What I Bought 3/13/2024

Welp, did not go to a comic convention last weekend. Did try a gaming store, but it was more collectible card games than video games. Also, they had a box of comics, but it was basically just The Walking Dead. Anyway, I'm typing this Thursday, waiting to see if a tornado shows up. Hopefully not!

Power Pack: Into the Storm #3, by Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Storm gambling the Brood are terrified of the color blue.

Franklin's apparent death is immediately revealed as a fake-out. The ship's just caught in a Brood tractor beam, and Franklin's body gets wrapped in some fiber stuff that would keep him asleep, if, you know, he wasn't asleep already. So while Franklin goes back to Earth and brings Storm in the ship, the Pack stage a rescue attempt.

The rescue is going pretty badly until Storm shows up and takes advantage of the large amount of lightning available on the alien world's atmosphere. The kids are free, but the storm goes out of control and causes the Brood ship to crash and explode. So for the second time since the end of last issue, the Power kids think someone in their little group has died. At least this time, we already know Djinna is a prisoner of her aunt, along with Franklin's unconscious body. Still, that feels like going to the same well too quickly.

Kofi insists on trying to save Djinna himself, but the effect of teleporting that far makes him easy prey for Mayhem. And the Pack and Storm are back on the alien world. So it feels like all that's changed is who is a hostage, and who's holding them. Mayhem seems to have plans to use the kids' powers for herself, just like the Brood. It's just that her plans don't involve planting embryos inside them.

One thing I notice is how quick all these kids are too try and take the blame for things when they go wrong. Alex tries to blame himself when they think Franklin is dead. Kofi thinks it's his job to rescue Djinna. Some of it is these are superhero comics, so the characters are going to care about doing the right thing (and Kofi's dad clearly places a lot of expectations on him as a future public figure.) But I'd expect kids to deny responsibility at least some of the time.

Black Widow and Hawkeye #1, by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - That arrowhead looks weird.

Hawkeye's on the run from a lot of people, for killing a Russian Foreign Minister. Mockingbird's being watched too closely to help, but the Black Widow's not. Didn't realize those two had become pals, but why not? All superheroes are pals now. 

By the time she finds the guy released from Russian prison to kill Clint, he claims he already blew Hawkeye up. Wrong, but unfortunately there are other killers with the professionalism to try and finish the job. Just not before the Widow shows up. She tries to make Hawkeye leave Madripoor, but he refuses. In fact, he doesn't want her involved at all. So he's determined to solve it alone, since he's being hunted. Because he's stubborn and arrogant. Natasha's going to stick around, figuring he can't do it alone. Because she's also stubborn and arrogant.

At any rate, Clint's explanation is phrased in such a way as to imply he's guilty. I figure it's another fake-out where he was watching the press conference, and saw someone who looks just like him release the arrow that killed the guy. Or the whole thing is faked footage. A.I. generated crap that nobody's debunked for. . .reasons. Ominous reasons.

So far, the fact the Black Widow has a symbiote is something I can largely ignore. She uses it to get information - via symbiote spiders crawling into the guy's brain? - and to restrain one of Hawkeye's attackers. Which makes it basically a tool. Like her bracelets. I can deal with that. This "give everyone a symbiote" thing is still stupid.

Villanelli seems to have a lot of panels with close-ups on things. Clint's bow, Natasha's hand as the symbiote reforms around it, a mechanical hook arm that clasps Hawkeye's ankle. Sometimes they're smaller panels set against the backdrop of a larger establishing shot, and sometimes they're one in a sequence of rapid-fire panels. It works as a point of emphasis.

What I Bought 2/29/2024

I might be going to a comic convention this weekend. Alex is trying to work something out, which means a 50-50 shot at best, but we'll see.

Power Pack: Into the Storm #2, by Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Nolan Woodard (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Scourge of the Space Jellyfish!

Djinna, Kofi and the Pack try to escape from Djinna's angry relative Mayhem. They only manage it because an angry Brood Queen shows up, also after the Power kids, and attacks Mayhem. So when the X-Men defeated the Brood that one time, did they free all those giant space whales the Brood used as ships? Because B'rute (great name) has got a ship that looks like a fish (maybe one of those Devonian fish with the heavy bone plating over their heads), but it's made of metal.

The kids flee to a planet with heavy atmospheric storms to hide in while Franklin's dream self uses Friday to reach the X-Men and ask for help. It's a little goofy in that Storm meets him, but he asks her to get ahold of Wolverine and Kitty, and she goes to do that, rather than just rounding up whatever X-Men are at hand. By the time Franklin returns to his body, the ship is under attack by giant space jellyfish. The ship blows up, seemingly with Franklin still inside. Oops.

I'm sure it's a fakeout - the Brood caught up so I imagine they're involved - but it's a little weird Franklin's talking to everyone in his dream self, saying he'll wake himself up and jump out of the ship, rather than having simply done it.

Most of the issue is the kids talking about their parents and their expectations. Kofi's dad expects him to follow the rules, which Kofi seems to have trouble doing. Djinna's a disappointment to her mother because she's not a good fighter, so she suspects she was only allowed to attend the academy on the chance she might learn how to make some decent weapons. The Power kids are keeping it a secret from their parents, with the aid of a spell that makes their parents not notice weird stuff, although their mom still freaks out, which seems troubling. And Franklin's parents tried to lock his powers away (so he doesn't rewrite reality in a fit of pique, but still.)

All of them are trying to meet expectations, but also be themselves. Which requires doing stuff on the sly, as in this mini-series. Which means there's no safety net when things go wrong. Having the Fantastic Four around to help deal with space jellyfish probably would have been handy.

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.)

Saturday Splash Page #16

 

"Death Down Below," in X-Factor (vol. 1) #10, by Louise Simonson (writer), Walter Simonson (penciler), Bob Wiacek (inker), Petra Scotese (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

Does it make sense to go with a splash page that not only doesn't feature the title characters, but they aren't even mentioned? Probably not. But the other options were one of Freedom Force trying to arrest Rusty and Skids (with Mystique cosplaying as Uncle Sam), or Joe Quesada drawing Wolfsbane and Feral as Ren & Stimpy. So, go with Walt Simonson drawing the Mutant Massacre in the biggest sewer I have ever seen.

I've never owned many issues of X-Factor. Probably because it never seemed like a cool X-book. You either have the Original 5 X-Men, and the only one of them I'd define as cool is the Beast, and that's mostly when he hangs out with the Avengers. When it's not them, it's the bunch that worked for the government, and anyone who's read Marvel Comics knows working for the Man isn't cool.

It isn't like the book has a great start. Far as I can tell, Marvel wanted more X-Books than just Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants, and someone got the bright idea to reunite the original team. Sure, Angel, Beast and Iceman were on the Defenders, but they can cancel that easily enough. More difficult were Cyclops and Jean Grey. Cyclops for being a husband and father, Jean for being dead after committing genocide. 

Jim Shooter apparently decreed no bringing Jean back as a hero unless they could wipe the murder of the broccoli people off her ledger. So that's how we get the notion of Phoenix creating a facsimile of Jean, while Jean's slumbering in an energy cocoon at the bottom of a bay. As for Cyclops, Uncanny X-Men #201 made it pretty clear to everyone, including Maddy Pryor, that he wanted to keep being an X-Man, and his responsibilities as husband and father were of, probably not even secondary importance. He loses the fight against Storm for leadership of the X-Men one month, and the first issue of X-Factor came out the next month. It was 13 issues before he even bothered to go back and try and check on Maddy or little Nate.

How anyone on the X-Men listens to that deadbeat, I will never know. I mean, Gambit's an inveterate scumbag, but he's also not typically trying to give orders.

The actual initial idea for the book isn't terrible. Xavier's first students, feeling the X-Men are no longer following Xavier's ideals, what with letting Magneto hang around, decide it's up to them. I mean, it's presumptuous as hell, as I can picture Cyclops making some big speech that would make me roll my eyes right out of my head, but at least, "find and protect young mutants while helping them learn to control their powers", is a decent enough storytelling engine.

Of course, the way they go about it is fairly idiotic. They pose as a group of ordinary humans called the X-Terminators, who hunt down mutants. People hire them for this purpose, but they are constantly thwarted by those dastardly X-Factor mutants, always helping the targets escape. Granted that Angel's money is funding the whole thing (looked over by future pain-in-the ass Cameron Hodge), but you'd think their failure to actually capture or kill any of their targets would tend to make business dry up. But hell, people keep hiring Arcade to kill superheroes.

People in the Marvel Universe are stupid, is what I'm getting at.

But it also doesn't seem like a way to gain the trust of the people you're trying to help, showing up like you're going to kill them, only to then go, "Just kidding! We're here to help, but play along like my two friends in the blue jumpsuits are really trying to kill you!"

I think the whole thing got dropped shortly after Mutant Massacre, and once Louise Simonson started writing the book (with Walt Simonson drawing it some of them time), the team spent more time just fighting Apocalypse and his plans. Angel lost his wings, got the metal ones. Beast went back to being blue and furry. Future X-Forcer and NextWave alum Boom-Boom showed up. Jean and Scott took advantage of the Assassination of Maddy Pryor by the Coward X-Office to get custody of the baby. Probably some other shit I don't care about.

After a series of events like X-Tinction Agenda and *sigh* the Muir Island Saga, the series shifted to the government team, written by Peter David, with Joe Quesada and Larry Stroman as pencilers for the early stages. David wrote a team that was basically a mess psychologically, between Havok's paranoia, Polaris' self-confidence issues, Quicksilver's abrasive nature, etc,. It didn't seem like working for the government was helping any, what with the moral compromises you have to navigate when stuck following official policy.

I think this is the best regarded stretch for this volume, which is remarkable because David only wrote the book for about 20 issues, and a few of those were wasted on X-Cutioner's Song crossovers. But he established characterizations that stuck for a few members of the cast. "Pietro Maximoff Syndrome" gets a lot of play, but the notion that Strong Guy's party dude attitude is just an act is another. Though some writers handle them better than others. Matthew Rosenberg probably read some of PAD's stories with Jamie Madrox, but the conclusions he took from them are, I'll be kind and say "curious."

After that, the book went on for another 50 or so issues. Lobdell, Dematteis, DeZago, John Francis Moore, lots of writers over a 20 issue span before Howard Mackie takes over for the last 35 issues. The roster shifted as characters started dropping like flies. This is the stretch when Forge and Mystique were on the team. Not sure Forge being a headliner ever bodes well. Outside of Forge and Mystique's relationship being referenced in her ongoing series, I don't remember seeing anyone talk about this stretch of the book, not even in a "holy crap this was terrible," sense, which doesn't bode well.

What I Bought 11/27/2019

The final tally for fiction writing in November was 53,429 words, not counting Blogsgiving last week. Because that wasn't fiction, obviously. Like I figured, none of the stories are anywhere near completion - they're mostly just getting to the part where things really kick off - but it was real progress, so I'm pretty happy with that. Now it's just a matter of keeping going.

Infinity 8 #16, by Emmanuel Gilbert and Lewis Trondheim (writers), Franck Biancarelli (artist) -  That creature in the background looks like something from a more recent Scooby-Doo series.

OK, sixth try at a timeline. This time, it's Leila Sherad, from the Antiquities section of the Customs department. Sherad is a real "shoot first, ask no questions" type. Seems a little careless for someone dealing with antiquities. At least they know to investigate closer to the center, and that the people they want to talk to will emerge in four hours. Of course, that leaves four hours for Sherad to fuck things up somehow. She requests to bring along a historian she hassled at the beginning of the issue, and while he gets a chance to investigate the hyper-sarcophagus of an alleged living god, they find a floating orb that might contain a message, or it might be something else. At the least, there's something else interested in that sarcophagus in the area.

I'm curious how Sherad and this historian are going to mess this up, seeing as there are still two more turns available to use. I guess these two could always get it right and solve the mystery, but I feel like they wouldn't tell you they could use the timeline trick up to 8 times, and call the series Infinity 8, then only use 6. The most likely is Sherad shooting someone or something she shouldn't and prompting a hostile response from the ones responsible for this place. Or a hostile response from just about anyone, really. You would think someone with expertise in other cultures to be a little more diplomatic.

Biancarelli's style makes the space necropolis look more like the deep sea at times, opting for a lot of blues in the sky, and weird bits floating through that could look like air bubbles or something. Little different than most of the other artists. Biancarelli also doesn't play up the T&A factor with Sherad as much as most of the artists have with their officer. That might just be because he doesn't put her in the standard uniform, that skintight blue number with the exposed midriff. She's in what looks like a pair of jeans a white tank top. Which I'm guessing represents her general disdain for regulations or protocols. It's certainly not any sort of normal uniform, since she has to keep telling people she's a cop.

I like the choice of visual for the blaster she carries. The whole panel is colored golden yellow, except for the white lines expanding outward from the barrel of the weapon. It's such a change in color scheme from the rest of the panels it really stands out.

Power Pack: Grow Up! by Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Gurihiru (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Kitty shouldn't need to phase through that, should she? It's just light.

Power Pack feels like something I should have been into back in the day, but kind of missed for one reason or another (except the issue of Uncanny X-Men where that one Morlock abducts the kids and makes their parents forget about them). I don't even know how old most of them are now in continuity. In this case, though, the story revolves around Alex' 13th birthday, with the main part drawn by June Brigman. Alex is really excited to spend time with a girl he likes, but worried his siblings will embarrass him at the Lila Cheney concert. But the kids are too busy trying to protect their talking horse alien friend from the Brood to do that.

There's a recurring thread of Katie being angry that everyone keeps calling her a baby and treating her like one. Being an only child, I don't know if that's accurate, other than it certainly seems like siblings would pick at each other that way. I did like how there's almost a sense of constantly shifting alliances between the kids. Jack, Julie, and Katie might all be angry at Alex for how he's acting towards them, and therefore defend Katie against Alex. But when he's not around, they (especially Jack) will give Katie grief instead.

I did get a good laugh out of Katie insisting that next time they try to use the "bathroom" excuse to slip away from their parents, it has to be someone other than her that has to go. That seems fair, although I imagine it'll be harder to explain Katie accompanying her older sister to the bathroom than vice versa. But I see her point.

The other story, the one drawn by the Gurihiru team, takes place later that night, and focuses on Katie, who feels bad because she spent all the money that was supposed to be for Alex' present from her on the Lila Cheney action figure she got. Which she did because he was being a jerk, but now that he's acting nicer, she feels bad. Which feels accurate from what I remember being that age. Doing something that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, then figuring out I was being a selfish jerk later on. Ugh, I hated that feeling. Stupid guilt. The resolution is set up by something from the tail end of the first story, and not hard to see coming, but it's nice.

Both Brigman and Gurihiru do a good job being expressive with the kids' faces. Especially Alex, who has some expressions where you'd understand his siblings wanting to pop him in the jaw. Brigman gets to draw some fight scenes, which work pretty well. Nothing majorly creative, just a good ebb-and-flow where the kids have the element of surprise, and then things start to turn against them, as they're pretty disorganized. I feel like Gurihiru draws the kids as taller, but still kids. It might just be because they're really only around each other in that story, rather than giant aliens and adults. There aren't a bunch of bigger characters to make them look smaller by comparison.