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Infinity 8: Volume Three: The Gospel According to Emma (2017)
In theory, Infinity 8 is going to get exponentially more complicated as it progresses. With the conclusion of this volume, The Gospel According to Emma, the reader and the Infinity 8’s captain know almost nothing more about the solar system-sized space mausoleum the ship’s investigating. It’s not the captain’s fault, of course; like always, he and his sidekick call an agent up to the bridge to go over the mission, explaining how time will reset in eight hours. It’s not the captain’s fault the agent they picked—Emma O’Mara—is a zealot hell-bent on dooming everyone onboard the vessel for her religion.
Emma’s not just an agent either; she’s a Marshal and a celebrity. She’s not even supposed to be working—or so the ship’s officers think—she’s just another passenger headed across the galaxy. But she’s actually conspired with her religious sect to sabotage the vessel in order to discover a secret about her religion. There are various sects, all believing something different about their prophet’s final message—because it’s missing. Well, if the prophet had the message on him when he died, the prophet’s somewhere in that space graveyard.
Everything dead is somehow somewhere in that space graveyard. There’s some talk from the first officer about an intention at the center of the mausoleum, but Emma’s not really listening because she’s got almost a dozen coconspirators to check in with. In addition to everyone knowing Emma’s a badass Marshal, they also know she’s a pious one; three Infinities in, and Emma’s the only one the first officer doesn’t perv on.
I mean, he doesn’t have much time before she zaps him, but still, turns out there’s a limit to his inappropriateness.
Emma’s coconspirators are bankrolling the endeavor, as her sect apparently doesn’t have the available cash to do so. They each want something different from the space graveyard, which a psychic divined. So divination’s real in Infinity 8 or at least possible. Since we don’t know if time travel exists yet, there could also be an easy explanation for the fortune-telling.
Writers Lewis Trondheim and Fabien Vehlmann craft an action-packed suspense thriller, with Emma moving from ally to ally, enemy to enemy, making significant discoveries about the nature of her religion, reality itself, and herself. The volume’s got the most character development in an Infinity 8 so far; Emma’s religious journey, not to mention the trials of her subterfuge and insurrection, make for one heck of an arc. Plus, there are numerous villains in this arc. There are coincidental villains—like the robot trying to determine whether or not an interrupted message means to kill Emma or not—and there are deliberate ones.
And then there are the wanted criminals who Emma comes across in her daily life. Assembling her own “Dirty Nine” gang of tomb raiders seems like it’s going to bite her from the start (she starts getting suspicious almost immediately), but it takes a while for the actual villains to reveal themselves. Their motives even longer.
As usual, it’s eventually up to Emma to save the galaxy; she just happens to be in a pickle because she’s already betrayed her space cop badge to be a fundamentalist terrorist. Not to mention the story’s time limit’s built-in.
Lots of tension, absolutely no time to relax. Unlike the previous volumes, thanks to Emma’s zealotry, she doesn’t ever get to have a personable moment. Instead, she becomes personable through her volume-long character development. It’s excellent work from Trondheim and Vehlmann on the script.
Olivier Balez does the art this volume; it’s very different, warmer, cartoonier, with great enthusiasm for the various alien species. Balez maintains that enthusiasm, whether the aliens are being funny, evil, or getting lasered in two. Balez gets a lot of tones to move between, from macabre space archeology, robotic battles, standoffs, heists, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and religious melancholy. Gospel runs the gambit. About the only thing wrong with the art is it ends too soon; Balez could’ve gotten at least another page out of Emma’s finale.
So, while there are promises for future Infinity 8 volumes—we find out another piece in how Earth came to be destroyed this volume, the most information yet—Trondheim still hasn’t revealed enough to tip any scales.
Emma’s not even halfway through Infinity; Trondheim and his collaborators have more time ahead than behind; anything could happen, so long as it involves space graveyards and capable agents. The possibilities are almost… infinite.
Can’t wait.
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #19
The Gil Kane, Tom Palmer, and probably John Romita cover sells this issue as Wolfman Jack versus vampires on the moon. But the interior art isn’t Kane, Palmer, or Romita; it’s Don Perlin and Vince Colletta. Wolfman Jack versus the vampires is actually on a movie set, tying into a Dracula Lives story about a hacky Dracula actor going on a murder spree before the real Dracula kills him. Writer Mike Friedrich’s a real trooper, doing a sequel to another series’s story, one he didn’t write (Marv Wolfman wrote the first one).
I think Perlin might be trying with the composition, but it doesn’t work out. He’s got no rhythm to the fight scene, which isn’t a surprise, but he’s enthusiastic, which is both a surprise and unfortunate. Between Friedrich and Perlin, Jack in his human form is doing acrobatics, and as the werewolf, he’s… it’s hard to say. At least an unlikely jump kick makes visual sense; the werewolf versus vampire fight, not so much. Not with the Perlin.
The Colletta inks are dreadful, as one would expect. Every once in a while, there’s a very detailed panel, and it’s clear someone tried, Perlin or Colletta, and got there. But it’s a handful of panels; every other panel’s terrible. Some middling competence can’t overcome it.
Friedrich spends half the issue checking in on all the subplots. There’s kidnapped sister Lissa, who Jack’s having a relatively easy time tracking (he finds torn clothing on a fence at one point), there’s next-door neighbor Raymond Coker, who’s got a big secret of his own, there’s meddling copper Lou Hackett, who doesn’t appear thank goodness, and there’s Jack’s nymphomaniac apartment groupies, who try to seduce him or something. It’s so weird. Though also, it’d be fascinating if it were thoughtful.
Coker and Jack have a showdown, with Coker explaining he’s worked his way over from Jamaica, leading Jack to acknowledge the difficulty of that situation. Far cry from when Wolfman had Jack be a (seemingly unintentional) shitty racist to Coker.
But then one of the girls has an emergency at the studio, which relates back to the lawyer for the big game hunter’s movie producer brother, who tried to kill Jack and kidnap Lissa a long time ago. It leads to the vampire fight, then an overly dramatic cliffhanger.
Friedrich’s got a rocky start; he likes framing in flashbacks too much, and Jack’s always way too surprised when there’s a full moon; it improves as it goes along. Coker and Jack may be the second relationship we’ve seen develop on page in Werewolf, so it stands out. Especially with the cliffhanger.
Of course, the issue’d be incomprehensible for a new reader. Story for the content, art for the “do people really read a book with Don Perlin drawing werewolf fights?”
Yes, yes, we do. No questions, please.
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Liza with a Z (1972, Bob Fosse)
“Liza with a Z” closes with a Cabaret medley, including Liza Minnelli playing the Emcee for a couple songs. She starts in the audience, a la the “Cabaret” Broadway revival (only twenty-six years before), and quickly works her way onto the stage, joined by dancers, and does a whirlwind ten-minute set. The opening titles tell us “Z” is a “concert for television,” and it’s fascinating to watch how Fosse presents that concert.
“Z” is a spotlight for Minnelli as a singer, dancer, actor, and personality. The special’s title comes from Say Liza (Liza with a “Z”), a half colloquial memoir song where Minnelli describes her frustration at people calling her “Lisa.” It’s a hilarious, personable number and showcases Minnelli’s ability to toggle between tones. She can go from soulful to goofy to sweet to sexy (pretty sure she, Fosse, and her costume designer created go go sultry in “Z”) in less than a breath.
The medley is the first time the special directly references Cabaret, though “Z” is very much an offshoot from the film and its success. Some costumes occasionally feel a little Cabaret, but the special doesn’t open with it. Minnelli never addresses the audience as an audience, never telling them eight cameras are filming this evening’s production. At the beginning of “Z,” Fosse and cinematographer Owen Roizman shoot Minnelli as subject. It’s not about the audience; they just happen to be there for Minnelli’s performance.
For a couple numbers, Minnelli looks up towards the balcony (but also the cameras), not out at the audience below her. Fosse looks back down at her. But then, very deftly, the camera starts watching Minnelli looking up to the overhead cameras; we watch Minnelli sing from the wrong camera, only to quickly discover there’s no wrong camera. Every different shot’s going to reveal something else about Minnelli’s performance.
Once the stage fills with dancers, Minnelli starts directly addressing the audience, sometimes to set up the next song, sometimes to take a bow; there’s a spectacular Son of a Preacher Man number, ending with Fosse doing some incredible sleight of hand with the dancers. “Z” might be a filmed live performance, but Fosse and Minnelli are packaging it for the television audience. Or, frankly, theatrical. Fosse and Roizman shoot Minnelli as the only visible figure surrounded by darkness a few times, and it’d be devastating on the big screen.
There are some bumps, of course. Preacher Man is the last great number until the medley; after its commercial break, there’s a cute song about New Yawkers in love, including Minnelli and the dancers acting out a bunch of it. But it’s not a showstopper; it’s just more examples of Minnelli’s remarkable abilities.
The real problems are the last two songs before the medley sprint.
First is You’ve Let Yourself Go, which could be the anthem for the “Are the Straights Okay?” meme about a wife sick of her husband getting bald and chubby. Then comes My Mammy, a song Minnelli would regularly perform as a standard, all about how your slave mammy always loves you. I guess it’d be worse if it were a white dude singing it (as they often did), but yikes. Thank goodness Fosse and Minnelli weren’t pitching a musical Gone With the Wind… someone might’ve said yes.
Fosse tries with Let Yourself Go, using some of the spotlighting techniques he’d already iterated, but Mammy’s just a simple “it’s a variety special” number. Thank goodness. Hopefully, the blandness will make it forgettable.
The medley saves the day; the commercial, cross-promotional medley to remind people they really liked the super-depressing pre-Holocaust movie (or to encourage people with peppy dance numbers to see said film) is one hell of a way to save the day. But it works because it’s Fosse and Minnelli.
Like its star, director, cast, and crew, “Liza with a Z” is phenomenal.
This post is part of the Fifth Broadway Bound Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.
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Scene of the Crime (1999) #2
I was going to say all writer Ed Brubaker needed to do to completely tie together all the San Francisco crime eras was a grandfather in a wheelchair in a greenhouse, but Big Sleep’s L.A. Scene of the Crime is all San Francisco, all the time; Brubaker knows what he’s doing too. This issue introduces lead Jack’s old buddy Steve, who’s also a P.I. Steve once gave Jack a tour of Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco; when Jack became a P.I., Steve followed suit and looped him. Steve gives Jack information from his fancy international detective agency.
It’s a trope going back to Hammett, if not earlier. But it’s a knowing one and well-executed. Michael Lark’s pencils (now with Sean Phillips inks, which I’d forgotten) take their meeting out of time, like private dicks who lose their pretty blonde clients to violence and get big sads about it are eternal. Great colors from James Sinclair too. Phillips’s inks add a moodiness to the issue, although some of the dreariness is due to the circumstances.
The issue opens with Jack going to a murder scene, the motel he’d just left, with his crime scene photographer uncle in tow. The uncle can get Jack information about the case, whereas Jack just pisses off the cops. At least until the detective shows up and Jack tells him all; Jack telling all is going to be a recurring theme in this issue; he doesn’t have any secrets at this point. Other than the actual client being his cop buddy’s mistress.
Or not really his buddy; his relation. Jack goes to question him, goes to question his client, her mother, the hippies from last issue. Only the hippies have left, the mistress is indisposed, her mother’s not interested in Jack’s help, and the cop buddy doesn’t know anything. Brubaker’s got the formula down—visit the various characters, find answers to questions no one’s asked, and then try to piece together how it all fits together. Classic detective novel, just set in nineties San Francisco.
Though there aren’t any computers around so it could be anytime San Francisco, though the city’s hippie history is about to play a significant part in motives and so on.
There is a super icky moment where Jack whines he can’t be a cop because he’s incapable of shooting anyone, but he means it as a bad thing; the copaganda’s strong, so it’ll be interesting to see if Brubaker does any dirty cop tropes.
The first issue was mostly engaging, occasionally too forgiving with the first person narration—Brubaker’s better this issue, with Jack plunging headfirst off the wagon—and a neat variation on a theme. This issue shows Brubaker’s got more up his sleeve than smart homage, and Lark, Phillips, and Sinclair are keeping pace. Scene of the Crime just got really good.
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Dracula Lives (1973) #12
No mention of Dracula Lives!’s forthcoming cancellation in the letters page, nor any explanation for the Bram Stoker’s Dracula adaptation skipping a month. Instead, the issue seems committed to origin stories; how Bram Stoker’s Dracula became the Marvel Universe’s Dracula. Or, in the case of Doug Moench’s three-part feature, how Marvel’s Dracula became Bram Stoker’s Dracula became Marvel’s Dracula.
Moench’s story is set in 1597, which is only important compared to Gerry Conway’s set in 1465. Moench’s Dracula is a sad, solitary sort. He hangs out in the castle, writing in his diary, whining about how he can’t find any good human blood these days. The villagers have gotten wise to Dracula being a bloodsucking vampire, though it turns out there’s plenty about vampires they don’t know yet.
While Dracula mopes, a stranger comes to town and offers to ride the village of Dracula for a thousand gold coins. He’s going to wait until Dracula comes to the village to feed, then head up to the castle and try to find some way to kill him. Except on this particular night, Dracula’s really, really pissed the humans are staying inside instead of coming out to be fed on—don’t they know he can’t enter a domicile without an invitation!
They do not, of course, because they don’t even know Dracula’s afraid of the sunlight yet. Or his aversion to crosses. Drac’s got a few surprises up his sleeves for the villagers, not just near the castle but also in a second village where he goes to feed the next night. But the stranger is somehow one step ahead, preparing those villagers for the attack; dejected, Dracula commits to his new role as lord of the undead and gets busy raising an army.
There’s a different artist for each chapter. Sonny Trinidad does the first; he and Moench have done some nice Lives stories. Trinidad’s work is quite nice this issue as well. Yong Montaño does the second part, which features Dracula and the new villagers, but also the first villagers getting too cocky. Montaño’s decent enough, but more on the people than the vampire. He’s got a comedic sensibility, and it doesn’t work here.
The third artist is Steve Gan, and it’s full Gothic horror. Beautiful stuff. However, his Dracula’s not as good as Trinidad’s. You’d think they’d have just ordered everyone to ape Gene Colan at some point.
Moench’s very intentional about Dracula’s character development. At the story’s start, Dracula’s a withdrawn, self-loathing monster. By the end of the story… well, he’s in a different spot. It’s an excellent feature and Moench’s best writing on the series. Does it make up for the missing Dracula adaptation chapter? Sure, fifty years later; at the time, I think I’d have been concerned.
Moench also contributes a text piece about Christopher Lee. It’s long, detailed, and enthusiastic because Moench’s a fan. It’s unclear why, however, since he seems to agree Hammer movies stink and Lee mostly made Hammer movies. The article’s disconcertingly spread throughout the magazine, presumably to make room for more advertisements.
The second story is the Conway one. Set six years after Dracula’s transformation to vampire and over a hundred years before Moench’s, this Dracula still has vampire orgies. He decides to go on a culinary trip and messes with the wrong German, who vows to avenge his sister’s death at Dracula’s hand.
Fang.
Whatever.
So Hans goes to kill Dracula in Transylvania, but times it wrong for vampire-killing success. Still, it’s warm and sunny, and Hans falls for a fetching local girl. Will Hans’s thirst for vengeance ruin their romantic bliss? Will it somehow tie into Tomb of Dracula? Will Conway bull in a china shop his way through the subtleties? Will it even matter?
Just to answer the last—no, it won’t matter, none of it will matter. Tom Sutton does the art, and it’s terrible. The story’s ten pages, and he manages to get worse every page. It’s indescribably bad art and a lousy way to finish an otherwise outstanding issue.
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