Guardians of the Galaxy #12 - Maelstrom has the Quantum bands, and feeds Phyla to the Dragon of the Moon, the Wendell Vaughn shows up and tries to fight Maelstrom, which doesn't go terribly well until Drax cuts Maelstrom's hands off. Wendell gets the Bands back, and Phyla comes bursting out of the Dragon's stomach, Heather (Moondragon) in tow, and sporting a somewhat different color scheme on her costume. All the heroes go back home, so everything's groovy now, right? Except this is all part of some larger plan by Lord Oblivion, or Giant Cosmic Entity #3,472. Hmm.People really seem to freak out a lot in this issue. Every time your turn around, someone's mouth is wide open and they're screaming "Oh my God!", or some derivation thereof. Heck, even Drax gets a little wild-eyed when it looks like Phyla's dragon chow. Which just emphasizes the seriousness of the situation, when even Drax is losing his usual stoic demeanor. Actually maelstrom handles losing his hands with more aplomb than anyone else handles most any sudden development in this issue.
I want to gush over Wes Craig's art a little. There are around 5 full-page panels in this issue that I would love to scan and throw up on my desktop as a wallpaper. Wes Craig draws a very cool and suitably terrifying dragon, and it's face almost always remains in shadow, like the true horror of it can't be comprehended by us (or the characters). Also, there's something about how he draws Maelstrom that gives him that "creepy evil" vibe, like Ragdoll only less amusing. I think it's the grin he sports almost constantly.
Nova #23 - For the longest time I thought that was Vulcan on the cover. I don't know what his costume looks like, it's a guy with brown hair and glowy hands, so I figured with War of Kings and all it was probably the lamest Summers brother. It's not Vulcan, though, as events here tie-in with the Guardians issue I just discussed. Rich's body is falling apart as a result of all those months carrying all the Nova Force around. He seems rather calm about it, while everyone else is trying to save him. He'll need a new source of power to reverse the effects, Phyla's abdicated the position of Wearer of the Quantum Bands, and Wendell's already Quantum Energy so he hardly needs bands to harness it, so hmm. Yes, you guessed it! Or if you didn't, I'm not telling you!Meanwhile, the Nova Corps is leaving Earth orbit to get involved in the Kree/Shi'ar conflict, and Robbie isn't happy that he's relegated to tactical. He wants to be on the front lines, blasting alien scum, man! We also learn something about the fabulous Dr. Necker which Rich doesn't like learning, and Norman Osborn shut down Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.?! The monster! It's just too awesome for him, so he's totally jealous, the jerk. Decent little set-up issue, the prelude to major cosmic slugfests to come. I am ready to see Andrea DiVito drawing interstellar conflict again. Crank it up to 13, people! Whoo! Who needs Blackest Night? Besides all those looney Green Lantern fans, of course? *rolls eyes*
War of Kings #2 - Yes, Lilandra, a blaster will really work wonders against Gladiator. Sigh, no wonder she can never hold onto the throne. The Shi'ar are dropping Nega-Bombs allover Kree Space (and I thought Nega-Bombs were a Kree weapon), the Kree aren't too happy with their new rulers, but Crystal wins them over with some compassion and quick talking. Maximus rolls out some new weapons of major devastation, and Vulcan is displeased.I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but Crystal's tears are colored so they look like blood. Or oil. Jeez, it's a good thing the Inhumans left the Moon before Earthlings found out they cried oil. They would never have found any peace. It's kind of amusing that one of the Shi'ar ships is actually called "Domination Through Superior Firepower". I guess Vulcan killed all the creative people in the Empire. He would.
War of Kings seems like a story of constant escalation. One side brings out a big weapon, the other side unleashes a bigger one. Back and forth, back and forth. At some point, I need to back up and look over all the cosmic stuff and try and figure out what Abnett and lanning are really putting together here.
War of Kings: Darkhawk #2 - Never received first issue. Not bothered at all by this. Darkhawk's home destroyed by giant robot. Darkhawk assisted by person in similar suit to his, who keeps calling him Designate. Turns out the Darkhawk (I'm not calling them "Raptors") armors were created eons ago to 'serve as architects of the unviersal fate'. Criminey. Darkhawk's one of the last two, and they need to get back out in space and do their job. Oh, and Chris' anger management issues are related to his incompatability with his amulet, which is trying to give him information he can't comprehend. Or something. Bugger.I have no clue how much of this startling new information about Darkhawk is based on anything from his earlier stories. Granted, I'm going off his series from the '90s, but I don't recall a real anger problem (though he was kind of edgy in the Nova Secret Invasion story, but not totally out of control coocoo bananas), or any sense the suit was trying to feed him information, so this seems like a bunch of unnecessary crap thrown onto the character. I can't say I really like the art. The panels seem too close to the action too often, to the point it muddles thing. I never had a sense of the scale of the threat compared to Darkhawk, or where the characters were relative to each other during the fight.
The two parts of this I enjoyed most were the cover (go Brandon Peterson!), which I think looks really cool (Though I'm unclear what he's walking on. Cooling lava?), and the extra material they included to justify the $4 price tag, in this case, the 2nd issue of his ongoing series from the '90s, where he fights Hobgoblin, and has a brief team-up with Spider-Man. Oh, I enjoyed that so much more than the actual new story, it isn't even funny. Sorry 'Hawk.
3 comments:
The anger issue for Darkhawk came up (along with pretty much an addiction to his armor) in The Loners mini (he was angry a lot in his old comic, but I always read that as being a teenager rather than an issue).
The Loners also established that Chris has a lot more control over his armor and could really push it's abilities, which is what WoK Darkhawk has been establishing.
I actually have kind of liked this mini, but part of that is simply that Darkhawk was one of the first comics I read regularly, so the character means a bit more to me.
Plus Darkhawk in Space seems like a better fit for the character than vigilante in Queens ever did.
I can SEE you rollin your eyes, Calvin!
Looney inDEED!
seangreyson: There were a few issues of his old series where it seemed like yeah, he had some anger problems. But then he'd turn around and try and research his enemy ahead of time and even try to reason with him, so like you, i figured it was just an age/maturity thing.
And I'm still hopeful for Darkhawk in Space to be fun. Cosmic Marvel can use all the awesome characters they can get.
sallyp: I stand by my assertion. *ducks*
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