The last two days of this week have dragged. Not that the first three were anything spectacular, but I was, for better or worse, busy. Real "C" grade kind of week. Plus, there were 3 comics I was expecting out next week, but the solicits don't show any of them. Will I ever get to actually see an issue of Loop?!
Deadpool's healing factor remains missing in action, so he's down two limbs. Which means not is Deadpool now handling finding his new business jobs (Deadpool, in charge of something that requires organization and follow-through?), he's sending Ellie out in the field with Taskmaster and Princess. In her own outfit, but with non-lethal weaponry.
And for their first job, take out an ex-KGB weapons smuggler, who wears a mask that makes me think he's the Plunderer, that villain that likes to act like a pirate sometimes. But it's not him (I think.) For all her talk, Ellie's nervous if the stuttering and hesitation throughout the fight is anything to go by, but they make it work. With only a little bit of people being eaten alive! But their guns literally go "PewPewPew," so they deserve it.
Deadpool's very proud. Then Deadpool's very dead, because Death Grip is not dead. I still don't get this guy's deal. He does his magic thing to slice off Deadpool's other arm, then grabs him and, I'm not sure, magic-burns him from the inside out? Anyway, Deadpool's dead now, just when he thought he was getting his life together! For, what, the 14th time?
Assuming Antonio designed Ellie's outfit, it's solid. The jacket reminds me of early-'90s Avengers, or maybe the one Firestar rocked in the back half of New Warriors volume 1 (that might just be the Taskmaster emblem on the sleeve that reminds me of the Warriors having a logo/communicator in that spot.) The fight scene's illustrated well, good mix of wide panels and close-ups. Deadpool's face looks a odd. Softer than usual, maybe, like Antonio went light on the lines to emphasize Wade's oddly happy with the situation? Until he died, although once Preston tracked him down (and there's no way she's not noticing a dark-haired girl calling herself "Deadpool"), he'd have been in a lot of pain.
Dazzler's on tour to promote her new album! And she's in the middle of culture wars, with your various conservative bigot types spewing the usual nonsense about her leading the youth down a - whatever, you're probably on social media more than me, you know the kind of stuff being said.
First concert, she's singing a song about dating Archangel, gets attacked by Scorpia, beats her mostly without using her powers offensively, per her manager and Domino's request. I have a hard time picturing Domino going along with that, even with the flashbacks showing her sparring with Dazzler to help hone her self-defense skills. "You can't worry about bad p.r. if you're dead," or something like that. Especially since she got a little casual with a light shield she made and some of the audience got hit with Scorpia's bad aim. Maybe if she just used a hard light shot they fight would have been over sooner.
I'm not entirely clear what she did to ultimately finish the fight. She makes a big light display that seems to surround Scorpia. Then Loureiro draws a panel of her pointing her glowing fingers towards us while singing "Bling! Wing! Ding!" as actual lyrics. Then Scorpia's unconscious on the ground. So, Dazzler did use her powers in an offense-minded way after all?
But Loo seems to be setting up a subplot where Dazzler's manager is trying really hard to downplay Dazzler being a mutant, seemingly for fear of commercial backlash. So, no using powers in an aggressive manner. Ask Allison's drummer, Shark-Girl, to wear an image inducer collar, which sure as heck looks like a power dampener more than the thing Nightcrawler used to wear. Lots of talk about "transcending barriers", and being "inviting and friendly as possible." You know, bullshit.
I don't know. Dazzler's a character I'm typically more interested in as part of an ensemble than a lead, so this was always going to be a bit of a hard sell, but it didn't set my world on fire. Maybe her being a singer is something that doesn't translate well to comics. Maybe it's that it feels like Loo's nodding hard in the direction of Taylor Swift, who I have no particular feeling about, beyond getting annoyed when drunk college girls would yell at Alex to play "Blank Space" again.
I can probably afford to give it another issue, but it's on life support.
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