What I Bought 5/9/2018

Two books this week, and here they both are. We take our small victories where we can.

Domino #2, by Gail Simone (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Jesus Arbutov (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Unless Domino's powers are going to conjure up a pack mule, not sure how she's going to carry all those guns. Maybe that's why she kept Cable around. Certainly wasn't for his sparkling personality.

We learn why the creepy old man hates Domino: her powers helping her hurts him. Less sure what the angry red-haired lady's problem is. Maybe she's just angry all the time. Lots of people scowling in this issue. To be fair, David Baldeon draws a very good intense scowl. Domino is worried one of her two friends is selling her out, but no leads as of yet, so they try to do a job protecting some guy's riverboat casino. It doesn't go well, but he wasn't gonna pay them, so they keep the casino. Then it looks like her friends got blown up by Creepy Old Guy.

I wasn't aware that Domino knew Amadeus Cho well enough for him to come along on a mission, but I also didn't think Storm knew Domino well enough to attend her birthday part, so *shrug*. Whatevs. Everyone in the Marvel Universe knows everyone else these days. Didn't know she could tell a guy had a bad rotator cuff just by looking at him, but that seems to be a skill she has. Learning all kinds of things here. Baldeon draws those pretty well, too. Opts for the approach of usually four panels in a row, each showing a particular move in progression. Not slo-mo, just snapshotting particular split-seconds. It works.

I'm mostly just rolling with it right now. Things are moving along, there's action, there's humor, it's entertaining so far.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #32, by Ryan North (writer), Derek Charm (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - The ol' "walls closing in" death trap. Gotta respect the classics.

Doreen decides to include Kraven in a fun social activity as a way to keep him from backsliding into villainy. So they decide to do one of those escape rooms. I think they should have chosen the one where the guy chases you with a broom for a half-hour, but I suppose the solution to that wouldn't be very challenging (I liked that gag, though). The escape room they did pick gets a lot more challenging once the owner realizes they have actual powers and ramps up the difficulty.

The big news in this issue - besides yet another appearance from Kraven the Hunter's Kra-Van - is new artist Derek Charm. Like I mentioned Wednesday, I had gotten so accustomed to Erica Henderson being the artist it took me until the solicit for July's issue to notice she wasn't drawing the book, and I thought that was just a fill-in issue while she took a month to catch up, catch her breath. But anyway, here's the new artist, having apparently drawn some Archie books previously, which I had no trouble believing.

Charm's style is a little simpler than Henderson's but it's still expressive and able to sell the humor when it needs to. Although it's really too bad North made him draw that panel referencing Peter Parker unmasking in Civil War. No one needed to be reminded of that, North. Most of the characters are recognizable, although I wasn't sure about Nancy at first. Henderson gave her a long face and prominent nose, and Charm didn't. I do think some of the characters lost some of the distinctness in their body and facial types, but it's not a deal-breaker. You can still see the same pacing and set-up in some of the layouts. The panels of the cast introducing their made-up heroic identities for the game felt like familiar in how they were laid out.

Overall, it'll probably work out alright. Although the letters page mentions Charm is the artist for this Kraven story. Does that mean the book is going to start in with rotating art teams? 'Cause that gets kind of old with Ms. Marvel.