What I Bought 4/2/2013 - Part 7

It's been a few days, but I'm back to it. We're even covering multiple titles today.

Dial H #10, by China Mieville (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Richard & Tanya Horie (colors) - Amazing. Brian Bolland managed to make the Bristol Bloodhound look even creepier than he does inside the book. Something about those long, black fingernails, combined with the very pale pink skin, like the rest of the body was supposed to shift, but it didn't.

With the help of the Bristol Bloodhound, Nelson's able to escape the Centipede. Why did the Bloodhound help? Because he doesn't have a HERO dial, he has a sidekick dial. He needs a hero to tell him what to do, or he locks up, and Nelson (as the Glimpse) qualified. Well, it's perhaps not ideal, but two dials are still better than one, so Nelson takes the SIDE dial, and lets Manteau give the orders. Meanwhile, the Centipede is pursuing his own angle, believing that combining the technology his government has with the knowledge or faith of some of the cultists, he can get in touch with someone. O, maybe, or someone similar.

I can't decide why the Centipede's keeping the helmet on. He thought it was pretty undignified, but now he wears it even for an interrogation. I can't decide if he's playing dutiful soldier, if he's decided it has its uses, or if he's actually grown fond of it. Likes how disturbing, or unusual it makes him look. I'm also not sure if the name "Eddison", rather than "Edison" is deliberate, or just a spelling error. At any rate, Centipede's got something planned, but I can't figure out what his goal is. What's he hoping for the "dial emissaries" to accomplish? It has to be more than eliminating Roxie and Nelson, but I'm not sure he isn't getting too cocky. I don't understand everything, neither does Roxie, but I don't think the Centipede does either.

Ponticelli does a good job during the stretch where Nelson's the Glimpse, always just a small portion of him in the panel, nothing more. The little hairs all over the Centipede's helmet are a nice touch. Make it look that much more real, which makes it that much more unnerving.

Fearless Defenders #2, by Cullen Bunn (writer), Will Sliney (artist), Veronica Gandini (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I don't know, that Dani Moonstar action figure doesn't look like it has many points of articulation. Can it even stand up on its own?

Dani herself gets captured by Le Fay's agents, because Le Fay wants to become a Valkyrie. Well that seems a sensible plan. Become a Valkyrie! You too can be summoned to Asgardia and told you're doing a shit job of carrying out your appointed duties, then have a Goddess of Death show up and claim she's doing your job for you! That's pretty much it. Val got a bad performance review for not creating this Valkyrior from Earth's heroes, and Hela's gone and selected one of her own. And the Deathmaidens were black ops Valkyries that went nutso after they saw something. Always with the black ops branches. The Green Lanterns had 'em, the Nova Corps apparently has one, the X-Men, the Avengers, sure why not the Valkyries?

Well, at least this issue got more of a reaction from me than the first one, but it's mostly irritation. Like, why does Misty Knight try to jump kick Hela, when she has a perfectly good repulsor ray in her bionic arm? Why would Le Fay say that if Dani's friends knew what her plan was, they'd be wetting themselves? They're superheroes. Whatever she's got planned, I'm sure they've seen worse. Just say, even if they knew, they couldn't stop it.

I want to say something about Sliney's art, but it's just kind of there. I don't dislike it, other than some of the postures during fight scenes are a little odd. Dani seemed tilted too far to one side when she was sliding down the railing, and when she landed and did the jump and flip, I'm not sure which direction she went. It looks like she jumped backwards, which is why her back's to the ground while she's in midair, but judging by where the stairs are when she lands, she jumped forward, which doesn't make sense to me.

Hawkeye #8, by Matt Fraction (writer), David Aja and Annie Wu (artists), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - So Cherry's back. Fortunately not for her car, since that got washed away. Unfortunately, she's back to steal a little safe from the Tracksuit Brigade, and she wants Clint's help. Clint, being a dumbass, agrees to start a fight in the Russkies' strip club while she grabs the safe. Which gets him arrested, which gets him chewed out by Captain America and Stark. Let's pause here a moment to savor the absolute stupidity of Tony Stark chewing anyone else out for breaking a morals clause. Stark's practically a war criminal. If he's not talking to the Red Skull, he does not get to take the moral high ground. Ever.

And all this accomplishes nothing, because Cherry was using comic book covers as a way to remember the combination, and Clint read the comics and messed up the order. So she leaves him with the safe, and the Russians vowing to eliminate him.

OK. Several months ago, I took Clint's little liaison with Cherry as a sign he and Jessica Drew had broken up. Apparently not. So it took 8 issues, but Fraction finally wrote something stupid that pissed me off. Look, Clint Barton has many character flaws. He's hot-tempered, stubborn, arrogant, rebellious, doesn't think before he speaks or acts. One thing he has not been, is a philanderer. That's Oliver Queen's shtick. So yeah, I'm fairly annoyed by that.

Actually, I can't tell whether that opening sequence really happened, or if it was a nightmare Clint had. Or a metaphor for how Cherry reentered his life. She really showed up at Avengers Mansion looking for Clint (when she knows who he is well enough to mail him comics), and Natasha, Bobbi, and Jessica all happened to be there? With playing cards landing on their foreheads? Dressed like something out of the '60s? Seriously, I love Aja's artwork, but no way I believe anyone has worn a dress like Jessica's willingly since the Adam West Batman was premiering episodes. And it's especially silly for her to wear that, then question Cherry's dress. Ladies, ladies, both your outfits are hideous, let's just move on.

I like Hollingsworth's red lighting for Clint's scenes in the club. Conveys how this is an emotional thing for him, while the lighting in the room with Cherry and the safe is more standard white lighting. More cold and sterile. Also, I enjoyed Clint punching the old man. And I liked how, during the conversation where Cherry is convincing Clint to help, Aja uses a lot of tall, narrow panels, which jam the two characters closely together. If only one of them is in panel, it's a close-up, implying the lack of distance between them. At the end, when she's raging about the comics, he uses wider panels, and typically only puts one character in them, at a middle distance. If both characters are in panel, he makes certain there's space between them.

So, Aja, and Hollingsworth do their usual excellent work. I'm all for anything that makes the Russians more aggressive, because that means their inevitable end draws near. Which means no more "bro", and I am all for that. I just really hate that Fraction had Clint cheat on Jessica. Infidelity seems to be a particular flaw I don't like in characters that I want to root for.