What I Bought 8/3/2013 - Part 4

Worst part about sporadic Internet access is trying to catch up when I do have access. You people post too damn often.

Angel & Faith #24, by Christos Gage (writer), Rebekah Isaacs (artist), Dan Jackson (colorist), Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt (letterers) - So the magic orb didn't burst at the end of last issue. Its magic is so potent, it alters people merely by being in proximity to it, unless they're protected by runes, like our heroes. So there's a scrum for, which presents characters with the opportunity to confront quandaries in their lives. Giles and Alasdir muse on their current status as very young and very old, dithering about long enough for Nash to take back the orb. Sophie and Lavinia opt out of the fight, and decide to help the affected regain control. It's a little self-serving (since they don't risk harm), but it's also an excellent recognition of where their expertise lies, and shows a willingness to do so. Pearl & Nash are ecstatic that the moment their mother dreamed of is at hand, until Nadira claws herself up to continue her quest for vengeance and stabs Nash. It doesn't kill him, but it presents Faith with an opening, so that's one baddie down.

Meanwhile, Angel's trying to convince Whistler his plan is wrong, by pointing out all the innocents who will suffer for it. It doesn't quite work, because Whistler has already calculated the losses, and justified them to himself. This doesn't present a lovely scene where Angel tries to play the sanctimonious badass (and Isaacs gives him the cool guy slouch, complete with hands stuffed into coat pockets), only to have Whistler throttle him and throw him through a wall, pointing out he was in Hiroshima, so he knows suffering in the name of greater good. Angel's look of surprise when Whistler grabs him was classic. Not the silver-tongued devil he thought he was.

One thing the Buffy TV shows always disappointed me about was their portrayal of werewolves. Oz looked like some giant diseased rat, rather than a sleek killing monster. Fortunately, Isaacs draws a very nice lycan, pretty much how I always picture them. And that poor fellow who was merging with his guitar? That was creepy. The strings were growing through out through his face like giant hairs. Yeesh.

Captain Marvel #14, by Kelly Sue Deconnick (writer), Scott Hepburn (artist), Gerardo Sandoval (artist, pgs. 2, 12, 13, 18), Andy Troy (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Quinones does a good job mimicking other artist on that cover. His Carol has a bit more prominent cheeks than Cockrum's (I think) did in the original image the upper right was referencing, but it's a good likeness. I do wish they'd use some image's from later in her career. Maybe Binary, or her time as Warbird, something from her Avengers stint.

Yon-Rogg's using Carol (or the lesion in her brain) to power his matter creation abilities. His goal is to make a new Kree-Lar and set it on top of NYC. He still has sufficient power to create plenty of Kree war machines to keep the Avengers busy. And Carol's not doing too hot. I'm not sure if that's because Rogg is stealing her energy, or if she's just too messed up from the lesion. Her weakened state means she must listen to his villainous diatribe. You know, he is great, she is terrible, this is payback for how she wronged him in the past, blah, blah. Maybe it was hearing all that blather, but Carol gets her dander up, and takes to the sky. Which causes a brain hemorrhage, which means no more lesion, so no more power for Rogg. The day is saved, but it leaves Carol floating unconscious in the upper atmosphere. The Avengers might want to do something about that.

I've been thinking of Hepburn's art as kind of a mix of Andrade's and Matteo Scalera. He doesn't have Andrade's skill at panel composition, at least with fight scenes, but is a lot better at consistent faces, and he doesn't have the same exaggerated anatomy Scalera was prone to. Unfortunately, he does make Hawkeye's lousy current costume look worse by drawing the sunglasses as goggles. I understand the shades would be impractical, but the elastic band under and over the ear looks dorky. Probably something to avoid if you're going to waste our time with realistic costumes.

As for the story itself, it's a mixed bag. I didn't care much about Rogg as a threat, and the whole story felt like it could have been handled in an issue, rather than five. I didn't buy any of the Avengers Assemble parts, but I don't feel I missed much. So that's bad. The good is I'm curious to see what DeConnick does with a Carol minus her memories. Will she have some innate sense of who she is as a person anyway? Will her behavior alter as she learns things about herself? What if those things clash with who she thinks she is as a person? Will she reject that story, and possibly the person who presents it?  Say she decides Frank Gianelli is really annoying, and someone says they're actually good friends? Would she accept that and hang out with him, expecting those feelings to reemerge? Or would she decide it was a load of bull, and cut off contact with him? I hope I don't have to wait two months for the end of the Infinity tie-in to see how it plays out.

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What I Bought 8/3/2013 - Part 3

Beyond the fact the library here is only open twice a week when I could actually get here, the primary problem to me posting more often is the chance the librarian brings her hyper, noisy kid to work. Every two minutes, he starts bawling "mama", and I just want to shoot him out of a cannon. Children are awful.

Hawkeye Annual #1, by Matt Fraction (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - That is kind of an odd dress Kate's sporting. I can't really figure a checkerboard pattern on a form-fitting dress. Eh, it's Kate's world.

Which is why she headed to L.A., to get away from Clint's moping and her father's mid-life crisis. This means she's on her own when Madame Masque decides to take revenge for that little incident in Madripoor. She swipes Kate's stuff, and her car, and get her credit card cut up. Which leaves Kate broke and possession less, thousands of miles from her friends. Then masque presents herself as a concerned stranger (having removed the mask), but Kate sees through it due to a comment about cigarettes, and ultimately eludes Masque's trap. Of course, she's still stuck in Cali, broke and alone (except for Lucky), cat-sitting for two old ladies.

I thought Masque was more reluctant to let someone see her face than that. But all I have to go off is that Avengers/Thunderbolts crossover where she helped them stop Count Nefaria, which presented her as massively paranoid, to the point she made copies of her memories every night. Which did neatly thwart Stark's attempt to wipe his secret identity from everyone's mind. I'm pretty much always in favor of thwarting Stark's totalitarian tendencies. Anyway, it's a nice story, and the little internal monologues - with simplified Kate image - are amusing.

Pulido's art is the sticking point here. Probably two-thirds to three-quarters of the people drawn in this book are strictly black outlines. Pulido actually draws people - with clothes and facial features - in about 2 panels per page. The comic averages 6 panels per page. I can't discern a pattern. Sometimes the ones he draws are consecutive panels, sometimes it's the first and last, or third and fifth. Sometimes he draws Kate, but no one else. Sometimes everyone is an outline. Sometimes he draws Kate along with her little thought boxes, sometimes not. It's like he figured as long as he shows you the details once, that's good enough. You really don't need to see them again. It feels like it was done deliberately, but I can't figure the meaning. It doesn't solely happen to Kate when she's confused or doubting herself (where it might indicate her feeling lost). And it doesn't only happen to other people when she's caught up in her own thoughts (where it could indicate self-absorption). Which makes it feel like Pulido was trying to save time, which is too bad, because I normally dig his stuff. There's one panel of Masque at the head of a group of henchmen dragging Kate to her pain room. The body language he gives her beautifully conveys the frustration and impatience she's feeling. She's in the middle of throwing her arms in the air in disgust with their incompetence and it's perfect. Too bad there isn't more of that.

X-Men #3, by Brian Wood (writer), Oliver Coipel (penciler, inker), Mark Morales (inker), Laura Martin (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Psylocke never seemed like a spear aficionado to me, but she certainly carries it well. I think. Going to take a while to swing it from that position, I suppose, but they'll be too busy dodging the old psychic knife.

Arkea has traveled back to Budapest, where she first landed. There's a hospital full of people with cybernetic implants there she can control, plus she may have left some pieces of herself behind in the landing. The X-Men pursue, the X-Men fight the controlled patients, and Psylocke has a chance to take Arkea out, but hesitates, since that's an ally's body she's using. One wonders whether she'd hesitate if it was someone she didn't know. There's some disagreement about what to do, then Karima reasserts control and throws herself on the psychic knife, apparently killing Arkea and possibly lobotomizing herself in the process. Back at the Mansion, Kitty and some of the students have to deal with the remnants of Arkea wreaking havoc with the environmental systems and using the Danger Room to create lesser forms of Karima to attack. Kitty ultimately shorts out all the servers. And thus, the day is saved.

I can't tell you who inked what pages, but I think you can definitely tell the difference between Coipel and Morales' inks. One of them seems to give the work a much smoother line, which also makes everyone look a lot younger. Rogue looks to be roughly Kitty's age on the last page, which isn't the case when she's loading Karima's body in the car on the page before that. Coipel's good at expressions, as usual, but the fight scenes feel perfunctory, though maybe that was at Wood's direction. "Here's a panel of someone making an action pose. Maybe there's an explosion or bodies flying as well." There's no flow between panels, and little sense of real movement or impact within panels. But I've seen that before from Coipel's art, and like I said, the fight felt tacked on, so I'm not sure it was supposed to be impressive. I really doubt this was the end of their problems with Arkea, precisely because things ended so easily.

Of course, I'm jumping at shadows right now with this book. Everything seems suspicious. Karima reasserting control just long enough to stop Arkea. The device Pixie teleported into the upper atmosphere that didn't appear to be a bomb is suspicious (a transmitter? a storage device?). The whole battle at the Mansion seemed easy. If Arkea had studied all their files, wouldn't it know that fiddling with the environmental controls wouldn't do squat to Bling? Is it significant that Bling says she punched the excess Karima's into pixels, but Hellion comments their ordinance didn't feel like pixels? Is she supposed to be lying? Should I be concerned she's currying favor with Kitty, or is that strictly what she framed it as, a way to get someone on the faculty to have her back when it comes time for punishment over that fight in the first issue? Maybe the Hellion comment was meant to be funny. I don't know, I can't seem to tag the tone of this book yet. And with a big Event Tie-In looming for the fall, it may not get any easier.

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What I Bought 8/3/2013 - Part 2

Let's talk comics set in the Forties, and another one starring a guy from the Forties.

Captain America #9, by Rick Remender (writer), John Romita Jr. (breakdowns), Klaus Janson w/Scott Hanna and Tom Palmer (finishes), Dean White (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Sharon Carter, having caught up to Cap, insists he hasn't been gone for ten years. Also, she wired Zola's floating city to explode. Cap pulls it together, determined that even if he couldn't save Ian, he'll save Jet, who is fighting her father on behalf of the Phrox. "Saving" her translates to hitting Zola a lot, who says he doesn't care what happened to Ian. He does however, still care for Jet, and as his city moves back into Earth's dimension, he asks her to kill him. She says she can't, because she loves him, so he pushes her out of the way before the mutates drop a rock on her. So it lands on him instead.

So much for Omni-Senses. It's funny, usually it's other writers who come along and nerf the really powerful new character, but Remender beat them to the punch. It's nice for Zola to save Jet, to show he does care for her, in his own way. It bothers me that all Cap did was hit Zola, though. He didn't shield or protect anyone, he just hit someone. Which doesn't really refute the statements Ian made about Cap's alleged hypocrisy last issue.

It's a 3-man team on the finishes, and some parts look distinctly less finished than others. Jet's nose changed shape - actually almost vanished - between panels 2 and 3 on page 18. The shape of her face shifted considerably between panels 4 and 5 of page 17. When the panel consists of a close-up on one character, or it's a full-page splash, it can look pretty good. But most of the panels lack detail, shading, and sense of depth. On a positive note, Steve's shield didn't change size. In earlier issues, it had gone from it's usually manhole size, down to a standard dinner plate. Sometimes it covered everything from his hand to beyond the elbow, and others it didn't cover his forearm. More consistency is appreciated.

Rocketeer & Spirit: Pulp Friction #1, by Mark Waid (writer), Paul Smith (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Tom B. Long (letterer) - Oh Betty, that masked man's no good for you. Then again, the same could be said of Cliff.

An alderman in Central City protests allowing businesses to control TV. He turns up in L.A. dead the next morning, discovered by Betty. This is apparently a geographic impossibility, which is how the Spirit, Commissioner Dolan, and his daughter Ellen wind up on a flight to L.A. At the airfield, Peevy overhears their plans, and is understandably worried that a masked guy wants to ask Betty about a murder. Cliff zooms in, and gets in a mid-air tussle with the Spirit, while Peevy realizes the Commish is an old war buddy. Fighting ceases, Ellen flirts a little with Cliff, they all go to visit Betty, who deliberately falls into the Spirit's arm, much to Ellen and Cliff's consternation.

I wasn't happy with how Waid portrayed Betty in Cargo of Doom, so I'm gonna be watching this whole thing with the Spirit. I wondered what Waid would do about Ebony White, and his response was to leave him behind in Central City. I think he gave the reader enough info about the Spirit to understand what's happening. Unless I was supposed to recognize Trask. I think Smith draws hands too small. Especially in the panel where the Spirit leaps onto the Rocketeer, Cliff's right hand looks tiny. Maybe it's just the angle.

Smith does some excellent faces, though. The last panel, where everyone else reacts to Betty's tumble, is a good example. Cliff and Dolan are stunned, Ellen's furious, Peevy's amused. The page in general is laid out well. It follows that "Z" pattern the typical comic reader follows on the page, but he does smartly. Betty's faint in the first panel pitches her forward into the center of the page, where she lands in Denny Colt's arms. From there, her legs guide the eye down to the close-up on the two of them, and the direction of the Spirit's gaze takes us to betty's face, and then on to that last panel. Also - and part of this is Bellaire's colors - I love how well they depict snow. Just a little bit of black and it's the perfect suggestion of a footprint.

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What I Bought 8/3/2013 - Part 1

Did some checking and Internet access is going to be limited, and thus posting will be, hopefully spotty as opposed to nonexistent. Which is why I'm typing this one up ahead of time while I have the chance.

Dial H #14, by China Mieville (writer) Alberto Ponticelli (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Tanya and Richard Horie (colorists), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - Bolland needs to stop drawing things that look so creepy, or I'm going to start getting nightmares.

As it turns out, Roxie and Bansa can't fix the jump-dial they found on the graffiti world, so the team is stuck trying to find the same weak spots in dimensions to travel through they were using before. This is taking its toll. The team is losing members, as Ejad the robot is killed, and Yabba, Unbled, and Nem get separated from the rest. It's worse than that even, because all the worlds they visit now recognize dials and aren't happy to see them. They remember the war for the Exchange, and so does someone else: O. He's gotten his hands on one heck of a dial, one that can call down apocalypses, and he's turning it against all the dimensions he despises. Fortunately, the last world the Dial Bunch reaches has someone who knows how to fix the J-Dial, and is willing to give it back to them, after they help fend off a zombie infestation. Which brings the 4 heroes to the Exchange, where they find destruction. . . and the Centipede.

My perception of the history here keeps changing. I thought the war in the Exchange was between rival factions of those who lived there, but it seems more likely it was between the residents of the Exchange, and the people of all the dimensions that were having their powers dialed away and were sick of it. I had thought O was running from the Exchange for giving dials to "lesser" beings, Prometheus trying to evade the gods' wrath. But he seems to be angry not at the Exchange, but everyone else. I'm guessing it was his handing out dials that clued those people in to the existence of the Exchange, explained the death of some of their heroes, and that's what triggered the war. I'm not sure. You can feel Mieville having to speed things up to beat the cancellation clock. I doubt the Dial Bunch was supposed to lose half its members in one issue, especially since we'd still only gotten to know a couple of them. It's still an entertaining story, but I'm frustrated thinking how much better it would be if Mieville and Ponticelli had the time to build it up properly

Ponticelli draws the frog people as simply frogs wearing clothes, rather than the hybrid human-frogs Bolland went with. Fine with me, Ponticelli's version is much less freaky looking. The heroes are still suitably strange looking. A moving pipe cleaner? I don't understand SuperOmi, Queen of Soho, though.

I don't know how the finale is going to play out, though I'm hoping my schedule will give me the chance to find out this week.

Hawkeye #12, by Matt Fraction (writer), Francesco Francavilla (artist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - You figure it's significant that Hawkeye isn't positioned over the dead center of the bullseye in the background?

I was only vaguely aware Clint even had a brother, had no idea he tried to play at being Hawkeye, or that Clint stole his money. At any rate, Barney Barton's in town to look up his brother. He makes an appointment to meet with Clint, and when that falls through, tries to bum some change from the bros watching the apartment building. They agree to pay him 5 bucks if they can punch him in the face, then welch on the bet. This makes Barney the guy Lucky tried rescuing from a beating the previous issue because he thought it was Clint. The bros return in force later with a roll of bills in exchange for five minutes of Barney playing punching bag. They try to welch again, Barney beats them up and claims his money. He confirms Clint was too vague in when they were supposed to meet, but they do meet up at the end of the issue. Barney even uses a line from Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Oh, and there are some flashbacks to his and Clint's family life growing up.

I really like the color work Francavilla does. There's always a sort of pattern to the page. Take page 4, 9 panel grid. The top row and the center column are all reds, oranges and blacks. Forms a nice "T" of stupid bros and violence, and the red is more intense in the panels with actual punching. It gets deeper the farther down the page you go. The other panels are mostly yellow backgrounds and a grey violet color for Barney, except for the last panel, where Lucky comes in and the background flips to a light blue.

There's the fight between Clint and on pages 7 and 8, where Clint and Barney are in yellows while they're goofing around, and in the final panel of page 7, everything is yellow, except their booze guzzling, about to explode father, who's in red (and whose face is completely in shadow, in contrast to everyone else). On the next page, pops starts in yellow, then shifts to red as his anger begins to spill out, and Clint shifts to red to match. His mother is still in yellow, except for the red on the napkin she's dabbing at her bloody nose with.

That's followed up with Barney teaching Clint how to punch later than night. That whole sequence is in deep blues and blacks, and as the story shifts back to the present (where Barney sleeps in an alley as the bros doth approach), the blue persists around him, even as the yellow of the present (a more pure yellow, less orange than in the flashbacks) intrudes on the scene. The blue stays on Barney even after the bros start hitting him and the background shifts to pure red. Like he's stuck in the past, remembering Clint taking on their dad or something.

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Burn Notice 5.17 - Acceptable Loss

Plot: We open with Michael and Maddy at Frank Westen's grave. Michael is not inclined to believe Anson's story about his father getting suspicious of Anson, but Madeline, oddly enough, is. Even stranger, she's wisely getting the hell out of the way until things are settled, opting to visit Nate in Daytona Beach.  Speaking of Anson, Barry managed to trace that money to a law firm in D.C. Mike and Fiona make their way in, but all they can make sense of is a picture of Vaughn in a file. Which means Mike has to get Pearce to approve a transfer of Vaughn out of Guantanamo. This after he told her he was sure there were no traces of the organization left. I'm surprised Pearce doesn't press harder on that.

While Pearce navigates that paperwork hell, Jesse has his own problems. His friend Ian has been helping an Indian diplomat smuggle uncut diamonds, and he's tired of it. He wants to bring this guy down before he retires. Having heard about Jesse's post-CIFA career, he thinks he and Mike are perfect for the job. Rather than let Ian barge ahead solo, Jesse agrees. The first plan - to present Jesse as a buyer - almost works. Sam and Fi abscond with the original buyer's duffle bag of cash, they manage to pass him off as someone who has his own jewelry shop for cutting the diamonds, they get him in the safe room with Yash. But the walls are reinforced, so no blasting your way in for a quick abduction. Fortunately, Ian has a new plan, but it involves getting Yash busted for murder. Specifically, Ian's murder. Well, he's dying of pancreatic cancer in six months, so why not.

In between helping plan all these shenanigans, Michael's been bargaining with Vaughn, who has added a mustache and I'd say about 15 pounds since we last saw him. Not what I'd expect for being in Guantanamo, but I guess Vaughn's a moderately resourceful guy. First he wants Scotch in exchange for his help. Then he wants immunity. Yeah, Michael's not that desperate, so he flips the script. He says he'll get Vaughn transferred to this prison - along with some of the people he ratted out for a reduced sentence. Oh, and Simon. That got Vaughn's attention, and he spills the beans. Anson is using the money to rebuild the organization, rather than to finance a retirement. Great Mike, you've given the bushy-eyebrowed bastard a chance to start the whole thing anew!

The Players: Anson (Evil Mastermind), Vaughn (The Man Who Burned Michael), Ian (The Client), Yash (Dirty Diplomat)

Quote of the Episode: Ian - 'I'm tired of living in a grey world.'

Does Fiona blow anything up? Jesse's car. Bad season for Jesse's car, between this and the damage it took in 5.5.

Sam Axe Drink Count: 0 (23 overall).

Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (7 overall).

Michael's Fake Laugh Count: 0 (11 overall).

Other: Michael doesn't use an alias this week, but we did find out Vaughn's last name is Anderson, which is a little mundane. I don't know what I was expecting, but something more than that.

When Fi was trying to trap Yash's original buyer, and she caused that oncoming truck to swerve, I don't understand why the guy turned right, since it took him into the same street as the truck (it was swerving to its left). Why not swerve to your left, go around behind it?

When we were introduced to Pearce, she claimed she took her investigative style from her pit bull. Setting aside my concerns that - based on Charlie, who's half-pit - those dogs are dumb as hell, she's sure not showing much of that tenacity. One of the first questions Mike had to answer in that interview to be reinstated was whether he thought there was any trace left of the group that burned him. He said no. Now he's popping up and saying, "Never mind, they're still around, and I've thought so for awhile." And Pearce lets that drop because Mike plays the "I didn't want you to get hurt" card? Bullcrap. Pearce is a trained agent, she's been under fire, and even if he wound up cleared of Max' murder, it wasn't that long ago she thought Michael was responsible for that, and he was responsible for purposely keeping her in the dark about the progress he was making finding the real killer. He's helped her quite a bit, but I don't know if he should have earned that level of trust.

I do enjoy Michael's counteroffer to Vaughn. It might not be very nice, essentially promising that Simon will kill Vaughn horribly, but Vaughn brought it on himself, just like Management had at the end of Season 3, or Carla if Victor had managed to get her in Season 2. You ruin people's lives to make them your killing machines, don't be surprised if the machine decides to kill you.

I also liked the whole story with Ian. It wasn't subtle by any means, but his frustration with living in a world of shades, where horrible acts are excused in the name of diplomacy, contrasts nicely with Michael. Mike lives in that world. As (ugh) Anson pointed out, Mike probably ruins the lives of lots of innocent people by making them look bad at their jobs. He does it to save lives, but that's of precious little consolation to those people. I'm surprised we haven't seen an episode where someone who Michael ruined while serving a client comes back, demanding Michael help them. I mean someone generally decent, not a Brennan or Larry. Michael hasn't been at it as long as Ian, and he's likely seen more positive results of his work, so he isn't as sick of it, but give it time. It's another perspective on what he got from Paul in 4.7, that if you survive long enough, all you have are ghosts and memories, if you're lucky.

Which would play into the old arguments Fiona made about Michael needing to get out of this line of work. Which she hasn't been making lately. She has, however, been demanding Michael not compromise himself by working with Anson just to protect her. She's encouraging to step out of the grey, where he does awful things that hurt others to save her.

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Quick Notes For The Weekend

FX has been showing Spider-Man 3 lately. It isn't a good movie, but there are still several parts of it I like. I'll never stop laughing at Evil Parker strutting down the street, trying to give smouldering looks to every woman he sees, then busting into impromptu dance moves. That evil Peter Parker isn't a world-conquerer, doesn't start robbing banks or snapping the necks of purse snatchers. He's just thinks he's way cooler than he is, to the point that he swings between being an ass and a doofus, depending on what he's doing at that moment. I figure that's a mark of how good he is, that being a kind of sleazy jerk is what passes for evil with him. Getting to see Harry be happy for a while was nice, even if it was doomed to end.

That being said, I hadn't remembered Harry having so much cranial trauma. The initial crash into the AC units, the hoverboard to the head, flying headfirst into a girder. Roger Goodell thinks Harry ought to look into better protective headgear. Goodell also thinks Harry could still spend more time fighting, and wouldn't agree that there's any link necessarily between the head trauma and Harry's behavioral shifts in the film, but that's Goodell for ya.

I have no idea what posting is going to be like for the next two weeks. I'm heading back to where I spent last summer, so Internet access could be sporadic. Or perhaps things will be better. I do have the next 3 weeks of Burn Notice posts ready to go, so you won't miss out on me complaining about Anson (I actually enjoyed the Season 6 opener a lot). Beyond that, it's up in the air.

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Not Quite Ambulance Chasing, But. . .

I was driving today and got caught behind a funeral procession. One minute earlier and I'd have been fine. As it was, I crested the hill as the cops blocked both lanes, and I had to wait for the entire procession to pull out and make its painfully slow way down the road.

So I'm following the procession, noticing how they get to ignore red lights, and it occurs to me, what if I put on my emergency flashers like them? Just pretend to be part of the procession?

Before you get horrified and/or offended, I didn't do it. I wasn't even thinking about it in terms of my getting to ignore traffic lights. I was thinking of what would happen if the cops figured it out. They recognize my car as one of the ones waiting for the procession, or they spot me turning my flashers off when our paths diverge.

Do they pull me over and give me a ticket? Settle for giving me the stink eye? Throw me in jail for a night? What's the charge? Impersonating the bereaved?

It didn't come to anything. I had places to go, and wasn't inclined to tempt fate by messing with the police. But my brain needed something to keep busy after 5+ hours in the car, and muttering, "Now I know how Buford T. Justice felt," wasn't cutting it.

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