#crusher cap's good too but MAN

[meyerlansky]

CURT BIDDICK in MASTERS OF THE AIR, PART TWO ↳ i mean, i wasn't that bad, right?

[jakes3resin]

Ran My Fingers Through Your Hair

Curls Fic is finally finished, @getinthefuckingjaeger here you go, the finished thing. I'm going to go lay down and wail now.

John's curls are a mess.

Well, technically everyone's hair is a mess right now. Buck can't even imagine what his own hair looks like at the moment, but Buck can only focus on John, has only been focused on John since the man walked in looking like he'd been kicked to hell and back nearly a week ago.

It's just... John's curls are tangled. They're dirty, and Buck isn't completely sure they actually managed to wash out all of the blood. He'd been too focused on keeping John alive back then. He still is, but now with John's fever finally breaking, Buck can focus on other important things.

Like John's curls.

They're the prettiest shade of chestnut that Buck's ever seen. Never seen anything half as pretty. John says his hair's just brown, maybe a coffee brown if he's feeling poetic, but he doesn't know what Buck's talking about when he says they shine in the sun. There are pretty hazel and auburn undertones that you can see when Bucky stands just right in the sun if you look, and Buck always looks.

That pretty chestnut is hidden now. No hazel or auburn in sight. Buried even. Under dirt, blood, and grease like Buck's never seen. John's hair is a mess.

And don't get him started on John's curls. Buck can barely bring himself to see them as they are now. They're usually movie star pretty without John even trying. Buck had heard more than one girl lamenting how such pretty curls ended up with John, who doesn't grow them out or spend too much time on'em. He doesn't need to, Buck muses as he reaches out for one such curl. They just spring to life, beautiful and perfect. John grumbles more often than not that they're annoying under his crusher cap, how they're always falling in his eyes if he doesn't gel them back. So why can't he cut them off, Buck always gets asked, big blue eyes staring up at him with light and laughter.

Because I love them, Buck always answers. And that's that. John always let's Buck have his way and keeps his beautiful curls even when he moans and groans about them. He doesn't mind them too much really, just complains so that Buck turns to stare at him. He loves it. He let's Buck pet them and preens when Buck helps style them.

Buck's curls are limp now, weighed down and unwashed.

It's silly to be so hung up about the state of John's curls, this Buck knows. But, there's something in him that needs to see those curls healthy and full of life. A clawing, desperate thing that refuses to budge out of his chest whenever he looks down and see dark, dark blood and dirt burying those precious curls.

Where did it all come from? Buck brushes more dirt off. Why won't it just go away? Why is it there? What happened to John to cover him like this?

"Buck," Brady's voice cuts through Buck's thoughts, and he stares up at the other. He clears his head, tries to show Brady that everything's fine, that Bucky's on the mend.

Brady looks worried. Buck understands. Even though John's fever had finally broken late last night, they're not out of the woods yet. There's still the concussion to worry about, the barely healing wounds on his face and body, not to mention the general peril of living here in this camp that could end up killing John. Worrying about all of that is exhausting, and Buck hopes the boys can at least take some hope and solace that John's doing a bit better today. Some hope would be good for them.

"I brought dinner." Brady lifts his hands, showing off the bowls full of what passes for food round here. Buck presses his lips together, trying to calculate just what he'd have to bargain to get John something healthier. "How about I help him eat? Give you some rest."

Rest? Buck turns back to stare at John. He's still sleeping thankfully, but can Buck afford to rest right now? There's so much to do still. He can't leave John.

"I'm fine Brady."

Buck doesn't turn to look at the other man, but he hears him sigh and turn away. Plates clang together, and Buck just lets that noise fade away to check on John again.

He's still sleeping. Doc says it's good that he's sleeping, that it means his fever and concussion are healing. Buck hasn't seen those pretty blue eyes in so long, but he tells himself that it's okay. That rare fevered glimpses will be enough if it means John's here, that he's healing like he should be.

Buck doesn't think about those first few awful days. John collapsing into his arms. Brushing dirt off only to find dried blood and deep wounds. His temperature rising and rising without end. Of John's screams as the fever dragged up memories Buck couldn't understand. How John had stared through him, treating him like a ghost.

Perhaps Buck is a ghost. Perhaps he...

"Major, please."

Buck jumps when he feels a hand come down onto his shoulder. He whirls around, placing himself between John and whoever dared get this close.

"Brady," Buck breathed out once he recognized the other man. Brady stares at him, face pale.

"Please, I'll wake him up and help him eat. You can sit right there and eat too."

"I'm fine," Buck brushes the other off. Brady clenches his jaw and steps closer. Buck reaches down to bury a delicate hand in John's curls. Despite the grime, they ground him, keep him in the moment.

"Sir," Brady's eyes dart from John to Buck and back. "I'd like to help. He wouldn't want you working yourself to the bone like this. He needs you Buck, and if you collapse because you wouldn't rest, I'm not sure the boys and I could take care of both of you."

Buck presses his lips into a fine line. His fingernails scratch at John's scalp. John stirs.

Brady turns back towards the table. Buck looks down at John. His eyelashes flutter, but sleep still seems to have him in its grasp.

"We could wash his hair after we eat."

Buck whips back up to look at Brady. Brady meets his gaze evenly. His fingers curl up, strands of hair caught in their grasp. John shifts under him. He breathes out, forcing himself to calm down.

"It's not right leaving his hair like that. Doc said we could try washing it once his fever broke, right? I'm sure Bucky would love to wake up to clean hair."

Buck stares at him. He slowly extracts his hand from John's curls. John murmurs something just as Buck takes one stumbling step away, but Brady rushes in before Buck can move back. He smiles at Buck, but it's not as calming as it should be

"I'll be over here then." The words taste bitter.

Buck gestures to the table. Brady seems to deflate ever so slightly, but Buck can understand that. Watching over John can't be good for the men. John's usually so full of energy, and watching him sleep and sleep and sleep has to be taking it out on the others. Buck should say something.

"Boys," Buck greets as he drags out a chair next to Benny who greets him with a quick nod. Benny gives him room, but his presence is grounding as Buck sits. The others stare back over their plates. "Mind if I join you?"

"Course not Buck," Murph slurps up his broth.

"Take a seat."

"Thanks."

Buck barely tastes the food, which on any other day he'd be glad for. The Ritz this was not, but the longer he sits, the more he wishes to go. He can hear John’s voice murmuring something, but it quickly stops. The boys all talk, discussing what's happened that day, guard rotations, and any news they've heard from the new arrivals. Important things, but Buck can’t focus on them. Their voices fade into a dull drone falling into his ears. Buck takes it in and tries not to turn around.

He stares down at his hands and tries not to flinch when he sees how dirty they are. Dirt, John had said something about shovels. Why shovels?

"Buck?" Benny nudges him.

"Hmm?" Buck scrapes his spoon against his bowl for lack of anything else to do.

"Crank says there's an extra jug of boiled water if you'd want to wash Bucky's hair."

A jolt runs through him. Buck looks up. Crank stares back, a tentative smile on his face.

"That's mighty kind of you," Buck drawls. "Thanks."

"I'll go grab it." Crank rushes towards the window.

"How's ole Sleeping Beauty over there anyway Brady?" Benny calls out. Buck clutches at his spoon.

"Sends him compliments to the chef. What do you think he's doing, Benny?" Brady calls back, a sarcastic bite to his voice that sends the others laughing.

"Just asking Johnny," Benny's leg presses against Buck's, and he tries to smile as everyone seems to take this as a cue to settle down.

Crank comes back with the water, sets it down right in front of Buck with a satisfying thud.

“Should be enough in there to get him up to grooming standards, right?” Crank laughs as he says it.

Buck’s stomach rolls. His meager dinner barely settled before it turns over. He says something, he’s really not sure, but the boys all laugh and turn back to the last of their food. Buck turns his head and catches Brady tucking a curl behind John’s ear. Its the one that likes to hang right in John's eyes. It flopped back nearly a second later, stubbornly refusing stay.

Brady looks over and sees him watching. He smiles, but Buck can see how tired the other man is, dark shadows under his eyes. None of this was easy for them. John was a pillar for every man here, had been since the war began, and watching him struggle like this couldn’t have been easy.

Buck excuses himself from the table, unable to bear it any longer. His exit is quietly accepted as the boys start to gather up plates. Crank takes his and exchanges it for the jug.

Normally, Buck would protest, but the water plays some kind of siren song on him. The idea of cleaning John’s hair is too tempting. He’ll have to get Crank back for it another day.

“How’s he doing?” Buck sets the jug down next to John’s bunk. Brady’s hands quickly gather up their dishes. John doesn’t stir.

“Ate most of the broth, hates turnips though,” Brady gnaws at his lip. “Wasn’t fully lucid, but he recognized me which is something right?”

“Sure, it is,” Buck pats him on the shoulder. “Doc said that it’s a good sign if he comes around like that remember?”

“Right Buck,” Brady holds up the plates. “I’ll take these, and then we can wash his hair. Wait for me?”

“Sure,” Buck says. The lie falls off his tongue without any remorse.

John’s hair… It doesn’t feel right letting someone else wash his hair. Not when he’s like this and doesn’t know who it is. Brady disappears from view, and Buck grabs a rag from his own bed. Its not much, but it’ll do for now. He dips it down into the water, he really was going to have to thank Crank. Buck hadn’t even thought to save some water.

Buck turns and looks at John. His curls lay limp against his pillow, gnarled and greasy. There’s dirt and blood streaked across the pillow. Buck desperately misses John’s shampoo. Some dame had recommended it to him once, and it worked wonders on his curls. Left them soft and springy when John didn’t style them.

Buck runs the rag gently across his head, careful not to tug on any of the curls. It comes away spotted with dirt, and it kills him that he has no idea where it came from. None of them were this bad when they came to camp. Just John. Just John with his dirt and blood.

“You said you’d wait Buck,” Brady sighs from behind him, and Buck can’t find it within himself to feel guilty. “Fine, I brought a bowl. We should be able to soak most of the blood out.”

Brady helps him maneuver the bowl under John’s head. Buck tosses the pillow aside, a vindictive pleasure running through him at sending the dirty thing flying. John flinches when they pour the water over his hair, but Buck is quick to calm him.

“Stop,” John grunts, restless. Brady freezes next to him, but Buck just pets at his curls. More blood blooms bright red in the water.

“Just me, Bucky, just me.” Buck whispers even as John clutches at his blanket. He mumbles his name, and Buck smiles. “Don’t worry, just washing out your curls for ya.”

Brady stays silent but tense next to him until John settles. Buck reaches over for one of the aid kits they’d kept at the foot of John’s bed since his arrival. There’s not much left having been picked clean while John’s fever raged, but there’s some soap that had been left alone thankfully. Buck had bartered for it before John’s arrival, and hopefully it’d do the trick here.

“Its not shampoo, but we’ll make do right John?” Buck runs a hand over John’s curls. Brady jolts next to him, and Buck spares him a glance. Right, he’d forgotten that his John wasn’t the only one here. “Run the suds back and forth over the curls. Don’t tug on’em, alright?”

John’s curls still feel stiff in his hands as he washes them. The blood had clumped and matted the hair on the back of his hair together, but letting it sit in the water seemed to be the trick. The water turns a deep murky brown, but a weight lifts off Buck’s shoulders the more he washes away.

“Hand me that comb.” Buck points, and Brady jumps to follow.

Brushing through the wet curls calms him. He’s done it hundreds of times. John pliant under his hands as he works. All that’s missing is John’s running commentary. Buck carefully works around the cuts on John’s head. They’d spot cleaned them to the best of their ability days ago, and Buck wasn’t going to risk reopening the wounds now. Doc could take a look in the morning if John felt up to it.

Wounds like these don’t just appear on a person’s head. One cut, Buck could chalk up to maybe the bail out hadn’t gone smoothly, but there were three cuts on John’s head all of them crisscrossing. Something has to happen to cause these. Someone has to be responsible for this. John had said something about German towns, calling out for guards to stop something. The pieces weren’t connecting.

There’s no towel to dry out John’s hair, but Buck grabs his spare shirt. He’ll be fine. Brady disappears with the bowl and jug.

“Buck?” John’s voice breaks through his concentration. His voice sounds lucid this time, and Buck scratches his nails through the now clean curls. John hisses at the sensation. “That you?”

“Got it in one.” Buck can’t hide the relief in his voice. “How you feeling?”

“Like shit.” John grunts. Buck can’t help the laugh that bursts out of him at that. God he’d missed that voice. It hadn’t been the same during those fevered days. John hadn’t… John hadn’t been there, not really.

Buck puts away his now sodden shirt and comes round to face John. Clear blue eyes greet him, and he can’t help the smile that fights to appear.

“Tell me I look better than you do?” John’s eyes trail over Buck’s face, and Buck drinks him in.

“Never,” Buck grins. John laughs and then groans as pain no doubt spikes through his head. Buck rushes forward cursing himself. He grabs his pillow off his own bed and gently lifts John’s head to place it underneath. “How’s that feel?”

“I’d say better, but this is worse than any hangover I’ve ever had.” John murmurs, eyes pinched tight. “How long have I been asleep?”

“In and out for about a week,” Buck shifts putting himself between the light and John’s eyes. The soft sigh of relief from John tells him everything he needs to know. “What do you remember?”

“Germans,” John shuts his eyes trying to concentrate. Buck cups his cheek, and John practically melts into the touch. His cheeks feel too warm against Buck’s cold hands, but its not high enough to be a fever. “Brits actually hit something.”

“What?” Buck’s heart leaps into his throat. Had John been in a bombing? The question bursts out of him before he can stop it. A dish clatters behind them, the sound as loud as a bomb in Buck's ears. A bombing could make sense. That would explain the head wounds.

“No,” John murmurs, eyes shut as if the memories are hurting him. “Sorry, that wasn’t it. After. Was there after. Germans were there. So much pain.”

“John,” Buck tried to soothe him. “Its okay. You’re not there anymore. You’re okay.”

“Terroflieger, that’s what they called us.” The German falls clumsily off John’s tongue. His breathing speeds up. His hands twist in his blanket. “The guards didn’t stop them. Shot the others”

“Stop John,” Buck begs. He doesn’t want to know this. “Just breathe, okay? Breathe for me.”

“They asked about you,” John stares up at Buck. His eyes are wild, and Buck’s not sure John’s even actually seeing him. He’s a ghost again for John. “Asshole seemed smug about it. Shooting down all the good pilots.”

Buck didn’t know what to say. He pulls John into his arms, allowing the other to bury his face into his shoulder. He murmurs quiet platitudes as John shakes. He wishes he could stop those memories from hurting John. Wishes he could wash them away like dirt and blood and dirty curls.

But all he can do is bury his hand into wet curls and curl himself around the one person he has to protect. His fingers tug and pull at the curls, destroying all of Buck’s hard work as John shakes in his arms still talking. Still listing horrors that Buck can't piece together. Voices fade in and out behind them.

“Its okay,” Buck murmurs, pressing a kiss into John’s curls. They’re a mess again.

“We’ll be okay.”

[gemshroud]

Weirdly specific things Entreri would Approve or Disapprove of if he was a BG3 companion

APPROVE:

Taking the ring from Mattis and just walking away

Baa-ing at the red caps (ha ha idiots)

Saving Arabella by talking down the snake rather than Kahga (color him impressed, you saved the girl without stirring the pot)

Giving the Noblestalk to Derryth (maybe wife beaters should die)

Rejecting Raphael at every turn but especially rudely

Every "kill yourself" boss option in Act 2

Making someone other than him go onto the clown stage (ha ha idiot)

Supporting Mol's business ventures

Biting Crusher's toe off (he's kind of a freak sometimes, I'm sorry)

Taking Gortash's offer

Freeing Wyll from his contract (it's not like I secretly like that guy or anything, I hate heroes, stop looking at my boner when he fights)

Extorting the chest from Rugan then killing him later to stay on the Zhent's good side

Letting Lae'zel just do whatever murderhobo thing she wants tbh

DISAPPROVE:

Drawing the mustache on Vlaakith (you're gonna get us killed in this base full of githyanki for your fucking whimsy)

Convincing Rolan to stay in the Grove (1. not our business 2. all your preaching is gonna do is just get these guys killed too, is that really what you wanted?)

Siding with Minthara against the Grove, though he won't leave the party neccesarily

Giving the Noblestalk to Baelen (maybe wife beaters should die!!)

Telling Tara to stop eating pigeons (this noble creature is living life to its fullest)

Making him go up on the clown stage, he will be unspeakably livid

Sparing the goblins Ketheric tells you to kill (idiot did you even see that man, do you even know where we are right now)

Letting Wyll kill Karlach (a real professional knows a bullshit job when they see one, hero)

Drinking Jaheira's truth serum spiked wine (you're embarrassing me in front of an actually savvy person, why are you always like this, Tav)

Getting whipped by Abdirak (he is kinkshaming you)

Fucking the Emperor (he's kinkshaming you again but also are you an idiot, that man is using us)

Fucking Mizora (I resent Wyll as much as I do any self-proclaimed hero, but he trusted you)

(General note from Entreri: STOP HAVING SEX AT CAMP)

Petting Scratch (he is joyless, get a move on)

Paying to free the artist (you're embarrassing me in front of the other criminals)

Talking to Naaber, just at all

Asking the drow sex worker to roleplay as Drizzt Do'Urden (Entreri isn't there, he just senses he should hate you for some reason)

THINGS HE'S INTERESTINGLY NEUTRAL ON:

In theory letting Gale blow up the Netherbrain would make the most sense but... I hate gods.

He is alarmingly unfazed by you licking the spider.

[mercurygray]

I'm still trying to figure out whatever Cord and Bucky's deal is, and @basilone suggested a slightly different perspective on the scene.

May, 1943. First impressions, as they say, are everything, and Harold Huglin is not impressed.

--

His mouth still tasted like chalk.

Colonel Huglin breathed in deeply through his nose and tried not to notice the aftertaste. It was nearly lunchtime, and he was simultaneously hungry enough to eat a horse and not in the mood to eat anything at all. His doctor had him on the most bland diet known to man, for the sake of the ulcer, but the milk and calcium carbonate he was also being prescribed wasn’t doing anything to help his appetite. He’d been managing pretty well for the last few days on dry toast and stewed vegetables, but it was May in England, and the chill of springtime was still hanging around the crabapple trees and absolutely cutting through his overcoat.

“It would appear our new Air Executive is late,” he said, testily, glancing out over the field for some sign, any sign, that Egan had remembered that they had a meeting scheduled this morning with the RAF, in advance of the official hand-over of the station.

“Would you like to go inside, sir?” Callaway looked worried about him, even though she herself was in even worse shape than him, out in her service skirt and stockings. “It’s still a little cold out here.”

She said it as an observation, not a complaint, or a request for special treatment. She hadn’t complained once, since they’d arrived - not on the drive over, even though the Jeep was open to the air, and not in the twenty minutes they’d been waiting in the wind. Huglin admired that, even if he didn’t have a way to say it. The lieutenant from Ohio was going to do all right, he thought. Captain Brennan had made a good choice to send her to the meeting today. A good head on her shoulders - a clear eyed way of seeing things that would serve her well, in the control tower. She’d shown up for their meeting on time, in perfect order, and even had a pad of paper to take notes. On the safety of that part of the venture he was perfectly sure. Of everything else?

Well, his Air Executive was late. That was about all he needed to know.

“No, thank you, Lieutenant. We should go in together.” A united front, he wanted to say, even though the Brits were their allies, and this was supposed to be the friendliest of friendly meetings. They were here, and making good on Roosevelt’s promises to Churchill to deliver the full force of American air power to the continent, all for the low, low price of several extra airfields in Norfolk and other points south. But Huglin already knew what the British thought of them - four years late to a show that had started in 1939 and had hardly stopped hitting them on the chin since then.

Four years late - and now late to this, too.

John Egan had come with the greatest of references from Kansas - a glowing career that had started well before Pearl Harbor, an officer who’d worked his way up from the bottom, been a valued instructor and a fixture to his unit. So just who the hell was this man who couldn’t show up to a meeting on time?

The familiar whine of an engine came roaring up from the road, and Huglin and Callaway turned to see a single man drive up in a jeep, crusher cap rakish on his head. He threw the shifter into park, turned off the engine, and pulled his rather tall self out of the Jeep, bounding over the still-thawing mud with his greatcoat flapping open as he went. Disorderly uniform, Huglin thought to himself, observing the way he’d already started shaping his hat. Well then.

“Colonel, hello.” The Major had something of the overgrown schoolboy about him that even the carefully cultivated mustache couldn’t hide. “Sorry to keep you waiting - got stuck behind a herd of cows on the road on the way up here.”

“You’re late, Major. I hope you won’t make it a habit.”

“Of course not, sir. Won’t happen again.” He smiled broadly and turned to take a good look at Callaway, his smile changing pitch a little. “Good morning, gorgeous. I don’t think we’ve met. John Egan. My friends call me Bucky.”

Huglin watched Callaway freeze in place, her expression hard to read. Was that embarrassment, or fear? He couldn’t tell - all he felt at the moment was a rising sense of anger. She had a bar on her shoulder and an eagle on her hat the same as his - so why address her like she was nothing more than the secretary? “Major Egan, this is Lieutenant Callaway, one of our flight control officers. She'll be in charge of the first shift, so she'll be sending the group out most mornings. She’ll be inspecting the site with us this morning.”

Callaway found her voice and held out a gloved hand to shake. “I believe protocol says I should address you as Major, sir.” Huglin smiled at that, the appreciation faint but there as he watched Egan’s smile falter a little as she failed to respond to his charm. At least someone around here knows how things ought to be done.

He glanced again at his watch and swallowed, still tasting chalk. “Right. Let’s go in.”

“After you, sir,” he heard Callaway say behind him, as the two of them fell in behind their CO. “Rank first.” Smart girl, Callaway. Keep that one where you can see him.

[spinningbuster98]

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Knuckles) Part 2: Knuckles hates the circus

Now I know that unlike Sonic he doesn’t chuckle (yeah sure), but what does Knuckles have against the circus? I don’t understand why his treck through the stage has him pretty much skip 90% of the thing, was Carnival Night just not designed with him in mind?

Other than that though everything else is fine, ice Cap I like how his act 2 focuses on the bottom portion of the stage and I like how different act 2 of Launch Base is with him. It’s appropriate that he gets to fight two versions of the miniboss, after Sonic only fought one with the other two being left inactive if you noticed.

What’s less appropriate is me dying all of a sudden for no good reason because Knuckles just happened to clip through the floor as I was falling

Ok let’s go there

If we wanna talk about an “objective flaw” that Sonic 3 has is that the game is...honestly pretty damn glitchy

Now I know full well that the whole “Sonic is a glitchy, rushed mess of a series lol” take is something that Sonic fans are sick of hearing but...guys there is a degree of truth in that statement and it cannot be denied. Sonic games, even in the early days, have always had at least a certain degree of rough edges. Sonic 1 and 2 were pretty minor with this, at worst there were some physics related shenanigans but nothing too noticeable. Sonic CD was pretty problematic though, with some winky collision detection at points and noticeable slowdown when things got too hectic

Sonic 3 might just be the worst of the classics in this area and Sega must’ve known this because even the International manual mentions something along the lines of Robotnik setting some traps that might be impossible to escape from without resetting the game....which is a cute way of saying you might get softlocked while playing this and I can confirm

Now I don’t wanna say it’s as bad as Sonic 06, but every time, every SINGLE time I play Sonic 3 SOMETHING happens. Whether it’s my dying for no reason at all like what happened here or in a previous video while in the Death Egg, me getting crushed for standing too close to a crusher even though I wasn’t actually crushed by it, clipping through some terrain because I was going too fast forcing me to restart (this happened recently to me twice during another Knuckles playthrough I was doing, during Hydrocity Act 2, and another time it happened while I was messing around with the Hyper Dash as Sonic) and my most detested and frequent occurence: coming at a complete stop while rolling in some specififc loops or up some small hills which is the absolute worse: you lose all momentum and speed for no reason in a game that’s all about momentum and speed

I don’t know what it is with Sonic and glitches, the obvious answer that most on the Internet would give is that Sega likes to rush out games and that Sonic Team is clearly incompetent, but while there is truth in the former statement (as I’ll touch on later), the latter just doesn’t make sense to me: you may use this explanation for current Sonic Team, but this is the Sonic Team that brought us the original games, Sonic 3 itself, glitches aside, is one hell of a game, these guys are by no means incompetent so what happened? Honestly I think it’s partly due to Sonic’s inherently speedy nature, which makes it way easier for physics related bugs to occur.

Honestly for as much as I love Sonic 3 to death I...don’t really have a defense for this. When I was a kid I would rationalize the bugs as this just being an older game, but not only were Sonic 1 and 2 not this buggy, no other big game from this era had all of these issues. Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X,all of these games do have glitches (as all games do), but they’re mostly minor stuff that you have to go out of your way to trigger and can actually be beneficial for speedrunning. If someone were to play this game for the first time and call it mediocre because they happened to run into these bugs frequently...I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I personally believe that Sonic 3′s overall design, gameplay, music and presentation are so top of their class that it allows me to mostly ignore the rough parts, but depending on one’s own sensibility regarding glitches this might not be enough.

Of course I do have an idea as to why Sonic 3 is so much buggier when compared to its predecessors and I believe it’s mostly due to its complicated development and it having to be split in two halves and I really wanted to focus on the latter part

Whenever I hear someone talk about Sonic 3 split nature they usually go “oh man lock on technology was so cool!”

And I’m like: they split a whole game in two parts and made you buy both of them. They sold you an incomplete game only to sell you the rest later on. This is almost the same shit companies like EA and Ubisoft pull nowadays, had the 90s had DLC that’s what Sonic & Knuckles would have been. People trash modern gaming for this, and rightly so, so why does nobody ever talk about this? And I’m not saying all of this because I want to bitch about how “Sega bad” and get a free cookie from Sonic Twitter, I know about the context behind this game, I know about Sega’s deadline due to their deal with McDonalds (which, unless I’m missing some details, feels very stupid to me and proof that Sega’s decision making was pretty faulty even back then) and I know about the difficulties of putting the whole game on a single cartridge without skyrocketing the manufacturing price. Game development can get insanely complicated and messy and I genuinely have respect for Sonic Team for the quality of the final product, especially given the overall conditions in which they were working.

But in the end there’s no getting around the fact that consumers back then had to essentially buy two games to get one

Sonic 3 alone cost about 70 bucks in North America back then

(This is from a magazine from 1994)

I couldn’t find similar data on Sonic & Knuckles but I think it’s safe to assume that it had a similar price tag, meaning that, if you wanted to buy the complete Sonic 3 experience, you had to fork over roughly 100 dollars at the very least. Keep in mind: this is all without taking inflation into account

Now some might say that none of this matters anymore because nowadays you can buy the whole game cheaply off of Steam or something. I find this logic flawed: when judging a game you need to at least take into account the context in which it was made, as that was the only frame of reference that its devs could have while making it as nobody could predict the future

Let’s put it this way: consider all of the beyond half finished trash that some companies nowadays like to throw on the market, while patching it like a year later or something. Now consider that some of those games might get rereleased 30 years from now more cheaply and with their full content from the get go. Would that suddenly make everything ok? No? Then not even Sonic 3 should be excempt from this

Now I’m not saying all of this because I wanna imply that Sonic 3 is actually bad and a cash grab and Sonic was never good yadda yadda

I’m saying that while Sonic 3 the videogame is, from a qualitative standpoint, a phenomenal experience, one of the very best videogames from the 90s (though with some noticeable rough edges), Sonic 3 the commercial product was pretty shoddily, and perhaps even greedily depending on how you wanna look at things, handled. This is an indelible part of the game’s history and I think it should be talked about. For the past years I’ve seen Sonic fans bitch and moan about the prices of games like Forces or Superstars because they’re too high for games that are so short and clearly rushed etc. And they might even have a point or two but I find it absolutely unfair that Sonic 3, which has the same issues in this regard but on an even bigger scale, is never mentioned, purely because it came out when all the people who are currently bitching about the industry’s problems were kids who had their parents but them stuff and this kind of discourse was practically non-existence. It’s a matter of fairness is what I’m saying

[east-germany]

Tried using thick lineart and that's a mistake I only need to make once. Surprizingly I don't have the hots for my own authright oc (yet)

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #216: “... To Avenge the Avengers!”

February, 1982

"Avenge us, Tigra! The Molecule Man must die!”

Eesh, the Avengers plus Silver Surfer have gone full Hamlet’s Dad on Tigra and she’s gonna cat Molecule Man and his plush himself to death. But he’s ready for it.

But why? Well...

Last time: Silver Surfer inadvertently gave Molecule Man the idea to eat Earth. The Avengers and the Surfer teamed up to stop him but he just Molecule Manned their sweet gear into nothing, captured them all, and then stomped them under a giant boot-o-matic crusher! Except Tigra who he kept around because he wanted someone to talk at and because Tigra had claimed that she liked him!

This time: “Tigra... the Last Avenger!”

Nice touch that the book name inside the book has been changed to match even if the cover hasn’t.

That is a tough hat to wear. Did you know its only been a little over a week since she joined the team?

And in that time she got thrown into space by an Elf-Queen, watched a founding Avenger have an emotional breakdown and try to kill his friends to make them like him again, had her soul set on fire, been repeatedly harassed in public, and watched the whole team be killed with her life only being spared because she begged for her life!

Is this the worst week and change in Avengers history? IT MIGHT WELL BE!

“She was spared. The fear of death has drained away now, leaving only emptiness behind. She has never felt so alone.”

This narration set in the same panel where Molecule Man is all but slapping the giant boot and going ‘this bad boy can crush so many fucking Avengers in it.’

Well really, its more like

Molecule Man: “Well, cat-lady, they’re dead! Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and that Silver Surfer guy -- squished flat by my giant boot-o-matic crusher! You know, I made this thing out of molecules from a scrapyard! Yessir, I believe in recycling!”

But that’s about the same level of dissonance between jolly goofus villain rambling and hollow despair.

Anyway, Molecule Man calls her out on being such a bummer because she’s moping over there when he’s feeling good about killing the Avengers and really Tigra try to consider how he feels geez.

So she shakes off the despair and asks hey what exactly is Molecule Man going to do with her?

Tigra: “Am I going to be your mate or...”

Molecule Man: “What? Nah! I never got along with girls! I mean, you know... that way! Yessir, mom always warned me about... that! And she was right! You can be my friend! No! Make that -- my pet! Here, kitty, kitty!”

Wow.

That. That dodged a bullet in a cool Matrix bullet time way right into another bullet.

Let’s please not get too creepy with this, huh? You listening to me, comic published nearly forty years ago? Let’s not get creepy!

Molecule Man decides to be a responsible pet owner and feed his pet. He can control molecules so obviously it should be no trouble to just rearrange them into any configuration he--

Okay, its apparently really hard to make food! Way too complicated!

He’s going to be an irresponsible pet owner and not feed Tigra. And meanwhile he’s going to chow down on some undifferentiated mush or possibly a pile of dust. Its all molecules so its all the same to him.

Tigra didn’t even want food but asks him where the bathroom is.

Molecule Man: “Bathroom? Hmm... well, I really don’t understand how plumbing works, so I couldn’t make a bathroom! If you want, though, I could sort of fake it...”

Tigra: “No, I’ll be all right! i just feel a little sick...”

Molecule Man: “So go be sick for a while! I’ve got to get started on my little project anyway! If I’m going to eat this stupid planet -- I’ve got to prepare by clearing away all the living things from a few square miles of land.”

And he gets started! A giant ridge of land just peels up from the ground, like Molecule Man is skinning a fruit before eating. Also a volcano erupts. Pretty sure there weren’t any volcanoes in New Jersey before now.

Fairly sure.

Outside the dome, thankfully the army has been evacuating everyone in a fifty-mile radius or else a lot of people would be dead. VOLCANO.

Then the Fantastic Four arrive.

Yayyyyy! Oh whoa whoa, Fantastic Fourrr!

They’ve got the best Molecule Man mashing record so they’re here to do what they do do.

Which in this context is fail like champs.

Ben Grimm the Thing tries to shatter the dome with a punch and no dice. Then Human Torch cranks up to nova flame and applies the heat of a sun on one little spot on the dome.

Johnny about wears himself out doing it and still no result.

Guess Iron Man, Thor, and Silver Surfer > a pinpoint miniature sun.

Meanwhile inside, Molecule Man tells Tigra hey get a load of this. And then he levitates a couple billion gallons of water from the Delaware River and dumps it on the Fantastic Four, plus the army, washing them away.

Invisible Woman: “Reed, it -- it doesn’t seem possible!”

Mr. Fantastic: “Everything is made of molecules, Sue! Anything is possible for the Molecule Man!”

Molecule Man far too hax.

But meanwhile, gasp, the Avengers weren’t actually all killed in a book with their name on it! This is unprecedented!

And Silver Surfer is ready to explain their unlikely survival of giant crushing boot.

See, Silver Surfer wasn’t quite as knocked unconscious as the three Avengers so he played possum. When Molecule Man put the Avengers plus Silver Surfer in the crushing boot and when it was just about to crush, Silver Surfer used the Power Cosmic to disintegrate the bottom part of the boot so that the Avengers and him fell to a lower floor. Completely uncrushed!

So that’s good.

The bad is that Silver Surfer has to report that Tigra is still in Molecule Man’s clutches.

The awkward is that Iron Man and Thor lost their armor and hammer respectively so Cap is like ‘wait, what are Tony Stark and Perfectly Normal Dr. Donald Blake doing here??’

So Tony and Don come clean about his secret ID.

Tony Stark, Actually Iron Man: “I feel a little foolish about keeping that secret from you till now! I’m sure Don feels the same way...”

Donald Blake, Dr. Thor: “Right, Tony...”

So now Cap is in on the secret which previously bound Tony and Don together as the Best Friends Avengers Who Aren’t Beast and Wonder Man.

Remember when they discovered each other’s secret IDs? Good times. Well, weird times. That was the issue when that hates-robots group suicide bombed Vision for dating a meat woman.

Also, Tony was only wearing underwear under the Iron Man armor so Don gave him his suit jacket to wear as a loincloth. Mighty nice of him.

Silver Surfer has just been standing on the sides not caring about all this secret ID nonsense or personal drama so he chimes in to point out that Molecule Man is going to eat the planet unless they stop him.

Cap decides that he and the Surfer have to strike before Molecule Man realizes they’re alive. Tony and Don have the important mission to hide somewhere safe.

Tony and Don object to being sidelined. Strongly.

Tony: “You think Iron Man is just a suit of armor, Cap? Is that what you’re saying?”

Don: “I found this rod to use as a makeshift cane! It won’t change me into a thunder god, but it’ll help me get around -- if only to draw fire!”

Tony: “Like it or not, we’re with you!”

Don: “The Avengers stand assembled, Captain America! Now, lead us!”

Cap: “All right! I get the message! I should have known better than to think you’d -- I mean, you two are the best...”

Tony: “Save it, Cap! We’ve got work to do!”

Aww.

This is everything I could have hoped for out of secret ID reveal. Cap starts thinking of them as civilians now that they have real person names but ultimately it brings them closer as teammates.

I love it. Granted, I love it because my favorite form of Avengers is a group of friends and set of interpersonal dramas roughly shaped like a superhero team.

Later, in the nighttime and in the room that Molecule Man made for Tigra.

... Wow, Molecule Man.

Wow.

So we’ve got a giant cat shaped bed. A giant, terrifying cat head on the wall. And a giant ball of yarn. But not giant sized cat tree? Fie and shame.

Anyway, Tigra is sitting on bed lamenting and decrying the Fantastic Four’s failure. Especially as it pertains to her situation.

Tigra: “I -- I just can’t believe the Fantastic Four failed! How could they let me -- and the world down like that? How could they? Right now, Reed Richards is probably locked in his lab trying to invent a gizmo that’ll pierce the dome! Hmf! Who knows how long that might take? The Molecule Man plans to eat the Earth tomorrow morning!”

Nothing like a nice filling breakfast, I guess.

She grants that Reed doesn’t know there’s an everyone’s-deadline so instead Tigra bemoans that it’s all up to her.

Tigra: “I should have tried to jump him today! I can’t believe I didn’t! I was standing right next to him a couple of times! I’m cat-quick! Why didn’t I lunge at him and claw him to shreds before he could move? Could it be because my muscles felt like jelly -- ? I was trembling -- ? In shock -- ? Afraid of him? Hey, shouldn’t I be? I mean, I saw him crush my friends to a bloody smear! And I had a spooky feeling that he was somehow, secretly ready for an attack -- and hoping I’d give him an excuse to dice me into furry cubes!”

And because this is a Tigra character beat page, she also thinks about how easy the hero gig used to seem when it was for smaller stakes. But with the actual literal fate of the world at stake... “I never thought that when the big test came I’d be a scaredy cat!”

But she remembers what Cap said during the Ghost Rider story that its not wrong to be frightened if you don’t let fear dictate your actions.

So she creeps out into the night to Molecule Man’s bedroom.

Oh, that’s a neat touch.

Her shadow on the wall looks a lot like a tiger because her hair curls at the end like a tail.

Neat.

So anyway, she doesn’t understand how Molecule Man can be so confident that he’s just sleeping with his door wide open and with no defenses and wonders if there’s a trap or whether he’s just counting on her to think that there’s a trap.

She’s about five seconds from a full-blown I know you know that I know that you know episode.

The only way to find out is just go for it so she creeps into the room. The garish room.

This is even more wow than Tigra’s room.

But as she creeps into the room and up to the enormous, ridiculous bed, she realizes that she has to kill him. If she attacks and doesn’t kill him with the first strike, what he could do is too horrible for her to imagine.

But what she doesn’t realize is that Molecule Man isn’t sleeping soundly and isn’t unprepared. 

He’s stretched monomolecular filaments across the room, too thin for even Tigra to spot.

Now usually monomolecular filaments is one of those ‘oops I’ve been cut to pieces by invisible wires’ thing. You’ve probably seen it in a couple of anime. But this is more like a bunch of cans on a string.

Tigra breaks one of the filaments while she creeps forward. Something that she couldn’t possibly know but which instantly alerts him.

And his response is a “Oh, ho! Just wait’ll she tries it! This’ll be fun!”

Because Tigra’s instinct was correct. Molecule Man was keeping her around just to kill when she finally tried anything. Its been a game. See how far he can push Tigra and how messily he can deal with her when she loses.

This is pretty tense stuff! Well, it lasts a page so it doesn’t overfocus on this specific tense scenario but still!

Tigra: “I’m in range! All I’ve got to do is spring and... and kill him! He murdered my friends! He’s going to destroy the whole world! I’ve got to kill him! Come on, lady! Do it! What’s wrong? He deserves it! He’s a murderer -- ! A rotten little wimp! He calls you ‘kitty’! Kill him! I hate him! I hate him! but... i just can’t kill him!”

And apologizing to Cap for not being able to go through with it, she slinks out of the room trying to think of another way.

Inside the room, Molecule Man sits up disgruntled, just not understanding at all why she didn’t go through with it. There’s no way she could have known that he was ready for her so why wouldn’t she try to do a murder!

And then as Tigra is wishing she had someone to talk to, someone grabs her and pulls her around a corner.

Boom, a comedy after all that one page of tension.

And it’s Cap because there’s like four people it could have been.

Tigra is elated that the Cap is alive, that she’s not alone anymore! And she tries to confess that she attempted to kill Molecule Man to avenge the Avengers. That maybe she should have because now she might lose them again!

Tony: “You did fine, Tigra! Relax!”

But she doesn’t feel like she did fine so she tries to explain that she let the Avengers down by giving into cowardice. She told Molecule Man she liked him to stay alive.

Cap: “Good strategy, Tigra -- preserving your life so you’d be able to carry on the battle!”

She tries to explain it wasn’t strategy so much as being terrified but she gets distracted because she’s just realized that in this group of Cap and Silver Guy there’s two people she doesn’t know.

Cap: “Dr. Don Blake, who’s secretly Thor and Tony Stark who is Iron Man’s alter ego!”

Her mood immediately flips.

Tigra: “You guys are really Thor and Iron Man? Really? And it’s okay for me to know? Really?”

Tony Stark: “Why not? Somehow those secrets seem pretty trivial, what with the world on the verge of being the Molecule Man’s breakfast!”

He says that but he still looks pretty annoyed at Cap just blurting it out.

And geez, Cap, you gotta let people reveal their own secret identities. Or make up some dumb excuse that everyone instantly believes.

Its the done thing.

In terms of Avengers drama though this is pretty good. Thor, Cap, and Iron Man have been working together for a really long time. Even though Cap didn’t form the Avengers he’s basically been there so long they consider him an honorary founder.

Cap learning Iron Man and Thor’s secret identities can be a ‘we should have told you sooner!’ thing.

Tigra just joined the team! Like a week ago!

They need to work together now and there’s probably no smooth lie that could paper over where Iron Man and Thor went and why these two are here now but its probably still a little galling that Cap just blurts it out to the newest person on the team.

Its great. I’d love to see the repercussions of this.

Anyway, time is short so Tony gets to explaining the plan.

He found his broken armor and managed to scavenge enough bits and pieces to make a little device he’s calling a screamer. It’ll emit a high-pitched noise that should disorient Molecule Man.

And then the device just poofs into smoke in Tony’s hand.

Whoops, Molecule Man overheard their plan to beat up Molecule Man and also heard Tony call him names.

So he pulls together all the loose dust in the room and uses it to strangle Tony.

Wow, they’ve gone from having a “layered assault” to watching someone literally choke on Molecule Man’s dust. That’s got to be the quickest turnaround from hope to nope.

Tigra goes wild, rushing at Molecule Man and screaming that she shoulda killed him before and she’s damn well going to scratch his face off now!

But Molecule Man asks her to talk to the hand. Zing.

Puns.

Although “Don’t scream at me, Kitty! ‘Cause I’ll slap you down!”

Sure. That’s good wordplay too.

Having just been comedically (although seriously) WHAP!’d across the room, Tigra has her own words to say.

Tigra: “You -- you weak, slimy excuse for a human being! How could I have stooped so low as to humble myself to garbage like you? So you’ve got power! Big deal! You were a nerd before -- you’re still a nerd! You were a mistake! You shouldn’t even have been born! You crybaby! All you do is blame the world for your own inedequacy! Go on, kill me, nerd! I despise living in the same world with you!”

Wow. She really took all those personal details he shared and slapped him upside the head with them.

Goes to show. Don’t try to destroy the world. People will have rude things to say.

Meanwhile, Cap and Silver Surfer are trying to save Tony but can’t clear the super condense dust faster than Molecule Man gathers it.

Cap tells Tigra to get Molecule Man because that’s their only chance but Tigra is too hurt from being slapped by a giant hand.

Molecule Man: “I’ve got to hand it to you guys, it must’ve taken some doing to escape my crusher! This time, I’m going to make sure you’re dead! Hmm... someone’s missing! But who?”

And he’s done process of elimination and realized that the guy Thor turned into is missing and figures he ran away when Entirely Normal But Furious Dr. Donald Blake tells Molecule Man to grit his teeth.

And then Molecule Man runs off yelling because Dr. Donald Blake can throw down. He possibly broke Molecule Man’s nose with that one punch.

Good job, Dr. Donald Blake.

With Molecule Man not focusing on the dust thing, Tony is free of the dust thing but unconscious. Dr. Donald Blake tells the others that he’ll take care of Tony and that they should go chase Molecule Man since they can run better than he can.

So Cap, Tigra, and Silver Surfer go off in pursuit of Molecule Man.

Silver Surfer reminds that he can track Molecule Man’s unique energies. Cap helpfully points out that they can also just track the trail of blood drips from Molecule Man’s nose. And Tigra goes ‘also I can smell him’ because its good to have three different ways to find a guy.

They find him in some sort of throne room (curled up in pain on the throne) and charge at him. But he’s not in the mood for their shenanigans.

So he sends a tidal wave of molecules at them.

Cap shouts for Silver Surfer to do something and he does do something indeed.

The Surfer blasts the wave of matter with the power cosmic so hard that it transmutes into raw energy and just explodes through the top of the palace in a beautiful pyrotechnic display.

It also completely exhausts the Surfer and he just kind of plops down for a nap right there on the ground.

Cap tells Tigra to watch the Surfer and then goes to take the Molecule Man on alone.

This isn’t a great plan but also their already small roster has kind of dwindled to this point.

And maybe Cap sort of doesn’t want to throw Tigra at Molecule Man when she’s already been hurt and was voicing all those doubts earlier. Can’t say for sure. She’s about to offer for help but Cap is like ‘WHOOPS NOW OR NEVER!’

Molecule Man must be in a whimsical mood, I mean more so than usual have you seen what he’s been getting up to? Because he converts some of the furnishings into a bunch of stars to shoot at Cap.

Its funny because Cap wears a star. It’d be ironic if he got smacked in the face with one, probably.

But Molecule Man activated Cap’s speechifying and that buffs him because nobody likes hearing Cap talk about freedom and justice and doing right more than Cap probably.

What I’m saying is that he leaps and gambols between the stars and I feel its because he has Stuff To Say that he’s doing so well.

Cap: “You make me sick, mister! They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,  and you’re living proof of it! You might kill me! After all, I’m just an ordinary man -- but men like me have always found a way to bring high-and-mighty tyrants like you to their knees! There’s never enough power to save madmen like you -- from ultimate, bitter defeat!”

WAK!

And perhaps it wasn’t just his agility that was improved by inspirational speeching himself. Because he knocks Molecule Man down with that one punch and he doesn’t get back up.

Or maybe Molecule Man just has a glass jaw.

Don Blake and Tony Stark show up and Silver Surfer wakes up but he runs in with the rest anyway for some reason. Tony tells Tigra to watch Molecule Man while he has an Important Debate with Cap.

See, Tony has realized something. Knocking down Molecule Man is just the first step. If Molecule Man gets back up, he might start eating the Earth again and the Avengers might not be able to stop him.

So he asks Don Blake if there’s a medical way to just sort of keep Molecule Man knocked out.

Don Blake: “How? We can’t just keep hitting him on the head -- this isn’t a T.V. show! I mean, how hard do you hit him? How many times can you do that before causing serious brain damage... or death?”

Realism? In a comic book? What are YOU doing here??

Anyway, Tony doesn’t see any other option but to kill Molecule Man.

Cap protests that Molecule Man is a human being with rights to due process and a trial by jury of his peers!

But Tony is convincing the others. As an Actual Doctor, Don Blake doesn’t like to hear this. He wants to save lives. But he can’t refute Tony.

And Silver Surfer also seems on Team Tony.

Silver Surfer: “I understand what it is to sacrifice one life so that a multitude, a world might live! It seems clear that this Molecule Man cannot be imprisoned or held in check! He... must die to save the Earth... though I could never bring myself to slay him!”

Don’t you have the power cosmic? Surely there’s a power cosmic option available?

To be fair though his the power cosmic might be exhausted at the moment.

Still. Geez, Silver Surfer. ‘He gotta die but 1-2-3-not-it’ is really how you’re playing this??

Meanwhile, Tigra has decided that being asked to watch Molecule Man implies a certain duty perhaps even responsibility to tell him how much he sucks. Which is a lot.

And recall that she’s already told him how much he sucks earlier in the fight. So she has found a second wind in telling him how much he sucks.

Tigra: “You little jerk! Don’t you see? Cap was wrong! Power very seldom corrupts! It usually doesn’t change anything! It just magnifies what’s already there, whether it’s good and noble or evil and petty!”

“You were a nerd before... now you’re a powerful nerd! Big deal! Dummy! The shame of it is that with your power you can build... you can contribute! You don’t have to be a loser anymore!”

“Why are you such a fool? Why can’t you see that killing a planetful of people doesn’t make you even -- it just make you lonelier than ever!”

Wow. It feels like Tigra could hypothetically be talking about all different kinds of entitled nerds who then become the jerks as adults!

Anyway.

Tony and Cap are still arguing.

Tony, at least, isn’t going to ask someone to do something he wouldn’t do himself. I.e., he’s going to kill Molecule Man himself and save four billion people.

Cap: “Tony... please! I can’t let you do this!”

Tony: “You can take me in for murder afterward, Cap, but for now, stand aside! I’m warning you...”

Cap: “You’ll have to go through me, Tony...”

You’re warning him, Tony? You don’t have armor. You don’t even have pants. What are you going to do to supersoldier Captain America?

Logic aside, what strikes me is how much this foreshadows.

Before Civil War contrived that superhero registration, the big hot button superhero debate issue is whether superheroes should kill in extreme circumstances.

Spoilers for the NINETIES but the Regular and West Coast Avengers will come to schism and Cap and Iron Man will basically break up over whether or not to kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence after it engineered a war that killed 90% of the Kree people on purpose.

Shooter is long gone by that point but I guess someone is going to pick up the thread.

Because the debate doesn’t get settled here or rather does, sorta, in favor of Cap but not in a way he expects.

Interrupting the sad fist fight between Cap and a nearly naked man, Molecule Man pops up and tells everyone that Tigra has convinced him to turn his life around.

Tigra: “Guys, Mr. Owen Reece and I have talked, and, well, I convinced him to give himself up!”

Mr. Owen Reece: “Yes, I want to start seeing a therapist!”

Cap: “huh?”

Mr. Owen Reece: “I know I’ll have to go to jail... but that’s okay! It’ll give me time to think things out! I’ll make an opening in the dome now so you can call the authorities!”

Don Blake: “s-sure!”

God, that is just great. I love this as a resolution so much. This is a resolution that Squirrel Girl would bring us, although we’d get more of the actual convincing.

Still very, very good. Good to be optimistic in comics sometimes. Sometimes villains can seek redemption if only a cat yells at them long enough.

Although I think the best part is how baffled everyone is by the plot twist.

So with but a “Soon...” caption, the police have come to pick up Mr. Owen Reece and brought Miss Hanrahan who is going to be his therapist.

Holy crap, a therapist in Marvel who isn’t Doc Sampson but will work with superpowered nonsense!

Can we bring Miss Hanrahan back??

A couple things I like here.

One is that Mr. Owen Reece has changed off-panel into a suit instead of his supervillain costume. Now that’s him making an honest effort.

Two is Very Annoyed Tony Stark in the back of the pack of Avengers. He’s wearing a handkerchief as a mask because someone might recognize him as Tony Stark and then wonder ‘hey why is Tony Stark here.’

Three is the proud smile from Tigra when seeing Mr. Owen Reece meet his therapist.

Melts my heart a little.

Before he goes away to jail, Mr. Owen Reece takes a quick sidebar with the Avengers.

He retroactively feels just awful about ruining their various gadgets so he decides to make right.

He reintegrates Mjolnir, Toomie the surfboard, and Cap’s shield exactly as they were. Original molecules and all! They were so weird that he remembered where they all went.

As for Iron Man’s Iron Man armor.... look, he did his best.

Mr. Owen Reece: “But your armor, with all those complicated electronic gadgets is just too tricky for me to reassemble! You needed something more proper to wear till you get home, though -- so I whipped up some red and gold cloth and made you an Iron Man leisure suit! I hope it’s okay!”

Amazing. Simply incredible.

Although I think my favorite part was Mr. Owen Reece realizing ‘hey Iron Man should be wearing pants!’

Anyway, he also takes apart his Molecule Man Doom Fortress and puts those molecules back where he found them. More or less. He tries.

And, yes, he does rebuild the entire town of Netcong, New Jersey. Except the plumbing.

In a funny call back to Reece admitting he doesn’t really understand plumbing, none of the plumbing in the rebuilt town works.

Later, back at Avengers Mansion, Silver Surfer is offered a spot on the team but turns it down.

FOR THE PATHS OF DESTINY DO BECKON HIM DOWN A LONELY ROAD THAT MUST BE TRAVELED ALONE

Its the only who he has ever known. Except for all the time he spend with Galactus. Or the Defenders. Or later on when he has a companion to take on space nonsense.

Tigra also takes this time to say farewell.

Tigra: “I’m just not in the same league as you guys! I mean, sure I’ve got lots of super-ability, and, usually, I'm even pretty heroic -- but not up to your standard! I mean two of you, without your powers, no less, really showed me what it’s all about back there! And let’s face it, you guys mess with some heavy-duty opposition! I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead!”

=C

Noooooooooo

But but but Tigraaa you were a source of joy and fuuuuuuuun

You only joined at the end of #211! It’s only been about a week in-universe!

Darn.

The three other Avengers all say their goodbyes.

Thor reminds her that she was the one who turned around Mr. Owen Reece but Tigra says she got lucky.

Iron Man gives her one of Tony Stark’s cards and tells her to call Tony Stark who is definitely not him anytime she needs anything.

Jarvis even tears up at her leaving, although he denies it because a good butler never dies on duty and then blames his allergies.

And then Tigra is off. Damn. If I didn’t know who might be joining the Avengers soon I’d be completely inconsolable instead of just very.

So now the Avengers are down to just three members. That’s not a team. That’s a crossover. Probably why Jarvis wonders if a membership drive is in order.

NEXT: The return of... Yellowjacket, the Wasp, and Egghead!

I’m game for Wasp coming back! Don’t think it likely that Yellowjacket is just going to come back to the team just like that! And Egghead? The villain who blew up a city with a killsat and killed Hawkeye’s brother? Unlikely recruit!

(No I know that’s not what the NEXT means)

Hey, follow @essential-avengers​ because the Hank Pym just keeps happening. Like and reblog too please. Be sad with me that Tigra is gone.

[starship-imzadi]

S4 E10 The Loss

Oh hey, we get to see a little more of Troi counseling. I think the last few times we saw this side of her job was "The Bonding" and in "Hollow Pursuits". This is the best Troi centric episode up until this point.

"Recovery from great loss involves a great pain." Occasionally Deanna gets to be an intelligent and wise character and I want more of those moments (thank goodness for "Nepenthe"). The ability to accept loss doesn't make it any less painful.

Cheeky Riker

Ship Shake!

I really love the friendship between Beverley and Deanna. They're both kind people and as the two women on senior staff it makes me happy to see them as friends.

OMG that look from Riker to Troi! She says "I sense nothing" and Picard misunderstands and then she looks at Riker...and he silently looks back at her but his face says everything.

Riker went with Troi to sick bay.... And it's not as her commanding officer.

Deanna makes a very good point about"hope" vs "false hope"....I suppose false hope would be if you intentionally mislead someone.

Everyone is suddenly on a first name basis and Beverley and Will share a worried glance.

Imzadi... Oh man this scene. Deanna says she doesn't like "the way other people change, how they start to treat you differently. They wall on eggshells around you." after you suffer a tragedy. Remember this for later.... It's important how different it is when someone you're close to asks how you are vs someone you're not close to. Riker is asking because he genuinely cares for Troi, and calling her "Imzadi" is a gentle reminder of that. Some people ask because they want to be the one to save you, other ask because they'll help you carry the burden. It can look the same on the surface but the distinction is really important.

"Deanna, I've never seen you quite so scared." Will is honest with her.

In a lot of ways this makes me think of "The Survivors". Again when something is wrong with Deanna, Will turns his attention entirely to her.

(screen caps by trekcore)

Poor Beverley. Deanna is clearly deeply distressed and she's taking it out on Beverley who cares for her but is powerless to help her. Plus, Deanna blames Crusher for not responding quickly enough but Deanna wasn't upfront about the severity of her condition when she first called for help.

Beverly and Picard are both trying to tell her how she feels by making comparison. Even if they make an accurate analogy neither is really in a position tell her what she's going through; even if it is like going blind they still don't know what that's like because neither have lost their sight.

"I really would rather be alone right now "

"too bad"

"is this how you handle all your personnel problems?"

"sure. You'd be surprised how far a hug goes with Geordi or Worf."

Riker cares but he doesn't coddle. Remember when Troi said she didn't want people to treat her differently? That eggshells bit from earlier? He's upfront and honest with her and he confronts her; she's lost not just her empathy but her sense of control, and the real question is which one is she more upset about. It's harsh, but not unloving.

Guinan and Troi is a truly interesting dynamic.

It's nice that the overlap between Troi and Guinan's function on the ship is finally addressed, and it makes sense that Troi would go to Guinan with a crisis. In practice though, could Guinan be the ship's counselor? She's a civilian not a member of Starfleet.

Leave it to Worf to suggest blowing something up.

Troi still didn't listen to Guinan very well.

This episode is interesting because it takes away the defining feature of Deanna as a character, i.e. her empathic abilities, and looks at what she has become as a character without it; this is especially important on a show with few women who as a whole aren't developed as well as the men. Unfortunately, there's a long way to go before the writers regularly write her character as if there's substantially more to her, but this is a good, if late, first step.

Working with Data, after her comment to Will about him not being "real" brings up an interesting question: how does she relates to Data vs the rest of the crew if she has to feel someone's feeling for them to be "real" to her. As Will said "I don't believe that" and neither do I.

I think this is the most intelligent, and the most dialogue, Troi has ever had.

I love that Will is just looking at Deanna; he's sitting right next to her but looking at her so intently.

It's good they all made amends. That was a fair amount of interpersonal conflict; it good that they all have believably caring relationships, otherwise a quickly wrapped up end like that would seem too easy.

Guinan is pretty cheeky too.

I've seen people interpret Deanna pulling away from Will's kiss as rejection, but to me it honestly just reads as a joke. All was forgiven... except the name calling. He touches her arm and she doesn't draw back from that, and he stays close as the shot cuts to the exterior of the Enterprise.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 2: GERALD

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a new mini-series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll commence Round 2 by taking a look at the mastermind of Sonic Adventure 2, who got a cap popped in his ass 50 years prior: Professor Gerald Robotnik.

The Gist: Gerald was once a kindhearted scientist who wanted nothing more than to use his genius to help benefit mankind as we know it. Seeking to cure the fatal illness of his granddaughter, Maria, Gerald worked on many ambitious projects, such as constructing the Space Colony A.R.K, working on countless potentially dangerous weapons like the Artificial Chaos units and the Eclipse Cannon, and most famously, creating the Ultimate Lifeform and chest hair enthusiast himself, Shadow the Hedgehog. None of these achievements actually cured Maria, but the professor worked tirelessly in his eternal quest all the same.

Here he is here, looking completely fucking terrifying.

Unfortunately, this quest was tragically cut shot when a bunch of dummies from G.U.N stormed the A.R.K. in an effort to shut down all of Gerald's projects. In addition to the professor's own arrest, it also led to the death of his beloved granddaughter. When he found out about the casualty... well, he didn't take it all that well, because the revelation transformed him overnight into a mad fucknugget.

At some point before his execution at the hands of G.U.N, he reprogrammed the A.R.K. itself to collide with the planet should all seven Chaos Emeralds be inserted into the Eclipse Cannon, as a final middle finger to the human race who took everything away from him. He also reprogrammed Shadow to carry out the hunt for the emeralds, to ensure his revenge would go off without a hitch in spite of the somewhat annoying obstacle of being dead. While Shadow would indeed go on to carry out Gerald's plot 50 years later upon his release, courtesy of one Dr. Eggman, an attack of conscience through a talk with Amy Rose convinced him to turn against his creator's corrupt intentions at the most vital moment, going so far as to help Sonic take down the professor's repurposed guard dog - the Biolizard - and seemingly sacrificing himself in the process.

Though Gerald’s pre-insanity days would be delved into more come Shadow’s own spinoff (although making a deal with an obviously evil alien makes one question if he was already crazy from the beginning), his villainous spin is still remembered with dread by the world he once loved. And no one remembers it more vividly than the one who nearly carried it all out. The one who Gerald looked at as a son.

“NOW can I use a better font?”

The Design: There’s a bit of an inconvenience here, because whereas there was a lot to cover with the many designs for Chaos, there's significantly less to speak of with Gerald's design. He’s essentially just a grey-haired (grey-whiskered?), slightly slimmer version of his grandson.

“Eggman? No. I’m my own original character... Deadman.”

In fairness though, with the way this particular antagonist works, it was never really about the physical appearance in the first place.

The Personality: ...There's not really a lot to say here either, since we've only seen a few moments with him due to his status as a posthumous character. He was a decent, altruistic man, only to turn crazy and vengeful when Maria got bumped off. That about covers it, really.

“I know that human beings and anthropomorphic killing machines can co-exist peacefully.”

The Execution: Now this is where the meat lies with Gerald. But I have to say, my thoughts on the professor overall are very prominently... grey.

On one hand, he's sympathetic enough as a character. The premise of a once pleasant man carrying out his vengeance from beyond the grave is certainly an interesting one, and his voice actor did a really good job with conveying his spiral into tragic insanity (even if it's slightly harder to take seriously when you remember it's the same guy who voiced Vector the Crocodile in Sonic Heroes).

On the other hand, while I don't think the basic concept with Gerald is too out-of-reach for a Sonic game, I do think there are certain elements involving him that go a bit too far and dip it into pretentious territory when you remember what franchise this is supposed to be. Much like Maria getting shot to death by the military, I feel that the recorded footage of Gerald's to-be-execution is a misguided result of being gritty for gritty's own sake.

Can Sonic lend itself to darker moments? Sure it can! But it needs to do those moments right, in a way that works with this franchise, rather than work against it. Moments like Gerald's pre-execution footage don’t mesh well, and make it all too easy to forget that I’m playing a Sonic game at all.

Can you tell I don’t have a lot of photos to work with for this guy?

His plan isn't without problems either. While not to the same degree as Mephiles certain other villains who I’ll cover at a later date, Gerald's evil scheme nonetheless has a few loopholes, the most infamous one being: Where did he get the time to do all this?

In order to have been able to program Shadow's servitude and the A.R.K's collision in the first place, he had to have had access to them. That's obvious enough, but here’s the thing: Gerald spent his captivity in Prison Island, which you can tell because his cell is the same one that Sonic was trapped in earlier on in the game. You COULD make an argument as to how he accessed Shadow at least, since the Ultimate Lifeform was sealed away in Prison Island as well, but here's where it gets even trickier: He couldn't have went insane until after his capture and imprisonment, because his arrest happened during the G.U.N. raid, the same event that resulted in Maria's death to begin with, and very little time would have logically passed between that and the professor being taken into custody.

So with what the narrative gives us to work with, either Gerald somehow had access to Shadow and the A.R.K. during his captivity, meaning G.U.N. are extremely incompetent and careless... or he already reprogrammed them before the raid even happened and thus when he had absolutely no reason to do such a thing. (Maybe he did it for a cheeky laugh...?)

“Only through the power of Windows Movie Maker can I make my vengeance manifest.”

Speaking of Shadow, Gerald's manipulation of him to destroy the world in Maria's name kind of falls apart when you remember that Shadow's flashbacks of Maria presented the latter as the kindhearted girl she really was. Maria marked the core of Shadow's own tragedy and subsequent low opinion on humanity, and yet nothing about her presentation in said flashbacks indicated that she would have wanted him to destroy the planet and kill everyone. Gerald clearly altered Shadow’s memories by inserting his own misanthropy and vengeance into his creation, so why did he leave his memories of Maria completely unscathed? 

This is even part of what causes Shadow to eventually change his ways in the first place. And yet, despite the story itself insisting otherwise, it's not like knowing Maria's real ideals was a game changer for Shadow. He already remembered what Maria was truly like.

“Shite, I guess.”

And finally, there's his relationship with his grandson, Eggman. Or more accurately, Eggman's relationship with him. Either way, I feel as conflicted about it as I do with Gerald himself.

We find out that Eggman considers his dead grandfather to be an even bigger genius than he is, even long after the latter's demise. I don't want to make this all about Eggman, since this post is meant to be about Gerald (don't worry though, the doctor will get his time in the sun soon enough, just you wait), but I always had a problem with this, because I feel it undermines Eggman’s own status when you really think about it, and while I can appreciate the attempt to give Eggman some depth and backstory expansion, I don't think this angle works out for Eggman specifically. Why? Because for a character who was - and still is - loud, proud, and insistent on how he is the best scientist there ever was and ever will be, the sudden revelation that he thinks his grandaddy was better than him honestly feels like a betrayal of the character in a way. If he respected his grandad's genius and maybe got inspired by him when he was a young lad, but still considered himself the biggest genius when he grew up into the man he is today, that would have felt more characteristic of him in my honest opinion.

“So just for clarity’s sake, when I say I’m the greatest scientific genius in the world, I’m actually saying I’m not the greatest scientific genius in the world.”

So yeah. Overall, my thoughts on Gerald are mixed. Decent concept, good acting, and I actually do like the character to an extent, but there's a lot working against him that make me unable to consider him a full winner. Also, he and Shadow fucked Eggman over massively. The game that many consider to be Eggman’s finest moment, and they pull the rug out from underneath him and reveal he was a clueless pawn the whole time.

I’m slightly bitter about that.

Just slightly.

Ever so slightly.

Crusher Gives Gerald a: Thumbs Sideways!

[aion-rsa]

What If…? Episode 9 Review: A Missing Puzzle Piece

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This review contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If…? episode 9

In the season finale of Marvel’s What If…?, ‘What if… The Watcher Broke His Oath?’, we discover what happens when The Watcher finally intervenes in the MCU’s escalating multiversal madness.

As some of you may have assumed, the Guardians of the Multiverse do indeed assemble to stop Tony Stark’s godlike, universe-slaying murder bot, with Doctor Strange helping to pull Ultron’s strings as the team’s de facto leader.

There’s a lot to enjoy in the episode, but it stops short of greatness through no fault of Marvel’s own. Due to pandemic-related constraints, the season is missing a pretty essential Gamora and Tony Stark-centric installment that helps set up the whole ‘Guardians of the Multiverse’ vibe in the finale. We will likely see it all play out in Season 2, but that might be quite a while away from hitting our screens.

Our What If…? reviews adopt a different kind of format – more of a breakdown that we hope will satisfy die-hard Marvel fans but still help bring those less familiar with the MCU up to speed.

With that in mind, let’s dig deeper into ‘What if… The Watcher Broke His Oath?’

Required viewing

For this season finale, you’ll need to have seen pretty much all of the previous eight episodes to make full sense of these events. It also helps to have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier at some point!

Voice cast

Jeffrey Wright is our Watcher, Hayley Atwell is Peggy Carter/Captain Carter, Lake Bell (Harley Quinn) is Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Frank Grillo is Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, Georges St. Pierre is Georges Batroc (the Leaper), Chadwick Boseman is T’Challa/Star-Lord, Michael B. Jordan is Erik Killmonger, Chris Hemsworth is Thor, Benedict Cumberbatch is Doctor Strange, Toby Jones is Arnim Zola, Tom Hiddleston is Loki, Kurt Russell is Ego, Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury, Mick Wingert is Tony Stark/Iron Man, Ross Marquand is Ultron and Cynthia McWilliams (Bosch, Marvel Heroes) stands in for Zoe Saldana as Gamora.

What’s different?

In an altered version of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier opening, Captain Carter, Brock Lumlow and Black Widow begin their hostage rescue mission on the pirate-captured SHEILD ship the Lemurian Star. We discover that Peggy and Natasha have become BBFs in this branch timeline, with Natasha still attempting to play Cupid to a lovelorn Cap.

Peggy begins to scrap with Batroc the Leaper onboard the Star, but is interrupted by The Watcher, who tells her that she has been chosen for Doctor Strange’s new Ultron-stopping multiversal superhero team.

Meanwhile, as Star-Lord T’Challa rescues Dairy Queen Peter Quill from Ego, The Watcher recruits him too. We then hop to Nidavellir, where an alternate duo of Tony Stark and Gamora are helping Dwarf King Eitri melt the Infinity Gauntlet. We’re told that Gamora is a “survivor of Sakaar” and a destroyer of Thanos, but sadly we never got to see any of this transpire. The Erik Killmonger we saw take over Wakanda is also picked up, along with Las Vegas Party Prince Thor.

The Watcher and Doctor Strange explain the Ultron mission to their team – get the Infinity Stones away from Ultron and destroy them in Gamora’s crusher MacGuffin – even as Killmonger starts making some mental chess moves to betray them all. It turns out that his dark nature is built into their overall plan, so it’s fine I guess. Also, it turns out that Stephen isn’t as good as Cap or T’Challa at performing a rousing speech (which tracks) but thankfully he is really good at doing protection spells.

Ultron soon discovers the newly-assembled Guardians of the Multiverse thanks to Thor’s blundering, and a terrific fight ensues as the Guardians face off against him in the universe from the penultimate episode where Black Widow was the human race’s lone survivor. The aforementioned crusher doesn’t work in this timeline (whoops) but Strange captures Ultron and Killmonger in a pocket universe after Cap and Black Widow upload the Zola brain program into Ultron using Hawkeye’s trusty USB arrow.

How does it work out?

The Guardians of the Multiverse are all returned to the timelines from whence they came, except for Black Widow, who The Watcher takes pity on and drops off in the middle of an alternate universe that is missing a Natasha. We see her fighting Loki aboard a SHIELD helicarrier and saving the day in an Avengers team that includes Captain Marvel, and we can assume that this is the world from episode 3 where Hank Pym took out all of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes apart from Captain America. It’s nice!

In a post-credits scene, we see BBFs Natasha and Peggy discover the Hydrastomper in the Lemurian Star’s cargo, and it’s teased that Steve Rogers might still be alive inside.

Standout moments

I really loved seeing Captain Carter running the Lemurian Star mission with SHIELD! I feel a little robbed of seeing Peggy and Natasha’s banter in live action, as it felt like they had so much chemistry together. I did see Twitter explode with some mini slash fic after this episode began streaming, and if I were to, say, have a secret Captain Carter fan fiction blog that I regularly update, which of course I don’t and you shouldn’t try and find that because it absolutely doesn’t exist, then I could perhaps imagine some romantic stories for these two coming to life there, in that 100% imaginary and not real blog. Anyway, yes. Move over Steggy and Stucky, there’s a new MCU portmanteau in town: Pegasha. Nateggy? Eh, it’s a work in progress.

The finale also gave us one last Chadwick Boseman performance as T’Challa, and it was great to hear his voice here in a new little adventure with Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, even if he still couldn’t get through to him when the stakes were even higher.

The animation and design was top notch, and there were lots of little Easter eggs to enjoy from past episodes, including the zombie-vomiting portal and Strange producing countless Mjolnirs instead of the copies of himself we saw in Avengers: Endgame. We also got an Alexei mention from Peggy, and the return of The Little Arrow That Could. I’ll admit it’s a little hard to swallow ‘HYDRA to the rescue’ as an MCU concept, but needs must where the Devil drives.

I’m looking forward to checking out Season 2 of the show in the future, and possibly seeing the continuation of some of the Season 1 stories. But by the time these arrive, the implications of the Marvel multiverse will have hit the MCU in a major way through the likes of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Hopefully, those won’t take any of the fun out of seeing alternate versions of the characters we’ve come to love.

If you want to dig deeper into What If…?, please consider subscribing to Marvel Standom on the Den of Geek YouTube channel, where we dish out weekly episodes on all the new Marvel TV series, trailers and movie releases. Can’t stand our faces? That’s fair! You can listen to Marvel Standom on Spotify and Apple, too.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3oHWD3X

[exothermic-filth]

I Owe You

A slightly darker reader x Junkrat! Non-binary reader as always :) SFW (but lots of swearing and mild violence and mild gore warning!) I wanted to put the reader in a more commanding/authoritative/badass position and integrate them into the world and story line as well! Enjoy~

“You stay where you are and don’t you move or else I’ll blow your fucking knee caps off,” you aim your pump-action shotgun, steady and true at the intruder’s left leg. 

A tall, thin figure stands at the gate, hunching slightly. The porch lantern’s light didn’t reach out that far, but you could swear there was a soft glow coming from their head. 

No one came out here with good intentions. Especially in the dead of the night. No one but desperate Junkers that the Junkertown medics won’t touch or dying Junkers with nothing to lose. Occasionally, a mutated dingo. 

The figure emits a nervous giggle, “Darl’, I have a whole lotta’ explosives on me so unless you want a matching peg-leg, you shouldn’t shoot me either.”

You scowl. You knew that laugh. Lowering your gun and taking the gas lantern off its hook, you step forward, gravel and sand crunching underfoot, “Well I’ll be damned, if it isn’t the infamous Junkrat himself at my door.”

He spits out a mouthful of blood and gives you the brightest grin, “The one and only.” 

The gentle glow turned out to be the singed, smoldering embers of his hair. The modified bandolier he’s so famous for sporting lacks several of his bombs; in fact, he’s missing that notorious grenade of his too. The lantern’s light reveals a host of injuries: a blackened swollen eye, bloodied nose, bloody spittle dribbling from the corners of his mouth... he’s clutching his side and there’s blood, there’s so much more blood. 

“...Does the Queen know you’re here?” You grimace, turning his chin with your thumb, perusing the damage in the low light, 

“Fuck, I hope not,” he staggers, leaning against your gate. “Then again, I kinda’ left an obvious trail to follow.” 

You pause. The Queen and her goons know better than to come around here. But Junkrat had recently gone and gotten an international bounty placed on his head. You don’t need this mess right now. You turn away. 

Junkrat takes in a sharp breath, “Look, please, *your name*!”

Your eyes widen and you turn back so sharply he almost fell back. You hiss, more venomously than you realize, “How. the. fuck. do you know my real name?”

 He gulps, “Mako.”

A “tch!” leaves your lips before you could stop it.

The young Junker lurches forward, grabbing your shoulder with his free hand, “I didn’t know who else to ask. He told me about you before passing out, now won’t wake up or nothin’. Please. He’s all I got.” 

Mako Rutledge. That was a name you didn’t hear for a long time. That was a name you had hated, cursed, and spat. A name and a person you didn’t know you could forgive. His rebellion took everything from you. Your parents stood by his side and for what? An irradiated wasteland. You didn’t get to bury them. Their ashes mixed with the rubble of the Omnium and now, their crushed bones are the foundation of Junkertown. Vile fiends and murderous thieves pass over their pulverized remains everyday. Pissing, puking, shitting, fucking, and god knows what else over their remains...Over the countless remains and ashes of dozens of good people. 

But he survived. Why did he survive?

With a frustrated groan, you open the gate and stoop under Junkrat’s frame, taking his weight onto your right shoulder. 

“No, we gotta’ get to Roadie,” Junkrat cocks his head back, towards Mako’s farm. 

“No. We need to stop your bleeding first,” you push the door open with your foot.

“I’m fine,” he coughs, spraying you with his bloody spit. 

“Yeah, sure,” you lay him on your bed. You strike a match and light the gas lamp by your bedside. The gentle flickering flame make the shadows dance ominously in your shack. Thick bundles of dried herbs hung above the bed, their fragrance soothing you, focusing you. 

You pluck a broad leaf off the closest bundle and press it to the Junker’s lips.

“Chew,” you command. 

He hesitates for a brief moment but opens his mouth and takes it, making a small noise of surprise at its tastiness. 

“Move your hand, I need to see the wound,” you bring the light closer to his side. He obliges, slowly, wincing. The cut runs along his sides, but thankfully the knife seems to have glanced off the ribs. Superficial damage.  

“Some little shit had a knife, I didn’t see it.”

“And if you had seen it, you would’ve be more careful?” You raise a brow, rummaging through your med kit. 

“...well.. yeah,” he murmurs, still having enough energy to muster indignation. 

“You can spit the leaf out once it loses its flavor,” you bring the light closer, double checking a bottle’s label.

He spits it out right next to you. You make a face.

“What?”

Resisting the urge to hurt him more, you uncork the bottle with your teeth and soak the gauze, rubbing the pungent alcohol all over your hands as well. You lean in, “Ready yourself, this is going to burn.”

“Trust me, I’ve been through- FUCK!” He howls as you lay the gauze into his bloodied side.

“Shut UP before you get us killed,” you hiss. 

“Give a man a better warning next time!” He hisses back. 

“Oh trust me, the next part is going to be worst. Got any black powder?”

“Plenty, check me belt, should be a small pouch there... why?”

You wipe the gauze over the wound, removing as much of the caked on blood as you can. The air sours with the smell of coppery blood and pungent alcohol.

“We’re going to seal the wound. I don’t have a good needle or any thread to patch that up,” you rifle through his belt’s pockets, finding the pouch easily. You sprinkle the fine powder on the cleaned wound. 

Junkrat’s good eye widened in horrified realization, “Fuck... fuck. Fucking hell. No wonder no one comes out here.”

You strike a match and pause, a look of utmost frustration on your face, “Want a stick to bite on?”

“No, just-just gimme’ that,” he takes the bottle from you and takes a deep, deep swig. “Do it.”

You gently touch the flame to the black dust and it crackles, lights up, pops! Junkrat screams, his hand grabbing your forearm, his frame buckling on the bed. You wait for his thrashing to subside before grabbing fresh (well, relatively fresh) gauze to bandage the wound. 

He’s panting, swearing in between each breath. The wound looks good, the fire cauterized the cut and you could see no fresh blood seeping out.  You pluck a few more leaves from the hanging bundles and chew them into a thick paste. He sighs with relief as you spread the mixture onto his wound and a bit on his black eye.

“You’re a fucking demon that’s what you are,” he pants, taking another drink. 

You take the bottle back, “And you’re drinking all the disinfectant I have. You’re welcome by the way.” 

You soak a rag with the alcohol and begin dabbing his face. A gentle pinch of his nose bridge (he protests with a scowl) confirms it’s not broken. Thank heavens for small miracles. 

“Fuck. Mako, we need to get to Mako,” he tries bolting upright but winces at the pain, falling back down. 

“No, you need to lie down and I’ll go to see Mako... his, his farm is still in the same place, yeah?” 

“Her lackeys might be there, waitin’ for him or me,” Junkrat protests. 

“I can shoot, but I can’t babysit an injured idiot and shoot at the same time,” you adjust his pillow for him. You go to your crafting table and rummage the drawers for more ammo. 

“What’ll you do if they outnumber you?” He calls after you. 

“I can handle it. I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” you slip some homemade smoke bombs into your right pocket.

You refill your kit, throwing in another bottle of “disinfectant” and a bundle of herbs. You grab some pale pink blossoms off the potted plant on your windowsill and return to Junkrat’s side. 

“Chew and spit?” He stares at them in your palm.

“Eh, you can eat these,” you shrug. “Should help you sleep.” 

He leans over and you expect him to take the flowers in his hand. Instead he just pulls your palm in closer and laps them up with a quick lick of his tongue. You shiver a bit and feel the heat rising in your cheeks. You could swear his grin turned just a little wicked. 

Without missing a beat, you wipe your palm on your pants, “I’ll go check on... on Mako. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

The flowers are already working and he nods groggily.

Just as you turn to go, you hear him call out, “Wait... wait...”

“Hmm?” 

“Take this,” he taps his bandolier. “There’s still a couple live ones.”

You step back towards him, “Which ones?”

“These...” his good eye flutters, trying to keep open. He chuckles, “It might be the flowers...or the drink, or both, but you’re a real looker when you’re not mad at me.”

You pause briefly before unclipping the bombs and dropping them into your satchel’s side pockets. You give him the gentlest of slaps, “It’s the head injury talking. Sleep.”

You can’t tell if its the drowsiness but he leans against your hand, nuzzling into it. You lay him down gently. He’s kind of cute. When he’s not talking. 

Stocked and ready to go, you lock the door and get on your motorcycle. It’s time to pay Uncle Mako a visit. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

You stop a good hundred meters out from the edge of Rutledge’s farm. Sure enough, a bunch of the Queen’s goons were in front of the front porch, speaking in hushed voices. You chew your lips pensively. They all sport the Queen’s mark: a black armband with a crowned skull. 

“Everything’s cleared?” The center-most man asked. 

“Yeah, we checked the perimeter and everything. All of the traps are deactivated.”

“What about the porch?”

The group coughs and shuffles about. 

“...I’ll go check the porch,” a twiggy fellow approaches the porch, slowly, carefully. 

You pause, sliding a hand down into your bag. Licking your finger, you test the air. No breeze, perfect. Now, just to get closer. You creep along the abandoned shed, coming closer to the group. 

“Any minute now, Crusher,” the man in the center said. 

The tiny, wiry fellow, apparently called Crusher gave an indignant whine. You hear a click. He scampers back to the group, “Done, that was the last one.” 

You almost chuckle out loud. No that wasn’t. 

“Alright, move in, we’re gonna’ be 25 million dollars richer tonight boys,” the leader calls. He hauls his weapon upward and blasts a grenade into the door. 

Wrong move. The wooden exterior shatters to reveal a steel plate door behind. 

“Fuck’s sake, they’ll know we’re here now! Alright, bring out the big stuff.” 

A very strong-looking woman hoists a crude rocket launcher onto her shoulder. You take a deep breath, no time to waste now, so you sneak closer and closer until you are meters behind them. You strike the bomb along the dry wood of the shed, friction igniting the match-like wick tip. With a grunt you chuck it square in the middle of the group. 

“What the fuck is that?” The leader stomps towards the little thing. It’s leaking spurts of gray smoke.

Come on, come on. 

“Spread out! Someone’s here...” The leader stomps on the bomb’s wick, trying to put it out. 

Oh, bad idea, friend. The moment his boot came into contact with the bomb, it exploded into a giant plume of gray-blue smoke. The scent of burnt pine needles filled the air. Taking advantage of the situation, you dart past the group, striking another smoke bomb and dropping it in the thick of it for good measure. You step onto the porch and your finger tips scramble for the secret latch. 

“They’re on the porch! I heard foot steps!!” A voice shouts amidst coughs. 

Oh god, not like this. Come on, come on. The door slides open and a heavy hand pulls you inside. You tumble inside and spring to your feet, one of Junkrat’s bombs in your hands. 

“Long time no see *your name*,” Mako stands before you. 

“Uncle,” you nod. This. This is awkward. “How’d you know it was me?”

“There’s only a couple people who know how to make an herbal smoke bomb like that.”

“Yeah, and most of them are dead,” you couldn’t resist commenting. 

Mako’s quiet for a moment, “...yeah, how’s Jamison?”

“Jami-who?”

“Junkrat. His name’s Jamison. Jamison Fawkes.”

“...He’s... he’s one of the Fawkes’ kids?”

“The only one that survived. Doesn’t remember anything. Took me years to track him down and turns out he got himself into royal shit.” 

“Well, fuck,” you pace about a bit, “He’s uh, he’s fine. He lost a fair amount of blood but got that patched up, and he’s pretty bruised, but nothing’s broken.”

“Ah, good, good to hear,” Mako limps back. 

“What about you?” You observe his gait. 

“I’m fine,” Mako takes a seat and sighs. 

You cross your arms, and peer at him through the mask. You barely remember what he looks like without it. You were so little back then.

“You’re staring,” he remarks. 

“Yeah. Jamison... Jamison told me you’re hurt.” 

“It was that nonsense,” he gestures towards the kitchen table. “How many of them outside?”

You move towards the table, “Five. I dropped two bombs, that should be more than enough.” 

“Good,” he grunts. 

You examine the crude little darts on the table, “Barbaro sap?”

He nods. 

“Must be concentrated if a couple are enough to knock you out, Uncle,” you chuckle and immediately bit your tongue. It was so natural, so easy to talk to him. 

“Jamison overreacts. I’m fine.” 

“You can say that. Fucker staggered all the way to my place, bleeding as he went.”

Mako shakes his head.

You walk back and do a quick walk-around, “You sure you’re alright?”

“I have the worst headache on earth...probably the darts, but I’m fine.” 

He’s telling the truth. For the most part, “And the limp?”

“Hip’s killing me. I’m getting old.”

You flip open the satchel and produce a couple herb bundles, “For the pain.”

He grunts, motioning towards the kitchen. You place the bundles there, and find yourself leaning against the table. Pausing. Fists balled up.  

He sighs, “Just say it.”

You march back to him, holding back the hot angry tears that threaten to spill, “You had no fucking right to tell Junkrat about me. You’ve been dead to me ever since that day. How dare you tell anyone about me? About us?”

Mako nods, speaking softly, “I owe it to the Fawkes to make sure he wasn’t going to die. I told him to go to you.”

“I almost did it, you know?” You’re shaking. “I almost turned him away. Almost let him die at my door step” 

Mako’s quiet, before speaking firmly, “You’re too good to do that.”

You collapse to the ground, crying, “This isn’t fucking fair. Every time I put the past behind me, it fucking comes back. You come back.” 

Your tears soak the dirty, dusty floors and the sobs come out in heaves. You cry for what feels like an embarrassingly long time. Mako is quiet the entire time. Finally the sobs subside into exhausted sniffs. You’re taking deeper breaths.

“... We have probably 20 minutes before they wake up,” he gets up and opens the door. 

You mentally kick yourself for being so vulnerable in front of him and pick yourself up off the ground. 

Outside, Mako is... or rather, Roadhog, is gathering the limp bodies and piling them together. 

“Are you going to kill them?” You ask. 

“Nope, tie ‘em up and leave 'em at the gate.”

You nod, “Let the Queen kill them herself. Nice.”

“Thank you,” he grunts. 

The two of you set to quiet work. With rough cord, you secure each goon’s hands behind their back, bind their ankles together, and Mako dumps them into his motorcycle’s sidecar. 

You give him one final look, too tired to be angry. 

“Here,” he hands you a grenade launcher, “It’s Junkrat’s.” 

“I’ll... I’ll return Junkrat when he gets better. I’ll see you...Roadhog,” the name is unfamiliar in your mouth.   

He nods and you turn away. Time to get back.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You return to your shack. The sky begins to pale and brighten, foretelling the sun’s arrival. As achy and weary as you are, you can’t afford to slip up. You check the perimeter of the shack and the stone fence. No tracks, good. You push through the gates and do a quick walk-around of the shack. Only your tracks and Junkrat’s tracks where you dragged him. Very good. 

 You push the door, still locked. Sighing, leaning into the frame, you unlock the door and stagger in. The junker is still knocked out, you hear his gentle snoring. You practically collapse into the chair by the bed, letting the weapons and bag tumble to the ground with a clack and a thump. 

“Oh, Jamison,” you sigh, gently turning his head with both of your hands. 

He’s not bad to look at when he’s sleeping. His wild expression calmed and soothed by the medicinal flowers. The swelling around his black eye had gone down significantly, not bad for a night’s rest.  

“No one messes with the Queen around here, you know that,” you murmur, gently feeling the bones in his face. Your thumb pads trace the edges of his jaw, looking for bumps. Your fingers move to his eye socket: gently, gently tracing around the black eye. The herbal paste had dried and chipped off in his sleep. He’s lucky, nothing’s broken. 

He blinks and shuffles beneath your touch. You retract your hands quickly. 

“Good morning,” you clear your throat.

“‘Ow’s Roadie?”

“He’s fine. You were quite dramatic. You were far more hurt than he was.”

“But the? But he...he wouldn’t wake up, even when I punched the bastard square in the face.”

That explains the headache. 

“Yeah, tends to happen when you get shot with one of these,” you shuffle in your bag and produce a crude dart, “Careful with the tip.”

He chuckles, “Phrasing.”

You roll your eyes but allow yourself a smile, “I have something for you.”

“Hmm?”

You lift up the grenade launcher. It’s a bit worst for wear, but nothing a bit of love and affection can’t fix. 

He gives a dramatic gasp, feigning a tear wipe, “I could kiss you.” 

“You definitely could,” you nod, exaggerated solemness in your voice. 

His breath hitches for a moment, smiling at you, “Wow, you really are a looker.” 

You smile, far too much for your own liking, “How are you feeling?”

“Slept like a baby,” he grins, “I don’t know what the fuck you smeared on me but m’side feels much better.” 

“Good,” you’re smiling like an idiot. Is it because of the sleep-deprivation? It’s certainly not because Jamison, er, Junkrat is looking at you. You tell yourself it’s because of the sleep-deprivation. 

“Sorry, by the way,” he clears his throat. “I know you and Roadie have bad blood and whatnot.”

“It’s fine...” your voice softens. “Your real name is Jamison?”

He scratches his head, “Yeah, only thing I really remember from when I was younger.”

You feel something catch in your throat, something like sadness. Something like nostalgia. You lean in and take his lips in yours. You could feel him hesitate, stunned, before melting into the kiss and kissing you back, greedily. He tastes sour and fresh, like the herbs you gave him to chew. 

When you finally pull back, he has the toothiest grin on his face, “Now, what did I do to deserve that?”

“I owed you for that,” you point at his side, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“Oh well, darl’,” he pulls you in closer, onto the bed with him. “If we’re talking about what you owe me... I’m going to need something for the disinfecting, that nose pinch, and something for leaving my poor injured self all alone last night.” 

You’re laughing fully, genuinely, the first time in a long time, “I’m sure we can think of something. And while we’re at it, you owe me for patching you up.”

He runs a rough thumb pad across your cheek, “Right, right. Does Roadie need me back soon?”

“I said I’d bring you back as soon as you get better,” you nuzzle up close to him, letting him drape his arm around you.

“Well, let’s take our time gettin’ better then, shall we?” He peppers your neck with kisses. 

“I owe myself that much,” you smile, pulling him in for another kiss. 

[thegeekerynj]

DC’s Future State: The Home Runs, Hits, and outright Strikeouts  

(Or, how Politics and Comics Don’t Mix)

Greetings from somewhen along the fractured timelines, and somewhere in the newly reconstituting Omniverse! Tis’ I, your faithful, but recently missing Fat Guy, finding his way back to a Universe with a keyboard, Intel processor, and something as far from MyFace as possible!

Gentle Readers, when last I had the privilege of gracing these Interwebs, Death Metal #7 had not yet hit the shelves, nor had Dead Earth #6. 

My spin down the ‘rabbit holes’, between the lunacy of the viral insanity that gripped the country, and then, the worries which came out of the COVID Pandemic, had me more focused on depressing issues, than the IMPORTANT THINGS in LIFE…

What DID happen with Wonder Woman? And, What came out of the lunacy of the Metal Saga?

Well, let’s touch on a few of those topics, the second, first.

What happened out of the Metal Saga? Well, we get a view of the Future, or a possible Future, if this is the Final State. We get to see some Characters grow, some disappear, some books remain the same, some will change DRASTICALLY.

We get to hear jokes about the Fifth Generation and how it is a marketing ploy for the Mothership, the United Conglomerated Moneygrab AT&T.

We get a name change from 5G to Future State, without a real concept change.

Oh, and Dan DiDio got fired. So did about half of DC’s regular staff.

But, I digress. 

Anyway, the premise is really simple… It’s Baseball Season! That being the case, I’m going to engage in a game of hybrid game of Sewer Cap Baseball, with each group of books graded as a Single, Double  Triple , Home Run, Out or Side Retired. This will not be an arbitrary judgment, as there will be some criteria to be followed.

The RULES: 

Home Runs  Well, a Home Run has to have outstanding artistry and story, the work being exemplary. Plot, characters, premise, everything is crisp, fresh and enjoyable. Writer and Artists have brought the reader to a place where they know the divergent reality is believable, in context.

Triples: If a Home Run is everything hitting on all cylinders, the Triple is the single knock in the engine. The pothole that nags at the Reader, the Idea that makes the Collector say, ‘This was really good…BUTTTTTT…’. Not the hook that leaves you wanting more, it’s the oversized hook that says’I just can’t swallow that’.

Double: A Double has a glaring issue that takes the reader out of the story… Frank Miller ‘300’ style Artwork on “Millie the Model’ type of ‘Well, that was a misfire!’ The story can be exceptional, or the Artwork wonderful, there’s just that GLARING issue that pulls the Reader away.

Single: The GLARING ERROR is extensive, pairing Yo-Yo Ma with Weird Al extensive. Both wonderful, but put together, and too much is lost in translation. The pairing of an ultra detailed writer with a 60’s style artist, who does no backgrounds, except for splash pages.

STRIKE OUT: Something is just BAD. 1985 Secret Wars BAD. Unfinished Kevin Smith Widening Gyre Cliffhanger BAD. Spider Buggy BAD. Not usually one to say something is BAD, I have said I didn’t like certain things. Not liking something does not make it BAD. Something horrifically wrong with it, that makes it BAD.

SIDE RETIRED: OK, this is a very special category, reserved for the Story That Has Been Done To Death, Didn’t Need To Be Done Again, Yet Here We Are, New Universe, Same Old CRAP!

This is the ‘Superman painted himself with invisible lead paint’ story, the ‘Bat-Shark Repellent in the Utility Belt Story (outside the 60’s camp stories)’…

So Gentle Readers, with all that said, the Pitchers and Catchers are set, the Batters are ready, the Managers are already bitching at the Umpire, sooooooo, Let’s Play Ball!

And remember, the Umpire reserves the right to continue the Game onto another day, as the Sun Goes Down…

===========================================================

First Inning:

Batter UP!

Dark Nights: Death Metal #7

Writer: Scott ‘Skull Crusher’ Snyder  Pencils (PP1-28) Greg ‘Constrictor’ Capullo,  Inks: Jonathan ‘’Gut Punch’ Glapion; Artist (PP 29-36) Yanick ‘Yell Master’ Paquette,  Artist (PP 37-38) Bryan ‘Hatchet Man’ Hitch

‘Tell me our shorts were not this short!

No way! They were MUCH SHORTER!

I will not die by pixie boot. I will not die by…’

———————————————————————————————————

This is it folks! The First Batter, or, the End of the Beginning, however the heck you want to look at it.

Gentle Readers, you can’t get to the Future State without first talking about the last issue of the series that brought you there… so, here we go!

Six issues, or, 23 issues, depending on your budget, wallet size, and ability to ‘Just Say NO!’, and here we are, the LAST ISSUE of the Death Metal Saga, which actually started way back in Batman #1 of the REBIRTH reboot, and carried through the METAL / Batman Who Laughs / Year of the Villain… so, the gift that kept on taking!

Anyway, this has been the Longest Long Game, and the Payoff has been SPECTACULAR! 

Constantly swinging between the Battle of the Bat-Families, the Superman Fight Squad and the Last Son, and the one - on - one death match between Wonder Woman and The Batman who Laughs, we get the battle scenes we have craved all along. 

Death, carnage, mayhem, and Jarro… who could ask for - - - What, you want more???? Well, we can add in the Totality, Diana of Themyscira, Goddess, ElseWorld, and finally finding out who was narrating this book for the last 77 years… Ya know, that’s enough.

Not that there isn’t more, I’m just not writing about it here…

Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have left everything on the field with this book. No regrets, no punches puled, they finished this the way they started, unrelenting, unforgiving, and absolutely unstoppable. 

As a fan, I can say this is one of the few books I really jonesed for over the last year. The months when there was a skip due to the ‘One - offs’, I think I really got the shakes. This was one of the three stories of 2020 that made this Reader sit up and take notice.

As such, I highly recommend this entire series. This issue was fantastic, a fine ending to lead in to a new phase of the DC Universe, and Frickin’ ELSEWORLD!!!

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

First Batter - Home Run!

===========================================================

Batting Second…

Generations Shattered  #1 / Generations Forged #1

Writers: Dan Jurgens, Robert Venditti, Andy Schmidt  

Artists: Ivan Reis and Joe Prado, John Romita JR and Danny Miki, Kevin Nowlan, Rags Morales, Doug Braithwaite, Ema Lupacchino and Wade von Grawbadger, Dan Jurgens and Klaus Janson, Yanick Paquette, Bernard Chang, Aaron LoPresti and Matt Ryan, Mike Perkins, Fernando Pasarin and Oclair Albert, Paul Pelletier and Sandra Hope. Colleen Doran, Marco Santucci, Joe Prado, Bryan Hitch and Andrew Currie, Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan

‘I will not spend another day behind bars! Not on Tamaran! Not on Maltus! And not HERE!

Starfire! Don’t!

It’s RICOCHETING!

Not bored now!’

———————————————————————————————————

So, What happens when ALL the Timelines are SHATTERED by a Multi-Cosmic Level Event?

Naturally, you send Booster Gold out to recruit an army of tactically important individuals from across the Multiverse, is an attempt to repair and cement the Timelines back together.

And what happens when said Man with a Master Plan and a hovering supercomputer gets himself killed?

Well, that duty now falls to Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth!

Yes, this is where we start, in the Time After The Great Disaster, with Kamandi and Tuftan trying to outrun some Bat-Men, and the Great White Goneness (Crisis Energy, Take II), an aged Booster Gold trying to recruit him, then getting swallowed up by the Crisis Energy (™), and Kamandi and a Skeets bracer escaping into the Dimensional Void to continue Booster’s mission…

No, this isn’t a rehash of the Kamandi Challenge from a few years ago, this is the aftermath of Death Metal.

All the Time / Dimensional Lines are in flux, and they can either get repaired, or, if Dominus has his way, only his little pocket dimension will remain.

So, we have Kamandi and Skeets, Starfire (from 1983), John Henry Irons (Steel) (from 1993), Superboy (from the Legion Timeline), Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi (Dr. Light) (from 1987), Sinestro Korugar, the Green Lantern for Sector 1417, Booster Gold, Day 1 in Metropolis, and Batman, circa 1939 versus Dominus’ incarnation of the Linear Men… O.M.A.C, Liri Lee, Rayak the Ravager, Matthew Ryder, Ultra-Humanite, Knockout, Artemis, Eradicator, Major Force, and Nemesis Kid… A virtual Who’s Who of Evil throughout the DC Timelines!

The Goal? Survive, Win, Preserve the hard-fought victory brought by the sacrifice of Diana, or face Oblivion.

A very well written story, presented by some amazing artists, and showcasing others we will be seeing throughout the Future State event. Of some note, the gorgeous pages by Colleen Doran, the work of Kevin Nowlan, Rags Morales, Doug Braithwaite, John Romita JR, Dan Jurgens and Klaus Janson. Some of the pages… ehhh.

A neat tie in, a way to let readers new and old know there are things which need to be fixed, and there are plans underway to do so, and to once again highlight Rip Hunter’s Blackboard!

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶🌶🌶

Second Batter - Triple

===========================================================

In the Three Hole…

Future State: Kara Zor-El  Superwoman

Writer: Marguerite Bennett   Artist: Marguerite Sauvage

‘I’ve come so far to learn that I can’t control what others think.

And that was another thing i learned from you, my good, grand Greatest Boy, KRYPTO the SUPERDOG.’

———————————————————————————————————

The title of this story comes from a quote attributed to Confucius,’Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves’, implying in the seeking of vengeance, one loses themselves, as well.

‘Dig Two Graves’ takes place in the far future, long after the prophesied battle between Clark and Jon Kent, when the son suppliants the father.

Kara has taken those who sought Safe Haven to the Moon, to the Fortress of Solitude there, where she expanded, and reinforced, and made it habitable for those looking to escape the violence.

And she forsook the violence, herself.  

No longer to be called upon as the Protector of Kal-El, a title long gone and forgotten, she has chosen to practice the ideals which her cousin, his son, and she should have been practicing all along.  Consideration, kindness, respect…

And then the idyllic peace is broken.

Marguerite Bennett gives us an extraordinarily beautiful story, one of insight, growth, beginnings and ends. This is a masterful piece, which tells a tale on many levels, which appeals to the most cynical among us (hand raised here), and the youngest, most hopeful at heart.

Paired with the writing is the beauty of Marguerite Sauvage’s artwork, both delicate in places and frenetic in others, telling the tale of the Gardener, the Hero, and the Rescuer. Beautifully rendered, the art carries the words as a tune carries lyric, bringing the Reader through the rises and lulls of the storyline in a beautifully orchestrated dance

Most notable of the story is the coloring, or seeming lack thereof For most of the story, with some exceptions, the most vibrantly colored character is Kara, with the Colonists and the Visitors appearing as pale in comparison ( for the most part, they are white, with pale highlights). 

This story is one of the true highlights of the Future State lineup…

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶🌶🌶.5

AAAnnnnnnddddddd, It’s outta Here!  

HOME RUN

===========================================================

And in the Clean-Up Spot…

Future State: Green Lantern #1-2

Writer: Geoffrey Thorne  Artist: Tom Rainey

Writer: Ryan Cady  Artist: Sam Basti

Writer: Ernie Altbacher  Artist: Clayton Henry

Writer: Josie Campbell  Artist: Andie Tong

Writer: Robert Venditti  Artist: Dexter Soy

‘My name is Beelu Kenz. You won’t have heard of my world.Bit of a Hellscape really. Everything there kills you. The air, the animals, even the dirt.

My people not only live there, we THRIVE. We ADAPT.We’re not the bloody fighters Khundia makes but we’ve got one thing over you. Two things, really.

We’re the BEST Weaponeers in the Spiral Arm. No one can touch us.

My Planet’s called IMSK and when an Imskian wants something to die—-

—-IT SPROCKING DIES!’

———————————————————————————————————

Two issues, five stories, one central theme carried through both issues… the Oan Lantern of Power has died.

We have John Stewart leading a cadre of Lantern Warriors, in the defense of a planet, against the militant worshippers of the God in Red, a god they believe wants warriors to commit slaughter and carnage in his name.

Stewart and Company teach them three lessons.

The story is marvelous, bringing in some great old names (Salaak, G’NORT!), while weaving a tale of great intrigue and detail which keeps the reader enthralled to the last page.

`

Next, the Sinestro Corps, taking the Green Lantern Outpost stations, invade the Station in Sector 023, only to find it defended by Jessica Cruz.

Story number three, well, there had to be a Warrior’s Bar Story, didn’t there? Which, of course gives us Guy Gardner.

The fourth story, a team story, puts Keli Quintela, the Teen Lantern and Mogo, the Living Planet, on a mission to find Jo Mullein, the Lantern’s resident detective, in the hopes of finding out the secrets of Keli’s overpowered, obviously alien ‘Power Gauntlet’.

Finally, and obviously necessary, for what collection of stories about the Green Lantern Corps would be complete without it, we get the story of Hal Jordan, and his search for the Lanterns, and  the Guardian’s Homeworld of Oa.

And who he finds when he arrives there…

Every story on point, every character well written, all converging toward, well, we don’t know yet. But we will.

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

The windup! The Pitch! The SWING! KRAAAAK!  IT”S IN THE BLEACHERS!!

HOME RUN!

===========================================================

Batting Fifth

Future State: Legion of Super Heroes #1-2

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis  Artist: Riley Rossmo

‘If I knew this was why you called me here, I would never have come! Not only should the Legion STAY DISBANDED —- The word should NEVER be spoken again!

T —- Tas —-  GAKK!  COFF!

***Listen, I stopped giving out Free Mood Stabilizers a long time ago*** But that wasn’t going the way you wanted!

_______________________________________________________________________

So, 31st Century, and the known galaxies are KA-Blooie!

RJ Brande is dead, the Legion has been disbanded, and BATTLE LINES have been drawn along loyalties…

Why, you ask?? How???

Well, it seems Post - Death Metal and the Restructuring, there was a traitor in the Legion.

Jan Arrah, Element Lad, has been branded with the label, a branding which carries to all his people.

The result of the treachery, the Planets of the Known Galaxies have been ruined, and left nearly uninhabitable.

Or, was it these people…

Brian Michael Bendis has given us a new future, one in the midst of upheaval, where the United Planets has been disbanded, the Legion is split along loyalties, and whether they want vengeance or redemption.

A well written, engaging story, wonderfully told through some different characters: 

Chuck Taine, Bouncing Boy, taking the battle to the Khunds as they try to colonize the devastated worlds; 

Imra Ardeen, Saturn Girl, trying to bring her beloved Legion back together to fight the real threat to the galaxy, and carrying a secret which is crushing her;

Luornu Durgo, once Triplicate Girl, now trying to find herself after one of her selves has been killed, and afraid to recombine because the pain of missing her is too great to deal with, and other characters we have come to know over the last year.

Where Bendis’ story is the blazing signal fire to light the way toward a stronger future in the DC Multiverse, Riley Rossmo’s Art is the Asbestos Blanket and Aircraft Fire Foam which induces all the cancers and kills it.

I’m sorry. There are times Riley Rossmo’s artwork really works for me. This chaotic styling is perfect within the framework of characters like Bizarro, Constantine, even the JLA, when there are magic or Lobo-like story elements involved. I especially liked his work on the Robin King, the frenetic, chaotic stylings appealed to my senses, made me giggle, and cringe at the same time.

Not here, though. Here, his work pulled me out of the story faster than if I had a tow hook jammed through my nether regions, and it was attached to a hiballin’ Peterbilt turbocharged tractor trailer.

This, Gentle Readers, was painful. It hurt my eyes, on a scale with the COVID News Conference from April 2020. I think I bled. 

I might still be…

I know I cried, because no matter how good the story was, I could not enjoy it.

Out of 5     🌶🌶

OUT

Batting Sixth

Future State: Aquaman 1-2

Writer: Brandon Thomas, Artist: Daniel Sampere

‘Is she here?

Jackson?

AQUAMAN, IS SHE HERE?

AQUAWOMAN LIVES’

———————————————————————————————————

Oh GOD. OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD!!!

Have you ever heard that line, or an iteration of it? The Katz’s Deli scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally’, maybe?

This book  was the equivalent.

I know, it was an Aquaman Book.

How often has an Aquaman Book been Original, or Relevant?

There was Craig Hamilton’s Miniseries in 1985, that gave us the really neat camo Aquaman suit, then there was Flashpoint, and Throne of Atlantis, and the introduction of Kaldur’ahm, or Jackson Hyde, the son of Black Manta.

Now, we have Andy Curry, AquaWoman.

This is a time where less is more. 

Brandon Thomas has given us a two issue story which I have gone back and read 4 times, because it is that good! David Sampere’s artwork is crazy beautiful, so gloriously detailed it leaves the eyes wanting more. 

This is the AquaPerson Story I have been waiting for since the movie… No dumb oversized seahorses, no force waterballs… carnage, and dimension hopping insanity, this makes a fantastic story!

All I can say is, if there is one story you MUST Read, it is this!

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

And that ball is GOING, GOING, GONE! They’re gonna find that one out on Sheffield!

HOME RUN

===========================================================

Seventh Batter

Future State: The Flash #1-2

Writer: Brandon Vietti   Artist Dale Eaglesham

‘Focus on the Science.

Science reveals Answers. 

Answers build Hope.’

———————————————————————————————————

NOOOOOOO!

After EVERY Time I picked up a Flash book over the last two years, and constantly getting assaulted with a NEVER-ENDING GODSFORSAKEN Redemption Arc story, what do i see here?

Barry Allen, in a REDEMPTION ARC STORYLINE!!!

The self-sacrificing hero of the Crisis, the overpowered, no the hero with the broken power structure, who turned Superman into an Anti-Life Zombie by VIBRATING THROUGH HIS ULTRA DENSE BODY, and leaving his fingers inside (uh, GROSS!!, but oh so cool!) now in a REDEMPTION ARC???

Nope! I’m done.

As Pretty as Dale Eaglesham’s artwork is (and it is pretty), This is a MAD Fail for me.

Out of 5🌶        🌶🌶     (if I split the grading this would have a 4.5 for the Artwork… the layouts are imaginative and well done, and the speed scenes are fantastic! This is how the Flash should be done, as artwork)

SIDE RETIRED.

As the sun starts to dip, and the street lights begin coming on, it’s time to call it a night.

At the end of the First Half of the Innings we have:

4 Home Runs

1 Triple ( a near miss, more for consistency of story and artwork… but points for Nemesis Kid and Major Force!)

1 Out (If I split it, it would have been a HR and a Side Retiring Art Fail)

And an Outright Side Retire

7 sets done, 15 more to do… We’ll start playing at Sunrise tomorrow, make a real day of it!

[sebastianshaw]

If Shaw was involved in the first Secret Wars, how do you think he would cope?

Ooh, that’s a neat question! First thing first, he’d be EXTREMELY pissed off at the Beyonder for just ripping him out of his daily business. And since there’s not shit he can do about it, he’d be in a terrible mood the whole time. I think that, like Doom, he’d consider just not playing the Beyonder’s game...but end up doing it anyway, given the Beyonder’s promise to give the villains all their desires should they succeed in defeating the heroes. After all, the Beyonder clearly has the means to do so, and while Shaw knows there’s no way to hold such a being to his word...if he does honor it, he’d be a fool (in his POV) to pass up such a prize because of pride. Not to mention he’s certain that the heroes MUST have been made the same offer, and are going to be coming for him anyway. I think he’d do pretty well. He’s got a good combo of power and brains going on; he’s not the super-genius that Dr. Doom is, but he’s not dumb at all like Absorbing Man. I think he’s got a very good balance of technical intelligence in engineering and business, and practical intelligence that serves much better in a combat situation. And from a meta standpoint, this was the mid-80s, so he was still treated as a villain with dignity by the writers and as an actual threat, so I don’t think his defeat would be easy or written like a joke. Which, he would probably get defeated in the end, he’s a bad guy and that’s how it goes, but it would definitely be a good show. I imagine he’d be put against some of the heavy-hitters like the Hulk or The Thing, since he’s a powerhouse type too and writers like to do “who would win in a fight, this dude or this dude” with characters who have similar powersets. And who would win in those scenarios would again come down to the writers, but I think Shaw would have a fair shot at triumphing via some clever innovation involving his own powerset, especially since Hulk and Thing would be unfamiliar with it. Thematically, it might also be neat to set him against Captain America or Thor. Shaw is literally referred to as “the American dream made flesh” in the text, the idea that you can be born dirt poor and work your way up to success. But he’s also the embodiment of cruel heartless American capitalism and the worst aspects of American individualism. So him being a foe for Cap, who is meant to be all the best things about America as a concept, is a neat idea. As for Thor, Sebastian Shaw is a canonical atheist, but more than that, he’s a man who believes in HIMSELF. His backstory says that he was born with a boundless burning fire of faith inside him, not in any religion but in himself, that he believed he could do anything if he just pushed himself. And he’s consistently shown as a man who believes in choosing his own path, his own destiny. He’s not just an atheist, he’s a man who doesn’t need gods; that psychological need for something greater to believe in and depend upon is filled by his own self-reliance and self-belief. So setting him against an actual deity is also pretty thematically cool. Of course, “Secret Wars” really wasn’t about any deep ideas, it was literally an event to sell toys, so that probably wouldn’t happen. But I’d also like to see him set against characters whose powers don’t “match” his at all, such as the diminutive Wasp (who could sting him without touching him and he can’t get ahold of easily) or the myriad energy forms of Monica Rambeau. It would be cool if we could see him win via brains over brawn in one of these scenarios too, but I think the writers would probably choose this to be the thing that takes him down after he beats one of the hero’s team tanks. A good idea might be Mr. Fantastic just wrapping him up in total restraint, maybe covering his mouth so he passes out from lack of air, though that might be too brutal? I don’t know the Avengers and FFs very well at all as people, so I can’t really say. I wish I did because I feel like there could be interesting contests of personality there and I’m just not aware of them. Speaking of contests of personality though, Shaw would absolutely rub at least some of his villainous “teammates” the wrong way. I’m not familiar with most of them, but the majority don’t seem like team players to begin with themselves, and while Shaw certainly can work well with others when it’s to his advantage to do so--the Hellfire Club, the X-Men---and it is very much to his advantage to do so now, I feel like some of them would just automatically dislike him. Absorbing Man in particular, I think, would probably sneer at him for being a “fancy man” who he thinks is a snob who can’t actually hold his own, and there’d probably be a moment where Shaw has to throw down with him to prove him wrong (and be very annoyed the whole time) I imagine Shaw would probably also be annoyed be the feral Lizard and insane Klaw, and frustrated that Dr. Doom, probably the one he considers the best ally of the lot, isn’t participating. I don’t know much about most of these villains in terms of personality, admittedly, but I think  he’d do alright with the rest though, particularly once he won respect from The Wrecking Crew by wrecking Crusher. He understands Kang's motives as a conqueror, he’s been around Amora’s sort of woman before (haughty cruel sorceress, she’d fit right in at the Hellfire Club), he can boss around the meek Molecule Man, etc. I’d honestly like to see his interactions with them all. The X-Men and Magneto all stayed out of it but they were still THERE and he absolutely should across them. Probably scoff/berate them for their lack of ambition, thinking the reason they stay out of it is cowardice. And he should absolutely have something to say about the fact that Magneto was chosen by the Beyonder for the “heroes” side because of his selfless motives, but I’m not sure what, though he’ll also say the same of Magneto’s decision to be unaligned, that it’s cowardly and shows he doesn’t want what he says he wants as badly as he claims, because otherwise he’d fight for it. I like to think there’d be at least a small scuffle between them that Shaw decides isn’t worth expending the effort on when he should be saving it for the fights that MATTER. Also I don’t remember the whole thing (I’m not even sure I ever read the whole thing) so there are probably some details I’m missing but this is the general idea! I do remember there’s a scene where all the villains are just in Volcana’s apartment trying to figure out how to go home and I love the idea of Shaw being in that situation:

(Volcana is why I read parts of Secret Wars to begin with, I love that gal!)

[watchthefunn]

Picking Out The Suitable Crusher Wear Liners

Thinking about purchasing a cone crusher wear parts? Take these words of advice before signing on the dotted line. Self-diagnosing a health dilemma can lead to incorrect treatments, prolonged healing and perhaps an much more costly reaction. The same applies in the devastating sector. Operators shouldn't try to select a crusher with out carefully sorting through the options and totally evaluating what they desire.

Surprisingly, many operators don't know what they need whenever they start off the process of choosing devastating gear. Things are further complicated if you think about that the relativity of the -- what one man believes hard rock might be medium to another. Deciding upon the proper impact crusher wear parts boils to examining each exceptional application and also the desired output.

A brief trip, a handful of questions and a thorough evaluation of an operation can save an operator out of the turmoil that accompanies selecting the incorrect crusher. Here are a few facts to consider when it is time to add a new crusher for your operation.

Evaluate your application

One of the most critical factor this would be your degree of hardness of the material you're processing. This really is typically measured in compressive strength, and also so the maximum pressure that material can withstand before breaking.

Primary jaw crushers procedure hard, abrasive materials such as granite, ores or recycled concrete. Cone crushers are known because of their ability to crush hard, abrasive ores and rocks, but they are perfect fitted to secondary crushing applications. Impact crushers are ideal for contaminated materials. They easily handle claydirt and metal blended in with the material. Though they can handle hard material, they are ideally suited for gentle to moderate rock.

Ascertain your desired output

When an operation can market 450,000 tons each year, its own crushers want certainly to develop 37,500 tons each calendar month. If a crusher machine is defined up to run two days each week for nine hours per day, the operation will want a machine capable of communicating just over four hundred tph.

Good production capacities are critical for the achievement of a small business. A crusher that is far too small fails to generate the desired tonnages, which restricts yields and revenue and caps that the organization's progress potential. A machine that's too large carries extra expense without a added value.

Consider mobility

Stationary-crushers provide the benefit of a custommade, heavy-duty layout. But, portable crushers allow operators to move the device nearer into the face of the crushing activity.

Wheeled mobile crushers can be hooked up to a truck and hauled to different locations or relocated on a jobsite. All these components are normally self-contained, eliminating the need for additional diesel motors.

Tracked mobile crushers are ideal for applications that require movement in a jobsite. They are easily transported from one jobsite to another just by loading them onto a trailer. Because they've been built for constant relocation, they truly are more compact and weigh less than wheeled crushers.

Attention to detail

A crusher needs to withstand daily abuse. Investing in quality devices and components up-front will save money in the long run. Before making a purchase, evaluate the quality of some of the crusher's components.

Just Compare apples to apples

It really is easy to get caught up in price. Although saving money is important, are the extras that may save some time and money in the future. Take, as an example, a crusher's discharge chute. This area of the machine is under a great deal of anxiety for the majority of the machine's run time, and as a consequence it takes regular maintenance.

Most of the machines need wear-liner replacements over a regular basis. Many machines, but have a specially created discharge stone box that eliminates wear-liner replacements. The specialized style employs a shelf system using an abrasion-resistant wear bar that allows crushed material to create up and act as a wear liner. The end result is dramatic savings in labor and wear parts.

[mercurygray]

I don’t know if you’re still accepting prompts but if you are could I get a Ron and Billie Jealous au for your brand of brothers fic? Or one where Ron leaves his wife for Billie (I know it’s messy but babe I love drama and I need angst)

I'm so sorry this took so long, Maddie! I went in a slightly different direction with this, but it's a scene I've been meaning to write for a while - the two of them meeting post-war and post-everything.

Hawaii was supposed to be nice, this time of year.

That was what all the travel adverts said, anyway - not that Billie would get much of a chance to see it. Airline stewardesses didn't make enough to take a week away on the beach - an overnight in the airport hotel, perhaps a daiquiri in the bar, and then it was straight back out the next morning, listening to all those eager vacationers asking how she'd liked the sand and the surf.

But despite those setbacks Billie could honestly say that she liked her job. The pay was good, and the hours weren't terrible, and she could say that she'd been to some fabulous places over the last five years - up to and including not spending any time at home in Philadelphia with her mother, who would keep wondering aloud when she was going to get married. When are you going to meet someone, her mother kept asking. Surely there are single men on planes.

What, you mean all of those bored businessmen looking for a little heavy petting away from home? Those single men? Those were the only kind she met these days - unless you were talking about the pilots, who were just as bad at keeping commitments.

No, she wasn't going to meet anyone here, and that was just the way she liked it. At present she had no obligations and nothing to tie her down, and that was just the way she liked it, too. Billie fixed on her face in the forward galley and made her way down the aisle, offering to help 7B with her bag, and to find a souvenir plane for the little boy in 12C.

There was laughter, a few rows back - a group of officers in class As, crusher caps and all, each with an identical briefcase and a smile that only got wider as she walked by. Hawaii was probably only a stopover for them - one night at the airbase and then on to Japan. Five years ago they wouldn't have been laughing about this flight - but five years was a long time. Billie tried to move by, brushing by the one joker who was still loitering in the aisle.

"And how about you, gorgeous?" he asked with a grin. "Are you free when we get there?"

One born every minute. "Terribly sorry, gentlemen, but I have other plans."

"Aw, but are they more fun than us?" his friend asked, rising from his own seat to block her in a moment, taking one hand and wrapping his free arm around her waist, his hand resting casually on her ass. "Maybe some drinks and dancing?"

Billie felt her blood rising, felt the urge to clench her fist and punch him square in the gut starting to pick up speed. She'd be allowed, if she were somewhere else. But stewardesses had to be cleverer with their jabs. She was just mustering her very best smile when someone spoke behind her.

"Is there going to be a problem here, Captain?"

Immediately the hands dropped - and Billie's face did, too. I know that voice. "No, Major Speirs, sir. Of course not."

And then there was another man behind her, looming. "When you speak to a lady, you call her ma'am." She took a deep breath, and turned around, only to come face to face with the same familiar dark eyes she knew she'd find. "Miss Mitchell."

It was a good thing the other man had called attention to his rank, because she wouldn't have been able to see it. She was too busy looking at him. "Major Speirs." And it took every ounce of strength she had not to call him Ron, because here he was, and exactly as she remembered, and the way his voice wrapped itself around her core felt as though it were only yesterday that they'd been in bed together, chuckling over shared cigarettes.

And one of his men had been feeling her up, and he looked spitting mad about it. Or at least, as mad as Ron ever looked, which was to say he had a kind of fire behind his eyes that you wouldn't notice until it burned you.

A bell rang overhead for the captain to speak, and everyone resumed their seats - and now those eyes were following her through the whole plane.

Billie knew how she looked to men in her uniform- the pencil skirt, cut to display a tight derriere and a fine pair of legs, the tailored coat with its bracelet sleeves, the pert hat over perfect hair. But she was unsure, now, how she looked to him. Did he like tight skirts, or the look of her calves in seamed stockings and heels? Was the way she dressed her hair now still attractive? Or did he only love the woman in fatigues with her unwashed hair in a braid, the one he could ask, laughing, Has anyone told you today you're beautiful?

She didn't know. And she wasn't sure she could stand the answer if she asked.

The captain turned the loudspeaker on, mentioning the gateway, and taxiing, and takeoff, and everyone took their seats and put their seatbelts on, and the engine roared them down the jetway. Billie's stomach was already in her mouth.

Ron Speirs. On her airplane.

It wasn't quite a full flight to Hawaii - eager vacationers, anxious for the sun, businessmen talking rice and pineapple and a dozen other commodities, and the small contingent of officers, all of whom seemed to have learned their lesson the first time and refrained from saying more than two words to her as she went by. All of them - and Ron.

She brought the cart around for drinks, tidied away newspapers and magazines, and studiously avoided him until she was doing the second round of drink service and he flagged her down. The seat next to him was empty, taken up by a briefcase and his own crusher cap - the privileges of rank.

"Billie, please. Stay a moment."

"I have a job to do."

"I'll take coffee."

She poured it without thinking, straight black, nothing in it, just the same way he'd always drunk it during the war, and set the cup down in front of him. "Some cream and sugar, please," he said, and she stared for a moment before realizing what it was he was doing - creating a reason for her to stay.

"So they promoted you," she said, taking her time with the sugar. "I didn't know if you'd stay in."

"I didn't have a reason to get out," he said, and as she set the cup down and he steadied it on his table she noticed his hand was bare - no ring. "We…separated," he offered, quietly. "There was …someone who needed her more." The casual way he said it nearly broke her. "I see one of us did all right, though," he said, smiling as he gestured to the diamond solitaire on her own hand. "Who's the lucky fellow?"

She looked down at the ring like she'd forgotten it was there - because she had forgotten she had it on. Her hand clenched like that would somehow hide it. "Oh, he - he doesn't exist. Sometimes it helps with - deterrence."

"And what do you tell them about him, when they ask?"

I tell them that he's very handsome, and we met during the war, and that he's a captain in the army. "Oh, this and that. Pretty lies." She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"I am, too." He glanced up at her with a brief smile, as if he were somehow afraid to hold her eye. "Do they give you some time for fun, after these long hauls?"

"Not much," she admitted. "But I can smell the sea, from the airport hotel, and that's usually good enough."

"They have me at the airport, too," he said vaguely. "Army travel budgets."

Down the aisle, someone else gestured, and she replaced the coffee on her cart. "Don't let me keep you," he offered, and she continued on down the row.

15C needed a gin and tonic with less emphasis on the tonic and more emphasis on the gin, and as she poured, her eyes glanced backwards down the aisle, catching a glimpse of dark eyes leaning slightly to the left, watching her from behind his hand with a different kind of fire, his coffee untouched in front of him.

Hawaii was nice, this time of year - if you had time to see any of it, that is. But five years was a long time.

(She was just hanging up her uniform when there was a knock at the door, and a pair of dark, fiery eyes behind it - tie loose, very sober. He looked her in the eye with longing. "Has anyone told you today you're beautiful?")

[mechagalaxy]

John T Mainer 28840:  Happy Faction War to all, lets have a good fight.

I climbed the last of the steps to my Redeemer using the hand holds on the chest vents.  Its a bitch coming down because the Redeemer is a steam powered machine for its internal suspension, so you can get burned bad if you forget to armour up before dismounts after a rough battle, but the Redeemer isn't from around here.  It is a Metaverse machine, from the alternate dimension those lunatics from Xeon and Unification tore open when they decided their civil war couldn't die with their worlds.  The poor innocents in the Metaverse didn't know a lot that we do now, we had to teach them about the Clans, and the way free warriors could stand together against the nations, and keep war from spilling into the cities and turning them into abattoirs filled with civilian dead who had neither stake nor vote in their fate, and had no reason to die for it.  In return, the silly bastards taught us it was possible to build bigger than 100 tons, my Redeemer stands a proud 105, and Ramba Ral's Penner stands a brooding 110.  Time marches on, progress they tell me, but the old ways are still best for some things.

"Berserker Actual this is Slaughter 6, Contact"  Jim Faust was calling on  the Berserkers strategic channel, we were not grouped in our clans, or he would be standing with his Slaugherhouse 5 against what came, and be ground to pieces.  He would be running his local tactical net for the scouts he was running for the Berserkers, and I had Darren, Christine, Rob, and others already coming on line as they heard the Contact call.  Each of them commanded a battle group in the Berserkers, each of them a skilled and proven Clan leader in their own right.  I had a dozen officers on line right now that could take command and run the battle that would develop like seasoned professionals; that was the strength of a Faction, the depth of talent not just in fighters, but in command.  I was going to use it.

"Slaughter 6, break it down, what are we facing?"  I had the tac feed from his machine, that told me what he was facing directly.  He had a dozen Reindeer, some of those crazy orange abortions and blue Vupa Walkers that no sane manufacturer knew how to make on his screen trying to punch through his scouts.  They were screening something, and sensors couldn't tell you what, just a tonnage range from seismic sensors and a rough energy signature that told you not a lot, save that it was making the warbook go schizophrenic as it changed like the best EW known to man, or insane AI in the case of I AM on Vupa 6, could do.  Jim was a pro, he had seen it all, a true leader makes the tough call based on instincts won by surviving based on trusting instincts and committing before your computers had enough to react on.  Faction War gave me enough leaders I could let the man on the scene make the call because he could see enough to guess, and the rest of us could trust it enough to commit like it was our own guess.

"I read it as Elves boss, call it a minimum Legion strength"

Well bite my Yule Log, it was true.  Santa Clause was coming to town.

Orders snapped out almost without thinking.

"Don, Mariea, Holy Damn, Werewolf on me.  Move to the gap at Epsilon 89, echelon right, refuse flank, pivot on me.  We are NOT going to stop them, we are going to turn them, let them push us against the Lesser Ural Mountains.  We make them take the long way to the gate.  Rob, Sten, Caitlyn, get in your Novums and Axebots and get into those hills, I don't want Santa getting any scouts up there to let him know we don't have the Faction behind us, or he will pin and slaughter us, not punch through and break for the gate.  Christine, set up a secondary blocking position at Delta 5, not too strong, let him punch through your center, just harass and slow."

A legion of Elves, 1200 plus of Santa's little helpers, each one cranking top rated cannons, forests of Xmas trees haunting the flanks with Tandem Bomb wide forking missiles to sweep both scouts and mines from their path, and those damned Reindeer scouts with their crazy antler EW suites that jammed higher communication once they closed.  Let them get in close and higher level command became impossible.  In a normal fight, that meant disaster, as troops couldn't respond to changes without orders.  In a good Faction, you had clan level commanders scattered with their command teams throughout the formation, and local command devolved onto someone who was not only up to the job, but used to it.  We couldn't stop them force on force, but we could stop their mission.  It was not about machines in the end, not about niodes or glory, it was about trusting people, and getting the most out of them.

"Berserker Actual to Banzai 6, join me on discrete"  I was calling Darren Jackson from Myth and Legends Team Banzai to play our trump card and shut down Santa for the moment.

"Go for Banzai 6,"  Darren's voice was tired and half awake, and the panting in the background told me he was racing to his machine as we spoke.  Even right from the rack, true professionals were ready for combat.

"Banzai 6, has the Good Doctor worked his usual magic, he thought he might be able to reconstruct that signal that Artemis Molly scrubbed from her Vizi when she got jumped on that courier run for the Craftsmen by the Kanabo Crushers"  Doctor Banzai thought he knew what it was.  He understood gate codes better than Drocha did, and was less likely to destroy the universe with it by playing around, and he thought he saw a Crafstman override in that code.  If he got it, we might be able to stop Santa from breaking through.

"Berserker Actual, Doctor Banzai says it will work, Perfect Tommy says it will just blow up, but New Jersey says the math looks solid, and it will hold for at least a week, two at the outside"  That was Team Banzai for you, mad bad and dangerous to bystanders, but I was a Bunny myself and not over prone to fear or good sense.

"Banzai 6, screen the gate until Doctor B says he's uploaded the code, then let yourself get pushed off it.  Just try to get a trailer on them when they pull back, we need to find out where Santa is staging out of, we need to get the Factions together to stamp him out, or its going to be a White Christmas when his mecha stomp our burned out ashes into the snow.  Get me his vector, and maybe this was worth it"  Dying to buy time is a soldiers job too often, living to buy information is a professionals job.  We were about to see if we were good enough to do it.

The reactors in my Redeemer were shunting power to my amplifiers, my cannons would be running about 130% at base, with about a one in two chance of both x2 and x3 amplification, an outside shot at more, I was more happy with the one in three chance of an outright critical kill, as if the fat man was there himself, nothing less than a critical kill would take him down.  I have seen him take a 12000 point shot to the beard and cut the firing mecha in half with enough left over to shut down both his wingmen and blast the mecha behind right off its legs.  Against him, you were better off praying for lucky than good, he was just too much, well everything.

Paladin was the name of my Redeemer, a tarnished knight with bunny ears was the logo.  That was me, not the strongest by far, there were whole clans of 400 level niode monsters who could brush me aside, there were even people at lower level who had so much power in their lineup that they could stand off my best attacks, match my top lines mecha for mecha, then cut through the back half of my machines like tissue paper because they were top line machines, weapons and gear front to back, and I was, well, not.  Paladin's didn't fight the safe fights, didn't ask for a chance at victory, they raised their banners to defend the weak and damned be any that stood against them (also most who followed them, but hey if you wanted safe, become an accountant, not a mecha jock).

Werewolf howled, and Holy Damn screamed curses of binaric machine cant.  Not what you would call rational, but at least as good of a contact report as I needed.  I translated for those who hadn't twigged in already.

"Shields on full, weapons hot, here they come!"  I screamed as I put my massive ceramite shield in front of me.  Sandwiched layers of Ferro/crystaline armour powered by a shield net that disrupted energy weapons and scrambled incoming missile active targeting systems, it wasn't just a big block of armour to hide behind and shoot, but it was also a big block of armour to hide behind and shoot, because Paladin had over twice the precision of his dodge, because he was here to kill not to survive.  Survival was secondary to mission, so if I wanted to get out of this alive, I had best get tot he shooting.

A howling mob of missiles arched in before the mecha crested the saddle pass, but my shield caused them to thunder in well short or howl past harmlessly.  I read the seismic sensors and plotted the vector of the incoming and fired my Juggernaut as the first signal should reach the crest.  I watched as it caught one of the Elves right at the pointy cap line and slammed the tall machine to the ground as its cockpit soared overhead to land in the rank behind, crashing into another machine at the left shoulder joint, I let my burst wander over the same machine with the last few of that casset before it spat from my gun.  The second line wasn't so perfect anymore.

Seig Zeon my Penner fired next, his cannons were deadlier than mine, and his Elf split in half, showering its neighbors with bits of dead elf.  They got their own back though as a spider like leg soaring overhead indicated the loss of signal from Ugly MOFO wasn't jamming, someone had turned the spider like fire-support mecha into a nice holiday fire, along with the Predator drones I was counting on getting some kills with.  That seemed to fire up Rover, my big golden kitty, as the 110 ton brute let fly his rage from his Okha flamers bathed the whole hillside in wide forking hellfire.  

It didn't stop them.  I felt the hit on my shield as an Elf physically rammed me.  I set my heel and pushed back, then rammed my gun against his pointy head and Decimated his brainpan with some depleted uranium through the cranium.

There was a shattering explosion and the turret from Rover, my wing Cyberdon knocked my cannon arm out of line.  His killer stepped close.

“He was dressed all in flames, from his head to his foot,

And his armour was all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of guns he had flung on his back,

And he looked like an army with a city to sack.

His shields -- how they twinkled! his gunsights how merry!

His capacitors were like roses, his lasing crystals like a cherry!

His EW emitters were all powered with a glow,

And my displays all dissolved in meaningless snow;

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I was pretty much dead;”

The Tinsel EMP shorted my control systems through my implant, but the tinsel bridged the breakers and wouldn’t let the surge suppressors and emergency cut outs break the link, so I fell screaming with Paladin, the AI and I joined as the mecha spasmed apart, its electrical and powers systems shorting through the hull, the steam of its suspension systems blasted through the cockpit and unconsciousness kept me from the rest of the experience.

When I came to, the icons on my rebooting display told it all.  My command was crushed, Santa and the horde were pressing Christine in the final blocking position.  She was singing.

“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

Eating all the gum drops he can see

Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra!

Leave some there for me”

That is a bad sign, she only sings the Kookaburra song when she gets a chance to stick somebody with her Vorpal Sword.  She was supposed to let them push her forces out of the way, not let it turn into a slugging match we couldn’t win.  I opened her display to see her Guardian (Mama Bunny) kick an Elf off her Vorpal sword, and bring her shield in line against Santa himself.  It didn’t help.  He frosted her from head to foot with a Proton Blade, the ice shattering the superconductive coils in her weapons, the magnetic repulsion powering her joints, and sending microfactures through her engine amplifier shield emitters.  Emergency shunts screamed as they ejected her fusion core out the back blast plates as her machine gutted itself to prevent pilot and AI death.

I saw Darren withdrawing Team Banzai from the gate and punched through direct.

“Did we do it?”

Dr Banzai himself replied.  “Berserker Actual, the code recovered from Artemis Molly is holding, the gates in this sector have been reprogramed to Single Rainbow lock.  No one is getting mecha out of here more than a handful at a time.  Evil Santa won’t be going anywhere for between one to two weeks.”

Evil Santa’s reaction was Claus for alarm:

“He continued to slay, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he strode from the fight,

BACK AT CHRISTMAS FOR YOU ALL , AND WE’LL FINISH THIS FIGHT!”

John T Mainer 28840

Happy Faction War to all, lets have a good fight.