Random Happenstance

I know Jessica's a Private Investigator, not a doctor, but there's a clue right there.

I got New Avengers #31 out of the quarter box the other day, the issue with the big Skrull reveal and so on. But I think the above panel was more of a clue: in a really badly laid out two pages (the fold is in the way, and it reads in the shape of a two, for some reason) Jessica Jones and Wong get a message from Dr. Strange via the Orb of Agamotto:

"Is he hurt?" Strange has got a gruddamn katana sticking out of his frickin' chest! I've never read Alias, but was Jessica a detective of the "beat it out of a stoolie" school, rather than the "Piece together the clues" variety?

Now, Jessica could be a Skrull with no working knowledge of human anatomy ("Refresh my memory: is disemboweling fatal to your species?") but the rest of the page establishes her as more concerned about her husband than anything. Of course, her husband is the more-or-less invulnerable Luke Cage, which paints Jessica as uncaring, selfish, or at least a bit short-sighted. Gah. I used to really like Bendis: Jinx, the first couple years of Powers, but lately...And Leinil Yu is someone I always hear great things about, but hasn't impressed me yet. Phooey.

Off-topic: Usually, I have my Monday night post done well before now, but we were over at my in-laws last night. I ducked out to watch the Simpsons and the Cowboys game (I'm probably the only Cowboys fan in this neck of the woods...) while they watched Big Brother, but the Wife was hanging out to try and see Britney Spears on the MTV Video Music Awards. Yeah, it was terrible, but so what? And then the Wife was following a lot of the commentary and bloggery, most of which harshed on her to no end. Plus, there's a surprising amount of calling Britney fat or paunchy or whatever. She may not look like she did as a teenager, but who does, and I'm pretty sure she's in better shape than 99% of the naysayers.

But, to bring that (tangentially) back to comics, don't think I'm an apologist for Britney: she's either hitting the sauce/pills/black tar pretty hard, or completely doesn't care about her career anymore. Which may be a fair reaction, after years of being pushed into it by showbiz stage parents and record labels and MTV. Warren Ellis had a comment not long ago, to the effect that it used to be a pop siren like Britney had a pretty short shelf life: use just once, then destroy. A hit single or two, a year of tours and magazine covers and making yourself absolutely ubiquitous at all costs; then you were old hat, passe, make way for the new, which is really the old with maybe a new hat. Be a pop star for a summer, then go back to school or get your real estate license or just disappear. None of this, trying to be Madonna and to play out the line of a career for years and years.

I used to be a music purist, and have a pretty harsh contempt for the Britney Spears of the world, the pre-packaged pop bands, the sellouts, the hacks, the followers, the avant-garde. I don't care anymore, which is kind of nice, to be honest. My sense of outrage, that people listen to, buy, or get worked up about this nonsense; is like a vestigial organ, useless, perhaps wiggling occasionally. I'm too busy trying to raise some wiener kids, put together action figure dioramas, and remember if I have any comics with Ultra the Multi Alien. Yeah, I'm OK with that, too.