#he's got plot armour that keeps you on the BRINK of death

[solitaire-dreams]

Honestly, Dazai not dying here would be the funniest option because he would have lived through:

Poison which is lethal in 30 mins (already running on anime time)

Jumping out of an elevator shaft

And four gunshots at close range, including one to the head

[cepmurphy]

“I always think I’m rid of them. Never am.”– Resolution

S11 ends with It Takes You Away and then Resolution, and I will accept no arguments.

There’s a cliché that a Doctor isn’t truly one until they’ve fought the Daleks. They’re the one foe just as iconic as the Doc. They’re a British icon. They’re so cool, they could have 50% of their TV appearances be a bit crap and we still want them. They’re almost certainly what the BBC said “Chibnall, you HAVE to include them if we let you have all this freedom on the other episodes” about.

But how will they fit here, in the more grounded and less flashy S11?

Chibnall cannily takes the Russell T Davies approach: there’s just one Dalek, it’s loose on Earth, and we see how dangerous it is because that one single, solitary Dalek is pushing the Doctor to the brink. This will also start off moving the Christmas Specials to New Year’s, and it harkens back to the old RTD approach there again – this, a time of year when everyone’s got free time and families are vegging out together in front of the telly, so now’s the time for a crowd-pleasing thrill ride.

And what a ride! We’ve had runarounds and battles and the like before, but the budget is stretched as far as it will go here, a story of car chases down real highways and tanks trading fire with aliens and a climax in front of a supernova! This is a real battle, and not on Ranskoor Av Kolos!

There are parts where the plot doesn’t quite work and veers into the same now-it’s-3407-years-later stabs at being ‘epic scifi’ for the sake of it: the Order of Custodians are really a nothing thing with little explanation (how did the Custodians found it when they’re so far apart?), there’s a company buying up alien tech on the black market (WHAT?!) but they’re just to explain a Dalek gun (couldn’t it be from the dig?). The joke that with no power, families are forced to talk to each other is lame at the best of times but jars when it comes surrounded by scenes taking the Dalek’s threat entirely seriously. But unlike Battle or Tsuranda, the episode is charging ahead so fast and doing so much fun stuff that it’s easier to ignore.

Before the Dalek, because there’s a lot I want to talk about there, the humans.

Mitch and Lin, our meet-cute archaeologists, are very quickly sketched out as characters and a couple in their first minute, with Mitch needing clarification about a kiss particularly adorable. We care about her quickly, which makes the Dalek’s takeover of her all the more painful. (Though points deducted for how, at the end, she seems over being made to kill people! Points deducted too for Yaz never having a reaction to fellow Sheffield police being killed)

Ryan, Graham, and Aaron are, of course, the main human activity. After a series of build-up, Ryan’s dad is here and we can’t blame Graham for immediately going “no” and shutting the door on him, not after all we’ve heard. But Aaron is not what we’ve been led to expect: he’s not cold, he’s not unfeeling, he’s not abusive. (Or not intended to be seen as abusive, as there is a reading of him as emotionally abusive) What he is, is pathetic and needy and aware he’s pathetic, but unable to express things. He hopes he can just sidle back in, and he’s frustrated to find Ryan and Graham (who won’t even look at Aaron) have bonded, and angry he’s being treated like this.

But over the course of S11, Ryan has been getting better at expressing himself instead of bottling things up. Here’s where that ends: being able to tell his dad exactly how he feels. “Don’t come walking back in, demanding respect, because that ain’t where we are.” He’s able to express that his dad made him feel like he was unworthy of being loved; he’s able to express exactly what Aaron needs to do and say.

Aaron can’t express well. In the café scene, Aaron is bigging up the microwaves he helped make and he so clearly wants Ryan to be impressed, and is pained when he realises “I make it sound like a con. So maybe I’m not cut out for that.” When he finally admits his failings and weaknesses, it takes work, and Ryan is not sympathetic (and would you expect him to be?). Graham is the one who, despite all his contempt and anger for Aaron earlier in S11 and this very episode, is sympathetic enough to reach out to the man who he was once afraid would take his grandson away. He’s old enough to ask why Aaron didn’t come to Grace’s funeral for his own sake, to break down the last barrier – that Aaron was scared to accept the death.

While Aaron will go on to help stop the Dalek, the way S11 runs, the moment he breaks and admits “I wish I was better at life” and can express his failings so they can be fixed is the point where he can be redeemed. In S11, male characters have been repressed and needed to get past it to be better people, for their own sake and for others.

(Yaz, neatly, does not need that – her immediate response is to help Ryan, telling him that he and his dad can have a conversation in a very nearby café. Also the Doctor, the voice of the show’s moral code, the character who bluntly cuts to the chase for Aaron where others don’t: “You let him down.”)

And with humans done, the Dalek.

The Recon Dalek is one of the most formidable showings we’ve seen from the pepperpots in years. It’s cruel, it’s cunning, it has the highest on-screen bodycount of the entire series, it takes the Doctor’s entire team to stop it and then keeps coming anyway. It also gets a whole new bag of tricks we’ve not seen from a Dalek before, as now it can forcibly control another’s body and outgun a bloody tank. When it wipes out soldiers, smoke drifts over a battlefield like you’ve just watched a war drama.

And with the creature loose from its armour and possessing Lin half the time, we get a new reading on old cliché lines like “you are an enemy of the Daleks”. There’s a glee in it when it comes through a human mouth. ‘Lin’ smiles when she kills; the Dalek is enjoying this. This nastiness brings us back to the recurring horror beats of S11. The Dalek is scary again. (The massacre of GCHQ is a good example: nothing but distant, terrified screaming as SOMETHING comes your way. Also the clear pain Aaron’s in when the Dalek is jammed into his spine.)

But there’s more there. This is the Dalek equivalent of The Woman Who Fell To Earth.

The Dalek is completely unarmed and powerless and unaware where it is when it pops up in Sheffield, just like the Doctor was. The Dalek turns to the nearest people for aid, just as the Doctor did. The Dalek has to improvise with what’s around it to defeat a better-armed foe, just as she did. And just like the Doctor built her new sonic, the Dalek constructs its new shell out of scrap and welding. The Doctor is aware how the Dalek thinks, and it thinks a lot like she does.

As with last episode, the Doctor is using technobabble a lot more than she does in most of S11 – but this time, it’s barely working. Instead of being a handy resolution for a plot, it’s part of a battle of wits against a Dalek. Have a magic scanner? The Dalek can block it. Hack the city’s traffic cameras? The Dalek knew you would. Hack satellites? Not enough. Eventually what does stop it is practical engineering with the microwave, but even there, the Dalek adapts.

All of this, again, the sort of thing the Doctor does! The Dalek even ignores when the Doctor mocks its apparent weakness, just as she ignored Tim Shaw in her first go. Just as in Dalek, they’re two sides of the coin but unlike that story (or Inside The Dalek), it’s more that the Dalek would make a good Doctor. The Doctor wins, sure, but it’s a very close thing. How does she win in the end? As she did in Woman Who Fell, collaborating with a group of disparate people with something to offer. The Dalek, in the end, has no one but the Dalek, and that’s what beats it. One last thing: “I’m so sorry, UNIT operations have been suspended pending review… following financial disputes and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK’s major international partners.” If you have to write UNIT out for a story, that’s a hilarious way to do it.  Nobody wanted to pay for defending Earth. That’s a political jab that’s not likely to age for a long time! ** Tomorrow, S12 starts. We’ve seen more monsters in the trailer than S11 had. There’s implications of an arc. S12 may be quite different from S11, it may go for a bigger scope and more monstrous foes that are monsters, and that can lead to good episodes. But S11 was something new – it was a version of the show where smaller stakes were still important, where practical work saved the day, where the alien could be benign and the humans the great threat. It stands as a model of another way you can do the show.

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Fallen Valkyrie, pt4

Word Count: 2487 Tags:  @outside-the-government @distinguishedqueenofbooks, @anyakinamidala @dirajunara @anotherotter @youdonebeengarthed @auduna-druitt @samaxraph99 @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso @feelmyroarrrr @kitchenwitchsuperwhovian @little-study-bug

Eira sat in the courtyard, a manuscript perched on the ledge of the fountain, reading. It was a thick tome on the healing properties of the vegetation growing on Asgard and the other known realms. Despite her ability to pull from a deep source of magic to heal wounds, she preferred to make use of herbal remedies. It made life simpler and ensured that anyone who came to Halla’s home for treatment could be treated, regardless of whether or not Eira was available. Herbal healing was her mother’s gift, and while it didn’t have the impact that Eira’s magic had, it was a reliable and constant method of treating the sick. Eira felt she needed to rely on that more than ever, as her responsibilities with the Valkyries would be taking her away more. It was better to find and develop new treatments than depend on Eira getting home in time to save a life. So she was spending all her free time reading and collecting plants, creating salves and tinctures and testing them for efficiency. When they worked, Eira noted exactly how they were made. When they did not, she noted how they were made, how they didn’t work, and if there were ill effects from the use.

She’d been reading about Midgard’s plants for the past few days and was accumulating quite a list of plants she wanted to acquire the next time she was called to the realm. It was a violent time on Midgard, and she thought she would be seeing much of the Northmen over the coming years, which would give her ample time to collect what she was researching.

“I hope you do not mind, Eira. I let myself in.” The male voice startled her, and she nearly knocked her book into the fountain. She steadied it and looked up, immediately rising and dropping into a curtsey.

“Highness! I was not expecting a visit from you,” she breathed.

“I thought we’d dispensed with such courtesies, Eira,” Loki smiled as he approached. She raised her head and met his eyes, a smile spreading across her face.

“I am always careful not to assume, Loki,” she admitted.

“And my brother still has not given you leave to be so familiar yet, has he?” Loki queried. Eira blushed.

“He has not,” she acknowledged. Loki nodded wisely.

“He forgets that courtship is about familiarity, I think,” he laughed.

“Is that why you are so familiar? Am I the bone being fought for by two dogs?” Eira snorted in contempt. Loki laughed again.

“No, Eira. I learned long ago that I never win in those contests. I came to see you as one conjurer to another. I saw the result of your healing on Midgard, perhaps more clearly than anyone else could. His leg was rent, nearly completely off. It takes quite advanced magic to heal that,” Loki probed. Eira blushed again.

“I have always had the gift of healing.” She was modest.

“That is more than a gift for healing, that is wondrous and powerful magic, Eira. How did you learn?”

“I didn’t learn. I’ve always been able to, as long as I can remember. I can see inside the body, and move the elements around to repair it.”

“What other magic can you create?” He demanded. Eira shook her head.

“None. That is all I am capable of.”

“Said as though you are unaware of how powerful your gift is.” Loki looked as though he didn’t believe her. He pulled out his dagger and slashed his arm. Eira jumped up and put her hand over the wound. But she didn’t immediately heal him.

“Is this a test, Loki?” She demanded. “I cannot let you bleed to death, you are Odin’s son. But I can make you wait until you are on the brink, and weak.” She was angry at the thought he would take advantage of her.

“It is a test of a sort. I want to feel your magic. I need to know how it works,” he admitted. His blood seeped through her fingers and Eira looked at the small pool accumulating at their feet with disgust. She glared at Loki, not breaking eye contact, and concentrated on the wound in his arm, visualizing the flesh mending. She usually visualized these repairs as being painless, but she forewent that in Loki’s case, to teach him a lesson. His face twisted in pain, but he didn’t cry out. Eira took her time, ensuring there would be no trace of the wound, but it drew out the repair and Loki had a thin sheen of sweat on his brow when she finally let go of his arm.

“You could have made that hurt less,” he accused as she washed her hands in the fountain. She turned back to him with an innocent smile.

“I could have. But then what would stop you from doing this as a party trick?” She agreed. Loki looked at his arm in awe.

“I’ve never felt magic like that before.”

“You are yet young, Loki.” Eira was dismissive.

“I am not inexperienced. This is more than a gift, Eira.” Loki rubbed the spot where he’d cut himself. He looked lost and puzzled. Eira almost felt sorry for him.

“You already said that,” she laughed softly, drying her hands on her hangarok. She picked up her book and walked toward the door to the library. Loki followed, contemplating her ability.

“Why were you on Midgard?” He asked suddenly. Eira spun around, blanching at the question.

“I healed that soldier, I was-“

“Yes, you did heal him. But why were you there to begin with? The battle was over. Freya had collected her share to Folkvangr, and all that was left on the battlefield were the wounded, the dead and the Valkyries. So why where you there?” Loki cut her off. Eira turned away and started toward the library again. Loki reached out and stopped her.

“Loki –“ She started.

“I know I’ve told you we are on familiar terms, but you would do well to remember I am the son of Odin, and I will find out why you were on Midgard. Even if it means taking you to the Allfather and having him force your hand,” Loki threatened. Eira squared her jaw and wrenched her arm from his grasp.

“There are some secrets so great that even the Allfather won’t share them with you, Your Highness.” Her voice dripped with ice and Loki looked as though she had slapped him. He dropped his hand to his side and pursed his lips.

“That leaves me with only one more question for you, Eira. Does Thor know he courts a Valkyrie? He won’t be happy that you withhold your maidenhood to remain a servant to the glorious dead.” Loki crossed his arms and awaited her answer. The colour left her face.

“How-“

“You wear armour, a helm, carry a shield and spear, and rode a white horse off the battlefield. Thor may be blinded by his lust for you but I suffer no such malady. You may not look like one of the twelve, but I’ve no doubt you are numbered among them.” His eyes flashed green and Eira closed her own in response. She sighed deeply.

“And what must I do to have you keep my secret?” Her tone was flat, defeated. Loki’s mouth turned up at one corner.

“Not one thing. Continue to lead my brother on his merry chase. That is satisfaction enough for me.” Loki was notorious for his keen sense of mischief. Eira should have known it would be so simple, while still being so complex.

“How do you know I want to remain a Valkyrie?” She turned his plot back on him.

“You’re not the type to fall into bed with a prince to be rid of a responsibility, Eira.” Loki shook his head.

“No?”

“No, a commoner, maybe. Or one of the dead. But not a prince. You are not so clichéd as to look for a gilded bed.” He locked his eyes on hers as he spoke, and despite the temptation to do exactly what he said she wouldn’t, she knew he was right. The only way she would bed his brother was if they came to an agreement that involved love. And Thor did not have the air of a family man about him, still young and looking for glory and war.

“You have a way with words, Loki.” Eira’s comment was sarcastic and Loki threw back his head and laughed.

“They don’t call me Silvertongue for nothing, Eira,” he winked. “I will see myself out.” He headed through the library and turned into the hall. As soon as he’d disappeared from sight, he reappeared, holding a letter.

“I forgot the other reason I came this way. The Allfather has summoned you to court.” He handed the envelope over and turned back out the door. She listened to his footsteps diminish as he got closer to the door, and then heard his horse whiney.

Eira dropped into a comfortable chair and turned the envelope over to break the seal, only to discover it was already broken. No wonder Loki had known she’d been called to see the Allfather. She supposed he was insulted to be treated as a messenger, and the missive didn’t contain any great secrets, so she wasn’t really offended. The nature of the note was troubling though.

Eira Sigbjornsdottir,

Regardless of any other duties that may arise between time of this missive and the morrow, I must demand you make time to meet with me in the throne room after morning feast.

Odin Allfather

Eira sighed and made her way to her room to find something suitable to wear.

Eira entered the throne room and took a knee as she approached the throne. The Allfather sat, holding Gungnir in his right hand, Huginn and Munnin perched on the back of the throne. She took a deep breath, fortifying herself. Her hands were shaking. She had no real idea why she had been summoned, despite needing to be on Midgard to escort the dead from another battle the Northmen had started. She didn’t think she should be in trouble for healing the soldier on Midgard, as she hadn’t changed his destiny by healing him. She felt unsettled and troubled regardless.

“Rise, Eira, and come forward. Our conversation is not for the entire court to hear.” Odin gestured to the dais the throne was on. Eira stepped up to Odin and tried to remember to breathe. She knelt in front of him again.

“Your Majesty, I-“

“Lady Eira, calm yourself. You are not here the answer for any crime. You are here to discuss some aspects of your calling and abilities.” Odin held a hand up to quiet her.

“Oh.” Eira was surprised. Her frantic heart slowed down, and she felt her breathing coming easier.

“You fulfilled your duties as Valkyrie a few days past, did you not?” Odin asked. Eira nodded, unable to find her voice.

“And while you were on Midgard, you healed a soldier?”

“Yes, Allfather,” she croaked. Odin nodded.

“His wound had been seen by the Midgardian healers, and been passed over as too severe. They felt he would bleed to death.” Odin saw everything through Huginn and Muninn.

“His wound was not so severe, Allfather. It would have festered, and he would have died long after the battle.”

“If he were Aesir, Lady Eira, yes. Midgardians are much weaker than we are. The wound was fatal. He was destined for Valhalla.” Odin’s words were gentle, but there was a lesson in his voice. He didn’t need to say anything, but Eira could hear the unspoken words. Had she been diligent in riding with the Valkyries, she would have enough experience with offworld beings to know what wounds would kill them, and which would not. She felt her cheeks redden, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“I am so sorry, Allfather. I know that’s not enough –“ she began.

“You are headstrong, Lady Eira. You have refused to fulfill your duties. You have shirked your responsibility as a Valkyrie, one of my chosen shieldmaidens, in order to spend your time on pursuits you prefer. You were bound to make this mistake and alter the fates eventually. I should cast you out, and leave you to roam the worlds unprotected, unguided.” Odin’s words cut Eira deeply.

“I will accept whatever punishment you see fit, Allfather.” She bowed her head, and felt the tears drop from her lashes to the dais. Odin placed his hand on her shoulder.

“They are worshipping you as a goddess on Midgard.” Odin was still gentle with her, and her head snapped back up to look at him, confused.

“A goddess?” She asked, her voice louder than she had intended. Odin nodded.

“The soldier lived because you intervened. They say you are their goddess of healing.”

“I am no god, Allfather,” Eira protested.

“Lady Eira, none of us are. But many of us belong in their pantheon. And now you do as well. You are Eir, goddess of healing, and Valkyrie. Your abilities will ever be entwined, and you will never be free of either,” Odin foretold. Eira felt a shiver cross her body.

“But Allfather, when I fall in love, when I marry-“

“A loss of maidenhood is no guarantee of freedom from your bond.” Odin’s response was enigmatic. Eira took a steadying breath.

“I don’t understand.” Her words were a whisper.

“Fulfill your duties. Heal with the magic you hold, escort the dead to Valhalla. Stop questioning your purpose. You were given your gifts in order to bring you to greatness. And now you have achieved it, with one poorly timed decision. You must live with this, goddess of healing.” Odin’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, and Eira felt awash in helplessness.

“I will do as you have bidden, Allfather. You have my sacred vow,” she swore. Odin nodded.

“My son has asked me to explain my decision to call you as Valkyrie. I have given him an answer. Would you hear it now, Eira?” He offered.

“It would bring me no greater joy than to know why you called me,” she admitted.

“When you were brought before me, as a small child, with such incredible power, I saw your destiny. And like you, I sought to change what I saw. I called you because your duty to me, to the glorious dead, will save you. You may think your burden is heavy. I see the destiny of all my subjects, when I choose to look. There is no weightier burden than to see what will happen to a child,” Odin volunteered. With his admission, Eira understood why she was not cast out for changing the soldier’s destiny. Odin was as guilty as she was of altering the design of fate.

[jupitermelichios]

Sapphy recs some comics

Marvel’s Secret Empire event is a garbage fire that's somehow increasing the amount of garbage in the world. DC are still publishing comics so bad I find them literally unreadable. (To be fair to DC they're doing better than Marvel right now, but low a bar as “didn't make a holocaust survivor into a Nazi” is, this is the company the started selling White Power rings during Black history month, so I'm confident they'll find a way to sink that low soon.)

But the world of Cape comics isn't all misery right now. There's some amazing work coming out of both Houses.  So, to try and counteract the shit, here's my list of the best comics being published by the big two right now.

The Mighty Thor

When Thor Odinson becomes unworthy of Mjolnir, the hammer is taken up by his ex girlfriend Jane Foster. She's a deeply moral person, a brilliant scientist, and dying the breast cancer. The hammer grants her incredible power, but it also purges her system of all poisons. Including the chemotherapy drugs which are her last chance of survival. Nevertheless, she's not going to let that stop her fighting gods, monsters and a sometimes-minotaur.

I'm starting with the best of the best. The comic is consistently brilliant, bordering on perfect in places. The writing is fantastic, the art is great (check out Thor’s muscles! Heroines getting to be muscular!) But the real star is the colouring, which is superlative. This book is a fucking masterclass on how to create the perfect Asgard comic, and there's a woman front and center. And don't worry if the premise sounded like too much of a downer for you, this comic is one of the most fun out there right now.

(And if you want to see that stunning cover in more detail, zoomable version is here. Even if you don’t like comics, you gotta admit that it just some damn good arting.)

Detective Comics

Batman recruits Batwoman to help him train a team of less experienced vigilantes, ostensibly to help combat Gotham’s crime problems. In reality, he’s using it as a way to get closer to a shadowy organisation who have the group under surveillance. When the confrontation with this group finally arrives, Bruce finds himself realising that he needs this new team more than he’d ever expected.

The writing on this series has gone from good to fantastic as the creative team start to really build up steam. It’s still a majority white straight book, but there’s genuine and effective efforts being put in to introduce diversity. They’ve added more non-white characters, given Cassandra Cain a major story arc (which has reduced me to tears on the bus at least once) and had a cameo from a brilliant original trans character, which introduced the fascinating titbit of Batman lore that he sends congratulations cards to his friends who come out. Because sometimes Bruce is adorable. There is one major character death, but so far all stories hint to that being a deliberately temporary thing, and it was handled so well I’m almost not mad. If you’re going to kill off a character with that much history, that’s the way to do it.

USAvengers

Bobby de Costa is a former New Mutant, a superhero, and a billionaire with a penchant for doing the unexpected, so when the opportunity came up to purchase the controlling stake in supervillain science organisation AIM, he took it. He then appointed himself supreme leader, renamed it Avengers Idea Mechanics and become the world’s first genuinely benevolent supervillain. At the end of New Avengers, AIM was absorbed into SHIELD, giving the book a rebranding as USAvengers and Bobby a whole new set of headaches to deal with.

This probably isn’t the best comic on this list, although it is consistently good, but it’s my favourite. By miles. It has never once failed to leave a grin on my face, and I look forward to the new issues all month. I love the team dynamic, I love how Al Ewing writes Wiccan, I love that Yinsen Ho’s daughter is Iron Patriot (chinese/totally-not-tibetan-honestly American lesbian wearing the red white and blue armour), I love everything about Bobby de Costa. Most of all though, I love that in the current marvel climate, they made it canon that in all non post-apocalyptic hellscape futures, a black woman is Captain America. All of them. That is canon now, no take backs allowed.

Doom Patrol

First Casey Brinke’s ambulance directs her to pick up the pieces of a smashed up Robot with a human brain, then a man with holes of void where his chest should be shows up and vomits on her floor. Now she might be a superhero, the ambulance is sort of her dad, and she’s got to save a lot of dubiously real people from the clutches of a Supervillain, who is also sort of her dad. And she’s worried about her cat. It’s been a weird couple of days.

I never read Doom Patrol - by the time I was reading comics to any significant degree, it had become one of the comics DC was faintly ashamed of, something that happened in the past that they weren’t going to be bring up again anytime soon. Then Gerard Way, rockstar, artist and writer of an Eisner award winning surreally-dark superhero comic, turned up at their offices with a doom patrol t-shirt, a microphone and a really convincing pitch as to why he should be given creative control to start a new imprint (at least I presume that’s how it went.) The results were Gerard becoming writer for a new run of Doom Patrol, and me being given a chance to fall in love with this supremely weird team. Every issue of this book feels like being given a chance to peek inside someone else’s dream, in the way Gerard’s comics always do, and I absolutely love it.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Doreen Green has the proportionate strength and agility of a squirrel, as well as the ability to talk to squirrels of all kinds, a finely honed sense of fair play and moral decency, and a thirst of knowledge. To that end she enrols herself onto a computer science course, becomes best friends with her knitting and cats obsessed roommate Nancy, and teams up with fellow student heroes Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk to give evil a darn good talking too, and if that doesn’t work, her skills include kicking butts and eating nuts, and she just finished all her nuts.

This comic is cute, socially conscious, appropriate for all ages, and consistently hilarious. If you spend any time at all around comics or comic-book fans, chances are you’ve heard of it. It really is as good as its hype. There really isn’t much more to say about it. It’s very very good. You should read it.

Harley Quinn

With Harley finally free of the Joker, the news that she’s been left a building on Coney Island in the will of a grateful former patient couldn’t come at a better time. The building turns out to house a wax museum and burlesque show, staffed by a host of colourful characters who make her feel right at home. She gets herself a job as a shrink, another on a professional roller derby team, and eventually a third running a team of superheroes for hire, and sets about rebuilding her life, her self-esteem, and her relationship with on-again off-again love interest Poison Ivy.

This isn’t a perfect comic, and it feels like it could be more than it is (mostly by being gayer than it is), but to keep the quality this consistent over a run of this length is damn impressive for a comedy book, as is juggling such a large supporting cast. At this point there are issues where I’m genuinely more invested in the tribulations of former punk current Burleque show MC Big Tony or aging superspy Si Borg than I am in Harley, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With a book like this, the supporting cast are what keep it interesting, and I genuinely like every one of them. This Harley maybe isn’t as well written as the one we’re getting in the Injustice comics, but that’s hardly a criticism. All in all a consistently well written funny book with a really fun cartoonish art-style and great colouring.

And a shout-out to a non-Cape non-Big Two comic:

Wicked + Divine

Once a century, gods walk the earth. For two years they inspire humanity, perform miracles and give people access to divine communion. At the end of those two years they die. The last incarnation was in the roaring twenties. Then in London, in 2013, the gods begin appearing once again. Baal, Lucifer, Sakhmet, Minerva, Inanna, Tara, Woden, The Morrigan, Amaterasu, Baphomet, Dionysus and The Norns walk the earth, and they are everything humanity had come to expect from their gods. But all is not as it seems, and they are all in more danger than they realise,

This is, without a doubt, the best comic coming out right now. Keiron Gillen is a fantastic writer, who is always looking to improve his work, and genuinely cares about queer representation in comics. Jamie Mckelvie just keeps getting better as an artist, and it’s rare to find a writer/artist pair who feel as perfectly in sync as Gillen and McKelvie. This book is Gillen’s lovesong to Britpop, and that passion shows in every word. It also features a great trans character, a woc as the MC, an out asexual character, a whole lot of bi characters, a racially diverse cast, and a lot of great plot twists. If you’re not reading this already, you are missing out.

[2day4u-2morrow4me]

He's fucking invincible prove me wrong

Honestly, Dazai not dying here would be the funniest option because he would have lived through:

Poison which is lethal in 30 mins (already running on anime time)

Jumping out of an elevator shaft

And four gunshots at close range, including one to the head