What I Bought 6/12/2020

Cape-Con got pushed back to the second weekend in July, and I'm debating whether it would be a massively stupid idea to go or not. I want to, but I don't exactly want to get sick in the process, you know? I found two of the three comics I was looking for from last week. None of the stores in the area still had Amethyst #3 by the time I swung by.

Black Cat #11, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - That's pretty tame, as J. Scott Campbell covers go.

The Randall Gate is built, they know where the vault is they're going to steal from, they just need a way to pick the lock. Making a key requires breaking into Tony Stark's company to use a nanoforge. Which involves Felicia passing herself off as a researcher into engineering critical of Stark, then Tony getting distracted by an attack from the guy who kicked his ass back during the original Armor Wars. Firepower doesn't last quite long enough, as Felicia had to stop to knock out Bethany Cabe along the way, so Iron Man's waiting for Felicia when she tries to leave. He's not ready for her to be rocking her own suit of armor, though. I have to question the wisdom of trying to beat Iron Man in a "powered armor suit" battle.

My favorite part of this was Felicia and her crew discussing the different strategies they could use to hoodwink Stark. Mostly just for the unexplained items they mentioned needing to make them work. The Wagering Vicar requires a badger. The Seventeen Stepbrothers means you gotta have a triplane. Maybe she could look up Turner D. Century for that? It's hard for me to picture any of them being less work than having Dr. Korpse write up a bunch of phony articles for this scientists calling Stark a coward. But maybe Korpse doesn't consider that work. Might just be a perk to shittalk Stark. Eh, Tony can always stand to have his ego dinged.

C.F. Villa's artwork has a bit of manga influence, and then reminds me of Oliver Coipel's at times. Certain things about the shading, some of the facial expressions. When characters get surprised, or otherwise exaggerated, the art seems to loosen up a bit. Villa's version of Firepower reminds me more than a little of the Asgardian Destroyer armor, but I haven't seen the character since Mark Bright created him for Armor Wars, so maybe that's how he's looked for a while. The art works, there's nothing incredibly flashy about it, but it tells you what you need to know, and it looks pretty.

Deadpool #5, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler/inker), Victor Nova (inker), Chris Sotomayor (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - All kaiju are secretly weak against rocks to the top of the skull. That's why they're so tall, so nothing can attack them there.

Jeff the Land Shark is playing with Smash Smash, the adolescent monster on the cover. Except Smash Squared decides to cross over to Manhattan and wreak havoc. Wade and Elsa (who won't stop hanging around and annoying Wade) chase after him. Wade keeps trying to reason with the monster, while Elsa keeps advising him how to kill it. They fight it briefly when it temporarily eats Jeff, but Wade makes one last attempt to talk it out. Two civilians die by nuclear/electric fire, and so Wade has to kill him.

It's funny to me Wade is worried his subjects aren't going to trust him as King if he kills one of them that's rampaging through the nearby city, but neither he nor Elsa think there's going to be any pushback against the legendary Monster Hunter hanging out with their king all the time. I'm pretty sure Elsa's killed more monsters than Kraven did. Oh well, not like Wade's judgment is ever worth a damn. From Elsa's perspective, if things do go wrong, she's on the scene to make them kick-splode, or whatever the appropriate Nextwaveism is.

Gerardo Sandoval takes a much more straightforward approach to panel layouts than Chris Bachalo. Mostly 4-7 panels per page, lot of short, wide panels that take up the width of the page. Easier to follow, if less unique. His Deadpool is more conventional also. Bachalo's Wade seemed kind of small in comparison to the people around, and his clothes seemed kind of loose-fitting, a little lumpy. Might have contributed to him seeming small, since it makes him look like he's wearing his dad's clothes. Sandoval's not drawing Wade as a giant, but he's got the conventional skintight spandex look going, and the usual broad-shouldered physique. If we left legibility out of the equation, I'd take Bachalo each time, but being able to tell what the hell is actually happening is kind of crucial to my enjoyment of comics.