#our unending journey comic

[nozomimi01]

made OUJ fanart a couple days ago and finally decided to post it on all my socials

go read Our Unending Journey, it's an original retelling of the ffxiv story but with 4 wols, and the art and storytelling are absolutely amazing!!!!

it's available on both tapas & webtoon!

[huilian]

for @geminibabyhere!!!!

“What are you doing, Damian?” Richard asks, with a voice that is so soft, Damian almost couldn’t hear it. 

Damian stops his tinkering on the mismatched computer he built out of the remnants of his and Richard’s gauntlets. It was broken when they were first captured, and so their captors didn’t bother removing it, but Damian is Robin. He can deal with broken gear, has done so enough times in the past. 

Memories of endless desert and unending track assaults him. Damian stomps it away. 

He looks up, away from the computer and facing Richard, feeling guilty of the fact that he hasn’t looked up to Richard in a while now. But then, Damian can’t take seeing Richard’s face. Or, more precisely, Richard’s eyes. 

Damian can’t take knowing that it was because of him that Richard can’t see, now. 

“I’m trying to get us out,” Damian whispers, matching his voice to Richard’s soft one. A lie. Well, not really. Damian has been trying ways after ways, but he cannot find a way that will get both of them out. 

“Hm,” Richard hums. “I know that, Little D. What are you doing, now? Anything I can help with?”

The question pierces Damian’s heart and lets out streams of guilt and regret. It’s his fault they are in this situation. And if that is not bad enough, it’s his fault that they hurt Richard’s eyes. 

If only Damian had kept his mouth shut…

No. What’s done is done. He can only hope that if he succeeds in getting Richard out, Richard will forgive him. 

Who knows if what they did to Richard is permanent, after all. 

“It’s fine,” Damian finally says. “I can handle it. Go back to sleep, Richard.”

“Hmm,” Richard hums again. “You need some rest too, Dami.”

“I will be fine,” Damian states. “Besides, don’t you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” Richard answers. “But not at the cost of you, Damian.” 

If the question before pierces Damian’s heart, well, this one crushes it. It’s his fault. Richard shouldn’t be worrying about him. 

“I will be fine, Richard,” Damian says. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Always,” Richard answers immediately. Instead of reassuring him, it makes his already mangled heart crumble even more. Because what did Richard’s trust bring him?

What did Richard’s trust in Damian bring him? Pain, again and again. 

“Go back to sleep, Richard,” Damian says, because he doesn’t have anything else to say. 

Richard hums again, but acquiesces. 

Damian goes back to his mismatch computer, racking his mind on how to get them out. 

***

There is no way to get them both out. There is no way to get them both out. 

There is no way to get them both out. 

Damian closes his eyes, and let the tears that had been building in his eyes fall. He makes sure that no noise comes out of him. 

If Richard can’t hear it, then he won’t know anything is wrong. If Richard can’t hear it, then he won’t try to reassure Damian. 

Damian lets the tears fall and the anguish loose. He lets it out and out and out, until there is nothing left anymore. 

Then, he gets to work. If there’s no way to get them both out, he’s going to make sure that it’s Richard who gets out.

***

Damian shakes Richard awake gently. Very gently. He doesn’t want to cause even more pain to his brother. 

Richard wakes up almost immediately. “What is it, Damian?”

Damian swallows before asking, “Do you trust me?”

And like every single time he has asked that question here, Richard’s answer comes instantly. “Always.”

It breaks whatever is left of Damian’s heart. Because he knows that Richard is trusting him to get them both out, and that Damian can’t. He can’t. 

“Hold my hand,” Damian says, extending his hand towards Richard’s. No time for frivolous emotions, now. He can wallow in it after he gets Richard out. 

Richard instantly grabs Damian’s hand. He doesn’t ask what they’re doing, he doesn’t ask where they’re going, he doesn’t ask anything. Damian asks him to hold his hand, and he just did. 

A whine wants to get out of Damian’s throat. Damian forces himself to push it down. 

A glance outside confirms what Damian has already known. It’s a shift change. If they want to get out, they have to get out now.

Damian pulls Richard to his feet and starts punching in codes into his mangled computer that he has connected to the door’s system. It opens with a whoosh, and Damian feels more than hears Richard’s sigh of relief. 

Damian pushes down the misery building in his stomach and takes the computer away from the door, installing it back to his gauntlet. Richard follows without question. 

“Come on,” Damian whispers. And with that, he starts walking through the route he has built from snippets of the building’s layout. Three turns right, then take the middle hallway, then another right turn, before two left turns. It should get them straight to the evacuation pods’ storage. 

That is where it will get difficult. 

Damian navigates through the unfamiliar hallway, reminding himself every so often that Richard is relying on him. His route worked. They didn’t even encounter one patrol in their entire journey to the evacuation pods. 

But, like Damian said, this is where it will get difficult. 

Damian pushes Richard into the room and then locks the door. It won’t be enough, but it should serve as a barrier between them and their captors. Damian starts to let go of Richard’s hand, because he needs both hands to program the evacuation pod, but the panicked look on Richard’s face stops him. He can work with one hand. 

Damian tries one last desperate attempt to program the ship so that the alarms don’t ring when even one of the evacuation pods leave its docking place, but he knows it’s a futile attempt. He has been trying this for days, now. Just because the computer is better doesn’t mean that he will succeed. 

ERROR!

The message blinks on the screen, confirming what Damian has already known. Substantiating what Damian has already accepted. 

Damian looks back at Richard, still holding his hand, and smiles at him, even though he knows that Richard won’t be able to see it. This is the last time Damian will smile at him. 

This is the last time Damian will see him. 

Damian opens the evacuation pod with one hand and pulls Richard with another. He checks the supplies in the pod, well aware that it will only last for one person. Then, he programs the pod to head home. 

Home. He wishes that he could see his family, his pets, his friends, for the last time, but if it will save Richard’s life, well, Damian will do anything. 

All set. All that’s left to do is to push Richard in. 

Richard won’t be able to see anything. He won’t be able to do anything in the pod. Damian knows that he has done everything correctly, has made sure that Richard would return home safe and sound--or, as safe as he could be--, but still, his heart breaks with the image of Richard, alone in the pod, not knowing where he’s going or what he should do. 

Damian puts his other hand, the one that’s not holding Richard’s hand, on his brother’s face. “Do you trust me?” he asks again, reassuring himself that he’s doing the best thing for his brother. 

“Always, Damian,” Richard says, smiling. 

Damian closes his eyes, and, in a fit of impulsiveness, rises up to his toes and kisses Richard’s cheek. “Goodbye, baba,” he whispers. Then, he pushes Richard in and locks the pod. 

Richard starts screaming at once. “Damian!” He thumps the pod’s door, knowing even without seeing, that Damian is not there with him. “Damian, what are you doing?!”

“Saving your life,” Damian answers, without any hesitation. “I’m sorry, baba. You’re going to have to go alone.”

“Damian!” Damian, don’t do this!” Richard shouts, but Damian doesn’t reply. He can’t. If he answers him, he’s going to break. 

He can’t afford to break, not when Richard is not safe yet. 

Damian presses the button to eject the pod. Immediately, like Damian had predicted, alarms blare out. He watches as the pod leaves, watches as Richard doesn’t stop screaming for him inside, watches as he knows that they are coming for him now. 

He watches until he can’t, and then Damian turns around. He’s not going down without a fight.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 139: Lars of the Stars

“Bingo Bongo.”

On Saturday, January 22, 2011, a character from the webcomic Homestuck was suddenly killed. On Sunday, the scene continued, and in a string of wordless panels, another beloved character prepared to take revenge for this murder. On Monday, this character was also killed, and the murderer escaped. (I didn’t remember those dates on the top of my head, Homestuck has a very well-maintained archive, but I do at least remember that it was my first weekend back at William and Mary after my junior year’s winter break.)

To this day, that one-two punch remains my go-to example of a nameless phenomenon in serialized storytelling that fascinates me to no end: when reading Homestuck in real time, these deaths are two discrete events that happened days apart, but when reading it literally any time the after full string of updates concluded, both deaths are one big event. The gap between published segments of a serial have a tremendous effect on how the audience takes in a story, but once the story is complete, that effect can’t be felt again by new audiences.

Lars of the Stars aired just over seven months after Lars’s Head, and as someone who watched Steven Universe live since the pilot first dropped, it felt like the momentous return of the Off Colors. An ultra-early preview of the episode piled on the hype for the fanbase (I personally avoided discussion of it, not wanting to spoil myself), and the Breakup Arc made the divide seem even greater. But if you’re watching all the episodes in a row, the gap between Lars’s last appearance and this one is just 66 minutes; for context, that’s shorter than the time between Spinel landing on Earth and leaving it with the Diamonds.

I see Lars of the Stars as a very different episode today than I did when it debuted, and that’s fully because of the release schedule. Because while it remains a fresh, fun new direction after dwelling on the Breakup Arc for a few months and waiting on Lars to come back for even longer, watching it without the hiatus makes it clear that this isn’t just the start of a new chapter. It’s also an epilogue.

The fourteen episodes between Doug Out and Kevin Party pile on so much tension that we need a follow-up that feels like a break, which Lars of the Stars is happy to provide. But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate how far our characters have come during that chunk of episodes, and that’s exactly what happens here. Part 1 of the big stretch ends with Steven leaving everyone behind as he goes to space, and now we get an episode about him returning to space but including Connie in the way he should have from the start. Part 2 of the big stretch ends with the Off Colors trapped on Homeworld with little hope in sight, and now we get an episode about their freewheeling lives among the stars. And Part 3 of the big stretch ends with Steven and Connie establishing a new understanding of their relationship, and now we get an episode where they share what they’ve learned with the class.

In our last episode, Connie showed an ability to socialize without Steven. While this makes him worry that she might only be at Kevin’s titular party to have a good time rather than reconnect, the furthest he goes in terms of dark thoughts is that she doesn’t wanna hang out with him anymore. Meanwhile, Lars takes Sadie’s similar ability so socialize without him as a personal insult: his instinct is to assume she’s hanging out with the Cool Kids as an act of revenge, because it turns out people don’t just flip personalities after major life events, and despite some tremendous changes Lars still has work to do. (This is something that happens more and more as the show goes on, it’s almost as if the perpetual need to work on yourself is a major theme of the latter-day series or something.)

Stevonnie’s ability to help Lars out works in any episode, because Stevonnie embodies close relationships and Lars could use some tips on that front. But the fact that their defense of Sadie in this situation is what causes Steven and Connie to fuse in the first place gains new power when this it comes right after watching Kevin Party, because feeling uncertain about a friend/love interest’s new friends is something they just experienced both sides of. And as one last reflection of the kids as individuals, Steven reacts to Lars’s concerns with a thoughtful monologue about his feelings, but only after Connie chews him out for being such a dingus.

It’s lousy to be possessive and self-absorbed, but for all my criticism of Lars in the past, it’s not as if he’s the only teenager to be possessive or self-absorbed in the world (or space). That doesn’t make the behavior great, but it’s more a sign of adolescent insecurity than any deeper failing at this stage of his life; if he doesn’t grow out of it then that’s a whole other story, but his negative impulses are outweighed by his ability to take criticism of those impulses and reexamine his outlook. And as part of a show that teaches big lessons to kids, I love that his poor reaction to Sadie’s happiness is presented not as some angsty relationship hurdle, but as comically pathetic. Matthew Moy has a blast playing a version of the character who’s finally confident, but he hasn’t forgotten how to tap into Lars’s whiny grouch.

Thankfully that confidence defines the rest of the episode (which itself lends power to the stark return to his old personality). I don’t just say “thankfully” because I’m glad he’s got some self-esteem, but because like I just said, Matthew Moy has a blast. This is the goofiest episode we’ve had since The New Crystal Gems, and while I’m sure it’s even better for anime fans out there (Space Pirate Captain Harlock being the clearest influence) it still works for scrubs like me without that reference pool. Which is critical, as I doubt many members of the youth audience are all caught up on their late seventies anime.

Excellent pacing helps the fun hit for maximum impact, pivoting us from Kevin Party to space with a brisk opening scene and reintroducing characters not through exposition (which takes time) but on-screen text (which is faster and also magnificently cheesy; Lamar Abrams practiced this in Restaurant Wars). We use space jargon and references to old adventures to throw us in the middle of Lars’s journey in a quick and believable way, all the while building up the camaraderie between the Off Colors. His miniature breakdown would normally be a third act affair, allowing for its resolution to conclude the story, but instead it’s smack in the middle of the episode and we get a bunch more fun after it: it’s an important part of the story that informs Lars’s final gambit, but it’s not the main set piece.

(And, of course, the music remains as on point as ever: Aivi and Surasshu give the Sun Incinerator a punchy theme that complements those introductions perfectly, and revisit the motif heard in the Love Like You reprise, Holly Blue Agate’s scenes, and the drone attacks from Off Colors during this new foray into space. I don’t think it’s even possible for these two to disappoint.)

Confident Lars is marvel to behold, because it’s the real deal. His insecurities are still there, but rather than patching them up with a superiority complex (which so often is the case when insecure folks go too hard in building themselves up) he doesn’t feel the need to put on a front anymore. He’s cocky, but he loves his crew for who they are and is never as mean to them as he was to Steven, even as a joke. His exaggerated anime poses aren’t just dopey and delightful for the sake of being dopey and delightful, but show a newfound ability to have fun without being crippled by self-consciousness. And his zany schemes, shouted about by Emerald at first but then seen in action, actually work! He comes into his own as a space pirate, and as neat as it is to see him become a baker when he returns to Earth, Lars of the Stars makes a strong case for a life in space.

Speaking of Emerald, while I’m sure a lot of folks who hyped themselves up on Lars of the Stars were disappointed that this is all we see of her (especially because emeralds are big-name gemstones in the real world), I think her single appearance makes the episode even more of a hoot. This is not Steven’s story, so we get very little frame of reference for what the Off Colors have been up to: it feels like a crossover episode with a nonexistent spinoff. Having a small glimpse into the greater journey was a great call, because this is just one of many tales from the Sun Incinerator’s sterling crew, and it keeps up the thread of Steven being out of the loop on Lars and Sadie’s lives.

It also lets Jinkx Monsoon ham it up even harder than Moy without getting bogged down by character complexity. This is a ridiculous space adventure, and that tone is heightened by a baddie who doesn’t chew so much as gorge herself on the scenery. I mean, this is still Steven Universe, so even someone as over the top as Emerald gets a tiny arc: Lars seems to be the instigator of their rivalry, and while we side with the Off Colors because they’re the underdogs escaping persecution, Emerald has legitimate reasons to see herself as the wronged party. And Lars’s realization that she would never fire on her own ship doesn’t just work as a conclusion to his story, showing that he learned a lesson from his bitterness towards Sadie, but for Emerald’s, showing that while she wants her revenge she more just wants her stuff back. But this is still an opponent who we only see screaming from a screen, and that’s exactly what this episode needs.

The Off Color Gems stick to the characterization that defined them in their debut, but they’ve all let their guard down in a way that suggests both familiarity with Lars and relief from the unending pressure of a lifetime of hiding on Homeworld. We get a few good jokes from their roles on the ship, but their competence is never undermined. It’s funny that Padparadscha is a technical advisor, considering she only offers insight on events that already happened, but she ends up being able to foresee Emerald’s intent as well, which certainly has its uses. It’s funny that Fluorite is the chief engineer, considering her meandering nature doesn’t mesh with the tight time windows of keeping a speedy starship afloat, but despite her slowness she manages to keep pace. It’s funny that Rhodonite is head of strategic operations, considering her usual strategy is to panic at the most minor setback, but her constant worry about what could go wrong helps balance out Lars’s recklessness. While while the Rutile Twins’ natures aren’t at odds with their role as pilot, they’ve grown out of their quirk more than anyone else on the team: the sisters have branched out from their repetitive dialogue, with each head now expressing separate thoughts on a regular basis. They don’t just summarize each other anymore. They aren’t redundant anymore either.

Steven and Connie are largely around to observe and comment, even after fusing into Stevonnie, until they take over for the final action sequence. And that’s just fine, because it turns out AJ Michalka nails supporting role as well as nails lead: Stevonnie’s blithe “Whuzzat” is the perfect punchline to the Off Colors’ fear of the melodramatic "that,” but nothing tops the sincere adulation of “Wow Lars I missed you.” And because they don’t steal Lars’s spotlight in his big moment, it’s that much more exciting when they take the Star Skipper out for a drive, ending the episode with a brilliant action scene and a cliffhanger that promises further adventure, like any good space serial should. Steven Universe has the occasional incomplete first half of a two-parter, one that works fine in context but not as well on its own. Lars of the Stars does not have this problem, working so well as a genre piece that the lack of a conclusion is the only viable conclusion.

Finally, Lars of the Stars doesn’t just celebrate the end of Act III’s fourteen-episode sweep: this is the last episode from Jesse Zuke, who came out swinging with Chille Tid and maintained an unbelievable batting average over the course of their twenty episodes. There’s only one episode Zuke had a hand in that I’m not huge on, Know Your Fusion, and even that is funny as hell if you’re into that style of meta humor. Alongside Hilary Florido, Zuke gave us two of the show’s greatest instances of characters just hanging out in Beta and Last Stop Out of Beach CIty, and the pair laid and reinforced the foundation for Peridot’s post-villain characterization in Catch and Release, Too Far, Log Date 7 15 2, Barn Mates, Too Short to Ride,  the aforementioned Beta, Gem Harvest, and Room for Ruby. But on top of being a master of comedy, Zuke could also do horror (Chille Tid and Are You My Dad) and drama (Beach City Drift, Steven vs. Amethyst, Gemcation), and had a good enough understanding of Steven and Lars to earn solo boarding credit on Stuck Together. I would’ve loved to see what else Zuke might’ve brought to Steven Universe, but that makes their unbelievable consistency that much more of a gift while it lasted. Bingo Bongo, Jesse.

Future Vision!

This is the first time we hear Sadie Killer and the Suspects by name, and it thankfully won’t be the last.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It speaks to the range of Steven Universe that teen drama Kevin Party can stand alongside Lars of the Stars in my list of favorites. Granted, my top five also speaks to this range, but it’s nuts that the last two episodes are back-to-back and it not only works but benefits from this viewing order despite their wildly different tones.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Lars of the Stars

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Back to the Kindergarten

Steven’s Dream

Kevin Party

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

I Am My Mom

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Lars’s Head

Gemcation

Raising the Barn

Sadie Killer

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Dewey Wins

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[nugicus]

Proactive Instead of Reactive: The Flawed Concept of the First Crusade as a Defensive War

It goes without saying but its undeniable how the Crusades have firmly implanted themselves into modern culture, despite the numerous other conflicts that have occurred in the nearly one thousand year-long Middle Ages. Our persistent fascination with them can be seen whenever they are constantly represented in popular media in the past few decades, whether it be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, History Channel’s Knightfall, DC Comic’s Batman, and video games, such as Ubisolft’s Assassins Creed and Paradox Interactive’s Crusader Kings II. The concept has become so ingrained in our collective understanding that the very terminology of the word “crusade” has evolved to the point that it had begun to lose it’s religious origins and is now included to mean striving for a cause that is commonly considered as just even when such a cause isn’t religious in nature.

There is a completely apprehensible reason for such a profound resonance among today’s collective imagination: the very idea of the Crusades have become extremely fascinating due to the incredible amount of devotion exhibited by the Frankish knights who answered the call. This extreme level of enthusiasm that imbued itself in these holy wars led to thousands of Latin Christians in taking up arms and undertaking a horrendously perilous journey across thousands of miles when traveling just fifty was considered a highly rare occurrence at the time. The existence of a astoundingly high level of religious fervor that characterized the First Crusade allowed its participants to accomplish unimaginable feats of bravery, fortitude, and resilience, including traversing though hundreds of miles of exceedingly arid terrain and brutally carving through the territory of at least three hostile Muslim states in order to reach their much-anticipated goals. Those goals being, of course, the retaking of Jerusalem, which had been conquered by Muslim forces centuries earlier, and the complete salvation of their very souls.

- Frankish knights and men-at-arms. - Osprey Publishing

However, significant historical events that have occurred centuries in the past and have such a momentous effect in the current zeitgeist have the tendency to become subjected to frequent instances of oversimplification, misrepresentation, misappropriation, and even manipulation by individuals through either intentional or ignorant means. The Crusades are no different. In this case, the reason for such a shrewd reshaping of the memory of the holy wars is usually for the purpose of fueling certain ideologically driven agendas that are commonly spread by the repetition of numerous misconceptions about the campaigns for the holy land during the 11th and 12th centuries. One of the most prevailing misconceptions that has a habit of popping up in discourse, especially on the internet, is the claim that the First Crusade (1096-1099) was primarily a defensive war, in which Latin Christianity initiated the conflict by leading armies of rigidly honor-bound, chivalric knights as a response against wanton Muslim aggression that took the form of a “jihad” or a recent catastrophic lose of Christian territory. The claim is used time and again on far right blogs and YouTube videos that display disingenuous maps and poorly researched lectures, like those of Bill Warner, that fail to consider important political and religious divisions between Muslim powers during the medieval period. It is an extremely gross oversimplification of a conflict whose origins, which were highly determined by political, theological, cultural, and historical developments that were occurring internally in both Christian Europe, as well as in the Muslim world, largely dispels the culturally idealistic narrative that the First Crusade was a justifiable reaction to the provocation of Muslim jihad.

In the late 11th century, the political sphere in western medieval Europe existed as a highly fragmented state of affairs. Land was severely divided among a landed, warrior elite descended from the same Germanic “barbarians” who had conquered sections of the former Western Roman Empire centuries prior and who constantly came into conflict with one another over territory due to a myriad of petty feuds, dynastic rivalries, and succession disputes. In order to accomplish their aims, these feudal lords relied on a class of mounted, professional soldiers known as “knights,” who, unlike their modern depictions as a noble class of warriors with a rigid code of honor based on protecting the weak from persecution, constantly pillaged and burned nearby peasant communities in the countryside, especially those that were under the lordship of rival warlords. Further facilitating these incessantly high levels of warfare at the time was the lack of central authority monarchies had over their vassals who were only bound to their kings due to fragile oaths of fealty and could pursue their own territorial ambitions with impunity. This lack of any central control over the power of the warrior nobility coupled with the nearly unending warfare between the feudal lords caused violence and lawlessness to become endemic to the continent. The last time western Europe saw a significant degree of territorial unity was in 800 CE when the king of the Franks, Charlemagne, was crowned Emperor after successfully capturing large swaths of terrain of what is now France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Northern Italy. However, by the late 11th century, Charlemagne’s reign was seen by the European populace as nothing more than a fading memory of a bygone age of momentous political security.

- Medieval Europe at the time the First Crusade was announced. - Crusader Kings II from Paradox Interactive

Similar to the near-powerless feudal monarchs of Europe, the head of the Latin Christian church, the Pope, was having difficulty exerting papal authority over the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Europe. The Pope at this time was nothing more than a religious figurehead who could exert little-to-no authority over the rest of the church hierarchy, including the bishops who, at this time, had stronger ties with local secular rulers, such as the Holy Roman Emperor and the king of France, than they did with the papacy. A number of these monarchs had the ability to appoint high church officials to oversee cities and monasteries and sold church offices to members of the royal nobility, in a practice known as “simony,” who sought highly privileged careers in the church. This is despite the fact that, theoretically speaking, the appointment of ecclesiastical offices was the church’s undertaking. Many members of the church also held a seething contempt for the majority of knights who regarded them as overly vain, violence-prone rogues due to their savage treatment of the peasant population which became so entrenched in European life that religious clerics, such as Bernard de Clairvaux, went so far as to accuse them of “fighting for the devil.”

By the reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), however, the papacy, who saw themselves as having the God-given role to protect Christendom from the corrupting influences of the secular world, had started to attempt reforming the church and knighthood by reasserting their supreme authority over religious affairs through the use of excommunication and by advocating the need of sacral military sponsorships, known as “holy wars.” By calling on Christian rulers to help defend the church, popes that had focused on reform had hoped to redirect the violence caused by the martial enthusiasm of the feudal warlords to be used towards combating the papacy’s and Christendom’s supposed enemies, mainly the Holy Roman Emperor and Muslim forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. These initial proactive measures of forming an military wing of the church under Pope Gregory fell flat on account of his confrontational methods, but one of his reformist-minded successors, Pope Urban II (1088-99), succeeded is calling for a crusade for the Holy Land at the Council of Clermont (1095) after Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenos requested military aid against the Seljuk Turks. This was achieved mainly due to the religious atmosphere of Latin Europe, the gradual acceptance of religiously ordained violence, and the strategy the papacy used to market the crusade.

- Pope Gregory VII was the first leader of the papacy to experiment in the implementation of an armed wing of the church. - Wikipedia

Unlike the fragmentation that characterized the political sphere of western Europe in the late 11th century, the same region was undergoing a period of an unprecedented level of spiritual unity. By 1095, the pagan peoples who once raided, pillaged, and settled all across the interior and coastline of the continent, such as the Tengri Magyars and Norse Vikings, had become largely Christianized, which led to Christianity becoming the most widely established religion in the West and to European society in becoming highly centered around the notion regarding the importance of religious devotion:

“This was a setting in which Christian doctrine impinged upon virtually every facet of human life–from birth and death, to sleeping and eating, marriage and health–and the signs of God’s omnipotence were clear for all to see, made manifest through acts of ‘miraculous’ healing, divine revelation and earthly and celestial portents.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011) 

While this religious doctrine stressed the importance of love, charity, and tradition, it also led to the formation of a perilous anxiety, especially in the mindsets of the warrior nobility, which was brought on by the constantly reminded belief that one was destined to either eternal salvation or eternal damnation in accordance of an individuals acts in life:

“The Latin Church of the eleventh century taught that every human would face a moment of judgement–the so-called ‘weighing of souls’. Purity would bring the everlasting reward of heavenly salvation, but sin would result in damnation and an eternity of hellish torment. For the faithful of the day, the visceral reality of the dangers involved was driven home by graphic images in religious art and sculpture of the punishments to be suffered by those deemed impure: wretched sinners strangled by demons; the damned herded into the fires of the underworld by hideous devils.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

It is not surprising, then, that the feudal nobility became intensely obsessed with the idea of repentance of ones sins and purity of ones soul, as the inherent contradiction of having both blood on ones hands and being a committed Christian was not lost on them. For feudal lords and their knights who believed they were destined for hellfire due to their rapacious brutality, there were multiple gestures they could make in their path to atone for their sins. These acts included devoting ones life to a impoverished existence in the form of monasticism, giving alms to the poor and donating to religious houses, and taking part in a pilgrimage to one of the many holy sites of Christendom, namely Jerusalem or Rome. The last being especially compelling due to the journey to sacred locations normally being fraught with danger.

- Medieval depictions of hell, like those found in Giotto's The Last Judgment from 1307, filled the hearts and minds of the faithful with the fear of losing their souls to eternal torment. - Web Gallery of Art

In the 11th century, there was also a growing theological development that was accepted by a greater following as time went on: religiously sanctioned warfare. Christianity may seem like a pacifistic faith, at first, due to one of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament clearly stating “Thou shall not kill,” but many Germanic European Christians had understood the notion that some acts of violence were justifiable, specifically on defensive grounds, and an inescapable part of life if still sinful. There were also many who believed that the papacy may even sanction violence, since in the past bishops of the church would commonly bless weapons and armor and, at least during the time of Charlemagne, direct military campaigns with the express purpose of converting pagans. The concept of papal sponsorship of warfare was found potentially attractive to secular lords and knights who were suffering from “damnation anxiety” for being too well-accustomed to violence on account of Pope Gregory VII, who heavily promoted the idea, claiming that those participating in a holy struggle to defend Christendom would receive the same spiritual rewards as those who participating in a religious pilgrimage.

Despite such a powerful religious atmosphere in Europe at the time, Pope Gregory was mainly unsuccessful in sponsoring an armed pilgrimage to the East, since the idea of the Pope leading an army in person was considered too radical for its time. It did, however, establish an important precedent that would relied upon in a more indirect and refined manner by later popes, namely Pope Urban II, who waited for an opportunity to present itself to make the notion of an armed pilgrimage to the east, now called a “crusade,” into a reality and to spread the papacy’s sphere of influence. As already mentioned, Pope Urban II was offered a chance to expand Rome’s authority outside the confines of central Italy and to redirect the widespread violence spawned from the many petty feuds between noble houses against a common foreign foe by calling for a holy war when, while presiding over an ecclesiastical council in the Italian city of Piacenza during the spring of 1095, ambassadors representing the Greek Christian Byzantine Emperor arrived requesting military aid against Muslim forces. By 1095, the Byzantine Empire lost roughly half of its size, including almost all of Anatolia, when it suffered a catastrophic loss at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 against the Muslim Seljuk Turks and was seeking to regain its lost territory. Using the defense of eastern Christendom as a pretext, Pope Urban called for a crusade by autumn during a special sermon at the Council of Clermont in southern France in a room full of hundreds of spectators, including archbishops, bishops, and abbots. According to accounts, Pope Urban not only sent a call to aid the Greek Christians from the impending threat of Islam. He had also included a secondary aim: sending a military expedition to the holy city of Jerusalem. A site considered the most sanctified in all Christendom, its inclusion as one of the grand objectives for the First Crusade, as well as the admittance of the guarantee of heavenly salvation for those who participated, resonated deeply among the hearts and minds of God-fearing knights all across western Europe.

However, the inclusion of these two spiritually profound goals still presented a serious problem to Pope Urban II. There was no recent horrible atrocity or urgent threat of Muslim invasion towards Latin Christendom in which to draw upon in order to produce a greater sense of legitimate justification and raging hunger for vengeance to encourage knights to cross thousands of miles to retake the holy city of Jerusalem:

“Recent history offered no obvious event that might serve to focus and inspire a vengeful tide of enthusiasm. Yes, Jerusalem was ruled by Muslims, but this had been the case since the seventh century. And, while Byzantium may have been facing a deepening threat of Turkish aggression, western Christendom was not on the brink of invasion or annihilation at the hands of Near Eastern Islam.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011) 

It’s also important to note that the hostility between Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Seljuk Turks wasn’t religious in nature and the former was also involved in frequent clashes with its Christian Slavic neighbors:

“The reality is that, when Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at Clermont, Islam and Christianity had largely coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity. There may have been little love lost between Christian and Muslim neighbors, but there was, in truth, little to distinguish this enmity from the endemic political and military struggles of the age.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Firt Crusade: A New History (2005)

So how did Pope Urban II rectify the problem with the lack of a recent nearby tragedy to exploit in order to boost enthusiasm for his militarized religious pilgrimage? He did this by demonizing Muslims in the Near East to absolutely morbid degrees and exaggerating any sort of negative treatment of Christians may have endured under the rule of Islam:

“Muslims therefore were portrayed as subhuman savages, bent upon the barbaric abuse of Christendom. Urban described how Turks ‘were slaughtering and capturing many [Greeks], destroying churches and laying waste to the kingdom of God’. He also asserted that Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being abused and exploited by Muslims, with the rich being stripped of their wealth by illegal taxes, and the poor subjected to torture.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

He further dehumanized Muslims by describing them as bloodthirsty abominations who took sadistic glee in enslaving and violating Christian women and disemboweling Christian pilgrims who headed for the holy land. It is unsure whether or not Pope Urban II truly believed in his own propaganda, but his incendiary rhetoric and his promise of the remission of sins for those who took part in the holy venture certainly captivated his audience and succeeded in persuading many atonement-seeking knights that fighting Islam was preferable to fighting fellow Christians. He was so successful in his proclamation of a crusade that when news spread of it throughout Europe by word of preachers he managed to recruit both a sanctioned and unsanctioned army in the tens of thousands strong. By 1099, the former led by Bishop Adhemar de la Puy and Count Raymond of Toulouse and numbering around 50,000 footmen and knights miraculously managed to retake Jerusalem after months of fighting, the dwindling of resources, and threats of desertion.

- The Council of Clermont started a deadly dehumanization campaign against Muslims in the Near East. - Wikipedia

Interestingly, this vast, primarily Frankish army wasn’t even what Emperor Alexius had hoped for when he had asked the papacy for military aid against the Turks. He was expecting, at most, a few thousand freelance knights he could comfortably incorporate into his own forces to safeguard his remaining territory and retake parts of Anatolia. When the massive crusader force finally make it to Constantinople, Emperor Alexius tried to demand its leaders, with varying degrees of success, to swear an oath of vassalage to him and return to the Byzantine Empire any territory they took from the Turks.

Evidently, nothing about this dehumanizing speech about Muslims viciously terrorizing Christians inhabiting the Near East could be farther from the truth. First of all, while Islamic society may have far from an ideal progressive paradise by modern standards, one of the reasons it was so successful in it’s growth after the caliphs (the successors of the religion’s founder, the Prophet Muhammed, and leaders of all of Islam’s religious and political affairs) began conquering large swathes of territory outside the Arabian peninsula during the 630s was the relatively tolerant approach it took to treating non-Muslims that resided in territory it had subjugated. Rather than leading mass conversions of the people the caliphs had surmounted, non-Muslims, specifically those with common monotheistic religious roots to Islam, such as Jews and Christians, were labeled as “Peoples of the Book” and where allowed to practice their faiths in exchange for the payment of a poll tax. In all honestly, it was an era of unmatched religious tolerance for its time:

“Most significantly, throughout this period indigenous Christians actually living under Islamic law, whether it be in Iberia or the Holy Land, were generally treated with remarkable clemency. The Muslim faith acknowledged and respected Judaism and Christianity creeds in which it enjoyed a common devotional tradition and a mutual reliance upon authoritative scripture. Christian subjects may not have been able to share power with their Muslim masters, but thy ere given freedom to worship. All around the Mediterranean basin, Christian faith survived and even thrived under the watchful but tolerant eye of Islam. Eastern Christendom may have been subject to Islamic rule, but it was not on the brink of annihilation, nor prey to any form of systemic abuse.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Firt Crusade: A New History (2005)

It’s also far from accurate to suggest that Islam in the late 11th century existed as a singular religious-political, monolithic realm that constantly waged its own holy war on non-Muslim neighbors in the form of a “jihad.” Not unlike western Europe, by the late 11th century the Near East was a fragmented assortment of political and religious holdings and the tensions between them had increased in intensity ever since the fall of the expansive Umayyad caliphate during a bloody coup in 750. After the Abbasid dynasty took over and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, the caliphs authority gradually began to devolve over time to the point they became nothing much more than nominal figureheads who held power only in theory. When the First Crusade was announced in 1095, the Near East was politically and religiously divided between two rivaled forces: the Sunni Seljuk Turks and the Shia Fatimid caliphate. Descended from nomadic tribesmen known for their armies of mounted archers, the Seljuks conquered much of what is now Persia, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, declared themselves sultan and effectively became the overlords of Sunni Islam and the defenders of the Abbasid Caliphate. However, during the time the crusaders reached the Near East, the Seljuk’s territory was itself in disarray over the succession of the title sultan which led their empire to fracture. Their primary adversaries, the Shia Fatamids, were a rival dynasty who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammed’s daughter, Fatima, who had conquered large portions of territory that used to be part of the domain of the Abbasids including North Africa, the Levant, Syria, and Egypt.

-  The Seljuk Empire and the Fatamids were the mst powerful Muslim states in the Near East during the late 11th century. - istanbulclues.com

The schism that resulted in the Sunni-Shia split is traced back to a dispute regarding the legitimacy of Muhammed’s successors. Adherents of the Sunni sect subscribe to the belief that Muhammed’s legitimate successor was his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and that all rightful caliphs are those elected by members of the Muslim elite. Shia Islam, on the other hand, contends that only descendants of Muhammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and his daughter, Fatima, can be proclaimed caliph. Both sects regarded the other as believers in a dangerous heresy and constantly squabbled for territory in the Levant, which fostered a high degree of religious and political disunity in the Near East that aided the crusaders in their taking of Jerusalem.

As time moved ever farther from the era of rapid Muslim conquest and expansion that characterized the 7th and 8th centuries, enthusiasm for Islam’s own version for a holy war, a jihad, gradually began to wane to the point that by the near end of the 11th century it entered a period of relative inactivity. In the classical sense, a jihad, which literally means “struggle” or “striving,” was interpreted by Sunni Muslim jurists during the early period of Islam’s history as an endless holy war to be waged on non-Muslims and endorsed by the caliphs until all accepted the rule of Islam. Similar to the Christian crusades, it was considered a holy obligation that all Muslims should take part and those who contributed to a jihad rewarded with entry into heavenly Paradise. However, as Muslim Arabs began to trade with Christian communities and largely abandoned their nomadic roots, calls of jihad against Christendom started to lose substantial momentum and instead were turned against rival Muslim sects that Sunnis considered heretical: 

“As the centuries passed, the driving impulse towards expansion encoded in this classical theory of jihad was gradually eroded. Arab tribesmen began to settle into more sedentary lifestyles and to trade with non-Muslims, such as the Byzantines. Holy wars against the likes of Christians continued, but they became far more sporadic and often were promoted and prosecuted by Muslim emirs, without caliphal endorsement. By the eleventh century, the rulers of Sunni Baghdad were far more interested in using jihad to promote Islamic orthodoxy by battling ‘heretic’ Shi‘ites than they were in launching holy wars against Christendom. The suggestion that Islam should engage in an unending struggle to enlarge its borders and subjugate non-Muslims held little currency; so too did the idea of unifying in defence of the Islamic faith and its territories. When the Christian crusades began, the ideological impulse of devotional warfare thus lay dormant within the body of Islam, but the essential framework remained in place.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

In review, the belief that the First Crusade was a purely righteous backlash against a supposed existential threat posed by Islam is shown to be largely insufficient in evidence after explaining the politically divided state of both western Europe and the Muslim of the 11th century, the unbalanced power dynamic between the Latin Church and secular monarchies, the proactive efforts the papacy attempted in directing holy war, and the generally tolerant treatment towards Christians living under Muslim rule. The purpose of revealing the multiple religious and political complexities that expedite momentous instances of historical conflict is to expose the faultiness of oversimplifying the origins of the crusades which only leads to the manufacturing and reinforcing of historical misconceptions that have the tendency to glorify or mythologize historical events. This construction of an imaginative view of the crusades can be quite dangerous since those that perpetuate it have the penchant of selecting certain elements that fits more comfortably with a groups ideological agenda while glossing over some of the worst cases of religious violence, some of which would be considered examples of genocide by today's international human rights laws. These include the bloody Rhineland massacres, when member’s of the unsanctioned People’s Crusade slaughtered Jewish communities along the Rhine, and the massacre of Jews and Muslims that occurred when the crusaders had taken the city of Jerusalem.

This semi-mythological and overglorified view of the Crusades, however, was not always thus. After the Reformation and during the European Enlightenment, the Crusades became largely re-appraised by scholars and theologians, which led the holy wars to lose their fanciful descriptions and become considered as a significantly dark and exceedingly violent period in European history. It was seen by Enlightenment scholars as a prime example of the vile barbarity and terrible oppressiveness unrestrained religious devotion can ultimately produce if left unchecked. By the 1800s, this hostile attitude towards the Crusades had begun to change during the rise of European imperialism and nationalism. Scholars during the 19th century, such as French historian Joseph Francois Michaud, started a trend that became exceedingly difficult to dislodge from European perspectives. They romanticized the crusaders as daring adventurers who were given the noble task of “civilizing” Asia and interpreted the crusades  as admirable cases of “proto-colonization.” This misrepresentation that overlionizes the Crusades was the beginning of the subject falling sway to the phenomena known as “historical parallelism.”

Historical parallelism is “the desire to see the modern world reflected in the past.” (Asbrigde 2011) Today the concept is being used in a manner to draw a false comparison between the medieval and modern worlds through the utilization of historical inaccuracies surrounding the separate time periods and the misappropriation of crusader imagery as a tool for propaganda purposes. These efforts have increased strikingly in the past few years due to the growing influence of ultra-nationalism in the West that has been increasing since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Neofascist protestors in Charlottesville, for example, wore shields that were unsubtly emblazoned with the Templar Cross while others have been chanting the infamous medieval crusader phrase “Deus Vult!,” which means “God wills it!” in Latin. Interestingly, the process of appropriating the crusader period isn’t just monopolized by the hard right in the West. Radical Islamic organizations and leaders for decades, such as Sayyid Qutb and Osama bin Laden, have frequently referenced the Crusades as a means of condemning the West and portraying Western military forces, especially those that have intervened in the Levant, as modern-day crusaders that are hell bent on invading Islamic territory and that the only response to such a Christian invasion is violent “jihad.”

While the crude and shameless “borrowing” of crusader symbolism is far from a recent development among alt-right groups and Islamic propagandists, its urgent now more than ever to confront such mistruths that these organizations have the habit of spreading, especially on video sharing sites such as YouTube. In the case of the Crusades, the proliferation of historical falsehoods results in the formation of a false, fatalistic “us vs them” narrative between European and Muslim civilization that characterizes both cultures as if they are locked in never-ending antagonism with each other since medieval times. This agenda-driven endeavor to revise the Crusades as a war fought along ethnic lines is a barely disguised attempt to justify prejudice against Muslim immigrants, including recent Muslim refugees who are desperate to escape from the civil wars that have been plaguing parts of the Middle East. Thankfully scholars, such as historian Christopher Tyerman with his new book The World of the Crusades, have been diligently fighting back against this tide of virulent misinformation with imperative efforts to clarify and correct our understanding of the Crusades through the use of Twitter threads, Op-Eds, blog posts, and books. Their push to reverse this negative transformative effect the internet has had on historiography is undoubtedly an uphill battle but their struggle will hopefully prove how important history as field of study is in this post-9/11 world.

Sources:

Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land. 2011.

Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. 2005.

Phillips, Jonathan. Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades. 2010. 

[lobocomicsandtoys]

SILVER SURFER PRODIGAL SUN #1

Written by Peter David Art by Francesco Manna

Continuing Prodigal's journey home from FANTASTIC FOUR: THE PRODIGAL SUN #1, the one individual who can aid him in accomplishing it is the Silver Surfer. But Prodigal has a history with the Surfer. Witness that now as we see the Surfer, back when he was still the herald to Galactus, as Prodigal battles him to prevent Galactus from destroying an entire world because of his unending appetite. Rated T+

Available at Lobo Comics & Toys this coming Wednesday, 08/14/2019

visit us on facebook, google+, blogspot, our eBay store, and our website

[akwsr]

36"x36" mixed media wood panel piece entitled.  "My Muse Is" In Her G… My muse is the personified drive and source of inspiration for my creative artistry.  “In her G” she is energized with greatness and grace wrapped up in pleasure.  She beckons me at the break of first light and dances in my mind throughout the day.  We typically converse until noon as she releases her grasp, but she occasionally calls to me once again before the evening is through.  Together we have journeyed as I think back to our first encounters, Kevin and I in our rooms diligently drawing comics.  She is patient and extremely kind, requiring nothing from me, just fun all the time.  My teacher, friend, partner and guiding light for certain the surreal companion who assures me that I have so much more to reveal behind my hidden curtain.  She is my true constant motivator as our relationship grows and I owe her my unending gratitude for always showing me the ropes.  My biggest fan and cheerleader for these declarations I could go on and on, so I will choose to end this by saying she is simply my all and all. https://www.instagram.com/p/CbvrX6tLQin/?utm_medium=tumblr

[omniversalobservations]

Crossover No. 1 (November 2020)

In a world where San Diego Comic-Con is being held remotely due to a global pandemic, and comics publishers are fighting to hold onto the mental real estate they have in fans’ minds, Image’s new series Crossover, from writer Donny Cates, artist, Geoff Shaw, colorist Dee Cunniffe, and letterer John J. Hill, imagines what it might be like if our reality were to suddenly crash into an amalgam of genre fictional realities.

During a panel describing Crossover, Cates likened the series to a blend of Avengers: Endgame and Cloverfield, an odd pairing meant to get the heart of what makes event comic books tick.

With so many of the major events from the Big Two publishers focusing on the lives and motivations of prominent characters whose brand recognition plays a big part in how the books are marketed and how the story is crafted, Crossover instead tells the story of a meta-crossover from the perspective of an average person.

Crossover, Cates continued, is an “anti-event event series,” something he insisted wasn’t meant to make the book sound like a dig at other event series, but rather a celebration of comics as an art form.

“Because at its core, you know, [Crossover] has a lot of things to say and it has a lot of layers to it, meaning that if you want to come for a fun story and just something for escapism, that’s absolutely there for you,” Cates said. “If you want to start peeling back the layers of this book and see what we’re really talking about, and see that the metaphors that are in the book are about things that are going on today, that’s there for you, too.”

While Crossover’s obviously going to feature a number of recognizable character archetypes (though not necessarily the exact characters one knows from other comics), the series is set to focus on a Ellie, a comic bookshop employee whose life is upended when Crossover’s inciting event pulls fictional realities into hers. By making its central character a member of the comics industry, Crossover hammers home an important message about the series that Cates emphasized. Crossover’s as much about its characters making their way through a strange world as it is the book’s creative team navigating the real world of comics.

“I mean, the idea that we’re essentially following a bunch of creator-owned characters trying to survive in a world where everything around them is dominated by superheroes speaks volumes about our need as independent artists to make a stake and and try and be as loud as the loudest Marvel and DC book out there,” Cates said.

Source: Gizmodo

For his new comic book series, Crossover, Donny Cates couldn’t decide which superhero to focus on, so he just chose all of them...and I mean ALL of them. He went full Gary Oldman in Léon: The Professional: “EVERYYYOOONE!” No, seriously — Crossover (whose debut issue goes on sale next month) is the steamy love child of Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars that was then hit with the growth ray in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

The story begins when every single superhero and villain you can think of (Marvel, DC, you name it!) randomly show up in the Denver, Colorado of our reality to start an all-out brawl. The strange event becomes known as “The Crossover,” which is eventually contained when one of the “Supers” gets the bright idea to cast a forcefield around the city.

Now, several years later, no one gets in and no one gets out...or so it would seem. Meanwhile, the world at large has turned against comics and their beloved archetypes as religious zealots insist that God-fearing Americans must “pray the capes away.”

“Crossover is unlike any book I’ve ever worked on. It’s massive in its scope but still very personal and emotional,” Cates (God Country, Thor) said in a statement to Forbes Entertainment. “From new readers to old school fans of the early Image days, I truly think this book has something for everyone. Crossover is a love letter to this industry that we’ve all kind of grown up together in and we can’t wait for you all to go on this journey with us. It’s going to be wild!”

“Crossover is big! Years in the making, it's a hugely personal story, in scope and scale,” added artist Geoff Shaw (God Country), who shares illustration duties with Dee Cunniffe (Olympia). “As an artist it's been a dream to work on, and I'm genuinely proud of the work our team has done! Readers are in for a rare treat!”

Source: Forbes

This week's much-anticipated Crossover #1 from writer Donny Cates and artists Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe, and John J. Hill expands on the title's simple premise of a world where fictional superheroes have crossed into reality with a hint at how the title's classic comic book premise of a meeting of heroes might come to fruition.

And to say the tease could be hinting at something big might be the understatement of all understatements…

In the world of Crossover, a portal opened over the city of Denver, Colorado in 2017, with all manner of fictional superheroes coming through and engaging in an ongoing, unending battle that decimated the city and its population.

Though the heroes are not specifically named, Superman is name-checked in the narrative captions, alongside a seeming analog character appearing in the art.

With one of the heroes having erected a forcefield around Denver some time since, knowledge about what's going on inside and what the superheroes are doing is limited, and people are trapped inside. As a result, superheroes are hated, with superhero comic books having been burned en masse.

Still, comic book shops exist, dealing in superhero comics that survived the purges. It's in one of these shops that protagonist Ellie works, indulging her love of superheroes (especially Invincible) despite having lost her parents in Denver. One day, while the shop is being protested by anti-superhero zealots, a young girl from a comic book world is discovered in the shop.

The zealots turn into an angry mob, trying to get ahold of the girl, who has somehow escaped the force field around Denver. As Ellie and her boss think about how to escape the store and save the girl, Ellie asks how she got out of Denver. The little girl says she was evacuated by a man who helps people get out – but she can't recall his name.

Instead offering to draw a picture, Ellie and her boss are taken aback by her depiction of her rescuer. Clad in blue with an apparent red 'S' on his chest, the girl appears to have drawn a crude rendition of Superman himself.

To drive the point home, Ellie recognizes the drawing as a symbol of "hope" - which is the Kryptonian meaning of Superman's S-shield, as first introduced in 2004's Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Yu.

Source: Games Radar

[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2: What Is The Church of the Collective?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The following contains spoilers for The Boys season 2 episode 7.

The ongoing presence and practice of politics within democratic societies should represent the pinnacle of human achievement: the fair and equitable ordering of communities, city states and nations; the voluntary outflow of power from the people to their chosen representatives. 

In reality, however, the true power rests not in the hands of the people, but in the gloved fists of major institutions: including corporations and religions, the balance of power between those two behemoths varying from country to country, all around the world, western or otherwise. Certainly in the U.S., no man or woman can ascend to the presidency without the backing of at least one of them, and Amazon Prime’s superb superhero satire The Boys understands this bleak state of affairs perfectly. While the show is at heart a reaction against the implausibly virtuous world of the comic-book superhero, it’s also a searing indictment of the intersecting worlds of corporate power, consumerism, and celebrity culture. 

Vought International – the business-suited big bads who keep the show’s superheroes in their pocket in order to fatten their own – is savagely adept at using its corporate power to flatter, curtail and manipulate both the populace and its own employees. It’s hard to keep God-like beings in check, but Vought management is smart and cynical enough to understand that even potentially planet-ending supes aren’t immune to the allure of celebrity. 

The Boys season 2 introduces the yang to U.S. corporatocracy’s yin with The Church of the Collective, a none-so-subtle parody of the Church of Scientology. The Deep (Chace Crawford) has been pulled slowly in by the tentacled embrace of the church to the point where we find him, in the penultimate episode of the second season, brainwashed into following its codes, without really understanding its purpose, aims or reach. We, the audience, are similarly in the dark, though the parallels to The Church of the Collective’s real-world counterpart, plus the narrative hints we’ve already been given, can help us imagine what this mysterious cult might have in store for the supes, ‘the boys’, and the world at large.

Cultish Context  – Scientology

The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953 by the pulp sci-fi writer and former Naval Officer L. Ron Hubbard. Throughout the early 1950s Hubbard popularized a branch of pseudoscience called Dianetics, which slowly evolved into the core tenets of his new religion, coincidentally not long after the therapeutic applications of Dianetics were uniformly rubbished by academics and psychologists. This became something of a trend with Hubbard. Don’t like my contribution to the field of modern psychology? Fine. I’ll use it to start my own religion. Don’t want me in the Navy? Fine. I’ll start my own navy (which he essentially did with Scientology’s naval-based fraternal order “Sea Org”). 

Scientology gets its hooks into prospective church members – usually the needy, the narcissistic, the unfulfilled, or the damaged – by promising them enlightenment through auditing. This process – part talk-therapy, part spiritual confession, part future blackmail – works by breaking down and analyzing a subject’s life (and past lives) in order to purge them of those traumatic, or unhelpful, memories (engrams) that may be negatively influencing their behavior in the present. While Scientology needs a large rank and file to sustain itself it’s also shrewd enough to target celebrities – it has a whole department dedicated to their pursuit – whose presence in the church guarantees money, media attention, and free, recruitment-based marketing. Scientology knows that it’s celebs and profits, not saints and prophets, who will rally crowds of the spiritually empty to their doors.     

The Church of the Collective uses similar strategies, both of which converge on The Deep at the start of the second season, being that he’s both a celebrity, and a damaged vessel. Things have never looked worse for the disgraced submariner: cast aside from The Seven; isolated; reviled; drunk; full of doubt and recrimination. He’s also the #metoo poster boy. 

Simply put: he’s easy prey. 

The Church offers him a way back into The Seven via a journey of self-and-bodily acceptance, ostensibly a combination of talk-therapy, interrogation and mind-altering drugs. The Deep is quickly broken down then built back up again. The Church even stage-manages him a wife (an allusion, perhaps, to a certain fighter-jet-flying, cocktail-mixing actor who’s long been Scientology’s most famous recruit) to repair the PR already done.

The Deep is recruited by Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman), a washed-up, Travolta-esque supe who dangles the story of his own success and redemption before him like a hypnotic carrot. The Deep, in turn, brings A-Train (Jesse T. Usher) to the Collective, although A-Train’s entry into the fold is a little less wide-eyed and willing. He can see past the bullshit, and wants no part of it, but nevertheless is ensnared by the Church’s smooth-toned, immaculately-groomed leader, Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic), who knows all about A-Train’s spiraling debt, drug abuse and heart condition, and implies that such knowledge could only be kept private for a price.

“The church knows all kinds of things,” he tells a suddenly cognizant A-Train, “But don’t worry. We also know how to be discreet… especially for our members.”

Adana is a thinly-veiled approximation of David Miscavige – Scientology’s current leader – in that he’s a man who projects a smiling, sophisticated veneer to the world, beneath which lies barely concealed torrents of ruthless cruelty and rage. Allegedly.  

When Eagle the Archer refuses the Church’s request to break off contact with his mother, the organization releases a damning and embarrassing sex tape to the media. Adana declares Eagle a toxic person (Scientology labels its enemies “suppressive persons” or “SPs”) with whom no-one in the Church should associate. The Deep doesn’t hesitate to cut his new friend out of his life, showing that even supes are susceptible to the power of suggestion and a little psychological surgery. A-Train observes all of this with quiet but troubled detachment, doubtless wondering how high a price he’ll have to pay for his past… and for how long.

What Is The Collective Up To?

So far it seems that the Church has been biding its time, waiting for an opportunity to infiltrate Vought, or The Seven. Each time a smaller fish has been sent to catch a bigger fish. There’s little reason to assume that this chain will stop with A-Train. Who’s next? The CEOs and head honchos of Vought itself? Black Noir – leveraged into the fold with the threat of revealing his crippling tree nut allergy to the general public? Maeve – if the Church gets its hands on the footage that was filmed onboard a certain doomed civilian airliner? And who, or what, is its ultimate target? 

Homelander?    

While the loony, laser-eyed lout regularly expresses a desire to unleash his unrestrained fury upon the helpless world, adoration and popularity really are important to him, which is probably the only reason he’s held himself back from going full superhero postal. Vought, however, can only fluff Homelander’s vanity insofar as it doesn’t upset the shareholders, whereas the Church of the Collective can offer him the one thing he truly craves: uncritical, unquestionable, unending Godhood and adulation. 

This wouldn’t be Homelander’s first religion rodeo. In season 1 Homelander bent Christianity to his, and Vought’s, will, claiming that superheroes like him – living miracles – had been chosen by God to carry out His plan for America: so why shouldn’t they join the War on Terror? The discovery that supes were created by Compound V rather than God destroyed that useful illusion, but perhaps The Church of the Collective represents a second chance to co-opt a religion. A marriage made in heaven this time.    

Stormfront is the only snag here, given that she already has her claws into Homelander and there’s bad blood between her and the Church. Once a member, she rejected it on the grounds that its inclusive membership criteria was an affront to her deeply cherished Nazi ideals of racial purity. If she was declared a toxic person by the Church, though, what was her punishment? Why is she allowed to operate with impunity? Is it possible that she’s secretly working for the Church – or at their command – to recruit Homelander, and the whole eugenics angle is part of their true and hidden design for the planet? 

Unlikely. It’s more likely we’re about to see The Church of the Collective try to take down their fallen angel. Or take over Vought. Or both.  Corporate might versus religious zealotry, with supes on both sides, and the boys trapped – as always – somewhere in the middle.

And if that’s the case, who should we put our money on?    

The Church of the Collective, like its real-life counterparts Scientology and NXIVM, apes the marketing methods, structure and language of the modern corporation, projecting the power and seriousness of the boardroom rather than the prattling of the pulpit. While these quasi-religious entities need money to survive and grow, and indeed mercilessly pursue it, money is but an adjunct to the real prize of power, which makes them at once more deadly and much harder to defeat (that isn’t to say that The Church of the Collective isn’t set on getting what The Church of Scientology already has: tax exempt status). 

You can bring down a business; it’s a little harder to snuff out faith, especially at its most zealous and jealously guarded. It’s the reason The Sparrows were able to take over Kings’ Landing in Game of Thrones. It’s the reason you’d rather meet a Ferengi in battle than a Klingon. 

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

Whatever chaos the Collective is about to unleash on the world of The Boys, you can guarantee that it’s going to be messy. And a whole load of fun.    

The post The Boys Season 2: What Is The Church of the Collective? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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

[renaroo]

The Sibling Complex

Disclaimer: Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Wolverine and associated characters are the creative property of Marvel Comics Warnings: Canon-typical violence & language Rating: T Prompt: ( @shobogan ) DAMIAN AND GABBY, HOW DID I NEVER THINK OF THIS "do you have a big sister too?" "tch. ......yes."

A/N: Okay so even though I’ve still not gotten around to writing the main MAIN fic for this universe, I couldn’t help but tie this little team up into the big Amalgamation Comic Universe I’ve been dreaming up for the last few months. So that’s what’s being referred to as the ‘Merge” and ‘Mergers’ are people from other worlds/continuities that you don’t identify with. 

For all intents and purposes this is Prime/New-Earth Damian and Cassandra, with 616 Laura and Gabby. If you don’t know what that means, you’re a more worthwhile human being than myself, lemme tell ya. 

Jonathan’s seatbelt wasn’t quite fitting the way it was supposed to, though Gabby figured it wouldn’t. It was created for dogs and not wolverines. Still, he seemed content enough, sleeping in the backseat all to himself under all the blankets and pillows that she and Laura had packed for their journey. 

“I think he’ll sleep the whole ride this time,” Gabby informed Laura. She was sitting on her knees in the passenger seat, leaning against the corner of the chair to better look at their pet. “We won’t have to take a pee break.”

“And I remember telling you to sit down and use your seatbelt,” Laura responded, not taking her eyes off the road, though Gabby suspected that behind her sunglasses she was glancing into the rearview mirror. 

Sticking out her lower lip, Gabby flipped around in the seat and sunk down. “You’re not wearing your seatbelt either, Laura,” she said pointedly all the same.

“I have a healing factor,” Laura said plainly.

“So do I,” Gabby countered.

Laura bothered to actually look at Gabby and lower her chin enough that she could look at Gabby over her sunglasses. There was no humor in her eyes, though Gabby never lost sight of that bit of affection Laura only had for her, Deborah, and Megan. 

“I’m older,” Laura said in that flat, this is final tone she had perfected. 

“Of course you’re older! I’m a clone of you, duh,” Gabby said, but she already reached for her seatbelt and pulled it over her shoulder. “Some day that’s not going to be a good enough excuse, y’know.”

“It’ll always be enough for me,” Laura replied, looking back to the road. “I also distinctly remember that I told you that if Jonathan had to use the bathroom, you could teach him to go in a cup as easily as you taught him to go in a litter box.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Gabby said, nose curling. “Someone would have to hold the cup for him.”

“Not someone,” Laura said, smirking a bit. “Just you.”

“Ugh,” Gabby rolled her eyes. “Why’re we even going to this new place? This... Gotham? Ever since the explosion and all the weird stuff with the world popping up and the Jean-Grey School going public again, I thought we’d be... I don’t know, staying around there? Or if we have to explore new places from the other worlds, why can’t we start at some of the fun sounding ones? Like Metropolis or Sternbild or Miracle City--”

"This isn’t an adventure, Gabby,” Laura said simply. “This is a favor for Tyger Tyger.”

Surprised, but not that surprised, Gabby settled in her seat and reached for her own sunglasses from the glove compartment. “I should’ve known you were still allergic to fun.” 

“You should have,” Laura agreed. “Seems several businesses that Tyger once had a firmer grasp on in Madripoor are making large moves on her operation. The sorts of moves that require a lot of financial support to see them through. Financial support that used to be provided by her and her alone but, with how everything has been since the Merge, it seems that there are some additions to Intergang’s watchlist. And they seem to be taking roost in some of the places that are outside of her banks’ former influences.”

Gabby tapped on her chin. “So, criminal hubs that weren’t around before the Merge, but now want to take advantage of power vacuums. Makes sense.”

“Gotham is one of those hubs,” Laura explained. “A port city with an apparently ages old criminal history built into the brick and mortar. And it’s on the East Coast of the United States which would make it conveniently a world away from Madripoor, Hong Kong, and the majority of Tyger Tyger’s surveillance.”

With a smirk Gabby poked her sister’s shoulder. “And because of someone you know, you just happen to have earned Tyger Tyger’s trust, huh?”

“Something like that,” Laura said simply. “I already thanked you for it, though, so there’s no reason to bring it back up.”

“Except maybe to get thanked again. Since we’re going to Gotham instead of any of the cool and awesome places that aren’t full of seedy undergrounds and people who are going to be shooting us pretty soon,” Gabby answered. “Liiiike Miracle City--”

“We’re not going to England today,” Laura said plainly. “And I’ve heard... conflicting things about this mysterious Miracle Man. I’d not put too many eggs in that basket, Gabby.”

“You’re right,” Gabby hummed, pulling up her smart phone to play games on. “I mean, it’s kinda pretentious to name yourself Miracle Man isn’t it?”

“Very,” Laura agreed. “Which is saying something since you’re friends with a kid named Genesis.”

“Your original name was Talon,” Gabby said simply. “Glass houses, Laura.”

“And you still haven’t picked one,” Laura remarked. “Not so easy is it?”

Gabby pointed toward the backseat. “I named Jonathan! I don’t know why you can’t give me one that isn’t stupid for free.”

"I’m driving us to Gotham, I’ll think of something you’ll hate on the way,” Laura remarked with a smirk.

“You’re the worst,” Gabby laughed, though she didn’t mean it. 

She didn’t mean it at all.

Working with others was beneath him when he considered himself an al Ghul. Working with Grayson had been an adjustment and the sort of opportunity for learning he would never admit to out loud. Working with his Father had been a pain which throbbed, upsetting and mismatched, until they at last found each other’s patterns.

Damian took time and effort with teamwork and it was never once a pleasurable experience because it nearly always involved sharing his time with someone he would rather not have. And that was an annoyance almost beyond measure. 

“Tt, I would have more delightful conversation with Goliath tonight than with you,” Damian asserted, arms still crossed and nose high toward the sky. 

For a moment, that seemed to almost faze Cain as she bothered to look up from the cheaply made paper flyer to Damian, then back to the colorful brochure. 

Annoyed with the lack of response, Damian leaned in and curled his nose at her. “If you must know, that was an insult lotted toward you,” he continued to inform her. 

Cassandra looked up, a knowing glint in her brown eyes as she gave a small smirk and responded with the most infuriating, quiet, “Thank you,” Damian had ever heard.

“This annoyance of a public outing is over and I am ready to leave this campus before more of my classmates come across us to ask questions and compliment that stupid barrette in your hair again,” Damian growled, looking over the grounds of Gotham Academy. “Mizoguchi alone would be an unending barrage of questions.”

Cass put her hands and the brochure into her pocket and glanced back out. “Mmkay,” she said. “Waiting on...?”

Glaring at her, Damian could not have further expressed his aggravation. “On our ride since Father so rudely left halfway through.”

“Told him to go home,” Cass explained, looking back to Damian. “Said we could... walk.”

Damian’s eye twitched. “Why didn’t you say anything?” She shrugged simply to defy him. “Walk? Walk to Bristol? Have you lost your mind--”

“I think we,” she said, bringing her book bag around her shoulder and pulling out just enough of her mask that Damian could tell what it was, “should... bond. Been a while.”

Memories of exploding bridges and the risk of a family name larger than both of them came to mind as Damian grinned ear to ear. “You do make up for insufficiencies with some amount of style, Cain.”

"I know,” she replied somewhat cockily as they headed toward the nearest alley and began to quickly switch attire. 

While there were many things about Cassandra that Damian was uncertain about, especially with her strangely youthful presence after what his Father was referring to as the great Merge, the one thing he was always sure to admire was her combative skill. 

He still remembered the tinges of jealousy that hung off of him like weights the first time they had met face to face back during the Architect’s attacks on Gotham. He remembered how completely unfazed she was by his cutting words.

Back then he had been willing to give credit for that to Cassandra’s lack of proficiency in spoken language, but lately he learned that was not the case. 

Instead she defeated him shear self-confidence and assuredness. HIs words may have cut deep, but she still had layers of armor made out of pure conviction. 

Though, he had been right about her sparsity in using her tongue.

After they rounded a third mile, Damian was slightly falling behind Cassandra. And that, of course, simply was not going to work.

“I refuse to go another centimeter without you explaining what our plans for the rest of the evening are, Black Bat,” he said promptly. “It is only ten thirty and prime patrol activity is best between the hours of midnight and four AM.”

“Won’t be expecting us then,” Cass said with a smirk, looking back behind him.

“Who won’t be?” he asked testily. 

“Ships,” she answered again before reaching for her grappling gun. 

“Ships,” Damian repeated flatly.

“Ships,” Cassandra confirmed before taking the next swing. 

Annoyed once again, Damian followed suit, quickly getting distance covered and making a point of leaping ahead of Cassandra by their next landing. He could see that they were at Cape Carmine, which answered what ships, but left another question. 

“Why ships?” Damian half-whined. “Do you have information on them? Do you have any suspicions about their use? What intel have you gotten from that new Network of Batgirls-United or whatever it is that Oracle is up to these days?” 

“Sh,” Cass said shortly. “No information. No intel. Gut.”

Immediately annoyed, Damian narrowed his eyes and followed Cassandra almost reluctantly. “That is not enough to encourage confidence in you, Cain!” he told her firmly.

“Sh, codenames,” she corrected, as if he was still green in more than just his boots. 

“I don’t need to use them because there is no one around,” he growled after as they reached the edge of the docks and easily crossed over the barbwire fence. 

Though Damian hated to admit it to himself -- and would never dare to admit it out loud -- he truly could sit back and appreciate the ease with which Cassandra moved herself forward. She had the sort of grace in her movements that was natural like Grayson, but there was a determination and ferocity to everything as well.

It made Damian feel familiar with her in ways that he seldom felt with anyone. 

Once Damian landed, Cassandra glanced from one side of the port to the other then pointed to the far off shore. “Take that side,” she ordered.

Damian was more than a little taken aback by the order. “On my own?” he asked, uncertain if she realized what she was saying.

A soft smile came to Cass’ face and she glanced toward him. “Trust you,” she assured him.

Heat came to Damian’s face but he abruptly ignored it, pushing past his sister and heading toward the docks as ordered. “Of course you do,” he made light of the commentary. “Everyone should trust me. I’m the best.”

“Sure,” Cass replied with more amusement in her voice than he liked, but she did not double back behind him. She certainly went her own way and left Damian completely unsupervised.

It was the sort of trust and confidence that he usually only earned after several disobeyed orders -- both with his father and with Grayson. 

As impressed as Damian was with the simple act, however, it began to quickly fade once he actually began patrolling the area. There was not so much as a dock worker on shift in his area, and his combing of the landscape began to feel more and more like a useless chore. 

“I told her,” he whine petulantly, “there’s no one here! And the best hours for patrol are later. People are still out and awake at...”

With that, Damian took pause and looked around the docks once more. They were completely barren, his search had assured him of that. 

And that was where the problem lied. 

"UGH!” Damian growled, going for some high ground in his frustration so as to have a better vantage point and see along the harbor. “Why can she never explain a damn thing! Such an annoyance.”

He leered over the skyline, unimpressed with the fact that a ship, surely enough, was fast approaching. 

“All it would have taken was a single word, Cain,” he muttered to himself. “You truly are like father. And here I thought the others had been vastly exaggerating.”

His focus, however, was taken from the approaching ship when he noticed quick movement in the distance. 

Eyes narrowing, Damian turned more toward the direction of the motion and, sure enough, from one shadow to the next leapt a small figure -- no bigger than himself. And though the exact details of the costume were unfamiliar, Damian recognized high grade armor when he saw it. 

“Tt, still haven’t memorized all of the files we have on new heroes and villains after the Merge,” Damian growled to himself. “I will have to correct that after I fix this.”

The unknown assailant was ducking into a warehouse only one over from Damian’s own perch, which made it easy enough to leap to one of the top windows and quietly lift it open after a lightning quick lockpick job. 

Inside, the darkness provided even more cover for them both, but the advantage was still to Damian given the small thief was not aware of him yet. 

A small, drowning part of his conscience was worried that just perhaps he should have alerted Cassandra as to what he was doing, but he figured if she could leave out some details, so could he. 

“Hey, I think I’ve found an empty hangar,” the small girl said, touching the side of her face mask as she walked away. “It’s the thirteenth, so that means it’s unlucky. Sounds about like us. It’s good that we didn’t bring Jonathan.”

Damian was more than a little disgusted to see such a young girl being used for what seemed to be a very organized attack. But at the same time, her determination and unwavering disposition didn’t leave him any doubt about her possible guilt. 

She reminded him more of Katrina and the other ruffians that Colin was spending time with in the East End under Catwoman’s proverbial wing. 

“You want me to just stay here?” the girl whined. After a pause she let out a groan. “None of them ever get past you, Laura. That’s my point. Let me move-- Ugh. I hate when she hangs up.”

The girl crossed her arms, childishly in Damian’s opinion, and looked around the warehouse as if curiously bored when she suddenly went stiff. 

Her rigidness caught Damian by surprise, it was obvious to him even if he was not the world class body language expert that Cassandra was. The girl’s shoulders hunched forward and she began moving her head around widely in a circular motion, sniffing the air like some sort of dog. 

Damian’s eyebrows raised curiously as the girl hunkered down more and, to his surprise, unleashed what looked like a bony claw from her hands. 

It took a moment, but Damian realized that she was onto him, and if he did not strike quickly and get things under control, his advantage would be lost. 

Without a moment’s hesitation, he leaped to the nearest rafters, using the arc of his own jump to quickly fling several Batarangs the mysterious foe’s way. She somersalted away from the first two and then sliced through the remaining with the two hand claws then a foot claw that had appeared through her boot when Damian wasn’t watching it. 

The pieces dropped around her and she seemed to be examining them at least for the moment. Damian took the opportunity to fling himself downward and aim a kick for her head. 

The girl let out an aggressive grunt as the kick hit, but rather than fall to the ground she quickly recovered and slid back on her heels. 

There was no seeing her eyes through the large, pink goggles she was wearing, but Damian knew a disgruntled expression when he saw one. 

“Are you picking a fight with me?” she demanded.

“I’m winning a fight with you,” Damian corrected before pulling out blades and rushing forward at her. 

“Oh, confident,” she mocked, easily blocking his swings with her forearms before kicking Damian in the chest and knocking the air out of him. “Sorry, if I lost a fight to someone like you I’d never hear the end of it from my sister. Do you know how long it took me to convince her to not leave me in the motel with Jonathan? At least two minutes of my sappy eyes. I’m supposed to reserve those for emergencies.”

“You need to shut your mouth, woman!” Damian growled as he continued to attack her.

She let out a long gasp as she caught Damian’s foot. “Oh my god. Are you like... nine? I’m not supposed to beat up babies. It’s not good for my karma!” She then used the momentum of his foot to twist him midair and send him to the ground chest first. She seemed intent on not letting him have enough air.

"I,” Damian wheezed as he began to block attacks. “Am... Not... NINE!” 

With his final declaration, Damian used a two finger strike right for the girl’s throat, causing her to choke immediately and back up, grabbing at the plating armor and pull it forcefully away from her skin to try and relieve her bruised trachea. 

Then there was an enormous explosion just outside. 

Both Damian and the girl turned toward the sound, eyes wide. 

“Black Bat!” Damian called out despite himself.

“Wolverine!” the girl yelled. She then released a vicious growl that shouldn’t have been possible given the bruising of her throat Damian had just given her, and quickly kicked Damian across the face, a wicked attack punctuated by a deep cut that ran across his cheek due to one of her claws.

Damian hit the ground and the girl took off toward the harbor. But he wasn’t going to stay down long. 

In all the time that Gabby had spent with Laura, she had come to learn that explosions usually meant Wolverine and that usually came with a sense of trouble. 

Trouble which, whether Laura liked it or not, Gabby had gotten very good at getting her out of. 

After losing the weirdo in the cape, Gabby quickly made her way toward the source of the explosion and was not deterred by fire or recursive blasts because she knew that a healing factor plus a little determination was more than enough to help her as much as it did Laura. 

“Wolverine!” she yelled out, ignoring the way the flames licked at her heels and singed her hair the more she ran toward it. “Wolverine, where are you--” 

Before the words had fully escaped her mouth, she was snagged by the back of her armor and pulled into the air. It reminded her of her not-so-long-ago run in with Spider-Woman, flying through the air at a swing.

But it wasn’t any of the Spider-people that Gabby knew when she looked back, but rather a woman dressed all in black and gold, swinging from a grappling hook that wouldn’t have been out of place in the arsenal that Gabby and her clone sisters were trained with in the labs. 

That wasn’t a memory she reflected on fondly. 

“Let go! I have to find my sister!” Gabby warned before extending her left claw and slashing out at the woman holding her. 

The move somehow didn’t surprise the woman as she went in for a landing far away from the fire, tossing Gabby by her shirt to flip her in the air. Then, just before Gabby’s face could meet the pavement, the woman caught her by her foot. 

It was a cool move, and if Gabby wasn’t worried about her sister at the moment, she probably would have marveled at it more. But as things were, she needed to find Laura, and this lady was becoming a nuisance.

“I need to find... Wolverine!” she growled before extending her claw and stabbing the woman in the arm with it. 

That had apparently been a surprise to her where the swing had not been, and the woman dropped her without so much as a word or a grunt. Which was weird, but Gabby was again preoccupied by tucking into a quick roll and landing on all fours to face the would-be attacker. 

The woman looked at her, then out to the explosion and the bay. She looked back to Gabby. “Sister is on the ship,” the woman explained. “Stay. I will get her.”

At first, the command caught Gabby off guard. Then she tilted her head and waved to her attire. “What? Do I look like a civilian kid to you or something? because I’m definitely not that!”

She glared at Gabby then looked up, drawing Gabby’s attention upwards as well and to the annoyance she thought she had left in the warehouse. 

“Not you again!” she all but groaned just before the kid tackled her with a feral growl. 

They struggled, rolling with each other and landing punches and kicks where they could without much mind to the woman in black and gold. At least not until she cleared her throat and the colorfully clad kid looked to her almost in irritation. 

“Keep her here,” the older woman ordered.

“Since when were you in charge of me, Black Bat?” he snapped at her, leaving his cheek open for a good punch that Gabby was more than happy to take. “YOU!!!”

Before either of them could continue on, however, the mystery woman raced forward, past the flaming dock and toward another. With a few swift leaps, she was at the bow of a fishing ship and then leaping toward the bay, grappling hook in hand. It eventually hit the distant ship attempting to steer away from the harbor. The so-called Black Bat hit the waters and disappeared, but for a while, with her goggles, Gabby was able to trace the ripples of her trailing behind the boat and gaining on it. 

Gabby sat up on the boy’s chest and allowed herself to feel impressed for a few moments. “Wow,” she said. “That was almost cool.”

“Get off me!” the boy snarled before kicking up with all his might and forcing Gabby to do just that. 

She tucked into a roll and then leaped to her feet, claws drawn. 

The other kid was ready with bat-shaped throwing weapons. 

Both of them were heaving for breath. 

“What’s your deal!?” Gabby snapped. “I was trying to help my sister stop smugglers!”

“Tt, likely story,” he snapped back. “And even if you were, this is not your city to do such for. This city belongs to Batman and Robin.”

Blinking some, Gabby loosened up and glanced back toward where the mystery woman had gone to follow after Laura and the ship. “Her costume didn’t look like a Robin--”

"Fool! She isn’t Robin!” the bright red child -- in costume and face -- yelled at her. “I am Robin! The best Robin that there’s ever been.”

“Robin,” Gabby repeated before putting her hands on her hips. “I guess Wolverine was right. It is important to put more thought into a superhero name so it doesn’t end up being something stupid.”

“I’ll kick that insolent mouth,” he snarled.

“You’re being silly,” Gabby informed him. “But it’s kinda cool to have a superhero named Batman like that. I guess some good things did come out of the Merge. There’s a woman Wolverine, so why not--”

“That wasn’t Batman!” Robin snapped. “That was Black Bat! Obviously.”

Gabby narrowed her eyes. “How is that obvious? That’s like saying oh, they’re Inhuman, not a Mutant. Obviously. Like unless you have a Cerebro, how’re you going to really know at first glance--”

“What are you talking about?” Robin growled.

“What’re you talking about?” Gabby fired back. 

They stared at each other for a good long minute before being distracted by the sounds of gunfire over the harbor. They both looked and, in the corner of her eye, Gabby could see despair and concern wash over the Robin’s face before he regained his sour composure. 

“So you’re from one of the other places during the Merge, huh.” Gabby said, finally putting away her claws and folding her arms across her chest. 

“I suppose the same could be said about you,” Robin said stuffily. “Save for the fact that I belong here. Gotham has the heroes it is meant to have. But you are unfamiliar.”

“Eh, come up to Westchester, We’ll probably say the same about you,” Gabby joked lightly with a shrug. “Besides, we only came down here on business for a friend. I think. I don’t know. Wolverine gets in these moods and it’s like she forgets I’m the greatest partner, like, ever. And it’d always go smoother if she actually let me in on things, y’know?”

“Tt, no,” Robin snapped. “There is complete disclosure between myself and my partner. I have earned it through a lifetime of training and perfection.”

Looking him over, Gabby was having a hard time deciding whether or not this kid was actually real. So she turned attention back to the harbor. “So you know what’s on that shipment that our partners are fighting on?”

There was a long beat of silence. 

"Things that are obviously not of your concern,” the spiky haired brat finally said. 

“That just means you don’t know anything!” Gabby groaned. 

“It means I wouldn’t tell you anything even if I did because you don’t have any business being here other than shady business. And if Black Bat told me to keep you here, I will do it with you unconscious on the ground if I have to!” he snapped. 

“If this Black Bat told you to jump off a bridge, would you?” Gabby asked sarcastically. 

“Tt, I’ll have you know, we blow up bridges together, and so jumping off it was a given,” Robin answered in that same snooty way. 

Gabby frowned then looked back out to the ship. “At least it isn’t moving anymore. I guess we just have to wait now,” she sighed before dropping into a sitting position on the pavement. “Hope Wolverine gets done in time for us to get to the hotel and let Jonathan out.”

Robin stared at the ship as well, aggravation coming off him in waves. “Do you have someone kidnapped at this hotel?” he demanded.

“Jonathan’s family,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He’s a wolverine.”

“Tt, sounds like a mascot,” Robin sneered. 

“More like a brother. Our actual half brothers suck,” Gabby sighed. “What about you? You have any siblings?”

Robin’s shoulders dropped and his entire head rolled with his eyes. “More each and every day,” he groaned.

“Cool,” Gabby said with a smile. “Got any sisters?”

At that, Robin’s gaze flickered back to the ship in the distance. Slowly, he lowered himself to a crouch by Gabby, still keeping his gaze level on the harbor. “Yes,” he said.

And that was all he really needed to say. Gabby understood. 

She started watching the harbor again, too.

Damian knew that regardless of circumstances, it was of the utmost importance to keep vigilant and wait for the inevitable signal from Cassandra that would tell him he was needed. He was certain of it coming sooner rather than later. 

He also knew he was utterly exhausted from the effort he had put forth to fight the new stranger he was now waiting with at the Dixon Docks. 

At some point, he didn’t know when, he must have closed his eyes and left his guard down just enough that he could be surprised by the obnoxious snort of a giggle that was coming from just a few feet in front of them. 

Alarmed, Damian whipped out his batarang, ready to throw, when he realized that the position he had just been in was so compromised and so inexcusable he hadn’t even registered it at first. 

He and the mysterious girl had been sleeping head-to-head, shoulder-to-shoulder before a woman in a yellow-and-blue garish costume stood by Damian’s own sister and snorted in laughter at them.

“Wow, that’s almost adorable,” the woman said. 

“Wolverine!” the girl with Damian cried out, leaping to her feet. She apparently experienced no-such shame from their compromised positions. 

Instead, she raced to Wolverine’s side and wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist. “You smell like smoke, but your clothes are intact, so I don’t think you burned yourself alive again. Sorry your hair is singed. This is all an improvement, though! I’m so used to you being stupid about your healing factor.”

Looking toward Cassandra, Damian was met with an all-too-presumptuous smirk. As if his sister had observed anything worthy of humiliation. Or, more importantly, like she had any history of abusing such situations to her own whims. 

She was not Drake or Todd, after all.

“Where have you been!?” Damian demanded. “You drag me to warehouses, leave me behind, and all for what?”

“Stopped bad guys,” Cass answered simply.

“You’re incorrigible,” Damian spat out.

Wolverine looked toward Cassandra, tilting her head with a sharp toothed smirk. “You’re right. He does get angry when he’s worried. That’s adorable. Mine just gets chatty.”

“I do not, why would you tell strangers that, Wolvie? That’s so rude,” the girl whined. 

After watching the sisters interact for a bit, Damian put an incredulous look Cassandra’s way. “You’re seriously not going to give me more explanation than you stopped bad guys.”

She rolled her eyes at him, as if a mask could hide the expression he was more than familiar with from his older siblings. “Penguin’s men. Same connections from Hong Kong. Recognized them on patrol last night. Thought we’d check again tonight. Got lucky.”

“They weren’t shipping arms to Hong Kong, though, they were shipping them to the competition of our connections in Madripoor,” Wolverine revealed. “Trying to take advantage of the lack of cohesion between the various worlds of the Merge for now.”

“Genius,” the girl smirked. 

“It is, which is why Black Bat here has been talking to me about a superhero four-one-one that their original world apparently uses with some frequency,” Wolverine continued.

Damian continued to scrutinize his sister. “You’re sharing secrets about Oracle now, are you?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Cass replied without hesitation. “Need to work together more. If villains can, we can.”

“Looks like you two have already started on the right path,” Wolverine joked. 

Damian’s face felt like a furnace as he rapidly shook his head in disagreement. “We’re as good as bitter enemies! We fight like dogs! She hasn’t even given me a name to curse at her with!” Damian shouted. 

“Talon,” the girl answered. “After my sister’s loser name.”

“Talons have a terrible history in Gotham, you should stay away if you know what’s good for you,” Damian snapped at Talon viciously. An action which led to Cassandra wasting no time in flicking him in the ear for. “Black Bat!”

Ignoring Damian, Cassandra offered Wolverine her hand and a smile. “We’ll... work together again. Know it.”

“You can count on it,” Wolverine assured her. 

When Damian glared over in Talon’s direction she was still wearing that infectious smile as she and her sister turned away to head back from wherever they came. 

He then shifted his glare toward Cass. “You’re the worst partner,” he informed her.

“You’re the best,” Cass joked. “That’s why I brought you.”

“You better believe I’m the best, better than anyone tonight deserved, that’s for sure!” Damian growled out, following Cass in getting his grappling hook out of his utility belt. “You’re willing to team up with any of these unchecked Mergers.”

“Yup,” she said as they took off. “Also willing to watch... your terrible school plays.”

Damian sighed and followed his sister into the Gotham skyline. “O brave new world, that has such people in it!”

[therachelperspective]

BOOK | The Clothes Make the Girl (Look Fat?): Adventures and Agonies in Fashion by Brittany Gibbons

I have officially confirmed that Brittany Gibbons and I are the same person. 

I have read both of her books now and through both of them wrote copious notes that illustrated how she and I share many of the same experiences, attributes, body type, thoughts on certain topics, almost everything plausible that we could have as similarities. Some people will say that they read a book and swear they could have written it themselves. That is me with Brittany Gibbons. 

Her sophomore novel, The Clothes Make the Girl (Look Fat?): Adventures and Agonies in Fashion, documents her personal grapples with something every plus-size woman struggles with at some point or another (if not all the time) – fashion. It’s not just trying to find clothes that will fit on your body, period; it’s the mental frustration we face alongside it, like coming to terms with the number that dictates this entire process, and the fact that those numbers when shopping store to store are hardly ever consistent. When a larger woman tells you that the struggle is real, you best believe the struggle is real. And Brittany Gibbons, thank the Lord, approaches these and other topics with wit and pure honesty about every battle she has experienced when it comes to the clothing on her back. If you thought her first book was legit, her second is right up there with it. 

In true memoir style, The Clothes Make The Girl follows a general chronology of her life. We begin more or less in her adolescence and conclude with post-baby body. Along the way, Brittany not only cracks jokes about her exploits – a comic relief I really grew to appreciate – but she also constantly reminds readers that there is nothing wrong with their body. I wrote down so many quotes that were positive affirmations – reminders that FAT. BODIES. ARE. NORMAL. BODIES. Right away from the prologue, “Real women [...] are not defined by their curves, thigh gaps, or chest size.” 

Furthermore, shortly thereafter in the Introduction, another spectacular truth: “We hold jobs, we go out with friends, and we date. We do normal human activities and feel a healthy desire to do them in clothes that make use feel confident and beautiful and are reflective of our personalities.” Let’s be real, not many of us plus-size ladies have personalities rooted in elastic banded sweatpants and Looney Tunes (not out in public, anyways).

Before I started reading The Clothes Make the Girl, I noted that I was already at a comfortable, confident standpoint with my body. Granted the current fashion scene has produced far more plus-size fashion than in years past and I can actually say that I have numerous outlets within which I can easily find stylish digs for my size 18 body... I wondered what the experience of reading this book would feel like for someone who wasn’t already at a body positive stage in their life. The beauty of this book, however, was that even though I am at that stage, I was able to find a renewed sense of self-assurance in myself, proving that it is a quality piece of literature for women (or any plus-size person) to read. It’s not solely for those starting their journey; it can be a tool for everyone feeling discouraged or in a rut when dealing with their bodies and fashion.

Despite every topic covered in The Clothes Make the Girl, I believe the most poignant section of the entire book is an intermission of sorts titled “You Have My Permission To Hate Yourself.” 

Let me repeat that louder for the people in the back: 

You have Brittany’s permission to hate yourself. 

What sets Brittany Gibbons apart from other authors who tackle body positivity is that, sure, many will tell tales of their own personal demons, but I don’t recall any author or novel off the top of my head that outright told readers that it was okay to hate yourself and your body, and that it was normal to do so. “You don’t owe anyone shit,” Brittany says. “And only you get to decide how you feel about [your body] today.” Hell yassss, Gibbons. Hell yes. And some days, you’re allowed to be unhappy with it. That doesn’t mean you have to beat yourself up over it, or go on some extreme diet to change it.

While the major struggle in plus-size fashion lies in finding quality clothes for our double-digit bodies, another that Brittany touches base on that makes her literature all the more relatable is what happens when the clothes (especially pants) are finally found and worn. Many of us whom have never seen the light of a thigh gap are very familiar with the concept of chub rub and the sorrow of eventually rubbing holes through the inner thighs of our favorite bottoms. “I’ve buried more jeans than there are Batman movies” is a beyond relevant statement from this book. We try to salvage them as much as possible, but its occurrence and their ultimate disposal is inevitable. I’m glad to see its inclusion in The Clothes Make the Girl. 

There were times in this book, just as there were in her first memoir, where she lost me a little (those pregnancy and babies chapters) but that doesn’t negate the fact that her logic and wisdom about plus-size lifehood were still present with flying colors. The Clothes Make the Girl is an excellent representation of life in plus-size fashion, and how rough it truly is. Brittany Gibbons touched on many of, if not all, the things I felt were important, especially in regards to legitimate ups and downs of body/fat positivity. 

I give her major credit for extending her memoirs while also touching on a very specific topic; depending on said topic, I might consider that a difficult task. My only qualm might be that I felt the book ended a bit abruptly.

I don’t consider this to be a 5-star novel like her first (which still remains my only 5-star to date), but it was still a good quality read. I will always enjoy Brittany’s comical nature in the face of adverse subject matter and our seemingly unending list of resemblances. I’m sure as long as she continues to publish, I will absolutely continue to appreciate and enjoy her work.

FAVORITE EXCERPTS

"[...] Even Anna Wintour isn't dressed like Anna Wintour all the time."

"... Don't let anyone ever make you feel bad for liking clothes and doing your hair and wearing makeup. You are allowed to enjoy yourself in this life..."

"... We also hold jobs, we go out with friends, and we date. We do normal human activities and feel a healthy desire to do them in clothes that make us feel confident and beautiful and are reflective of our personalities."

"I am a normal being with a body that fits into some things and not into others."

"My insecurities came from other people telling me I should have them."

"Loving your body is about being comfortable in your body, and only you get to set the parameters of that, only you get to decide what it looks like, and only you know where your finish line is."

"The sexiest women I know are sexy because they feel sexy for themselves first."

"Your priority in this life is you."

"What you are feeling about yourself right now is fine and normal and allowed."

"... Take a shower and start over knowing that ninety percent of the people out to judge you are inside your own head."

"... You need to realize that you don't owe anyone shit. our body is yours, and only you get to decide how you feel about it today."

"Buy yourself clothes that fit. They may not be the size you think you should be, but who cares?"

"Thunder Thighs is a ridiculous insult. As if having thighs as loud and as powerful as thunder was a bad thing... That basically makes me an X-Man."

"When your jeans don't fit, buy a bigger pair. Larger jeans are worth the dinners with your best friends, the gelato during a semester in Italy, sleeping in on Sundays if you are tired, and a movie night on the couch with someone you love."

"Never apologize for your body. Ever."

"I won't hide my stomach to keep up some illusion that only thin bodies are beautiful."

"Body love is hard work."

ABOUT BRITTANY GIBBONS (from the back cover)

Brittany Gibbons writes the award-winning humor blog BrittanyHerself.com and runs the Facebook group CurvyGirlGuide.com. She gave a 2011 TED talk on the reinvention of beauty and is the author of New York Times bestseller Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin... Every Inch of It. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Huffington Post, Redbook, Woman's Day magazine, Marie Claire, Los Angeles Times, The Stir, and Babble, among many other publications and sites. Brittany also hosts a weekly Google talk show called Last Call Brittany and the weekly podcast Girl's Girls. Brittany lives in Ohio with her husband and three children.

The Clothes Make the Girl (Look Fat?): Adventures and Agonies in Fashion by Brittany Gibbons Publishing | Date | Pages

MY RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

I'm fairly certain that any book Brittany Gibbons publishes, I will enjoy it. Many of the notes I took with The Clothes Make the Girl were because I agree with her statements so much. Our ideas, body types, etc. are so similar, it's almost as if I could have written this book myself. She may have lost me a little bit with the baby-centric life and fashion (as did also happen with her first book), but her logic and wisdom were still there.

I wasn't sure how well I could get into this book at first (it took me a long time to get a good pace started), but it really is an excellent representation of life in plus-size fashion. And the truth is that it is rough. But she touched on all the major points that I felt were important. The best overall part of this book was absolutely the chapter/intermission having permission to hate yourself and your body. Not everyday is as easy as the previous... and that's okay.

This was a good extended memoir while also touching on a specific topic. That's not always easy to do for my tastes in literature. However, I did feel that it ended a little abruptly. While I don't think this is a 5-star book like her first, it was still a good quality read. Especially as I once again go through a shift in my own personal style, and of course, the every day occurrences in fashion for a plus-size woman.

[hailstorrmmss]

Hi friends! If you like fan made ffxiv stories, this one is really good so far! Also i love all of shoe's (the creator) ffxiv ramblings about the game. Read it with me!

https://ffxivcomic.github.io/

[ravenmorganleigh]

Another day, another entry into the seemingly unending list of stories about Trump supporters being delicate little flowers who demand America's respect but are too damn stupid to earn it.

Those who journeyed to Trump’s Saturday evening event on Florida’s Space Coast said that since the election, they have unfriended some of their liberal relatives or friends on Facebook. They don’t understand why major media outlets don’t see the same successful administration they have been cheering on. And they’re increasingly frustrated that Democrats — and some Republicans — are too slow to approve some of the president’s nominees and too quick to protest his every utterance.

Hey, welcome to politics. I see you're new here. Just to set you straight on some things, a shouty man telling you he's being successful is not the same thing as having evidence of success. Republicans slow-walked Obama nominations throughout his entire term—to the point of refusing to allow him a Supreme Court nomination at all—and generally when a sitting president says something even remotely controversial people are going to talk about that, which is a tidbit of knowledge so basic that you could even learn it from Fox & Friends.

“They’re stonewalling everything that he’s doing because they’re just being babies about it,” said Patricia Melani, 56, a Jersey native who now lives here and attended her third Trump rally Saturday. “All the loudmouths? They need to let it go. Let it go. Shut their mouths and let the man do what he’s got to do. We all shut our mouths when Obama got in the second time around, okay? So that’s what really needs to be done.”

Yes, we all remember the shutting-your-mouths part during Obama's second term. Truly, the sound of mouth shutting was deafening.

Lest you get the notion that Donald Trump's most fervent supporters are, in fact, not very bright, what with their saluting-of-cardboard-cutouts-of-Trump in the morning and defending his comically inept lies in the afternoon, they'd like you to know that they get their information from only the best sources. Which would never lie to them, unlike all of the rest of media, because reasons.

She and her husband were well-versed on hold-ups with the president’s Cabinet nominees and legal arguments for the now-frozen travel ban. But they didn’t know much about the resignation of Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn on Monday amid accusations that he improperly discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russian ambassador — and then withheld that information from Vice President Pence and other top officials.

“See, don’t question me on that because I haven’t really been watching and listening too much on it,” Melani said.

Got it. If Sean Hannity doesn't want to talk about it, it's fake news. That it actually freaking happened and is in all the papers is just evidence of how deep the conspiracy goes. Or something.

Anyhoo, the papers have been chock full of stories about the travails of Trump voters—this New York Times effort was very nearly a parody, it was so silly—and chief among the purported lessons is that Trump voters don't want to hear they're uninformed, because it makes them mad. But they are uninformed. They don't want to hear that their conspiracy theories about minorities, immigrants and refugees are just warmed-over racism, because that's rude. But those conspiracy theories are, in fact, just warmed-over racism. They don't want to hear that they were conned, and that the things Donald Trump is doing will in fact make their lives worse to a far greater extent than it would make them better—whether it be deregulating Wall Street, or installing hostile figures in important government agencies, or starting trade wars, or take-your-pick, but those things are all happening whether Sean Hannity mentions them or not.

So we're left with a collection of people who bristle mightily at the thought that we think they're uninformed or gullible, but whose entire support for Trump is based on being uninformed and gullible. They're very, very angry about all the political correctness going on these days, and therefore celebrate Trump and other "conservative" figures who simply say rude, obnoxious, racist, misogynistic things out loud like a proper patriot should, but they live in constant fury over the thought that some "liberal," somewhere, might say rude and obnoxious things about them.

If the premise here is that we all have to shut up and pretend ignorance is a fine American value, or that lying is morally equivalent to stating the truth, or that the real tragedy here is that professional insult factories like Donald Trump or Milo Whatshisface might get themselves insulted and what kind of world would allow that—yeah, no. That's not going to fly. Taking a wrecking ball to American institutions of government, to long-held ethical standards, to basic standards of human decency and to the very notion of objective fact is going to get you, at the very least, derided and condemned. Deriding and condemning such behavior is, in fact, the patriotic thing to do.

[comiccrusaders]

Dynamite Entertainment is pleased to announce that they have partnered with social media sensation and pop culture photographer, Johnny Wu (aka @Sgtbananas) for the launch of their latest Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, which will celebrate his work with a gorgeous Kickstarter exclusive hard cover art book, Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure! With an expected shipping date of December, this first-ever collection of Johnny’s work will take you on a journey through your childhood in this visually stunning and nostalgic adventure.

The Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure Kickstarter campaign is live now, and can be found by visiting: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/johnny-wu-10-frames-per-second-an-articulated-adve

Johnny Wu (aka @sgtbananas) has turned a passion for toys and photography into an immersive and fantastical adventure that changes dreary reality into a world where all of your childhood fantasies can come true.  Through these images we can visit a world where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can fight Storm Troopers, and Transformers can walk alongside Spider-Man.  The only limit to what we can encounter is our own imagination.  Johnny’s photography provides a window to the wonder we experienced as children when the toys which occupied our worlds weren’t just plastic collectibles, but vehicles to unleash the unending imagination of youth.  Armed with his favorite toys, a passion for photography, and a highspeed camera, Johnny has turned his interest in making life-like scenes with action figures into a brand on Instagram.  Anyone following his @sgtbananas feed will find the most amazing images turning the mundane into something truly remarkable.  It is the combination of his sense of photography and a vibrant imagination that come together to make his visions a reality.

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“I’ve been a toy collector my whole life,” says Johnny Wu. “I’ve always had a strong connection to toys, but it wasn’t until I started taking photos of them that I felt that I was able to share how special they are. Ten Frames Per Second is my lifelong love of toys and photography coming to life. I never stopped being a kid, and I hope that my photos reach the inner kid in all of us.”

“Anyone working in the comic book industry must truly be a kid at heart,” says Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite.  “Johnny Wu’s work captures that very spirit in each and every image he snaps, making Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure the perfect project for us to partner on. We’re thrilled to work with such a unique and modern talent to bring this epic journey into the homes of children – young and old – everywhere.”

The Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure exclusive hard cover art book edition features some of Johnny’s amazing toy photography across 224 amazing pages and gives us a peek directly into our collective childhood with Johnny’s incredible vision for his toys.  Using full size common place locations and props, Johnny has blended the real and surreal into a vibrant representation of imagination as his photography takes you out of the humdrum of your daily life and reminds you what it is like to see things through the eyes of a child. The Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure Art Book is a fantastic journey into the imagination that we know will resonate with you, as this first collection of Johnny’s work and will take you on a visual tour of pop culture toys with tableaus that are refreshing, inspiring, and energetic.  This book is a source of joy that can be pulled off your bookshelf and shared with anyone to spark conversation and nostalgia.

Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure is currently being worked on by Johnny Wu.  He has sifted through thousands of photographs to find his favorites that represent a wide range of classic toys.  Backers who support the Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure Kickstarter have the opportunity to receive rewards, including digital editions, hard cover art books, variant covers, full print collections, artist signed editions, and the opportunity to have your favorite toy photographed in an exclusive Johnny Wu photo shoot! With tiers designed to fit any collector’s budget, backers will have the potential to enjoy a number of great rewards, including:

Digital pdf of Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure,

A Kickstarter exclusive hard cover edition of Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure,

A Johnny Wu signed Kickstarter exclusive hard cover edition of Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure,

Additional digital and hard cover art books, including The Art of Alex Ross, Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art, and more!

An exclusive Johnny Wu photo shoot! This is a one of a kind opportunity for you to have Johnny Wu photograph your favorite toy in an exclusive photo shoot! This opportunity has never been offered before, and may never be offered again. Working in conjunction with the Kickstarter for 10 Frames Per Second, Johnny will supply his unique vision for bringing toys to life with a set of vibrant exclusive digital pictures of your selected toy. (Note: photography will be done on a coordinated basis and the timetable will be worked out directly upon completion of the program. A waiver is required allowing the use of the toy and shipping/insurance for the toy must be coordinated.)

The Ten Frames Per Second; An Articulated Adventure Kickstarter is available for a limited time only. Backers can get on board and gain access to all of these amazing rewards by visiting https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/johnny-wu-10-frames-per-second-an-articulated-adve today!

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT PARTNERS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATION JOHNNY WU FOR THE LAUNCH OF THE TEN FRAMES PER SECOND KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN Dynamite Entertainment is pleased to announce that they have partnered with social media sensation and pop culture photographer, Johnny Wu (aka @Sgtbananas) for the launch of their latest Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, which will celebrate his work with a gorgeous Kickstarter exclusive hard cover art book, 

[therangerofthenorthernlands]

Tolkien Update #1 (7 June 2021)

GENERAL SPOILER WARNING FOR THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Hey guys, so I've finally finished with school and now I get to read to my heart's utmost desire. Therefore, I'll be giving regular updates on my journey through Tolkien's works. They will be very heartfelt posts, as Tolkien’s writing consistently manages to touch the deepest parts of my heart. I’ll probably go chapter by chapter for The Lord of the Rings, going over quotes that I loved or found interesting and making general comments... not sure what I'll do for the rest of the books. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Also I’m starting in the middle of the trilogy because that’s where I’m at right now. Retroactive posts may or may not come For now, here is my "review" of:

The Two Towers being the second part of The Lord of the Rings

Chapter 6 “The King of the Golden Hall” otherwise known as “Eowyn is a Fucking Badass”

To give a brief overall review, I found this chapter rather interesting. It chronicled the end of Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli's journey across the plains of Rohan and their arrival at the Golden Hall, Meduseld, the seat of King Theoden son of Thengel, in Edoras. I found Tolkien's specificity in ethnic distinctions between men from different regions of Middle Earth (men of Gondor vs. men of Rohan vs. Men of, for example, Bree) particularly fascinating. His attention for detail is absolutely spectacular. Also in this chapter, Eowyn is introduced, and let me tell you that I fell in love with this woman at first sight. Further commentary in the quotes down below, but damn I love her. I wanna be her. Not sure how I feel about the whole thing Tolkien is setting up between her and Aragorn, though... I definitely hated it in the movie but I feel a little bit better about it in the book. I believe Eowyn's representation is overall more thorough and better in the book than in the movie.

Quotes that I liked/highlighted from this chapter and perhaps some general commentary/observations to accompany them (If I don’t provide commentary for a quote, assume that I just thought it sounded pretty):

As the company approaches Rohan, Aragorn and Legolas observe the lineage of the royalty of Rohan. Legolas notes how insignificant the passage of these five hundred years is to the elves and Aragorn counters that “’…to the Riders of the Mark it seems so long ago,’ said Aragorn, ‘that the raising of this house is but a memory of song, and the years before are lost in the mist of time.’” (pg. 112)

Aragorn’s lamentable tone resonated with the deepest parts of my soul here. I believe that his reflection upon the “mist of time” here mirrors reflection on his Numenorean blood and extended age, and perhaps the alienation he feels from his kin because of these extraordinary traits.

A little later on Legolas observes the language of the Rohirrim and humbly notes that “‘[He] cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men.’” (pg. 112)

This quote kind of left me speechless, the melancholy in conjunction with Legolas’ humility in the observation of the culture of the race of man, a culture and a race that elves normally look down upon or scorn... It just makes you realize the innate goodness of Legolas, and makes me love him all the more.

“‘It is not clear to me that the will of Theoden son of Thengel, even though he be lord of the Mark, should prevail over the will of Aragorn, Elendil’s heir of Gondor.’“ (pg. 115)

...Everytime someone mentions Aragorn’s lineage it gives me chills. Every. Single. Time.

“‘In this elvish sheath dwells the Blade that was Broken and has been made again. Telchar first wrout it in the deeps of time. Death shall come to any man that draws Elendil’s sword save Elendil’s heir.’“ (pg. 115)

See above. Also, no idea who Telchar is yet. Maybe I’ll find out when I read The Silmarillion?

“‘Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.” (pg. 116)

Thought this was a good aphorism. Tolkien speaking straight facts.

“’...ill news is an ill guest they say.’“

See above.

“‘The wise speak only of what they know, Grima son of Galmod. A witless worm have you become. Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls.’“ (pg. 118) Gandalf putting the traitorous Grima in his place, as he should...

HERE’S WHERE THINGS GET INTERESTING

As the company proceeds outside with King Theoden, Tolkien provides the first description of his niece, Eowyn. “Grave and thoughtful was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity in her eyes. Very fair was her face, and her long hair was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings. Thus Aragorn for the first time in the full light of day beheld Eowyn, Lady of Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. And she now was suddenly aware of him: tall heir of kings, wise with many winters, greycloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt. For a moment still as stone she stood, then turning swiftly she was gone.” (pg. 119)

Wow. And just like that, I’m head over heels for Eowyn in just a few words. Especially the bolded part. I just feel so empowered by this description. I love her. I want to be her. AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF HER BAD-ASSERY, as you will see in my following quotes. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love Miranda Otto, she’s amazing in the movies. However I do in fact adore her more in the books. BUT THEN THE DESCRIPTION OF ARAGORN FROM HER PERSPECTIVE. I WANT TO BE HIM TOO. I love them both, I love them all. I still don’t know how I feel about the romance that Tolkien is hinting at, though... Leaning toward not liking it especially.

“‘Alas!’ he said, ‘that these evil days should be mine, and should come in my old age instead of that peace which I have earned. Alas for Boromir the brave! The young perish and the old linger, withering.’“ (pg. 121)

I like Boromir more in the books, movie did him dirty :(

This is the second time an observation of this type has been made. The first was by Frodo to Gandalf in FOTR. Recurring themes people, recurring themes.

I forgot what number three was. Oh right, spot the aphorism!

“Arise now, arise, Riders of Theoden! Dire deeds awake, dark is it eastward. Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded! Forth Eorlingas!” (pg. 122)

I always love Tolkien’s verse. Also the repetition of “Forth Eorlingas!” always hits different :’)

“‘If we fail, we fall. If we succeed--then we will face the next task.” (pg. 122)

Wise, pertinent words. (Spot the aphorism!)

“‘There is no rest yet for the weary.’“ (pg. 123)

yardy know... spot the aphorism! no, but, fr, i felt this. school’s tiring, dude. it’s over tho. good times!

“’Then even the defeat of Rohan will be glorious in song,’“ Aragorn says as King Theoden insists upon riding out to battle with the company, the Rohirrim, and the amassed male citizens of Edoras. “‘The Lord of the Mark will ride! Forth Eorlingas!’“

Chivalry, nobility, humility, and “Forth Eorlingas!” Honestly, what more could you ask for?

“‘Down, snake! ...Down on your belly! How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price? When all the men were dead, you were to pick your share of the treasure, and take the woman you desire? Too long have you watched her under your eyelids and haunted her steps.’“ (pg. 124)

Gandalf’s confrontation of Grima. Noted because this exchange is transposed almost word for word in the movie (if I’m not mistaken) and I found it interesting.

Following King Theoden’s rallying of the troops, “already they heard below them in the town the heralds crying and the war-horns blowing. For the king was to ride forth as soon as the men of the town and those dwelling near could be armed and assembled.” (pg. 125)

The way Tolkien phrases this makes one feel so powerful.

“’Faithful heart may have froward tongue.’“ says King Theoden regarding Eomer. “’To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.’” says Gandalf about the same. (pg. 126)

Aphorisms, aphorisms, aphorisms! Love this man.

When asked what gift he would have from the King of Rohan, Gandalf petitions “give me Shadowfax! He was only lent before, if loan we may call it. But now I shall ride him into great hazard, setting silver against black: I would not risk anything that is not my own. And already there is a bond of love between us.’” (pg. 126)

I love Tolkien’s mention here of love and bonding with animals. Really highlights his special connection with nature and emphasizes the fact that we should all try to be closer with and kinder to our environment as a whole.

“Now men came bearing raiment of war from the king’s hoard, and they arrayed Aragorn and Legolas in shining mail. Helms too they chose, and round shields: their bosses were overlaid with gold and set with gems, green and red and white.” (pg. 127)

Powerful. Just... no words. Powerful.

“’Indeed sooner I would I bear a horse than to be borne by one.’” says Gimli the dwarf. (pg. 127)

Some comic relief from the comedic legend that is Gimli son of Gloin, the dwarf.

HERE WE GO BABY HERE COMES EOWYN MY LOVE

Speaking of who should take charge of Rohan in the absence of Theoden and Eomer, “there is Eowyn, daughter of Eomund, [Eomer’s] sister. She is fearless and high-hearted. All love her. Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.’ ...Then the king sat upon a seat before his doors, and Eowyn knelt before him and received from him a sword and a fair corslet.” (pg. 128)

YES! JUST, YES! NEED I SAY MORE? NEED I REPEAT MYSELF? NEED I EMPHASIZE MY UNENDING LOVE FOR EOWYN?

AND HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH THIS BAD-ASSERY

“Aragorn looked back s they passed towards the gate. Alone Eowyn stood before the doors of the house at the stair’s head; the sword was set upright before her, and her hands were laid upon the hilt. She was clad now in mail and shone like silver in the sun.” (pg. 128)

*INTERNAL SCREAMING OVER HOW MUCH I ADORE AND WANT TO BE THIS AMAZING POWERFUL WOMAN*

“‘Men need many words before deeds.’“ says Gimli the dwarf. (pg. 128)

Aphorism >:)

“‘An axe is no weapon for a rider.’” says Legolas to Gimli. “And a Dwarf is no horseman. It is orc-necks I would hew, not shave the scalps of Men.’“ (pg. 128)

Love Gimli’s enthusiasm. Right attitude, right execution.

It’s too long for me to effectively quote it but on pg. 129 there’s a pretty humorous exchange between Eomer and Gimli. Love the character dynamics of the two, and I love their interactions. They’re great, especially considering the emergence of their burgeoning friendship!

“’Here now I name my guest, Gandalf Greyhame, wisest of counsellors, most welcome of wanderers, a lord of the Mark, a chieftain of the Eorlingas while our kin shall last; and I give to him Shadowfax, prince of horses.’” Theoden to Gandalf. (pg. 129)

Don’t know what Greyhame means. Gandalf has so many names that sometimes (*cough* all the time *cough*) I get lost. Besides that, this passage gives me chills. The whole atmosphere and tone of it. The humility between two completely different yet eerily similar people. The power in kindness.

Continuing in this same thread, “’Behold the White Rider!’ cried Aragorn, and all took up the words. ‘Our King and the White Rider!’ they shouted. ‘Forth Eorlingas!’ The trumpets sounded. The horses reared and neighed. Spear clashed on shield. Then the king raised his hand, and with a rush like the sudden onset of a great wind the last host of Rohan rode thundering into the West.” (pg. 129-30)

Internal screaming at how much this gives me chills. I cannot express enough how much I love Tolkien’s writing. Also, istg that I’m gonna end up with “Forth Eorlingas!” stuck in my head for the next millennia for how much I absolutely adore it.

Aaaaaaaand I guess that’s pretty much it for this chapter? Really honestly short post really. Definitely not long. No. Yeah. Really long post. Wow. Wasn’t expecting to write that much, but here we are! And I’m happy! Well then, all my love to Tolkien and all my love to you dear reader if you have somehow made it this far. I hope see you in the next update! Until then I must say: Forth Eorlingas!

[comixconnection]

Counter Monkey John Arminio reviews ‘No One Left to Fight’ #3

The central hook of NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT is that the world has already been saved, that Vâle, the character we follow throughout the series, has won all the titular fights against his foes. What then, is the conflict of the book? What makes this story worth telling? Why did series creators Aubrey Sitterson and Fico Ossio choose to makes this the starting point of the narrative rather than the actual "fight" itself? The idea of what is left for heroes once their deeds are done, when they have no more dragons to slay, is an inherently interesting one. We live in a real world of perpetual and unending conflict, we see the trauma of heroes walking around us every day, and though many of them are not celebrated the way Vâle is this book (many are, in fact, persecuted, jailed, or the victims of violence themselves), there is the burden of trauma and regret over past battles that hangs over so many heroes, both real and fictional. What makes Vâle's journey in NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT so fascinating is the weight of his victory. He is expected by the world he saved, by the people who look up to him, and even his peers, to be the Ultimate Champion, to be a shining light that symbolizes the great victory over evil that he helped to manifest. While there is great happiness around Vâle and he has the support of many of his friends (many of whom are alive only because of Vâle). He is also the source of jealousy from some of those closest to him, as well as the subject of the burden of expectations (now that the battle is won, he is supposed to be happy!). It is time he start living his life, fall in love, start a family. Maybe with that girl who has been stealing glances at him since childhood. By issue #3, it's clear Vâle is not physically or mentally prepared for the sort of relationship that this now grown woman, Winda, desires. While perhaps she should respect his wishes and not force a relationship into a direction Vâle does not want, it is clear that Vâle has been avoiding this impending emotional confrontation. It is far easier to slay an opponent with giant beams of energy than face a difficult conversation with a friend. Winda is understandably frustrated and shows it, in some of the most glorious comic book fireworks you'll ever see, as artist Fico Ossio creates cascades of color and light that mirror the explosive anger and simmering insecurities of the characters. As spectacular as the fights are, his art and Aubrey Sitterson's careful characterization combine to make the quiet, reflective moments as engaging as the violent ones.

The seeds of Vâle's need to avoid emotional confrontation were planted in previous issues, as our hero managed to overlook every passive aggressive bard thrown his way by his friend Timór (as well as the barbs thrown Timór's way by their former teacher). Vâle is even willing to let his friend group stew in the simmering awkwardness of his obvious romantic affection for Krystal, Timór's wife. With all his physical and metaphysical gifts, Vâle is still developmentally stunted, unable to overcome the obstacles set against him by his own psyche. And thus enter The Hierophant. His actions and toothy, maniacal grin, make his malevolence seem obvious. With powers both physical and psychic, he is a truly terrifying opponent, even for one as powerful as Vâle. So then, were did he come from? If there really is "no one left to fight," how is The Hierophant still around? What is his purpose? How does he know about the mysterious illness eating away Vâle? Maybe The Hierophant knows more than even Vâle, and is willing to take advantage. Maybe the mere fact The Hierophant is forcing Vâle to confront his continued deterioration is part of the point; the villainous joy in causing other people pain of any sort.

Despite all the slings and arrows that Vâle suffers in this series, the most visibly angry he becomes is when The Hierophant shows Vâle a vision of a possible future... one in which he is happy. A more pointed and poignant demonstration of Vâle's suffering could not be asked for, all communicated with the language and excitement of comic books and shōnen manga. I find myself anticipating the revelations of Vâle's inner turmoil and the complex relationships he has with his friends just as much (if not more) than the epic fights (even if those are pretty spectacular). Ossio’s faces and expressions are affecting in their humanity and emotionality, while Sitterson’s writing knows when to let the art speak for itself and when to elucidate on the characters and their thoughts. It is a testament to the well-balanced and expertly executed storytelling of Sitterson and Ossio that they are able to accomplish this difficult balancing act. With issue #3, NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT continues to prove it is substance over style, even if that style is absolutely stunning.