What I Bought 5/16/2018

I thought I had a decent number of comics I wanted coming out this month, but they must all be waiting until the final week to come out.

Cave Carson has an Interstellar Eye #3, by Jonathan Rivera (writer), Michael Avon Oeming (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Clem Robins (letterer) - I wanted to make a joke about not crossing the streams, but they aren't. More just aiming at the same point. So I got nothin'.

Cave and Professor Bartow enter the Lazer Monk's mind and learn about this Progenitor, and why the Monks and the Nejire are fighting. Because they're being manipulated by the little grey goo things. Zot somehow ate the particles from Star's implosion which are counteracting it somehow. The two factions team up and drive the goo things off-world, and Cave and the others head off into space, possibly in pursuit? Also, someone is vacuuming up the pieces of Star floating in space.

I don't know what's going on with all this. The two stories about the Progenitor, one where he gets people excited about telling stories, and another where he was only after power and ultimately was driven mad by the goo and attacked his followers, for some reason make me think of Stan Lee. Could be about most any leader or "great" man that was kind of terrible.

Maybe they're going to loop back around to this world at some point, but they weren't there long enough for me to care about anyone on either side of the conflict. And why does the grey goo, which feeds off dopamine, need them to fight and kill each other? I'm sure the Monks and Nejire could experience happy feelings in other ways. In fact, by the end of the issue, they seem to have found other ways to be happy. Too bad the goo things are mostly gone.

I enjoyed Chloe nicknaming her gun "Uncle Jack" after Wild Dog, and having his logo painted on the side. Although Oeming forgot to draw the gun in the panel where everyone attacks the goo monster. Maybe he thought the sound effects were going to cover it. The pipe still looks really dumb, although I accept I may not be open-minded enough to accept people looking bad ass with a pipe clenched between their teeth.

Filardi's color work is still lovely. The grey tones for the darker story of the Progenitor, compared to the light greens and yellows of the more pleasant version. A lot of the panels, especially those in the mind, the background's are a variety of strange designs. Reminds me of the Trapper Keepers other kids had back when I was in elementary school.

It's a pretty book, but I feel like I'm buying it just to look at the colors. Not really worth that.

The Similars

Set in the 1960s, a group of people are stuck in a bus station during a massive downpour, one that seems to cover the Earth. The people start having seizures, and then undergoing a transformation. Someone within the station is responsible.

It's basically a Twilight Zone episode, or maybe the Outer Limits. Which, by around the hour mark, left me wondering how the hell the movie still had another half-hour to go. Answer(s): padding, and people being stupid. The person responsible sits there at one point and spends a few minutes reading a story to another character that explains what's happening. A few minutes later, a different character explains how what they're experiencing is just like the story. We are forced to sit through both scenes, which is pointless.

The transformation is bizarre enough, and there are enough characters behaving strangely, that there's an effective air of mystery about what's happening. The whole thing is happening against the backdrop of student protests, plus this worldwide storm. One of the people in the station is a med student heading for to join the protests. There's a woman with a sick child, another woman 8 months pregnant, a guy trying desperately to reach the hospital where his wife is giving birth. There's a Native American woman in the station, who speaks in a language none of the other characters understand. Or maybe it has nothing to do with any of them, and we're just seeing a small slice of the larger picture. That part works really well, there just isn't enough here to need as long they gave it.

Bullet Head

Three criminals - Walker, Stacy, Gage (John Malkovich, Adrien Brody, and Rory Culkin respectively) - hole up in an old storage facility after a heist of a pharmacy goes wrong. While they wait for sundown, when their ride will possibly show up, if the cops aren't around, they find out someone had been using the place for dogfights. And the meanest, toughest dog, objected to being put down and is still roaming the place.

So there's a bit of a horror movie aspect to it. A little bit of the latter half of Jaws, only instead of three guys trapped on a crappy boat, it's three guys trapped in crumbling warehouse. There are plenty of big metal doors to keep between them and the dog, but that's going to make it hard to escape. And once they have to venture into those narrow, mazelike halls, they're in trouble.

The movie also spends a lot of time on flashbacks. The crooks exchange stories from their past; heists gone wrong, heists gone right, bad childhood experiences. Some of them are fairly comical, others are pretty sad. There are also several flashbacks of the dog's life, which show it isn't the villain here. It was a perfectly good, friendly dog some asshole decided to turn into a killing machine to make them money.

So it's an interesting contrast between the two halves, but it works. The flashbacks help build the characters, human and canine, and then you have the occasional tense chase sequence to break things up. So it takes the time to try and get you to care about the characters, so that when they're running for their lives we actually want them to make it.

The dog's owner seems to think what a person (or dog) does is what they are. That's all, no changing it, just a problem to be dealt with. He says a dog that fights is a fighting dog. Which ignores the fact it wasn't a fighting dog until he decided to make it one. All the other characters acknowledge the impact of life experiences on their outlooks. Gage had a shitty childhood, which he tries to escape through self-destructive behavior, which probably only reinforces the grip of his past. Walker believes there's only three ways one gets out of being a thief, and he has a pretty good idea which one is his fate. Stacy's can't seem to decide whether a thief really is all he is or not.

It's mostly not a happy movie. The victories are Pyrrhic, until the last few seconds. The very last scene feels like it was tacked on because some executive decided the movie was too depressing. Maybe that's not how it happened, but it's what it feels like. Still a well-done movie, though.

Fingers Crossed It's Not A Trainwreck

As I've mentioned frequently in my reviews, the plot thread in Giant Days I find most interesting is how things are going to play out between Esther and Ed. Ed's been pining over her since the start of the series, while Esther had been totally oblivious to it. This despite all their friends being aware of it and exerting a lot of energy trying to get Ed to give up the ghost. Even that scumbag Dean Thompson knows. Actually, I'd be curious to see Esther's reaction when she figures out she was the last to know.

The new wrinkle is the two of them being housemates, and that Dean seems certain he's tricked Esther into getting all the other guys in the house interested in her, to where they'll squabble and fight and destroy each other. Because Dean's a shithead. Daisy's suggested Esther get a fake boyfriend as a beard, someone with similar interests to the guys, so they'll see him as nonthreatening to their value system or something. And considering Ed is friends with all these guys, and already going to be living there, it seems likely he's going to end up the pigeon. Although I can't discount Esther throwing me a curveball and pulling some random guy out of the aether.

If I'm right, that could go a lot of different ways. Esther could find she enjoys having Ed as a boyfriend. Or not. Ed could find "dating" Esther is a nightmare, or it might be everything he's hoping for. Dean will undoubtedly make snide comments, which will hopefully get one of them to beat his ass (probably Esther). Susan will make several dry proclamations of doom, which will hopefully not turn out to be correct.

I don't know how I want it to play out, meaning the whole thing between them in general. There's that whole trope in fiction where if the guy just keeps trying, at some point he finds the secret combination of deeds and words that unlock the girl's heart and blah blah blah. That's not great, it treats an interaction between people like a boss fight in a video game. If at first you don't succeed, just keep at it and you'll get what you want eventually.

It may not totally apply here. Ed has helped Esther out on several occasions, most recently by helping her find a place to stay, and ending up with the shittiest room in their house as a result. It would be hard to argue his feelings for Esther aren't factoring in there at all, but he's never requested or expected anything in return. Hoped, absolutely. If they live in the same house, more time to interact, who knows how it goes? But Ed's generally a helpful, conscientious guy. He helped Daisy and Susan make their film (and was basically bullied into writing the script). When McGraw was about to be pummeled by Emilia's rubgy-playing brothers, Ed refused to abandon him, even though it was going to catch him a beating for something he had no part in.

Still, Ed has yet to actually ask Esther out, hoping she'd make the first move. Fear of rejection is not unheard of, but as McGraw once noted, if Esther hadn't taken the initiative yet, she wasn't likely to. When Esther decides she likes a guy, she goes for him. The teaching assistant, the wannabe director. She's stated she has a weakness for 'milquetoast handsome' guys*.  Ed doesn't seem to have much in common with them, other than bilateral symmetry.

Of course, those guys also end up disappointing or boring her. I guess she's always hoping they'll have more substance than their bland exteriors suggest. Or, like the Tick, she's easily distracted by shiny or pretty things. She's mostly sworn off romance in recent months, opting to focus on her studies instead. But, as Ed once observed, she's mercurial, so that could change at any moment. It makes it hard to predict her. It could be she simply hadn't ever considered Ed as a romantic partner because, well, she just hadn't. And she still might not! But now that she knows how he feels, maybe she's thinking about it. For whatever reason, she wasn't picking up the signals*. Or the milquetoast boys are boring her and she's up for trying someone different. At least she already knows she can hang out with Ed and the two can have fun. They did hug once, in a moment of shared celebration, and then both got awkward about it momentarily.

With Ed it's apparent that, contrary to what he thinks, women do find him desirable. He's had two one-night encounters, although the first ended very badly because it was very brief. A couple of other women have seemed interested. The problem being, he's still hung up on the possibility that Esther might turn out to be interested. Susan, Daisy, and McGraw have all taken different approaches to try and get him off that tack. Susan opts for mockery, McGraw for straightforward comments. Daisy usually tries to get him going in some other direction. Pushed him onto the student paper, got him a date with another student who shared his interests in science fiction. None of it has ultimately worked, and that's because Ed's not been convinced there's no chance with Esther. As long as he thinks that might be a viable path, he doesn't want to commit to another.

Two paths in the woods, and the one will probably be perfectly pleasant, but this other one over here, it might be awesome. Look at that scenery in the distance! Just gotta wait for a road crew to clear this here rockslide. . . OK, Robert Frost I ain't. I get the instinct Ed has, though. I was hesitant to take the career path I'm currently on, because I was worried I'd never get back to the thing I really think I want to do. But there was a point where I needed to get an actual, paying job, and I just have remain steadfast that I can make my way back over to that other path at some point down the line if I really want it. I don't think Ed's got that same belief. Maybe he's right, maybe he's not

They'll have to hash it out at some point. Could be tricky getting to that stage, since both of them think the other doesn't remember. Hard telling how the conversation will go, too. They're friends' relationship issues are a mixed bag. When McGraw and Susan are on the outs, they don't talk much. Susan treated him like a mortal enemy when she learned he was going to the same university as her. When she was wrapped up in the student president campaign, McGraw spent a lot of time moping and passive-agressively commenting on not seeing during the times they were together. Then he broke up with her (on her birthday). Otherwise, they both internalize whatever turmoil they're feeling. They've patched it up a couple of times so far. McGraw and Emilia's break-up was less than pleasant, and nearly ended with McGraw and Ed getting beaten. That situation is still awkward.

Daisy and Ingrid's break-up was a spectacular explosion of fury from Ingrid, and a two plus week stint laying in bed for Daisy. I'm not convinced we've seen the last of Ingrid. Esther's break-up with the T.A. was quite a show; the one with the director happened off-screen. When she returned home and found her ex-boyfriend was dating her friend Sarah, that got ugly in a hurry. Even though Esther broke up with him after cheating on him, so my sympathies were not with Esther in that scenario. But all parties were ultimately able to talk things out, and Esther and Sarah are still friends.

If they talk it out before any dating - or fake dating - they'll probably be OK. If not, especially if Ed gets asked to play "pretend boyfriend", it's probably going to end horribly. Which will be sad to read, but hopefully entertaining.

* Esther's description of Ed to her friend Sarah was that he's 'not hideous'. Although she said it with a sly grin and reference to their mutual friend Big Lindsay having slept with him, so interpret that how you will.

** It occurs to me that Esther may be so accustomed to making the first move she's not used to noticing someone else being into her first. Or, she's not used to it being someone she doesn't mind having around. I imagine she's had a lot of come-ons from guys she wouldn't give the time of day.

Sunday Splash Page #18

"Snapperhead?!" in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #26, by David Michelinie (writer), Scott McDaniel (penciler), Keith Williams (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Steve Dutro (letterer)

I mostly keep the Amazing Spider-Man Annuals I have as a look at earlier work for artists I know better from later in their careers. The main story in this issue has work from Scott McDaniel, who went on to draw various Batman books for several years, including Nightwing with Chuck Dixon and Robin with Bill Willingham (though the latter isn't a career high point for either person involved).

There's also a back-up story on Eddie Brock's early days as Venom drawn by Aaron Lopresti, who's mostly been working for DC the last 10 years, but was drawing Brian Reed's Ms. Marvel series right up until the Secret Invasion tie-ins started. And a Solo story drawn by Scott Kolins, who drew a lot of Geoff Johns' Flash run, among other things.

Of the three, McDaniel is probably the closest to the style he'd have later, but the linework is a lot thinner and busier than it is once he starts inking himself.

What I Bought 5/9/2018

Two books this week, and here they both are. We take our small victories where we can.

Domino #2, by Gail Simone (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Jesus Arbutov (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Unless Domino's powers are going to conjure up a pack mule, not sure how she's going to carry all those guns. Maybe that's why she kept Cable around. Certainly wasn't for his sparkling personality.

We learn why the creepy old man hates Domino: her powers helping her hurts him. Less sure what the angry red-haired lady's problem is. Maybe she's just angry all the time. Lots of people scowling in this issue. To be fair, David Baldeon draws a very good intense scowl. Domino is worried one of her two friends is selling her out, but no leads as of yet, so they try to do a job protecting some guy's riverboat casino. It doesn't go well, but he wasn't gonna pay them, so they keep the casino. Then it looks like her friends got blown up by Creepy Old Guy.

I wasn't aware that Domino knew Amadeus Cho well enough for him to come along on a mission, but I also didn't think Storm knew Domino well enough to attend her birthday part, so *shrug*. Whatevs. Everyone in the Marvel Universe knows everyone else these days. Didn't know she could tell a guy had a bad rotator cuff just by looking at him, but that seems to be a skill she has. Learning all kinds of things here. Baldeon draws those pretty well, too. Opts for the approach of usually four panels in a row, each showing a particular move in progression. Not slo-mo, just snapshotting particular split-seconds. It works.

I'm mostly just rolling with it right now. Things are moving along, there's action, there's humor, it's entertaining so far.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #32, by Ryan North (writer), Derek Charm (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - The ol' "walls closing in" death trap. Gotta respect the classics.

Doreen decides to include Kraven in a fun social activity as a way to keep him from backsliding into villainy. So they decide to do one of those escape rooms. I think they should have chosen the one where the guy chases you with a broom for a half-hour, but I suppose the solution to that wouldn't be very challenging (I liked that gag, though). The escape room they did pick gets a lot more challenging once the owner realizes they have actual powers and ramps up the difficulty.

The big news in this issue - besides yet another appearance from Kraven the Hunter's Kra-Van - is new artist Derek Charm. Like I mentioned Wednesday, I had gotten so accustomed to Erica Henderson being the artist it took me until the solicit for July's issue to notice she wasn't drawing the book, and I thought that was just a fill-in issue while she took a month to catch up, catch her breath. But anyway, here's the new artist, having apparently drawn some Archie books previously, which I had no trouble believing.

Charm's style is a little simpler than Henderson's but it's still expressive and able to sell the humor when it needs to. Although it's really too bad North made him draw that panel referencing Peter Parker unmasking in Civil War. No one needed to be reminded of that, North. Most of the characters are recognizable, although I wasn't sure about Nancy at first. Henderson gave her a long face and prominent nose, and Charm didn't. I do think some of the characters lost some of the distinctness in their body and facial types, but it's not a deal-breaker. You can still see the same pacing and set-up in some of the layouts. The panels of the cast introducing their made-up heroic identities for the game felt like familiar in how they were laid out.

Overall, it'll probably work out alright. Although the letters page mentions Charm is the artist for this Kraven story. Does that mean the book is going to start in with rotating art teams? 'Cause that gets kind of old with Ms. Marvel.

Baskin

A squad of Turkish cops answer a call from another unit about a disturbance, that leads them to an abandoned building that was a police station back in the Ottoman Empire days. Now there's some wackaloon religious cult in there and things go downhill very quickly for the cops.

I didn't finish this one. I was intrigued at the idea of this small group of guys finding themselves in way over their heads and then having to fight like hell to get out. Sort of a Resident Evil (the games more than the films) vibe to it. Maybe it would have ended up like that, but people were being slowly disemboweled and having their eyes put out, and that stuff isn't my bag.

It doesn't necessarily bother me in video games, but the fact that I can usually control things to avoid that (and hit restart and try again when I screw up) mitigates it. Also the difference between a fictional character being represented by a real human in a film, versus a bunch of pixels in a game probably factors.

There are some interesting parts in there. The rookie of the group, Arda, is the nephew of the leader of the group, Remzi. The two have a conversation, possibly in a dream, about being able to see ghosts and spirits, and what that can tell them.

There's also a part where one of the other cops beats up the waiter at a restaurant because he thinks the guy was laughing at him, and does this with Remzi's go-ahead. So I wasn't entirely sure I cared if any of these guys made it out alive, anyway.

For someone more into this style of horror film, it might work pretty well. Just not for me.

What I Bought 5/5/2018

How did everyone's Free Comic Book Day go? I tried a couple of different stores, but they only had a half-dozen or so of the different options, and none of them were the ones I was interested in. Kind of a bummer.

Giant Days #38, by John Allison (writer), Julia Madrigal (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Relax girls, if it's one of those Escher houses, you'll double back to each other in no time.

Daisy settles into her job as mentor for the arriving students, including cracking down on one poor guy who was just trying to get a little high. Boo, don't be a narc, Daisy. Susan, who took no part in apartment hunting, has still decided she hates the place McGraw chose, and is carping endlessly. Hey, I like to do the same thing, but that doesn't make it less shitty. Esther tries to head off the unpleasant things Dean Thompson told their housemates about her, but has possibly succeeded in playing into his hands. Daisy's proposed solution is the worst possible idea, given that we all have a pretty good idea which poor bastard will end being Esther's "fake" boyfriend.

It's a nice mix of quick conflicts and longer term ones. Things get started on Daisy's work as a mentor, with the potential for future issues if she can't accept there are situation beyond repair. Esther gets what is likely going to be a subplot that won't resurface for a couple of months. And we have what appears to be a brief conflict for Susan that gets resolved within the issue. Throw in some jokes and it's good times all around.

Something I'm noticing is that with books I've come to expect creative team stability from, I start glossing over the credits, which can lead to surprises (it happened with this week's Squirrel Girl as well). So I wasn't expecting a different artist, but Julia Madrigal handles things well. Although I can't tell if Dean Thompson looking thinner and missing his topknot hairdo is meant to signify a change for him, or just Madrigal straying from the established look. On one of the first couple pages, I thought Madrigal had a bit of Phil Foglio's style in hers, but it never cropped up after that. She does a good job with the sequences where a character goes through a wide range of expressions and postures in rapid succession. She doesn't seem to exaggerate as much as Max Sarin did, though that might be that the issue didn't call for it. But when she does need to, she pulls it off. Although she gives most of the characters a pair of lines running diagonally across their nose (except the ones with upturned or button noses, like Daisy and Esther). Not sure what that is, but once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it.

Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special, by Brian Maruca (writer), Jim Rugg (writer/artist) - I'd say you should see the other guy, but that might be too graphic for sensitive readers.

I think this is part of a hardcover book Rugg and Maruca released last year. That was listed as 40 pages, this is just 25, so I'm guessing they cut off the school dance portion, which did make a good stopping point. The last page here, works well as the final beat of the story up to that point, but you can see how the story could go forward from there.

Anyway, Jesse actually comes to school and finds she's been challenged by some loser ninja-in-training named Jacob. Jacob then spends the rest of the day antagonizing her, which seems like a stupid idea when you plan to fight her later. Jesse's also dealing with her best friend Bell, who is trying to get Jesse to go to the school dance, because otherwise Bell's parents won't let her go. The two situations resolve in a way none of them expected.

I feel like the book's playing with that whole idea of young boys pulling girls hair or calling them names because they can't just say "I like you." Only here, no these two really don't like each other. Jacob smashing Jesse's face into her lunch is just him being a jerk. And Jesse really has no time for any of it.

Maybe it's the book being in color, but it looks like Rugg simplified his style some. Especially on the characters who aren't Jesse, he seems to have adopted a more bare-bones, broadly expressive approach, not going too heavy on the details. It works; there's no difficulty following what's happening, faces convey what they need to. There's a good sense of pacing in the set-up for some of the bits. Jesse plunks Jacob in the face with a dodgeball at one point, and the sequence builds over a page-and-a-half. Rugg and Maruca even distract from it a little by having Bell talking about Juan, some boy with a crush on Jesse. You see Jesse picking up the ball and wonder if she's thinking along the same lines as Bell, just trying to be cool about it.

Kill the Irishman

Ray Stevenson plays Danny Greene, who ran the longshoreman union in Cleveland for a time in the '70s, but eventually got crosswise of the mob. You can guess how that ends for Danny. Like The Way Back, this is based on actual events, and like The Way Back, I don't know how much it fudges things.

Greene's an interesting character. He reads a lot, is always thinking about news avenues to explore, is bluntly honest, and isn't going to kiss anyone's butt.  Sometimes he's a pretty decent guy, and he's willing to call an unjust situation what it is when he sees it. That's what gets him in trouble with the mob; they say he's owes them some money they were giving him as a business loan. The money never made it to him, but they still expect him to repay them the money he never received. He calls bullshit on that, which the mob took about as well as you'd expect. He originally gets hooked up with them trying to get a friend with gambling debts out of trouble. He really did seem to have a principled opposition to the previous head of the union (played by Bob Gunton, the evil warden from Shawshank Redemption).

At the same time, no one made him go to his loan sharking acquaintance (played by Christopher Walken) to ask for money to start a restaurant. He knows this is a guy who loans people money, then has them beaten if they don't pay it back. Is he really surprised things might not be handled fairly? Maybe Greene tried banks first and they turned him down. Maybe he expected a friend to give him a better deal (why I don't know, he'd already experienced how unsentimental these guys are). Whatever his opposition to the previous union boss, Danny was quite content to reap the benefits of letting the local mob loot the containers as they sat in the dockyard.

Stevenson has this particular tone to his voice that reminds me a lot of Robert Mitchum, and I could see Mitchum playing this character. Tough guy, kind of ass, not always on the right side of the law, but tries to do right by people, and seems to inspire loyalty.

Val Kilmer's in there as a detective who narrates the story and was acquainted with Greene through their wives, but doesn't have much purpose otherwise. Vincent D'Onofrio plays the guy Danny's friend got in debt to, who later becomes his partner. There's a lot of solid actors in here, doing pretty well with the roles that are typical in movies about the mob. Lot of cursing, lot of talk about respect, lots of casual racist jokes flying every direction. It's the kind of stuff that I normally find dull or irritating about mob movies, but it doesn't bother me as much here. Probably because the film focuses primarily on Danny, and he cuts through a lot of that. He just gets to the point, doesn't stand on ceremony.

What I Bought 5/1/2018 - Part 2

I was really hoping the Toronto Raptors were at least going to make Lebron James have to work to advance in the playoffs, but no. Can we call the Pacers back and let them have another crack at it.

Mata Hari #3, by Emma Beeby (writer), Ariela Kristantina (artist), Pat Masioni (colorist), Sal Cipriano (letterer) - Ah, to be anywhere other than Paris when the French Army is looking to blame their massive casulaty numbers on you.

The story continues moving between Magreet's past and present. In the present, she's undergoing a suspicious doctor's inspection, who doubts her complaints of illness. Meanwhile, Captain Bouchardon is trying to find more evidence, and he found some mercury. Which could be to treat the syphilis she has, but which he believes must be for sinister purposes. In the past, her marriage isn't going so well, as one child falls ill, and her husband grows distant and unfaithful. When she divorces him, he complains he can't pay alimony. Then complains when she starts working in a brothel to support her daughter. Then mistreats her for it when she tries to reconcile for the child's sake. So she goes to Paris.

All this is very effective at producing sympathy in the reader. I can understand why she might well have taken her anger out by acting as a spy. All these people who want to use her, and then blame her for their desires, that would have to get old. It's difficult trying to line up what she's writing in her memoir, with what we see in the past and present. She mentioned that by getting married, making vows to a man, she had forsaken vows to her gods (which I assume are represented by the entreaties to Shiva that appear throughout). I'm not sure when she made those vows, and I'm curious how some of her actions would fit with that idea. If she's simply trying to give dumb men the opportunity to destroy their lives worshiping her, or if that's the other side of her, that is trying to find a person to be with. Was she trying to manipulate her lawyer by kissing him, or was she simply frightened and lonely?

At times I forget the memoir is being written as she's in prison, and may reflect her looking back, rather than her state of mind at the time the events we see are taking place. So I read a caption with part of what she's writing, and then judge her next actions as if she was already thinking that at the time, which I'm pretty sure is not what I'm supposed to being doing.

I'm curious about the choices in coloring for the mood of scenes. Most of the scenes in her present are given an orange hue, probably from a candle in her cell. Sometimes it carries over into the flashback scenes as well, as unhappy memories mingle with current unpleasantness. The circular panel that rings her in all the "Shiva" panels is always colored a light blue. Placid, calm, kind of at odds with her making an entreaty of a god to empower her to destroy, at the cost of everything she is. But maybe it's a decision she'd made long ago, and so actually doing it is very straightforward. What I was most curious about was on the final two pages, we see her ask to join the circus she saw in Paris, and convince her present-day attorney not to hire another counsel for her. And the circus memory is set in a dull grey background, all the colors, even the performers' costumes are muted. The colors are much brighter in the scene on the next page of her and the lawyer. It isn't a straightforward past vs. present approach, because many of the other flashbacks have bright colors. Maybe it's the point when she renewed her vows to the gods, and as she gained power, they took something from her, the joy in the life she's living going away?

Giant Days #37, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Well that isn't an ominous and sad-looking cover.

So Daisy's granny knows Daisy was dating Ingrid, and didn't tell her. This leads to an angry conversation, and Daisy returning to Sheffield to look for housing. Leading to a brief, but hilarious montage of the horrors of looking for a decent, affordable apartment. I feel as though that's an experience I've largely missed. Granted, I stayed in the dorms throughout my undergrad years, then spent most of my post-college years alternating between housing provided by temp wildlife biology jobs, and staying with one of my parents. But I've had a couple of apartments, and didn't have much trouble finding something I could tolerate.

Maybe I just have low standards.

Anyway, Daisy tries to get advice from Susan and Esther, but Esther is distracted trying to avoid her harridan of a boss, and Susan is only helpful when she talks in her sleep. Maybe the Spoonsan Daisy made was telling her useful things. Although that would raise its own concerns. Daisy does find a solution, and her grandmother comes to sort things out, so hooray! No family awkwardness!

Food question. Esther is working at some sort of cafe, and mentions she may have to harm someone for putting cream on their scone before jam. Does cream mean butter, or something else? Whipped cream? The only cream I really know is the one people who drink coffee use. I'm not sure if this is an English thing, or a general food thing I am ignorant of.

I am going to guess that the guy using the fake noses and glasses, with a pillow shoved under his shirt, is a character from one of Allison's other stories set in the area. Because that seems too random to not be someone with a pre-existing backstory. If I'm wrong, it's an interesting touch, and I'd be curious whether Allison or Sarin came up with the idea for that gag. Although I struggle to grasp why he needs the disguise. Is the apartment that terrible, he can't risk the tenant knowing what he looks like?

Sunday Splash Page #17

"Seems Like The Same Old Day For Spidey" in Amazing Spider-Man #556, by Zeb Wells (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler/colorist), Tim Townsend (inker), Antonio Fabela (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Oh boy, Brand New Day. An alien bursting out of the chest of the rotting corpse that was One More Day. With his marriage safely erased from existence, Peter Parker was free to unsuccessfully date several new characters, shuffle through various jobs, and frequently be treated as pretty much a complete loser. As opposed to someone who mostly has his life together, but has just a little too much on his plate, which is how I would have generally described him prior to this.

The first 2.5 years, the book had a core group of creators who took turns on arcs, while it shipped three times a month. Some decent names in there, between Mark Waid, Marcos Martin, Emma Rios, Roger Stern, Joe Kelly, among others. As far as I was concerned, it made it much easier to just pick and choose arcs. I stopped approaching it as "I'm going to buy Spider-Man comics," and turned towards, "I'm going to buy comics about Spider-Man by these specific people."

(My growing awareness about specific creators as a result of being on the Internet reading and writing about comics factored in as well. I was at least developing a group of writers and artist to avoid like the plague, and a smaller subset of people to keep an eye out for).

Dan Slott took over writing duties full-time in the fall of 2010, and is just now relinquishing them. It's been a decade, give or take a month, since the story above came out. In all that time, I bought 22 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, almost all of those prior to July of 2010. Almost all of those were by either Dan Slott & Marcos Martin, Zeb Wells & Chris Bachalo, or Roger Stern & Lee Weeks stories. I still have about a dozen of them. None of the ones I kept really required Peter Parker to be single to function as a story.

What I Bought 5/1/2018 - Part 1

That Dr. Strange Favorite Characters post is getting a lot of views, by my standards. At least I haven't been attacked by rabid Strange fans in the comments. Must not have done too badly on it.

The Demon: Hell is Earth #6, by Andrew Constant (writer), Brad Walker (penciler), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Would have been a bit more Biblical for Belial to use the jawbone of an ass, rather than the rib of a giant wolf. Also, he would have had no shortage of options between Etrigan, Merlin, and Blood, if he could get Jason to be corporeal for long enough to remove it.

Yes, I ended up buying it. I was curious to see how Blood being a spectral being would contribute to Belial's downfall. The answer is, "very little". Etrigan does most of the fighting, with a magic buff from Merlin, and Blood's role is to taunt Etrigan into getting angry enough to overcome his father's magic. The spell is undone, cosmic reset button, bingo bango, everything is back as it was. Except Etrigan is now ruler of Hell.

I suppose if someone did something with that, it might be interesting. What's Etrigan going to do as King of Hell? How is that going to impact life for people on Earth or other worlds? Seriously, send Etrigan to Mogo and let him cause trouble there. Merlin was hiding Excalibur and gave that to Etrigan? Can he claim rule over England now (I'm not clear on Arthurian legends, obviously). I guess there are possibilities, but I don't know that any of them are going to take place. Otherwise, it's an, "OK, so?" A status quo change to no effect. The part that caught my attention the most is Belial paraphrased Kung Fu Panda at one point on page 2 and 3. Which feels like something Etrigan would mock him for if, you know, he hadn't decapitated Belial.

Brad Walker's art is still good, although the fight suffers for Belial being so large. He'd been something similar with Etrigan throughout the series, but more in quieter moments, conversations or the preludes to violence. Belial takes up so much space in the panels things feel cluttered. I wanted Walker to back the view up so we could have a better sense of what's happening. But he was keeping it focused on the two demons, who were the important ones in all this, so it makes sense.

Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell #4, by Adam Warren (writer), Carla Speed McNeil (artist/letterer), Jenn Manley Lee (colorist) - Glad I ate dinner before I started this review, or I'd have lost my appetite.

The heroes survive a tussle with the food elemental on the cover in the cafeteria, and then are attacked by the 3 J's and their deadly hair in the gymnasium. Bit of a close call both times, but they survive.

I like the flashback to lunchtime at Spooky's school, drawn within a lunch tray. That's just a clever layout. Also, in the flashback to a conversation between Hannah and Theresa, we're seeing part of the conversation as a reflection from a mirror. And when Theresa and Emp were under attack in the girl's room, Spooky saw Hannah in the mirror's reflection as well. I don't know a lot of the backstory of the relationship, but I'm guessing that, while all the popular girls are trying to make Theresa relive the humiliation they put her through in high school, she's really looking back over the ways she feels she screwed up what she had with Hannah. And how the torment these girls put her through contributed to that, the same way it contributed to her hating Emp when they first met (because she assumed Emp was just like all those girls from high school).

And I wonder if any of the evil girls are paying attention to how things are going. They know their classmates are dying obviously, but bringing up Hannah is consistently taking the fight out of Theresa. She was still struggling against Julia - even without being able to muster a spell - until Julia mentioned that Hannah also had blonde hair, which dredged up painful memories. I've mentioned that all these girls are stuck on their high school years, and are making the mistake of thinking Spooky is still that same girl, too. So the taunts and attacks that were so effective then, aren't cutting it now. But there's another, more recent wound that's still open, and they mostly ignore it.

I have to figure that one of the Ashlee's is going to deliberately exploit it sooner or later, and I guess we'll see how that plays out.

The Way Back

The movie is about 7 prisoners who escape from a Soviet prison camp in Siberia, trying to flee the country during World War 2, based on a true story. How faithfully it retells the story I don't know. Not all of them make it, which the film gives away at the start by telling you how many of them reached India. You could figure that would be the case, given the length of the journey, so I guess it doesn't ruin anything. Not making it to India doesn't necessarily mean dying, after all.

There's a mixture of personalities, unsurprisingly. The Soviets locked everyone up. One gruff older American (Ed Harris), a Pole named  Janusz (Jim Sturgess), who is the one who convinces everyone to give it a try. His wife was forced to denounce him as a spy. Colin Farrell is in there as a Russian criminal, Valka, who goes with them because he's lost too many card games. Most of the mistrust is directed towards him, and considering he speaks privately with Janusz about which one of the others they should hope dies first, so they can eat that person, it's a valid concern.

The first half to two-thirds of the movie is good at showing the different problems they face to pull this off. The cold, obviously, food, the sheer distance to cover. There are several scenes in the movie where the camera pans from the characters to show the immense distance ahead of them, which also looks like extremely hostile terrain. The fact they have to think real hard about whether they could trust anyone, since there'll be a bounty on them. That plays in a lot, because it removes almost any ability to ask for help, and it creates a paranoia in the viewer when they take the chance. In the next scene, will they turn and see the soldiers and their dogs after them?

In the last third, after the survivors make it out of the desert, the film accelerates. They're quickly through China, into Tibet, on to India, then a flash forward through decades to resolve Janusz' story. Maybe those last however many miles really were uneventful. But it feels as though they just ran out of time. Or they decided they had spent enough time showing the characters suffering and dying, so no more of that.

I'm not sure what to cut. The desert sequence seems like their most dire straits, probably need to keep that. The first part of the film in the prison camp establishes a few of the connections and characters. There are some quiet conversations during the trek that build on that to help flesh out the others a little more. There's one in particular between the joker of the group and an artist who wishes to be a chef about preparing chicken I enjoyed. I don't know if they're strictly necessary, but they make me want to root for them a little more.

Starman Vol. 10 - Sons of the Father

This volume is mostly wrapping up loose ends. Jack's had a new addition to his life, and it forces him to make a choice about whether to keep being Starman or not. He spends some time in 1951, meets Superman (in the present, not in 1951), maybe helps his dad out, gets a last chance with his brother. We get some new status quo for the supporting cast and the city, and Courtney Whitmore gets to start her career as Stargirl.

The pace is deliberate, a lot of time spent on quiet conversations between one pair of characters or another. The big fight was in the prior volume, this is the aftermath. It has the feel of Jack taking his time, soaking it all in before the end. Or James Robinson trying to make a complete ending he's happy with. I wonder how well he succeeded on that front. At times it does feel like a history lecture at times, when they're recapping the history of the Starman legacy. I've read the issues guys, I don't need a 10-page Who's Who entry. But for the most part, it sticks to advancing or concluding characters' stories, and Robinson had developed them enough I wanted to know how things worked out.

At this point, I have 6 of the 10 volumes, mostly missing the middle third. I'd read enough reviews to know Robinson has a, let's say interesting, ear for dialogue. Jack especially speaks in phrases I wouldn't expect anyone to actually say. I mostly chalk that up to an affectation on Jack's part, like his taste in clothes or pop culture references. I'm actually more bothered by all the caption boxes filled with cursive handwriting from the Shade's journal. I can read cursive, but it's not fun trying to read it in these small boxes. It's actually a lot worse in Volume 9, where there's a lot more of the Shade's journal carrying the exposition load. I don't envy the letterer, Bill Oakley, having to deal with all that.

I prefer Peter Snejbjerg's art to Tony Harris'. Snejbjerg's is a little smoother, Harris' work seemed a bit scratchy, which maybe fit better for a rookie Jack Knight, struggling to get by. Snejbjerg seems to favor heavier inks, deep shadows for high contrast with Gregory Wright's colors. And there's a lot of variety in the colors, from the black-and-white spirit realm David inhabits, to the bright blue skies over Opal, to the deep reds near twilight in Ted Knight's 1951 home. It's all very good at creating a mood. Mostly calm in this volume, but with the occasional frantic moment.

As far as I know, no one has messed with Jack Knight since the end of this series. Which is surprising, given how Geoff Johns and DC can't resist dragging out every other retired or dead character, even if their creator had made it clear he'd prefer they not do that. Even Jack's brother David was hauled out for that Blackest Night tie-in, where the book was "resurrected" for one issue. Jack oughta bottle whatever he's got and sell it to the others. "Step right up, get your Stay Retired Elixir! Guaranteed to spare you a gory death in some Event book!"

The Aerial

The Aerial or La Antena, is a 2007 Argentinian film shot in the style of a silent era film. Everyone in The City has lost their voice, though people still communicate through reading lips, or possibly they're able to see the words, as what the character says will appear near them, and they can sometimes interact with it. Mr. TV controls the city, both with his television programs and his "TV Food" some cookie-like thing with icing in a hypnotic spiral on it.

But his plans go beyond that, as he wants to use the power of The Voice, a singer who is seemingly the only person in town who can still speak, to gain even greater control. The only hope is that Ana and her estranged parents can help the Voice's son, Tomas, counteract the plan.

Director Esteban Sapir throws a lot of ideas in there. The media controlling what we see and know, taking away people's ability to be heard, stealing their ideas and then shipping them back out as something bland and generic. People with power never being satisfied, always needing take more from people who already have much less. There's a strong subtext about Jews being oppressed and singled out, until partway through when the movie decides to simply punch you in the face with the symbolism. There's also some references to the Soviet Union in there, like a space helmet Tomas wears when he goes outdoors that has "CCCP" on the forehead. The idea that people can be in suffering, agony, but if no can or will hear (or they believe no one can), they find ways to endure, maybe even stop realizing what's happening to them.

I looked at a few reviews after, trying to get a firmer grasp on the film, that talked about how much the movie throws at you, and how it can be difficult to keep up. I didn't find that to be the case. There was a lot going on, but the movie belabors the point at times, so that I found myself impatiently waiting for it to move on. Yes, the words are being taken, I get it, what is happening to them? What is the purpose?

But it is an interesting movie. A nice mixture of old-school silent film style and technique, combined with a few newer tricks. The friendship between Ana and Tomas is played well. There are a lot of nice small touches, little details that add to the experience.

I Should Have Posted This On Valentine's Day

I really love this couple, individually or together.

Krillin's my favorite character in the Dragon Ball universe, as I've mentioned a few times befores. Tries hard, even when he's getting his guts kicked out. Clever, kind. Android (really, she's a cyborg) 18*, the first time we got to see her fight, she broke both Vegeta's arms with almost casual ease. That earns a character a lot of points with me.

I think they're a good couple. I know a lot of folks don't. Because Krillin is shorter, or because they think he's ugly. Or because he's physically weaker than she is. Or because he ended up getting a job, and she stays home and looks after their daughter, and they think she should be out fighting and kicking ass. Which I wouldn't mind if they both got to do more of that, preferably at the expense of screen time for Vegeta.

I can sort of see the argument. It does remind me of the marriages you see in a lot of sitcoms here in the U.S., with the attractive wife married to some sloppy moron. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, The Honeymooners, about 1,000 others. Though Krillin's in much better shape than Ray Romano or Jackie Gleason, and he's a lot nicer. I'm pretty sure he doesn't forget their anniversary until the last minute.

There are a lot of fans that insist Eighteen doesn't even like Krillin, which is bizarre. Not that there aren't couples who stay together when they don't like each other, but it seems entirely against her character. Eighteen is reserved, but she's also blunt. If she thinks something's dumb, she'll say so. When her brother insisted they turn hunting down Goku into a road trip, rather than just getting it over with, she told him she thought it was dumb. When Vegeta tried talking shit, she didn't hesitate to humiliate him, mock his so-called power. When she believed Krillin had tried saving her because he thought she'd be so grateful to him she'd just swoon, she let him have it. Verbally. If she'd let him have it physically, he'd have been dead again.

Point being, if she wanted to be somewhere else, she would be. If she wanted to be sleeping with someone who looked like Captain America, she'd go find that guy. If she wanted to fight all the time, she could go do that. If all she wanted was money, she could find a wealthy person and wrap them around her finger, figuratively or literally. Or just rob banks. After the Cell Games, there are three people alive stronger than her, and none of them could sense her to figure out where she was (assuming Vegeta, Piccolo, or Gohan would try to stop bank robberies). Even if Krillin wanted to try and stop her, and that isn't his style, he couldn't.

But she stays with Krillin. Even when that meant living in Master Roshi's (a notoriously dirty old man) home, when I'm not sure if Krillin even had a job. They live in a decent two-story home later, they have a daughter, he's a cop. It pays the bills, but she's mentioned they'd like to go on a vacation as a family, only the money isn't there. They're solidly middle-class. But she doesn't leave, or go on a vacation alone. She once planned to use a wish from the Eternal Dragon, which could give her anything she wanted, specifically to get something for Krillin, because she appreciated how much he does for her and their daughter, and wanted to do something nice for him to show him. Because she was worried she hadn't done that. She got angry when someone she was fighting called him an ugly midget and said that the two of them being together was an insult to love. Eighteen kicked their ass, too.

She found someone that was simply a decent person, who even after she and her brother beat up his friends, even when they were planning to kill his best friend, still wouldn't destroy her when he could have. Because he saw there was no need (Goku was in the process of getting far stronger), and he didn't think either of the siblings were truly evil. If they were they'd have killed him and the others the first time they fought. A conclusion the Guardian of the Earth had come to as well. Yeah, Krillin had fallen for her, but it turned out he thought her brother was actually her boyfriend the whole time, he wasn't putting conditions on his help or concern, didn't really expect anything. He just thought she was a person who deserved a chance at a life. I think she was suspicious initially, suspecting an ulterior motive she hadn't figured out yet, probably curious, kept an eye on him, and things went from there.

As for Krillin, he said back when he was a kid he hoped being a martial artist would help him to meet and eventually marry a beautiful girl. Well, Eighteen loves him, has even said she finds him "cool". She appreciates his kind nature, but doesn't take advantage of it, as a previous girlfriend did. She isn't the most demonstrative in public, but she does little things to show she cares, that she appreciates him. Krillin can get down on himself, and Eighteen will support him, try to raise his spirits, but if that fails, she'll give him a verbal kick to the butt. She won't enjoy doing it, and she'll worry she's hurt him, but she'll do it.

They try to look after each other, pick one another up. She offers to go with him to face Frieza - who'd already killed him once -  when that tyrant comes back to Earth. He appreciates the offer, but points out if something goes wrong, she's better able to keep their daughter safe. She's stronger, she has no ki signature to track, Frieza wouldn't even know she exists to come looking for her. (Granting that none of that does any good if Frieza just blows the planet up out of boredom waiting for Goku to show up, but in that event, everyone is screwed either way).

I didn't have any larger point to this post. Just wanted to talk a little bit about a favorite pairing.

* Apparently her original name was Lazuli, and her brother was Lapis, but neither of them remembers that now. The first time I saw that was in a story I read online, and I thought the writer just made it up, and they'd been watching a lot of Steven Universe. But Toriyama named a lot of characters after food, so why not rocks?

Alternate Favorite Marvel Character #5 - Dr. Strange

Character: Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)

Creator: Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, mostly Ditko, I think.

First appearance: Strange Tales #110

First encounter: Dr. Strange (vol. 2) #75. Roger Stern's last issue, but it was the first part of the final storyarc of this volume, the remainder of which was written by Peter Gillis.

Definitive writer: Roger Stern is the writer for probably half the Dr. Strange solo stories I own, so I'm going to say him. I haven't mentioned this since the first of these, years ago, but this is" definitive" based on what I've read. Whose work, writer or artist, do I picture when I think of the character? I'm adding that disclaimer because I'm worried about the passionate Doc Strange fandom descending upon my head like angry seagulls after a hamburger.

Definitive artist: Steve Leialola when it comes to the astral form, basically because of that fight with Dracula. For his physical form, I'm fond of Marcos Martin. I picture Strange as a thin guy, which Martin does, and he makes the Cloak of Levitation this huge, billowing, fluttering thing. If I'd reread my Into the Dark Dimension trade more recently, Paul Smith would probably be in the running. But it's hard to go wrong with Marcos Martin.

Favorite moment or story: Dr. Strange's first showdown with Dracula, he overcame being turned into a vampire himself, and thought he'd destroyed Drac (he was hoodwinked). In the rematch Drac had used the followers of the Darkhold to increase his power and eliminate most of his weaknesses, like silver, or stakes to the heart. Strange could use the Darkhold to destroy Dracula, and all other vampires, but he'd need time. And the quartet of Wong, Blade, Hannibal King and Frank Drake bought him barely a minute.

But Strange uses himself as bait, and sucks Dracula into the astral plane, where the Doc can call on powers the King of the Vampires can barely understand. He keeps him occupied there while the others regain consciousness and initiate the ritual. By the time Dracula realizes something's wrong, it's too late. He's trapped, weakening, and Dr. Strange, in the words of Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters, he has the tools, he has the talent, to destroy Dracula.

Dr. Strange is clever, confident, and competent. He and the others got the Darkhold away from Dracula's followers, because it had that spell. Dracula knows it has that spell, and knows Strange has the chops to use it. So he has to eliminate the threat. Strange knows Dracula will have to walk into the lion's den, and he'll focus entirely on the Sorcerer Supreme, dismissing the potential threat of the others, leaving them free to close the trap, while Strange puts the battle on a ground he's expert on, but which Dracula has no experience with. For all his power, the shapeshifting, the mesmerism, Dracula is still primarily a physical being. Doc can play on levels largely divorced from that.

Even though the Darkhold can destroy those who use it, Strange has the experience, and the awareness of the risks, the patience and the confidence, to do the necessary prepwork, and resist that danger. He even uses his medical skills to save Hannibal King, who was a vampire that had never fed on anyone. It's an impressive win on all levels, even if it was a closer call than Dracula ever realized.

What I like about him: I was a latecomer to Dr. Strange. I had a few of his comics when I was a kid, but nothing that knocked my socks off. My first extended exposure was the Kurt Busiek/Erik Larsen Defenders series. Where Doc was being influenced by a death curse and steadily becoming more and more of an ass, until he and the rest of the Big Four took over the world. The overall concept of the team was intriguing enough for me to pick up some of the Essential Defenders volumes, and Strange comes off a bit better there.

He can still be overbearing at times, a bit of a know-it-all. If he asks Namor for help via astral communication, and Namor tells him to pound sand, the Doc may fly out to ask more directly, or just mystically summon Namor to where he's deemed needed.

But even though Stephen is the nominal leader of the team (when he's around), he avoids falling into the stuffy, irritating authority figure role (unlike Cyclops, for example). Part of that is the informal nature of the Defenders. The Defenders don't do training sessions, they rarely sit around conference tables or play baseball. People drift in and out as they please, mostly. Strange or one of the others may call someone back in, but there's no sense he tries to impose a formal roster or bylaws.

The series also makes it clear that even if Strange can be a little heavy-handed, he's dealing with some volatile personalities. Namor's an arrogant hothead, the Hulk is a bomb with a hair trigger. Hellcat is kind of flighty, Nighthawk has all sorts of insecurities, Valkyrie doesn't know who the hell she is. Hawkeye gets involved for a while, which always makes things interesting, plus Hank Pym and his issues, or Daimon Hellstrom. These people keep showing up on his doorstep. For help, to help, for lack of anywhere better to go.

I'd move the entire house into another dimension. Strange, for the most part, accommodates them, tries to help if he can. When Nighthawk is struggling with his grasp of reality, after time spent as a disembodied brain in a bowl, Doc is the one who tries to help him regain his grip on things. He offers Val a place she can live while she tries to figure out what she's doing. If Bruce Banner shows up exhausted and confused on his door? Sure, bring him in, get him some rest and some clothes.

Doctor Strange was, as a surgeon, a jerk. Cocky, egotistical, totally self-interested. He was brilliant and in demand, and he knew it, so he leveraged it for all he was worth. Then he spent time on the bottom, a derelict roaming wharves until he heard about the Ancient One. He knows what it's like to feel like nothing, and to know other people look at you and see that, or don't see you at all. He knows how much it helped that the Ancient One saw someone to help, and did, in his own way. Stephen seems to pay that forward now. There's still the ego, but it's more in his belief of how much he can do, rather than how much he'd charge to do it.

I appreciate that he can be as skilled as he is, have as much responsibility as he does, and not lose the ability for compassion. When he's required to do a favor for Dr. Doom, because Doom was the only other entrant to survive a mystical test, Strange understandably has misgivings. What if Doom wants help taking over the world? Fortunately, Doom just wants help rescuing his mother's soul from Mephisto. More challenging, less ethically questionable.

And Strange goes all in. He teaches Doom all manner of spellcraft, even knowing Doom may turn it against the world, or Reed Richards some day, because Doom will need it to succeed in this quest. Hell, in the past, Doom had teamed up with Dormammu to attack Strange. It's a risk, but Strange is a man of his word. If he says he'll help Dr. Doom, then he's going to do it properly (because even if this a career he never envisioned having, he takes it seriously). Surviving Mephisto is going to be hard enough as it is, trying to half-ass it would be suicide. Once it's over, Strange even tries to help Doom, who he knows must be injured. Doom brushes this off obviously, because he's Dr. Doom, but Strange could have just left. "I helped, you're welcome, I'll see myself out."

Related to this, something that comes up a lot in Dr. Strange stories is the immediate problem versus future problems. Stephen can help save one person, or stop one threat, but it may have consequences down the line. Helping Doom, at the cost of increasing Doom's mystic skill and giving him another potential weapon. Or being forced to choose between using the last drop of a panacea to save Wong, or take it to his Sanctum and create enough to cure all illness everywhere, while Wong dies. Or resorting to destroying almost all of his ancient tools to stop a ruthless, would-be Sorcerer Supreme. That last one saved himself, Wong, and Topaz (whose soul they'd been seeking), but cost Strange many of the tools that helped him do his job. In the long run, I don't know that it was the right call. Strange is resourceful, maybe he can skate by without them the next time Umar or Shuma-Gorath come calling. Or maybe he's doomed everyone by focusing on saving a few people.

Still, Strange tends to choose to deal with the person or persons in danger right now, and leave worrying about the future to the future. Part of that is probably related to his medical training; there's a sick or injured person in front of him who needs help, he can't spend too much time thinking about if another person is going to need him in 15 minutes. Some of it is his self-confidence, that he can handle most problems. And it's being aware that he has to handle those problems, ready or not. He's Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, possessor of an eyeball for a medallion and a bitchin' cloak. If Baron Mordo is working with Dormammu to conquer this dimension, it's Strange's job to stop it. Whether he's able to or not, he has to at least try, because there's no one else. It's not a job title held jointly. He knows all of that, and just like he knows that problems can arise at any time. He'll take what precautions he can, but at some point, you can't do any more of that, and there's no sense just waiting around for problems to emerge.

And Stephen uses that time to maintain connections with friends, and try to have a relationship now and then. He may not see his friends often - I feel as though every story I've seen where Stephen meets and old friend, someone remarks it's been years since they've seen each other - but those people still have warm feelings towards him. They trust him enough to ask for help, or to chat pleasantly if they just happen to interact. Which is impressive, since I wouldn't think Stephen was that much fun to be around in his Jerk Surgeon days. (Although I wonder if, after leaving the Ancient One, Stephen didn't spend some time trying to make amends to people he'd hurt, or whose friendship he felt he'd abused). It's good to see him maintain connections, not just so he remembers what he's trying to defend as Sorcerer Supreme in something other than the abstract. He doesn't let the job consume him, he tries to maintain a foot in the world. It also shows that, even with all his new experiences, that person he was before is still a part of him, for good and bad.

Beyond all that, Strange's stories offer up the chance to see some truly bizarre places. He's a character that lets writers get as weird as they want to, gives artist a chance to draw anything. Bizarre creatures, realms of abstract shapes and lights, ancient cities with towering spires, Hell itself. Whatever can be conceived. Which is nice, it allows for a lot of flexibility. Steve Ditko can think of and illustrate it one way, Gene Colan another, Marcos Martin or Mike Mignola another still, and it all can still feel like adventures that fit Dr. Strange.

All those experiences give Strange a somewhat more grounded outlook. He doesn't typically freak out, or fly off the handle at bad news or a surprising turn of event. He's been through too much. He doesn't dismiss the problems, but he maintains perspective. The entire planet has been destroyed and recreated, and he's the only one who knows it. He's fought gods, demons, saved the life of the manifestation of the universe itself. He spent we don't know how long fighting in a war on behalf of the Vishanti in some dimension who knows where. Really, if there's a character in the Marvel Universe that shouldn't have been overwhelmed being exposed to Adam Warlock's soul, as Strange was in Infinity Gauntlet, it's Strange himself. But Jim Starlin was writing it, so you know how that goes. Everyone jobs to Adam Warlock and/or Thanos. I digress.

He's been turned into a vampire, been split into three different Stephen Stranges. Screwed up badly, several times (with increasing frequency in the last 15 years), and managed to bounce back from most of them. It's a little surprising how utterly he's lost confidence in himself over the recent years. I suppose you could explain it because many of his mistakes were made of arrogance or making a hasty decision. Trick the Hulk into space, no possibility it backfires. Try to control Zom to defeat the Hulk when it backfires. Let the Empirikrul wipe out a lot of the magic on Earth. If he had thought himself ready for those threats, or the consequences of his actions, he appears to have been wrong. Stephen thought he was past those kinds of mistakes, that he'd learned better. Maybe he feels like he's back at Square One. And being back at Square One, he's repeating old mistakes. When he had his accident, when the nerves in his hands were damaged, so he could never operate again, he fell apart. He couldn't accept that he wasn't going to be the wonder he once was. That he couldn't succeed in precisely the way he wanted. Maybe that's happening again.

I don't know if I buy that explanation, though. Strange has seen a lot, not just how small one human can be in the cosmic sense, but also how that one person can still affect the lives of many others simply by not refusing to give up. That's what he told Spider-Man once, that saving a life was a gift, that Spidey had received a lot of those gifts, and and to quit would erase all that (there was time travel involved). You'd think the doctor would take his own advice. But it's a possible explanation, and someone struggling to move past their mistakes, opting to dwell and wallow in them is a familiar state to me. But he bounces back eventually, hopefully a little wiser for it, and that's encouraging.

A bit about the costume. I love the Cloak of Levitation, obviously. More so when it's drawn as a huge thing, rather than something shorter. It isn't quite like Batman's cape, where it turns him into an enormous, shadowy thing. It's bright, attention grabbing, and it twists and flutters around Strange, like he's creating some sort of wind that only it can ride on (not a fart joke). I can buy the Cloak changing size depending on Stephen's mood or desired effect, or the Cloak's own thoughts on the matter.

I like the orange gloves, especially with the odd black spots on them. The first time I noticed those was in an Acts of Vengeance tie-in (when the Enchantress was gunning for Strange), and I thought it was actually blood. I was reading a back-up story of Stephen relating the history of the Darkhold and vampires, which is probably why. Heck, maybe the spots are blood, the gloves consecrated with drops of some eldritch deity's blood, or where something a past Sorcerer Supreme killed, but it left it's mark. Either way, it's a nice touch (which not all artists and colorists bother with).

Most of the artists use to draw Strange wearing leggins, or maybe tights, and then his shirt (or is it a tunic), with the belt over the outside of said shirt/tunic. Which just looks sloppy. Even I don't wear the shirt over the top of pants, and then put a belt over the whole thing. Stephen Strange should not be worse dressed than me. I preferred Marcos Martin's approach (although he doesn't draw the spots on the gloves), where Strange's wears regular old slacks, with a belt, and then the nice shirt goes over all that. Kind of business casual. Has the clothes of his office, but can move around and kick a guy in the stomach if he needs to. Decent, practical shoes for walking in. Can't always count on floating or teleporting.

There's a lot of other little touches writers have added over the years, things I just enjoy being part of the character. Brian K. Vaughn had it that Wong taught Stephen martial arts (and it has been a fairly consistent trait of Stephen's that he can surprise foes by taking a more physical approach with them, going all the way back to Steve Dtiko's work), and that Strange can be a bit absent-minded about where he puts things or where he's going. For the latter, I'd suspect Strange enjoys wandering some, both in our world and other planes, because it's interesting and there's so much to see. He has the opportunity few others would, and the awareness of the dangers necessary to take precautions, so why not. Paul Jenkins added that Stephen watches poker on ESPN, and is terrible at poker, because he thinks watching on ESPN is a good way to learn. Mark Waid kind of ran with that, in that he had a demon state Strange is a legendarily terrible bluffer (also that's he an obnoxious baseball fan).

It seems odd Strange would be so bad at bluffing, considering how often he confronts beings far more powerful than himself. I could see it being that many of the things he faces don't have, well, faces. So they don't know how to read a person's expression, they look elsewhere. So Dr. Strange learned to mask his thoughts and soul, so his true intentions can't be discerned that way. Against a demon, one used to messing with humans and understanding them, he's a bit more exposed. Or he has to be open because deceiving others could lead to deceiving himself, and that's dangerous for one using magic. Makes them blind to the dangers within. Take your pick. Didn't seem to be a problem the Ancient One had, but he's had more time to practice.

In summation, cool powers, some cool costume elements, the potential for the story to be anywhere and let artists stretch themselves however they'd like. Doctor Strange is mostly presently as an experienced, confident character, capable, but still with room to grow. He's not flustered easily, and he's had enough time to come to grips with his flaws and mistakes to where new mistakes don't stop trip him up as easily as they used to. Maybe liking Doctor Strange more is because I'm getting older, and I want to think I'm getting my shit together as it happens.

Credits! Dr. Strange introduces Dracula to a whole new world, and Dracula doesn't like it a bit in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #62, by Roger Stern (writer), Steve Leialoha (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer). Stephen Strange can't hide anything from anyone in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #58, by Stern (writer), Dan Green (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Sharen (colorist), and Novak (letterer). Reality won't let the doc maintain a fantasy in Doctor Strange: The Oath #1, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Marcos Martin (penciler), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), and Willie Schubert (letterer). Inhabiting the body of a green, alien minotaur is the least stressful part of Doc's day in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #81, by Peter B. Gillis (writer), Chris Warner (penciler), Randy Emberlin (inker), Sharen (colorist), and Many Hands (letterers). Way to kill the party vibe, Stephen, in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #21, by Paul Jenkins (writer), Talent Caldwell (penciler), Robert Campanella (inker), Studio F (color art), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer). It would almost be worth going to Hell for a front row seat to that fight in Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, by Stern (writer), Mike Mignola (penciler), Mark Badger (inker/colorist), and Jim Novak (letterer). Doc brings the pain train, whoo-whoo in Doctor Strange: The Oath #5, by Vaughn (writer), Martin (penciler), Lopez (inker), Rodriguez (colorist), and Schubert (letterer).