What I Bought 7/8/2023

I hoped with 3 Marvel comics last week to have two days' worth of reviews. Also, to have them going on Friday. But the store in town didn't get their shipment of Marvel books, and the one in the next town over didn't have Fantastic Four. So we make do.

In other news, Alex bought a PS5 last week, which means I now have a Playstation 4. Huzzah! Now I just have to get in the habit of putting some time aside to play stuff again.

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #1, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Paolo Villanelli (artist), Java Tartaglia (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Carol faces her greatest foe, Squid-Face.

The story starts in Maine, where Carol's waiting out a storm in a bar - she's not drinking - with some local sailor pals of hers. She saves some guy's sailboat from getting dashed on the rocks, then zooms into space to investigate some weird purple hole that sprouts tentacles. But she threw an asteroid at it and it went away, so I'm sure everything is fine. Then it's off to speak to some disaffected teens who feel there's no hope for the future.

Nocenti's Carol is very confident, bordering on arrogant. Not Tony Stark levels of self-confidence, but getting there, and Nocenti touches on how that can frustrate some people. She saves the boat without her powers, simply to win a bet. She ignores a scientist's advice to not just start attacking the mysterious space hole (to be fair, it was projecting tentacles). Villanelli draws Carol in dynamic or aggressive postures most of the time. She's striding forward or leaning into the storm as she works the sails. Or she's doing the classic superhero posture with us looking up at her. She's large and in charge, or feels like she is, anyway.

Stark doesn't mind in their brief conversation, but Jessica Drew is written as a bit more cynical than Carol (not as much as the teens, however) and the two friends have a bit of back-and-forth. Carol's like a walking motivational poster, opining that as long as you've got one day, you have a future. The question seems to be whether that's inspirational, which is probably what Carol thinks, or demoralizing/patronizing because she has advantages those teens do not. Carol did push through disasters - some of her own making - but that isn't the image she projects, so people don't see that.

The antagonists appear to be a mysterious hooded person with purple portal abilities, who calls themselves Nada, and Nitro. Yes, "kicked off Civil War, killed cancer-ridden Mar-Vell" Nitro. Who seems to be losing control of himself and his powers, and is frustrated of getting stuck talking to 'bots when he wants medical help. He thinks Nada is a kindred soul who hates technology, but it's pretty clear from the dialogue Nada is telling Nitro whatever gets him to buy in. He goes from ranting about 'bots to ranting about hating Captain Marvel, and Nada tells him she's actually a bunch of nanobots grown in a lab to steal everyone's opportunities to shine, then doesn't even remember that when they talk later. A little like these machine-learning things that just spit your input back at you.

Clobberin' Time #5, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Seems more like disassemblin' than clobberin' to me.

Ogdu Fraize is planning to absorb all the energy of the Big Bang and use it to create a universe on his terms, as outlined in his over 200,000 page manifesto. Which he forces Ben, Boom, and the Un-Watcher to listen to. That monster!

The Un-Watcher gets them free, but Doom immediately gets blasted out of his armor. Skroce then places a big "CENSORED" bar over Doom's exposed face until he can get in another suit. Ben confronts Ogdu, which doesn't go too well to start. That suggested speech thing Reed gave him tries to psychologically deconstruct Ogdu, which mostly just pisses him off. But it does cause him to lean in close enough Ben can damage his suit and then knock him out.

It's a bit of a weird way to go, as the last page of the fight is Ben unaware he's muttering updates from the device like "systems failure", and Ogdu thinking these are more attempts to insult or dismiss him. But Ogdu is from a future where they only know bits and pieces of the era Ben's from, and he's focused primarily on stealing and retro-fitting that stuff to his plan. He's so dismissive of the era, or simply convinced the Thing won't stop until he's completely dead, that he can't realize that's not what's going on.

I'm not sure it works as a climax, but it's not bad. The fact Thing is so out of it he's mindlessly repeating that stuff helps play up the damage he's taken. This time Ogdu's blown off some of the outer later of rocks in jagged canyons and tears, rather than the more clinical, curious way he pulled him apart in issue 2. On the other hand, that Ben is just mindlessly repeating that stuff kind of says he was beat at that moment. In no position to even try to fight back, except that Ogdu got drawn into arguing with essentially a load screen. Overall, I'm not entirely satisfied with it as a wrap up to their fight, but your mileage may vary.

So the plan goes bust, the universe and Galactus proceed as they originally did. Doom drags what's left of Ogdu somewhere to face 'equitable justice,' which probably won't be good. Ben's friends look after him while he recovers, and the comic ends with Ben getting a prank over on the Human Torch. Which is a nice way to wrap things up, actually, things back to normal.

What I Bought 6/21/2023 - Part 2

Based on the temperatures and humidity, summer's arrived. Great. Now when is it going away? I don't enjoy sweating when I take my mid-morning break walk at work. I'm not setting that brisk a pace.

Clobberin' Time #4, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Dr. Doom, angry robots, and interdimensional carnivorous worms as the options for Ben's version of Fuck, Marry, Kill.

Ben finds he's not the only one in the 'repaired multiversal-incursion point', as Ogdu ambushed and dumped some future version of Doom in there as well, in some giant ship that looks a bit like a castle. While Doom figures out how to get them clear, Ben has to fend off the worm things using what looks a lot like Orion's Astro-Chair. Which, obviously the New Gods plagiarized from DOOM!

Skroce has some fun with Ben and Doom working together as Doom keeps up a steady stream of ten-dollar word insults and feeds Ben horrible Latverian dishes to fuel his anger (but probably just to fuck with him). Ben continues to be unimpressed by Doom, making cracks about this one being older (as he received a glass of prune juice from a HERBIE with a Doom mask), and calling Doom a little thief hisself for having some Pym Particles that probably just "fell off a truck" somewhere.

That's what was missing from the previous two issues. Skroce didn't spend enough time on Ben interacting with Wolverine or Dr. Strange to show anything about their relationships. They were right into the fighting, or else too tied up in plot stuff for characterization to shine through like it did in the first issue.

Doom finds Ogdu's big ship and his captured Watcher, who got tricked and experimented on by Ogdu. He might be an "Un-Watcher" and have stolen some of Cable's armory, but he still knows how to exposit like a Watcher, telling the other two that Ogdu's been taking powerful items from across realities to create something new that will erase all this superhero jazz and start fresh. And then Ogdu shows up to do just that.

Moon Knight #24, by Jed MacKay (writer), Federico Sabbatini (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight against Eclipso does seem like a natural cross-company throwdown.

MK's trying to bring in an old foe/friend/something named Morpheus, but keeps finding himself in the dreams of his different aspects. A happy family life in the suburbs with Marlene and Diatrice for Marc. A big party for all Jake's pals. A quiet dinner in a big mansion with Marlene and some other old supporting cast members I don't know for Steven.

I feel like Sabbatini could have tried to distinguish Steven and Marc visually a little more. Granted Steven's in a tie and Marc's grilling in an apron, but shift up the hair, or give them different smiles. They're different people who share the same body, correct? They can probably smile differently.

Gaining no traction there, Morpheus shifts to a vision of a world where the Avengers welcome Moon Knight back, and finally, one where MK can just punch people forever. Marc rejects it all, claiming his happiness is earned, not given.

Would love to see the conversation with Jake and Steven about that unilateral decision later. I imagine they'd agree it wasn't real and they couldn't let Morpheus keep it up, but maybe a bit of consideration for them. No expectation of that, as MacKay has once again largely relegated them to the background. I don't think Steven's gotten an actual line of dialogue so far this year.

Pushing through all this, MK finally reaches his target. Morpheus just wanted to give people what they dreamed of, because he's dying. Because he refused to help the person messing with Moon Knight. He wanted to help people with his powers for once, instead of being selfish or hurting others. It didn't work with Moon Knight, but he can reveal the mastermind, so that's nice.

What I Bought 6/3/2023 - Part 2

Brain would not shut down Sunday night. Finished reading this fanfic, then lay awake in bed for two hours with my brain sussing out the threads of why I don't like reincarnation in stories and questions about what makes a traitor, and then spiraling into thinking about mortality and the eventual deaths of all my friends.

Somehow was not exhausted on Monday. Go figure. Comics!

The Great British Bump-Off #2, by John Allison (writer) Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Boras (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Dessert and a show, lovely.

The baking competition continues, as does Shauna's investigation into Neal's murder. Neither is going well as those are apparently two things you can't half-ass, certainly not at the same time. Her holiday cake is a disaster, and the "blind bake" goes just well enough she can stick around for the next day. Except she said she'd solve the case before the end of day 1, so more lies in advertising.

On the other hand, watching her steady disintegration over the course of the issue is quite entertaining. Sarin keeps drawing Shauna with heavier lines and shadows around her eyes, and her hair getting increasingly sloppy. It makes for a contrast from the rest of the contestants, who remain largely the same even when their cakes are savaged by the judges.

Though Allison gives Sarin plenty of chances to draw the other bakers looking disturbing and suspicious. Some of which is meant to be Shauna's perception, but some I think are supposed to be for the purpose of messing with us. Especially the dead-eyed panel of the one judge that delights in that clinical cruelty of all shows of this nature.

Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, the comic so far is, OK? I'm not laughing near as much as I have with some of Allison's other stuff, and Shauna's making so little progress on the murder mystery I have no I clue what's going on there. I've mostly been eliminating people based on her being suspicious of them. I half expect to learn Neal slipped on melted decorative frosting and landed on a knife.

Clobberin' Time #3, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - They did fix the tail of the thought balloon on the actual cover to aim at Strange's mouth, if you were wondering.

Ben and Alicia are having a fancy dinner with his Aunt Petunia (looking older here than she did in the last issue of Fantastic Four) and his Uncle Jake. Ben's giving them a lot of money as a thank you for raising him after his brother died. This touching family moment is interrupted by the arrival of a monster through a glowing portal. While Ben gets to punching, Dr. Strange blasts his way out of its guts. It was sent after him because of the ring Ben got off the guy who keeps popping up. 

But in the present, the ring belongs to a dark wizard, who summons those two to a place where he's torturing the guy - named Ogdu Fraize - for trying to steal that ring. While Strange throws down with the wizard - and gets stabbed by his 50-year-old children - Ben tries to keep Ogdu from escaping again. he gets a chest full of munitions instead. Ogdu gets the ring, Ben gets Strange enough of a healing potion for him to portal them to safety before the wizard's lair collapses.

Seems like another stalemate until Ogdu opens a portal directly under Ben's feet in his apartment, dumping him into some immense void.

What we learn is basically that Ogdu believed in the superheroic age until he stumbled across some old SHIELD bunker, where he learned something that made him want to destroy superheroes. Hence this current thing. Although with this meeting actually coming earlier in Ogdu's life than the previous issue, it doesn't do a lot to advance whatever he's got going. I mean, he ends up with the ring, but we know he loses it against Ben when he attacks Krakoa. Or maybe that sort of thing is out the window by now.

Skroce seems to treat Ben as less durable than he's typically shown. Not weaker, just that his outer skin, rocks, whatever get damaged more easily. I guess because it makes the fighting look more impressive if Ben's showing actually battle damage. And the rocks being chipped or pockmarked makes more sense than Ben getting a black eye. Although the damage was gone by the end of the issue. How does that work? Ben's rocks regenerate like skin cells, or does she buff and polish them smooth again?

What I Bought 4/26/2023 - Part 2

Lately, last week especially, I feel like I'm about to snap at work and say something I shouldn't. Just on edge all the time. I've been at this job much longer than any other position, so maybe I'm getting antsy, or maybe it's the workload or all the associated bullshit.

Here's two second issues from last month.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #2, by Dennis Culver (writer), Chris Burnham (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer) - You'd think they never saw a teen with clean pores before.

Doom Patrol save a boy named worm, and his worm, named Velvet, from giant metahuman-hunting robots. Of course, Worm is Peacemaker's spy, and sends Velvet out to snoop across a double-page splash tour of the ventilation ducts.

Effective way to show the mental states of most of the characters. Robotman, for example, is using a radio to try and contact Danny the Street, who may not be a street any longer? That, combined with another couple of scenes in the issue, paint Cliff as maybe the one character trying to maintain some connection to their past. Rita seems happy with Flex Mentallo, The Chief is too busy being a bossy asshole to bother, Negative Man meditates outside his body. Not sure the significance of that.

Velvet discovers Mento's hanging out in a giant tank (container, not the military vehicle), which freaks Peacemaker out for reasons I'm not familiar enough with DC continuity to parse. Worm decides he likes it there and refuses to destroy the tank, which is when we learn the team's known he was a mole all along. They've jammed to signal for the head bomb, but they can't keep it up. So Worm lets Robotman throw him way up in the air so his death won't harm anyone, and the day is saved! Except for Worm getting his head exploded, but we just met him this issue, so it's not like the death has any emotional heft. Also, Velvet's the actual infiltraitor.

When Peacemaker talked about having a spy last issue, I assumed that meant someone on the team was working for him and the mystery would be who. Maybe Flex Mentallo, maybe Danny the Spy Satellite. Too obvious? There's always Niles Caulder, who Culver shows resents being sidelined by The Chief and keeps trying to claw back power. Via Krakoa-style data pages, no less. I can't get away from that shit even in comics published by other companies.

Along those lines, when did Peacemaker get smart enough to be running the Suicide Squad? He's a brick-brained, propaganda junkie kill-machine. Peacemaker is the guy a mastermind uses, not the mastermind himself. It's like Marvel putting Nuke in charge of the Thunderbolts.

It makes Doom Patrol's job easier, though. Good triumphs when evil is dumb.

Clobberin' Time #2, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - That looks really painful, but also like an interesting setting for a story. What appears to be a vast field of mushroom-like stalks with rock caps is actually the dismantled body of the Thing! I think there's book out like that now, Godfell, with a couple of characters trying to get from Point A to Point B by walking through the corpse of "God", which fell to earth.

Ben visits Krakoa to discuss shared challenges among mutants and cosmically irradiated peoples, and gets a lot of static from some folks because he was a white cis man before being a rock monster. Fortunately, Reed gave Ben an earpiece to feed him meaningless platitudes and avoid litigation. No, that's seriously why he did it.

Enough of that shit. Ben and Logan are drinking when the weird guy from last issue shows up with a bunch  of crappy robots. The robots are a diversion for the guy to steal some stuff from Krakoa's brewery. I wouldn't, those micro-brewers take formula theft seriously. The guy's upgraded his armor and picked up some new toys, so things are looking bad for Ben until Logan arrives and stabs the guy. . .a lot. As he does.

So the guy injects himself and becomes a big, fleshy monster with lots of superheroic symbols on his body, incinerates Logan's flesh from the pecs down, then gets his arm pulped by Ben's punch and retreats. Ben sticks his head through the portal long enough to see this guy is building a big bomb which, combined with his statements about how superheroes are causing contractions in existence, does not bode well.

More nods to Ben's intelligence, in that he immediately recognized the device being built as a bomb. I probably would have figured some sort of starship drive, but the Thing's seen enough of both to know the difference. Skroce seems to be having fun playing with Ben's physical makeup. Beyond the part where the guy makes the rocks lift up to see what's underneath, there's also a bit where he gets a glancing blow with the flame breath that roasted Logan and it actually bakes the rocks a different color. You'd think he'd be fireproof after all the feuding with Johnny over the years.

Also, the future guy has a member of his group called Lyle, and all I can think of when he gives that guy orders is the Lyle from Blazing Saddles. Not Slim Pickens character, the moron that tried to get Cleavon Little and the other black guys to sing while they worked. Mister, "When you was slaves, you sang like birds." That moron. Little hard to take the future people seriously as threats now, actually. Even without future guy mangling Ben's catchphrase to "Here comes the Powie!"

What I Bought 3/30/2023

I'm typing this on Friday afternoon, waiting to see if we're going to get a visit from the Tornado and Hail Fairy. Thus far, it's just been a bit of rain, but there's five hours on the tornado watch to go.

It's Jeff! #1, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - Jeff looking so happy to be on the cover of his very own comic. No more scrambling for background space in other's books!

This is a collection of a bunch of short strips that were on Marvel Infinite first, and have been collected in this handy issue. Outside of characters occasionally shouting "Jeff!" when he does something exasperating, the strips are silent. Mostly Jeff roaming about, having fun doing things like sledding or getting stuck in the washing machine. Although Thompson seems to have designated Kate Bishop as Jeff's caretaker instead of Gwenpool or Deadpool. Man, Kate Bishop can't look after a pet.

The Gurihiru art team depict Jeff as something like a very toothy, oddly-shaped cat. Focused more on him being cute than kind of strange or frightening. A few of the strips play with Jeff being a shark. Jeff jumps in the pool in one strip and causes a panic when people see the fin. So when he decides to join some surfers in the ocean in a subsequent strip, he devises a way to put people at ease. Another one involves him getting a stomachache and the vet performing an X-ray on his stomach.

One that actually made me laugh out loud a bit involved Jeff trying to get cool during summer. He tries to drag over the hose to fill a kiddy pool, but is reminded of the dangers of using his mouth to do that. That was actually an unexpected twist in a 3-page story, so I appreciate the swerve by Thompson there.

Anyway, it's extremely inessential fluff, but it's also extremely cute and lighthearted inessential fluff, and I enjoy that from time-to-time.

Clobberin' Time #1, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - It's kind of weird seeing Ben's rocks depicted more like a leathery hide, without losing the "pebble" look of them.

Ben's having lunch with Bruce Banner and Reed (although Reed's got his neck stretched out looking at some gizmo), when a guy in what looks like mish-mash of Iron Man and Doom's armor shows up and dumps them through a gateway to some other world. Where they find a bunch of little aliens being menaced by a giant monster with a lot of teeth. Which is the sort of thing Skroce draws well, based on his Godzilla comic work. Lot of detail into the lamprey like mouth and the skin like spiny plates. The way the fingers are depicted make them look like a hydra, almost.

The monster is just one of many, the leader of which has captured the little guys' defender, their own Sorcerer Supreme. Hulk ignores Ben's attempt at a plan and just smashes the leader and grabs the sorcerer, but right as they're ready to leave, the army of monsters shows up. So they stay to fight, rather than abandon the aliens. Which leads to a double-page splash of Ben and Hulk clobberin' and smashing a bunch of weird monsters. More lamprey-looking things, vaguely crocodile-shaped things. Lots of teeth, lots of purple blood and big yellow eyes.

After the fight's over, a Celestial shows up, looking a bit more textured than usual. I mean, they normally have elaborate designs, but the Celestials also usually have smooth exteriors, whereas Skroce gives them more of a ridged or organic look. Either way, it declares them anomalies, and sends them home.

Skroce adds some humor in with the monster-punching. Hulk calls Ben "road lips" and "crack-face", which I don't think I've ever seen before. Ben makes a few cracks back at Hulk, although the one about Hulk's forehead, where he compares him to Timothee Chalamet, seemed forced. Maybe that's just because I had no idea who that was, but it's hard to see Ben making that reference. There's also a gag about Johnny taunting Ben for having a lot fewer followers on Twitter than Johnny does, and Ben brushing it off as Johnny using bots to inflate his total.

I'm guessing the mysterious armored figure will be the recurring antagonist, although the only hint here would be the fact they dumped Ben elsewhere so easily and we don't know their purpose. But that's fine. It was a good comic full of monster-punching.