#we’ll see if I can get the spooky comic done by Thursday

[taiblogcomics]

Anger Fueled by Diesel

Hey there, staircases that have rotted through. I hope your Thanksgiving's good, if that's a thing you care about and celebrate. If not, I hope your Thursday's good, at least. Probably won't be after you read this review, though, since we're doing another of the New 52's Teen Titans this week~

Here's the cover:

Oh boy, this cover. Should I reference "The Power" by Snap? Should I reference that one Mega Man clip? So many possibilities with a cover caption this wordy. Also, here's Diesel. I hope this one isn't a JoJo ripoff. Actually, scratch that, I totally hope he is. Other than the fountain of jokes, though, this cover's pretty bad. Like, hold this out at arm's length and just kind of look at it. Can you even tell what's going on? It's just a lot of visual noise if you ask me.

The comic opens with a full page splash of Superboy. The captions declare that Superboy has been through some stuff, and you can tell this is true because he's currently going through a tree. Cassie apologises, explaining in a spooky voice that the longer she wears the "Silent Armor", the less control she has over her actions. She's also now going by Wonder Girl, even though all previous issues, she's thrown a hissy fit at being called that. That's how you know something's amiss with her.

Superboy's prepared to smash through her, but Tim Drake steps between them. Tim tries the "I know you're in there somewhere" tactic, which is already an unusual implication, because literally she's in there. That's how armour works, Tim. Regardless, Wonder Girl says she knows she's in here and can fight it. She's been fighting it the whole time, and she's tired of doing so now. Tim gives her the "I won't move unless you kill me" ultimatum, and she responds with "Kill it is, then". What a good plan. Fortunately, Superboy's there to rescue him as Wonder Girl begins punching up the place.

While they're doing that, we switch over to a roadside motel in New Jersey to see the rest of the Titans. Basically it's to let us know they'll be out of action for the duration of the storyline. Bunker's basically too weak to stand, and the other two are just content to listen to orders for now. After that, we rejoin where the fight continues, with Superboy tackling her enough to distract her while Tim gets in there and uses those nano-fiber wings on his costume to tear a hole in her armour. It's not anything significant, but it distracts her again so Superboy can do the actual plan of using his tactile telekinesis on her. It's sort of a double-nested distraction, I guess.

With the telekinesis surging over her, the armour is slowly and painfully removed from her. It's actually parasitic, and the spikes covering it are also on the inside, growing into her flesh. It's very unpleasant, is what I'm saying. Finally, though, it's fully ripped from Cassie, and she's free. And while she's recovering, that's when she looks up to see some dudebro sitting there, drawing the armour's energies into a little box. And oh boy, does this sequence suck, for basically one simple reason: show, don't tell.

See, the dudebro here is the Diesel as mentioned on the cover. And he and Cassie have a big history. A history that we've never seen, because of the reboot and this being his first appearance. A history that we never see because they don't give us a flashback or anything. They just talk their history at each other while Diesel powers up into the armour. It's very poor exposition. The gist of it is that Diesel is a stalkery asshole and wants Cassie to love him, while she rightly thinks he's a stalkery creep.

And now that stalkery creep has a magical set of pointy edgelord armour. It's not even gold and red on him like it is on Cassie, it's become a blue and silver number. Anyways, he blasts off with it, saying he's happy to be the harbinger of destruction if Cassie won't love him. Tim and Superboy are basically like "well, good riddance", and Cassie points out how stupid that is. Sure, she hates using the armour and it hurts like hell to even wear. But compare that to some stalkery asshole using it? The issue ends with her promising that if she doesn't get it back, a world will surely die.

We're not quite done yet, though. Remember that backup story? We've got another installment of that today. Turns out the backup stories this time and last are essentially prologue and epilogue for a story in DC Universe Presents #12, a comic which I do not own. You can kind of get the basics without it, though. The dinosaur-shaped teens are here from Mystery Island, and they want to turn the "Mammal World" into one for dinosaurs. Kid Flash has befriended one of them, a red-skinned youth in a beat-up hoodie named Teryx.

The story starts--or ends, I guess, since it's an epilogue--with Teryx about to be attacked by some lizardman-esque creature. Kid Flash shows up and delivers a beatdown to the beast, knocking it out and using some super high-tech manacles he "borrowed" from STAR Labs. The two part ways, with Teryx vowing to search the terrifying land of New Jersey for his former friends. And the story ends on those friends, with the one in a pterodactyl hoodie handing a snake to the other one, the leader named Steg. Steg pours chemicals on the snake, turning it into another lizardman, and vowing he'll still take over the world. So, given the caption of "Not the end!", this really isn't so much an epilogue as it is a teaser for a future story.

This issue is pretty bad. It sidelines all the likeable characters (and there’s so few of those to begin with) in favour of possibly the current least likeable member of the team. And the exposition is done so poorly. The tagline for the next issue promises to show how Cassie got the armour in the first place, but... Like, just show that in the first place. Then you wouldn’t need to spend two pages having her and Diesel just talk about events we never saw. It’s just so badly handled.

Worse yet, next week we won’t even see that story. No, there’s something else before that. But we’ll go into detail on that next time~

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 13 pt 1: Mokuba Finally Gets Stockholm Syndrome

So, I have today off work so lunchtime on a Thursday feels like a better time than ever to chime in on a 20 year old anime and say, uh this episode is nuts?

Like this whole arc has been somewhat tame compared to a lot of the stuff we’ve been dealing with in regards to Yugioh. Yeah, Tristan died, but like...Marik hasn’t murdered a hundred people lately so it’s been a pretty pleasant ride. And this was alllll part of Yugioh’s greater plan, Yugioh likes to do this, where it’s been overall a monster of the week Sat Morning cartoon type of affair, giving you a false sense of “I think I know what’s going on. I think I understand the logic of this show” before they start ripping the rugs out from under your feet with no other reason than to utterly confuse you.

And it’s like you just...you don’t expect this from a kid’s show.

And like don’t tell me you predicted this episode, guys, because it makes no freakin sense. I had to binge to the next episode just because I was like holding up all my paperwork of Seto Kaiba’s timeline and motioning at my brother “SHOW ME THE RECEIPTS!!” Because y’all this did not...

This just did not.

And like I’m very calm as I write these posts, but as I was watching this episode, I kept pausing it, turning to Steve-O and saying “NO.” Of course all of that drama goes on in the second part of this episode. The first half is still that somewhat tame area where it’s definitely very weird but it’s not...it’s not unpredictably weird yet, youknow?

So, to start out, Noah has given up on trying to persuade any of the Kaibas to change. It is not a thing Kaibas do.

He decides to show off his skills as a master manipulator, by manipulating one of the most manipulated boys on this entire show. The only person more manipulated is Yugi, who is has an actual brain parasite (and people might like the brain parasite more than him even so it’s like...it’s a situation up there).

Everything from here on concerning Mokuba is bizarre and kind of frustrating. Starting with the clone entering in from the black void.

(read more under the cut)

I like that we know this is Seto because of the 6 inch hip spike on his jacket. Yo if they ever did a Netflix Live Action Yugioh first off of all, they cannot do half of the hair on this show, second of all, this jacket. It can’t be possible. And like I’ve seen some pretty good high effort Seto Cosplay but the jacket spikes are like...that’s pretty rough youknow? First off, this custom jacket would take you like 8 months to sew, it’d be insanely expensive with the custom lining and the poofy everything, and then those spikes? Like what do you even do? I can’t even imagine.

One off screen slap by the clone, and then Mokuba decided his brother is now Darth Vader. Can’t believe it was that easy.

And then, to top off my frustration with how quickly Mokuba’s Stockholm Syndrome set in--Noah could do this the entire time.

Y’all I was so mad. It’s Episode 13 and he pulls this out now, are you kidding me? The entire time. The entire freakin time. This is like “and Bakura can just shoot lasers whenever but won’t be bothered.”

I still love this storyboarder but maybe they just don’t like drawing hugs? I mean, it’s supposed to be a spooky hug, but like...it’s more like a wrestling move that Mokuba has just decided to give up and lean into.

And you know what? I get it. Drawing affection freakin sucks. Hard to explain why but trust me--it’s freakin cursed. It’s worse than drawing cars. I’d rather draw like 3 cars. (And exactly 3 because it would take a hell of a lot of money to ever make me draw 4.)

Seto decides to run ahead although, and I just want to point this out--this bridge joins in the next scene so they can all reunite and there is a car right behind him.

There is a car and he uses his damn legs.

Smartest boy in Domino.

And off he goes, his wedding dress coat elegantly flapping in the wind as he...

runs...

...down a tunnel that is clearly marked with lane lines for cars.

Because Noah gave them a car.

Meanwhile, back at the car, Joey is Done and has found a great way to win the Battle City Tournament.

They did not. It was so weird. They took out most of the the slaps, but left in this monkey burrowing into Serenity’s chest for like 20 weird seconds. It made squeaky noises.

Serenity doesn’t seem to care by the way, it’s very, very 90′s.

Anyway, Tea’s decided she’s now done hanging out with these guys and the pervert monkey, so off these two go. Off to follow the plot. On foot.

The tunnel vanishes, and these four are left outside to continue...just doing nothing guess. Duke always ends up on the lowest effort team, youknow? I dump on Duke a lot but I’ve been kinda feeling bad for him.

Anyway, inside this tunnel, Noah is catfishing Seto as Mokuba and I gotta say, it’s way better than the shorts. Just put Noah in this outfit all the time.

And our heroes have decided to save the day by going the wrong way at the fork and completely missing Seto Kaiba’s loud booming voice. How do they get lost when Kaiba is being exploded just off camera?

Like it says a lot about these kids that they got lost down a tunnel with only 1 fork.

I had to look this up, and unfortunately this is not the same house as Kaiba’s Season Zero house. Would have been a neat touch but nah, it’s just a generic university style house that no one would ever want to actually live in.

ENTER MARIK. Thank all those gods, including himself, he’s finally here. To...not do anything. Especially since this is a 2-parter. He’ll do a little more next update. Still not much, but oh man, am I glad to see Marik. Am I glad to see that third eye is absolutely still glowing on his forehead. Can’t imagine how hard it is to sleep with that thing buzzing all day.

Back in VR land, I have been hit in the face with Seto’s design and it’s like the first time I’ve ever seen it.

Every single season of Yugioh spices up the character designs a tad and it takes a little while to get used to. I think Seto may have been slightly exaggerated in this scene but...he still seems way taller now. Like he’s basically Yugioh Pumpkin King at this point. Peak 00′s.

Anyway, was this why Noah said “Look down” ? Because like...that’s not really a hint if you throw him down a hole.

Seto’s reaction to this was “I’m just really tired of everything that’s happened today and I’m going home.” and he grabbed Mokuba by the hand to leave but, apparently Mokuba is too slippery to be abducted twice?

Weird that the only person who physically cannot abduct Mokuba is Seto Kaiba. The only person.

And just like that, Mokuba is now on team Noah and Seto is just...standing there. Noah is sort of a god person in this universe since he can code whatever he wants around him but like...

...still feels a little weird to see Seto go from “I’ll punch whatever I need to get Moki back” in S1 to “I guess Moki hates me so I’ll let him stay here now” when Mokuba is clearly possessed.

Anyways, this all gets much weirder next episode, but it was very, very long so I split it in two. Like I dunno how many of you want to read tumblr posts that rival Livejournal posts in length so...we’ll save that for next time. (in fact I was just telling bro that if Tumblr does go down, I don’t even know if there’s long-form blogging platforms left other than like webcomic sites and fanfic sites. We’ll cross our fingers that I never have to move this blog over to like...Tapas ((I would never do that ps, Tapas is a nightmare to upload to even if you just want to do comics and that is a whole story in and of itself)))

But ya. Noah could just mind control whoever.

Like whoever.

Y’all the past 12 episodes were kind of like Bakura level of “I could do something, if I felt like it, and it would take like 2 seconds max and nobody would stop me, but then I’d have to get off my ass, and I’m too busy watching the world burn to bother.”

Which is very much every villain in Yugioh, being real.

If you just found my blog, here’s a place to find all the episodes in chrono order from S1 Ep1, I apologize now that I never separated them into seasons, turns out a Yugioh season is just unapologetically long oops my bad.