Last week was a pretty good week, comicswise, as I found all four books from that week, plus the one book from the week before that. So let's start with a book entering a new arc, and a book on its first issue.
Domino #7, by Gail Simone (writer), David Baldeon (artist), Jesus Arbutov (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Yeah, I don't like that cover any better than I did when I saw the solicitation for it three months ago.The Posse takes a job recovering some very important box for a wealthy Wakandan lady. The box has wound up in a forest in Norway, where it's being guarded by vampires, who believe it holds the person who will lead them to conquer the world. Joke's on them, though, it's just Morbius. Ha, even crappy, present-day, Final Fantasy villain lookin-ass Dracula would be a better bet. Our heroes are trying to decide what to do about Morbius, while some grim looking guy says to call in all vampire hunter types to end this thing once and for all.
I'm not exactly sure how this story is going to play out, although I assume the ladies will be playing keepaway with Morbius from multiple parties. Could be interesting. I'm also curious what the Wakandans were doing with Morbius. Coming up with a cure for another disease they weren't going to share with the rest of the world? I can't remember which writer put that into their backstory, but man that was a dumb thing to add. "We have a cancer cure, but we don't share it because screw you." Brilliant.Baldeon's work continues to impress. He handles to fight parts and the funny parts equally well. The sequence where the fight against the vampires is ended was handled well. Nice panel-by-panel progression. And I chuckled at Outlaw crashing headfirst into the snow, the sticking one arm out to point in the direction they needed to go. Also at the contrast between the Domino on the advertising board and the one in real life. Although Domino commenting the dress she's wearing in the picture looks tight is a little odd. Whatever you'd call the stuff she wears during missions is pretty form-fitting. Asking about the dress being revealing would have made more sense, considering Domino's merc outfit covers her all the way to the neck, and that dress decidedly does not.
Love that t-shirt. The funny part is, the boyfriend could be any 4 different guys she's had a thing with during various stints on X-Force.
It's the first issue of a new arc, so there are endless possibilities to be hopeful for.
Infinite Dark #1, by Ryan Cady (writer), Andrea Mutti (artist), K. Michael Russell (colorist), Troy Peteri (letterer) - That's not a bad cover, although given the setting the story takes place in, I'm not sure there should be anything visible in the background.The Orpheus is a space station designed to survive the end of the universe, to preserve humanity until hopefully a new universe emerges. Except no one other than the people who built it made it to the station in time. Womp-womp. And now one of the highest ranking people on the station appears to have gone nuts and killed someone else. The Security Director and some of her people track him down, in an unused section of the station, but the guy launches himself out an airlock, babbling about things he's seen, and possibly something is coming in.
Well, it feels like the book got most of the set-up out of the way in the first issue. What the station is, where it's at, some of the tensions in a few of the characters, and a possible mystery. Is that enough to keep me around? I don't know. Part of me expects this is going to play out a bit like Jaws, with the Security Director Deva trying to raise the alarm, and the other two surviving members of the Council overruling her, nothing to see here folks. Or Deva may not have any trouble with them, but simply isn't prepared to accept the possibility there was any sort of outside influence on the dead man's actions. Or maybe there wasn't. Being in a space station, waiting for the birth of a new universe that may never come, staring out in an empty void for two years could do things to a person.
The art is a bit of a mixed bag. Heavy on shadows in places, kind of flat at times. Other parts are a bit more detailed, and more effective. The designs for clothing and equipment aren't terribly interesting or visually stimulating, but the place was built in a hurry, so it'd be form over function. The characters we meet are mostly visually distinct, even if I only know a few of their names. I don't think the art is bad, it's just not a style that particularly appeals to me.The coloring is mostly muted, but it varies in tones depending on setting. A lot of pale blues, mostly in the sections people are living and working in. The unused sector has a reddish, Mars-like color to it. Plays off against the abandoned buildings to give a really "sundown in a ghost town" feel to things. And then the last page switches to a vibrant green because there's something new entering the picture. I thought it was a little strange that the panel where they find the victim, it's mostly the same blue (maybe less green in it) than what we saw earlier in the book, during all the talking. Not sure what that would mean. The first time (see image) we see the murderer, I have no idea what's going on with his mouth. It's like he has a piece of skin hanging from it or something. It isn't present in any of the other panels he's in, so I wonder if it's mis-colored blood?
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