"Seems Legit", in Damage Control (vol. 1) #3, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Ernie Colon (penciler), Bob Wiacek (inker), George Roussos (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)
Superhero fights cause property damage, yet most of the times we see New York City in Marvel Comics, it's basically OK. Superhero fights leave lots of dangerous crap just lying around afterward. Where's that stuff go? Who transports and stores it if the Avengers miss it? Damage Control was ostensibly about how those problems get addressed, but in a way that pokes fun at the Marvel Universe.
The teasing is gentle, because Dwayne McDuffie did like superheroes, did like getting to write Marvel characters. There's affection for the whole thing in his writing, rather than the sense the writer thinks you're an idiot for enjoying this kind of stuff and wants to mock you for it (see Ennis, Garth). It's not mean-spirited when we see the Thing overreact and bust out a wall to signal the rest of the FF because he found out Albert from Accounting went to the Latverian Embassy to make Doom settle his account before Damage Control fixed his building that turned to glass. For the characters, that kind of thing is just normal. Of course Albert would bring their intern along, and of course he would demand Doom provide i.d. if he's going to write a check. Why wouldn't those things happen?
So it's funny, and the solutions to the problems that crop up are clever. The day-to-day reconstruction and demolition stuff is far less challenging for the cast that the mayhem going on within the company. People unhappy about lack of promotions, annoying directives from high up the executive ladder, the office politics bullcrap that always makes work harder, even (or maybe especially so) if you like your work a lot, which most of the cast seem to.
Ernie Colon is able to blend the cast of basically regular, everyday people with the more fantastic elements easily, although most of the Damage Control employees look pretty natural in the spandex outfits marketing forces them to wear in this issue, even if they all despise doing so. Most of the time, those characters take their interactions with the costumed set pretty calmly, at least outwardly. Again, it's old hat for them. But when they need to actually be terrified or fuming about something, Colon gets that across no sweat.
There were two more Damage Control mini-series after this one, and we're going to look at the second one next week.
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