POBB October 31, 2018

Pick of the Brown Bag

October 31, 2018

by

Ray Tate

Hey there! It’s Ray Tate reviewing the week’s best and worst comic books in The Pick of the Brown Bag.  It’s a short one this time around because there simply wasn’t a whole lot worth mentioning.  For this edition, I look at Charlie’s Angels, Hex Wives, It Came Out on Wednesday, Iron Man, Nancy Drew and West Coast Avengers.  Should you not have time for even this short POBB post, you can always check me out on Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

This is not the feminist manifesto that you’re looking for.  Move along.  Hex Wives is notable for bare boobies and naked lesbian cuddling.  

Normally, A one in my book, but I like my nudity and lesbian snuggle-bunnies with a slam-bang story.  Atomic Blonde immediately comes to mind.

Totally gratuitous Atomic Blonde graphic because it's my blog.

Immortal witch lovers Nadiya and Isadora just cannot catch an even break.  When they try to get down, one of the nuts from a woodsy family tree violently interrupts their canoodling and catalyzes gory retribution.

What’s a girl gonna do? Hex Wives’ problems lie in the setup.  Nadiya and Isadora really are witches.  Not Wicca.  Not Charmed ones.  Consorting with the devil type Witches.  They possess supernatural freshness and get a kick using that power to kill people.

Aaron, one of the heirs, serves as the narrator.  He unwittingly presents himself as a sexist and homophobe, but that’s immaterial.  The underlying reasons behind his want is simple.  Revenge.  The witches slew his father.  The heir is justified in wanting to destroy the witches.

Hex Wives thus only wears the veneer of feminism vs. toxic masculinity.  It’s actually just a silly vendetta between two evil immortals and a family of kooks that should have somewhere down the line had the sense to leave well enough alone.

Charlie’s Angels is damn good.  Each issue thus far entertained with high action content and an intellectual dynamic.  This finale to the mini-series is the best of all the chapters.

Right from the beginning, John Layman foreshadows that this issue will be unique even when compared to previous installments.

The jump to the present throws you off, but in a good way.  Agent Bryce then narrates what happened in the nineteen seventies when the Angels had to thwart an attempt on President Jimmy Carter’s life.

Layman proceeds to hash out the complication that Jill speaks of.  This leads to excellent fight choreography by artist Joe Eisma with a helping hand from colorist Celeste Woods.

The Angels institute a new plan to extricate their boss Charlie Townsend from KGB hands in America while simultaneously keeping the President safe and thwarting the Big Bad in France.  A quick phone call to John Bosley fills out the details. 

Back in France, the orchestration the Angels conduct is full of risk and mayhem, which shan’t be spoilt here.

During the second part of the plan, Layman reimagines the setup of Charlie’s Angels.  He imagines Charlie’s Angels as a quality, feminist television show and not mostly harmless. Layman imagines the accidental continuity of the series if executed on purpose and with meaning.  Then he concludes the story in the most satisfying way possible.

Kelly Thompson impressively draws the curtain on Nancy Drew.  A mysterious letter pulled Nancy to the Hardy Boys’ home of Bayport.  River Heights is Nancy Drew’s home.  Everybody knows that.  The letter turned out to be bait for Nancy to solve a very personal murder.

Nancy soon reunited with the brothers Frank and Joe, the cousins Bess and George, inducted George’s new girlfriend Danika and newcomer Pete.  All the clues pointed to the growing list of homicides concealing a sophisticated criminal operation.  As a result the bad guys kidnapped Bess who learned too much upon infiltrating a local rave.

Nancy through observation, deduction and bending the law figures out where the bad guys hold Bess.  Wishing and hoping that Bess is alive, the gang confront the bad guys and facilitate their unraveling.  As the police cleanup Nancy’s leftovers, Thompson whets the appetite for the next story.

Thompson is also in top form for West Coast Avengers.  MODOK transformed his giant head into an adonis.

When you think about it, this should have happened a long, long time ago.  Thompson though is the first to make the leap. 

Thinking a golden body would offset his creepy personality, MODOK rechristened himself BRODOK and went looking for love only to find experiments.  

Off panel, Tigra became involved.  No doubt she went on the prowl to find the whereabouts of the several missing women that BRODOK trapped.  Tigra in addition to being love is a detective.  Kate Bishop though observes the answer to the enigma.

BRODOK at first tried to persuade the Avengers that he was merely a do-gooder on their side, but all the Avengers including Gwenpool saw through his tissue thin ruse.  Exploiting giant monsters and the embiggened Tigra, BRODOK forces an ethical quandary.  Do the newest Avengers kill one of the classics, or save Tigra and live with the damage of a giant cat-woman?

Oh, damn.  So, by now, you know that if I’m still reading West Coast Avengers, Tigra must be safe.  Safe and pissed.

That’s my girl.

If you like Arno Stark, then this issue of Iron Man is for you.  What? You don’t know who Arno Stark is?  Neither did I.

According to Iron Man, Arno Stark is Tony’s younger brother.  A surgeon and scientist, Arno travels the world on behalf of the philanthropist Maria Stark Foundation.  However, he doesn’t so much as do good as create an opportunity for good or ill.  

In a way, Arno Stark is like the devil.  He presents a solution that’s limited.  It’s up to the recipient to live up to his stipulations.  Woe be tide to those who fail to heed.  They’re in line for a world of hurt.  Not from Arno, but the consequences of his projects.

I know half a bean about Arno.  So, I don’t know if Dan Slott is rebuilding him from scratch or following somebody else’s pattern.  Regardless, I like the complexity of the character and how toward the end he gravitates to Tony Stark’s enemy/rival.

Submitted for your perusal, It Came Out on Wednesday from Alterna Comics, a seriously independent anthology.  What ICOW lacks in mainstream polish, it makes up for in excellent horror stories and illustration.

The first tale is the most involving.  Drawing upon Rod Serling happenstance, a lieutenant from World War II enters a purple fog and finds himself face to face with the gorgeously illustrated unimaginable.

When he eventually drifts to safety, Lieutenant Zimman ends up in the present day.  There an intelligence officer questions him and brings him up to speed about a crisis occurring in modern times.  The writer thinks things through when pondering the crisis associated with the purple fog.  He addresses out-there explanations for mysterious areas of the world.

Genuinely involving, "Emergence" by Joshua Hart and Emanuel Xerx Javier looks to be the beginning of a fascinating pulp with a cast of interesting characters from different times banding together to face the unknown.

The second short story is a beginning, middle and end tale of horror.  Jack and Eddie are carefree lads searching the fields for lightning bugs.

The bugs however flit into the forest, and apparently, the woods are haunted.  This is a terrifying tale that takes elements from Doctor Who's fairy tale like "In the Forest of the Night" and restructures them into a merciless vignette involving the supernatural.  The stark artwork by Kostas Pantoulas suits the tone, and when the monster's revealed nobody will be disappointed.

The third full-length story could have been drawn from The Night Gallery.  A life-long collector of different things grows and marries a bonny lass with the same penchant.  The duo must be successful, for how else can they fund their growing  fondness for art.  The story's own artwork by Ryan Quackenbush is moody as all get out.

Alas, the collector buys the wrong painting, and bad things occur.  The title of the tale "The Dolls" becomes apparent, and we discover why the narration occurs when and where it does.  Nice and eerie.

The remainder of the book features installments of ongoing stories that are too short to get a bead on, and a Mr. Crypt one-pager that's professionally cartooned.