Absolution (2022) #4

Absolution 4 As I finished reading this issue of Absolution, I realized—despite artist Mike Deodato Jr.’s photo-referencing—the comic hasn’t established who they’re pitching with the lead role. When the creators muse about the adaptation, who’s playing Nina?

Because she’s got some character development this issue—she’s got a love interest in Ann, the street doctor who saved her butt last issue when she got duped by a target. But she’s also on a mission with this issue’s target—a child molester who keeps getting away. As a villain, he’s only slightly different than last issue’s villain, except this guy doesn’t get two issues of setup. But he does get to outsmart Nina, which is basically what all the bad guys (all men) do in Absolution. Of course, they’re smarter than her, but she’s stronger than them, so she wins.

Or she has friends, while they just have goons.

She also starts interacting with the viewers in a more obvious way than ever before, pausing a real-life conversation to reply to a tweet. It’s immediately obvious writer Peter Milligan should’ve been doing them the whole time—it really would’ve helped with the last issue’s setup, too—but it’s also too late at this point. It seems unlikely, as does Nina getting tricked immediately after the last time.

The beginning of the issue makes a surprisingly strong case for Absolution as a procedural. Nina hunts some guy down but still doesn’t get a high enough score; she then Lonely Man hoofs it to the next issue. It’s surprisingly strong partially because, by the end of the issue, it’s clear Milligan only had enough story for four issues and drug the story out to five.

It’s an okay comic. Deodato doesn’t have Nina’s walk down, which only matters now when she’s doing lots of daytime walking, but it’s definitely something he should have done this far into the book. There’s some good, compelling thriller writing from Milligan.

But starting a character development arc in the penultimate issue after shrugging it off when there was actual time? Absolution’s landing roughly.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #3

Do a Powerbomb 3 Powerbomb does not disappoint with its first issue at the tournament. Creator Daniel Warren Johnson starts with a bunch of emotion—last issue’s cliffhanger revealed wannabe wrestler Lona’s dad is actually Cobrasun, the wrestler who killed her mom. The opening scene fills in the backstory when Dad visits her uncle.

Their quick, boozy conversation reveals the ground situation we didn’t get in the first issue (since it was from Lona’s perspective as a little kid). Mom and Dad didn’t want to have to try explaining Dad being the heel wrestler, but eventually, they were going to tell Lona. So Mom knew she was wrestling Dad. So did the uncle. And it’s not impossible Mom knew he’d killed her.

But Powerbomb isn’t just about Lona’s sadness and Dad’s self-loathing; it’s about all the wrestlers in the tournament’s loss and self-loathing. When one team loses, they lose everything, something Johnson makes sure the reader feels—especially as it dawns on their opponents, who alternately show empathy and apathy.

It also turns out the other wrestlers aren’t playing by the same rules as Lona and her dad (she doesn’t find out Cobrasun’s her dad, though his protectiveness is a liability); pro wrestling in other dimensions isn’t a show; it’s for real. One of the other teams—who we haven’t met yet—is from Earth, so presumably there will be something to that match if and when it happens.

This issue has three fight scenes: two wrestling matches and a bar fight. Johnson emphasizes emotionality over mechanics. Well, the emotionality in the bar fight and one wrestling match, then the brutality of the other match. It helps set up the cliffhanger. Lona and Dad barely make it through their first day, and the next promises to be even more dangerous.

Once again, it’s a great issue. Johnson’s got a nice narrative distance pivot with Lona and Dad becoming joint protagonists (though uneven, as he’s keeping big secrets) while downgrading Necro, the inter-dimensional necromancer throwing the tournament, to an announcer role. The action’s faster-paced than before too, which is fine for the opening matches, but presumably, Johnson will slow the fights down again at some point.

The issue’s so affecting—the losers’ losses so palpable—I’m hoping against hope for a mega-happy ending. The not-psychopathic characters, even those just introduced this issue, deserve it.

Absolution (2022) #3

Absolution 3 Artist Mike Deodato Jr. gets a little too bored with the art this issue—it’s another fight scene at night in a skyscraper. That repetitiveness figures into the problem Absolution’s revealing about itself writ large. The concept lends itself too much to repetitive storytelling. High-tech super-assassin Nina needs to kill bad guys in a way to score approval with her (civilian) audience, who watch her stream. And because the future’s just as shitty as the present, she’s got to be sexy doing it (which raises a question for later). So she does well, her score goes up. Then she goes something wrong, or something bad happens, and her score goes down. So she needs to do well again. But then something will go wrong again.

She starts this issue with an easy kill, but then it immediately goes wrong. So wrong a micro-bomb goes off in her brain to remind her to work harder. The explosion knocks her out, and she wakes up at the doctor’s. Not the legit doctor, but the underground “help those in need” doctor. This introduces a new character—Ann—who’s non-binary, which is apparently a thing for the comic so writer Peter Milligan can muse on whether non-binary people are real. Except Ann’s also… Nina’s only real friend and a good one at that, so… his musing’s confused and unnecessary.

That musing figures into the main plot, which has Nina deciding the way to get her score up is to off the rapist introduced last issue. The first page of this issue is post-rape, which needlessly gives Absolution some grit cred. It turns out the rapist is a high-powered businessman who sues anyone who threatens to talk about him being a rapist, including Woody Harrelson and the other talk show hosts.

I’m not sure this guy’s a believable villain. I mean, he’s a believable villain, but nothing about Absolution’s future implies he’d be considered one.

Once he’s established, it’s all about Nina taking him out. And, of course, what will go wrong when she does. It also reveals a problem with the scoring system. Milligan really needed to explain it better.

But it’s compelling and whatnot. However, Deodato ends up drawing people in the same scene at all different kinds of scale. He doesn’t even have time for fun photo-referenced faces. And I hope they don’t try to turn it into a streaming series. It’s clearly only got enough story for a ninety-minute and change movie.

Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Kim Hong-sun)

Watching Project Wolf Hunting (sadly not a Good Will Hunting reference), I kept wondering if the human body holds as much blood as the film suggests. It’s violent to the extremis, with every mutilated corpse creating a standing river of blood. It takes the film a while—well, at least ten minutes—to start gushing blood everywhere, but there’s the implication of it from the start.

Hunting beings as a police procedural, set in 2017. The Philippines has flown some Korean criminals home on extradition; one of the returning criminals’ victims blows himself up along with pedestrians at the airport (and presumably his target). We never find out what the criminal did exactly, but the implication is… financial fraud. The post-exposition shot features a river of blood (of course) and a blown-off leg. Hunting’s going to be gruesome.

Fast forward five years, and the Korean government’s making another run, except this time, they’ve learned their lesson. They’re going to take the criminals back to South Korea on a cargo ship, and there are going to be experienced cops on board to keep the prisoners in line.

Now, right away, there are some issues. Like why the cops—outside boss Park Ho-san and female detective Jung So-min—are questionably competent. There’s also the question of why you’re putting regular cops in charge of the transport instead of corrections officers or even the Special Service, led by Sung Dong-il, who take over the command room in Busan port to monitor the ship. But also, why isn’t the transport outfitted for these dangerous criminals, because they’re not financial criminals, they’re splatter-punks. Led by Seo In-guk, they like to eviscerate their victims, hacking or bashing them to literal pieces.

The whining cops seem like sitting ducks if anything were to happen, especially once doctor Lee Sung-wook sneaks below deck and gives some blood-encrusted guy in an ice bath an injection. The guy—Wolf Hunting (no, not really, but… sort of)—also has his eyes sewn shut, because Hunting isn’t for the faint-hearted. Though the eyes are never particularly gross or even disquieting, maybe because once the creature awakes, he’s covered in so much blood it’s hard to make out details.

Choi Gwi-hwa plays the creature. He’s supposed to stay asleep for the trip from the Philippines to South Korea, but once Seo stages his breakout and the ship’s corridors run with blood, it makes its way down to the Choi’s holding cell and drips on him, resurrecting him.

The voyage starts with a dozen cops, two dozen prisoners, and an indeterminate amount of crew members—who apparently voted to allow the Korean government to use them as a prisoner transport, much to their regret—but they’re down to a dozen by the hour mark. Hunting runs just around two hours; if you just cut out the graphic violence, it’d probably be eighty. Tops. The whole point is the blood and gore.

Except director Kim’s not really into it. I mean, his special effects team does fantastic work, but Kim doesn’t do anything with it. His action scenes are boring, all about characters you don’t care about dying horribly, but since there’s always ultra-violence, it doesn’t garner any immediate sympathy. Kim—who also wrote the film—even establishes the cops as assholes (before revealing the criminals are all splatter-killers).

The film’s also got some very obvious limits. For example, none of the violence against women is sexually motivated; the handful of ladies get butchered without any lewdness, though there’s some low-key homophobia (in some of the sequel setup).

Despite being a bad action director and a worse horror director, Kim’s fine with the rest, which is sort of a Jurassic Park movie. No one who’s too annoying lives long enough to impact the film, and the survivors working their way through are all solid enough, if not sympathetic. Female cop Jung and quiet family killer Jang Dong-yoon have an unspoken bond, mainly because they’re the only two competent people in their group.

Sung ends up having a much bigger part than implied initially, and he’s a tad tepid, like a metaphor for director Kim’s own disinterest. But the other main cast is all right. Like, Seo’s scary, and Park’s okay. The acting’s fine.

Good photography from Yun Ju-hwan and great special effects.

The third act’s got way too many reveals and way too many sequel setups, but the film’s entirely competent until then. It’s gruesome without being exploitative, unpleasant but not enthusiastic enough to be repugnant.

If you’re looking for something so bloody and gory you become numb to disemboweling, Project Wolf Hunting’s just the ticket.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022, Ryan Coogler)

Not to mix metaphors or cross franchises, but Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a Herculean effort from director Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole. It’s not quite a Herculean success, but it’s a success, which is more than enough given the numerous constraints they’re dealing with.

First and foremost, the unexpected, tragic, and real-life heroic passing of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. Cooler and Cole handle it quite well, turning the entire film into a non-exploitative mourning of Boseman from the perspective of his little sister, Letitia Wright. After the prologue, which features Boseman’s off-screen death, the film jumps forward a year. Mom (and again Queen of Wakanda) Angela Bassett wants Wright to grieve, while Wright wants to avoid it and concentrate on her work.

At its best, Wakanda Forever is about juxtaposing Wright against other characters, starting with Bassett. But Wright then starts encountering other alter egos thanks to the film’s events, first Dominique Thorne as a nineteen-year-old wunderkind who has built a vibranium detector (and had it stolen, without her knowledge, by the U.S. government). Naturally, the U.S. doesn’t think Africans should have that vibranium, and they want it; if they can find it themselves, fine, but if CIA director Julia Louis-Dreyfus has her way, they’ll kill all the Wakandians for it.

The film’s incredibly upfront about shitty white people working hard to get white supremacy going again after the Blip. There aren’t any Black people in the post-Blip U.S. government, apparently, not even as window dressing. But Louis-Dreyfus doesn’t show up until halfway through the movie when Wakanda Forever gets around to being a sequel to the first film. Until then, it’s about mourning Boseman… and the discovery of vibranium outside Wakanda, which no one knew about.

It’s in the ocean, where its presence has allowed an undersea kingdom—led by “mutant” king Tenoch Huerta—to thrive while entirely hidden from the surface world. Except with the U.S. searching for vibranium, Huerta’s realized he’s got to deal with the potential invaders. So he goes to Bassett hoping to find an ally and is surprised when she’s not thrilled at the idea of killing a young American Black woman just to appease Huerta.

Eventually, Wright and Huerta bond over their shared experience of keeping murderous colonizing white people at bay—though Huerta’s experience was the conquistadors—and Wright’s thinking about the more modern threats.

Except Huerta appeals to Wright’s destructive side, Thorne to her creative one. It could lead to a great balancing arc, but at some point, Wakanda Forever can’t be about a character arc; it’s got to be a Marvel movie. Albeit one with some incredibly nuanced politics and characters. At least until the third act, which ends up feeling more like the end of the second act because there’s so much left unresolved for Black Panther 3. They should have just done another hour and gotten through it. Instead, they minimize almost all the character development and then take the movie away from Wright in the epilogues. Then, just when it seems like she’ll get to sit and play it out, they come back and take away some more.

The film runs just over two and a half hours, so another hour would’ve been a very big swing and probably too much of one. Coogler’s direction’s solid throughout, but during the first act, he’s got some phenomenal stuff going on, particularly with Bassett. The special effects visuals too, but his focus on the performances is key. In the lengthy second act (he and Cole do three first acts, mostly consecutively, while keeping the previous ones running), he gets to do the incredible undersea kingdom sequences—and make Huerta’s little wings on his ankles the coolest superhuman physical attribute in a superhero movie maybe ever—but the character work eventually starts stalling. Wakanda Forever brings in deus ex machinas really early.

The second act also reintroduces characters from the previous film who’ve been absent—Lupita Nyong'o and Martin Freeman, both in glorified cameos. Freeman’s just there for a not all white people hashtag, and to reveal Louis-Dreyfus’s casting as a super-spy ice queen is actually about her getting to do sitcom beats. Better than the high-key racism, I guess.

And there’s a reason Nyong’o doesn’t get much, but it’s a contrived reason, not a good one.

Until Nyong’o shows up, Danai Gurira gets a bunch as Bassett’s chief general and Wright’s odd-couple sidekick. It’s like a quarter her movie. Then she loses all of it. In return, like a couple other characters, she gets an Iron Man suit for the finish. Or the Wakanda Forever version of an Iron Man suit. It’s all in the third act, though, where everything’s a little too lacking. Coogler and Cole ran out of time for the story, then Coogler ran out of energy for the directing.

So Forever finishes a strong, still very special okay, instead of a qualified great.

Wright’s a solid lead; the film fails her, sometimes pointedly, but she does well in a challenging situation. Huerta ought to be a breakout. He’s close, but again, the film doesn’t give him an actual arc. The standout performances are Bassett and Winston Duke.

Gorgeous photography from Autumn Durald Arkapaw, even all the composite shots, and a good soundtrack and decent score from Ludwig Göransson. Hannah Beachler’s production design and, especially, Ruth E. Carter’s costumes are fantastic.

Wakanda Forever is an often rousing, always emotional, unfortunately, singular success.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #2

Do a Powerbomb 2 Well, despite being curious about something related to the issue’s Brobdingnagian last page reveal when creator Daniel Warren Johnson set it up last issue… I can’t remember the last time I’ve been as surprised by a comic. It’s a perfectly solid narrative choice but also entirely unexpected. Johnson started Powerbomb last issue doing one comic, then changed to another, then another. So now he’s on to a fourth–or at least a three and a half.

It’s still about Lona Steelrose teaming up with an inter-dimensional necromancer (named Necro), who loves pro-wrestling and wants to stage his own tournament, but the tournament is just a MacGuffin. The reveal this issue promises so much character development and such wide arc swings, Lona will be lucky if they don’t decapitate her.

Necro gives Lona the backstory in the opening. He tried taking over the galaxy, got busted, and exiled to an island where he discovered the earthly joy of television. So what’s his favorite show? Pro-wrestling, of course. But fighting to the death is passé (and why would anyone do it) unless there’s some fantastic prize.

He’s a necromancer, after all, so why not have the prize be resurrecting a person of the winner’s choice.

Now, presumably, Necro could just resurrect someone without the whole wrestling tournament, but why wouldn’t he combine the two?

Lona’s not only got to decide if she wants to do an inter-dimensional death match to potentially resurrect her mom but she’s also got to find herself a partner because Necro’s throwing a tag team tournament.

In her search for a partner, she sees a particularly brutal wrestling match, which also gives Johnson the opportunity for some action. The issue’s very visual talking heads for most of it—including Lona’s decisive call home to dad to say goodbye—but the wrestling’s gruesome.

In a good way, both in terms of artistic skill and narrative import. I can’t imagine next issue will have another big reveal—Johnson’s got to start the story sooner than later; he’s only got five more issues—but there’s so much material he’s already got to work through.

Powerbomb’s fantastic.

Absolution (2022) #2

Absolution 2 I’m unsurprised to see writer Peter Milligan downshift Absolution’s pace this issue. The action opens on streaming assassin Nina finishing her outing from last issue and quickly becomes about establishing the actual ground situation. First issue, Milligan did the world set-up; now it’s time to lay out Nina’s “normal” life.

While the action might open on Nina, the issue starts with a yucky one-page scene introducing one of Nina’s fans, a masseuse coerced by a powerful customer. Throughout the issue, the fan—Stevie—messages Nina, and it’s not clear how Nina reads those messages (or any of the messages). Milligan still uses Nina as a first-person narrator, but the stream comments add a different layer. The reader’s experiencing both, and even though I’m not a fan of stream comments, they’re a successful device.

Less successful is the brief panel discussions about Nina and her assassinating. Andy Garcia cameos as Nina’s doctor, who scrapped the killer instinct out of her brain (which also comes up in Nina’s plot line a bit). Artist Mike Deodato Jr. barely tries to disguise the photo referenced Garcia, though no one else this issue (except Woody Harrelson as the panel host again) jumps out.

Milligan and Deodato do Absolution as an eighties cyberpunk, with revised futurism and dystopian details. Unfortunately, the panel’s dated, and if Milligan weren’t being so obvious, it’d be more successful.

But the plot’s moving into unexpected territory, at least based on the plotting so far. I’m waiting to see how Milligan paces next issue. He’s got choices.

Absolution’s an okay “soft sci-fi” action book. It’s compelling and looks good. Some of the writing’s problematic—the panels and their smooth-talking liberal intellectual guests—but the rest makes up.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #1

Dab1 There’s something about the comics form and wrestling. The way an artist can choreograph the fight to emphasize the danger and drama. Because of the ring, much like boxing, the attention can better focus on the action. Unlike boxing, there are flamboyant outfits and a range of moves, though Powerbomb creator Daniel Warren Johnson doesn’t seem to be creating any new wrestling moves here, at most amplifying existing ones. Well, so the commentators imply. And no comic creator seems to do a wrestling bit without loving the potential of the “sport.”

Quotations because it’s still pro-wrestling. Johnson mentions the physical risks for entertainment in the back matter, which is the first time I can remember ever seeing it put so plainly. They’re (bad) actors, (sometimes good) athletes, but they’re actually risking their lives to put on this show.

Powerbomb #1 is the series setup. It opens with champion Yua Steelrose defending her title against Cobrasun. Yua’s successfully fended off nine previous challenges, so she’s ready for this next one. Unlike the seemingly rowdy and callous Cobrasun, Yua’s all about family, whether it’s daughter Lona or just the fans. The fans are family too. Except then it turns out Cobrasun’s bringing more to the ring than just trash talk, and Yua’s in for a devastating match.

When the fight and immediate fallout are done, the action jumps ahead ten years. Lona’s desperate to become a pro-wrestler herself, except she can’t find a trainer. In addition, her family’s unwilling to support her, and she can’t do it alone.

Enter a creepy punk with a lightning grip with an offer.

Now, the creepy punk was actually in the comic before—and his creepy lair (oh, it’s a lair) is the first-panel establishing shot—but Yua and Lona’s story is so compelling he doesn’t make as much of an impression as he would otherwise. The final reveal promises one hell of a comic, though it could probably get away with just being seven different wrestling matches visualized by Johnson. The art’s controlled frantic, bursting with energy, and the writing’s full of heart.

It’s an outstanding comic, both in terms of art, writing (Johnson’s dialogue’s just okay sometimes, but his pacing’s phenomenal), and setup.

Can’t wait for more.

Absolution (2022) #1

Despite the Blade Runner font on the cover and the future vibe, Absolution is—so far—just a future dystopia action comic. I’m hesitant even to call it sci-fi. The potential science behind the fiction is all general stuff: the protagonist, Nina, is an assassin on potential parole. Potential meaning if she gets a high enough score for killing bad guys during her live streams, she’ll get an acquittal.

If she fails, they’ll blow up her head because, you know, “Suicide Squad”’s old enough (and ubiquitous enough) to be trope fodder.

The issue’s just her latest hit, with some flashbacks and then commentary from the commentators. Nina narrates, which writer Peter Milligan relies heavily on to carry some of the story. Artist Mike Deodato Jr. draws one heck of a corporate future dystopia city, and the stylistic panel grids nicely juxtapose the action and exposition. But the issue’s very much setup, including lots of Nina’s backstory (for now, you’re not going to not reveal something about your assassin anti-hero in later issues), so Deodato could potentially shake up the style.

While streaming, shitty white men on the Internet comment on her not being attractive enough to them and complain about, you know, brown people existing. I wonder how these future stories are going to age in twenty years.

But it’s solid action. Having everyone be shitty to her helps make Nina sympathetic (though there’s some concern in how Milligan writes the female stream commentator, who throws out non-sequiturs about sexism because she’s all the way caricature).

Speaking of character and caricature… Deodato bases faces on real people. Gerard Depardieu plays the issue villain, and I think Woody Harrelson’s one of the stream commentators. It’s kind of fun. Also, it tracks Depardieu’s such a garbage guy.

Ginseng Roots (2019) #10

GR10 It’s been a while since I’ve read Ginseng Roots and even longer since I’ve read the first few issues of Ginseng Roots, but I’m pretty sure when creator Craig Thompson brings up Roots’s generative problems, it’s for the first time. In issue ten of twelve, he reveals after spending months trying to turn his research into a comic, he was left without any drawn pages and ready to get into animation.

A very amusing Hollywood meeting cures him of that ambition.

Now, Thompson had established a creative malaise and trying to get out of it with this new project… but I don’t think he’d mentioned problems realizing it once he’d done the legwork.

The issue opens with Thompson and his siblings hanging out with their parents before leaving small town, ginseng farming Wisconsin, while the parents talk about death. The way Thompson visualizes it—with he and his siblings passive observers on the sofa while the parents sit in their regular chairs and discuss death for the nth time—is devastating.

Thompson has a chance for a eureka moment with the parents, something he’ll only have much later and even further away. It turns out Thompson’s work is big in South Korea, and his publisher there would love to bring him over. He calls up little brother Phil, who started the issue with him visiting the parents, and invites him to come along; it’ll be a chance for them to reconnect.

The comic then becomes this whirlwind of South Korean ginseng industry information, framed through Thompson first casually, then explicitly. The local news is willing to fund his research in exchange for filmed footage, as they’re making a ginseng documentary. So these two American ginseng farmer’s sons, familiar with ginseng as a food product, not a cultural item, all of a sudden immersed.

In some ways, the issue’s very controlled. It’s mostly a travelogue. Not much visual digression, except when he gets food poisoning and the series mascot has a bout on the toilet. Otherwise, it’s all very tight. Even when Thompson lets brother Phil render his experiences a couple times in the issue’s last few pages.

It’s a great device. Half the panel is Craig Thompson, the other half Phil, art, writing, and, most importantly, perspective.

The issue doesn’t have the highest gee whiz rating the series has ever reached, but it’s an exceptional comic. Especially given how little time is left, Thompson—the protagonist—has to make something of his experience.

There’s some beautiful travelogue art of South Korea. Thompson ably toggles between almost comedic people and then hyper-realistic settings.

Roots is such a good book.