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marlowe1198.House of Whispers 3: Watching the Watchers by Nalo Hopkinson & Dan Watters - First, I must say it's cool that Nalo Hopkinson wrote this because she's not a comic book writer per se. I'm actually reminded of the fact that I probably would have never read Joe Lansdale had he not written those western comic books in the 1990s (including one Lone Ranger vs. aliens books where Tonto gets to complain about sounding like a fucking idiot in those dime novels) and I wonder how long it'd take me to get to Hopkinson had she not written this one.
Unfortunately, this is not her best work. I'm comparing it to the first two volumes in the House of Whispers series and still find it wanting. There's really not much going on in this one but a bunch of plot threads coming together to form a story about Erzulie getting her dead husband back. It seems like Hopkinson lost interest in what she was setting up and just tried to figure out a way out of it. A couple of teenagers end up running the house of despair. Corinthian decides that he's really a great nightmare (good for him) and the dead characters kind of come back as loas as Papa Midnight leads his family to the after life. Overall, this is a whole lot of meh.
199.Lucifer, vol 2: The Divine Tragedy by Dan Watters & Max Fiamara - And this one was great. Weird that the first Lucifer left me wanting. Like what the fuck is Lucifer up to and why is he homeless and is this supposed to be related to the Constantine books? But this one focuses. First, we get the pretty boy Lucifer version. Second, we get an actual story that is coherent, surprising and makes sense. Sycorax is alive again for three days. If you aren't a Shakespeare nerd, Sycorax is the absent mother from The Tempest, the witch that once ran the island who was mother to Caliban. If you wrote a term paper on the Tempest (hi!) you probably wrote about Sycorax being the powerful absent woman and how she's an analogy for Queen Elizabeth.
Anyhow, she's actually alive and existing in this book and she's got three days before she dies again. So Lucifer tries to find her an underworld that will take her. Also Caliban is up to a lot of shit, including eating an angel which is really finally. Anyow, it all comes together with Lucifer having upset all of the underworlds and holding it up to the angels who think that they can fight him again. I'm actually looking forward to this one.
200.Chainsaw Man 9 by Tatsuki Fujimoto - Fuck. Seriously fuck. I mean the last chapter was already a motherfucker in terms of emotional destruction. I mean how do you top that shit? Aki who was always going after the gun demon becomes the gun demon and spends his last hours thinking that he's a little kid when he's actually killing a ton of people. But this one. This one. Seriously if you are reading my posts on Chainsaw Man please note SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT (just let your eyes scan over the rest of this).
Makima is the control demon and she fucking kills Power. She just destroys Power. Power is a demon so Power can come back but for now, Power is dead. After chapters of Denji building up his relationships with Aki and Power and becoming close to both of them, they both fucking die. And that was Makima's plan all along. Wasn't enough for Denji to be a broke ass demon hunter with a demon in his chest that came out when he pulled a string. Denji had to be built up and build relationships so that when it all fell apart, she was in complete control over a powerful demon. And oh yeah, because of Chainsaw Man, there has been no Holocaust or AIDS because he ate them. That's fucking weird. Also really giving Makima's evil a purpose. And then there's a big ass fight where Chainsaw Man is fucking huge and scaring everyone. And MAkima sends everyone after him. Now is she in control or is he taking control? It doesn't make much sense. Either way, there's a lot of blood and guts and Chainsaw Man forces a waitress to dance with him, but shit this is getting bloody. But not in the good way from the beginning. No, it's just sad and tragic.
Break my heart, dude.
Unfortunately, this is not her best work. I'm comparing it to the first two volumes in the House of Whispers series and still find it wanting. There's really not much going on in this one but a bunch of plot threads coming together to form a story about Erzulie getting her dead husband back. It seems like Hopkinson lost interest in what she was setting up and just tried to figure out a way out of it. A couple of teenagers end up running the house of despair. Corinthian decides that he's really a great nightmare (good for him) and the dead characters kind of come back as loas as Papa Midnight leads his family to the after life. Overall, this is a whole lot of meh.
199.Lucifer, vol 2: The Divine Tragedy by Dan Watters & Max Fiamara - And this one was great. Weird that the first Lucifer left me wanting. Like what the fuck is Lucifer up to and why is he homeless and is this supposed to be related to the Constantine books? But this one focuses. First, we get the pretty boy Lucifer version. Second, we get an actual story that is coherent, surprising and makes sense. Sycorax is alive again for three days. If you aren't a Shakespeare nerd, Sycorax is the absent mother from The Tempest, the witch that once ran the island who was mother to Caliban. If you wrote a term paper on the Tempest (hi!) you probably wrote about Sycorax being the powerful absent woman and how she's an analogy for Queen Elizabeth.
Anyhow, she's actually alive and existing in this book and she's got three days before she dies again. So Lucifer tries to find her an underworld that will take her. Also Caliban is up to a lot of shit, including eating an angel which is really finally. Anyow, it all comes together with Lucifer having upset all of the underworlds and holding it up to the angels who think that they can fight him again. I'm actually looking forward to this one.
200.Chainsaw Man 9 by Tatsuki Fujimoto - Fuck. Seriously fuck. I mean the last chapter was already a motherfucker in terms of emotional destruction. I mean how do you top that shit? Aki who was always going after the gun demon becomes the gun demon and spends his last hours thinking that he's a little kid when he's actually killing a ton of people. But this one. This one. Seriously if you are reading my posts on Chainsaw Man please note SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT (just let your eyes scan over the rest of this).
Makima is the control demon and she fucking kills Power. She just destroys Power. Power is a demon so Power can come back but for now, Power is dead. After chapters of Denji building up his relationships with Aki and Power and becoming close to both of them, they both fucking die. And that was Makima's plan all along. Wasn't enough for Denji to be a broke ass demon hunter with a demon in his chest that came out when he pulled a string. Denji had to be built up and build relationships so that when it all fell apart, she was in complete control over a powerful demon. And oh yeah, because of Chainsaw Man, there has been no Holocaust or AIDS because he ate them. That's fucking weird. Also really giving Makima's evil a purpose. And then there's a big ass fight where Chainsaw Man is fucking huge and scaring everyone. And MAkima sends everyone after him. Now is she in control or is he taking control? It doesn't make much sense. Either way, there's a lot of blood and guts and Chainsaw Man forces a waitress to dance with him, but shit this is getting bloody. But not in the good way from the beginning. No, it's just sad and tragic.
Break my heart, dude.
