What I Bought 5/9/2015 - Part 2

Last weekend, I got a notice in the mailbox the post office was doing one of their food drives. Fill the bag they provided, leave it by the mailbox the next day, they’ll pick it up. I didn’t have a lot of non-perishable foods, but I put out what I had by 7 in the morning, and they didn’t pick it up. Was I supposed to cram it in the mailbox, or hang the bag off it? That mailbox is not very well attached to the post, and is generally falling apart. Setting it on the ground in front of the post seemed obvious enough, but apparently not.

Convergence: Batgirl #2, by Alisa Kwitney (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciller), Mark Pennington (inker), Steve Buccellato (colorist), Tom Napolitano (lettering) – While that isn’t the greatest cover – looks like an enlarged panel – it is kind of nice to see Steph rushing to the aid of her friend. I miss that.

Steph wins by convincing Catman to give up, so that the fight will be over and he can trick Grodd into being dragged back to their city together. Steph was prepared to throw the fight herself, if that was what it came to. We also learn in flashback that Tim pretty much broke off all contact with Steph when she hung up the costume, without so much as a world of explanation, and now that she’s back in it, he’s trying to start things up again.  

I was going to say that doesn’t seem much like Tim, but there was a stretch in Jon Lewis’ run on Robin where Tim rightfully got fed up with Batman’s crap, and considered giving up the costume. He asked Steph if she’d still want to be with him if was plain ol’ Tim Drake. Now Steph, responded with an affirmative, but that does point in the direction of how Tim sees their relationship. That said, I was surprised Cassandra seemed so irritated by the happy couple stuff at the end. Maybe it was the fact she got a faceful of it as soon as she woke up from being pummeled by super-strong, telepathic gorilla. Still, I would have expected her to be more amused by it, or quietly satisfied.

The two issues are nothing special. Convergence is an inconsequential placeholder event, so that’s maybe to be expected. Still, I thought Kwitney had a reasonably good grasp of the characters, and I can chalk any variances from my expectations up to the unusual circumstances they lived under (though, as Steph noted in the first issue, they already lived through No Man’s Land. This is different only in the fact they didn’t know who had cut them off from everything). Leonardi’s work is still not his best, which is still disappointing. The faces seem better, and there’s more action in this issue, which is always something Leonardi’s drawn well. There’s something about the way he draws punches, the characters really seem to put their whole body into it, but in a way that makes sense. You can tell they’re pushing off the ground or the wall or whatever, if that’s the case. Little things can help make the difference, sometimes.

Daredevil #15, by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid (storytellers), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) – Wouldn’t that cover be more appropriate for issue 13, where Kirsten is confronted by her arch-nemesis? Also, who is the person in the panel at the bottom, with the seemingly empty speech balloon? It looks like they have some sort of a mechanical jaw. Oh no, has Silvermane’s head killed the Shocker and retaken control of the Maggia?

Matt drags Jubula out of her fight with the Shroud, because he feels their outmatched. He has no idea how much, because Shroud’s been using the Owl to record everything going on in Matt’s life going back a while. Which he then projects throughout San Francisco. So everyone knows Foggy isn’t dead, and where he lives. Everyone sees Matt and Kirsten’s physically and emotionally intimate moments. And Max makes it look as though Matt recorded every conversation he had with clients, which is real bad. And then Matt shows up at the Deputy Mayor’s office to explain, so Max releases footage of her being the weapons supplier for the guys who kidnapped the D.M.’s daughter in the first issue. So now everyone’s after Matt, and Jubula knows the one person who can fix it all: Wilson Fisk. Maybe Matt’s better off dealing with the cops and the bar association.

Honestly, I didn’t even know Fisk was supposed dead until Matt mentioned he thought that was the case. I don’t see how Fisk is going to fix all this, even if he were so inclined, and assuming he doesn’t demand a price Matt deems too high, but considering the shitstorms Wilson has skated through clean in the past, I can’t put it past him. I did find it amusing Fisk’s goons hauled Matt in by both arms. You’d think they wouldn’t bother. Fisk has a better chance of whupping Matt alone if he tries something than they do.

Let’s talk the color in the book a bit. I notice Jubula’s reminisce about her father is shaded in the same sort of light blue as the light from all those wires and screens her dad’s hooked up to. Representing information, knowledge, or a shorthand for scenes involving the Owl in some way? The first page, Matt in the shadows, all the red he’s wearing washed out or absorbed by them. Samnee’s art helps, of course, the way Matt’s posed makes him look like a lost man trying to feel his way, something we aren’t accustomed to seeing. But the very different color scheme for him makes it look a bit alien, like he’s in another world entirely. It was a very effective opening move.

There are a lot of shots of Matt with his face either totally or partially in shadow. When Shroud taunting him over the phone, when he tries to talk to the Deputy Mayor, when he says good-bye to Foggy and Kirsten, to name a few. After Matt’s tried to adopt this open persona, no secrets, and now he’s being driven back into shadows. Or it’s being pointed out that no matter how open someone claims to be, there are still things they keep to themselves (or ought to), and that realization is catching up to him. Worth noting there are basically no shadows on his face during the walk down the hall to Fisk. Because those two know each other too well, so there are no secrets, whether they want it that way or not?