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Friday Posting

Okay, now I'm back on schedule. As I type this, one minute or so ago I heard a bunch of pops, they sounded like firecrackers, coming from the street far below. Next, I heard two throaty, large man voices yelling out "HEY YOU!" several times. I have no idea what's going on. The temperature is high sixties and fall weather is coming on. I would guess a young man found he hadn't blown off all his July fireworks, and two other large men took issue with his decision to set them off in the evening.

I sometimes buy comics that I know are bad I buy them just so I can pick them apart and decide what, exactly, is wrong with them. Latest in this is "Heralds", a marvel comic which collected issues 1-5 of... some weird shit.

Maybe there's Marvel continuity going on here, but the barest thread of a plot, from what I can discern, is that a woman named Frankie Raye was once the herald of Galactus, but stopped, and then another woman, Frances someone or other, a waitress in Nevada or something, is like a clone of Frankie Raye? Or something? And she's going to become the herald again, but she doesn't want to. I think.

Wrapped around this confusing bullshit is the story of five Marvel superheroines who investigate this... There's Emma Frost, I think Polaris, and the former Black woman Captain Marvel who I gather is now called "Photon", and Patsy Walker a.k.a. Hellcat from the Defenders, and Valkyrie. And She-Hulk. Why are they all together? The answer to that is what I figured out is making this comic suck so fucking hard.

The writerly reason these women are together is because Emma Frost and Scott Whoever (Cyclops from the X-men) are getting married, and so these girls all got together for a bachelorette party. But what the writer never bothered to even think about is why these girls are all hanging out. Yes, there's an occasion, but how do they know each other? Why do they like each other? What is it about each person's personality that makes them get along, or not get along?

These are good questions, but the writer never bothered to ask herself them. Nope, instead, I guess she thought if she just jammed these characters together then the comic would be like the movie The Hangover. She was wrong.

For example, I know Hellcat and The Valkyrie both once worked together in the Defenders, but how did they meet Emma Frost? How did they get buddy-buddy enough to say "Sure, I'll go to her bachelorette party, it'll be tons of fun!" That's just one example of what a writer might ask themselves before writing a comic; why are these characters together? The writer could have shown, through dialog, and reactions, what they like about each other. Instead, blah blah blah Herald blah blah blah secret agents blah blah blah explosions Fantastic Four Johnny Storm blah blah blah. Yeah, I've seen that before, it's not interesting to see it again for the 100th time.

Comic transcript

As Crimebuster thoroughly hoses down the protestors threatening to castrate the Baron University lacrosse team, a woman from among the protestors goes up to him, rudely pokes him, and says "What are you doing? How dare you interfere with these peoples' right to free speech?"

Crimebuster turns around, his eyes narrowed. The hose still sprays water, but he's not aiming it. He answers, frowningly, "I thought about reading them the riot act, but there's no point in reasoning with an angry mob." He turns back to his work, but pauses. He thinks, turns back towards the woman, and says, "By the way."

Then he blasts her with the fire hose at close range. That'll show her.

The crowd is now all dampened, in both their clothes and their ardor for destruction. Crimebuster makes an agile leap onto a car, points at the protestors and yells at them: "That's more than enough! Now you folks have had your fun so go on home!"

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