What I Bought 4/21/2021

My work travels this week gave me a chance to hit up a comics store I haven't in a few years. Did better on back issues than new issues, but one new comic to review is better than none. Actually, having seen some of it posted online, I'm not sure whether I want to get Way of X #1 or not now.

Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #2, by Si Spurrier (writer), Sergio Davila (artist), Sean Parsons (inker), Arif Prianto (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I don't know why Dane has blue energy sparking from his nipple, and the interior of the comics is no help, either.

So Dane's alive, and rather confused and freaked out by it. He sends away the scholar he'd sent for and gets Sir Percy's ghost out to try and explain things. Where he learns Merlin cast some sort of resurrection spell on the material the sword is made out of. Also, that Percy crafted three other items from the stuff, which were supposedly destroyed in some blood river after he chose the sword for himself. Except Jacks, having returned to her professor for help and found him murdered, has another vision of the past and sees someone saved the staff that helps those burdened with wisdom.

Before she can return to Dane and clue him in, Elsa Bloodstone drives a motorcycle through Dane's stained glass window and starts trying to kill him. She's been following a series of murders (including Jacks' professor) that involve a bloodstone somehow. There's a brief fight where Elsa insults Americans taste in alcohol (probably fair, fuck if I know), and our penchant for talking. Those British detective series my father adores would suggest that's pot calling kettle black. Jacks arrives soon enough to keep Elsa from losing her head, or Dane from losing his two best friends (and I'm not talking about the ghost or the weird goat-man servant). And everyone concludes Mordred is behind all this, as he's trying to recover the other items.

I feel like I should enjoy this more than I do. I'm not sure Dane's attitude is helping. There's a bit where Percy is into his spiel with Dane sitting behind him, scanning his phone and pretending to listen. I mean, Spurrier is clearly playing with the idea these two have a long history. That Percy enjoys making Dane jump through hoops to get any kind of assistance, and Dane, having realized he can't get around it, does his best to bear it in his own way. But I'm presumably supposed to care about this exposition dump, so maybe don't have the main character no-sell it.

 

I do like the page where Dane and Jacks are having dinner and Dane is pouring himself wine and Davila has him just keeping pouring and overfilling the glass. Never making eye contact with Jacks, and asking the goat-guy to turn off the news (which is showing Dane's decapitated body from the previous issue) because it's disturbing her. Right, sure it is. The first panel on the next page takes up half of it and is him flipping the table and yelling about why none of them are freaking out he's moving around. The other half of the page is him reacting to Jacks pleading with him not to eat her brains. 

Granted, with that half he does the bit where he repeats the panel exactly (the second one having no dialogue), which I guess we're all supposed to not like now. (There was some bullshit about that online a few weeks back, about some Bagley pages in a Venom issue.) I kind of like it here, because Jacks has just asked Dane how he knows he's not a zombie, and so everyone remaining in the same position kind of works. Dane's trying to figure out an answer, and I think Jacks and Phillip are staying still in case the answer is, "You're right. BRAIIIIIIINNNNSSSS!" and they don't want to set off the feeding frenzy of a crazed undead with a powerful sword.

I don't actually know at the moment whether I'm going to get the next issue. Probably, but there's a bit of uncertainty.