The Ride Burning Desire 4 Of 5

When another dancer is murdered, Vega must choose between freedom, death, and a merry band of misfit exotic dancers. All this and the strangest backup story so far! TOMM COKER (THE BLACK MONDAY MURDERS) returns to THE RIDE to tell the story of how a devil-worshipping biker cult drives a woman to nunhood.

When a dancer is found dead and her daughter missing, the cops write it off as just another overdosed tweaker and a runaway kid. But Vega knows better, and now she has to decide if she's willing to risk her freedom in order to help those who have nowhere else to turn. And CULLY HAMNER (Red, Batman and The Signal) returns to THE RIDE for an explosive story about stuffed bunnies and hand grenades.

THE RIDE celebrates its 15th anniversary with a five-part story from the award-winning team of PLASTIC, plus a special backup feature from ADAM HUGHES! After serving a hard 15 years in prison on a murder plea, former Atlanta P.D. detective Samantha Vega now makes her living as a bouncer at an exotic dance club. But life on the outside isn't easy, especially when enemies have scores to settle

After a 15-year stint in prison, disgraced former detective Samantha Vega works as a bouncer. But when she discovers the exotic dancers in her care are in danger, Vega must decide if she's willing to risk her freedom to help the people with nowhere else to turn. From the award-winning PLASTIC team, DOUG WAGNER & DANIEL HILLYARD, and acclaimed comics artists ADAM HUGHES (Wonder Woman), CULLY HAMNER (Red), TOMM COKER (BLACK MONDAY MURDERS), CHRIS BRUNNER (Spider-Gwen), and more. Collects THE RIDE: BURNING DESIRE #1-5

Samantha Vega learns that her old friends on the police force are just waiting for her to screw up and get sent back to prison. And with that added pressure, her regret-filled nightmares of what put her in prison to begin with only grow stronger. In this issueÕs backup feature, artists CHRIS BRUNNER and RICO RENZI (LOOSE ENDS, Spider-Gwen) reveal the tragic backstory of a dancer with a leather fetish.

Dillinger holds Serena and Beatrix hostage in an evacuated hospital, the building now a death trap designed specifically for Sprout. The only chance Sprout has to rescue her newfound friends? A supply closet full of surgical stabby-stabby stuff.

A vital contribution to environmental humanities that explores artistic responses to the plastic age Since at least the 1960s, plastics have been a defining feature of contemporary life. They are undeniably utopian—wondrously innovative, cheap, malleable, durable, and convenient. Yet our proliferating use of plastics has also triggered catastrophic environmental consequences. Plastics are piling up in landfills, floating in oceans, and contributing to climate change and cancer clusters. They are derived from petrochemicals and enmeshed with the global oil economy, and they permeate our consumer goods and their packaging, our clothing and buildings, our bodies and minds. Plastic reshapes our cultural and social imaginaries. With impressive breadth and compelling urgency, the essays in Life in Plastic examine the arts and literature of the plastic age. Focusing mainly on post-1960s North America, the collection spans a wide variety of genres, including graphic novels, superhero comics, utopic and dystopic science fiction, poetry, and satirical prose, as well as vinyl records and visual arts. Essays by a remarkable lineup of cultural theorists interrogate how plastic—as material and concept—has affected human sensibilities and expression. The collection reveals the place of plastic in reshaping how we perceive, relate to, represent, and re-imagine bodies, senses, environment, scale, mortality, and collective well-being. Ultimately, the contributors to Life in Plastic think through plastic with an eye to imagining our way out of plastic, moving toward a postplastic future. Contributors: Crystal Bartolovich, Syracuse U; Maurizia Boscagli, U of California, Santa Barbara; Christopher Breu, Illinois State U; Loren Glass, U of Iowa; Sean Grattan, U of Kent; Nayoung Kim, Brandeis U; Jane Kuenz, U of Southern Maine; Paul Morrison, Brandeis U; W. Dana Phillips, Towson U in Maryland and Rhodes U in Grahamstown, South Africa; Margaret Ronda, UC-Davis; Lisa Swanstrom, U of Utah; Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, Pennsylvania State U; Phillip E. Wegner, U of Florida; Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology.

Adolf Hitler ruled with an iron fist during his horrifying reign. Anyone who dared defy his strict orders faced his violent wrath. of the hundreds of Hitler's prison camps, Commandant Schmidt was in charge of the one where Captain James Hansen was put. The commandant had countless rules, each with its own punishment. Escape attempts carried the death penalty. Had any prisoners succeeded in their escape, it would surely have meant the firing squad for the commandant. Captain Hansen nevertheless tried to escape, and like the others before him, he failed. He knew the punishment was death, but he took his chances anyway. When the guards and their dogs tracked him down and marched him back into camp, the commandant greeted him with "Welcome back, Captain. Care to take a walk?" He was led into the woods, his hands tied behind his back. The commandant gave those condemned to death a choice, as to how they would die: the firing squad or an unknown fate, out in the woods. When they came to a stop, Hansen now knew the other choice; it was what he feared the most. Nikki's Grandfather Vince, was also a POW in Commandant Schmidt's camp, where he saw Captain Hansen being led into the woods. The Captain was the only one who never returned to face the firing squad. Whatever was in the woods, the Captain decided to die there. What was the other form of death? Only Commandant Schmidt knew, and he kept that a secret. Follow Nikki through her childhood, as her Grandfather Vince, teaches her valuable life's lessons and the story that takes her to Germany, to discover what the other choice was, deep in the woods of Germany.