#than Sandman which we took our time with because we wanted to *absorb* it as Good Art

[magratpudifoot]

We watched The Devil in Ohio in its entirety yesterday because that's the kind of thing we have time for these days, and I think I completely broke my Netflix profile by telling it we didn't like it. I never, ever give streaming services more data than they are already mining just from tracking the things I'm watching, so it's a testament to how much we didn't like it that I actually clicked the thumbs down.

We were watching it as a kind of endearingly over-earnest bit of nonsense with some vaguely interesting stuff going on, and we were having a decent time (though neither of us were engaged with it enough that we didn't get up and do chores without pausing it). But then the ending...

Literally the only way the ending doesn't send me into apoplectic rage is if we're meant to understand that the protagonists' nuclear family is also a cult with the father as leader, and I AM HERE FOR THAT INTERPRETATION (let me show you my vast array of non-fiction about cults and the many forms they take), but that feels like an oppositional reading that is too smart for the piece.

It's possible I could have been persuaded to give it that much credit, but nope, not after reading more. In googling to try to get to the bottom of how someone gets to act as both executive producer and writer on the adaptation of their first novel*, I came across an article claiming that the novel/series was "based on true events'', citing the author's hearing second hand about the experiences of an anonymous source** and "research" that included Gone Girl, that noted non-fiction account of a cult survivor.

Presumably "based on true events" here means that cults exist and sometimes people leave them.

Of course, the fact that the big bad in the story was specifically a satanic cult*** had pretty well convinced me that the writer of this thing had never heard of Steve Hassan, Rick Ross, or Janja Lalich...which would be more forgivable if the main character weren't a trauma psychologist who presumably would at least do a quick look round to see if there is any scholarship on how to help people who have escaped from cults.

JEEBUS.

*A first novel which I, as someone who goes directly to the horror section in bookstores and occasionally attends a sf/fantasy/horror literary conference, had never heard of. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM, AND WHO DOES THE WRITER KNOW??

** Obviously obviously obviously this is EXACTLY the sort of story that would be sourced anonymously. I am not doubting the existence of people who escape horrific abuse and don't want their business publicized to the world. But before we go making "true story" claims, I'm going to need some more substantial evidence of corroborating research than a couple pieces of fiction, a recovered memory testimonial, and one legitimate documentary about a not-even-remotely-related cult. (Holy Hell is an incredible doc if you have the stomach for it [trigger warning for sexual abuse if you do look for it], but N O T H I N G about it has to do with Devil in Ohio, to the point where I honestly think the writer may have just claimed she watched it because it sounds like it should be about Christian theology in some way.)

*** Heads up for those who don't spend 90% of their free time reading about cults, satanic cults are...pretty fucking rare, compared to Christian cults and capitalist cults and white nationalist cults and extraterrestrial cults and cults that spring up around random people with malignant narcissism. But what isn't rare is people weaponizing the specter of satanic cults against marginalized people, so this is a particularly fucked up time to have the (rural isolationist terrorist) cult be ~~spooky satanists~~. Hat tip I guess for at least having them use some of the trappings of Christian religiosity?

Also, HEY, remember that time they tried to do a Heathers series where all the awful popular characters were people of marginalized identities, and the kids they were picking on were white? There's a whiff or two of that going on here, too, for all its attempts to be Inclusive(TM).

[insane-comics-reading]

Marvel 1965

Comics read:

Fantastic Four 36-43*

Avengers 15-16

Journey Into Mystery 114-123**, Annual 1

Daredevil 7-8

Amazing Spider-Man 25-28

Uncanny X-Men 12-16

Strange Tales 135-140***

*FF Annual #3 and FF #44-45 are pretty essential, and will be included in a separate post (they’re the beginning of “Marvel Graphic Novel Classic IV: The Coming of Galactus”)

**The “B” stories of Journey Into Mystery are already included in Thor: Tales of Asgard

***I actually read ST 130-146, but skimmed most of the A stories apart from the SHIELD one listed above. B stories form a single arc, discussed in Doctor Strange: A Nameless Land, A Timeless Time

The number of worthy comics (and also the number of total comics) is increasing. Main takeaway for me is the strong presence of longer arcs.

This is pretty good story-wise in my opinion. One of the things that bothered me the most in the first couple of years were the sudden resolutions, where large issues were simply solved in a couple of panels in the last page. Now with stories that span multiple issues (or that end with a cliffhanger for the next story) the pacing seems better.

While reading through the Marvelous Year list, I got curious why Thor wasn’t present in Avengers 16 (and subsequent issues), so I picked up Journey Into Mystery and ended up adding a 10-issue arc to the list. That’s pretty impressive when even two-parters weren’t that common just a couple years earlier.

Speaking of Thor, I really liked this arc (114-123). It can be subdivided into 1-3 issue sub-arcs, but each story ends with a cliffhanger and these 10 issues tie together in the end (though the last issue also sets up a villain for the next ones). First appearances of the Absorbing Man and the Destroyer.

Going back to the Avengers, #15 is a pretty standard issue, but temporarily splits the team. As Captain America continues with a follow up adventure in 16 (and Thor is MIA because of the Trial of the Gods arc), Iron Man, Wasp and Giant Man decide they’ve had enough, choose replacements and go on a vacation (which seems pretty weird at a time two members of their team are unnaccounted for..). In their place, enter Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (three villains reform at once!). By the end of the issue, Cap is back and we had our first change in a team line up.

On the other hand, it’s pretty impressive to see how long the X-Men kept the first line up (I’m accustumed to modern and ultimate x-men, where there’s more mutants than I can remember and the teams keep changing). Also, how long it took for the mutant prejudice to be an issue.

X-Men 12 and 13 introduce the Juggernaut, and they’re pretty good! 12 in particular really builds up the mystery, showing increasingly more of Juggernaut until finally revealing him at the end. 14 to 16 finally delve into the conflict between humans and mutants (so far, besides Magneto wanting to destroy mankind, humans seemed pretty unaware of mutants), and the first appearance of the Sentinels. These will become important things for the X-books (they’re actually the main point of the first Ultimate X-men trade, which I just read). Still, it’s the 60s so the story is not overly complex, and the Sentinels turn against their creator within a couple of panels and not much is said about the reaction of the population in general. Still, these 5 issues are classics.

Daredevil has a decent, but not memorable, run-up with Namor (and it’s impressive how Matthew Murdock continues to seem like the only lawyer in New York City...) in issue 7, and issue 8 is.. well, pretty forgettable... Stilt-man appears, and the story of a man with hydraulic stilts is as interesting as it sounds (that is, not much).

On Amazing Spider-Man, the main stories of 25 and 28 are not that important (J Jonah Jameson controlling a robot against Spider-Man is so silly it becomes fun, though), but they advance the back story. In 25 Mary Jane ‘kinda’ appears for the first time (no face is shown though), and in 28 Peter graduates high school, and gets accepted in NYU. Very soon SM’s cast will expand and include some pretty important characters.

In Strange Tales, after a lot of forgettable issues with Human Torch and Thing stories (130 has cameos by the Beatles), in 135 the A-story spot is given to Nick Fury (the same one from Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos). While his former series was set in the past of the universe, in WWII, in the present day he became a CIA spy, and in this issue, he’s recruited to be the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., and help fight Hydra. This is SHIELD’s and Hydra’s first appearance, and I liked the spy movie style, full of weird gadgets and action.

Finally, Fantastic Four is really growing on me, even though I don’t much care for the Frightful Four, which are the recurrent villains this year. It’s fun to see Sandman entering his second evil team in a row, right after the defeat of the Sinister Six to Spider-Man last year.

There is a good Skrull story in 37, and a cool arc in 38-40, where the FF lose their powers, and have to face Dr. Doom, with the help of Daredevil, and then 41-43 has the Thing (angry for having to become a monster again at the end of issue 40) leaving the group and being captured by the Frightful Four, who mind control him. Also, as is becoming common all around the titles, the end of 43 already gives the hook to the next stories, with Doom planning something at Reed and Sue’s wedding, and Medusa escaping.

Overall, marvel seems to really be hitting its stride. A lot of cool stories going on.

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 8: Goodnight

When Emery and Wes met up that night, Wes said nothing about Ridley. They headed to the warehouses as Emery had suggested, and he said nothing about that, either.

She’d survive three more weeks with him just like this: Not talking about it.

The north side was a looming, dreary place, especially at night. The warehouses rose high and dark, blotting out the stars, lit by lonely streetlamps and floodlights perched on the corners of the roofs. White lettering on the large warehouse doors stated their building numbers and the companies that owned them. For the past five minutes, all the buildings they’d passed said VAN DER GELT INDUSTRIES.

“Who knew VDG needed so many warehouses for home security equipment?” Emery knocked a fist on one of the warehouse doors. It echoed like thunder. “You’d think they could keep it all in that godawful skyscraper.”

Wes said nothing.

“I heard the founder of VDG is really young. And hot. Have you ever seen him?”

Wes looked toward the other side of the street.

“I just realized I don’t know what you’re interested in. Girls? I assumed girls, but that’s my fault. Guys? Anything? Everything?”

Still nothing.

“Sorry, I know, it’s kind of a personal question. Forget I asked.”

He’d started blushing, so she knew he was listening. She’d never had so much trouble getting a rise out of someone.

“Have you managed to figure out what the full-timers on this mission have uncovered? I was looking for their files before, but I couldn’t get into the records. We’ve canvassed half the city, you’d think we’d have heard something by now.”

The soles of their boots scraped the sidewalk. Emery got a prickling sensation on the back of her neck that they were being watched, and ignored it. If there was a nightmare out and about up here, looking for its dreamer, it wasn’t their job to hunt it down. They didn’t have the paperwork.

Finally, after what felt like another half hour of walking, Wes said, “They were looking around here last week.”

“Who? The full-time hunters?”

He nodded.

“How do you know?”

“I asked Stainer.”

“How does Stainer know?”

“Stainer knows most of the places the full-time hunters go.”

“Isn’t asking her, like…cheating?”

He glanced sideways at her. “More cheating than trying to break into the records system? Why would using your resources be cheating? What is there to even cheat on? It’s a mission; either we complete it or we don’t. No one said we couldn’t ask Stainer about it, so I asked her. She said the full-time hunters on the case searched here last week on some strong leads, but didn’t find anything.”

“Which hunters are on the case? What were their leads?”

“She wouldn’t tell me that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I asked her after you brought it up earlier. I was curious.”

“So I was right!”

The line of Wes’s jaw went hard.

“Wow, Wes, don’t be a sore loser. This was still at least partly your plan—”

Wes let out a roar of frustration and turned on her. “Do you ever stop talking? You always have to have the last word, and the best word, and if anyone else says anything, you have to say it better. You are insufferable. I should have let Ridley tear into you today. Don’t look at me like that--you don’t know her. You don’t know me, either. You think you do. I’m your charity case, right? Poor Wes, bottom of the class, comes up with really boring solutions to problems. I know you’re going to throw me out as soon as you possibly can. You don’t have to rub salt in the wound every chance you get.”

Emery’s hackles had raised before he’d finished his first sentence, and she listened to the rest with her teeth gritted together. “You act like I’m out to get you.”

“Because you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely the best judge of yourself. You definitely never try to one-up me, or use me to look better, or--“

Something flashed in an alley between the warehouses to Emery’s left. They fell silent. All the hairs on Emery’s body stood straight up, and that dream-sense drilled at the base of her skull. She unholstered her revolvers. Wes pulled out his hammer.

“Did you see what that was?” Emery asked.

“No. Did you?”

“No.”

Emery started down the alley, sticking close to one wall. The shadows grew thick between the buildings. She hadn’t seen anyone here--no late-night workers, no trespassers, not even any homeless--and no nightmare would move so quickly unless it was in the immediate vicinity of its dreamer. There were several other types of nightmares, like the Wilmark Fox, that could move however they wanted, but Emery had never heard of an urban legend around the north side warehouses.

She waited for any sense of what she’d felt in Wilmark Park. Of that dark wind that had torn the Fox off of her.

Emery peeked around the back corner. A lonely light illuminated the slick path between the buildings. The warehouses rose tall on every side, and the back alley was conspicuously clear of any storage containers or heavy equipment.

Wes shifted behind her. “I don’t like this.”

Neither did Emery. It felt too much like an ambush.

“You can lay a trap for anyone if you know what they want, right?” she said.

“You think it’s him?”

“I don’t know. If it was him, we’re not going to find him through dumb luck. We should try to find a way onto the rooftops. Get a vantage point.”

The problem with that was, of course, that everything had been cleared from the alleyways. There was no way onto any of the rooftops, and even with all their agility, they couldn’t scale a flat wall.

“We could dreamform something,” Wes said, finally.

Emery crossed her arms. “Like what? A ladder? Stairs? I got a nosebleed in class today trying to make a pen--anything that big is going to give me a hemmorhage.”

Wes sighed. “I could do it.”

Emery snorted. “Sure. Weren’t you having trouble making a pen cap?”

He frowned up at the rooftop. “How high do you think that is? Thirty feet? Thirty five?”

“Even if you could make it, you’d have to make it again so we could get back down—”

Wisps of the Dream had already begun to materialize against the side of the warehouse. The Dream slid into the world as it went out, seeping from Wes’s outstretched hammer in a cloud of violet and indigo, forming the rough shape of a ladder at the point where Wes focused. The rungs were slightly too far apart, and it took on the mottled gray color of moldy food, but it was a ladder, and Wes hadn’t broken a sweat. He stepped forward and grabbed one of the rungs. It didn’t move under his hand. He began to climb.

“How did you do that? And—and why didn’t you do it when the Fox was chasing us in the woods?” Emery hissed up at him. The biggest thing she’d ever dreamformed were her Peacemakers, and those were an entirely different process that took months to complete. Conscious dreamforming was a skill typically only mastered by dreamkillers, and used by dreamhunters without other options.

Wes reached the top. Emery started up after him, testing the first few rungs carefully before scaling the ladder as fast as she could. She skipped the last two rungs and threw herself up to the roof instead. When she sat beside Wes, the ladder dissolved into smoke again, and the smoke returned to his hammer like an absorbed nightmare.

“You have the lowest scores in our dreamforming class. Where did that come from?”

Wes shrugged.

“No! No. You do not get to shrug. I can’t make a damn pen, and you just made a thirty-foot, fully corporeal ladder like it’s no big thing.”

“I only need to pass the class. Anything else is showing off.”

“Holy mother of nightmares, what? I can’t hear you over the sound of your own bullshit.”

“I would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone. Please. I didn’t do it that night in the woods because I was panicking and I didn’t have time.” He stood, brushed himself off, and gazed out across the warehouse roofs with that little furrow of worry between his eyebrows.

“Okay, whatever with that angst.” Emery pulled herself up next to him. “You want to stay at the bottom of the class, that’s fine with me, but if I ever get stuck behind a fence with a homicidal fox again, you dreamform a cartoon safe on top of that asshole.”

The roof was almost flat, made of sheets of metal that thudded beneath Emery’s feet. Still fuming, she moved to the other side as quietly as she could and peered into the alleyways between the buildings. She felt better with the sky at her back; if the Sandman really was here, she didn’t want him dropping down on her from above. There was no movement across the rooftops, but when she moved to the other side and looked down the wide main street, a man with a flashlight strode down the opposite sidewalk. Emery reached back, grabbed Wes’s collar, and dragged him down against the roof.

The flashlight beam swept along the warehouse doors and VAN DER GELT INDUSTRIES. The light turned away from them, and Emery made out a uniform and the shine of a badge. She breathed.

“It’s a security guard.” She let go of Wes’s collar. He rubbed his neck. The guard continued on to the end of the street and turned. The feeling of the Dream tickled again at the base of Emery’s skull, though nothing else moved in the night. There was something here, and close, but unless it had gotten inside a building...

“Let’s see if there are any buildings broken into,” she said. She climbed back to the highest point of the roof, judged the distance between that warehouse and the next, and gave herself a running start to jump the gap. She landed on the other side with a thunderous crash, slid down the angle of the roof, and stopped herself halfway. Wes followed behind a moment later.

“That guard will come back now,” he grumbled.

“We’ve got credentials. He won’t throw us out. Actually, if he comes back, let’s ask him if he’s seen anything strange.”

“And we just alerted...whatever that was that we saw between the buildings.”

“Like I said, if it’s the Sandman, he must already know we’re here.”

She moved to the edge of the new roof. Her sense of the Dream pinged out on all sides, but none of the buildings seemed disturbed. She jumped to the next roof, and the next, with Wes falling behind as he scanned the alleys below. Emery’s sense shifted, and as she moved, it moved around her, scattering and reforming until she was able to feel the vague shape of an origin point.

Whatever it was, it was down there, hidden in the shadows between the buildings, watching her.

She sprinted across the roof and leapt to the next building. Her hidden friend followed her, pausing at the corner of the building. She looked right at it, right at the darkness at the edge of the closest light, but it didn’t move. It knew that she knew that it was there. It didn’t care.

Marcia had taught all the ranged-weapon dreamhunters never to point their weapons unless they were ready to fire, but Emery lifted a revolver now and aimed it toward the darkness, her finger off the trigger. It still didn’t move.

I could be paranoid, she thought.

But just to be safe.

She aimed a little above the source of the emanations and fired. A purple streak lit up the night and burst ineffectually against the side of a warehouse.

The shadow swallowed the light as it jerked out of the way, startled.

“HEY!” Emery raced back toward Wes, keeping tabs on the shadow, which had swept around the side of the building again. “Wes! Ladder!”

Wes had the ladder forming against the side of the warehouse right away. Emery slid down it and didn’t wait for Wes before taking off after the shadow. Now that she had a lock on it, she could follow it even when she couldn’t see it, but its movement had become erratic--it moved up, down, curled around a building and led them in circles. They darted after it down the narrowest alley yet, the roofs nearly blocking out the light overhead. Emery burst through the other side first.

Behind her, a cloud of the Dream billowed up between the buildings and formed a wall. There came the heavy CRACK of Wes hitting the other side, then his groan of pain and the clang of his hammer against the ground. Emery started to turn back for him and was pulled to a stop. Veins of stone had materialized around her wrists and ankles. The dreamforming had happened so quickly she’d missed it.

The presence came up from behind. Her heart beat in her throat. Emery tried to twist her wrists and point her revolvers backward, and in response, the stone grew down over her hands and pried the guns away.

Then he was in front of her.

Grandpa Al was right; she knew the Sandman when she saw him. He was tall enough to block the floodlight behind him, he wore black dreamform armor and a pair of thick goggles that hid his eyes, and tangled hair fell around his unshaven face. Brown, blond, gray--Emery couldn’t tell what color his hair was. The light behind him bleached the edges white.

“It is you,” he said.

He raised a hand to reset his goggles. He wore black gloves, and each of his fingers ended in a wicked black claw.

Her breath caught. She scraped at the empty walls of her mind for something to say. Witty, useful, anything. That feeling of the Dream--of threat, of possibility--rolled off him in such strong waves she choked on it, just as she’d choked beneath the onslaught of the whale.

“Well,” the Sandman said. “This isn’t good at all, is it?”

Emery yanked on the stone around her wrists. “W-Wes--Wes!”

No answer came from the other side of the wall blocking the alley.

“I’m very sorry about this.” The Sandman reached into a small pouch strapped to the back of his belt and retrieved a vial. He dumped the contents into his palm. Glittering sand. Just a little--just a pinch. “I’m going to have to ask you not to come looking for me again. Could be very dangerous for you. Okay?”

Emery watched the sand shift in his palm. Lana had said they didn’t know what kind he was using, or what he’d do with it... “Please--please, don’t--“

“I had to make sure I actually saw what I thought I saw,” he said. “Don’t look for me anymore. No worries, though: this’ll be the best sleep you’ve ever had.”

He tossed the sand in her eyes before she could close them.

It was a soft puff of air, a breath across her face. Her vision blurred. The Sandman’s armor melted away from him, leaving him in something softer. The stone veins released her limbs. She swayed, arms and legs heavy. The sounds of the world swirled together and drained away and she felt the weight of her armor disappear as exhaustion muffled her fear. With the last of her thoughts, she tried to swing her momentum backward, away from the Sandman’s opening arms.

Her knees buckled. She tipped forward. He stooped and caught her.

Sleep descended.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos —> Headaches)