Darkwing Duck #16 - Darkwing, Launchpad, and Constance are about to be burned at the stake by the Suff-Rage-controlled citizens of St. Canard. Constance is making with some bold backtalk, while Darkwing nearly sets himself on fire trying to escape. Gosalyn realizes that Suff-Rage is a projection, and the real one is in a secret base in one of the other towers on the same bridge DW's headquarters are in. She and the other kids are captured, but disrupt S-F's concentration enough for the people to snap out of it, and DW and Launchpad come to the rescue. Well, Darkwing gets buffaloed by Suff-Rage's mind powers. She loses eventually, we learn her identity, Launchpad becomes mayor, destroys the town, pledges to use Quackwerks money to fix it, which riles Scrooge McDuck. Hey nobody told me there'd be a Darkwing/Ducktales crossover. Dagnabbit.I had to look up the surprise villain reveal near the end. Not because I didn't recognize him, but I couldn't remember what I recognized him from. Have to see how it plays out, but it could be fun. I especially like the bit about Darkwing's fears, though I'm a little surprised it would be about when he's going to lose for the last time. I was surprised how quickly Brill threw away "Launchpad as mayor", but it makes perfect sense. James Silvani continues to crank out high-quality work as the artist. He did an excellent job with the sequence in Darkwing's mind, the villains getting larger in each panel, dominating more of the view.
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #4 - I really was hoping Jack would forget to send this along. We learn where the No-Thing that Howard has came from, but it doesn't really matter sense Howard can't get it to work. They try to fight Man-Thing by hand, which is futile. Howard realizes they all have to confront their own fears, right as Man-Thing uses the Nexus to throw them into situations requiring them to do just that. Having succeeded in that challenge, they then realize they've been making things worse all along, as their fear of what a hopped up on fear Man-Thing would do has only made him stronger. So they stop being worried about that and he powers down, and the day is saved. I guess everyone else in the world being afraid of death by nazi mechs or hammer-wielding lunatics didn't register with Man-Thing.There's a decent idea in there, about fear feeding into itself, and making things worse. But I have a hard time believing that it was the concern these four had about Man-Thing that was what drove him nuts, and not all that other fear that is supposedly running rampant across the world. There were four different artists on this issue, and I don't have anything in particular to say about any of them. Let's move on.
Mystery Men #5 - The Operative still wants to find those missing children, and he and the Surgeon find themselves a member of the Board they can lean on for information. This member's not comfortable with the idea of ritualistic slaughter of children. At least, not when there isn't any money to be had in it. New ally Baron Zemo doesn't agree, though. The good guys all get back together and launch an assault on the General's zeppelin, a locale the Operative is quite familiar with. He dispatches his father, and Achilles tries to destroy Nox with all the life energy he's taken from the criminals he's killed over the last several weeks. Doesn't quite take, but they rescue most of the children, and the one they miss is even returned to its parents by the villains. A good baddie knows how to adjust.I thought initially that the battle between the Operative and his dad ended too quickly, but given the disparity in their powers, it probably had to. Liss does provide an ending of sorts, while still leaving open the possibility of more stories. Most of the heroes are still in it, and the suriviving villains certainly haven't stopped scheming. Patrick Zircher's art is still excellent.
Wolverine and Black Cat Claws 2 #3 - Guess we won't be ending this post on a positive review. Wolverine, Felicia, and Killraven's bunch escape confinement, trash the ship that was about to take them to Mars, and destroy the lead bad guys. They meet the alien Arcade and the White Rabbit stole the time device from, and get her to send them back to the version of herself it was stolen from, before it was stolen. Which enables Logan and Felicia to humiliate Arcade and the Rabbit when they arrive at the ship. Logan puts alien lady in tocuh with his many, many hero friends so she can help prepare for the Martians, and he and Felicia hang out in the Savage Land.Let's see, Linsner's art is fine, though the action in one panel doesn't always seem to match what I'd expect from the previous panel. Wolverine's dialogue still seems off. It's isn't Spider-Man stupid joke dialogue or anything, but his version of tough guy talk here doesn't quite fit. 'It's so cliche at this point, but I'm your worst nightmare!'? Perhaps there's too much of a knowing wink there, a "we know he says stuff like this all the time, and we know it's silly, just go with it". Well, don't point out it's cliche, and I will go with it.
I know part of my disappointment is I was hoping for more Arcade, not Martians. Really, the whole Martian thing just felt strange in the middle of this story. You start and end with Arcade and the White Rabbit, who are mostly presented as losers, not credible threats. Then it shifts to this Martian threat, where people are dying, being enslaved and experimented on, and there's only a small, out manned resistance. Then back to treating Arcade and the White Rabbit as jokes. It feels very awkward.
Tomorrow, two issues of Daredevil! Two issues of Heroes for Hire! I get to be much more positive!
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