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scans_dailyIt'd been solicited originally as two issues, but then Vault cancelled that and re-solicited them as one double-sized.
#4's first story was again the genius Maxwell Maas in his youth, after #3.
Max was at his parents' graves, where he met a girl.
Outside the graveyard, a rock-man had a gun put to his head.
(The reader has to infer that those beings have come for Max, but they don't have to do it from nothing - #2 showed Max in the far future as a powerful figure who'd earned the ire of others.
Why they're fighting over who gets to do the deed is one of those things whose explanation to the reader is " It's happening, so there's clearly a reason, but you're never going to know it. ")
Sophie and Max drove somewhere else.
Behind them, the assassins fought.
(The esper-y one entered the fight after Max and Sophie left the graveyard.)
" I don't think I'm one of them. How do I change that? "
" What do you mean? "
" How do I become - I want to ' get you '. "
She laughed.
" You say that now.. just.. don't try to own me. Or remake me.
" But I met you reciting science poetry in a graveyard, so I think you're okay. "
" That makes me an artist? "
As the assassin's battle raged, swelling in combatants and the scale of powers involved, Max and Sophie's conversation turned to why barns were often painted red.
Max spun a line of logic out of that - barns were red because red paint was cheap.
Red paint was cheap because it was made from common iron.
Iron was common because it was the product of death - the death of a star in space, once its fusion work produced iron and started it on the way to going supernova.
" That.. bleeding light.. throws iron everywhere.
" And when it reaches here, the iron bonds with oxygen, and becomes ferric oxide.
" Red.
" Everything's.. red.
(Everything's red because one of the would-be assassins ended the battle for Max's life by going nova.)
The red burned, then smoldered.
(She's going back to a discussion they had in the graveyard.)
(Pagecount's 8 of 24.
Writing's Deniz Camp, art's Vittorio Astone, and letters're Aditya Bidikar.
Publisher's Vault Comics.
If this series interests you, Camp's been teasing an upcoming comics project with a similar feel: " Chaos. Coming next year. ")
#4's first story was again the genius Maxwell Maas in his youth, after #3.
Max was at his parents' graves, where he met a girl.
Outside the graveyard, a rock-man had a gun put to his head.
(The reader has to infer that those beings have come for Max, but they don't have to do it from nothing - #2 showed Max in the far future as a powerful figure who'd earned the ire of others.
Why they're fighting over who gets to do the deed is one of those things whose explanation to the reader is " It's happening, so there's clearly a reason, but you're never going to know it. ")
Sophie and Max drove somewhere else.
Behind them, the assassins fought.
(The esper-y one entered the fight after Max and Sophie left the graveyard.)
" I don't think I'm one of them. How do I change that? "
" What do you mean? "
" How do I become - I want to ' get you '. "
She laughed.
" You say that now.. just.. don't try to own me. Or remake me.
" But I met you reciting science poetry in a graveyard, so I think you're okay. "
" That makes me an artist? "
As the assassin's battle raged, swelling in combatants and the scale of powers involved, Max and Sophie's conversation turned to why barns were often painted red.
Max spun a line of logic out of that - barns were red because red paint was cheap.
Red paint was cheap because it was made from common iron.
Iron was common because it was the product of death - the death of a star in space, once its fusion work produced iron and started it on the way to going supernova.
" That.. bleeding light.. throws iron everywhere.
" And when it reaches here, the iron bonds with oxygen, and becomes ferric oxide.
" Red.
" Everything's.. red.
(Everything's red because one of the would-be assassins ended the battle for Max's life by going nova.)
The red burned, then smoldered.
(She's going back to a discussion they had in the graveyard.)
(Pagecount's 8 of 24.
Writing's Deniz Camp, art's Vittorio Astone, and letters're Aditya Bidikar.
Publisher's Vault Comics.
If this series interests you, Camp's been teasing an upcoming comics project with a similar feel: " Chaos. Coming next year. ")
no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 05:12 pm (UTC)It's the epitome of this series' rambling, pseudo-intellectual shower thoughts monologuing, with an added heaping helping of the most embarrassing Manic Pixie Dreamgirl bullshit I've seen in years. They're both hanging out in a graveyard (her because she's just so dark and strange, and him because he's reciting fucking science poetry at his parents' graves, insufferably twee in both cases) and she's so impressed by Maxwell's dork ass that she immediately fucks him.
Contextualizing Maxwell's bullshit as him being high and rambling at least makes some sense (now if the series had used this to for once deflate his pretensions it would have gone a long way to improving my opinion of it), and his lecture this time does give us some insight into his mentality and evolving relationship with death, so it's not like there's nothing good here, but the journey to get there doesn't work.
Your mention that this was originally two issues is interesting, I wonder if the original plan might have been to flesh out the various would-be assassins a little more and do something along the lines of issue #2. The fact that the second issue, while not perfect and a pretty shameless ripoff of a Miracleman story is the highlight of the series so far and is also the one that's the least invested in Maxwell's bullshit doesn't exactly say good things about Camp's chosen focus for the majority of the series. EDIT: I see I misunderstood your meaning. Reading this in trade I never realized that chapters 4 and 5 were released as a single issue. Very odd, though probably to the series' benefit critically, to have them come out like that given that chapter 4 is really not very good. Also, since 4 and 5 where a single issue, not sure how that interacts with this community's page limitations.
I did not like this issue at all, I just didn't connect with it. It's the absolutely nadir of the series, and it struck me as more than a little adolescent.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 06:29 pm (UTC)(As for the limits, there shouldn't be any problem - this is a third of the first part, and a third from the second part will just add up to a third of the whole.)
no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 07:56 pm (UTC)Rock man, he's just made of bricks
it's King boy you gotta worry about, he's lost his screws