#and I wish I could replicate it—not the worlds themselves because they’re dead and buried—but the feeling of creating them

[bloomburnburial]

I miss having people to write with.

[madscientistjournal]

Forty-Flesh Barrier

An essay by Tethys, as provided by Raluca Balasa Art by Luke Spooner

Across the bar hangs a sign reading Humans Only.

A man with a seeing eye dog sits exactly twenty-three meters from me, hazy in the smoke under the fire basins. As my colonel banters with the bartender, I study that dog. It is not human. It is an improvement to its owner’s body just as my cybernetic parts are an improvement to mine, but no one tells this man or his dog to leave.

Because dogs are not what started the fourth world war. In the beginning, CanRobotics sent its robots to maintain the Canadarm and the space station. It seemed like a good idea, since the men and women on duty kept getting homesick. At first it was just little things going wrong: astronauts reporting glitches in the technology, minor accidents, power failures. Months later, everyone on the space station was dead and even Earth-bound technology had been affected by the virus. The CEO of CanRobotics was the first on Earth to die by drone attack. Those robots are still up there, replicating themselves until they’re ready to make a move for Earth. The space station has become the deadliest military base in history.

The public’s distrust of machines is everywhere now, in the orange glow of the fire these communes use instead of lamps, the giant sundials replacing clocks because people can no longer stand to see gears. When these villagers look around the bar, they find comfort in the wooden countertops, the old monarchs on the walls. I see only delusion, a refusal to acknowledge the danger I face daily.

Pain sparks through my remade body. First my right shoulder where the shrapnel tore through, then my left leg. These are nothing but sense memories–my cybernetic parts have no synaptic receptors for anything but motion signals. Less than forty-percent of my flesh is now receptive to pain.

But if I am no longer human, my body doesn’t realize it. I still feel longing, if not hunger. I still seek closeness, if not intimacy.

~

Corrina dances with a farmer in a plaid shirt, her body moulding to the music while mine curls defensively around my drink. She is water in a stream. I am a relic lost and buried at sea: once precious, now obsolete.

You said I was perfect, I want to shout at the colonel. He watches her from beside me at the bar, the silver in his hair glinting in the firelight from the basins above. I down my ale. What are flawless skin and a symmetrical face next to flaws carried comfortably? My colonel prefers her crooked legs, the tinge of sweat on her skin, and the tobacco on her breath when she leans close.

On the stage, a bard sings of dragons and knights: a common metaphor for the political situation these days. Men sing along while others drink directly from the ale casks, then are dragged away when they fail to produce their ration stamps. A fireplace crackles in the hearth on the far wall, and above it glistens an oil painting of Queen Helen, England’s last reigning monarch, with her hunting dogs. Rapiers and deer heads decorate the walls. After so much time in the military compounds, I can’t help seeing the real world as archaic. Fear has regressed them hundreds of years, and done worse to me.

Colonel Jurgis shrugs off his coat, revealing his maroon-and-silver uniform and the military insignia on it: crossed rifles over a globe. The Army for Humanity is stitched across the insignia in tiny, glittering letters. A hush falls around us; even the musicians play less heartily when they notice the eyes on us. I can’t tell if it’s my racing heart or the smoke in the air making me lightheaded.

“Military folk, eh?” the bartender says. He tries to sound confident–cheerful, even–but I can tell he’s nervous. “What brings you to Princeton?”

“Passing through on our way to Camp Miller,” Jurgis says, and stretches as if he owns the place. “Another whiskey on the rocks.”

The bartender continues eyeing the insignia. “You don’t got any of those contraptions, do you, friends? Princeton’s a peaceful place. That mechanized devilry isn’t welcome here.”

The gears in my limbs tighten, preparing for flight or self-defence. I wish we’d never stopped in this place. The communes between military compounds in southern England are distrustful even of their protectors nowadays. He sees inside you, my mind screams. He knows. But I force myself to smile and say, “We’re off-duty.” Indeed, neither Jurgis nor my partner dancing across the bar have rifles with them. That’s why they brought me.

The bartender gives a wavering smile. “‘Course, ‘course. Thank you for your service. It’s just that we don’t want no trouble, yeah?”

As if our technology-tainted fingers would draw the enemy like blood draws sharks. If this man knew what I am, he would burn me at the stake. He wouldn’t understand that I was made specifically to avoid the virus that controls all technology. The drones above might be able to turn our weapons against us, but my human sentience makes it impossible for them to control me.

I reach for the whiskey when it arrives. Before I can drink, the colonel’s hand settles on mine. He shakes his head. I wish he wouldn’t touch me. The way I feel about him is not enough to bring me back to life, just enough to keep me guessing.

“Easy, soldier,” he says. The corners of his eyes are wrinkled and his thin lips are invisible when he grins. His nose is too long, his eyes too pale.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“You can still get drunk,” he whispers, bringing his lips close to my ear. I know the gesture means nothing save secrecy, but a shiver rolls down my spine, and I struggle not to lean into him. He is my superior, my protector in a world that hates me. Nothing more.

“I don’t need you to remind me which parts of me still work,” I manage.

“Boo-hoo.” His hand lifts from mine. “Be glad you’re still alive.”

Only I understand that his callousness is a caress. My lips, rebuilt with fat from my hip, twitch into a smile.

“What news from across the pond?” I belatedly realize the bartender addresses me, not Jurgis. I swallow, afraid my voice will give me away, that he will be able to tell what I am if I speak too much. I need to keep him from looking at me too closely, but I can’t tell him the truth: that the United States has joined Canada in funding CanRobotics on the space station. If you can’t beat them, join them. That would only spark more fear.

“I can’t divulge military information.”

“Are they … multiplying up there?” The bartender whispers as if afraid the creatures on the space station might hear. “Can’t die, can they? Heard they were made to maintain each other, like bees.”

“They’re continuing to send down drones, and we’re continuing to destroy them.”

“You ought to be careful in those military compounds. Those demons’ll turn your technology against you.  Use your radios to listen to you and your televisions to watch you from the space station. If you want my advice–”

“We’re off-duty,” Jurgis says. “I’ll have no more talk of the war.”

Being here, I can almost pretend the war doesn’t exist, but it’s impossible to hide from the signs. An old man weaves around barstools with a poster in his hands, asking, “Have you seen my little girl?” He wears a patched coat, and the sight of him extinguishes the warmth I’d felt. Though I sit at the other end of the bar, I hone in on the picture like a sniper on a target. Every detail becomes sharp. It’s a child’s drawing, a stick figure with straw hair. So many have lost themselves in the war. Perhaps I am lucky that I only lost my body.

When I turn, I catch the bartender’s eye. I’m not sure what gives me away–maybe the unnatural turquoise of my eyes against my brown skin, or the scars around my hairline–but he pales and I realize he knows. “She’s one of them.”

He addresses my colonel. Without blinking, Jurgis whips out my papers. “She’s with the Eighth regiment, under the command of Colonel Jurgis. She’s on our side.”

But the bartender begins to shake and back away. “Those dirty ants can hack into any technology they please, no matter how human it looks! Take that thing out of here!”

The chatter at the bar extinguishes. Everyone turns to stare at me. From across the dance floor, she turns too. We lock eyes.

~

I was seven when I first saw Corrina.

Our ox died in the red plague that year. Ma and Pa, too, but only the ox mattered, because he pulled the cart that took my grandpa to town to sell his okra and cabbage. Just so happened the Army for Humanity was offering fifty credits for new recruits that year.

Neither Pops nor I cried when the lieutenant came to take me to the headquarters in Prague. “I’ll come back for you, Teth,” he said, gripping my hand. He looked so sure I almost believed him. “In the meantime, you’ll have food and a warm bed.” More than he could offer.

A week later, I saw Corrina standing at the platoon’s rear, her calves splattered with mud after our five league hike. She was biting her lip and the corporal slapped her for it. “Soldiers do not fidget,” the woman snapped. To this day, I don’t know what possessed me, but I coughed to draw her attention and then picked at my nails for good measure.

The corporal’s insignia glittered on her breast, her boots tapping like a metronome on the packed dirt as she strode toward me. My eyes watered in the sun; I couldn’t look up at her. She grabbed my face in her long-nailed hand. “What’s your name, private?”

“Tethys, ma’am!” I shouted. This close, she smelled of stale makeup. Her lipstick was drawn past the line of her lips.

“You’re a sorry lot,” she said, still holding my chin. “But I’ll make soldiers of you yet. The first thing you’ll learn here is that there is no more you. Here you are more than a community; you are an entity.”

She never asked our names again. We became Platoon Five-Four-Eight.

~

I grew to admire Corrina. She had a passion for calculus and advanced functions, while I showed promise with a rifle. We were an obvious match for drill runs. She cracked every lock and code, neutralized every mine in the minefield, while I covered her. In that way we became one–I was her armour, her bones, and she was my brain.

By the end of our third year, Corrina had become the platoon’s only cryptanalyst. She loved turning linguistic possibility into mathematical certainty, she once told me. Our drone casualties dropped by two-hundred percent. As long as we had Corrina to intercept the enemy’s radio signals, to tell us when and where each drone would be, we were invincible.

Then one day a grenade rolled into our tent, as though blown in with the first autumn leaves.

For the second time in my life, I was faced with a choice that wasn’t a choice at all. Without Corrina, our brain, the platoon would not survive. Bone and muscle, on the other hand, were easy to replace. I covered her.

Turned out they didn’t even need to replace me, only my arm. The fingernail on a finger. No loss to the entity at all.

~

“She’s not hurting anyone,” I hear my colonel saying once I tear my eyes from Corrina’s. The blind man’s dog tries padding toward me, but its owner holds it back. Dogs can’t get enough of me since I lost my human status. I used to think this is because my soul–or whatever you want to call it–is better for my sacrifices. Now I know it’s because dogs are stupid.

“That thing has no business here!” the bartender says. Spittle quivers on his beard.

Colonel Jurgis doesn’t explain that my digestive system still works, as do my taste buds, and that blood still circulates through my core. Rather, he says, “My money is mine to spend as I please.”

Just a month ago, my salary had been mine by law, but with this latest loss on the battlefield–my last natural limb–I’ve also lost my rights to own property and earn wages. I’ve crossed the Forty-Flesh barrier. What I make goes to the regiment now.

Whoever heard of paying a tool? I can still hear World President Amina Bhutia’s campaign speech from five years ago. We must fight fire with fire! Returning to the middle ages soothes peasants, but the army can’t wave swords at enemy drones. Let us make our own weapons, weapons we can control. Replace limbs with resilient metal, but keep the core human. That’ll show those soulless bastards!

I was made to protect this bartender, even though he chooses not to remember. “Let’s leave,” I whisper.

My colonel doesn’t flinch at my words, doesn’t seem to feel my hand on his arm. Only when Corrina’s voice behind us says, “Ready to go?” does he stir.

“This place is a shit-hole,” he growls, scattering some credits across the bar. I trail him and Corrina wordlessly. A holstered weapon.

~

I was sixteen when I met Colonel Jurgis. Already twenty-percent machine, with a cybernetic arm, right kneecap, and left hip. My superiors told me not to worry. I was decades away from the sixty-percent cutoff. Chances were I’d be killed in battle before then.

Corrina and I were promoted to the Eighth regiment that year. I’d been sharing my successes and failures with her since my induction into the army, but it hadn’t made us close. I think she felt guilty, or maybe I felt resentful; either way, we almost never spoke despite being constantly together, and when we did it was about work. I grew to think of her as a tumour–leave it and it saps your strength, but cut it out and you bleed to death.

The colonel stood in the middle of the obstacle course with a whistle around his neck, squinting in the dust his troops stirred. The whistle’s glint blinded me when he turned (I still had my natural eyes then). We approached in our camouflage uniforms and trench boots, Corrina holding up her chin and I slouching in her shadow. We knew what was coming. Corrina, the famous cryptanalyst! No, of course you needn’t run drills. Tethys will take your exercises.

Colonel Jurgis studied us. My hand was shaking from holding the salute when he finally said, “Welcome to regiment Eight. To the ranks.”

“I’m a mathematical engineer,” Corrina spoke up. “I don’t train on the battlefield.”

Jurgis stopped mid-turn and frowned, which made his lips disappear. His hair was long and matted and kept in a knot. “Perhaps if you were less eager to single yourself out,” he said, “you wouldn’t be such an easy target for enemy drones.”

My hip tingled at his words. I’d taken the last hit on Corrina’s life just six months ago. Corrina’s mouth hung open, the first and only time I’ve seen her look stupid.

~

At eighteen I woke to the smell of sulphur and smoke. The barracks, normally cold at night, were stiflingly hot. I leapt to my feet and climbed to the top bunk only to find it empty. The walls glowed with heat, but I could only think of one thing.

My partner wasn’t down the hall or in the outhouses across the street. Snow crunched under my feet as I ran, the icy burn in my soles complementing the heat in my face. It was past 0200 in the morning, but the camp was ablaze with light and for a moment I thought the sun had risen. The alternating hot and cold currents made me dizzy.

Corrina had missed a drone.

I raced into the officers’ barracks. The smoke made a film over my eyes, but I didn’t need them to know where she’d be. I found her fleeing from the colonels’ quarter, dressed only in a soot-stained shift. She kicked and screamed like an animal when I gripped her. Instead of flinging her over my shoulder and taking her out of there, I pinned her arms behind her back. “Where is he?”

“S-still inside.”

So I left her. A colonel was as important as a cryptanalyst, and besides, she had missed a drone. I used all the excuses I could think of.

The frostbite in my feet helped me reach him; if I’d felt the pain of the scalding floor, I would have turned back. As it was, I found him cornered by a wall of flames. He didn’t turn when I called his name. He told me later that all he could see was the white fire imprinted in his retinas.

I suffered third-degree burns on my face, scalp, neck, and shoulders. In the sickbay, white gauze covering my head, drugged by painkillers, he’d looked at me with more tenderness than he looks at me now, when I am more beautiful than ever.

My nose and lips melted off, as well as the epidermis on my face. The doctors amputated both my feet. The nurse smiled when she asked me what I wanted my new face to look like.

“Like me,” I answered.

Her eyebrow arched up her forehead–a fluid, thoughtless motion I would never again be able to achieve. “I haven’t the slightest as to what you looked like, dearie. What shall I tell the surgeons?”

Eyeing Colonel Jurgis in the waiting room and Corrina dozing on his shoulder, I filled the nurse with lies. I’d had raven curls, thick lips and eyelashes, high cheekbones, everything.

And that wasn’t all. Perhaps it was seeing them together–perhaps I thought completing the transition would numb my feelings–or maybe I’d given up pretending. President Bhutia needed volunteers for her mechanized combat force, and I was already mostly machine. The enhancements she required for her army didn’t seem so severe. At least this time, the decision to mechanize would be mine.

~

The night is alive with bonfires. Jurgis and Corrina squint, but my pupils contract in nanoseconds to accommodate the increased light. Before me is a billboard selling smiles and rifles. Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

The night is alive with bonfires. Jurgis and Corrina squint, but my pupils contract in nanoseconds to accommodate the increased light. Before me is a billboard selling smiles and rifles. Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

Thunder rumbles above. I look up and that’s when I see a speck in the deep, pulsing sky. The light pollution and smoke make the horizon a haze, but I see it as clearly as if it were the sun: a red fleck with a white tail coming closer. It’s not a star or an aircraft–I’ve been trained to identify those from afar. What I don’t know is whether its target is Princeton or something, someone, more specific. How coincidental that it should strike just after my arrival here.

Not mine. I whip to Corrina.

She grips Colonel Jurgis’s arm and smiles, and he smiles back. They both look so stupid, leaning there like reeds in the wind. I weigh the options in the time it takes an eyelid to flutter. As usual there is no choice, so I kneel on the sidewalk and extend my arm to take aim.

“Steady there, soldier,” Jurgis laughs. “Drunk already?”

I store the anger away. The silicon skin on my forearm retreats to reveal a rifle’s tip. I can hear the gears shifting in my arm, but not fast enough. People on the streets are coming closer to see what I’m doing, then recoiling when they do. Someone shouts, “Terrorist!” but I don’t let that distract me.

“Stand back,” I warn, amplifying my voice like I’ve been trained to do. “It’s an enemy drone. I can take it down.”

But they won’t hear me. A woman shrieks that I’m a murderer and the crowd before me scatters, refusing to see that I’m aiming at the sky. Hands grab my shoulders. I fire a single shot before I’m pulled back among limbs and heated flesh.

“Restrain it! It’s been hijacked!”

“Monster!”

“The monster is up there! Let me take it down!” I shout, but they can’t see it with their human eyes. Distantly I notice Jurgis flashing his insignia and shouting before the crowd overpowers him too. His lips say: this is a military situation. We are here for your protection. But I can’t help wondering if it’s them or me he wants to protect, and if any of it really matters.

Then knuckles make contact with my face and blood fills my mouth. My heart thrums like it’s trying to escape my metal ribcage. Hands pin me to the concrete. I kick up to free myself of the man on top of me, and he flies across the street. I can’t help my strength now that I’m desperate.

So I wrap my hands around the arms holding me, then clench. Brittle bones shatter. The pressure on me lets up as my attackers scream and recoil. Before I know it, I’m on my feet.

The gun in my arm now points at the crowd.

The civilians back away, replaced by policemen who face me with batons and fibreglass helmets. “Get back!” one shouts. “We’re dealing with a rogue military weapon!”

I know I look insane, blood dribbling down my face, my machinery exposed. Even if I speak, who will hear me? Colonel Jurgis is on the ground, restrained, and Corrina melts among my faceless pursuers. I can’t tell if she’s seeking help or saving herself. She hasn’t looked at me since the first hit I took for her.

“Lower your weapon or we’ll fire!”

My eyes dart across the humans. I’m searching for a reason to save them, any of them. I am more like that drone–a force of calculated destruction, not cruel but programmed with a purpose–than I am like them. A rogue military weapon.

Slowly my gears shift, and I realize I have locked my ammunition into position. My mind weighs possibilities before the policeman’s echo fades. I can fire my gun a second and a half before the policeman fires his, taking down the drone, or I could amputate my tumour and become me again.

Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

I lower my arm. While the militia rushes to restrain me, the light in the sky brightens. I can no longer see Jurgis or Corrina. The faces in the crowd become one.

Tethys no longer remembers her last name. She belongs to the Army for Humanity, which takes her time, wages, and parts of her body as it sees fit. Despite being mostly machine herself, Tethys dedicates her life to defending flesh and fighting machines. Her love for individuals outweighs her distrust of humanity.

Raluca Balasa holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her approach to writing is character-oriented, often dealing with love-hate relationships, antiheroes, and antagonists who make you agree with them. Her short work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways, Aurealis, Psychopomp, and Grimdark Magazine, among others. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing the piano or spilling things.

Luke Spooner, a.k.a. ‘Carrion House,’ currently lives and works in the South of England. Having recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a first class degree, he is now a full time illustrator for just about any project that piques his interest. Despite regular forays into children’s books and fairy tales, his true love lies in anything macabre, melancholy, or dark in nature and essence. He believes that the job of putting someone else’s words into a visual form, to accompany and support their text, is a massive responsibility, as well as being something he truly treasures. You can visit his web site at www.carrionhouse.com.

“Forty-Flesh Barrier” is © 2018 Raluca Balasa Art accompanying story is © 2018 Luke Spooner

Forty-Flesh Barrier was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[aion-rsa]

The Black Lightning Series Finale is Imperfect and Powerful

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Black Lightning has given us four seasons of culturally relevant sci-fi drama, and the Pierce family has been its center. In the season finale, the family show up for one another and for Freeland and take a final stand against Tobias Whale.

Jefferson Pierce is not dead, but he’s buried alive, and still without his powers. As he prays for his family and his city to be protected—and reflects on his own heaven- worthiness— his family pushes back against Tobias. Gambi, Anissa, and Grace infiltrate Tobias’ heavily secured building and destroy the emitter. In the coffin, Jefferson talks to his father in an ancestral plane, a life/death spiritual in-between, and he is able to get closure about his father’s death and be affirmed as a hero by the very person he modeled his heroism after. He returns to consciousness aware of his power, and recalling what his father says about him having everything he needs, he pulls power from the earth—drawing from the Prometheum under Freeland—and breaks free.

“The Book of Resurrection: Chapter Two: Closure” is a powerful, if imperfect finale whose weaknesses don’t detract from overall enjoyment of the episode. The episode follows through on all of the stories built up over the season, to varying degrees of success. The decades-long rivalry between Jefferson Pierce and Tobias Whale culminates in a physical altercation that, while brutal, doesn’t really live up to the level of animosity the two harbor for one another. Fortunately, this brawl is just the final stand in a season-long battle that played out through politics and manipulation instead of fists. The real victory isn’t the knockout, and by the time Jefferson lays hands on Tobias, the Pierces have already won.

Jefferson has always tried to live up to the example his father set for him. He’s always strived to be a good man, and to do right by his people. Being Black Lightning was just one part of that, and it weighed heavily on Jefferson whenever he felt like he failed. Having his father tell him that he’s a good man, that he’s lived up to that ideal, is a powerful moment for Jefferson. We know that when he goes after Tobias there is no glee there. That’s what makes these two men different. Jefferson doesn’t want to kill Tobias, but he isn’t given much of a choice. Jefferson doesn’t relish the kill—the way LaLa or Painkiller does—he takes satisfaction in the victory because he kept his family and his city safe. Equal to that, his daughters proved themselves capable of protecting themselves, each other, and Freeland. He succeeds as both a hero and as a father. He and Lynn decide to get remarried, and he and Gambi officially retire, leaving Freeland under the protection of Thunder, Lightning, TC, and Wylde.

Anissa and Grace have been in sync this entire season and have moved as a unit, powered or otherwise. It has been incredible to watch their relationship as both a married couple and a vigilante team grow and flourish. It’s also amazing to watch Jenn become her full and truest self. When JJ returns to the ionosphere to charge up, Jenn—the real Jenn— follows her back to Earth. JJ is an entity that existed in the Glaze without physical form, who latched onto Jenn, replicated her DNA, and took her memories so she could have a physical existence. We were given hints throughout the season that there was more to JJ. Jeff had a sense that something was off and particles lingered around JJ whenever she went back into space. I applaud the creativity here and how it allowed Jenn to stay on the show with China Anne McClain gone. China’s return was exciting, and Jenn’s fight with JJ was a fun and cool moment that allowed both actresses to shine, and showed how powerful Jenn truly is.

The same cannot be said for Lopez. She takes energy absorbing powers—Black Lightning’s powers, it appears—and almost drains Freeland’s power grid, to obtain enough juice to kill Lightning. Detective Shakur and the meta task force hold her off until Lightning shows up, and makes quick work of her. Lopez is the biggest disappointment of the season. She’s not allowed to be anything more than a minor foil, and the time spent with her this season is not rewarded in her final confrontation with Lightning.

There is a sense that there are some stories left untold or that are incomplete, but none that have a strong negative impact on the finale. What is the Shadow Board and what do they want with Freeland? What did it mean for Tobias to lead them? There may be comic context I’m missing, but within the show, they’re never really given an identity and it feels like narrative energy that could’ve been better spent elsewhere, perhaps in making Lopez a more fully realized character.

TC tells Khalil he can remove Odell’s kill order but Khalil will have to forget the Pierces. Khalil accepts, which is a definitive choice that doesn’t necessarily work if Painkiller had been ordered to series. The choice for Khalil to forget the Pierces would resolve one of the major conflicts for the character and undermine the story that show was aiming to tell. It makes me wonder whether an alternate scene was filmed for Khalil that was contingent upon the spin-off being picked up or if Akil had low expectations for the series being picked up and wanted to close out Khalil’s story satisfactorily. Whatever the case, I have enjoyed Calloway this season and wish we could see more of him, but am happy with the way his story concludes.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Finally, What happened to Lauren? Again, why spend time introducing her to the family if not to make her a part of it in any way? Gambi is as central to the show as any of the Pierces and it seems like a missed opportunity to give him a happy ending that doesn’t solely revolve around the Pierces. I am happy that the Pierces are alive and whole and healthy and happy. This is the ending I wanted for them, even if it felt at times like it might’ve come too easily. What I wanted for this episode was to feel full and I do. I feel an immense amount of joy and satisfaction after this finale, not because it does everything right but because it does right by the characters we love. Black Lightning has always been on-the-nose when it comes to cultural and political dynamics, and it has always played with concepts of power, but more than anything, it has given us a world where Black people are empowered and where Black people win. The series finale drives that point home by showing us a family of Black heroes who are alive and whole and healthy and happy which is a powerful thing in and of itself. Black Lightning is a superhero show that leaves us with Black triumph and Black joy.

The post The Black Lightning Series Finale is Imperfect and Powerful appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3bTSYJ0

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #133: Yesterday and Beyond...

March, 1975

This cover is a filthy, filthy lie. The hooded man does reveal his identity this issue but the Avengers are otherwise occupied and aren’t around for it. And the person he reveals his identity to already knows who he is.

We really start with Wanda’s magic training. Y’know, the thing that has kept her away from the team while they’ve been punching dead people?

She’s come pretty far.

She manages to Sorcerer’s Apprentice a chair to life, although it tires her way out. Using her mutant power to magic is exhausting. And since she was exhausted, she turned her attention from the man chair and it tries to kill her.

But Agatha Harkness is a good teacher and re-chaired the chair to protect Wanda. And gives her the important life lesson: “When one summons forth forces from beyond, one must never relinquish control, my dear.”

But she is pleased with Wanda’s progress.

Wanda only wishes that the Avengers would return from Vietnam so she could show them how far she’s come.

Agatha just darkly remarks that the Avengers are not in Vietnam. OR ON EARTH!

Wanda, maybe: ‘If those jerks went to space without me...’

But, no. The Avengers are in Limbo with the third tier evolution of Kang, Immortus.

Immortus explains that yes, he was totally humoring Kang about his sudden but inevitable betrayal. Getting angry about being a tube boy, pretending to want to team up to take out the Avengers. All of it was a cunning ruse to teach Kang the dominance of destiny by letting him make an ass out of himself, apparently.

And in exchange for using the Avengers in that scheme, he offers to show the hidden pasts of Mantis and Vision.

Except Vision has to go alone. Because his past is too recent and may affect the present if anyone but Vision knows it. APPARENTLY.

It sounds fake but its really so that Vision is alone for when he runs into mishaps in the next issue.

So Immortus hands Vision a synchro-staff which will guide and narrate Vision’s journey into the past.

Also, it later turns out that the synchro-staffs are Space Phantoms in disguise. Everything is Space Phantoms. Your lamp is a Space Phantom. Your dog is a Space Phantom. Your parents are Space Phantoms. That sudden feeling of existential paranoia you get when you realize that with shapeshifters like Skrulls and the Space Phantoms, anything and anyone could be imposters and you can never know for sure that what you know is real is a Space Phantom.

Why Immortus had a couple dumb aliens disguise themselves as glitzy sticks is known only to Immortus and Kurt Busiek. Its probably so that the sticks could lie to Vision and/or Mantis so that troublesome background elements could be retconned.

Although you could always just say the sticks lied so there’s still that matter of why the sticks had to be Space Phantoms specifically, Immortus?

Anyway, voop. Vision is in the past.

Now for the rest of everyone. They’re all going to Mantis’ backstory. Her past doesn’t get to be private. She’s going to have Hawkeye, Thor, and Iron Man watching and peanut gallerying her origin story.

Oh and Hawkeye makes a comment very much in line with Hawkeye’s tendencies towards sexual harassment.

Meanwhile elsewhere IN SPACE, Moondragon. The priestess of Titan and a character from the Captain Marvel book. She once was spanked by Ben Grimm and once fixed Daredevil’s eyes. She once turned into a dragon and was ridden through space by her girlfriend.

These are all far off things or irrelevant.

What is relevant is that she has picked up the Avengers’ signal calling for Captain Marvel and since he hasn’t answered, she feels compelled to. So off she goes to Avengers Mansion, to obey the inscrutable exhortations of her soul.

But that’s for later. For now its:

THE ORIGIN OF THE VISION

Firmly grasping an alien shaped like a scepter, Vision flies through time musing and contemplating and recapping.

He remembers the Sentinel back in #102 identifying him as three decades vintage.

Three decades and change would put that back to 1939, when the robot Human Torch first appeared.

And the alien disguised as a stick clarifies that it was November 1939. And then introduces itself. Except as a staff. Leaves out the part about being an alien because that hasn’t been invented yet.

Basically tells Visions that it will summarize events for his greater ease of understanding as they zip past them.

So 1939. We see Professor Phineas T. Horton introducing his synthetic man. As seen in Marvel Comics #1. Except there’s one tiny eensy little design flaw.

The dang thing bursts into flames if exposed to oxygen.

The gentlemen of the press overreact, demanding Horton destroy his creation before “some madman can grasp its principles and hurl it against our civilization!”

Horton refuses so the gentlemen of the press create an outcry that forces Horton to bury the project.

Literally bury it.

Put the air-tight tube in a steel container and then dunk that container in fast-drying cement.

There to stay until further experimentation finds a way to correct the flaw of having oxygen reactive skin. Or a way to control the synthetic man and make him do Horton’s bidding and make him a fortune.

Professor Phineas T. Horton is actually very concerned about money. He’s not in this solely for the discovery or prestige. He wants to make bank.

Unfortunately, he went a little cheap on the materials for burying the Human Torch forever. The alleged air-tight tube developed a small leak and after a few days enough air leaked in that the Human Torch ignited. And exploded.

The Human-shaped Torch was set free and freely did he fly around New York, accidentally spreading terror because he is a flying man on fire going around and melting things.

He came to realize that he was different from other people. For one thing, nobody else was on fire. And decided that he didn’t deserve the name “Human.” So unable to control himself, he flew into a swimming pool. But the pool belonged to a rackets boss named Sardo who trapped the Torch under the winter glass cover.

And there we get the meme. “You fucked up a perfectly good robot is what you did. It has anxiety.”

Because so perfectly did the Human Torch replicate a human being, he could even develop claustrophobia. And did. Because of being buried underground and because of being trapped in the pool.

And this latent claustrophobia is what caused Vision to panic with Dormammu’s quicksand, Taurus’ pool, and Kang’s Macrobots.

So that’s that explained. FOR NOW.

In the present Vietnam, the hooded man is still meeting with Swordsman’s force ghost. Swordghost tells hooded man to chillax a little. Everything is going according to plan. Moondragon is coming and Mantis is beginning her instruction in the history of the universe.

But despite all hooded man’s training with the Priests of Pama, he has to fret. The plan is so intricate with so many different points. If even one little thing goes wrong... and even if Swordghost says nothing will go wrong, Mantis is hooded man’s daughter!

Yeah. Hooded man is secretly Libra.

AND NOW THE ORIGIN OF MANTIS.

And here a cheeky narration box says that this was why Avengers #123 was titled “An Origin for Mantis.” Like I said at the time, it had ambiguity about it.

The party of Thor, Mantis, Iron Man, and Haweye fly through time. Except Thor is leading this time voyage and holding the Synchro-Staff despite this being about Mantis’ backstory because: “Mantis may yet be overcome by her empathic nature during this voyage, and she cannot be entrusted with my care.”

Fuck you, talking stick that is secretly an alien.

Annnnyway. Planet Hala. The Kree homeworld. And the first year of their recorded history. Because yes, Mantis’ backstory goes back this far. Or at least the context for understanding it does.

And the Kree were already a warlike people. Strong, brutal, quick to anger, and obligate carnivores. If you see a Kree eating a salad, it’s fake.

And their leader was Morag, the mightiest male who hunts the mightiest, most ferocious beasts for his eats.

Oh and Hala was inhabited by another intelligent race at this time too.

The Cotati. Psychic plant people evolved from algae. They can locomote, slowly, and can communicate telepathically.

And neither the Kree nor the Cotati have anything to do with each other.

Since the Kree can’t eat them and since the Cotati aren’t competitors for resources, the Kree consider the Cotati and also all plants as beneath their notice.

And the Cotati consider the Kree frenetic and unstable barbarians WHICH ISN’T REALLY WRONG.

But everything changes when imperialism happens.

A spaceship touches down on Hala, observed by both races and believed by both races to be harbinger of the end of the world. WHICH ISN’T REALLY WRONG.

And from the spaceship comes the Skrulls! In the future, the age old enemies of the Kree. In this flashback, some little green men from space. And these Skrulls are not the Skrulls we know.

I mean, they’re still arrogant jerks but they’re straightforward arrogant jerks. Emperor Dorrek I lays out exactly what their deal is.

In the past decade, the Skrulls have perfected interstellar travel and Skrull scouts have traveled around space only to discover that they’re the best in space. Nobody else they found even approached their level.

But not being warriors, the Skrulls have decided there’s another way to exploit all these space people. So Dorrek has been traveling planet to planet and offering a beneficial proposition (not sure its ‘mutually beneficial’ but it could reasonably be described as beneficial).

The Skrulls will provide knowledge and technology in exchange for the loyalty and resources of their vassal planets. Sounds easy enough.

Sounds a lot like the Shi’ar actually. They’re the most notable space empire for having a lot of vassal planets. Except they’re kind of assholes while the Skrulls would be mostly exploitative and condescending. So like less bad Shi’ar.

There is one caveat though. Having two intelligent races on a single planet could create confusion or dissension over who will be representing the planet to the Skrulls. So the Skrulls will set up a small test and settle who should represent the planet.

Seventeen Kree and seventeen Cotati will be taken to different uninhabited planetoids for a year with complete supplies. And when the Skrulls swing back to pick them up, they’ll judge what each group has done with their time. Easy peasy.

The Cotati immediately accept. They sense “arrogance but no deceit in the Skrulls” and plus they want to grow. Its a plant thing, probably.

The Kree are “too barbaric to allow themselves a luxury like trust” or maybe wise enough to know that you don’t immediately trust weird chinned aliens that come bearing situational gifts and not having psychic powers would prefer to take some time to think through their course of action.

So for the rest of the day, the Kree debate whether to take the Skrulls up on their offer or not. Declining would probably mean the Cotati would win by default but when Morag decides to agree to the offer its because “he has heard no way to gracefully decline.”

And buddy, I’ve been there. Social is hard.

So seventeen Kree and seventeen Cotati are taken aboard the Skrull’s mighty spaceship. The Cotati are taken a random planetoid and dumped off. They’re starting off on bad footing though. These seventeen Cotati have never been this far from the rest of their people before and suffer from the psychic isolation. Apparently they’re plunged into shock for days.

Hawkeye interrupts the story to comment that he was pretty sure that this whole thing was a Skrull trick. Speaking of tricks, someone, possibly Coloring Error, stole his pants while he was distracted by all this space history.

ANYway. Next the Kree are dropped off on a familiar looking planetoid called Earth’s Moon. Yup.

Of course, this took place a long, long time ago so life on Earth is still of the cellular variety.

The Skrulls set up an artificial atmosphere and left supplies and tools for the Kree. And then they leave the Kree for a year.

And the Kree haven’t been idle on a spaceship for the first time. During the journey, they’ve been making plans and as soon as the Skrulls leave, the Kree get to it.

They mind, they refine, they build. Its like Minecraft: Kree edition.

They apparently have near-perpetual daylight to work with. Which. I don’t know if that’s right. But whatever.

Each Kree works until he passes out, slumbers where he falls, and then gets back up to work again.

They stick to this routine for one full year (no party time for the Kree) and are finally able to look upon their completed project. A gargantuan gleaming blue city, a testament to Kree muscles and dedication and Skrull technology. A city with an artificial atmosphere on the Moon.

Yup. The Kree built the Blue Area that the Watcher squats in.

The Skrulls are extremely impressed. Its a nice city (Or it was when they first built it. Its a decaying ruin by the time the Fantastic Four find it) and they built it in a year with only seventeen people.

So the Skrulls gather up the Kree to transport them back to Hala. All through the journey back, the Kree envision long and glorious futures in the Skrull Empire for themselves. Which is a change in attitude from ‘we’re only doing this because we can’t think of the right way to say ‘thanks but no thanks to our first alien contact.’

But when Morag gets back home, he discovers that the rest of the Kree are all depressed and pissed off and nobody came out to welcome him home. Which: rude.

Nameless indistinguishable Kree guy tells Morag that the he wasted a year of his life. The Skrulls are more impressed with what the Cotati accomplished.

When the Cotati were left on their barren planetoid they reached out with their psychic plant powers and found ancient seeds and water beneath the planetoids surface. And they used these to create a, well, the comic doesn’t say this so I might as well. The Kree created the Blue Area of the Moon and the Cotati created a Green Area of Some Planetoid. A garden on an otherwise lifeless rock.

So Nameless Indistinguishable Kree Guy is sure that the Skrulls are going to pick the Cotati as the winners. And Morag is blown away that after struggling to build a city in only a year, a park is going to be judged more impressive.

Hell no. He worked too hard for the Kree to be left behind.

So the Kree pull out their ace in the hole to give themselves the edge in this contest. Which is that they are really, really good at murder.

Like, super good. Best at murder for lightyears.

So they head over under the cover of darkness and KILL THE COTATI!

And I don’t really approve or endorse using murder to win a contest to determine which race a silly group of green imperialists like best but.

I mean, you have to give them credit where its due. I wasn’t joking about the Kree being super good at murder.

Over one night, they manage to kill every Cotati. A species of plant people that occupied an entire half of the planet. And they manage this with nothing more than a pointy rock tied to a stick.

Its definitely an achievement.

Anyway, by morning the Kree greet the Skrulls and tell Emperor Dorrek that they went ahead and solved the dilemma of Hala’s reputation for him. No big.

Perhaps not surprisingly (since these are the relatively kinder and gentler Skrulls of untold ages ago) Dorrek does not take kindly to the news. He is, in fact, horrified.

Emperor Dorrek: “You -- did what? Fools! Did you believe this would gain you our favor? Skrulls may deal with barbarians, but we do not condone barbarism! Now, Hala shall be shut forever from our circle of favored worlds!”

Yup. He just up and perma-bans them.

Which might have come as a shaming moment for the Kree except they just killed half a world. A handful more won’t matter. And after being exposed to all the Skrull’s wonderful toys, they’re not going back to their former ignorance.

Hawkeye (Mr. Peanut Gallery apparently) calls Morag stark, raving crazy and the stick doesn’t disagree but does wonder if they would see any more sanity if they were perusing Earth’s history.

So the Kree rush the Skrull spaceship with their pointed sticks and murder all the Skrulls.

Because, again, these are the Skrulls of long ago. They are not the scheming warriors that endless war with the Kree made them. Instead, they’re pacifists. Of the ‘think fighting is beneath them’ type. So they all die without fighting back.

“So much for pacifism” announces Hawkeye. Because Hawkeye.

Mantis argues that pacifism doesn’t preclude self-defense and grieves that the Skrulls believed otherwise.

Although its weird that this is apparently the first time the Skrulls’ sales pitch was met with violence. They never went somewhere where someone tried to kill them? They had no contingency for that? Huh.

So now the Kree have the planet all to themselves and they have a pile of Skrull bodies (probably to eat) and a Skrull spaceship. And they’re going to reverse engineer that ship and go out into space and kill the rest of the Skrulls because then the Kree can be bosses of space.

And apparently the Skrulls back on their homeworld weren’t keeping great track of their emperor because they never knew what happened to that ship. Probably figured it fell into a negative space wedgie. So they were entirely unprepared when decades later, the Kree attacked them with an armada.

And thus began the Kree-Skrull War.

Again, don’t want to condone killing and eating aliens and stealing their stuff necessarily but to go from using spears to mastering spaceship construction in decades? That’s really impressive.

But its still a little unclear what this has to do with Mantis. And I love space history but we’re here to learn about what Mantis has to do with space history.

And that will come next issue as the stick tells them to prepare to journey onward for more story.

But geez. The Kree really are the biggest dicks in space, huh?