#and that not us nor Kris are the antagonists

[cloudyartboi]

now i know you like deltarune

favourite character ?

i personally like lancer and/or ralsei (( idk how to spell ))

Aaayyy first ask I’ve received! =D

I honestly don’t think I have a favorite character (or at least not one I’ve fully settled on yet.) Though I could bring up a couple ones that I really like:

Deltarune spoilers for those who haven’t played or seen the game:

Cyber Queen (Yes I like to call her that rather than just Queen, I just think it suits her):

I find her to be more interesting antagonist in Chapter 2 than the Chaos King in chapter 1. She has a well written goofy personality, yet she still works pretty well in the chapter. I usually prefer more serious and intimidating villains, but I still really like a few of them (Bill Cipher and Discord are examples of goofier villains that I still really like.) She also works well thematically as she plays a part in Noelle’s character arc in chapter 2.

Noelle:

Speaking of Noelle, she’s definitely one of my favorites. Not just cuz of her arc, but her likely connections to Deltarune’s themes seem to imply we’re far from done with her. (And Snowgrave was pretty dark- I like the whole idea that she ends up at the same point in her character arc as she did in the normal route, but the journey to get there was very different and gave them a different outlook on it.)

Kris:

I for some reason like shy quiet characters (especially protagonists-). I don’t know even why. Speaking of which, I get the feeling that there’s a 50% chance they’re the knight honestly. I know this theory is almost universally disregarded as debunked by the community, but I’d have to disagree. Most evidence that people use to say it’s impossible is weak and based off either false or only one interpretation of a scene or text that has multiple ways of being interpreted, and honestly I’d say you could argue that Kris being the knight would be more narratively powerful than baiting the audience twice in a row. (Some people probably just reject this idea simply because they don’t want to believe what they believe is bait in a giant who-dun-it mystery, even though you could argue that Kris’s motives as the knight is the actual mystery and not whether they are the knight or not (which would make sense given Deltarune’s protagonist vs player conflict that this scene could be trying to further establish, and cramming a whole who-is-the-knight mystery alongside that could probably result in both being weakened severely)) I could write an entire essay on this if I really wanted to, but I’ll leave it at this.

Berdly:

I had to remember and take another look at what this guy’s backstory was again, and honestly, I relate to this guy’s fear of the possibility of having to go somewhere without the help of Noelle, since I’m soon going to enter the adult world, and gonna have to learn how to do everything by myself without the help of people who I’ve relied on- (it was also cool to see him genuinely concerned about Noelle in the Snowgrave route before being turned into a frozen chicken nugget-)

Ralsei:

This guy’s cute and all. The suspicions that people have on him are a bit overblown in my eyes, but I can still see the possibility of something being wrong with him. (I honestly didn’t see much wrong with Ralsei supposedly talking to Kris off camera since I’m pretty sure I skipped the second one during my first playthrough cuz I didn’t know what it was when I first saw it- Nor did the whole titans and the roaring thing come across as withholding information to me since he still explained that the world would end in chapter 1. But he simply didn’t give the details for exactly HOW it would end, though you still could argue that itself was still extremely important) Still wouldn’t be too surprised if he turns out to be hiding something big though.

[australet789]

Honestly, i dislike the theories about the Soul being a full possessive entity and Kris being fully miserable cause like... that's not what's shown. Kris does have agency in a lot of stuff (example: attacks they use, clothes they wear, the whole cutscenes), and while us the players have the ability to choose, we dont get a say in which the alternatives are. We are trapped too with limitless options on what to make Kris say/ask, and even when we have the option, is not clear what the actual outcome might be and sometimes (or most of the times), Kris seems to agree with what the player does, only time showing discomfort are the Weird/Snowgrave route, the Spamtom fight and in Hometown.

Are we responsible when we hurt the characters? Certainly. And we do get guilt out of that. But not for that it means that we are the main villain or fully evil, because if you say the Soul is the problem, then we the players are too and there wouldnt be a game nor would Kris would be able to get to the Dark World.

So while, yes, Kris doesnt like to have a parasite like being living inside them all the time, at certain points, it's shown that they dont seem to mind and are complicity with what we do.

I think the main goal shouldn't be wanting to get rid of us, but find a way to be a TEAM and release ours and theirs (Kris's) full potential.

P.S: i dont think the Spamtom fight made Kris uncomfortable because of the puppet thing, but because of what they can become if letting us taking full control. Even tho most of the times we dont do fucked up stuff, things like the Weird Route might be the reason Kris could be scared. It's more about the "what ifs" rather than fully rejecting us living inside them.

[protectchara201x]

(ignoring all the other juicy Deltarune 2 stuff to shove Chara Talks into it lololol)

I haven’t been super active on this blog because frankly I have like, three? looong analysis/theorycrafting posts I’ve been putting off working on and it fills me with shame to log in and see them waiting in my drafts.

But.

With the release of Deltarune Chapter 2, I wanted to talk kinda in general about how I thought it could impact the fandom’s perception of Everybody’s Favorite Demon Baby, and also point out something in specific about the Weird Route that might connect back to Undertale.

Putting it under the cut to avoid spoilers and long-winded ramblings for the unwilling. Includes spoilers for the Weird Route.

(NOTE: may update later if I notice more things for to put in section II. I’d like to make a full list of parallels if I can tidy them up.)

I. Pre- vs Post-Release Thoughts (you can skip down to II if you don’t care, it is genuinely Long and Pointless)

Okay, so first off. I got SO worried like, the day before the new chapter dropped? It hit me that whatever new stuff we got out of this, people would connect back to Undertale, and. Honestly, I really do hate connecting everything back to Chara, because I do think of Kris as their own character and I really like them and don’t want to ignore everything they got going on. But, I am first and foremost a shameless Chara stan and they’re very important to me, so I kinda... did spend a few minutes reeling from all the new DR stuff as its own stuff, and then immediately started thinking about how this would reflect back on Chara in Undertale lol.

But that’s ok for me to do here because this is my All Chara, Only Chara, All The Time blog, so I am gonna only really talk about Deltarune here to talk about them lol.

So yeah, I started getting anxious beforehand worrying about how everyone would take any and all implications and apply it to mean “aha, Chara IS evil!” The fakeout with the pie reveal in the anniversary stream was a big relief, but I still got worried leading up to the release about what could be in it.

Because part of why I’ve always thought that “Chara was genuinely evil from the start” and even “ok maybe not TOTALLY evil, but Chara was still a kinda bad person” were unlikely was, even if you throw out all the other popular Chara-sympathetic theories. To me, both these takes just seemed too below TF’s talent and the way he wrote all his other characters with depth and love; a Chara like the one these theories propose just doesn’t belong in a world created by TF, and the way the Dreemurrs talk about them overall, the way TF made a point of having Chara say they were guided and repeatedly, correctly blame you the player for the destruction in Kill-All, I was sure that he never intended them to ever be as bad as the fandom sometimes tried to make them out to be.

... Like, mostly sure. Like, 80% sure? Because he never ever talks about them, so it’s impossible say for sure, and it is still theoretically possible that “Chara was and is bad” was the cold-ass take he’d intended all along. So yeah, leading up to the release, I started getting antsy that whatever new lore came out of it, either he’d directly confirm “Chara was a villain?” “*cocks gun* Always has been” or there’d be something that’d at least heavily implicate them, or could be twisted to implicate them, as a negative force. More ammo to be used against them in the Chara Debate Circles would be a drag, and outright confirmation of them as a villain would honestly break my heart and I’d be forced to disown Toby Fox, My Beloved Cool Dad.

And, right now? Tell the truth, I’m SO relieved and I am SO happy. And not just because of how much depth and characterization it seems Kris is getting! (imo, because rn I just headcanon them as an unhappy teen desperately trying to keep their new friends going on adventures with them and trying to fight back against the player’s control)

I love how this chapter seems to be TF doing course-correcting based on fandom interpretations. Because Kris just isn’t evil, even if they are a knife teen, even if they are the Knight, they’re just NOT evil and that’s canon, baybeeee; it’s made clear in this chapter and the previous one that they love their family even outside of the player’s control, they care about their new friends even outside of the player’s control, they’re established as a weird creepy kid but no one sees them as scary or evil, they’re just Kris, and even in the Weird Route, TF made a point of hammering in the differences between Kris and the player in the Weird Route: Susie and Ralsei notice how distressed Kris seemed after you have Noelle ice Berdly, Noelle heard a voice that she said wasn’t Kris telling her to kill, and the FUCKING Spamton fight: “Kris called for help... but nobody came” again and again, and then “You whispered Noelle’s name”... you, not Kris.

I know TF has never commented much on fans’ perceptions of Frisk and Chara, or who exactly is pulling strings in different routes. But after all this, and especially after seeing all the little winks and nods to fandom jokes in this chapter (what comes to mind: pulling everyone’s leg by seeming to have Kris attack Toriel with a knife only to reveal that pie theory was right, Susie not liking Ralsei’s real face as much as his shadowed one, Ralsei with a gun getting referenced with the ad, Kris getting a joke fixation with knives after the fans made Chara and Kris have knife obsessions as a joke), and seeing what looks like him try to correct some things (what stuck out to me was doubling down on showing that Kris is loved and valued in their family: lots of fans came away from Chapter 1 thinking that Kris was not valued as much as Asriel, but here we see that Toriel is supportive of Kris’ friendship with Susie, and it’s stated that Asriel is the one who used the crappy controller, not Kris) -

I think while he hasn’t commented directly, while he admitted to being overwhelmed by Undertale’s success, while he tends to be pretty tight-lipped about the lore (whether that’s because it’ll be addressed by future chapters or because he prefers to let fans sleuth it out), this chapter convinced me that Toby does keep tabs on fan reactions in Deltarune, so he probably does with Undertale too and would know about all The Discourse surrounding Little Mx Pink Cheeks (and in turn, popular theories like Narrator Chara... Toby if you integrate Narrator Chara into Deltarune being a borderline creepypasta and have the narrator start talking directly to the characters or to the player or the characters start talking to the narrator I will lose my damn B E A N S).

(Kris and Chara not being demonized and the narrator interacting directly with the characters were the only two things on my wishlist going in, I was fine with literally anything else happening lmao)

I even kinda think he’s going out of his way to separate Kris and the player because we didn’t get it before with Undertale, we still insisted that Frisk or Chara was the one doing it, and he’s even using Kris to show that even if this kid can be scary, maybe even mean, and maybe they’re even the Knight (with their reasons unknown), they’re still not a bad kid, they’re still funny and likable, and they still genuinely love their family and friends - which falls in line with Undertale’s cast of complex but likable people who can be antagonists and make mistakes but still aren’t truly bad people, and imo is a direct response to some people fixating on the idea that Chara was always evil because they seem scary/complicated.

... Which is a long way to say that I came out of Deltarune with my confidence fully restored about TF’s intentions with Chara and Kris. Even if he never comments on Chara directly, now I really don’t think TF thinks they’re evil or ever intended for them to be. Deltarune convinced me more than ever that Chara is meant to be complex, yes, and able to be influenced to do horrible things, but they were never intended to be as malicious or shallow as some fans insist.

TLDR:

Toby Fox read your mean fanfiction where Chara is a bad abusive serial killer no one likes, and he made Deltarune in revenge.

... Hm? Ah, you’d like me to get to the point! Right this way!

II. Undertale, Deltarune, and The Point

While no doubt some will still take the voice Noelle hears to be Chara influencing her to turn her into a murderer (I haven’t gone looking for it yet, but I’m sure it’s already a thing because I know this fandom), since it’s made too clear by the game that they can’t blame Kris for this one, I think at this point that’s just being too stubborn to consider other ideas.

If you believe in the totally made up idea used in so many fanfics that Chara is an evil spirit trying to whisper in Frisk’s ear to kill everyone, literally (for some reason) the embodiment of raising stats, and gets more control over people who have increased LV to take over their body... sure. Could be them, they did talk about moving on to the next world and all. I mean, that wouldn’t really make sense because it’s literally never implied in the actual game that Chara encourages you to kill outside of the Kill-All Run or even wants you to, certainly not as the narrator and we get no hint of them doing this as an unseen, unheard third-party either.

Not to mention they’re NOT literally possessing you because of increased LV; they don’t control you even with high LV in any Undertale route other than arguably the Kill-All, and if you fail the Kill-All and it turns into a high-body count Neutral, Chara suddenly stops using first-person narration and showing up in mirrors entirely even though they were showing themself before, the LV remains the same or even can get raised as high as LV 19, nor do they suddenly take over in any other Neutral runs. We can speculate on why (personally, I’d place this either on Chara’s mindset, such as them sinking into shock from the trauma or becoming more assertive as the player feeds their megalomania, or as a sign of Frisk’s withdrawal, leaving Chara alone in the body to take the reins and act out the player’s orders), but canonically, no, Chara does not take over due to high stats.

In fact, there’s even more evidence against this. First-person narration also exists for fleeing your battles in Undertale, even on Pacifist runs with base stats, 0 EXP, and an LV of 1. Since Chara is established to use first-person narration to refer to themself, is the only one who canonically does so, and is confirmed to be present even in all runs through their name and memories always showing up, it seems pretty likely that Chara can take control to flee battle. That means an increase in stats is not a sign of their presence or control, in Undertale or Deltarune.

The most damning blow to the idea that Chara is the voice corrupting Noelle are the lines in the fight with Spamton I mentioned. Kris called for help, but nobody came. You whispered Noelle’s name. Well hold on. If that’s Chara, shouldn’t it be “I whispered Noelle’s name”? As soon as you’ve officially started the Kill-All in Undertale, Chara starts up their “It’s me, Chara” schtick right away, right there in Toriel’s home in the first area, and if they weren’t the narrator before, they’re beginning to speak through the narration now. If the voice was Chara, surely Toby Fox knows it’d be a way bigger “oh shit” moment if the creepy scary hidden route once again switched into first-person, scaring us the same way he did before when we first saw “It’s me, Chara” and knew something was wrong; unfairly or not, their reputation as a villain is still well established and hinting to Chara’s presence with a simple “I” would drive the menace even further, if he intended for them to simply be a demon that possesses player characters when you grind enough. But it’s still just you. The player.

The Weird Route does even more to help Chara’s case than that. Not only is it made pretty clear that Kris and the player are separate, and the player is the one responsible for corrupting Noelle and making her kill... consider how similar Noelle and Chara are, in the Weird Route and the Kill-All Route.

This “voice” that “guides” them in growing strong, compelling them to kill everyone in order to fight for them, eventually driving them to murder people they know. Chara calls themself “the demon that comes when people call its name”, and you whisper Noelle’s name to have her appear to kill Spamton. Noelle’s conflicting emotions towards Kris and the voice as she is manipulated, as she becomes more violent and sadistic, as she goes into shock; does that not sound like Chara, who flipflops between holding you dear as their partner and wanting to move on to the next world together, to be together forever, and them being disgusted by your refusal to accept consequences and the perverse enjoyment you get in killing everyone again and again? Chara, who clings to their quirky narration for much of the Kill-All, but keeps slipping up, who becomes terrifyingly cold, aggressive, power-hungry, and even sadistic, yet still calls Undyne “the heroine”, still seems to still care about their locket, still has moments where they seem to falter?

Noelle does put up significantly more resistance to the voice’s commands than Chara does, and at least much more visibly shows distress and trauma. I don’t think this is a black mark on Chara’s chara-cter either, or an indication of them being more violent or cruel.

For one, while Noelle is still herself with her own soul, it is heavily implied by Chara, Flowey, and Undertale’s lore that Chara was reincarnated without their own soul, at best perhaps attached to Frisk’s (or yours): as I speculate in one of my currently unfinished theories, while monster souls are made up of love, compassion, and hope and thus Asriel was reincarnated without these qualities, it could well be that human souls are correspondingly made up of their own multiple traits, namely determination, patience, bravery, integrity, perseverance, kindness, and justice; if true, a soulless Chara would be lacking these qualities, which would make them less equipped to resist the player’s commands or to feel as torn up about it.

Also, the player has a hold on them both as “party members” to the player’s vessels, but it is also possible that the player naming Chara and having them directly attached to Frisk also gives them a stronger connection to Chara they can abuse, similar to how Kris and Frisk (as the player’s direct vessels) have much less autonomy than Kris’ party members.

(Fun observation: We know that when the thing controlling Kris forced Noelle into becoming a killer and using her to kill Berdly, Kris was horrified and shaken-up according to Susie and Ralsei. How do you think Frisk felt watching Chara be used to slaughter the Underground and then erasing the world when they’re totally corrupted?)

And lastly... look, Noelle and Chara are both minors, but Chara is significantly younger - a small child compared to Noelle’s teen. I know it’s fiction and strong wills and determination and anime is real and all, but a traumatized young child who died two violent and awful deaths back-to-back, may have literally experienced being a corpse in their own coffin/grave for who knows how long, and then came back ”confused” only to immediately start hearing a voice relentlessly commanding them to kill everyone?? I can absolutely see a traumatized kid shutting down and just going with it out of fear at first, before the LV sets in.

TLDR:

What you do to Noelle in the Weird Route is the same fucking thing you do to Chara in the Kill-All Route.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Await Further Instructions

The grim science-fiction/horror drama "Await Further Instructions" has a great premise: British working class family the Milgrams gather for Christmas dinner after years of estrangement, but soon find themselves trapped inside their suburban home by a mysterious, unidentified entity who exclusively communicates with the Milgrams through their television. All the windows and doors are sealed shut from the outside. All cell phones and computers are down. The only source of information from the outside world is the family television, which prompts the now understandably terrified Milgrams to do exactly as it says.

Unfortunately, director Johnny Kevorkian and screenwriter Gavin Williams not only put their Beanstalk-high concept to ill use, but also fail to keep their drama compelling on a scene-to-scene basis. So what starts as mere fable ultimately becomes an unintelligible parable about how the road to Brexit was paved with xenophobia (accurate) and a media-engineered plot to brainwash the masses (Uh, come again?). Or, put another way: "Await Further Instructions" starts off like a classic episode of Rod Serling's searing, imaginative "The Twilight Zone," but ends like a feature-length installment of Forest Whitaker's unfocused, dismal "The Twilight Zone."

Comparisons between "Await Further Instructions" and "The Twilight Zone" are hard to avoid given that Williams's stage-y scenario is also an extended commentary/diagnostic on what ails modern society. There are other superficial similarities—especially the film's real-time-style pacing and central location—but the biggest is Williams and Kevorkian's unadorned, flat style of dramaturgy. Just listen to the way these characters interact with each other: they're one-dimensional foils, each one reflecting the other's defining ideology. This was rarely a major problem when Serling presided over "The Twilight Zone" since he, as series creator and head writer, often excelled at dialogue (not to mention monologues) that had psychological depth, political insight, and poetic rhythm. 

But the individual members of the Milgram family are only important inasmuch as they speak to generalizations about their respective stock characters. It's a domino chain: the family's racist patriarch ("The Strain" star David Bradley) butts heads with go-along-to-get-along authoritarian son Tony (Grant Masters), which puts extra pressure on Tony to silence any and all dissent from his prodigal son Nick (Sam Gittins) and Nick's quasi-progressive girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik).

Annji is not much of a character since all she does is stand up for herself whenever her skin color proves to be a controversial topic of discussion: she's not Caucasian, which makes Bradley's dad angry, which makes Annji and Nick unhappy and Tony extra-pissy. Unfortunately, Tony usually talks loudest, so we spend too much time watching Naik and Gittins tentatively stand up for themselves, but quickly sit right back down after Masters glowers and pouts at them. That power dynamic makes sense—and is sadly all too real—but it's not especially dynamic when there's no poetry in the characters' dialogue, nor any insight as to why they are the way they are. Political proselytizing is one thing, but monotonous bickering is another.

Thankfully, "Await Further Instructions" is compelling, until its lousy finale, as a cynical, rough-around-the-edges morality tale about how directionless a group of people can be if their survival depends on, uh, a television. The Milgrams carry out new dehumanizing orders almost as soon as they receive them, despite some resistance from (you guessed it) Annji and Nick. But while Tony and his hothead son-in-law Scott (Kris Saddler) have moments of indecision, those moments pass quickly (and are often immaterial to the film's plot). Genre film fans may be drawn in by the Milgrams' menacing boob tube antagonist. The Milgrams' TV is, admittedly, sorta spooky in a couple of scenes, especially the one where Nick's frail mother Beth (Abigail Cruttenden) begs her television to spare the life of her pregnant (and racist) daughter Kate (Holly Weston). 

But "Await Further Instructions" completely falls apart during its concluding 20 minutes. At this point, it not only stops making sense on a dramatic level, but a symbolic one. The Milgrams' panic increases as their dilemma catastrophically intensifies, but nothing about the film makes that escalation seem believably urgent. The acting is uniformly flat, the lighting and cinematography are dull, and the dialogue is unremarkable. 

Most importantly: this go-for-broke black comedy doesn't have anything intelligible to say about society's addiction to technology. An important subject doesn't necessarily make for a thrilling satire/social critique and Kevorkian and Williams simply aren't outlandish enough to land their half-baked ideas about television's dominating influence. "Await Further Instructions" never really works, but it's worth rooting for ... right until it collapses spectacularly.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2yhEMVA

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1218

Monday, June 24, 2018

 Yesterday was a perfect fishing day. Due to scheduling and health problems I went out on my own on a cloudy morning with a slight breeze. I started out using a surface lure called a Skitterpop and had a missed hit on it after a few casts. The splash was pretty big. I waited a couple of minutes and switched to a shallow running minnow lure and cast it back to where the fish missed my popper. Sure enough, it took it and I landed a nice two pound largemouth bass in the first 10 minutes of fishing. We fishermen have appropriated the baseball term "double header" for when two people catch fish at the same time. I use the term "a double" when I catch a fish on two consecutive casts. I have even accomplished the rare "triple" where I hooked a fish and released it, then on my next cast hooked another and after releasing the second fish, hooked another on my third consecutive cast. I found a spot in the lake yesterday where I got a "home run". I landed and released 4 fish on four consecutive casts. Sure, the first fish was a little sunfish that wasn't even as long as my lure, and the other three were small bass, but man was it fun. My next goal will be a "grand slam", 5 fish on 5 casts. I even had a double later on. I finished yesterday's trip with a new high score for this year landing 26 fish, setting a new solo record. I hooked up 10 other times but the fish got off my barbless hooks before I could get them into the boat. I hope that I can convey the joy that I feel from my two hobbies, fishing and reading comic books, to you all in some small way.

 Man of Steel #4 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Kevin Maguire (art) Jason Fabok (art pages 12 - 13) Alex Sinclair (colours) Josh Reed (letters). Superman and Supergirl engage in fisticuffs with the bad guy. There are little touches like rescuing the falling girl and someone saying "agh" in this issue that made me smile. Another hint to what happened to Lois and Jon is given and new players join the fight. The Kevin Maguire art is a bonus. I am disappointed with this story but it's not so bad that I'm not going to read the last two issues.

 Tony Stark Iron Man #601/1 - Dan Slott (writer) Valerio Schiti (art) Edgar Delgado (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I enjoyed Dan Slott's run on Amazing Spider-Man. He basically made Peter Parker a Tony Stark clone when he started up Parker Industries so I'm not surprised that he has taken over Iron Man after Brian Michael Bendis's departure. The focus now is on Tony and his multiple suits of Iron Man armour with the first big giant super hero fight against a classic Iron Man super villain. We're starting off with a lighter tone and this debut was fun to read. There's no iron hide nor hair of Riri Williams and I was disappointed, but the great art made up for that. It's nice to keep Iron Man on my "must read" list.

 Batman: Red Hood vs. Anarky - Tim Seeley (writer) Javier Fernandez (art) Hugo Petrus (pencils pages 14 - 16, 18) Otto Schmidt (epilogue art) John Kalisz (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). Prelude to the wedding part 4. Batman hires the Red Hood to shadow Selina while she's out with her girlfriends at her bachelorette party. Anarky doesn't crash the party but Selina and the girls end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't read the Red Hood comic book but I might now. He's leading a team that has Bizarro as a member. That sounds cool. Meanwhile, the Joker is still looking for his invite to the wedding.

 Runaways #10 - Rainbow Rowell (writer) Kris Anka (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Best Friends Forever part 4. The team tries to get Julie Power back to normal after she eats the enchanted cupcake and reverts back to her thirteen year old self. Great foreshadowing on the Alice in Wonderland cover. I liked the juxtaposition of Molly and Abigail's friendship and Karolina and Julie's relationship.

 Doctor Strange #392/2 - Mark Waid (writer) Jesus Saiz (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Sorcerer Supreme of the Galaxy part 2. Well, that didn't take long. Two weeks for us but over two months for Stephen while being held captive by the Gryndans. I like the new sidekick. She's no Wong or Clea but she's got spunk. The Doc's space adventure continues with the next alien encounter sure to make Marvel fans happy.

 Hunt for Wolverine: The Claws of a Killer #2 - Mariko Tamaki (writer) Butch Guice & Mack Chater (pencils) Cam Smith & Mack Chater (inks) Dan Brown (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I'm benching this team. Daken, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth don't look like they're going to find out anything of significance. This issue is just them fighting zombies and some mystery organization wanting to get their hands on Daken.

 Ant-Man and the Wasp #2 - Mark Waid (writer) Javier Garron (art) Israel Silva (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Things get even more harrowing for Nadia and Scott in the Microverse as Scott tries to reverse Nadia's blindness when the natives interfere. The art in this is absolutely amazing. If the FX in the new movie is as good as this comic book, it will be bonkers.

 Avengers #693/3 - Jason Aaron (writer) Paco Medina & Ed McGuinness (pencils) Juan Vlasco with Mark Morales and Jay Leisten (inks) David Curiel (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Finding out whether Loki is friend or foe to these Avengers is what's keeping me reading. He shows Captain America what's ailing Earth so that the heroes can come up with a way to save the planet. Meanwhile Thor and She-Hulk confront Odin to get answers to what happened in the distant past to make the Celestials pissed off with our planet. Jason Aaron makes this team book interesting by splitting it up into smaller groups so that it's not just one big giant fight scene. At least not yet.

 Amazing Spider-Man #801 - Dan Slott (writer) Marcos Martin (art) Muntsa Vicente (colours) Joe Caramagna (letters). Dan Slott's last issue on this title is a fitting tribute to the character and all that he did writing the book for ten years. Spider-Man is my all time favourite super hero and I give credit to Dan and all the artists that he worked with for creating interesting and entertaining stories. I may have been disappointed at times but never so much that I stopped reading this book. Now we'll see what Nick Spencer (writer) and Ryan Ottley (art) have in store for us when their first issue hits the rack July 11.

 Batman #49 - Tom King (writer) Mikel Janin (art) June Chung (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). The Joker incapacitated Batman last issue and Catwoman comes to the rescue this issue. She doesn't pussyfoot around with the crazed killer and both antagonists wind up fatally wounded. Most of this issue is the two of them talking about their relationship with the Dark Knight. The potential for both of them dying is very real. Next issue is The Wedding, so you know who lives. I love when writers get into the heads of these characters.