Friday, July 08, 2016

What I Bought 7/2/2016 - Part 2

Like I said Wednesday, I didn't find all the new comics I was looking for, Wynonna Earp #5 being the main whiff, but I found a few. So here's one comic that's four comics, which meant there are a lot of labels for this post. Times like this I regret my newfound interest in giving at least some of the creators post labels.

Deadpool #13, by Gerry Duggan, Charles Soule, David Walker (writers), Jacopo Camagni, Guillmero Sanna, Elmo Bondoc, Paco Diaz (artists), Veronica Gandini, Mat Lopes, Nolan Woodard, Israel Silva (colorists), Joe Sabino and Clayton Cowles (letterers) - Jesus Christ that's a lot of creators. Thank goodness there were no inkers involved.

Marvin Shirkley was an investment banker who made some bad choices with several criminal organizations' money, so now they want to kill him. Except they waste time fighting each other and he's able to enlist Deadpool's help, though only once he mentions Typhoid Mary is the chief muscle for the Russians. Wade is still peeved about that time Mary tricked him into thinking she was Siryn and had sex with him, which, I actually did not know about. At any rate, this desire for vengeance causes Wade to act imprudently and nearly get himself and marvin killed, so he takes his client to the D.A.'s office, and tries to get witness protection from Matt Murdock. Who refuses to help until Marvin produces a laptop he claims has all sorts of information on his clients (though Daredevil does appear to help briefly).

Except it wouldn't fit in Wade's wall safe, so he threw it in the trash. DD is having no truck with that, so Wade enlists Luke Cage and Iron Fist to help him root through a landfill for the computer. It turns up, so does Mary, she steals it, Marvin and Wade pursue, Daredevil shows up again, the laptop is retrieved, Wade chooses not to kill Mary, opting to maybe try and get her some psychological help instead, which confuses Daredevil. And then Murdock shows up to take possession of the diamonds Wade received as payment on the grounds they're stolen goods and evidence. All this is framed as Ben Urich trying to figure out how to sum it up in a story and ultimately giving up. Because Urich gets consistently shittier as a reporter the older he gets. Just like most sportswriters!

Luke and Danny felt superfluous to this whole thing. Maybe if Marvin's case had somehow been relevant to them, or they hadn't decided not to bother helping Wade and Marvin catch the escaping Mary, but they didn't serve much purpose other than padding things out with a lot of jokes about Luke's makeshift non-cursing. Much discussion of the difference in appropriate use of "icky-yucky" and "fiddle-faddle". Daredevil fit better, since it at least made some sense for an assistant district attorney to be involved in the problems of a guy who needs witness protection. Plus, Matt's whole sordid history with Typhoid Mary. Figured that would convince him to stick around longer.

Duggan brought out Mary having raped Wade in the past, something he hadn't brought up previously. He used both characters in Deadpool vs. Hawkeye, and while he alluded to some ugly history between them, he never said specifically what. But at least he did address it, and the fact Wade really wants to kill her over it (in large part because, until her deception was revealed, it convinced him he could be loved), but chooses not to actually fits well with his decision at the conclusion of the recent mess with Sabretooth. Moving past all these old grudges he kept dredging up. Granted, rape is more serious than Iron Fist saying he looked like a melted candle once, but still, it's a new approach he's taking, and he's actually trying to take steps to see she gets treatment. Maybe because he recognizes there's an innocent person in there, and he sees her as a victim of other forces the way he was, only it's other aspects of her own mind instead of sadistic scientists.

The art shifts widely from one part to another. There's no attempt to maintain a similar look or feel within the book, as they opted to focus on having the parts more closely resemble the book they're ostensibly part of. So the Daredevil "issue" features Sanna and Lopes trying to recreate the feel of the current Daredevil series, and sort of succeeding. Sanna doesn't commit to the heavy use of shadows as much as Garney does, based on what I've seen of that book, but it's within range, probably the most of the three parts, though I'm unfamiliar enough with the current Power Man and Iron Fist book to say how close Bondoc's style mirrors it. I don't think it's quite as loose or exaggerated (Luke isn't anywhere near as broad in the chest), but it mostly works.

On the two Deadpool parts, I think Camagni's is closer to the Hawthorne/Koblish styles than Diaz. Camagni's style lends itself more to the comedy aspects than Diaz' which seems to contain many more people gritting their teeth and with the serious musculature. I can't picture what the scene from Camagni's part where Mary sets Marvin's clothes on fire and he does a frantic dance out of them would have looked like with Diaz, but I doubt it would have been as funny.

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