Boss fight!
Page 35
Ah, this is more like it, 2004 Tim. After some pretty weak pages last time these action poses are looking more like the rest of this book and, in fact, are probably some of the best looking Locke in action shots we've seen so far. (Complete with ninja turtle-style teeth-gritting!) It's still kind of ridiculous that a cat burglar could fight off a bunch of trained assassins but at least it's drawn well.
And here is our stock villain, yelling another stock villain line: "ENOUGH!"
Page 36
And he follows it up with yet another stock villain line: "Leave us." Why do these guys always do that? They do though and clearly, this bad guy has seen as many ninja movies as the guy who is writing his dialogue.
Panel three is VERY anime-inspired with the swordsman rushing in with a sword. That image actually made the cover of a Dinner and a Robbery and Locke and the Las Vegas Ninjas two in one collection I printed called All's Fair in Love and Ninjitsu. It's the rarest of the rare RL printed editions. I only sold it at ONE con and they're all gone aside from a few in my personal collection.
I remember having a hell of a time with that last panel. More than any other panel in this book. The kick doesn't come off as having much force and you can see by the fact that he turned Locke into a blob of ink that 2004 Tim just straight-up gave up trying to get that right.
Page 37
Bad guy is doing the "I don't even need my sword" move now! Man! That guy really likes ninja movies! As we've established Locke no longer thinks it's fun living in a ninja movie and he's prepared to Indiana Jones this clown.
Unfortunately, as much as he (and his creator) would like him to be, Locke is not Indiana Jones and promptly gets owned.
Hey, 2004 Tim is showing exactly where Locke's staff lands. I wonder if that's important?
Page 38
And Locke gets ass kicked! I do like that this is another super-dense action sequence as opposed to a pile of splash pages. I've mentioned that was a symptom of my two pages a week update schedule when this came out but I feel like these claustrophobic pages feel more intense than the "cinematic" splash pages many comic artists employ for fights. That said, I wish these panels had the weird angles of some of the earlier pages.
The panel in the lower has our second example of 2004 Tim forgetting to get rid of that white piping on Locke's cuff. WHOOPS.
I like the last bit on this page where Locke is like "Ha! I'm the hero of this story and I just grabbed my magic weapon when you weren't looking!" and then he's almost in disbelief that it's not working.
Page 39
And finally, Locke is fully out of the "Sweet! Ninjas!" mode of the early pages and is pretty much like "well, this is how I die."
Lucky for him he still IS the hero in a story about ninjas and through two strokes of luck:
Bad Guy cracked the glass on page 36 and made it worse on page 38 (way to seed your ideas, 2004 Tim!)
Bad Guy straight-up trips thanks to Locke's last-ditch toss.
Phew! I guess this was a ninja movie after all!
Well, I guess that wraps it up!
Oh, wait. Didn't Bad Guy have a shadowy boss? That's right... he did.
NEXT TIME: A SHADOWY BOSS!