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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Scottrospective Part 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!

Hello all you happy scottaholics! And welcome back to Scottrospective and we’ve reached the finale.. of the comics. Yeah for those of you who’ve been following this and thought this was just covering the comics, nope! I’m also covering the movie and video game for their anniversaries, with the movie serving as a natural finale. The reason for saving both for last is simple: both pull from all 6 books (though realistically the movie pulls more from books 1-3, a bit of four and the OUTLINES for 5 and 6 that ended up radically changed but hey, semantics).

Point is it just didn’t feel like a complete look at Scott Pilgrim without them and the movie’s anniversary is in part why I dove back into the series leading to this retrospective in the first place, so it’d feel weird not to FINALLY revisit it after a decade you know? If your just joining me and would like to check out the other 5 parts of this retrospective so far here they are: Precious Little Life, Vs The World (Comic), Infinite Sadness, Gets It Together, and Vs The Universe. And if that’s not enough pilgrim for you I have reviews of the bonus comics (Free Scott Pilgrim, Wonderful World Of Kim Pine, Style, the comic strips and Natalie Beetle) all up on my Patreon which you can find RIGHT HERE. For only two bucks a month you get access to all those reviews and more.

So yeah we’re at the finale and for one last time we look at my experince waiting for this book. As you can imagine with how devistating the last book was I was hotly antipcaiting this one. So I fondly and throughly, the last part a rarity for me, remember getting the book from amazon, opening it up, marveling and the cool cover, easily the best of the original run...

And then reading the whole thing, cover to cover. I’d waited a year to find out what happened to my beloved gang, I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

You however will have to wait a second. As a refresher for those who didn’t need to binge the last 5 parts of this, and no shame if you did, as i’ve discovered via youtube it’s sometimes really fucking fun to find an entire series on something you never knew exsited and cram your face with it. Anyways Scott was at his lowest point: his girlfriend left him, his cat left him, Kim left him, Stephen was a dick, and oh yeah Gideon finally made his move now Scott had defeated the other exes, calling Scott to politely schedule a time to die.

Just kidding.. Scott dosen’t have a therapist otherwise this series probably woudln’t exist. So yeah Scott’s in a deep hole. Will he dig himself out or keep digging himself so deep he hits the core of the earth?

You probably expected that so join me under the cut and see for yourself as Scott somehow goes lower only to rise to his highest peak, this is Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!

Things Stop Happening: So we open with Scott having a nightmare, desperatley trying to go after Ramona and Gideon (The Cat), only to find....

So with that Scott wakes up or something and we fade to him on his couch which he clearly has not left often in months playing his handheld. I’d make a joke at his expense but a good chunk of my time is spent on my bed playing my Switch so stones, glass houses, you get it. Wallace wants Scott to get out of his Ramona induced depression.. and more importantly get laid so he’s less boring to talk to because Wallace while a caring concerned friend who clearly wants Scott to move on, especially since he likely already went through this with Envy. Seeing Scott post breakup also shows a clear vision of what he was probably like back then.

Wallace also wants to take him to Hooters which is apparently his favorite restraint despite being gay. But given his best friend is Scott watching Horny Straight men be really fucking stupid on a regular basis is clearly something he gets off on, so fair enough. Wallace also points out he can’t just.. dodge Gideon forever. With Ramona or not he’s clearly coming for Scott and can’t keep putting this off , forgetting putting uncomfortable things off until they blow up in his face is one of Scott’s pasttimes. Before we move on the conversation has a weird bit of Wallace saying “You still like girls don’t you?” and just feels a bit off with Wallace wanting Scott to randomly bang people to feel bettter forgetting that Scott sucks at telling people things and is already bad at not hurting people. it works for Wallace because he’s good at telling people things are casual and also has game and feels off for Wallace to give such terrible advice.. if somehow still in character because it works for Wallace after all.

So we have an interlude from Stephen inviting Scott to watch his new band, and Scott bringing up the name Shatterband whic his a damn good band name.. also a clear sign Scott likes Shatterstar which means he has good taste. I want to rag on the guy more.. but this time Scott really is the asshole being so out of it he forgets he broke his bass months ago and isn’t aware he isn’t even in this band or Sex Bomb Omb is gone. Or is in denial. Stephen is genuinely being a good friend going to Scott.. even if inviting him to his new band after he broke up the old one is kind of a facepunchingly dickish move. Oh look I was able to rag on him after all. Wishes do come true.

So Scott has another nightmare, this time Ramona stabbing him with the power of love and then Scott being surruonded by horrible creatures.. which come into focus right before he wakes up

Yeah obviously this is Scott’s repressed guilt over his past relationships mixing with his last one having just emploded.. as well as clever setup for the fact all three relationships are about to collide back into his life.

So Scott decides “damn I gotta get out of here if my dreams are getting this horrifying and decides to go tot he show where we meet his band which consists of Joseph and cole, who we’ve never met before but Scott apparently stabbed with a fork thinking he was Gideon...

Coincidentally the real Gideon is opening up a club soon. Also concdentally, for once she’s really not stalking him anymore, we run into Knives, now 18 years old, with Scott wondering if that meant she was 16 when they met. Turns out no she was 17 meaning this story, at least in flashback, all started one year ago, it having been a few months since Ramona left. We then get one of the series most iconic moments

So we find out that Knives will be moving away to UCB soon, with Scott barely comprehending anything as she goes over the fact she will be far away from all her friends.. but she needs a change. Scott.. uhhhhhhhh

Which leaves both just sitting there not sure what to say because .. what the fuck else would this do. I”m not even sure how to grapple with this and I knew this moment was coming.

So we cut to later where Knives .. rejects him.

I really hadn’t noticed how great and impactful this scene was before now. After a year of obessing over scott, not getting the breakup wasn’t her fault or ramona’s fault or anyone but Scott’s, or that Scott in general was kinda a shitty person... Knives has finally grown up. Realizing Scott is not some perfect guy but just a shitty, normal guy finally woke her up to reality and she’s no longer the same wide eyed naive homicidal kid we met at the start of this. It’s really striking just how much she’s like the rest of the cast: a bit cyncial, a bit broken.. but wiser for it. Hell she’s honestly more mature than most of the cast was at the start, hinting she might have a better go of it than they did. Her experiences sucked but she ultimately came out of them for the better. Granted I don’t think Scott should of done anything he did to her in the first place, but I do think Knives strong character arc is precisily why she works in this story: sure Scott dating a 17 year old and tossing her aside is fucked up.. but the narrative never stops showing the damage he did to her and once she’s finally healed, Knives herself even lays into him how bad it is. Though she does offer to make out with him.. but it’s shown as a terrible idea for all parties involved in the most amazing way:

Scott At The Party:

So that scene just ends and next we see Scott he’s at a party for someone he dosen’t know and assumed was Julie who moved to Montreal that Young Neil clearly invited him to tag along with at. What I love is you feel just as disorinted as Scott does: your just dropped into this random party resembling the one from Volume 1 with no real context or reason and help helps really sell just how lost Scott is.. how the last encounter and just how SKEEZY he was, leaning on an ex he’d already horribly mistreated for some support, left him FURTHER lost and further down the hole. This part was hard to read at the time since you know, Scott was already in a hole why push him further but now I see it as Scott NEEDING to sink lower narratively. He needs to hit his weakest point, have lost everything nad be truly lost and alone as a person, with his friends on their last leg with him for what happens next to work.

So Scott finds out Envy’s there and we get.. this

God I feel like i’m back at the start of volume 1. For the record for any impressionable readers who may not get this is bad, it is. it’s called negging and it was primarily touted by Mr. E a pickup artist and giant pile of feces masquerading as a human man who looked like this.

He looks like the kingdom hearts character you wish would stop banging your sister.

So yeah Envy’s back for the finale, and well. look at her introduction..

Eh I duno I think this series already gave us the perfect woman.

Scott tries negging her and it goes as expected: She glares, he fumbles and thankfully the comic itself cuts out before we see more..

So the next day Envy let’s Scott buy her a coffee and they catch up.. or rather she asks questions, he’s evasive and has an actually withering response when she calls him on it.

Okay so while I DO think Envy cares... I don’t blame Scott for not thinking she would as last time she asked him questions about his life she was doing so just to torture him. Why would he assume different? And while as this volume reveals he wasn’t blameless in the breakup.. it was still mostly on her as she slowly pushed him away and dumped her. Also bitch you are some kind of vilianess, you tried to hammer his girlfriend to death a few months and three volumes ago and came back just to toruture him, as well as reveled in your current boyfriend beating his face in. You may have some legitimate beef with him Envy but he has an entire COW with you.

The next day after calling her the devil, as you’d expect, Wallace points out Envy turned 25, then talks about her possibly being with gideon and ramona possibly having a threesome with her and gideon. Yeah while this book is mostly gravy Wallace IS a tad more dickish. Though he did buy Scott sushi. That was nice.

We then get some GOOD news for Scott for once: after getting a call from kim that telegraphs she misses him and sets up for a little bit later in the plot, handling scott with all the grace and subtley you’d expect...

As you can tell Cat Gideon has returned. Scott FINALLY gets a win. Huzzah! He’s still a douchebag but you know HUZZAH!.. .which really sums up the series to this point don’t it?

So Scott talks to Envy, congradulates her and she points out Gideon threw her the party. Scott ignores the obvious red flag and asks if she wants to get back together or have casual sex, with envy rebuffs, asking if he even remmebers the party, and while he counters she broke his heart, she counters with the same. It’s clear though she still CARES about him as he’s one of the only people who knew her before and “he’s only known me as I am now”. Yeahhh as you could probably guess she’s with Gideon.. who after 5 books of ominous build up.. has finally arrived.

After a few more panels of build up Scott prepares to hit him the same way he hit his own brother thinking he was gideon and...

Yeah I can’t exactly blame him. Scott’s in no mental shape to fight. Phsyically he shoudln’t but this is a comic so he’ll be perfectly fine to fight later despite months of atrophy. Look unless said otherwise comic book heroes genuinely don’t have to stay in shape to kick your ass. It’s merley implied but it’s not a hard rule.

Naturally he ran to Wallace, off panel, as the next time we see him Wallace is putting him on a bus to Kim to take a wilderness sabatical: get his head on straight and get ready to fight. Scott does have a point that what if he dosen’t want to fight him and that he has no reason to.. but that point is moot. It’s very clear Gideon wants to kick his ass wether Ramona’s in the picture or not and Wallace knows it. This fight may not have it’s ORIGINAL point but Scott can’t keep running: Gideon is rich, connected and can keep following him and likely only allows said sabatical because he’s both baffled Scott ran.. and because he still has his fallback of his incredibly cool club opening where he can dramatically stab him in front of an audience. This was likely simply Gideon setting up Scott to come to said club opening, so Scott running really dosen’t delay anything in the long run.

A Link To the Past:

So it’s off to the great white north for some beer, back bacon and meeting Kim’s parents:

Yeah that explains why she’s so awesome. Also as it turns out Kim has not gone back to school.. or done much of anything, having kinda lost her way since then. But not so much she still can’t bust Scott’s balls:

Or help perk him up when he truly needs it:

Kim admits she has no idea WHY she’s out here or what she’s searching for. Presumibly she came back with grand plans of restarting school then backtracked unsure of who she is anymore after all the crap she went through last volume and how lost she’s probably felt for a long time. She and Scott sit in a tree and soon K-I-S-S-I-N-G insues.

Like the Knives thing I read through this so quickly the first two times, I didn’t notice just how FANTASTIC this scene is: Scott suprises her, Kim naturally gives in having wanted this for all 6 books and finally having it.. only to reject it. It’s just not right. She realizes their both just trying to fill a void in their lives and this can’t end well on any level. She does LOVE him, but she can’t be with him, not now and not like this. Not while he’s still messed up and she’s still lost. Maybe later once Ramona gets back. All three of them. Now that’d work.

But for the present when Scott tries to say it was always easier with her.. she points out he’s forgetting a few things.. and we soon find out why that flashback was so crucial: Scott edited it. His telling Kim he was leaving for Toronto? Never happened, he told Hollie and she told Kim for him. His epic fight to rescue her from her ex simon? Yeah... about that...

Yeah this is the reveal i’ve been mostly tiptoeing around: Scott has been conciously repressing his shitty behavior. The reason he seems so cavalier about things, was so shitty to kim, to knives to everyone... is that he just tries to forget when he does something bad and act like it never happen, re-write his own history to make him look like an undisputed hero.

Scott tries to avoid things and glows.. which could be taken as this being Gideon’s doing but given Scott’s response to Negascott showing up soon after...

Scott’s likely been fighting Nega Scott his whole life. Nega Scott like the movie isn’t evil. He tries fighting Scott here sure and looks evil.. but he’s really just everything Scott hates about himself. Everything he regrets, every bad and selfish act locked away so he can see himself as a good person. Negascott isn’t trying to beat up Scott for fun.. he just wants Scott to finally FACE HIM, to notice him and own up to his actions instead of running away constantly. As I said in the volume 5 review, Scott and Ramona’s issue.. is that they run. From consequences, from problems, from physical locatoins, and most importantly from how shitty a person they’ve been. Ramona tries to ignore it, Scott avitvely denies it and thus both are in an awful place. But Kim refuses to let Scott dig himself deeper yelling at him ...

Among other things, this is a long scene and I can’t in good concinse just put the entire thing up there. That’s against fair use. He can’t keep running, neither can Ramona. It just keeps piling up and coming back on them. It’s a truth I learned too.. you can’t keep RUNNING from crappy things you did. I’ve come on way too strong with women, assumed frinedshpis were more, had tantrums in chats. I’ve fucked up too... and it was only by stopping and finally letting myself feel that and realize it was my fault did I grow as a person.. and it’s only by stopping, by remembering ramona and remmebering how she made him feel, how she made him WANT to get better and want to be a less shitty person.. that Scott finally accepts this. Then this happens

So with that Kim puts Scott on the bus. Scott feels he’s not worthy of Ramona, even though simply by admitting that and welcoming his full memories back he already is, Kim simply tells him to fight for it, gives him a kiss for Good luck and sends him on his way

Love Hurts:

So we cut away from Scott breifly to Gideon, who finally gets a proper Scott Pilgrim intro.

He does his job well: he dismisses Envy’s concerns of working herself to the bone for him, literally chains people to sewing machines to produce her costumes and outright says he gets off on dressing her lik ea doll, then has the fucking nerve to get angry when she quitely quips back and retracts it, implying he PHYSICALLY abuses her too.

Yeahh. So back to Scott who enters the Chaos Theater looking for Ramona, instead finding Wallace, who gladly greets his buddy and admits he dosen’t know where Gideon or Ramona are but figures this theater has gideon written all over it what with it’s cage dancers, arcade machines clearly meant for Scott and trendy for the 2010′s lightiing.

He next tries his sister whose oddly douchey in this volume, being constantly hostile with Scott for no reason, or some reason here given Wallce told Stacey his threesome theory. Mine’s better. Point is he also introduces Stacey to a friend she’s somehow never met.... a friend who despite being a right dick lately at long last gets his hearts desire:

Look neil has been a right dick for the past three volumes, and at times the entire series. But Look at that face. Your heart cannot withstand that face. He’s just so freaking happy. I’m so happy for him. It also shows him going from one of Scott’s friends because, to a true friend. They’ve clearly been hanging out more, Scott buying his handheld off the guy, and Neil inviting him to a party but this clinches him as a real friend. And really while some of that dickishness was uncessary , aka calling stephen “Captain Homo”, mostly just that, the rest was all brought about by Stephen blatantly abandoning him and the rest of the gorup just kinda doing it because it was easy instead of working to keep him as a friend. So this gesture isn’t just Scott being nice.. it’s Scott honestly putting in the work he hadn’t before and his friends never really did and acknolwdging that Neil isn’t just some kid who hangs around but his friend. That’s true friendship.

He also runs into Julie... because my life isn’t painful enough but thankfully outside of one cameo later this is her last apperance so despite summoning her like Beetlejuice, i’m free FINALLY FREEEEEEE. So yeah not dwelling on that scene.

So after that touching moment Scott talks to Knives and Tamara whose now all in on Envy, and while Knives has neither person she’s look for the show begins soon after, and Gideon naturally reveals himself.. and naturally tried to Sucker Punch Scott from behind, but thankfully Envy warned him in song. And why yes she apparently wrote a song entirely just to warn Scott because she knew Gideon well enough to know his opening move would be trying a sucker punch. Wallace.. is as helpful as ever.

Or rather as helpful as he is in an actual fight. Still love ya bud but for fuck’s sake. Anyways Scott and Gideon spar a bit, with Gideon giving out one of my faviorite lines in the series and one that’s stuck with me in the 10 years since this came out (This came out the same year as the movie and game). It’s anniversary is next month but given how packed that already is and how this was intended for last month but got pushed back I decided screw it. Anyway about that line:

The two fight but eventually both find out something crucial: Ramona isn’t with EITHER of them, and Gideon is livid for a second and takes his rage out by stealing the power of love from Scott.

But he’s not going to gut scott right away.. he has a very Darth Vadery offer for him first

Gideon takes it well...

Yup... Scott’s DEAD. I also love how everyone has a unique reaction with those closest to him, knives, kim, wallace, stacey and yes.. even douchebag, having a shocked reaction. Other little things to note, Joseph has no reactoin yet Julie does meaning Julie somehow has a heart despite all evidence ot the contrary and Stephen SOMEHOW found someone worse than her. The other thing is that Kim, despite clearly still back up north, can sense Scott died because she’s apparently a jedi. Such an amazing woman.

So I guess this ends the review, if you liked this review please consider.. oh right.. there’s like a hundred pages left give or take. So yeah Scott’s not dead but is groaning about about it.. when a certain somebody finally makes her entrance.

Don’t Let it Get You Down:

Also nice work on the call back. So Ramona is indeed back. As for where the hell she’s been, she’s been milling around trying to find herself , leaving becxause she was afraid she’d hurt Scott if she stayed.. and still hurt him by leaving. She came back.. for herself. Scott is naturally a bit upset at that but Ramona’s response is perfect.

As it turns out though her motives weren’t entirely selfish: She came back because he deserved an apology and closure and she was tired of always running. Like Scott she had an emphipany and wants to be better and this was step 1. Step 2 is scott ramming his tounge down her throat because he thinks this is a dream. But nope he really is dead.... until a chekovs gun finally fires.

Yup. All the way back form volume three to save the day. it even took on his new hair’s apperance. Spiffy. So he takes it and comes back.. and Ramona comes through his chest, proving to him that wasn’t a dream. Wallace reacts how you’d expect.

Gideon, who likely expected he’d have to double murder scott anyway given he was there for Volume 3 is glad she’s back.. as he can inact plan a... which he lowers from the celing. And if you already thought he was an asshat.. good.. but you might not of realized HOW much of an asshat.

Yeah Gideon’s been freezing his exes as part of a sick collectoin.. and Ramona’s next. Gideon then Hadouken’s the glow at everyone as it turns out he invented it.. somehow.

Point is it makes Scott and Ramona fight, and Gideon reveals how he founded the League.

Yes really... this may be one of the funniest things in the entire series. This entire series exists.. because some douchebag posted a drunken rant on Craig’s list and happened to find out his ex who he pushed away anyway, had 6 other exes who were like sure why not.. or he bribed or glowed them into it. The specifics aren’t clear. He also argues Ramona must be the common denimotor with her saying they could’ve just turned shitty later. Which really while she did screw over most of them that’s only true for the twins. The twins are GENUINELY the only ones where she’s their super villian origin story. Otherwise Matt clearly just kept on being a douche or became one or is mad over a relationshpi from middle school which makes him a douche by default, Lucas made peace with it, Todd was always an ass and Roxy was killing less because she was evil and more because she was jealous. Sometimes someone just attracts douchebags. We also get a curious look into Gideon’s head.

Yeah as you’ve probably figured out... Gideon is an evil version of Scott.

But unlike Todd he’s a more complex dark mirror of our hero. And as someone who loves evil oppositeis, one of the best i’ve seen. Gideon has Scott’s charm, looks, selfishness, tendency to rewrtie his past, anger, love of music and trouble letting go. But it’s all twisted up into some noxious pretzel: He’s charming but only on the surface and in a way that wears off fast where as Scott is genuinely well meaning and likeable despite his doucheness. He’s handsome and knows it while Scott really dosen’t realize it. He’s selfish.. but while Scott is untetionally greedy and is trying to correct that, Gideon dosen’t care and literally gets off on being controlling. Both rewrite the past.. but Scott stopped doing it to be better while Gideon’s response to it is to call his ex a whore and slice her current-ish boyfriend on chest. Scott’s anger is either impotent or righteous while Gideon kills . Both love music but Gideon is the corrupt industry incarnate while Scott is just happy dinkin around. And finally Scott learned to let go.. and Gideon wants to stuff his exes in cryo because it makes his dick hard> There’s obviously more bu tGideon is just a compellingly vile counter and easily the best of the exes, being the most complex, vile and compitent while his parallels to our hero show just HOW FAR Scott has come. He might’ve been a low rent version of Gideon some day.. but he faced himself in the miror and came out better.

Ramona tries to just bounce to fix things but gideon stabs her to stop it. He also reveals Ramona’s been using it to ride into subspace... and what it is exactly.

He can be two things Scott. He can be a dickish sociopath who seals people in their heads and a music producer. Both jobs don’t require a soul.

We also get a quick flashback of how Gideon and Ramona met and how she left, planning on leaving the letter before accidently porting out with it.

Ramona is weak from you know the stabbening, and tells Scott she’s sorry and he just has a way of getting insider her head... literally. he’s inside her.

So Scott realzes what she’s getting at and uses her magical murder bag to travel inside Ramona’s head to get Gideon out.

Gideon boasts he��s all powerful om jere.. but Scott defies it, not only telling him to look at himself.. but then headbutts him down from his super spooky god mode back to normal. And then gets bisected because the glow does nothing to him.

Things look bleak.. but Scott’s noble save of Ramona has woke her up... and she takes on her real world form and well...

“You know your right part of me does belong to you.. but the other parts of me are finished with you!”

Bad.. ass. Gideon naturally tries to kill Scott on his way out but Ramona blocks with the bag.. somehow and it causes it to rip in the real world spilling all three out.. and Ramona realizing how much she cares for Scott.. gives her a little something.

And as Gideon is a dick to Envy trying to help him he flashes back to all his breakups... and seeing all his friends combined with that gets him somewhere profound. He understands Gideon because he could’ve been him.. and now he has to kill him because he’s not. Because he’s Scott without any of the good, just a douchebag, just who he could’ve been.. and in realizing that and coming further.. Scott gets a new power up:

So you’d think this would be the end.. but Gideon hid a sword in envy’s dress because “that’s just the kind of guy I am!” so we get one final swordfight, with Gideon doing his best villian gloating saying Scott and Ramona will never work and that he watched them.. not as the cat though.. which he didn’t even know existed. He has a parting shot that dosen’t quite go as planned.

Yes they WERE.. but their trying to fix themselves where as Gideon is just a dick and always will be and thankfully gets killed in the coolest way possible. ‘

So with that Envy hugs Scott, he gets closure, and she reveals Gideon never really wanted a relationship and ps get off her stage, having clearly become a better person herself.. and showing it off by singing as she lets Gideon’s captured exes free.

So with that Scott and Ramona sit down with his friend group and Ramona reveals where she’s been.. dicking around, playing games and watching x files at her dad’s place and she tried calling but couldn’t. Or as Wallace puts it...

So with that Scott and Ramona talk things out and she admits she cahnged constantly as part of her whole running thing afraid of getting stuck. Scott tells her they can be stuck together and to not worry if she has trouble with that.. it just takes practice. With that their back together

So Anyway: Time for the epilogue. We start with Scott and Steven at work with Scott having not only got his job back but upgraded to prep cook. And after closing via a casual kiss, Scott finds out Stephen is gay, something I didn’t bother hiding as it’d get in the way of my anaylisis. But yeah Scott knows now, Joseph is a dick about it, and Stephen admits he came out fully in volume 5 but didn’t mention it to Scott because he was going through some shit. Scott’s reactoin is the exact one your expecting.

I’d say that was offensive.. but this is Julie we’re talking about. But no wether he’s covering up his sexuality or not Stephen Stills just has shitty taste in partners.

Next up, ding is Kim and Scott who have formed a new band, Shatterband, because Scott again has good taste in mutants, and perform what turns out to be a shitty cover of i’m a belivier. Knives and Neil aren’t impressed but their happy anyway.

Next is Knives leaving for college with a tearful goodbye.

Finally we end our story as Scott and Ramona jump into a door into subpsace.. and into their future together

THE END Final Thoughts:

This volume is perfect. Even it’s one or two tiny flaws don’t detract from the fact this is a damn fine ending and the golden standard by which I hold all comic book series and series endings in general. It ties up all the loose ends, has a dramatic satsifying payoff that was built up the wole way, and in general is just great. The art hit’s it’s true peak, the color does too for the reprints, and the characters are all paid off in great way. It’s just a wonderful, truly spectacuclar end to a truly spectacular series. Speaking of which

Final Thoughts on Scott Pilgrim Comics and Volume Rankings:

While i’ll again return to the series in july with this the comics are at an end. I’m truly glad I did this, doing a deeep dive into a series I loved but was disconnected from for so long and it only made me love it more. The series has some issues, mostly of the time such as gender politics, not getting bi or pan people exist, the use of the r word, portaying living at home as a loser move when it’s pretty normal now that sort thing.

But outside of that, and Julie as she served no purpose and just grated on me every second and i’m glad to be free of her.. and yes i’m aware she’s in the game and movie but she’s not an ungodly blight on humanity in both versions so I stand by what I said. But yeah outside of that.. this series great. It’s well drawn, has amazing memorable characters, a releatable story, awesome fights, and with the color aditions truly eye popping colors that show just why we need colorists. It’s a truly remarkable work and if you haven’t read it, PLEASE DO.

So like I said, i’ll be back in August for the anniversaries, and until then like I said MY PATREON has some bonus reviews to keep you occupied and any money is appricated. So until then my Scottaholics.. thank you.. thank you for reading all these, thank you for making this one of my most popular series, thank you for your feedback and just.. thank you. I love you all, goodnight and good luck.

#scott pilgrim #ramona flowers #kim pine #envy adams #knives chau #stephen stills #julie powers #tamara chang #gideon gordon graves #joseph #stacey pilgrim #neil nordgraf #other scott #negascott #wallace wells #lbgtq+#pride month

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diarybutablog · 4 years

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Yesterday I had an amazing day!

I’m sorry I didn’t post anything since May but I really felt like I didn't had time to post anything and many things happened and I'll try to write the most important things in the other posts and now I'll try to say what happened yesterday.

The day before yesterday my father told me and my brother to got to sleep before midnight so we could wake up early. He wanted to go with us on a trip to Brighton because i wanted a comic from a Graphic Novel Shop that was there near the train station and also go somewhere to eat. Yesterday I woke up at 11 AM and he wanted to go with us on 10 AM… ALRIGHT. He opened our door to our room (i live with my younger brother in the same room in UK) and just said "So we're not going to Brighton?". To which i responded "Hello :>"… I guess he didn't like that because he just closed the doors. I waited in my room scrolling through Reddit on my laptop and seeing the same jokes reused with different images. I saw a meme where someone said the if you add Mr Bean to anything it will automatically become funny. It was so stupid that I felt weird because I wanted to chuckle for a moment when I saw this stupid picture.

Suddenly 12 AM came on a clock and I decided to dress up. After I did that I went and washed my hair. I think I was washing it for really long because I came out of the bathroom an hour later. I decided to go to the main room.

It’s not living room because it’s too small.

My dad was as always on his phone on Facebook when I came out of bathroom and I told him that I am hungry so I made myself two toasts, one with butter and pate, and the second with pepper cream. I ate them and drank some soda. My stomach hurt because I don’t usually drink sodas. Anyways, my dad told me that we could go together without my younger brother because he's asleep, so we did. My dad bought 4 tickets for us. Each one of us had one for return and one for going onward. My dad was telling me to keep the tickets somewhere like my right back pocket so i won't lose it heh. When we were riding we discussed Poland and UK as well. After the gossip about horror and thriller movies we arrived. First we went on an expedition to find the Graphic Novel Shop to buy me a comic book but so we were walking and walking and… we found it.

(Kinda i did it because my dad was totally lost)

I was broke but my dad had some to buy me a gift up to 20 pounds. I was searching around and found some cool comic books like the ones about Scott Pilgrim and based on D&D. Also i saw the 13th volume of a series called Giant Days which chapters are called troubles.

(I don't know why they call them troubles heh)

After searching for a while i noticed the comic section called LGBT and i wanted to check if something interesting was there AND THERE WAS! I really liked She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power and I noticed a book written by it’s creator Noelle Stevenson which is called The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures.

It’s basically her diary but she adds her doodles and thoughts to it. I highly recommend it to anyone and I think I might do a Twitter thread describing my day but that’s not important now and probably won’t happen. I also saw a little comic book that was about tweets from our lovely Donald J. Trump but ilustrated as satirical pictures.

Basically boomer humor.

I showed it to my dad and he told me kindly that he wasn't interested in buying that for himself or for anyone. After that me and my dad came out of the store and we went to get something to eat for dinner but… my dad wanted to buy a bag and something to put a gift in. We were walking around the stores and he was stopping like every 5 SECONDS to check the next store and see if they sell something to put a gift in. We entered the Pride Shop or something like that and I wanted to buy the mug that was on the exhibition which presented Batman and Superman kissing. Also I was looking at the pride flags and pride pins but I didn’t give any signs about them to my dad because I don’t want him yet to know that I’m trans, or I think I am. When my dad was coming to these shops, I was coming with him to some of them, but if I wasn’t I was just standing outside waiting for for. In one of them there was a Moomins Handbag which I really wanted but my dad told me that he only would buy it if it costed up to 3 pounds but it was worth 8 so I didn’t get it… When I left the Moomins Handbag store I heard and saw two goth kids coming right beside me and I only heard them say that the girl in this conversation had a Moomin faze and collected everything related to Moomins…

Does that mean that I’ll become a goth kid as well?

We were looking for a place to eat for a couple of minutes and I noticed a place where last year I saw a dude that was playing drums very nicely and it was cool to listen to him. We didn’t stay there for long because we still went to the restaurant to eat something but before we went there a random lady gave FREE COOKIE ICE CREAM to us! While I was walking I held my book without it’s cover because it’s pink and I don’t really wanna go out with pink stuff because I feel like I am showing too much of my secret side with this color. Me and my dad ate these ice creams before we went inside the restaurant but my dad got angry because instead of physical menu to pick up we had to scan the QR code but he was too much NOT FRIENDS WITH TECHNOLOGY that he just came out of the restaurant and I went after him. We were walking and found a pizzeria that we went to last year and ordered two pizzas. Before we got our pizzas we got plates filled with olives, potatoes with onions and cream, eggplant parts and some weird green vegetable.

(Probably a zucchini slices)

Also I got apple juice with 4 ice cubes in it and my dad got one beer like a dad. We were eating our pizzas peacefully and suddenly something amazing happened. A obese young adult lady with red dyed hair FUCKIN’ stole my pizza and tried to run away… and she did, but one of the stuff workers chased her and saw her coming into another pizzeria and… did the same thing, but the whole thing wasn’t only STEALING MY PIECES but also taking someones pizza slice and throwing it at them, scratching one of the stuff ladies arm and when leaving this pizzeria blocking the exit doors and not letting the stuff member that was chasing her leave the restaurant. Instead of being sad because someone took my pizza I started to laugh under my nose quietly so others wouldn’t notice. My dad only saw my smirk and asked me if I feel alright and I said „I think it’s the most entertainment I had in UK so far”. I think I kinda understand why this woman took MY piece of pizza. It was probably because me and my dad sat on the seats next to the exit so it was easier for the crazy lady to take something that was near exit than at the back of the restaurant. One of the stuff members came and told us „I’m sorry but these FUCKING… I mean stupid people will not bother you anymore”. After that she left with the rest of my pizza and gave me a new one FOR FREE! I ate the one piece and we asked the stuff to help us pack the pizza to take it outside so they gave us a pizza box to take with us. My dad before coming out of the store with me asked the Scratched Girl if everything is fine and she said that it’s just a scratch and also asked where were we from, so my dad said „We’re from Poland” and she said „Well… I’m from Russia”. I have no idea what was the rest of their conversation but my dad made a joke that the EASTERN EUROPE was being attacked. If I was good from history I would make a historical joke or a meme now, but I’m not… so not joke for today. Before we left police came to check if everything was ok, but they weren’t stopping us from leaving so we… left. On the way back we were looking at the city of Brighton and right at the train station my dad checked if he had his train ticket and… IT WAS GONE! My dad started to panic but had an idea how to fix this problem. He took his ticket receipt and tried to show it to the woman that was standing next to the ticket receiver. Surprisingly it worked and we waited for our train. When our train came my dad wasn’t sure if it was the right one so he asked me to ask the conductor if we’re in the right one and he said that we were in a right one.

TONGUE TWISTER

When we were heading back to Hastings I decided to start reading Noelle’s book. It was very touching and nice to read. When we arrived to Hastings I was on the 132nd page and I had to close it for a moment and when we came back home I needed to use a toilet and also I used this situation so I could continue reading this amazing book. I finished the entire 194 paged book in a day but everyone probably would do that. After finishing reading it I wanted to tell my friends about my day because I think it was great. After telling some of my friends how was my day I decided to eat my supper and watch with my dad the second episode of Beastars. My dad did like this episode and the whole show. We watched it because we made a small tradition while I am in UK. One day I read one chapter of one of my Warrior Cats books, and the other day we watch a singe episode of Beastars. After all of that I decided to sit and write my day down as a Tumblr Blog post.

Thank you for reading my summery of my day. 08.08 was an amazing day I probably won’t forget because of this post and maybe because I told my friends about this. As I said I'll try to post tomorrow how my other days have been because there’s so much stuff I wanna get off my chest.

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f4liveblogarchives · 3 years

Text

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #227

Thurs Apr 30 2020 [06:34 PM] Wack'd: Another story catalyzed by space objects falling to Earth [06:35 PM] Wack'd: This time a meteor lands in a lake in Pennsylvania [06:36 PM] Wack'd: One of Reed's science friends calls Reed and is like "hey, I know you're big into meteors, wanna come do science and hang out" [06:37 PM] Bocaj: Space needs to stop dumping its junk in our yard [06:37 PM] Wack'd: I mean hey, we do it too. It's reciprocal pollution [06:37 PM] Umbramatic: The Great Space Junk Exchange [06:38 PM] Bocaj: When has a thing earth sent v'gering into space ever caused a problem [06:38 PM] Umbramatic: ...what the fuck were the dinosaurs polluting space with to get what they did [06:38 PM] Bocaj: Its not like we send a hulk of stuff and crash it into gladiator planets [06:38 PM] maxwellelvis: @Umbramatic Tobacco [06:38 PM] Wack'd: @Umbramatic : *Land Before Time* videocassettes [06:38 PM] Umbramatic: dbtgfrh ojgifmhk hjnl;.'; [06:38 PM] Bocaj: Ha [06:39 PM] maxwellelvis: The real reason the dinosaurs went extinct. [06:39 PM] Wack'd: So anyway the team is going on vacation! Johnny wants to get a tan and Sue is like "let's bring the grill" and I'm like "you're. You're going to Pennsylvania" [06:39 PM] Wack'd: Like yes the caption specifies it landed at a resort but like, c'mon [06:39 PM] Bocaj: CAN Johnny tan? [06:39 PM] Bocaj: He's exposed to heat and light every day of his life [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Can Johnny Storm get a sunburn? [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Also: why isn't his name Blaze? [06:40 PM] Wack'd: Maybe he can choose to but it's unpleasant to use his powers for it and he prefers the old-fashion way [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Hm, acceptable handwave [06:40 PM] Wack'd: Like there's a difference between being exposed to solar radiation from billions of miles off and setting yourself on fire [06:41 PM] Wack'd: Ben is grumpy because Alicia is bogged down with work and can't make it, and his only other friend will be busy with science [06:41 PM] Wack'd: (You'd think he could hang out with Sue and Johnny and Franklin but whatever) [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Sandman stopped taking his calls? [06:42 PM] Wack'd: Sandman tries to beat him up on the regular, what're you talking about [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Ahh, right, you're not reading Two-In-One. [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Okay, there's ONE thing in Marvel Two-In-One that causes an actual change to the status-quo in Marvel; there's an issue where Ben goes to a bar and finds Sandman is also there. So he sits down with him and they talk. [06:43 PM] Wack'd: "Yer off yer meds again, aren'tcha, Flint" [06:43 PM] Bocaj: One of my favorite scenes in the DCAU [06:44 PM] Bocaj: Get rekt that scene of Batman talking to Ace, psychic meltdown [06:44 PM] maxwellelvis: By the end of the issue, Sandman has gone legit, and for like a decade, he stayed so, until eventually some Spider-Man story needed him back on the Sinister Six. [06:44 PM] Bocaj: (Because it implies that Only Batman can human at people is why) [06:44 PM] Wack'd: Decade does seem to be where Marvel status quo changes top out sadly [06:44 PM] Bocaj: I think it was after the clone saga [06:45 PM] Bocaj: During the panic mode 'shit roll it back roll everything back fuck fuck fuck' kneejerk [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Gotta remind people of the good ol days after that stinker, yeah [06:45 PM] maxwellelvis: Then it was close to like, two decades or something. [06:45 PM] maxwellelvis: That's an astonishingly long time in comics. [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh wow [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Funfact: Sandman was an Avenger [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Huh! [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Reserve, but still. [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Nice [06:46 PM] Wack'd: If nothing else the idea of him as a sympathetic crook seems to have stuck [06:46 PM] Wack'd: Which is not nothing [06:46 PM] Bocaj: Sam Raimi intensifies [06:46 PM] maxwellelvis: Marvel Two-In-One Vol 1 #86 is the relevant issue. [06:46 PM] maxwellelvis: So it hasn't happened yet at the time you're reading, is the other reason you hadn't heard about it. That issue was in 1982, so about a decade and a half, give or take. [06:47 PM] maxwellelvis: And you weren't far-off with that JLU joke, @Wack'd, says here that a big thing in the issue is Sandman dealing with the trauma of having been merged with Hydro-Man. Which is probably why he's receptive to the idea of going legit. [06:48 PM] Wack'd: Alright then [06:48 PM] Wack'd: ...anyway Sandman isn't. In this one. So [06:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, this was a lot more explaining for a dumb joke than I anticipated. [06:49 PM] Wack'd: Back to the story at hand [06:50 PM] Wack'd: Ben decides he's gonna go fishing. He's got a floppy hat and a vest and everything. Also: more womanly stereotypes!

[06:51 PM] Umbramatic: i love ben's fishing outfit [06:52 PM] Bocaj: He looks so happy [06:52 PM] maxwellelvis: Fishing hats like that always make me flash back to that M*A*S*H episode where Col. Blake salutes while wearing his hat and hooks his finger on it. [06:52 PM] maxwellelvis: "What are you trying to DO to me?!" [06:52 PM] Bocaj: Oooow [06:52 PM] Wack'd: They fly into Pennsylvania and things have. Escalated.

[06:52 PM] Bocaj: "I don't want to hoard gold, I want to turn people into dinosaurs" "HE KEEPS SAYING THAT" [06:53 PM] Wack'd: For the record earlier cutaway panels show this is a bird that got mutated by the meteor but I got distracted and forgot to post it [06:53 PM] Umbramatic: that pterosaur's wings make me viscerally angr--AND THAT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Somewhere a paleontologist is weeping [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: OR [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh cool, I didn't know the writers of *Dino Squad* ghostwrote this issue [06:53 PM] Umbramatic: that's me, i'm the weeping palentologist [06:54 PM] Mousa The 14: The bird didn’t mutate, it simply regressed to an earlier form [06:54 PM] Bocaj: HROINK! [06:54 PM] Umbramatic: if it did that it'd be more like a velociraptor [06:54 PM] Mousa The 14: Hroink indeed. Hroink indeed. [06:55 PM] maxwellelvis: Pterosaurs and birds are completely different groups of archosaurs, that's a mutation, Mousa. [06:55 PM] Umbramatic: YES [06:55 PM] Wack'd: Not really sure why this merited a silent panel

[06:55 PM] Bocaj: Just put up an invisible force slide [06:55 PM] Mousa The 14: Artist showing off [06:56 PM] Wack'd: How bad he can draw children? [06:56 PM] Umbramatic: i dunno which makes a better reaction image, franklin's face or the pterosaur's [06:56 PM] Mousa The 14: Or to show Franklin is about to use. THE POWER [06:56 PM] Bocaj: Its not the worst tiny adult i've seen in comics [06:56 PM] maxwellelvis: Unless it leads to another god-child moment, it's a rather pointless reaction image. [06:56 PM] Bocaj: I'm not saying that its all Franklin's fault but I blame Cable on him [06:56 PM] Bocaj: God-child arms race [06:57 PM] Wack'd: So the monster explodes, and Reed collects its gem--EUGH

[06:57 PM] Bocaj: I don't like this. [06:58 PM] Wack'd: Ftr Gideon Carruthers is Reed's science friend. We already have a Gideon so I'll call him Carruthers [06:58 PM] Umbramatic: -screaming- [06:58 PM] Wack'd: To disambiguate him from the rich doofus [06:58 PM] Bocaj: I'd laugh my ass off if he looked just like gideon from gravity falls [06:58 PM] Bocaj: or even gideon from Scotts Pilgrim [06:59 PM] maxwellelvis: I know there's some sci-fi parasite this reminds me of, but I can't think what. [06:59 PM] Bocaj: Captain N mother brain? [06:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Parasite [06:59 PM] Bocaj: She was a parasite on my peace of mind [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Sue takes a moment to check that Franklin isn't traumatized but he's like "we fought and won, just like in the comics!" And then uh

[07:02 PM] Wack'd: Were comics caught up in the Satanic Panic or whatever? Like [07:02 PM] Umbramatic: -screams- [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Seems more like a 50s thing [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Also yeah that sure is a Franklin [07:02 PM] Bocaj: I think Wertham argued that kids couldn't distinguish comics from reality and yeah that was way before this I think [07:03 PM] Bocaj: I think in his book he cited an incident that I don't know if legit or not where a kid tied a blanket around their neck like a cape and jumped off a roof [07:03 PM] Wack'd: Eesh [07:04 PM] Bocaj: Not sure that could be laid at Superman's feet. He very clearly says 'I have alien powers from being an alien' [07:04 PM] Wack'd: Can't wait to see this kid's mutt mutate into MCGRUFF, THE CRIME DOG

[07:04 PM] Bocaj: Duff Dog Oh Yeah [07:04 PM] Bocaj: Suds McDuffie [07:04 PM] Wack'd: This is cool too I guess

[07:05 PM] maxwellelvis: I was going to say, I think a dire wolf is more likely. [07:07 PM] Umbramatic: awoooo [07:07 PM] Bocaj: Werewolves of Slyvania [07:07 PM] maxwellelvis: I really wish the LOTR movies had modeled the Wargs more on dire wolves than hyenas. [07:08 PM] Wack'd: Okay I think we can safely dismiss the idea of these mutations having some kind of basis in scientific reality

[07:08 PM] Wack'd: Paleontologists rest easy [07:08 PM] Umbramatic: FOREHEAD BEAM [07:08 PM] Bocaj: You've never seen a dog shoot a laser? [07:09 PM] Umbramatic: pidge shoots lasers all the time [07:09 PM] Wack'd: Anyway this time instead of the monster exploding Reed spots the parasite on the back of its neck and grabs it before self-destruct is triggered [07:09 PM] Wack'd: Kid gets his dog back and dog stops being a fiend [07:09 PM] Umbramatic: we have to prevent her from doing it to the neighbors [07:09 PM] Bocaj: Duffer... will live [07:10 PM] Wack'd: Reed I, uh, think the forehead laser puts a serious hole in your theory!

[07:11 PM] Wack'd: Also the fuck is the "evolutionary agent"? Is he claiming we have, like, an evolution gland that pumps evolution juice into our bodies that makes us not be weird history monsters? [07:12 PM] Wack'd: Okay so Reed elaborates that the forehead laser is because the parasite gives its hosts psychic powers to make them more powerful so they can steal gasoline to eat [07:12 PM] maxwellelvis: Well, sure, I can see how that- huh? [07:13 PM] Wack'd: "It makes a bizarre kind of sense," says Carruthers, who is also identified as a geologist and so I guess is just rolling with this [07:13 PM] Bocaj: Carruthers: "Its not a rock so i don't fuckin know" [07:14 PM] Wack'd: Sue is upset that Franklin is in danger and weird shit keeps finding them and Reed is like "we do have some quiet times, they just happen off-panel" and Sue is like "you're right, I'm sorry I snapped" [07:14 PM] Wack'd: And she wants a normal life and yadda yadda [07:14 PM] Bocaj: Like that time she played horsey [07:15 PM] Bocaj: REMEMBER THE HORSEY TIMES SUE [07:15 PM] Wack'd: Sue, hold on to your memories of like the first two pages of each recent arc [07:15 PM] Bocaj: Yeah! [07:16 PM] Umbramatic: thbijgthp oknjlph;[m'n [07:16 PM] Wack'd: So they send Ben down in scuba gear to get the meteor which does actually kinda look like it could be a Steven Universe corrupted gem. Unfortunately he brings something back with him

[07:17 PM] Wack'd: Remember: if a character says they want to go fishing in act one they need to catch a giant sea monster by act three [07:17 PM] maxwellelvis: Shai-hulud [07:17 PM] Umbramatic: poor ben [07:17 PM] Umbramatic: he just wanted to turn fish in to blathers [07:18 PM] Wack'd: Reed, being the smart intelligent thing he is, puts this round item down on the floor of a rocking boat [07:19 PM] Wack'd: It cracks open and [07:19 PM] Wack'd: And then Sue was the reverted evolution thingy

[07:19 PM] Bocaj: So whats the 'reverted evolution' of Sue [07:20 PM] Bocaj: Issue 1 Sue where she didn't ever contribute anything? [07:20 PM] Wack'd: Uh. Angry, I guess?

[07:20 PM] Bocaj: My idea was funnier and plausibly unfair [07:20 PM] Wack'd: True [07:21 PM] Bocaj: Hope this isn't another situation where Reed is justified in belting her [07:21 PM] Wack'd: Also Reed opens the cracked egg and finds five grooves for parasites to be in like seeds [07:21 PM] Wack'd: So after Sue there's one unaccounted for [07:21 PM] Bocaj: Dun dun dun [07:22 PM] Wack'd: Immediately resolved by it dropping out of a tree and on to Carruthers' neck [07:22 PM] Umbramatic: oh [07:22 PM] Bocaj: Whats tension anyway [07:23 PM] Wack'd: Hm. Reverting made his skin darker. Don't like that

[07:24 PM] Bocaj: I do like the resigned "Yep -- I wuz right" from Ben [07:24 PM] Bocaj: Don't like "uglier than the hulk" paired with the thing you said [07:25 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Carruthers goes after some oil because these things eat oil remember, so Johnny blows up the oil and Carruthers goes flying like in an action movie or a Looney Tune [07:25 PM] Wack'd: Thus knocking him out so Ben can get the parasite off him before he explodes [07:26 PM] Bocaj: Yaa~aaay [07:26 PM] Wack'd: Oh. Oh fuck [07:27 PM] Wack'd: I've been sitting here thinking "but why are the monsters blowing up anyway? How does that benefit the parasites? Surely they'd want to keep the host alive to keep collecting oil" [07:27 PM] Wack'd: Adding to that, Reed postulates time is a factor as to why some explode and some don't [07:28 PM] Wack'd: But, uh. I thiiiiiiink it might be a lot simpler than that

[07:29 PM] Wack'd: If I'm right, Franklin blew up the dragon and the sea monster. He wasn't around for the dog and Carruthers [07:29 PM] Bocaj: Dun dun DUUUUN [07:29 PM] Wack'd: (And probably wouldn't have blown them up if he had!) [07:29 PM] Bocaj: Geez Franklin, geez [07:30 PM] Wack'd: And now he's like "do I...blow up mommy? No, right? I feel like that's probably a no" [07:32 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Sue is not entirely mutated, just got some weird facial deformities and is a little out of it. Reed says its maybe her cosmic ray blood [07:32 PM] Umbramatic: *screams* [07:32 PM] Umbramatic: @ the franklin face [07:32 PM] Wack'd: Haha! VINDICATED

[07:33 PM] Wack'd: Honestly kudos to Moench here for successfully constructing a mystery I didn't know was a mystery until the reveal happened [07:33 PM] Wack'd: That's some good writing right there [07:34 PM] Wack'd: Less good writing: this

[07:34 PM] Umbramatic: so nice work [07:35 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Franklin blows up the parasite without hurting Reed or Sue and is very proud of himself [07:36 PM] Wack'd: And Reed concludes "uh maybe we should figure out exactly hat Franklin's deal is" before the whole team hightails it back to New York [07:36 PM] Wack'd: A happy ending maybe

[07:37 PM] Bocaj: OR IS IT? [07:37 PM] Wack'd: Nope, turns out they have another son [07:38 PM] Bocaj: Benjamin Jonathan Richards you were named after the two bravest men I know [07:39 PM] Wack'd: LETTERS! Everybody loves some letters [07:39 PM] Wack'd: Eric L Watts wants Johnny to fall in love with another superhero and Ben and Alicia to get married. I like one of those ideas [07:39 PM] Bocaj: Is that the one what did happen eventualy? [07:40 PM] Wack'd: I mean both of those happen eventually [07:40 PM] Bocaj: Or is it the one, due to the vagaries of gendered language, that has Johnny come out as queer? [07:40 PM] Wack'd: Ha [07:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Lyja isn't a superhero when she and Johnny meet, though. [07:41 PM] Wack'd: Someone wants to know how Sienkiewicz is pronounced! It's sinKEVitch [07:41 PM] Wack'd: @maxwellelvis He does also date Medusa, so [07:41 PM] Bocaj: He's dated Crystal and Medusa [07:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Good golly [07:41 PM] Bocaj: He dates Nova, not that one, who probably counts if Silver Surfer do [07:42 PM] Bocaj: Huh. This list of romantic partners I've found for him is shorter than you'd expect [07:42 PM] Wack'd: People are kind of tetchy at how much Reed stretches now. Two different letter writers are like "He's not Plastic Man!" [07:42 PM] Bocaj: Hah. [07:43 PM] Wack'd: And people really like the more domestic stuff, specifically how Sue is written [07:43 PM] Wack'd: I'm sure the fact that all the letter writers are dudes is a coincidence [07:44 PM] Bocaj: I'm kind of but not really but a little surprised that Carol and Johnny haven't gone on at least one date. They have a venn diagram social circle and Carol dated Spider-Man briefly which is a similar kind of energy [07:44 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey, look who's making her *Fantastic Four* debut

#1981 #Doug Moench #Bill Sienkiewicz #The Main Book

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twiststreet · 4 years

Note

Man I wish you would write another comics spectacufuck. This year in particular seems to be so demanding of one. The original is one of my favorite essayish things of the decade, thank you for writing it.

Haha, Chapter One: Okay, so there was this lunatic who went on the internet and started talking about how he wrote letters to the Deep State about comic books Oh wait, year-in-review is cancelled! Nothing to see here, move along! Hahaha, yeah, that’s not getting written by me, no thanks.

(Though… I continue to wonder why sites don’t run year-in-review pieces. I think it just reflects how so many people who are committed to comics are of Wednesday culture, or see the history of comics in the comics themselves rather than the people…)

But I don’t want to write it either, so. Especially just the last week just melting my brain. Just to round-up what I’m aware of (and I’m sure there’s more I haven’t seen):

Tom passing away;

People then complaining about his obituaries and whatever else, which made me feel all kinds of way– Tom used to talk about comic people picking at each other too much as being “Let’s you and him fight”, you know from Popeye… I wonder what he’d have make of it all, but I’m going to wonder that a lot in the future probably, so…

People dredging up a 3-year old Alan Moore interview for his birthday;

Comic defenders calling Alan Moore an antisemite because that interview isn’t respectfully enough of the Avengers movies (the interview isn’t antisemitic but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯);

Gail Simone or Mike Norton or whoever else in the pro community encouraging fan outrage – because when has stirring the pot of fan entitlement ever ended up being bad for comic pros? A+ strategy.

Alan Moore’s daughter having to react to that over here… (”I am not heartbroken, just really fucking disappointed”). (See also)

Alan Moore writing well about voting for Labour because the political situation in the UK is so dire, and one of the first responses then being a British woman going “Supporting Corbyn? Alan Moore is an antisemite.” !!! The UK now is a worse dystopia to me than anything in the 2000AD comics.

Then, a brand new sex scandal – there’s not a bit of that I can even talk about because that’s just a big pile of “I’m going to get in trouble.” There’s not a bit of that which isn’t flashing DANGER DANGER People on the Internet Will Get Angry all over it, every bit of it. That is trouble, if you enjoy the whole “joke thing.”

Or that’s really two scandals: (1) the sex scandal and (2) that comics has two blonde women named Hope in it and I’m supposed to be able to keep that straight in my head, even though i’m a middle aged man with a brain that’s lost all plasticity. I read half that article thinking about the Scott Pilgrim sequel I never knew I wanted – but different Hope! There are two! This is an outrage! It’s like how every actor’s named Chris now. I’m a middle-aged man, and they made every actor’s name Chris. This will not stand!

And just within the last couple hours, Neil Gaiman’s wife continued to be her wonderful self. That guy was raised with Scientology vitamin scheme money and his wife ends up being the most embarrassing member of his family? How does that work?

That’s just the last week!

There used to be this idea of the challenge of constructing a meaningful life in a world where the old institutions had collapsed. So in the 90′s, you end up with FIght Club or Being John Malkovich or even things like The Matrix or American Beauty. Or going back further– I mean, you can list a million things once you bring up The Church. But I don’t even think those things are sufficient right now. How do you construct meaning for yourself not just when traditional sources of meaning have collapsed but when you’re living in a time of obvious and open derangement? I don’t know. Beats me. Anyways, it’s lunchtime and I’m eating pastrami so…

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kierongillen · 5 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine: The Funnies

Spoilers, obv.

I suspect this will lean a little shorter than usual, partially because it’s more an editorial, sitting back position than any other issue of WicDiv and partially as DIE is out tomorrow, and there’s a lot of plates I’m keeping spinning.

But let’s see, eh?

Last year, when we did the Christmas Special, doing a comedy special was the other option. We decided to keep that in the can, simply because I was trying to visualise what on earth it would be like. Would I ask people to write stuff? Would I write it all? Could I somehow get The Wicked + the Canine to fill the whole issue? We went for Jamie’s idea (which required less conceptual engineering, so was easy, despite being more actual writing work) and saved this for the end.

Which is nice. End of school party, right?

Jamie/Matt’s Cover: Jamie and I have a piece of performance twitter, where I make puns and he pretends to hate them. Okay, that’s not true at all. He hates them, as is only right, as they are designed to be hated. When we have Skype calls, and Chrissy and I sit beside each other, when I drop a pun, Chrissy makes a face which… well, Jamie’s wants to grab it as a gif. It’s quite the thing.

Anyway – a variety of responses to puns. The pun is, I suspect, the best one I’ve dropped on twitter. One day I’ll write an essay on What I Do With Puns. But not today. It didn’t get a ludicrous number of retweets when I dropped it (and deleted my whole stream, as I do sporadically – don’t worry, I store everything before I do). It had an afterlife though being reblogged on tumblr (I think last time it was about 130k interactions), used in big websites’ pun round-ups, put on T-shirts and straight up stolen and tweeted by other people.

So let’s stick it on a cover, and show the variety of responses to it. Of course, Baph would like it.

I really like what Matt did with the colours here as well.

Margaux Saltel’s cover: Margaux is great. I got to know her distantly when C was editing superfreaks, and actually got a chance to hang properly at this year’s thought bubble. She’s got a real playfulness to her art, which this fascinating design sense. Adorable big dog staring at the reader was the first thing I thought of when planning this issue, really.

IFC

Intro page to explain what’s going on, with pop-comic design by Sergio, headlines courtesy of C. If you haven’t read it, give it a scan, because I big up all our collaborators.

How did we decide how to ask? Far too many options. Our comic friends are very funny. We tended to ask people as it occurred to us, see how many pages they wanted to do, and then work out how many pages we had left

The Wicked + the Canine

I lured Erica into this by basically promising her to draw six pages of as many dogs as she liked. Write for your artist.

The pun was basically to amuse Chrissy, and grew into a story. I thought it could be longer (and it could have) but realised it’s best to cut it short – the backbone of Ananke as trainer, and the dogs as untrainable pups, is basically the core of it. Plus the big kick in seeing everyone done in dog form.

I threw some ideas into the mix of how the dogs could be differentiated (For example, Sakhmet as a cat and Woden as clearly-not-a-puppy in a cone of shame) but really left it to Erica to draw whatever dogs she liked. I actually suggested they all be Labradors, but Erica wanted to stretch and play, and it’s all wonderful. The worry is in terms of race-coding the dogs, which is something we avoided.

I think my favourite is Baphopup.

The white-background and “get in the sack” is a wonderful bit of cartooning. How the lack of background stresses it all.

That it was basically done to make C laugh means that it’s part of a history of my dog based comics, which also includes the Christmas issue of Journey Into Mystery, where Loki has to give away seven hell-hounds. I think Thori is the character I co-created for the Marvel Universe who has had the longest life in terms of being used by other people. Adorable sweary murderous puppies can’t go wrong.

I’m pleased that people seemed to like it. That it’s a six page story where the joke is “Evil old lady doesn’t throw trusting pups in the river” is not exactly family comedy special material. I suspect if you’ve stuck along with WicDiv this far, you know what we’re like.

This is also a story which implicitly spoils the book, in terms of Ananke being a shameless manipulator of the pups. A lot of the stories are similar, which means this is a comic designed for relief of those who came along for all the issues.

The Wicker + the Divine Lizz Lunney is one of my favourite British cartoonists, and whole fierce scowl has petrified me for the decade or so I’ve known her. Lunney hadn’t read much of WicDiv before, so we lobbed her the PDFs, and found something fun to mock in terms of how ludicrously call-back-y we are.

Go support her stuff. She’s great.

The Lost God

Chip’s just a phenomenon, and his rising career across the last decade has been basically the most delightful surprise in the period. Immediately I have to swallow the urge to do the usual “Because he’s rubbish” chip-baiting joke, which says a lot. Chip is so much fun. That he’s both one of Marvel’s biggest, most interesting writers now and half of one of the most popular and definitive indie comics of the period is something else. Like, he’d be a legend if only for his internet jokes. That’s a footnote now. Amazing.

Anyway – we meet the first Kieron and Jamie version. Chip’s one is delightful – the over-tortured pun is on the money, but the real joy is Jamie McKelvie’s Hellboy-esque hyper-developed single arm. Every time I look at that, I laugh. Plus the accent. Marvelous.

“Wossat?! Time paste this nob, innit?” is just poetry.

Gentle Annie Vs The World

Talking about poetry…

Chrissy is WicDiv’s editor and also a poet, and has done some indie comics before – as well as co-editing the anthology Over The Line, which is an introduction to Poetry Comics. This isn’t that. This is her just channelling her loathing of Gentle Annie’s obfuscatory nonsense, and I love it so.

Clayton and Dee step in on the art duties. It was Clayton’s idea to drop in the Scott Pilgrim parody Annie at the top, which is very cute, and implicitly shows the modes he can work on. The realism of each scene, and the sense of place is great. Also, the Banshees poster in the doctor’s office is hilarious.

Making A Difference

This is fun. Romesh is a proper famous comedian, and digs WicDiv, so thought it’d be fun to write for the medium. As his script was coming together, I thought of Julia Madrigal’s Giant Days issue, and realised it’d fit well. She had to do it on her trip to Japan, which involved some hilarious jetlag.

Dee’s doing some powerhouse things here with the purple-white lighting too. That’s hyper-strong.

“Fresh Prince of Baal Air” is a hell of a line, in passing, and I think this may have the prize for the darkest punchline of the whole issue.

5 Things Everyone Who’s Lived With Sakhmet Will Understand

I loved Hamish’ Pantheon, which is a playful but entirely accurate retelling of Egyptian myth. Hamish also won this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, so clearly should be doing something else rather than being talked into playing around with us lot. Thankfully, he didn’t.

I think my favourite moment is Persephone’s glance up as Sakhmet walks across the keyboard.

18 Go Made In Wiltshire

Kitty and Larisa have done a bunch of stuff, but I have to put a special plug for where I first met them – TAYLOR SWIFT GIRL DETECTIVE: SECRETS OF THE STARBUCK LOVERS. It’s illustrated prose, and utterly delightful, so was honoured to have them along.

This is all an accurate and extensive skewering of what we’re doing, with a not-perfect Scooby Doo mash-up. I did try to talk them out of including all the characters, as that’s so much work, but they could not be stopped. This meant that working out speaking orders was the main formal issue to worry about.

Now, there’s lots of mockery of me in this issue, but reducing Laura down to “Everyone is so hot! Let’s make out with them!” was absolutely the I Feel Called Out Right Now moment. She’s more than that, right? Right?

While the “WicDiv is a scooby do plot” complete with “Evil old man reveal” is lots of fun, the bit which makes me laugh every time I flick through is the “I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling ki—” “Oh, fuck off.” Oh, Lucifer, Never change.

Enquiring Minds Want To Know: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure Song

Cover-artist Margaux joined by the irrepressible Kate Leth. I’m really into how the two play together – Kate wanted to cut things tight, and the “Short moment” illustrated with Margaux’s warmth is fascinating. Like, have the two other Norns ever looked more delighted and engaged than they are at the end of page six?

In terms of Kieron and Jamie baiting, Grumpy Jamie in full Captain Marvel Gear and me trying to write an essay in any given space is fun and mean (which is how we like it). And I’ve just realised that writing more about this script would only be underlining Kate’s point, so I better stop.

Secret Origin

I wrote it, and offered it to Jamie. Really, the point of the specials is to create a space in the schedule so Jamie can get ahead, but he couldn’t resist this one. It’s cathartic closure, at the least.

Choosing the puns was tricky – I realised it had to be a chain, so chose this one which amused Katie West, which was tweeted when visiting them in Edinburgh. So I was in range of punching.

As always, this is Jamie expression masterclass, and a little self-mocking of my tendency to go full clockwork in my story universes is fun. I hope so anyway.

28 pages of comics, which is quite the thing. I don’t suspect we’ll be making much (if any) money from this issue after paying everyone, but that’s fine. It’s a party, innit?

Oh, it was nearly 2000 words. It’s never short, is it? It’s never short.

WicDIv 40 is out tomorrow (December 5th), which starts our final arc, “Okay.” Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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alegendary · 5 years

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Jumpman v1.0

There's a lot to say here and none of it is important I'm pretty much writing this for myself to log somewhere so here we goooooo: I wrote (using that term very loosely) a story back in highschool about a superhero named Jumpman. He did exactly what you thought he could: He could jump very high. The story was Inspired mostly by Scott Pilgrim vs. the world and FLCL If I remember correctly. Also I managed to shove in a reference to every single song on metallicas first three albums because I thought thrash metal was the best and didn't know what subtlety was. There were also a few video game references too. "Jumpman" So the story was there's this town with super high walls for some reason and its main export was weapons manufacturing for some reason and one of the new projects of this weapons manufacturer is a superpowered parasite (probably something like venom?I didn't know hat at the time). Parasite gets loose, eats the main boy's heart, he can now jump really high. Bada Bing bada boom. The problem is that it's a parasite and it will eventually kill him. But until then, he can't really die. He regenerates. I liked to refer to it as semi-invincibility. Obviously the manufacturer would try to take it back so they'd try to fight him and there'd be a fight per episode and it's probably have some character growth along the way. I justified him learning how to fight really quickly by having really good reflexes from wasting his life playing video games. He's a teenager btw. Probably fifteen. I think I originally had it to be over the course of a year? An episode for spring, summer, fall, winter, and then spring again. So then we have issues. Too many to list here, but let's try anyway: Too many characters. I had his imaginary best friend (surprise twist) that he was searching for, the GIRL, his big brother who also ends up fighting him with new powers, his other friend who makes gadgets, the CEO villain of the weapon company, the comic book cowboy who secretly was also the villain but no one knew, all four horsemen of the apocalypse as a biker gang, a handful of different mini bosses and so many more it's stupid. None of them were developed either, just personalities enough to move the plot along. I tend to write for the story rather than the characters. Probably a flaw. Speaking of the story that was stupid too. I don't remember all of it, but there was always approaching doom and even though Jumpman could leave the city any time because he could jump high enough to get over the walls, he didn't. He stayed and helped. Things like the city flooding, a meteor, monsters, a missile crisis. All this over the top stuff. I don't know how any of it was going to be organized probably because it wasn't. It also had a few pretentious ideas like one-liners that make me cringe and his friend that's he was looking for the whole time not being real and he forgets his name because this superhero has become his identity and he grows wings at the end it was weird. Whatever. I wrote this all in highschool. I'm not sure which draft it was (there were only two versions) but one of them basically was supposed to be symbolic of cancer and the problems one faced when dealing with that. My best friend passed away sophomore year and this story has a lot to do with his struggle. Something to do with having a time limit on your life could maybe in a sick way allow you to do incredible things you never thought before. It wasn't that deep though and I don't really think it was the best way to look at it but it was a way of dealing with everything going on at the time. Didn't mean to make this post sad or anything. Sorry if all of this seemed harsh on this silly little highschool story. I actually really like Jumpman. His design was cool and his ability was fun to explore. Just because I didn't feel it was worth pursuing doesn't mean I didn't like bits and pieces. (I guess I'm talking to myself at this point) Ill probably actually incorporate some unused ideas into future endeavors. I don't think I'd ever forget about Jumpman. If you read this far thanksies you didn't have to.

#writing #thoughts #Jumpman

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ironfist-clown-factory · 6 years

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IMPORTANT:

If you’re planning on drawing Rondo, please refer to this gallery for Body refs

Name: Rondo (Ron-Doe) Randuo Age (at the start of Nonkina Ace): 18 DOB: June 21th, 2000 Gender: Male Sexuality: Straight Occupation: Protector of the 1st Kingdom of the Valley of the Mist (The Snake) Nationality: European Likes: Practical Jokes, Buffoonery, The Loot, The approval of others, The Snake Style Dislikes: Losing, being the weakest of his siblings, the feeling of disappointing smeone Favorite Meal: Beef Stew Personality: High Spirited, a charmer with a side of pranking Fighting Style: Randuo Secret Arts (It resembles a mixture of Sambo take downs, Lethwei Kickboxing and Hung Ga) Clown-Po abilities: Limb-stretching (The Snake Style).

He can stretch his arms and legs 25ft. With which, he can swing around, coil his arms and legs together and shoot out like a spring/gun, strangle an opponent into submission, etc, combined with striking with his bare aura.

Something I tend to not do is read western graphic novels. It’s because I prefer manga over other forms of comics and what not, it’s just that a lot of them kinda bore me. The last good one that I read for the longest time was Seconds by the guy who did Scott Pilgrim.

Or at least that’s what I would have said had I not read Lastman, some French made graphic novel that flew under the radar here in the States.

I would normally give a small li’l plot synopsis, but it’s a series full of different turns, and I enjoyed all 6 of the books we got over here! Yeaaaaaaah, as it turns out, First Second only published the first 6 books while the series was already at like, 11 or 12 books in France.

A shame really, it’s actually really good! And there’s even a prequel series about the main character, Richard Aldana that just got a really good english dub not that long ago. Not to mention there was a pretty sweet Power Stone like game put out too, but it’s based more on the comics than the show.

I will say that if you do give Lastman a shot (which ya should), go into the comics first before the show. If you watch the show first, you’ll be disappointed by the loose, kinda Adventure Time-y artstyle.

But anyways, Rondo. If I liked something enough, you can guarantee that I’m gonna reference it in Nonkina Ace, and surprisingly a good lot of you were able to deduce Rondo and the Valley of the Mist’s influences. Give yourselves a pat on the back for guessing right!

- C-KUN, from the Nonkinaverse Design Bible

OH SNAP!! YA’LL GETTING TWO BRAND SPANKING NEW CHARACTERS TODAY!! AND THIS ONE WASN’T EVEN ON THE WHEEL OF CREATION!!

I spoil you guys sometimes~! Anyways, meet Rondo Randuo, The Snake of the Valley of the Mist, one of the 12 Heavenly Protectors!

Somewhere in the vastness of Europe, lies a valley that has been left untouched by time.

A Valley that has been surrounded by an almost impenetrable mist for what seems to eons, were time has never evolved beyond the Medieval period.

Knights are their cops, Kings and Queens are their presidents, and a long running family has kept the valley safe, generation after generation.

This is the Randuo Family.

Every generation, 12 children are born and trained to become the next elite fighting force for good in the Valley. Each child is given a moniker that is tied to the Twelve Beasts of the Misty Sky.

The Bear, The Crane, The Eagle, The Elk, The Boar to name a few.

Of the Twelve, Rondo Randuo, born in the 2000th Age, is The Snake of The Valley, and easily this generation’s weakest fighter.

It’s not that he isn’t strong, he can keep up with his siblings with ease. Yet he’d rather use his abilities for practical jokes and buffoonery. However Father Rinto, The Bear of the previous generation, doesn’t approve of his son’s misuse of powers.

Rondo knows this, and wishes to stay in his dad’s good graces. So when an Outsider makes their way into the Valley and asks Rinto to participate in a tournament he had fought in long ago, Rondo sees his opportunity.

“No!! I shall enter this tournament, and I’ll prove to my father that I am worthy of being The Snake!!”

With his father and the Outsider’s approval, they set off for the Battle C-Road tournament, so Rondo can finally prove himself to his father once and for all!

#Rondo Randuo #Nonkina Ace #Valley of The Mist #Clown OC #Clown OCs

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ladyahsokabooks · 7 years

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5 stars || Slight spoiler warning? Not really?

“Wait, ew, what is this place? Gross...it’s full of men.”

It has been a while since I read indie comics religiously. Because of this I wasn't sure what I should pick up. As far as I knew Marvel continuously disappointed me and DC’s Rebirth run wasn't the easiest to follow. Regardless, I was determined to get back in the comic-reading-game. That's when I found Snotgirl.

Mind you I have never actually read Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series. So I’m not too familiar with his work. Although it seems, on most major sources, that Leslie Hung was the main author of the Snotgirl comic. Again, this doesn’t make much of a difference considering I haven’t read anything she’s written previous to this graphic novel. Regardless, with O’Malley’s success I could only assume this series would not disappoint and I was right.

I’m not going to give you much of a summary other than this series follows a well known fashion blogger named Lottie Person. She’s assumedly perfect to everyone around her, but she actually suffers from severe allergies. So, of course, Lottie cannot let her symptoms get the best of her. She goes to the doctor and is prescribed a new medication, but while she’s on these new pills some mysterious instances occur and she ends up involved in a murder.

Unfortunately, the series leaves you on a major (and I mean major) cliffhanger (still super bitter about not getting the next issue till July). Which I guess is a bit encouraging since this is an indication that the series blew me away.

I instantly fell in love with the story and little bit with Lottie too. She’s got her problems, but her story is still compelling. She does come off as a snob, but who could blame her? She’s on top of the fashion world and isn’t afraid to let people know it. Still not sure what element made me head-over-heels for her character (since it’s a little obvious you’re not supposed to really like her), but I did anyway.

Not to mention the cute fashion world spiraling into one of crime and mental illusions. Or are they really illusions? This is pretty much where the last issue (#5) leaves you. With 100 questions and screaming for more.

All in all I was beyond impressed with this series and cannot wait to see where Lottie’s story goes. Definitely read this series if you haven't already. Even if you’re not one for graphic novels it’s hard not to indulge in this one.

Goodreads verision

#Snotgirl #My Reviews #Image Comics #book review #comic

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dumbestpersoniknow-blog · 5 years

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The Path to Avengers: Endgame. Part 12 of 21--Ant-Man

Observations and opinions. Feel free to disagree. I ain’t trying to convince you of nothing. Ant-Man begins flashing back to the 80s. Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, doesn’t get along with Howard Stark. Pym has created a juice that can change the very fabric of reality. In other words, it can make things small. His protege wants to make things small for evil purposes. He must be stopped. Pym isn’t up for the fight, so he recruits Scott Lang, a burglar with a heart of gold, to do the tiny heavy lifting for him.

For years, all I knew about Ant-Man was what I learned from Garrett Morris playing him on Saturday Night Live. Morris said he could shrink to the size of an ant and still have the strength of a human. Then the other superheroes mocked him for having the strength of a human. That all changed when the announcement came that Edgar Wright had been hired to write and direct Ant-Man. Wright is one of the most creative and exciting directors working today. He was an inspired choice. Giddy-up!!!

Let me recommend a video to you lovers of film: The late, great Every Frame a Painting did a piece on how Edgar Wright towers above other modern comedy directors. They compare and contrast his movies to other comedies. Wright knows he’s working in cinema and he knows how to use all of the cinematic tools at his disposal to imbue his movies with life and imagination. It’s on YouTube. Search for "Edgar Wright - How to do Visual Comedy". It’s good stuff— even though it barely scratches the surface of what Wright does. But clips are taken from R rated movies, so prepare your sensibilities.

Onto Ant-Man’s title: Marvel does Iron [space] Man or Ant [dash] Man and Spider [dash] Man. Whereas, DC is pretty consistent about letting no daylight shine through in their compound nouns, e.g., Batman, Superman, Aquaman�� Although, if they were truly consistent, she would be “Wonderwoman”.

This is the first new character to get its own movie since The Avengers formed— except for the Guardians, I guess. This is the second first new character to get its own movie since The Avengers formed. And after the epic Age of Ultron, Ant-Man is a nice downsizing in scope — in more ways than one. This pattern is repeated later, going from Infinity War to Ant-Man and the Wasp. Both seem like a chance to catch a breath and have a few laughs.

Speaking of funny, how can you not like Paul Rudd as Scott Lang? He has a nice, easy, natural charm. He’s a likable actor and an unlikely superhero. This is also the first time we see a Marvel hero as a parent with a child. A child child, that is. You know, of childlike age. It’s nice to see and immediately gives the hero stakes worth fighting for.

As I’m writing this I’m realizing that Hawkeye had kids in the previous movie. His kids were just kind of thrown in there, weren’t they? I just watched Ultron a few days ago but I have no mental image of his kids. Now that I think about it, they should have been used to better effect. Total extinction of the planet was at stake and I don’t remember Barton being concerned about his kids. He did look at their picture during the final battle. Am I forgetting something? Am I being unfair? Lang’s little girl is a major part of his motivation. That is new. And that makes him more relatable than other characters.

Anyway, back to speaking about funny, Michael Pena might have the best comic performance in a Marvel movie. Maybe. There's a lot of good ones, but he's a solid contender. In fact, some of the TV ads that came out after the movie was released focused on him. Well deserved.

Heyley Atwell, Agent Carter, is the first and only person to be with the two different Howard actors, Dominic Cooper and John Slattery. But that’s not too surprising since the only other character John Slattery had previously been seen with was Tony as a tyke in Iron Man 2. As noted in The First Avenger, Bucky had no scenes with the younger Howard. Civil War hindsight being 20/20, that’s a missed opportunity.

Michael Douglas is the first in a series of actors to get the de-aging treatment— Robert Downey Jr. in Civil War, Kurt Russel in GotG II, Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg in Captain Marvel, Michell Pfeiffer and Laurence Fishburne in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Zoe Saldana in Infinity War.

Scott Lang gets a job at Baskin Robbins. I wonder if he works at the same Baskin Robbins as Saul Goodman. Son of Zorn is the Baskin Robbins customer!!! I hope his dad becomes an Avenger for Endgame. They could use the help- and I hear they have some openings. Also, what happened to Son of Zorn? It was a funny show.

Edgar Wright has a trilogy of movies called the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy-- Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. It’s about as loose of a trilogy as it can be. It’s a trilogy because in each movie the someone eats the same fictional brand of ice cream. Wright should have had Lang working at a Cornetto Ice Cream shop instead of Baskin Robbins to turn the trilogy into a quartet. Quartet? Is that what's one more than a trilogy?

I love Falcon’s cameo. Returning characters appearing in unexpected ways is one of my favorite things about these movies. Although, I do have a problem with how he arrived on the scene. I can buy a man shrinking to the size of an ant. I can buy a man controlling ants with his mind. But Falcon responding to a sensor that is set off by ants? That I cannot abide. Maybe they have high tech pest control at Avengers HQ.

I wonder if Edgar Wright ever had Captain America in his script. He had worked with Chris Evans on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Brie Larson is also in that movie. That's both Captains. Martin Freeman is in all three of Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. David Bradley is in two of those movies. He gets killed off by Red Skull in the beginning of The First Avenger. Wright has a long history with MCU actors.

The biggest problem with this movie is the Hank/Hope relationship. The conflict between them is deep-seeded, complicated and should be emotional. But It's mostly in the backstory. And the backstory is all done with exposition. Then it's resolved with dialogue. It’s not the least bit visual. Hank leaving SHIELD is done with a flashback. Janet disappearing after going subatomic is done in flashback.

Hank says Hope never looked at him the same after Janet disappeared. Why didn’t they show a glimpse of that in flashback? Hope had the deciding vote to cast her father out of his own company. That sounds like a crushing moment for Pym. Why isn’t that in flashback? This whole subplot couldn’t be less cinematic if they tried. This isn’t Edgar Wright’s typical style at all. This is the kind of laziness Every Frame a Painting contrasted against Edgar Wright’s work to make him look good. This is very disappointing.

Do I come across as not liking this movie? I have mostly quibbles. I love this movie. It’s loads of fun.

I like that Lang says, “Our first move should be calling the Avengers.” Pym responds, “This could change the texture of reality. Besides, they’re probably too busy dropping cities out of the sky.” Hank Pym created Ultron in the comics. He better hope that texture of reality doesn’t change too much. He’s not blameless in another reality.

Earlier, Scott flies across a newspaper with the headline “Who’s to blame fo Sokovia?” Fun tidbit.

The ability to control ants creeps me out a little. I can’t stop thinking about Killgrave. He is a great, creepy villain in Jessica Jones. His mind-control powers are a big part of his creepiness. I wonder if the ant world sees Pym and Lang as their Killgrave. To deactivate a bomb, Janet had to go subatomic so she could go through solid titanium. That small, how was she big enough to deactivate the bomb? I want to understand.

Hank Pym likes to remember his wife by looking at a picture of her hat. If they ever do recuts of these movies like they do with Star Wars, they should insert Michelle Pfieffer into that old picture of Hank and Janet. It’s a little odd that Hank’s favorite picture of his long lost wife doesn’t include her face.

Although this movie is a lot of fun, after reading Edgar Wright worked on it for eight years, I have to say, the directing and editing is a disappointing. I mean, Baby Driver came out just two years later and it is filled with verve and visual delights. Clearly, the director had much more of passion and panache in the latter's case. In comparison, the directing style of Ant-Man leaves the charisma of the actors to carry the movie—which is fine. They do it well.

Speaking of which: Michael Pena drives the last scene with more of Luis' storytelling. In the last bit of dialogue in the movie, he alludes to Spider-man. This is the first hint of Marvel’s most popular character. Marvel had been wrangling over rights to Spidey with Sony for years. He’s coming home. As an aside, there are a couple people in Wright’s Hot Fuzz with their faces painted like Spider-Man. It was almost prescient, like it was meant to be. Wait. What? Who’s Peyton Reed? Stan Lee Cameo— Bartender lip syncing to Luis’ story. Mid-Credits Scene— Hope gets a suit Post-Credits Scene— Sam knows a guy Returning Characters— Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, Falcon, Captain America, Bucky

#endgame #avengers endgame #ant-man #paul rudd #evangeline lilly #michael douglas #scott lang #hank pym #edgar wright #hot fuzz #shaun of the dead #the world's end #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back.

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from.

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim.

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out.

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs.

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before.

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did.

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh.

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling.

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought.

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still.

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming.

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit.

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that.

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up.

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now.

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast.

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph.

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume.

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it.

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s ��totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh.

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place. While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles.

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again.

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason.

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends.

We also get this exchange.

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing.

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord.

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time.

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem.

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy.

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona.

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible.

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim.

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling.

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable.

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed.

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it.

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now.

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her.

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you.

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head.

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!”

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love.

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her.

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger.

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall.

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever.

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last.

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high.

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding.

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do.

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes.

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa.

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright.

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad.

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow.

#scott pilgrim #ramona flowers #wallace wells #roxanne richter #knives chau #stephen stills #julie power #mr chau #stacey pilgrim #neil nordgraf #young neil #comics #oni press #scotrospective #lisa miller #kim pine #jospeh

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Firsts! But still last… Five Takeaways from Islanders 4, Flyers 3

On this day of giving thanks for the family and friends you have there is also a lot of eating. You go for seconds and thirds, and in my house – where the eating begins at noon and doesn’t stop until about 11 p.m. – there are fourths and fifths.

Which reminds me – my family should have patented the “Thanksgiving sandwich” idea years ago. You can now get “the Pilgrim” or “the Gobbler” or whatever fancy name they call it in many places, but for 40 years the SanFilippo clan has been slathering turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing with a little mayo on a sandwich as a late evening snack on Thanksgiving. Before there was a third NFL game on Thanksgiving, there was always a college game, so, at halftime, we’d all venture from the living room to the kitchen and get our sandwich. I’m sure I’ll do it tonight too. Sigh.

Anyway…

My whole lame attempt to the lead-in to this Flyers story was that our local hockey team kicked off the Thanksgiving celebration with a series of firsts, before we get our seconds and thirds today.

(rimshot)

Okay, I know. Don’t quit the day job.

But it’s true. Between debuts and goals and losing streaks and Eastern Conference opponents and Metropolitan Division opponents there were a lot of things that happened for the first time last night, or the first time in a while.

But one thing happened that’s been happening frequently lately – the Flyers still lost.

Oh this one was in overtime, so they got a point (celebrate!) but it was their sixth consecutive loss, and if you really want to look how bad it’s gotten, it’s their 12th loss in their last 16 games (4-7-5). Yeah, getting five points in overtime or shootout doesn’t make it seem as bad – but it is. They’ve only won consecutive games once all season.

So, when you tell everyone what you’re thankful for today, it’s a pretty safe assumption one item on the list is not going to be your favorite hockey team.

They did play their first game against an Eastern Conference Team since Oct. 21 and their first Metropolitan foe since the home opener, but it didn’t change things, and the Flyers are still a last place team in what is starting to feel like a lost season.

But, as is always the case, there are things to take away from this game – and here they are:

1. The best fourth line in hockey that isn’t even a line any more

I’m sorry, I can’t let that moniker go ever since it was bestowed upon Taylor Leier, Scott Laughton and Michael Raffl by a scout talking to SportsNet.ca’s Elliotte Friedman last month.

I get the sentiment – because the three of them are incredibly hard-working, never take a shift off, provide great energy and are reliable every time on the ice.

But lets not blow their impact out of proportion. You have to score goals in hockey and the trio, entering last night, had a combined two goals – both scored by Laughton.

In recent games, Raffl had been moved off the line onto a third line and Leier and Laughton had been stuck with Jori Lehtera. And just because the line was alliterative didn’t mean they were getting a nickname – because with Lehtera in the mix, it was sure to be an undesirable handle.

But, last night, Leier and Laughton were joined by a struggling Jordan Weal as Lehtera was benched in favor of Danick Martel, who was called up from the Phantoms to make his NHL debut (more on him in a bit).

The change in the lineup may be temporary, or it may be permanent after last night – who knows – but they finally had a scoring bite in a game – doubling their season output in goals last night to four.

First it was Leier, getting his first goal in 25 games, dating back to last season:

Taylor Leier with a greasy goal off a great play by Travis Sanheim! http://pic.twitter.com/A3kJwmj0TZ

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

By the way… we’re starting to see a little more of this out of Sanheim with each game. He’s starting to get more confident in his ability to drive the play offensively.

But this isn’t about him! This is about Leier, who finally got into the scoring column after so many great chances this season.

I won’t say he’s snakebitten – although there were a few unfortunate outcomes on chances he had. No, Leier, like any other player who gets a decent amount of ice time needs to find a way to score more than once every 25 games.

But he’s been a guy I’ve enjoyed watching play the game the right way on a night-in, night-out basis. He’s definitely a cerebral hockey fan’s type of player. He doesn’t show up on the score sheet all that often, but he does little things that aren’t measured statistically so well, that you want to see him on the ice even more.

The other goal broke an even longer drought:

Couturier sends Raffl on a breakaway, and he scores his first of the season! http://pic.twitter.com/jmbKM8I1av

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

It was Raffl’s first goal in 43 games. He hasn’t even had an assist in that amount of time either. And yet, like Leier, he’s a guy you don’t mind seeing out on the ice because he’s positionally sound.

Again, does he need to score more? Yes. Absolutely. to have just one point through 22 games isn’t acceptable.

But that’s likely the only check mark on the negative side of Raffl’s ledger.

He does a lot of other things well and he’s a responsible player. Not to mention, he’s one of the most well-liked guys on the team:

It's adorable how happy the whole Flyers team is for Michael Raffl's first goal of the season. http://pic.twitter.com/4YVgIfBRsP

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

And they truly are ecstatic for the guy. It’s not the most important thing in sports, but locker room chemistry is more paramount in hockey than any other sport and Raffl is a glue guy in the Flyers’ room.

My favorite part of the Raffl goal though occurred on radio.

I was in the car during intermission and because of holiday traffic, I had to take in the first five minutes of the second period on the radio.

Just before the second period started, Steve Coates predicted that with the way Raffl played in the first period that he would score a goal in the game.

Well, 42 seconds later, Raffl’s goal happened.

After Tim Saunders finished his goal call, Coatesy, in all his broadcasting glory, yelled, “I’m going to the track!”

It was pretty comical that it happened so soon after Coatesy’s clairvoyant prediction.

But Coatesy did take it too far.

“Once he gets one, they’ll start coming in bunches,” he said.

Not sure he wants to take that one to the track – or the bank.

2. Danick Martel and Sam Morin

Continuing the concept of firsts – these two guys played their first game of the season for the Flyers and for Martel it was his first game in the NHL.

Fans have been clamoring for Morin for a long time now – and it’s likely he would have been up sooner had he not had a groin injury – but the 22-year-old is still a work in progress.

I mean, you have to love this:

Sam Morin with a big hit on Jordan Eberle along the boards. http://pic.twitter.com/aeYp6GBezK

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

and here’s another angle:

Sam Morin flies in and takes down Eberle. http://pic.twitter.com/Zv01PXhA4a

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

That’s what he brings. He also mixed it up with veteran Andrew Ladd in this game, and the two had to be separated before the fists flew (lucky for Ladd). And he did a nice job clearing the front of the net when he was on the ice.

But Morin took two penalties – and one led to a power play goal for the Islanders – so there’s going to be some taking the good with the bad with Morin for a bit.

But Flyers fans should be happy – as Morin, Sanheim, Gostisbehere, Provorov and Hagg were all in the lineup on defense for the first time last night. It’s the future of the blue line. It’s going to be a while before it matures as a group – but it’s an exciting glimpse into the future.

As for Martel, he’s come out of nowhere.

Well, not completely out of nowhere. I did suggest after this game a month ago to give the kid a chance.

(Not sure why you’d read anyone else!)

But, Martel wasn’t even on the radar as a top Flyers prospect. And why should he have been? He was signed as an undrafted free agent a few years back and has toiled mostly in obscurity in the AHL since.

Yeah, he scores at that level, but the fact is he’s small. I mean, really small. He’s listed at 5-9, but that’s if he’s on skates. He’s listed at 170 pounds – but that’s with soaking wet clothes on.

Yeah, he’s diminutive.

But, there have been small players who made a pretty good living in this sport – just look at Danny Briere’s career.

Martel has that Briere-like scoring ability. And he can skate – boy can he skate. Check out this breakaway chance from last night for evidence:

Martel pokes the puck away for a partial breakaway. He's so fast and had everything but the finish there. http://pic.twitter.com/tcimKRaBGd

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 23, 2017

He ended up with six shot attempts, three on goal, and blocked four shots in 12:07 of ice time. His four blocks led the team.

Martel played predominantly on the second line as a left wing to Nolan Patrick and Wayne Simmonds.

He was given the chance by the Flyers instead of Mike Vecchionne for two reasons:

the Flyers needed help on the wing more than down the middle.

the Flyers needed goal scoring help.

Martel was leading the AHL in goals at the time of his call-up.

All said, it was an excellent first game for Martel – one that probably will keep him in the mix here with the big club for awhile anyway.

3. So if Martel sticks, what happens elsewhere to the roster?

O.K. so, this isn’t a takeaway from the game, but it’s an intriguing question nonetheless.

The simple thought is the Flyers waive either Dale Weise or Jori Lehtera, both of whom are dead weight on this roster – and neither will be claimed, meaning they could send one down to the Phantoms.

But here’s an interesting thought – what if they play Lehtera or Weise for a few games and scratch Jordan Weal?

I doubt they would place Weal on waivers. They already took that gamble once last season and were fortunate he wasn’t claimed. But I’m told they are worried Weal isn’t right, right now. Maybe it’s the two concussions he’s suffered this year. Maybe he’s just struggling to gain his footing in this lineup as it’s currently situated, but Weal was expected to be more productive a player, and right now, he’s not.

His ice time has been dipping further and further with each passing game and last night he played a season-low eight minutes.

From the folks I’ve spoken to around the team, it just seems like right now he’s the 12th forward, and he’s barely clinging to that spot.

Weal needs to find his game again, and sometimes sitting out 2-3 games helps a player do that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on the scratch list sooner rather than later.

4. The penalty kill sucks.

I can’t put it more bluntly than that. Right now, the penalty kill is as bad as I’ve ever seen a penalty kill be in Philadelphia.

Yes, they aren’t worst in the league, but they are 28th out of 31 teams and giving up a power play goal 25% of the time.

That’s dreadful.

Compounding that number, the Flyers have allowed eight power play goals against in the last four games and have been beaten on seven of the past 12 shorthanded opportunities.

What’s going on here?

Well, for one, the Flyers miss a couple of oft-maligned defensemen – Andrew MacDonald and Radko Gudas.

For as much as fans despise their games, this is definitely one area of strength for both. It’s also why the Flyers have brought Morin into the mix – hoping to stabilize this.

MacDonald should be back soon and Gudas has to miss seven more games. It should be interesting to see which way the Flyers ultimately go with their young defensemen once those things happen – because a log jam is coming assuming no one else gets injured.

But the forwards haven’t been great either. I’m not sure why they are making Wayne Simmonds kill penalties. He’s never been a staunch penalty killer, and now he’s out there with Sean Couturier and he’s having a hard enough time skating as it is with his groin issues. That one’s befuddling me.

All told, the Flyers might need a new approach here – because obviously, whatever they’ve been doing to this point isn’t working. At all.

5. Ghost continues to struggle

Dave Hakstol should just put Shayne Gostisbehere back with Robert Hagg and let the other defensemen figure it out.

Ever since MacDonald’s injury, when Ghost and Hagg were separated, Ghost has been a different player. He’s made mistakes – too many of them. He lacks confidence. He turns the puck over.

Before the MacDonald injury, Ghost was playing his best hockey – maybe ever. He looked great. He told me playing with Hagg helped him significantly.

But ever since, well, we have plays like this:

Folks, this wasn't good. It was in fact very bad. http://pic.twitter.com/zEndHzAQNt

— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) November 23, 2017

In the ridiculous 3-on-3 overtime, it’s a game of man-to-man defense. And while Couturier busted his rear end to cover John Tavares, Ghost decided he wasn’t going to play man-to-man at all, and, well, Josh Bailey won the game for the Islanders.

That cannot happen.

You aren’t going to pull Ghost from the lineup, but the least the coach can do is get him back playing with a partner who makes him play with the confidence needed.

They should never have been separated. They need to be reunited. Tomorrow.

Firsts! But still last… Five Takeaways from Islanders 4, Flyers 3 published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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thebookbeard-blog · 7 years

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January was a weird month. I went through the first few days of 2017 feeling like I was coming down from a hangover of 2016, and I wish I meant that literally (I stayed in on New Year's Eve, partly because my mother spent the day at the hospital, partly because screw the idea of celebrating 2016). And then January just kept on going, and it just got weirder and weirder. You know what I'm talking about.

So I wanted to start out my reading year as gently as possible. I don't think I could have handled anything else. I wanted to pick out books that, to me at least, seemed warm and inviting.

Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel by Judith and Neil Morgan seemed like it fit the bill. I had already been inspired by kaptainkristian's superb video essay on Dr. Seuss and his rhyming techniques to finally pick this up (it had been sitting on my shelves for a while). Writer biographies are among my favorite things to read, anyway, so this seemed like a good place to start.

And it was. And it was indeed a gentle book, too -- although this didn’t always work to it’s advantage.

The Morgans were apparently good friends and neighbors of the Geisels, and so had access to a wealth of information and intimacies that would not have been available to many other would-be biographers. And this very much shows through in the book -- it reads very intimate. It’s an admiring and affectionate look at the life and labors of a well-beloved author.

A bit too admiring and affectionate at times, it turns out.

This is a mostly thorough book, covering Geisel's work from a very young age, up to college and adulthood and beyond. This life work is divided into chapters covering whatever big work Geisel was putting out that year (he really was a prolific man). A couple of these deal heavily with Geisel's political cartoons he created during the Second World War. The Morgans are quick to praise their artistry and ingenuity as well as the influence that they held, all the while glossing over the fact that a lot of them happened to also be extremely racist and anti-Japanese. This is a fact of Dr. Seuss that I had known for a while, and so I was on the look-out for discussion about it within the book. Alas. I wanted to make note of this in light of the fact that some of these cartoons have recently regained some prominence, given certain current events.

One other instance of the book being too gentle on its subject has to do with the chapter covering the death by suicide of Helen Palmer -- Geisel's first wife and a children’s author in her own right. It's a sad and somber account, and you feel like the the authors are writing about the death of an actual friend and person, and of a subject, which is commendable. I learned later, though, that one of the major reasons Helen decided to take her own life was the fact that Geisel was apparently having an affair with one of their close friends -- the same woman that later became his second wife. This is, given the Morgans relationship with the Geisels, an understandable enough omission, to be sure, but it is also a very glaring one in retrospect.

And I guess an argument could be made about the ethics and moralities of having such personal things in a book that, to be fair, largely focuses on the creative aspect of its subject. But I'm of the opinion that unpleasant details like this should be acknowledged and discussed. Especially so in biographies of well-known and well-loved. They are the things that show us that the people we admire are every bit as flawed and damaged as the rest of us, but are still capable of making the occasional magic.

Those are just two examples that I thought were interesting to think about. As I said, though, the bulk of the book deals with the creative work of an imminently fascinating and intensely prolific figure, and it does so wonderfully -- the chapters dealing the creation Seuss's "major" books being particularly illuminating.

Dr. Seuss was and still is an influential and inspiring figure, warts and all. He was an artist -- a proper artist -- who did a tremendous amount of good, not just for children’s literature, but for literature in general. And he was, much like the Cat in the Hat, a trickster figure, larger than life itself. Large enough to cast a deep shadow over an entire industry.

It’s just important to recognize the rest of it all, too.

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley was the second book I read this year -- something that was completely unintentional but still greatly pleases me. Lost at Sea was the third. Both were re-reads.

Seconds is about Katie Clay, head chef of a relatively successful restaurant who dreams of one day opening up her own. After a series of setbacks that keeps delaying this dream she is visited by a house spirit who gives her the ability the change past mistakes by ingesting some mushrooms.

So, you know, hardcore realism.

O'Malley's books seem to come into my life at pivotal moments. Scott Pilgrim was a very formative book for me: I was an insufferable hipster kid with insufferable hipster friends, and was close enough to the age of the characters that I saw my life reflected on its cartoony pages -- which was an interesting and dissecting kind of experience, to say the least. It's a hell of a thing to see a reflection of yourself in the hero of a story only to realize that both the hero and yourself have actually been complete and utter gits all this time ha ha ha let me tell you.

Seconds also came out at an age-appropriate time, and again I saw myself reflected in the main character, Katie, with her dreams and her passions and her fear of failure and mundane complacency. I was in my second year of a projected three-year stint at an office job, but, much like Katie and her bigger and fancier restaurant, I had higher and loftier aspirations.

When I came to re-read it a couple of weeks ago, I was closer to the character not only in terms of age (we were both 29 now), but in situation as well. I was still at my office job (fifth year of the projected three year stint) and while being extremely good and efficient at it, and appreciating the job’s relative safety, I found myself, like Katie, being frustrated by the mundane realities and setbacks of life. Trying to keep up with dreams is a challenge, but I wish it didn't always have to feel that way. It's exhausting.

Seconds is a story about taking control of your narrative at the expense of other people, and the meaning and consequences of it. It's a story about do-overs and what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. The main character finds all this out via the use of magic mushrooms, and while I'm not exactly fitting to go out into the real world in search of some enchanted fungi, I'm not going to say I wouldn't do the same as Katie did were I to come across such a thing.

This was, I believe, my third time reading the book. I've taken away something new after each read, and my love for it keeps growing exponentially. It's definitely O'Malley's most mature work, both in terms of themes and story, as well as art -- combining his hyper-graphic, chibi style of cartooning with the semi-realistic backgrounds and props of Jason Fischer and the gorgeous expressionist coloring of Nathan Fairbairn.

They all compliment and enhance each other so well. Seconds has become my favorite of Bryan's books.

Lost at Sea is the only O'Malley book I've read at a time when I wasn't anywhere close to the age of the characters, since they are all teenagers. And this is very much a teenager story, all about trying to find yourself and the embarking on road trips in order to do so. It's a story about that deep and lonely aimlessness all moody and sensitive adolescents inevitably feel.

It’s a feeling that we never really manage to outgrow, the vestiges of which manage to remain etched onto our aging souls, surfacing mostly during terribly long and existential nights. I was very much feeling when I first picked it up last year, and I was still feeling that when I decided to read it again this year. It helped both times. One of those books you read as an adult and wish you could go back in time and make a younger version of you read it as well. Maybe with the help of some mushrooms....

I love Bryan Lee O'Malley's books a lot. I hope he keeps making them for ever.

Between these I was also reading the collection Jillian Tamaki's SuperMutant Magic Academy, her gorgeous and gorgeously weird webcomic. Ostensibly the story of a group of super powered/magical/gifted teenagers at a boarding school, it’s described as a mash-up between Harry Potter and the X-Men, but really it's nothing like these. It is its own strange little thing.

I love that you can tell it began as an excuse for Tamaki to just let loose on the page. Tamaki is known for her crisp and clean line art that she uses for her books, but the art in a lot of SuperMutant strips -- and especially in the early ones -- are rough, almost sloppy, as if they were done quickly and in the moment. It fits the throw-away nature of the humor. The art style starts to get tighter as the strip goes on, and the light gags begin give way to darker jokes and meditations. Tamaki never chooses to permanently stay in one form or the other, though, neither in terms of art or story -- they never stop fluctuating. This gives the comic a kind of fluidity that make the strips range from the relatively straightforward

to the surreal

to the somber

more or less on a strip-to-strip basis.

(My favorites of these are the ones featuring Everlasting Boy, her immortal, silent character, whose strips consist of what I can only call playful existentialism.)

The strips are mostly self-contained, one-shot things, although the last few dozen that end the collection feature a poignant take on the Chosen One story that is so wonderfully and beautifully done that it borders on frustrating (it is so short). It's so good that it could have been expanded to it's own graphic novel. Maybe one day. What do you think, E.B.?

#the reading list #book review #supermutant magic academy #jillian tamaki #lost at sea #seconds #bryan lee o'malley #dr. seuss and mr. geisel #judith morgan #neil morgan

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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One Year Anniversary: Top 12 Ducktales Episodes!

Happy anniversary all you happy people! Yes it was one year ago today I started reviewing animation and it’s been a ride to be sure. I’d always WANTED to be a reviewer: I love going on and on about stuff I love, really digging into it and picking it apart... but I could never get started. I tried youtube but I didn’t have the money for the equipment nor a proper shooting space to record, so my efforts.. were not great. And while I TRIED text reviews, my own looming pile of self hatred meant every attempt I made was shot down when it got hard as me not being good enough.

But one year ago I finally got past that. I’d already been reviewing a bit, doing invididual issues of comics... but got way in over my head trying to do the current line of X-Men comics as it came out, and wisely bowed out of that. But that left a gap: I had nothing to cover week to week and with a demanding new job, I drifted into just doing in charcter chats, little fan fictions script styles. Not bad work, I should do some more at some point and I even got a comissoin once in a while, but nothing I could really live on and not what I wanted to do with my life.

Enter Ducktales. I’d always WANTED to review the show.. and when the double premire happened, I decided fuck it, and put up my thoughts. And then decided.. hey maybe I can do this every week.. and slowly.. my work evolved, getting better and better, getting more and more likes. I picked up Amphibia when that came by week to week.

And eventually.. this went from a hobby, if one I was passionate about to a career. Not a largely paying one, as only one person was really intrested in paying me for it, friend of the blog and our fincial backer @weirdkev27, but .. it’s money and i’m now making about 30 dollars a month due to a comination of comissions and patreon. Other contributers are always welcome mind you, my patreon is here if your curious and comissions are 5 dollars an episode, but i’ts just nice to have money coming in. To have gone from simply WANTING to review things and make a living off it.. to simply doing it.

And it’s been one hell of a year.. and not just because 2020 felt like hell or 2021 began with a full on insurrection. I feel like i’ve acomplished a lot in the year i’ve been doing this: I finished what I started with Ducktales season 3, getting better and better as I went. And I didn’t stop there with ducks: I started covering what brought me to Ducks in the first place, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and while that retrospective has slid a bit on the schedule, I intend to get it back on track this month. I reviewed a bunch of Darkwing Duck episodes leading up to the Just Us Justice Ducks.. chronologically anyway. The actual airing order reads like someone took 50 issues of a comic, made it rain with them, then just started reading whatever ones they picked up randomly. I also covered some of Duck Master Carl Barks work with the classics Night on Bear Mountain, A Christmas for Shacktown and Back to the Klondike, with more to come.

And the Duck didn’t stop at just reviews I did on my own: Kev comissioned two MASSIVE retrospectives from me: My first for him was Ride of the Three Caballleros where in just a few short months I covered the boys entire televisied careers together from the movie, to house of mouse, to mickey and the roadster racers, to ducktales (again) and finishing with the wonderful Legend of the Three Caballeros. It has probably the worst Daisy imaginable, but otherwise is really excellent and i’m glad I finally watched it. I also covered Don Rosa’s two stories with the boys as part of it. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it... okay most of them again Three Cabs Daisy is the worst. And once that finished Kev started up another idea: Shadow Into Light: a look at Lena’s character arc from start to finish that has gone on to be my most popular series on this blog, and that finishes next week. And there’s more to come as after that there’s a short breather with a look at Lilo and Stitch’s crossover episodes.. folllowed by me looking at all three of season 2′s ducktales arcs. And I fully intend to have covered every episode of the series by this time next year, so stay tuned.

Outside of ducks though I didn’t slow down. I restarted my Tom Lucitor retrospective, covering what i feel to be one of Star Vs’ two best characters, tied with eclipsa, and my personal faviorite as he redeemeed himself, found love and I bitched a lot about the horrible directions the series took and probabably will more as that’s still not done yet. I did what I always wanted to do and started looks at some of my faviorite comics ever, starting with Life and Times and adding in New X-Men and Scott PIlgrim. I also threw in the awesome comic Blacksad. I did pride month for the first time and not only came out publicly, but also did two whole arcs i’m proud of with The Saluna episodes of Loud house and the rednid episodes of OK KO, and generally just had myself a good old fashioned time as an out bi man reviewing childrens cartoons.

I started Season 2 of amphibia with it’s lows of an endlesss road trip and highs of adding Marcy to the cast and giving us more of the silky voiced keith david. And finally Patreon wise Kev’s taken me on a hell o fa journey: In addition to the restrospectives i’ve covered some additional darkwing duck, and a simpsons homage to the duck comics... but also got a bit weird and obscure with detours like the lost animnaics sucessor Histeria, the apocalyptic comedy where Santa dosen’t know how doors work Whoops! and the adventures of Santa’s bratty teen daughter jingle belle. In short.. it’s been a long year but damn has it been fun and there’s more to come. I’d like to thank all of you for reading, thank my Patreons Kev and Emma for supporting me, and thank my family for doing the same. So with that out of the way, I figured the best way to celebrate was to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something honoring the show that gave me this calling in the first place. And with Season 3 sadly being the last, and enough weeks having passed for me to digest it between the finale and today, I could think of nothing better than my top 12 episodes of Ducktales.

Ducktales is one of the best cartoons of the 2010′s. Brilliantly taking EVERYTHING that had come before, the comics, the original cartoon and every bit of duck media period to craft a masterful, unique and wonderful reboot. It was funny, it was insane, and it had damn good character arcs. By the end every member of the main cast along with major supporting cast members like Fenton, Drake and especially Lena, had changed and signifigantly at that. The show was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more and I miss it terribly, hoping DIsney will do a revivial movie at some point. For now though, Frank and Matt’s run on ducktales, as they called it and I do too since i’m a massive comic book nerd, it’s time to look back on my favorite tales of ducks. So grab your sharks, your number one dimes and your friendship cakes with clear gay undertones and join me under the cut as I celebrate one of my faviorite shows and my anniversary in the best way possible.

12. House of the Lucky Gander!

So as i’ve gone on about before and no doubt will again, Donald kinda got the short end of the stick in season 1. While Frank and Matt had good story intentions, keeping Donald away from adventure since he had no interest in it, in practice it meant a beloved Disney Icon who they and disney HEAVILY promoted as part of the series and whose being here this go round was a big draw for fans of the comics.... was only in a quarter of the season and only got TWO plots centered around him in 23 episodes, with only one being the main plot of the episode. The PIlot and Finale both centered around the family more as a whole if your curious how I counted those so while he got plenty of focus in both, it’s still not a day in the limelight sort of thing.

But unusually for Donald, he lucked out as his one big starring role for Season 1 was both one of my faviorites and one of Season 1′s most inventive outings. A lot of the episodes enegy comes from a one two punch of a great guest star and one of the series best settings. The guest star is of course everyone’s faviorite overly lucky himbo Gladstone Gander. The show adapted the prick perfectly: The original Gladstone from the comics.. was the worst asshole imaginable, utterly insufferable. And for a villian, and Donald’s rival, that’s all well and good.. but his super luck meant he RARELY , if ever, suffered any consequences for being just...

The 87 series simply made him nicer, while Going Quackers simply removed his luck. No adaptation really got how to make this fucker work.. until this one. Here Frank split the diffrence: Gladstone is still smug.. but he’s no longer actively malicious. While he is an insensitive prick to Donald in this one, unlike the comics he’s not constantly bragging about his luck or how great he is or actively BAITING Donald to fight with him or trying to ruin his relationship or a million other reasons he sucks and I hate him.

This version by contrast... is generous. He’s not the most empathetic, because he doesn’t get how life works, but he does share the riches of the casnio with everyone and in a cameo appearance in “Treasure of the Found Lamp” gladly offers his nephews some diamonds. He’s got a nice surface level charm to him that makes you understand why people like him.. but it’s also clear ther’es nothing UNDER that of value, making you equally understand why Scrooge and Donald hate him. Gladstone in this reboot is a perfect example of why we need reboots or new adaptations in the first place: Because sometimes the original got something wrong or something can be done much better by the new writers.

He’s perfectly paired with the setting: The House of Lucky Fortune, a mystical casino with an East Asian astatic based in the country of Macaw and provides two great plots. Donald’s really highlights his character: His understandable jealousy at gladstone earning the boys love through nothing while he struggles to make a living for them, and how he feels like a looser and like Gladstone is simply showing that off instead of just not knowing what empathy is. Having Louie be the one to bond with Gladstone was also just pitch pefefct, as is showing some depth for the boy by having himr ealize his hero is an asshole and be the one to help donald in the end.

The other plot is just pure joy though and is where the setting REALLY shines: Scrooge and the rest of the kids try to leave.. but can’t find the exit. This is where the creative part comes in: The Casino simply morphs to keep people trapped, and caters to them, giving them whatever they want to keep them trapped. In the cases of the kids it’s all hilarious and adorably in character: Huey becomes entranced by a fancy water show, in one of his best bits of the season, Dewey gets a pet tiger who sadly did not come home with him and Webby gets to live the dream we’ve all had of stuffing her face directly in a choclate fountain. Scrooge’s escape is likewise clever: He simply prepares to get a room.. then books it as the check in desk is ALWAYS near the front.

We then find out Gladston’es trapped get the whole mystical contest with absolutely gorgeous animation, i’ll talk about it in full some time but this episode is just a treat to watch, has a great arc for donald and had some memorable gags. I can’t help but smile when I watch it.

11. The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee! As I mentioned before i’m a superhero nerd so naturally Fenton was one of my faviorite parts of the show. Frank and Matt were just damn good at crafting superhero stories, and like gladstone improved fenton turning him from an awkward donald stand in to an awkward peter parker-esque science nerd who just wants to be a good person and the best hero he can be. He got into science not just because he thinks it’s neat, but because he honestly wants to help people and you can’t help but foot for him whenever he pops up. Lin Manuel Miranda is a large reason for that, bringing his incomparable a-game to the character. While we sadly didn’t get a ton of gizmoduck focused episodes, the fatct we got AS MANY as we did and that Lin didn’t drop out for a minute even with his busy schedule was a miracle and I’m acknowledging that.

As for why this one, I feel it builds brilliantly on the previous Fentoncentric episode Who Is Gizmoduck?! which just BARELY didn’t make this list and uses the fact we haven’t seen fenton in a while as both a plot point and to move some things forward without having to spend screentime they clearly didn’t have. By having Fenton be just burnt out on superheroics it finds a way to both explain where he’s been, he’s been busy with his new job, and give us an interesting angle to the old “superhero is tired of the life” thing. He never once complains about saving people or stuff... it’s just like any job it gets tiring after a while. As someone who has his dream job but has struggled with it from time to time, I vastly relate.

Though while I love my boy and Lin is game as always, the episodes real MVP is my other boy Huey. The episode has moved Huey up from being simply Fenton’s fanboy to being his best friend, and adorable as hell relationship. The two clearly respect and appricate each other and Huey is looking out for his buddy the whole episode. His love of love is also just really cute. Added in the mix is Webby, who in one of my faviorite gags of the series, finds out Fenton is Gizmoduck because Huey is incredibly and insanely blatant with his unecessary coverup. But she of course is game to help while Fenton is trying to play it casual. We also just get a waterfall of great gags as everyone overdoes it wingmanning for fenton: Huey sets up an itallian bistro and tries to purposfully create a lady and the tramp situation, and sings opera (With Manny on acordian), the wonderfully 80′s suit from Fenton’s dad his mom gives him to wear, and Launchpad, who gives us a tremendous list of his exes, and plays my favorite song of the series: It’s a Date, a micheal mcdonnel riff.

This episode also wisely ups Mark’s Beaks game as Fenton’s arch enemy, still keeping him hilaroius, with the guy acting like a bored teenager and guzzling so much nanite jucie he turns into a hulk, as well as said hulk mode leading to a ton of great gags from kidnapping the children (”I got your kids.. are they your kids? I don’t know how this family works), to “take that coach dad” to eating a pie with tins and all and wondering about said tins. But he’s an actual threat now, taking on fenton in one hell of a fight, and having an utterly transcendent scene where he hacks his way past gyro’s security while dancing.. and dabbing because of course he does. It’s a fun, well done character piece that’s mostly here for i’ts laugh but Fenton’s struggle with Gizmo overtaking his life, and finding out someone he truly hit it off iwth only wanted him for that.. it’s really good stuff and Lin’s delivery after Fenton finds out, the pure pain and betryal in his voice, is just excellent. Also that opera scene is poetry.

10. Quack Pack!

One of the episodes that started my career naturally landed here. Not for that reason though: Quack Pack is a fun riff on sitcoms, specifically the tgif ones of the 90′s that Disney Afternoon Kids no doubt also watched, the kinds Disney Channel still makes today, and most importanly the kind the Disney Afternoon itself made like Goof Troop and well... Quack Pack.

Riffs on sitcoms are nothing new and the last year has been FULL of them. 2020 gave us this episode, Beef House and the wonderful “The Perfect House” episode of Close Enough, and this year gave us WandaVision, my second favorite MCU project so far, right behind Black Panther, which used the sitcom deconstruction to create one hell of a character study.

So you’d think with a year having passed and this concept happening as an entire mini series would dull this one.. but no. it’s still damn funny, having fun at the cliches while, again like WandaVision, having one of the main cast be responsible by accident but go along with it. The episode pivots from glorious affectionate parody of cheesy sitcoms, to that plus horrifying “Humans”, and a character piece for Donald. This brings Donald’s hatred and fed up ness with adventure to a head revealing his fondest wish is just to have a normal life and not loose anyone again.

It takes one of his best friends to snap him out of it. Look Goofy is my second faviorite of the sensational seven, an episode with him was already an easy sell for me.. but the episode uses him really well. First for laughs as he’s gentically dispositioned to be a perfect sitcom neighbor.. but also for heart. With his family preoccupied and a bit hurt, i’ts Goofy who cuts to the heart of the issue, pointing out NO ONE is normal and even his normal domestic life raising Max, who we see go to prom with roxanne eeeeee, has all sorts of chaos. Normal is what you make of it and pining for some ideal that will never happen was just tearing donald apart piece by piece and by letting go of that.. he finally begins to grow as a person throughout the season. It’s also a great thematic tie in to the season’s overall plot with Bradford and what Makes donald, despite also disliking the chaos his family gets into, different. Donald accepted it and grew as a person.. Bradford clung to his hate and it ate him alive. Or turned him into a non-sapient kind of vulture. Before I close this part out Jaleel White is also excellent and I wish eh’d get back into voice acting. He’s so freaking good at it. Seriously man i’d love to see him and ben in a sonic property together as a mythology gag. Same with Jims cummings and carey. Just think about it whoever owns the sonic movies.. think about it.

9. The Last Adventure!

Look I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming. But it had to be on here. The Last Adventure is not perfect: The lack of a build up episode like the previous two finales had really hurt this one: even at about 70 minutes, it still feels rushed in places and Huey, one of hte main characters of the season, dosen’t feel like he has a full payoff to his character like Dewey and Louie got.

But despite those flaws.. this episode is just a damn good ending. Almost everyone gets a big moment paying off their character arc, everyone in the party that comes to rescue webby and huey, along with the two themselves, gets a moment to show off, and everything comes together to give us one last epic sendoff. There’s just moment stacked on moment stacked on moment from Launchpads heroic second wind and donning of the gizmoduck armor, to Webby’s tearful confrontation with Beakley, to Huey using the greatest adventure of all line to foil bradford in one of the most deligfhully nuts moments of the series, I could go on for days with just how triumphant this finale felt. While it left a lot of doors open.. that feels like part of the design. It’s the end of the fight with FOWL.. but our heroes will never stop adventuring, never stop going and never stop being in our hearts and the curtain call at the end is now my faviorite bit of end credits ever, perfectly giving the main cast and friends one last chance to take a bow in their own unique ways. I will always miss this show but I will never be disapointed by the note it went out on.

8. The 87 Cent Solution!

Look some episodes are show stoppers, some are heartfelt tearjerkers, some are all this and more.. and some episodes are just clever and hilarious. The 87 Solution is the second funniest episode of Ducktales with me and my go to episode when watching the show. It’s just pure fun and with a clever premise: Scrooge notices 87 cents have gone missing, and already coming down with a cold, goes mad with paranoia as the kids slowly don face masks, something that has become even eeerier given everything, one by one realizing he needs to stop.

While David Tennant is an EXCELLENT dramatic actor, his comedy timing is really something that shoudln’t be ignored and i’ts on full display here as his performance gets more and more deranged, to thep oint he thinks an 8th dimensional imp is repsonsible. He nicely balances the disturbing side of Scrooge’s paranoia, his distancing from his family, with plenty of great gags about it too, the standout being when he offers 2 million dollars to whoever took the money like he’s publicly appeasing kidnappers. It’s fucking brilliant.

But while David is awesome as ever what really, truly makes the episode is my boy, one of my faviorite characters on the show if not my single faviriote FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Keith Ferguson is ALWAYS a dream as the character but this is his best performance by far. Part of this is the addition of Zan Owlson, Kev who I mentioned earlier’s faviorite Ducktales character. She’s not only throughly likeable in her own right, but provides the one thing Flinty was missing; a straight man.. or woman in this case. Scrooge wasn’t TERRIBLE in the roll, but can easily step away from his shit or foil it. Owlson has to put up with Glomgold’s nonsense while desperatly trying to stop him from undoing all her hard work with sheer force of jackass. The two jut play off each other brilliantly, Glomgold not getting sh’es not his employee but his equal and Owlson constnatly snarking at him.

And of course both things hit their peak in the climax with the family staging a fake funeral (Though no one told donald it was fake), and we get the funniest scene in the entire fucking show as Glomgold burts in in a white suit, money shades and full dance number to “All I Do Is Win’, which when first watching this I was convinced the song was somehow accidnetly on in the background but nope. They got it after using it in the test phase and the scene is better for it. Glomgold twerking on Scrooge’s casket, trying to get on it to dance, and having to be placated like ac hild is the icing on this very rich cake

And the reveal scene is also gold as Glomgold gets into a YEARLONG staring contest with a baby, fails to steal more than the 87 cents and, in my faviorite touch, put on an imp costume just to make scrooge seem crazier... then keeps the damn thing on the rest of the time for no explicable reason. The episode is the show at it’s comedic peak while giving Glomgold a chance to be a genuine threat and that’s Glomgood.

7. Let’s Get Dangerous!

Frank’s Rebooted Version of Darkwing Duck is probably his greatest achivment with the show. While this show is a team effort, something I slowly realized as I reviewed the show, it’s very clear from the way he talks, how well he knows the show and how much effort was put into porting Darkwing into the reboot that this was his baby. While redefining ducktales for the 2010′s was clearly a huge dream of his... doing the same for the master of suprise was an even bigger goal. And as a huge fan of superheroes i’ve seen my fair share of half assed takes on laired and complex characters. The XCU alone is one giant grab bag of missed opportunities for me.

So i’ts no exageration when I tell you Frank.. nailed it. In one of the most brilliant moves i’ve seen for a superhero work Frank worked his love of the show into the reboot.. by having Darkwing have been a show, one Launchpad loved.. and so did Drake, who was inspried by the show to become an inspriation himself and while his attempt to do that through a zack snydery reboot failed, Launchpad encouraged him to do it for real. Drake was still himself, but the meta aspect and the toning down of some of darkwing’s more obnoxious traits that didn’t work in a universe that, while patently rediciulous still took it’s characters seriously, he made a BETTER version of the character.

This is where all that comes to it’s peak, and hoppefully convinced Disney to let Frank , and possibly matt, run the reboot. And no, even if Point Grey is producing that dosen’t stop that: Thanks to Invincible i’ve now realized that Seth and his friend Evan producing the show dosen’t mean it’ll be RAN by them, nor unrelated to this. It just means their helping make it and if anything given how lush and gorgeous invincible’s animation is, it’s a VERY good sign their helping out with it if it’s true.

But wether this versoin continues or not, Frank gave it his best shot. Part of his diffrent angle is having Drake as a rookie here and as such here we see him truly struggle: he’s had his origin, he ahs the cape, he has the gadgets (in a brilliant turn thanks to fenton, who he actually likes... but is so far the ONLY person to not get he’s Gizmoduck), and the city.. but no crime to fight and no real idea how to go about his lifelong dream. The events of the episode slowly shape him: WHile he already had the spirit for darkwing, never giving up, looking good in a cape etc, this episode gives him the heart the same way it gave his original it: With Gosalyn. Dimantopolis and Beatriz just play off each other perfectly, as the two go from neimies to slowly bonding as Drake realizes this kid needs him and that he needs to fight for more than just filing the ohle inside, and goes to hell and back to help her get her grandpa back, with one of the best moments of the episode to me being when Launchpad helps her realize how hard he’s been working at it, an exausted drake refusing to acccept that he can’t get her grandpa back because he promised. He grows from simply trying to live the dream.. to surpassing the original. We also see more from Launchpad, who grows into his new family and helps push his boyfriend and newa dopted daughter in the right directions. The episode really evolves these characters from the simple disney afternoon versions, who while awesome were made into fully fleshed out characters. Gosalyn still has her edge but now has a hard lesson to learn about doing the right thing, forced to give up someone she loves for the greater good but finding a new family in the process.

Part of what makes the episode work though as while it is funcitonally one big darkwing duck reboot pilot that’s awesome, heartrending and a joy to watch... it’s still a ducktales episode in parts without either part hurting each other. Huey plays a vital role, figuring the ramrod is too good to be true.. and discovering just how it is, then when captured, slowly unravling why Bradford’s there and being at least in part responsible for outing him as a FOWL agent. While this is largely Drakes story the rest of the cast is still vital to it: Scrooge trusting in huey, Louie serving as his logical counter and Dewey meanwhile bonding with team darkwing and helping Gosalyn, knowing exactly where she’s been and providing a nice foil. The episode is just one long and impressive love letter to the original show while creating it’s own thing and that’s really this reboot in a nutshell. It also has some of the best fights of the series, with the first fight between darkwing and bulba, where our hero, unlike his original counterpart, easily troucnes bulba using his speed and skill, is the standout.

6. Woo-Ooo!

I covered this one recently so I won’t go on for too long.. but I will say I hold this one up as the gold standard for first episodes. In one hour, hell even in jus the first half we get a sense of the whole cast, the tone of the show, and the world we’ve been thrust into. It gets all the table setting out of the way by weaving it into a compelling story of Scrooge getting back in the game, finding a reason to get back to what he does best in those he loves most and setting up the season long arc effortlessly in the process. The worst I can say about the episode is it sets the bar a bit high for Season 1 and a lot of the first half really struggled to reach these heights. This episode is a masterwork and the perfect showcase for what the series would be at it’s height.

5. Moonvasion!

Speaking of Golden Standards, Moonvasion is one of the best season finale’s i’ve seen. it’s not THE best.. but that’s a really high bar to clear and that spots currently taken in my heart by “The Crossroads of Destiny” from Avatar the Last Airbender. But while not the best of it’s kind, it’s sitll the best the series put out and is an utterly satisfying epic that ties up season 2.

While I love the Last Adventure, it had a LOT to tie up and was really hampered by having to do all of that with no direct lead in. Moonvasion by contrast hits the ground running with the Moonlanders arriving on earth and all hell breaking loose, and the episode itself breaking into two stellar plots. Scrooge leading an army of every ally he has against the invaders, and Della seemingly going for reinforcements.. but really just trying to keep the kids safe from it, to their anger once they find out.

Both sides end up going badly: Scrooge looses most of his army as Lunaris was one step ahead of him and is left iwth Beakly and Launchpad, while Della ends up marooned.. and finds Donald. The reunion between the two is the highlight of the special, as the two argue as you’d expect (And Dewey cutting in seemingly to stop it.. only to rant at Donald for costing him “ten years of turbo” is the best gag of the episode), before embracing.

Our heroes naturally find ways to bounce back though. Louie, capping off his growth for the season, convinces his mom they can’t just hide.. and in the second best scene of the episode sings the lullabye she wrote.. one Donald sung them every night

And no sooner than Della gets her step back and realizes that dangerous or not she and her newly reunited family have to get back in there, do the cousins show up on Fethry’s giant shrimp/girlfriend Mitzi, and our heroes head back.

Scrooge’s plot hits i’ts peak though as he’s forced to accept the help of an unlikely and unwelcome ally: Glomgold, who turns out to be exactly what they need: While his plan is as stupid, short sighted and insane as you’d expect, complete with forcing Scrooge to dress up as santa just to piss him off and dressing his sharks in parkas (”I call them sharkas”), the sheer lonacy throws Lunaris off as he dosen’t know how to deal with this and Glomgold not only gets the better of him but gets his company back as part of his scheme. “You were prepared for our best but not our dumbest!” “And i’m the dumbest theirs ever been! Muahahahaha! Wait...”

And of course our other heroes arrive just in time to save things.. and the episode still manages to pull off what many works struggle to, something tha’ts very hard to: a SECOND climax. Lunaris decides to just say fuck it and blow up the earth and i’ts up to our core family to kick his ass in space. Epic space battles, Della’s girlfriend meeting the family and more insues and an emotoinal, action packed and fully satisfying finale is had by all... and it’s all topped with one of the best sequel hooks i’ve ever seen as FOWL makes themselves known to us.. and prepares to strike.

4. How Santa Stole Christmas! This one will also be short as i’ve talked about this one.. a lottttt. The initial review, my best christmas specials list and my best of 2020 list. I stand by all of that: this is a unique and wonderful christmas special, i’ll be watching it every year, and i’ts full of charm, humor and gay subtext. In short it’s this series but on christmas footing.

3. Last Crash of the Sunchaser!

Another one I covered very recently, this episode is a master piece of suspense, slowly building tension as our heroes get closer and closer to the truth about Della.. and to death, the simple but deadly stakes making this an absolute nailbiter from start to finish. This is some of the series best pacing bar none... but what seals it is the ending: the masterful flashback finally explaning whatever happened to Della duck, our heroes lashing out at each other.. all cumilating in the best Scene of the show. I said it might be in the review but no I can confirm: Scrooge bitterly ruminating over things while we find out just how much he’s lost... ending with him tearfully and angrily sitting once again alone in one hell of a powerful shot echoing Scrooge’s first apperance. Damn fine stuff.

2. Escape from The Impossbin Only one episode not only matches Last Crash in mounting tension and atmosphere but suprasses it. With FOWL and Bradford’s true nature now out in the wind, this episode uses that to create tension and rattles it’s two most unshakable characters: SCrooge’s normal boundless confidence is shot, not sure he can win this time against an opponent who knows him as well as he knows himself while Beakly slowly unravels, pitting Webby against the boys.. and pitting herself against Webby when Webby sees her terroizing them is only dividing them. Both plots start out funny enough but slowly escalate in tension and stakes until by the end your on the edge of your seat. The Beakly plot is the standout of the two, giving Bentina the starring role she badly needed, having gotten even better in light of the finale. Everyone is at the top of their game and everything builds up to one hell of a twist ending and one hell of a badass boast from our heroes: Their down.. but their far from out and this is far from over.

1. Nightmare On Kimotor Hill!

I”ll be reviewing this episode in full later this week as part of my Lena retrospective, but I stand by putting it up top. This episode is ducktales in it’s purest form and focuses on it’s best original character as Lena grapples with her self hatred and her past. That core helps anchor an amazing concept: going into the Kid’s dreams and finding out their greatest desires. The results.. are all gloriously rediclous and are easily the best gags of hte series as a whole: Dewey’s high school musical santa claus is going ot high school nonsense from getting a’s in Dewology to running away from the abstract concept of a love intrest, to not getting the sybolism of himself crying a moon made of his own tears. Louie quite literally becoming garfield, and my faviorite scene of the show: Huey, wanting to be the tall older brother..g iving himself horrifcly long leg. While everyone else is just understandably baffled, what makes the scene is the banter between Dewey and Huey, with Schwartz and Pudi at their best as Dewey first freaks out and then asks what the hell man, while Huey defends his weird decision (”I”m not good at imagination stuff okay!”), and then tries to get a jar of pickles. Each dream is just so oddly and wonderfully specific to each kid and each one of the triplests dreams, as well as violets being color coded down tot he backgrounds is a very nice touch. The visuals here are just peak ducktales, using the setting for all it’s worth and the climax is utterly emotoinal and heartbreaking... and Lena’s break from her abuser, finally realizing she has the power now is not only a wonderful metaphor... but also just so damn cathartic. And that’s why this one’s the best to me personally: it just packs so much into 20 minutes: some of the series best and most creative jokes, a gripping emtoinal arc, and so much more. It’s just that damn good and tha’ts why it’s the best... that and starting Huelet for me. Seriously that LIbrary scene is so fucking cute.

Thank you all for reading. If you liked this artcle, join my patreon and help me get to my stretch goal for monthly darkwing duck reviews, a review of super ducktales and more after! Until the next rainbow... it’s been a pleasure.

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Blacksad: Somewhere In the Shadows Review

Hello you beautiful people! I have a WEIRD relationship with Noir. It’s weird because i’ve never really dived into the films of type, though I really should, But as a kid I absolutely LOVED the tracer bullet arcs in Calvin and Hobbes, where everyone’s favorite hyperactive and imaginative six year old would plant himself as the hero in a noir pastiche.. ironically like myself Bill Watterson was also not a huge noir buff and just relied on Cliches but hey, it worked.

Still love these. So from fourth grade on it imprinted a lifelong love of a good bit of detective noir. Not enough to you know, get me to read any traditional noir books or watch any noir tv shows or detective procedurals but I still love a good mystery from time to time and some of my favorite comics such as Howard the Duck by Chip Zdarksy and Peter David’s second run on x-factor run on the genre while having fun with it’s cliches.

I also love anthropormphic animal stories. Dunno why, I just do, so once I found out about Blacksad, a comic that combines disney quality art from a former disney animator with gripping, adult noir that rips your heart out... I couldn’t resisit trying it. Telling the tale of John Blacksad, a cynical private detective and the cases he steps into via gorgeous, straight out of a disney storyboard art, the series is by Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), the latter a former Disney artist who worked on several Disney films, meeting in the 90′s while working on licensed works and hitting it off, leading to this series. That’s.. really all I could find about the making of the series in English. The only other fact is the series is designed for first release in France, which has a huge comics market, hence the various volumes being called “Albums”, with them later being released in Spain and then english, currently in the latter through Dark Horse Comics, who last year collected the current 5 albums and some side stories into one big volume. And with Dark Horse having infrequent sales including Blacksad on comixology it’s easy enough to pick up all 5 volumes in one complete package on digital for 9 bucks, as it is right now. Seriously I’m not trying to shill for Comixology or Dark Horse, I just love these comics and suggest picking them up. The creators DO intend on new volumes... it’s just both have been busy with other work so they’ve been stuck in development hell since 2013. However given there have always been, if much smaller, the biggest being 5 years, gaps between the Albums, I don’t think the series is dead quite yet and with Dark Horse fully backing it, taking the series from only two volumes getting translated to both translating the first four AND translating the fifth within a year of it’s release, we’ll undoubtly get the next one quickly. The series has also spawned a game, Under the Skin, which i’ll probably also cover some day as i’m dying to play it, but i’m waiting for a sale because it’s around 30 bucks and I can wait. It’s also been nominated for an Eisner three times to no suprise and has had fans in Stan Lee, Jim Steranko, Tim Sale and Will freaking Eisner. Yes the GUY the awards were named after liked the series. So yeah, I love this series and highly support it, but the thought of covering it hadn’t occrued to me.. in part because I already had three comic retrsopectives going, my looks at The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Scott Pilgrim and New X-Men, and simply because I just hadn’t thought of it till Kevin, frequent patron and comissioner of the blog whose paid for tons of reivews, suggested covering the second Album, Arctic Nation, which has our hero searching for a missing little girl he feels has been taken by the titular white supramacist movement.. and if your wondering “Wait how the fuck does that work their animals”, John is black coded due to his black fur, while the white suprmacists are all Arctic Animals.. a touch I really like as I’d honestly never thought of that as a metaphor but it fits like a glove, especially given that most white furred arctic mamals are pretty agressive looking. So yeah I’ll be covering that one next month for Black History Month, among many other things, but I felt I wanted to cover the series in order and since again, it’s only the second of five and I had a free space on the schedule. So without further adew, join me somewhere in the shadows and under the cut as we enter the world of one John Blacksad.

We open as you’d expect for a Noir with a heady narration and a murder. John was brought in by Smirnov, the chief of police and an old aquantice who serves as his Commissioner Gordon. Since the victim is John’s ex, he was brought in to see if he knows anything and as you’d expect warned not to look into it further, as John dosen’t buy this was a simple robbery. His response is exactly what you’d expect.

I mean.. what did you expect? You called him out of bed to see his former lovers corpse, KNOWING he’s one hell of detective, dosen’t give up on things easy, and would probably be curious. For him to say “Cool gonna go smoke some reefer and take in a looney tunes short at the theater, call me when you find the murderer?” Also this series takes place in the 50s. Because of course it does.

So John goes back to his office to brood, reflecting that the office feels like the remains of an ancient civlization because “It seems to be all that remains of the civlized person I used to be”. Hell of a line.

We then get his backstory with the victim, Natalia. She’s a famous actress, who John first as a younger man when hired to investgate some death threats she’d received with a boquet of flowers. John shows off just how good he is at his job in just a few panels.

IT not only shows in just a few panels just how ferocious our hero can be when needed and how good he is at his job, easily having tracked down the man responsible and scared him shitless without breaking as sweat, but how fucking gorgeous the art is. I meant it when I brought up the old disney comparison, as Steranko even mentioned in his introduction to the collection of the first three volumes how it looks like animation cels on the page. IT’s utterly breathtaking and ONLY gets even more lush and beautiful as the series goes on and perfectly fits the noir stylings with it’s realisim, making it’s animal characters feel utterly human and real while still keeping their animal traits in perfect detail.

John impressed her, and as we see in the next page under his narration they not only had really steamy passionate sex, and why yes we do see them naked even if the bits are covered it’s still very much nsfw and we saw Natalia’s naked corpse earlier, so that ship had already sailed anyway, with Natalia taking him on both as her lover and her on staff detective and the two were much in love.. until the fame apparenlty got to her judging from the visuals, and the realtionship fell apart.

Before we move on i’d like to talk about the narration which CAN be a bit overwrought here or there and is a bit overused.. but does have it’s mometns of being utterly effective as with above, contrasting John’s statments about a sucessful job and being hired on.. with the beginnings of his and Natalia’s relationship and their passionate lovemaking. IT’s not BAD and it works for the setting, but it can be distracting, but thankfully the series levels this out as we go and they learned from it so no harm done. Just the kinda thing that happens early in a series life when the creators are getting a handle on things, so no harm done.

But naturally John isn’t going to take the love of his life, responsible for the happiest days of said life, being brutally murdered lying down and is going to find the bastard who did this. So he goes to an old friend, Jake Ositombe, a championship boxer and Nat’s former bodyguard who he recommended to her. Given we see him knock the shit out of his opponent without the slightest effort, yeah good call. Also yes we share the same name and no it’s not weird to type about another Jake, adventure time sorta.. knocked that out of me. Jake dosen’t know much since she fired him a long time ago as one of her lovers hired private security, and the last one he knew of was a guy by the name of Leon. John, naturally, easily finds the guy’s apartment, Leon Kronkski, a screenwriter.. but also rules him out as the guy lived in a humble apartment and clearly didn’t have the cash to hire his own hired goons.

He does find a clue, a matchbook for some place called the Cypher Club.. and another when the man’s sweet mouse landlady shows up, who John charms by pretending to be Leon’s friend and flashing a big smile, finding out a msyterious man with “big bulging eyes”, took him. This scene also to me is great in subtly showing off John’s skill. While the previous flashback showed how badass he is, shoving a gun down the throat of a stalking wannabe murderer with pure rage in his eyes.. here we see a lighter approach, how despite his serious and dour nature.. he easily slips into being cheery and looking like an average joe off the street. He bluffs the landlady not because the plot says so.. but because like any PI he’s just that good at slipping into whatever roll he needs to get the info he needs. He can be his dour self or a charming happy go lucky guy without missing a beat.

So with that he goes to the studio leon worked for where his boss.. is a walrus j jonah jameson?

But yeah J. Jonah Walruson wants pictures of spider-man.. moving pictures.. but he can’t film them with his star dead and his screenwriter indefintiely gone, with the same bulging eyed man having told JJ he’d be gone indefintely. Nothing suspicious about that!

So naturally John’s next plan is to find the guy.. who is already after him as you’d expect with both a knife to slash at our hero with and the fog covering him so he can hit and run. But unluckily for him .. well i’ll let john say it...

John headbutts the myserious snake, who only managed to get his coat before and tries to interogate him.. but gets a quick jab to the gut and the guy gets away.

We soon meet our big bag, who has a big speech about insects and things being usefufl.. and once they stop being useful.. they become dead and collectable, telling the snake man to back off John.. and sending his right hand man to go take care of the Snake who apparently took something from the office. Realizing his numbers up the Snake Man goes to a lizard bar, picks up a package from a friend and runs out the back, knowing he’s being followed.. and we get some hints there’s also racial tension between lizards and mammials here as the bartender, said friend, has the entire bar circle around the guy preventing him from following our mysterious bulging eyed man.

Meanwhile John goes to the Cipher Club, a wretched hive of scum and villiany. Given Nat was a glamorous movie star, it’s very clear she was here to hide from something or someone, and the bartnender, a wild pig.

No not you sweetie. The wild pig tells John leon was indeed here and a local rat, in both senses of the word, offers to take John to him.. though understandably John is supscious of the guy he just met in a seedy bar taking him anywhere except to get some heroin. Did Heroin exist yet? Questions for later. But he’s got a case so he follows. Though suprisingly the guy DOES actually come through and it’s not ENTIRELY a trap: he takes john to a tomb for Noel Krinsok.. an anagram for Leon’s name. Unsuprisingly he’s dead. And also unsuprisingly, two hired goons

Show up. As I said not ENTIRELY a trap but it’s obvious given the rat split moments before that our mysterious big bad knew where john would be headed next, and thus while giving him a clue, also set him up to get his head knocked in. And while John is badass.. these guys are a bear and a rhino, both stronger, bigger, and with suprise on their size, as well as a tombstone to knock john’s head into. They easily beat him senseless and hope he got the message, though john gives a defiant fuck you before being punched out for it. He returns home, feeling like he’s aged 20 years “But no one respects the elderly anymore”, PFFT, and heads home to his rathole, not literally this time, apartment to lay on his cot and think as he gets some rest.

And while the trail for Leon is cold. our mysterious murderer accidently tipped his hand: only someone with a LOT of money and influence could make a man disappear like this, and it tracks with what we’ve seen so far. The guy has multiple henchman and despite being a big star with plenty of clout, Natalia had to hide in a dive bar just to get away from him and even THEN clearly wasn’t so lucky given she and her new lover both wound up dead. But Blacksad has bigger problems.. he wakes up in a jail cell.

Turns out Smirnkov had him arrested.. but for his own protection as the case is getting too hot and while he was late on that front given John’s face is hamburger, it’s clear from his tone and demeanor that while he may of been harsh with John earlier.. the two are old friends, and the Chief is simply worried about him winding up dead, and John takes you know being thrown in prison in stride. Which while not a bad scene it is a BIT suspect that a black coded character was thrown in jail for nothing and it’s treated very lightly and as a simple protection between friends, though given they wouldn’t think of coding john like that till next volume, I brush it off as accidental implications in hindsight.

Smirnkov though also called John here.. because he needs his help. Since Natalia’s Murder Case is pointing very high up, so his superiors have ordered him to bury the case and as he puts it “the bastards know where to squeeze”. And given in volume 3 we learn Smirnov has a wife and children, it’s very obvious where they squoze and to the volume’s credit while we don’t know that yet it’s VERY clear from Smirnov’s body language they went after some form of family. So while he has to give it up.. John does not. So he brought him to jail to offer a proposal: John goes after this son of a bitch and nails him to the wall.. and Smirnov will FULLY protect John no matter what he has to do. Now naturally given the rightful reckoning for police that’s been going on for almost a year, this SHOULDN’T play well. You have an officer outright telling an outside party that he and his boys will cover up his crimes. But.. honestly even in that framework.. it still works. That’s because.. the system has failed here. The higher up and more corrupt cops put pressure on the honest and hardworking family man Smirnov to stop a legitimate investigation into a horrible murderer.. because the guy is rich. And even now we’ve seen time and time again how rich assholes effortlessly escape the consequences of their action: How our own president who actively asked other nations to interfere in our election escaped his first impeachment trial, but hopefully not the second, aquitted. How Jeffery Epstien took YEARS to bring down with his years of ellicit parties involving innocent women and children he fucking enslaved. How Bill Cosby got away with all kinds of sexual assault for decades. The rich are often literally above the law in this country, so having a down on his luck detective, who retroactively himself is a minority, go after him with the full support of an actually GOOD police officer who genuinely believes in these people being held accountable but is held back by his family’s safety.. it works. John isn’t able to skirt consequences BECAUSE of a corrupt system.. but because the system’s so broken and slanted in the rich’s favor, that the ONLY option an honest officer like Smirnov has is to go outside it. And when asked WHY he’s doing all of this, Smirnov merley replies

... I got chills, their multiplyin. So John plans to find the bulge eyed snake after a hot shower.. only for the guy to hold a gun to John’s head, having been waiting for him and wave the murder weapon, in a baggie around, the item he had retrieved, feeling John’s trying to replace him as number two. However before he can do anything our snake pal is shot full of holes by the rat from before, who John dispatches with his own gun.

So the Snake starts to expire.. but feels a kinship with John “We are nothing right cat? Spent so much time waiting for the right chance and when it happens it all falls to pieces”. The Snake explains his roll in things: He was one of the private security our big bad hired to guard Natalia. But being supscious he also hired the rat to follow her around, and thus found out about her affair, brutally torturing and murdering Leon and shooting Natalia in the head. And we finally get a name as our snake friend tragically expires.

The snake’s death and tragic dying moments are something I forgot about.. but damn if their not really good writing, taking a character who before was seemingly just a murderous goon.. and comparing him to our hero. Another working class joe, and one who just caught up with the wrong asshole at the wrong time. He easily could’ve been john in another life and vice vers and it’s a good parallel.

So John’s nightmares finally have name and he naturally goes to confront the guy since he has an almost literal get out of jail free card. Turns out Smirnov is the richest man in town, and has his own big tower. Huh.. sounds familiar, and John simply sneaks his way up and once Statoc’s guards from before hear him rustling about.. sneaks up on them and clocks both one at at time with a fire extinqusher.

Statoc warmly welcomes our hero inside, and has the fucking lizard balls, as he’s some sort of lizard himself, to offer John a JOB

I mean he’s clearly lost a lot of his goons and most of them were incompetent. He fails to realize that John can’t be bought, is here for vengeance and has no intention of selling his soul to some rich asshole who killed someone he loved for the creepiest and most asinine reasons imaginable. He says john’s Concisence is why he can’t pull the trigger and that he lacks “cold blood”.. before we cut to the next page, where John’s shot the fucker in the head and left a gaping hole where his lack of a brain was.

And again what makes this work is the aftermath: John is clearly shaken, having ONLY been able to pull the trigger beause of Statoc’s smug grin and clearly not taking the sight of Statoc’s dead body bleeding out well. And while Smirnov keeps his word, covers for him despite the two guards clearly providing an iron clad argument against john and knoiwng thier blatantly covering this up.. he’s not happy about it.

This is WHY the narrtive still works. Statoc stacked the law against the bad guys. .but despite this being a necessary evil.. it’s still an evil and subverting teh law at this rightly leaves him not in a great place mentally. John himself isn’t even if he plays it off as otherwise, as we get our final bit of narration and one hell of a closing line.

Final Thoughts:

Somewhere in the Shadows is a bit rough around the edges, leaning a bit too heavily into the noir pastiche and Blacksad being a harboiled detective, something the next volume would ease up on. That being said.. it’s still a masterpiece, with gorgeous art and masterful pacing. While it’s the shortest of the stories, like those after it the pacing is sublime and never feels like it has any down moments or stuff that could’ve been cut, and the mystery keeps you on edge the whole time. Having forgot a lot of the details since last read I was on the edge of my seat the entire story and loving every second of it. Somewhere in the Shadows is the perfect starter for the series, introducing an important charcter in Smirnov and the noir nature and giving us a case personal to John so we can see who he was before, what he is now.. and what he WILL be for the rest of the series. The moment that MADE him into an even harder man than the one we follows here.. when he took a life in cold blood. A masterful story, seriously check it and the other volumes out, on comixology, in stores, great stuff. Next time we look into john and as I said, he’s taking down some racists and we also meet his sidekick weekly for the first time. As for me tommorow I dive back into my Tom Luictor retrospective but hit pause on our boy for a bit to take care of some of the larger plot. Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure.

#blacksad #john blacksad #Smirnov #noir #anthropomorphic #anthro #funny animal #somewhere within the shadows #comics #dark horse comics #france #french comics #igor statoc #Natalia Wilford

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