Loki: Agent of Asgard #4

This series gives no french toast about telling the story consequetively: So we begin with Sigurd (the ever glorious) climbing a mountain to see Kaluu (Master of Black Magic). And He has Gram! The hero’s blade! But Loki is supposed to have that!

In the recent past, Loki is having dinner (baked salmon with lemon) with Verity Willis. Verity is one of my favorite new characters: a human lie detector. She’s a human. She can detect lies from gods, too. Which is how she sees Sigurd who has turned himself invisible with a Lightbender Invisibility Belt stolen from AIM. Sigurd is busting in to steal Gram. Duh. Once he’s busted, Sigurd tries to talk his way out it. But it turn out that the All-Mother has assigned Loki to have Sigurd returned to Asgard. The All-Mother is still displeased that Loki let Lorelei escape and they tell him that either Sigurd is returned or Loki himself will be. 

Sigurd and Loki duel and Sigurd is victorious. Duh. 

Back on the mountain: Kajuu is impressed, and when Sigurd requests that he be put onto the wheel of incarnation, so that when he dies he can be reborn instead of being tortured by Valkyries in Valhalla (a plotline that goes back to New Mutants #43 about 4 years ago). Kajuu agrees to help Sigurd with the sacrilegious deed and he gets Sigurd to sign it in blood.

It’s not Kajuu, it’s Mephisto. And he’s set to damn Sigurd to the torture pits. Only Loki’s gotten there first (and tripled up on invisibility cloaks) and switched the contract: he sends Sigurd back to Asgard and Mephisto back to Hell. Parting words from Mephisto, “It’s what I’d expect from the young punk. Not from you.” He knows that “kid Loki” is gone, and inside is his old pal.

Loki is getting anxious, not about Mephisto finding him out, but about the All-Mother locking up Asgardians for roaming free on Midgard, “In other words, today it’s him… tomorrow it’s one of us.” He asks Verity, Lorelei and Thor to help him on his mission.

“You don’t bring a sword to a Loki fight” is the name of the next issue. I wonder if Loki will come into contact with his alternate self that’s roaming about. But it’s still early in the series yet.

For Asgardia’s finest: Y.A.L.A. (you always live again) 

Not for Sigurd this time, but it’s working for Loki… thus far.

Lee Garbett’s art is well suited, fight scenes are crisp and the look matches the feel of the writing excellently. Something I don’t often acknowledge? The Lettering. Asgardian’s get their old school fancy font, Mephisto gets an odd one, scrolls appear here and there to announce random facts or times. It’s just good. It’s just so good. I have so much love for this series.

Sleepy Hollow Episode 10

So here we are: in the episode titled: “the Golem” (which should have aired during Hanukkah, but instead is parading as a Holiday Episode), Ichabod is all “bah humbug” and thinking of his son… How did he grow up? What did he experience? Which is fine: it’s great, it’s real. But the fact that that this is touted as “How far would one father go?” …This infatuation that we have with romanticising DNA and biology with family… It’s not the same thing. 

The Sin Eater/Henry (played by John Noble from Fringe yay… welcome back!) Chokes Ichabod until he sees Katrina. Wow. (that’s what Walter Bishop would have done)

His son’s name was Jeremy. Katrina gave him up for adoption (After Ichabod died, but before she got stuck in limbo… which makes for some odd timing, really) She sent the baby off with Abbie’s ancestors. Katrina was banished by her own coven. Ichabod vows to find out what happened to baby Jeremy (230 years ago…)  Ichabod awakens in front of the Sin Eater after seeing a monster bust in to the Sanctuary in Purgatory. Then this leatherfaced eyeless monster awakens in the real world.

Are any of Jeremy’s descendants still alive? Who cares? Ichabod crunches some numbers and discovers that he potentially has 6000 living relatives.

Orlando Jones, Captain Frank rving is having a crisis of faith. 

Ichabod goes to find info about Trinity Church (Irving’s Church), where Katrina left Jeremy. Jeremy is possibly a pyrokinetic having inherited Katrina’s “powers” …umm… wasn’t Katrina a practicing witch? I didn’t think she had inherited abilities… ummm… Was she an X-Man? Anyway… Abbie’s ancestor’s dies in the blaze, which Ichabod apologizes for. Abbie tells him it wasn’t his fault (which it wasn’t and she NEVER MET THESE PEOPLE, they died 200+ years before her birth… DNA does not make you a FAMILY… omg)

While they are investigating at the Historical Center Library… the squirrely librarian makes a break for it. She gets in her car and then is promptly smashed like playdoh in the hands of a toddler. Ichabbie and the Sin Eater seem unsurprised, unfased by the gore and really didn’t to seem alarmed at where the monster may have gone to.

The Sin Eater has a reaction to a possession of the librarian’s. It is a box with the crest of Katrina’s coven. It’s full of lies and sins!

Jeremy was abused and accidentally manifested a monster to exact revenge. A monster of rage and grief in the absence of someone to protect him… ANGST for Ichabod! He should have been there! Even though from when he was living during the Revolution to how long he has been awake/alive again, if that happened in a straight line… this child would not even be alive. So… obviously this is stupid, to me anyway. Maybe someone buys into this whole DNA MEANS HE’S MY SON!! But I …umm.. don’t subscribe to that. Meanwhile we have never heard about any other of his family members, of friends, colleagues or cohorts.

After a brief visit where Irving tells his ex-wife that she deserved better than what he gave; Irving is enjoying the day out with Macy (Amandla AKA Rue from Hunger Games) talking about how she is not helpless and that she will fight to get out of the wheelchair and be capable. While he buys her a hot chocolate, the hot dog vendor gets cloudy eyed and says “but how strong is she?” Irving shakes the man down and a spirit floats out of him (the man left bewildered) and floats into a woman behind.

The search for the monster, that they decided through dubious deduction is a Golem. The search leads them to a carnival and a group of creepy witches. They say that Ichabod will seal their fate and they will die tonight (who cares?) 

The coven, I guess, said that they would help Jeremy. But he refused. So they invoked a hex to stop his heart. 

“You murdered my son.”

But only his blood can end the Golem. 

….

Ichabod and his son HAVE THE SAME BLOOD …that is most definitely NOT how genetics work… but I guess it’s good enough for magic. Ichabod tells the Golem that Jeremy is gone and there is nothing left to protect. The Golem is unrelenting and Ichabod is forced to stab him. He holds the Golem while he dies and says goodbye to his son through the Golem. He tells him he has endured enough and to be at peace. 

Calling the creature a Golem, despite obvious difference seemed like another way to connect all this supernatural mumbo jumbo to the Bible (because we have to make sure the Christian pantheon stays relevant in all this, right?) the creature’s manifestation was quite different in that it involved blood magic instead of prayer and walking in a circle around the raw material… but actually the manner of vanquishing was as similar, usually one would decommission a Golem by saying the words backwards, walking in the opposite direction around the Golem… and the Golem had to be taken out by the same blood… actually… it’s not that similar.

The Morlock scene at the end was the CHEESIEST. MORLOCK IS COMING FOR ABBIE’S SOUL!!

we got a #mistletease with Ichabbie. 

Why did we have the one angsty episode and then Ichabod lays his son to rest (mentally) in the span of 45 minutes? 

Honestly what ever is happening with Frank Irving was much more interesting. Let’s have more Orlando Jones action hero.