"Heroes for Hire" was originally a sub-title for Power Man and Iron Fist, and didn't become the main title of a book until 1997, when John Ostrander wrote a team book in the aftermath of Onslaught.
With most of the heroes gone, and the U-Foes assisting a mysterious mastermind in a breakout from the Vault, Iron Fist decides to use his company's resources to put together a team of, well, anybody he can find. Hercules joins briefly, then departs to get his shit together. Black Knight tags in (with a new sword and potential role), as does Scott Lang. After some reluctance, so do Luke Cage and She-Hulk. Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch is helping to run things, and Ostrander gives us a few scenes during the series of him and Namor being chummy. Always weird to see Namor being relaxed and pleasant. Ostrander also adds in a new White Tiger, a woman who actually transforms into a white tiger if she loses control.
The book doesn't ever really offer a sense that the available heroes are stretched thin with the Avengers and FF "dead" and the X-Men on the run. The first year is the team dealing with various threats, with Ostrander ranging far and wide, like the U-Foes and Nitro. They get tangled up with the Thunderbolts (still pretending to be heroes) and Silver Sable. A couple of issues deal with Sersi popping up after she and Black Knight got separated at some point, which drags the team into fighting the Deviants. All the while, the mastermind is moving in the background.
Ostrander does a bit of a dive into Luke and Danny's friendship. The different ways they see things, the different ways they respond to problems. Danny thought the world needed some symbol of hope, some reason to think things weren't falling apart, and he took certain steps. Big, idealistic, poorly thought steps. Luke's more cautious, more capable of being sneaky or deceitful if he thinks it's necessary.
Most of the rest of the series is a crossover with Quicksilver, which I think Ostrander was also writing. The heroes get caught in the middle of a struggle for control of Wundagore between the High Evolutionary and Exodus, and . . .look, I'm pretty close to ride or die for John Ostrander, but even he can't make me give a shit about the High Evolutionary or the Acolytes.
Pascual Ferry draws most of the 19 issues of the book, and he uses a much stiffer, harder line here than he would show in the 2000s. Compared to his art here, his work on Ultimate Fantastic Four had an almost ethereal look to it. Pretty stylized, exaggerated proportions. White Tiger's legs seem to go on forever, so maybe there's some Jim Lee influence in there? Not sure.
But Ferry's very good at laying out panels and pages, and he gets a lot of fight scenes to draw and illustrates them well. Sometimes he'll go move-by-move, and other times he focuses on the big moments. Ostrander adds some humor occasionally, not a lot, but enough to keep things from getting grim, and Ferry does alright with that. Luke gets an updated costume, brings back the tiara they ditched in his '90s Cage series, but stays away from canary yellow clothing. Scott Lang got a more armored look when he was in DeFalco's FF run, but Ferry brings him back to a more classic Ant-Man costume.
The book got canceled after 19 issues, which is still the longest any book titled Heroes for Hire has lasted.
No comments:
Post a Comment