#when jack goes back to aguirre the next year and aguirre tells him he's not welcome

[petergabrielyuri]

rewatched brokeback mountain last night and god DAMN that movie is brutal

[365days365movies]

February 14, 2021: Brokeback Mountain (2005) (Part 1)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Or Palentine’s, Galentine’s, Single Persons Appreciation Day, what have you!

Anyway, on this day where we (and the greeting card companies) celebrate love in all of its forms, I think it’s about time to diversify my movie choices a little bit. SO, for the next few days at least, we’re going to change it up, starting with a film that shook the 2005 public’s perceptions of love: Brokeback Mountain.

And who brings this movie to us? Same guy who gave us this:

And this:

And would give us this:

Ang Lee wasn’t originally meant to be the director of the film, as Gus van Sant was signed on to do it. You know, Good Will Hunting, Drugstore Cowboy, that one movie where Una Thurman plays the greatest hitchhiker in the world with giant thumbs, and eventually finds herself meeting multiple people, including Keanu Reeves, Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid), and a group of radicalesbians who like in the Great Plains, coexisting with a group of critically endangered whooping cranes to whom they;’ve fed peyote, while also opposing the intentions of an evil feminine hygiene product company that seeks to take over the land for their factories? YOU KNOW, THAT MOVIE?

It’s called Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and I wasn’t even slightly exaggerating with that summary, I SWEAR.

Anyway, he couldn’t do it, and Joel Schumacher also passed on it eventually, so they asked Ang Lee if he’d do it. After CTHD and Hulk, dude was on his way to retire, but after he cried at the end of the script, he accepted the job. AND HISTORY WAS MADE

Before I get into it, I should probably frank about something. I’m a cissexual, heterosexual man in a straight relationship with my girlfriend. She says hi, by the way. Here she is, a massive Jake Gyllenhaal fan, getting ready to watch this movie for the first time with me:

Isn’t she lovely? Anyway, just thought I’d be totally transparent about that. Incidentally, I remember when this film came out, as well as the fervor around it. This was JUST as the gay marriage debate was EXPLODING into the public scene, so this was obviously quite the talking point at the time.

 Anyway, shall we find out who’s not going to quit whom? SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Cowboys Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are waiting outside of a trailer, with Ennis having just arrived  on a truck that reminded me of Optimus Prime, and I’m sorry. They’ve been hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to look after a group of sheep and guide them over Brokeback Mountain, a fictional mountain in Wyoming.

The two finally introduce each other, with Ennis seeming considerably closed off as compared to the open Jack Twist. They head to a bar, where the two get to know each other a but better Jack’s an occasional shepherd, but highly involved in rodeos throughout the year. Ennis, meanwhile, is a regular ranchhand at his family’s farm.

Time for sheep-herding, as the two guide their flock of sheep on horseback, with soft country guitars playing in the background over all of it. And I gotta say, the music combined with the visuals is giving me this real sleepy ambience vibe that I 100% would watch specifically to fall asleep to. Which is not an insult by any means, by the way; it’s just super relaxing.

The two make camp with the sheep in a mountain valley, and now I want to go camping. I realize that it’s February, and I live in a place VERY non-conducive to camping, but GODDAMN this movie makes me want to go camping. In the wilderness, surrounded by bird calls and crisp mountain air, LET’S GO.

We find out that Ennis is engaged to be wed to a woman named Alma, while Jack is yearning to break free of needing to take jobs like this. And all the while, they’re eating beans, scaring away coyotes, and fending of REALLY REALLY FAT American black bears, who you could really easily scare away without too much difficulty. You ever stared at a bear while both of you were in the woods? I HAVE. And we BOTH took off from each other in opposite directions. They’re not the bravest of animals, black bears. Grizzlies, however, you don’t wanna fuck with.

Anyway, after they face off against that bear and lose their newly bought supplies, they go hunting the next day and take down an elk. Which is a LOT of venison, I tell you what! Oh, and I’m not a hunter, just to be clear, but elk are fuggin’ HUGE. Seriously, XL deer they are.

Anyway, time goes on after that, and they continue to make their way through the mountains. And they get to know each other more, sharing their rodeo experiences and family backgrounds. Ennis also opens up pretty considerably, a fact not missed by Jack. The two become friends.

My girlfriend asks an interesting question: if I had never heard of this movie in any capacity...would I have known the extent of the relationship of Ennis and Jack? And honestly...I’m legitimately not sure at this point. I think I would’ve just assumed that they’d stay close friends, but no further than that. Call that being raised in a society with heterosexual bias towards relationships, or call that me not being a natural shipper. Both are probably accurate, to be honest.

Anyway, it’s getting cold out, and Jack’s sleeping in the tent one night while Ennis is freezing his balls off outside. With Jack’s insistence, he goes inside the tent to sleep next to Jack. And then...

Oh. Well, OK. Again, though, still not sure that at this point I’d...oh wait...OH...OH.

OK. Think I’d be able to tell at this point what the movie’s about.

So, yeah, they have sex. It’s spontaneous, it’s wild, it’s heat of the moment passion...and it’s REAL awkward the next day, I tell you what. That next evening, Ennis and Jack both insist that they “ain’t queer,” and that this is “a one-shot thing they got goin’.”

Uh, boys? There’s some important evidence to the contrary that we should consider here. But, OK, it’s a different culture, this is super new to you both, I get it. I’m not one to talk on the coming out or discovery experience (again, straight cis dude over here), but I understand that there’s some inherent denial. But still, they continue their relationship as is, for the time being.

Which is not as private as they thought, as Joe Aguirre observes them chasing each other naked on the mountain from afar. Whoops. Well, it doesn’t matter as much, as they still have a job to do until summer ends. And that job continues. They encounter another herd of sheep that gets tangled up with theirs, snow falls on the mountain and they have to deal with that, etc.

Then one day, the two need to head out. Jack goes to fetch Ennis, who’s moping on a hillside about something. He does this play lasso thing, which seems cute...

...until it turns into a full on brawl right there on the hillside. OK. Well. Some heavy denial going on here, I think, especially on Ennis’ part. Which is somewhat understandable, given the culture, and the fact that Ennis is engaged. Oh, by the way, hello infidelity. GodDAMN IT. Escaped you for TWO MOVIES IN A ROW, and you’re back rearing your ugly head.

Anyway, the job is done soon, and Aguirre’s not exactly happy with them, as they’ve apparently lost some sheep and picked up some from the other herd’s flock accidentally. With a light rebuke from Aguirre, the two part ways with not much else said. Jack asks if Ennis will come back the next summer, and Ennis reminds him that he’s getting married that fall. But as Ennis leaves...

Huh. Interesting reaction, that. Well, in the next scene, Ennis gets married to Alma Beers (Michelle Williams), and they seem to have a very happy relationship. They have two daughters together in a pretty small amount of time. The next summer, Jack tries to get a job with Joe Aguirre once again, but is refused on account of his relationship with Ennis on the mountain...kind of.

See, here’s the thing. Joe rebukes Jack for having their relationship on the mountain, leaving the dogs to babysit the sheep, rather than do the job they were hired for. And, uh...he’s not wrong, honestly. Yeah, OK, there’s definitely some homophobia laced in there, obviously, but they were hired to watch the sheep, and we only really saw them do that once or twice. So, yeah, sorry to say, but Joe’s not entirely unjustified in not rehiring Jack.

At a Fourth of July festival, Ennis brings his wife and daughters to see the fireworks, when a couple of bikers antagonize the crowd as a whole. This results in Ennis telling them to stop, and a fight takes place, with Ennis IMMEDIATELY taking out the two bikers, with little effort. Anger issues there, Ennis? 

Jack returns to the rodeo, with new other options for money. He’s clearly also coming to terms with his own sexuality, as seen when he not so subtly hits on a cowboy at the bar. However, he also meets a young woman, a barrel racer named Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway), whom he seems to get along with fairly quickly at a rodeo. They dance together at the bar that night, and, uh...park.

And that, of course, leads to their eventual marriage and parentage as well. Looks like Lureen’s parents arent the biggest fans of Jack, though. Sure that’s going to lead to a healthy relationship down the road.

Been about 4 years since Brokeback Mountain, and this is punctuated by Jack paying a visit to Ennis’ place, which Ennis is told about by Alma. He seems...very anious, waiting nervously for a day to see him. But he finally arrives, and the two embrace happily. And then...

Oh, and Alma sees? Sure, sure, oh, and they go to a motel IMMEDIATELY? Oh, OK, OK, infidelity? Yuuuuuuupyupyupyupyupyup, halfway point? Yeah, sure, see you in Part 2. Geez.

[therealdragonnerdagain]

For some reason, something possessed me to watch Brokeback Mountain this fine Sunday.

I remember when it came out, there was a lot of commotion about it. A lot of my favorite actors were in it too (Jake, Michelle, people I had grown up seeing on tv), so I got the movie on DVD and watched it . . . and I was blown away.

I feel like BBM was one of Heath Ledger’s last great performances alongside the Joker. After watching him in more light-hearted films (A Knight’s Tale) or films where he wasn’t the main character (The Patriot) this was the film that really brought home for me how much talent he had as an actor.

When this movie came out, I was the same age as the main characters in the opening (19-20)  Now that I’m older and (hopefully) have a better grasp of the story, I feel a burning need to write down my interpretation and share it with the world!!! Or at least tumblr.

Keep in mind that this is just my interpretation. Kay? Kay.

Also, it might be best to read this as you sit down and watch the movie, just to see what I’m talking about. Because the movie is 2 hrs, this is very long. (I wrote as I watched)

Brokeback Mountain is a movie that is based on such a small short story, that the story is told more through body language and facial expressions than actual dialogue. Which is pretty brilliant, given the theme. 

In the opening scene, we see the mountain is very silent and beautiful and unaware of its appeal, just standing there in the early morning light. Then we see Ennis standing there in the early morning light, silent and beautiful and unaware of his appeal.

 A second later, and Jake Jack drives up in a crappy truck, which he hops out of and proceeds to yell at. It’s apparent that he’s broke and, like Ennis, is there because he desperately needs the money.

From the moment we meet Jack, he is wild and loud. He hops out of the truck, swears, and throws a small tantrum, while Ennis is quietly standing nearby, unmoved.

Ennis is always unmoved.

Jack slowly turns around and calms down when he notices Ennis. He’s forgotten whatever he was angry about because Ennis is friggin cute. He tries to smile at this cute guy, and Ennis looks down and ignores him, discouraging his efforts at starting a conversation.

Jack is hurt by this rejection, but when Ennis looks away, we see him smile again, as if he’s thinking about how cute he is anyway.

After Ennis refuses to speak to Jack, he decides to watch him in the review mirror of his truck instead.

Their boss Aguirre comes and starts telling them about the job. He makes a “scrawny asses” comment, reminding us that Jack and Ennis are just two skinny teenage boys.

As Aguirre is talking, Jack starts stealing glances at Ennis, who he is obviously developing some interest in. At this point, Aguirre scolds Jack about losing a bunch of sheep the year before. This implies that Jack lost sheep last summer because he was so busy having sex up on the mountain instead of doing his job. Aguirre has noticed Jack’s interest in Ennis and is subtly warning Jack against fooling around with him and losing more sheep.

In the next scene, Jack blames the death of the sheep on a lightning storm – pouting like a true teenager – and it almost reads like an attempt to assure Ennis that there was no other reason – such as him fooling around without another dude and leaving the sheep unattended.

Ennis is oblivious to Jack’s mopey reassurances that he is “straight” and Jack picks up on this.

As if testing the waters, Jack then asks Ennis if he ever “rodeos.”

Keep in mind that this is 1963, a time when queer people had no access to words like “gay” or “homosexual.” It almost seems like “rodeo” is a codeword for “gay,” and Ennis makes such an oblivious response that Jack gets a smirk and takes a swig from his beer.

We learn later that Jack really does love to rodeo, but mostly in the hope of meeting other men who love to “rodeo.”  

The entire two second scene at the bar is spoken in code by Jack and frankly by Ennis. It’s ironic, really. Jack – who is mostly loud about being gay -- is the one being secretive and obscure, using all this cloak and dagger, while Ennis – who is usually trying to hide his sexuality -- is being completely honest, but only because he doesn’t know what Jack is asking him or implying.

In the next scene, we see Jack trying to tame a fussy horse that refuses to quiet down. This is symbolic of what Ennis is going to try to do for the next twenty years: tame Jack.

In fact, Jack is constantly compared to a horse throughout the film, which serves to further portray his wild and loud personality.

After the two settle into the mountains, we see how Jack wants to be with Ennis and how he’s slowly concocting some excuse to be with him. By Aguirre’s rules, they are supposed to remain separate, but Jack watches Ennis’ campfire from afar and thinks of how he can get to him. The next morning, he complains about the rules – as if testing to see if Ennis feels the same way – and Ennis answers by talking about his fiancée Alma.

It seems Ennis knew what Jack was trying to do and mentioned Alma on purpose to deter him. Jack takes a hint and gets on his horse, after first struggling to tame it. Ennis smiles fondly at Jack’s back as he rides off, and it’s clear Ennis is also interested in Jack and is touched/amused/flattered by his interest.

Jack complains about the beans, and Ennis obliges, ordering soup instead. He didn’t have to order soup. He did it to make Jack happy. Maybe because he felt guilty about rejecting him.

After getting the food, Ennis’ horse is spooked by a bear (boy, I had some Skyrim flashbacks) and he gets hurt while most of the food is lost. Jack is at first angry because he’s been waiting all night to eat, but the second he sees Ennis is hurt, he calms down. He tries to care for Ennis, but Ennis will not let him.

Typical to Jack’s wild personality, he wants to break the rules and shoot one of the sheep for supper. To appease Jack – yet again – Ennis shoots an elk instead (to which Jack screams wildly in delight).

After the elk, Jack goes back to complaining about how they “both should be in the camp” instead of separated each night.  He has not given up. Ennis, however, also hasn’t given up. He offers to take Jack’s place, and Jack – with a frustrated glint in his eye – agrees.

At this point, it seems like Ennis has just been doing everything he can to appease Jack so that he will stop pursuing him.

Now with their roles reversed, Jack is the cook, but it turns out he can’t cook worth a damn – not because he’s actually bad with a can opener but because Ennis decides it would be a great time to get naked in front of Jack and take a bath. So Jack is unable to focus because Ennis is butt naked and he has to concentrate hard on cutting potatoes so he doesn’t cut himself.

This is almost cruel on Ennis’ part. He knows that Jack is sexually attracted – very attracted – but instead of washing up in private some place else, he does it in front of Jack.

Is Ennis a tease or is he as unaware of his own appeal as Brokeback Mountain itself?

In the next scene, Jack and Ennis are both slightly drunk and sharing a bottle. This leads to them both talking a lot about their lives. Ennis does the most talking he probably will do in the entire film barring his last scene with Jack, and Jack is quick to point out that he’s never heard Ennis talk so much.

They keep talking about rodeos, until Ennis mentions that his dad always thought all rodeo types were fuck ups. This might be Ennis subtly letting Jack know that he’s on to him and he now realizes what he was implying back in the bar.

Ennis is basically going, “My dad hated queers!” in a playful way.

Jack pretends to be insulted -- just as Ennis has pretended to insult him – and leaps up, wildly screaming and pretending he’s at a rodeo, until he falls down.

Ennis mutters that his daddy was about right.

After the drunk scene, we see Ennis joking yet again about how he wishes Jack’s harmonica had broken. In every scene, we see Ennis getting more comfortable and opening up, to the point that he’s joking, smiling, and making Jack laugh.

In the following “water walking Jesus” scene, Jack and Ennis talk about religion. It seems as this point, Jack realizes that Ennis is gay. Talking about the Pentecost, he says, “The world ends and guys like you and me march off to Hell.”

Ennis playfully dodges admitting that he’s gay by replying that Jack should speak for himself as he’s never had the chance to sin.

At this point, Ennis is still playing a denial game, but Jack is fully on to him.

One night, Ennis is too drunk to make it back to his camp. He winds up sleeping in the same tent with Jack, who makes a move on him by taking his hand and putting it on his own crotch. Ennis feels a penis in his hand and snaps up from the sheets. Jack grabs him and silently begs him to stay.

At first, Ennis tries to drunkenly push Jack away, but Jack holds on. Looking at this now that I’m older (I haven’t seen this movie in about ten years), it strikes me for the first time how incredibly lonely Jack is as a person. Jack could very easily stay on his parent’s ranch and even run it, but instead he takes on odd jobs where he knows he’ll meet other young men, all with the intent of finding the warmth and acceptance he does not get at home.

So Ennis pushes away, but Jack holds on. Practically screaming “Love me,” he unbuckles his belt and waits for Ennis to react.

Seeing Jack unbuckle his pants and display himself caused a snap-reaction in Ennis: he immediately throws Jack down and makes rough and awkward love to him.

The next morning, Ennis awakes confused and shaken. Remember that he was drunk? It had to be really disorienting to wake up the next day and realize that yes, he is indeed gay and yes, he just had gay sex. He storms off without saying a word to Jack, who meekly whispers about seeing him at supper, then stands there looking confused and heartbroken as he watches Ennis ride away.

In the next scene, we see Ennis wrestling with the reality of his own sexuality. This is something he will fight against for the next twenty years while constantly leaving Jack just standing there heartbroken.

Ennis discovers a coyote has got to the sheep because he didn’t watch them. The dead sheep is symbolic of what happens to gay men within a homophobic society when they have sex. To Ennis, gay men having sex always follows with blood and death. Because they were sleeping together instead of watching the sheep, blood and death occurred.

Ennis finally comes to talk to Jack, and before he even opens his mouth, Jack knows he’s going to start denying what happened. He is right. Ennis denies being gay with “You know I ain’t queer.” Jack asserts that he isn’t gay either – just to appease Ennis and keep what they have going.

It seems Jack will say anything to make Ennis happy just so that he can know some form of acceptance, intimacy, and love. To him, one little lie “I ain’t either” was worth the trade off.

Jack waits in the tent for Ennis to come and sleep with him. Ennis is still afraid of what he’s feeling and instead sits by the fire. Eventually, he enters the tent.

Ennis was telling the truth about being a virgin. Jack is his first. His has no idea how to proceed or what to do. Now he’s sober and not operating on wild, pent-up instinct. Jack gently and lovingly guides him.

Later, Aguirre comes up to the mountains and with his binoculars, witnesses Jack and Ennis kissing and rolling around on the ground. He finds Jack later and tells him his uncle is in the hospital. Jack doesn’t seem sorry, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his Uncle Henry wasn’t some kind of asshole he didn’t care about. Either that, or “Uncle Henry” is an excuse for Aguirre to spy on his employees. Jack takes a moment to pretend he cares (or rather, pretend he believes Aguirre), then drops a hint that he doesn’t want to leave.

Aguirre uses his binoculars to look for Ennis up in the hills. Jack realizes that Aguirre has been spying on them. This is something Aguirre wanted him to know. He glares at Jack, silently warning him to stop fucking around, before turning his horse and leaving. His glare was also an indication that he disapproved of Jack and Ennis switching places behind his back.

Ennis finds Jack taking down their camp, and Jack announces that Aguirre has ordered them to bring the sheep in early. This upsets Ennis, who declares they are getting cut out of a month’s worth of pay.

In reality, Ennis is angry that he has to be separated from Jack and go back to the lie he was living before. After discovering what it’s like to be in a relationship with a man, there in the freedom and secrecy of the mountains, he is happier than he’s ever been in his life. Because for the first time in his life, he is living honestly and freely, in a place where no one can punish him for it. But Aguirre has decided to send them away early, quickly cutting short the haven they had constructed for themselves and forcing them to face the reality of their homophobic world yet again.

Jack is the wild one, but it’s Ennis who takes their pending separation the hardest. He pretends he’s angry about being cut out of money. In reality, he’s angry about being taken away from Jack, because he knows that turning his back on Alma to be with Jack can and will endanger his life.

Jack, on the other hand, is not initially angry because he believes he can talk Ennis into being with him after the job is done. He sees Ennis off sulking by himself and playfully ropes him with his lasso. At first, the fight is a playful tussle, only to escalate quickly to violence as the two young men take out their frustrations against the world on each other.

They have never been happier in their lives, are devastated that it is being taken away, and take it out on each other, likely with the thought that if only they’d never met, they would never know what a wonderful thing they were missing: the freedom to live as they chose without bigotry and violence.

When Jack and Ennis say goodbye, Ennis brings up Alma again, further reiterating that his mind can not be changed about continuing their romance. 

Jack is practically begging for Ennis to give him a nice farewell. Knowing Jack, he probably wants a kiss. Ennis, however, just awkwardly walks away.

Once Jack has driven away, Ennis gets sick to his stomach and punches a wall as reality sinks in: he will never be allowed to live the life he wants and will instead always have to live a lie. This means lying to Alma and hurting her as well. It’s a mixture of sadness, rage at the world, and self-loathing at his own helplessness.

Cut to the earliest days of Ennis’ marriage to Alma.

Because Heath Ledger and Michelle actually fell in love on set, a lot of the joy and affection we see between their characters is actually real. Ennis strokes Alma’s cheek with his thumb in a very sweet and affectionate way as he awkwardly kisses her at their wedding – to which she smiles. They go sledding and have snow fights and laugh and giggle and kiss with a warmth that is very real.

Health and Michelle’s real-life love aside, I think our takeaway is supposed to be that Ennis really did care about Alma as both a friend and someone who could give him children and a family, someone who could keep himself safe from hate crimes through a conformity to heternormativity.

To avoid giving into his urges, Ennis takes jobs where the other men are older and flabby and less appealing, where he is always in public with them, dirty, and hardly able to hear them speak. Ennis hides.

Meanwhile, Jack is more than willing to not hide. He goes back to Aguirre hoping he might run into Ennis again. Aguirre tells him to get out and lets him know that he knows Jack and Ennis were intimate.

I think Aguirre was homophobic in that he was disgusted by what Jack and Ennis were doing. But as the opening scene implies, he seemed to know about Jack fooling around for years and kept hiring him back, meaning he didn’t care so long as Jack got the job done. But Jack kept fucking up no matter how many chances he was given. He and Ennis returned with a shitload of sheep missing due to both their negligence and the weather. This for Aguirre was likely the last straw and he made a jab at Jack to drive home how tired he was of him hurting his investment.

So in other words, Jack wasn’t turned away because he was gay but because he kept screwing over his boss. Aguirre had legitimate reasons to be pissed, and yet at the same time, he was still very homophobic about his disapproval.

Ennis is shown at home, struggling to care for his sick daughters. He’s a very loving father and talks about buying the girls ice cream. It’s clear that he wanted to be a father and views Alma as a way to achieve this.

Alma asks Ennis to move them into town. Ennis doesn’t want to move because he’s afraid someone will figure out he’s queer. He would rather hide out in the middle of no where.

Eventually, Alma’s soft, whispered begging to move in town is silenced by Ennis pretending he wants sex from her. In reality, her words have stirred the fear of discovery in him, forcing him to think of Jack. He pins her down on the bed, she practically has to force him to kiss her, and then he flips her on her stomach and it’s implied that he has anal sex with her while thinking of Jack. Her face is shocked.

Meanwhile, Jack sucks at the rodeo but can’t find another job and doesn’t want to go home. He sulks at the bar before trying to hit on a man there, who rejects him and walks away.

This is another fine example of Jack being too bold. It’s a foreshadowing of the ultimate boldness that gets him killed: openly deciding to leave his wife and live with a man on his own ranch.

I’m not victim blaming. I recognize that the people who killed Jack were responsible for their crime. I’m also recognizing that Jack’s bold personality was what made it easier for homophobes to recognize him and it was the sort of thing Ennis tried to warn him against.

The barman asks Jack if he’d ever consider calf roping and Jack snaps “Do I look like I can afford a fucking roping horse?” before storming off.

Ennis takes his family to see fireworks and winds up beating up two disgusting guys who sit behind him and his family saying gross things. When he tells them to shut up, they make a comment about how he probably stopped “giving it” to his wife after the second baby. Ennis knows this is true. He’s been having anal sex with his wife since the second baby – not because she was suddenly loose and undesirable, as she probably assumed, but because he was secretly, guiltily thinking of Jack.

Ennis explodes and beats the guys up while Alma miserably tries to shush their daughters.

Jack sees Lureen at the rodeo, and because she is wild like him, he is impressed by her prowess on horseback. In a moment of awe, he hands her hat to her and she flirts, winking at him before riding away.

Jack’s reaction to Lureen’s flirting is the equivalent of rolling ones eyes. But later, he starts to take note of her. She has her own roping horse, which means she must be wealthy. He sits in the bar watching her and learns from the barman that she is indeed wealthy. It is here that Jack – tired of being poor – makes the decision to knock Lureen up.

Lureen is impressed when Jack manages to stay on a bull for a quite a while. As wild and bold as Jack, she approaches him in the bar while he is still deciding whether or not to go through with taking advantage of her.

Much like Ennis and Alma, Jack seemed to genuinely like Lureen as a friend. Because they were so matched in personality, they had fun dancing on the floor together, laughing and talking. Lureen is making eyes at him the entire time and really comes off as being sexually attracted, but Jack just looks like someone having fun with a friend.

During the last few seconds of the dance scene, Jack gets a sad look on his face, as if he would rather be dancing with Ennis. He also feels guilty for what he’s about to do to Lureen but feels it’s the only way he can survive in his world. Perhaps if his father wasn’t so homophobic, he would have been at home, working for him. Instead, he was cast out to wander simply to avoid his father’s vitriol, with zero help from his father in regards to the skills he would need to survive.

At one point, Jack mentions to Ennis that his father was a rodeo cowboy. So it seems that the rodeo is just Jack’s way of trying to earn his father’s love and acceptance. And by extension, marrying Lureen would mean not only securing his financial future but also earning his father’s love. He probably also thought he could find acceptance and warmth from his in-laws, thus gaining a new family in place of the old homophobic one.

So Jack impregnates Lureen in the back of her car.

Desperate to keep working, Ennis starts putting more and more distance between himself and his family, which allows Monroe to get closer to Alma. I think Ennis had a lot of on-call jobs in the first place because he was trying to avoid sleeping with a man again.

Jack and Lureen have a son. By this time, his future father-in-law is calling him “Rodeo,” which I think was just a codeword for “fag.” As I mentioned before, Jack seemed to be using the rodeo as a code for queerness when asking Ennis if he was into “the rodeo.”

For some reason, Lureen’s father seems to know Jack manipulated his daughter off the bat and thus despises him. He also seems to know Jack is gay. When the baby is born, Jack is purposely sent from the hospital room and excluded, a subtle way of telling him he’s not welcome. Maybe Lureen’s father hoped Jack would just eventually leave.

Jack contacts Ennis for a fishing trip, then is late coming to see him. When he finally arrives, he seems shocked by how much Ennis has apparently missed him: Ennis grabs him, kisses him, and slams him into a wall.

As they are making out, Alma comes to the door and sees them. Shocked, she turns and goes back in the house. When Ennis and Jack come up to the house, Alma is angry and visibly upset, but the two men are so swept up in their joyous reunion that they don’t even notice.

After making love in a hotel, Jack asks, “What are we gonna do now?” I think that Jack would have run away with Ennis had he asked.

Ennis answered that there was nothing they could do: they were stuck. That’s how Ennis views his life with Alma, as something he’s stuck doing with her so that he can survive.

The next scene makes it very hard not to pity Alma. We see her sitting at the table, crying and bewildered and so . . . hurt. This is what Ennis didn’t want to do have to do back when he threw up in the alley, and this is what he did.

Ennis comes back, and he’s so excited to take off with Jack that he doesn’t even notice how visibly upset Alma still is.

At one point, Alma asks why Jack can’t come in for coffee. It seems she has realized her husband is in love with someone else and she wants to be a part of it, wants to participate in that part of her husband’s life, but Ennis completely shuts her out. He doesn’t even notice she’s upset until right before he leaves, and rather than asking what’s wrong, he kisses her goodbye and hurries out the door.

Ennis goes on to enjoy the bliss of being himself and embracing himself with Jack on Brokeback Mountain. Jack notices him just sitting and staring happily at the sky, and he admits that he’s “sending a prayer of thanks.” Ennis feels blessed because he gets to be with Jack and be loved for who he truly is – rather than some fake person he pretends to be. He is thanking God for Brokeback Mountain, the one place in the world where he can live free.

Jack proposes that they live together, but as he’s talking, there is already defeat in his eyes. He knows Ennis will refuse.

Ennis then tells the story of how two gay cowboys in his town were tortured and murdered with a tire iron – the tire iron here being a symbol of homophobia throughout the story.

Jack listens sadly, and you can see the realization in his eyes as he finally understands why Ennis is so afraid. Jack also seems shocked by the story, as if he is unaware of just how dangerous and prevalent homophobia is. It’s like Jack has never heard of a hate crime against gay men before, and hearing it from Ennis has opened his eyes but not sufficiently enough to frightened him into being more discreet.

Now angry with Ennis, Alma starts doing what he was doing before: using work to distance herself from the family. She screams at him, storms out of the house, and where there used to be only calm joy there is now violent anger.

As Alma and Ennis become more volatile and angry, Jack and Lureen wind down even as they drift apart. At this point, Lureen doesn’t seem aware that her husband has a lover outside the marriage but seems disappointed and unhappy that everyone in her world is cruelly dismissive of Jack. She deals with it by throwing herself into her work, until eventually, she and her husband build a sort of polite, business-like arrangement where they share the same kisses a mother might share with a child. There is no longer any passion in their lives, just the dull and humdrum everyday that wearies Lureen, even if she sort of accepts it.

In contrast to the scene where an oblivious Lureen kisses Jack goodbye as he departs on another “fishing trip,” Alma is still dealing with the fact that she knows her husband is gay and is lying to her. Ennis is so bad at hiding the true nature of his trips, he nearly runs out the house without his tackle box before Alma stops him. Ennis being so excited to see Jack brings tears to Alma’s eyes as she realizes her husband married her just to hide.

As Ennis and Alma are having sex, Alma stops him, saying she doesn’t want to have more children if they can’t feed the ones they have. Ennis says he’ll stop having sex with her if she doesn’t want more of his children, and the look of hurt on her face is . . . painful. Because in that moment, Alma realizes that Ennis is not bisexual. He does not enjoy sex with her at all and only sees it as a way to get children. She is basically his broodmare. She decides to hurt him back by taking at a jab at his constant scramble to find and maintain work. After this, they divorce.

I think if Ennis had been bisexual and at least loved Alma and enjoyed sex with her, she might have ignored what was happening with Jack and maybe even eventually moved past it. But Ennis was gay, which meant he was incapable of loving her romantically or enjoying sex with her and had simply been using her the entire time to hide.

I’m not saying it’s bad that Ennis wasn’t bisexual. I’m saying that Alma seemed to hope that he was. As I said before, she even seemed willing to try and make friends with Jack, implying that she might have consented to her husband’s extramarital affairs in a different situation where Ennis was honest.

When Jack hears about the divorce, he drives all the way out to see Ennis, believing this means they can finally be together.

Alma Jr. and Jenny are in their father’s truck and witness a very intense hug between their father and Jack. I think they could see them in the rearview mirror, and Alma Jr., being older, has a suspicious look when she greets Jack, while Jenny is giggling like she just saw two kids kissing at school.

Ennis is paranoid that someone may have seen them and seems eager to get Jack going back home. He gently lets Jack down. Jack is very sad and Ennis, sensing he has deeply hurt him, apologizes yet again.

Realizing that he’s never going to be with Ennis – his one wish – Jack drives home, crying all the way, a direct contrast to his previously joyous drive.

Heartbroken, Jack begins a series of affairs with various men. Until this point, it was implied that he was only seeing Ennis. Once Ennis made it clear that they would never be together, he started paying Mexican prostitutes to sooth his heartache.

This was the beginning of his downward spiral, eventual outing as a gay man, and the hate crime that resulted in his murder. In trying to comfort himself in the midst of heartache, he ultimately signed his own death sentence.

Again, this is not victim blaming. I am pointing out what events led to Jack’s eventual death. His bold personality combined with his complete failure to grasp the deep-seated homophobia of society is what led to his murder.

During the Thanksgiving scene, it’s made clear that Jack and Lureen still have a friendly relationship, even if the passion is gone. When Bobby talks back to his mother instead of obeying her and eating his supper, Jack enforces discipline out of affection for Lureen by turning off the tv, then he touches Lureen affectionately as he passes her chair on his way back to the table – something she seems very pleased about.

Lureen’s father, intent on humiliating Jack, undermines him by turning the tv back on for Bobby. He then makes a homophobic remark about how Bobby needs to watch tv to become a man. “Boys should watch football.” This is not only homophobic but sexist too. First, he defines what hobbies genders should engage in, then he dictates his daughter in her own house while at the same time implying that gay men aren’t “real men.”

Lureen’s father is the epitome of toxic masculinity and it’s not surprising that she hates him as much as Jack does. He bosses his daughter around and dictates her, then wonders why she rebels by finding the worst cowboy in the rodeo to get knocked up by. It is no small wonder that Bobby disrespects his own mother: he learned it from his grandfather.

The Thanksgiving scene with the Newsomes is always what led me to believe Lureen’s father knew from the start that Jack was a gay gold-digger. Calling him “rodeo” was simply calling him a fag in a discreet, indirect way.

The homophobic comments of Lureen’s father are what make Jack finally snap. In defense of himself and Lureen “Not til he finishes the meal that his mama took three hours making!” Jack gets up and turns off the tv again. Lureen’s father goes to turn it back on, and Jack snaps on him, calling him an old SOB. Jack then threatens to knock his “ignorant ass” out, and Lureen’s father humbly sits back down. Lureen briefly smiles, and the scene ends as Jack carves the turkey. 

In contrast to Jack’s Thanksgiving, Ennis has a violent, argumentative one. Alma is now married to Monroe and his carrying his child. Ennis is invited to have Thanksgiving with them and makes a show of affection toward his daughters. Alma is touched and also glad to see that he loved his daughters, even if he never loved her.

Later in the kitchen, Alma seems determined to get the truth out of Ennis. It’s as if she thinks because Monroe is there that she is finally safe to corner him for the truth.

Ennis becomes enraged when Alma reveals that she’s known about him for years. He threatens to hit her, then runs from the house. Out on the road, he picks a fight with a guy on his way to a bar and gets beaten up.

On their next fishing trip, Jack talks happily about Lureen. It’s clear that they have a wonderful friendship, even if Jack isn’t in love with her.

Ironically enough, Jack is the one who wanted to be openly gay, yet his marriage is somewhat stable while Ennis has found himself alone.

Being confronted by Alma has made Ennis more paranoid than ever. Now he’s worried that everyone knows about him and that he’s going to be attacked. Jack senses Ennis is upset and wants to comfort him by suggesting he come live near him. He gets a blank look as he makes the suggestion, like a true salesman trying to innocently make a pitch. Ennis doesn’t bite and they argue.

Later, Ennis meets a woman in a bar named Cassie who pretty much snatches him up to dance. The poor oblivious woman tries her best to seduce him, completely unaware that he is not only uninterested but also heartbroken due to Jack.  

While Cassie is trying to snag Ennis, Jack is at a bar with Lureen and her friends, a married couple named Randall and Lashawn.

At this point, Lureen has developed a very blasé, resentful attitude toward her husband. She is laidback, blonde, and smoking a cigarette. When Randall gives Jack a flirtatious smile, Lureen notices and asks Jack with heavy snark why husbands never want to dance with their wives, implying that Jack has stopped having sex with her. Jack, in order to escape her Lureen’s resentment and Randall’s flirting, asks Lashawn to dance. Lureen playfully blows smoke in his face in defiance and smiles it off, but the second Jack is gone, she looks unhappy.

Jack told Ennis that Lureen didn’t suspect him, but it’s clear as day she probably does now.

Later outside, Jack seems friendly with Randall but is not flirting. Randall drops a hint about starting an affair. Until this point, it seems Jack has only been sleeping with Ennis and the occasional Mexican prostitute whenever Ennis hurts him. Now he’s being propositioned by Randall, but instead of immediately jumping on the opportunity, he looks as if he’s about to cry. It’s so painfully clear that he’s tired of hiding and he’s tired of not being with Ennis.

Alma Jr. seems to hate Cassie because she wants her father to herself. Instead, she has to spend the afternoon enduring the obliviousness of a woman who can’t see her father is gay. Alma Jr. seems to have known since she witnessed Ennis and Jack hugging. So when Cassie asks Alma Jr. if she thinks she’s good enough to marry her father, Alma Jr. answers, “You’re good enough,” implying that any woman would do for Ennis’ purposes since he only bothers marrying women to hide his sexuality.

When Ennis tells Jack about Cassie later, he can’t even remember anything about her except that she’s good looking and wants to be a nurse “or something.” She’s good looking to him because you don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to have an opinion about their appearance – I’m making that statement for people who think Ennis might be bisexual.

Jack is jealous that Ennis is seeing a woman, so he lies about seeing a woman too – namely, Randall’s wife Lashawn. His aim is to hurt Ennis and it works: Ennis gets a glint in his eye and makes a revealing joke about how Jack deserves to get shot.

Because it seems to Jack that Ennis doesn’t take what they have seriously, Jack seeks to make it hurt less by pretending as if he feels the same and is also running around with different women.

At this point, Jack also makes it clear that his marriage with Lureen has finally deteriorated. She knows he’s sleeping with Randall and has become so distant “they could do their marriage over the phone.” Any friendship they used to have is now gone, as well as Lureen’s last shred of hope that Jack will love her.

Lureen has been hurt and rejected and cheated on by Jack, the same way Jack has been hurt and rejected and cheated on by Ennis.

After telling lies to hurt Ennis, Jack decides to be honest and admits that he’s actually in love with Ennis by saying “The truth is . . . sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it.” It is a last desperate plea for Ennis to love him in return. He is in love with Ennis and doesn’t believe he feels the same.

The next morning, Jack is clearly depressed, as Ennis hasn’t really responded to his heartfelt declaration of love.

Ennis tells Jack that it will be a long time before they see each other again, then braces himself for Jack’s anger.

Jack then throws a tantrum very akin to his tantrum in the opening by slamming his truck door and putting his hands on his hips. He tells Ennis that he’s tired of fighting so hard and waiting so long just to see him.

Ennis rolls out a bunch of excuses about having to pay child support, knowing full well Jack is well off and would simply help him.

In the beginning of the movie, the first time they are separated, Jack offers to give Ennis money even though Jack himself is broke. He is very generous and affectionate and would have helped Ennis with anything he asked.

The truth is, Ennis wanted to distance himself from Jack out of an intense fear that they would be caught and killed, and working all the time was the perfect excuse.

Jack argues that he wants to live with Ennis. Ennis gets angry and warns him that they will both get killed if they live together. He would rather not risk it.

Jack then yells at Ennis in frustration. Ennis cries and asks Jack to just leave him alone, stop seeing him. Jack can never stand it when Ennis is hurt and tries to hold Ennis, but Ennis fights him. They fall to their knees together, and Ennis weeps in Jack’s arms.

Jack then has a flashback of when they were young teenagers. He is sleeping on his feet, and Ennis tells him he’s like a horse. He then holds Jack in his arms and sings a lullaby to him. This is a foreshadowing of Jack’s death. Jack’s wild horse-like boldness and defiance leads him to start an open relationship with Randall. Ennis hugging him from behind is also a foreshadowing of their two shirts being inside each other later.

During the flashback, Ennis stops singing the lullaby and rides off. As Jack watches him go, it’s in that moment that he realizes he’s in love with Ennis.

Present-day Jack watches Ennis drive off and realizes he’ll never have him. 

It’s the last time they see each other.

Later, Ennis is sitting in a diner very depressed after the argument with Jack. Cassie walks in with a new boyfriend but stops to ask Ennis where he’s been. She looks very hurt, as if he’s pushed her away at this point without explanation. Ennis is cold and curt with her. Cassie starts to cry, and seeing this, Ennis apologizes. Cassie leaves the diner in tears, her boyfriend running after her.

Ennis gets his postcard to Jack returned to him in the mail with a DECEASED stamp. He calls Lureen for an explanation.

By this point, Lureen is cold and angry, because in the wake of Jack’s death, she has had to make up a story to cover up the hate crime perpetrated against him (to save the family reputation for the business) and then had to repeat the story to Jack’s parents and to Randall, who likely called asking where Jack was.

Now Lureen has to repeat the lie for yet another person. She instantly recognizes Ennis’ name as the “fishin’ buddy.” She then proceeds to explain what happened to Jack in a very dull, rehearsed way.

It’s clear this is a cover story.

As Lureen is speaking, Ennis starts imagining that Jack was killed by bigots with a tire iron. The tire iron is not there because Ennis is paranoid but because it is symbolic of homophobia throughout the narrative. In the book, Ennis simply thinks, “So it was the tire iron.”

In the flashback, Jack has his mustache and is wearing a blue button-up shirt. So Ennis is imagining him the way he was the last time he saw him and they argued.

Lureen mentions that Jack wanted to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain. When Ennis mentions that they herded sheep there “back in ’63,” she begins to cry.

Lureen, who spent her life bitter that her husband didn’t love her, has just realized that she is speaking to the man he did love. Her tears are for herself and her own wasted life. She even looks angry before admitting Brokeback was Jack’s favorite place: she has just come to the realization that her husband was in love with someone else the entire time.

When Ennis says, “I sure am sorry. We was good friends,” Lureen closes her eyes and starts to cry harder, because she knows that they were more than just friends: Ennis was the love of Jack’s life. A coveted position Lureen could never obtain.

Lureen tells Ennis to get in touch with Jack’s parents and adds that they’d appreciate it if his wishes were carried out. She adds at the end “bout the ashes, I mean” implying that Jack’s real wish was to be with Ennis.

I believe this was Lureen trying in a subtle way to let Ennis know that Jack loved him. Ennis, of course, didn’t pick up on it.  

Before, Jack was given the last pieces to the puzzle that is Ennis when he learned about the hate crime Ennis witnessed as a boy. Now, Ennis has the last piece of the puzzle that is Jack when he goes to visit his parents and sees how they are.

Jack’s father sits in silence as Ennis is talking, and it seems he’s doing some thinking. He is, in fact, slowly realizing exactly who Ennis is. Jack, being as bold and loud as he was, could never keep his mouth shut about his private affairs and bragged about Ennis. His father knew that he was in love with Ennis, and armed with knowledge that Ennis was likely in love with his son as well, he took the opportunity to dig a knife in Ennis by telling him about Randall, Jack’s other boyfriend.

In that moment, Ennis is not only hurt that Jack cheated, but he also has the last piece of the puzzle: the bigots were able to find Jack because he decided to openly start living with Randall somewhere. Jack made this decision precisely because Ennis refused to live with him and even asked him to leave him alone.

In fact, all of Jack’s decisions leading up to his murder were because Ennis refused to be with him. He became more and more reckless and self-destructive, refusing to believe that there was real danger.

Ennis is paranoid but he is not wrong. People who think Ennis simply imagined Jack was killed out of foundless paranoia remind me of people who think black people are simply paranoid about the police.

Hate crimes are very real and I have no doubt that Jack was murdered. Everything in the story leading to the end – Jack’s very open flirting, his failure to grasp the level of hate surrounding his sexuality, his escalating recklessness, and the fact that he is compared so often to a wild hose – all of it was a build up to his inevitable murder.

The fact of the matter is, people who were openly gay in that time period were bashed. And it still happens today, often as a result of open gayness.

The writer of the original short story, Anne Proulx, even says that the story was not about romance but homophobia. Which is why there was never going to be a happy ending.

Seeing Ennis is hurt by the cruel revelations of Jack’s father, Jack’s mother puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and seeks to steer him away from her bigoted husband by sending him upstairs to Jack’s room.

Ennis finds two shirts hidden in the closet in Jack’s bedroom. They are the shirts both men were wearing in ’63 when they got in a physical fight on Brokeback Mountain. Jack’s shirt is outside of Ennis’ shirt, as if he his hugging him.

Ennis is allowed to take the shirts, but Jack’s father refuses to let his son’s ashes be scattered.

Alma Jr. comes by Ennis’ home with the news that she’s getting married. Ennis is worried because he doesn’t want Alma Jr. to get hurt the way he hurt Alma. He asks if Kurt loves Alma Jr. and she happily says yes.

Alma Jr. asks Ennis to be there for the wedding, and at first, he uses work to push her away because he is afraid. He’s afraid her marriage is a sham. He is afraid of facing Alma. Then he realizes he has to be brave and decides to go to the wedding, because at this point, Ennis believes his own fear caused Jack’s death. He knows that his continuous rejection of Jack is what pushed Jack to the arms of other men and ultimately outted him as gay.

 After Alma Jr. has gone, Ennis goes to the shirts which are now in his closet, and we see that he has put his shirt on the outside of Jack’s, as if he is hugging him.

Ennis touches a post card of Brokeback Mountain on the closet door and whispers, “Jack, I swear . . .”

 I think he was going to say, “Jack, I swear I always loved you,” since Jack seemed to believe he did not.

In fact, it was Jack’s belief that Ennis didn’t love him which led him to the Mexican prostitutes and later to Randall.

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1170

Monday, July 10, 2017

 Another late posting this week because, guess what? I went fishing this morning. I needed to go and commune with nature to try and counteract a lot of negative feelings I have been having due to upsetting events in the news. Things like the Omar Khadr settlement, the senseless death of Barbara Kentner in Thunder Bay, Ottawa Pride telling the Police not to wear their uniforms in the Pride Parade, the moron of the united states and his ruling party and inconsiderate entitled bullies all over the place feeling emboldened because of the puissant in chief. Well, my plan for finding peace and tranquility at the lake backfired big time right off the bat. Another vehicle and boat pulled into the boat launch just as I was finishing getting my boat ready to launch and they decided to cut in front of me and back their boat into the ramp before me. I stopped them and launched my boat but after I parked my SUV and trailer one of the guys starts yelling at me. He said I should have backed my trailer down the ramp to get my boat ready instead of getting it ready in the parking area. He said that he shouldn't have to wait his turn because it might have taken me an hour to launch. An hour. Exaggerate much? I was so upset I forgot to put the drain plug in and had to bail out the excess water as I motored along. I also forgot to grab my rain coat before heading out but luckily for me it stopped raining soon after. It took about an hour before I was able to calm down. Having the loons, turtles, fish hawk, and great blue heron around and catching a few nice fish made me feel better eventually. There's no accounting for rude and selfish people but there are ways to help deal with them. Being in nature does that for me.

 Spider-Man #18 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Oscar Bazaldua (art) Justin Ponsor with Rain Beredo (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I love the consistently good art in this book whether it's Sara Pichelli, David Marquez, or Oscar Bazaldua. My one quibble this issue was that Miles's mother looked more like his sister. I am looking forward to seeing what happens with Hammerhead and how Miles handles Bombshell.

 Nick Fury #4 - James Robinson (writer) Aco (pencils) Hugo Petrus (inks) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) Travis Lanham (letters). This mission takes Nick deep into Atlantis. It was nice seeing the old Imperius Rex exclaimer again. It's a near impossible mission since Nick only has about an hour to get the bad guy before he drowns. The excitement and tension mounts with each turn of the page. The art in this has been outstanding.

 Deathstroke #21 - Christopher Priest (writer) Diogenes Neves (pencils) Jason Paz (inks) Jeromy Cox (colours) Willie Schubert (letters). Praise the lord Slade Wilson is born again and the guy that made Quantum and Woody so much fun for me is writing these new adventures. Deathstroke is a good guy now and is leading a team of Dark Titans calling themselves Defiance. There's plenty of family drama with Slade's ex-wife, Jericho and Ravager involved. There is one member who looks like DC's version of Moon Girl that I'm not familiar with and when could Jericho fly? These mysteries and Deathstroke's personal about face is what made me put this book back in the reading rotation.

 Skybourne #4 - Frank Cho (writer & artist) Marcio Menyz (colours) Ed Dukeshire (letters). There's a surprise appearance that made me break out in song. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sight, that saved this mini series for me. Now I can't wait for the last issue to hit the racks.

 All-New Wolverine #22 - Tom Taylor (writer) Leonard Kirk (pencils) Leonard Kirk & Cory Hamscher (inks) Michael Garland & Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Laura and Gabby go to space and whenever anyone goes into space you've just got to have the Guardians of the Galaxy involved. I am enjoying Leonard Kirk's art in this.

 Superman #26 - Michael Moreci (writer) Scott Godlewski (art) Hi-Fi (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Father and son lessons in this issue. I have a feeling that if Jon really screws up then Lois will be the one to make him see the light.

 The Old Guard #5 - Greg Rucka (writer) Leandro Fernandez (art) Daniela Miwa (colours) Jodi Wynne (letters). The first story arc ends with a nice fire fight. I really like this little team of immortal mercenaries and look forward to their next assignment.

 The Unstoppable Wasp #7 - Jeremy Whitley (writer) Veronica Fish (art) Megan Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). And now for some step-mother and step-daughter bonding. Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp steps up to help Nadia, the Unstoppable Wasp cope with her friend's trauma after bad guys try to kidnap them for the Red Room. I like having Jarvis around but I hope that they don't put too many adults into this book. The appeal for me is seeing these girls do their own thing.

 Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #23 - Robert Venditti (writer) Ethan Van Sciver (art) Jason Wright (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). My favourite Green Lantern Corps artist draws this issue and it's gorgeous. I love all the fine detail he puts into every panel. Part 2 of "Fracture" puts the alliance between the Green and Yellow Corps in jeopardy. This could be another Civil War folks.

 Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #7 - Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer) Robert Hack (art & colours) Jack Morelli (letters). Part 1 of "Witch War" tells Sabrina's origin story through her father's. It's been a year since the last issue but this starts a new story and is a good jumping on point if you've never read this book before. I'm not a fan of horror comic books but this one is so horrifyingly good that I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm astounded by the how mature this is compared to the sweet innocence of the original Archie Comics Sabrina comic books. There's a reprint of an old story featuring Dracula that shows that difference perfectly. This isn't your grandmother's Archie Comics that's for damn sure.

 Spider-Man/Deadpool #19 - Joshua Corin (writer) Will Robson (art) Jordan Boyd (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I read this as a test issue for the new creative team after Joe Kelly (writer) and Ed McGuinness (pencils) finished their stint and the new guys passed. I'm happy that this bromance book is still on my "must read" list. Even with Slapstick guest starring this didn't degenerate into dumb silliness.

 Batman #26 - Tom King (writer) Mikel Janin (art) June Chung (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Holy awesome story Batman. Part 2 of "The War of Jokes and Riddles" surprised me by including a bunch of Bat Villains. Poison Ivy is on team Riddler and you will see what other villains are on his team and who is on team Joker. This war is going to be brutal. The first page alone is worth the $2.99 US cover price.

 Champions #10 - Mark Waid (writer) Humberto Ramos (pencils) Victor Olazaba (inks) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Hydra has taken over the USA? Does that suck worse than #45 being POTUS (president of the united states) IRL (in real life)? The team searches for the missing Ms. Marvel and find an internment camp for Inhumans. The search continues next issue.

 Jessica Jones #10 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Michael Gaydos (art) Matt Hollingsworth (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This case that Jess is working on for Maria Hill to find out who put out a kill order on Maria is getting quite complicated. I hope we're going to see Maria's origin story out of this.