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Infinity 8: Volume Four: Symbolic Guerilla (2018)
Symbolic Guerilla is my favorite Infinity 8 so far. I’ve read this one before, but not while going through the series, so I couldn’t really compare. Now, I can. It’s for two obvious reasons: protagonist Patty Stardust is the best agent so far, and Martin Trystram’s art is fascinating.
Unlike the previous stories, there are significant flashback sequences, contrasting Trystram’s Infinity 8 setting and his general sci-fi vibes. But also with very delicate line work. Trystram’s imaginative and enthusiastic but very precise with the lines. His style clashes with the content to encourage the reader to spend more time on the panels, which means experiencing the excellent art more.
And then there’s Patty. She’s living as a Black woman in the far-flung future after the destruction of planet Earth. However, everyone still wants to touch her hair, including the Muppet-like alien influencer she’s babysitting at the beginning of the volume. What also makes Patty unique is it’s not her first appearance in the book; she showed up in the Hitler book. She’s a stage manager for some hippy-dippy performance artist cultists, and they went to join up with Hitler because no one in the future remembers what Hitler did, but then he kills Patty for being Black, revealing the reality of the situation. So Patty’s singular in the series.
Though there is another agent cameo at the end of this volume, so more she’s been singular to this point. And she’s got a whole, real arc because she’s got a supporting cast and a relevant backstory. She’s undercover trying to bust the cult’s business connect; in addition to the state manager gig, she’s dating the cult leader’s son, Peter. It’s not romantic for Patty, just a way to dodge leader Ron’s sexual advances.
When the ship captain and the first officer (who again is flirting, meaning he did sit out the fundamentalist lady) call on her to investigate the space graveyard, she’s busy with the Muppet-y influencer who wants to vlog all about the cult’s next art event. The boyfriend’s tripping and needy, so it’s a terrible time for her to have to go off ship.
Especially when it turns out the cult leader has chipped his entourage so he can track them at all times. Patty’s worried about getting busted for being an undercover agent—going to the space graveyard is the first time she’s broken cover in five years—but it turns out to be much, much worse because Ron realizes they’re stopped and in a bitching space graveyard. It’s the perfect location for their next show.
Writers Lewis Trondheim and Kris do a great job with Patty, the first agent with this kind of stakes and agency. Of the three previous, two have been keeping secrets and unreliable, and one was just living an action-adventure. Since the cult’s all very sixties retro, it’s a suspense comedy sci-fi action story. It’s wild. And the writing’s not just good on Patty; Ron goes from being a petty annoyance to profoundly dangerous.
Patty’s also got the flashbacks thing going on. She’s haunted by her past as an agent, the aforementioned trip away from the ship, and that character development gets wrapped into this time-bending mission to explore a space graveyard. While Trondheim and Kris don’t offer any more tidbits about Earth’s destruction, they get into the bigger ground situation. Building off the last arc’s history lesson, Patty makes an otherwise unknowable historical discovery while exploring; the script weaves it into her character arc. It’s so cool.
Symbolic Guerilla ends the first half of Infinity 8 on its highest point. I imagine there will be better stories, but I’m not sure I’ll ever dig anyone’s art as much as Trystram’s. Looking at it is just so much fun.
But it also occurs to me, having now read the first half in sequence, Trondheim and Kris haven’t revealed anything about where Infinity 8 is going, not in terms of plot details or narrative. There are going to be four more volumes, four more agents, and four more timelines, but the possibilities are….
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Werewolf by Night (2022, Michael Giacchino)
It’s not going to seem like it in a few paragraphs, but I am a fan of director Giacchino. Or, more accurately, I am a fan of Giacchino’s directing. Werewolf by Night is easily the most interesting MCU project in the brand’s fourteen years. Most of the credit goes to director Giacchino, who does a phenomenal job directing and… a better-than-expected job scoring.
The music’s good enough I didn’t think it was Giacchino, until I realized it was just lifting from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Still, impressive. Most impressive when adjusted for Giacchino’s scale.
As a composer, Giacchino does forgettable variations on John Williams themes, the immediately forgettable, entirely perfunctory MCU scores, and bad Star Trek music. Is he the most prolific of his similar blockbuster bland colleagues? Not worth looking up. He’s not even one of the better ones.
But, damn, does he love movies and know how to make them. Or at least one. Technically, of course, it’s a “Marvel Studios Special Presentation.” Think a longer “Charlie Brown” special. It runs approximately forty-five minutes, plus minus all the translating credits (sadly, no credits scenes, either), so they’re not calling it the first Disney+ movie. It’s not even the longest Marvel episode. It’s just… a special. And very special.
Night opens with narration explaining we’ve veered into the dark side of the Marvel Universe—the Dark Universe, as it were, or Avengers Dark. In forty-five minutes, the MCU loops Universal’s monsters movie reboot dreams and the Warner Bros. JLA Dark dreams, which they gave up on, more times than it takes Superman to go around the Earth to turn back time.
A group of monster hunters is getting together; see, thanks to “Witcher,” they can just say monster hunters. The monster-hunting patriarch has died, and the anonymous hunters are vying for the mantle; if they win, they get the Bloodstone and possibly an appearance in a Captain America movie. Bloodstone was a Captain America thing in the eighties.
There are six hunters, all unknown to one another. Laura Donnelly plays the only one not anonymous. She’s the patriarch’s estranged daughter. Harriet Sansom Harris is the widowed evil stepmother.
Harris makes the first act of Werewolf. She’s hilarious and scary, especially once the corpse puppet gimmicks get started, which must be seen versus described.
Gael García Bernal plays the lead, one of the monster hunters, but he’s got a different reason for being there and a secret all his own. He and Donnelly become allies as the other monster hunters hunt one another and their prize, a mysterious beast in a labyrinth-type hunting ground. They also get a couple great character moments together.
In addition to Giacchino’s direction, all the technicals are outstanding, particularly Maya Shimoguchi’s Art Deco production design. Zoë White’s (mostly) black and white photography captures it beautifully, especially the blacks and whites.
The special’s got numerous secret weapons, starting with the monster they’re hunting, but Donnelly quickly becomes invaluable. Since Bernal’s hiding things from the audience and everyone else, Donnelly gets to be de facto protagonist for a bit. It works out.
Werewolf by Night’s a great first outing for the MCU’s “Special Presentations,” but it’s exceptional work from Giacchino. Maybe he should give up his day job and focus on his strengths.
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Beware the Creeper (2003) #4
The cop’s narrating again. Not sure why, not after he took an issue and a half off. Writer Jason Hall puts too much on the cop, especially since he gets tricked twice in the issue. One’s plainly clear; the other he should’ve figured out since it happened during the war. But he lacked the critical thinking skills, which then makes his narration showing such abilities incongruous.
The comic doesn’t go where I thought it was going. It might still end up there by the end; there’s a whole other issue because this issue’s all about revealing the Creeper’s identity. There are two possibilities we know about and an unknown large number of ones we don’t (there’s no reason to assume it has to be one of our twin sister leads). Hall goes right to it with the reveal, complete with something close to a confession.
Though, maybe the ending is what I remembered.
Anyway.
Cliff Chiang’s art is fantastic. Even with the bland blond copper back and the indistinct female protagonists, Chiang’s doing just fine. There are numerous action montages throughout—no real scenes because Hall watches the Creeper from a distance—and some excellent work in them. Not sure how Chiang’d do with a straight action scene, but it doesn’t seem like it will come up in this book.
The ending is melodramatic, sentimental, and cruel. It’s also rather affecting, especially for a comic with such a thin narrative. Creeper’s a strange book; Chiang’s dragging it across the finish line, but Hall sometimes doesn’t seem to know they’re even trying to get there.
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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e08 – Ribbit and Rip It
A couple things to get out of the way again for this episode. During Tatiana Maslany’s perfect beyond words Ferris Bueller “go home already” fourth wall breaking (she’d already inhabited the part, now it’s time for her to bend the devices to her will), she says next episode is the “finale.” They’re doing another scene to get them there. And the hook for next episode’s good. It’s not perfect, but it’s coming at the end of a transcendent accomplishment: “She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law” just perfected the superhero show crossover episode.
Well. Sort of. I mean, I think they did it once before, and I think it involved the same other half of the crossover, “Daredevil” Charlie Cox, making his big return to the proverbial tights after showing up in the latest Spider-Man, answering the question of whether or not the Netflix Marvel shows “count.” They do for Cox, anyway.
And it’s no surprise why. It’s a magnificent return, starting with him and Maslany facing off in court. Her client (Brandon Stanley playing the perfect dipshit) is suing superhero fashion designer Griffin Matthews for faulty jet boots. Even though Maslany also frequents Matthews’s establishment (he’s designing her lawyers’ gala dress, in fact), she’s stuck trying to case. She wasn’t expecting a New York City lawyer who can tell when people lie just from their heartbeats.
It gets more complicated after Maslany and Cox have drinks—I’d forgotten how wonderfully slutty Cox plays the part, seducing Maslany with the potential of using her powers for good. Between that soulful moment and Cox saying “Sokovia Accords,” the MCU suddenly gets that “street level” thoughtfulness it’s been missing since… well, always, actually. At least outside Netflix.
Anyway.
Because it’s a crossover, they’ll have to costume up at some point, but because it’s a first-time crossover, they’ll have to be enemies at the start.
It’s glorious, even if director Kat Coiro should’ve done at least one bad-ass “Daredevil” long fight instead of just joking about them.
The next episode’s going to be a whopper based on the cliffhanger, but between this episode and the last, “She-Hulk”’s earned itself all the seasons. Though the four-minute setup should’ve been a mid-credits sequence; someone needs to rethink the MCU show’s lengthy end titles.
It had so better end with “She-Hulk Will Return in She-Hulk: Season Two.” It so better.
She could also move to New York and do a season with Cox. Whatever. But they’ve finally hit that sincere and unique sitcom level; they need to keep it going.
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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e07 – The Retreat
I’ll disclose I did not go into this episode without expectations. A friend said it was when “She-Hulk” hits its full potential, and he’s entirely correct. I just didn’t realize how much the show was going to include in that potential. This episode gets silly and soulful in a way reminiscent of the Dan Slott comic (he gets a towing company named after him in the MCU), but with Tatiana Malsany’s Year One character experiencing it. With the best use of MCU legacy goods to date.
I am speaking, of course, of Mister Timothy Simon Roth, who’s been having a rough time of it—actual good performance-wise—for some time now. When he was in Incredible Hulk, it was a hail-marry villain casting, back when good villains supposedly mattered in superhero movies.
This episode mostly takes place at Roth’s retreat, where he has group therapy for powered individuals, including Asgardian refugees, so alien species as well. And, presumably, daywalkers.
The episode starts with Maslany having a pop music romance montage with Trevor Salter, culminating in their first adult sleepover. Only then Maslany doesn’t hear from him for the whole weekend; Sunday morning rolls around, and instead of Salter lighting up her phone, it’s Roth’s probation officer, played by John Pirruccello.
Maslany and Pirrucello head to the retreat to investigate some discrepancies in Roth’s power inhibitor, where they discover more than meets the eye.
Sorry, wrong franchise. For now, right, Disney?
Anyway.
There are some surprise returning guest stars—who Maslany breaks the wall to contextualize—along with some breakout “problem” supers, like Joseph Castillo-Midyett. He wants to be a swashbuckler, but everyone assumes he’s a matador; he’s got some kind of laser sword. His best friend’s an Asgardian man-bull named Man-Bull (played by Nathan Hurd). But is it a front for something nefarious, or is it on the level?
The episode addresses pretty much all the outstanding concerns, like Maslany’s experience of living She-Hulk: Year One, but also what tone the show’s going for. There are big, terrible developments on the misogynist Star Wars fan bros front, with Ginger Gonzaga, really only showing up to remind Maslany (and the audience) about it, but “She-Hulk”’s got a lot more going on.
Series best direction from Anu Valia and a genuinely superb script, credited to Zeb Wells. Maslany’s got her best scenes, including as She-Hulk (they up the CGI for her close-up monologuing). It’s so good.
“She-Hulk”’s arrived even better than expected, promised, or hoped; where’s the season two announcement? Hell, where’s the season three announcement
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