What I Bought 1/31/2024

I've been trying to rewatch the DVD in my movie collection. I tried last year, but sputtered out fairly early. I'm not that far along yet - the last one I watched was Crank - but I've been sticking to it. Progress!

Coda #5, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist/colorist), Patricio Delpeche (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Yes, Hum, cling to that leg. For. . .protection.

Hum and Serka seem to have resigned themselves to the presence of Mildew and his sucker brigade, until the gnomads show up with their army, ready to wipe these "deluded fanatics" away. Hum makes a final appeal to Mildew, and Serka does likewise with the gnomads. Neither works. Even with Hum showing the truth about the false moon, and Serka pointing out Mildew's followers aren't going to try and fight, neither side is swayed.

Spurrier and Bergara lay those scenes out on facing pages, Hum on one side, Serka on the other, with the panels borders along the spine getting increasingly tattered and distant as no progress is made. The religious take Hum's arguments as tests meant to sway the, and the gnomad believes you "save" people whether they want to be or not.

This is the point where, if this was FallOut, I'd leave both sides to their slaughter and go do something else. Or kill both sides myself and then go do something else. Hum and Serka consider sitting it out, but they can't quite reconcile themselves to not trying to make the world a little better by doing something.

So they pull the old switcheroo. Serka knows about following a charismatic leader who promises the world but offers only death and ruin. So she knows how to short-circuit it. And Hum knows about being sneaky, about playing to win, even if it means playing dirty. I still feel like having his unicorn storm the gonamd's camp and trash everything is triumph through force of arm, but I guess the key is, he took the tools that made killing easy away from them, but left them alive. If they want to establish order through strength, they'd have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Of course, it's not a clean resolution. Doesn't work like that in their world, or ours, which is the rough point Spurrier's trying to make. Always be people looking for someone to promise them an escape, or looking for someone to push against and wrest control from. Do the best you can while keeping hope alive, something like that.

Just Before I Go (2014)

The movie begins with Ted (Seann William Scott) drowning in a lake. It's OK, though, this is what he intended to do. From there, the movie does a quick rundown of the things that went wrong in his life as a kid and that, as an adult, he doesn't seem to have any purpose or drive. So, he decided to kill himself, after returning to his hometown to settle some old scores.

Any hope of this being a darkly comic revenge film vanishes like a fart in the wind when he's caught cursing out his 7th grader teacher (now a barely aware old woman) by her granddaughter Greta (Olivia Thirlby), who blackmails Ted into letting her film his bucket list activities in exchange for not alerting the police to his intent to end his life.

At which point the movie turns into a string of events of Ted finding himself caught up in the lives of people he apparently did not feel would care about him. His nephew can't accept he's gay, and actually helps beat the shit out of his boyfriend rather than face it (which seems like something the couple need to work through, but we don't see it.) Ted's old bully is a widower with a special needs son, so he and Ted end up drinking and planning a patricide together (which barely gets off the ground, another missed chance for dark comedy.)

It's one of those movies where people announce their feelings and hang-ups in dramatic speeches like, "I never had a boyfriend because I never expected a guy to stick around!" There's a whole thing where Ted's sister-in-law acts out her resentment towards her brother by pretending to be a sleepwalker who enters Ted's room and begins masturbating in front of him. Which is kind of fucked up in a way I found more sad than hilarious. But if the idea is Ted needing to realize he's not alone and his life does matter, that's an odd way to go about it. That would make me more likely to commit suicide, simply to not be in the middle of that bizarre marital Cold War.

Despite my complaints, there's a core of potential here. The opening flashback establishes Ted and his dad wanted to find the Nessie-like cryptid said to haunt the local lake. So I assumed Ted might put that on his list of things to do. Finish what he and his old man started, then off himself, but run into a variety of complications along the way. Like not knowing how to scuba dive or operate an underwater drone, which would force him to interact with people and realize he had connections if he only accepted them or something. Same general endpoint, but much more interesting (to me) route.

What I Bought 1/29/2024 - Part 2

I was driving back from a work thing last week and saw a billboard encouraging people to try camel milk. The billboard assured me it was great for both me and my pets. Yes, that's just what I want, milk from an animal that almost certainly spit it in beforehand.

Midnight Western Theatre: Witch Trial #5, by Louis Southard (writer), Butch Mapa (artist), Sean Peacock (colorist), Buddy Beaudoin (letterer) - Now that's a look that'll get you morally questionable job offers!

Ortensia returns to the Plague Doctor to find him badly injured, which suits her fine. She's just there for her guns and knife, all of which she unloads on Corson once she gets to his mansion. I especially like her getting him in the eye with a knife while he's in the middle of calling her sweetheart.

Not that any of it does any good. Corson shrugs it all off and pulls the same stunt he did with Sarah in issue 2, creating an illusion of Ortensia as a child with her father. He's about to rip her soul out of her body when the red, multi-armed demon the dopes who killed Ortensia summoned by accident pops up. Ortensia is his (for unclear purposes), and he's Corson's boss, so this meddling is not OK.

It's fun to watch Corson's spectral hellhound form, which has been drawn as fierce and snarling up to this point, suddenly having drooping ears and a cringing stance. It's more fun when Corson's stripped of his powers and Ortensia literally beats him to death, even as Mapa draws her looking increasingly blank as the beating continues. Doesn't bring Sarah back, even if Ortensia is angry at her and the Plague Doctor for just trying to use her to their own ends.

As she points out, the Doc knew what was going to happen to her, and could have intervened. But he didn't, and neither did Sarah. They let Ortensia die, and now she's an angry young woman who may become the Angel of Death, whatever that means, but is certainly not going to care what they had planned for her.

I wasn't sure about a prequel mini-series, because I was less interested in how Ortensia became what she was, and more in what she and Alexander would get involved with as the 19th Century progressed. But this turned out well, seeing an intermediate stage for Ortensia, and I think the interior of the back cover is suggesting the next mini-series will jump back into Ortensia's future, whatever that may hold. Fingers crossed it comes out soon!

Sunday Splash Page #308

 

"Big Entrance", in Legion of Monsters #1, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Juan Doe (artist), Wil Quintana (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

A 4-issue mini-series from 2011, a period of time when various writers were really trying to make a thing of there being a vast, underground "Monster Metropolis."

No, not the Morlocks' place. No, not Mole Man's kingdom. Monsters like Morbius, and Werewolf by Night. I think it was introduced during Rick Remender's "Franken-Castle" arc, and used periodically after that. I think Shiklah assumed control of it after marrying Deadpool, but I won't rule out that being an entirely different Monster Metropolis. In this case, Dennis Hopeless focuses on what passes for the police force: Manphibian, the Living Mummy, and the aforementioned werewolf and living vampire.

Enter, Elsa Bloodstone, on the trail of a monster that had been murdering and eating people, and generally being anti-social. An autopsy reveals something had eaten part of the monster's brain, and Morbius realizes a) this is behind the rise in violent outbreaks in the metropolis, and b) he's seen it before. But he's cagey with the answers, so Elsa and Jack Russell do some investigating of their own. This seems to be the start of the off/on whatever Elsa and Jack have that gets alluded to. Makes sense, as I don't think they'd ever been written in a story together prior to this.

One thing I notice between this mini-series and the Werewolf by Night one-shot from last year, is that while writers use the NextWave version of Elsa, most of them sand the rough edges off somewhat. She's not quite as competent, not quite as viciously sarcastic. Here, she does opine that all the citizens of Monster Metropolis are evil and should die in fire, but also allows the monster cops to arrest her and patiently sits chained to a bench until the autopsy is done? She accompanies Jack to some demon gateway and gets in over her head, requiring him to get injured saving her. But she also fights her way into Dracula's castle, in part by dousing her ponytail in holy water and using it like a whip. Or maybe a wet towel is the better comparison.

(An exception to the thing about writers: Si Spurrier's version in the Black Knight mini-series from a couple years ago. Maybe it's just U.S. writers can't summon the caustic quality necessary.)

Juan Doe's art is all exaggeration. Bloodstone's legs seem to stretch into infinity, and the ankles are narrow enough it seems a miracle they don't snap with every step. Monsters with chests and arms that would put Rob Liefeld's Captain America to shame. But there's a consistency to the odd proportions, and combined with the odd features of the various monsters - teeth in strange places or patterns, odd postures or gaits produced by body types - it seems to work. Most of the characters aren't human, so they don't have to move or be shaped like them. Jack, when he shifts out of his werewolf state, is probably the closest to normally proportioned, even more than Elsa, who is a bit of an otherworldly creature herself.

Saturday Splash Page #110

 

"Sodium Bash", in Superboy (vol. 3) #85, by Joe Kelly (writer), Pascual Ferry (penciler), Keith Champagne (inker), Jason Wright (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

I've read a couple of the early issues of '90s Superboy, when it was written by Karl Kesel and drawn by Tom Grummett. Mostly though, I've seen him in team books (Young Justice), or guest appearances (The Ray.) As for this issue, I have it solely because it's the starting point for the brief Superboy/Batgirl romance, and I was curious how that got going.

The answer is, Superboy comes to Gotham to bug Robin (and avoid his problems), and gets mixed up in something involving people being experimented on and, well I'm not sure. Robin says their blood is pure sodium, but it looks more like their entire bodies are sodium. Either way, Batgirl notices Superboy has found a clue, they try to investigate, get captured, nearly die. Early 2000s Dickhead Batman starts in with, "I told you not to associate with metahumans, Batgirl," and Superboy insists it was as much his (Superboy's) screw-up as hers.

That's pretty much it. There's a bit when they're about to die where she asks him to talk, but that seems to be him just pouring out all the crap he didn't want to discuss, and Cassandra's using it to focus through the drugs enough to put an escape into action.

There's a background subplot about his powers acting up, a well different writers went to. Reading descriptions of some of the earlier issues, he had a stretch where his body started breaking down, the resolution of which meant he wouldn't age. Which seems to have been quietly discarded somewhere along the way. Certainly Geoff Johns and subsequent Teen Titans writers kept playing with the notion Conner would grow up to be Superman (usually a morally questionable one in an authoritarian timeline).

What I Bought 1/29/2024 - Part 1

There was a little comic convention in the next town over last weekend, so Alex brought along his nephew and we met up there. Alex bought a couple of detective novels on a whim (I think the author really pitched them hard), and his nephew found a big Godzilla figure. I didn't expect to find anything, but the guy that put the convention on had issues 23-45 of Justice League International for $15, which seemed like too good a deal to ignore.

Fantastic Four #15, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Sure, Reed, expose a brain in a jar to gamma radiation, what's the worst that could happen?

Picking up where issue 14 left off, the FF can't figure out why the Baxter Building didn't appear as planned. Well, the app they tried to destroy the previous issue is already sentient, and exists (on the Internet somewhere, I assume.) So it (somehow) shunted the building and its inhabitants into a pocket dimension. It will bring them back, as long as Richards stays out of the way. Then it somehow engineers a bunch of other problems to keep them busy while it also engineers a way to get people to build a big transmitter so it can search for other beings like itself in space.

Reed figures out a way to bring it into the open so to speak, and makes an offer to work together. But the techbro that started the app figured out how to cut it off from over a quarter of the users that make up its mind, so it falls to pieces. It got to me, the all-black panels and Metamind's rapidly degrading speech patterns as it dies. Maybe I'm just feeling maudlin these days. I felt sad about that lunar lander Japan sent up landing upside-down and slowly running out of power without really getting to do anything.

Well, the upshot is, however Metamind sent the Baxter Building to another dimension, it only stays there as long as Metamind says so. So everyone comes back, just a little later than planned, there's a happy reunion with the kids. Reed even sends Doom a photo so he knows his goddaughter made it back OK. Something about doing the kind thing. As a teaser, Metamind did manage several transmissions Reed can't decipher, sent to an empty portion of space. Given this issue is called "China Brain Chapter One," I suspect we're going to find out what's out there at some point.

Fingers crossed it's not a Dominion. If I never see that word in a comic again, it'll suit me fine.

Rogues #1, by El Torres (writer) and Pablo M. Collar (artist), Monkey Typers (letterers) - Just jumping across an empty space during a thunderstorm, as one does.

Weasel (the lady) and Bram (the big dude) got hired to beat up a scarlet-ish witch on behalf of her angry apprentice. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the beating before they were cursed. Now their souls are scattered through their timelines and if they don't want them devoured by the witchity order's gods, they have to jump in a well and hop through their lives to recover them.

Which is one way to introduce the main characters. Do quick jaunts through their pasts, where they grew up, some of their other friends, how they met, things like that. Hint at things to possibly revisit later. We know that one of Bram's friends later became a draugr and they fought to the death, and that they were cursed to be pursued by chickens.

So most of the times they visit are treated as jokes. The chickens, them finding out one job went wrong because their future selves killed the rest of the crew in a misunderstanding about betrayal. Weasel beating up a wizard with a mustache and familiar cloak because she just hates that guy so much. They aren't laugh out loud funny, I think because we lack context, so it's sort of random, and that can only go so far.

Collar's art is selectively busy. When the characters are supposed to look serious, usually seriously pissed, the amount of hatching and scratchy lines increase. When it's a comedic reaction, he goes simpler. It works for the book's generally irreverent tone, so that's good.

I'm not sure if we're meant to take it that the Amaranth Sorceress got herself killed in her attempt to chase Weasel and Bram, or that she found her avenue to take further revenge. Could go either way.

Run Out on a Radioactive Rail

Picking up some point after the events of Metro: Last Light, Metro: Exodus starts with Artyom, the same character you played as in the previous two games, searching for evidence of civilization beyond Metro. He finds it, but he wasn't supposed to, necessitating a hasty departure from the ruins of Moscow by Arytom, Anna the sniper (now married to Arytom), her dad (and Artyom's commander) Colonel Miller, and a small squad of other "Spartans." They were called "Rangers" in the first two games, but whatever. They escape on an old train, and from there, the game takes you across what remains of post-nuclear holocaust Russia in the search for some peaceful, pleasant place to settle down.

Let's get this out of the way right off - Metro: Exodus has the longest load times I've ever seen in a video game. Any time you're getting ready to play, well, be prepared to sit 3-5 minutes before it loads whatever stage you happen to be in. The counter to that is, typically once a given location/stage/region loads, you won't have to deal with another load screen for the rest of that session. Unless you die. Which I did. Several times.

Which brings me to a confession, I did drop the difficulty level. I recovered a carriage car from a bunch of bandits, but the game glitched when I tried to pull it to the engine and the car disappeared. So I reloaded an earlier save, but kept dying trying to get through the bandits a second time. It was drop the difficulty or the game was getting hurled at the wall as hard as I could, so. . .

The gameplay is much the same as with Last Light. It's a first person shooter, you can only carry 3 three weapons, though you can collect others which you can swap in back on the train. There's the option to be stealthy and either kill or incapacitate enemies you encounter. You sometimes have to deal with air that's toxic to breathe, which requires you to keep an eye on how many filters you have for your gas mask (not to mention the condition of your gas mask.)

Since you aren't roaming the underground world of the Metros much, there's no merchants to buy things from. Instead, you collect mods, junk and various chemicals as you explore, which you use to craft or repair your gear as you go along. You will use the chemicals to clean your equipment, especially the guns. Otherwise they start jamming after every shot, which is really damn annoying when you're being attacked by a pack of what look like German Shepherd-sized naked mole rats.

Each stages encompasses wildly different areas and people, although the people are almost uniformly hostile to outsiders. There's an anti-technology community living in the remains of a rail town along the Volga, the waters of which are patrolled by the Tsarfish (a catfish the size of a whale shark.) I was fond of the Caspian level, which is mostly a desert, controlled by some doofus calling himself "The Baron." He even has a toady who starts all radio announcements with, 'The Baron is about to begin speaking!' *pause* 'The Baron is speaking!'

This led to high comedy after I freed a bunch of his slaves from a rusted-out freighter, and as I drove away in one of his crappy trucks, the Baron interrupts the toady to berate me specifically for messing with his little fiefdom, and asking if I felt like I was clever. Well, I certainly did after he lost his shit about it.

Each stage has some larger mission - usually boiling down to getting what you need to get out of there - but there are also sub-quests or side missions. Like attacking a rusted-out freighter to free slaves, or taking out a sniper in a bandit base that's got an eye on one of your guys. The missions are still all variations on "go here, kill these guys," and "go there, fetch that thing," but the diversity of habitats and specific threats help it feel less repetitive.

One thing the game does, before you enter each region, you spend some time on the train. As much or little as you want. This is time to ready your gear, but also a chance to hang out with the rest of the Spartans. You don't get dialogue options or anything, but you can listen to their conversations, or if you pick up the guitar in the Volga, have a jam session with your comrades-in-arms. One of my complaints with Last Light was the game expected me to care about the other Rangers, or there being a traitor in their midst, but I didn't spend enough time with them for that.

It also gives Artyom the opportunity to just spend time with Anna. When she was introduced in Last Light, it felt tacked on. More an excuse for a poorly-done sex scene than something that develops organically and carries emotional weight. Here, the conversations they have (even though, again, Artyom never says anything) help them feel like a real couple. Anna talks about her dreams, her issues with her father, her fears about Artyom. Surprise! It helps her feel more like a real character, and in return, I actually give a shit what happens to her. When she's in danger, I want to hurry and help her. I appreciate it when she snipes people that are trying to kill me.

Decisions you make during the game influence how things go at certain points, and ultimately which ending you get. Usually it boils down to whether you do the side missions, or special conditions in a mission. When a hardcore lady in the Caspian helps you into a bunker to look for satellite maps showing radiation levels, do you take the time to search for an old photo of her mother? In the Taiga, can you get through the "pirate" camp without killing anyone, or will you ruin your buddy Alyosha's chance of scoring?

(There's more than that at stake, but also, not really.)

Continuing a tradition from the previous two games, I got the bad ending. Just not enough compassion in me for things to turn out better, I guess. The question is whether I want to try and play through the whole thing again for a better outcome. Overall, this may be the Metro game I enjoy most. The story and character beats are stronger than Last Light, but the gameplay's less frustrating than 2033. Yes, even before I lowered the difficulty.

Intermittent Comic Showers in April

April's solicitations had several things from publishers other than Marvel that caught my eye. Some of them are even entirely new things! I can't help feeling like I was grasping at straws, though. Most of them provoked a "Might be worth a look," rather than, "I gotta read that!"

What's new? Zac Thompson and Nicola Izzo are releasing Blow Away, a mini-series about a wildlife photographer who may have witnessed a murder, through Boom! Studios starting in April. Thompson's Nature's Labyrinth mostly left me confused and vaguely dissatisfied, so a potential mystery written by him gives me pause.

Eli Powell's writing and drawing a one-shot called Still, published by Invader Comics, about a guy living alone in the woods, slowly being preyed upon by his past. It's a follow-up to something Powell did previously called Ravage, though. Maybe I ought to track that down first. Francesca Perillo and Stefano Cardoselli have Love Me: A Romance Story, through Mad Cave, about a robot cab driver that falls for a woman tangled up with the mafia. Sounds a little like Sweet Downfall, which Cardoselli wrote and drew and published through Scout back in 2020, although that robot was a hit man.

Speaking of Scout Comics, El Torres and Ruben Gil have the first issue of Loop, about two girls hiding in the midst of a school shooting. Or one of them is hiding and the other is receiving visions of the dying. Doesn't exactly sound like a feel-good tale, but, you know, might be worth a look.

Alien Books has the first volume of Momo: Legendary Warrior, which is a sci-fi epic based on a legend about someone called Momotaro. I'm not thinking this is a likely buy, but maybe I'd swing back around to it down the line if some of the other manga I buy wrap up.

Oh, and the Deadpool ongoing that Marvel listed last month does actually being in April. So throw it on the pile.

Is anything ending? I guess technically Still would end, since it's a one-shot. Otherwise, not that I'm aware of. That Dr. Strange story with Black Cat, Taskmaster and hunter's Moon is going for at least 2 issues, and I won't be surprised if MacKay stretches it out to 3.

What's left? Fantastic Four's doing a noir thing. Vengeance of the Moon Knight and Power Pack are both up to issue 4. Night Thrasher's fighting Silhouette in issue 3 of his mini-series. Jackpot and Black Cat, Ms. Marvel, and Black Widow and Hawkeye will all be on issue 2. I vaguely remembered the Widow got a symbiote, but I figured that was a one-off. Apparently not, and I'm feeling less confident about that mini-series all the time.

Outside Marvel, there's A Haunting on Mars #5, and Rogues #2. As far as manga, Apparently Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World volume 5, and Soul Eater volume 14 are both listed, from Yen press and Square Enix respectively. Although I've still not moved past volume 2 of Soul Eater, so that one may be a moot point. Also, these overlong manga titles are getting old.

Extract (2009)

Jason Bateman plays his usual easily confused, mediocre dude as the owner of a factory that makes flavor extracts. One of his employees is injured in a workplace accident, then convinced to sue them by a drifter (Mila Kunis) and hires a lawyer played by Gene Simmons. Meanwhile, Bateman is frustrated because his wife (Kirsten Wiig) is never in the mood, and takes terrible advice from a bartender friend of his (Ben Affleck.) There's also a whole subplot where their annoying neighbor won't take the hint and keeps bugging them about attending a Rotary Club dinner (at $55/plate.)

This movie never comes together, just lurching from one thread to the other with little connection between the two. Bateman seems dissatisfied with his life and eager to sell his factory, which presumably will give him more time around his wife when she might not be too tired for sex. But then Kunis shows up, and suddenly he's like, "well, having sex with this other woman would be just as good," not realizing she's a crook. So he accepts what may have been a horse tranquilizer from Affleck and deciding yes, hiring a gigolo as a pool cleaner to induce Wiig to have an affair, so he can cheat guilt-free, is a good idea.

This turns out to be a predictably terrible idea, but the movie focuses more on how the pool boy (who looks like dollar store Ryan Gosling as Ken) fell in love with Wiig and how much this pisses off Bateman. Then he sleeps with Kunis after figuring out she's behind the lawsuit and she starts crying. Which doesn't turn out to be her playing a trick. She sleeps with him, then just disappears (with the injured worker's pickup truck.) The lawsuit subplot peters out, the annoying neighbor subplot ends abruptly and absurdly at the end of the movie, and maybe Wiig and Bateman are going to fix things.

The movie wastes Wiig and Kunis, never really giving them much time to get into their characters and what makes them tick. It wastes JK Simmons, too. Affleck playing a loser, stoner bartender is the closest it comes to having a character that is actually funny.

He Carries a Reminder. . .

. . .of every blow, that laid him low, or cut him, 'til he cried out, "I am bleeding, I am bleeding!" but the paramedics stayed away, la la la lah la la la.

Volume 1 of JH's The Boxer starts with the "legendary trainer of five world champions", K, looking for his final project. Initially, it seems like it's going to be Bakesan Ryu, a prodigy with the reflexes, agility and flexibility to embarrass a trained fighter 4 weight classes above him. He even has the flashy and impractical moves that a crowd will love, not to mention the unusual hair color and style that marks your typical manga protagonist.

And then K notices a kid just letting bullies pummel him in an alley. JH doesn't explain what K saw until the very end of the volume, but K extends the offer to Yu to train him into a champion. Yu doesn't seem all that interested, however, so it would seem K's wasting a month waiting for him to show up at the gym.

After that, the story shifts to the local high school, where we see Bakesan uses his skills to bully and intimidate weaker students, particularly Injae, a meek kid with glasses. Injae seems to want to be friends with Yu, while Yu doesn't discourage it, he doesn't exactly encourage it, either. Although with him, actually speaking might qualify as encouragement.

About the time Yu saves Injae from being hit by a soccer ball kicked by Bakesan, JH switches focus to Injae. Injae's father was a boxer (career record: 13 wins, 12 losses, 2 draws), and Injae wants to be like him. Which he decides means he can't keep taking the bullying any longer, he has to stand up and fight.

(His father, when asked about fighting someone you know is stronger, makes a point that courage in a boxer and courage in someone who isn't are entirely different and equally admirable things, so it's not him imposing some toxic notion on his kid. He outright says it's OK to run.)

Unfortunately, Yu's interference has made him Bakesan's target now. Everything comes to a head in a series of fights as Injae stands up to Bakesan despite the difference in natural talent. In turn, this determination seems to spark some interest within Yu, and he gets involved. Which is when we get a glimpse of what caught K's eye.

JH has a relatively simple, clean style. Thin lines and basic character designs that distinguish the important players from each other, but also allow him to exaggerate for effect. The way he draws the face of one of Bakesan's hangers-on when Injae hits him with a jab, versus when Yu does the same thing, is entirely different. Injae's causes the guy's head to rock back slightly. Yu's reduces it to a blank square with force lines shooting off it like an explosion. When Yu hits Bakesan with a jab, JH draws it like someone took a hole punch to Bakesan's head, as a representation of what the punch felt like.

The book's an odd mix, because JH will add panels discussing or diagramming principles of boxing, like why you don't switch which punch you're going to throw in the middle of a punch. But then there's also a lot of figurative imagery. Bakesan's got a big head about his talent, so we see him as a giant seated atop a mountain. The "chosen one", while the tiny blurry outlines of lesser fighters reach futilely towards him from below. JH uses that a few times early on, then brings it back to different effect during his fight with Yu.

Yu's an interesting choice for a lead character, simply because he's so passive. We get a couple of glimpses of his past and current living situation, but not much, and he's not forthcoming, beyond the fact he doesn't recall ever really wanting to be anything or do anything. The later volumes (at least the 2 I've read so far), reveal how JH plans to use a character like that, though.

Sunday Splash Page #307

 

"Orbital Dynamics," The Legion #8, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Olivier Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

So after all of the events of the preceding weeks - Blight invasion, section of the cast hurled across the universe, Legion disbanded - Abnett, Lanning, Coipel and McCraw bring it back together in another ongoing series, starting with the rough arrival of the survivors of Legion Lost on an Earth different from the one they last saw.

Abnett and Lanning use the familiar play of bringing a 20th Century threat into the 31st Century, although Ra's al Ghul was a clever choice. His goals had shifted somewhat - not so concerned with preserving Earth, but with countless inhabited worlds know, it probably seemed less of a priority - but he's played as having all the advantages of years to prepare.

A little curiously, Ra's being traditionally a Batman foe, M'onel is set as his opposite. There's a whole thing that's only referenced about M'onel having been responsible for seeding life over the course of some amount of time on many of the worlds that made up the United Planets. So I guess that's the point of contrast: M'onel spent his time trying to help life to grow, but on its own terms, while Ra's wants to push life forward, but at a pace he determines, with little regard for cost.

After that, the book shifts to paying off at least a few plots that had been running in the background. The odd robot attack that was so fixated on Brainiac 5.1 in their first issue of Legionnaires, comes to a head with an artificial intelligence based invasion of Earth. It feels a bit like a reprise of the Blight invasion, although with most of the cast locked out of Earth, rather than trapped or turned to the other side. Shadow Lass, who had been written as withdrawn and hostile since being taken over by the Blight, gets a spotlight issue where she returns home to try and address some issues. Timber Wolf, who escorted Phantom Girl and her exceedingly powerful baby to Earth, joins the team. Though nothing ever comes of his apparent attraction to her, or whatever started to brew between Ultra Boy and Saturn Girl in Legion Lost.

(Nor is there any payoff to Phantom Girl's mother having her declared incompetent in Legion Worlds as part of a scheme to steal her grandchild. I would have at least liked to see the lady get punched in the jaw for that shit.)

Coipel remains as the primary penciler for the first year and change, still inked by Lanning, but with a smoother hand. There are still a lot of shadows and heavy inks, but the characters don't look as weary and battered. They're mostly back together, mostly feeling good, things are looking up.

Kev Walker starts to take the reins during the Robotican invasion story, and then Chris Batista handles the arc about a villain seizing the control of the vast telepathic communication network the UP were using. Those two artist don't have a lot in common stylistically, but much of the Universo story is an illusory world he tries to use to keep Saturn Girl occupied, so it looking much cleaner and smooth adds to the artificiality of it. Comparatively, Walker's art evokes the roughness of Coipel's during the Blight story. Characters even look a little wilder, if not quite as dark. Tom McCraw keeps the shades and tones a bit less washed out here than in some of the other books.

The third year of the book is more of a mixed bag, as Superboy (Conner Kent, Kon-El, '90s Superboy) is brought there from the past, but also Abnett and Lanning bust out a Darkseid story. Superboy is somewhat interesting, as he laps up the adulation of the public, no longer being compared to Superman and found wanting, probably because these people all figure he's just young Superman. But he also catches a lot of flack from Cosmic Boy in particular about being reckless and careless. Part of the problem of people thinking you grow up to be Superman, is they also expect you to behave like Superman.

This could theoretically have been used as some form of character development, but back in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, we got the whole thing about Luthor being the human half of his DNA, and then Superboy-Prime killed him.

Abnett and Lanning left the book around issue 30 or so, and so ends our time in the Year 3000. It's back to the rapidly approaching dystopian hellscape of the 21st Century for us.

Saturday Splash Page #109

 

"Roll Call," in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #6, by Landry Q. Walker (writer), Eric Jones (artist), Joey Mason (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)

An updated, more comedy-oriented approach to Supergirl's arrival on Earth, which starts with the rocket carrying Kara Zor-El crashing through Luthor's latest giant robot focused attempt to destroy Superman. From there, we learn Kara hid on her father's rocket in an attempt to teach her parents a lesson for grounding her for asking them to pass the salt. . .wait no, I'm sorry, for telling her she couldn't be part of the cheer squad for the launch of the rocket because she got 72% in Temporal Mechanics.

Most of the six issues are concerned with Kara attempting to learn how to fit in on Earth while also adjusting to having superpowers, by attending a boarding school as "Linda Lee." This goes poorly, as she doesn't understand anything about Earth, like money for example. This allows Jones a lot of chances to draw Linda having daydreams about what she could do instead. Like flying to the Moon to become Moon Supergirl, who stops Moon Criminals from stealing Moon Money from Moon Banks.

Landry Walker adds several elements beyond the usual issues the new kid faces in school. Kryptonite rays filtered through an overhead projector can an evil opposite of her, who is popular and cruel and pranks Linda repeatedly. A piece of Kryptonite that gets electrified gives a cat super-intelligence and causes it to start kidnapping students. The one friend Linda makes at school turns out to be Lex Luthor's little sister. And the principal turns out to be Mr. Mxyzptlk, with some scheme to use collected Kryptonian emotional energy, combined with his 5th-dimensional magic to. . .let him rewrite all reality?

That part doesn't make a ton of sense, but Walker's Mxy is a more malevolent version, at one point implying he might have gone so far as to be responsible for destroying Krypton, just to engineer this entire circumstance. Still, the amount that gets crammed into the final issue, along with Belinda's statement that Linda was gaining more and more friends, which we don't see any evidence of, makes me wonder if things didn't get rushed by a premature ending.

What I Bought 1/24/2024

The sub-zero wind chills finally broke on Monday. Unfortunately, they were replaced with freezing rain, coating roads and parking lots in lovely, deadly ice. If I had any damn sense, I would have just called in sick on Monday, but I didn't. Anyway, the ice has melted, though now we just have regular rain. But the state's still in a drought, so I guess we can use rain.

But while it's damp and chilly, we can look at some comics from the last two weeks.

Fantastic Four #16, by Ryan North (writer), Francesco Mortarino (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Damn kids, always sneaking into the paintings!

I haven't gotten issue 15 yet, but apparently Reed's time travel stunt worked out eventually. He probably forgot about it being a leap year or something. The family is still living in Arizona (why?), but with a teleporter built into a closet to get to the Baxter Building if they need to. Choosing to willingly live in Arizona is a peculiar choice, but I guess the "science explorer" super-team is used to environments inhospitable to human life.

In the meantime, this issue's about the kids - Franklin, Valeria, Jo and Nicki - starting public school. The Richards' kids science teacher assigns everyone to discuss how the inventions Robert Boyle predicted that have come to be actually happened, but they decide to show off by solving one that hasn't. Namely, creating a universal solvent, without realizing if it eats through everything, how does one contain it?

The remainder of the issue is the kids scrambling around trying to solve the problem without alerting their parents. Like on one of those '80s sitcoms, when one of the kids gets paint in their hair and the others attempts to fix it only make the situation more ridiculous. Except with the fate of the world at stake, as opposed to being sent to bed with no dessert.

It didn't exactly make me laugh, but it's nice North's actually going to try and use the kids, after shuffling them off to Buffalo for over a year. Guess I should wait to make sure this isn't a one-off event before saying that. This is a dialogue heavy issue, but Mortarino's up to at least keeping it interesting with the body language and postures of the characters. The comedy beats North goes for are more dialogue-based than art-based, but I don't know if that's a reflection on Mortarino or just how the issue worked out. There's a couple in a silent montage of the kids trying to create the solvent, where we see them arguing, then consulting wikipedia in the next panel, but most of the humor is Reed glumly reflecting his tacos aren't as good as Raul Richards of Earth-234952.

It does work as a done-in-one plot starring these characters (at least as I understand them.) Valeria and Franklin are both used to seeing crazy science stuff and having it turn out OK, and they're at an age to be really interested in being popular, so sure, they'll try something like this. Nikki and Jo are still relatively new to Earth, and Franklin and Valeria are like older siblings, so they don't recognize when a bad idea is getting out of hand. They'll raise the possibility of telling the parents, but won't act on their own, only ask Frank or Val if they can.

Power Pack: Into the Storm #1 - Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I know it's because Alex is using his powers to cancel the effect of gravity, but man those postures he, Katie and Franklin are in just look strange.

The Power family vacation at the beach house where the kids first gained their powers. Franklin Richards is going to join them, but he's had one of his prophetic dreams about mean aliens. He doesn't want to bug his parents, so he waits until he's at the beach to warn the other kids. Which presumably means no FF around to help when a space pirate Snark shows up, chasing her cousin and the Power Pack's Kymellian friend, Kofi.

One space pirate doesn't seem too daunting, but it seems the bigger problem is going to be keeping the Power's parents from finding out about their powers. Simonson writes in a few arguments between the kids about telling their parents, to the extent Alex tries using the presence of the FF at lunch to gauge his parents feelings about if their kids had powers. (It doesn't go well.)

Kids trying to be what they think their parents want is likely to be a recurring problem, as Franklin's acutely aware that his powers frighten his parents, and the Snark princess Djinna admits that she's not the warrior that her parents need. She's clever, and an inventor, but her people's culture demands a fighter, and that's not her. The kids each confronting that problem is probably the "storm" they're going to encounter.

Brigman's child characters do look like kids, even the alien ones. Katie and Franklin are very round-faced, still a lot of the baby fat, and Djinna and Kofi have that gangly awkwardness in the length of their limbs that's normal in human kids, at least. There's a three-panel sequence where Franklin's watching his prophetic dream as his beds floats from one panel to the next. Woodard leaves Franklin colored the same as in the panels before and after, but the dream is covered by a brown filter, heightening that this isn't real (yet.)

The Eye in the Door - Pat Barker

A continuation of Regeneration, which I read last summer. This book is more focused on Billy Prior, who was another of the patients at Craiglockhart when Siegfried Sassoon arrived. Prior's working in London for the Ministry of Information, though what exactly he does isn't clear. Here, we mostly see him using his position to visit a childhood friend's mother, now locked up on charges of planning to assassinate Lloyd George.

But Prior's bigger concern is he begins losing time. He's still visiting Rivers, the psychiatrist from the previous book, but there's only so much that guy can do. Especially as Rivers still hasn't resolved the ethical conundrum of sending people back to fight and die in a stupid, pointless war, simply because they don't meet some vague criteria of being unfit.

Sassoon reappears in the back third of the book, having been wounded in France. He still lacks answers to the conflict between believing this war is pointless, yet feeling like he still needs to be there fighting. Barker writes him as a less dynamic force this time, pale and shaken and depressed with himself and his work.

Prior appears to be better off outwardly, but there's the gaps in time, and the realization he's almost split inside his mind to cope with what he went through. Or not cope, perhaps, so much as survive. Prior doesn't miss the fighting, but part of him is ashamed to have found a desk job in England, (even though his asthma's what keeps him there), and part of him resents the people who didn't fight at all. And he knows, to some extent, it's ridiculous to feel as though people might judge him for not being "over there", especially since he was once already, so that gnaws at him.

There's a whole background thread about a man who claims to have a list of 47,000 British citizens who the Krauts lured into homosexuality for the purpose of blackmailing them into undermining England's war effort. It seems in part an example of an absurd mindset. Rather than focus on what's actually happening in the war, the dying, concoct some ridiculous reason why the war isn't over already, that comes with a convenient scapegoat group. It's an easy way to avoid examining anything really going on.

Sassoon is friends with several people on the list, and Prior is picked up by a man who's receiving anonymous notes implying he's on the list. Prior is indifferent to the whole thing. Possibly a class thing, as that comes up a bit, that Prior is not of the "gentleman" class, only temporarily elevated by becoming an officer. So he's not likely considered prominent enough to be on any such list, but Prior also doesn't seem nearly as worried about being caught at it, whether he's with a man or a woman. Which may be related to the reveal Prior was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child by one of the parish priests, but seems to have been rewarded with entry to a better school later on. I don't know how to fit that in to the larger picture of Prior's hostility towards others and himself, or his attitude towards the fighting or anything else.

Maybe it all comes together in the final book, because this very much feels like the middle section of a larger arc. Nothing's quite resolved for Prior, Sassoon, or Rivers. Sassoon seems to be falling apart, Prior may have confronted one inner demon, but Rivers has a host of them he's not addressing. It's not clear how any of them will go from here.

'And of course there's always the unanswered question. Could you face it? Could you pass the test? But where I think we differ, Billy, is that you think that's a Very Important Question, and I think it's fucking trivial.'

Prior glanced sideways at him. 'No, you don't.'

It's a Lightweight, Watery World

I came across a thread somewhere back in the fall, discussing the size of the world where One Piece takes place. The model someone posted listed the diameter of the planet at over 61,000 km. That's 10,000 km larger than Uranus, half the size of Saturn, 5x bigger than Earth. A quick Google search revealed arguments that it's actually around 35,000 km, or maybe over 420,000 km (3 times the size of Jupiter.)

To be clear, I have no idea what any of these measurements are based on. Presumably any mentions of height or depth in the manga or anime. Almost certainly extrapolating from maps we see of specific places, combined with references to distances or travel times. Maybe some data books? Probably also based on how long it takes the Straw Hats to get from one end of the first half of the Grand Line to the other, which would be half the circumference of the planet, plus average sailing speeds for the different ships they used.

Not sure how you incorporate the time they were drifting through the air with a giant octopus for a balloon, or the Thousand Sunny being able to rocket through the sky, but I'm sure those folks manage.

Back to the original point. There's also the above still of the Library on Ohara. Some people take this as a model of their world, meaning it's orbited by several moon. So the notion floated in the thread was, this is the Doylist explanation for how ridiculously strong everyone is, since even the "weak" characters survive falls or being thrown through walls that would kill any of us. The planet is huge, the gravity is higher, so these folks are all really strong from moving under heavy gravity. Kind of like early Superman (before it became the yellow solar radiation powering him), or Charlie-27 from the OG Guardians of the Galaxy.

It doesn't really work, since those characters demonstrate their strength and resilience in places they move to with weaker gravity. All the One Piece characters are on their birth planet all the time, minus the crazy guy that flew his giant airship to the Moon because he thought it was the proper place for a god like himself. And he says he's traveling to the moon, singular, and no one asks him to specify which moon, implying there's only one. There's also never a sign of multiple moons in the sky during any night scenes, which wouldn't be difficult to do if that was actually a feature of the planetary system Trigun, for example, made sure to show more than one moon, because that was part of the setting.

It's more likely the image is the current conception of the entire solar system, and those poor suckers are still trapped in a geocentric view of the universe. It would at least fit with their society, where you have a bunch of "nobles" living in a city atop a mountain, proclaiming they control everything and everyone else is theirs to kill or enslave as they wish. Of course they'd insist the entire universe revolves around them.

I wonder how that impacts navigation in a world so dependent on traveling at sea. You rarely see anyone sail at night, for example, or reference using the stars, even before the main characters got to the Grand Line, where the special compass always points to another island. But the observed difference in the movements of the stars when assuming they orbit your world, doesn't seem like enough to impact navigation, based on a brief look online.

Back to the gravity. What I'm thinking, the peculiar physics and resilience seen in One Piece aren't a result of their growing up on a huge world with gravity several times stronger than Earth's. Rather, while their world may be much larger, its gravity is actually weaker, due to a low density. My example was going to be Saturn, because I remembered my old astronomy books stating its gravity was only 93% that of Earth's, since it was less dense than water. The old, "It would float in water, if you could find a tub to hold it" bit. They appear to have gained new data, and its gravity is actually 107% Earth's.

Still, the basic idea holds. The world is largely covered by water, which is theoretically only as dense as. . .water. The islands scattered about vary in size, but most seem like they could be crossed on foot within a week, if not less. I don't think there are many the size of Cuba, let alone Greenland or Australia. There's one continent, actually a mountain range that encircles the globe (albeit broken up occasionally by water.) It rises from the sea floor, which is known to be 10,000 meters deep, and extends to at least cloud level.

I can't find anything more concrete on the height of the Red Line, though there are cities on clouds 10,000 meters up, and we don't hear about those colliding with the Red Line, so it may not reach that high. Even capped at less than 20,000 meters in total height, it's well above Mauna Kea, which is 10,200 meters from the sea floor to peak. Lower gravity would allow for taller mountains, like Olympus Mons on Mars, which is 24,000 meters high.

Given the lack of larger landmasses on the planet, and the amount of surface area covered by water, I don't know that there's much tectonic activity. Certainly not many active volcanoes. No evidence of recent plate tectonics, which might suggest a cooling core and mantle. Which would likely mean little to no magnetic field. You could probably handwave in something about cosmic radiation and Devil Fruits if you wanted, but I'm thinking in terms of what this means for the internal composition of the planet. 

Earth's high density is the result of its iron-nickel core. Same for Mercury. One Piece's Earth might lack those elements, or lack them in great amount, or they're diffuse throughout the interior. Occasionally there's enough activity to push some through the crust and you get an island. If there's no spinning core to create a magnetic field, all you have are each islands personal magnetic field. Why this only happens on the Grand Line and not any of the Blues, I don't know, but I might as well guess while we're here.

The Grand Line is banded by two stretches of water with no winds or currents, which suggests some sort of weird thing. Maybe there was one major event that created the Red Line (some sort of internal contraction that crumpled the crust in the middle?) and broke up existing current and wind patterns, creating a stretch of geologic time with limited activity, forming the islands in the Grand Line. The disruption of global currents created new ones in each of the "Blues", and that created deposition zones where material collected and over a very long time, built islands out of sedimentary rock, rather than igneous. Different composition, no magnetic field.

End result, the characters run faster, jumper higher, fall from great heights, and its easy because the gravity is low. If the planet does lack in heavier metals, you could explain how easily characters are knocked through or destroy buildings as the available stone being less sturdy and metal being somewhat scarce. Lower gravity would likely mean lighter, more fragile bones, since supporting the body would be easier, too. But we do see characters (especially Usopp) wrapped up in bandages or body casts frequently, without suffering any long-term damage. So the bones are light and break easy, but possibly that makes them easy to put back together.

Yellowbeard (1983)

Yellowbeard's a notorious pirate, who's spent twenty years in prison while the British Navy tries to sweat the location of the treasure he stole from a delusional Spanish priest (Tommy Chong). He escapes, but the only remaining copy of his treasure map is tattooed on the scalp of a young gardener whose mother (Madeline Khan) claims is Yellowbeard's son.

So it's loosely a treasure hunt, with Yellowbeard's one-handed former bosun (Peter Boyle) and his conniving yes-man (Marty Feldman) after the treasure, along with the head of the British secret service, but it's mostly just a string of gags that occasionally remember to drift in the direction of a buried treasure. Yellowbeard is barely involved for long stretches, usually whenever he's taking a break from raping.

There are a lot of rape jokes in this movie, which is not great. Madeline Khan pulls some laughs with some of her comments ("I never left anyone I raped alive!" "I do remember it being rather rough. . .") Most of them feel like someone trying too hard to be shocking.

There were a lot of parts in the movie I did laugh at, though. John Cleese is in there as a blind informer, who Boyle and Feldman eliminate in a hilarious manner. During the attack on the priest's stronghold, there are a lot of gags about his chief lackey (Cheech Marin) berating the soldiers for overacting in their "death" scenes. The various attempts by sailors to sneak women aboard the ship, which including Feldman's giant crocodile. The British spymaster being announced as such at a party, before the crier reads the part that says, "don't say this aloud." Enough funny bits to keep the movie rolling and keep it from focusing on Yellowbeard, who's too one-note to be compelling.

Martin Hewitt, who plays the young gardener, is a nothingburger, but I imagine that's by design. He's the relatively sane one surrounded by lunatics and idiots. He eventually gets into the swordfighting and swashbuckling, but closer to the Errol Flynn version of movie pirates than the sociopath Yellowbeard is.

Dying It All Again

Somebody's spending too much time on certain online forums.

I'm not generally into the isekai genre of manga, where a character dies and awakens in some new (more fantastic) world, but No Longer Allowed in Another World seems to be the exception. A failed writer, who's only referred to as Sensei, is planning a double suicide via jumping in a raging river, when he gets hit by a truck instead. Awakening in Zauberberg, he learns he's expected to be some great hero, a task he has no desire to accomplish.

Sensei does, after nearly dying and in the process saving a cat-girl, decide on one thing he needs to do. The girl he was committing suicide with may have crossed over to this world as well, but not in the same chapel as him. He wants to find Sacchan, so they can get things right this time. As it turns out, she's thrown in with another group, but he doesn't know that yet.

I think what I enjoy about the manga is what I enjoy about the FallOut games. Not choosing the most unsettling or confrontational dialogue options. Or not only that. Hiroshi Noda writes Sensei with zero interest in any quest to defeat the Dark Lord, or great destiny. Besides finding Sacchan and successfully dying, he's content to wander the landscape with the few oddballs he's encountered and see if inspiration strikes. It's the way I prefer to play those sorts of games, wander around and look for weird stuff. If it intersects with the main plot, well, I guess I can deal with that. It might send me someplace new, to see more weird stuff!

We're told by a priestess that most otherworlders are abusing their "cheat" skills for their own personal gain. I would argue none of these otherworlders were asked about being dumped in this world and being expected to save it. As Sensei points out, what is the "Isekai Jackpot Truck" to decree someone will be "happier" in another world?  Point being, even if Sensei had any cheat skills - and other than his Poisoned status being transferable, none is revealed in Volume 1 - he doesn't seem inclined to do that. He'll ask Annette for money to buy a poison flask, or a coffin that she and "Tama" can drag him around in. But success there owes to Annette being either smitten with him, or having her outlook on life reawakened by his peculiar attitude.

That's one part I feel Noda doesn't really make clear. Tama's reasoning for sticking around is simple enough: Sensei did (inadvertently) save her life, so she figures she owes him. Annette had grown disenchanted with muttering the same platitudes to otherworlders. Sensei's complete rejection of the "gift" startles her, tot he point she resigns from her post to follow him. Possibly it's a protective instinct, since he seems incredibly weak and actually needs her protection (ignoring the part where he doesn't want protecting.)

Takahiro Wakamatsu adopts the Western medieval fantasy look for Zauberberg - Sensei notes on first awakening that if this is Heaven, it certainly skews Western in its aesthetic - but filtered through a manga style. Big, European style castles with high stone towers and Western-style dragons with great leathery wings and large legs and arms, rather than a more serpentine appearance. But knights wield oversized, Final Fantasy style broadswords, and the martial artists are girls with cat tails and ears who otherwise look human.

Sunday Splash Page #306

 

"Open Grave Space," in Legion Worlds #4, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Duncan Rouleau (penciler), Jamie Mendoza (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

A six-issue mini-series started a couple of months after Legion Lost concluded, Legion Worlds was an overview of what several other members of the Legion were getting up to in the year since several members of the team died in the big gate accident, and the Legion of Super-Heroes were disbanded under orders of the United Planets.

Each issue focuses on a different planet, and different Legionnaires, and is drawn by a different artist. This includes, to my surprise, Steve Dillon drawing issue 5 (which focuses on Karate Kid and Ferro Lad, hanging out on the equivalent of a monastery planet.)

The gist is, the United Planets aren't so united at the moment. The "stargate" system was taken offline after the Blight's tampering caused the massive failure that threw the cast of Legion Lost to the far side of the universe. Which makes travel and shipping difficult, which has ripple effects. The lightning siblings' homeworld of Winath relies on weather control technology, but it's harder to get parts to sustain it, and with longer shipping times, it's harder to sell produce.

Beyond that, a lot of it is setting up status quo for the next ongoing series. The new president of the U.P, a Leland McCauley, has his own team of superheroes, for which Mon-El decided to be frontman. Certain members of the Legion are working under-the-radar to be ready for the next big problem. There's some sort of advanced, artificial intelligence code working to purposes the people on Earth aren't sure of (though the people on Xanth sure as hell know.) Phantom Girl's pregnant with Ultra Boy's kid, and hanging out on his homeworld to hide from her domineering bitch of a mother. Which is also how Abnett and Lanning work to bring a new Timber Wolf into the picture.

Despite being build-up, each issue does also function as its own distinct solo adventure, with each character or characters having come to some sort of decision about what they're going to do next. The mini-series concludes with the lost Legionnaires reappearing in orbit above Earth, and that's where next week's entry will pick up.

Saturday Splash Page #108

 

"Judgement's Due," in Supergirl (vol. 3) #48, by Peter David (writer), Leonard Kirk (penciler), Robin Riggs (inker), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)

As mentioned last week, one effect of Crisis on the Infinite Earths was to make Superman the only Kryptonian again. But DC couldn't put the Supergirl idea away entirely, so we got the. . .unusual "Matrix" Supergirl. I'm only vaguely up on her backstory. Something about an alternate reality, a Luthor with a full head and beard of red hair? Made of pink, protoplasmic goo, has telekinetic powers.

I don't know where he got the notion, and I'm a little surprised DC let him do it, but Peter David combined Supergirl with a young woman named Linda Danvers, to create a composite person. Linda's memories, but filtered more through Matrix's perceptions and attitudes.

The first year is largely Supergirl figuring out what's happened to her, how it happened, and what things are going to be like for her going forward. This involves a lot of Linda's friends and acquaintances trying to figure out the 180 she's pulled in personality, and "Mae" realizing the girl she's merged with wasn't quite what she figured at first glance. It also involves a demon called Buzz, who is a persistent source of both advice and irritation for almost the entire series.

Around the end of the first year, Leonard Kirk takes over as regular penciler from Gary Frank. Kirk and Riggs' art tends to soften Supergirl's appearance relative to Frank's, who had more of a thin, sharp edge to faces and expressions (though he hadn't drifted into the overly busy and stiff work he would by the time he's working with Geoff Johns a lot.) While Kirk's fully capable of drawing a furious Supergirl, he rounds jawlines and cheeks, which allows for a wider range of expression.

I think David ramps up the humor and puns more once Kirk takes over the art duties as well, but that might just be the shift in the direction of the series. Once Supergirl has some handle on the basics of her new life in Leesburg, David starts to unravel the nature of what she is (or has become, maybe.) She'd already begun to manifest new powers - flame wings, literal flame (not heat) vision -and seems to be attracting a particular kind of weirdo. Oddly dressed little boys who claim to be God, demons, fallen angels, a lady who changes into a superfast cyborg-horse person (that is also physically male, and no I'm not talking about Beta Ray Bill. Different cyborg horse-person.)

Supergirl also has to deal with people looking up to her, worshiping her, and the expectations that come with that, on top of the usual subplot stuff of parental issues, relationship issues, work troubles. That all culminates in a huge battle in issue 50 against a being out to claim Earth for his own, by forcing God to renounce his hold on it.

At which point David and Kirk pivot again. Now it's just Linda, with Golden Age Superman power levels, and the white t-shirt look Supergirl was sporting in the Timmverse Superman cartoon, with no idea where her other, angelic half, is. The story becomes a quest of sorts, with Linda having to team up with Buzz, and neither seeming to bring out the best in each other. That leaves Linda wondering if all the good she did, all the good that was in her, was really that other being. And if so, can she really change? Can Buzz, and does he even want to? 

That builds to another big showdown in issue 74, this time in the Garden of Eden. David pulls together threads he introduced over 40 issues earlier, and even uses elements from his Joker: Last Laugh tie-ins (in general, I find the event tie-ins and crossovers to be the weakest issues, but those two issues were pretty enjoyable.)

It feels like the book should end there. All the major threads tied up as they're going to get. But the book hung on another half-dozen issues, now with Ed Benes as artist. David brings in the Silver Age Kara Zor-El, somehow diverted to this world, and has her and Linda interact, until Linda tries to take Kara's place in the Silver Age (Earth-1?) timeline, including the showdown against the Anti-Monitor. Doesn't work, natch, no thanks to the always useless Hal Jordan Spectre. Plus, there's some idiot in a Skyrim mask out to kill Linda, but he can't find her.

It feels less like a Supergirl story than David lining up his future plans for Linda's character, which would play out over the Fallen Angel series at DC and then IDW.

As for Supergirl the concept, DC would bring back "Superman's cousin" in a Superman/Batman arc by Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner, then prove to have absolute fuck-all clue what to actually do with the character. So she bounced from one concept to the next - Outsiders this week, hanging out in Kandor with Power Girl the next week - probably getting the most traction when Waid and Kitson used her in their Legion of Super-Heroes book.

Random Back Issues #122 - The Jaguar #7

Shot through the heart, and you're to blame, 'cause the cop is afraid, of cryptid dames. 

Maria De Guzman takes a walk in the woods outside the college town where she lives to enjoy some peace and quiet. It's also a chance to see what she can do as the Jaguar.

After spending a moment wondering how her costume transported itself from her closet to her body, she tests her long jump. A quarter of a mile's not bad, but only makes her question what she is even further. She sets off running and easily catches a squirrel, noting the animal didn't fear her when men did, and which is the wiser? Leaping to the top of a tree to enjoy the view, Maria marvels at how she can hear the students back on campus (which she described as 45-minute walk). But she also hears gunshots.

The shooting is the local sheriff and one of his deputies, plinking away at cans on a fence while another deputy takes the statement of a farmer about a break-in on his property last night. The shooters are a couple of dopes, as the sheriff tells the deputy that if those cans were 'international drug lords, they'd have fried you by now, Zimo!' Don't see the issue, the drug lords are clearly just selling to the squirrels.

Zimo responds he wants to live in frontier days, so he could slay savage Indians, but the sheriff objects to that talk. He's one-quarter Cherokee, after all! The deputy argues the sheriff, named Dal Zehnder, is German, but the sheriff insists his people crossed the land bridge from Asia 20,000 years ago! At least he's not buying into the Clovis hypothesis. He also doesn't know why Zimo needs a .44 Magnum, but Zimo argues it's for Bigfeet and Sasquatches, right about the time the Jaguar arrives to see what's happening. Zimo's immediate response is to shoot her. Credit to the sheriff, he's really sticking to his "one-quarter Cherokee" bit with the 'stupid white-eyes' remark.

Fortunately, the bullet didn't penetrate, sparing Zimo's hours of trying to figure out how a subliterate dolt like himself could fill out a report on the shooting. While Zimo and Dal tell the other deputy, Jaguar runs into the woods. The farmer says the only other damage was to the cover of his old well, and when the competent deputy offers to board it up, she falls in. The Jaguar's made it to a road and switched back to Maria. Maria can feel the pain of the gunshot, but also hears the shouts (the Jaguar abilities seem to be leaking over) and immediately switches back to the Jaguar to investigate, not watching to see what's ahead.

Ouch. Still, she returns to the farm, where the deputy (one of the other cops refers to her as "Rocky", but the other called her "Lucky") is alive, but partially buried. The Jaguar climbs down, but she's a lot heavier in this form, so the side of the well collapses, burying her, too. She begins to panic, unconsciously reverting to Maria as she curses her overconfidence for killing the cop. But Lucky's not dead, and not able to see who's with her, tells "Jaguar" how she was thinking of stories about dragons her grandmother who came from Japan told. About them being forces for good.

This lasts 3 panels, but is enough to spur Maria into transforming back and leaping to safety with "Lucky" in a scene I used for Sunday Splash Page #274. After that, there's one page of Maria back in her dorm room, noting her cuts healed within an hour, and that something about her made the people (especially the guys) afraid. I don't think Messner-Loebs ever delves into if she's got a pheromone thing going, like Jessica Drew used to, or if it's something magic or what.

{5th longbox, 7th comics. The Jaguar #7, by William Messner-Loebs (writer), Chuck Wojtkiewicz (penciler), Mike Manley and Bruce N. Solotoff (inkers), M. Hollingsworth (colorist), W. Schubert (letterer)}