"Descent Into Madness" is Literal

Charles Reed's a private investigator out of Boston, who has traveled to the town of Oakmont to seek the answer behind the hallucinations he's been having. The Sinking City is about his investigations into that, as well as all sorts of other things happening in the city, and below it.

Most of The Sinking City revolves around solving mysteries. This takes a number of forms. Asking questions of witnesses or acquaintances, but sometimes checking various archives. The library, the police station, the hospital, the newspaper. The trick is figuring out which archive you need. Is information about a current prominent church in the newspaper or the library? For a person's death, do I check with the cops or the paper, or maybe the hospital?

I don't want to give the impression it's actively dangerous to have to travel from one to another. As long as you don't try to short-cut through the "infected" zones - clearly-marked areas where the various smaller Lovecraftian horrors have taken over - you aren't going to encounter any hazards. It's just time consuming, and I wasn't always sure if I wasn't finding anything because I was looking in the wrong archives, or because I hadn't found enough evidence for the game to decide Charles could make the deductive leap to what he needed to search for.

Because the other type of investigating involves nosing around the scene of the crime. A symbol will pop up on something you can interact with, or at least observe. Sometimes you can pick the object up, sometimes not. Charles also has a sort of second sight. Sometimes the screen will get these pulsating lines and you hit "X" and it reveals something that happened. I assume via psychic residue imprinted on the object, I think that's called psychometry, Longshot's other power besides the luck and hollow bones.

At a certain point after you gather enough evidence, a void will appear in the place, and if you walk Charles through it, he can pass through these floating clouds which show a recreation of part of what happened. Once you walk him through all of them, it's up to you to figure out the order things occurred in. If you get it right, the screen flashes green and Charles recaps. If you get it wrong, the screen flashes red and you try again.

You don't want to take too long, because that sort of thing drains your sanity meter. The effect of that is mostly that Charles hallucinates. Stuff like slugs with sharp mandibles, or himself hanging from a noose, or a creepy doctor advancing on him with a gun. First time I saw that last one, I snapped off a shot at it on reflex. After a while, that stuff was pretty easy to ignore, it was the way the screen would wobble and warp that gave me headaches. There are drugs Charles can take to get his sanity back faster - really wonder what 1920s medicine was prescribed for that - and they aren't to difficult to craft more of, so I'd recommend using them to spare yourself the headaches.

The thing is, sometimes you can get to that point without gathering all the available evidence (the game will tell you when you've collected all evidence in a place.) And if you haven't, and go to the archives, even though you know exactly what you're looking for, Charles apparently doesn't. So you have to go back and keep nosing around until you find what you missed or you can't progress.

There are a lot of mysteries or cases, some vital to the story, others just sidequests. Although some of the vital stories feel like sidequests. One guy won't tell you what he saw unless you get him passage out of town. The only guy who can arrange that is a crook, and he wants something, and so on. A couple of times, I forgot what I was investigating originally. The main cases usually give you an option on how to proceed, once you put together enough of the clues in your "mind palace" to come to multiple conclusions. Each option is phrased in the way Charles would mentally justify it, but the game lets you pick whichever you prefer.

Example: You have been framed for murder. The danger of being an outsider in an insular, weird town. The key witness is running for mayor, but needs money, and might just be inclined to change his statement, if you poison his mother so he can get his inheritance. Or you could bring in the actual killer yourself, maybe even convince him to turn himself in. Or you can pin the murder on the aspiring politico, which is what I did. Hey, I found a map on a wall suggesting he was tied up in something big with a lot of other people I was pretty sure were involved in dragging me here. I don't think Charles ever made that connection - didn't say anything aloud if he did -  but I guess he's just not as good a detective as me. Which leads me to wonder how he hasn't starved to death if this is how he makes his living.

Most of the sidequests are more simple fetch-its. The guy with the room next to yours in the boarding house disappeared, but left a list of places he thinks the "damn Innsmouthers" were hiding treasures. The treasures aren't actually things you can sell - there's not really any buying or selling in this game, just scrounging for supplies, or being paid in bullets and alcohol and whatnot - so it seems like the main reward is whatever you scrounge while searching. Is that worth it? I don't know. Sometimes felt like I was using more bullets than I was getting back, but at other times, I definitely was coming out ahead.

Which is nice, because there's a fair amount of combat on land, and bullets and firebombs will kill the creatures you run into. (You've also got a shovel, but I don't recommend using that for anything except the knee-high spider things you encounter.) My fights were usually a frantic affair of me firing while backing up or trying to run in circles to keep them at bay. If you flee the building you can eventually get far enough away they'll sink into the ground, which might give you time to boost your health (or mental health) back up if they're getting low. If you try that within the building, they're liable to simply appear on whatever floor you ran to and resume pursuit, which was an unpleasant surprise the first time it happened.

But at least you can fight them. Periodically, the game sends Charles underwater. He was in the Navy in WWI and has experience with diving suits. Handy! Also experience with seeing things underwater that drove him mad. Less encouraging! Though the game gives you a speargun and some flares whenever you descend, I found those pretty useless. The speargun might temporarily slow the crocodile-jawed squid-things that come after you, but they don't kill them. And while you can repair your suit when it gets damaged, you have to stand still and repeatedly tap a button for that. Which you can't do if the aforementioned crocodile-jawed squid thing is attacking you.

I really hated the underwater parts, precisely because it felt like Charles surviving until I got him where he was going was down to luck. I gather that in Lovecraft stories the protagonist is often confronted with something they can barely comprehend, and which is far beyond their ability to harm, but this didn't feel like that. It wasn't that Charles kept having to walk past immense, many-tentacled horrors whose mere presence shredded his sanity like a napkin at the claws of a cat (though those things are out there.) It was just a sort of standard monster thing, but the tools the game provided were insufficient. Like I'd been meant to upgrade the speargun, but missed the cue.

Back to the surface. Oakmont's become largely cut off from the world. Large portions of the city are flooded, so getting from Point A to Point B involves switching between running, and driving little boats with outboard motors down what used to be streets. Again, the game allows you to move around unhindered. There are a few stock character models - weirdo religious cultists, guys trying to sell newspapers, homeless men fighting over stuff, cops - that repeat over and over, but you can walk past them with no trouble.

The city, even beyond the rising waters, is slowly being overcome. Walls are rotted and collapsed, or covered with what looks like reefs or giant barnacles. Dead sea life washes ashore alongside the rusted hulks of ships. Everything has this sheen that makes it look slimy or unhealthy. I didn't want to let Charles touch any of it, feeling like something would immediately start growing over him.

Charles himself spends the entire game with 5 o'clock shadow and deep bags under his eyes. I'm guessing he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in months, and doesn't get one for the duration of his time in Oakmont. I think I played him like that for the most part. I'd go along with whatever grandiose notions or assorted nonsense a character might spew until getting the information I needed. Then I was usually done with that and would tell them what I thought of them before we started shooting it out. Man's tired, he can't be expected to keep listening to bullshit forever.

And there's a lot of bullshit, or perhaps mania, in Oakmont. Even the characters that don't strongly resemble fishmen (the Innsmouthers, targets of much racial prejudice) or apes (the Throgmortons, because the deceased Papa Throgmorton apparently divorced his wife and fucked a gorilla at some point during a trip to Africa) fall into the uncanny valley. A lot of them sport weird grins, with eyes too large and bulging. Even the ones that are dealing straight with Charles, I hesitated to trust because their design screamed, "Something's wrong inside this guy."

There's a lot of backstory about churches and great families and founders but, since I was going three weeks sometimes between playing, I forgot most of it. It's not essential to the gameplay except to the extent it helps you figure out a given case. Once that's done, feel free to forget. If it's a critical point - say, about the Seed or the Dreamer, which heavily relate to Charles himself - the game will remind you later.

I don't love the sanity meter, and I definitely don't love the visual distortion effect when the meter's changing, but I enjoyed the game. It took a while for me to get into it, find the groove of collecting evidence and putting things together, but once I did, it really took off. The combat wasn't anything special, but it's challenging enough to keep me on my toes, and Charles looking over his shoulder.

An Unkillable Exemplar of Batman's False Hope

Marvel and DC are going to do another crossover this fall. Or two, maybe. Both Batman & Deadpool (Batman vs. Deadpool?), but one published by Marvel (in September, by Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo), and one by DC (in November, by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora.)

My initial reaction was to groan. I fully expect Wells to go a humor route, with lots of Deadpool making dumb jokes or comments - odds on a Batman v. Superman "Martha? Why did you say that name?" reference? 1:1? - and Batman being irritated by his inability to either get away from Deadpool or shut him up. Or an opportunity for Batman to fight somebody that can take everything he can dish out and keep coming. Could get old very quickly either way.

But Deadpool is, in some ways, a perfect Batman antagonist. Wade Wilson suffers from mental illness. A highly variable and extremely comic book-y type of mental illness, but mental illness all the same. He has done horrible things, hurt and killed people, in some cases without remorse. Maybe because they threatened people he cared about, but sometimes simply because he was angry at the way things were going in his life and they were convenient targets.

And yet. . .sometimes he does the right thing. He helps people who have been hurt or exploited. He saves the world. Sometimes he still doesn't do the right thing, but not for lack of trying. He really tried to be a good Avenger, really tried to live up to Captain America's belief in him. But he was too willing to trust someone else's judgment if they gave him praise, which is how he ends up following Stevil Rogers' orders during Secret Empire.

Most of Batman's arch-enemies are people with mental illnesses. That's why they go to Arkham, an admittedly shitty asylum, but pretty much all Gotham has if you want to treat them so they can re-enter society without being dangers to themselves or others.

Some times it even works! Harvey Dent gets better. The Ventriloquist gets better. The Riddler at least shifts his impulse to prove his intelligence to solving crimes as a p.i. instead of committing them. Harley Quinn gets better. Poison Ivy, so on. Most of them backslide, sooner or later. An endless cycle of progress, then regression.

Deadpool is almost a perfect example of what Batman's working towards. Without ever getting any real help from a mental health professional (Dr. Bong doesn't count, nor does Cable doing telekinetic brain surgery), Wade Wilson still has periods where he can function. Can have friends, have a home, have a family. Sure, he still frequently beats the crap out of people, but most of them are trying to hurt innocent people. Batman can't exactly throw stones about that.

I don't know if I'll buy either book when they come out, but I can't say for certain that I won't. Which is more than I would have expected at first glance. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Indiana Jones gets roped into finding a missing colleague and the mother of a smart aleck James Dean wannabe (Shia LaBeouf), while racing against the Soviets to find a long-lost city and the great power within. 

So Spielberg decided to move the timeline forward to the '50s, and with it, shift to a more sci-fi plot, and also shift the antagonists to the Soviets for the Cold War era setting. Although my dad and I agreed Cate Blanchett's weird "doctor of the paranormal" character would have fit as well as a Nazi scientist. Maybe she switched sides.

And really, most of the action would still fit with the pulp aesthetic of the earlier movies. The search through the graveyard for the conquistador's grave, complete with a couple of local weirdos trying to ambush them from the shadows with blowguns. The quicksand, or whatever it was Indy said it was. The ancient temple with traps - why would you set it up to open a path beneath the obelisk, but design the stairs to immediately retract into the walls so people get dumped onto enormous spikes - and gold. The chase sequence with people switching vehicles during the whole thing. And the alien science might as well be magic. Like Indy says, what God looks like depends on what God you worship.

If the movie wanted to do more with the Cold War paranoia, maybe play up the FBI suspecting Indy's loyalties beyond them pressuring the university to kick Indy out. I guess that was "Mac's" (Ray Winstone) role, as the guy Indy thought of as a long-time friend and ally, who turned out to be a backstabbing traitor, then pretended to be acting as a double-agent, but was really just a greedy pig all along.

Blanchett doesn't get a lot to do. As an antagonist, she's at least a little different from Belloq (Raiders) or Donovan (Last Crusade.) At the end of the day, those guys were more like Mac, just interested in themselves. Belloq wants the credit and aggrandizement of finding rare treasures. Donovan thinks to use the Nazis to gain immortality because he's afraid of death. Even Mola Ram was ultimately a phony, trying to hoard power for himself. Dr. Spalko does want knowledge for herself, but I think she's also a true believer in the Soviet ideals.

I'm not sure the movie does enough with that either. Feels like there ought to be a difference between dealing with a ruthless ideologue versus self-interested egotists. But hell, I got to watch her kick the crap out of LaBeouf in a sword fight atop two jeeps. That was fun, better than him swinging through the trees like Greaser Tarzan, but he does alright with the role he's got. Cocky, impulsive, in over his head but game to try nonetheless.

Karen Allan still has an easy banter and chemistry with Harrison Ford, though it comes out more when they're arguing and sniping at each other. It's funny how the rest of the movie seems to just come to a halt, like all the characters decide this is too good to miss, so they just stop to watch.

There's Always Hoops to Jump Through

Florida Man banned from all national parks after sharing methamphetamine with elk.

Robin's admitted she wants to live and keep sailing with the Straw Hats, so One Piece, volume 42, is the Straw Hats crossing the gap to breach the Tower of Law and get her back. Unfortunately, she's wearing seastone cuffs, which neutralize her Devil Fruit and are (somehow) hard as diamonds.

Each CP9 member has a key, so if the Straw Hats want to truly free her, they have to beat all of them to get the right key, and rescue Robin before Spandam (being escorted by Lucci) gets her through the Gates of Justice. As a thief, Nami ought to be able to pick the lock, but this lets Oda split the crew back up and throw them into 1-on-1 battles against CP9. That consumes the remainder of the volume (and the next 2), so how are they doing?

Not great! Nami gets a key away from Kumadori, who speaks in these bold, poetic (and moronic) statements, but he's too strong for her and she can't escape him. Chopper, who intervenes, can't seem to beat him, either, though he does temporarily trap him in the fridge in the Tower of Law's kitchen.

Zoro was holding his own against Kaku, despite Kaku having gained a Devil Fruit that lets him become a giraffe-man since their last encounter. But they end up in the same room as Sniper King (aka Usopp) and a wolf-man agent. In the middle of all that, Usopp manages to cuff himself to Zoro with a different set of seastone cuffs. Neither of their opponents has the key to that pair, so it's a lot of them running away or Zoro trying to wield Usopp like a sword until Chopper can maybe find the right key.

Sanji, meanwhile, runs up against Kalifa, the sole member of CP9 that's a woman. And Sanji, of course, won't hit a woman. So even though he's stronger than her, he's summarily tossed out of her room, reduced to some odd state where he looks like a partially-completed clay sculpture. Nami sees through his claim that he couldn't win, recognizing he didn't really try, and he responds he won't fight a woman, even if it kills him. Not to put too blunt a point on it, but who gives a fuck about his life? After all his big speeches about being the one to rescue his "Robin-chwan," he won't even fight for her.

At any rate, this leaves Nami fighting Kalifa for another key, in the hopes it'll be the one to Zoro and Usopp's cuffs. And while she eventually figures out Kalifa's new Devil Fruit, she's still too slow to actually do anything about it.

The one person having any success is Franky, who manages to defeat Fukorou, though it's a back and forth affair. Franky initially runs out of fuel (cola) and there are a few gags of Chopper throwing him the wrong drink because he's trying to open and shut the fridge door before Kumadori can escape. Once Franky's back to full strength, Fukorou starts relying on his greater speed and agility, plus his ability to "moonwalk", meaning walk on air. Franky, like he did in his fight against Nero on the Sea Train, has to find a way to counter that maneuverability.

Their battle destroys the fridge, freeing Kumadori. Chopper wins out over that dope, but in the process turns himself into a mindless, rampaging monster that can't distinguish friend from foe. So even when things go well, they go poorly. Case in point, Luffy (who was so focused on beating up Rob Lucci the rest of the crew left him to it) catches up to Spandam and Robin. While Luffy tries to get past Lucci, Spandam fucks up and triggers the Buster Call in his attempts to taunt Robin about how worthless she is. Now the Marines are going to level Ennies Lobby and everyone in it. Just as soon as the flotilla gets there, in say, 30 minutes or so.

Nothing like a ticking clock. . . 

Sunday Splash Page #379

"Silent Flight," in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind vol. 1, by Hayao Miyazaki

I bought the first two volumes (out of 7 total) of the manga version of Nausicaa over a decade ago. I would swear I reviewed them briefly at some point, but can't find proof anywhere in my archives. Maybe I just remember asking David Brothers about the book on his tumblr because he'd mentioned reading it, and I was trying to assess my, dissatisfaction? Disappointment?

It's a gorgeous book, no question. Towering forests where the air is laden with fungal spores that are lethal, and giant insects almost as dangerous. Flying vessels that vary from gliders to "gunships" that kind of look like someone added wings to the business end of a rifle to larger transports that resemble WWII bombers. Ruined cities and the remains of ancient war machines. Miyazaki knows when to draw back and show how small a human is amid a dangerous world, and when to focus on how that person reacts or observes that dangerous world. 

Nausicaa, the future chieftain of the Valley of the Wind, often looks at the forest with a mixture of reverence and sorrow. Appreciating the beauty of her surroundings, but aware this is a place where she has to tread lightly and carefully. Asbel, the surviving prince of a neighboring kingdom Nausicaa meets near the end of volume one sees everything in the forests as a threat. They both cover the lower half of their faces with masks for protection, but where Nausicaa's eyes are open and aware, Asbel's are narrowed in anger and hostility. He attacks before anything can attack him, which only puts him in greater danger.

At least in volume 1, the story seems to be that the world is gradually cleansing itself of the damage humanity inflicted through poison and war, via the encroaching "Sea of Corruption." It leaves behind a land free of the toxins, but the land seems to be a sterile sand, so does that leave anything for humanity if they can hang on? Humanity, meanwhile, is on its usual bullshit, with different kingdoms attacking former allies in a bid for control of ancient weapons, and even some scrabbling for control amid the siblings of the royal family of Torumekia.

Miyazaki establishes very early that Nausicaa has some connection to the natural world that most people don't. She can feel the thoughts and anger of the great insects, but can also be overwhelmed by their anger. I think that was where volume 2 lost me (guessing, because I gave it away several years ago.) It seemed as though the subsequent volumes were going to delve further into Nausicaa as this chosen one, and that there were mysterious figures trying to use magic to manipulate her mind and control her. I just remember not being enthused by that, which is why I never got around to buying the other volumes.

Saturday Splash Page #181

"Out of Bounds," in Sensational She-Hulk (vol. 1) #5, by John Byrne (writer/penciler), Bob Wiacek (inker), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

Having never read Savage She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters' first ongoing series, my impression is it was the classic Hulk formula, but Hulk was a girl. She-Hulk wears a ripped-up outfit, talks in simplified sentences, punches monsters, and gets chased by the authorities (in Jen's case, I think it was her dad, who was a sheriff.)

After that ended, she spent some time on the Avengers, then replaced the Thing on the FF post-Secret Wars, the latter when John Byrne was writing and drawing the book. Byrne turned down the savagery, with Jennifer Walters being in control as She-Hulk and generally loving being a big green lady. He also upped the sexy aspect of the character, which continued to an extent once Sensational She-Hulk started up (preceded a graphic novel of the same name.) Byrne gives She-Hulk a lot of different outfits to wear, for work and play and working out and whatever else, and spends more than few pages on her trying out different stuff or commenting on not wanting a good outfit to get wrecked in a fight. She-Hulk being fun-loving, confident clothes horse is probably what's stuck the most consistently in the 30+ years since this series.

The less consistently applied, but arguably more significant, change Byrne makes is Jennifer becomes aware she's in a comic book. She takes advantage of an issue actually starting to cycle through her wardrobe quickly by changing between panels, or yells at Byrne about using the Toad Men for alien invaders, or (in Byrne's second stint on the book), his propensity for having characters try to marry her. Byrne also adds Louise "Weezi" Mason, the Golden Age Blonde Phantom, to the cast. Weezi ends up being meta-aware as well, and admits she finagled Jennifer a job working in the District Attorney's office (Weezi's boss), because even being just a supporting cast member will get her enough page time to slow her aging any further.

Of course, Byrne later has her fall in a vat of stuff the Mole Man's got laying around, and Weezi gets de-aged (and slimmed down) back to her early 40s. Yes, not long after he de-aged Spitfire in the pages of Namor, and yes, Weezi comments on the fact Byrne's getting obsessed with aging and mortality since he hit 40. Then Weezi starts dating Jennifer's dad (no longer trying to arrest She-Hulk, but still not happy his daughter's 6'10" and bright green), gains a little weight, gets angry about how plump Byrne's drawing her, and goes on strike while Jennifer's in the middle of a fight with Xemnu the Titan in an outer space truck stop.

A fight which Byrne initially illustrates as a "fromage" (his word) of Siryn fighting Juggernaut in X-Force #3. I mean, he mimics the postures exactly (She-Hulk standing in for Siryn, Xemnu for Juggy) and shifts his art style to a more Liefeldian look for 4 pages, until his editor Renee Witterstaetter marches into the book (dressed like she stepped out of the night club from the opening scene of Temple of Doom) and tells him to knock it off and start over.

That's the kind of book it is under Byrne. Kind of goofy, full of jokes about issue 3 being the obligatory, sales-boosting Spider-Man guest appearance, or doing a cover referencing the magazine cover of pregnant Demi Moore (She-Hulk holding a beach ball in place of being pregnant.) Byrne was writer/artist for the first 8 issues, left for almost 2 years, then returned on issue 31, with a cover showing She-Hulk and Renee stopping him from renumbering the book back to #9. Even if he's stymied there, Byrne does treat everything in between his runs as a lengthy dream sequence for Jennifer.

Byrne sticks to stories that are 1-3 issues long, fitting with the book's policy of only using "lame" villains. Byrne includes Xemnu and the Headmen in that category, along with Gamecock, Stilt-Man, and Spragg, the Living Hill. I feel like not all those characters deserve being lumped under that umbrella, but so it goes. But all the weak villains and focus on jokes or on drawing She-Hulk in various sexy outfits, means it doesn't feel like Byrne's got an overarching story of theme he's working towards. Maybe "draw a giant sexy green lady" was the overarching theme.

I think Byrne's first 8 issue stretch is stronger, maybe because his second stint feels more gimmick based. The Liefeld homage, the "naked jump rope" bit (which I was afraid ran for the whole issue, but thankfully does not), everybody trying to marry She-Hulk. The artwork's very nice throughout; Byrne at least seems to be having fun drawing She-Hulk fighting goofy villains or spending a few pages letting her fall through a pitch-black tunnel. He's usually being inked by Bob Wiacek, though partway through the second stint She-Hulk gets Byrne to use the duotone paper he'd been using on Namor (until Wiacek starts inking him there) for her book instead. I'm not sure the rougher texture it gives his art works as well here, though Jennifer describes it as feeling like she's wearing corduroy.

Byrne's second run ends at #50, which is mostly an excuse to get other artists - Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller, and Walt Simonson among them - to do 2-page gags about their version of a She-Hulk book. But the book ran for 60 issues total, and Byrne was only responsible for 27 of those, so we'll look at the other half of the series next week.

What I Bought 6/6/2025

Of course, as soon as I mention wanting to review movies I've had for a while, I visit my dad for a weekend and we watch a bunch of new (to me) movies. Maybe I'll start in July. Today, one book from last week.

Batgirl #8, by Tate Brombal (writer), Isaac Goodhart (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - It's like the words came to life, and bled all over the pages.

Continuing with Shiva's backstory, she and her sister (now going by Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San) are living in Detroit's Chinatown, earning a living winning 2-on-2 fights against all challengers. Which includes a young Ben Turner and Richard Drakunovski, aka Bronze Tiger and Richard Dragon.

The boys lose the fight, but gain a couple of friends. Well, one friend anyway. Sandra might be better described as an ally. Sandra's still intent on finding their uncle and killing him to avenge their parents, but Carolyn thinks using their skills to help people, like Richard and Ben, sounds like a good idea. So we get a couple pages of them fighting a giant, talking praying mantis, or bad guys on snowshoes and ice skates. Ben and Carolyn hit it off, but Richard's fumbling attempts with Sandra are rebuffed. Maybe not even "rebuffed", because I'm not sure she even realizes he's trying to ask her out.

Sandra's still driven by anger, and amid that, David Cain enters the picture, with an offer. Brombal writes Cain as, a) a guy who thinks of himself as a planner, and b) super-creepy. He's all "blah blah, holding your self back, blah blah in your sister's shadow, blah blah birth my perfect weapon blah blah." You know his deal. Loser shit. But to help his "plan" along, he killed Carolyn.

Which I do not think was previously established in canon and, if I'm right, is a weird direction for Brombal to go. Shiva conceived a child with the guy who killed her sister? The sister she's nearly deified in these journal entries? I mean, it got us Cass, so that's great from my perspective, but seems odd from hers. Why not just kill the guy and find someone else to make you a perfect weapon? Why assume he's the only one who could pull that off? Assuming that turns out to have anything to do with her thought process, but it sure as hell seems like it does.

The Light's Gone Out

Deadlight is set in the Pacific Northwest in 1986, in the midst of a societal collapse due to, they're referred to as "shadows". They swarm towards any live body they detect, but at a shuffling gait. They moan and take a lot of bullets (or strikes with an ax) to put down. They're zombies, but apparently zombie movies aren't a thing in the world of Deadlight.

You play as Randall, who has hooked up with a ragtag group of survivors, but I can't remember what any of their names were. No, wait, I think there were a pair of sisters, and the one that didn't die in the opening cut scene was Stella. Maybe. You know what? It doesn't matter, because they get split up at the beginning, and Randall doesn't really care anyway. All he wants to do is find his wife and daughter, who he somehow got separated from when they left their little town and headed towards Seattle for safety.

The game is a side-scroller, with lots of platforming. You spend most of your time trying to get Randall from one place to another without him dying. Jumping across gaps, climbing ladders or across convenient pipes attached to the ceiling, stuff like that. The game doesn't give you a lot of time to deliberate how to get where you're going, sometimes none at all. At one point you sprint Randall across rooftops as an attack helicopter swings past trying to machine gun him. Leaping to fire escapes, clambering into open windows, then dashing through office space and smashing through weak doors or vaulting obstructions. Take too long, you'll get killed. Later on, you smash through a rotted door, but have to keep moving as the ceiling begins to collapse. You have to wall-jump to scale one wall, then tuck and roll and dive out another door before you're crushed.

(I will note here I frequently failed at the 'without him dying' part.)

There's a little bit of shooting. Mostly when you need to clear a horde of shadows from your path, but occasionally other humans, and sometimes to shoot a lock or plank that's holding a window closed so you can jump out said window. You have to scrounge for bullets, though the game will put a gear symbol on the screen when you're next to something you can interact with. It may be a lever, or a shelf you can block a door with to slow pursuit. Or it may be a pile of trash to search through. Or a corpse, which I suppose could qualify as "trash" by this point in things. That's where you tend to find bullets. 

(Also driver's licenses and other stuff Randall collects in a sort of scrapbook, which seems really creepy.)

Like with The Fall, aiming is handled with the right joystick, which isn't so bad when shooting shadows (who tend to come straight towards him, heads perfectly level with his sight.) When you have to start angling up or down to hit some piece of the environment it got trickier, for me, at least. Especially when it's got to be done in a hurry, before you're overwhelmed or shot by soldiers. Overall, those parts have the feel of a lengthy quick-time event, minus an actual prompt to push a particular button.

During the game, Randall has the occasional flashbacks to when all this went wrong. Specifically, to him rushing home to his wife and daughter. No points awarded for guessing the big reveal late in the game about what really happened. It does, combined with the pages of his diary you somehow find scattered across miles of city and countryside, make me wonder just how long Randall's been crisscrossing these places.

What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 4

Alright, last of May's books. Theme of the day is Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four #32, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Wayne Faucher and Oren Junior (inkers), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Poor Valeria, only one who doesn't get to turn into green static.

The timeline's being re-written, but Sue protects the kids with force-fields. From a temporal re-write, after she's already been re-written herself? Sure, fine. Valeria's bubble fails last, and she finds herself in a different body, in a timeline with no FF. She finds her parents, and figures out where in that Twilight Zone episode with the kid sending people to the cornfield, except the kid is this universe's version of Franklin, who makes himself look like Galactus.

Basically, Franklin's bubble failed first so instead of merging with a pre-teen version of himself, he merged with an embryonic version of himself. His memories faded, the god-like powers didn't. When Galactus showed up and there was no FF, Reed and Sue had their baby get rid of Galactus. That doesn't seem to match, timing-wise, but I guess North is arguing with less Dr. Doom and travels to space, there was more time for marrying and baby-making.

The only two people left free of Franklin making everyone "nice" are Jean Grey and Namor. Do not ask how, it's dumb as hell. Like North was going for one of his Squirrel Girl jokes in a story entirely unsuited for it. Valeria thinks they can avoid all this if she can stay off Franklin's notice long enough to build a machine to project a thought back in time to herself in the Fantasti-car. Well how does that work if the timeline's rewritten? There is no Fantastic-car, because there was never an FF, because they never got hit by cosmic rays!

Ugh, whatever. It works, and so things are set up for them to fix this in the finale before the restart. 

The Thing #1, by Tony Fleecs (writer), Justin Mason (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Definitely a lot of doofuses punching out of their weight class on that cover. The Grizzly? Sidewinder. Is that Jigsaw in the lower right? Man can't beat the Punisher, but he's gonna fuck with the Thing. 

An old acquaintance - not a friend, Ben is very clear on that - from Yancy Street asks for Ben's help finding his sister. Marty was a jerk to Ben as a kid, but Shelly was nice, so Ben agrees to help. Apparently people disappearing is happening a lot lately, and Marty knows a guy, who knows a guy that might know something about it.

Said guy turns out to be the Gladiator, who's in a bar in the morning looking very spaced out. As soon as they try talking, he starts yelling about monsters and people putting things inside him. And he's got super-strength, enough Ben can feel the hits, although Fleecs and mason make it pretty clear he's holding back. A lot of panels of Ben keeping his arms raised, palms out, still trying to reason with Gladiator and ask questions. Eventually he figures he's got as much as he's going to, and knocks Melvin out with one hit. But the only other patron is Turk - the Daredevil supporting cast guy - and he calls Kingpin. Which is how Ben's going to end up with a contract on his head.

Trying to get the Thing killed seems a bit much for Fisk. The FF are publicly-known and beloved heroes, not like those loner weirdos Spider-Man and Daredevil. But I get the feeling this is set at some amorphous period in the past (people are using rotary phones, plus HERBIE's around), so maybe Fisk is more cocky, or just less concerned with appearances at this point. Mason draws Fisk in the style I remember from well into the '90s. Big white suit jacket, yellow vest underneath, purple pants like he raided Banner's wardrobe.

Fleecs seems to be going for something about the proper use of strength. That is doesn't exist just to throw things around and smash people weaker than you. Sue thinks Ben doubts himself and that's why he holds back, but it seems like the point is Ben knows exactly how strong he is, and is being deliberately careful. Like I said, he's mostly trying to restrain and reason with Potter to avoid unnecessary damage to the bar they're in, and tells the owner to contact him if there's any trouble getting the repairs paid for. Strength is supposed to help people, and sometimes that means punching someone's lights out, but not always, and not needlessly.

Overdue Movie Reviews #1 - Little Big League (1994)

Billy's (Luke Edwards) a huge baseball fan, knows all the arcane rules and can cite situations and examples from the lengthy history of the game as evidence. When his wealthy, baseball-loving grandfather (Jason Robards) passes away, Billy learns he's the new owner of the Minnesota Twins. And when the manager of the team (Dennis Farina) chooses to disregard Billy's suggestion that screaming at and insulting the players isn't helping their performance, Billy fires him. In need of a manager, Billy takes his friends' suggestion and hires. . .himself. Hijinks and life lessons ensue.

The movie has a bit of rising and falling action. The players' initial resistance to being coached by a kid, only for them to eventually buy in when he encourages them to remember baseball is fun. Then the pressure starts to get to Billy, the tough decisions - releasing an aging veteran who is one of Billy's favorite players - take the fun out of it. He starts ignoring his friends, snapping at the players. The team's star (Timothy Busfield) is dating his mom, and Billy doesn't handle that well.

The team starts losing, there's a funny bit where Billy gets ejected from a game for calling the ump a dork, then adds a few more, colorful, remarks (which are blocked by an air horn.) When the umpire repeats them to Billy's mom, he gets grounded for a few games, and gives a press conference where he refers to himself in the third person (always a bad sign.)

Eventually Billy figures out he's not ready for baseball to be a job yet, loosens up again, and the team goes on a late winning streak to get into a 1-game playoff against the Mariners. Kind of weird to see the Mariners played as the big bad, but the Mariners were an up-and-coming team in the mid-90s, so it actually makes more sense, given the time period, than the Yankees being the final boss in Major League (the Yanks were mediocre to shit from 1988 to 1994.) Of course, the Twins had won 2 World Series in the previous 7 years before this movie came out (compared to Cleveland, which has not won a World Series since World War 2), so the notion the fans would be ecstatic about the team almost making the playoffs as a wild card is a little odd.

Where was I going with that? Oh right, the Mariners as bad guys. Ken Griffey Jr. in particular is played as this imposing, cocky hitter. He hits a home run to give the Mariners the lead, then practically saunters around the bases, even winking at one of the Twins' infielders as he goes by. When he walks later and Bowers (Jonathan Silverman, playing a goofball relief pitcher) tries a pickoff, Griffey remarks that just for that, he's going to steal second base, maybe third, maybe even home. Then gets tricked by a faked, wild pickoff attempt the entire Twins' team, including one of the security guards, take part in. Pure cocky heel getting his comeuppance, which is just an odd role for a super-popular player known at the times for highlight reel plays and nicknamed "The Kid."

The movie gets some good mileage out of "child in an adult world" stuff. Billy learning about the wonders of adult films being available to rent in hotel rooms when on a road trip. The principal calling Billy into his office, then being real excited because the Twins might be able to sign Rickey Henderson. Billy and Bowers having fun with water balloons. The best bit is probably in the hours before the playoff game, when the team rallies to help Billy with his math homework. Maybe help should be in quotations marks. I've heard from people who at least played in college, that baseball players are the stupidest of all collegiate athletes, and this movie certainly plays to that stereotype.

What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 3

My boss went on vacation middle of last week, through the end of this week. I have been tapped as interim boss, which has largely meant more data entry and dealing with e-mails and phone calls. If it wasn't on top of all the usual madness (or if I was better at delegating, assuming there was anyone available to delegate to) it wouldn't be too bad. As it is, it sucks. Somebody else can take this on the next time he goes on vacation. There's gotta be someone stupid enough to want to actually pursue a leadership role.

Metamorpho: The Element Man #6, by Al Ewing (writer), Steve Lieber (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - For some people, the sun truly does smile upon them. May those people all burn in its unrelenting heat.

Metamorpho's on his way to the Sun! Solaris, the Rogue Sun, that is, who plans to unleash a storm to push humanity back to the Stone Age! If that means I never have to hear about crypto or "AI" ever again, it might just be worth it. But Rex doesn't agree, so he's going to fly into Solaris, convert his body to Staggium, a superdense element Stagg created that will cause a chain reaction in the core and blow Solaris up. Leaving the Solar System minus the "solar", but small potatoes.

The plan doesn't work, and Metamorpho is narrowly saved from disintegration by Prince Ra-Man's sun, who is willing to give a Rex another chance to win. Because Solaris cheated by fighting a Metamorpho 1 million years in his past. Cue a, flashback, a vision, something of how the fight would have gone in the 853rd Century, which Lieber draws in a parody style of some Golden Age hero I remember being on the cover of a book about bizarre Golden Age heroes.

Why you do that when drawing a fight set way in the future, I don't know. Also, Lieber is incredibly inconsistent about where Solaris is. Why do you need a spaceship if he's hanging out right above your building? Point is, Rex gets one more chance to challenge Solaris, with the power of DC 1 Million Metamorpho, but minus the knowledge of how to best use it. And he only gets the power long enough to change into something once. Rex figures it out, becomes a new Sun, absorbs Solaris, and that's that. Unless the readers write in demanding more Metamorpho!

Eh, I could take it or leave it. It was fun, but Ewing may have started a few too many threads. Which did have the effect of making this last issue feel really stuffed, as he and Lieber try to cover a lot of ground in 20 pages. It's hard for me to picture Solaris running a secret criminal organization, though. That felt out of left field in that sense, even if its inclusion fit nicely with all the "solar champion" stuff. 

The Surgeon #5, by John Pence (writer), Omar Zaldivar (artist), Hedwin Zaldivar and Trisha Mariscal (colorists), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - What, they haven't figured out how to rebuild umbrellas in your post-apocalypse?

Hanover wakes up a prisoner of Chief Long, who turns out not to be interested in her spiking opium, but in the fact that someone is actually producing new supplies of pre-apocalypse medicine. The Hot Animal Machines have a line on it, but they deal in children they abduct to get it. So Chief Long would as soon wipe them out. Hanover agrees to help, and also to treat the guy that came to the fort to warn them of the Hot Animal Machines a few issues ago.

Then she treats the guy (Little Bird), and the two of them bail on everyone else. Then he seduces her, or they fuck, whichever, and he steals her sword and her horse. The whole thing was proving himself as a warrior ("touch an enemy without killing them"). Which leaves her sans transportation, sans weapon, possibly sans pants (or she was in too much a hurry to futilely chase him.) And she ditched a lot of people.

Where that leaves the book with one issue to go, I have no idea. I guess she could go back to the fort, hat in hand (if she still has a hat.) The scientist guy seemed kind of pissed, but the blacksmith pointed out she fulfilled her end of the deal. But I think she's got too much pride for that. Little Bird seemed to prove his point, don't envision him coming back to kill her. The Hot Animal Machines (whatever is left of them) are gonna have problems with Chief Long's group, and vice versa. So what's left for Hanover to do? Find some pants?

Sunday Splash Page #378

"Extreme Elimination Challenge," in Nature's Labyrinth #1, by Zac Thompson (writer), Bayleigh Underwood (artist), Warina Sahadewa (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer)

Eight people accept a cruise, that is really a way to dump them on an island that's been converted into essentially Murderworld, for the amusement of, well, whoever is watching I guess. The contestants have to navigate a labyrinth of traps and puzzles and human threats (both the other contestants and people besides that).

Thompson's protagonist is Jenny, a CIA agent there to shut this whole thing down, as it's apparently been going for some time. Although the married couple running the show insist the CIA sent Jenny there to die, because of something horrible they did. I don't know which is true, because Thompson leaves a lot of things unsaid. Jenny spends most their time working with Nasir (the guy freaking out in the above image), who was involved in weapons trafficking charges (which he insists were bullshit.) Whether that's true or not is also unclear. Nasir certainly seems incompetent and largely helpless, but he's also one of the only ones who survives to the end, so maybe that's an act.

Each of the contestants gets a specific weapon. Jenny, who has a lot of scars that could be from knives, gets a combat knife. Another guy gets a katana, one gets a flamethrower because he likes to set fires and killed his parents with an accidental fire. Nasir gets a Game Boy. The reason is never explained, nor does it ever prove useful in any way during the entire story.

Thompson uses the fact we don't know much about any of these characters to increase the unpredictability. Characters you might expect to fight bitterly instead become kindred spirits. Nasir seems quick to say whatever he needs to stay alive, then change sides at the drop of a hat. The labyrinth is interpersonal relationships as much as it's a physical place full of flowers with drugged scents and animatronic singing critters that pop up just to mess with the players. Even the machine gun toting squad that appears halfway through are actually players in a different game.

Mostly the story boils down to a lot of brutal fights. Some characters take to it like fish to water. Others get into the groove as they fall prey to some of the labyrinth's more underhanded dangers. Jenny doesn't go out of their way to pick fights, but also doesn't hold back once it starts. No stranger to violence, and one who accepts it as a necessity at times. That said, I think Underwood takes the brutality too far at times. Not in the sense of shock value; the idea behind this is the audience gets to watch these people who have apparently done awful things die horribly. Shock value is the point of the "show."

More because some of these people take damage that really ought to have killed them much sooner. In issue 2, Jenny fights the flamethrower guy. He takes a slash to the neck from the combat knife, gets half his face scraped off on jagged metal, and ends up with said jagged metal jammed into the back of his skull. He survives for another 3 issues, a span of at least 30 hours, without any apparent first aid or impairment.

The comic ends on another cliffhanger, as the surviving contestants know one of them took a knife off the wall, but we don't know which. I don't know what the point is, beyond violence begetting violence, often in ways you don't expect (the ones running the game clearly never grasped what impact it was having on their kid), and that every interaction with another person is taking a chance. You're never going to know them entirely, what they're hiding, what they're capable of. Who is on your side and who isn't. Seems like the life of an animal, the maze they navigate every day until they lose.

Saturday Splash Page #180

"Who is that Helmeted Man?" in Sensational Spider-Man #27, by Todd DeZago (writer), Mike Wieringo (writer/penciler), Rich Case (inker), Gregory Wright (colorist), Richard Starkings and Kiff Scholl (letterer)

So, Marvel canceled Web of Spider-Man in late 1995, still in the midst of the increasingly tedious Clone Saga. Shortly after that, Peter Parker (touted as the clone, but married and a father-to-be) went into retirement and Ben Reilly (at that time touted as the original Peter Parker after all) took over as Spider-Man, with a new costume and all that jazz. And Marvel decided they naturally still needed a 4th monthly Spider-Man book, and here we are.

The book ran for just under three years, and probably the most notable part was that Mike Wieringo was the artist for a decent chunk of those issues. I remember reading somewhere (maybe the online "Life of Reilly" history of the Clone Saga) Wieringo wasn't happy to finally get to draw Spider-Man, but not the "real" Spider-Man.

As it turned out, Marvel only dragged the clone thing out another year, then it was Peter Parker back in the classic look. Maybe that perked Wieringo up a bit. Hard to say, because I never hear much about this book. Anything about it, really. Even by the standards of Marvel's mid-90s output, there was no reason for this book to exist. I don't think it had any special focus to differentiate it from the other monthly Spidey books.

Nor do I think, based on the 4 issues I own, that Todd DeZago was doing anything as the writer that really made it stand out. This issue above features editor's boxes that point out inconsistencies or lies in the Looter's account of things, playing up that he's off his rocker. Which I assume was a collaborative effort between DeZago and editor Ralph Macchio. But after the 2-part Identity Crisis tie-in, there's a two-part team-up with the Black Cat against Arcade that's just lifeless and perfunctory. (Also, none of the artists can keep straight what the Cat's costume is like at the moment.)

Maybe the Spider-books were too tightly interconnected for a writer to go far afield. This was the era where they routinely had 4-part stories that ran across all 4 ongoing series in the span of a month. Each creative team had to stay within the prescribed role for their chapter. But I don't think that's all of the problem.

What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 2

I love that in this year's NBA playoffs, "get a 15-point lead on the Indiana Pacers," is the worst possible thing you can do. With last night's Game 1 win in the Finals, the Pacers have now won 5 games (out of 13 total wins) where they were losing by 15 in the second half. It's bonkers, and hilarious, and just fantastic, really. 

Bronze Faces #3, by Shobo and Shof (writers), Alexandre Tefenkgi (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - I still question how easily anyone can breathe and/or see through those masks, but they do grab attention.

Ogiso's still making waves with their heists of the Benin Bronzes, although it occurs to me, I don't know what they're doing with them. I'm not sure of what happens if a museum receives a donation of something stolen from another museum, so I don't know if they could just give them to a museum in Nigeria.

It may be a moot point, because even if the cop that's hounding them wasn't closing (in the party of a heavily armed private security company), the group itself is starting to fracture. The two brothers, Liam wants to take what they've earned and bail, while Declan's getting swept up in the symbolism of the work. Cisse, their forger and phony i.d. man, is hiding something. I'm guessing he's tipping off the detective.

But the real fault lines are Sango, Timi and Gbonka. Sango knows the other two are sleeping together, and this is making her pissy and volatile, to the point she treats the last member of their crew, who she's sleeping with, badly when her mood sours enough. I'm waiting to see if Shobo and Shof go into the backstory for those three a little more, because there's clearly some stuff going on. Especially with regards to how Sango seems to think everything within her view should belong to her, including Timi, that I'm not getting. So she just comes off as a spoiled child. If she really wanted Timi, maybe she could have tracked him down sooner, before all this. But it didn't interest her or suit her then, so she didn't. Snooze you lose.

Most of the issue is people in the crew talking, and Tefenkgi repeatedly goes with a panel-in-a-panel approach. The main panel shows most of the scene, and then the smaller one is like a zoom in on one person's face. And sometimes the other person in the scene is talking, so the tail of the voice balloon comes from the edge of the panel or somewhere beyond it. Nice way of grounding the smaller panel within the larger scene, but still guiding the focus where the creative team wants it.

Dark Pyramid #3, by Paul Tobin (writer), PJ Holden (artist), Sara Colella (color artist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - Is this what happens when a population of goats gets isolated up on a mountain?

Becca seizes a moment of distraction to clock the general in the face with a rock, then smash some remote thing that was controlling or guiding Eve. So now Eve's killing soldiers and party people, which at least affords Becca and Shailene a chance to resume fleeing. They make it above the treeline and find a landmark because Hooky live-streamed himself peeing on the rock. Whatever works, I suppose.

Then they find a bunch of goats with human faces, who mostly say "Interior?" Then the military catches up, and while Becca and Shailene are able to convince Eve (who somehow got ahead of them without being noticed) to go attack the helicopter instead, that does nothing when General Cho and his boys show up. And then they kill all the goats as "abominations." I'm not inclined to disagree, but why are you just getting around to this now, and shouldn't you save some bullets for when Eve gets back?

I don't get the deal with Eve particularly. I can sort of parse some of what she says, and the bit where she picks up the rock Becca used and calls it "long sleeper", and "old friend" was kind of funny. Maybe it was meant to be disturbing, that Eve's maybe been around 60 million years, but it didn't hit that way. I do like Holden's design for Eve. The glowing eyes and thin slit of a mouth in front, then a huge, almost Venom-like grinning mouth on the back of the skull. And whatever Eve is, she can apparently twist her neck so the toothy mouth can face forward. Either that or she's able to run and jump backwards with great skill. Maybe that's the sort of thing you learn with 60 million years to burn.

Anyway, Becca and Shailene are back in the military's grasp, loaded on a truck, and oh, dang, looks like Hooky's dead. Tough break, can't even livestream a reaction video because General Cho will probably shoot them. 

Punctuated Equilibrium - Stephen Jay Gould

For maybe a century after Darwin proposed his theory of evolution by natural selection, the conventional wisdom was that this occurred through gradualism; that is, over the course of generations, a given species will slowly change and one day you look around and it's a different species. And the species it was before, is gone.

Problem: The fossil evidence for this was pretty thin. The response was that the fossil record just had too many gaps to properly catch the intermediate stages. In 1972, Gould and Niles Eldridge instead proposed the explanation of punctuated equilibrium. This argued that most species tended to remain the same for long periods, and then part of the population, usually isolated in some ways, shift to a new species in a short (in geologic terms) time period. The original species still exists alongside the newcomer, for a time.

This idea was apparently met with much harrumphing for at least a decade or two, but by 2007, when this book was published, it was gaining wider acceptance as the evidence to support it mounted. This book, which seems to be Gould covering the history of the concept, the arguments against it and the studies that investigated those claims, is strongest when it sticks to discussing actual research done to test the ideas of punctuated equilibrium and gradualism against the fossil record. He cites a lot of studies, done with a variety of phyletic groups, and he's usually able to summarize the findings in a clear manner, with accompanying charts to help the reader visualize. He makes it clear that he and Eldridge were never arguing that gradualism doesn't happen, only that it's far less common a driver of speciation than punctuated equilibrium. So when a study does show signs of speciation through gradualism, or at least, doesn't show signs it was through punctuated equilibrium, he makes sure to mention it.

One bit I found interesting was, Gould feels the idea of punctuated equilibrium has gotten people to place more importance on the notion of "stasis." Before, when it was all about gradualism, a species showing no change in the fossil record was treated as no data at all. If 39 of 40 species showed no change within a fossil formation and 1 showed gradualism, the paper would only discuss the 1 and ignore the 39. Gould and Eldridge argued lack of change is data, and needs to be considered as such. It's like how, if you decide to test the effect of substance x on substance y, your null hypothesis is probably, "there will be no effect." If that's the result you get, that isn't nothing. Now you know x does not affect y. If you were thinking x was responsible for a particular reaction or property observed in y, well something else must be responsible.

Likewise, one of the things I learned in college biology classes was the environment an organism (or species) exists in exerts selective pressure on the individual (or species.) Certain traits are going to convey an advantage for survival and reproduction. But then we have these species that their physical characteristics remain largely static (meaning the range of values remain largely the same) for millions of years. Why wasn't the environment exerting a pressure that pushed those characteristics one way consistently? A lot of the studies show the values fluctuate across that range over time, but stay around the same mean, until a sudden, relatively quick shift marks a speciation event.

All that said, the book can be a tough read. Largely because Gould won't say in 3 words what he can say in 40. There are sometimes multiple commas, a semi-colon and even a parenthetical, all in one sentence. It's exhausting and a little befuddling, in that the sentence becomes just a jumble of words where I've entirely lost the point he was driving at. He's worst about that when focused more on theory or controversy, which is part of why I prefer the sections where he describes actual research. Having data to explain seems to focus his writing. Either way, this does not feel like a book written for a general audience.

'We can distinguish the punctuations of rapid anagenesis from those of branching speciation by invoking the eminently testable criterion of ancestral survival following the origin of a descendant species. If the ancestor survives, then the new species has arisen by branching. If the ancestor does not survive, then we must count the case either as indecisive, or as good evidence for rapid anagenesis - but in any instance, certainly not as evidence for punctuated equilibrium.'

What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 1

I realized last weekend there are a lot of movies in my DVD collection I've watched several times, but never reviewed. Maybe they got a paragraph in those posts I used to do where I covered five movies I watched over the weekend while sitting around waiting for Alex to get off the phone, or off the can, or I wrote about some specific part of the movie, but that's it. I may try to correct that in the near-future.

For now, let's dive into May's comics, now that I've actually got them. Going to keep it simple and just write about a pair of second issues today.

Past Time #2, by Joe Harris (writer), Russell Olson (artist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer) - The wings have got to be some sort of violation of the rules. They're obscuring the ump's sight! Not that it matters to a blind man, are you freakin' kidding, ump? That pitch was a foot outside!

Back in 1925, Ronald, shakes off the beating he got last issue, while Henry disposes of the bodies, then has to dispose of the person he tried leaving dead in the cornfield last issue. Amazing that the sun was apparently well up in the sky, yet no one saw him stake a man shuffling down the sidewalk while literally smoking in the sunlight.

Henry hitches a ride under the train the ballclub takes to Des Moines, and that night, the team's rightfielder gets injured when one of the bulbs for the field lights bursts as he's chasing a fly ball. I think the flash blinds him and that somehow makes him trip over his own feet and break a leg, but I don't love how Olson draws it.

He adds these little dirty yellow things in the air around the light as it bursts, which makes me think it's actual glass, then draws more of them around Coombs' face in the next two panels. I think it's supposed to be like he's seeing spots, but I thought at first that he was getting showered with broken glass.

Either way, Coombs is out and here's Henry, passing himself off as Ronald's friends (while messing with his mind) and touting his ballplaying days from college (which we hear about in a brief flashback, but we don't see him play.) Ronald's apparently a heck of a pitcher, even blind, but not against a guy with vampire speed and reflexes, so Henry's got himself a night job. And all it took was sabotaging that light. How exactly he sabotaged it so it would explode when Coombs was looking up at it, which would only happen on a ball hit over his head, versus it exploding during the 98% of the game Coombs is either watching the pitcher and the infield, batting, or in the dugout, I don't know. Point is, Henry does whatever it takes to get what he wants. Is that a vamp thing, or a Henry thing, that's unclear.

Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt #2, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Borras (color artist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I know the tight spandex is a classic lady spy look, but I feel for an activity like that, a Spy vs. Spy reference might have been more appropriate.

Shauna's new boss just found her car burned up. She suspects a former employee-turned-competitor, and offers to pay for Shauna's boat repairs if Shauna will prove Pat set the fire. Pretend to be fired here, apply there, get the dirt. Simple, except for the part where I've not seen a John Allison character yet I thought had any capacity for subterfuge or deception. They are all, in their own ways, horrible actors and liars.

Before Shauna gets to the espionage, she's got to find a corsage. I mean, a reason to get the brooding Bryn interested in her to the point she could need a corsage. I mean, whatever. . .she wants to jump him. Or be jumped by him, but he's too busy being deep and soulful about the injustices of the world. Which he solves by keying peoples' cars. Look, man, just say you're antisocial

Shauna finally visits the other store, gets hired by badmouthing the competition, and returns for her first day of work to find someone clogged the drains to flood the store. Clogged them with quilt wadding, like you can get at the other store! So now Pat asks Shauna to play spy for her, on the other store. Again, this is absolutely not something I believe she can accomplish successfully, but so it goes.

I feel like all signs point to Bryn, as part of some attempt at a "statement" by trying to crash the local quilting economy. Wreck the stores, customers gone, husbands forced to find something else to do besides sit at the pub while their wives shop, something something revolution? Seems too obvious, but unless it's this mysterious "Mabel", I've not got any other suspects.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) arrives in a village to give thanks for their harvest and announce his annual ball, which they can attend. When a couple of the villagers point out he only wants them there to humiliate them, Prospero orders them executed. Francesca (Jane Archer) pleads on their behalf, because one's her dad and the other the man she loves. Amused, Prospero brings all 3 to his mansion, at the same time ordering the village burned because an old woman just died of the "red death."

From there, it's Prospero trying to turn Francesca from her faith in God, while all his noble friends and his wife humiliate and destroy themselves in an attempt to curry or keep his favor. I went in expecting Price to really be hamming it up, just chewing the scenery, but that's not the case until maybe the very end, when all Propsero's illusions that he understands how the universe runs collapse.

Until then, Price keeps Prospero under control, carrying himself with the haughty swagger of a guy sure he's got all the angles covered. He's sure God is long dead and Satan rules, and he's buddy-buddy with Satan, so he's got nothing to fear, even from the red death. And so he amuses himself making others debase themselves at his command, or watching a man offer up his wife in exchange for sanctuary. He doesn't make a big show of it; a tiny smirk as he replies he's already had that dubious pleasure, insulting husband and wife both in a moment.

And sucking up to Prospero doesn't save anyone. When Hop Toad set the man who insulted his love on fire, the other nobility may stop laughing, but no one makes a move to douse the flames. Certainly not Prospero, who orders the charred corpse moved because his guests can't dance around it. His wife Juliana agrees to offer herself fully to Satan and Prospero lets her, but he doesn't care. He sees it as a transparent attempt to retain her position against Francesca, and lets it play out.

Only Francesca brings out something almost soft, although in a patronizing way. Francesca intrigues him because of her faith, which seems as absolute in God as his is in Satan. Though it sure seemed like she'd abandoned hope of salvation by the end, but I guess her surrender was in its own way a transparent attempt, just that she was trying to save someone else, rather than herself.

I really liked the set design. The intricate patterns on the walls and floor of the ballroom, and the weird green candles they used, but also those 4 rooms that were each one solid color. Yellow-purple-white-black. It made for a striking image as Prospero leads Francesca through them, except for the last room. That actually surprised me, and added a bit of intrigue, as he actually looks scared of letting her see in there. I don't, in retrospect, understand why he's so wary. Unless it was just to pique her curiosity, get her to open the door to darkness on her own, rather than being pushed through it.

20 Years of Misery, All Leading to This

That title might be better saved for the anniversary post this December, but too bad.

The Straw Hats have finally caught up to their imprisoned crewmate. But Nico Robin doesn't want them there, doesn't want to be rescued at all. After 20 years on the run, betrayed at every turn or watching those around her killed, she'd rather die than see it happen to this little pirate crew, and have them die hating her. Luffy, of course, handles this in a delicate and sensitive manner.

Or, maybe not. Volume 41 of One Piece is the Sad Backstory of Nico Robin volume. She lived on the island of Ohara, a land renown for its scholars, her mother among them. Of course, Olvia ditched her when she was 2 to go on some archaeological expedition, leaving Robin in the "wicked stepmother"-like care of the sister-in-law.

(One Piece has a strong core of people pursuing their dreams, but so damn many of them decide to have kids first, then fuck off to be a pirate or an archaeologist or a revolutionary, and leave the kid in the lurch. If you aren't going to raise your damn kid, don't have one!)

Robin made friends with the scholars still on the island, and even passed the exam to become an archaeologist with a perfect score, at age 8. Outstanding! Now she can help them study the mysterious block covered in weird writing they have in the basement!

Oops, she's not supposed to know about that. Much worse than her knowing about it, the World Government knows Ohara's got a Poneglyph. So while Robin's making friends with a giant that washed ashore, the Marines, hot on the trail of the only survivor of that expedition (Olvia), are invading the island. And they're led by the dipshit father of that dipshit Spandam. Once it's confirmed the scholars have a Poneglyph, Dipshit Senior orders a Buster Call, essentially a ship-to-shore bombardment that will level the island, and all the scholars with it. One particular Vice-Admiral, who will grow up to be Fleet Admiral one day, decides to go ahead and kill everyone on the island just to be sure no scholars escape.

(Someone once pointed out, Atomic Age fiction in the U.S. showed radiation producing superheroes, while in Japan it produced Godzilla. The difference between dropping A-bombs and having two dropped on you. So I wonder about the Buster Call being a naval bombardment intended to destroy an entire island, given the amount of firepower the U.S. Navy unleashed on places like Okinawa. Oda's not old enough to remember World War 2, but I'm sure he grew up with people who did. And future-admiral Akainu deciding the only way to be sure the archeologists are stopped is kill everyone on the island sure feels like shades of, "we think the entire nation of Japan will resist an invasion, better wipe out a city to crush any thought of resistance.") 

Robin's giant pal turns out to be Vice-Admiral Saul, who objected to the order and tries to take out the ships bombarding the island. He ends up frozen solid thanks to his friend, Kuzan, who will one day be the pervert Admiral that attacked the Straw Hats back in volume 34. However, Kuzan let Robin go as a favor to Saul (Saul will, hundreds of chapters later, turn out to have survived being turned into an icicle), but not before Dipshit Senior caught sight of her. Which is how an 8-year-old gets a bounty, finds every "decent" person trying to turn her in, and falls in with criminals.

In the present, Spandam has the capability to trigger a Buster Call at the press of a button (courtesy of Kuzan, which tells me Saul needed to pick better friends.) Though in the nature of things will dealing with a nepo-baby who thinks he earned his way to the top, Spandam thinks it'll only target the pirates. Robin knows different, but the idea this moron would get himself and all 10,000 Marines and government agents stationed at Ennies Lobby killed through stupidity is not much comfort. She just wanted to protect the Straw Hats, but they're not interested in saving their lives at the expense of hers. If they have to declare war on the world for her, that's what they'll do.

This act moves Franky to the point he reveals he had the blueprints for the ancient battleship hidden inside his leg, and then burns them. Which means the Government can't get them, but also means there's no way to find a weakness against the battleship if the World Government gets it. Which means the Straw Hats absolutely have to get Robin back.

Then a train crashes through a drawbridge. 

Sunday Splash Page #377

"Werewolves of Normandy," in Namwolf #2, by Fabian Rangel Jr. (writer), Logan Faerber (artist), Brennan Wagner (colorist), Warren Montgomery (letterer)

Originally released in 2017, Namwolf is about Marty Spencer, a young man who goes off to fight in Vietnam and finds out he's a werewolf, although Faerber draws him less as a conventional combo of man and wolf, and more like a giant koala with bat ears. Or maybe a Chewbacca. Either way, turns out this is a curse passed down from generation to generation, and also each generation seems drawn into a war. Both those bits are revealed to Marty via a letter his father had given him before he shipped out, but that he didn't read until he woke up in a prison cell.

Marty's attempts to come to grips with this information are complicated by the interference of the U.S government, which quickly whisks him away to a location where they can drug him, steal his blood, and subject him to mind-bending psychological treatment designed to turn him into a super-patriotic furry guided missile, essentially.

The two people Marty "interacts" with during that stretch are either an anonymous doctor, face hidden behind glasses and a surgeon's mask, or some mustachioed general whose eyes Faerber draws as these blank white dots set in big dark sockets. They don't regard Marty as anything but a tool, but any humanity of their own is obscured or hidden. All men have monsters within them, some are just more obvious on the surface.

There's also the squad Marty was originally part of when arriving in 'Nam, who are drawn in broad strokes. A guy called "Doc", a gruff but kind sergeant, one guy who is always brandishing his combat knife and seems a little unhinged. They're distinguished mostly by the fact that they, or at least the sergeant, care about Marty. Or at least respect that he saved their butts. It's not so much that we see them joking around with Marty before everything goes wrong as it is that Marty clearly feels some loyalty or compassion to them, which ultimately enables him to fight off the drugs and embrace his curse, rather than fear it.

Rangel also has the Vietcong (they don't seem to be wearing any standardized uniform, so I'm guessing they aren't convention North Vietnamese Army) have a potion that can turn people into bat-winged, spider-eyed monsters of their own. Curiously, they don't unleash them until Namwolf makes his first appearance. I guess the idea is they felt confident enough about how things were going there was no need for such a drastic step prior to that. They also keep at least one of their former comrades that drank the potion in a pit, into which they throw captured American soldiers. Which the creature, who used to be a guy named Hung, though we never learn anything about what type of person he was before he drank the potion, then eats, to the raucous cheers of his buddies.

I think it's less about making the Vietcong look worse than the U.S., and more about that notion of humanity being capable of monstrous things. Humans are depicted as physically frail in this, puny figures scrambling around the monsters, their bodies easily turned into red chunks by bullets. That doesn't make them helpless. Because they can be cold-blooded enough to use those monsters, prey on their weakness of fanaticism.

Also, I think the people-turned-bat creatures are meant to contrast with Namwolf. They drank it, knowing what would happen and what they'd do. They thought it was necessary, so they did it. The unhinged U.S. soldier is willingly injected with something made from Marty's blood so he can become a monster. (That's a part where I paused, because the general just walks out of the jungle with some idiot in a sweater to make the offer. How'd he get there?) He mostly doesn't like feeling helpless, or maybe it bugs him to get his butt pulled from the fire by the wet behind the ears rookie he picked on.  

Marty went into war unaware what lurked inside him, and by the end of the mini-series, has concluded he needs to get out. That his presence is an escalation this war doesn't need. I'd say it's a little late to put that genie back in the bottle, but oh well.