We Make Heart Eyes at … Heart Eyes (and Justice Warriors and Immortal Red Sonja)

The world may be over, and monsters might loom over the horizon, but don’t feel so bad: You’ve got a new girl in your life. There’s nothing ominous about that in Heart Eyes #1, written by Dennis Hopeless, drawn by Victor Ibáñez, colored by Addison Duke, lettered by Simon Bowland and published by Vault.

The economy is tanking! It’s time to get your bread into … bread? Justice Warriors #2 is co-written by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, drawn by Clarkson, colored by Felipe Sobreiro, lettered by Bors and published by AHOY.

Finding the magician you’re looking for is never easy, especially when a cursed witch has it in for you and your chainmail won’t shut the hell up in Immortal Red Sonja #4, written by Dan Abnett, drawn by Luca Colandrea, colored by Ellie Wright, lettered by Jeff Eckleberry and published by Dynamite.

Will Nevin: As a column that traffics in both satire and food, I feel like we have an obligation to cover the Nyquil chicken TikTok trend, a thing that made me feel approximately 7 million years old as I was writing it. Ian, it’s goddamned Tide Pods all over again — someone somewhere did a bit, and now all of the olds (older than me) are panicking that the children are cooking chicken breast in cough meds. Although to be fair to them, I’m fairly intrigued by the concept of medicinal chicken. Just think of the soups we could have!

Ian Gregory: The only kind of medicinal chicken I’m into is chicken soup — for the soul. If you’ll permit me an equally off-topic tangent: Did you ever read those things? I know we had a few of them around when I was growing up, and I remember that while the first couple volumes were mainly vague, later iterations grew more and more specific, until you were reading Chicken Soup for Age 22-28 Working Professionals in New York City But Who Grew Up in Kansas. Also, did you know that those aren’t even Christian literature? They just have Big Christian Energy.

Will: You mean like Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff, which is a book that actually exists? Or, more randomly, Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul? The unsettling thing is that they now have branded dog food, and I feel like if you sell dog food in a can that reads “Chicken Soup,” you’re asking for trouble.

Also, I’ve now cursed myself to some shit recommendations from Amazon. All for you, Refrigerator Raiders!

Heart Eyes #1: Let’s Canoodle at the End of the World

Will: Not that anyone asked me, but I think this is the strongest debut issue we’ve had in … a long time? Post-apocalyptic nightmares are my thing, so this had an advantage with me already, but to couple the premise with the stellar, so-goddamned-detailed art? What a winner. I’m going to be sad if you didn’t dig this.

Ian: Don’t worry, Will, this one’s a hit for me, too. Right off the bat, Ibáñez is working major overtime on this series. The monsters look great; the empty cityscapes look great; the characters look great. Any tiredness in the premise (and by its nature, post-apocalyptic stories are a little tired) is compensated for by the visuals.

Will: It’s not perfect — I won’t claim that, since maybe it leans a little too heavily into magic pixie dream girl tropes. But that’s at least an interesting juxtaposition, right? No one expects Ramona Flowers at the end of the world.

Ian: I think that Lupe is interesting beyond the classic MPDG stereotype because she’s so unnerving. The survivors are right to be suspicious of her: She’s weirdly happy and inexplicably untouchable by the monsters. Finding out Lupe’s deal is, to me, a major draw for this series. I also really like the other parts of the cast and how they aren’t uniformly “angsty teen” and “angry family,” and there’s a lot of texture and history to pick apart in their interactions.

Will: Can we talk more about the art? That underwater panel with all the skulls? WHAT A WINNER.

Ian: For me, it’s the half-page splash of Lupe facing down the wall of monsters.

Will: This is a series we will continue to follow — for sure.

Justice Warriors #2: Cops Are Dumb, Just Like Us

Will: This is more of the same as last time, namely some good, pointed satire — cops took the brunt of it, naturally (However, lest you think breast cancer awareness crowd suppression measures were too fantastical, police *really* are pink washing), but cryptobros also took one right in the breadbasket with an economy that starts to literally speculate on bread.

Ian: The NFT riff is probably the strongest part of this issue, even if its topicality has fallen off in recent months. Wait, what do you mean this issue came out two months ago and we’re just now reviewing it? Time is a curious thing, friends.

Will: If you want your comics covered in a timely fashion, go somewhere else, ya bums!

Ian: The “less-than-lethal” rounds being extremely lethal is also a nice touch, given how they were employed during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. I think Justice Warriors does a great job at honing in on the intersection between cops and corporatism, and how the police are essentially deployed as the shock troopers of capitalism.

Will: I’m a big fan of the tone here. Sure, these cops are shit, but they’re (mostly) not evil, which I think would be too easy. Generally, they come off as scared, trigger-happy doofuses with a touch of PTSD, and that seems about right for a big chunk of the force. The mayor and his advisers are also stupid as hell. Really, this is a great, fictionalized example of Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity. There are bad people in the world, absolutely. But there are a lot more idiots making life harder for the rest of us.

Ian: I’ve always rolled my eyes when people refer to Trump as some kind of political mastermind, and not someone who has inadvertently mastered the art of saying what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Here, too, I get the impression that there are only a few really intelligent people intentionally gaming the system to their own ends — everyone else just thinks they’re one of those people, like the mayor, who can’t even run a decent scam.

Will: Favorite background art moment? I have to go with the “Hell is otter people” graffiti.

Ian: I said it last time, but I still laugh whenever they say “Uninhabited Zone” and zoom out to reveal the absolutely massive urban sprawl, as on the first panel of this issue.

Immortal Red Sonja #4: Can We Trust the Chainmail or Not?

Will: As profoundly Not a Swords and Sorcery Guy, I have to admit this series is really growing on me as it weaves in the Arthurian legend while continuing to explore this character who has simply fuckin’ had it with all of this bullshit. This issue is interesting in that we add a big, big piece of the lore and also show the magical talking chainmail get in a bit over its head. At least I think. Who knows with the armor? Those things are tricksters.

Ian: We’ve talked about how the chainmail always seems to lead Sonja into a new curse from which she departs with an important piece of equipment or information. That formula holds true here, and it hasn’t grown stale because we’re drawing on recognizable but ably remixed pieces of Arthuriana: Here, the Lady in the Lake, Morgana and the Lady of Shalott. Red Sonja is such a fitting character for this series because she does not want to engage with any of this High Fantasy Nonsense, which makes her a good reader insert, especially for grumpy non-fantasy readers like you, Will.

Will: Fantasy is just a gateway drug to Harry Potter and the Writer’s Barely Disguised Racism and Game of Thrones, and I will be having none of that shit. But back to our topic, this issue certainly has more of a horror vibe than the previous entries — hard not to include multiple skeletons and not get a little spookier. I like the different vibe. What did you think of the Lady of Scarlot? She seemed to me to be a dark reflection of what Sonja could become: someone trapped by curses and the past, suffering in unending misery.

Ian: Sonja has overcome a number of curses in this series, usually by listening to the stories they tell and finding their loopholes. A curse is, I think, a kind of narrative: An obstacle is set before you, and you must overcome that obstacle in a narratively satisfying way (literally, in some cases, as the curse will not relent without some sort of narrative finality). Sonja, from outside this realm, sees the curses with plain eyes and does not allow herself to become trapped in that story. The Lady of Scarlot, however, seems to have given herself over to the curse and accepted it as part of herself. Sonja seems to be all about rejecting what others want from her.

Will: Finally, I think the art is more consistent at this point than at anywhere else in the series. This thing is really coming along.

Ian: It’s Luca Colandrea this week. I do wonder what’s been going on with the art, and while we’ve had our favorites, I would much rather the entire series stick to a single artist (as it does this issue) than alternate like it has.

Will: Having multiple artists on a book can work — but only if readers can’t find the seams. They haven’t been able to pull that off to date, so I agree with you. Here’s to consistency!

Does This Smell OK?

Sound Effects Watch: In Justice Warriors, when they apprehend the grocer and the bread thief, the cops’ “FREEZE” is painted onto the wall behind them, encircling the suspects.
Rapid fire questions:
- What’s occupying your time at the end of the world?
  - Will: Carefully rationing out the last remaining battery power on my iPad as I try to read whatever comics I was able to download to the Kindle app.
  - Ian: I’m finally gonna get really good at crosswords.
- What’s your scheme to drive the economy into a bubble-based tizzy?
  - Will: Convince a handful of influencers to create a market for used underwear. It’s gross, but I think people will go for it.
    - Ian: I hate to tell you this, Will, but I’m pretty sure that market already exists.
      - Will: We’re not covering Hit Me this week, Ian.
  - Ian: You’ve all heard of trading card bubbles, but have you heard of the playing card bubble? My mint Bicycles are gonna go for a pretty penny in the near future.
- Of the *22* variant covers for Immortal Red Sonja #4, which one is your favorite?
  - Will: Either of the cosplay covers ‘cuz they’re not so transparently focused on Sonja’s … assets.
  - Ian: I like the primary cover because it reminds me that this series basically is a long-winded justification for why Sonja is wearing a chainmail crop-top.
- In other “dog foods asking for trouble,” I think it should be illegal to have a “slow-cooked BBQ Kansas City style with chopped pork” thing that is not for human consumption.
- An app that lets you buy food from a restaurant that was going to be thrown away? Seems a little suspect.
- No, you don’t need to turn your leftovers into a “savory cake.”