Captain Marvel #1 (November 1989)

Since March is Women's History Month (not to mention that this week also saw International Women's Day), I thought it would be nice this week to look at a comic that focuses on a superheroine. Also, since last month was Black History Month, and I forgot to look at a comic starring a Black character (my apologies for that), I thought I'd also make up for that by looking at a comic starring a Black heroine. And I knew of one that had gotten more mainstream prominence in recent years: Monica Rambeau, aka Captain Marvel II/Photon/Spectrum. 

Ms. Rambeau has graced the pages of this blog before. I've looked at her debut, and her rise to leadership of the Avengers. However, like any superhero, Monica has had her fair share of highs and lows in her over 40 years of adventures. The comic we're looking at is a one-shot tale from 1989. Monica's tenure as Avengers leader had ended with her being a powerless civilian. But just because she lost her powers doesn't mean that she can't continue to fight the good fight. This is Captain Marvel #1!

The cover is a Mark Bright piece. It's well done, if a bit basic. It shows our heroine flying over a city. Not much else to say about it, really. It's a nice cover.

"The Dream is the Truth"
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciler: Mark Bright
Inkers: Stan Drake, Frank Bolle
Colorist: Paul Becton
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editors: Mark Gruenwald, Gregory Wright
Editor-In-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The story seemingly starts with our heroine fighting some kind of giant serpent monster. This is a normal Tuesday for her. She admits to being intimidated by the monster, despite her powers allowing to take on energy forms that would make the beast unable to harm her. She blasts at the creature with some hard radiation, and her powers...glitch out. 

This is what happens when you don’t use moisturizer.

Thankfully, it was just a nightmare.

She lost her powers back in Avengers #293 (July 1988), and the nightmare is clearly from the events in that comic. Since then, she's been staying with her parents Maria and Frank Rambeau. This has clearly had an effect on Monica, as she's becoming more withdrawn and having the nightmares. But today is a new day, and our heroine has a nice new job.

“The difference between you and me? I make this look good.”

Monica isn't just wearing that because she looks good in it, this is her new uniform. She's got a job as a captain of a cargo ship named the Tea Cake. Mmmm...cake...

She's also now working for a shipping company started by one of her former Harbor Patrol comrades: Ron Morgan. The ship is delivering some wheat to Rio de Janeiro, and then will return a couple days later with soybeans. There are also some passengers on board. It's seemingly a simple cargo job, going off with no hitch whatsoever. In fact, the job goes so well, she is able to give herself a bit of R&R. 

Monica liked to refer to Thor as "girly-arms".

The man there is her first mate and former fellow Harbor Patrolman Carlos Goodman. The two do some catching up, Goodman recalling that in their Harbor Patrol days, she was known as the "Super-Cop". But that's not Monica anymore. In fact, she seems to have a lot more fears than she does back then. Goodman gets a bullet to the back, thanks to a group of hijackers. Two of them lead Monica away at gunpoint, but there's something they need to realize about Ms. Rambeau. She's an ex-Avenger. She served with Captain America. And he taught her some things...like how to just plain beat the tar out of mooks.

“Aw God, my Mohawk! I just got it perfect!”

Monica finds that the crew are dead, and the passengers are tied up. And she has an idea on how to fix this mess. 

It's not much of an idea, but it's all she's got. She ended up packing her old Captain Marvel costume, so she decides to put it on and intimidate the hijackers into surrendering. After all, it can be presumed they're unaware that not only was she a former heroine, but she is also powerless. However, her plan gets a complication. In the form of the hijackers' boss.

"CANDYGRAM!"

Meet Frank Skorina, aka Powderkeg. In fact, this is his debut. Skorina is superhumanly strong and durable. Another power he has is explosive sweat. It can be implied that he is a mutant (This comic was originally published in the 1980s, the X-Men were hot, and he says he's not sure how he has this power). Anyway, Powderkeg and Monica fight...well, more like Powderkeg fights, and Monica tries to live. She manages to lure him into the hold of the ship and traps him in some wheat.

"Oh, no! The glutens! I'm not supposed to have any glutens!"

She rescues the hostages and ferries them to lifeboats. Just in time, too. Powderkeg blasts his way out of the wheat, and she goes to find him. She finds the man tearing his way through the ship, looking for something. She threatens to blast him if he doesn't come with her. He calls her bluff...and she vanishes.

She finds herself flying again...which she finds weird as she's supposed to be powerless. She alerts a nearby helicopter to the lifeboats and flies back to the sinking Tea Cake. She tries to turn into X-Rays so she can enter the ship by going through the hull, but...

"OW MY BRAIN!"

Yeah, that's likely a concussion right there.

Monica finds this very weird. Evidently, she had turned solid. It appears that her powers have been altered. But before she could puzzle this out further, Powderkeg busts in. The two brawl, which allows Monica to discover that she's quite a bit more durable and physically stronger than she was in the past. She gets Powderkeg out of the sinking ship and gets to a rescue craft. 

Over in Rio de Janeiro, a woman named Kristina Ramos is altered to Powderkeg's failure to find what he was looking for...and that Captain Marvel was involved in said failure. Ramos orders an agent be sent to New Orleans and search Morgan's offices. Captain Marvel's involvement may be coincidental, but Ramos is not willing to take any chances. If she shows up, Ramos wants her in the same state Al Capone wanted Elliot Ness.

A couple days later, Monica is getting examined by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He confirms to her that her powers have been altered. When she tried to go through the ship's hull, her body instead created a thin interface between her dimension and the energy dimension that fueled her original powerset. This interface shunts any mechanical energy that is directed towards her into that dimension. 

It's full of typical Reed Richards technobabble, but what this basically means is that Monica is now much more durable and physically stronger than she was before. However, she needs to actively have this interface active, so she can be ambushed. And she's not invincible. She still will feel some impact from blows. A powerful enough blow can hurt or even kill her. She was able to fly by riding the interface like a wave. And it can be presumed she no longer can change herself into various forms of energy anymore like she used to. 

Now knowing her new limits, Monica flies to New Orleans, where Morgan's offices are located. She finds the place is a mess, and Morgan himself ain't much better. 

She wants to know what this is all about, and Ron has a story for her. 

Back in his Harbor Patrol days, he found a box filled with discarded Stark International circuitry shortly after the company was bought out by Obadiah Stane and renamed Stane International. So that means that he likely found these circuits after the events of Iron Man #173 (August 1983). Surprisingly, Stane wasn't interested in it. Morgan got approached by Kristina Ramos, who made a deal with him. Give her the circuits, and she'd co-sign the loan he took out to fund his shipping company. However, he discovered she was actually a gangster. But not just any gangster, she was the biggest organized crime don in Brazil. He told her the deal was off when he discovered this, and she's been waging a campaign of terror against him and his business since. And he was just beaten up by a superpowered woman. 

At the hospital, Ron gets checked out, and it turns out his injuries aren't as severe as he feared.

However, based on the description he gave Monica, she has a very good idea of who attacked Ron, and she could do worse. A lot worse. She goes to Brazil to take care of Ramos, and she trusts Ron to do the right thing. When she leaves, Ron goes to a pay phone and calls Stark Enterprises. 

Three hours pass, and Monica confronts a woman disembarking from a plane.

"Where's my money, Moonstone?"

This blonde beauty isn't here to sunbathe on Rio's famous beaches. She is Dr. Karla Sofen, aka the malevolent Moonstone. Monica and Karla have crossed paths before, back in Avengers #276. The encounter left Sofen with a broken neck. 

Monica and Moonstone fight, but Monica is not quite used to her new powerset, and it allows Moonstone to hand her a beating. Moonstone tries to choke our heroine out, but Monica is able to turn the tables and give her a nice long nap. And then she gets ambushed. 

"I'm thinking of repainting this suit in a nice cerulean."

Ramos herself has decided to step in, wearing a set of Guardsman armor. The crime boss is after the circuitry because she believes that it will make her suit of armor much more powerful, allowing her to truly rule Rio like a queen. Monica tries to take her on, but she's beaten up thanks to her battle with Moonstone. Ramos blasts the wing off a stationary airplane, threatening to cause it to fall on a security guard. She saves the guard, but that was a distraction. 

While Monica was saving the guard, Ramos managed to get the circuitry and installed it into the armor. And true to her prediction, the circuitry gives her armor a power-up like Popeye after eating spinach.

“BOOM, BABY!”

A nearby craft's occupants see Monica get sent flying towards a nearby hangar. The two men run to the hangar where Monica is getting the cobwebs out of her head. The men are Ron Morgan and James Rhodes. Rhodes is there thanks to Morgan's call about the circuitry. He gives Monica one of the negator packs that Stark used to destroy the armors of other villains during the events of Iron Man #225-232 (December 1987-June 1988), aka the Armor Wars. Newly armed, Monica is ready for round two against Ramos. Ding, ding!

Monica finds Ramos rampaging in her powered-up Guardsman suit, clearly power-drunk.

Our heroine gives Ms. Ramos a car to the helmeted face. She then rips off Ramos's helmet and attaches the negator pack to her armor, frying its circuitry and making it junk. And that takes care of her. The story ends with Rhodes taking Morgan back to America as he plans to turn himself in. Rhodes offers to fly Monica home, but she's good. She wants to fly on her own for a bit. As she does, the narrator quotes African-American writer/filmmaker/anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. 

I enjoyed this little one-shot very much. It does feel a bit rushed in places, but I think that's because of the page number constraints. I also really liked the subtle nods to past continuity, and the one-shot does a good job setting up her new status quo. I also liked Mark Bright's art. I think he is a rather unsung hero of Marvel in the 1980s. His art is very nice to look at and does the job. 

If you want to read this for yourself, I suggest tracking down the 2018 trade paperback Captain Marvel: Monica Rambeau. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves, and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, wear a mask, and get your vaccine/booster! See you next time!

World Wildlife Day!

Today is World Wildlife Day!

This is a day dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of wildlife conservation, as well as celebrating the biodiversity of the planet. 

On this day in 1973, the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna was signed. This is meant to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants is not a threat to the species. This day was proclaimed as World Wildlife Day in 2013 by the United Nations General Assembly. 

Batman #452 (Early August 1990)

Gotham City is a city known for being a hive of, as a certain popular space franchise likes to say, "Scum and villainy". It's not hard to see why. It seems that Gotham itself has a particular knack for making people go crazy. Some stories have postulated that the city may have a sort of...supernatural reason for it. Like the city itself is cursed or something. After all, it's the DC Universe. It's hardly an unreasonable idea. One storyline implies this from 1990: Dark Knight, Dark City. Let's take a look at the beginnings of the storyline: Batman #452!

The cover is a Mike Mignola and George Pratt piece. It's really awesome, but I can't help but wonder. What did that gargoyle do to make Batman want to beat it stupid?

"Dark Knight, Dark City"
Writer: Peter Milligan
Penciler: Kieron Dwyer
Inker: Dennis Janke
Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Dennis O'Neil
Executive Editor: Dick Giordano

The story begins with a peek into a journal. This journal belongs to a man named Jacob Stockman. He wrote this all the way back in 1793. That's right, we're in a flashback.

Stockman is a man with many regrets. He hopes that he will get forgiveness for a vile act he and some friends of his committed back in 1764 on his farm. On that night, a storm was raging.

The cellar in his presumed home was used for various rituals. He and five of his friends tried to summon a demon called Barbathos. One of those men had a name you may be familiar with if you know your Revolutionary War-era history: Thomas Jefferson. 

To summon the demon, they prepared a young woman to be sacrificed. You can guess what will happen next. We then flash forward to modern Gotham, where the Batman is answering the summons of one Commissioner James Gordon. So, what does the commish need the Bat's help with? Well, the Riddler claimed that he wanted Batman and Gordon to meet at a certain rooftop at midnight. The Riddler used codewords to assure Gordon he's not some random nut making a crank call. His is Oedipus, which Batman finds odd as Eddie Nygma presumably hated his mother. The hour has come, and Batman senses someone on the roof with them. It's not the Riddler.

"By the way, check out my TikTok!"

This strange woman utters a riddle, and she is clearly drugged. 

Generally my leaves aren't turned on at night, usually I'm full of worms by day, lots of words but deathly quiet.

Batman notes her costume is meant to evoke a sphinx: head of a woman, and body of a lion. Makes sense, Riddle of the Sphinx and all that. The woman falls back from the building, saying that she can fly. Batman tries to catch her with a grappling line, but the woman ends up going through a window. 

So, where is the Riddler himself? Well, he appears to be in a library.

Eddie Nygma takes libraries VERY SERIOUSLY.

He's got two guards in his grasp. One tied to a chair, and another ready to be hanged. The Riddler kills the seated guard, and wonders where Batman is. Back with Batman and Gordon, a bit of sad news. The lady dressed up as the sphinx ended up dying. Gordon thinks the Riddler is at the Gotham Memorial Cemetery, based on the words leaves, worms, words, and quiet. Cemetries are quiet, they can have trees in them, and they are quiet because the people in them are dead, being consumed by worms.

However, Batman thinks he's got the real answer. By leaves, the sphinx was referencing pages. "Full of worms"? Bookworms. "Lots of words, yet deathly quiet"? Books have lots of words in them, and they don't make noise. As for the "deathly quiet" bit? Well, what place has lots of books, is full of readers, not usually open at night, and is supposed to be a place that is quiet? Why, the library!

But not just any library! Batman realizes that the Riddler is at the Gotham University Library. How? The order of the words "generally", "usually", and "lots" in the riddle. they form the acronym G.U.L. Gotham University Library. World's Greatest Detective, folks!

 

We then go back to Stockman's journal. He prepares to stab the sacrifice in the heart, but Jefferson stops him. He thought the sacrifice would be symbolic, not an actual killing. Another one of the participants points out that Jefferson helped prepare the girl for the sacrifice, he should have figured they were going to knife her heart. What did he expect they were going to do with this girl, play Dungeons and Dragons with her? 

The demon has been summoned, and without the sacrifice, they can't control it. The group hear a noise. Jefferson tries to flee, but there's someone waiting for them at the cellar door.

"Keep it down, you noisy idiots! I'm trying to sleep!"

In the present, Batman finds the Riddler. He taunts the Dark Knight, and sends the poor guard hanging. Batman tries to save him, wondering why the Riddler is doing this. The Riddler flees with a smile on his face. Batman manages to save the guard, and get him to the hospital. The Dark Knight's inner monologue implies that the guard will live, but he'll also now be a quadriplegic. A policeman there informs the Caped Crusader that four babies have been kidnapped at gunpoint. And the gunman left a cassette tape. Batman listens to the tape, and it's another riddle.

I'm a bank with no money. But I've all different types...

This one is rather easy compared to the last one. A bank with no money, but all different types? A blood bank. Blood has different types: A, B, AB, O, etc. And there's a blood bank right near the hospital. The Caped Crusader spots a pair of men guarding the back of the building. This case is leaving the Bat confounded. What is the Riddler's endgame here? It's not many, and he can't be wanting kids. Maybe he wants to put the Batman through a maze like a lab rat. The Bat easily deals with the guards, and then finds the Riddler inside.

"What do you want, Bats? I just donated!"

During his search for the villain, Batman keeps getting this odd feeling. That something is watching him. Not the Riddler, but something else. 

Batman asks Riddler to give him the baby. Riddler's like, "okay, catch!" and tosses said baby. Batman catches the baby, and then gets the Riddler with a bat-line around his ankle. He then hears a recording of Riddler taunting him, calling him a "silly boy". He realizes the baby is not a baby. It's a dummy, and it made a dummy out of Batman.

And then, the dummy explodes. And the blood bank explodes. Basically a big ol' explosion-fest.

"AW GOD! IT'S EVERYWHERE! IT'S EVEN IN THE SPHINX WOUNDS!"

Man, it even got in the raccoon wounds! A blood-covered Bats summons his car, and gives chase to the Riddler. The Riddler's vehicle heads into an alleyway, and Batman tries to cut him off, only to find the vexing villain placed one of the kidnapped babies on the road. Batman desperately tries to stop the car. He feels a bump, terrified he ran the baby over. Thankfully, he hears the baby crying. It's just fine.

Yup. It turns out the front axle of the Batmobile came loose, and he ran over that. The baby is okay, and our man finds that the little guy or gal is holding a tarot card: The Hanged Man. 

Batman returns to Wayne Manor (after presumably returning the baby to their family, of course), and gets some shower time in. He discusses the case with Alfred. Alfred reads the riddle left on the back of the card.

I've still three brats, so plump and round. Hey, Bats, let rip as in Byron's Parisina. Seek out--less often sought than found.

As the two puzzle the riddle out, Bruce tells Alfred about the strange feeling he's been watched the entire night. Alfred realizes something. "Byron's Parisina" is a reference to Lord Byron's 1816 poem Parisina. Well, duhhhhh. "Seek out--less often sought than found" is a line from the poem. The line afterwards goes "A soldier's grave, for thee the best". "Let's rip" is not referencing the word "rip" as in "rip and tear", but the acronym R.I.P.: Rest In Peace. The Riddler's telling Batman to go to the Gotham Military Cemetery. 

The Caped Crusader makes his away to said cemetery. The narration changes, not from Batman's perspective, but...someone else's. This narrator proclaims the night is theirs. Unseen by the Dark Knight, a zombie appears to burst out of the ground. And the story ends with Batman noticing said zombie.

You know, considering that this is the DC Universe, and all the things Batman has seen in his years of crimefighting, both solo and with the Bat-Family/Justice League, I would not be surprised if he has some kind of anti-zombie spray or something like that. 

I admit, I enjoyed this issue. I can imagine writing the Riddler would be a pain, as part of his whole character is coming up with clever riddles to befuddle the Dark Knight. I do like the idea of this story implying that because of a ritual in the 1700s, Gotham is under a demonic influence. I can understand why some would find that silly. After all, in the real world, cities can have crime problems, no demonic influence necessary. However, this is the DCU. I can imagine that subtle demonic influence doesn't help things much in Gotham City. I also like that this issue emphasizes the Riddler's intellect. If anything, the Riddler should be Batman's equal in smarts. I do like Kieron Dwyer's art in this comic as well. It's got a grit to it that fits a Batman story. 

A part of me is a bit curious about something. In the 2017-2018 crossover Dark Nights: Metal, one of the main villains was a dark bat-god called Barbatos. I wonder if this story was an inspiration for it. I mean, it's not hard to see why. Both stories center around Barbatos. I also can't help but wonder if this also inspired some aspects of Grant Morrison's Batman stuff. 

If you want to read this for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2015 trade paperback Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City. Thanks for reading this blog entry! 

Text Play: Pokémon Xenoverse #26

Hello, and welcome back to the Eldiw region! This is number 26 in my Text Play of Pokémon Xenoverse! 

As usual, I wish to make a warning: I will be spoiling the heck out of this game.

As such, I highly recommend that you play the game for yourself before reading these Text Plays. You can download the game here. And with that out of the way, let's do this!

Last time, we started working on preparing a new Pokémon team to take on Caspar, the resident Gym Leader of Westar City. Caspar is also the sheriff of the town, and the warden of the local jail, El Purgatorio. Caspar is a Ghost-type specialist. He likes his Pokémon to be nice and spooky.

I did consider adding my X Sharpedo to the team, as it is part-Ghost. Thing is, Ghost is weak to itself, and I didn't want to take any chances. So, yeah. Sadly, I couldn't include it.

It's a shame. I really wanted to try out that X Sharpedo. See what it could do.

Ah, well. I also decided to add Murkrow to my team. During my grinding process, I found myself learning something interesting: the Rexquiem line is vulnerable to Ice and Grass. So, no letting Rexquiem get hit by Ice-type or Grass-type attacks.

As I said in the last entry, my grinding goals were to get my team up to levels 40-45, as Caspar's Pokémon were at levels 37-40. I continued on with the grinding. And grinding. And grinding. And grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding...

Right right, sorry. Once I was satisfied with my Pokémon's power levels, it was time to enter the Gym. Before going inside, I made sure we went to the shop in the Pokémon Center and got plenty of supplies. Battling all those Miltank got me lots of Moomoo Milk, which heals 100 HP a pop. But I still wanted to get lots of healing items and the like. Why? Well, once we enter this Gym, we cannot leave it until we make our way through it. 

So, now that we are all ready to go, let's conquer this gym!

Once we go inside, we meet a familiar face.

Hey, it's...that guy! 

He's the guy who always wishes us luck whenever we come to gyms. I believe we last saw him in entry #17, when we went to Nuphar's gym. He says he's a "ghost that is haunting us". It's a joke. Get it? because this gym specializes in Ghost-types.

He tells us that being inside this gym is like being inside a jail.  

...like inside a jail? 

...Like inside a jail?!

Dude, this is a jail! There are actual criminals in this place! These people aren't here because they accidentally forgot to return library books on time! And this is an actual gym! The Pokémon League in this region are clearly blitzed out of their minds!

Anyway, like in Nuphar's gym, we have to use our brains to get through this place and reach Caspar himself. The Ghost-wielding sheriff left a series of riddles that we have to solve to face him. We have to note every detail, especially what prisoners say to you and the colors of the gems that decorate the various rooms of the gym. I suggest keeping something you can use to write things down with you when going through this gym.

With that, let's explore a bit. The main room of the Gym isn't really much. Just a ladder and Caspar himself.

If you try and walk up to him, the screen goes black, and you end up down here.

The ladder in the main room takes you down here, too. And if you noticed something when we entered the gym, we got a costume change. We are now clad in the stereotypical black-and-white striped shirt of a prisoner. I guess that means we are a prisoner of the gym now.

In the upper-left corner of the hall, at the left-hand edge, there is a prisoner hanging out, and he gives us a set of directions.

2 steps forward, two to the right, five upwards, and finally three to the left. Hmm, it's clearly a route to walk, but where can we apply this?

Well, there is an open door right near him, so maybe it can be applied there. We go inside, and...

IT'S SO RED! MY EYES!

OH GEEZ, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH BRIGHT RED LIGHT?! 

Alright. Okay. I tried walking the way that priosner said, but it didn't seem to do anything. Maybe this applies to another room. He didn't say it would apply to this room, after all... 

There appear to be these...galleries when we first walk in. I can't describe exactly what these things are, but the one on the left contains some photographs. One is of a photograph of Sunflare Canyon, signed by a prisoner named Rod Aruka. Aruka was a native of Johto, an Azalea Town boy. He was obsessed with photography and owned a loyal Dark-type Pokémon. His own criminal career started when he went to Eldiw and witnessed a robbery at a place called Vega's Casino. He took a picture of the robbery, and it evidently did something to him. It convinced him that crime was the perfect subject for photos. Basically, he ended up becoming a criminal himself, photographing his own crimes. He was a cruel man, as he got a life sentence here. Couldn't have lasted that long, as he photographed his own crimes.

 In the middle is a second picture. It's of an item of great value Aruka had found in the past. It appears to be a stone. The photo also depicts a Pokemon next to it, and their colors match. 

There's also a third picture next to that one, also taken and signed by Aruka. He wrote a note on the back.

"You can think I'm a criminal if you want, but what I do is pure art. This room ain't a jail cell--it's a real gallery where you can admire my beloved photos. I got something to tell those who will be locked into this cell...the rock at the top right hides what you're looking for. - Rod Aruka." 

Yeah, it just occurred to me. We're in Aruka's cell. Man was a photographer. His cell is bathed in red light. Aruka turned his cell into a big old darkroom. Likely he earned the privilege for being well-behaved. 

Anyway, the next gallery, the one on the right side, also contains some photos. 

As shown in the screenshot, one is of a man named Charles Fire. He has a black and red Pokemon. There is writing on the back, but unlike the last two photos, it's unreadable.

The one next to it is burned, but unlike the last photo, we have some legible writing on the back. 

"That damn Gym Leader Bryce got me cornered with his Ice-type Pokémon."

Yeah, the game makers goofed up here. I think they meant Pryce. Pryce was an Ice-type specialist, the Gym Leader of Mahogany Town in Johto. There's also another photo, this one of his arrest. According to this photo, "Charles Fire" is a pseudonym. Whatever his real name was, he's from Unova. Little is known about the life of "Mr. Fire", except that he's a ruthless criminal. His victims all were given telltale scarring from a Fire Fang attack. 

And I think that's where we'll stop for today. I meant to go further than this, but grinding ate up all my time. Hopefully, we'll get through this gym next time! Wish me luck! Thaks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, wear a mask, and get your vaccine/booster! See you next time!