What I Bought 4/14/2021 - Part 1

My best week for new comics in months. Maybe over a year. Five comics, plus one from last week. Huzzah! So let's look at a couple of those on this lovely spring day.

Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #4, by Larry Hama (writer), Dave Wachter (artist), Neeraj Menon (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - This needs an old Joe Kubert cover-style, "There's no sign of the giant spider, Immortal Weapons!" dialogue balloons.

We find out who the mysterious dragon killer is and it is. . . I have no idea who Brenda Swanson is. The internet tells me she's from the Iron Fist series Kaare Andrews did 7 years ago. Credit to Hama for using all kinds of stuff, I guess. Another person with a grudge against Danny's family, apparently, and she wants some of that good dragon chi. Who doesn't?

Okoye's in the Heart of Heaven and speaks with another dragon who encourages her to look at the big picture and decide what's necessary to fix things. Which is, as Danny and the others find out after another seemingly pointless round of running around fighting undead ninjas, to kill the remaining dragons. I feel like Pei is going to have some objections to Okoye trying to kill her baby dragon, Gork. Which I figure is coming next issue. Danny tries to stop her, there's a lot of arguing about him not understanding what needs to be done to solve the problem.

One thing, among many, I'm confused on is where all these undead ninjas are coming from if that gate Danny pushed closed a couple of issues ago is still closed. Nothing anyone is doing seems to actually be making a difference. I really hope this doesn't turn into one of those stories where a bunch of characters are fooled into thinking they're accomplishing something, because one character is leading them around by the nose.

The design for the dragon from the Bride of Nine Spiders' dragon is terrifying, but appropriate, I guess. Strange none of the others seemed so unique, though. The fight scenes are brief, and like I said, seemingly pointless to the story, but Wachter draws them well enough. The roughness to his line makes the characters look more worn down and weary.

Runaways #35, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Andres Genolet (artist), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - This is your life when you pay for magic on the installment plan.

Nico avoids doing something really stupid with Pixie. First time for everything. They find the young mutant, whose mother contacted Krakoa. Jodi doesn't want to go, because she thinks she'll never get to go home again. Oh, but after the first time you die horribly and get resurrected, why would you ever want to leave? Anyway, Jodi agrees to at least give it a try, and Logan agrees to not try and abduct Molly. Chase is also dating an older Gert through the magic of time travel. Er, science of time travel. Whatever.

The most important point - other than Molly remaining safely out of the clutches of the X-books - is that weird guy we see when Nico uses her magic finally got explained to me when Nico explains it to Karolina. There's a magician sealed inside the staff, and in exchange for Nico not having to cut herself to use it, he gets to put a bit of his soul in her instead? Yeah, no way that ends horribly. So, lover's quarrel as Karolina wants to destroy the staff, and Nico doesn't want to give the staff up. Which could be seen as her not wanting to surrender her power, but is also entirely likely about her friends' tendency to die, and magic being a useful tool to bring them back.

I'm still amused by the fact Molly is already taller than Nico. Although looking at volume 2 of the series, Kris Anka didn't draw her that tall. I guess she hit a growth spurt. Makes sense for a 13-14 year old. Anyway, I couldn't help laughing at Nico's expression in the second panel there. So excited about the idea she could trick the magician trapped in her staff for generations. I mean sure, the guy was dumb enough to get trapped in the first place, but given Nico's poor track record of decisions, I doubt she's going to sucker him.

Maybe they could call Hawkeye. When you need someone to trick a powerful being that's not as smart as they think, he's your guy.