POBB February 20, 2023

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 20, 2023

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  A comic book review blog created, owned and operated by yours truly, Ray Tate.  This week in the POBB I look at The Harrower from Boom Comics.

Harrow, according to Merriam-Webster, is a "a cultivating tool set with spikes, teeth, or disks and used primarily for breaking up and smoothing the soil."  In the old days, it also meant to "pillage and/or plunder."  Both definitions apply to the monster. 

Isn't it nice when the art and creature live up to the ballyhoo of the cover?  

I'm not spoiling anything.  Any chance that this is just some real estate swindler dressed up in a spooky outfit is laid to rest on page four.  

Justin Jordan and Brahm Revel want you to see this creature, neither in shadows nor fog.  Nevertheless their story is filled with mystery and suspense.  

Let's tackle the suspense first.  This is a comic book that follows the Joe Bob Briggs mantra of a good drive-in flick:  "Anybody can die at any time."  

Characters that you think will be the continuing protagonists don't make it out of this premiere issue alive.  Characters you think are on the up and up, or at least uninvolved, turn out to be "High Priests."

The mystery lies in just what the hell is this thing, what is its nature and how it came to be.  Revel and Jordan appear to take their cues from the superior episode "Die Hand Die Verletz" of the superior horror series The X-Files.  

The adults know something is really going on, and has been going on for decades.  They however keep their kids in the dark.

The horrors takes place in Barlowe, NY.  The setting pays homage to Haddonfield located in John Carpenter's classic Halloween.  Barlowe is a town that's small and isolated, but the townsfolk are educated somewhat sophisticated Northerners.  Not the populace of Deliverance South where one may expect a crazed religious cult to spring up.

The kids learn about the Harrower in school, as local folklore.   These lessons undermine the reality of their situation.  

Thus is born a potential hero.  Our mystery man is the Sheriff's son who knows more about the Harrower than all the rest.

Things come to a head on a lonely stretch of road surrounded by the woods.  Modern horror movie conventions play out, but Jordan and Revel plant extra seeds of plausibility.

There may be a perfectly mortal reason why the burst tire of the car strands the group as well as why cell phone coverage suddenly deadens.  I also like how Revel and Jordan separate the group.  The whole situation appears perfectly reasonable, especially given that they're still within the civilization of Barlowe, NY.  It's not like the kids are in nowheresville, podunk capitol of the world.  They're on familiar ground.  They have every reason to believe nothing is going to happen to them.  Alas.

POBB February 1, 2023

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 1, 2023

by

Ray Tate

The Pick of the Brown Bag returns with a seriously belated Happy New Year to all POBB readers.  This week I look at a brand spanking new title from Marvel Comics.

The Scarlet Witch is of course not new.  She's a classic Silver Age character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Arriving as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil in The Uncanny X-Men, Wanda Maximoff alias the Scarlet Witch debuted as a villain and a mutant with the power to affect probability.  

In other words if she used a Hex Bolt, on say, a table, all the probabilities that the legs would break at the same time amounted to one-hundred percent. 

When the original Avengers disbanded, Captain America formed a new team consisting of Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.  All players on the opposite side.

He intended to reform these individuals and he succeeded.  Wanda became a consistent Avenger for about thirty years real time.

My First Avengers comic book.

At some point, don't ask me when, Wanda transformed into her namesake.  Then she became an arch magic user, though apparently not on Stephen Strange's level.  

I don't even know if she possesses a mutant power anymore.  If she does, she uses it rarely.

I've never really warmed up to the Scarlet Witch, but I never hated her either.  For me she was just basically one of the Avengers in the same way that Saturn Girl was always one of the Legion of Super-Heroes.  

That said.  I love Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch, and I suspected her portrayal of the character might influence the new title.  In fact writer Steve Orlando's take is unique.

Wanda always struck me as living in her costume.  Rarely did she dress incognito.  She didn't have a secret identity, nor a life outside of the world of superheroes or sorcery.  Before anybody objects.  Saying that she fell in love with and married the Vision.  I know all that.  Just bear with me.

Orlando gives Wanda an interest outside of capes and cowls.  He creates for her a curiosity shop.  It's in The Emporium that the story proper starts.  The real beginning of Scarlet Witch occurs on page five and does so with no Crash-Bang-Wallop.

Scarlet Witch's Darcy shares similar physical attributes as well as a name with Dr. Darcy Lewis of Thor fame.  Dr. Lewis appeared in Wandavision.  So, you may be inclined to go, hmmmn.  However, the comic book Darcy doesn't exhibit Dr. Lewis' genius.  Just her taste in hats.

Pacing is one of the Scarlet Witch's greatest assets.  Orlando gives his story time to establish.  He grants the characters moments to interact, and he allows Wanda's brother Quicksilver to provide a sounding board for her new venture.  Not to mention distinguish himself from his past self: a hot-headed sphincter that had a creepy attachment to his sister.  

Not so in Scarlet Witch.  Orlando provides playful brother-sister interactions that are positively blissful.  

All of these scenes take place in the generous span of six pages.  These pages combined with five more also allots artist Sara Pichelli with the opportunity to demonstrate her ability to render natural movements and actions.  These fluid every day instances contrast with the nevertheless skillful bombast in the prologue and the second act.  Strong inks by Elisabetta D'Amico facilitate the power in Pichelli's pencils.  In addition, Matthew Wilson's colors mix and match with earthy aesthetics and soothing pastels.  

Those of greater need include Jarnette.

Jarnette hails from the Italian town of Armatrice, which has a pestilence problem in the form of Jackson Day, the Controller.

I don't recall this particular Controller appearing anywhere else.  He's not the Iron Man villain.  His blue skin and white hair may mark him as Kree.  Never you mind.  

He possesses the same power as the Mandrill, the Purple Man and Eros.  This makes him rather skeevy.  And his buttoned down disco shirt doesn't help matters.

Although Day succeeds in getting the upper hand for a moment, this fellow isn't in Wanda's weight class.  So, Scarlet Witch stands out also for being a done in one forty page adventure.  That brevity only enhances the value of the book.