What I Bought 10/08/2021

So the search for issue 3 of Locust was a bust, but the other store in town did have issue 3 of Defenders. Although I saw online issue 4 isn't coming out until early December. I assume Javier Rodriguez needs more time to make it look beautiful, so I'll allow it.

Defenders #3, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez (storytellers), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Cloud hasn't quite got the "Master of the Mystic Arts" hand gestures down yet.

The Defenders, minus the Surfer but plus Galactus' mom, land in the Fifth Cosmos. Where science doesn't exist, but magic is everywhere. Zota's already there, the slave of some C'thulu looking mage named Mor-I-Dun. Strange is leery to use his magic, Cloud's powers don't seem to work well, and seemingly neither does Masked Raider's mask. Not sure why Harpy's doing so well, I thought she was also a product of science.

Anyway, cue the Bad Mage attacking. He's at a bit of a disadvantage because, something about the way Strange summoned this team. Makes them like all the different parts of a spell. Rodriguez colors them in a hodge-podge of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black when they're struck by the spell to reveal them. I'm like Zota, I don't get why that makes a difference against the guy who created the rules of magic, but Strange insists it does and sends the magic he's not trying to control which is therefore not bound by rules, through Harpy instead of himself. Sending Mor-I-Dun to his fate at the end of this universe - I guess he was Omni-Max in the previous issue? Zota's role as herald there would make sense, then - and the team is sucked through a giant green door to the Fourth Cosmos. 

Which is going to be very comic-booky by the looks of it. Or maybe "archetypical" is the better term, since the first character they see is "talking" in colors. The old comic printing colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. It looks sorta like a Hulk, so there's that, too.

I'm not sure what this is leading to. I have a suspicion the Masked Raider is actually Zota from further down his own timeline. Looking back at issue 1, the way he tells Strange he knew where Zota would be, or how he knew what Zota was going to do, and that it was what he was 'always going to do.' Suggests a man who's lived it all before. Or he could be Adam-IV, who seemed to know things and have his own plans. Maybe those involved eventually coming back around to this point. They obscured most of the guy's face for a reason.

Anyway, it continues to be a very pretty book to look at. The panels of Mor-I-Dun emerging through a pool of magenta blood were especially nice, and the shift to more archaic look on the last two pages (replicating the printing process with all the little dots like in older comics) was a nice touch. Only two months until the next issue!