Welcome back to the Webcomics Weekly. This week, you can take a break from humming the Rocky theme because webcomic wrangler Elias reaches the top of the Tower … “of God.” They could use a rest and find a nice place in “Rest Area 51.” Meanwhile “Lavender Jack” plays a card we’d all been expecting at a moment when we least expected.
Pages: Episodes 26-30
Schedule: Tuesdays – currently on seasonal hiatus
By Dan Schkade
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane
“Lavender Jack” ends in a space it has been heading towards since the first episode. That moment: Theresa Ferrier and Honoria Crabb discovering the identity of Lavender Jack aka Sir Mimley, guns drawn and loaded. And yet it never crossed my mind this moment would be happening as the cliffhanger for episode 30. When it went on hiatus “Jack” stood at 88 narrative strips, with a few incidental strips thrown in. In this era of post-peak television, audiences are surrounded by and understand narrative content better than any other time. You can’t really fool them, the basic methods of Western drama are just so well ingrained we think them natural, but you can surprise them with the when something happens. Schkade pulls that off with the cliffhanger to episode 30. The mystery has been solved in episode 30, so what does that mean for the next 50 episodes? The revelation of a plot beat creates a flurry of new questions and expectations that drive the audience to keep reading.
How Schkade builds up to that revelatory moment is itself worth unpacking. Despite being talked up a good bit, Theresa Ferrier hasn’t ever been given a moment to shine. Schkade has yet to give her a Columbo “One More Thing,” he’s shown the moments leading up to it but never the full thing. That continues here, but what he does do is use reader knowledge to fill in the gaps and create the aha! moment. Ferrier visits the science academy to talk with Doctor Sampat about her work in a technology similar to the one used by Mimley in his Jack persona. This leads to a bit of a detour into existential questioning the steampunk version of HAL 9000. It’s strange scene, but the way Schkade uses perspective makes the scene worth it. The scene is time filler of a sort, the kind of timefiller that marks time so that when Schkade switches to Crabb’s perspective for the events leading up to her meeting Ferrier, we know what is going on. They finally stumble across one more coincidence that can only make sense if it was part of a larger conspiracy, but we do not see direct proof. Schkade only shows a tear and cut to sir Mimley that formally confirms everything, it’s a very affective storytelling choice.
In between the adventures of Ferrier and Crabb, episodes 28-39, Schkade completely changes tones and delivers an action sequence that would make Daredevil happy. With Lady Hawthorne unleashing her husband on her former conspirators, the few remaining ones, Batton and Lady Lakeshore, decide to band together. This sequence is just highly efficient in how it creates the layout of Lakeshore’s manor and keeps up the tense mood. The strip isn’t littered with onomatopoeia that signify rain drops but their visual indicators litter everything. With that context it allows the interactions between Baton and Lakeshore, two characters we barley have seen, read as surprisingly human.
With all the table set Schkade finally gives us Lord Hawthorne and Lavender Jack throwing down and it’s one of the best fight scenes I’ve read in a good while. Schkade’s Oeming-esque character design pays off as he contrasts the more tactical Jack against the Bane-like brutality of Hawthorne. The choreography is pretty much all just in reaction to what came before, which allows for an established rhythm and sense of accumulated damage all around. The image of Hawthorne landing ground and pound on Jack makes perfect use of the vertical format. The reader scrolls through four “krack” before the stark silhouette of what’s making that sound-image.
Schkade goes through more plot movement and a variety of stories and tones in four episodes than some comics do in 6 full issues. This is just a well put together batch of strips that function as individual episodes but come together into an affecting serialized narrative.
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Rest Area 51
‘Are We There YE.T.?’ – ‘Invasion of the Botany Snatchers’
Updates: Wednesdays & Saturdays
Written by Caleb Goellner
Illustrated by Coleman Engle
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
It’s no surprise that “Rest Area 51” has the feel, look, and charm of a modern Saturday morning cartoon, as its creators come from the comics sides of Steven Universe and TMNT (an irony for the latter, I know) but I’m struck by just how much it channels the all-ages fun of those titles. In these four chapters, we’re introduced to our main character, Grayce, the series’ resident cute animal mascot, Torctus, and a host of primary and secondary side-characters that I absolutely adore. From the dorky GI dude Agent Schwartz to Grayce’s alien counterpart Starla, there’s a mountain of potential for this series to grow and so many jokes to be made at Schwartz’s expense.
While I do honestly love “Rest Area 51,” I couldn’t escape a nagging sensation as I read that this would work better in animation. The reason I say this is because the comic moves at a very fast pace, placing whole scenes in one or two panels rather than splitting them up. It’s like a fully drawn storyboard and I think for this to work as a comic, it needs to either slow down a bit and dramatize more scenes or split the actions in each panel into more iterative moments that can stretch them out.
This is also true of the dialog, which is very self-aware of standard tropes and lampshades them in a very tongue and cheek way. I found them funny, like the miscommunication with the sick plant alien baby, but the dialog came off as stilted and crowded out the panels they were in. Maybe this is because the audience for this comic skews younger than I am but I suspect this is more a case of Goellner & Engle trying to work out the pacing of the series. The first two chapters had an excellent balance of panel to dialog and it was only once we got the next two that I noticed these issues crop up.
That said, “Rest Area 51” is still a comic I will recommend to anyone looking for a fun, expressive, and funny webcomic to share with the family. It’s well made, I love the lettering even though I’m not usually a fan of mixed case, and it has a turtle cactus creature. What more could you ask for?
Tower of God
Tower of God: Season 1 Eps. 75-78; Episode 13 – “Tower of God”
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.
It’s over.
No. It’s just the beginning
I so wish I could have met Bam before you did.
Of all the episodes of Tower of God, episode 13 is the most different from its source chapters, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise as it has the least amount of source chapters to adapt. Before I break that choice down, as it was a choice made for practical monetary & technical reasons as well as artistic ones, I wanted to get the other changes out of the way. Then, for all those who’ve stuck through these last 26-28 weeks with me, I’ll break down my thoughts on the comic and the show as expressions of the same work rather than works in contrast to each other. Just because one version is more successful at conveying a work than the other doesn’t necessarily mean the underlying work was successful.
Oh, and to keep the confusion to a minimum, anytime I make a reference to the webtoon, it’ll be “ToG,” any reference to the episode specifically will be “Tower of God” while the show as a whole will remain Tower of God. Hopefully this won’t make things worse.
Tower of God’s strengths are in its consistency, both of character and of scenery. It’s easy to understand why a character makes the decisions they do and the director’s choice of where to set that helps make the world feel whole and uniform. “ToG” doesn’t have this same consistency, and because of SIU’s shortcomings as an artist in this first season, the muddy backgrounds and obscuring shadows only make this worse. When Rachel is expelled from the top of the Queen, in Tower of God the wide spaces emphasize her isolation, the brutality of her rebirth, and her centrality. In “ToG,” the brutality is still conveyed via the Queen’s goop but the rest is lost in the dark and more claustrophobic panels.
This trend continues to the scene when Lero-Ro reveals the results of the test and lets everyone know that Bam couldn’t be found and is more than likely dead. In “ToG,” they’re in an empty white room we’ve never seen before whereas in Tower of God, we’re back on the stage where they all first decided to follow Bam into the test. Rak & Endorsi are both present, whereas they are absent in “ToG.” Events are rearranged, such as it beginning with Lero-Ro telling them about Bam in Tower of God rather than them fighting about whether or not he’s dead & Lero-Ro entering after they all yelled at Pericule about wanting to know if they passed.
The scene is played more for laughs and rage in the webtoon while it is far more somber in the show. I like this change. It feels more true to the characters and is a damn effective moment. Rak wailing at the end could have been cheesy but instead it sold the gravity of the situation and the loss that they’re feeling. Bam meant a lot to this gang, and even Pericule cared, in his own obnoxiously self-centered way. It’s also worth noting that the show excised Bam asking The Guardian to let everyone climb the tower if he died in the test. I’m glad this was changed as it implies that, because the purpose of the test was to remove the “irregular” Bam, and to act as cover to kill Anaak & maybe Endorsi, him being dead fulfilled the purpose and thus everyone else can climb. Plus, they did, in fact, pass the test, even if Bam died.
It’s interesting how Tower of God had Lero-Ro first confront Hansung Yu and then quit off screen as a way of cluing the audience into his part in all this and the hints we’d gotten throughout the season towards Yu’s ulterior motives. Again, this choice was made to cut down on the frantic comedy of the comic and bring a more serious air to the proceedings, including with the “Quant you’re being replaced. Join me on the climb” moment.
Bam’s resurrection scene – oh yeah, he’s not actually dead – is also changed from “ToG” in order to give him more of a powerful statement of intent and desire to climb the Tower. It’s a fantastic note to end on for him, rather than the rather lackluster but fitting ending for him in “ToG.” Bam finally, it seems, puts Rachel behind him and finds within himself a reason to climb. That reason? Finding answers, and the best part is that these answers won’t be found on the top, but on the journey there. It’s a real refutation of the Tower’s philosophy and I’d be curious to see how this plays out if there is ever a second season.
However, “Tower of God’s” script does stumble in saying they’re going to climb the tower (to the top) for answers, somehow implying they’ve never done so despite them having this be categorically impossible as they’re Rankers. “ToG” has them go to the 77th floor instead, with Quant’s objections being that it’s a hellhole, which is a much better sequel bait. As I’ve said before, the details of the world, and thus audience understanding, falls through the cracks more often than it should in Tower of God, despite my firm belief the “less is more” approach was the right one.
Continued belowOK. It’s time. When I brought up Rachel in episode 12, “Underwater Hunt, Part 2”, I said I’d talk more about it during “Tower of God,” as there wasn’t much to go off of in “Underwater Hunt, Part 2.” Well, here we are and while I have more information under my belt, I still have no idea why the fandom hates Rachel this vehemently. Is it because I’ve found Bam quite cloying for much of the run of season 1? Is it because this venom is informed by later events more than it is the initial betrayal? Or is it that I’ve just seen this done better elsewhere?
I think it’s a little bit of all the above but that’s a conversation for later. For now, let’s get into the nitty gritty of the adaptation differences because HOO BOY are they different. Tower of God focuses on reflecting on Rachel’s actions across the series, providing a few new scenes for context. It opens with this, spending the first half of the episode on, what is essentially, a clip show, which was probably done to allow time and money to be focused on other parts of the show during production. “ToG,” on the other hand, follows up the test results with these revelations about Rachel, letting its audience stew in her betrayal a bit longer, and without the need to “save the budget,” there’s a great economy of storytelling in providing context to her choice.
In terms of the what happens, “ToG” has three consequential scenes: Rachel’s introduction to Headon (and the subsequent watching of Bam entering the Tower,) Hansung Yu & Rachel’s conversation and her introduction to Hwaryun (eyepatch lady,) and then Rachel’s conversation with Hwaryun after the battle. They chart how Rachel really did not want to betray Bam, how she cared about Bam, but how her ambition overwhelmed her and turned that care and pity to jealousy and envy. There’s no joy or malice to her actions in “ToG,” at least none that I can see. Instead, there’s just rage, with Bam being a symbol of, and a focal point for, the things she is raging against.
Tower of God, on the other hand, takes a longer view, providing a more incremental breakdown of Rachel’s decisions and what led her to choose to push Bam out of the sphere. There is a much slower descent, full of backs and forths and indecision, and a very different relationship between Hansung Yu & Rachel; namely, there was none and instead Hwaryun was acting on orders from Yu and manipulating Rachel…sorta. There is an explanation for her being able to walk after the stabbing – her teammate was her “one resurrection” – and, most importantly, Tower of God once again provides a more consistent Rachel in that her care for Bam is cooler, more pitying, but strong.
She doesn’t want to kill Bam because he worships her and continues to worship her. She is conflicted throughout because she’s also full of self-loathing, unsure of if she could kill him and then take what she sees as stolen from her. What finally puts her over the edge is the recognition that Bam isn’t the same boy he was before and his time in the Tower has allowed him to grow while she has remained the same. She sees it as a usurpation, a destruction of her ego, rather than a genuinely positive change for her friend.
Much as I think Headon’s misogynistic words were gross, he is correct. Rachel lacks charm, which Bam has in abundance, allowing him to bloom and make friends with introverts and extroverts alike while Rachel retreats into her dark room, hoarding points for some unspecified benefit. She has an ugliness inside her, a personality that is self-serving and entitled and willing to sacrifice everything good she has for the chance to be special. What Tower of God makes clear through Rachel’s narration and the choice of scenes here in “Tower of God,” new and old, is that Rachel struggled with many things throughout the series but no matter how she struggled, her troubles stemmed not from the Tower but from herself – though I would argue that the Tower as “enabler and encourager of all ills” is the central thesis of the series.
Continued belowHer characterization in Tower of God is far more self-serving than in “ToG” and so when she throws open the shades at the end and smiles, her face full of sun and wild abandon, it is because she sees her sacrifice of Bam as just that: a sacrifice. He enabled her, with his death, to climb the Tower, not with him at the center but instead with her at the center. She “reclaimed” her place, one which she at first thought she might be able to take from Bam, then relegated herself to slinking into the shadows, before realizing she would have to kill Bam if she ever hoped to shine. In “ToG,” she says she is afraid of the night, which is helpfully accompanied by a footnote that says Bam & Night sharing a meaning in Korean. She takes him out because she is afraid of what he’ll become and how he’ll outshine her but she is not satisfied with her actions.
There are a couple of ways to read this dissatisfaction. One is that she doesn’t like how Bam is still the reason why she is where she is. It was not through her hand that all these people are helping her climb the Tower nor was it by her hand that they chose to have her be their center. Bam is still the catalyst, which is true in both “ToG” and Tower of God, and it is through his choices, his decisions, save the one that “doomed” him, that she is able to climb the tower. The other is that her dissatisfaction is thanks to her decision to kill literally the only person in the world who treated her in the way she wanted to be treated. She is mourning what she had to do in order to move up and how, even if she saw him as a usurper, his death was tough to make happen.
And yet…it is still baffling why Rachel would go to such lengths to climb the Tower. What I have presented above is my reading of the situation, built on two full watch-throughs of the show and one read-through of the first season of the webtoon, gleaned from wafer thin amounts of information and character. The whys of the story are woefully absent and as such the work as a whole suffers. Much as I like most of the changes Tower of God made to its source material, it did not do nearly enough to fix its inherent flaws.
Part of this is that the season (of “ToG,”) and thus the series, is built around the Rachel reveal. It’s a gotcha moment and in order to make that work, Rachel couldn’t be suspicious in a way that would have greatly helped illustrate her inner conflict. Moreover, because Tower of God was only 13 episodes, it had to sacrifice developing the characters’ relationships, and the characters themselves, for blazing through the source material if they wanted to make the second to last episode the big Rachel cliffhanger. Had they spent 26 episodes, or even 22, expanding on the strong parts of the source material rather than just having to trim the fat, I would have felt a greater connection to the characters and their motivations and they could have better prepared the impact of this moment.
Yes, I know I keep saying that the characters are far more consistent than in “ToG” but just because it all makes sense and feels cohesive doesn’t mean the story they’re trying to tell makes more sense on an emotional or logical level. That is the great tragedy of Tower of God. Despite all my praise these last 13 installments, this first season has a lot of problems that could not be fixed in adaptation and, in some cases, were made worse. The trimming of details meant that the mechanics of the world, and the kinds of nitty gritty teases for future characters or events certain fans eat up like popcorn, were underexplained or missing altogether, making for some confusing scenes of symbols that are supposed to mean something but ultimately don’t. Urek Mazino is thrust aside, all mystery around the 77th floor is gone, and what the purpose of the points outside of, like, buying food(?) is are all missing.
Continued belowIt can be hard to muster up the energy to care about Bam or Rachel or Endorsi or Khun or anyone without the proper framing and motives, neither of which are properly explored, and my grasp of their reasons and motives and the hows of their plans were tenuous at best. Much of the narrative is propelled by coincidences or momentum, some of which Tower of God tried to fix but its insistence on being a mostly straight adaptation of the source season, rather than radically changing things meant that these issues remained. Why did we need Yuri Jahad to keep showing up? What is the structure of the tower and its society? How come everyone’s plans hinged on coincidences and serendipity rather than clever ruses or cunning? These questions are just a few I had that impacted my understanding of, and thus my connection to, the story.
Rachel’s motives for trying to kill Bam work but they’re still built upon a wafer thin explanation: Rachel’s desire at the top of the Tower is worth it. I’ve painted a picture of a Rachel who wanted the limelight so badly that she would kill for it but that begs the question of why she wants that limelight in the first place. Moreover, the series, both series, places a heavy emphasis on Rachel’s desire to see the stars as being legit and not just an excuse to feel special. Because if she really wanted to feel special, based on what we’ve seen, all she had to do is stay with Bam and have him worship her. If the stars were her end goal, Bam would have been an asset to take along with him.
“ToG” and Tower of God don’t do nearly enough to justify Rachel’s heel turn, her conflict, nor her acceptance of Headon’s initial proposal. Why does she want to be so special that she has to be the center of everything as she climbs? Why is she so threatened by Bam that she felt she had to take him out? I can speculate all I want but the series offers no concrete answers or even the hint of a potential answer.
Hell, why does anyone want to climb the tower? Anaak & Bam have the best established reasons and nebulously, it’s to get whatever anyone wants, which is an enticing and good enough motive for a story, but what the characters actually want are rarely established and can only be gleaned from rewatching or rereading; like gnawing on a narrative bone for the last little bits of meat and trying to image what it would be like to be full on the full haunch.
Why? Why? Why? It plagues this series like a bad smell, these whys. It’s an unfortunate state of being for a show and series with this much potential and a clear dedicated following.
Where, then, does this leave Tower of God and the first season of “ToG?” After all this work, am I just going to slag it off and leave it at that? No. I think that Tower of God was an admirable attempt to adapt a story with many flaws, ones which I assume get ironed out in some way with the next season (over 200 episodes in that one,) but which fell short thanks to a streamlining which ended up hollowing out a story full of holes already. Rather than integrate knowledge of late game events, it circumvented them altogether and while it treated its audience as intelligent and observant people, it ultimately sacrificed some clarity and world building for this goal. It never interrogated its source material for the hidden whys and so, despite my mining, all that could be uncovered was dirt and the occasional shiny rock.
Tower of God is an example of an adaptation that could not elevate its source material enough nor quite capture what made it resonate with so many fans in Webtoon format but one which knew how to make do with what they had. It may not have taken the kinds of risks it should but at least it had the wherewithal to fix what it could. It was an undercooked show of excellent soundtracks, a fun supporting cast that I want to see more adventures of, and enough mysteries to sustain a second season. Much like Preacher season 1, the prologue is now over.
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Thank you all for joining me on this journey. I hope you all got as much out of it as I did and, while I have been teasing my overall thoughts on the show and series for a little bit, I hope you were able to see through the dissonance of all my prior praise and the final assessment. Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the show. Are you a hard core fan? Did I get something wrong? Can anyone point out where Rachel was in episode 1/the corresponding chapters, which I asked about obliquely in the first review? Did you agree with my ambivalence and then frustration with both the anime and the webtoon? Want to gush about the objectively best part of the series, Kevin Penkin’s un-fucking-believable score? I want to know, especially now that I have reached the end.
May we meet again at the top of the Tower, where all you desire can be had beneath the stars.
