What I Bought 8/23/2019

Every time I go on a road trip for work, I tell myself I'm going to use the time in hotels to work on creative projects. Sketch or write, something. Then I almost never do it. By the time I get to the hotel, I just want some food, and then to sit and watch TV or read or something.

In other news, my allergies have kicked in with a vengeance, much to the amusement/concern of my coworkers. They spent most of yesterday saying I looked like I'd been in a fight, or that I needed drugs. Everyone trying to give me pills. I thought peer pressure to do drugs ended with high school!

Magnificent Ms. Marvel #6, by Saladin Ahmed (writer), Minkyu Jung (penciler/inker), Juan Vlasco (inker), Ian Herring (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - When you show the new costume assembling itself like that along all those seams, it really starts to remind me of the New 52 costumes. Boo.

Kamala's dad has a very rare new disease with no current cure. That's a lot to absorb, but he doesn't want everyone to be sad and encourages her to go meet with Nakia and Bruno for study group adventures. They don't get far into that before Deathbringer, the lame villain she beat off-panel in issue 1 calls her out, with a busload of hostages. But it's night now, so he has actual powers of. . . I'm not sure. He makes a big darkness bubble and strange monsters rise from the ground. Kamala's new costume tells her his mask powers all this, and she uses the costume to break the mask. Then Iron Man shows up and tells her he has people working on a cure for her dad's condition, but nobody's got anything yet.

Deathbringer makes a point of telling us he doesn't have powers during the day, but at night it's a different story. Except the sky before and after Kamala fights him is colored orange (see the middle panel above), like it's close to sunset, but the sun clearly hasn't gone down yet. So the question is, screw-up or intentional? Kamala says the mask stores solar energy during the day and creates these things at night, that it isn't magic. That Deathbringer is trying to act like he's some dangerous magical being, at least at night, but it's not true. But again, it wasn't night yet when they're fighting. So it shouldn't be doing anything. And why would the mask store energy during the day, but not be able to use it then?

The rest of the issue feels like the pretty bog-standard thing you get in comics when the main character learns a friend or loved one is sick. But the Deathbringer fight detracted from it. There's supposed to be a point in there about how it isn't a sign someone's out to get you when multiple bad things happen all together, but I don't see that as much comfort or reassurance. Just let Kamala spend some time with her friends, or her brother.

Smooth Criminals #8, by Kurt Lustgarten, Kirsten Smith, Amy Roy (writer), Leisha Riddel (artist), Joanna LaFuente and Goncalo Lopes (colorists), Ed Dukeshire (letterer) -The Shadow Men are back. For the first time, for the last time.

I was pretty sure this was a 12-issue mini-series, but maybe not, because this issue says "The End" on the last page, and it sure as hell has the rushed air of something ending faster than intended. We're straight into Mia and Brenda trying to steal the Net of Indra back from Hatch, with full support of the feds. None of the prep work or information gathering we saw with the first attempted heist. No banter between them and the feds. Just straight to it. They get in, trigger an alarm, and then have to fight Hatch. Who injects himself with something and turns into Red Hulk for a couple pages until changing back and starting to die?

Well, this is set in the 1990s, he probably got into Mark McGwire's locker.

Hatch spills the beans about the whole freezing thing, then tries to take Brenda hostage to win, only to get suckered by Mia whispering sweet nothings. Man, and his fiance was right there, too. She's gonna be pissed, assuming Hatch lives long enough for it to matter. Apparently turning into Hulks is bad for your health in this universe. Brenda and T-Blue join the FBI as computer experts, Mia and her mom sail off to the Caribbean. And that's it.

You know, if you're going to try and cram 5 issues worth of stuff into one 22-page issue, maybe don't waste 2 of those  pages on Brenda's extended Reservoir Dogs dream sequence. Christ. I mean, Riddel had to fit the fight with Hatch Hulk into two 16-panel pages. It actually works pretty well, especially Mia's combo rush at the end, but I wouldn't have minded giving it some more space. Maybe if I cared more (at all) about Tarantino I would have cared more. It was a funny bit on the initial read, because I didn't know then how vital those pages were going to end up being.

At least give us the final fate of Hatch's two henchmen! They seemed like halfway decent guys. Or at least not complete scumbags. They understand their boss is a freaking egotistical dork. Still, at least we got an ending. I've pretty much abandoned hope of ever seeing the end of Copperhead or The Seeds.