Sunday Splash Page #384

"Test Case", in New Warriors (vol. 1) #2, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Andy Yanchus (colorist), Michael Heigler (letterer)

Aw yeah, now this is my jam. For the next several weeks, it's Sundays for the '90s!

The second issue of New Warriors was my first encounter with the team. I don't think I knew anything about any of the characters prior to that, so they were all new to me.

(Possible exception: I might have gotten Namor the Sub-Mariner #6 in the same batch of comics as this issue, so I would have had two introductions to Namorita.)

Other than Night Thrasher, all of them were pre-existing characters. Nova had his own series for two years in the '70s, Namorita appeared off and on in Namor's books. Firestar fought the X-Men and the New Mutants, courtesy of Emma Frost's excellent mentorship. Marvel Boy (or a version of him) was part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, off saving the Solar System of the 30th Century. Speedball was the most recent creation, and he'd gotten a 10-issue series a couple of years prior.

Again, I knew none of that going in, though Nicieza covers a lot in the first issue. Nova lost his powers, but they were really just buried deep inside. Firestar was trying to hide her abilities, Marvel Boy wanted to join the Avengers but got turned down. Namorita's in college, outspoken about environmental issues, and not hiding who she is. Speedball gets the biggest makeover from the absolute square he was under Ditko, as Nicieza turns him into a hyper-active chatterbox, looking for an escape from his parents' tense marriage.

But let's look at the new character, because in many ways, the 25 issues that mark Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley's tenure as creative team are about Night Thrasher's arc. The first issue establishes he's high-tech enough to hack the Massachusetts Academy's files to learn about Firestar (and SHIELD's to learn about Nova), but street-level enough to pay a hot dog cart guy to let him know who enters and leaves Avengers Mansion. Ruthless enough to blackmail Firestar into meeting him, or drop Nova off a roof on the chance the stress will trigger his powers (if not, Rich is street pizza), and enough of a dick not to apologize for it after. (He does apologize to Firestar, but phrases it like Nova and Marvel Boy were part of it.) He's also flexible enough not to fight it when his 4-person team picks up two more members during an impromptu fight against a, Terrax homunculus, basically.

His costume is black armor, with some red on the helmet, the belt, the pouches to break it up. Plus, the entirely unnecessary ribbon around his thigh. He carries a variety of weapons, and yes, he's a black character with a skateboard, but it was the early '90s, and I tell you, the skateboard was a major point in his favor with me - nerdy white kid from the 'burbs - as far as making Night Thrasher seem "cool."

The second issue delves more into Dwayne Taylor's backstory, what's driving (and eating) at him. It also sets the tone for a lot of the interactions between he and the rest of the team over the Nicieza/Bagley run. Dwayne's basically Batman. His parents were gunned down when he was a kid, and he's devoted the family fortune to fighting against the kind of people that would do that. He's intense, driven, not always in control of his temper. Given he's in his early 20s, it makes a certain amount of sense he's not always calm and collected, especially given revelations that come later.

Critically, he's not the best with other people. He tends to push them, or expect them to fall in line with what he thinks or wants, and doesn't keep his equilibrium when they don't. And either because Batman's dealing with Justice Leaguers who are a little older than the Warriors, or because Nicieza's not as committed to making excuses for Night Thrasher's behavior as writers are with Dickhead Batman, Dwayne's teammates don't take his outbursts and controlling tendencies with as much equanimity. Nova, in particular, pushes back, loudly. Maybe because he's got experience fighting wars in outer space, or because when you're used to flying full speed through obstacles like a human rocket, you don't do tact. Or maybe it was the whole "dropping him off a roof" thing.

The other Warriors are quieter, but no less capable of sticking to their ideals. Marvel Boy's typically got a well-researched and prepared argument for why they should do something. Namorita's level-headed, but also seems to best understand the code driving Dwayne. Maybe that's the result of seeing her mother killed in front of her. Nita's more likely to butt heads with Marvel Boy ideologically than Night Thrasher. When Thrasher seems ready to make deals with drug lords to get information he needs about dirty crap his company's been involved in, Firestar and Speedball are the ones who object to the ends justifying the means, and they not only don't back down, they sway Nova to their side (Nita and Marvel Boy are not present at the time.)

So Night Thrasher quits. More accurately, he declares the team disbanded and goes looking for answers alone. The rest of the team promptly ignores him and keeps doing their own thing. When they start to piece things together from another direction, their paths cross, and Dwayne has to not only rely on, but act to save these people who've become his friends. You can see the halting steps he makes in that direction at earlier points, especially when it comes to Speedball. His mentor, Chord, opines at one point Speedball is useless until he learns to actually control his powers. Dwayne's response is a hesitant remark that the, 'others seem to like him.' He might agree with Chord from a tactical standpoint, but he sees the value Speedball's lighter personality brings, maybe even to himself.

Outside Night Thrasher's broad arc of trying to emerge from a past that turned him towards vengeance, there are several other threads. It's the early '90s, so there are a couple of stories about the environment. One where Roxxon plans to dispose of nuclear waste by shooting it at the Moon (killing the Inhumans in the process), another where an environmental group has super-powered agents attacking and killing logging operations in the rainforest.

Nicieza and Bagley do a 3-issue "Days of Future Past" involving a new version of Nova's old enemy the Sphinx. Although a 3-issue test run for Age of Apocalypse might be more accurate, since it involves Sphinx rewriting the past to create a different present. It doesn't entirely make sense to have Captain America and Iron Man analogues in a world where Egypt dominates, but as narrative shorthand for the conflict a young Nova feels about risking his position as the token white guy on this version of the Avengers to do what his heart says is the right thing, it works.

Firestar gets a chance to confront Emma Frost and tell her to get lost. (Emma would, of course, repeatedly ignore this over the next few decades. Definitely a person to let be around kids!) Speedball makes some halting steps towards improving control of his abilities, even getting to punch a more-complete Terrax through a skyscraper. Namorita, while generally the one doing the best job keeping her shit together (she has real Cool Older Sister vibes in this stretch), also gets to show hints of how out-of-place she feels above and below the sea. Not truly at home in either, but trying to make it work.

The biggest single story is the trial of Marvel Boy. Vance, in the process of protecting himself from his abusive, bigoted father, kills his dad and is put on trial for it. Despite getting Foggy Nelson as a defense attorney, and having the Thing as a character witness, Vance is found guilty. It's especially rough since, with the whole mess with Night Thrasher reaching a crescendo, Firestar's the only member of the Warriors there to have his back. (Though that does play into their burgeoning romance, which would carry through the next 15 or so years before they split up.)

The team picks up a couple of new members partway through in Darkhawk and Rage, although neither is on the team long enough at this stage to do much. Well, Rage helps them steal a Quinjet and lie to the Cambodian Air Force. That was pretty cool! Silhouette, another new character and part of Dwayne's past, doesn't necessarily get a pronounced arc. When introduced, she seems to have settled into a quiet life, coping with the loss of the use of her legs. After crossing paths with Dwayne again, she's drawn into his world, and learns a few things about her past in the process of helping him with his own. I don't know if she gets closure, since the revelations open up new cans of worms, but she gains some connections. She'd shunned her brother, so her world might have been pretty lonely. Like Dwayne, the Warriors are a new family.

The costumes, never Bagley's strength, are a mixed bag. We already discussed Night Thrasher's. Bagley sticks to Firestar's original look, and Marvel Boy's costume is initially just Vance Astro's, but with a cape. Later, he ditches the cowl to let the hair flow freely. Maybe Speedball was feeling self-conscious as the only guy with flowing locks (the only real change to his costume from Ditko's design is the hair's longer.)

Namorita rocks a variety of green swimsuits, minus a few issues where she wears some Atlantean blood revenge armor. There's no mention of separate male and female versions of the armor, but I can't picture Namor wearing it. Still, it has a jagged and organic look that would suggest is was made from coral or shell and sharkskin or something similar. Nova's look is the biggest change. Initially, the red-and-yellow version seen above, it later shifts to something approximating the color scheme of Wolverine's tan-and-brown costume, before ultimately going back to the blue with yellow starbursts on the chest. So, kind of a mixed bag.

Bagley's strengths are, as usual, the clarity with which he depicts action and emotion. He never does anything flashy with page layouts, but conveys a lot with faces or body language. Thrasher broods a lot, rarely demonstrative (until late in the run where he feels like his life is falling apart), where Nova is constantly leaning into people's space, waving his fist in their face. Speedball tends to perch on stuff when his powers are active (the easier to fall off and trigger the kinetic field, I assume), but slouches a lot when he's regular Robbie Baldwin. Namorita walks or stands confidently. Chin up, calm, whereas Firestar is more tentative, almost hugging herself when she's getting caught up in her thoughts. Even when there's over a dozen characters involved in a fight, Bagley knows when to pull back and show the full battlefield, and when to zoom in on just a couple of characters.

I wasn't buying comics monthly back then, so I would have only picked up issues here and there. Still, this run stuck with me. Probably because they were younger heroes, closer to my age (although even Speedball was still several years my senior), but not true kids like the Power Pack, and not a "minor league" team, like the New Mutants or, to an extent, X-Force. The New Warriors were their own group. No telepathic bald guy inviting them to his school, or turning them into footsoldiers in his private war like Cable. Thrasher might have tried that, but he was in the same age cohort as the rest of them, he couldn't pull it off. They were a team because they wanted to be, but they still got to argue and disagree and almost fight each other sometimes. But crucially, they could do those things and still save the day. Nova did call in the Fantastic Four to help against Terrax (and the FF called in the Silver Surfer), but for the most part, the Warriors handle things themselves. They get to be good heroes, but still with their own causes and ideals they're passionate about.  

Saturday Splash Page #186

"Bad Connection", in Secret Six (vol. 3) #19, by Gail Simone (writer), J. Calafiore (artist), Jason Wright (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

The original Secret Six was a series in the 60s about 6 individuals who completed missions for a mysterious "Mockingbird." It ended after 7 issues, but the concept was brought back in the run-up to Infinite Crisis mini-series, Villains United. This time, the 6 were super-villains - Cheshire, Deadshot, Ragdoll, a Parademon, a re-imagined, more, feral? earthy? Catman, and Scandal Savage, who I think was a new character - who declined to join Luthor's (actually Alexander Luthor in disguise) Society of Super-Villains. They took orders from their own "Mockingbird" (who turned out to be actual Lex Luthor) on missions to hamstring the Society.

Cheshire wound up being a traitor, while Parademon was killed by '90s Superboy enemy/love interest Knockout. Knockout turned out to be the Six's mole, and Scandal's girlfriend. There was a follow-up mini-series the next year (that's volume 2), by Gail Simone and Brad Walker. Parademon and Cheshire were replaced by Knockout and the Mad Hatter, respectively. Following the trend of turnover, Ragdoll chucks the Hatter off a cliff at the end, because he won't share the nutball roll on the team. Simone and Nicola Scott followed that up with an arc in Birds of Prey, now with Harley Quinn as the 6th member.

There were no deaths in that arc, but Harley departed shortly thereafter of her own volition. Straight into Countdown to Final Crisis, which might be worse than getting chucked off a cliff. It wasn't getting chucked off a cliff, but Knockout got killed not long after (I think tying in to Starlin's Death of the New Gods?) which brings us to here. The Six get an ongoing series, written by Simone, with Nicola Scott as artist for most of the first 14 issues, then J. Calafiore for the remaining 22. Which is a heck of a shift in artists. Scott has an extremely smooth style which makes everyone look younger and hotter. Possible exception for Ragdoll, but even he's less malicious-looking and more playful under Scott's pencil than Calafiore's. Calafiore goes with harder, sharper lines and edges. People aren't so much sculpted as chiseled. The latter better fits the level of violence in the book, but Scott's art was equal opportunity objectification - especially when it came to Catman - which appealed to the fanbase. 

With the crew back down to 4, Simone adds Bane, and Jeanette, an old friend of Scandal's. Scott dresses Jeanette as though she had a fine time during the reign of Louis the XIV. Simone has Bane renounce using Venom as part of some desire to not do immoral things. Yet he's working for this crew, who take jobs like busting people out of super-villain prisons and assassinations.

That incongruity seems to be part of the theme of this book. Characters standing on a line, trying to decide which way to go, wondering if they can be better. Catman had returned to Africa sometime between this series and one of the earlier stories, and mutilated some people poaching lions. He questions if that was the right thing to do or not. Bane's fine with breaking limbs, but also decides Scandal (extremely depressed over her girlfriend's murder) needs a father figure and tries to be that to her. Deadshot. . .well, his version of a moral crisis is worrying he might be getting too eager to pull the trigger, losing control. I guess his justification that if he's come to kill you, you did something to deserve it, is important to him. 

Mostly though, the tension plays out in how often the team is at odds with itself. Just about every story involves one or more members turning against the others. Deadshot steals the extremely valuable card they were supposed to deliver in the opening arc. To sacrifice himself and spare the others, true, but he also gutshoots Scandal and hits Catman with a limo, so he wasn't exactly polite about it. The team splits in half in the next arc, where they're working for a prison owner who enslaved Amazons.

When Catman goes on a revenge kick later on, part of the team gives chase, while Jeanette and Bane pull together another roster to take paying jobs. The two groups end up caught in a power play over Skartaris, between Amanda Waller and the Spy Smasher character Simone introduced in Birds of Prey (Spy Smasher loses, as she should.) It's very rare the entire group is on the same page for more than 5 minutes.

They betray and backstab (sometimes literally), and yet, somehow, put it aside when necessary. Deadshot and Catman have a whole thing going around Deadshot liking how Catman makes eggs, but Deadshot also calls him "Tomcat," and Catman lends Deadshot a suit for a date. Deadshot and Jeanette end up on opposite sides over the prison thing, but continue their odd relationship. Ragdoll and Scandal form an odd friendship, even if Ragdoll is a walking Too Much Information hazard. Black Alice eventually joins the team and gets a crush on Ragdoll, who doesn't actually encourage it, but remains supportive and protective of her. It's a book about people who do horrible things to other people, and sometimes to each other, but also have formed bonds where they can rely on each other, if no one else. 

Maybe the incongruity was why my opinion of the book varied so wildly. I would go from loving it in one arc, to considering dropping it in the next. I loved "Cats in the Cradle", which started with the issue the splash page is from, but that got followed by the Skartaris story, which was a big mess of plot inconsistencies and issues that felt like running in place. Ultimately, though, I bought the book all the way from issue 1 to its cancelation at the dawn of the New 52. The book ended with Six having seen that all their vacillating and justifications didn't mean a thing. They were bound for Hell, and decided if the universe was going to cast them as villains, they'd lean into it. By trying to wipe out Batman's entire merry crew of sidekicks. Look fellas, I know we call him "Bat-God", but I don't think he can consign you to eternal damnation.

Simone did have a recurring issue of the team (mostly Catman) getting frustrated that no matter what good they might do, the self-appointed "heroes" always looked down on them as scum. So part of it might have been to show the self-righteous just what the Six could be if they decided to act as "evil" as the heroes believed them to be. A little petty and spiteful, but if you figure you're already bound for Hell, why not go down swinging in the biggest way possible?

Random Back Issues #156 - Tick New Series #4

You'll care about the oceans when your unrealistic depiction of '50s Americana is swallowed by the rising sea levels. 

As The City experiences record rainfall, it's Board Game Night in Arthur's apartment. This confuses the Tick, because Board Game Night is Friday, and tonight is Thursday, which is Patrol Night. Or is it?

Yes, it is Thursday, though I find it hard to believe every night isn't Patrol Night for the Tick. Bumbling Bee and Rubber Ducky arrive, but find the game selections a bit, eclectic. Instead of "Monotony", they have Confectioner Tycoon, a game the Tick created by combining Monotony with Candyland - you know what, just behold this panel of him explaining it.

Rubber Ducky would rather play a game that was nothing but stabbing him with knives and setting him on fire. I'm unclear if the stabbing is supposed to set him on fire, or that's an unrelated action. Gotta define the rules clearly to avoid loopholes!

Outside, the rising sea level has kicked off a war between a bunch of parody water-themed characters, all documented by Fishboy, to later be turned into a blog post. Look, this came out in 2010, blogs weren't entirely dead yet, especially under the sea. Whatever, point is, you want to see Sgt. Fury mashed up with Ariel, fighting jellyfish in domino masks, or a 1-page Hulk vs. Thing fight, repackaged as "Jumbo Shrimp vs. Oysters Sockafella", this is your comic.

Enough of that! Back in Arthur's apartment, Tick's attempt to sneak off by saying he needs the bathroom is thwarted by the fact he broke their toilet last issue. Salvation comes in the form of Bumbling Bee getting way too intense about World of Risque, allowing Tick to simply walk out the door and observe the big sea battle.

Which is about to get bigger with the arrival of Ichthuhuu, Plunderer of Flesh! An enormous creature with a crayfish(maybe?) head and horses for arms. Not seahorse, actual horses, that have complete sets of fingers for teeth. If I were much younger, that concept would probably traumatize me, especially when the Tick is swallowed.

No big, though, he immediately gets puked out because Ichthuhuu just wanted to talk. The creature finds all this fighting really lame, because no one cares about the oceans. He thinks all these characters should be working to make people care about oceans, or they'd never be able to stop him when he inevitably decides to destroy their homes and eat their children. Properly chastened, they return to the depths, Ichthuhuu stops the rain, answering the question prophesied by CCR, and the Tick can't convince Arthur any of this actually happened. 

{11th longbox, 192nd comic. Tick New Series #4, by Benito Cereno (writer), Les McClane (artist)}

Little Green - Walter Mosley

I picked an odd spot to get into Mosley's extensive run of Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, as he starts this book in a months-long semi-coma after getting wasted and driving his car off a cliff in drunken depression. But he's awake (mostly), and his friend Raymond needs Easy's help finding the son of a woman he knows for reasons he won't explain.

As these types of situations typically do, things get complicated. The boy is mixed up in something he doesn't entirely understand, because he was drugged out of his mind after a girl slipped him LSD during a kiss. So even after Easy finds the young man, he has to figure out what's going on with the bag full of bloody money.

This book feels like a book of transition. Mosley often has Easy remark about how he feels like he's awoken in a different world. There's a line where Easy remarks that the man he was seems to have died in that crash, and now he's a different man each time he wakes up, emerging from the husk of the last. It was a nice line, and Mosley works with the idea that sometimes things can change in a relatively brief time.

Easy's case means he spends time around hippy, free love types, and many (though not all) seem to be trying to move past the kinds of unspoken rules Easy has lived under his whole life. Rules about his being black, about how he has to behave around police, about who he can be seen walking around with and how he can afford to react towards people being hostile to him. He's not steady on his feet in the early going, and when some cops hassle him just for stumbling on the sidewalk, basically the entire staff of an auto mechanic shop, white and black, come out and give the cops shit. And the cops back down.

It feels to Easy like maybe these younger people don't care about the things that hang over his life, are trying to change things, and might just pull it off. And Easy sees the family he's gathered around him (he seems to have at least two teenage or older children he's adopted or taken under his wing) and realizes how much he has, and how much he nearly threw away. People that would have been heartbroken if he hadn't survived.

I'm not sure having the woman he was heartbroken over change her mind and come back is really necessary, but I don't know all their history. Maybe it fits. I also don't know if that translates to Easy handling things differently. He certainly seems to try and handle things with talking or making smart preparations, but he seems smart enough to have been doing that regularly. It probably isn't safe for a black man in 1960s L.A., even one the cops occasionally rely on, to be involved in too much violence.

But when he learns why Raymond is concerned with this missing boy (and no, it's not because Ray is his dad), he understands how things are going to play out, and he works to avert it. I don't think he changes Raymond's nature, but at least this one time, he convinces him to handle things differently. To not let it come down to some macho need to "settle" things. Unmake the fist.

Of course, at the very end, Easy is attacked in his own home by a white man with a gun, and kills him. And he knows that's bad news, so he and Raymond dispose of the body with the help of a voodoo priestess lady named Mama Jo. So maybe things haven't changed so much after all.

'On the back bench sat an ancient human being clad all in faded rags who was leaning sideways, maybe asleep. This person could have been either a man or a woman. The race was also a thing of speculation, but the napper's place in the world was definite. He or she had been descending for decades and was very near toppling over.'

Leaning Into the Skid

I've rewatched the Harvey Dent transport chase scene from The Dark Knight a few times recently. (This version, mostly because it was the first I tried and it was good enough.)

It's a good sequence with the big truck with the spray-painted "S" turning "laughter" to "slaughter", the escalation of the Joker's weapons, the Bat-cycle (Bat-pod, whatever it's called). The Joker staggering out of the up-ended truck, spraying bullets to clear any obstacles between he and Batman. Gordon's big surprise moment at the tail-end, where it at least looks like for once, the Joker couldn't anticipate every move they made.

It still bugs me that Batman swerves around the Joker, though. I'm not saying he needed to run the Joker over, then do a tire burn on his face (although now I wish we'd gotten something like that in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.) I'm staunch in my desire to not see Batman killing people, though that's been a lost cause in pretty much all the movies save Schumacher's version (which have other issues for me.)

But there's a big gap between that and, I dunno, doing a controlled skid into the murder clown and busting his hip or something. The motorbike is clearly nimble; we see the front tire rotate 90 degrees so he can come flying out of that alley already aimed at the Joker's truck, plus the bit where the bike rolls up the wall and pirouettes. So I don't buy there's no way for him to just clip or bump the Joker.

It's not like Batman was showing much caution up to that point. He announced his presence during the chase by driving his Bat-tank right under the garbage truck and slamming its cab into the tunnel's ceiling. Considering how thoroughly the roof of the cab was pressed down, and how quickly it happened, I wouldn't bet on the driver surviving. And Batsy didn't show any hesitation to blow up those cars that were parked in his path. Sure hope nobody was taking a nap before driving home after a long shift bartending or sweeping streets!

(Also, why does he need to shoot the glass in the doors when he drives through that underground mall place? Can't his bike just bust through? Lower odds of hurting someone if he doesn't shoot anything.)

Heck, he was willing to flip the truck the Joker was driving. I don't know if any of the Joker's gang were still in the trailer, but if so, that was a rough ride for them. Kinda doubt the Joker encourages his guys to wear proper PPE. So why the hesitation when it comes down to mano-a-mano (or clowno-a-bikeo?) All I could figure was he thinks it's so important for Gordon to be the one who catches the Joker, that makes Dent's grandstand play a success, that he essentially throws the fight. It would fit into Batman's notion about possibly retiring because Dent can rally the entire city into a better era. Dent looks brave, Gordon looks awesome. Batman? That dude in the goofy costume who wiped out on his bike? Who needs him?

I guess it's a plan, and we all know how that version of Joker loves to mess with plans, so I guess it fits. But it feels weird to be talking myself into "Batman lost on purpose" as an explanation. 

The Detective (1954)

Alec Guinness plays Father Ignatius Brown, priest and amateur sleuth. When Brown learns that the church plans to send a cross of St. Augustine are in danger from a renowned thief named Flambeau, he opts to deliver the cross himself, expecting to draw out and reach the soul of the thief.

Well, he succeeds in meeting Flambeau, letting the guy take him into a corner of those catacombs beneath Paris, but loses the cross. Which gets him in hot water with both his bosses and the cops, since he deliberately ditched them to speak with Flambeau alone. So now Brown has to find Flambeau again.

It's not exactly a comedy. Brown is extremely near-sighted, but the movie only uses that once for a gag involving a very large, very heavy book. The movie gets some mileage out of the reactions people have to a priest using judo flips and arm locks. But Guinness plays Brown as calm, quiet and collected. He doesn't get flustered or anxious, even when he's trying to stay ahead of the police.

But it's not a tense movie, either. Brown isn't bothered by the loss of the cross so much as he couldn't reach the man who took it. But Flambeau is a sort of gentleman thief, so Brown's never in any danger from pursuing this guy, even when he convinces a society friend to put a rare chess set up for auction to lure out the thief. And the theft of the chess set is played as a sort of game, Brown trying to decide which shady character is the thief in disguise, but he spends the auction sitting in a chair, letting the suspects come to him.

The movie revolves around Brown trying to understand Flambeau across a series of conversations, hoping to get the guy to change his ways, or repent. Though Brown still dominates those conversations, running into monologues after Flambeau a single sentence. I don't find Brown's arguments convincing, revolving around scripture as they do, but I appreciate the fact he's focused enough on saving souls to shield Flambeau from the cops when they track him all the way to the thief's door.

Inconsiderate Guests are the Worst

It looks more like a squirrel's nest to me. Or maybe a loofah got glued to his skull.

Due to my buying things out of order, we're jumping ahead to volume 4 of Yakuza Fiance. Yoshino returns to Osaka over the summer break. One thing of note, in volume 1, writer/artist Asuka Konishi would show Yoshino's Kansai dialect through words like "youse" that slipped in when she let her polite facade slip. Here, Konishi has Osakan locals use more, well, British or English slang. Some older women at a restaurant where Yoshino finds Shouma say "blokes", and Shouma calls them "gits." A different approach to transcribing regional dialect differences into a different language, I guess.

At any rate, Kirishima tagged along, for reasons other than hanging around Yoshino. An old school acquaintance and hook-up of his, Shiota Nao, is in town as well. Ostensibly there on a school project and networking to boost her career, she's actually being used by some guys Kirishima and Yoshino messed up a couple of volumes ago. The guys want payback, and Nao is supposed to get Kirishima and Yoshino in the same place for that to happen.

Except Kirishima knows this, and is just playing along while trying to keep Yoshino in the dark. Too bad Yoshino is already aware of it. Konishi does a nice job setting that up by casually showing this is Yoshino's home ground and she has lots of connections. Yoshino earlier mentions that if Kirishima wants to take a trip, she knows a lady who can set that up for him easily, and she knows another person who can get him a proper traveling suitcase to deal with cobbled streets if he visits Europe.

So Yoshino's got a plan, but as is repeatedly the case when Konishi shows Yoshino trying to seize the initiative, Kirishima won't play along. Yoshino finds the pretty boy fronting the revenge scheme, with only a few goons to go through, and tells Kirishima to hurry to her location (knowing he's tracking her phone.) Kirishima instead drags in Yoshino's lifelong friend Shouma to look after Nao (by pretending it's Yoshino he needs Shouma to pick up) and goes ahead with his own plan. 

Which is a big problem with this manga. Even setting aside all the creepy stalker shit Kirishima does - there's a brief strip at the end of the book that reveals he paid for an illegal app so his phone can take photos without the shutter sound, letting him photograph Yoshino without her knowledge, and this is apparently supposed to be cute - he doesn't really seem to respect her opinions or knowledge. She's known what he's been up to for awhile and made her own plans without his knowing it. She even met Nao and exchanged contact info in a way Kirishima wouldn't catch, but he won't acknowledge that maybe he ought to follow her lead on this, while still claiming he's the only man who could love her.

I like Yoshino, I like Shouma - who seems like kind of a perpetually sullen guy, but is kind in his own way - I like Yoshino's friend Tsubaki (who doesn't show up in this volume but is in most of the others I own), and Yoshino's grandfather (outwardly goofy guy that he is.) There's just a big, Kirishima-shaped problem right smack in the middle of the book.

On another note, Nao spots Kirishima and Yoshino at one point while Yoshino's checking out a potential college (apparently something Kirishima engineered as part of his plan, but which Yoshino uses to learn more about him, and Konishi uses to set up a flashback we'll see in volume 8.) Nao ends up following Yoshino for a while, and after Yoshino asks for directions (allegedly confusing Nao for a student), Nao dismisses her as a, 'basic bumpkin bitch.' She'd already thought of Yoshino as a bitch once, just watching her walk across the campus (see above image). Yoshino didn't say or do anything, seemingly completely absorbed in something on her phone, so I don't know how Nao drew that conclusion. 

But Nao's portrayed as someone who uses other people for her own gain without hesitation. Being kind to her male classmates so they'll do her schoolwork for nothing, sleeping with Kirishima to try and exploit his connection to the yakuza. Even people who seem to like her describe as just pretending to be nice to get things from people. So my guess is we're meant to see it as Nao projecting herself onto Yoshino. She thinks Yoshino's, 'never had to compare herself against other girls,' I guess because Yoshino seems unaware of the looks she gets from other women, but we know Yoshino's fully aware of the gossip about her being a club hostess, or how much older and mature she looks than her classmates.

Sunday Splash Page #383

"Say the Magic Word," in New Champion of Shazam #3, by Josie Campbell (writer), Evan Shaner (artist/colorist), Becca Carey (letterer)

Due to circumstances I'm unaware of, Billy Batson sealed himself up inside the Rock of Eternity about 3 years ago, our time, taking all that Shazam magic with him. But then he had a vision and sent the power (and a magic talking bunny) to Mary, so she could be a champion. Unfortunately, Billy's timing sucks, because Mary was just about to start college somewhere she could be herself, rather than part of a group, and now that's over.

(It strikes me as weird that Hoppy tells Mary she's got to adjust to being stronger, because she's not sharing the power with 5 other people - her siblings - but somehow Billy only had enough power to send to one of them.)

So Mary ends up back at home, looking after her siblings (because their adoptive parents are missing.) Instead of going to Vassar, she going to Fawcett Community College, 'the most soot-covered campus in the country.' She's fighting giant crocodiles and weird shadow guys with phones in their chests, and dealing with Internet jackholes griping about not wanting a girl superhero in their town.

Campbell's take on Mary is that she's the planner, the one who tries to prepare and cover all the angles. It makes her the responsible one of her siblings, but also means she gets thrown off her game by unexpected stuff, and that it's easy for things to get inside her head. When Hoppy appears inside her bag with a message from Billy, she tries to tell him no thanks, she just wants to be a normal college student, forgetting she's having an argument with a rabbit in a crowded lecture hall. When she can't stop a giant, magic crocodile and flees from reporters, all the comments and jokes on social get to her. Even more so when one of the mystery bad guys can turn those words into a sort of magic weapon against her.

Shaner gives Mary a wide range of expressions and body language, and can make her arguing with a rabbit look almost normal. Most of the bad guys are just human-shaped shadows with a glowing rectangle in their chest, but it actually works very well as a contrast to Mary. For all their talk about how much better they are, they hide themselves, while Mary's out there in broad daylight, bright colors, face uncovered for the whole world to see. The criticism she gets hurts, but she takes it, while these goobers she's fighting would no doubt insist it doesn't matter, but they hide from it.

By the end of the mini-series, Mary's family is back together (minus Billy), so I guess she's not going back to Vassar. Then she gets a vision of some warning from Billy, as something was going to happen related to that Lazarus Planet event. Which, again, I didn't read, so I don't know what the result of that was.

Saturday Splash Page #185

"Spare Parts," in The Secret Voice, by Zack Soto (writer/artist), Jason Fischer (color assists)

The Secret Voice centers on Dr. Issac Galapagos, a sorcerer/fighter of the Red College, a group of magic-wielders trying to help hold back the forces of Wux Heng. Wux Heng isn't simply a conqueror, as he reduces the places he takes to rubble, using up every resource they have. The Red College has had some success slowing his advance and forming alliances between various kingdoms, but they've by no means stopped him.

Wux Heng's forces also carry a poison on their weapons, one that reduces those afflicted to shuffling zombies. Soto draws their innards as having been replaced with something fungal-like. Issac was wounded in a battle but has thus far staved off this final undeath, though not without cost. He's losing focus, hallucinating, having difficulty distinguishing reality and fantasy (he's not supposed to be holding a severed hand right then.)

Still, his persistence in the face of the infection may have given him some greater insight into what the Red College is up against. Or, if the presence in his mind really did gain sentience because he's so stubbornly resisted succumbing, he's made things even worse.

Hard to say, since as far as I know, Soto hasn't released any more of this in this last half-dozen years. He set up a lot of backstory and intrigue, such as why Wux Heng is so destructive. Wouldn't it be more useful to keep the lands he conquers in a state where they can continue to produce? Soto draws Heng with a noticeable purple bullseye centered over his right ear, which feels significant to his claims that he's got certain foreknowledge of how things are going to go. But then, why does he need the help of a witch (though we don't actually see her help)? There's an immense wall holding back a collapse in reality in one corner of the world. No one seems to know why reality collapsed, or why there. Is it connected to the thing in Issac's mind, or Wux Heng? Don't know.

Random Back Issues #155 - Adventures of Superman #618

Superman's working hard to get his pizza rolls just the right temperature.

Mxyzptlk is now two siblings, who are hawking a complete set of the Encyclopedia Universal. They put Perry White in a coma when he didn't go for their sales pitch, but after Superman proved a tougher nut to crack they went big and canceled Earth's gravity.

As the Earth falls to pieces, buildings start soaring into space, and a S.T.A.R. Labs space station begins drifting into the void, Superman and the Atom make tracks to the Fortress of Solitude. Atom's brought the white dwarf star that powered his size-changing belt. Superman says it feels heavy, though the Atom says it's 100 tons. That's not much to Superman, right, let alone for a star? Was it supposed to read 100 million tons? I guess it's a star fragment, because even a neutron star probably wouldn't fit in your hands.

Anyway, the weight is no big deal because the starlight is charging Superman up, and oh come on, it's a yellow sun that does that! I mean, yes, yellow light is contained within white light, but so is red, which would cancel out any gains of the yellow! Dang it Joe Casey, have you no respect for fictional stellar physics?

The Mxys are just floating around, watching the show, playing word association games, for some reason retconning something from earlier in Casey's run to be their doing instead of the Prankster's. They're also debating if they'd like to level up to something more than an 'annoyance.' Maybe become real super-villains, which is a terrifying notion. But as the Great Wall of China disintegrates, they find themselves encased in glowing green light. Alan Scott and John Stewart are creating a breathable forcefield around the entire planet, to hold it together.

(It's odd that, even though Superman tells everyone this is being caused by magic, we don't see any magic-users trying to do anything. Unless whatever Tempest was doing riding an orca counts.)

That gives Superman time to drill his way to the Earth's core, stuff the dwarf fragment there, then alternately heat and cool it with his powers, because the expansion and contraction produces more gravity. That done, Supes zips into space, hauls the space station back before everyone freezes of suffocates. Then it's off to confront the Mxys.

He offers to take a set of the encyclopedias, though he doesn't specify how he's going to pay, which seems like not very carefully defining the terms of a contract with the Devil. Then he pokes the bull by saying he liked them better as a funny little imp. As they reset all the damage (including to Perry's brain), speaking in unison, they disappear with a promise that, 'next time, we won't hit the reset button.' 

{1st longbox, 18th comic. Adventures of Superman #618, by Joe Casey (writer), Charlie Adlard (artist), Tanya and Rich Horie (colorists), Comiccraft (letterer)}

Leave Only Traces

A boy named Ethan Carter's gone missing, but not before he sent a letter to Paul Prospero, supernatural detective. So in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, it's your job to find Ethan. Failing that, learn what happened to him.

The game tells you up front that it will not, 'hold your hand.' Which is certainly true. There's only so far you can wander in any given direction, but within those bounds, it's up to you to figure out what you're supposed to be looking for. The game will, if there's something to interact with, put a word above said object. Like "Read", or "Push." When it turns orange, you're close enough to do whatever the action is.

But you have to find those things first. Early on, I wandered into an abandoned house. There was a scrap of paper on a table. I read it, and all the doorways gained a blue outline. When I started to enter one, the room beyond would change. Sometimes I'd walk through and everything would be fine. Others, there was a red flash and I end up back at the start.

Eventually I figured out that it was somehow mirroring the larger house next door. I needed to walk through that house to learn the layout, then go back to the first house and make my way from room to room, only stepping through the doorway when the room I saw matched the one I would have seen from that spot in the larger house, until I'd gone through the every room, which unlocked an "alchemist's workshop." Probably actually a distillery, transformed in Ethan's imagination.

But the game was perfectly content to let me continue on without ever unlocking that whole sequence. Though I probably would have to double back to it eventually, as I had to for the first of those things. So it doesn't hold your hand (if you can call occasional guidance that), but it does erect roadblocks.

At other points you encounter a dead body. Then it's a matter of finding evidence to help piece things together. When you find something, there will often be a word cloud of different conclusions or inferences Prospero is making. Eventually he'll settle on something that will hover and blur wildly in front of you (giving me a headache.) You have to pan across your surroundings until it reduces to one clear image, at which time you can "see" the location of whatever you're looking for.

You put together enough evidence, and the game will have you reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the murder. It's similar to Sinking City in that way, though Ethan Carter's reconstructions are trickier. There's usually more steps, and unlike Sinking City, you only have the ghostly after-images to work from. There's no voiceovers until after you correctly assemble the sequence, so the first one I managed to complete took several tries.

(It wasn't the first one I'd found, but I'd eventually gotten frustrated because I clearly understood the basic construction of the murder, but the game wasn't registering it. Turns out I hadn't parked the railcar used to sever the victim's legs in exactly the right spot. Ugh.)

The game appears to revolve around Ethan having awakened something he shouldn't, which turned most of his family against him. There's a, I guess, twist to that. Depends how literally you take everything you're seeing. I was taking things pretty literally because, well, why not? A supernatural or otherworldly horror controlling a bunch of people out in the middle of nowhere wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've seen in a video game.

I can't see myself playing the game through a second time, but it wasn't a bad way to kill a few hours.

The Twilight of Honor (1963)

Young attorney David Mitchell (Richard Chamberlain) gets a big surprise when he learns he's got to defend a man accused of first-degree murder of a popular rancher. He finds this out with less than 2 days before the trial begins, and that his aging mentor (played by Claude Rains, in his penultimate film role) put him up to it.

The trial has the feel of pre-determined outcome. All the jurors seem to be business associates of the deceased, and when Mitchell tries to have one disqualified, the judge simply overrules his concerns. Likewise, there are several times once the trial starts where Mitchell's objections to questions or motions the prosecution files are brushed aside with not debate or opportunity. And I don't know how old Chamberlain was at this time, but he looks really young, that he's not so much clean-shaven as unable to grow facial hair. He leans forward in his chair during the trial, looking as though he's bending under the pressure.

It especially contrasts with the special prosecutor (played by James Gregory.) Gregory's noticeably older, and he sits leaning back into his chair, confident he has this thing on lock. His bow tie is also always crooked, which could be a signal to how much sketchy stuff he's done to tilt this trial in his favor, but could just be a sign he's such a jerk nobody likes him enough to mention he looks like a goober.

Mitchell's defense is that New Mexico apparently had a law that exonerates a man if he kills someone his wife is having an affair with. And Ben Brown doesn't deny he killed the man, only that he found him in bed with his wife (Joey Heatherton.) Which the prosecution doesn't deny either, except they say Brown had his wife seduce the other man. And they have signed confessions (two of them) from Brown, though how they got those confessions is a matter of some dispute.

The courtroom is set up to be a pressure cooker. The defense and prosecution sit across from each other at the same table, which enables them to whisper and play mind games with each other. And in most scenes, when we see Chamberlain seated at the table, you can see the crowd behind him, watching. He's under the microscope, and it gets to him a few times. He gets suckered into calling Brown's wife, who had the charges dropped against her but still can't be called as a witness by the prosecution, only the defense. And it happens because Gregory can just lean across the table and whisper that Chamberlain is basically Rains' puppet.

What I Bought 6/30/2025 - Part 3

I do enjoying running. It helps me order my thoughts sometimes, or just clear them out. Which is one of the lousy things about summer. Unless I get out and get moving really earlier, it's so muggy as to be a miserable experience. I can't get into my preferred mindset.

The Thing #2, by Tony Fleecs (writer), Justin Mason (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The things Ben agrees to do for charity.

The Thing and Marty are following the cryptic comments Gladiator made last issue when Bullseye calls the Thing "ugly" and "gravel pit." Seems like someone's looking to die, as the most Bullseye seems able to do is annoy the Thing. He gets him in the eye with one throwing star, gets him with a razor blade in the gums, but that barely slows the guy down. Even the fact Bullseye apparently also got a super-strength boost barely helps.

Fleecs still has the Thing being pretty relaxed and reasonable. He does take a couple of swings at Bullseye with a light pole, but it almost seems like a way to distract him while Ben asks questions. Once he figures out Bullseye doesn't know anything, knocks him out with one punch. And then Ben is smart enough to lay low in an alley and wait for someone to pick up Bullseye, so he can tail them. Which leads to a warehouse on the docks, and Hammerhead, and an explosion. Hammerhead working for the Kingpin is a little strange - I figured those guys as rivals, or at least Hammerhead would see them that way - but maybe they figure it's mutually beneficial to be able to amplify people's strength.

There's something about the way Mason draws the Thing that ties into how Fleecs is writing him. It's hard to explain, but he draws him so you can tell The Thing is a big guy, without having him overwhelm the page or panels. He draws him as contained, under control. He's not gesturing wildly, not snarling threats or promising to clobber anybody. When he actually hits or swings at someone, Mason pulls back the view so Ben's not as large. And so far it's been one hit. Enough to end the fight, but no more.

Dark Pyramid #4, by Paul Tobin (writer), PJ Holden (artist), Sara Colella (color artist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - It's a like a puzzle. When you arrange everything correctly, people start dying.

Well, the last panel reveal was a fakeout. Becca quickly figures out the corpse isn't Hooky. It's a soldier that died earlier the general was going to use as the alleged corpse of Hooky, destined to be lost in a plane crash as the remains are transported to civilization.

At this point, General Cho starts explaining stuff. The military's theory is that whatever being created life on Earth, uses the pyramid to hold all the things it created that just didn't work. But the pyramid's failing, so stuff escapes and the U.S. Gubmnit decided those things should all be killed. In the particular panel where Cho says that, Holden draws a bald eagle perched in front of an American flag. Good old normal animals, representing the greatest country on Earth! 'MURICA!

Shailene would rather he didn't tell them all this, because if they know, he definitely has to kill them. Jokes on her, he's not going to kill them, he's going to use them to distract any other monsters they encounter. Like Sasquatches with half a domino for a head! The soldiers kill the "Pile Drivers" with only minimal casualties, Becca and Shailene not among them. They don't take the opportunity to run, however, so they're lined up to be a distraction again. Shailene does thoroughly cuss out Cho, which is fair, and hell, if they're determined to kill her, she might as well. Maybe she can trick him into getting close enough to take an eye, or tear out his throat with her teeth or something.

In better news, Hooky - not dead after all - ambushes a solider and steals his uniform. So the ladies have one person on their side in all this mess. Oddly, the last panel says "Concluded Next Issue" and I was sure this was 6 issues. Either that's a mistake, or somebody changed their mind on how long this thing is gonna run. Guess I'll find out later this month!

Sunday Splash Page #382

"Wedding Party," in New Avengers Annual #1, by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Olivier Coipel (penciler), Drew Geraci, Drew Hennessy, Livesay, Rick Magyar, Danny Miki, Mark Morales, Mike Perkins, and Tim Townsend (inkers), June Chung, Richard Isanove and Jose Villarrubia (colorists), RS and Albert Deschesne (letterers)

Well, well, well, look what it is. No issues of the ongoing have survived my collection purges over the years, so this book's gonna bear the sins of its brethren. Besides, I did a nearly page-by-page rundown of my reactions to it 19 years ago.

First, Brian Michael Bendis disassembled the Avengers, and I said nothing, because I didn't understand what would follow. Then he re-started the Avengers, except now they were "new." And sure, he added Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, and Wolverine to the roster, which was new, so long as you ignored the long history of characters getting to be Avengers for the first time. Bendis certainly went to that well again and again. Daredevil's an Avenger! Storm's an Avenger! Squirrel Girl! And so on. 

Beyond that? The New Avengers didn't do a hell of a lot of superheroing, I guess that was new. All those characters he added were lucky if they got one storyline to show what they brought to the table before the roster either got reconfigured or they just got lost in the shuffle. Some of that was Marvel's constant stream of Big Events, which produced "changes" that had to be addressed or reflected in the books.

A fair amount, however, was Bendis' glacial pacing. He might get one story done between events, if he was lucky. I guess, left to his own devices, a longform story about a team of superheroes trying to root out threats in the shadows and among themselves, where big, colorful super-villains were a deliberate distraction, might have been interesting. Emphasis on "might."

I also didn't find him very good at showing what characters brought to the table. I'm generally open to writers adding characters they like to the Avengers, as long as the writer shows them being useful. But Bendis stinks at scripting fight scenes, meaning you got stories like "The Collective" where it felt as though he created a threat, then had no clue how to make two-thirds of the roster he built relevant or useful in the conflict. Carol Danvers and the Vision, neither of them on the roster, get more to do than Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, or Captain America.

The book itself opens on a mass breakout from a super-villain prison, the majority of the team's roster being the folks who happened to show up or be present at the time. To be clear, not a bad hook! Captain America deciding he has to get a team together to round up all these escaped criminals, and trusting the people who were willing to jump in and get involved on their own. (Daredevil turns him down at this time, due to the shitshow his life was.) The book pays lip service to the mass breakout, for the first 10 issues. They chased down Electro, Sauron, the Wrecker.

But I think Bendis really wanted to do espionage stuff. The people in the shadows. Secrets. There was a mystery around who orchestrated the breakout, and who they were trying to free. There was a whole thing about how maybe Spider-Woman was a double agent for those people, or maybe she's pretending to be a double agent for those people on behalf of the Avengers. He added a character he created in his Daredevil run (Echo) to the team, under a different identity (Ronin), then had her trying to infiltrate the Hand. I think, or she was just monitoring them. "The Collective" is at least as much about Maria Hill (current SHIELD director) learning the Avengers knew why most of the mutants lost their powers, but kept it a secret, and her becoming more hostile to them as a result.

Even this Annual, which is probably the one Bendis-written Avengers comic I read that really felt like a good Avengers' comic, revolves around a mysterious guy, either working with or for AIM, approaching the Yelena Belova Black Widow, and convincing her to be turned into a Super-Adaptoid. The guy's identity is kept hidden, the Avengers unable to figure out anything about who sent her, and Iron Man ends up accusing Spider-Woman of being mixed up in the whole thing. 

For me, New Avengers is notable for being the first title this blog helped me drop. Reviewing it each month as it came out helped me realize how little might happen in any given issue, and how little I was enjoying it. When The Collective - which seemed like his attempt to do a classic, multi-issue, Avengers-level threat -  turned out to be a dud, it was easy to drop and not look back.

More or less. It was a tentpole book for Marvel, so it was hard to miss hearing about the stuff Bendis was doing. Nerfing Dr. Strange's powers in yet another storyarc about the Avengers fighting the Hand. (Wolverine and Daredevil routinely fight the Hand solo, but an entire team of Avengers is struggling?) Trying to establish over-matched wannabe The Hood as a big deal by trashing Tigra as a character. Nothing that made me regret dropping the book.

Which is too bad. I really did think the core group of his initial roster - Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage - could have been a neat group. There was potential in the variety of skills and backgrounds, but the book was never what I hoped it would be. Characters spend a lot of time sitting around talking, but rarely in service of advancing subplots for those characters or building interpersonal relationships or the larger plot. Just talking for the sake of talking.

I didn't really get The Sentry's deal, and I'm not sure Bendis did, either. Why have The Sentry tell the Avengers it's a bad idea for him to join them, then have them just blow that concern off? I didn't love Wolverine being on the team (in-story) specifically because Tony Stark thought they needed someone ready to kill (obviously the meta-reason was Wolverine's a popular character.) Then Bendis ended up making Hawkeye the guy who wants to use lethal force (once he brought him back from being dead at Bendis' hands during Avengers Disassembled.) Which was just stupid given all the other characters he'd put on the roster already well-established to have little compunction about killing.

Ultimately, the book was a mess, drifting vaguely one direction, then veering into a different course for event tie-ins, maybe finding its way back to the original heading later on. 

Saturday Splash Page #184

"Gorilla-Robot-Uranian-Merwoman Alliance," in Secret Wars: Agents of Atlas #1, by Tom Taylor (writer), Steve Pugh (artist), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer)

So, besides those 3 mini-series I bought during Hickman's Secret Wars, I also bought this one-shot. Probably because Marvel wasn't putting much else out I was interested in at the time. It starred the Agents of Atlas, who hadn't gotten much run in the previous 4 years, though this was written by Tom Taylor rather than Jeff Parker.

Like most of the tie-ins, this focused on a specific section of Doom's Battleworld, one Heinrich Zemo rules through constant, totalitarian oversight and control, with SHIELD as his police force. Atlas is a hidden cell fighting against Zemo, but their leader Jimmy Woo (rocking an eyepatch in this world) went missing after the last mission. So besides the exposition, it's a rescue mission story.

With only one issue, Taylor can't spare much focus for Namora or Marvel Boy. Gorilla-Man gets most of the page time, since he describes the mission where Woo went missing to SHIELD boss Phil Coulson (who's been secretly helping Atlas), and is the one who finds Woo. And since this is essentially a What If? story, Taylor can afford to do a few things Parker didn't. So we finally see the Gorilla-Man curse transferred (to Helmut Zemo, who Pugh draws as a psychotic-looking kid before he becomes a psychotic gorilla-kid.) And we see Venus return to her roots as a siren, leading Heinrich to his death.

Those Zemos, always falling off stuff.

Pugh's design for Zemo's realm, called Metropolitia, is a weird mix. SHIELD's HQ reminds me a bit of Jetsons' architecture, all curved lines and discs, while the vehicles hew to a sort of '50s aesthetic. Which maybe fits with the origins of some of the characters, especially the later idea of Jimmy Woo as sort of a super-spy. But the Metropolitia also has circles in the ground that seem to discharge huge bursts of fire or energy, so there's a bit of Apokolips there. The bits of the city and factories imply a closed-in place, though this place is nowhere near as dirty and drenched in shadows as Darkseid's turf. Zemo's home basically looks like a classic medieval castle, all mortared stone and wooden doors with barred windows.

It could be argued to fit the hodgepodge nature of Battleworld, plus Zemo's attempts to dress up 20th Century fascism with a veneer of the divine right of kings. He should rule, because he's Zemo and he's better. And he should get to have a goddess for a wife. But he rules through a repressive watchdog state that treats his subjects as guinea pigs (he has an army of Weapon Xs, which are just regular people that were experimented on and run around in the weird helmet and underwear from the Barry Windsor-Smith story), and he has to imprison and torture Venus' friend to have any hope of getting her to speak with him.

What I Bought 6/30/2025 - Part 2

Earlier this week, they made us get everything off the floor at work so they could clean the carpets one night. Except they didn't show up, then told us the next day we had to move everything off the floor again because this time they were totally going to show up (a day late.) I hate people who can't keep schedules, especially where they're expecting you to help them.

Today we're looking at third issues.

Past Time #3, by Joe Harris (writer), Russell Olson (artist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer) - Wow, a Ronald Harris card, complete with blood spatter from his untimely death! Neato!

The Barnstormers are playing a local group of religious weirdos. One in particular is always mumbling to himself, but more critically, he's a dirty player. Throws an elbow into the face of the Barnstormers second baseman, setting off a huge brawl. During the fight, Henry finds out the guy is a vampire like him.

Henry flees the field entirely, but tracks the opposing ballplayer to a church later. They argue a bit, then fight a bit, the church gets lit on fire, and Ronald shoots the other guy in the head twice. Don't know if that's going to do the trick with a vampire - 2 shots to center mass didn't do much to Henry - but then Ronald has a heart attack of something and Henry bites him. Still, two head shots from a blind man when the entire building is burning down is pretty slick.

As the fight progresses, Mangual has reds and oranges gradually overtake the panels. Obviously, everything is on fire, but also things are being pulled out of the shadows. Henry's been trying to stay hidden, but not only has he run into another like him, the guy seems to know what Henry's been up to. Which means he might not be as safe with this traveling ballclub as he thinks.

That said, the pacing on this mini-series is all over the place. Took most of two issues to get Henry on the team, and in less than half an issue he's fighting another vampire and Ronald's dying. I don't have any idea what Harris is really going for with this book. He hasn't delved into Henry or Ronald's past, hasn't really delved into Henry being a vampire.

Henry turning Ronald without asking permission does tie into what Ronald said last issue, about Henry being willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Now is that a vampire trait, or was that always part of Henry and his condition just gives him a greater ability to assert his will? Don't know, and don't know if we'll find out.

Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt #3, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Borras (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) -  The carnage of a convention can be difficult for a novice.

Shauna, still playing both sides, has to try and pull it off during Quiltfest. And in a sign of either how ill-suited she is for espionage, or how tired she is, Shauna figures it's a great idea to get both her employers table space directly across from each other. Because it'll be easier to keep tabs on them. It's also going to make it rather difficult to keep her bosses from noticing she's working for both of them.

It's the kind of mistake I'd make when I play chess. "Yes, ha ha." *notices extremely obvious mistake* "Shit, that was stupid." 

Indeed, the whole thing blows up on her about one page into the actual convention. She's about to get tarred and feathered (or whatever one does to quilt saboteurs) as the one behind all the sabotage, but she made friends with the husbands who hang out in the pub while their wives buy quilt stuff, and got the idea to speak with this mysterious Mabel. Who looks old enough to have watched Mary, Queen of Scots, get beheaded, and has buyer's remorse over some industrial grade quilting machine she bought that made everyone jealous. Plus, it made quilting too commercialized, too American.

Now see here, you can't blame all capitalism on the U.S. We just took what the various European powers were doing and did it. . .I don't want to say "better." Did it more. Yeah, we do more capitalism than everyone else (unless we've already been surpassed by China or India.)

Either way, the interpersonal connection means Mabel comes to Shauna's defense, and insists the two shopkeepers have a quilt-off, that very night, in a "loser leaves town" match. If professional wrestling taught me anything - besides how easy authority figures are to distract or trick - it's that there's always a loophole to those kinds of matches. Also, I'm still convinced Bryn is behind the initial sabotage, as part of some "statement." Just putting it on the record - again - for when I'm inevitably proved wrong next issue.

Blood in the Garden - Chris Herring

Herring details the course of the New York Knicks during the 1990s, starting with the hire of Pat Riley to pull them out of the mess they'd become in the '80s. From there, he progresses through their battles with Michael Jordan and the Bulls, until they finally reached the Finals the year Jordan took off, only to lose to the Houston Rockets in Game 7 because John Starks couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat, but also couldn't stop taking shots.

After that, the team begins a steady slide as the players grow tired of Riley and Riley decides management isn't giving him what he wants (read:everything) and eventually leaves for the Miami Heat. The Knicks try to arrest their decline through repeated playoff battles with the Heat and the Indiana Pacers, and even make one more NBA Finals at the end of the decade (where the Spurs summarily curbstomped them.) But by that point, nepo-baby doofus James Dolan was running the team. Into the ground, that is.

Herring intersperses chapters focused on specific players or coaches among chapters about specific seasons or series, typically the point where that person is critical to what's happening. So Riley's biographical chapter comes early in the book, to explain who this guy is the Knicks were so desperate to get. Starks' chapter is when he's shooting the Knicks out of that Game 7 (while Riley stands there on the sideline watching him do it, refusing to apparently even consider subbing in Rolando Blackmon, who the Rockets absolutely knew they could not stop.) Franchise cornerstone Patrick Ewing's chapter comes late in the book, as the Knicks are trying to finish strong in the playoffs and Ewing lands awkwardly and basically destroys his wrist. Herring describes it as an injury consistent with falling from a 3-story window, which, ouch.

I read this book in one night back in April (as I mentioned back then, I was way ahead on Thursday posts) when I couldn't sleep. Around 11:30 I decided there was no point in just laying in bed and got up to read, and finished it about 4 hours later. And it was only after I finished that I noticed I was getting tired. So the book reads fast, and it keeps your attention. And this is coming from someone who mostly despised the Knicks in the '90s.

Though I think it was all the playoff game rock fights they had with Miami I hated. First to 70 points wins, basically. As Herring notes, it's like a team fighting its mirror. Riley made the Knicks a tough, physical team that beat the hell out of its opponent and ran everything through their center. Then he went to Miami and did the same thing again, while the Knicks, after a brief dalliance with Don Nelson and up-tempo offense, kept playing the same bully ball style. Put them up against different teams and they were almost tolerable to watch.

As it turns out, personality-wise, they're fascinating. The harsh training and practice Riley espoused, which got to the point one player had to wear a flak jacket during to survive practice because of his busted ribs. John Starks' irrational confidence, which alternately saves and kills the team. Anthony Mason's wild mood swings - during Don Nelson's brief tenure as head coach, Mason is alternately irritated Nelson has put a lot of offensive responsibility in Mason's hands, but also leaving notes threatening to kill Nelson if he pulls him from a game again.

Herring's portrayal of Pat Riley as kind of a lunatic and an asshole pretty much confirms the distaste I've had for him for 30+ years. There's an early anecdote about him firing a well-liked team staff member. He tells the players that yes, everyone liked that guy, but sometimes you need to shoot a hostage so the others will wonder what's gonna happen next. I stopped and stared at that paragraph for a bit.

'During a practice that first year under Riley, Van Gundy repeatedly shouted at Charles Oakley, telling him he was playing soft. After the third such remark, Oakley fired the ball at Van Gundy's crotch, leaving the coach doubled over.'

What I Bought 6/30/2025 - Part 1

With the 4th of July coming up, this is the last short work week I get for a couple of months. Unless I want to burn some leave. Which might not be a bad idea if I could get to a point I wasn't going to dread all the shit waiting when I returned.

Alright, jumping right into the remainder of last month's books, starting with two final issues.

Fantastic Four #33, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Wayne Faucher (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Reed's already the tallest character on the cover, but he's just gotta emphasize the point, doesn't he?

The FF build a time machine to go back to the creation of the universe, where there were a lot of cosmic rays, so Ben can get dosed and become the Thing again. Except it's an extremely hostile environment, and their powers are fading, and they need someone quick to control the ship. Which requires upgrading HERBIE to do the job, and he's happy to do it, even if the panel where he confirms it makes the FF and their kids all look vaguely sinister.

I assume it's just the layout of the panel, the extreme upward angle designed to make HERBIE the prominent focus while surrounded by all these taller characters, but it does look a bit like a scene from a horror film, where the clueless outsider accepts the offer of a place of honor at the big festival "dinner", and it turns out they're on the menu.

Anyway, they make it to the dawn of time, Ben gets dosed, but the ship falls apart too fast. With his upgrades, HERBIE's able to try and recalculate to just send himself and the FF back, sans ship, watch the energy levels fall too fast for that, and recalculate to send them back without him. Resulting in his getting torn apart in a storm of antimatter and heated plasma. But the upgrades were apparently enough for him to decide he loves the FF, which he takes to mean he's really alive. Which means he's really dying, but he's OK dying to help the FF.

I'm dubious, considering he was programmed to help them, but I guess the idea is the upgrades have made him sentient enough to make the conscious decision now. Either way, it worked. The FF are back home, everyone's got their powers again. Reed restores HERBIE to an earlier version, and he and Valeria discuss whether their going back to that time tipped the balance between matter and antimatter just enough towards the matter side for the universe to unspool as it did.

So, that's the end of that volume. Not a great last arc, just big loop, but that's event tie-ins for you. Mixed bag at best.

The Surgeon #6, by John Pence (writer), Omar Zaldivar (artist), Hedwin Zaldivar (color artist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - Looks like it's time for some elective surgery. Hanover elects you to lose an eyeball.

The doctor is pursuing Little Bird, for stealing her horse and her sword. She gets duped and drugged by a seemingly helpful bartender (Zaldivar does a nice job shifting her from a kindly smiling old lady to a schemer across two panels), who intends to sell her to the Tunnel Rats.

Meanwhile, the First United Nations guys are getting ready to attack the Tunnel Rats, and the boss man isn't impressed with Little Bird's stunt. Neither is Hanover's horse, which is fighting non-stop, so Little Bird lets it go. Can't be dealing with that while pulling a stealth rescue/assault on the Tunnel Rats. The rescue goes well, although there's a weird panel as they're riding in an elevator where all the guys except the boss are laughing and acting kind of giddy. For a second, I thought they'd stumbled into a trap and were getting dosed with laughing gas or something, but I think they're just trying to ease the tension?

The rescue goes smoothly enough, until they get back to the surface, where the rest of their forces are fighting some of the Hot Animal Machines. Little Bird rescues a couple of prisoners, except it's the grandma and Hanover. The doctor proceeds to take a chunk out of Little Bird's neck (though it looks like Zaldivar just showed the same panel twice, but zoomed in and added some blood on the second one.) The Chief is oddly willing to let that go, especially considering Hanover promised to help with this raid and then bailed, but maybe he figures he's got bigger problems.

Her horse shows up, but as she rides off, Little Bird gets her in the hip with knife, which leaves her in pretty bad shape by the time she returns to the peaceful little fort. Where the guy she trained in medicine refuses to treat her, and the chief scientist guy basically says, "to hell with her." I guess because she didn't decide to stick around forever?

Well, maybe if Abner and the other guys had gotten back to the fort to treat the soldier dying of poisoned opium, instead of sitting around drinking with the First Nations guys while she was a prisoner, she'd be more kindly disposed. Just a lot of people making choices that seem strange in this last issue. Not the blacksmith, who takes the advice of how to treat her and builds a sort mobile brace to help her move after she gets better, he's been in her corner throughout. But then Hanover rides off, only to change her mind and apparently set up a little clinic just outside the fort's walls.

So I don't get what Pence was going for there. She thinks she owes them? She wants to prove she's not, 'biting every hand that tries to help'? Let's not forget, her original agreement with these folks was apparently written up while she was drunk as a skunk, and she fulfilled her side of the deal. Maybe she's tired of wandering, maybe she thinks they've got something going that's worth protecting, even if most of the people are assholes, I don't know. It feels like the situation where, if this were a FallOut game, I'd strongly consider destroying the town, but at bare minimum, I'd leave and not look back.

Overall, it was a fairly interesting mini-series. I don't know if Pence plans to return to it. It feels like he was laying out signs the world was changing. Certainly the Tunnel Rats had a much more advanced set-up than everyone else (though I guess they were using an underground missile complex.) I liked the touch of the First Nations crew, I think combining a Geiger counter with a tablet to look for wifi networks as a signal. I don't know what the wifi would be for; maybe they're leftover from the before times, but it was worth a chuckle.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

Sam Peckinpah's film about Sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn) trying to bring in his old friend, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson.)

Except Garrett takes his sweet time after Billy initially escapes custody. As Billy first gradually makes his way towards Mexico, then changes his mind and heads back to old haunts, Garrett, I don't know what Garrett's doing. Maybe checking Billy's old haunts, or trying to recruit a posse, although he doesn't show much interest in either. It feels more like Garrett taking a last vacation to the old places he also used to haunt, before they're erased in the changing West.

That's a big part of it, that Garrett sees the West changing and is trying to change to survive it. Meanwhile, Billy intends to go forward just the way he is, for as long as he can. It isn't so much that Billy's a great guy; people turn up dead around him with great frequency. He's cheats when one of Garrett's deputies (played by Jack Elam) says they'll settle things with the 10 paces then turn and draw bit. (Elam cheats, too, just not as immediately, and therefore less successfully.) More that Garrett is at least as bad a guy as Billy, if not worse. But now he's got a badge to backstop his bad temper and quick trigger, which gives him even more freedom to be a shit.

I don't understand the point of the scene in the outpost trading store, where Garrett makes the two guys sit down with him, has Alias (Bob Dylan) club one with the rifle, makes the other get drunk, then shoots him, and makes Alias read all the labels on the canned goods. He doesn't ask them anything about Billy, they don't start a fight with him. He just seems to do it because he's in an ornery mood, and he can get away with it. He's got the badge, whereas when Billy kills someone, even if it's a bunch of cowhands torturing a sheepherder on orders from the local big rancher, has to run, because now he's a criminal. So I guess it's to prove what a lousy guy Garrett is, but it sure felt unnecessary when I was wanting the movie to hurry up and end.

Kristofferson plays Billy with a charisma that makes it obvious why people like him and help him. The friendly smile and the charm, a bit of a showman to impress the rubes. But he also makes it clear Billy knowingly leverages it to get what he wants in a way that could also make people hate him. I thought for a while Harry Dean Stanton's character would kill him, after Billy shows up in the middle of the night, immediately claims the girl sleeping with Stanton, then insults Stanton as he's forced to find a new bunk. There was an easy confidence to the whole sequence, like Billy knew the girl would go with it, and Stanton wouldn't challenge him. Not sure if it's Billy thinking he's good at reading people, or just not caring.

Coburn doesn't get as much to do. Garrett's just kind of a lazy prick. He's never in a hurry, help that's offered, he treats badly, and bullies and threatens other people into helping him. He knows it, and probably hates himself for it, maybe even as much as everyone else hates him, but he does it anyway. He's a survivor.

I didn't really the point of Dylan's character. I guess he's someone trying to decide which way to go with his life, and he's studying the two guys who exemplify different paths. Hangs out in the saloon where Garrett's at after Billy's escape. Then goes to where Billy is, kills a guy trying to bring in Billy, rides with Billy a while, then shows up at that trading post, then back to the old fort by the time Billy returns. He takes action a couple of times, but mostly he watches what they do, how they act.