Halo Graphic Novel Review (Part 3)

This article was written for Halopedia:

Good morning, Halopedia! And here I am, back with the third article in my series reviewing the Halo Graphic Novel. If you have missed my previous articles, you can check them out here and here. Today, I will be reviewing my favorite story in the HGN: Breaking Quarantine by Tsutomu Nihei.

After our palates were cleansed with the light-hearted Armor Testing, we are treated to another dark and action-filled battle with the Flood. Halo: First Strike author Eric Nylund had previously described Johnson’s escape from the Flood as because of radiation poisoning that made him incompatible with the Flood infection and they had released him, but that wasn’t kosher with the Bungie team. They wanted to retell the story, and got Japanese graphic novelist Tsutomu Nihei to illustrate Johnson’s story of escape.

The location is very familiar to us Halo fans. It is set in the Flood containment facility we entered in the level 343 Guilty Spark in Halo: Combat Evolved. Master Chief viewed helmet camera footage of Johnson’s unit being attacked by the Flood. The recording’s termination left implied that his whole team had been massacred. Johnson did survive, obviously, and his route of escape is made consistent with the layout of the facility we know from the game.

Breaking Quarantine is essentially the human parallel to The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor. Breaking Quarantine, however, manages to avoid the pitfall that Last Voyage fell into in where it had so much busy detail that panels were distracting and hard to follow. Breaking Quarantine has a lot of detail, but it finds the balance that Last Voyage did not and accomplishes some really beautiful art.

The story is devoid of dialog. Only pure actions take place. There are, however, sound effects written in Japanese katakana. They’re a little weird to get used to, but a quick Google search shows the sounds they represent and it’s really just meaningless sound effects anyway.

The artistic style is dark and edgy. Nihei creates intense imagery of the sort traditionally associated with masculinity. Johnson forcefully rips into Flood with a spray of bullets. He blocks a tentacle whip and is thrown across the room by the sheer strength of the Combat Form, but he gets up and keeps moving. There is tension as he runs out of ammo for his assault rifle! He switches to his pistol and manages to take out the Combat Form, despite the shotgun wielded by his enemy.

He runs across a light bridge, but the Flood deactivate it when he’s only two thirds of the way across and he makes a death defying leap to the other side. Only a room away from the lift, he tosses a grenade over his shoulder to take out the Flood chasing him. It clicks to the floor.

Blam! The Flood are incinerated in an explosive blast that Johnson himself barely escapes. He walks calmly to the lift and rides it to the top. He is the sole survivor of his unit. Looking grim, he exits the facility.

Breaking Quarantine made Johnson my favorite Halo character, above even the Master Chief. Johnson became a very cool action hero with this story. Master Chief might have his MJOLNIR armor, but the suit takes away from his human features and he becomes hard to care about as a character. You can see Johnson’s face here; see his weariness, his shock, his anger. He is a more defined character without the godly strength awarded by technology and is cooler as a result.

So, final thoughts on Breaking Quarantine: Johnson is awesome; art is cool; fight scenes intense and easy to follow; Johnson is awesome; and let’s not forget: Johnson is awesome. Stay tuned for the next review on Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa, where the colors are bonkers and a man looks like a rabbit. This should be interesting.

"The Brutes have our scent."

—Arbiter

"Then they must love the smell of badass."

—Johnson

Halo Graphic Novel Review (Part 2)

This article was written for Halopedia:

Hello, Halopedians. I return with my second article reviewing the Halo Graphic Novel. You can check out my first article in the series, reviewing The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, here. For today, I will review the second story in the HGN: Armor Testing by Jay Faerber, Ed Lee, and Andrew Robinson.

With its simplistic graphics and story, Armor Testing is a nice break from Last Voyage. Whereas Last Voyage was dark and filled with (at times distracting) detail, Armor Testing is a clean and friendly story about a Spartan testing the new MJOLNIR Mark VI suit against some ODSTs in mock-combat. Compared to Last Voyage’s 48 pages, Armor Testing is pretty short at only 12 pages. The simplistic storyline makes for a nice integration with the shorter length of the other stories.

Armor Testing gives us a look at some cool UNSC technology not previously seen. Spartan-062 drops down to Earth from low orbit with a pack that deploys a parafoil, allowing her to glide over the landscape. Once on the ground, she and the ODSTs fight with mock-weapons that shoot paint. We also get our first glimpse of the Humbler Stun Device, previously only described in the novels, apparently colored purple to imitate a Covenant energy sword.

It’s also interesting to see Korean UNSC characters. While Bungie has generally tried to go for the melting pot look, the cast still came out rather white with only a few ethnically diverse characters appearing as the generic Marines. It’s nice to see Asian characters that are actual characters. Although it kind of kills the melting pot concept in that they are all Korean, and are Asian only because of the region. UNSC: United but separate?

But the most interesting thing about the story is the new Spartan character, Maria-062. Not only is she the first canon female Spartan to be depicted visually (after the basically non-canon Nicole-458), she is the first Spartan to be seen unmasked. They built up to the reveal, her head in shadow, seen from the side, out of frame… and then blam! Female Spartan!

Maria is unique in that she is the only Spartan thus far to have retired. I assume it had to have been sometime after Cortana and Solipsil’s conversation in 2550 in which Cortana denies a Spartan-II ever taking advantage of their legal recourse because of their brainwashing. Something must have happened to make her desire to start a family override her brainwashed sense of duty to the UNSC. In her conversation with the Korean senior officer, she comes across as the most free Spartan with a good perspective on the world that puts her at the same level as the soldiers.

From the “girl power” perspective, Maria is pretty decent. Unlike Cortana, whose physical form was played up for sex appeal, Maria looks generally natural. I say “generally” because she is a Spartan and in a heightened physical condition, but she is free from the sexual objectification often placed on female characters in these sorts of media aimed at the male audience. The downside is that she is less of an action hero than John-117 or Linda-058, and is eventually overcome by the ODSTs in the exercise. Her denial of re-enlisting for purposes of starting a family could be viewed as less than progressive, but I personally see it as a victory. She got out.

As for the graphics of Armor Testing, I’m not so impressed. The artists use a blend of standard artwork and computer rendering that just doesn’t look very pretty. The Ghost looks like it was ripped straight from Halo 2, and seems out of place in the two-dimensional environment. Aside from the computer renders, the artwork is decent. As a step up from Last Voyage, I can tell what the heck’s going on during the fight scenes.

So, final thoughts on Armor Testing: Easy to understand storyline; interesting new tech; clean graphics, free of the distraction that plagued Last Voyage; some annoying renders; cool female Spartan, whose face we actually see; friendly comradery between UNSC soldiers. Stay tuned for the next article in this series, which will review Breaking Quarantine.

Halo Graphic Novel Review (Part 1)

This article was written for Halopedia:

The Halo Graphic Novel came out on July 19th, 2006. I got it a couple weeks or so later, and have read it numerous times over the years since then. The HGN offered us a look into subjects not previously explored in such detail, including aspects of the Covenant, Flood, UNSC, and human civilians. It gave us an unmasked female Spartan, a name for “Half-Jaw”, and proof of Johnson’s coolness with both a powerful fight scene and evidence that he’s a Spartan-I. I will now offer to ye Halopedians a thorough analysis and review of the Halo Graphic Novel. As the book is made up of several stories, I will make this a series of articles instead of one giant article.

The first story is The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor by Lee Hammond (story) and Simon Bisley (art). Now this is the highlight of the book. Most promotional material included art from this story, and for good reason. It is the longest story in the book, spanning 48 pages while the others are more like 14 pages or so. Moreover, it is intimidating science-fiction horror that offers a sympathetic view of the Sangheili and insight into the workings of the Flood.

The world of the Covenant had been revealed to us in Halo 2, with likable Sangheili characters. We got to know our Sangheili protagonist, a Supreme Commander shamed and reborn into the Arbiter, as well as his loyal Special Ops Commander with only half his mandibles. These characters return for Last Voyage, which stars Special Ops Commander Rtas ‘Vadumee, whom Halo fans had previously only known by the moniker “Half-Jaw”. Instead of the Arbiter we know and love, we meet a dark Supreme Commander adorned in flowing purple robes. While the Supreme Commander has yet to make his journey as the Arbiter, respect between him and ‘Vadumee can clearly be seen even at this most hierarchal stage of their relationship.

Last Voyage gives us a fascinating look into the Covenant. So much of their culture is revealed in this story. Newer fans, understand that this was a long time before Halo: Contact Harvest’s in-depth Covenant storylines. With Last Voyage, we saw the Sangheili honorably mock-fighting with dual-wielded swords, learned that Covenant dropships had names like Brilliant Gift, met a new Prophet, and saw the interior of a ship with the purpose of maintaining a hunting preserve. Pretty mesmerizing stuff for us Halo geeks.

More than the Covenant, Last Voyage shows us the Flood in an interesting new way. After assaulting the Infinite Succor, Covenant hunting preserve, the Flood infect their version of wild game. The prey creatures are pretty tough monstrous aliens without the Flood, and with the Flood you’ve got some really freaky opponents.

Apparently, it was important to Bungie that the fans see the Flood as something more than “space zombies”. They accomplish this by introducing a talking Proto-Gravemind. It addresses ‘Vadumee and asks him what chance he has of defeating the Flood when even the Forerunners could not.

The story of Last Voyage is interesting. The Sangheili as always have the appeal of the romanticized knights or samurai. ‘Vadumee has a strong sense of honor and has a respectful relationship with his Sub-Commander, who he personally trains in sword-fighting. He cares deeply about his men, even the often abused Unggoy, and takes measures to ensure their safety. He even goes as far as to attack a Prophet to protect them.

The Prophet, a Legate known as the Minister of Etiology, would seem to be another corrupt politician character. Like the Prophet of Truth, this guy is sneaky and is implied to know more than he lets on. Whatever he does know is lost when the Flood eat him, though. It provides a nicely creepy image for the Proto-Gravemind to speak through the Legate’s face amongst a messy heap of bodies.

‘Vadumee emerges a tragic hero. He survives the Flood and sends the ship into a star, but he ultimately loses his men. He has a climatic fight scene when his Sub-Commander is transformed into a Combat Form and fights him with the sword-fighting skills ‘Vadumee himself taught him. Sub-Commander Kusovai slices off two of ‘Vadumee’s mandibles, thus explaining his iconic injury, before ‘Vadumee kills him. He defeats the Flood, but escapes alone.

But while the story is good, I do have some issues with the graphics. The artist took some liberties with the Covenant technology, and the result is certain items that while are not implausible are not seen elsewhere in the Halo series. Examples include Unggoy methane tanks drawn in a barrel style, lumpy guns that take after the assault rifle, and a black grenade of some sort. Interestingly, the Sangheili arm shield from the original E3 trailer for the first game made a reappearance. While not canon, it at least gives the shield some basis in the Halo mythology.

Aside from the content, some of the artwork is just too busy. The fight scenes with the infected aliens have a lot of colorful detail that makes it hard to follow the action. I’ve had to read this story several times to get what happens. The first time through I missed where ‘Vadumee lost his mandibles and had to go back.

So, final thoughts on Last Voyage: Interesting insights into the Covenant and the Flood; engaging storyline; weird (possibly non-canon) technology; art is at times poorly rendered and confusing. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the next story, Armor Testing, same Halo time, same Halo wiki.

"Though you leave this world, you will come on the Great Journey when the time comes. Die with honor."

—Rtas ‘Vadumee, before killing the Flood that was his Sub-Commander

An Examination of Female Characters in Halo

This article was originally written for Halopedia:

I’ve previously gone over the subject of Halo’s female characters and concluded that there were no instances of sexism in the franchise. However, after reading Kougermasters’ Girl Power post, my mind has been changed to some extent. So, here we go: a thorough examination of the female characters in the Halo games and its other media.

"Don’t shoot him in the head. You might hit Cortana. She’s a hottie. She’s blue, but she’s a hottie."

—Marine in Halo 2, should Master Chief turn traitor

First of all, Cortana is hot. I personally don’t find her hot, but she was designed to have sex appeal. There are many instances throughout the Halo community in which Cortana is depicted in ways that accentuate her sexual attractiveness. Even the Halo Graphic Novel had a gallery art image by Scott Fischer that depicted Cortana in a biologically accurate manner while remaining true to her proportions to create an overly sexual portrait. I believe Bungie has said that after the exaggerated sexual attractiveness of Oni’s Konoko, they wanted to have a female character that was more realistic in appearance but acknowledge that Cortana ultimately turned out to be quite exaggerated. “Cortana is every girlfriend we’ve ever had,” Joe Staten comments in Journey’s End before adding, “No, just kidding… She’s your little guardian angel.”

Aside from the sex appeal of Cortana’s holographic body, she is a pretty strong character. She is probably the smartest character in the Halo world, and functions as the Master Chief’s incorporeal counterpart. He acts as a physical force, and she directs him and comes up with the plans. It should be noted that in Halo 3 she exists as a pretty standard damsel-in-distress cliché, but at least she manages to come up with a way to defeat the main antagonist and directs the Chief from afar – something you probably wouldn’t get from actress Jen Taylor’s other character, Princess Peach of the Mario games.

Halo 2 introduced the character of Miranda Keyes, who stands as a counter-example for the most part. Her body is realistic and her outfit is appropriately military. In the story she functions as a Captain-Kirk-like figure, both commanding from her ship and going out on “away missions” herself. She gets some cool stunts: hanging out on a ledge to remove the Index in the Library, leaping from platforms to remove the Index in the Control Room, flying a Pelican through a wall, and multiple acts of action that involve dual-wielding. Problem is, her cool stunts land her into scrapes more than half the time, and she is either rescued (by a masculine character no less) or killed.

I think part of the issue here is that Bungie didn’t want to offend anyone for their handling of their only black character: Sergeant Johnson. Johnson was based off of a very stereotypical character from Aliens, and when Bungie turned him into a main character I imagine they were cautious about him sliding into the rather racist clichés. So, instead of having Johnson appear weak, they have him rescue Miranda a few times. And instead of the black guy dying first, Miranda dies first.

The first incident of trouble Miranda gets into is when she uses a Flood tentacle twisted up in an Enforcer wreck as a rope to help her hang off a ledge to reach the Index in its floating sheath. Her weight pulls the tentacle out of the wreck and she starts to fall, but Jonson shows up and saves the day by grabbing the other end and pulling her up. Then the Arbiter shows up, knocks out Johnson, and gets wounded by Miranda (who pulls SMGs from that magic pocket), but she is taken prisoner by Tartarus.

Later, Tartarus takes her to the Control Room where he tries to make her activate Halo. When 343 Guilty Spark advises him not to damage her, he threatens to rip Spark’s eye from its socket. He then turns to Miranda and says “which is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you…” Miranda looks at him and there is a pause to let the horrible threat sink in before the Arbiter shows up to save the day, an almost literal knight in shining armor. Johnson shows up to help a moment later.

In Halo 3, she has her moment of coolness when to save Johnson she smashes her Pelican through a window, crash lands on the platform and pushes a Brute off the cliff, jumps out and starts shooting Covies with a big shotgun, then holds said shotgun in one hand while she levels a pistol at the Brute behind her. Coolness, thy name is Miranda. Realizing she can’t fight off all the Covies, she moves to kill Johnson to eliminate Truth’s ability to activate Halo. She hesitates, however, and Truth kills her.

In the Halo Graphic Novel, we get a brief glimpse of female Spartan Maria-062. While not the only female Spartan, she is the only Spartan to have their face revealed, which makes her a notable character. Maria is featured in both the story Armor Testing and a piece of gallery art.

In the story, she tests out the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor through a training exercise involving fighting ODSTs. She’s got a few cool action bits with her dropping in from low orbit, shooting targets with a sniper rifle while still at a great height, and then gliding over the landscape with a parafoil. She is eventually subdued by an ODST with a Humbler Stun Device dressed as an energy sword, and then claims that the strength of the weapon was the deciding factor – not that she was outnumbered by twenty soldiers. After hearing that the armor’s going to be given to John-117, she notes that everyone will sleep better at night. In the gallery artwork, she is shown in normal clothing and fighting Flood beside a Spartan in MJOLNIR armor. The message is clear that she’s a good fighter, but not as good as the Chief.

In an interesting twist, Maria is also the only Spartan to have retired. The Spartan-IIs were inducted involuntarily and subjected to brainwashing techniques that left them helplessly loyal to their UNSC captors. While their military contracts do allow them some legal recourse, there were no Spartans to ever pursue such a thing at the time of a conversation between Cortana and Solipsil in 2550. Maria says that she retired with the hopes of starting a family, which may kill the “girl power” thing a bit. Personally, I think it’s awesome she got out of the involuntary military service.

On a different note, we have the female Spartan Nicole-458 from the Dead or Alive crossover. Now, it should be noted that Nicole is non-canon, but she was given an official backstory from Bungie that ties into the semi-canon I Love Bees. Nicole is pretty much the personification of “girl power”, which is weird considering that she is a part of Dead or Alive 4 – a decidedly sexist game overall. While DoA4’s other female characters are all sex objects with bouncing breasts and skirts that flip up, Nicole is a large and muscular Spartan encased in MJOLNIR armor. Her victory line: “And that’s how you hit like a girl!”

Did Team Ninja actually stick a decent female warrior with a feminist leaning in that mess of sexism and sexual objectification? Looks that way. Very unusual.

I Love Bees contains a number of female characters, many of who are powerful in some way. This is probably because the design team at 4orty2wo Entertainment was headed by women such as Susan Bonds and Jane McGonigal (who mentioned Halopedia in her article in the Christian Science Monitor!). These strong female characters include Janissary James, Rani Sobeck, Yasmine Zaman (and her other personas of Melissa, the Operator, the Sleeping Princess, and Durga), Sophia Bossedon, Gladys Wilson, and Gilly.

Jan James is in many ways the superhero of the Halo world. She’s a Spartan 1.1 (i.e. she’s the daughter of Spartan-Is and was given Spartan-esque alterations at birth), but was unaware of this for much of her life (though she was aware of some physical superiority). At first she uses her abilities for selfish and immature purposes, such as taking a Warthog joyriding and then breaking into the military base to return a gate pass taken from a friend’s dad – and then beating the lie detector when she gets caught. However, once she becomes aware of the extent of her abilities, she starts helping people. She rescues a guy about to be murdered by a gang, and then later rescues a woman about to be raped by a member of the same gang.

Now, the woman who the gang member was trying to rape is a very minor character, not even given a name. Her role is simple: she’s walking by; she’s grabbed; she screams for help; Jan shows up to save the day; she thanks Jan profusely as she runs away. I find her role realistic and not having characteristics of sexism. Jan beats up the rapist pretty badly and shoots off one of his toes, so there is no message of females getting put down in this scene.

Jan’s repeated interfering with this gang gets her in trouble with the gang’s leader, a guy named Thin Kinkle. Every superhero must deal with supervillains, and Thin is pretty nasty. He kidnaps Jan and subjects her to a type of torture designed to make her fall in love with him. He has a brain-monitoring device that will automatically hurt her for every unkind thought toward the subject of “Thin Kinkle”, forcing her to love him as a survival mechanism. What he wants is a broken and submissive version of Jan to worship him. Thoroughly despicable person.

I’m not sure if Kinkle’s supposed to be a misogynist or just a sadistic creep. I mean, he repeatedly makes savage attempts to hurt and molest women but he also kills men, so I can see it argued either way. In any case, Jan is rescued from Kinkle by her psychotic Spartan-I mother who had help from Durga, a feminine AI, so it doesn’t fall into the damsel-in-distress cliché like with Miranda. Jan later leads a unit comprised of all women to attack Kinkle and kill him once and for all.

Rani Sobeck is a college girl in Boston who grew up in a hick town in Kentucky. She possesses an uncanny gift for observation of detail, making her the next Sherlock Holmes. Her talents get her noticed by ONI and she gets hired as an analyst. Section Zero, ONI internal affairs, recruits her to spy on a corrupt major and she gets involved in uncovering a conspiracy, which lets her help save the world with Jan and Durga.

Yasmine Zaman is a child prodigy who gets involuntarily inducted into the Spartan-II program. Unlike the more well known Spartans, she doesn’t survive the augmentation process. Her mind, however, is preserved and transformed into a smart AI named Melissa.

Melissa is used for gathering intelligence on a ship in deep space. Melissa is a copy of Yasmine’s personality, but Yasmine’s memories are kept locked away in a corner of her mind that she cannot access – nor does she want to. This all changes when a freak accident splits her into three separate personalities: the Operator, the Sleeping Princess, and Durga.

The details of each of these personalities are far too extensive to get into here, so I’ll just summarize Durga’s story: Durga meets a boy, Jersey Morelli, with who she develops a deep friendship; Durga expands and becomes incredibly powerful; Durga keeps tabs on several individuals and eventually calls them all together to save the world; when the device putting the world in jeopardy is deactivated, Melissa’s various personalities come back together and make her temporarily insane; Melissa is almost definitely Rampant, but she is intensely loyal to the individuals she recruited for the mission, including Yasmine’s brother Kamal Zaman; Kamal introduces Melissa to their parents and it’s the start of a happy ending. That is, until the Covenant show up.

Melissa is extraordinarily powerful. Moreover, she is a deep and complex character, so complex that it takes up a lot of text to even outline her character. She is the main character of I Love Bees, and the glue that holds the story together. I don’t think she can be anything other than a strong female character.

Sophia Bossedon is primarily the love interest of Kamal in the story, but she has an involved backstory. She was born on the planet Coral, which is portrayed as similar to a developing country in today’s time, but moved to Earth to get away from Coral’s culture. Unable to get a visa, she lived “off the grid” as an illegal immigrant.

Life off the grid is very difficult. The government tracks its citizens with microchips of some sort that allow people to make transactions, open automatic doors, start cars, and generally fit into society. Without this legal profile, she had to resort to squatting in abandoned buildings and taking up illicit jobs.

Finding a building with running water, she was able to get herself cleaned up and get more profitable job opportunities. She eventually got romantically involved with rich gangster Aiden Maki, who turned her life around by forging government documents saying she legally immigrated to Earth.

After the alleged Covenant glassing of Coral, Aiden gets caught by the police and his visas are cancelled. Because there is no Coral to deport Coral refugees to, illegal immigrants are sent to camps. Sophia and Kamal plan to go on the lam with money Aiden’s employer paid Kamal for freelance work, but she gets caught by immigration and is jailed for refusing to rat out Kamal. Later, Durga hacks into the government servers and gives her citizenship, setting her free.

Sophia may not be the most progressive character, her role being pretty much Kamal’s love interest. However, I think her character is strong because she did what it took to survive in harsh circumstances. She stuck to her guns to avoid the restrictive culture of Coral even when living on Earth was bad, and she eventually rises through the social hierarchy and becomes a citizen of Earth.

Gladys Wilson is a Spartan-I. Unlike the Spartan-II program, becoming one of the original Spartans was completely voluntary. She is a Texan woman who joined the UNSC Marine Corps and became a tough Gunnery Sergeant. She spent a year and a half in the Special Forces before volunteering for the Spartan program. After retiring, she moved in with fellow Spartan-I Jim James and his daughter Jan. She became a very maternal figure to Jan, who came to address her as Aunt Gladys.

Gilly is also a Spartan-I. She, however, didn’t turn out so well. The combat made her crazy, and she was institutionalized because she constantly thought eagerly about killing people. She’s also Jan’s mother, and after the fall of Reach she reconnects with her family to prepare for the Covenant invasion. She expresses a desire to be maternal to Jan, but acknowledges that it’s not in her nature to be domestic. When Jan, Gladys, Gilly, and Durga assault Thin Kinkle’s building on a revenge mission, Gilly does what she can to be motherly to Jan by killing Kinkle herself to save Jan from becoming like her. She is an interesting character, and I don’t think she falls into any of the sexist pitfalls.

Generally when examining something for sexism, I’d look for female characters set up to be sexually objectified by the viewer. This is my attitude towards visual media, and it is somewhat harder to do for an audio drama. There are instances when Jan speaks in a seductive tone of voice, but I think this is portrayed as more of an aspect of the character in that she is teasingly sexual because she knows that no one can mess with her. Jersey at one point comments that he would like to see Jan in a slinky red dress with a gun in her garter belt and a clip of ammo between… he trails off, implying that Jan’s glare scares him into stopping. Jersey, however, is portrayed as immature and later he explains to Kamal that he wanted Jan annoyed at him so that she would be motivated to come up with a good battle plan to make it clear his idea was stupid, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.

I Love Bees is pretty cool all around.

This article, however, is approaching three thousand words. Because the average Halopedian thinks one thousand words is long for a blog post, I’ll end this article here to keep people from swearing at the screen for this Energizer Bunny of an article. I’ll make another one to cover Halo Wars and the novels, okay? Cool.

(check out part two)