Now that Blood Hunt's over, it's safe to return to a couple of books I steered clear of the last two months. One of them is getting canceled soon (only to be rebooted immediately, because Marvel), but oh well.
Sue and Johnny are taking Nikki and Jo on a shopping trip to New York. I guess Arizona doesn't have the right kind of salsa for their refined, East Coast palettes. Interrupting a fight between a couple of dudes and some vampires (who can all walk around in daylight now), the city comes under barrage by some invisible force.
It's happening across the world, as Reed figures out when it wrecks the device he was testing to see if it would detect magic once Doom inevitably starts throwing some around. The shape Gomez draws Reed's head when it gets hit is appropriately weird and goofy-looking. Since this issue is narrated by Johnny, he simplifies Reed's explanation to, "the Earth is being hit by subatomic particles moving incredibly fast, except they aren't harmlessly decaying on impact like normal."
The FF shrink to the "preonic" level, and find a black sphere. Someone's turned these particles into starships. Except, as it turns out, the aliens inside are all dying or dead. They do find one alive, and manage to translate that it wants to get off Earth. Yeah, you and every billionaire.
It's a decent little science mystery, the kind of thing the Fantastic Four are better suited for than the other superteams, so that's good. North is trying to incorporate the new status quo, because of course Reed would be concerned about Sorcerer Supreme Doom (and of course he'd be certain magic has to obey the laws of science as he knows them.)
The Midnight Mission has been sheltering people from vampires, and the vampires are ready to just blow the place up and be done with it. As Reese and Soldier make a last stand, the sun comes back, but it doesn't burn any vampires. Well, that's both cool and inconvenient for our heroes.
Oh, but Moon Knight's back, too. So they trounce a lot of vampires to spread the message to get lost, and Marc wants to continue his therapy sessions with Dr. Sterman, but first he's got to have a little chat with Khonshu, about what Old Bird Skull wants. And what Khonshu wants is the Shroud dead.
Pramanik's art is a lot looser than Cappuccio's, tending to exaggerate hands or perspective to let one image or part of a character dominate a panel. So Moon Knight attacks a vampire, his legs are tiny things in one corner of the panel while his face and upper body command the rest. Pramanik's willingness to exaggerate sells the exhaustion of the characters. With Cappuccio, even when they're shocked or angry, the linework is stiff enough it feels restrained. Here, everything is looser, the emotions are bigger, Reese's hair is messier. She looks too tired to put any sort of calm facade.
Rosenberg's also keeping the colors less starkly defined. More blurring or mixing for the backgrounds. Especially when the sun comes out and the backgrounds are really just a mixture of overpowering yellows. Previously, even during daylight scenes, it felt as though light would be constrained to a narrow band of a specific shade, and that was it. Maybe all the characters are just too tired, or maybe it's a new day, where Marc doesn't feel like he's so constrained by his fears or the suspicions of others.
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