Marvel’s exciting new Planet of the Apes comic series is dropping this April with stories by David F. Walker (famous for Luke Cage, Bitter Root) and the artistic stylings of Dave Wachter (known for Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon, Star Wars: The High Republic – Trail of Shadows)! The never-ending debate of man or ape, who is Earth’s superior species, continues in the all-new ongoing series.
“Devolution” starts the new apes series. Humanity isn’t doing so well after the ALZ-113 virus has done its world tour. On the one side, science is hard at work on a cure; on the other side, a fringe group of psychos thinks ape genocide is the best solution. Juliana Tobon does her best to play peacekeeper but things are heating up quickly, and it won’t be long before the apes see how dark human nature can really get…
“Not only is Planet of the Apes my favorite film franchise, it was my favorite series of comics from Marvel when I was a kid,” Walker said. “Both the films and the comics ignited my imagination and helped me fall in love with the art of storytelling. To be part of Marvel’s return to the Planet of the Apes is more than an honor, it is a childhood dream come true.”
At the beginning of the year, Marvel Comics announced the Planet of the Apes franchise would be making a comeback to Marvel with new stories, collections, and even a thrilling variant cover series. There is a rich history between Marvel Comics and Planet of the Apes spanning over 40 years. First published by Marvel in 1974, the Planet of the Apes stories led to Adventures on the Planet of the Apes the following year — a full-color adaptation of the pivotal films. Planet of the Apes has endured for over five decades, dipping its toes into all media, including comics, books, films, television shows, video games, and toys, and Marvel is proud to dive into the depths of this groundbreaking saga once more!
Josielyn Aguilera as Gia, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
The original Quantum Leap with Scott Bakula always wore its heart right there on its sleeve, and one of the things I love about the current iteration with Raymond Lee is that it continues in that tradition with a bright-eyed earnestness that has (sadly, in my opinion) become rare on contemporary television. Sometimes, this earnestness can feel hopelessly, foolishly optimistic. Naive, even. And sometimes, it feels like TV shows, tripping over each other to prove themselves the savviest, end up feeling darkly cynical in their attempts to show that they know better. Like that annoying friend who shoots down your every idea by telling you how it could go wrong, thereby making themselves feel smarter.
When I realized that “Let Them Play,” while nominally historical in that it takes place in 2012, would be tackling the still-contemporary issue of trans kids in sports, I worried it might go in that direction, or end with some kind of downer, as so many “issues” stories do. Thank goodness, it did not. Perhaps the episode is unrealistically optimistic, but hey, isn’t every feel-good sports story?
Anita Kalathar as Shruti, Josielyn Aguilera as Gia (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
“Let Them Play” opens with Ben leaping into a high school girls basketball coach with half a minute left in a game and, in the heat of the moment, sending in an alternate player after one of the starters is injured. Little does he realize that in doing so, he put a target on that girl’s back. Not only is the girl, Gia, his daughter, but she’s trans. And some people aren’t happy that she was allowed to play. Ben must help Gia take on the bigots and keep her from running away, which in the original timeline leads to her untimely death.
Nanrisa Lee as Jenn, Ernie Hudson as Magic, Shakina Nayfack as Dottie (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
Meanwhile, Magic and Jenn go looking for the person who told Ben to leap in the first place: a bartender named Dottie. Except she doesn’t seem to remember doing so. And back at Quantum Leap headquarters, the current leap hits home for Ian, who has living memory of Gia’s story because they grew up in the same area and had of course heard about the trans girl who shot the winning basket at a big game.
Caitlin Bassett as Addison, Mason Alexander Park as Ian (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
That last part might turn out to have bigger implications than another emotional character heart-to-heart confession, which Quantum Leap isn’t shy about indulging in.
I’m really impressed with how well the show has melded its parallel storylines lately—namely, Ben’s history-fixing adventure and the contemporary sci-fi mystery element back at Quantum Leap headquarters. A big part of that success is in showing how Ben’s adventures are affecting the crew back home, and by being super efficient with the mystery-solving parts (they pack a lot of info into two or three minute-long scenes).
As someone who’s a total sucker for a feel-good sports tale, the primary storyline in “Let Them Play” was super enjoyable to watch. Yes, it’s a simplified version of reality. Yes, it heads in a cheesy, inspirational direction—it’s true to genre in that sense. But you know what? Sometimes, we need those tales, even when in the real world, things aren’t so sunny. Especially then, I’d argue.
Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Brigitte Cali Canales as Miriam, Josielyn Aguilera as Gia (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
It’s easy to feel for Gia, a girl who just wants to be like other girls. And the story deftly sidesteps the “savior” trope that many sports tales indulge in. Ben is there to help, yes, but ultimately Gia herself who pulls through.
This week’s episode is sure to incense some types, but given that it’s a show whose principal cast includes exactly zero cis-het white men yet never makes it a thing (thank goodness), those types might not have been watching in the first place. And Quantum Leap has always been on the side of equality—Sam Beckett was always standing up to misogynists and racists and other bigots in the original series. That’s another tradition I’m glad this current show has chosen to carry on with.
I answered the Knock at the Cabin, and in walked… M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie next to The Sixth Sense?? I know that doesn’t sound right, and I don’t believe it myself, but since I haven’t seen some of his older films in a while, I’ve got to go with my gut because this movie fucked me up. It’s an incredible showcase for Shyamalan’s skills as a director, and unlike some of his previous films I may be more fond of (Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, The Visit, Split), it’s a simple, tight, focused story that has less room to disappoint narratively when it’s engaging you so viscerally.
Based on Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World—an objectively better title, why did they change it—the film, like the book, wastes little time establishing the premise and then simmering in tension until the end. Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their adopted daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), are enjoying their vacation when Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adrian (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) titularly knock at the cabin and ask them to make a terrible choice: they must willingly sacrifice one of the three of them, or all of humanity will perish. It is an utterly absurd notion that the film treats with the utmost seriousness, and that is so up my alley it has its own mailbox. Apart from a few flashbacks that serve to flesh out this small family, pretty much this entire 100-minute movie takes place in or around the cabin, so that means for approximately 85 minutes of this movie, I wanted to claw my own face off out of sheer terror. This was practically Skinamarink levels of being trapped in a nightmare, and like Skinamarink, it’s a film that understands how to use the visual medium to unsettle the audience. (Also like Skinamarink, some people just found it boring, and I was sorry they couldn’t get into it like I did.)
Frequent Robert Eggers collaborator Jarin Blaschke and Greener Grass cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer shot the film with nineties cameras, as Shyamalan wanted to give it an “old-school thriller” look, and so the film occasionally goes out of focus in certain areas, blurring the edges around characters or objects, which lends the film an eerie quality appropriate for a cabin at the end of the world. It feels otherworldly in its isolation. Shyamalan also favors extreme close-ups that can be jarring on a huge silver screen, but that uncomfortable closeness simultaneously allows for greater connection to the characters and enhances our uneasiness at being in this situation with them. The film introduces this visual language right up top in the opening conversation between Leonard and Wen, which could be shown in a film class for a simple demonstration of how to use the camera to say something the dialogue does not. Because on the page, it’s just a friendly conversation between a child and a stranger, but editor Noemi Katharina Preiswerk never leaves their faces, choosing precise moments to switch to shots that subtly move closer and closer as the danger creeps in, and when it switches to canted angles, the universal sign for disorientation, you know it’s bad news. This whole film is just exquisitely shot, and Shyamalan displays so much restraint in depicting devastating emotions and brutal violence, it’s beautiful.
While I could go on and on about the visuals, I would be remiss not to mention composer Herdís Stefánsdóttir—are Icelandic composers inherently fantastic??—who delivers an excellent score that adds texture without calling too much attention to itself. That’s the thing about this movie: it’s incredibly well crafted, with every aspect of film used toward a singular purpose.
Shyamalan completely sells the apocalyptic dread while also making us feel the conflict that every character is having, both the Invaders and the Invadees. Because while obviously we sympathize with the family, it’s clear the people asking them to make the choice struggle with their role in this, each one of them bringing a distinct energy. Bautista, the gentle giant. Amuka-Bird, the helping healer. Quinn, the mordant Millennial. Grint, the angry asshole. They’re just four ordinary people trying to save the world. Or they’re four ordinary people under a shared delusion that the world is ending. The trick of the film is that either option is terrifying for the family, and while Eric and Andrew initially, vehemently choose the latter option, Eric slowly drifts toward the former, which allows for some conflict between the characters as well as giving the audience reason to doubt themselves. This movie kept putting me face-to-face with the idea of the literal end of the world and how hopeless everything would seem in that moment while also floating the unfathomable idea of trusting some strangers that killing someone you love more than anything in the world would stop it.
Shyamalan rewrote Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman’s Black List-featured adaptation of the novel, and who knows what to attribute to whom, but the combined efforts do give the film a more chilling inevitability in its structure compared to the book, which I found underwhelming as an audiobook listened to over two weeks. I found the story much more effective in this compressed experience, not to mention when given the Shyamalan treatment in its ending. While Shyamalan does succeed in bringing out the ambiguity of the book for much of the film’s runtime, anyone who’s seen a Shyamalan film knows that dude loves explaining his movies, so if you’re a person who hates having things explained, too bad, I love having things explained to me because I am a plebeian dunderhead. The way Shyamalan reframes the story to comment on humanity really worked for me, holding both the beauty and ugliness of the species at once, and to do it in the context of this unconventional family of a gay white couple with an Asian daughter made it all the more resonant.
While I completely understand some disappointment that the film perhaps did not dig as deeply into its themes and premise as it could have, I found that even though it explained more than the book, what it left unexplained made it all the scarier. I walked out of the theater shaken by the experience.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is what you get when you take the groundbreaking aesthetics of Into The Spider-Verse plus the cutesy caption cutaways of Ms. Marvel, and then focused it in on adventures with an adorable puppy-like T-Rex. It’s a tale focused in on the rise of a young black girl superhero, herself a master at science, who’s helping her community out of the goodness of her heart… all while juggling school, friendships, and most importantly: family.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur releases on February 10th on the Disney channel and then on February 15th for Disney Plus. The pilot will be an hour-long spectacle that introduces the characters’ origins and their area of the city in the lower East side. Having seen the first few episodes, our early thoughts are that the show is perfect for kids, is both incredibly funny and well-voiced, and has great themes of representation, with a surprisingly powerful message in episode 5 that makes a strong social commentary about hairstyles and hair loss, regarding black women in culture.
The Workprint was able to attend the MoonGirl and Devil Dinosaur press junket with a series of journalists and the show’s voice cast and creative teams. In attendance, included executive producers Laurence Fishburne and Steve Loter along with the series protagonists Diamond White as Lunella Lafayette and Fred Tatasciore as Devil Dinosaur.
Here are seven things we took away from the press conference, edited and combined in an abridged version for the sake of clarity.
1. How didyou guys decide on the design for the show to make sure it not only contributed to the action, but also, the culture that’s being represented?
Steve Loter: Well, I think that we wanted to make sure that we were doing something unique. “Spider-Verse” was a huge inspiration for us. It really kinda blew the doors wide open to do superhero animation that looked really specialized and unique. Laurence and I connected early, and we kinda talked about the vision of the show and what it should look like. Laurence is a huge comic book fan, so we used that as kind of a springboard for the visual styling, particularly the line work on the characters and the overall look of the show.
Laurence Fishburne: Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about backgrounds and about the environment, the color palette, and all of these kinda textures. Like you guys talked about the graffiti as one of the elements in our backgrounds and textures for New York and the Lower East Side.
Laurence Fishburne: We are people who really, really love animation from, you know, the very beginning of our lives. It’s just a joy for us to be creating this kind of show which, as Diamond said, is a show like we’ve never seen before.
2. How is Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur different in terms of making an animated product?
Lawrence Fishburne: Well, it takes a lot longer. And, uh, we aren’t really, um…connected to the MCU, officially. Our show is really a family show. So, you know, maybe we’re not gonna save the world, but we are gonna save the Lower East Side.
Laurence Fishburne: Animation’s come a long way. I mean, if you consider just anime alone, right? Or you know, stop motion? Obviously what we’re doing is another step in the evolution of animation. Steve referenced the Spider-Verse. There’s another one (Spider-Verse) coming that looks…even wilder than the first one, so…
Steve Loter: Yeah, it’s a type of thing where it does feel like animation is for everybody and we wanted to make sure that this show was four quadrant. That’s an industry term which basically means it’s for everybody. It’s for parents, and kids, and grownup kids that may not have kids. It was really important for us to make sure that this show got everyone’s attention and everyone enjoyed it, for sure.
3. Diamond, how much of yourself do you see in Lunella Lafayette, AKA Moon Girl, and what does it mean to be a part of a show that’s so powerfully progressive?
Diamond White: (I see) A lot of myself. I grew up being African American and when I was 13—actually, not when I was 13. When I was seven, all I wanted was a character like this to come to life. So it’s cool to have someone of my skin tone and of my hair texture really be there. The representation is…it means a lot to me.
Diamond White: We made history being Marvel’s first teenage Black girl superhero. So it’s important to see that kind of representation. It’s a show that I needed growing up and I feel like it really does make a difference. Like the show says, one girl can make a difference. This show is going to make a difference in a lot of people’s lives so I’m just excited to be a part of it.
4. Can you talk about this specific version of New York in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur?
Steve Loter: Absolutely, yeah. I grew up in New York, uh, in the 80s and 90s in that zone. And I was there kinda at the beginning of graffiti art, a New York prior to gentrification, so I was there at kind of the perfect time where creativity, imagination, music, art, poetry, and books was still very vibrant and alive in New York. I wanted to make sure that we could capture that in the show. ‘Cause I’ve seen New York, um, misrepresented in a lot of animated properties, so I had to make sure it was accurate. So we relied on a lot of New York kinda artistic benchmarks—the Andy Warhol silk screening process, um, Basquiat graffiti art, street art murals—to kind of find the flavor of New York we wanted to capture. I knew that I had to get it right ’cause if I didn’t, I couldn’t go back to New York. They wouldn’t allow me back in. So I had to make sure I did it right.
5. Aftershock (the pilot’s antagonist) is such a terrifying embodiment of gentrification as a villain. I’m wondering if you can talk about her development and why it was important that this was the first villain in the TV show?
Steve Loter: Being that Aftershock is the first villain in the series, the first real formidable villain that Lunella faces as Moon Girl, we really did wanna encapsulate a lot about what the mission statement was of the series. That one girl makes a difference storyline which is super important. So to have Aftershock coming into the Lower East Side sapping it of its- its energy—a lot of, you know, proverbial notions there—basically it’s a statement about gentrification. It’s a statement about losing community and neighborhood and connection. So yeah, it was really important for Aftershock to kinda be the conduit—no pun intended—for that kind of story. Um, but yeah, totally intentional. And it’s the daughter of Electro, so that’s always fun, too.
6. Talking about representation, is nerd the new cool?
Laurence Fishburne: Yeah, well, I- I’ve always thought that, um, it was smart to be cool. No. I’m sorry. I always thought it was cool to be smart.
Gary Anthony Williams: I like both. Go back to that other one.
Laurence Fishburne: Yeah. And it doesn’t matter what your gender, what your color, what your faith, uh, what country you live in. I’ve always thought that it was really, really cool to be smart. Um, and I think it’s just important for us to have this kind of representation because you can’t be what you can’t see. So if more young girls of color get to see an experience of a person like Lunella, then perhaps, they won’t be afraid to show their intelligence and to lead with their intelligence, you know? I think it’s just a good thing to do.
7. What was your initial reaction to “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” being renewed for a second season even before the show premiered on Disney Channel?
Laurence Fishburne: (Cheers.)
Steve Loter: Basically that, yeah. Yeah I mean, it was- it was—what a great feeling because we knew we had more stories to tell. Um, it was kinda—as- as Season 1 goes on, the story gets more serialized. (00:23:30) You- you see kind of an antagonist kind of rise up from the background. Um, and we just felt like there was so much story to tell. I mean, we’re hoping for past Season 2 because we feel like Lunella Lafayette has a lot more stories to tell.
Checkout Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur February 10th on Disney Channel and February 15th on Disney+
Thank you again to the teams at Disney+ and Metro for the opportunity.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur’s animation was provided by Flying Bark Productions. Season one features voice acting from Alfre Woodard as Lunella’s grandmother, Mimi; Libe Barer as Lunella’s best friend and manager, Casey; Sasheer Zamata as Lunella’s mom, Adria; Jermaine Fowler as Lunella’s dad, James Jr.; Gary Anthony Williams as Lunella’s grandfather, Pops.
Season one will also feature guest voice appearances by Alison Brie, Andy Cohen, Daveed Diggs, Maya Hawke, Jennifer Hudson, Method Man, Cobie Smulders, Wesley Snipes and more.
For more info on the character checkout Marvel’s Moon Girl 101 summary below.
After last week’s tearful interlude with Bill and Frank, The Last of Us dives right back into horror. And road trips. And terrible, terrible puns. And the real enemy out there. Not the fungus, but the humans left behind. (the Last of Us, if you will)
Ellie is in the bathroom of a gas station, examining the gun she stole from Frank’s nightstand. She’s practicing her quick draw moves like she’s Ralphie with his Red Ryder BB gun, but it’s clear from the way she ejects the magazine and checks the chamber that she’s handled weapons before. She still hides it from Joel in her backpack.
Joel is siphoning gas from abandoned cars outside, which they have to do quite a lot. The gas is so old it’s almost water at this point, but it’s better than walking to Wyoming. Ellie tries to bond with Joel by telling him groaners from the only book she has: No Pun Intended, Too by Will Livingston. (Too? Instead of Two? Get it?) This is making me feel retroactively bad for all the road trips I went on with my parents when I forced them to listed to my Weird Al cassettes.
The drive is pretty smooth at first. The road is open, which frankly surprised me given the state of the roads around Boston. (Joel says something about the army clearing the roads with plows, but that’s a lot of road to clear off) They settle into the rhythms of a road trip — Hank Williams on the stereo, falling asleep after saying you’re not even tired, finding an inappropriate magazine in the back seat (a porno mag from Bill and Frank’s collection, which leads Ellie to ask “how does he even walk around with that thing?”) — and all goes well.
Until they hit Kansas City.
A mass of cars is blocking a tunnel through the city. (Guess FEDRA didn’t get everything clear!) And from the looks of the bodies in the seats, they’ve been there a while. This forces them off the highway and into the city, And that’s where everything goes to shit.
They get lost in the maze of streets. Ellie notices what should be the local QZ, except there are no FEDRA guards anywhere. And that’s when they get ambushed. A decoy asks for help, and when Joel speeds around him, the windshield gets hit with a cinder block, and he drives over a nail strip then crashes into a store front. They get pinned down by gunfire, with his attackers telling him to just give them his stuff, and he’ll get out, no problem. (Yeah, right.) He covers Ellie while she elbow crawls to a hole in the wall to hide. (Again, from the elbow crawl, it’s real clear that she’s had some training) Joel kills one from across the street, and then gets the other one when he comes closer. However, he misses the last one, who gets the drop on him and starts to choke him with his shotgun barrel. Joel is choking and wheezing and looks overmatched, but then Ellie sneaks over and shoots the attacker in the back.
He’s not dead, just wounded, and it sounds like Ellie got his spine since he starts crying that his legs don’t work. He’s young, not a lot older than Ellie, and he begs for his life. His name is Bryan, and they can have his knife, just go get his mom, please…
It’s one thing in a game or a movie to mow down faceless attackers, and these guys were trying to kill Joel and Ellie. But it’s certainly another to kill a defenseless person. Even if that’s what is called for, because that kid would surely sound the alarm and get more marauders after them. Joel takes her gun sends Ellie back behind the wall. Then he picks up Bryan’s knife.
Kansas City is now “free.” A resistance militia movement has defeated FEDRA and now runs the city. They’re led by Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), who certainly has no qualms about exacting bloody vengeance on the FEDRA “collaborators” who gave tips to the soldiers. Her own brother was killed by them after someone ratted him out. She is focused, to say the least. She is about to shoot her old family doctor in the head, since he was an informant, when a convoy pulls up with the bodies Joel and Ellie left behind. Bryan is still hanging in there, but he’s a goner. (I am assuming that Kathleen is the mom he was referring to) Kathleen asks if a doctor could help, and the medic shakes his head no. So she goes back to the doctor’s cell and shoots him.
She is quick to blame Henry, who is somewhere in the city. She’s sure that he’s the one who tipped off FEDRA about her brother. She orders everyone to start searching the city, house by house, until they find him.
Meanwhile, Joel and Ellie are holed up in a bar, waiting until the cars fan out, so they can go hide in the highest building in town and try to find a route out. Joel takes this time to try and talk to Ellie about what happened, with her shooting a guy. With stammers and false starts, he tries to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that last guy got the drop on him and that shouldn’t have happened. Ellie tells him he’s not very good at this. Joel asks her where she learned to use a gun. FEDRA school. She asks if he had to shoot people before, even innocent ones. He gruffly says that they did what they had to do to survive. Ellie admits that wasn’t the first time she had to hurt someone, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, and then she starts to cry.
Again, it’s a great performance by Bella Ramsey. She’s playing Ellie as tough and sassy, trying to crack jokes and act wise, but it covers for someone who has been damaged by her environment. (I mean, if you spend your entire life running from the mushroom monsters and FEDRA goons, how could you not have some trauma?) This is one of the few times she’s let that trauma seep through.
Joel tells her a little about his brother, Tommy, calling him a “joiner.” He joined the army for Desert Storm back in the day, but it didn’t make him feel very heroic. He joined the Fireflies, again hoping to make a difference, but apparently that didn’t work out either. So now he’s on his own. He gives Ellie her gun back and tells her to keep it in her pack. She doesn’t, of course, and puts it in her coat pocket.
Kathleen gets an update from her number two. They found where Henry was holed up. It’s an attic, covered with kid’s drawings of two black men as supermen, flying through the air. Kathleen sees the pile of empty cans on the floor and realizes that they’re out of food. Henry won’t let his son, Sam, starve, so she orders the men to guard all the provision stockpiles. On the way out, her second takes her to a back room to show her something. The floor is heaving and buckling. I’m not an architect or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what people mean when they talk about buildings “settling.” Pretty sure that’s a sign of the fungus coming out. Kathleen tells him to lock the building off and that they’ll tell everyone once Henry is caught.
Joel and Ellie make it to the tower and start up the stairs. They’ll get as high as Joel’s 56-year-old knees can carry them and then they’ll camp out. They get to floor 33 out of 45 (which is a lot better than I would have done). Joel is laying some glass down on the floor as a warning to wake them should anyone show up. Ellie asks if the crunch will wake him up, since she’s noticed he doesn’t hear so good out of his right ear. A consequence of all the gunfire he’s lived through. He tells her to stick to her switchblade if she wants to keep her hearing.
As they settle in for the night on some old office couch cushions, Ellie asks him if he knew that diarrhea was hereditary? Joel is confused. What? Yeah, says Ellie, it runs in your jeans!
Another stupid pun from Will Livingston. But even though Joel calls it the stupidest thing he’s ever heard, he starts to laugh. This might be the first time Joel has smiled this entire series! Including the flashbacks to the before times! They drift off to sleep. Maybe things will be okay!
Or maybe not. Ellie tries to wake Joel, who is sleeping on his right side, meaning his bad ear is up. When she finally gets him awake, he sees they aren’t alone. Henry and Sam are there, and Henry is pointing a gun at them.
And that’s where we end.
One thing I really like about this show is the way kids still try to be normal kids, despite everything else going on. Ellie has her joke book. Sam likes to draw. You know, normal stuff! Not like basic weapons training. Even in the darkest times, a poop joke can still make you laugh.
I’m also looking forward to seeing the contrast between Henry and Sam and Joel and Ellie. Two adults with kids, trying to stay alive. (And again, since it’s just Joel and Ellie on the poster, I don’t have high hopes for Henry and Sam.) Also looking forward to more Melanie Lynskey, She didn’t get a lot to do this week, but I’d wager we’ll see a lot more of her as she obsessively tracks down Henry. You don’t hire a solid actress like her and not give her some excellent scenes.
We’ll be back here on Friday. HBO announced that next week’s episode would air a little early so as not to conflict with the Super Bowl. Which is good! Because I was definitely going to have to call in a substitute since I will be watching my beloved Eagles. #FlyEaglesFly
4 out of 5
Line of the Week: Ellie: What did the mermaid wear to math class? An algae bra!
A little while back, we covered the gorgeous Alex Ross variant covers for the latest Fantastic Four arc by Ryan North and Iban Coello. Now we have more news about the upcoming storyline, and the chaos it might hold for the iconic superhero family. As they try and put the pieces together after a traumatic event, none other than legendary villain Doctor Doom steps in to take advantage of the chaos.
Doctor Doom travels across time and space to undo the damage wrought by the Fantastic Four. But knowing Doom, there’s a very good chance he’ll either make things worse, or twist them to his own diabolical ends. Here’s what writer Ryan North has to say about the double-sized 700th issue event:
“I feel privileged to be writing the Fantastic Four at any time, honestly, but getting to have a big milestone issue happen on my watch is certainly lucky – and it’s an opportunity I didn’t want to waste,” North said. “A big anniversary issue like this demands a similarly big story, something meaningful, impactful, and memorable. And given that it’s a supersized issue with more room to play, everything aligned to do a story with the Fantastic Four’s most meaningful, impactful, memorable, and supersized villain: Doctor Doom. Doom demands nothing less than the biggest issue of the year being dedicated to him, and I dare not defy Doom. It’s a big twisty story that brings the Fantastic Four to their new home and views what’s happened to both families over the past year in a new light. The Fantastic Four are down, but not out, and Doom senses an opportunity…”
If you like what you hear, you’ll be happy that Fantastic Four #7 goes on sale May 17th. Be sure and check out the particulars below, and keep reading The Workprint for more exciting comic book news!
FANTASTIC FOUR #7/#700
Written by RYAN NORTH
Art by IBAN COELLO
Cover by ALEX ROSS
On Sale 5/17
Horrible puns aside, this episode starts with vampires orchestrating an armored truck robbery by way of a car crash. The next day we see John and Mary going over the picture of Dean Winchester when they run into Kyle (Ryan McCartan). This sparks a conversation about their relationship status, but then Carlos chimes in over the radio with a case. The vampires were after a Men of Letters artifact—an amulet that can show the user their immediate future. Unfortunately, John touches the thing and sees himself being killed by a vampire. Diana (Austin Boyce), an expert on the amulet, gives the gang more insight into how it works but also sells them out to the vampires. The head vampire (Jared Wofford) gets the amulet and takes off with his crew. Worried about John’s safety, the gang benches him at the clubhouse with Millie while they go hunting for the clan, but this backfires, with John winding up in the exact place he’s fated to die. Despite a good effort by Mary and Carlos, John resorts to having Millie kill him so the head vampire can be incapacitated long enough to be defeated. This insane strategy works, and John is obviously brought back to life. But the twist ending is that Betty (John’s ex) and Kyle have begun a partnership of sorts, and Kyle, unbeknownst to Betty, is possessed by an Akrida!
Whew! What a cuckoo-bananas episode, right? As someone who watched the mothership series for all fifteen seasons and was highly curious about this spinoff, I can honestly say the back half of this first season is definitely not playing it safe. Episode 9 packs a lot of plot into an hour, but not all of it is necessary or even good.
My main problem with this episode is the story, which was also my main problem with the last episode, but this episode doesn’t have the advantage of Carlos being the center of attention or Loki making a fabulous cameo appearance. Whereas those two elements, plus the acting all around, really saved the last episode from being trash, this episode doesn’t have those advantages to cover for its weak story.
The idea of a vampire cult that worships gods of fate and tries to get a magic amulet in order for them to rule better is… shaky at best. Yes, the series takes place in the ’70s, so a cult is in keeping with the times, but still. Granted, Diana does her best to make the case for it, and I’ll admit the mob mentality of it does have a ring of rational, but overall? Eh. I feel like this would have been a fine opportunity to bring in a new threat—perhaps a rival to the Men of Letters who use the amulet to build power and dominance… but sure, vampires acting like the mob or the royal family works too, I guess.
The secondary story of Betty is also paper thin until the very end, where it is revealed that Kyle and her have formed some kind of weird partnership. This is mildly amusing because Kyle is pro-Mary and Betty is pro-John, but ultimately, this twist came out of fucking nowhere and nearly snapped my neck it was forced into play so hard. The big problem here is just the randomness of it. Betty hasn’t been heard or seen since that one episode where she essentially existed to create a barely-there love triangle with John and Mary (before they were officially a thing). I mean, I get that Betty is the type of Supernatural throwaway character who will occasionally resurfaces from time to time like Garth or Sheriff Jody Mills, but who knows if she’ll actually become that. This is literally her second appearance in this series, and frankly, it feels extremely forced. It might be because this whole time the gang has been going off to active crime scenes and investigating weird shit and Officer Betty’s nowhere to be seen, so why is she around now?
Kyle seemed like he was going to be a bigger player when he originally showed up and then straight-up disappeared. Yes, he showed up in one other episode after his initial debut, but mostly he was given the part of plucky reporter who benefits off the wacky adventures of our Scooby gang. Here, he has returned, somehow started up a working relationship with Betty, and gotten himself possessed by the Akrida. Uh… the fuck?
Which brings me to my final grudge against this episode: John’s stupid sacrifice. John’s plan to kill himself in order to force the vampire to drink dead man’s blood is insanity. The fact that Millie agrees to this plan is insanity. The fact that Mary and Millie manage to bring him back from the dead is insanity. Are you sensing a pattern here? Hell, the only purpose this craziness serves is to 1) resolve the fate John saw, 2) give Mary an opening to reveal her and John’s relationship to the gang, and 3) allow Millie a shot at emotional growth. Notice I didn’t include “help Mary kill the head vampire,” because we already saw her kill five other vampires without any real problem, and she 100% did not need the assist. In John’s defense, he didn’t know she killed the other vampires, but another strike against him is that if Mary had been killed by the vampires, he would have essentially fucked his mom over completely—unless, we assume Millie is perfectly comfortable decapitating a monster after it has just killed her only child. Mind you, this is a lady who has never fought monsters before, so while the argument could be made for a grief-fueled rage attack, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee her success.
The episode isn’t all bad though, despite the clunky vampire cult side of things. Carlos makes a fine argument for a vampire heist movie. The fight sequences are also fun and engaging from Mary’s one-woman show in the underground halls of the clubhouse to Carlos’ magnificent “holy-water-hair-commercial” move that helps her get access in the first place. Do I believe that Mary Campbell would be able to single-handily kill five vampires when it’s been shown that Sam and Dean struggle with less than that unless they’ve got some kind of ambush on their side? Fuck no, but I’m not gonna say it isn’t fun watching the lie. In their defense, shows of this nature have a very wishy-washy execution of the strength and speed of their supernatural creatures. One minute, a vampire’s backhand can break a man’s neck, the next it just throws our protagonist against a nearby wall—at which point the protagonist’s ability to endure physical punishment becomes conveniently elastic. Long story short? It’s a fantasy… don’t overthink it.
Overall, I’m not a big fan of this episode for a number of reasons. The one I haven’t yet discussed in full but hinted to is the acting. I wish more of the performances in this episode were up to snuff. The main gang does their due diligence, but the guest stars don’t really feel into it. The only one who I considered admirable in their effort was Javier Vazquez Jr.’s Diego—the armored truck guard who speaks to Carlos about his harrowing run-in with the vampires. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t have much he needs to act off of, maybe he’s just a better actor than the rest. Whatever the case, I found it noticeable. The vampires are completely nameless killing machines, the head vampire doesn’t even get a name, much less a personality. Would it have killed you to include a scene of them praying to their gods of fate? Or even a cool heist planning sequence? No, instead we get these inane scenes with Betty and Mary, and Betty and Millie… no thanks.
Ah well, let’s see if they can’t improve next week.
Featured in the most recent issue of Demon Wars: Down in Flames, Marvel’s highly acclaimed artist Peach Momokoweaves her own creative chaos magic by imbibing life into yet another superhero. This time, the Scarlet Witch, in this upcoming May in Marvel’s latest Demon Wars: Scarlet Sin.
The story will be the conclusion to Momoko’s Demon Wars series, which are the current era of hybrid Marvel Comics classics tied with traditional Japanese folklore also known as the Momoko-verse. Introduced in Demon Days: X-Men #1, these rehashed classics featured East Asian-influenced versions of the Avengers, X-Men, and more.
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DEMON WARS: SCARLET SIN #1
Written by PEACH MOMOKO
Art and Cover by PEACH MOMOKO
Co-scripted by ZACK DAVISSON
Variant Cover by PEACH MOMOKO
On Sale 5/3
Demon Wars Character Design Sheet
In the current era, the Yokai are at war, and Mariko Yashida, the descendent of the Oni King, must choose a side as the fate of the world is at hand. But suddenly, a mysterious yokai with incredible power arrives and changes everything. Someone whose sole desire is to paint the world… Scarlet?
“When designing Momiji, Demon Wars’ version of Scarlet Witch, the first thought that came to mind to represent Scarlet Witch was her anger and betrayal,” Momoko explained in a Marvel press release. “So with this in mind, I was inspired to create her around the Hannya idea. Hannya in Japan is used in Noh theater to represent a woman’s anger and jealousy, and these vengeful spirits turn her into a demon.”
“In Demon Days, most of my characters, even though many were yokai, were all yokai living in the human world, so they had to ‘look human.’ But in Demon Wars, the story takes place in the Ikai, the yokai world, so I had more freedom in designing the characters,” she continued. “They can be human, animal, or an out-of-this-world creature design. So I had lots of fun designing each character. Demon Wars is coming to an end, and I can’t wait to see how readers will react. Thank you!”
Released a few years ago but now soon to be available on the Switch, Pronty is a deep-sea Metroidvania action-adventure type of series where the player uses a ‘Bront’ (A Javelin Robot Weapon who’s also, your partner) to defeat a slew of enemies along a 2D plane. Now available on Switch, the series comes to Switch on March 7th, with an MSRP of $14.99/€14.99/£13.99 with a 10% discount on pre-orders until Monday, March 6 at 11:59 PM PT.
“Since the PC version of Pronty was released, we’ve received a constant stream of feedback from players asking for the game on consoles,” commented Ariel Pang, Joy Brick Inc., Overseas Business Division Manager. “We’re very grateful for the community’s support and are super excited to finally deliver Pronty on Nintendo Switch!”
The storyline is that in the future, humans have colonized the sea and have crafted hundred of underwater metropolises, essentially forming a new Atlantis. Now in danger from a mysterious threat, players can solve puzzles and discover the secrets of the deep in this fun little shooter.
Full details here from their official press release:
Pronty, the aquatic metroidvania from developers 18Light Game Ltd., FunZone Games, Joy Brick Inc., and published by Happinetunder the Happinet Indie Collection, dives onto Nintendo Switch Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Be one of the first to dive into Pronty with a 10% pre-order discount available on the eShop starting today, Feb. 2 at 6:00 AM PT until Monday, March 6 at 11:59 PM PT.
Something fishy is going on in the kingdom of Royla! Horrifying sea creatures corrupted by toxic waste terrorize the country’s citizens. Guide Pronty and Bront, his robotic swordfish companion, as they embark on an epic adventure to restore peace to the once-thriving underwater utopia.
Explore an interconnected modern Atlantis. Swim through expansive waters with “zero-gravity” movement, and clash with more than 40 ghastly sea monsters across 100+ levels. Execute long-range attacks and form an impenetrable defense around Pronty as Bront dashes across the map with one-of-a-kind underwater Javelin combat mechanics.
There is always a bigger fish, and there’s always an optimal build for Pronty’s exotic encounters. Prioritize offense, defense, movement, or a combination of all three when unlocking special powers on Pronty’s Memory Board. Adapt to every deep-sea danger and switch moves at a moment’s notice with hot-swap abilities, enabling quick strategy changes on the fly.
Every success sends Pronty and Bront further down into the unknown depths. Increase the pressure with multiple difficulty modes, and visit Neptune’s Hall in Boss Rush mode to put the duo’s skills and abilities to the ultimate test. The Nintendo Switch release will include the full version of Pronty plus DLC previously released on Steam. Bask in the ambiance of the sea with underwater sound design and epic electronica soundtrack, accompanied by an ever-increasingly mysterious atmosphere brought to life with a vibrant, polished line art style.
Fans of WandaVision can enjoy a new variant cover revealed by Marvel Comics today. The Westview and MCU-themed TV series inspired an ultra-sharp-looking variant cover available for Scarlet Witch #3 drawn by acclaimed artist, David Nakayama.
The cover honors the Emmy Award-winning series in a poster-styled cover with Wanda front and center, dueling Visions firing laser beams at each other during the show’s epic climax, Monica Rambeau, and everyone’s favorite spell caster from behind the scenes, Agatha Harkness. The cover is featured for Steve Orlando and artist Sara Pichelli’s continuing all-new SCARLET WITCH run available in stores right now.
This ongoing Scarlet Witch comic series sees Wanda Maximoff in an entirely new light as a superhero who comes to those in desperate need. Available for hire through this mysterious metaphysical door, behind it, lies a mysterious witchcraft shop and the Scarlet Witch. Whenever the need is great and all hope is lost, friend or foe, the Scarlet Witch will be there helping her powers to anyone who needs them whenever they’re at their lowest.
It kicks off when a woman falls through Wanda’s door with a terrifying story of a town gone mad, which is not an unfamiliar premise to viewers of the character’s TV series. As a result, the Scarlet Witch has to muster all of her chaos magic to help resolve this town’s dire problem.
Now, WandaVision was easily one of the most groundbreaking series upon its release. It was the American Film Institute’s winner for Television’s Best Program of the Year and won an Art Direction Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Television Movie or Limited Series. The series also won a Hollywood Critics Association award for best streaming limited series and a highly coveted Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation.
Atop of this, there were two Critics Choice Super Awards given to Elizabeth Olsen, for best Superhero in playing Wanda Maximoff, and Best Villain for Katheryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness. The show was also nominated for an Annie Award for Best Sponsored Production and is available streaming with a Disney+ subscription right now.
The ongoing comics run seems to be playing heavily into all of this with the first two issues in stores now, and this third issue, along with the variant cover, hitting comic book shops near you on March 8th.
Laura’s diabolical handler is back to make her life a living hell in Deadly Regenesis! Yes, none other than Kimura has returned, and she’s brought an old friend of X-23 along with her. Their name is Haymaker, and though new to the comics, they have a dark history with the deadly assassin turned-hero.
Writer Erica Schultz and artist Edgar Salazar will bring this to fans in the latest issue of Deadly Regenesis, hitting shelves next month. Here’s a quick idea of what to expect from the issue:
Kimura, Laura’s sadistic former handler from the Facility, is back with a vengeance to try to break X-23’s spirit and this time, she’s recruited a mysterious figure from Laura’s past to help her do the job—HAYMAKER! A skilled fighter with a personal vendetta against Laura, Haymaker is more than a match for X-23 and will earn their spot as X-23’s new archnemesis. After Haymaker (Jordan Gastin) makes their first appearance, readers will learn more about their backstory throughout the series.
You can get more details straight from Marvel about the series below. And stay tuned to The Workprint for more exciting stories from an iconic comic empire.
X-23: DEADLY REGENESIS #1 (OF 5) – 75960620401400111
Written by ERICA SCHULTZ
Art by EDGAR SALAZAR
Cover by KALMAN ANDRASOFSZKY
Design Variant Cover by JAN BAZALDUA – 75960620401400131
On Sale 3/8
X-23: DEADLY REGENESIS #2 (OF 5) – 75960620401400211
Written by ERICA SCHULTZ
Art by EDGAR SALAZAR
Cover by KALMAN ANDRASOFSZKY
On Sale 4/12
X-23: DEADLY REGENESIS #3 (OF 5)
Written by ERICA SCHULTZ
Art by EDGAR SALAZAR
Cover by KALMAN ANDRASOFSZKY
On Sale 5/31
As a longtime comic book fan, I thought I’d seen everything from Marvel. Movies, TV shows, videogames, podcasts and, of course, comic books. But now Marvel is invading the tabletop universe with the Marvel Multiverse tabletop RPG! While they had previously announced the core rulebook, which arrives August 2nd of this year, now there’s additional news to share for fans of tabletop madness.
First off, late in 2023 we’re getting the Cataclysm of Kang adventure book expansion. Which is pretty timely, what with our favorite purple time traveler making his cinematic debut soon in Quantumania. Here’s what Marvel has to say about the expansion:
“This book includes new character profiles and features a series of six interlocked adventures. Fans can play through with a new team or character each time, or form a campaign that takes players from street-level heroes to cosmic champions!”
Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game X-Men Expansion
But that’s not all! In 2024 Marvel Multiverse is also getting an X-Men expansion. Here’s what they have to say about our favorite ragtag team of mutants:
“The X-Men Expansion is jammed full of vital information about Marvel’s most popular mutants, including dozens of new profiles for characters from X-Force, the New Mutants and Marauders. It also includes full-color maps of famous X-Men locations, including the Xavier Institute, Krakoa and Arakko, plus plenty of thrilling twists and turns for an entire campaign.”
I should mention, the core rulebook was developed by New York Times bestselling author Matt Forbeck (The Marvel Encyclopedia, Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeonology) with artwork by Iban Coello. If you’re interested in tabletop fun, you can pick up the Marvel Multiverse and expansions anywhere that graphic novels are sold.
LA BREA -- "Murder in the Clearing" Episode 209 -- Pictured: (l-r) Chiké Okonkwo as Ty, Zyra Gorecki as Izzy Harris -- (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Stampede, I think this next episode of La Brea was even better. Action is well and good, especially for a show set in the prehistoric past. But any show lives and dies by the character relationships and overall plot. Which is why I’m so happy that Murder in the Clearing does a great job further expanding both. Not just that, but it ups the ante with more drama and new tensions on old relationships.
Gavin was successful in stopping the full upload of Caroline’s virus, but that doesn’t mean it had no effect. Not only did it close the portal back in 1988, but the virus badly damaged the time machine apparatus. Or so says James. Honestly I’m pretty sure we can’t and shouldn’t trust Gavin’s good old dad, but that doesn’t make him any less enjoyable. He’s sinister without being overbearing, and he holds all the cards in his hands. Or at least that’s how it seems to me. James just wants Gavin’s help fixing the time machine, and says that a Dr. Moore can help. Apparently he was working on a way to stabilize time travel years ago, and he just happens to have been close friends with Dr. Clark. So what better course of action than to have his son go to his estranged wife to get the thing he so richly desires?
I’ll just say now, the show is quickly starting to push people into different teams regarding how they relate to James. Eve and Izzy very much don’t trust him, especially after he tried ingratiating himself to both. And while Gavin doesn’t fully trust him either, he is worried James is the only person capable of fixing the machine and thus getting his wife back home to safety. Caroline is really upset that her son stopped the upload, and in no way trusts her ex. So there’s a lot of great drama brewing already, and that’s before the surprise murder!
LA BREA — “Murder in the Clearing” Episode 209 — Pictured: (l-r) Josh Martin as Jack Harris, Melissa Neal as Dr. Caroline Clark, Eoin Macken as Gavin Harris — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Back at the Clearing, there’s an uproar about Gavin and company’s mission to break the time machine. Special points to Lucas for returning to his past bratty self and rudely questioning every authority figure. But before things can get too out of hand, a scream from Riley draws a crowd. She’s fine, but she just found the dead body of Wyatt. Worse, it wasn’t a natural death. Someone stabbed him.
Just to make matters worse, Gavin finally explains why he’s working with James and tells Eve about his vision of her death. She tries to push all that fear aside, and organize a search party to find the unknown killer. Gavin just wants to find Dr. Moore and get the time machine fixed. He even enlists his mother Caroline by playing on her maternal emotions and guilt tripping her about time lost between them. He sets off with her, Josh and Riley to see what they can find. And yes, Josh is still being weird and vague about when and how he twisted his ankle, which is setting off my Spidey sense like crazy.
At the initial crime scene, only Scott recognizes the odd symbol the dying man managed to scrawl in the dirt as Exile related. He’s convinced that Taamet has come back for revenge, like he promised. As for the rest of the crew, they all find different ways to contribute. Perhaps my favorite part of the episode is when Scott joins Lucas for amateur P.I. time, interrogating various people to see if they can find the killer. When asked how he’s qualified, Lucas quips “both my parents are cops, dude”. Which is honestly a pretty good answer. That said, the interrogations mostly serve as much needed comic relief.
Despite the overbearing fear for Eve’s safety, her family foolishly decides to leave her to her own devices. Which of course leads to her finding a bloody print on a stone, moments before getting knocked into a pit, with a huge rock pinning both legs. On the plus side, she has a wounded bunny for company. On the negative side, while she landed with a flare gun, the flares are just out of reach.
LA BREA — “Murder in the Clearing” Episode 209 — Pictured: (l-r) Melissa Neal as Dr. Caroline Clark, Eoin Macken as Gavin Harris, Josh Martin as Jack Harris, Veronica St. Clair as Riley — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Even though I usually find Izzy annoying, she had some good moments in Murder in the Clearing. She’s obsessed with her family healing, and she decides to unload on the resident psychiatrist, Ty. Unfortunately Ty is having worse and worse tumor induced headaches. When he asks Izzy if the people at the Tower might have a way to treat his condition, she warns him not to trust James or his people. But desperation has a way of making decisions for us in our darkest moments.
Gavin and his small group do find Dr. Moore, but unfortunately the man is long dead. All that’s left is a skeleton and some frayed clothing. Though Josh discovers an odd key on his effects. A bit later they find the cave where Moore was hiding. With some more searching, Caroline and Riley discover a hidden compartment with all sorts of diagrams that show Moore got close to stabilizing the time machine. Instead of sharing with the others, Caroline urges Riley to keep the diagrams a secret until she can look them over and vet them.
Back in the Clearing, Sam ascertains the murder weapon was about seven inches long. And wouldn’t you know it, shifty Virgil has a whole set of knives he uses to gut fish. Lucas feels strongly that circumstances point to the man as the killer, he just can’t find a motive. Then Izzy and Ty discover the murder weapon itself, which has the same Exile symbol on it that was scrawled in the dirt. Eventually this leads to Scott confiding in Sam how he let Taamet go, and suddenly the entire camp thinks they know who the killer is.
LA BREA — “Murder in the Clearing” Episode 209 — Pictured: (l-r) Eoin Macken as Gavin Harris, Natalie Zea as Eve Harris — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Eve manages to knock the flares down with a well thrown rock, but the flare ricochets and doesn’t get out of the pit. It does, however, attract the attention of something large and angry nearby. In response, Eve fires blindly deeper into the cavern, seemingly hitting the mystery predator. Worse, red flowers start to fall down into the pit, and suddenly Eve worries this is where she dies.
Her unseen predator rears up and shows itself to be a huge prehistoric bear. Despite her fears, there’s a special power in knowing how you die. In Gavin’s vision, Eve was surrounded by red trees. Here, there’s just one dropping flowers into the pit. Which means Eve doesn’t die in that hole in the ground. She tosses some jerky, causing the bear to rumble past and dislodge the rock in the process. This leaves her just enough time to crawl out of her dilemma.
Murder in the Clearing ends with two really dramatic moments. Ty decides to appeal to James for mercy, and goes to the Tower. He’s let in, and told that the people from the far future did find a cure to cancer. All James wants in return is for Ty to be his psychiatrist. Meanwhile Lucas begrudgingly apologizes to Virgil for his suspicions. Only for a couple of flashbacks to seem to indicate Virgil was indeed the person that murdered Wyatt.
LA BREA — “Murder in the Clearing” Episode 209 — Pictured: Josh McKenzie as Lucas — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Overall this was a very enjoyable way to deepen the lore of La Brea and expand on existing tensions. I’m very much looking forward to how James continues to serve as a polarizing and dynamic character. Here’s hoping next week keeps the good stuff coming.
LA BREA -- "Stampede" Episode 208 -- Pictured: (l-r) Chiké Okonkwo as Ty, Rohan Mirchandaney as Scott -- (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Well guys and gals, we’ve officially gone from 1988 to 2023 with the return of La Brea season 2! It’s been a pretty lean month in terms of returning shows, so I’m glad to report La Brea doesn’t waste any time and keeps things moving. Stampede pretty much picks up right were we left our time-tossed travelers. Gavin, Eve, Josh, Riley and Sam jumped through the portal to go and stop the source of the impending disaster back in 1988. But doing so means turning off the Lazarus for good. And while Gavin’s family is finally on board with that decision, Sam is not.
Gavin wakes up alone, though Eve quickly finds her way to him. Turns out the rest of the crew landed in different places. While Riley and Sam get reunited with the larger group in the Clearing quickly, Josh is mysteriously absent. Gavin wishes he could just focus on one disaster at a time, but he’s very worried about his mysterious vision of Eve’s death while near a tree with red, star-shaped flowers. It’s causing him to keep things to himself, and Eve isn’t happy about it. Unsurprisingly, neither is is daughter, Izzy, who is insistent about bringing their family together. Which is why Gavin finally opens up and tells her about his terrifying vision, seemingly of Eve’s death surrounded by red-hued trees.
LA BREA — “Stampede” Episode 208 — Pictured: (l-r) Melissa Neal as Dr. Caroline Clark, Veronica St. Clair as Riley, Jon Seda as Dr. Sam, Natalie Zea as Eve — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
In the Clearing itself, things start calm. Lucas has been saved from almost certain death, but healing his infection left some lasting consequences. Namely, one of his hands is now numb and useless. The man that used to be so full of rage and violent energy now has to content himself with the fact he’s not as capable anymore. Despite that, Lucas and many in the Clearing are trying to put down roots, building permanent structures. Which is when a wild buffalo decides to come barreling through the camp. They luck out, and nobody gets harmed, but there’s a problem. Where there’s one buffalo, there are plenty more, and an entire stampede has their migration path centered on the Clearing .
Even though Gavin and company don’t find Josh, they decide that time is of the essence, and they need to shut down Lazarus before a tidal wave does massive damage back in 1988. Gavin splits up, heading with Izzy to break past security at the tower. He figures he can play on his father James’ ego, and that he will let them in, giving Gavin a chance to do what’s necessary. By the same token, they’re not sure how James would react to Eve, Sam or Riley, and they know he doesn’t trust his wife Caroline. So they split up and head to a research station a few miles away from the tower, hoping to upload the virus once Gavin gives them an opening. I should note, a partial upload will shut down the 1988 sinkhole, stopping the cataclysmic tidal wave, while a 100% upload will permanently turn off the Lazarus.
LA BREA — “Stampede” Episode 208 — Pictured: Michelle Vergara Moore as Ella — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
There’s also an interesting side story involving Ty, Ella and Veronica. Ty remembers Ella is a talented artist, and asks her to make a wedding ring for Paara. When Elle and Veronica talk about the objective, they name drop the mysterious man called Aaron. The same one that drew Veronica and Ella into his web of crime, and who still holds such influence over both women. We really don’t know a lot about this person, but I’m more and more convinced he’s going to show up in 10,000 B.C. Especially after both women head to an amethyst cave to find a stone for the wedding ring, and discover the same red-hued tree that Gavin saw in his vision of Eve’s death. Apparently, it’s a tree Aaron was very familiar with. Even stranger, the same tree is being studied in a laboratory by James.
Lucas is trying hard to become the person that Veronica thinks he’s capable of becoming. Which in his case means going from a drug-dealing tough to a good person that cares about people. Thus the plan is suggested that they can divert the buffalo stampede instead of giving up and letting it destroy the camp. Working with others, Lucas has a vision to use abundant tar to set up a wall of flames and keep the massive animals from their path of destruction. At one point Josh wanders in and hugs Scott, though he’s being cagey. Mostly because he knows that if he tells the Clearing about Gavin and Caroline’s plan, they’ll be angry about getting stranded permanently in the past.
LA BREA — “Stampede” Episode 208 — Pictured: (l-r) Josh MeKenzie as Lucas, Rohan Mirchandaney as Scott, Chiké Okonkwo as Ty — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
It becomes very clear Sam is determined to stop Dr. Clark, and he tries to steal her virus. She anticipates the move, and he gets nothing. But that doesn’t stop him. He may have worked past his addiction earlier in the season, but now he is utterly set on reuniting himself and Riley with the rest of their family. Which means stopping the upload by any means necessary. Thus he races to get to the research station first.
After bonding with grandpa, AKA the mysterious James, Izzy discovers the same tree from her father’s vision. In so doing, she becomes convinced that her mother will die in 10,000 B.C. Meanwhile Gavin manages to take a guard’s taser, knock him unconscious and force his way to make the facility accessible to Dr. Clark. He misses the woman who works for his father hitting a silent alarm, however.
As Dr. Clark is uploading the virus, it’s clear something is wrong. Eve and her wander over and find Sam bashing the power source to the research station with a club of wood. He’s ready to finish the job, but Eve and his own daughter buy some time for the upload to proceed. They say he’s going to sacrifice the lives of thousands just to save a couple, and despite his anger, Sam is still a good person at heart. He’s just torn between impossible decisions.
Right as the wall of flames is working to reroute the first dregs of the stampede, something weird and utterly delightful happens. The aurora flashes and suddenly rain, fish and ocean debris start raining from the sky. Which means that the portal is starting to open in 1988. Worse, it puts out the fire just as the rest of the herd is heading their way. Thankfully, the ex-stoner, Scott, has a brilliant idea, and they manage to reroute the bulk of the stampede using car horns to scare them off.
James comes to convince Gavin to stop the upload. He claims that Gavin’s mother, Dr. Clark, was lying to Gavin. Better yet, supposedly he’s almost stabilized the portals, meaning there won’t be any future negative consequences from their use. Gavin is struggling to choose, and then Izzy tells him about the red trees, and says she’s convinced Eve will die if they stay. It’s incredibly tense, but ultimately Gavin stops the full upload with seconds to go.
LA BREA — “Stampede” Episode 208 — Pictured: (l-r) Michelle Vergara Moore as Ella, Josh MeKenzie as Lucas, Lily Santiago as Veronica — (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)
Overall, a great return for La Brea season 2. Be sure and stay tuned to The Workprint for the follow up episode later tonight, Murder in the Clearing!
In one of the trippiest first issues to introduce a new horror comic book series, Breath of Shadows is like witnessing a drug addict’s worst nightmare—freshly inked, and captured on a comic—one toke shy of over-the-line into hallucinogenic fury. It’s a story set during the peak of the psychedelic drug movement, smack dab in the transitional Rock-‘N’-Roll era of the 1960s.
Breath of Shadows follows the story of Rock Star Jimmy Meadows, a man whose rising artistic fame is surpassed in legend, only by his equally renown penchant for addictions, sex and drugs, specifically, heroin. The storytakes readers on a strange journey of horrifying paranoia and head demons, where Jimmy must stumble forward along with his manager, team, and bandmates, across the jungles of South America.
Debuting tomorrow, February 1st, issue #1 will be the first of a five-issue limited run from Bram Stoker Award–Nominated Creators Rich Douekand Alex Cormack, whose recent horror runs for IDW have been nothing shy of spectacular.
We sat down to talk with co-creators Rich Douek and Alex Cormack about this upcoming new comic. We’ve also got some cover art and our detailed interview below.
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INTERVIEW W/ RICH DOUEK
So this is your third book for IDW made with Alex Cormack. Can you share what this journey has been like together?
Rich: It’s been nothing short of amazing. Alex and I have been friends for a long time, but only started working together on Road of Bones. Going from that book to Sea of Sorrows, and now on to Breath of Shadows has made us both stronger creators, as we continue to build our respective skills, and inspire each other to reach new creative heights.
What makes Breath of Shadows unique from other series that you’ve worked on?
Rich: We’ve definitely explored the psychology of humans in desperate situations in our previous work, but Breath of Shadows takes things to a whole new level. We’ve got a large, diverse cast of characters, each bringing their own demons with them into the depths of the jungle, where all hell is going to break loose.
Ripping the band-aid right off… what made you want to write a body horror story about drugs and rock-and-roll? Was this based on any particular addiction experiences you knew of from the past?
Rich: I’ve always found rock and roll fascinating, especially the larger-than-life figures of the sixties, and the idea of writing a band with a lot of infighting just seemed like a lot of fun. As far as drugs go, yeah, I’ve had my experiences, and have been lucky enough to not wreck my life over them. I can’t say the same for everyone I know, and I’ve witnessed firsthand the impact they can have on someone’s life. A certain amount of the experiences in the book are drawn from real life, while others are drawn from my research on the subject, which included books like Junky and Naked Lunch. And once you really delve into the mechanisms and feelings of addiction, well, body horror seems like a natural fit.
I love Jimmy Meadows, the lead vocalist of The Shades. There’s an acerbic wittiness to him and that line asking if he could smoke that flower from a hippie? Totally, hilarious. Was there anyone(s) in particular that Jimmy Meadows was based on?
Rich: Ha! I appreciate that, because I like Jimmy a lot too, even though I am the first to admit, I did not write him to be especially likeable—in fact, I could very easily see a lot of readers finding him infuriating! But I wanted him to have that kind of rock star magnetism, that feeling where someone can be living their lives as an absolute train wreck, but still somehow be the coolest person in every room they walk into. In terms of real life figures, he’s a bit of a pastiche of some of the big rock stars of the era—there’s a bit of Jim Morrison in him, a bit of John Lennon, as well as a bit of less popular, but no less seminal figures like Lou Reed, and Harry Nilsson.
This story takes place during the transitional era of the 60s into the 70s. That ‘Fear and Loathing’ moment and the peak of the psychedelic movement. You mentioned in issue 1, The Beatles, but what other bands or types of music do you think influenced your take on the story?
Rich: I made a huge Spotify playlist to keep on while I researched and wrote – you can even check it out here if you want! I started with some of the staples, like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Doors, but also included bands like The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and Jefferson Airplane. For me it was about capturing the vibe of the time, and the story—as you said, the height of the psychedelic movement, right before it soured into something infinitely more downbeat and cynical—what I was really looking for in selecting the songs was finding those moments where you can almost see the end coming, like Hunter S. Thompson said in Fear and Loathing; the high water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Finally, for readers considering picking up this series, what would you like for them to take away from this comic after reading it?
Rich: Like with any book, I hope they have a great time reading it—but what I’d really love for people to take from it is a bit of awareness of how easily horror can creep into our lives—I’m not talking about monsters or bugs or things like that, but an almost existential force born out of the choices we make in life. When asked about the title Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs said, it means exactly what the words say—a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork. My deepest ambition would be for people to experience something just like that—a moment where they might stop and wonder what they would do, who they might be, when they’re stuck in the shadows with something horrible breathing down their neck.
INTERVIEW W/ ALEX CORMACK
This is your third book for IDW made with Rich Douek. In your experience, what’s the journey been like for you together?
Alex: It is! It’s been great, ever since I got the call from Rich while standing in my in-laws’ kitchen saying that IDW digs ROAD OF BONES, they’ve been fantastic to work with.
You’ve done different environments in your comics together but Jungles were important to you in this one. Can you talk about the elements of the rainforest you incorporated into this?
Alex: I’ve always wanted to draw something in the jungle, since I was a kid watching INDIANA JONES, I don’t know if I could say specifically, But the tangle of vines and trees, all the palms, trying hard to make it look hot and uncomfortable, each background was a joy to draw!
Luckily my son loves the JUNGLE BOOK so we’ve had the animation and the live action movies on a bunch which has been very helpful!
Are there any Mayan or Mexican influences featured in your upcoming issues?
Alex: The Mayan ruins especially but specifically through the illustrations of Frederick Catherwood. Along with John Lloyd Stephens they found a number of ruins and sculptures in the 1830s and 40s. Catherwood illustrated ruins using a camera lucida and drew them as close to the real thing as he could. A lot of his illustrations I used as influence even though our spot is fictional.
I really like your linework as an artist. It’s very detailed and great for capturing moments of gruesome horror. Can you share with readers, what you do differently with your approach when doing spatter work or shading in a horror comic versus other sorts of comic art?
Alex: Thanks so much! It all depends on what’s going on in the story, heavy moments will have some heavy noir lighting, lighter moments will have the all the lights on. If it’s a lighter part of the story I may add a cartoony look to the illustration. A lot of shading and drawing techniques will change from story to story but whatever I do I have to make sure that it’s in service to the story.
Some of the visceral images are trippy and grotesque in this. The millipedes are kind of the perfect monster metaphor for an ex-heroin addict. Can you tell us what it’s like drawing the pindrop moment in a comic? How do you find creative ways to shock people while reading?
Alex: This reminds me of a time my wife caught me saying to myself hmmm this looks pretty gross, I think I’m done. Those scenes are the most fun to draw, I’ll map them out in layouts and then film myself acting out the scene and will draw from that. Each one of those scenes is different though, each has its own story behind them.
The nice thing about doing the colors with my wife Ashley is that I can get a second chance if I don’t think an illustration is working. I can go back and get it the best I can make it, this happened just recently in a crazy part in issue four (when you see it you’ll know what I’m talking about).
Finally, what’s something that you’re really proud of regarding how this visually came out?
Alex: I’m so proud of this book, I could draw it forever. The jungle scenes especially have been so much fun. The characters, their clothes, the background characters, the centipedes upon centipedes upon centipedes! There have been so many great challenges in this, I loved putting down every line.
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And that was it! Thanks again to Rich Douek and Alex Cormack for this awesome interview along with the folks at IDW and Laura, most especially! Breath of Shadows releases tomorrow. You can see the first five pages of the interior art above to check it out.
Mutantkind’s future is evolving quickly. Teased at NYCC, Fall of X is an epic storyline that will touch all X-Men titles and change the Marvel Universe forever. The Krakoa era, which started back in Jonathan Hickman’s pivotal House of X and Powers of X, is about to experience a huge shift thanks to Fall of X.
It’s been a wild ride for mutantkind and the X-Men which begs the question “How long will Krakoa last?” Fall of X aims to answer that question plus many more. But before it does there are four one-shots here to help get you ready for what’s to come.
May brings to us X-Men:Before the Fall, along with titles designed to tie up loose plot lines, reintroduce key characters, and generally get things ready for the third annual Hellfire Gala. Along with being the dramatic must-attend event of the season, this year’s Hellfire Gala will be the official start of Fall of X and unveil the results of this year’s X-Men Vote – fans can get in on the fun and vote starting right now.
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X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SONS OF X #1 Written by SI SPURRIER Art and Cover by PHIL NOTO On Sale 5/3
X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – HERALDS OF APOCALYPSE #1 Written by AL EWING Art by LUCA PIZZARI Cover by PEPE LARRAZ On Sale June
X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – MUTANT FIRST STRIKE #1 Written by STEVE ORLANDO Art by VALENTINA PINTI Cover by DAVID BALDEÓN On Sale June
X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SINISTER FOUR #1 Written by KIERON GILLEN Art by PACO MEDINA Cover by LUCAS WERNECK On Sale July
X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X #1 sees writer Si Spurrier and artist Phil Noto pit two titans of the X-Universe against each other. The man with endless personalities and powers comes into conflict with the mighty sentinel hunter from the future: Legion vs. Nimrod! David Hallar and friends are coming to Nightcrawler’s rescue after he gets himself abducted by Orchis, but it won’t be an easy fight. This is the man who conquered Adam Warlock and damn near destroyed Krakoa, not to mention Nightcrawler isn’t all right…and Legion’s allies might be suspicious too.
X-Men: Before the Fall – Heralds of Apocalypse #1 sees the long-anticipated return of Apocalypse care of Al Ewing with art by Luca Pizzari. The end of X of Swords saw Apocalypse and his family stranded in the cruel land of Amenth. How has their exile been? Do they rule the dark world and its hellish denizens or are they subjects to this twisted world’s inhabitants? Also, the Quiet Council will have to answer for the choices they’ve made while Apocalypse has been away.
In X-Men: Before the Fall – Mutants First Strike #1, writer Steve Orlando along with artist Valentina Pinti bring you a mutant mystery! A small town is besieged by a murderous mutant but all is not as it appears. Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Bishop have the task of uncovering the truth but the deeper they dig the more troubling the reality they unearth…for all mutantkind.
Written byKieron Gillen and drawn by Paco Medina, X-Men: Before the Fall – Sinister Four #1 is the tale of four Sinisters getting back on the villainous bike. Following the events of Sins of Sinister, all four Sinisters got revealed, but that’s not going to slow down their plans for domination…not after they’ve had a taste of real power.
Check out all four covers now and stay tuned for more news about FALL OF X, including details about this year’s HELLFIRE GALA X-VOTE!
Now in its third year, fans can vote in yet another X-Men election, this time for 2023. Online ballots will be held from January 31st at 9 am EST (AKA right now) until just before midnight this Friday, February 3rd – all available now at marvel.com/xmenvote
The results and reveal of who’ll be in the new X-Men team, will be unveiled during the Hellfire Gala this July. Fans can campaign for their favorite X-Men using #XMenVote, on just about every social media platform.
To shake things up, Marvel Insiders are also eligible to enter sweepstakes to get drawn into the latest Hellfire Gala for the X-Men comics line. Some lucky fans will actually be (on the page anyway) able to attend the most fashionable yearly event in Marvel comics within the Hellfire Gala! Selection will take place exclusively to Marvel Insiders, from 2/3 (12:00pmEST) until 2/12 (11:59pmEST).
In the past three years, the X-Men elections have determined the newest protector of Krakoa. In 2021, Polaris won the first-ever election and was featured in Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz’s X-Men, and then in 2022, fan-favorite Firestar was chosen to become the newest member with artists C.F. Villa and Joshua Cassara. That said, here are a list of this year’s nominees, taken directly from Marvel’s latest press release.
2023 X-Men Ballot Nominations:
CANNONBALL: One of the original “New Mutants,” the second class of students in the Xavier School, Sam Guthrie has come a long way. His ability to transform into a human cannonball, propelling himself with great force at high speeds while making himself “nigh invulnerable” has taken him from an awkward lanky teen to a married father who is both a former X-Man and Avenger! Why not rocket him to the front lines again?
DAZZLER: Dazzler first made it to the scene as a pop star, using her secret mutant power to transform sound into light as part of her stage show. Becoming a hero and joining the X-Men never dimmed her star-power, even as she learned to use her ability to dazzle as an offensive weapon. Since then, she’s been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a freedom fighter, mother to a time paradox, and a vampire hunter. Isn’t it time for Alison Blaire to reclaim center stage?
FRENZY: Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes and durability have made Joanna Cargill a formidable opponent to any who crosses her. From her early days opposed to the X-Men as a member of Apocalypse’s Alliance of Evil, her time as one of Magneto’s Acolytes, and Mister Sinister’s Marauders, to her time on the side of good with the Jean Grey School, and eventually as an intergalactic ambassador with S.W.O.R.D., Frenzy has what it takes to tackle anything!
JUBILEE: Having joined the X-Men as a teenaged runaway, Jubilation Lee had been shooting explosive fireworks out of her hands into the face of evil for many years when she lost her powers in M-Day. Even so, that didn’t stop her from fighting for what’s right—first as a New Warrior using a power suit, and later as a vampire, going against every monstrous urge that came with that transformation. Cured of that curse and with her mutant powers returned, Jubilee deserves to reclaim her spot on the X-team!
JUGGERNAUT: The non-mutant stepbrother of Professor X, Cain Marko long ago claimed the gem of the ancient “god” Cyttorak, transforming him into the unstoppable brute known as Juggernaut. For many years he was a thorn in the X-Men’s side, frequently rampaging through their lives leaving wreckage behind. More recently, however, Cain has shaken off the evil influence of his dark master, claiming the power of Juggernaut under his own terms and making amends for his past deeds.
PRODIGY: Prodigy possesses the power of psychomimetry—a form of telepathy that grants him the skills and knowledge of those in his proximity. This allows him equal mastery of any skill—mental or physical—as those around him. His ability to retain knowledge from those sources makes him an even more formidable mutant – one who is brilliant at biology, computers, martial arts, and strategic planning. David Alleyne may borrow from others, but he is one of a kind.
Robert Picardo as Dr. Edwin Woolsey, Highdee Kuan as Mallory Yang, Mike Wade as Moe Murphy, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Joseph Dinicol as Eugene H Wagner (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
A colonel, a Nobel-prize-winning physicist, his young assistant, a journalist, and a janitor walk into a nuclear reactor control room in the early 1960s… and they all die in a horrific explosion that’s covered up by the U.S. government. Oh, and one of them is actually Dr. Ben Song, who has leaped into the scene to try to prevent the tragedy.
Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
Except he fails—first as the colonel, and then as the other individuals in that room. Over and over, he relives the scene leading up to the explosion, each time trying to find out what caused it, and how to stop it.
Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Caitlin Bassett as Addison, and Highdee Kuan as Mallory Yang (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
In the eleventh episode of its debut season, Quantum Leap shakes up its usual format by throwing Ben into a time loop, which greatly confuses the team back in 2023. So desperate are they for an answer that they turn to an outside expert on the phenomenon, who also happens to be the season’s primary antagonist: Janis Calavicci.
Ernie Hudson as Magic, Georgina Reilly as Janis Calavicci (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
For the first time, Quantum Leap‘s dual plot lines, in the present and the past that Ben has leaped into, are directly connected. The team back home scrambles for clues while Ben investigates the reactor and the people in that control room. It’s a tense and emotional episode, with Addison facing the possibility of losing Ben forever and the team having to work with a person who they (very understandably) don’t trust.
Beyond the attempts to stop the nuclear disaster and break the loop, the episode teases at upcoming reveals around why Ben leaped in the first place and just what Janis is hiding. Raymond Lee indicated in a press tour that the many questions the sci-fi mystery has raised “will all be answered by the end of Season 1,” and a scene late in the episode hints that some of those answers may be coming soon.
Caitlin Basset as Addison and Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song (Photo by Ron Batzdorff / NBC)
The season seems to be pacing its reveals, with several plot threads from earlier this season still dangling, including the motivations behind Leaper X (who hasn’t been mentioned in a little bit), and, of course, why Ben couldn’t trust any of his teammates with the truth behind his leap and turned to Janis instead. With eight episodes left in the season, there’s still time for these threads to tie together, and it is likely the pace of the reveals will accelerate as the show builds up to its finale.
Though “Leap. Die. Repeat.” doesn’t offer a lot of answers, with the focus being primarily on resolving Ben’s immediate, life-threatening dilemma, it introduces a new wrinkle in the form of a time loop (that Janis happens to be the foremost expert on—coincidence or conspiracy?). Between that, the previous episode to the Old West, and the notion of leaping toward a particular time in the future that seems to be Ben’s overarching goal, Quantum Leap is pushing the boundaries of the original show’s format, and since it has been renewed for a second season, is likely to continue doing so.
Quantum Leap airs on NBC at 10:00 PM EST and streams on Peacock.
When Disney purchased 20th Century Fox back in 2019, with it, came the rights to both the Alien and Predator franchises. After seeing much success for Dark Horse comics over the years, this buyout of the Alien IP actually made a lot of sense, especially given the opportunity to see the Xenomorph eventually make its way into Marvel comics.
Then in 2021, Marvel had done just so with a comic run by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artists Salvador Larroca and Julius Ohta back in 2021 called Alien: Bloodlines, and later, Alien: Revival. In those stories, we’d seen a more contemporary adaptation of the franchise where ex-security officer Gabriel Cruz, now retired from working for Weyland-Yutani, had to deal with PTSD after a close encounter alien attack; then soon after, found himself back in the thick of it (meaning yet another alien encounter) once his son became involved in some corporate espionage.
It was a well-received revival though really stretched out both the lore and realm of possibilities in the Alien franchise. So when Marvel announced a newer and little bit more grounded project in the “Alien” series by Declan Shalvey (Moon Knight) and Andrea Broccardo (Star Wars: The High Republic), it was no surprise fans were ecstatic in anticipation.
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Intended to “Channel the mood and atmosphere of those films while doing something new,” according to Shalvey, this new story will be set on an icy fringe moon at the edge of nowhere where a family of scientists researching important methods of water conservation becomes hunted as prey by none other than the classic: Xenomorph!
“It’s incredibly exciting to take on such a brilliant franchise …the potential for great stories is limitless,” Shalvey said in a Marvel press release. “I feel like the themes from the films remain quite relevant to today, which makes me feel like we’re able to tell contemporary stories set in that iconic universe. I’m very much hoping to channel the mood and atmosphere of those films while doing something new and Andrea has done an incredible job of putting the reader in that recognizable world. With this new series, I think we have a really interesting addition to the lore of Alien.”
The Last of Us returned this week with its third episode, “Long, Long Time” – a lovely episode, almost entirely zombie and fungus free. Yet it served as a beautiful reminder of what is actually at stake with Ellie and the potential for a cure. Let’s get into it.
“Long, Long Time” starts right with the credits, with no flashback scene like in previous weeks. The on-screen graphic helpfully tells us that Joel & Ellie have gotten ten miles west of Boston, or about a day. Joel has stopped to build a little cairn of stones (RIP Anna Torv) and be grumpy at Ellie, who isn’t here for Joel’s silent treatment and reminds him that he came out on this trek by his own choice. Ellie asks Joel to stop blaming her for something that isn’t her fault. Again, I am loving Bella Ramsey’s portrayal. She is tough, but still a kid, yet not cloying or precocious. It’s a great balance.
On the way to Bill and Frank’s place (the friends Tess mentioned last week), they stop at Cumberland Farms for Joel to find a cache of supplies. (I guess Dunkin’ would have been a little too on the nose.) While Joel looks for the floorboard where he hid his stash, Ellie goes exploring. After marveling at a Mortal Kombat 2 arcade cabinet in the store, she heads into the basement.
Ellie sees a face in the rubble. It’s a mushroom man, but wheezing, and apparently close to death. Ellie creeps up on him and stabs him in the head. Is this the first one she’s killed? It seems likely, based on her reaction. She pointedly does not mention it to Joel when she comes back up. (Was that zombie connected by tendrils? I’m not quite sure how those mechanics work, but the lack of fungus patterns on the walls would indicate that it was alone.)
As they push on to Bill and Frank’s, they pass a plane crash site. Ellie’s never ridden in a plane, or even seen a working one. She was born mid-plague, and is a reminder that there’s so much of the “modern” world she knows nothing about, like how the planes just started falling out of the sky once the fungus started to spread. Joel takes the opportunity to give a brief recap of the outbreak.
Best anyone can tell, the cordyceps mutated. It started off infecting the food – flour, sugar, stuff that was in everything we eat. (Like from the factory where the Indonesian woman from last week worked.) Even pancake mix – so I guess it’s a good thing Joel didn’t eat his birthday pancakes. People started to eat the infected food on Wednesday and Thursday and then on Friday, September 26, 2003 – Outbreak Day – people started going crazy and biting.
And by Monday, civilization had collapsed.
This is an interesting take since it ties into a few things that are legitimately concerning – like the globalization of the food supply, and how so much food is distributed by a handful of suppliers that it’s difficult to trace where tainted food came from. It also answers some of my questions about the cordyceps spread. The fungus must be ingested, or transmitted through bites. (The showrunners confirmed this in interviews after last week’s episode. They aren’t dealing with airborne spores…yet.)
Suddenly, Joel wants to take a detour off the road. There’s something up there he doesn’t want Ellie to see. Which, of course, makes Ellie race toward it. It’s a mass grave. FEDRA was evacuating small towns and taking them toward the nearest Quarantine Zone. That is if they could fit. If they couldn’t, the troops shot them, even if they weren’t infected. Dead can’t get infected or spread the disease.
The camera pans in on two skeletons, dress in the rags of old clothes, one clearly much smaller than the other. And now we get our flashback. Sept. 30, 2003. The evacuation that Joel just described. The two bodies we just saw as skeletons are a black woman cradling her infant in her arms as they wait to get on the transport out of town. Thankfully, we are spared seeing her and her child get shot. We instead cut to a mysterious man watching the evacuation on a closed circuit and muttering “not today, you jackbooted New World Order thugs.” (Now there’s a blast from the past. I don’t think I’ve heard that phrase in at least a decade.)
This is Bill, played by Nick Offerman, and Bill is best described as Ron Swanson but played entirely serious. He’s a paranoid survivalist holed up in his basement bunker to avoid the forced evacuation. And like they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. (And how vindicated must you feel if you were a survivalist prepper and the apocalypse happened?) He’s got a basement full of guns and fuel and as soon as the feds leave, he drives out to get more gas and wine. All the essentials.
Things are going pretty well for him for the first few years. He has booby-trapped the area around his fenced-off street with tripwires and pits. The few mushroom men that stumble through get blasted by shotguns. But after four years, someone falls into his pit trap.
This is Frank (Murray Bartlett). He was with a group of ten heading from the Baltimore QZ to Boston (since the Baltimore QZ is no more). Reluctantly, Bill lets him out of the pit to send him on his way (of course scanning him for infection first). Frank begs him for food, and Bill doesn’t want to give him any but relents in the face of Frank’s desperation. Perhaps Bill just wants someone to talk to after four years of solitude.
After a shower and a change of clothes – which must be just unimaginable luxuries after the squalid and cramped QZs – Bill served him a magnificent meal of rabbit and fresh vegetables. Look, I get teary when I find a good bagel. In a world where they live on beef jerky ration strips because of infected flour, real food (and wine!) must be the height of decadence.
Bill is about to send Frank on his way when Frank sees the piano across the room. He dashed over to it, pushing aside the classical books and pulling out the Best of Linda Ronstadt. He starts to butcher his way through Long, Long Time. He mangles it so badly, that Bill makes him stop. Frank urges him to take over, which he does with some hesitation, playing a very pretty version of it. Frank asks him who the girl is, the one he’s singing about. Bill softly says that there is no girl. Frank says “I know” as he puts his hand on his shoulder, and then they kiss and embrace, with survivalist Bill starting to cry with relief and happiness.
As they get into bed, Bill admits he’s never been with a man before, and no one at all except a girl a long time ago. Frank says he’ll start slow, but he’s no whore. He doesn’t sleep with people for a lunch. If he does this, he’s going to stick around for a while.
Now, at this point, I had my doubts about Frank’s sincerity. After all, If I was given the choice between fighting off fungus zombies and FEDRA agents who will shoot you on sight, or cuddling up to Ron Swanson who has a big house full of wine, well, I know what I’d do. Fortunately for all involved, Bill and Frank are into each other, and the remainder of the episode is an extended flashback detailing the next 15 years of their lives. And after two weeks of zombies and death, wow is this an unexpectedly welcome respite.
As my mom likes to say, every couple has the chatty one and the quiet one. Frank is the chatty one, the social one. He wants to spruce up the street, mow the lawns back, and paint some houses. Bill thinks that’s a waste of resources, After all, who are they decorating for? Why, their friends of course!
Frank has been chatting with a nice lady on the radio and wants to invite her over. (Gotta say, I’m on Team Bill here. I don’t care much for dinner parties now, without the threat of disease and bandits coming to pillage) But, sacrifices are made to keep your better half happy. So, they have a garden party with Tess and Joel, plus the handgun Bill insists on keeping out on the table.
Tess and Frank chat like old friends, while Joel and Bill warily stare each other down. (Joel’s the quiet one. Big surprise!) As Tess and Frank go off to look at the house, Bill and Joel come to an understanding. Joel respects Bill and understands his caution. After all, he’d feel the same. But, perhaps they can help each other out. Like, by trading some new wire for the fence and seed packets for guns? Well, Tess and Frank are setting up that radio code we saw in the first episode, so it looks like they’re going to be planning a game night soon. (What do you think they’ll play, Cranium or Apples to Apples?)
It’s a lovely portrait of a couple in love. Bill learns to trust and open up, going jogging with Frank and even giggling when he tastes the fresh strawberries that Frank grew. (He traded a gun for some seeds.) Frank learns to be more self-reliant, even field dressing Bill’s wounds after an attack from raiders. Like all good relationships, they grow and become more attuned to each other. And they also grow old together.
As the flashback starts to catch up to the present day, Bill and Frank look to be in their seventies. Frank is ill, confined to a wheelchair, and tells Bill that this is going to be his last day. He’s planned it all out. They’ll go out to the town boutique, Frank will pick out some suits, they’ll get married, and then Bill will make them a nice dinner. Afterward, Bill will crush up all of Frank’s pills and Frank will drink them with some wine and then go to sleep in Bill’s arms. Bill agrees, sadly, and tries to give him one last day.
It’s a lovely montage. Everything goes according to Frank’s plan. Bill prepares him rabbit and Beaujolais, the same meal he made when he hauled him out of the pit years ago. Bill crushes up the pills and puts them into Frank’s glass, then pours them both a toast. Frank figures out what’s going on, and asks if there were already pills in the bottle. Bill nods. “Enough to kill a horse.” Bill doesn’t want to go on without Frank. The ultimate misanthrope found a reason to live, and once that reason is gone, he sees no point in carrying on. They head to the bedroom, ready for their final rest.
Going back to the present, Joel and Ellie have made their way to the compound. Joel can tell something is off, based on the overgrown vines and the dead flowers (flowers we saw Bill watering in the previous scenes). Ellie finds a note, addressed “To Whoever, But Probably Joel,” since only Joel can get past the traps and knows the gate codes. In the letter, Bill explains what has happened, and leaves the contents of the bunker to him. “I used to hate the world and was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong. There was one person worth saving…That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do and god help any motherfuckers who stand in our way.”
This is a little bit too pat, but it’s undoubtedly effective. The world is awful, but there are people worth saving and protecting, and cherishing. Bill meant for Joel to protect Tess, but now that she’s gone, he needs to help Ellie. They take Bill’s truck and head off towards Wyoming to find Joel’s brother (and former Firefly), who may know where the base is. (And Ellie also stole that gun she’s been asking about. Sure that won’t cause any problems later!)
After two tense and harrowing weeks, this is a good reminder of the stakes. There’s a federal agency that murders people outside of QZs. There have been several murders of young children by government officials. There are the cordyceps monsters, Clickers, that turn you into a slavering creature. Every survivor puts up a hard front just to get through the day.
But there is still beauty. And love. And music. And friendship. There are reasons to continue on, in spite of the horrors. People depend on us and we depend on others. And that is why a cure is important. Not just to stop the fungus, but to save what makes us human.
Five out of Five. And there’s better be an Emmy nomination for Offerman come July.
LINE OF THE WEEK:
Frank: You think 9/11 was an inside job and the government is run by Nazis!
Bill: The government IS run by Nazis!
This year’s winter fest is very well organized, with 2 separate sections to check out and some food trucks nearby serving both breakfast and lunch. The main building focuses in on comics and toy collectibles, especially from the 80s. The secondary building features old-school game consoles, trading card games, and other fun trinkets to take home like frost glasses. There’s also an entire Mandalorian Legion in cosplay who’ll be here at the booth and walking about the convention!
Overall, the WinterFest edition remains pretty great this year and is a great place to take your kids out or cosplay. Here are 7 particular things we really enjoyed checking out this year.
Misfit Collectibles
Fans of 80’s toys and nostalgia rejoice! Because Misfit Collectibles has some serious collectible figurines and trinkets up the wazoo from the 1980s. We’re talking GI Joes and Transformers, Wrestlers, and Ninja Turtles! Fans of The Smurfs? They got that. Ever wanted some rare Bionic Man items? They’ve got it too.
A great place for retro collectors, what I really enjoyed about this side kiosk is that everything is conveniently in plastic bags, to keep them clean from smudges and touches. You can check out their eBay shop with the link above, but more importantly, stop by their booth if you love the 80s and early 90s, they’ll likely have something you desire.
Stay a Night at Buffalo Bill’s House From ‘Silence of The Lambs’
Horror movie fanatics will want to check this out, recommend it to a friend, or dare I say it, maybe book a tour and stay the night?
This booth gives you the rundown on the hows and wheres with a video and epic recap from founder, Chris Rowan. For anyone who’s ever wanted to visit, this house is, in fact, the actual location where they shot the ending to Silence of The Lambs now available as an overnight bed-and-breakfast for up to 9 guests. If that weren’t enough, it also hosts guided tours and on-location film permission (for any film productions seeking to use the space).
“It’s the actual house from Silence of The Lambs. We recreated the basement to replicate the scenes of the movie, or as we call it, ‘Buffalo Bill’s Workshop of Horrors,” said Rowan regarding this incredible refitted horror rental. “We also recreated the actual well from the film in the house where special effects makeup artist, Tom Savini – involved in movies like Friday 13th and Dawn of The Dead – actually recreated the well and installed it in the house.”
The location for Buffalo Bill’s House is set in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania. For anyone who wants to rent it check out BuffaloBillsHouse.com and definitely check out the booth at the back of the convention’s main building.
The Creators
To be fair, we’ve covered TheCreators Michael S Bracco’s comic in the last Winter edition. For those who don’t remember, The Creators is a comic where in the future, young people across the world gained the ability to turn their imaginations to real life using art. Which is a pretty brilliant concept given how awesomely terrifying an adolescents imagination can be.
Halted by the Bureau of Creative Enforcement, the series is about kids trying to understand their place in the world via their gifts of imagination, which is a pretty amazing concept, given that Bracco also has lots of experience in this working as an art teacher to middle school kids.
If that weren’t enough of a reason to check it out, his side company that makes graphic tees and clothing features some beautifully horrifying and appealing custom-made art shirts which you can only buy at conventions or on spaghettikiss.com. No joke, when I last ran into Michael at NYCC this past October, I immediately had to buy his custom Winnie The Pooh Crew Neck as it’s Winnie The Pooh set in a Mad Max styled universe!
DXSabers
Yes, with the Mandalorian cosplayers all walking about, there is also, indeed, a Dark Saber featured at this convention. Featuring custom lightsabers from across the galaxy, DXSabers is your one-stop-shop for Star Wars armory paraphernalia and custom Jedi and Sith glowing blades.
These customs come with warranties and even have Saber shop repairs. The materials are made of aluminum and steel and each, comes with the ability to change up to 11 different blade colors.
Star Wars and Superhero Lego Legion!
I feel like the picture, and the booth when you see it, kind of sell the appeal of this one almost immediately, so we’ll let you just look at… all the lego custom figures. AwesomeAutographedCollectibles deals in signed memorabilia and… well… collectibles. Along with an entire legion of Star Wars, Marvel, and Pop Culture-Themed Legos, all as third-party customs.
We’re talking Spider-Men, Black Panthers, and every sort of Imperial Clone and Storm trooper, along with all your favorite Jedis. Available while supplies last (and there are a heck-of-a-lot of supplies).
Nemesis Comics & Games
Something new that we haven’t seen before at the GardenStateComicFest, Nemesis Comics and Games is unique in that not only are they getting the entire back area of the convention’s second building, but they also, are the only ones hosting a magic-the-gathering and trading card tournament tables. Atop of this, their shop is the biggest ones selling board game collectibles and D&D dice, so fans of tabletop and cards checking out the convention must come here.
Anime Gamer Zone
The first place you’ll see in the second building, Anime Gamer Zone is different from the rest of the convention in that it actually hosts some Playstation and X-Box video games to play for any visitors, where guests can play games such as Street Fighter and Demon Slayer. They also sell Manga and some memorable comics, and are conveniently right across the retro games video game booth, so are sort of the prime hub for any video game enthusiasts visiting the convention.
And that’s it for this winter edition! Definitely drop by if you can and say hi to all the guests in cosplay.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SYMBOL OF TRUTH #13 – Cold War Part 4. Art and Cover by R.B. SILVA
Coming this April, CAPTAIN AMERICA: COLD WAR is the explosive crossover saga that’s been bulding since the very beginning of the current Captain America era.
Previously, the characters of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson have served their duties as Captain America in their own solo adventures. Rogers embarked on his journeys in the pages of Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, and Carmen Carnero’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY. Wilson has blazed his own trail yet again, told by Tochi Onyebuchi and R.B. Silva in their run, CAPTAIN AMERICA: SYMBOL OF TRUTH.
This April, both books will collide in an epic that will make them question everything they believe in…and each other. This bold chapter in Captain America’s 80-year legacy will be a globetrotting, espionage-fueled thriller lined with hard-hitting personal conflict between the two Captains America.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SYMBOL OF TRUTH #13 – Cold War Part 4. Written by TOCHI ONYEBUCHI, Art and Cover by R.B. SILVA
The storyline will pay off various plot threads that made both titles must-reads the past year including the rise of the mysterious Outer Circle and their shocking connection to Steve Rogers; the surprising return of Ian Rogers, AKA Nomad; Sam Wilson’s intense conflict with Wakanda and White Wolf; and Bucky’s bold new mission as the New Revolution.
Things will come to a head when Bucky and White Wolf join forces and kidnap Ian Rogers in a twisted plan to unleash Dimension Z. Will Steve and Sam be able to agree on the hard choices needed to set things right? It all kicks off in April’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: COLD WAR ALPHA but right now, readers can peek ahead at what’s to come in Parts 3 and 4 of the event, on sale in May!
In CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY #12, Kelly and Lanzing will be joined by guest artist Alina Erofeeva as they bring Black Widow into the action! When Bucky Barnes and White Wolf team up to strike at the heart of the Outer Circle conspiracy, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson and their allies are caught in the crossfire! As the heroes fight their way across the war-torn Alaskan tundra to rescue Ian Rogers, Black Widow attempts to stop Bucky’s descent into villainy – at any cost!
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY #12 – Cold War Part 3. Written by COLLIN KELLY & JACKSON LANZING, Art by ALINA EROFEEVA, Cover by CARMEN CARNERO
In CAPTAIN AMERICA: SYMBOL OF TRUTH #13, White Wolf’s latest trap has left the Captains America barely standing, and Sam Wilson is hesitant to push the team toward certain death without a backup plan. But Steve Rogers will stop at nothing to rescue his son — even if it means taking down one of his closest friends!
Check out the May covers now and be there when CAPTAIN AMERICA: COLD WAR officially begins this April! For more information, visit Marvel.com.
4/5
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY #11 [Cold War Prelude]
Written by COLLIN KELLY & JACKSON LANZING
Art and Cover by CARMEN CARNERO
4/12
CAPTAIN AMERICA: COLD WAR ALPHA #1
Written by COLLIN KELLY, JACKSON LANZING & TOCHI ONYEBUCHI
Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur will be coming soon to Disney+, so Marvel has released another short comic series on Marvel Unlimited to get readers excited for the series. This comic serves as a sweet introduction to the characters, a brilliant young girl and her pet tyrannosaurus rex, Devil Dinosaur.
In this short vignette of a comic, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are celebrating their friend-iversary with cake and streamers, and a trip to the park. Despite being friendly and playful, people aren’t exactly thrilled to be sharing the park with a giant T-Rex. (Go figure!) DD is basically an oversized puppy and just wants to make friends, and is sad that people are scared of him. He can’t help being big! He just likes hugs!
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Their party is soon interrupted be a threat from one of Moon Girl’s villains. Will they be able to keep the city safe? Will Devil Dinosaur convince people he’s actually here to help? Will there be more cake? I’ll leave that for you to find out…
Suffice it to say, this strip is adorable. There’s no spoken or thought-bubbled dialogue in Stephen Byrne’s story, letting the art by Arianna Florean do the talking. Once again, Florean shows a real affinity for the vertical scrolling infinity format, using the lush greens to blend the panels together. The artwork is fun and cartoonish in the best way, showing how much Devil Dinosaur loves Moon Girl.
And I bet you’ll read this short strip and be enamored with them as well. Check it out on Marvel Unlimited.
DEVIL DINOSAUR INFINITY COMIC #1. Writer: Stephen Byrne Artist: Arianna Florean Colorist: Pete Pantazis Editor: Lauren Bisom
From Top Shelf Productions, ASHES is a graphic novel about a group of friends in their 30s embarking on a road trip to the coast in order to scatter a late friend’s ashes. Equal parts heartwarming as it is silly, this debut graphic novel by internationally renowned artist Álvaro Ortiz is a tale about friends come and gone, dreams gone by, and the future that lies ahead.
Ashes’ plot synopsis is as follows:
“Polly, Moho, and Piter haven’t seen each other in years. Now they’ve piled into a car for a loooong journey to a mysterious cross marked on a map. All their old personality quirks and conflicts are resurrected with new wrinkles as this surreal reunion gets underway. Up ahead are car chases, alcohol, roadside motels, banjo-playing thugs, a ship graveyard, violence, sensual tension, and, of course, a monkey!”
The comic has some incredible characterization moments and a fun narrative style that connects directly with the audience. For anyone looking for coming into your 30’s life stories and silly Fear and Loathing-type misadventures involving slice-of-life thought snippets and hilarious twists and turns, this comic is likely for you.
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Creator Álvaro Ortiz brings more of his signature art style, which is cute and aesthetically fits the narrative trappings of the story, filled with sidebar facts, and matter-of-fact lessons to go along with the musing thoughts of the characters. Each chapter is broken up by days, with the adventure being 7 days in total and going from meeting everyone at first, then escalates into a heck of a road trip journey with a finale that makes the destination go full circle (though you wouldn’t expect it to).
The story is amazingly grounded and the characters, speaking as someone in his mid-30s, are incredibly relatable. The beginning of the story lets audiences get to know everyone. See where they had gone wrong and sort of fell short in life.
Polly is likely the story’s main character. She’s a woman who ended up stuck in dead-end waitressing jobs, with a troubled family history, and a whole lot of life she seeks to live ahead of her.
Then there’s Piter. The self-described ‘fat’ one. A man whose penchant for food and photography, sort of gets absorbed into a backstory of falling into nursing as a profession. A journey that’s equally heartwarming as it is… lonely, ending up in hospice care, and especially, because he’s the most compassionate member of the group.
Though ultimately, the drive of the comic is Moho, a character I connected to the most as he’s a journalist barely scraping by who often gets into misadventures in what can only be described as every journalist’s dick version of themselves. There’s a scene in the comic where Moho doesn’t want to fork over 5 dollars on concert tickets and so claims to write for an unheard of website, where he asks:
“What you don’t know my website? You sure you work here?!”
Which is a line I have most definitely said aloud at conventions, myself. Without spoilers, Moho’s troubled character history and erratic actions, do make for a great degree of the conflict during the road trip. Oh, and he also… has a pet monkey. Named Andres. Sort an abandoned circus rescue with his own wild backstory.
That said, there are lots of sidebars and did-you-know moments featured in the graphic novel. How factual all of this is remains sort of irrelevant, as it’s meant to entertain, but also, inform the audience at powerful moments in the story. I must stress, themes hit hard in Ashes, as it’s about the fun history of our friendships, but also, the lives of the people who had died.
Life is short. And the snippets about history, tied together with the meanings behind the purposes of ashes and cremation, weigh upon this wanderlust of emotions and ideas regarding what it means to die and why how we choose to live becomes so equally, important. They’re all life lessons that hit hard in your 30s (hi, that’s me) but less macabre and more of a fun way of exploring: what the meaning of it all is.
Now, I will admit some of the continuity can get confusing in the mid section of the novel as the flashbacks can come at inopportune moments and the reorientation back into the story can feel a bit dizzying.. To make matters worse, a good degree of the roadblocks and overall tension felt forced at times, and often, a little bit unnecessary.
There are multiple times where hitchhiking becomes a thing because the group splits off. Often, due to actions of Moho. I found at some point that these moments felt kind of forced, with tensions really individualized with Moho’s actions—past indiscretions committed long before he jumped-in on this journey.
The problem with this is that a chunk of the story then has less agency for some characters, as compared to something that the group had to work on together. That said, this isn’t a story about a hero’s journey. It’s more a slice of life story about characters in an indie comic with a destination that feels serendipitous once it’s conextualized as a graphic novel on the whole (without spoilers, basically, get to the ending and you’ll see why Ortiz created this graphic novel).
That said, I really do like their personal stories. Especially, as I think focusing the narrative on the character-centric backstory works as it makes the funny moments and shock go in its favor. Surprises and silly moments that I think can only work best in the comics medium. The antagonist, if there really is one, ultimately feels more like a distraction though. Let’s just say it’s convenient conflicts for the sake of plot that gets muddled in the comedy.
The Take
Ashes is a really good graphic novel about characters you can relate to in your 30s that absolutely made me question my life decisions. It’s a heartwarming road trip of a story, with cute art, chaotic twists, and a lesson to be had in finding your home in where the heart is.
Marvel Comics celebrates Women’s History Month with a stunning collection of new variant covers, all featuring some of the company’s best women superheroes. This year’s covers will feature such stunning works from the talented artists of Peach Momoko, Carmen Carnero, Ema Lupachino, Rickie Yagawa, and Aka.
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On Sale 3/8/23
On Sale 3/8/23
On Sale 3/8/23
On Sale 3/15/23
On Sale 3/22/23
The five heroines come from a diverse cast each headlining their own solo adventures. Some are from classic big-time heroes such as Ms. Marvel, but there will also be newer characters such as Bloodline, daughter of Blade. Here are some details regarding the Women’s History Month covers that will be featured throughout the month:
Bloodline, the daughter of Blade that debuted in last year’s Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men #1, will star in her own limited series launching next week by her co-creators Danny Lore and Karen S. Darboe!
Captain Marvel, whose current solo run by Kelly Thompson, will soon be approaching its milestone 50th issue.
Scarlet Witch, aka Wanda Maximoff, recently embarked on a breathtaking new journey in the pages of Steve Orlando and Carmen Carnero’s Scarlet Witch series.
Storm, whose story as one of mutantkind’s last defenders, will star in the pages of Al Ewing’s Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants, part of the X-Men’s Sins of Sinister crossover. The iconic X-Men leader will also star in a brand-new limited series by Ann Nocenti and Sid Kotian this April, set in her “punk” era.
And Wolverine, previously X-23, will see a return to her violet days as a mutant assassin in the upcoming X-23: Deadly Regenesis series by writer Erica Schultz and artist Edgar Salazar.
Welcome back to the good fight, hope you enjoyed your time off because this year starts off en flambé!
Guitarist Brock Billings (played by Jonathan Horne) leaves the Knave of Hearts club and subsequently bursts into flames. Back at home base, the hunt for the Akrida has hit a momentary dead-end. Carlos finds a potential case but Mary wants to stay with Sam and John wants to stay with Mary so it’s on Carlos and Lata to take the reins. At the club, they discover some protection sigils and Carlos finds his old music buddy Jericho (Jake Etheridge) who is headlining. Turns out Loki (played once more by Richard Speight Jr.) is playing with humans again this time giving them their dreams at a deadly price. While all that is happening Mary and John are trying to figure out what that kiss meant, and Sam (guest star Tom Welling) is adjusting to the changes he’s seeing upon coming home. They all come together to defeat Loki but in the end, it’s Carlos’ refusal to sing and willingness to die that ruins Loki’s plans.
Let’s begin this review with the simple side of things: the story here is paper thin when it comes to the “monster of the week” which might be why they throw a fan-favorite like Loki into the mix. The details on the deal that Loki is shopping around and why he’s doing it are inconsequential really because the main point of this episode is to build on all the progress that was made before the break.
Still, it’s worth taking a minute to fully appreciate Richard’s return as the trickster god Loki. From his first appearance in the mothership series as an apparent throwaway “monster” to the revelation that he’s not actually Loki but the Archangel Gabriel carrying some hefty family baggage to rival Sam and Dean’s, it’s nice to see him again. Here he’s still playing the part of Loki, complete with the magic mirror, and he does a fine job of offering up his victim’s twisted deals that he’s sure they can’t find the loopholes to. His defeat is his own which I enjoy because I’m never a fan of mortals defeating gods – it just seems ridiculous – but a god being defeated by their own rules? I’m always down for that.
As we’re on the subject of guest stars how about Tom Welling? The former Superman was last seen playing the villain Cain on Lucifer (a character who was also featured on Supernatural though played by a different actor) and the fortune of soldier Vincent Corbo on Professionals, but here he’s probably closer in personality to Corbo. Samuel Campbell spends most of the episode being a recalcitrant general on the mend who is bothered by the growth of those he left behind. You can tell Welling isn’t a fan of being the bad guy as his acting gets much more comfortable once he’s reached the end of the episode and has miraculously grown into a kinder pappa Campbell.
For the main players we have consistent performances and hey, it’s nice to see Khurshid having fun in her role as Latika for once. JoJo steals the spotlight once Carlos is given the chance to croon (which works out since it’s at the end of the episode) proving he wouldn’t have needed to sell his soul to be successful in music. Drake isn’t given a whole lot to do as John – mostly defending Mary to her father and establishing his intentions with her. Meg’s Mary spends her screen time putting Samuel in his place which allows her to go from uncertain about her future with John to 100% down to clown (at least physically) though the episode’s twist ending provides a solid cock-block.
The growth for our main players here is the meatiest part of this episode. From Carlos coming to terms with the death of his dream to Mary fully embracing the here and now it’s a fantastic build on what the mid-season finale cliff-hanger left us with.
Carlos hasn’t been a mystery in many ways – he showed up, we quickly learned he was a vet, and he’s very clearly a confident person put on a path he didn’t exactly choose. Tuesday’s offering gave us, and him, some closure to a piece of his puzzle that’s been popping in here and there. See, Carlos has a musical talent, it’s technically the whole reason he became a hunter but we’ve never really seen him regret the choice until now. Sure, he’s always had a bit of a wistful air when speaking on the subject, but outright regret? No. So, when he runs into Jericho and is forced to see what his past path could have been we get a peek into how deep this cut really is. And when I say peek, I mean he might as well tap dance and sing his discomfort because if there’s anything we’ve learned about Carlos he isn’t shy about his feelings. Still, the open book proves his tale is one of compassion when he throws a wrench in Loki’s plan by not taking out his anger on Jericho. Good for you Carlos, though…maybe don’t be a stranger on the mic eh?
Latika is a heavy player in this mission but she gets left behind in terms of growth – in fact the biggest acknowledgment of her is through Samuel’s observation. I will repeat that she is much more alive in this episode and exudes a kind of happiness we haven’t seen much of up until now so that’s something.
John is similar to Lata where his character growth is more of an observation made by Millie – though I will give him credit for having a mature conversation with Mary about their kiss. He could have gone all alpha male and left it “up to her” or just stayed silent on the matter, but instead he used his words like a real man. On the other hand, his subsequent self cock-blocking is highly amusing.
Millie has a nice bump in her character’s acceptance of what her husband was. When she first learned about the Men of Letters (hilariously nicknamed Mole Men by hunters) she wasn’t a big fan of losing her husband to the secret scholarly club, but after his notes are vital to their fight against the Akrida she clearly has some pride in his work. We know this because when Samuel dares to speak ill of the dead, Millie is quick to remind him that her “mole man” husband is the reason, him, his daughter, and her son are even alive. Nicely done Millie!
Mary gets a good bit of growth thanks to the inclusion of Samuel. Where John tries multiple times to come to her defense (successful only when she’s out of the room) she proves perfectly capable of taking her father down a peg or two. Samuel is at first bristled by this display of independence but each time he takes her words to heart rather than brush her off. By the end she’s able to convince him that the new team is capable enough on their own so he can go off and do some background shit that’ll come in handy in the season finale (assumedly). Mary is surprisingly sad by Samuel’s announcement but on the bright side he’s agreed to keep in touch this time, and she even sends him off with a new hat!
All in all, this was a nice return to form after a long break. It’s a shame to lose Welling so early though I’m curious what other commitments he had, unless it’s one of those “now we’re gonna split the story” situations. Though, to be fair, his old standard of machismo is lost on this show since they seem very intent on creating a much more evolved male personality – which I’m extremely appreciative of. Don’t get me wrong, Sam and Dean (well, mostly Dean) did make some strong headway towards becoming better rounded people, but the way that Samuel is delt with by Millie and his own daughter is very telling here.
Either way the twist went a long way to making me really enjoy this episode, aside of course from Loki’s cameo. It also has me scratching my head and wanting to revisit the mothership to see if there was in fact a letter than Henry gave to Dean to give to John…Also, when exactly in the mothership’s canon is that picture of Dean from? Is it “In the Beginning”? I mean, it would have to be, obviously, but then that would definitely make this quite the alternative version, right? Man…not gonna lie, that twist has my brain a turning, which in TV is something I both love and hate (not real hate though).
Either way solid A for this episode even though the story was fairly weak I really enjoyed everyone’s return and of course…what a twist!
The latest one shot from Marvel in the new Infinity format asks a very simple question:
Who is Kang?
It’s a question Marvel really wants you to ask. Especially, since Kang, the Conqueror is being set up as the Big Bad for the next couple of phases of the MCU starting with the upcoming Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and presumably ending with Avengers: Kang Dynasty.
Kang is a pretty deep-cut villain for the casual Marvel fan, but then again so was Thanos back in 2012 and now there are thousands of Thanos Snap memes online. This comic is a nice intro point for those who had their first encounter with him in the finale of the Loki TV show.
The brief story recounts the tale of Kang, a time traveler from the future, where he was known as Nathaniel Richards. Bored by the stagnant, perfect world he lived in, Kang yearned for the age of heroes and their ambitions and passions. Using the technology of his era, he developed time travel so he could go back to Earth’s past and conquer it.
But, after conquering, comes rule and Kang quickly grows bored of that. (I mean, he conquers ancient Egypt with a flying sphinx that shoots laser beams. That’s way more fun than levying grain taxes.) So, the solution he comes up with is endless conquest.
The story by Rich Douek recounts some of Kang’s greatest encounters with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. It also details the one-time death of his love, Ravonna, setting up his desire to conquer this world and all its divergent timelines.
I’d also like to commend the artwork by Ramón F. Bachs, who wonderfully understands the strengths of the Infinity format, which is a vertically scrolling format designed for smartphones and tablets. Bachs has created a seamless scroll that blends one scene into the next, almost as if it were one continual panel. It looks great, and I hope she’ll work more in this format.
Overall, for anyone unfamiliar with the character, and who really is asking “Who is…Kang?” this is a great introduction.
Marvel is releasing a number of one-shots on their Unlimited platform in their new Infinity format this week, and the first one out of the gate features Reptil.
This is my first introduction to the character of Reptil and his family, and it’s a fun romp. Reptil is Humberto Lopez, a teen who can transform himself into a dinosaur. When I started reading comics at five years old, this would have been the coolest power ever. (I was big into dinosaurs. Triceratops was my favorite.)
The art by Michael Shelfer is good and the story by Daniel Jose Older – about a soccer match between our heroes and a demon to determine who has the best soccer kicks in New Orleans – is a hoot. There’s a lot of humor, and even though the stakes are for their souls, it never feels that heavy. After all, if you can change into having dinosaur legs, what do you have to worry about? Plus, there are food truck pupusas, so how can you go wrong here? Also there is an elf with a rocket launcher.
I really love this Infinity format. I read a ton of comics on Kindle, and for the most part, I love the convenience and the ability to make text boxes bigger so my ancient eyes can read them. However, it can be a problem when it comes to splash pages and two-page spreads to take in the artwork as it was intended. This new format is specifically designed for smartphones and tablets, with panels designed to just scroll down to the next page. It’s very smart and the artwork and story here are well-suited to the new format.
This is a fun short story and the perfect thing to read on your phone. It made me want to seek out more of the character, so I’m off to browse through Marvel Unlimited to see what they have.
Lia, a half-elf, has finally decided to leave the comfort of her family’s business and blaze her own path with you at the helm! Your Story is a touching coming-of-age tale where you guide the decisions of Lia in a quest for self-discovery that will also unearth secrets hidden around the island she calls home.
Lia’s had a pretty cozy life so far living in a crossroads inn on a secluded island. But surprise visitors and unpredictable events are about to set her off on a journey to find her place in the world.
Luckily, Lia isn’t alone in this critical moment of her life—she’s got you! As her inner voice you’ll play a pivotal role not only in the world around you but in shaping Lia’s personality. You get to decide what kind of person Lia will grow into.
Game features:
More than a visual novel: Here the usual visual novel elements are blended with point’n’click exploration allowing the player to come at various story arcs in any order. This will result in multiple conclusions.
Coming of age from an unique perspective: While Lia is the main protagonist, you, as the player, aren’t taking control over her in the normal sense. Instead, your job is to sway the occasionally angsty, sometimes happy, sporadically depressed teenager to take the best course of action.
Not only your story: There are various characters you will meet along the way, building relationships and uncovering secrets. The island holds many mysteries and everyone you run into has some skeletons in their closet. Still, the greatest unknown lies across the sea—nobody knows what happens beyond the shore.
See, hear, live…: With beautiful hand-drawn art it isn’t hard to lose yourself in this heartfelt world with Lia, the inn’s guests, and the island’s denizens. To complete the experience is a cozy soundtrack which accompanies Lia’s life presented in comic-book style panels.
Developed by GameLoad, Your Story is available on Steam for 14.99 USD. The game can be bought with a 20% discount until Jan 26th.
Perfection is an impossibility. One that we silly animals that call ourselves human, are obsessed with. Perhaps it’s our search for the divine. Maybe it’s just our desperate hope we can fix everything in our lives by attaining that fabled level of growth… Either way, it’s a great starting place for a show called The Imperfects.
On paper, The Imperfects had the winning formula for success. It’s fast-paced, funny as hell, and features a cast of likable and wonderfully broken characters. Though the cast was mostly new to me, I did recognize the gorgeous and talented Italia Ricci who plays Dr. Sydney Burke, a determined scientist trying her best to cure a condition called A.G.D.S. or Acute Genetic Decay Syndrome.
It’s a disease that reduces life expectancy to 40 years or less. With the help of the unscrupulous Dr. Alex Sarkov, Burke has tried to cure the disease. This leads to the creation of the titular characters, the so-called Imperfects – Abbi, Juan, and Tilda.
See, Burke and Sarkov used synthetic stem cells to repair the damaged cells of those afflicted by AGDS. The problem was, Burke wasn’t willing to go far enough, and so Sarkov decided to tinker with the stem cells on his own. His secret goal? To strengthen the human race sufficiently to survive the cataclysm our own environmental destruction has wrought. Naturally, that meant this mad scientist turns three young adults into monsters.
This all might sound heavy, but I assure you that The Imperfects is a wonderfully funny show. A big reason for that is Sarkov himself, played by relative newcomer Rhys Nicholson. Not only does Nicholson bring a sarcastic energy to the role, but also, alternates between hilarious, if not horrible, justifications for their actions. Sarkov just wants to perfect his science and in so doing help the human race… No matter whether said race wants to be saved.
The core of the show are the aforementioned Imperfects themselves. They’ve been coping with AGDS for 7 years with the help of pills provided by Sarkov. Little do they know that the pills only treat the symptoms. They don’t cure the condition.
When he decides to switch their pills for placebos, all three start to realize what they’re capable of. Soft-spoken comic creator Juan starts blacking out and waking up in fields covered in blood. Hard rocker Tilda’s hearing is amped up to 11, and every sound physically hurts. And studious and brilliant Abbi starts finding her friends and strangers oddly hanging on her every word.
They quickly discover that they’re not entirely human anymore. Or as Dr. Burke puts it, they’re “technically human”. Juan is now a chupacabra, and transforms into the vicious beast without warning, losing time until he reverts back. Tilda has become a banshee. Besides sporting a new sonic scream, she has incredible hearing that she treats with headphones and copious amounts of alcohol. And Abbi, who only cares about getting into Oxford, is now a succubus. A whiff from her pheromones renders people dangerously attracted to her, willing to do anything she says.
Suffice to say, all three aren’t happy about their new reality, and start working with Burke to fix it. They also need Sarkov’s help, since he’s a child prodigy and way too smart for his own good, moral ambiguity aside. They just need to find him first. Unfortunately for them, there’s further complications. Sarkov has a few other pet projects roaming around. There’s also a rogue organization called Flux, and they want nothing more than to capture and study walking science experiments. Throw in some bio-hackers and ruthless armed agents, and you have a great mix for maximum drama.
The Imperfects will also get to deal with this handsome character!
One of my only small complaints about the show, other than a couple of weaker episodes towards the end, were how the show nominally takes place in Seattle. As someone that lives in the PNW, I don’t think we really got a fully fleshed representation of the area. There’s one coffee shop run by a character named Hannah, but it doesn’t have the vibe I’ve come to associate with a region so known for their coffee. The team also travels to Portland a couple times, and likewise I don’t feel the vibe of that city is well portrayed. Other than that, though, I had a really good time with the show.
Which brings us to the reason I’m writing this – The Imperfects only got the one season on Netflix. I realize that Netflix often has confusing reasoning for what gets renewed and what doesn’t. And sure, they don’t share their reasoning with the rest of us. But it’s nevertheless perplexing.
The Imperfects has the witty comedy of Wednesday, as well as reminding me fondly of another superhero show called Alphas. It had great, unexpected twists, set up a solid foundation for a season 2, and always kept me entertained. Sure, it had a couple weak episodes, but most shows do.
It would be one thing if Netflix cancelled a disappointing show. But this was honestly one of my favorite new shows, which I sadly only discovered after it was already cancelled. To add insult to injury, not only does the show feature rocking musical choices, but every episode flashes the fact it’s a Netflix series in bold, comic book letters across the beginning of each one.
This just takes me back to my problem with streaming in general. They can take some big swings on acquiring promising new shows, but they lack the fortitude to give every deserving show a chance to grow. Maybe in the future streaming services should let users vote on what shows get renewed for another season.
God knows they don’t seem to know what shows are worth keeping. That said, if you’re looking for 10 engaging episodes to pass some time with, be sure and watch The Imperfects. I think fellow comic book fans will find a lot to love.
