What I Bought 7/6/2012 - Part 2

Moving on to the Marvel portion of things, I find myself happy to see the back of the tie-in to AvX.

Daredevil #14 by, Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (art), Javier Rodriguez (color art), Joe Carmagna (letterer) - No, Daredevil doesn't meet Dr. Doom in this issue. I suppose that would conflict with Doom being a sort of good guy these days in FF. Man, that seems like a really stupid plot development, he said without having read the issues to see how well it's been sold by Hickman and Co.

Matt's been brought to Latveria because by messing with Megacrime, he screwed with Latveria's economy. So the Minister of Finance has sentenced him to be flooded with nanobots that will gradually shut down all his senses. Yes, even the radar sense. So Matt has to try and get the hell out of the country before he's completely cut off from the world around him. That last page is just a killer. Also, Foggy isn't happy about what he found in Matt's desk last issue.

Waid's Doom is a cruel bastard, but that's par for the course with Waid and Doom, I suppose. Chris Samnee is back on pencils, which is nice. He's similar enough to Paolo Rivera it maintains the feel of the book, and he's a good artist in his own right. It's that happy look on Matt's face that makes the last page such a killer.

Defenders #7 by, Matt Fraction (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Another collage of characters in front of a vague colored background cover. You know, I know the Dodsons can do better covers than these. Sigh.

Two plot lines this month. In one, Felicia steals a Satan's Claw for a group of oddballs using it as a test. She passes, they send her to the country of Z'Gambo (which I've never head of, but assume already existed in continuity) to steal one of those magic toadslike the Black Panther uses some times.

In the other plot, the Defenders (minus Namor this month) arrive in Wakanda looking for advice on how to get into Z'Gambo and get that Concordance Engine away from John Aman. Except Wakanda has a treaty to not even discuss such things, one that is apparently considered broken even if the discussion is with dead people. So Aman shows up, trounces the Panther, and this means war so I guess the Defenders can go in if they want now. And that does it for the Dodsons' last issue on the book, I believe. They do their usual solid job. It's not spectacular, though the Surfer does look appropriately strange after drinking the juice compared to the rest of the issue.

Fraction is trying way too hard to sell Aman as a big-time player. Beyond the fact it feels vaguely ridiculous some of this stuff he's doing, it's made it so there is absolutely no way I buy that Iron Fist will be able to carry out his vow to kill Aman. The gap between them is looking so wide there's just no way. It'd be like Spidey beating Thanos in a fistfight at this point.

Secret Avengers #28 by, Rick Remender (writer), Renato Guedes (artist), Matthew Wilson w/Jeremy Mohler (color artists), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - And once again the cover is the best part of this issue.

The Vision manages to free his teammates from the mind control, except the Phoenix is here, so that doesn't do much good. Turns out the guy behind all this was Mar-Vell's nephew, who believed this would remove the stain to their name caused by Mar-Vell siding with Earth all those times. Whatever. The team attempts to stop the Phoenix. First Carol gets her Binary powers back for a hot minute, but the power rejected her, I think? Not sure why. Then Braddock makes a go of it, only to be tossed aside by Mar-Vell who is convinced the Phoenix will leave once it reclaims its energies from him. Which it does, and it does leave. Whatever.

Cripes am I glad that's over. I couldn't deal with anymore of Remender's love letter to Mar-Vell. And this whole bit where Carol's pleading with him not to do it, jeez, spare me. Like I said last month, that might be part of her past, but if so, I'd never seen it before so for me, it comes off more like some crap Remender made up to help make Mar-Vell look awesome. Like when they decided the Sentry had sex with Rogue, and doesn't that make him cool? No, it doesn't, piss off. I sure hope we're not going to get more of this Mar-Vell worship in Carol's new series. I couldn't tolerate it.

Well, that was thoroughly negative way to end the post. But tomorrow is Atomic Robo review day. That will surely be a happy time.