What I Bought 3/29/2016 - Part 1

It's been interesting to me, watching the reactions to Batman vs. Superman, as I've seen people whose opinions I respect who liked, and others I respect who despised it. I'm still not going to see it, mind you, because it doesn't look like anything I'd enjoy, but it's still interesting.

Descender #11, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) - TIM seems remarkably calm, especially considering his admission in the issue he feels something akin to pain.

The Hardwire can't find any sign of TIM's dream in his brain, and Telsa is both starting to maybe care about TIM, and definitely doing a bad job of concealing her mistrust of the Hardwire. TIM-22 is jealous of TIM-21's ability to feel affection for Andy and other humans, and he's not too happy about 21 having replaced him as Psius' favorite. So he tries to kill him. Or maybe that's just part of Psius' plan to see if another near-death experience gives TIM-21 another prophetic dream. Andy is still trying to negotiate assistance from his ex-wife, a plan not aided by the fact the Gnishians tracked his ship and are on the attack.

I can't decide if things are picking up any. Everything seems to be happening in small increments. I'm not sure why Telsa would be surprised the Hardwire worship the Harvesters. They were the ones who showed that the organic species are not invincible, and could be resisted, seemingly with impunity. Yes, their actions also created a lot of hardship for robots everywhere, but Old Testament God was frequently a dick, and people still worshiped him. I'm mostly curious at the difference in Driller the UGC grunt observed since Andy showed up. I'd probably be more curious if it was something we'd seen, rather than been told about, but that's not the way this book is going to operate, I guess.

Nothing much has changed as far as the art goes. It's still a very pretty book. The contrast between the expressions of TIMs-21 and 22 at any given moment is used well. The sadness on 21's face when he hadn't actually found Bandit, contrasted with the blankness on 22's face in the background. 22's eager smirk at the robot army being constructed, against 21's shocked look.

Roche Limit: Monadic #1, by Michael Moreci (story), Kyle Charles (art), Matt Battaglia (colors), Ryan Ferrier (letters), Tim Daniel (design) - I think it's supposed to be a broken mirror, but the way the border curves around it makes it seem like the faceplate on a helmet.

This book has done a full-on swan dive into Dark City. Alex Ford, who was the drug maker with the bomb in his chest in the first mini-series, finds himself alive in a city, with the corpse of Gracie, who ran the nightclub in the colony, next to him. Watkins who was doing experiments on people warns Alex he has to find the Black Tower. Which leads to a sequence of Alex trying desperately to find a train that will take him there, although no one can seem to give him proper directions to one. And Sasha, the scientist who stayed behind on the colony in the second mini-series is living in an observatory, being visited by an adult male and a child called Man and Girl, until some old guy tells her she needs to move her recording instruments to a different section of sky, and she picks up a transmission from the leader of the expedition in the second mini-series, and she starts remembering things.

So people are dead, but not dead? Or trapped in some simulation or dream created by the things from the other side of the Anomaly, trying to figure out humans? Or the alien creatures have absorbed their souls and this is some attempt to break them down, incorporate their essence somehow, by getting people to buy into the illusion? I don't know. It's not an encouraging start, especially with the whole sequence of Alex trying to catch a train and getting the runaround, which is straight out of Dark City. I guess I should be glad Moreci didn't try to start with an entirely new cast again, given how poorly I thought that went last time.

Battaglia's color choices are probably what stands out most. In Sasha's place, the colors are softer, they blur together more, and they're usually warmer, friendlier colors. In the parts that take place wherever Alex is, the colors are usually these sick looking ones. Like there's a yellow haze over everything, the way it might seem in a room full of smoke with a dim lamp. Everyone is yellowish, and even when the background shifts, it's to a solid color of something garish. An obnoxious green, or a bright orange. It grabs your attention, and sometimes corresponds to moments of violence (though there are plenty of those where the color doesn't do that).

What I Bought 2/12/2016 - Part 2

I did end up not buying two books of mine that came out in the prior three weeks. Illuminati #4 because I missed it being listed in last week's releases, and Deadpool #7, because it was 10 bucks. I appreciate it's a larger than normal issue, but that's kind of a steep order. I try to stay below six bucks on individual issues, new or old. Maybe it'll drop in a few weeks.

Descender #10, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) - I'm going to go ahead and judge by appearances and say those people don't seem friendly.

On the Machine Moon, the Hardwire are trying to be friendly to their new visitors, not that Telsa is making it easy. If UGC officer school had a diplomacy course, she flunked it. The Hardwire wants to hear more about TIM's dream, because they think it represents him having a connection to some server where the A.I.s of all the machines that have been destroyed are backed up. Quon insists it doesn't exist, but TIM is willing to be helpful. Elsewhere, Andy and his partners visit his ex-wife, who leads a group of cyborgs that live on a world hit the hardest by the Harvesters. We'll see if she chooses to be helpful or not. And the UGC has gotten concerned that TIM is somehow going to bring back those same Harvesters.

I'm not sure how to feel about Telsa. I don't particularly like her, but I'm not certain that's fair. It isn't just the gruff demeanor, it's that she doesn't show much common sense for someone who seems very aware of how vulnerable she is, surrounded by being she considers terrorists, who certainly don't want her going home and telling her bosses where they live. Does she try to play nice? No. When TIM asks her if he can go play with the other TIM, she gives him a gruff, "I'm not you mom, do what you want." Maybe you want to keep him liking you, since he's the only reason you aren't dead right now? For someone trying really hard to prove to her father she belongs, and to everyone else that she didn't achieve her rank because of her dad, she's doing a less-than-stellar job.

Interesting contrast in colors between worlds. The Machine Moon is almost all white, with just some faint pink hues in places (except for that sculpture garden, and I do wonder if Telsa's right to be suspicious of that). Sampson, the planet of the cyborgs, is all these heavy greys and blacks, with a few lighter shades, probably to represent a hazy dawn. It's almost the exact opposite. And then the UGC offices are all this light blue. I don't really know what the significance is of the differences. With the Machine Moon, to represent some sort of sterility in their thinking, or a lack of anything to hide or celebrate because their past is so brief. Could be for a general absence, or suppression of emotion. For Sampson, a ruined, patchwork world or horrors, with patchwork people trying to embrace their situation.

Nothing really new for me to report with this book. It's still pretty, but I'm still not sure whether I care about the characters enough to stay with it.

Henchgirl #4, Kirsten Gudsnuk - I was trying to figure that cover out, because it seemed different from the others, less funny and more of a pin-up. And then I noticed Mari's holding her friends security badge and it made more sense.

The Butterfly Gang steals some chemical with Coco claims will help them find the mole in their gang, though she's vague on the "how". Mari then lets it slip her roomie works at the lab in question, and is forced to steal her security badge to aid in the theft, Which leads to a lot of totally deserved yelling from Susan. Then the story shifts, as we learn Mari is actually the daughter of two superheroes, who have published a book about their career, and their other daughter, the really photogenic one who became a costumed crimefighter as well. Mary gets a little frustrated about being left out of the book entirely, and she and her friends end up at dinner with her family. Which has lots of tension and awkwardness, and then Tina lets it slip Mari's part of a criminal organization, and her mom kind of burns down the restaurant.

I hadn't expected that Mary's parents would have powers, let alone they'd both be well-known heroes. I had kind of assumed she got her powers by accident, which might explain her general lack of direction in doing much of anything with them. Although I could see how super-strength could be pain, since people would probably assume she was dumb, and just use her for her muscles. Like the Butterfly Gang. She really needs to just beat them up and take over. Make them do nice things, or else. Yeah, that sounds like a flawless plan.

Gudsnuk occasionally does these more realistic faces, or maybe more detailed is a better description, but she uses them to good effect. Mary's sad face when Susan was chewing her out, because it looks kind of awful, and crying shouldn't look pretty. Plus, she's trying to get her friend to let her off the hook, which Susan really shouldn't. Now the Gang knows Mari's friend works for Gaintech, what happens the next time they want to steal something from there? There was also that extreme close-up on her sister's teeth, which was kind of terrifying. Now I'm wondering if Photo-Girl is going to snap from the constant pressure of living up to her parents' public personas and expectations. Especially since Mary seems to have largely cut off contact entirely. Probably for the same reason.

What I Bought 1/26/2016 - Part 1

Not a blistering start to the New Year on the comic front. Only six books in the first three weeks. Let's start with a couple that came out two weeks ago, each of which has been riding mostly on my affection for the art. Can the writers start carrying their half of the water?

Descender #9, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) - Jeez Quon, try not to be so mopey. Enjoy your space voyage. It may be the last one you ever make.

And the machine resistance even hooked Quon up with a new robotic limb, for which he is extremely ungrateful. TIM-21 is extremely upset they left Bandit and Driller behind, and Telsa is no help. TIM-22, on the other hand, is a good listener, and shares some of his experiences, though I can't help wondering if he's trying to manipulate TIM-21. I feel the pleasant pink lighting that suffuses the room during their conversation is meant to make us as the audience find it touching, and take it at face value. While Telsa plots to escape with either of the TIMs, they reach the machine homeworld, hidden within an asteroid. Which I find pretty cool in theory. Strange worlds hiding beneath the surface are something I guess I like. Probably because I wonder what's beneath my feet.

Back on Gnish, the deceased king's son takes the throne (and the hairpiece, and it's color makes me suspect it's a Trump reference). The new king immediately declares he's doubling all bounties on robots. So Andy and Blugger better pick up the pace if they're going to find TIM first. To that end they find Driller and Bandit (as well as that UGC lieutenant), and Andy mentions there's a chip in bandit that could be used so TIM could always find him they can probably reverse to find TIM. Or, rather, Andy's ex-wife can probably do that.

It's interesting to track the changes in TIM-21's speech patterns. When he's yelling about their having left Bandit behind, and him not being able to reduce his emotion settings, because that's not how he was designed, he still seems like a young, frightened kid. But when he's talking to TIM-22, and he starts discussing Telsa as lacing in certain social graces, that sounds like someone very different. I don't if that's strictly a matter of his emotions being under control by then, like a person's, or if it's meant to imply something about artificial life in this universe. Do they think in a more orderly fashion when around other artificial life forms, but humans throw them off somehow? This is a similar train of thought to the one I had a few issues back about Driller's speech patterns seeming to expand the longer he was around TIM. Of course, he's around plenty of robots now, and seems to have regressed, but he's also spending all his time killing those robots. That not quite double-page splash of him taking out five robots at once was very nice. The splash of yellow and red at their throats was a nice contrast to the general grey tone of their bodies, and it reminds the reader of blood, makes us remember this is gladiatorial combat, whether the contestants are organic or not.

Overall, one of the stronger issues of the series for me, which is encouraging.

Illuminati #3, by Joshua Williamson (writer), Shawn Crystal (artist), John Rauch (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Is the Frog-Man on the cover? He's not a villain! I'm going to blame this on Reed Richards and Franklin, since they created this new version of the Marvel U. Great work guys, between that and the whole thing with the Terrigen Mists being actively harmful to mutants now, you're doing a bang up job.

The crew escape the Fenris club with relatively little trouble. Not surprising since only loser super-villains would go to a club run by those creepy siblings. But now there's strife among the roster, so the Hood gives everyone 24 hours to decide whether they're in or not. So we see what most of them get up as they decide whether to stick with this. Thunderball wants to use the rewards to form his own technology-producing company, Enchantress is out for more power and revenge, the Mad Thinker wants access to new science to expand his boundaries, and Titania doesn't seem to have anything else. So they all come back, the heist is just getting started, and here's new Thor. Let's take odds that the Hood tipped her off to be that distraction he's telling the team they need.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the writing. Enchantress seems off - she says she hates running from a fight, but Amora's struck as the sort to avoid direct conflict when she can just seek revenge from the shadows or through proxies - and I'm not sure about the Mad Thinker. The search for more knowledge fits, but his ragged, disordered appearance not so much. And I would expect an LMD based on Eric O'Grady to spend more time making excuses for stupid crap he does.

The Hood's line of bull seems right, though. For all my feelings that he's never been the big wheel he thought he was, Parker did always show a knack for being able to read people, and use that to manipulate them. That came in handy for getting him out of the trouble he landed himself in by doing stuff without knowing who he was dealing with first, but it's still a skill he seems to have. Titania and Thunderball seem about right. Both seem like the type to recognize that at some point, they aren't getting what they want out of being costumed crooks, and it's time for a change. So it's 50-50 on the cast.

I still like most of the work Crystal is doing with the art. Making the rubble from Titania hitting the ground form the "SMASH!" sound effect was a good touch, and the scowl he gives Amora, combined with the green Rauch has her eyes emitting when she describes what she'll do with her full powers, that was good. The Hood's face remaining mostly in shadow during his conversation with Titania, even when the hood was pulled back, feels significant, but I'm not sure what it represents. He's talking about knowing he'll get busted someday, but he wants to grab as much as he can and enjoy it before then. It could be a load of crap, meant to convince her she'll never get that happy home with the Absorbing Man she was hoping for, but it sounds pretty legit for him.

What I Bought 12/22/2015 - Part 2

Holiday greetings to you all. The question for today is, will the spirit of the season cause me to be charitable in my feelings towards these comics? Eh, could be.

Descender #8, Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer/designer) - Maybe they'll make an '80s style buddy sitcom about Andy and Blugger. The Robot Killin' Pals! It could have a catchy opening theme and everything.

As to the actual content of the issue, the Robot Killin' Pals try to reach Gnish, only to be blocked by the UGC, because everything's gone to hell in light of last issue's assassination. Andy doesn't care and tries to get past them, only to end up with a lot of pursuing spacecraft, which makes him try to hide on a planet of gaseous beings, which is a little freaky, but effective in dissuading pursuit. And there's a lot of flashbacks to Andy's childhood before and after TIM showed up interspersed through the issue. And that's pretty much it.

It's still a very pretty but, but also pretty slight. Not in any real hurry to get anywhere. Maybe the brief jaunt to Phages will end up being relevant, but otherwise, there wasn't much to it. It's kind of a neat concept, but the story doesn't linger long enough to do anything with it, so it's almost like a stall. Nguyen going to black and white for the flashback pages made for an abrupt shift, in a good way. Suggesting Andy keeps losing himself in memories, then having to snap himself back to present problems. Blugger could prove to be a good addition to the cast. He seems like he'd provide a certain amount of that Ben Grimm-style gruff sarcasm, albeit in a much more amoral package overall. But overall, my interest in the book is starting to wane.

Illuminati #2, by Joshua Williamson (writer), Shawn Crystal (artist), John Rauch (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I almost missed the Black Ant there at the bottom of the cover. To be fair, I've generally done a good job forgetting Remender's Secret Avengers.

So the rest of the team has not entirely bought into the Hood's bull, but they do have things they want he's helping them get, so they're in for this "rob Asgardia" plan. And there just so happens to be a scientist who built an artificial Bifrost Bridge to get them in, if they can convince him to let them use it. He's at some club run by those creepy Fenris twins, where there's a rule against killing. A rule Black Ant promptly breaks by shrinking inside the good doctor, then growing until he bursts the guy wide open. Yeesh. At least they got the location of the doohickey, and the passcode, but now everyone in the club is going to try and kill them for breaking the rules.

There are certain things about this I can't track. Whether the Hood is just playing at being irritated by Black Ant's actions, or if this is a team-building exercise in disguise. Why Enchantress seems to be an alcoholic now. She's drinking in every single scene she's in. Sure, Asgardian, high tolerance for Earth booze, but still, kind of strange. The whole thing with Trapster trying to stick up Titania kind of came out of nowhere, although the last time I saw him, Deadpool seemed to have convinced Pete to perhaps rethink his life choices. Maybe Pete found out the straight and narrow pays like crap, but again, there's the presence of the gun meant to resemble a repulsor ray he somehow acquired. So I can't tell if these are mysteries to be answered later, or just weak writing. Which is a feeling I had when I tried Brian Wood's X-Men run, and I didn't like it then, either.

But I do like Shawn Crystal's art, even if a lot of his male characters have this pointy-nosed, sunken eyes, slightly fang-toothed look. Could be deliberate, making them seem a bit feral and dangerous, but I'd expect a Strucker to keep themselves up a little better. That one panel with the close-up on the Mad Thinker in his underwear was as unpleasant as I imagine it was supposed to be. Especially with Titania's 'I've seen much worse.' And the page of the Hood detailing his plan, for all the little flourishes. The entire crew wearing cool, black sunglasses in the first panel, because they're a crew on a heist. The actual use of wheelbarrows to carry the loot in panel 2. The Hood's grandkids all in their own cloaks in panel 5. I do wish he made the Hood look a bit younger, but that's me still thinking of the characters as a mostly dumb punk, swimming in waters much too deep for him.

Basically, both books are a case of the artist currently buying my goodwill, and we'll see if the writer's can up their game enough to keep me around (though Illuminati may not stave off cancellation long enough for that to matter).

What I Bought 12/1/2015 - Part 1

I actually have eight comics to review this time around. Things are starting to look up, and all it took was for Marvel to quit dicking around and release some new series. Or the same series that had been put on the shelf for months.

Deadpool #2, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Mike Hawthorne (penciler), Terry Pallot (inker), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - And this is what happens when you aren't Robert Redford playing a character who knows Nick Fury. You get Deadpool at your niece's birthday party, instead of Iron Man.

The other "Deadpools" are concerned they're not being paid, and that the company isn't making any money as a result. Huh, who knew letting a crazy person run a company wouldn't be a path to financial success? They get a paying job, but it turns out to be them throwing a bunch of illegal immigrants out of their apartment building for an asshole landlord who wants to take advantage of rising property values to build a condo. Some of them - meaning not Foolkiller or Madcap - feel bad and give their shares to the people they just beat up. Did Deadpool teach them a lesson? Well, considering it may not be Deadpool, probably not. Adsit has come to visit Wade and tell him the truth of his parents death, and the hood wearing Deadpool stabs Adsit and laughs at how this will make his plan to destroy Deadpool even easier.

It's not T-Ray is it? Please tell me it isn't T-Ray. I hate that guy, in that Superboy-Prime, "don't even want to see him" way. But I can't figure who else it could be. The head ULTIMATUM guy is dead. So is Butler (and he'd know Wade did that already). I don't see this as Dracula's style. Cripes, it's going to be Agent Gorman isn't it? The SHIELD traitor who stiffed Wade on his money for rekilling all the undead Presidents. He somehow survived being thrown into a garbage compactor. Might explain Adsit's reaction.

Hawthorne's doing a pretty good job making all the Deadpools distinguishable from each other, but giving them noticeable little flourishes. Solo and Foolkiller are the only two I can't tell apart when they have masks on. I liked the page of the team smashing through the apartment building. You can follow Stingray down the page, to the two on the top floor. Madcap is directly above Terror, so you can track down to him, and then over to Solo, which takes you to his meeting with some of the tenants. I still can't quite figure either of them doing this, especially Foolkiller (who hasn't killed any fools so far), so perhaps Duggan will highlight how Wade roped them all in at some point. And if the hooded guy isn't the real Wade, where is he? It seems like he ought to have noticed this was happening, and at least been mildly curious.

I'm really enjoying this, and I want to see where Duggan and Hawthorne go next, even though I'm sure it's going to leave me feeling really bad for Wade when all is said and done.

Descender #7, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer/designer) - What is the thing in TIM's stomach region? Does he have a digestive tract, so he can simulate eating?

TIM, Telsa, and Quon are rescued by this robot resistance group called the Hardwire. They were actually only there for TIM (and to kill the Gnishian leader), but TIM wouldn't leave without the other two. He was not able to convince them to find Driller, Bandit, and Tullis, so they're stuck on a planet that hates robots, and probably won't love the UGC since the Hardwire is setting Telsa up to take the fall as part of the assassination. In a different plot thread, we meet a robot bounty hunter, one who is concerned only with finding more robots, and when he learns there's a bounty on TIM, he jumps at it. He's a few steps behind, but he finds the last survivor of that first crew that tried to catch TIM, and that guy has a tracking device locked onto TIM.

The last page reveal of the hunter's identity felt unnecessary. It was pretty obvious from how intense he was about hunting down TIM, combined with TIM's comments about how he wants to find his "brother", who the hunter was. On the other hand, given how obvious it was, at least Lemire and Nguyen didn't draw it out over several issues like some big mystery.

I do wonder how, whenever the hunter finds TIM-21, how that meeting is going to go. Considering his actions in this issue, it's going to be pretty hard for me to roll with it, if they decide for a tearful, hug-filled reunion. That seems unlikely, but he certainly didn't seem a sympathetic character. Although not many characters have been sympathetic so far. Psius is content to throw the entire galaxy into (bloody) chaos to suit his purposes. Telsa only considers TIM a means to some revenge. Quon's a thief who built his rep on others' work, and now is a pathetic wreck (though he's remarkably coherent for having an arm cut off). TIM-22 blew a guy's head off without a second thought. OK, the ruler of Gnish was a scumbag, and certainly responsible for genocide from the Hardwire's perspective, and I'm inclined to agree.

I was looking at the side-by-side panels of TIMs-21 and 22, and it's interesting how much Nguyen just raising 21's eyebrows adds to his sense of being alive. 22's face is purposefully blank, but if you cover everything below the eyes, they're still noticeably different. The eyebrows are the most obvious, but I feel like there must be something in the eyes themselves helping. I just can't figure out what. Other than that, I like how Nguyen uses his colors on the frozen world at the start of the issue. The massive amounts of white, but working in the blue to suggest ice or drifts. It's just impressive to me.

What I Bought 8/19/2015 - Part 4

I think there are only 6 comics coming out for me this month, and there are 5 Wednesdays. It's going to be pretty thin by the looks of things. Now watch 4 of the books come out next week.

Descender #6, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer/designer) - Nice touch having that hole in the finger overlap with TIM's eye. Also that it's a right hand, which is the one Quon's missing now.

In flashback we learn that Quon was able to build his robots because an archaeological dig found an incredibly advanced robot lying damaged and inert in the ruins of a dead civilization not known to be that advanced. When Quon and his mentor woke it up, it spouted some barely intelligible but ominous sounding warnings. The mentor was wary, Quon was too busy seeing dollar signs, so he stole all the data and went into business for himself. His story doesn't exactly impress the King of Gnish, who orders him killed, but then the robot resistance arrives to rescue TIM, and they have their own TIM-bot.

Which is not the big last page cliffhanger I think Lemire thinks it is. TIM was one of a series, why would I be surprised there's another one around? I'm not clear on how long there was between TIM-21's activation and the Harvesters attacking, but surely Quon had time to build more. I know civilization went on a robot-destroying bender after the Harvesters, but since we know some robots survived, another TIM just isn't that big a surprise.

I just noticed that during the flashback, Quon says what they've learned from the robot will change everything. Which makes me think of Zola's reaction to the Cosmic Cube in the first Captain America movie. Nothing good ever comes of someone insisting x will 'change everything.'

At the end of the flashback, when Quon chooses to steal the data, I like how the page is laid out. It's basic, 3 panels above, 3 below. Quon goes into shadow in the bottom 3, once he's made the decision to value his own gain over everything else. The top 3 gradually zoom in on him, because Quon's story focuses on him and what he did (which makes me think Solomon will appear later, having been off doing his own follow-up research), but the bottom 3 move in on the robot, with Quon serving as a dark void behind him. Suggesting either doom, or the unknown danger lurking in space, which represents wherever the Harvesters came from, and their mysterious reasons for doing so.

Roche Limit: Clandestiny #4, by Michael Moreci (writer), Kyle Charles (artist), Matt Battaglia (colorist), Sarah Delaine (flora and fauna), Tim Daniel (design) - Is that Moscow's (the blind crime boss) sword? What the heck? Can't see it doing much good, since I doubt any of the people in this story know how to use it.

As it turns out, all these expeditions have been a cover by Moiratech to send pieces of a spaceship to the colony. A spaceship which will bring that immense monster in the jungle to Earth, and let it affect everyone on the planet. And this expedition brought the last section. The A.I. version of Langford insists they have to kill the monster, and die in the process. Understandably, the crew isn't OK with that. They opt to try and steal the ship instead, so they can return to Earth and warn people. They encounter a lot of the creatures, including the resurrected twin(?) brother of that scientist who went into the forest and died. The twin is fully committed to helping the creatures get to Earth, because they need something from human before humanity kills itself? But oh well, psycho twin gets his ass beat and they steal the ship, but they're going to stick around and do something.

It's kind of a mess. Danny says exposure to the Anomaly withers the soul, which sort of jibes with what we learned in the first mini-series (the effect of the Recall drug and such), but doesn't explain how entering the Anomaly causes a person's soul to break off from their body. I'm not sure if that's an inconsistency on Moreci's part, or if it's meant to represent a gap in the character's knowledge. There probably haven't been any humans who have entered the Anomaly since Danny arrived, and it's possible Langford's memoirs (which is what the A.I. is based on), wouldn't have any record of that either. In which case they wouldn't know that. Also, I feel like we're short one character, Kim, the scientist that saw a different life she could have had, with her girlfriend and child, if she hadn't taken this position. She was determined to reenter the forest last issue, and I don't think we've seen her since. Am I meant to assume she's dead, or is she going to make a dramatic, last minute appearance? No one in the book seems to remember her at all.

I wonder if Charles is starting to feel rushed. Some of the action sequences on the last few pages looked really rough. Like he was trying to use heavy inking to cover for not putting as much detail into his pencil work. And whatever Sasha sees on the last page that tells her the Black Sun has arrived isn't exactly clear from the art. The third panel has a ship in it, against a red and orange back drop, with a black sphere in one corner. I guess that could be the Black Sun, but if so, I feel like it should have been given a much more prominent placement in the panel. This is supposed to be a big deal, important enough that Sasha's decided to heck with survival and warning Earth, let's go back to the incredibly hostile world and fight. The art needs to convey the sense of the threat, and it just doesn't. I'm left grasping at what I think she saw. In issue 4 of the previous mini-series, the last page was a full-page shot of the Anomaly, with a huge black shape emerging from its center, as one of the cast drifted into the Anomaly. That got my attention, because of the contrast between the colors, and the scale. Here, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

What I Bought 7/22/2015 - Part 4

I’m back in familiar territory again, and it’s nice. My time away wasn’t bad. Saw some sights, learned a lot of new things, which will hopefully prove useful in the future, but the living arrangements were not ideal. I like being able to walk to basically any place I want to go in town, or at worst, drive there in 5 minutes.

Descender #5, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) – They almost look like a happy, heavily armed family. You’d never guess most of them want to kill each other.

The party arrives on Gnish, where they’re greeted by its pig-faced ruler, who is very eager to get down to extracting information from Dr. Quon, who he figures knows all about the Harvesters. Except Quon says he stole all his research and so he didn’t really build any robots, including TIM, and certainly not the Harvesters. Probably should have said that before they cut off his arm, but oh well. Telsa and TIM are stuck watching all this, and Telsa might, in spite of herself, feel bad for the little bot. Or maybe she just wants him to stop being so distraught at Quon’s suffering because it annoys her. As for Driller, Bandit, and Telsa’s lieutenant Tullis, they get tossed into the pits, which is basically robot combat to the death for the enjoyment of the citizens. Tullis isn’t a robot, but oh well, these things happen. And the United Galactic Council has learned Telsa’s ship was hijacked and taken to Gnish, and her dad is all set to find some way to rescue her. From a hostile world currently consolidating alliances and power in opposition to the UGC. I’m sure that wouldn’t have dramatic and dire repercussions, but I guess if one hopes the little bot can teach them how to make their own giant, mass-murdering robots, one has to take chances.

It seems to me that Driller’s range of speech is expanding. Not a lot, but it’s hard for me to picture the Driller of three issues ago making an observation like the one the issue starts off with. Namely that TIM being designed to trust humans, so he can be a better companion, means the joke is on TIM, considering Driller's opinion that humans are not to be trusted. That raises some questions. Is this a result of being around TIM, the whatever he has that makes him so special and important? Or has Driller always been capable of this range of thought and contemplation, he was just out of practice after 10 years alone in an abandoned mining colony? Some pathways in his brain fell out of use, and they’re only gradually getting up to snuff again, like an atrophied muscle.

There’s been a lot of discussion in the last 10 years or so about whether torture is a productive form of interrogation. I think the general findings are it isn’t, but comics seem to ignore that. Batman dangling people off rooftops mostly works, Steve Rogers telling Black Widow and Moon Knight to start kneecapping people ferrets out a traitor (remember to thank Warren Ellis for that last one). Does it qualify as producing useful intel in this case? They didn’t learn anything about the Harvesters, which was the point of the exercise, but they did learn Quon doesn’t know anything about the Harvesters. That’s sort of useful, in the sense it tells one they need to look elsewhere for answers. Like one of those placemat kiddie mazes, and they’ve ruled out one path as leading to a dead end. By removing somebody’s arm. I may have to wait to see if he explains that revelation, and if that sheds some light on things. We’ll check back in next issue.

I did finally get the first issue earlier this week, along with some other books we'll get to in the next week. There's not a whole lot there I wasn't able to infer from issues 2-5, other than I hadn't realized the Harvesters were that large. They're into Celestial, tower over mountains, size range. I imagine Quon's confession in issue 5 explains some things from the first issue. Like how Quon wasn't able to figure out the Harvesters had a similar bit of code in them to the TIM robots he supposedly created. Overall, it's a very pretty book, but I wouldn't mind a bit more forward momentum, a concern I had about it going in, given what I've seen of Lemire's pacing in his stories. Though I have no idea how long Lemire and Nguyen intend this series to run.

What I bought 6/12/2015 - Part 3

I still haven’t found the first issue of Descender around anywhere, or the first issue of the new Roche Limit mini-series (or the last issue of Deadpool for that matter), but let’s go forward with what we have.

Descender #4, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) – Looking at Driller’s hand, I wonder if his fingers can split into smaller fingers. That’s what the furrows suggest, and it could always serve as a way to do things requiring a fine touch. What that would be I can’t say.

Dr. Quon patches TIM up while Telsa asks him about what he knows, and tries to get his help by promising to find Andy (the boy TIM was a companion/brother for). Of course, Quon and Telsa both know no shuttles are recorded as having actually escaped the mining colony, but Telsa has a personal grudge against the Harvesters, and a dad that’s way up in the UGC hierarchy, so she’s in one of those “by whatever means necessary” mindsets. But her willingness to lie to a robot that looks like a little kid will have to wait to bite her on the ass, because the ship is attacked by some unsavory types who quickly incapacitate all three robots and plan to take them to Gnish, where they’ll apparently be thrown into a giant vat of boiling, molten metal. Actually, I was wrong. I went back and looked up that description of Gnish from the backmatter in issue 2, and it says the Melting Pots are gladiatorial combat arenas for robots. So TIM’s going to be torn apart by some other big robot. Unless this turns out to be where all those “Harvested” he saw in his dream are.

It seems strange to me that if this were such an important mission, that the UGC sent one small ship with only two soldiers and one scientist (who will be useless in a firefight). Telsa mentioned the UGC must have a rat pretty high up for the Scrappers to have beat them to TIM, maybe it just has people who don’t want the truth about the Harvesters found? Either because it would lead back to them, or because there’s more to gain in keeping the populace scared of a boogeyman they don’t understand or know anything about.

I liked that page of Telsa remembering what happened to her mother. The way the robot (and also the buildings) are these vague shapes, little more than light or dark outlines, but her mother is in sharp detail. Also how the robot’s head is at the top of the page, with these white spaces for eyes that draw my eyes down to the ray beam, which naturally leads to Telsa and her mother. The white eyes for the robot contrast with Telsa’s dark eyes, and also give it this impassive, emotionless look. Which is interesting, because if we take it as Telsa’s memory, it means she doesn’t imply any personal motive in the robot’s act. She doesn’t see it as breathing fire or laughing as it kills her mom. It’s this barely defined shape acting from motives she doesn’t know. All that matters is what it did, which is kill someone she cared about.

Roche Limit: Clandestiny #2, by Michael Moreci (story), Kyle Charles (art and cover), Matt Battaglia (colors), Ryan Ferrier (letters), Sarah Delaine (flora and fauna?), Tim Daniel (design) – It would help if they would put the credits on a page where the illustrated background doesn’t make it so damn difficult to read some of these people’s names. Cripes, go to the trouble of starting to try and give credit where it’s due, and they want to make a game of it. It’s like one of those activity book pages where you find the 5 apples hiding in the barnyard.

OK, no first issue at this time, but based on what I read online, this is set 75 years after the pervious mini-series, and we’re following an expedition of sorts to the colony to determine what’s happened. And things have basically gone Aliens on said expedition. The odd shadowy creatures that were probably what we saw crawling out of the Anomaly near the tail end of that last mini-series are loose and killing people, and there’s an odd forest where people see what they want, which as the android left over from some prior attempt at this same thing observes, is very dangerous. I’m sure it will be, now that one fellow overheard this and went there straight off, and a lady named Kim has suffered a head injury and doesn’t remember why she would be here, or why she would have left her son, which we saw in flashback she promised not to do. So obviously the kid is dead, she just doesn’t remember it right now. That’ll end spectacularly badly, I suspect.

I’m cautiously optimistic. At least this doesn’t look like it’s going to be a bog-standard detective story like the last one. That just felt like a waste of a perfectly good setting. Of course, now it’s more survival horror, and the setting is somewhat different, more wild and bizarre, but that’s fine. I think that better suits my interests at the moment. At the moment I can’t say I care about any of the characters yet, outside of perhaps the android Danny, and that’s just a reflexive response to a) his tale of woe about why he’s there, and b) how rudely Elbus (the tough sergeant type) treated him after he saved Elbus’ butt in the city. Of course, it could turn out he’s still alive because he’s working with the creatures. They might be very interested in an artificial life form, and how it fits into their whole “nothingness” idea. Assuming there is some sort of intelligent mind at work somewhere in that world.

I enjoy Battaglia’s colors, especially the purple/magenta he uses at different spots, usually when there’s confusion, or when things aren’t going as the expedition planned or hoped. Elbus tries to make this big threatening speech to Danny, and Danny casually breaks the handcuffs immediately after. The other half of the crew uses ammonium carbonate to wake Kim up, and she flips out and pulls a gun on them, asking about her son. Stockton ventures into the forest to get what he wants, and I’m guessing finds his (deceased?) brother, with both of them getting panels in that color. It’s an eerie, unnatural color, a sign of something being wrong, or off, and it works well as an attention-getter among all the panels with grey or black backgrounds of dark forests and ruined cities.

What I Bought 5/9/2015 - Part 4

One of these books is actually from last week, and so was not technically bought on the 9^th. I’m including it anyway, because it was the only comic I had come out last week, and it’s my blog, so I can do what I like. I wrote that into the constitution before we adopted a legislative branch. This sort of renders the legislative branch moot, which is good, because they’re ineffective dolts.

Descender #3, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Dustin Nguyen (illustrator), Steve Wands (letterer and designer) – Gotta love the light pink background for an image of a child android lying dead on the ground. It’s like his transmission fluid stained the floor.

TIM’s body is still on Dirishu, but his mind has landed somewhere else. A place full of other robots that were destroyed in the past (all as a result of the fear and hatred of humans after the Harvesters’ attacks, so far as we know). They expect TIM to find them and save them, somehow, though he doesn’t receive any explanation as to how to do either. While all that had been happening a shuttle from the UGC had arrived, carrying a Captain Telsa and her subordinate, Tullis. And the other passenger is Dr. Quon, the man who created TIM, looking much the worse for wear compared to TIM’s memories of him last issue. They find TIM, after fending off Driller, and Dr. Quon is able to fix TIM enough to revive him. Thus, TIM didn’t learn everything he needed to. He also didn’t learn he probably shouldn’t talk about strange places full of damaged, desperate robots he visited in his dreams. I have a feeling that’s something the UGC is going to be very concerned about. Personally, my hunch is the minds of the robots are all in the old servers Quon mentioned, forgotten in some dusty corner.

I like the look of the place TIM visited. Not in the sense it looks like a happy place, but it’s kind of cool. The ambient red glow that doesn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular. A landscape that looks mostly like a rocky canyon, not all that different from what you’d find out west, but there are all those cables/veins/wires running across the surface. It makes things creepier, if a seemingly deserted wasteland that is abruptly full of robots wasn’t creepy enough. It gives that implication that they’re moving within a massive, living organism, we’re just too close to grasp the size of it. Which can be unnerving, that sense you’re dealing with something on a scale you can’t comprehend. It makes one feel pretty small, and a bit lost.

Also, and I don’t know why, but the close-up on Telsa’s face in panel 5 on page 7 keeps grabbing my attention. Maybe because of how none of the other panels get that close. We drift around the conversation up to that point, then zoom in at the moment she makes her threat and/or accusation. Nguyen’s color choices for her play a role. The red of her hair really sets off that pale blue of her skin, but it’s the fact her eyes are black, with the pupils a barely visible lighter shade. It’s hard to read those, to see what she’s feeling as she talks, and the set of her mouth doesn’t give much away, either. There’s no thin smile like in the second panel, suggesting it’s gallows humor, or that she’s enjoying scaring him. But there’s no visible anger. From all appearances, she’s just stating a fact, laying things out for him. Which makes Quon’s obviously frightened and surprised reaction all the more effective right on the other side of that panel border.

Ms. Marvel #15, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (art), Ian Herring (color art), Joe Carmagna (lettering) – Kamala, that is an exceptionally bad job of hiding your costume. And Kris Anka drew Kamran looking entirely too clean cut and wholesome.

I don’t read Inhuman, so I don’t know the deal with Lineage, but it’s apparent enough he’s bad news. Fair enough. He wants her to join up with him, with the usual honeyed words of great power, and not letting others dictate what she does with them (except for him, of course). In the meantime, she dialed Bruno, and he charges out of school to rescue her. Doesn’t exactly work out, since he gets grabbed by a couple of Lineage’s goons the second he hits New Attilan, and Kamala has to rescue him, after trapping Kaboom and kicking Kamran’s ass. By turning his stupid, Gambit-ripoff power against him, which I quite enjoyed. But hey, at least Bruno got them some transportation so they don’t have to swim home! That counts as help, right?

I made the comment about Anka drawing Kamran looking very presentable up above. Now that I think about it, Miyazawa has had him drifting more into James Dean territory over the course of this arc, with the leather jackets and hair swept up in that bad spit curl or whatever the hell you call it. What does it say about the guy who claims humans are inferior and different, that he can’t pick a better fashion statement than a 60+ year old human expression of directionless rebellion? That he’s a rebel, a rebel without a cause. Just like the boy in that popular movie. Next he’ll be telling us no one can stop the Cobras. Or was it the Hell’s Satans?

I thought it was interesting how when Kamala accuses Kamran of abducting her – which he did – he tries to turn it around to make it her fault. She got in his car willingly, he says, so no one will believe she didn’t come here willingly. It ignores the fact I’m pretty sure Bruno and her brother both heard him offer her a ride to school, but he’s just trying to weaken her resolve, so what does he care about facts? So he uses the same sort of victim-blaming tactics you see people use against rape victims. Oh, you dressed in a way that asked for it. You accepted a drink from him, a ride from her, it’s your fault. It’s bullshit, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it, and I highly doubt it’s a coincidence Wilson chose that dialogue, or that Kamala refutes it. When Lineage says he had her brought in good faith for an opportunity, Kamala doesn’t accept that, or say she made a mistake. She says she was tricked and kidnapped, which puts the blame on Lineage and Kamran, which is where it belongs.

Then the confrontation in the hallway between her and Kamran, the way Miyazwa draws her with this startled, spooked expression when he first appears behind her as this looming, dark-eyed guy with fists already clenched. He advances, and he’s already turned his powers on, while she’s still backing up against a wall. And what’s he talking about the whole time? How she embarrassed him, because she wouldn’t just do what he wanted, and so he has to hit her now. He keeps trying to make it her fault, and Kamala refuses to accept that. She made a mistake believing he was a good guy, but just because he fooled her, doesn’t mean she deserves any of what’s happened, and certainly doesn’t mean she deserves to get hit. It’s only then she uses her powers, embiggens her fists, and even then, she doesn’t go all out on him. She beats him enough to get an opening to get away, and that’s enough. She doesn’t go spine-breaking, Frank Miller Batman on him out of revenge. She recognizes the situation is dangerous far beyond this idiot, poser ass who doesn’t even know how to fight, and gets gone.

It’s a nice touch, too, that in the moments when she fights back, the hallways shift from that cold grey and blue to a bright yellow, more similar to the color of the lightning bolt on her costume. When Kamran tries his Gambit move, the background shifts to a dark green and black, closer to his colors, but back to yellow again when she turns it around on him. So, fine work all around, creative team.