"War Games / Sacrifice" (Tales from the Fringe #6)

Before I begin discussion of the final comic in this series of Fringecomics, I, as per usual, want to advise those who have not yet read this comic but would like to read it not to read any further until you have read it, because this does contain spoilers. I did like this comic a little bit better than the last one, but not by a whole lot. The first half of the comic, a story titled "War Games," shows us how Olivia became a Marine Special Investigator and ultimately nothing more, which I don't perceive as being too important. The second half of the comic, a story titled "Sacrifice," is a little story that potentially explains the significance of some of the glyphs, which sounds pretty cool, but it really isn't; once again, I don't perceive any tie-in to the mythology of Fringe. It just comes off as an X-Files-esque story that is ultimately more "paranormal" than it is "pseudoscience," but I digress - for now. In the meantime, I would like to give my Bunsen Burner rating, which is five butterflies. It is definitely higher than the Bunsen Burner rating that I gave to the last comic but not by a whole lot. These last two comics were definitely disappointments, especially the fifth.

 

Seeing as how this comic gives us back-story of Olivia, I was expecting a lot, and it fell short. Again, we learn how Olivia became a Marine Special Investigator. When I first opened the comic and saw the title and the image of Olivia taking cover with a pretty large weapon that I am unable to identify, I thought, "What? Since when was Olivia in combat? I thought that she was a prosecutor." However, it isn't long before we learn that she is actually undergoing some sort of virtual simulation as a way of being tested for the position for which she is applying, which I find to be somewhat of an inconsistency, because that means that the pilot episode was not the first time that Olivia came in contact with fringe science of sorts. Yet another apparent inconsistency is that this comic makes it clear that Olivia is a good shot, as I said in regards to the season 3 premiere (titled "Olivia"); in fact, for a little while, I thought that this comic was actually about Redverse Olivia, but that can't be because we see her talking to Rachel, who we know doesn't exist on the Other Side. Olivia failed the test because someone tampered with it beforehand, and that person did so because he felt that Olivia was too dangerous. At least he was on the money.

 

The second half of the comic (titled "Sacrifice") follows a couple who takes a tour on a tall temple, and their tour guide tells the couple a story about an ancient man, a very powerful man who had six fingers and was carried to the top of the temple by butterflies where he first sacrificed frogs and then humans. Obviously, three of our glyphs come into play there, and that would be really cool, except I once again don't know what ties can be made into the TV series. Even if that is the origin of the glyphs, how? What does it have to do with the mythology of Fringe? As it turns out, the tour guide turns out to be one of them and attacks the couple, but, yet again, what significance does this have? Were those people First People? If so, then what evidence of that do we have? The theory positing that the Observers are First People wouldn't hold any value, because they only have five fingers on each hand, and the theory positing that Sam Weiss is a First Person also wouldn't hold any value for the same reason. I really don't like the writers of most of these comics. I mean, like I said, how do you even attempt to explain this? This isn't a fringe science at all; it would have worked much better as an X-Filesepisode. I think that the three glyphs were brought into the story for no reason other than to attempt to give it some relevance. I do, however, very much appreciate the Slusho nod.

 

As I said, overall, I am not a big fan of these past two comics. I mean, seriously, give me some really good material that gives me some really good insight into the story of Fringe. I mean, even the "stand-alone" stories should have some kind of relevance, yet most of them don't. I definitely like the first series of comics much better than this series, which is a major disappointment, because I was expecting to like this series a lot better. Olivia does not look at all like Olivia, and I found that to be incredibly disappointing, especially in comparison to how Olivia looks in "The Visitor" (the final comic in the first series of comics), in which she looks just like herself. Many characters throughout this series do not look like themselves, and Nina was much too young in her comic. Also, Olivia in sweats and a t-shirt really isn't something that I can imagine, not in the colors that she was wearing, anyway. The artist ignored Olivia's tendency to wear black, grey, and pale blue due to her having been given Cortexiphan as a child. However, I don't think the writer forgot that she was given Cortexiphan as a child, because I think that that is why she was perceived as dangerous.

"Gene's Dream / The Perfect Woman" (Tales from the Fringe #5)

If you have not yet read this comic but would like to read it, then please don't read any further, as this does contain spoilers, even though not having read this really doesn't put you behind at all as a Fringe fan, as this comic holds almost nothing that is valuable. This is, by far, the worst comic book so far out of either Fringe series. I feel like this comic was created entirely as a filler. "Let's see, we are saving Olivia for last, and other than Olivia, we are covering Peter, Broyles, Astrid, and Nina. Who else to cover besides Gene?" It would have been utterly awesome, however, if we had been given a comic about the Observers, or about Sam Weiss, or even about someone from the Other Side. Lincoln Lee would have been really neat. Don't get me wrong; I love Gene. I mean, how could you not? However, this comic is pretty much a complete waste of time, and the only reason why I am even reviewing it is because I am a man of consistency; it wouldn't feel right to skip over it. Before I start talking about this ridiculously useless comic, I will give my Bunsen Burner rating, which is the lowest rating that I have ever given anything Fringe related - two mercows. Needless to say, I was not happy with this comic.

 

The first half of the comic is titled "Gene's Dream" and obviously gives us a story involving Gene, Walter's cow (only Walter could get away with having a pet cow in Boston, Massachusetts), but Walter and Peter are in this story, as well. Walter says goodnight to Gene and tells her not to get into any food, so, of course, that is exactly what she does. She gets into the fridge and pilfers some Chinese food, and she consequently has a dream that involves the corpse of Dan Gillespie (a reference, obviously, to "Fracture") attacking her, and chaos ensues. The following day, Peter finds Gillespie's crystallized ear in Gene's droppings, which suggests to us that it is possible that it was not a dream at all, which is utterly ridiculous, even in the world of Fringe. I think that it is much more likely that Gene got hungry and wasn't satisfied by the Chinese food, so she went for seconds, her seconds involving Gillespie's corpse. I do appreciate the reference to "Fracture" (2.03), but that is really the only value that this story has. All we learned is this random little mishap that occurred one night in the lab, but we don't get anything meaningful or anything that gives us any insight whatsoever into the story of Fringe. It is quite frustrating, and while I wasn't expecting much from a comic about Gene's dreams as it was, this was even worse than I was expecting.

 

The second story is titled "The Perfect Woman,"and I actually disliked this story even more than I did the first. A man is conducting some sort of science experiment, and someone is willing to kill for it (someone that I, at first, thought was Mosley from "The Arrival" (1.04), but his hat doesn't have the green-green-green-red sequence). That person does, in fact, kill for it, killing the man's daughter but failing to kill the man, who survives. The surviving man conducts the experiment on his deceased daughter, apologizing to her for her need to be his first subject. Ultimately, we see that the experiment involved turning her into some sort of sea creature, so she looks like some sort of hybrid between Ursula the Sea Witch and a mossy mermaid, and she gets her revenge by killing the man who killed her, saying that she bets that he didn't think that he would ever be seeing her again, yet here she is. The ultimate fate of her father is not revealed, but his experiment was apparently successful, and she becomes, as the title suggests, "the perfect woman." Yes, we see the traditional Fringe concept of human experimentation, but I still was not happy with this.

 

First of all, why? Why is this important? Why did we need to see this? I want to feel rewarded for spending the extra money as an exceptional Fringe fan, and usually, I do. For example, prior to "The Bishop Revival" (2.13), I already knew that Walter's father had been a Nazi spy. I also have a lot of insight regarding the days that Walter and Bell were lab partners that someone who merely watches the TV series does not have, and I also know how Astrid was hired as an FBI agent - a very cool story, indeed. This entire comic, however, was pretty much useless; I don't feel enlightened at all, and that is why my Bunsen Burner rating is so low. Even when it has come to episodes that have not been all that great, I was given something. For "The No-Brainer" (1.12), I met the mother of Carla Warren, the lab assistant who was killed in the lab fire, and that story involved Walter and Peter growing closer. For "Night of Desirable Objects" (2.02), I met Sam Weiss. This was just utterly useless, and plus, would someone please explain to me how a cow got into a fridge? The art was great, especially when it comes to the first story (Walter looked exactly like Walter, even though Peter wasn't quite as great), and Gene's art was fantastic, as well. Needless to say, though, out of the twelve total Fringe comics, this is, by far, my least favorite.

"Plan B / Knock Knock" (Tales from the Fringe #4)

This has definitely been my favorite issue so far from this series, and it's definitely the one that I have been looking forward to with the most anticipation, but before I begin to discuss it, I would like to warn those who have not read this comic yet that this does contain spoilers. Ever since my boyfriend started watching the series, he has been convinced that the hand in a jar that Walter retrieves from his old car in "The Same Old Story" (1.02) is Nina's hand, and I agreed with him, commending him for such a valuable observation that had not once crossed my mind in the two years that I had been watching the series. Therefore, I was very excited when I discovered that there would be a comic involving the history of Nina's arm, figuring for sure that he would be able to gloat. However, this comic confirms no such thing, which obviously does not rule the theory out, but it is very possible that that scene was intended as nothing more than to demonstrate how much of an oddball Walter is, that that hand could be anyone's hand. Plus, she lost half of her arm, not just a hand. On the other hand (no pun intended), the hand in the jar is a right hand (which is the one that Nina lost), and it also seems to be feminine. There could very well be a great deal to the theory.

 

In the comic, we learn that, for one reason or another (I have no suggestions to offer), Nina believed that she was not physically able to have children and was therefore very surprised when she discovered that she was pregnant. I really don't know what to make of that. Something that this comic does seem to confirm is that Nina and Bell were intimate, since all indicators are that Bell was the father of her child. This has been suggested many times, and the two examples that come to mind is Nina telling Olivia in "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver." (2.16) that she knows what kind of feelings can sprout from a working relationship, and Walter having romantically paired Bell and Nina in his story in "Brown Betty" (2.19). When the doctor tells Nina that she should consult the father of her child, she says that he is "unavailable," which is what she tells Walter in "Peter" (2.15) as to why Bell could not attend Peter's funeral. As I know I have posited before, as well as many other Cortexifans, was Bell traveling between the universes even then? If so, doesn't that mean that Walter is not responsible for causing the damage between the universes?

 

Yet another piece of evidence to support the idea that Bell, even back then, was traveling between the universes is that Nina is surprised when he calls her, saying that she hadn't been expecting to hear from him. When they do meet, though, his behavior is so typical. He basically says to her that although he understands that she wants to have a family, that's not important to him when it's up against science, and Nina even tells him that she won't be a trophy. I was hoping for a twist at the end, to find out that the father was actually Broyles and that she would give birth to Astrid. Wouldn't that be a major twist, and the best part of it would have been that it would have been exclusive to those who read the comics. The ending, however, doesn't make much sense. If the lightning strike was bad enough to kill the baby, then how come it didn't do any serious damage to her? The doctor tells her that the arm saved her life, but I don't understand the science behind that at all. He tells her that the metal in her arm took the electricity and that she, therefore, didn't, but metal is a conductor, so if anything, it should have made the impact even worse, especially since the arm is now part of her DNA. Without the arm, she probably wouldn't have been electrocuted in the first place.

 

Was it just me, or did the suspicious man in the background of the hospital room look suspiciously like an Observer? It does appear as if he is wearing some sort of scarf, which we have not seen an Observer wear before, but, by all other appearances, it could very well be an Observer. If not, then I don't know why else he would be placed so creepily in the background like that, watching Nina and the doctor interact with each other. One final thought is that in the pilot episode, Nina tells Olivia to tread lightly, something that she would tell her own daughter. For quite a while, we wondered if perhaps Nina was Olivia's mother, but, of course, we now know that that is not the case, but now, what Nina said makes a whole lot of sense. Moving on to the second story, there really isn't a whole lot to say besides (a) it is an incredibly creepy story, (b) it kind of reminds me of "The Same Old Story," and (c) I would have liked to understand the science behind it. A pattern of rapid aging occurs like a virus, intentionally being passed from one person to another, and in effect, when a person causes another person to rapidly age, that person reverts to his or her original age. Overall, I give this comic eight and a half selfish William Bells.

"The Calling / The Weapon" (Tales from the Fringe #3)

I am much more pleased with this comic than I was with the last one, which I felt gave us little to nothing in regards to Broyles' background. The only way that I could see that comic being rewarding to someone is if that person had not seen "Earthling" (2.06), but I'm assuming that someone who likes Fringe enough to buy the comic books probably watches the series every week. This comic, however, is very rewarding, the first half, anyway (the second doesn't half much to offer, in my opinion). We get quite a bit of information in this comic regarding Astrid's background, and we learn something that I was actually wanting to know - how did Astrid secure her position? I know that my boyfriend was wondering, because he was suspicious (and surely still is) of her, but after reading this comic, any suspicions that I may have had have been put to rest; I no longer think that her motivations are faulty, since she seems to have been legitimately hired by the FBI. Then again, if you've seen Alias, then you know that sometimes, things are not as they seem.

 

If you have not read this comic yet but would like to read it, I strongly advise that you don't read any further, as this does contain spoilers. In the first half of this comic (titled "The Calling"), Astrid is building a device, a device to pick up on transmissions, and she says that she is doing so for a school project (she is still in college, as I'm sure you figured out yourself). She eventually picks up on a woman crying for help, and consequently, Astrid calls the police. The police, however, don't believe her, so they bring her in for questioning, and when they realize that they're not going to get anything out of her, they set her for free for the time being. It isn't long, however, before Astrid realizes that she has been Punk'd. She has been played the whole time by the FBI, as a way to test her abilities and see if she was worthy of recruiting, which, as it turned out, she was. I really love the line, "Everything else we can teach, but not being an agent - that's who you are, Astrid Farnsworth." It, to me, suggests that perhaps, Astrid is of more importance than we have been led to believe thus far.

 

Something that made me think, though, is why this hasn't been revealed in the series so far. I mean, I understand that this story was probably made up on the spot and that the writers hadn't thought of it previously, but when you put yourself in the world of Fringe or in any story, for that matter, that doesn't play a role. Being "in the zone" requires dismissing the fact that a story is a story that has been written but instead a real world, so what we're going to think about here is why characters have behaved in particular ways, since Astrid, of course, is not a character in a TV series; she is real. I see this as being a big deal, what happened to her, so you would think that she would have told Walter this story at some point. Perhaps, she was told that it was completely classified and that she couldn't share it with anyone? Perhaps, this comic doesn't prove that her intentions are good at all; perhaps, this comic suggests the possibility that she was hired by someone who claimed to be the FBI but was not, and therefore, she hasn't told the team this story, because it would be proof that she works for another agency. Alias, much?

 

The second story is titled "The Weapon" and is a very Fringey story, but I can't say that I liked it all that much. It's very complex and difficult to follow, and it took me a little while to get a bit of a grasp on it. The weapon seems to be this baby, which kind of reminds me of the young child in "Run Away," the second story of the third comic in the first series of comics, and the red-headed woman who infiltrates the facility seems to be the baby's mother, who is then killed in order to contain "the weapon." The scene in which the woman finds the baby's bedroom really reminds me of both Alias and LOST, which both have nearly identical scenes involving a baby's bedroom having been uncannily provided by "the enemy." I wonder who exactly tried to contain "the weapon." Was it some branch of the government? If so, does it not play into the conspiracy that we see unfolding in the second season premiere, "A New Day in the Old Town" (2.01)? At any rate, I enjoyed this comic, especially Astrid's story. I like how we see some of her typical characteristics, such as naivety when she says, "It's a school project. I didn't think I needed a permit." Overall, I give the comic eight corrupt toy stores.

"The One That Got Away / Nonfiction" (Tales from the Fringe #2)

This issue features two stories, the first titled "The One That Got Away," which is Broyles-centric, and the second titled "Nonfiction," which, although seemingly "stand-alone," definitely gives us quite a bit to think about, but before I talk about the stories in depth, be warned that this does contain spoilers, just in case you haven't read the comic yet. "The One That Got Away" unfortunately kind of disappoints me, because it leaves me wantingmore, a lot more. I was hoping that I would get some insight into Broyles' character that I didn't already have, but I don't feel like I learned much of anything. What we do learn from this story is that Broyles used to have a partner named Corrine, but something Fringey happened to her, which left her severely deformed (her bandages reminded me very much of Jones' bandages in "There's More than One of Everything," the first season finale, episode 1.20). However, this is nothing conclusive. Why, exactly, is she deformed? Does it have something to do with the "Earthling" case? Why aren't Broyles and Corrine partners anymore? Is it because of what happened to Corrine? That only brings me right back to my original question - what did happen to her? All we know is that she suffered from something related to Fringe Division, but we don't know what or what, if anything, it has to do with this particular case.

 

Surely, you can see what I mean when I say that I am left wanting more. I already knew from "Earthling" (2.06) that Broyles' wife left him because of his obsession with the case involving people turning into dust. I already knew, or at least assumed, that he missed a lot of important family events because of his devotion to the job. None of that is news to me, and I was hoping for something to really make me drop my jaw, or at least learn something new about Broyles, something conclusive. The last comic is much different because it answers something for me that I had been wanting to know - how did Ahmed from episode 2.03, "Fracture," become deformed, and what did Peter have to do with it? This, however, is just ultimately disappointing, especially since it is about Broyles, someone about whom we don't know that much to begin with. The story focuses on the little that we do know and gives us very little else. At any rate, I am also very disappointed with the artwork, not because it's bad but because once again, our character doesn't look like, well, our character. He does, however, look strangely like an Observer in certain scenes.

 

The second story is titled "Nonfiction," and this is definitely my favorite "stand-alone" comic book story to date. I found it to be incredibly intriguing and kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting to know what was going to happen. The first observation that I would like to make, as I always do when this happens, when the opportunity presents itself, is that Emerson says that he has been the night watchman for the library for forty-seven years; of course he has. The number "47," for those of you that don't know, is a number that shows up quite often in J.J.-related works, most notably Alias since it actually plays a major role in the plot itself, which is why I think that just about every "47" mention since has been a "nod" to the show. Anyway, for a while, I was wondering if maybe Elizabeth was the Elizabeth, as in Peter's mother Elizabeth, but this is ruled out when we learn that she was born in 1981, which would obviously make her way too young to be Peter's mother (Elizabeth Bishop had to have been born in the 30s or 40s). So, then, I thought that the "nonfiction" room must have been an archive of Cortexiphan subjects, but this is not confirmed to be the case either.

 

As interesting as I found this story to be, however, it got to be predictable near the end. As soon as Tom reads Elizabeth's future, about how she is going to be killed by a man that she knows, I thought, don't try to save her, because you're going to be the one that kills her! Of course, this is exactly what happens - the action that Tom takes to prevent Elizabeth's death is exactly what causes it, which is bitter irony if I've ever seen it. This story has so many unanswered questions, which I guess is good - what was the "nonfiction" room? Why were there books in there of people's lives, foretelling their futures? Is it a place where Observers store books that they have written about people (something that the guys with black coats really make me ponder)? If so, why are these people important enough to document? Surely, they are not Cortexiphan subjects, because there aren't that many Cortexiphan subjects in existence. Why is Tom's book in flames at the end? What did Emerson know about the "nonfiction" room? How was he involved? Ultimately, I give this comic seven and a half nonfiction books, having enjoyed the second story much more than the first.

"Tomorrow / Lost Time" (Tales from the Fringe #1)

I have really been looking forward to this comic for quite some time now, and I am very excited to finally have read it, but before discussion of this comic begins, I find it important to advise those who have not yet read this comic against reading any further, as this does contain spoilers. The first half of the comic is titled "Tomorrow" and revolves around Peter in Iraq. When I first found out about this comic and how it was about about Peter in Iraq, I instantly assumed that we would find out why Ahmed's face is scarred so badly (in reference to "Fracture"), and I was right. Peter is torn between two promises that he has made to people, the problem being that he can only keep one. Will he help a young man named Malik who is being forced to commit suicide, or will he seize an opportunity for a very highly paid job? Unfortunately, he chooses the job, and Malik dies as a result while his brother Ahmed is left badly scarred. I was very excited to have seen that I was correct in assuming that this comic would explain why Ahmed is scarred, but the comic's ending is an incredibly downer and depressing one.

 

I love how we see Baghdad, Iraq in the sky in the same block-lettered font as locations are presented to us in the TV series, but as far as graphics are concerned, I do have a complaint, and that is that I definitely think that a much better job could have been done on Peter, because I don't think that Peter's character in this comic looks a whole lot like Peter. The dialogue, his mannerisms and his clothing are all right on, but not his appearance. Anyway, after Malik explains his predicament to Peter, Peter tells him that he can help him get out of the country, and that makes me wonder just how much power Peter has and how he acquired it. He also says, "I know something about saving face and looking out for loved ones," which makes me wonder what he means by that. I definitely get the impression that that line was intended to serve a function, but I'm not sure, because we don't know of any specific time prior to the pilot episode that Peter looked out for a loved one. Perhaps, he is speaking of his mother, Elizabeth Bishop? I can't think of anyone else to whom he'd be referring when he says that. We do know that Peter had a good relationship with his mother, especially since Walter wasn't much of a father to him.

 

In "Ability" (1.14), Olivia teases Peter about his "weird connections," and she is definitely right. Peter desperately speaks to an unidentified man that he knows in order to help Malik; Peter always has his "weird connections" on which to rely, but it isn't long before he receives an opportunity for a job, a job that we see him negotiating in the pilot episode. A bartender, who is another one of his "weird connections," tells Peter that "a couple of guys came in here today looking for a contractor to run an oil line. I told them about you. They want to meet." This is what Peter decides to do, ultimately breaking his promise to help Malik, and this is why Ahmed is so bitter in "Fracture" (2.03), why he questions whether or not Peter cares about lives. It can totally be understood now, and like I said, I had a very strong feeling that this comic would help us understand that. I feel sorry for those Cortexi-Fans who don't read the comics, because they really are rewarding in a lot of ways; they give insight into matters that the TV series does not. For example, it will most likely never be explained in the TV series what happened to Ahmed, because that is the purpose of this story.

 

The second half of this comic is titled "Lost Time" and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. In the story, a teenage girl named Nikki is spending time with her boyfriend who offers an unknown drug to her. She accepts, and consequently, she suddenly finds herself living the life of an assassin. "Code 47" is the usual Alias nod, which is funny, because only seconds prior, I was thinking about how the assassin kind of looked like Jennifer Garner and how her use of stealth to infiltrate the building reminded me of Alias (Elektra also crossed my mind). The ending doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, though. The assassin is supposed to kill a man who then hits her with his car after she goes back to being herself again, and he calls it "karma." I don't know how to draw a conclusion from that. Did Nikki switch consciences with someone, or did she travel to the future, where she saw herself as an assassin? I'm not sure; this half of the comic really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, very confusing, indeed. It is a very complex story that you have to think long and hard about, which I have, and I still don't fully understand, but I think it is, in fact, intended to leave us to draw our own conclusion. Ultimately, I give this comic eight femme fatales.