What I Bought 2/23/2011

Jack says the new copy of the Suicide Squad trade will be in next week. I hope so. I'm not sure I can put off buying the damaged one much longer.

Darkwing Duck #9 - This month's issue sees the start of a storyline featuring Steelbeak, the only major Darkwing foe not to appear up to this point. He may not be the only major foe, but he's the only one I remember that hadn't shown up yet. In this case, Steelbeak actually wants to team-up with our hero, as the higher-ups in the evil organization Steelbeak works for are planning to use dark arts to summon Duckthulhu to take over the world. This is apparently a jealous response to how effectively Bulba took over the city with Quackwerks. Darkwing agrees to help, but opts to leave his loved ones out of the loop, which will surely not come back to haunt him later.

I wasn't expecting a threat of Lovecraftian horror, but Brill and Silvani have been mixing the mystical with the weird science consistently up to this point, so I'm curious to see where it goes. Silvani draws an excellent Steelbeak, capturing his sense of style and wit, but also making him look convincingly desperate at times. I loved the page near the end where Darkwing and Steelbeak keep trying to turn incriminating things they said into more innocent remarks. "I was complimenting his hat! 'Nice woik picking out that hat!'" "It's not that nice a hat." Also, I'm glad Brill (or would it be Deron Bennett, the letterer) remembered Steelbeak has that particular, what is that, Joisey?, accent for his dialogue.

Power Man and Iron Fist #2 - Danny arrives to save Victor from his attackers, the Commedia Dell'Morte. There's some fighting, some introductions, a statement of intent from the bad guys, then the cops show up. Danny tries to investigate the private prison company, and fight with some former mutant who fancies himself a Zorro-type. A fellow who was also in a picture Victor found in Crime-Buster's apartment last month. Meanwhile, Victor's attending the Alison Blaire School for Performing Arts but is too distracted by thinking about Noir, the strange person who knocked him off a building last month. Then there's a reveal of an auction of a potentially relevant item, and the guy selling it off.

I'm not sure whether to laugh at Pokerface or groan. Maybe I'll settle for shaking my head. His subordinate intrigues me, though. I'm guessing they're both character Fred van Lente created I'm surprised at how quickly van Lente had Victor become enamored of Noir. But she is mysterious, and people can be intrigued by the unknown.

There's two artists for this issue, with Wellinton Alves handling the beginning and end, and Pere Perez (who I last saw on Batgirl #17), handling the middle section. Their styles aren't terribly similar, as Alves and inker Nelson Periera use heavier shadows than Perez, and the colors in their section are more varied, bur duller. Antonio Fabela's colors on Perez' work is brighter, but with fewer shades to it. I do think that helps Perez' art pop off the page more. Also, they probably should have checked with each other, because Perez and Alves drew the mask people will be bidding on differently, which was sort of noticeable since their different renditions are on consecutive pages.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable issue. We get a little fighting at the beginning, then the story turns to unraveling the mystery and introducing and fleshing out the characters.