What I Bought 10/3/2022 - Part 1

Every time I think I've gotten clear of public meetings, another one comes along. And the person is always angry about stuff we don't regulate, so there's absolutely nothing we can do, so the entire meeting is a waste of my time and energy.

Anyway, here's two comics from last month. Were they also a waste of my time and energy?

Damage Control #2, by Adam Goldberg and Hans Rodionoff (writers), Will Robson (artist), Ruth Redmond (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I'm sure this is not the first time Scott Lang has almost been eaten by someone. Especially since they started writing him as an idiot.

After Gus' failure in the mail room, he's moved to customer service, meant to weed out people making fraudulent superhero-related insurance claims before sending the worthy on to Miss Chapel. Goldberg, Rodionoff and Robson have some fun with that idea. An old lady claiming her cat is a Flerken (like Carol Danvers' cat) and ate her home. A guy claiming Loki tricked him into spending all his money on blackjack.

While all these seem entirely plausible in the Marvel Universe (well, maybe not a symbiote named Urinal Cake), they are apparently frauds and Miss Chapel is pissed Gus keeps sending them on to her. It's unclear to me how Gus was supposed to know this, since he was provided with no files or any sort of equipment to detect if a cat is actually an alien. Maybe that's the point. He's an intern, he gets the crappy, impossible jobs. 

Either way, Gus vows to be tough and therefore doesn't believe the man who comes in claiming his family was accidentally shrunk by Ant-Man. This results in a traumatic experience for a lot of people, and Gus is on to his next position.

So, the insurance scam idea was interesting, but the book isn't really working for me. The dialogue is kind of awkward in that it feels like it's trying to be clever, but comes off stilted. Or else, "Crappy Saturday Night Light skit" idea of clever. Jokes about the lines at the DMV, I mean come on. 'I love fresh air! It's so fresh and airy!'? That's worse than something I would write, even if I was writing an idiot. 

Goldberg and Rodionoff did at least cut down on the gags involving Gus compulsively eating when stressed. And Robson's art seems to fit the tone (whether intentional or inadvertent) of the writing. With the things Gus says, it feels like an act, that he's just putting on a show of being dumb as a post. Robson's art has a exaggeration in the expressions and the postures that feels like someone mugging for a camera. So at least they're a good match.

Street Fighter Masters: Chun Li #1, by Ryan Kinnaird (writer/artist/letterer) - I ended up buying the cover Kinnaird drew instead of this one because it seemed a little more dynamic.

My every dozen years dalliance with Street Fighter strikes again. Apparently M. Bison died at some point, which, good. That guy was an asshole. Chun Li now runs a dojo aimed towards helping a bunch of kids who were orphaned because of Bison, which is nice. When she hears a rumor that he might not be dead, because someone swiped some gold that belonged to Bison once, she doesn't take it well. Determined to find him, she runs across a brother/sister team who insist they are taking the gold as a measure of compensation for being orphaned and experimented on by Bison. Who is still dead, so far as they know. Chun Li feels she let her anger she thought she'd put aside get the best of her and lets them go.

It's a very straightforward story. She thinks she was over her grief and anger from everyone Bison hurt, but it was a false closure because she was sure he was dead. Once there was a possibility he was still out there, the anger reemerged. Her conclusion at the end seems to be that she needed to focus on the life she's built instead of being furious about what Bison took she can't get back.

Kinnaird draws every woman like they're wearing heavy eyeliner. Really noticeable dark ring around the eyes. It sort of works for the parts where Chun Li is letting her anger get to her and being really intense, but it being there constantly is kind of distracting. Also distracting, the number of panels that seem focused on Chun Li's butt. It's nice if you're in the mood, but again, somewhat at odds with the tone of the story. There aren't really any extended fight scenes, so I can't judge his work on that score. The scattered, individual panels look solid enough.

What I Bought 8/24/2022

The local comic guy got shorted everything other than Marvel or DC this week, so no A Calculated Man. Just have to make do with the comic we've got. His store's also moving locations in the next month. It wasn't exactly an inconvenient location before, so hopefully the new spot is OK.

Damage Control #1, by Adam Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff and Charlotte Fullerton McDuffie (writers), Will Robson and Jay Fosgitt (artists), Ruth Redmond (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Why would Damage Control make people stand in a police lineup?

The main story, the one by the TV writers, is focused on Gus, the new intern at Damage Control, who on his first day, nearly gets the Earth destroyed by Skrulls because he didn't deliver a memo to Stanley Forbush, Underwriter. Gus also gets lost in the pocket dimension that serves as the 13th floor so long he's late delivering a birthday ice cream cake to Albert Cleary (the guy who once made sure Doom paid his debts). Which makes Albert pretty angry, even before he realizes Gus is going to destroy the multiverse for failing to deliver the mail. So Will Robson's ability to draw people looking really angry pays off here.

I think Goldberg and Rodionoff are going for a workplace comedy here. One that just happens to get cameos from Nightcrawler, Nick Fury, Quicksilver, and so on. Cameos can be fun - I laughed at Moon Knight's irritation that his name was written on his coffee as "Moob Knife" - but it's not enough to carry a mini-series. Show how that aspect introduces conflict or complications. Like the Kingpin at one time being a major stakeholder in Damage Control, so the Punisher shows up looking to start some shit. Or heck, Robson drew Man-Thing hanging out in the lobby in the splash page, at least make a joke about  putting down flame retardant flooring as a precaution!

I guess they're taking the approach that as an intern, Gus doesn't know any of this stuff, so the chain reaction he started by failing to deliver mail all took place somewhere outside his perception. I'm just not sure whether that's an approach I like. They do introduce the notion that Damage Control now holds on to objects of incredible importance, in addition to fixing stuff that gets broken in battles involving superhumans, which may pay off down the line. I'm not so sure Gus' tendency to stress eat isn't going to end up being more pivotal, though.

The back-up story, by Charlotte Fullerton McDuffie and Jay Fosgitt is about Bart's mom coming to visit, inadvertently buying the Reality Stone while visiting the gift shop, and then scolding Thanos into mending his ways. Fosgitt's art really reminds me of '90s Disney cartoons, like The Goofy Movie or something. It fits the tone of the story, which is broadly comic. Sight gags of people's heads being turned into a jar of pickles by the Reality Stone, or John Porter warning Bart's mom not to use "Mom Smash!" or she'll get in legal trouble with the Hulk. That seems to be what Fullerton's going for, so call it a success.

Sunday Splash Page #119

"Under New Ownership" in Damage Control (vol. 2) #1, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Ernie Colon (artist), John Wellington (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

The second Damage Control mini-series took place entirely during Acts of Vengeance, which, if you know me, is considered a plus. They're called in by accident during the initial mass breakout at the Vault, although the biggest issue there is Captain America gets a little annoyed they were chummy with Thunderball. Mrs. Hoag resigns as head of the company to join the Commission on Superhuman Activities, leaving Robin in charge. The Punisher figures out Wilson Fisk was part owner of Damage Control (along with Tony Stark and Mrs. Hoag), and targets Robin as a possible criminal with connections to the Kingpin. Of course, Frank is in Dr. Doom's crosshairs, so he's got other problems.

The main conflict is that, with Fisk and Stark both selling their shares, the company is bought out by CarltonCo, and is promptly run into the ground. The new owner promptly guts the company, slashing pay, benefits, basically everything so he can use that money to pay off debts he incurred elsewhere. Boy, good thing such unscrupulous business practices don't take place all the time these days!

I don't know enough about the editorial staff at Marvel or DC in the late 1980s-early 1990s to know if McDuffie is making a point about either one with how Michael Souris and his weaselly assistant Roy Lippert behave, but I wouldn't really be surprised. Certainly the short-sighted, self-serving, cruel attitude towards the employees sounds familiar to things I've read about how those companies run. At one point, Souris tells Albert, the company comptroller who got Doom to pay his overdue bills in the last mini-series, that CarltonCo saves its tokens for the front office and the subway. Yikes. I'm guessing McDuffie was writing from his own experiences there.

Sunday Splash Page #118

"Seems Legit", in Damage Control (vol. 1) #3, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Ernie Colon (penciler), Bob Wiacek (inker), George Roussos (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

Superhero fights cause property damage, yet most of the times we see New York City in Marvel Comics, it's basically OK. Superhero fights leave lots of dangerous crap just lying around afterward. Where's that stuff go? Who transports and stores it if the Avengers miss it? Damage Control was ostensibly about how those problems get addressed, but in a way that pokes fun at the Marvel Universe.

The teasing is gentle, because Dwayne McDuffie did like superheroes, did like getting to write Marvel characters. There's affection for the whole thing in his writing, rather than the sense the writer thinks you're an idiot for enjoying this kind of stuff and wants to mock you for it (see Ennis, Garth). It's not mean-spirited when we see the Thing overreact and bust out a wall to signal the rest of the FF because he found out Albert from Accounting went to the Latverian Embassy to make Doom settle his account before Damage Control fixed his building that turned to glass. For the characters, that kind of thing is just normal. Of course Albert would bring their intern along, and of course he would demand Doom provide i.d. if he's going to write a check. Why wouldn't those things happen?

So it's funny, and the solutions to the problems that crop up are clever. The day-to-day reconstruction and demolition stuff is far less challenging for the cast that the mayhem going on within the company. People unhappy about lack of promotions, annoying directives from high up the executive ladder, the office politics bullcrap that always makes work harder, even (or maybe especially so) if you like your work a lot, which most of the cast seem to.

Ernie Colon is able to blend the cast of basically regular, everyday people with the more fantastic elements easily, although most of the Damage Control employees look pretty natural in the spandex outfits marketing forces them to wear in this issue, even if they all despise doing so. Most of the time, those characters take their interactions with the costumed set pretty calmly, at least outwardly. Again, it's old hat for them. But when they need to actually be terrified or fuming about something, Colon gets that across no sweat.

There were two more Damage Control mini-series after this one, and we're going to look at the second one next week.