Saturday Splash Page #63

 

"Fin," in Ultimate X-Men Annual #1, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Tom Raney (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Gina Going-Raney (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

All the issues of Ultimate X-Men I still own - all three of them - involve Gambit. Which is odd, considering I have very little use for the version in the Marvel Universe. There was some discussion of Gambit in the comments section for the 400th episode of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, and I noted there that Gambit seemed very cool to me when I first saw him. The exploding playing cards, the bo staff (Donatello was admittedly my least favorite Ninja Turtle, but that didn't mean he wasn't cool), and hey! Rogue liked Gambit, and Rogue was cool. I was not yet aware that Rogue's taste in men was worse than her luck in parental figures.

But then it turns out Gambit's been married this whole time, and that seemed kind of sleazy. The longer he was around, the less he seemed a "charming thief", and more a "two-faced conman", jerking Rogue around while flirting with anything he laid eyes upon.

No doubt aided by the fact he only appeared in maybe a half-dozen issues, the Ultimate Universe version didn't go that route. The story we looked at last week, he's kind of a low-level hustler, living on the street, able to use his powers for some flashy tricks to win pocket change or a phone number from a pretty lady, but that's about it. He's nice enough to try to protect an orphaned girl, and to recognize when he's at the limits of what he can do.

Brian K. Vaughn brought him back, a fair bit closer to his Marvel namesake, and he and Rogue took off to be high-class thieves together. Which brings us to this comic, where a successful heist is interrupted by the Juggernaut, who was pals with Rogue when they were in Weapon X. Gambit ends up dying dropping an entire construction site on Juggy's skull, and Rogue absorbs his powers and mind when she kisses him as he dies.

Far as I know, nobody brought him back before the Ultimate Universe got wiped out by Secret Wars (although I read Jonathan Hickman might be bringing it back), so he never got the chance to diverge too far from the cocky guy enjoying stealing stuff with his girlfriend. No Thieves Guild and Assassins Guild stuff, no Belladonna or any of that mess. Sometimes simpler is better.

Sunday Splash Page #249

 

"Invisible Elevator," in The Hood #2, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Kyle Hotz (penciler), Eric Powell (inker), Brian Haberlin (colorist), Andy Gentile and Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Before Bendis wildly overexposed The Hood by making him the centerpiece villain of much of his Avengers run, Brian K. Vaughn and Kyle Hotz introduced the character in a six-issue MAX imprint mini-series.

They pretty much set the outline for Parker Robbins within the first few pages. He visits his mother in the mental hospital and tells her stories about how he's studying to become a doctor or lawyer, it changes each time. When an orderly mentions the discrepancy, Robbins threatens to knife him. He's got a pregnant girlfriend he's all sweet talk with, who he cheats on regularly with a sex worker (I imagine that, and all the cursing, are why this was a MAX book.) Hotz and Powell are good at making Parker look a little softer or more innocent when he puts on the charm, then shifting to a shit-eating grin or some bad boy glower when he is a bad mood. 

He tries to rob a warehouse with his junkie cousin John, who has a hot tip about a 'major shipment', but all they find is what's left of a demonic summoning. Parker gets his levitating boots and invisibility hood by robbing the corpse of a demon he shoots with a regular handgun. With the way Hotz draws the hood, all we can see of Parker's face most of the time his jaw, or more critically, his mouth. Which is working double shifts getting him into and out of trouble. The hood itself is this immense, baggy-looking thing that drapes over Parker. With the amount of fabric Hotz draws, and how it bunches and folds over Parker, it looks like it would weigh a ton.

Ultimately, Parker's more ambition than brains. He figures with his new abilities they can swipe some blood diamonds being brought in. All he accomplishes is killing a cop (which his cousin takes the rap for), and putting himself in the crosshairs of some major underworld crime figure called "The Golem." For all Parker's hustling and scrambling, he's just barely able to get his cousin exonerated and The Golem off his back, with nothing to show for it, except that he's made a bunch of enemies.

You can do a lot with a villain who thinks he's hotter stuff than he is, or who jumps into things without really understanding what he's getting into, and as portrayed here, Parker's perfect for that. Vaughn writes him as smart enough to see opportunities, but not smart or careful enough to exploit them without fucking up. He's not cut out to be a henchman, like Jack O'Lantern, Constrictor, or Shocker, who all work as muscle for The Golem, but he really shouldn't be able to pull a Zemo and gather a bunch of super-villains under his banner.

It's as cynical a book as you would expect. Parker can't even enjoy the limited success he achieved, since that's also when he learns the cop he shot died. Naturally, said cop was cheating on his wife with his partner, and his wife is an engineer at Stark Industries, who built herself a suit to go after The Hood. Don't think that ever paid off. There's also a scene where she's reading to her husband while he's a coma, and one of the doctors in the hall remarks that stuff they tell people, that folks in comas can hear you, is total crap. Gee, why don't you say it a little louder and see if you can flatline a few people?

Vaughn adds in a few other scenes for, flavor, I guess. The Golem asks if any of his super-goons are mutants, because his daughter is a mutant and who like him to be more diverse in his hiring practices. Parker and his cousin are approached in a bar by a guy recruiting for HYDRA, who they accuse of being responsible for 9/11 as they kick the shit out of him. This follows directly on Parker recognizing Electro in civilian duds across the bar, and commenting that the reason to be a super-villain is that women are all over them. Gotta wonder how true that is, if Electro is hanging out in the same bar as a couple of losers like Parker and John. Probably doesn't help that Hotz' "halfway to Kelley Jones" art style makes Max Dillon look kinda ugly, and the suit he's wearing looks straight outta the '70s.

Sunday Splash Page #162

 

"Extra-Dimensional Pharmacology," in Doctor Strange: The Oath #1, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Marcos Martin (penciler), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Javier Rodriguez (colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer)

This is one of the first mini-series I can remember getting unexpectedly excited for after I started this blog. I didn't know Brian K. Vaughn from anybody as a writer. I'm sure I'd heard of Ex Machina, but I hadn't (and still haven't) read it. And I don't think I'd come across Marcos Martin's artwork yet, either.

And yet, the combination of an interesting first cover, and a slow week in terms of new releases I was interested in, got me to pick this up. And it worked out pretty well, so I can blame all those crappy Marvel mini-series I took chances on in subsequent years on my good fortune with this one.

(Not really. The blame for those is on my poor judgement as always.)

Vaughn's Strange is an interesting mixture of experience and the arrogance that comes with that. He is extremely skilled and has been through a lot, knows a lot. But there are blind spots that come with that all the same. He underestimates an opponent (and is later underestimated himself), overreaches against a powerful creature that's killed past Sorcerer Supremes, but is able to adjust and recover. He's knowledgeable, but not infallible. He can charge in rashly, and even be a bit cruel when his temper is up. And criticially to the story, he's still very much a doctor of medicine. 

He's also a bit charming - which Vaughn plays up by adding Night Nurse to the supporting cast and eventually starting up a relationship between the two of them - and could be seen as a bit absent-minded at times. Or he's just confident that Wong has his back. He's seen a lot, and so he has a tendency to take a slightly know-it-all approach with people, psychoanalyzing them in a way that could get on someone's nerves.

Martin's version Strange is tall and wiry, more than a bit of Vincent Price to him, I think. He draws the Cloak of Levitation as a long, narrow thing that tends to close tightly around Stephen so that only his head is visible above. But Martin also changes the costume up slightly, in that Strange wears the blue shirt loose over a ordinary looking pair of slacks, rather than tucked under a belt but over a pair of leggings, as was typically the look. Maybe Strange is worried someone will call him on his "casual Friday" attire, and the Cloak wants to spare him the embarrassment.

Really, though, I think Martin, Lopez, and Rodriguez are trying to channel their best Ditko. Never a bad call when we're talking about Dr. Strange, I assume. The scenes where Stephen is in other dimensions, or the mindscape, definitely owe a lot to Ditko's Strange, and Martin's creativity in design is well-suited for it. Wish he'd had more opportunity to go experimental with panel layouts.

Sunday Splash Page #98

"Surprise In Stereo", in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #7, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Georges Jeanty (penciler), Andy Owens (inker), Dave Stewart (colorist), Richard Starkings and Jimmy (letterers)

There had been other comics based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer while the TV show was still going, but they focused on stories that could fit somewhere within the margins of the episodes. This was the first series that was really a continuation of where the show left off after Season 7, with Buffy now in command of an army of 500 Slayers, attracting the enmity of all sorts of people.

I didn't give a shit about that. As far as the series went, I was always much more interested in Faith than Buffy (likewise more interested in Spike than Angel). So, when they solicited an arc focused on Faith, written by Brian K. Vaughn, whose Dr. Strange: The Oath mini-series I enjoyed, I was all in on that.

In this case, Giles tags Faith to go kill some high-born, British girl who's teamed up with a vaguely Gambit-sleazy warlock to kill Buffy. Love how the Scoobies always give her the stink-eye for her past fuck-ups, while also figuring it makes her perfect to do the work they rather not dirty their hands with. Faith has to learn to pass as aristocracy herself, but befriends the girl and tries to divert her off the path Faith's walked already. It doesn't work, because those sorts of things never do for her.

Anyway, it was an fun little 4-issue arc, which didn't convince me to continuing buying the series regularly after it concluded. I did pick up one more issue about 18 months later, a one-shot that focused on Faith and Giles and their traveling "help lost Slayers" road show, but it was written and drawn by someone else and not nearly as good. Season 8 eventually ended, and then Season 9 kicked off. That included Angel and Faith, which we already looked at in Sunday Splash Page #28.

That does it for the "Bs", other than the current Black Cat series, which I probably won't double-back to until after it's finished.

Cloak Needs To Fine Tune The Darkness Sensor In His Cloak

I picked up all the trades for the Brian K. Vaughn/Adrian Alphona/Takeshi Miyazawa/Christian Strain run on Runaways. You likely do not need me to tell you this, but it's very good. There's a lot of great dialogue, the characters look like teenagers, and wear real clothes (I suppose*), there are a lot of touching emotional moments, plenty of comedy (I find the barrage of insults between Gert and Nico hilarious), and it's just an enjoyable read.

I haven't decided whether I should pick up the later creative teams' work. Leaning towards no, as there's a ton - or at least several dozen pounds worth of other things out there I know I want to read at some point**. I am curious if there's ever been any resolution to Cloak's sense that one of the teens has a great darkness within them. There will be spoilers, if you're as unfamiliar with the series' plotlines as I was before I bought the trades.

In Volume 2, he and Dagger are duped into believing the Runaways (and not their parents) murdered a young girl and kidnapped Molly. Misunderstanding battle ensues, and Cloak sucks Alex, Karolina, Chase, and Nico into his cloak, as he does. While they're inside, he says he can't sense any sign they've killed anyone (I guess the vampire doesn't count since he essentially killed himself), but there is a great darkness within them. Pursuit of this is disrupted by Gertrude, Old Lace, and Molly renewing the battle until people calm down enough to talk out their differences. Everyone gets out of the cloak, they part as friends, stuff goes downhill shortly. Three volumes later, Cloak shows up at their new hideout needing help to clear himself of a crime. He says he found them by homing in on that same darkness, but he still can't (or won't) pinpoint who it's from.

Figure we can eliminate Xavin (who wasn't on the team, or even on the planet) at that point, and Victor, who hadn't been there when they first met Cloak. Cloak never swallowed up Gert or Molly, so he couldn't have sensed anything from them. Which leaves Chase, Alex, Nico, Karolina. Alex is dead. This doesn't stop most of the team from figuring it must have been Alex, for good reason. And Cloak does allow that he may 'be recognizing the dark shadow left behind by your former teammate'. That'd be an interesting idea, if we take the tack that Alex formed them into a team, but did so for different reasons than he told them, and that's still proving divisive within them. Or that because their team was formed under false pretenses, it taints everything they've tried to do since. I don't think that second one holds, since they've moved beyond simply trying to stop their parents/clean up their messes, but it seemed worth mentioning as a possibility. Still, it seems odd that a deceased person would have that much malevolence that it would hang around a group of people like a toxic cloud for months, to the extent he can follow it right to them.

Karolina is in space with Xavin, probably in another galaxy entirely by this point. So it seems equally unlikely she's the source, at least directly. Her departure did seem to make the team a bit more divided, so it could be helping to stir things up within someone else. That would leave Chase or Nico. Before I remembered that Karolina wasn't with them when Cloak returned, I was confused because the Gribborim describe both Nico and Chase as innocent souls, which on first glance, didn't jibe with the idea one of them had a great darkness within. Which left Karolina, which seemed unlikely, though it would have been a twist, the girl who draws power from the sun to make beautiful light is the darkest. Then I remembered she wasn't there, then I remembered that he felt the darkness even though he knew none of them had killed anybody. So it's a sleeping darkness, malevolence in potentia.

If we're being honest, I lean towards Nico. Chase has some anger, true, but it mostly seems his form of grieving, or bluster. When he makes his play to resurrect someone, he opts to use himself, not someone else. He is a little sanctimonious about how he opts for that route because he's a good person, but if it were him, I feel like he wouldn't see any issue with sacrificing someone else if he really believed this was important enough.

As for Nico, well, I'm probably picking on her because she attacked Spider-Man unprovoked, and this is not a good way to earn benefit of the doubt with me. But she does seem so quick to hostility sometimes, and the way she often makes decisions that seem almost designed to create trouble (even as she recognizes this is a bad thing to be doing), that could be more than she suspects. She can be pretty scary sometimes, wither her 'I don't make threats, I give orders' line to Chase, casually discorporating the Wrecker***, promising Vic they'll rip Chase's heart out if he tries something again. She spooks me. Maybe it's just the pressure of having to herd this group of cats when she never asked for the responsibility, but darkness released under pressure is still darkness.

But hell, I'm discussing an ambiguous sense of "darkness" one character sensed within another character, so I probably shouldn't dismiss the dead character so quickly. It's only that the way it was thrown out there by Cloak, it was as if he wanted to reassure them, because he needs their help. "Sure, sure, it's probably just your dead friend. You're all good people, the kind who will totally help me out of the jam I'm in."

* I know people complain when artists put all their characters in the jeans/t-shirt look, and sure, I like it when artists get creative, especially if they give the characters a style I find appealing. But the t-shirt/jeans thing has really never bothered me much, since I tend to wear that as much as possible. And yes, some of my shirts are completely devoid of any pictures, designs, or words, so it doesn't strike me as that unusual, if even if I know I'm hardly the height of fashion.


** I swear, it seems like every time I make a decent dent in either my trade or back issue hunting list, I almost immediately think of or read about an nearly equal number of books I should also track down. It's maddening. To the extent "There's too much good stuff out there I want to read!" can be, anyway.


*** It reminds me of Sylvester chasing Tweety through some factory, with all the hatchets and the conveyor belt, and when Sylvester comes out the other side, his body falls into all these neatly sliced bits. That's basically what she did, with the handwave of "It'll wear off in a couple of hours." Are you sure he'll still be alive then? Or sane?

Mystique And Her Survival Instincts

Reading over both of the Mystique collections (one written by Brain K. Vaughn, the other by Sean McKeever), it's hard not to be impressed by Mystique's instincts for self-preservation. She's really quite impressive at turning a situation to her advantage, even if only briefly. Whether it's taking the appearance of a child to try and make those arresting officers pause, or send Rogue into a fury by saying she only wanted what's best for her (because it's better to have a pissed off Rogue trying to kill you than a calm Wolverine, apparently).

The flipside to that is it makes it kind of hard to root for her. Both BKV and McKeever go the same route Ennis did with the Punisher, presenting her opponents who were such remarkable examples of human fertilizer Mystique could look almost good by comparison. Even so, because much of what Mystique does is so clearly self-serving, and since she isn't really in this situation of being a secret agent for Xavier by choice, I tend to find her motives suspect. I'm always wondering what she's getting out of it.

Mind you, it can still be highly entertaining, because there's benefit in the short-term and the long-term, and Raven Darkholme knows the difference between the two and how to weigh it. But again, that makes it that much harder to trust anything she does. Even when Fantomex just happens to show up in time to warn Forge that Mystique is nearby planning to kill Xavier, you know it's all part of some larger scheme, where the potential payoff is worth having all the X-folks out for her blood.

Still, have to be impressed with her commitment to survival. I wonder how interconnected that and her mutant abilities are. If she was always like this, focused on protecting herself, shapeshifting would be a good mutation to develop. The ability to look like anyone she pleases, letting her get close to anyone she wants, or elude nearly anyone she likes.

Easy To Say, Hard To Mean

Hmm, that title sounds vaguely like a Claremontism. Bit of news, I'll be getting my comics tomorrow, so reviews Monday, and I'm sure Adorable Baby Panda will swing by Tuesday. So that'll be two days of joy. I mention that, because I figure it means I can go ahead and rave a little bit more today. I'm shooting for "calmly sarcastic", but may drift into "angry bellowing". Or the Internet equivalent, anyway.

I mentioned that I found the image for yesterday's post on scans_daily. I know some people in the blogrealm are not big fans of the site, and they have their reasons. I find it useful for introducing me to old comics I might want to go hunting for, and occasionally funny. Still, I probably ought to stop reading the comments. But, as I hadn't cured myself of that habit by yesterday, I ambled through the comments for the posts covering that arc from Buffy Season 8. One comment I saw more than once was that the fight between Buffy and Faith in issue #8 shouldn't have happened because those two made peace in Season 7. Well, OK, let's chat about that. Or I will. You don't have to if you don't want, but it's probably good for someone not as much of a Faith homer as I am to balance me out.

Anyway, in the issue itself, Buffy has been teleported without warning to Gigi's estate, which causes her to throw up. When she stands up, Gigi kicks her in the face and starts talking about how she thought Buffy would be harder to kill than all the other Slayers she'd disposed of. They fight a bit, then Faith, in an attempt to rescue Buffy, tackles her out a window, causing them to fall into a shallow pool. Given those circumstances, and their past history, I can completely understand Buffy thinking Faith's gone to the Dark Side again, at least initially. As for Faith, well she probably didn't appreciate her attempt to help Buffy being rewarded with punches, so she hit back, which certainly isn't going to help things, even if she's just trying to slow Buffy long enough to explain. Then when Faith tries to explain Giles sent her there undercover, Buffy pops her again, and says Giles never trusted Faith, and neither did she. Ooo, that's hitting a sore spot with Faith, so then she actually does try and kill Buffy, until she gets herself back under control, by which time Willow manages to teleport Buffy back home. So the whole sequence is largely a product of Buffy being involved in a fight for her life when Faith makes her presence known, and both characters letting tempers get the better of themselves. Happens all the time.

But let's consider the supposed peace the two established in Season 7. It was primarily Buffy showing a willingness to let bygones be bygones, since she was the one that had been wronged. Well, ask yourself if, on an occasion where you've been wronged, have you ever, at a later date, told that person "It's OK," or "I forgive you"? If so, did you ever say it and not really mean it? Perhaps you were in a good mood, they looked down in the dumps, and you felt like trying to raise their spirits, or you were just being polite, or you were trying your best to mean it, but couldn't pull it off. Hey, we're not perfect, and we can only try our best to move forward. And when I think of the scene, I see Buffy making a real effort to bridge the gap between them, and Faith accepting that it's probably the best B can do.

I mean, Faith seemed to be struggling for that since she got there. She took Dawn's 'Are we letting the escaped murderer stay here?*' line, she didn't lash out when Buffy popped her for taking the Potentials to the Bronze to unwind without consulting Generalissimo Summers first**. She's trying to follow orders, but she's still herself enough to call Buffy on her dictatorial attitude, which inadvertently gets her named as new head honcho, which wasn't something she was expecting. So she tries to lead, and nearly get s blown up for her troubles. Meanwhile, Buffy stumbles on the fabled axe-thing, kills Stupid Preacher Guy, and finds the panicked Potentials Faith brought with her and saves them from Super-Vamps. Buffy is bathed in glory and resumes command, and Faith is dinged up in Buffy's bed. So Buffy's feeling good, she knows Faith tried her best, and so she tries to give Faith the forgiveness she wants. And Faith accepts the offer. maybe she believes it, maybe she just figures it's the best she can hope for***.

I'm trying to think of a good comparison from comics. I suppose you could compare it to Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns he mowed through during the Parallax days. I know a few of them (all?) have made peace with Jordan since then. Arisia and Tomar for sure, I think. But you have to wonder, if Hal starts acting a little wonky, are they going to get ready to take him out, just in case it wasn't Parallax (or the Yellow Bug is back inside him)?

* I can't remember whether Dawn said "convict" or "murderer". I think it was the latter, and if so, well Dawn, given that Andrew, Anya, Giles, Spike, and Willow are already staying at the Summers' home prior to Faith's arrival, I'd say, yeah, the murderers are staying there. If it was convict, well, just because you went to prison doesn't mean you're guilty, and just because you haven't been to prison doesn't mean you're an innocent. Yes, Faith was guilty of what she was convicted of, but like I said, Andrew's guilty too, and he hasn't been convicted.

** I'm not sure which part was what caused Buffy to punch her, taking the kids out of the house, or not asking permission.

*** I kind of got the feeling that the body-swap in Season 4 provided Faith with some insights into Buffy, and who she is, and what it's like to be the Slayer people believe in, and are glad to see arrive to save the day. I'm not as certain Buffy learned anything about what it means to be Faith, though to be fair she had to spend some time escaping those Watcher idiots, and getting her friends on her side. Doesn't perhaps provide opportunities for reflection on the lives' of others.

Perhaps The Tea Was Just Tea

Late this week, I found myself thinking about last year's Brian K. Vaughn-penned arc in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the arc starring Faith. In particular, I though of the scene when Giles first approaches Faith with the job of killing rogue Slayer Gigi, who is planning to kill everyone's* favorite Slayer, Buffy. What really stuck with me was Giles complimenting Faith on the fine selection of teas she had in her apartment. I thought to myself, "That can't be right? Faith with tea? I must be misremembering." A quick search on Scans_daily confirmed I wasn't misremembering, and so I concluded this scene must have some significance. Because I'm bored enough to figure if it came to me a year later, it must mean something. I could be wrong, but I figured it might be worth a lark trying to determine that. So here's the page in question.
First order of business: I didn't know what what Faith meant when she says she uses the smelly bags on the dark circles under her eyes. On the assumption she's being straight with Giles, I did a brief internet search, and found that chamomile has a wide variety of uses, including being placed in a heated bag and used as a fomentation to reduce swelling caused by abscesses. Well, I kind of doubt that Faith is having issues with pus-filled regions near the sinuses, but perhaps the fomentation could also reduce swelling from bruises, say from a punch in the face? Faith has never struck me as someone particularly concerned with her well-being, so long as she got the job done. Or perhaps the dark circles are a result of lack of sleep**, which might be a sign of her state of mind. It seems fairly obvious, even within the arc, that Faith is troubled by many things: her life before being Slayer, the killing of the deputy Mayor***, working for the Mayor, the time in a coma, probably her time in prison, and so on. She has a lot considerable weight on her.

What's interesting is, chamomiles are also highly recommended as a sedative, and at least one website listed them as a cure for nightmares. I would figure that Faith learned about the use of chamomile as a facial application from a person, or by doing a little research on her own, so it's seems strange she wouldn't have stumbled across that bit of information as well. If lack of sleep is causing dark circles under the eyes, why not drink the tea to get a sounder sleep?

1st hypothesis: She doesn't know it can be used in that manner. This means the dark circles are caused by something not sleep-related, like say, getting punched in the face. It's possible, but I don't like it. Again, I think the use as a sedative is more commonly known than the other (at least, it came up more frequently on the websites I checked. Heck using chamomile to ease menstrual issues came up more often than to reduce abscessed induced swelling). Besides, Faith plays at being none too bright, but it's not accurate. She may not have shown much interest in school, but that doesn't make her dumb. She's usually pretty quick on the uptake, especially when it comes to reading people****, and she picked up enough of what Giles threw at her in this arc to fool Gigi into believing she came from an upper class family. I think she's capable of looking up medicinal uses of chamomile.

2nd hypothesis: Faith does know chamomile can aid sleep, and does use it that way, and doesn't want Giles drinking up her supply. Giles comments that her cupboards are fairly bare, which combined with her crapbox apartment suggests a shoestring budget. I have no idea how expensive chamomile tea is, but Faith might not want to spare any. In that scenario, she mentioned the use she did to put Giles off-kilter. You notice that in the next panel, Rupert sets the cup down and wipes his mouth, suggesting this was information he could do without. Faith doesn't lose any more tea, and she doesn't have to be overtly rude to do so, which I think is important to her when it comes to Giles. Faith may know she isn't his beloved Buffy, but that doesn't mean she doesn't wish she was. Faith would very much like to have people that care about her as much as the Scoobs care about Buffy, but outside of (maybe) Angel, and (in Season 3, pre-strangling) Xander, she doesn't have it. She doesn't have much, which probably could stoke feelings of protectiveness towards what she does have, but she wouldn't want to offend Giles, so she just tries to mildly gross him out.

3rd hypothesis: Faith knows about chamomile's use as a sleep aid, and chooses not to use it in that manner anyway. One thing I noticed with Faith (especially in Angel Season 4 and Buffy Season 7) is she doesn't have the highest sense of self-worth. She sits in prison, when she could easily escape, because she thinks that's where she belongs*****. She's willing to throw her life away to bring Angel back, because she thinks that's proper, or take a punch in the face from Buffy without retaliating, because she wants to prove she's on Buffy's side this time. She takes whatever bit of friendliness or compassion people toss her, and pretty much figures it's the best she can hope for, or that she deserves. In that light, I can see Faith feeling she shouldn't get relief from any nightmares, because she did those things, and ought to suffer for them. She might still play at being the party girl that let everything slide off her back that she pretended to be in Season 3, but it's even less true in Season 8 than it was then.

4th hypothesis: I also considered the possibility that Faith kept the chamomile there in case of a visitor, namely Wesley (since I don't suppose she would know he was dead) or Giles. I can't think of any other company she might get that would enjoy tea, that she might care enough about to keep some handy for. But that raises the question of why she would make a comment that would make Giles set it aside, if she kept it hoping he might visit. The easiest answer there is that while Faith wants to belong, she isn't willing to admit it, and telling Giles she had the tea hoping he might swing by would cause him to look at her with pity, which I doubt she would take well. So I don't find that one likely.

Personally, I prefer the 2nd hypothesis, because it suggests just a bit of wicked humor on Faith's part, knowing how to rattle Giles a little without truly upsetting him, and protect her stuff. I think it maybe demonstrates the healthiest state of mind for her, on the whole. Which is perhaps not the best commnetary on Faith's state of mind, but she's had a hard life, it's going to show through.

I'm feel like there are other things I should be picking up from this scene, beyond Faith's tendency towards remarks that unsettle her company. One is how quickly she shifts from a jovial attitude to a defensive one. She goes from making cracks about what happened to Sunnydale in reference to how long it's been since she's seen Giles to turning away from him in the space of one panel. Probably also worth noting that in panel 3 on that page, she and Giles both appear to be in a well-lit room, but in panel 4, it's darkened, especially around Faith. It's remarkable work by Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens, and Dave Stewart that Faith seems shrouded in darkness but without the typical tactic of actually obscuring facial features with shadows. It's more as if she's projected a cold, grey cloud around herself.

It's a fascinating sequence to me, because in panel 3 I think she's enjoying his discomfort, and so she gently chides him, trying to hide a little hurt that he hasn't bothered to check in on her. Then when he starts to tell her he's glad to see her, she brushes it off, rejects his attempt at bridging the gap. I think she regrets even making the comment in the first place. She started to banter with him, but it only served to remind her that he isn't her Watcher, never was, and she throws the walls back up immediately, returning to sarcasm and a rather pessimistic view of herself as the Slayer that's get the dirty jobs. She doesn't get to be the symbol that the rookies follow, instead she gets to clean up the messes they aren't ready for (as seen earlier in the issue when Robin asks her to go and clean out a house full of vamps that happen to be little kids, because Heaven forbid the newbies learn they'll have to slay monsters that look adorable sometimes). Hye, I didn't say it was an inaccurate view, that seems to be the role she's been assigned, but it still stinks.

So I think we can pick up a few things from the scene, though I'm sure it helps I was familiar with the character before this. She has a quick wit, she enjoys teasing people. She wants to be accepted, but isn't willing to admit that, and I think she's smarter than she lets on. At some point, she either had to read up on that use for chamomile, or someone taught it to her and she retained that knowledge for later use. Could have been her mother, though the general impression I got from the series was Momma LeHane was no Joyce Summers, but everyone has their good days.

* I'm reminded of some little skit from the end of a Simpsons' episode, with the skit revolving around Ned Flanders. it had its own theme music which would say 'Hens love roosters, geese love ganders, everyone else loves Ned Flanders', only to have Homer burst through the screen and proclaim, 'Not me!' I feel like Homer when it comes to Buffy Summers. Not so much Flanders, though. I mostly feel bad for him, being saddled with Homer as a neighbor.

** Though the Mayo Clinic's website informs me lack of sleep is not the common cause of dark circles under the eyes. They pin it on fluid which drains to that region while we sleep.

*** Well, we never see any mention of the deputy mayor in this arc, but it bothered her even back in the time when she tried to deny any wrong-doing, so I doubt that trauma has vanished. Though seriously, the deputy mayor was a dumbass. Hey, there's the Slayers, in a dark alley, in the middle of the night, looking back the way they came and breathing hard, as if they had been running for their lives. Why, I think I'll walk right up without first announcing my presence and grab one of them by the arm. I'm certain that isn't a bad idea! Hey, if Angel can be a pawn of the Powers That Be, why can't Faith be a pawn of Natural Selection?

**** Though she's less perceptive when dealing with legitimately good people, since she tends to seek ulterior motives in their actions. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to meet very many people that are legitimately good.

***** Which, hey, at least she took responsibility for her actions. Warning: long-winded rant ahead! It lasts to the end of the post, so if you're not interested, we're done for the evening. I didn't see Willow offering to go to prison for her rampage at the end of Season 6, nor did I see Buffy demanding she go to jail the way she was for Faith. Double standard on that show kills me, man. The 3 core Scoobs let each other skate on everything, compared to how they treat others. I know, I'm completely biased towards Faith, she killed 2 people, threatened to kill Willow, strangled Xander, beat up a bunch of people in Sunnydale and L.A., swapped bodies with Buffy, tried to kill Angel (really, she wanted him to kill her), tortured Wes (which I was not bothered by) and was helping the Mayor with his plan to turn Sunnydale into demon paradise (for the record, I don't count trying to poison Angel in s3, because he was a vampire that tried to destroy the world, and she is a vampire slayer, so yeah, there you go). Will's only got 1 kill, since Warren is somehow alive without skin, but toss in trying to kill Giles like she did the magic dealer, threatening to revert Dawn to a blob of energy, which would end Dawn's life as she knows it, she was choking Anya to death before Buffy stopped her, tried to kill Jonathan and Andrew multiple times, tortured Warren (I know, scumbag, he deserved it, but I can't see it being a check mark in Willow's good column), mind-wiping her girlfriend to keep her in line, which also lead to mind-wiping all her friends by accident, and oh yeah, trying to destroy the fucking planet! I'm not sure the tally is that uneven, folks. Yeah, I know, Willow went to a coven to learn how to control herself, but I figure that was a lot more pleasant than the women's correctional facility Faith was living in. Yes, Willow was grief-stricken, except when she was mind-wiping people or otherwise using magic to get her way, but I think you could make some arguments about Faith's state of mind in season 3, especially after Wes screwed the pooch by trying to haul her off to England, and she thinks she has no allies. A Watcher is supposed to defend their Slayer, you betweeded twit. No wonder I didn't mind her torturing you.

Bucking Expectations

That pretty well sums up this week in comics for me. Things did not proceed as I expected.

Like I said yesterday, I figured Madrox to spend a couple of issues as a HYDRA Agent, being brought out of their control by his SHIELD agent dupe being reabsorbed and overwhelming the control from within. But Peter David mowed right through that little story, and left Jamie having accomplished what he originally set out to do, but not feeling all that swell about it.

Switching gears to Doctor Strange, I full expected that his battle with the Marrakant Hellguard would rage for most of the issue, if not all of it. But Brian K. Vaughn has places to go, and confrontations to tell, so it wrapped up in around ten pages, maybe less (I'm typing this at the university, thus comics are not easily referenced). Even more than how quickly Strange dispatched that opponent, was the manner Strange did it in. I still don't want to spoil it, but it's not a method I expect him to use.

But the hits kept coming. Nicodemus West isn't out to get Strange, in fact his original intent was to help him, which just so happened to lead him to an opportunity to help even more people. Or so he thought.

I'd say the thing that surprised me the most was that the man who thanked West for not being able to preserve Strange's hands, Mr. Pavlish(?), didn' turn out to be a member of the Overlords. I thought for sure one of them looked like a Mr. Pavlish that had survived his illness and regained weight, but apparently not.

And really, that's a good thing. If Pavlish is a member of the Overlords, than one can argue that this whole thing with Strange is him trying to get revenge on Stephen, by ruining his chances to help Wong. Now, it's simply people making a business decision (and possibly a bigger decision than that, absed on what West said about the elixer). It's less personal, and more dangerous somehow. This isn't a new thing, these Overlords have been handling things like this for a while. They still aren't likely to be any match for Strange, but they can't be so easily dismissed either.

Dangerous Information In The Wrong Hands

'Just as science cannot recreate the spells Doctor Strange has cast, nor can magic recreate what science has already accomplished.' - Wong, Doctor Strange: The Oath #3.

I'm starting to think that might be a dangerous statement for Brian Vaughn to have used. It's not so bad if the Doc were in our universe, but he's on Marvel Earth, which has Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Doctor Doom, etc. With all the things they've scienced up over the years, someone who wanted Strange's powers more defined/hamstrung could definitely use that to do it.

They've built teleporters, time machines, gateways to other dimensions, so technically, Strange has to find some sort of loophole to be able to do any of those things if he needs to, many of which he has done in the past. Thinking about it, it's a bit like the conundrum the girl in Runaways (whose name I don't know) faces. She has to keep coming up with new ways to phrase things if she wants to use the same spell, because she can only say it a certain way once (that may be an oversimplification, but I think that's got it). It's more restrictive than what Strange would be dealing with, but well, he's Sorcerer Supreme and she's not, so there you go.

Looking at it that way, it might be in Dr. Strange's best interest to get involved in Civil War, if only to eliminate those two before they cut off anymore avenues. Or, it might be a case of where Doc's methods are so different from Reed and Tony's that they might as well not even be the same thing. All three of them have traveled through time, though I don't know how Dr. Strange did it, but it might very well be a by a manner different from shunting back along space-time, like Doc slips to a side dimension where time is fluid, and reemerges in Ancient Egypt. Just spitballing here.

Of course, if these restrictions will convince Joey Quesada to let Strange come out and play a little more, than I guess that's OK. Just give him to a writer that looks at him as more than an 'eraser', Bendis. So far, I'd say Vaughn is an good choice for that.