What I Bought 11/15/2014 - Part 2

I saw David Brothers' post today that 4thletter's being mothballed, which was a bummer. Reading the explanation though, I can understand the reason. I can't fault someone for feeling they've got other things they need or want to spend their time on. I always wonder what's happened when people just stop posting. Are they OK? Did they just get tired? Are they sick, did they move? At least we know in this case. I've debated whether I should set up some post for this blog, just in case, set for a few weeks ahead, and just keep rescheduling it as needed. That would be more in the event of my untimely death - given the current wind chill, the mostly likely cause will be insufficient layers when I go running - rather than my getting tired of blogging.

Daredevil #8 and 9, by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid (storytellers), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Grand Comics Database didn't have issue 9's cover up yet, or I'd have gone with the creepy kids walking Matt off a ledge made of their dad's face. You'll just have to be content with a picture of creepy kids staring at you. Look at them. LOOK AT THEM!

Looking at the credits, I was confused for a moment to not see Javier Rodriguez' name for color art. Then I remembered he's drawing that Hobgoblin mini-series, so he's busy. To Wilson's credit, I couldn't tell a difference in the color work. It's the usual excellent work we expect on this book. Was it Wilson or Caramagna who colored the text purple when someone is giving a command. I'm guessing Caramagna, couldn't be that hard for him to use a different color ink (font?), but I could be wrong. I like it, though, just as a visual shorthand for how there must be something noticeably different in the tone in those circumstances. A measure of command, or something just being wrong. It's also interesting to see when the kids seem to use it on each other, and raises the question of how much conscious command they actually have.

The Purple Man, mind-controlling creep, has fathered a bunch of kids over the years with women he made forget all about him after. Now he's rounding them up, expecting them to love him by choice, unlike all the people he's forced to love him over the years. Except the kids don't care about some dad they've never known, and they make him walk himself in front of a train. Which still isn't enough to kill him, because he put the mental whammy on himself that it wasn't.

Contrasted with all this, Matt and Kirsten are apparently back to being a couple. I wasn't sure up to this point - she could have simply decided partnering with Matt would be good for business, an assumption that appears to be wrong - but he's getting to meet her parents, as awkward as they turns out to be. Kirsten isn't a big fan of her stepmom, and her dad is trying to pitch Matt on selling his life story for a book deal. Worth 8 million dollars. Matt isn't certain whether to take the offer or not, and Foggy, out to breakfast with them in a fat suit, is worried reliving all his tragedy will wreck the attitude Matt's tried to cultivate. Matt dismisses this, but his run-in with Purple Man's kids has perhaps disabused him of that notion, since it left him curled up in the fetid stuff that runs through a diversion channel.

Well I'm certainly glad to be past Original Sin. Not that the previous two issues were bad, but they did feel awkwardly shoehorned in. I'm a little concerned about the use of the Purple Man, because he's one of those villains with powers that really lend themselves to creepy uses. But for as long as I can recall, he's been portrayed as using them in creepy and sexually assaulting ways, so I guess it's just part of his character at this point. I do like that Waid and Samnee have the kids seemingly eliminate Killgrave at the end of one issue, figuring our sympathies will lie the kids, heck we'll probably even cheer them on. Then we find out having five kids with the same powers, and no compunction about using them, because they're kids, really isn't any better. Killgrave didn't care about anyone's desires or wishes but his own, neither do the kids, but they aren't even bothering to stay off the radar, or consider the consequences of what they're doing, which means they'll probably cause even more widespread damage.

Samnee used the after image thing in one panel in issue 9, which is one of my favorite comic techniques, so that's always a plus. I also like the body language on the 5 kids in the panel at the bottom of that same page (page 16). The way the littlest has his hands folded across his body, the eldest boy with his fists clenched, the girl in-between with one hand in a coat pocket, and the other arm hanging loose at the side, which strikes me as more nonchalant. It's nice. Plus, since it's Matt's radar sense, we don't have any clue as to the kids' expressions, which makes them seem more alien and menacing. Five faceless figures advancing steadily towards him.