Sunday Splash Page #185

 

"Walked in Thru the Out Door," in Exiles (vol. 2) #3, by Jeff Parker (writer), Salva Espin (artist, left side), Casey Jones (artist, right side), Anthony Washington (colorist), Jeff Loveness (letterer)

The first volume of Exiles ended at #100, about five issues after I dropped the book. Marvel, being Marvel, immediately relaunched it as New Exiles, still with Claremont as the writer and a shiny new #1 on the cover.

It ended after 19 issues in early 2009. Undaunted, and having learned nothing, Marvel released Exiles two months later, now with Jeff Parker as writer, and a shiny new #1 on the cover.

It ended after 6 issues in fall of 2009. Same month as Agents of Atlas, actually. Not a good month for books written by Jeff Parker, or my pull list. Parker took the approach of seemingly pulling in an entirely new team of Exiles, and Morph was in the role of Timebroker now, handing out missions and explaining the rules. There was a Blink on the team, but she appeared not to know anything more than the others.

The book only had enough time for two missions. The first was for the Exiles to help Wolverine overthrow Magneto, currently ruling a Genosha that is a haven for mutants, but under repeated attacks from the rest of the world. The second, which started seemingly before the first was complete, was to help a world dominated by machine intelligences. I thought I remembered they needed something from the second mission to complete the first, but reading over my old reviews that was just what I thought was gonna happen. Instead, they completed the first mission by taking advantage of Cyclops being a lousy boyfriend. Which is better, frankly. Anything that shits on Scott Summers is A-OK by me.

Parker clearly had a lot of things he planned to tease out over time. Sadly, he didn't get the chance and had to spend most of the sixth issue trying to explain what was going on. It was an exposition heavy issue and not the most engaging, but I appreciate he didn't want to leave us hanging.

After that, Marvel let the Exiles concept lie until Saladin Ahmed and Javier Rodriguez pulled it back out in 2018. Unless you count all of Jonathan Hickman's multiverse Illuminati crap in his Avengers run. But considering the "geniuses" repeatedly failed to actually save any realities, they were the shittiest group of Exiles ever. 

Anyway, the 2018 run lasted 12 issues, which puts Ahmed 4th on the list of most Exiles issues written (behind Bedard, Winick, and Claremont, but ahead of Chuck Austen, Parker, and Calafiore.) I think Marvel may have trained their audience to care too much about "important" comics. A book that mostly dances around the fringes, barely ever interacting with the big guns, would be hard-pressed to get that kind of weight.

Full disclosure, I don't still have any of this series in my collection, and I was gonna just skip it. But I remembered that in Random Back Issues #5 I promised to post that double-page splash when I got to this point. So there you go. You can (as always with the double-page splashes) click on it for a somewhat larger version.

Sunday Splash Page #135

"Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard," in Deadpool (vol. 3) #43, by Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan (writers), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer)

The first half of Posehn and Duggan's Deadpool run ended with Agent Preston's mind and soul being removed from Deadpool's mind and placed into a spiffy Life Model Decoy body, and with Wade finally receiving the money for re-killing the undead presidents, and him killing the turncoat Agent Gorman, who embezzled the money in the first place. 

Having gotten his unwanted tenant out of his head, Wade's actually feeling a bit lonely. The second half of this run is him building a new network of friends and loved ones, then trying to figure out how to juggle what all those people expect of him. It actually kicks off in a mini-series, Deadpool: Dracula's Gauntlet, which we'll get to in a month or so. The end result, though, is that Deadpool meets Shiklah, a succubus who is next in line to rule over the Monster Metropolis below New York. Back in the main title, Wade and Shiklah get married (in an oversized issue that apparently set a record for most characters on a single cover).

After that, he finds the daughter he thought might have died in North Korea with her mother during an Original Sin tie-in (one big issue with the second half of the run versus the first is they go from no event tie-ins to about six straight months of event tie-ins). He gets inverted into a nonviolent "Zenpool" right as the X-Men all become assholes (I mean bigger assholes than usual) as part of Axis and try to kill the few remaining survivors of the attempt by North Korea and the guy harvesting Wade's organs to create their own, knockoff X-Men.

Wade's caught in a situation where he doesn't want to be a killer, because he'd like to try and be a parent to Eleanor (and a mentor to Evan Sabah Nur, the kid who might become the next Apocalypse some day). But Shiklah likes him because of his capacity for massive violence, and Zenpool wasn't massively effective against the Inverted X-Men. Then ULTIMATUM shows a complete lack of sound judgment and tries to mess with his loved ones again, and Wade goes John Wick on their asses. 

Then Secret Wars cancels the book.

There's also a few funny one-off stories in here. Scott Koblish does another inventory issue, where Wade and Cable protect post-Howling Commandos, pre-SHIELD Nick Fury from time-traveling Hitler, plus one about the magic of "gracking", aka fracking using gamma energy, that involves Sarah Silverman teaming up with the at-the-time Thor creative team of Jason Aaron and Jason Latour to fight the minotaur that runs Roxxon these days. 

I'm not making any of that up, that's actually part of the comic.

Plus a story where we find out the organ-harvesting, child-abducting asshole pumped Wade full of memory-erasing drugs and had him kill his own parents. OK, that's not actually funny. But Koblish drew it all in a send-up of Liefeld's style (including making sure to never draw feet), which I guess is supposed to be funny. I'm not judging. I can't draw feet, or hands. Shit's hard, OK?

Random back Issue #5 - Exiles #3

No matter the universe, everyone can unite via their enjoyment of Havok getting beaten up. Especially because Panther doesn't even look like he hit him particularly hard.

This isn't from the Judd Winick-written Exiles that ran for 100 issues, but the 2009 attempted reboot with Jeff Parker as the writer. Morph has stepped into the role of the Timebroker (or the little bugs that used the Crystal Palace) and Blink is wearing the Tallus again, but pretending she's as new to all this as the rest of the team.

For their first mission, the team was sent to an Earth where Magneto runs Genosha, with the former X-Men and the various villainous mutants united under his banner. The Exiles are supposed to help Wolverine overthrow Magneto, except by the time they arrive, Sabretooth and a bunch of X-Men are parading Logan's corpse through the main plaza.

The team tries to infiltrate a celebration party, taking advantage of the fact two of their team members are Magneto's kids in their respective universes, but all the telepaths around made that a non-starter. Most of this issue is the team escaping confinement and trying to get Magneto's helmet off so the telepaths can see what dark secret he's hiding. No, not that he's a Kid Rock fan.

If this had been written on the Internet, I'm pretty sure Mags would be arranging Moira's death so he could have Charles all to himself. Or they'd just be polyamorous, which might have solved all the problems. I kind of love the idea of Magneto being petty enough to let Charles die at the hands of giant murderbots because he wants Moira.

It's enough to get the X-Men cheesed at Magneto, but the Tallus says calamity hasn't been averted, even as it opens a door to another reality and the Exiles bolt, over Blink's protests. There's a nice double-page splash I will absolutely use for Sunday Splash Page whenever I make it this far - rough guess, fall of 2021 - where Salva Espin draws the half of them leaving, and Casey Jones, who draws the next story, draws the half of them arriving in the next universe. Where they'll have to face a artificial intelligence trio of Ultron, Vision, and Machine Man, plus the incomparable might of Security Camera Lizard!

I picked that image because of the lizard, but now I'm fixated on why Forge thinks Magneto doesn't like the desert. Because there's nothing made out of metal? I'd imagine there are plenty of rocks with metallic elements in them all over the place. I guess wearing a bucket on your head might be unpleasant under the noon sun. . .

[Longbox #5, 14th comic. Exiles (vol. 2) #3, by Jeff Parker (writer), Salva Espin and Casey Jones (artists), Anthony Washington (colorist), Simon Bowland (letterer)]

What I Bought 9/15/2015 - Part 1

Didn't even have to wait for Wednesday last week to pick up the previous three weeks' comics, since nothing came out for me last week. Five books total, 4 of those from the week of the 9th. And I'm only expecting two books total this week and the next. At least Squirrel Girl starts again next month.

Starfire #4, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Emanuela Lupacchino (pencilers), Mirco Pierfederici (pencil assists), Ray McCarthy and Trevor Scott (inkers), Hi-Fi (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Kori looks a little puffier in the cheeks than normal. It's Tamaranean mumps! Which probably causes Earthlings to pop like a balloon, so the street cleaners are gonna have a bad time of it.

Kori and Atlee deal with the Chida, by having Atlee hurl it to the sea, and then Kori blasts it until it grows so large it breaks through a weak spot in the sea floor and sinks in. Atlee also explains why the Chida's after her - she wouldn't marry his boss as arranged - and her origin, which does still include Power Girl being her best friend, which makes me wonder if that's why Atlee added a boob window to her costume, because her old one had a v-neck collar. Even so, I was glad to see they kept that friendship.

Kori and Atlee get really excited about both having super-powers, which kind of freaks the sheriff out, since she's concerned having superheroes around will get the town destroyed. That argument doesn't make much of an impression on the girls, but perhaps this Soren fellow, telepathic serial killer, will cause a reassessment. And it seems Kori's sister has hired someone to find her, which is certainly played as ominous. Her sister stays mostly in shadows, the guy she hires is a trained killer, she won't explain why she wants to find Kori (though it makes sense a ruler wouldn't feel it necessary to explain herself to a hireling). Which makes me suspect Conner and Palmiotti might make this into something relatively benign, just to mess with our expectations.

The biggest issue I continue to have is my uncertainty whether Lupacchino's art fits the tone of the book. Kori here seems very heavily drawn from Teen Titans Go! in terms of personality, but whereas the animation on that show doesn't really sexualize her, I don't know think you can say the same about the art here. Of course, Conner and Palmiotti have pretty much every character notice or comment on how attractive she is. The characterization puts me in mind of a much younger character, which clashes with that.visual presentation. I know Kori was portrayed as naive about Earth from her earliest appearances, but her she initially ignores the part she's supposed to play in Atlee's plan, to listen to Atlee explain why the Chida's after her. It's supposed to be a joke, but it does feel more like something a child would do. Lupacchino seemed to favor having characters place both hands along their face, in some expression of glee or surprise, but it just looks odd. I especially didn't buy it with Atlee, because her face doesn't really match the body language. It's trying for extreme excitement, but doesn't get there. It doesn't help her eyes are drawn looking at us, rather than Kori. That actually makes it a bit creepy. Anyway, there's a conflict there I'm struggling to resolve, but I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

Mrs. Deadpool and Her Howling Commandos #4, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - It's the little touches in that cover. Frankenstein wearing the wizard's cape from last issue, Man-Thing with the flower growing out of his head.

I was wrong about Dracula killing everyone last issue. He killed everyone, except a fair number of his vampire minions. Shiklah spends too much time gloating about having a magic scepter with the power of starlight, and not enough killing Dracula with it. It turns into a scramble for the scepter, which kills the Commandos, save Man-Thing, and ends with Dracula seemingly triumphant. Wade finally gets involved and possesses a minion, tosses the scepter to Shiklah, she finally kills Dracula and vows to conquer the surface world. Then she and her followers are killed by the Thor Cops. The end.

That was a flat ending. The Commandos went out like a bunch of chumps. The series introduced Marcus the centaur as an unbeatable warrior (except for his diabetes), and Drac casually beheaded him in one panel. She decides to wage war on the surface world - and it goes worse for her than it ever has for Namor. Was it a lesson about overreach, or had Duggan simply written Shiklah as preparing to conquer the above world at the end of the last Deadpool series, and decided to nod towards it here? There are a lot of stories where the main character quests for some item, finds it, takes their revenge, and all ends well. Here it seems like that up to a point, and then we find out it went downhill because just finding a magic doohickey doesn't mean every decision is a good one. I'm just spitballing, trying to understand. Duggan probably just thought it was funny to end an ultimately meaningless story like this.

So neither book was exactly a winner. Friday's selections will be better.

What I Bought 8/19/2015 - Part 1

It's surprised me that Rock Bottom Comics has been pretty much the only comic book store in Columbia for the last 10 years or so. It's a good store, well-lit, good selection of back issues and trades, staff is always friendly. Just surprising a town that size can't support more than one (Slackers sells comics, but until recently, it was a pretty ancillary part of their stock). But I had the chance to visit a new store that opened this spring, Distant Planet Comics, which is also seemed like a nice store. They're still building up back issue stock, but they had almost everything I was looking for in new issues, and it's a very nice store. So hopefully they can make it stick.

Master of Kung-Fu #4, by Haden Blackman (writer), Dalibor Talijac (penciler), Goran Sudzuka (inker), Morislav Mrva (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - You may have mastered 9 of the 10 rings, Shang Chi, but you're no match for Zheng Zhu's fabulous hair! If only you had learned the mysteries of Loreal Arts!

Shang tries to fight Rand-K'ai and Red Sai, which doesn't go terribly well, and we learn Shang killed Rand's master because Red Sai failed to, and he was trying to protect her and her school. Rand reluctantly lets Shang go to meet his father, and they have the big fight, in a room which resembles a miniature version of their city. So it's kind of like a kaiju fight, but with weird martial arts stuff. Shang nearly loses, but he's learned a few things in his time with the outcasts, which give him the upper hand. He becomes Emperor, everything is relatively happy.

When we get to the final battle, Shang is in his traditional look: shirtless, the red headband, the red pants. It's sort of a treat for the fans thing, but it actually works. Shang's shirt got torn over the course of his many battles, and the headband covers a wound given to him by Red Sai during the fight. So it isn't as though he just randomly decides this is a good look. If you're going to do that sort of thing, there should be a solid reason for it. I wasn't quite as clear on Rand suddenly deciding, "Naw, I can't beat Zheng, it has to be this guy I've been trying to hunt down for years."

I enjoy how, when Shang and Zheng begin to fight, Shang leaps over all those miniature buildings, but Zheng just charges through them, smashing them to bits. It isn't as though they're actually giants fighting in their real city, but it's probably telling in regards to how the two regard their roles in relation to the city. Zheng is one of those, "they're here to serve me" types, Shang is the, "I'm supposed to serve them" guy. I also liked the shift on page 19 from Talijac's normal style, to the flatter style he's been using for the retellings of lore that lead off each issue. Showing how this is becoming part of that legend, the exile returning to challenge his father and take over the realm.

I wish this had more time for the fights. Go full Dragonball with it, spend entire issues on one crazy fight. Lots of back and forth, arguing, weird techniques. For what it wanted to be, I think it was pretty good.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos #3, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Monsters, please, the giant spectral Dracula is behind you! Simon Belmont would be rolling in his grave at your attempts to kill the Lord of Vampires.

Shiklah and the others reach Weirdworld, where the other half of the scepter is located. After much stumbling lost in the jungles, they find the proper temple, then have to fight off a slightly kooky wizard for the Totem of Manticore. Then they start on their way home. The only problem is, well, see, they left the Invisible Man to spy on Dracula, and he's not nearly as good at staying unnoticed as you'd expect. Dracula was getting pretty paranoid, swinging at the air, until he finally made contact with someone invisible. After that, he pretty much went nuts, and by the time our protagonists return, he's killed much of the population of Monster Metropolis.

Also, the only person who can see Ghost Deadpool is Frankenstein's Monster, who refuses to explain why he seems to be talking to air. Is that a metaphor for something? Frankenstein wants to keep Deadpool all to himself, even if it hurts Wade, even if it makes people think he's off his rocker, because it's something exclusive to him. Kind of like certain segments of the fandom, who want to keep other people out, then wonder why everyone else thinks they're nuts. And the readers are the only ones other than the Monster who can see Wade, so are we similar? Not a comforting thought, but I do share the Monster's fear of being lit on fire. Oh no, I was the monster all along!

It's not the strongest issue. I haven't felt like Duggan's given me a reason to want Shiklah to succeed in her mission. The whole quest hasn't resonated. Maybe because the last time we saw her in Deadpool, she was about to raise an small army of warriors and try to conquer the world. Dracula's no good, but I'm not entirely convinced she's too much better. I did enjoy Dracula getting so paranoid he essentially loses his mind. It's kind of funny, but it also made a certain amount of sense. He knows Shiklah isn't happy about the marriage, he knows he's a shitty boss, so he has to watch both those fronts. That means he starts questioning everything he thinks he knows about them and their actions, which gets him questioning more people. Which makes those people jumpy, 'cause they don't want to die, which makes him more suspicious, and so on. It's pretty well played.

I like Espin's art, but I wonder if it isn't too cute at times. The last panel, with Dracula holding ogre or troll by the hair, while it stares at us blankly, almost made me laugh. It isn't badly drawn, but the way the ogre's tongue lolls out of its mouth gave it a comic edge. It made me think of someone pretending to be dead, like a little kid or something. The panel where he ripped the minion's head off with his teeth was appropriately gory. And Dracula's expressions as he starts to lose it are pretty good. I can almost see his eye twitching when he finds out there's more than one invisible presence in his castle.

I am confused by the presence of the Thors at the end of issue 2. They didn't show up at all here, so I don't know what that's about, whether it'll be brought up next month or not. I don't know if I even want them to show up, other than there needs to be some payoff for it. My guess is, Shiklah and the Commandos kill Drac, the Thors decide this is too much of a disturbance, and she has to lead her kingdom in an open war against the Thors. Which could be a tall order. As Drac put it, God Doomit to Hell (I chuckled at that line).

What I Bought 7/22/2015 - Part 3

OK, it’s that time again.

Deadpool: [To butter our toes with marmalade and do a clog dance?] 

Clever Adolescent Panda: To get started filing taxes for next year and buying Christmas gifts? 

No, it’s time to look at Secret Wars tie-in mini-series! Look at it this way, it’s not as messy, and attracts fewer insects than the marmalade dance, and less boring than what the panda said.

Deadpool: [Great plan! I can't wait to hear what you think of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars!]

I didn't buy that. I did buy the one where you're dead, though!

CAP: Oooh, I love that one. 

Yeah, stories where Wade's reduced to a hapless bystander are the best.

Deadpool: [You guys are jerks.]

Marvel Zombies #2, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Kev Walker (artist), Guru-eFX (color artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer and production?) – Lashley’s cover reminds me of an old Sgt. Rock cover. Rock entering a bombed out town with a squad of child soldiers (Unit 44 comes to mind for some reason), Rock proclaiming the town all clear. Of course, there are actually Nazis lurking in the upstairs of some abandoned building. I’m pretty sure no person on a Joe Kubert cover that has proclaimed things safe has ever been right. Which certainly ought to keep one on their toes.

Elsa and the mysterious kid continue their trek south, away from the mass of zombies and towards the unknown. They’re being followed, presumably by the person owning the hand that was holding Elsa’s knife last issue. I had assumed it was Red Nightcrawler, but no, and whoever it is survives Elsa rolling a MODOK zombie down at him, plus said MODOK exploding, plus a mountain falling on him, so that’s bad news. Here’s good news, the Shield has an Angel in its ranks, and he was scouting and spotted them. He can only carry one of them, so it’s time to say goodbye to the kid, but he lends Elsa his tracker and promises resupply soon.

Except the tracker is actually a baseball. Angel was actually Mystique, zombiefied, but intelligent, because she’s been feeding regularly on a captured Deadpool’s brains. I would think eating Deadpool’s brains would make one dumber, not smarter, but maybe it’s just the regular, endlessly regenerating food supply that’s the key. If they keep eating they don’t rot, so they can think? Not clear on the rules for zombies in the Marvel U. I’m very excited at the prospect of seeing Elsa kill a Mystique in an impressive manner next issue. Mystique is always such a horrible being, and she always gets away with it. Seeing her get explosive comeuppance will do me a world of good.

Place your bets: Is the mysterious being following Elsa a) a different version of her, or b) a different version of her father? With all her flashbacks to her miserable childhood, plus her explaining that sometimes you more than one version of the same person due to the strange nature of the patchwork world they inhabit (she describes it as a ‘tolietsplash’ of a world, which is an excellent phrase), it would seem the most likely reveal. I’m betting on it being Ulysses, a version turned undead, but still hunting and killing monsters. Possibly denying himself flesh, if he also holds to the “wanting is the opiate of the weak” philosophy Elsa’s did. He probably wants her piece of the Bloodstone to add to his power. I said Elsa killing a Mystique would be good for me. Elsa killing a version of her asshole father might be good for her. I wonder if she’d welcome the chance to be rid of the bloodstone. She clearly believes it poisoned her dad, and she doesn’t wear it when she doesn’t absolutely have to. Perhaps she’d just as soon take her chances with her own skills, minus the magic poison rock?

I like it when Walker uses the range of vision through the binoculars as panel borders. Simple touch, but a good one. He still switches from orderly panels with thin borders during quiet scenes, to lopsided, tilted panels with thicker, jagged borders during actions scenes. But he doesn’t lose the flow on the page, and it kind of gives this sense of things happening too fast, so you kind of catching glimpses. You see the kid get grabbed, then catch sight of Elsa throwing a Carnage head, bits and pieces through the confusion of the moment. Or I’m talking out my ass. Whichever. At the point when Elsa and the kid are going to part ways, there’s one panel where Elsa leans down to talk to the child at the same level, and it’s the moment where she’s kinder than she has been at any point up to then. No yelling or cursing, almost doesn’t blame the kid for wasting 4 of her 6 bullets. Up to then, she’s either spoken to the child with her back turned, or when looking down at the kid and speaking in anger. How her father speaks to her in every flashback, in other words. So the shift, even for one panel, was a good touch.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos #2, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) – I don’t get the appeal of the Funko figures. They just look weird to me.

Shiklah and her merry band of bodyguards/overseers have reached the River Styx, but the boatman won’t ferry them across because they aren’t dead. So he attacks them with zombies instead and it turns out Frankenstein’s monster is afraid of zombies. Yes, the shuffling assemblage of corpses is scared of walking corpses. Go figure. And he’s scared enough he knows fear, and all who know fear burn at the touch of, yeah, you know how it goes. I did laugh at that part. Once zombies are being chucked into his boat, Charon changes his mind and agrees to take them across, only to get his head punched off by Franky. They steal the boat, reach the other side, Shiklah unceremoniously dumps her stupid brothers’ ashes on the ground, and tells the Commandos to scram. Her plan to use the Medusa head again is thwarted because the Living Mummy’s a skilled pickpocket. Again, go figure. Then Werewolf by Night tells her they’d also like to defeat Dracula, and she should give the weapon to them. Her counteroffer is they can tag along, but she’s the boss, and Jack doesn’t object once she liplocks with him. Much to Ghost Deadpool’s consternation.

I think I was expecting more focus on the challenges they’d face trying to recover the other half of the scepter, which thus far, hasn’t really been the case. I was probably expecting a more serious story than I got, though why I thought this would be serious is beyond me. I did laugh pretty hard when Shiklah went for Medusa and pulled out a melon with bananas tied to it. That’s going the extra mile with the deception. Then Shiklah smushed it, and now what will Marcus the Minotaur do if his blood sugar gets low? Somehow I feel like the symbiont he’s wearing ought to be able to compensate for that, but I don’t know what diabetes is like for a minotaur. That I still say is a centaur. He has 4 horse legs, with a sort of human upper body attached. Minotaurs are two-legged animal people, things, usually bulls, right? The credits page even describes him as a centaur, but the splash page in the first issue said minotaur. I am so confused!

I’m also confused trying to figure out what happens to Shilklah’s clothes when she changes into that bigger form on the cover. They don’t tear, ala the Hulk, they just kind of vanish and reappear when she shrinks back down. “Magic” is probably the simplest answer.

Deadpool: [No contemplating my wife with her clothes off!]

Wade, I’m not trying to – look, shouldn’t you be more concerned about Jack Russell?

Deadpool: [You’re right! I’m off!]

You want to take that one, or should I?

CAP: Too easy.

What I Bought 6/12/2015 - Part 5

Let’s look at the other two Secret Wars mini-series I decided to try. I can tell you right now, I was pretty happy with both. This is not going to convince me to try more of the ones currently coming out, mind you, but it’s still a nice turn of events.

Marvel Zombies #1, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Kev Walker (artist), Frank D’Armata (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) – Is Elsa grabbing the scalp of Zombie Volstagg? Volstagg is a zombie? Noooooo! Next you’ll be telling me he ate his kids or something. Don’t tell me he ate his kids.

Here, the Shield is a giant wall staffed with people who keep the ravenous zombie hordes in their little piece of land. Why the hell did Doom include a piece of Marvel Zombies Earth in his planet? Poor planning, Victor. Elsa Bloodstone is a commander there, and after killing one of her new recruits after he got bitten – because I guess Kev Walker was disappointed he didn’t get to draw Striker dying in agony in the pages of Avengers Arena? – Elsa gets teleported way the hell out into Zombie Wasteland by Zombie Nightcrawler’s Dad, I think. Where she wakes up to find some bald, amnesiac, non-zombie kid, and they try to make the trek back to safe territory. The kid spends a lot of time telling her he thinks they should go the other way, and Elsa spends a lot of time being verbally abusive, because that’s how her father raised her. I have to admit, as much time as the kid spends sniveling and crying, I’d probably tell him to shut up a lot, too. Anyway, after narrowly surviving Zombie Juggernaut thanks to some unexpected reaction from the Bloodstone amulet, Elsa sees just how many zombies are between her and home, and decides to go with the kid’s idea, while some creature, probably Zombie Nightcrawler’s Pop, watches them from a distance and plots to use her own knife on her.

I bought this for the promise of Kev Walker drawing Elsa bloodstone killing lots of monsters, and I’m getting just that so far. Spurrier’s taken the backstory Ellis gave Elsa in NextWave, about her father putting her through all this crazy training as a baby, and approached it from a more serious direction. That would be traumatic for a kid, it would certainly affect how she relates to other people she regards as soft, or unprepared, and would give her a mindset very focused on doing her job. It works, though I’m not sure that backstory was ever meant to be taken seriously. Also, I had figured Ellis was the only writer Marvel let use “toerag” in his books (considering Pete Wisdom couldn’t go 5 pages without saying it during Ellis’ Excalibur), but Spurrier gets to as well.

I don’t know if it means anything that most of the people on the Shield with Elsa had glowing red eyes. That seems like an ominous sign. Also have no idea what the kid’s deal is. No memory, vague sense of wanting to go south, no apparent skills, but somehow still alive in a land where anything alive is food for everything undead. Actually an android? An attempt at a Trojan Horse, zombies eat him, he infects them with some virus that kills them once and for all, but they can sense it and avoid him? Juggernaut went right for Elsa, even though she had the gun, instead of the kid. Paid the kid no mind whatsoever.

Particularly liked the panels Walker did of one of the zombies with rats crawling around inside its flesh while it lay dormant. Reinforces the idea the zombie is dead, rotting meat, also adds the idea they can remain still and silent for a long time, until something catches their interest. I also like how the panel borders get thicker and more ragged, the panels themselves slight tilted or angled, during tense moments, like the Juggernaut fight. Then the borders gradually smooth out, and the panels revert to a nice, even, rectangular shape. It helps zoom in on the action when that’s what needs the focus, and after is when you can pull back and get the sense of how desolate and alone the place they occupy appears to be.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos #1, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) – I don’t feel like those guys really qualify as commandos, but it’s been several years since the last time Marvel used that to describe a team of monster creatures, so what the hell, right?

So there was the Deadpool: Dracula’s Gauntlet mini-series, where Wade fought and defeated Dracula, and then married Shiklah, to much rejoicing. In this version, Wade lost, because Dracula cheated, so Shiklah is still married to Drac. And it’s the crappy, “updated”, Final Fantasy villain Dracula, instead of cool, dark cape and beard, Gene Colan and Marv Wolfman Dracula. The Howling Commandos work for him, and Shiklah can’t stand them any more than she can Drac. But as the last living member of her family, she’s kind of up the creek. Until she finds part of the Scepter of the Manticore on one of her brothers’ corpses, and the other has a map leading to the other part. So she comes up with some excuse about ferrying their remains to Hell personally, and sets off in her best Lara Croft/Indiana Jones outfit. But Drac insists the Commandos accompany her, and tells Werewolf by Night to make sure she doesn’t survive the trip. Deadpool’s only present as a ghost narrator, telling people to get over making jokes about Man-Thing, then promptly making a Man-Thing joke a few pages later. Also, he grouses about dying in books in back-to-back months. I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s going to team-up with Thanos this fall, so he’ll probably be dying every page when that happens.

It says the one Commando is Marcus the Minotaur (also combined with a symbiont), but he looks more like a centaur to me. He has four horse legs, plus arms. Maybe Dracula’s just trying to confuse his foes, unless “minotaur” is the name for centaurs with diabetes, since Marcus has that. I also don’t know why one of Shiklah’s brothers is wearing an outfit that’s a cross between one of Jamie Madrox’ shirts and Rachel Summers’ old Hound outfit (the red one with spikes all over it), while the other stole that horrible outfit Frank Castle wore when he was Captain America for 5 seconds. Remember that, after Civil War, Fraction had him fight Hate-Monger and Frank decided he needed to stand up like Cap would have, and he wore some incredibly stupid garb? I do not appreciate this series making me remember that happened.

It’s nothing spectacular, pretty much an exposition issue, but I’ll trust the creative team to make it work. They used a Die Hard quote, that buys them some leeway, and I’m curious whether Shiklah will turn all these guys around to her side of things, or kill a few first to make a point.

Espin's art seems well suited for this. He draws monsters well, but since the book is far from serious in tone, the art needs to be able to do silly or comical, and he's up to the task. It's all kind of bright and exaggerrated. When the Commandos are temporarily turned to stone, it's done in one quick panel showing them looking surprised. No drawn out thing where they tried to flee, or close-ups on their terror. It's essentially so Shiklah can later tell Drac when he asks what she did, 'I made them hard.'  Jokes, but with monsters.

What I Bought 4/17/2015 - Part 4

Hey, let’s look at a couple of books that start with D and are nearing the end of their respective runs!

Daredevil #14, by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid (storytellers), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) – At least reading this issue explained the cover to me. I’d been confused about what the heck was going on ever since I saw it in the solicits a few months ago.

Matt has decided to do away with his secret identity entirely after a discussion with Kirsten’s dad about Matt’s autobiography. Now he fights crime in the courtroom and out wearing no mask, and a bright red suit with a “DD” belt buckle. And he had his hair buzzed short. I suppose it suits his ham tendencies, but yeesh, I’m as disgusted as Kirsten. Anyway, because Matt jokingly asked what was the worst that could happen, he meets a costumed young woman claiming to be the Owl’s daughter, who is looking for her dad. Eventually they wind up on Alcatraz. I approve. I mean, I know it’s cliché, but if I were going to have a base of operations in San Francisco, that’s where I’d go. Or a nice hilltop base, but I’m sure the prices on those are astronomical. Better to just hijack a landmark. Anyway, the Owl’s down there with wires running out of his eyes and mouth, and then the Shroud shows up. And the young lady realizes the emblem on the pendant all the goons she’s been attacking were wearing, matches the scar burned into Shroud’s face.

Safe bet Max is trying to use the Owl to search for Julia Carpenter, right? Or maybe that’s what he thinks is happening. The last time around, Matt was pretty sure the Owl was too dangerous for Max to try and control, so who the heck knows now? Owlsley could be in over his head, or everything could be according to plan, though he looks significantly worse off than he did last issue.

Samnee’s rocking it, as per usual, although during the scene at the ballpark, his Matt looks a lot like a redheaded Hal Jordan to me, once he takes off the glasses. Maybe it’s the leather jacket and the exceedingly cocky smile. Extremely punchable face. Nice touch, though, in the panel where Matt asks what’s the worst that could happen, to have Kirsten’s dad swing and miss in the background. On more serious discussion, on the last pitch thrown to Matt, I like the staging. First, the panel of the wind-up. Directly below it, the panel of the throw, with the ball moving down out of that panel away from the pitcher. Leading to a panel of Matt’s view through radar, with the ball now further from the pitcher, and accelerating out of that panel. And then a diagonal panel of Matt swinging, so that his bat is basically meeting the radar image of the ball. And the angle of the panel leads the eye off in a different direction, towards the final panel, and the next page. Top-notch.

Deadpool #44, by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn (writers), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) – That is not one of this series stronger covers. There’s the potential for a good cover in there. Do Deadpool and Shiklah as Indiana Jones and Marion. Have Wade dress as Lara Croft. Have them unmask a mummy, Scooby-Doo style, or go Joe Kubert with it and have one of them muse on their relative safety while we see something ominous lurking in the background.

While waiting for Shiklah to arrive, Wade is attacked again, by Omega Red. Wade trounces the dope, but does not kill him, instead opting to talk things out, and help Red realize he’s being used by someone, and that they are similar. They had horrible things done to them, but it’s their choice how they use the results of that. One panel even alludes to the idea that it was Logan who helped Wade come to this realization. Jeez, Logan, you could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if you’d stopped treating Deadpool like shit years ago.

Then Shiklah shows up and punches her first through Omega Red’s chest, which surprisingly – and unfortunately – doesn’t kill him. And Wade talks her out of finishing the job, Deadpool and the missus bond a bit, and he tells her the coffins appear to be empty, which doesn't bother her. However, she also doesn’t seem bothered that Wade’s going back to New York, rather than stay with her. So I guess they’re still married. And it turns out there’s 99 warriors hidden under the coffins she’s going to use to war with the vampires. And at least based on the one we see, they may have some connection to Apocalypse? Oh goody. Back in America, ULTIMATUM prepares to attack Deadpool’s house, though only Michael the Necromancer and Evan the future Apocalypse are inside.

It’s interesting to watch Wade as this point. It isn’t that he won’t kill, but he’s past the point of doing so needlessly. If he can get things solved without killing he will. But I’m not sure if that will work out. All his fighting against Roxxon appears to have only delayed the inevitable, as they just brought more tanks. Shiklah’s planning to engage in a likely bloody war, and his friends and loved ones are about to be under attack, because his plan to keep ULTIMATUM off their backs didn’t hold up. This is kind of how it goes for Wade, every time he makes some progress, something comes along to blow it all to hell. A lot of times, it’s his own doing. He makes a bad decision, or the easy decision, can’t control his inner demons, and it costs him. This time he seems to have really tried to do the right thing. Save innocent lives, show mercy, think things through, and it still didn’t work. Is this that bit about how it’s possible to still make no mistakes and lose?

There’s a lot of talking in this issue, so Espin gets to do a lot of close-ups on faces. I particularly like the wry, tired smile Wade has in the second panel on page 4. He’s relaxed – because he has a little surprise ready – but also, he’s not real eager. This is just something he’s going to have to do, whether he wants to or not. And Val Staples did a good job on portraying the torchlight and how it would shadow or brighten faces. Also, and I don’t know whether this is because of how Espin draws them, or how Staples is coloring it, but the black circles on Wade’s mask, combined with the yellow dot for his eyes, makes him look really surprised and kind of comical, not always, but at times. I don’t feel like they’d had that particular effect under most of the other artists on the book. I guess it’s just that it looks like the black circles are his eyeballs, and so they’re oversized to a silly degree.

What I Bought 3/24/2015 - Part 6

It's all about Deadpool today, folks. The book is nearing its conclusion, so let's see how whether Wade gets to end on a high note or not. Yes, I know they're teasing the "Death of Deadpool", but for Wade, that might actually qualify as a high point.

Deadpool #41-43, by Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan (writers), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I went with #43's cover because it accurately conveys my feelings about Omega Red by having him jammed in a barrel and about to be set on fire.

Wade's no longer inverted by the Axis nonsense, but he's feeling a bit lost. Shiklah notes that he needs to go figure out who he is. I assume she figures he will rediscover the violent guy she likes, but who knows. Then he gets a call from Trapster (Wade gave him his number while he was "Zenpool"), who has a job offer from Roxxon. It pays well, and there'll be violence, so Wade accepts. Once he gets there, he learns Roxxon wants them to kill a bunch of civilians who aren't happy with Roxxon stealing oil and priceless ancient artifacts (which turn out to be the same sorts of coffins Wade initially found Shiklah in, prompting him to call her about it). So Wade and Trapster switch sides and help the people. Or try to, because Roxxon has lots of guys with guns, and also Omega Red, who says Deadpool killed his family? Really? I'm asking, I have no idea. Wade's pretty sure he didn't, but he's only just starting to get back the vague memories of killing his own parents, so as he notes, can't trust your memories.

Wade's attempt at heroism sorta doesn't work, as he and all the people he was trying to help wind up captured, and even though Wade literally chews off his own arm to get free, he's only able to save a few. Still, a few is better than none, and they fly off to safety in a heli, while Wade goes to investigate these glass coffins. Omega Red still isn't dead, though, so he'll have to be dealt with. Also, the faceless imbeciles of ULTIMATUM have killed their boss Flag-Smasher because he refused to let them go after Deadpool. So now they are going after Deadpool. Because they're idiots. You'd think after he killed like 200 of them and single-handedly destroyed their faux-Helicarrier they'd get the message.

One good thing about Posehn and Duggan using Omega Red is, I won't feel bad when Wade kills the bad guy. Like, if he killed Trapster, I would feel like that was a little bit of a waste, because he's a good sort of villain to have around (even if I don't entirely buy the partial face turn he has here. Pete was a member of that Intelligencia that tried taking over the world, but now he's uncool with civilian casualties?) But Omega Red, pfft, no big loss there.

Aw crap, Wade's going to choose mercy, isn't he?

It's been a few years since I've bought a comic Salva Espin drew. There was the trade of Black Widow and the Marvel Girls a couple of years ago, and Jeff Parker's brief Exiles run before that. I like Espin's style, he's got a clean line, and his characters are expressive. I might have worried that his work was too pretty for Wade, but he does fine. It's not the ugliest I've ever seen Wade, but there are a few panels where he looks at least a bit like a corpse, so that's pretty good. The full-page splash of Wade minus an arm, shooting guys and proclaiming he's out of jokes, that looked good. Agent Preston's husband looked pretty different from how he's been drawn up to now, though. Other than that, I thought Espin maintained the look of the book as established by Hawthorne and Koblish. Val Staples' color work helps. It helps maintain a similar feel for the book.

I don't have a clue how this is all going to end for Wade. Will he somehow avoid blowing things with Shiklah, and manage to be some sort of dad for Eleanor? Is he going to decide being around Shiklah encourages the parts of himself he doesn't like, or is she going to get fed up with him? Are ULTIMATUM going to manage to successfully kill him or someone he cares about? I don't think Wade throwing down his guns and walking away is an option. Setting aside the fact his books sell, Wade's like Frank Castle: He's too far down that path to stop. It's a matter of directing the violence in a useful way.

It occurs to me that even if Wade won't use the Tabula Rasa drug on himself, might he try using it on everyone else? Make them all forget him, so he'd be dead in a sense? I guess that would be less dead, more "never existed" as far as those characters were concerned. I hope that's not the direction it's going to go, but I could see Wade deciding he was meant to be alone, and trying to protect the people he cared about.