The Webcomics Weekly #108: Catching Up and Waiting (10/13/2020 Edition)

Welcome back to The Webcomics Weekly!

This week, we finally catch up to “Agents of the Realm”! Elias takes a look at the duel meaning “Im|Mortal.” As well as continues journeys through “Trekker” and “Tower of God”

Wow I did not realize I would be catching up to “Agents of the Realm” this week, blame the time soup of this year. What started at the beginning of this column comes to the present.

Christmas vacation continues as Norah and Adele have a late night talk asking those big existential questions about right and wrong that annoyingly keep you up at night. It’s a tense conversation between the two roommates, Norah has never been the best at expressing herself and Adele has a fairly simplistic attitude towards most things. When asked if she thinks the Agents are doing the right thing, Adele flatly replies that they are because Ruby is “evil,” but what does that really mean? It’s a clarity of purpose that Norah does not share as she tries to work through her complicated and ambiguous feelings on the maybe not so good or bad Dr. Blackwater.

The contrasts between Norah and Adele are reinforced on several visual levels. From the start on page 407, the beginning of “Agents” ninth chapter, Norah is boiling with thoughts and emotions. The macro page design of 407 ‘wakey-wakey’ is at once sound a 4-5 panel grid with three large vertical panels in the middle. It creates a symmetrical and balanced page, which is the opposite of Norah’s feelings. To which Mildred Louis takes the vertical panels and cuts them at an angle, transforming them into imperfect rectangles. Their long angular sides butting up against one another to create a pattern but with an anxious energy. That energy is reinforced by the content of the panels that highlight events from chapter 7. As the sequence begins, Norah and Adele mirror one another through differing sleeping positions and bedtime activities (reading vs a screen.) For a good while I’ve gushed about Louis excellent lettering, and her acting, but really none of those would matter that much if their staging wasn’t plainly good as well.

These visual and philosophical differences eventually bleed over into Norah saying something honestly hurtful. A statement about Adele’s character that’s been setup from the start. It hurts because it is on some level an honest assessment by Norah, but also one that lacks nuance for who Adele has shown herself to be in other situations. It is an effective moment of character conflict between the two that sets up an excruciating wait for each page to slowly update and see how and when they work it out.

Tower of God
Tower of God: Season 1 Eps. 23-26; Episode 5 – “The Crown’s Fate”
Updates: Mondays (Currently on Hiatus in English)
By SIU
Reviewed by Elias Rosner

What do you desire? Money and wealth? Honor and pride? Authority and power? Revenge? Or something that transcends them all? Whatever you desire—it can be yours if you climb the tower.

A bag that can copy chocolate is pretty amazing.

Back in my analysis of episode 4, “The Green April,” I talked about the fight in chapters 21 & 22 being potentially modified or removed entirely due to the time constraints of the episode. I was correct in that the bulk of the fight was moved until after Bam was on the throne; I was not correct in how the fight would play out. After a recap of Khun’s bag’s magic properties, the fight proper occurs and. . .then it’s over. One shot from Rak’s spear and they’re all taken out.

It’s hard to say which was better because for Tower of God, the one shot kill is impressive, saves time, and accomplishes a number of narrative goals. It re-establishes Rak as a force to be reckoned with and cements his impulsivity when it comes to fighting, makes a clearer delineation between their roles on the team (Bam is the milquetoast pawn, Khun the scheming mastermind, and Rak the brute-force muscle) and make it clear that Bam’s bet with Anaak may be winnable after all.

In “Tower of God,” having the lengthier fight prior to the crown reveal shows off the team dynamic in an active way, allows Rak to go more wild, and gives the supporting cast more time to leave an impression. It isn’t as visually impressive, and honestly we don’t need three separate fights that amount to the same thing in one episode, but for a comic that’s ostensibly about the fights in this arc, the flow works. Another reason I prefer the anime’s version of the fight is that it gets what’s unique and central to the third round’s battle: namely, Khun’s use of his bag. The purpose is to reveal that it’s not just holding items but duplicating them as well. Whatever goes in, can come out in whatever amount he wants (presumably.) “The Crown’s Fate’s” first two battles are all about the bag, in fact.

Make it rain

Round 3 is about what it can be used for in battle, emphasizing Khun’s resourcefulness and brains in the anime rather than fighting prowess (crowns falling out vs knives,) while round 4 is about how the bag can be used for the long-con too. In between, the anime takes the chance to have down time to discuss his use of the bag, connecting the dots and removing the focus from the game itself and its purpose to the characters who are performing in it.

I say this a lot but I’m finding that the adaptation choices in Tower of God often favor streamlining the narrative for mystery and suspense whereas “Tower of God” is concerned with laying the groundwork for an expansive world full of characters. The latter’s problem is that it’s character overload and the former’s problem is that by sacrificing details about these incidental characters, as well as their conversations, all we have left are some cool designs but little else to go on.

This happens when we cut away to Yuri in chapter 25 and suddenly there are two more characters in “Tower of God” who are not in “The Crown’s Fate.” Moreover, the discussion of, and establishment that Evankhell is a person and also not on his own floor at the moment is lost, an important detail for understanding how the tower is supposed to function. The reason they’re lost also changes, a modification I preferred but I recognize that the comic makes it much clearer that what they’re doing is a big no-no and that’s the reason it’s so difficult. Finally, the relation between the guide and his younger brother is also not established, unless the Big Bro is supposed to be a sign of respect rather than a familial call, in which case the loss is not too bad.

Can anyone name these characters? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

As always, there are many other small changes between the two, usually dialog or scenes that help to remove the uncertainty and genericness of the comic’s portrayals of characters early on, the final change is that rounds 4 & 5 are both longer in the anime than in the comic, again building tension and finding a central focus to the fight that allows it to remain interesting. For round 4, the comic does a better job of drawing attention to the new group since, well, there are so many side characters I never noticed the absence of their presence before. Round 5 places a heavy emphasis on the uncertainty of the fight.

It’s the one we knew would be the most intense but the reasons are mysterious. One lone masked lady in a unitard beating people up with a shower curtain while the other group seems to be protecting Bam means the fight has to be long enough for the audience to ask the questions without any clear answers, letting the mystery marinate. In the comic, the tension comes from a different source, namely the shower curtain lady being that good and almost getting Bam before being stopped by the hooded horn person with these weird circle things. Those weird circle things aren’t in the anime, which makes me wonder why they were cut. Also, it’s ambiguous why she trips in the comic but the anime does the setup-anticipation-release of her heel snapping, a much clearer and dramatic way of pacing the fight.

Interestingly enough, the end of that fight is actually more mysterious and drawn out in the comic, with Yuri’s aside and the scene between Hansung Yu & Lero Ro coming between the reaction shots and the reveal of what happened. The reveal is far less impressive in the comic due to SIU’s art but that’s OK. The effect is retained and the questions no less interesting. Hansung Yu & Lero Ro’s chat is also modified but thanks to their characteristics being slightly different and the reduction in comedic asides in Tower of God.

Now that the Crown Game is over, what can we expect from the group? Will the lack of side-character depth come back to bite the anime? Will it be fine? Do those characters matter or were most of them brutally murdered in the Crown Game because, uh, it’s really hard to tell when a character has been incapacitated and when they’re very, very dead. Both “Tower of God” and Tower of God are bad at this. Maybe we’ll find out in episode six, “Position Selection.”

“Im|Mortal” is a webcomic featuring two Russian folklore characters: Koschei the Deathless and Ivan Tsarevich, or at least some version of them. I’m not familiar with either of these figures and so it’s hard to pin down exactly where folktale retelling meets original constraints. The comic retains the feels of a folktale, though this is a bit to its detriment. Details are fuzzy and despite being 10 chapters in, it feels like we’ve been approaching the story at an angle, glancing off the point again and again. This builds a mystery, yes, but when the story fails to deliver on answers, the lack of concrete details makes it feel slight rather than hazy.

The comic looks great, however, with a style that is moody and cold, reflecting the predicaments of its central characters. It is winter and the world is unforgiving. War is in the air and danger lurks around every corner. Only a small patch of red – hair, fire, blood – stands out against the black and greys and whites. While the story may be slight, the visuals are not. Maybe by the end this slow pace will be a benefit but for now, “Im|Mortal” could use a bit more density of information.

Also, a note for anyone who wants to read this. Prior to the pages I’m reviewing, the series has explicitly dealt with violence, both physical and sexual. There are warnings in the comic but it’s important to note ahead of time.

After the cliffhanger in the previous strip, it would seem obvious where Randall would take the narrative next and uses this fifth part of ‘Train to Avalon Bay.’ But like Molly say’s about Mercy, you have to look past the obvious. Instead of using this segment to quickly catch Mercy up with Trass’s party and setup a climatic finale, Randall veers to the right and has Mercy fight a space polar bear …. in a bunch of deserted desert ruins. Like I said moving beyond the obvious.

While the plot of this strip is a bit out there, it functionally does what the penultimate episode is expected to do. By the end of these eight pages the final showdown is clear and Mercy is setup as quite the underdog. Where this entry really moves beyond the obvious is how it acts as the counter balance to the previous strips use of internal monologue. The previous strip used that narrative technique as a feint to get the reader looking one way before smashing them from the other direction. In this fifth part the internal and external visions are in sync with one another.

Randall does some truly fantastic work in these early pages of Mercy running through the desert. The setting is a desert so everything is understandably non-descript. This unmoors the background environments from being able to tell the simple story of the first couple of pages: movement. Freed from the need to create a coherent spatial geography, Randall instead creates the feeling a journey through the variety of dynamic poses and sizes that he puts Mercy through. This presentation in conjunction with an easy going reading line give the opening set of pages a fantastic energy and feeling of speed as Mercy tracks her prey through the desert.

If there is one short fall with this batch of pages, the choreography with the bear is a bit lacking. The pages aren’t bad but they lack the umph of the previous pages and read as surprisingly static. More importantly for narrative reasons, there are two bears. These bears look pretty much the same so when Mercy inspects another one it is confusing as to which bear she is talking about. It’s just a little bit of friction in an otherwise smooth set of pages.