Saturday, April 14, 2012

What I Bought 4/11/2012 - Part 3

I can't think of anything good to start this post off with. So let's just get right to Daredevil, because that's good.

Daredevil #10, by Mark Waid (writer), Paolo Rivera (pencils), Joe Rivera (inks), Javier Rodriquez (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - That is an outstanding cover. It looks like it could be a medieval wood etching. The style for the "D"s on Matt's costume, the way his radar sense is portrayed as a glow emitted from his head, the different things all the Moloids are doing.

Inside, Matt avoids digestion. He tracks down the Mole Man, and they have an extended stick fight, where MM demonstrates much greater agility than I would have expected. Turns out he had the coffins stolen so he could say goodbye to the one person who was nice to him in his days on the surface. When Matt points he and other people had loved ones there as well, whose remains have been scavenged by the Moloids, Mole Man's response is that those bodies aren't their loved ones anymore. Well, then why the hell did he steal that woman's corpse? It isn't her, either. Is it that talking to even her remains could bring him some solace, whereas those other remains weren't providing similar comfort to other people?

Anyway, Matt decks the bad guy and returns to the surface with Lorna's body and some luminescent diamonds which are affixed to markers in the cemetery for all the people whose loved ones he couldn't recover. Then we find out Felicia didn't steal the Omega Drive, she just wanted to see if he had it hidden securely enough (he doesn't), and Matt may or may not be hallucinating Black Spectre agents.

Quite a bit going on. Megacrime plot continues, Matt's battle to not sink into depression and paranoia heats up, and Daredevil "wins" a battle against a grave robbing supervillain. I like how the staff fight is depicted, with neither of them looking at each other (they have their backs to each other for the first page), because neither one uses their eyes.

Daredevil #10.1, by Mark Waid (writer), Khoi Pham (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - For this issue, theoretically designed for new readers, Waid had Matt visit a super-criminal in his holding cell as his attorney. The criminal is claiming rights' violations because of the conditions they're using to keep him from being able to activate his pyrokinesis. This enables Waid to give a reader an idea of some of the minuses associated with super-senses.

The other thing this story does is get the new reader up to speed on the whole "Megacrime" thing, as it turns out word has started to leak about Daredevil/Murdock having the Omega Drive, and parties other than the original criminal organizations are getting involved. By hiring idiots like Pyromania here. For good measure, Waid doesn't settle for merely recapping the situation, he moves it forward a little bit, as Daredevil's apparently getting tired of waiting for them to make a move.

I'm surprised Reed would let him keep it, but I guess he has other stuff on his mind. And what are they all doing meeting in the Latverian Embassy? And does it even matter if the police have a warrant for their arrest while they are in an embassy? Pham is not on the level of the other artists the book's had thus far, so the backgrounds aren't as detailed, and the action scenes are as nice, but there is still a decent go of incorporating the sound effects into the panels. It's probably the weakest issue so far, but I'm still glad I bought it.

Secret Avengers #24, by Rick Remender (writer), Gabriel Hardman (artist), Bettie Breitweiser (color art), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - Heavens, hordes of Visions and Jocastas, each one less interesting than the one before it!

Basically, the Avengers get their butts kicked by mechanical loons. The only one who avoids that is Jim Hammond, who they all call "Grandfather". Makes sense (I'm not being sarcastic). Meanwhile, this Father guy is up to something, but what I'm not sure. He talks about striking the Avengers down from within, and about how the fools have no idea what's going on. The first one makes me suspicious of O'Grady's abrupt return from apparent death. The second, I'm not sure he isn't talking about his various mechanical children. Oh, and Hawkeye's sorry he's been a jerk, and Flash is probably going to show up with the symbiont. Maybe he'll eat someone!

I did get a copy of #22 a couple weeks ago, so I get why these Adaptoids are big trouble now. At least that question's been answered. I don't know. I'm curious to see what's going on, since I still don't understand what, exactly, a Descendant is, or how they and all these various legions of artificial lifeforms mesh. If the Descendants are yet another of those "real next step in evolution" types that show up periodically in X-Men books, wouldn't they be an even greater potential threat to Lord Doombot, the Sentinaughts, etc.? I guess if Father can teach them all to get along, no. Which might explain why he wants to gather them all. Unless, the Descendants are the most human artificial beings ever, to the extent they don't even know they aren't? Is Secret Avengers Blade Runner now?

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