noticeable to me when one of them is supposed to brush past the other (as in the bathroom scene when they first meet), and you can tell the clothing doesn't move the way it should. On the whole, for an early '90s movie, not bad, and the film does a couple of funny bits with John and Boomer trying to keep someone in the dark about there being two of them.

The big drag on the movie is Tyson, who is a completely useless comic relief character, there almost entirely to make every situation worse. And he's so incredibly annoying, during the big end fight in the car testing facility, Alex and were both hoping that he'd get killed when the car he was in got put through the crash test.

Sadly, while lacking in any other signs of intelligence besides recognizing Maggie Cheung is pretty, Tyson does wear his seat belt.