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.

Sunday Splash Page #22

"Go to School for Five Minutes and the Whole Magic Kingdom Goes to Hell" in Amethyst (vol. 1) #4, by Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin (writers), Ernie Colon (artist), Tom Ziuko (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

The various '80s Amethyst series were a major part of my back issue hunts this spring. They just sounded interesting, and it wasn't too many issues to track down. So I don't know anything about why the series came to be or anything like that. DC trying to appeal to a broader audience with a fantasy-based series starring a young female protagonist? That seems. . . remarkably unlike DC or Marvel to do something like that, but the '80s were a crazy time. We were just starting to realize we might not all die in nuclear fire! Anything was possible!

Amy Winston gets to play the child who finds out she has a special destiny, and is transported to a magical land - and also ages up a bit so she can have potential romances with handsome princes without said prince ending up on any federal databases - which she must save a from a dark and malevolent wizard. All the royal houses are based on birthstones, each tends to have certain areas of magic they're proficient in. There's a lot political maneuvering and backstabbing, Amy having to get some confidence, first in her powers, then in her ability to lead others in an uprising.

Ernie Colon with Tom Ziuko's color work, builds a world with a variety of realms, each with their own architecture and ambience. Topaz Keep is wildly different from Castle Amethyst, is different from Lord Garnet's realm, is different from Dark Opal's fortress, etc. Colon's art reminds me a lot of Joe Kubert's, which is never a bad thing. It works extremely well with the colors, where the colors really seem to make each line stand out. The art has a lush or almost lurid feel at times, depending on what mood it needs to evoke, joy or terror.