What I Bought 1/31/2017 - Part 2

It's not a new complaint, but I hate it when channels interrupt cool action scenes with commercial breaks. John Wick was on USA last week, and they went to commercial right in the middle of the cool night club shootout. Yeah, I have it on DVD, I can watch it whenever, but it's still nice when I come across something I like to watch on TV by good timing.

Darkwing Duck #7, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Andrew Dalhouse, Paul Little, and Matt Herms (colorists), Brandon DeStefano (letterer) - I don't know what's up with Darkwing or Gosalyn's eyes. Darkwing rarely does the "no pupil" look a lot of other masked adventures do, and Gosalyn looks like she's possessed by Duckthulu.

Zombie potatoes attack St. Canard on Halloween, leading to an extended series of Walking Dead, riffs, I think. I'm positive Herb Muddlefoot carving a bunch of the spuds up with a spatula wrapped in barbed wire while wearing a leather jacket was a reference to that Negan guy I see people talking about. Gosalyn wearing Darkwing's hat and having her hair over one eye makes her Carl, correct? Anyway, DW suspects Bushroot, who has escaped from prison, but was drawn here by the call of his one-time would-be vampire potato bride, Posey, who is being used in dastardly experiments by some character I can't place. Oh, and Gizmoduck's in town. Not looking forward to Darkwing getting snippy because he feels inferior to Gizmoduck.

Teaming the heroes up with Bushroot works better than I would have expected, since his reaction to all Darkwing's usual stuff is so different from Gosalyn or Launchpad's. And Bushroot's point that, 'You have a sidekick who's carrying around my disembodied head for. . .well I don't even know why. . . and you want to talk about normal?' cracked me up. On a different note, the scene where Gosalyn and Launchpad discuss how each of them thought they were going to be the one to take over as Darkwing some day was kind of cute.

Silvani really likes drawing Darkwing wielding two gas guns. It's been coming up a lot in this series so far, and I'm not sure why. I guess the response would be, why not, and I don't have a good answer. Also, I know black is supposed to be slimming, but somehow wearing that black jacket made Herb Muddlefoot's head shrink. It looks far too small for his admittedly large frame. But Gosalyn's Halloween costume is appropriately grotesque, so good work there. Silvani mostly works within a six-panel grid, but modifies as necessary. Mostly by going to a five panel setup, with one panel that covers a third of the page when he needs more room for impact. Either to give us a better look at something shocking, or to layout the setting of the next scene for us. On the opposite end, he opts for going to three panels across the page for a specific sequence. The Ratcatcher going amphibious. Gizmoduck taking care of a bunch of zombie spuds. Setting something up, basically.

Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #14, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Not a very good plan by Felicia, to control all these non-powered folks, and leave Patsy the Wolverine-trained vampire and the telekinetic.

Zoe tries to help Patsy and Ian get close to Felicia, who has swelled the ranks of her organization considerably by now. It doesn't seem to work, but it's really all a ruse to give Jubilee the chance to get the drop on Felicia. Which works for getting the magic claws away, but then Jubes loses her after Felicia headbutts her? Really, vampire strength and that works on you? But all the friends are saved, and Patsy has magic sneezes now.

The main current running through is Zoe possibly realizing how lousy she was to Ian, and that whatever fond memories she has of their relationship are not shared by him. Which is nice, and it was pleasant to see Ian stand up to her and lay it all out so she couldn't ignore it or bulldoze over what he was saying. The panel where we see Ian as he was, in a blank space with shadows stretching away in different directions was an effective attention-getter. Up to then, all these relatively sedate panels of two people in a living room, having an argument, and then here's a panel of someone feeling terribly lonely and divided.

I'm not sure if it was Williams or Rosenberg, but the art team seemed to be having some trouble with Felicia. Maybe it's just her costume. Drab grey is not really a visually arresting costume choice, and there were times it just didn't look great. But the art looked a little rushed in places. Not everywhere, but there were some places Williams was skimping on details, or shading. I did lie how tall she drew Felicia. Maybe it's just the perspective, where characters are being pushed down to loo up at her, but she seemed much bigger than the other women in the issue. Especially Jubilee. I had never pictured the Black Cat as being particularly tall (about the same as Spidey, and I think Peter is 5 foot 10 or 11), but then Jubilee is 5-5, something like that, so comparatively, Felicia would be big. And it lets her loom over people, which is a prerequisite if she's going to play a crime boss.

Overall, the weakest story so far for the book, but I'm hopeful things will pick up with Patsy's magical sniffles.