What I Bought 10/20/2015 - Part 2
Source: Reporting on Marvels and Legends
Friday was the two DC books, today is for the two books from outside the Marvel/DC circle. Two weeks ago, I was running some numbers to amuse myself during a mandatory workshop on collaboration and thought non-Marvel/DC books might just outnumber DC for me this year. Then I realized I'd forgotten a few DC books I bought early in the year - like those 3 issues of Klarion - so never mind. Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire #2 , by Brian Clevinger (words), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - They're gonna need a bigger gun, and a bigger boat. The Action Scientists get Robo's head up and running, and set about a plan to build him a new body. They start putting their shopping list together, and even find Broughton, another Tesladyne employee, and the only person with any chance of building a new reactor to power Robo. Then the ship gets attacked by a Biomega (kaiju, basically), which we've learned in the b-plot are increasing in number (thus Majestic-12's takeover of Super Science Team 5's headquarters, and the effort to construct more giant robot suits, for... ) Fortunately a Chinese sub arrived and fired some missiles, so the giant monster went away for now. I have this feeling the Kid's interest in fungus as a growth medium for replacement human parts (I think that's what she was talking about) is going to be relevant to the Biomega thing. The fact she was so eager to get a sample that she forgot she was talking about a monster large enough to easily smash an oil tanker was kind of a tip-off. Also, there was a back-up story once that showed China had a mech defense force team, only instead of Power Ranger style, one pilot per suit, it was a single robot with 5 people controlling it (mentally. So more stuff happening has gotten me considerably more engaged in the story than I was after the first issue. Even if Robo's a head in a little moving box, at least he's active again. The Hackers joke was lost on me, since I've never seen the movie, though I guess I can appreciate using fictional names (I'd kind of like to use the name Vash first used with Wolfwood at some point but "Valentinez " is kind of a mouthful. Most JRPGs will not let you make a character name that long. I think Wegener's really softened the lines on his work, or else someone's upped their shading game. The shading seems like it's over the colors, which makes me think Clark's doing it as he colors the work, but shading is part of inking, which is presumably something Wegener does himself. Anyway, they're doing an excellent job on shadow effects and general expressiveness of the characters. I feel like I've seen one like it before, but I can't think wear. Favorite line of dialogue is Broughton's, 'As the chief safety guy, it's my duty to yell at people so we can get through this alive. ' This has been my impression of people who are concerned with workplace safety. When will they learn the old motto, "Safety third". Roche Limit: Clandestiny #5 , by Michael Moreci (writer), Kyle Charles (artist), Matt Battaglia (colorist), Ryan Ferrier (letterer), Sarah Delante (flora/fauna), Tim Daniel (design) - I don't have much to say about that cover, so I'm going to... Which, if you're wanting credit for your work, seems counter-productive. As we learned a couple of issues ago, Sasha isn't leaving the colony with the others, she's going to stay and kill the thing causing all the trouble because she knows what it is, though she doesn't exactly share the revelation with the rest of us.... She stabs him, white lightning/threads/something comes from the woods and the Monster is revealed as a giant robot. Sasha manages to kill that by shooting, and before she dies, talks to the wraith impersonating her husband who admits these creatures are a hive, and thus find humans, with their individuality, amazing. Meanwhile, Elbus, Colt, and Danny took the ship they'd unwittingly brought parts of here and rather than go to Earth to find the creatures already there, fly into the Anomaly to.