Let's get to some comics from June! Yeah! We've got eight comics to discuss over the next week+ and they made it so easy to pair them up. Like today, we're looking at a couple of first issues of five-issue mini-series.
Philip works for W.O.R.L.D.E., and an agency that is supposed to only operate in wartime and capture or destroy 'destructive elements' (that's the D.E.). Except their motto is, 'it's always wartime,' so yeah. After keeping a different organization from getting their hands on a 25th Century super-genius (by killing them and the super-genius), he gets sent to Russia to deal with some Cold War scientist who's built himself a robot army/family. The issue is resolved, but Philip is obviously getting tired of doing this. Small wonder, since he has himself a secret family.
It's a matter of when Camp decides to have Philip try to make a clean break from the W.O.R.L.D.E. He's already established a rival agent that Philip will no doubt have to fight at some point, a Brit named Kilgore Kincaid who stole stuff from a weird pocket dimension, after killing the rest of his team. He's the one who embraces what he's asked to do without reservation, while Philip questions and feels bad about it, but ultimately still does it. As Kilgore notes, does that make them any different to the people they kill?
The art is very detailed. The designs of the robots, showing the rivets and different joints, but also the remains of the town that sat around the old Russian "science city". Bratukhin uses lots of little dots to shade or give things a sense of depth and texture. It works, but it's a little distracting that everyone has these dots scattered over their faces like an unfinished connect-the-dots.
Also, I wonder if it's a style that necessarily matches the book. I don't think Camp is going for an absurdist take so much as just wanting to emphasize how weird the stuff Philip deals with is, but he does have Philip use a jetpack powered by, 'atmospheric emotional energy known as orgone.' So it's not entirely serious, either, so would the book benefit from a less detailed, more cartoonish style? I'll see how I feel after the next issue.
Felicia's attempt to steal a diamond she's been after for a long time is interrupted. First, by Tony Stark calling to yell at her about stealing back the Iron Cat armor she used to threaten Odessa. Then by the person who actually stole the armor, who is trying to kill her. And it's a real problem, because Tony Stark can't help tinkering with things, so the armor is much more dangerous and better-armed than it was originally.
Felicia's attempts to stay alive as she's chased across Manhattan are intercut with flashbacks to a previous attempt to steal the same diamond, when she and her then-girlfriend Tamara were both still apprenticing with the Black Fox. Perez uses a different shading style on those parts, and D'Armata goes with a softer coloring style. Not sepia-toned, but the contrasts are faded, lines are softer. It's a fond reminiscence, basically.
Anyway, with the Fox still locked inside the Gilded Saint's vault, three guesses who's inside the armor? So Felicia's going to need some help, and since Tony Stark upgraded the suit because he has no better coping mechanism for his alcoholism, guess who's going to help. Although MacKay again seems to be shelving her bad luck abilities, because Felicia notes all she has going for her is a lot of rope and moxie. Which at least continues a trend from his second Black Cat volume, of Felicia not using the quantum probability doohickus when it's a personal matter. This does seem like a time to break that rule, and Felicia's a thief, she should love breaking rules.
I feel like it's been a while since I bought something Pere Perez drew. I was thinking the Stephanie Brown Batgirl, but it looks like it was when I bought the first two issues of the Rogue and Gambit mini-series 3+ years ago. Perez' work seems to have shifted to something closer to Sean Chen's now, especially in some of the postures characters take while moving. The faces are still more fluid and expressive than Chen's, less teeth-gritting, but it feels like Perez has continued to pare down his style. Less busy, but also maybe less exaggerated.
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