Managed to find two out of three comics from last week, plus one from the week before. Didn't get the one I wanted the most (Sera and the Royal Stars #9), but that'll just be something to look forward to.
They're on a boat in the Atlantic, in the 1920s, looking for a sunken submarine full of gold. Or, one guy, a Mr. Shoals, is down there looking for it. Everyone else is up on deck, sniping and plotting against each other. The captain, a Mr. Harlow, owes money to a Mr. Madden, who sent a bunch of his goons along to make sure if there's gold, they get their share. Shoals found the gold, so it's all good. Except for the part where there's a half-woman, half-fish thing down there, too. And the man who knew where to find the sub, who is on their ship, seems to know it's down there.
Douek lays out most of the potential conflicts. That Harlow owes money, that even the people ostensibly on his side, aren't necessarily on his side. That Shoals is haunted by what he did in the trenches in World War 1. That the survivor from the sub is holding back a lot. Including his name. I triple-checked, and I can't find the guy's name mentioned once. Henceforth, he will be Sub Guy.
I'm curious if Cormack intends to keep using red light significantly. Someone on the ship shot a flare up in celebration, and it segued into Shoals' flashback to the trenches, and him machine-gunning advancing German soldiers. The ship's gotta have more than one flare, so I'm figuring we'll see them again.
Taskmaster has been framed for killing Maria Hill. In the most obvious way possible, as someone literally left his shield sticking in the wall at the crime scene. Black Widow is trying to kill him for it. Nick Fury (the new one, although I guess this character is at least 7, 8 years old now) is Tony Masters' old buddy, so he's going to keep him alive. In exchange for helping to unlock some thing that needs three different people's precise gait and body language. Instead of a retinal scanner, it's a buttprint scanner. And all of three of them are going to be tough to get close enough to for Taskmaster to do that.
First things first. Taskmaster is being played. By Hill, Fury, and the Widow most likely. Faked Hill's death, put Natasha on his tail to drive him right to Fury, get him to do this dirty work. The old Escape from New York stunt. Put the person in a bad spot, then benevolently give them the chance to work their way clear. I mean, if the Widow is supposed to be so damn good - and I know this is supposed to capitalize on the Black Widow movie, but fucking spare me with this 'the greatest killer to walk the earth at present' nonsense - then how did she miss Taskmaster with about 300 bullets when he's trying to escape in a damn golf cart?
Also ludicrous? The notion there are people who would actually be mad Maria Hill was dead.
MacKay's writing Taskmaster as a bit melodramatic. Some of his reactions - especially to learning the Black Widow's after him - are more what I'd expect from Deadpool. Other times he seems pretty professional, but those odd moments here and there are noticeable. But at least it makes Vitti occasionally draw a character who is squinting grimly. I think there's one panel of Fury's mouth slightly upturned, and that's the closest we get to a smile in this entire comic. There's too many extraneous little lines on people, and whatever color-shading technique Guru-eFX is using wasn't doing the characters in the golf course scene any favors. It just made people look blocky and plastic-skinned.
I'm not sure I'll buy the second issue of either of these books, but I'd say Sea of Sorrows made the stronger case for itself.
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