Sunday Splash Page #436

"The Whole World in Her Hands," in Ant-Man and the Wasp #5, by Mark Waid (writer), Javier Garron (artist), Israel Silva (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Didn't plan on this being a Mark Waid weekend, but nonetheless. A mini-series from 2018 pairing the 2nd Ant-Man (Scott Lang), with the 3rd Wasp (Nadia van Dyne.) Almost said "2nd Wasp," but there was that stretch after Secret Invasion where Hank Pym called himself the Wasp. Lang was out in space helping the Guardians of the Galaxy with something and needs a ride back to Earth, or he'll miss his daughter's birthday party. Nadia grudgingly agrees to help, via some process where she builds a device to catch Scott if he rides the beam projected by the Nova Corps transmission system as a tiny guy. Scott has to jump into the beam precisely when she says, or he could get lost in the Microverse.

Does Scott forget to pick up the plant he's bringing Cassie as a gift, then end up jumping into the beam a split-second too late, missing the receiver entirely? This is post Ant-Man movie Scott Lang, of course he does! Nadia gives chase, and so begins an adventure in the Microverse.

Waid's clearly having fun with how weird physics get at sub-atomic scales, though he's understandably selective about what gets explained. Nadia makes a point that she and Scott are breathing, despite being smaller than an oxygen atom, can see despite being smaller than a photon of light. And while she says this, she scoops up a handful of what looks like earth, but Garron depicts the parts shifting into a bunch of fluttery, glowing green, they might be bugs, or they might be like flower petals, or the sub-atomic equivalent of one of those. Point being, things work differently here, and Nadia, being the theorist, wants to be cautious. Scott - who says in response to Nadia's questions that he did think about those things, then made himself a sandwich because he didn't know the answers - wants to get home, and not let anyone get hurt along the way.

That's how things play out over the mini-series. Nadia mostly tries to remain serious and calm and understand the science of the different things that go wrong with she and Scott during their travels. Like when there are suddenly several of her, because they've become living quantum particles, existing in several states simultaneously. Scott mostly doesn't understand what she's saying, but does his best to help by forming connections with people - first, what passes for insects in the Microverse, then with a maligned experimental scientist in a Microverse society - and by grounding Nadia when her emotions start to hit too hard. 

That's the undercurrent, past Nadia's hostility towards the man who "stole" her father's work. Nadia is trying desperately to impress a father she never got to meet, who never knew she existed. Scott, for all this version's many faults, is a guy who tries really hard to be a good dad. To be there for his daughter, and not make her feel like his love is contingent on her accomplishments. And so, in his slightly panicky way, he knows how to keep Nadia calm when things get too much or she starts to doubt herself.

Garron is able to keep Scott and Nadia looking basically normal, while the things around them look very strange. The Microverse scientist - who Waid writes a lot like one of the scientists you'd see in Marvel's '50s era sci-fi/horror comics - is a bizarre conglomeration of tentacles, holes, teeth, and green things that might be eyes. The way they're arranged makes no sense to my eye, but that's kind of the point. Things works differently down there. In the first issue, they encounter a type of creature that looks a bit like sheets hanging from a single hook, that shift between colors. How they speak, how they move, what they would subsist on and how they get it is not immediately apparent. How the predator pursuing them steals the "red" from them, causing them to become a pile of grey dust stuff, is also unclear. But as Scott points out when Nadia advises staying out of it, those beings are alive, and they're in pain. So Ant-Man and the Wasp get involved.

Saturday Splash Page #238

"The Direct Approach," in The Web Annual #1, by Mark Waid (writer), M.C. Turner Alan (penciler), John Lowe (inker), Linda Kachelhofer (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)

I discussed the one round of Annuals the Impact Comics line had when we looked at The Legend of the Shield Annual in 2023. The Web Annual was the first chapter of the overarching story of Templar - a massive guy with a Fu Manchu 'stache, whose legs look like he has water retention issues - trying to reveal the location of a holy grail (the Holy Grail?) via a series of ecological catastrophes. But, as I used a page from that in Sunday Splash Page #302, and the Web's part is only really significant in that it's the one time "Rad" Stiles gets to do anything of use in 15 total issues of The Web, I figured I'd highlight one of the other stories running through the annuals.

Across 4 of the 6 annuals, Waid charts the history of the Jackson family and how it intertwines with the original Shield. Who, by what passed for the present day in the Impact Comics-verse, had vanished decades ago, along with his super-suit. So in 1953, the Shield is bribed into rescuing the son of "Lucky" Jackson, a notorious mobster, with the promise of a written confession of enough crimes to put Jackson away for decades. Matthew, who has an eidetic memory and serves essentially as his father's ledgers, is less than pleased that the man who rescued him then hauls his dad off to jail.

The story jumps to 1958 Cuba, where Matthew is preparing to take over the organization from his father's right-hand man. If he can survive the rise of Castro, and the ample opportunities it provides for backstabbing. The Shield, even if there's not much he can do about the societal upheaval on the island, saves Matthew, who turns away from crime. We learn in the 3rd part that his son Tony is hanging with a bad crowd, idolizing his grandfather (still in prison), despite Matthew talking up how great the Shield was, and ends up doing a favor for a certain Mistah Big in their city. Deliver a package to a certain home by midnight on Halloween. Matthew, who is pretty much a stringbean in every chapter, throws on a Shield Halloween costume and saves his son from getting blown up by the bomb.

Which brings us to the 4th part. It was depressing, but a perfect fit for being in The Black Hood Annual. Set in the "present day" - meaning, 1992 - we find Tony still living in his hometown of Soundview. In part 3, we were told it was the 5th largest city in the country, a thriving place. Now it looks like another dying, post-industrial city, and Tony has taken all his father's talk about the Shield to heart in the worst way. He roars around on a motorcycle, wearing what's left of that Halloween costume over a leather jacket and calling himself the Shield. Tony's trademark seems to be, upon finding criminals, to say, 'Okay scum, it's Judgement Day,' then kick the door in and start shooting. Maybe spout some Schwarzenegger-isms while beating up the crooks.

He lives alone in a ratty apartment, smoking cigs and doing pull-ups. Says his wife is the streets, and she needs a firm hand, which is, not great. As the narrator puts it, when his father died, Tony went a little nuts. Even his grandfather, finally out of prison, can see this is bad, and is pretty blunt Tony is not the Shield. Which doesn't stop Tony from walking to a trap to rescue his grandfather, one set by an old friend. A trap that gets him and the friend killed. No one but "Lucky" comes to Tony's funeral. Well, except for one older gentleman with orange-red hair. Hint, hint *looks significantly at the splash page.*

The arcs don't quite line up. The Jackson family don't exactly get more decent, as Matt's probably the best man of the three, but circumstances around them seem to decline steadily. Lucky was the biggest wheel in what passes for Impact's version of Vegas (or maybe Atlantic City?), all glittering lights and fancy parties. Then Matt's trying to hold a casino together in a country about to be flipped on its head. Then the setting shifts to a different thriving city, that ten years later looks like a dump.

Is it that, the further you get from something's origin or true existence, the more distorted perception of it becomes? Lucky understood the Shield, who he was, how he acted, what he believed, enough to use him, and was just honorable enough to stick to his deal. But Lucky was never going to be the type to stick his own neck out. Matt comes to respect the Shield and what he stands for, but isn't strong enough physically to be him. His lone act of heroism gets him killed. And maybe, in an effort to distance himself from his and his father's criminal past, Matt got too lost in hero worship. He forgets there are limits to what the Shield, or one man in general, can accomplish. He understood that in Cuba, but by Tony's adolescence, he'd forgotten, and the Shield was nearly godlike to him. Tony's physically strong, but that aggrandized view of the Shield, plus his father's death, did a number on him. The vigilante he becomes can't save anyone, and it hardly occurs to him to try until his grandfather is endangered. He figured if he just kept beating up scum, it would fix things eventually.

Saturday Splash Page #207

"Jetpacks, Ray guns, and Dinosaurs" in Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #3, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer)

The actual amount of Rocketeer comics Dave Stevens wrote and drew is surprisingly small. The "Complete Collection" consists of around 140 pages, total. Once IDW started having other people make Rocketeer mini-series, they probably blew past that in a year or two.

There were a couple of Rocketeer Adventures minis, anthologies that were often pretty to look at, but not much else. But in 2012 we got Cargo of Doom, a full-fledged mini-series by the writer and artist that had recently been killing it together on Daredevil. A mysterious cargo ship sails into L.A., the man in charge with an important cargo, but also another goal: Take the rocket pack from Cliff Secord.

Cliff, meanwhile, has other problems. He punched out a federal inspector who was getting handsy with Peevy's niece, which does nothing to dim Sally's crush on Cliff. The new inspector is much bigger and unaware of the reasons, so he's quick to goad Cliff into trying to punch him. And Cliff is quick to comply.

Waid really leans into the pulp influences. The dinosaurs were collected on Skull Island, and there's a reference to King Kong's disastrous stint on Broadway. The guy who captured the dinos is Doc Savage enemy, John Sunlight, who is working for some other shadowy figure (a Mr. Trask) that can't see the possibilities in stealing the rocket. Dinosaurs with rocketpacks. The world we could have had.

Samnee goes with the vibe, too. The dinosaurs are old-school. Massive, scaly reptiles. No feathers (minus the giant bird) or quick reactions, just big and powerful things that stomp around. The same could be said of Sunlight's goons aboard the freighter. Big and powerful things that stomp (on Cliff.) Cliff does get beat up a bit, but also manages to use the rocket in some clever ways to get out of trouble.

I don't like how Waid handles Cliff and Betty's relationship, as he writes Betty as being the manipulative and jealous type, who gets mad when Sally starts mooning over Cliff. He tries to paper over it at the end, that Betty is used to having the upper hand, I guess because guys drool over her. She didn't like that the tables were turned, with Sally swooning over Cliff, and that's why she was jealous. I don't think it tracks. Did Betty really have the "upper hand" in the Stevens' stories?

Cliff is the insecure one, yes, the one chasing after her. But that's a function of his insecurity, that he thinks every moment she's not with him, she's with another guy. We never see Betty actively flirting with another man. She's trying to get her career off the ground, so it's not as though Cliff was a kept man. He just doesn't like the way she's going about it. He's always suspecting Marco - with good reason as it turns out - and taking it out on her. Sometimes Betty tried to reassure him, and sometimes she gave it back at him with both barrels. She gets annoyed with him if he tries to control her, or forgets a date, especially during the stretch where she doesn't know he's fighting crime as the Rocketeer.

I think Stevens wrote Betty as reasonable with Cliff as he deserved, if not more, so I don't know where Waid was coming from with his take.

Random Back Issues #146 - The Comet #12

The issue starts with Rob, aka the Comet, having a nightmare about a snowy wilderness. He finds his parents, who went missing around the time he gained his powers, but they're scared of him. There's someone he can't make out with them, but when he tries to move closer the ground opens beneath him and he sees some awful truth.

Which he promptly forgets on waking up and realizing he's late for breakfast with his TV reporter friend, Victoria. He gets a sarcastic greeting, and hits to his pride keep coming, as Victoria called detective Ben Lee to help fix her car's flat, because, 'she knew she could count on him.' While Ben retrieves aerosol fix-a-flat, Rob tries to use his powers to seal the puncture and expand the air in the tire.

So while Victoria goes to breakfast with Ben (who has both car and steady employment, oooh-la-la), Rob's in search of a new tire. He stops to watch the broadcast launch of a weather satellite co-engineered by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. on a store-window TV, but the broadcast is hijacked by a hyper-patriotic armored nutjob. Inferno's seized control of Strategic Air Command to decry this attempt to weaken America by sharing technology with its enemies, which he suspects is a deliberate conspiracy. So he's altered its course, and will intercept and destroy it.

Rob rushes home, gets in costume, gets the location of S.A.C. from Victoria and rushes off to stop Inferno. He even grabs a camera to take some photos of the fight, as a thank you to Victoria. Too bad the speed he flies at melted the camera. He takes a few hits but looks to have the upper hand, except Inferno's been gaining altitude the whole time and they just hit the jet stream. Inferno's armor guides him out, but Rob's struggling to tell up from down and running low on power in the process. By the time he gets his bearings, he's outside the atmosphere. Oops.

Or maybe not. Turns out he doesn't need air (concerning), and being beyond the ozone layer means he's soaking up more solar power than ever. One blast is enough to make Inferno bail, but the satellite's falling back to Earth. When Rob goes to retrieve it, Inferno triggers its engines remotely and sends it and Rob on a collision course with the Sun!

Which ought to take months at minimum, but turns out to be irrelevant as Rob overloads on solar energy and explodes! Destroying the satellite in the process. Not a great showing for the Comet, and from here, things only get worse for him.

{3rd longbox, 12th comic. The Comet #12, by Mark Waid (writer), Kevin West (penciler), Jeff Albrecht (inker), Tom Ziuko (colorist), Tim Harkins (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #137 - Legend of the Shield #6

Nice try, but everyone knows you stop a bad guy with a gun with a good guy in a multi-million dollar suit of experimental armor.

The last time we looked in on the Shield, his first mission ended with hostages rescued, but his friend  Devon murdered before he could tell Joe the court-martial was a plot by Joe's dad to make sure he had the son he thought he could control wearing the Shield armor. Well, Joe's wearing the Shield armor, but he's also on the run until he can bring down his dad, so, 1 out of 2?

Joe's in Summit City, saying his farewells to Dusty, the sidekick of the original Shield, who was beaten into a coma by members of the gang the Jewels in the previous issue. A guy watches from the shadows, lamenting how he let Dusty down. Elsewhere, the mysterious "Hauser" who runs Summit City, is dealing with the leader of the Jewels, who looks like he was part of Run DMC. He doesn't appreciate being told to report back on sightings of the Shield, to the point he throws a knife into Hauser's chest. 

Which does nothing except make Hauser threaten to cut off the meds the leader's mom needs. Does that mean he controls the pharmaceutical companies or drug stores in town, the doctors who prescribe the drugs? Don't tell me he's, gasp, interfering with the mail. That fiend!

Joe drops a letter in the mail to Devon's parents, explaining what really happened, then steps into a "Techno-Nook" for a new watch battery. Only to find the story being robbed at Uzi-point by more Jewels, who are also on the lookout for him. Joe wonders about their mysterious "boss", but wins the fight easily.

The store's owners, the Carvers, explain they saved enough to move to a 'slightly less bad part of town,' and get this store. It makes them an easy target, but they stay because you have to take a stand somewhere. The Carvers' son Theo arrives and pulls a switchblade on the Shield, thinking he attacked the store. A little talking clears things up, and Theo agrees to help Joe find a news photographer he befriended. They run into more Jewels on the way, irate that Theo refuses to join, but Bert the photog comes out with a gun, giving them a chance to scramble inside his apartment.

Oddly, the Jewels make no attempt to besiege the place with their M-16s. Even stranger these guys don't recognize Joe as the guy they're supposed to be looking for, even though his armor is plainly visible beneath his open trenchcoat. Joe wants to know where the Jewels are based, because this latest bunch were carrying military hardware.

As it turns out, the one supplying the Jewels is McGill, the Green Beret that got Devon killed. Joe's dad is getting McGill the guns to supply to gangs to draw out Joe, and McGill is taking money from Hauser for the guns, with neither of those two the wiser. Presumably he'll use the money to fix the damage Joe did to his face when he went rogue.

So Joe's got a lot to deal with, and that's without him knowing The Web are trying to track him down, or that The Fly is in town and had his own run-in with the Jewels that's got him looking to get involved.

{6th longbox, 90th comic. Legend of the Shield #6, by Grant Miehm (writer/artist), Mark Waid (writer), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Albert DeGuzman (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #128 - Amazing Spider-Man #677

I do not believe for a second Peter Parker wears Axe Body Spray. That's a Lance Bannon move all the way. Peter uses plain Old Spice, or some industrial-strength perspiration fighting deodorant you buy in 5-gallon jugs.

Peter is depressed because his current girlfriend broke up with him. I have no idea who that would have been in 2012, so whatever. Peter webs up some loser trying to rob a joint and that is the only moment he'll manage even mild competency for the rest of the issue.

The Black Cat appears on the fire escape and Peter tries (pitifully) to flirt. You've already seen how that goes. Felicia reaches her hideout and after a shower, discovers a spider-tracer on her costume. Then the cops bust in. No, he didn't actually put a tracer on her, it's part of a larger plot by shadowy organizations.

Next morning, Peter is late for a meeting at Horizon Labs. Oh yeah, I dimly recall that being part of his status quo for a hot minute. But work is canceled, because there was a theft of some hologram-projecting phone, by the Black Cat. Caught on camera, no less. Setting aside how uncharacteristically sloppy that is, she was deflecting Peter's weak game at the same time, so he knows something's not right. Time for a jailbreak!

OK, never mind, she's got that handled. Time to consult a legal professional! Failing that, talk to Matt Murdock, in the middle of his cat-and-mouse game with Kirsten McDuffie about whether he's Daredevil or not.

They meet up later at the Chrysler Building, so Spidey can lose a game of suicide fall chicken (or whatever you want to call it) to Daredevil. I know, "Man Without Fear," but Spidey is "Guy with vastly superior speed, strength and reflexes that would enable him to pull off moves Murdock couldn't on the best day of his life." I know this is "pretending to not be depressed" Murdock, and Waid's writing that book so he's going to make his boy shine, but come on. How the fuck does Daredevil, the universe's litter box, always manage to make Spider-Man the Daffy Duck to his Bugs Bunny? Every damn time.

Spidey suggests they go question the scientist whose hologram phone was swiped, but they find him being held hostage by a bunch of armed guys. Or do they? DD's radar sense says no one is there, and Spidey forgot the hologram-projecting phone that got stolen makes really good holograms. I wouldn't mind Daredevil being the one to easily see through the deception there if not for the entire rest of the issue making Spider-Man look like a hapless dope.

Dropping into the tunnel the armed guys used, Spider-Man is sure something is still up, because his spider-sense wouldn't go off if there had been nothing dangerous. Are you sure? Maybe you've just got indigestion, or it's warning you forgot to pay the electric bill.

Once in the tunnel, it is (of course) Daredevil who senses the trap and tries to get them to backtrack. Too late, the entire tunnel collapses and as Spidey tries to dig his way out, he grabs a power line that's protective sheathing breaks so that he gets electrocuted.

Well, Black Cat's glaring down at him by that point, so that's less down to incompetence than angry ex with probability powers. It doesn't get any better in the second half (which takes place in Daredevil, because the shadowy organization that framed Felicia is trying to strongarm her into stealing something from Matt.)

{1st longbox, 133rd comic. Amazing Spider-Man #677, by Mark Waid (writer), Emma Rios (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #121 - Avengers #1.1

He's fuckin' awesome. Next question.

This was basically a mini-series, retconned into the Avengers' past to set up a larger story Waid was doing with the actual Avengers book (I think this was the volume where Spider-Man was funding the team, before Peter lost all the money Ock made him.) It starts with the four original Avengers trouncing a Masters of Evil consisting of the Enchantress and Executioner (good choices), but also the Melter and Black Knight (oof).

"48 Hours Later," Iron Man's handing the keys to the mansion to Captain America, because the rest of the team is taking time off. They have too much personal stuff to focus on being Avengers, but Cap has no personal life, so he's the perfect choice to lead the people they accepted onto the roster without asking him! Captain America doesn't even know who any of them are, which is kind of hilarious.

Even better, Iron Man set up a press conference for two hours later, so Cap can introduce the team (which he describes as a 'carny with a bow and arrow, a super-speed keg of dynamite and a bombshell whose powers sometimes backfire') to the world. But he takes too long, and Hawkeye seizes the initiative, creating opportunities for each of them to show off their abilities.

One reporter's not on-board, pointing out Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were working with Magneto just last month. Everybody was in a big hurry in the 1960s. Cap tries to wave it off with them being pawns, but doesn't have an answer to a follow-up question about the Avengers' vetting process. Because, "Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp accepted the first costumed folks to knock on the door" wouldn't do much to quell concerns.

Hawkeye does a little better when asked about attacking Stark Industries (and that reporter doesn't know it was on the say-so off a Soviet spy), but his smooth answers get the media wondering if he's trying to take over being the leader. Especially when Captain America's sticking to stiff no comments, and Wanda storms off after being questioned on whether she took an oath to subjugate humans. This leaves all three newbies are considering bailing, but Wanda convinces Pietro they need to see this through. Clint, meanwhile, is won over by the fact he's got a butler now. Poor Jarvis (he gets some revenge later.)

No time for lobster (which would probably be Namor's pals anyway), here come the Frightful Four! Fresh off crushing the FF on some deserted island (Fantastic Four #38, according to a by-Gawd editor's note), the Wizard wants to make more of a public show. So he, Medusa, Sandman, and Paste-Pot Pete show up on the Avengers' lawn. Cap makes a lot of wrong calls on who should fight who - weird to see a version of Captain America inexperienced enough at this stuff to make that sort of tactical goof - the Kooky Quartet demonstrate zero teamwork, and the fight's over in two pages.

The Four don't even bother to kill them, content to leave the Avengers beaten in their own driveway. The team would engineer a rematch a few issues later, but they're getting an artificial boost which makes it a cakewalk. Too bad, it feels like a really interesting match-up, 4 vs 4.

{2nd longbox, 9th comic. Avengers #1.1, by Mark Waid (writer), Barry Kitson (penciler), Mark Farmer (inker), Jordan Boyd (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #301

 

"Compromising Position," in Legend of the Shield #10, by Grant Miehm (writer/artist), Mark Waid (writer), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Albert DeGuzman (letterer)

When DC decided to try and revive the old Archie heroes, Legend of the Shield was one of the first two series. It ran 16 issues, which was middle of the pack for the Impact! line, and was centered primarily on Joe Higgins, once a promising young officer, until railroaded under false charges.

Grant Miehm, who was plotter as well as artist for most of the series, goes somewhere between The Fugitive and The Incredible Hulk (TV show) style story. We learn in the first issue Joe's paranoid, authoritarian bully of father, General Higgins, was behind his conviction, because Joe could only be considered for the Shield project as an enlisted man, not an officer. Joe learns this by the beginning of issue 3, and spends the next 10 issues on the run, using the Shield armor to help reporters, politicians, kids in trouble from gang violence, while also trying to find some allies to help clear his name.

The fugitive thing does end, as Joe confronts his father in a kangaroo court and partially clears his name. The original Shield is involved, which has Mark Waid's (who is credited with dialogue most of the time) fingerprints all over it, as Joe's armor is the best the military could do to re-create the original version.

Joe's has some bulletproof alloy, but also can create an electromagnetic field if he clasps his hands together. I guess it's like completing a circuit. I like the design (which I'm guessing was Miehm's work) better than the original's. The shoulder/chest piece being smaller looks better to me and doesn't raise as many questions in my mind about how Joe manages to bend at the waist.

The book pivots briefly to a different character wearing the Shield armor, but it never feels like it's going to stick, and it doesn't. Although once Joe's back in the suit, he's rocking one of those terrible super-long '90s ponytails like Nightwing had for a while. Just awful.

The abrupt end of the line, like with The Jaguar, left several threads unanswered. While Joe was evading his father's attempts to kill him, there was a secretive crime lord industrialist type trying to figure out how to use the Shield to his own purposes. Joe confronts him once, but is forced to help him. There's never any conclusion to that. They don't really explain why Joe kept having weird visions of the original Shield trying to speak to him, either. So it goes.

Random Back Issues #114 - Legend of the Shield #2

Yep, that'll do it.

Joe Higgins passed his trial run with the Shield armor, which actually involved keeping the armor from being stolen by a big cyborg guy called Mann-X. Now it's time for his first mission: rescuing some American hostages from the fictional Middle Eastern country of Bahkti. Except Higgins is having weird dreams about what seems to be the original Shield, fighting in Korea, possibly.

He won't open up about them to anyone, even his best friend, Lt. Devon Hall, so Hall decides to get ready for his briefing with Higgins' father, a brigadier general. He's a bit early and sees a dossier on the desk. It's not about the mission, but about the fact the general made up charges to get his son court-martialed and busted to sergeant so he could be used in the Shield project. I guess the Army wasn't willing to spare any officers for the job.

Hall doesn't get a chance to tell Joe before the mission, and the general's none-too-subtle that he knows Hall read something he wasn't meant to. Worse, the general arranged for the loan of a Major McGill from the Green Berets for the mission to Bahkti. Because General Higgins is a fucking lunatic. The type who threatens his ex-wife just because Joe visited her.

The mission starts well enough, as Joe's team use the element of surprise to rescue the hostages, while Devon's squad disable all the Bahktian helicopters except one. Just in case. But when Devon's group go to free the other group of hostages they were told about, they find nothing except a bunch of Bahktian soldiers.

While Joe's rigging explosives to blow the munitions dump and cover their tracks, Devon's wounded and pinned down by an entire angry squad. The explosion gives him a chance to get to the chopper he spared as a back-up, but McGill disabled it, too. So Devon's stuck trying to reach the original helicopter as the rest of the soldiers, Joe and the hostages lift off.

Unfortunately, Devon gets gunned down, and Joe can't hear the warning that his father railroaded him, either. Nice touch having the sound effects cover the speech balloons. Joe flips out and gets knocked unconscious by the other soldiers, but by next issue, he's a fugitive trying to figure out how to bring down his father.

{6th longbox, 120th comic. Legend of the Shield #2, by Grant Miehm (writer/artist), Mark Waid (writer), Jeff Albrecht (inker), Tom Ziuko (colorist), Albert Deguzman (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #63 - Daredevil #5

Oh, Matt Murdock, I bet you say that to all the girls. Wait, you do? Part of a court-ordered settlement? Yikes.

Last time we looked at Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's Daredevil, Foggy found he he had cancer. In this issue, he dies. But not of cancer!

At this point, Matt and Kirsten McDuffie are operating a law firm in San Francisco, since Matt got disbarred for committing perjury that time he insisted he wasn't Daredevil under oath. And the world at large believes Foggy Nelson is dead, but we know he isn't. This issue explains that.

Sometime before the move out west, Hank Pym's running around inside Foggy blasting any circulating tumor cells he comes across, to try and keep the cancer from spreading. Meanwhile, Matt and Foggy are walking in the park, discussing Matt's decision to admit he's Daredevil, and how this puts Foggy in danger. So Matt wants Foggy to pretend to die of cancer, and continue his treatments in secret.

Matt admits Foggy's family will hate him, and there'll be some explaining to do, but he's sure it'll be fine. Iron Man and Spider-Man are presumed dead all the time. Foggy notes they die big, while he's just going to die.

 

At which point the All-New, Fantastic Frog-Man attacks. Or is it the All-New, Leviathan Leapfrog. Either way, it's a big frog-mech now - expect the Runaways to show up and steal that thing - with mini-guns and chainsaws. And it's after Foggy. Daredevil pursues it into a crowded city street, at which point the pilot tries to bail, fighting desperately to get away. Because there's a bomb in the mech. 

Matt's already freed Foggy, and tells him he's the only one close enough to pilot the suit away and save everyone. So Foggy leaps it into the sky, and gets blown up. Or not, because Hank Pym was listening in and shrank Foggy to subatomic size, then they hitched a ride on some falling debris and drifted more or less gently onto a roof. Ta-da, instant fake heroic death!

 

The truth comes out eventually as part of a big thing with the Owl and the Shroud near the tail end of this run. Charles Soule somehow puts the secret identity genie back in the bottle, I don't know how. I was more annoyed Matt was not only back in New York, in a costume that was depressingly familiar to his '90s, Jack Batlin period costume, but also working for the District Attorney's office. Helping the city imprison people instead of helping keep them out. Delightful.

[3rd longbox, 133rd comic. Daredevil (vol. 4) #5, by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (storytellers), Javier Rodriguez (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)]

Theatricality and Cruelty

I was thinking about Mark Waid's "Tower of Babel" story in JLA on Monday for some reason. The one where Ra's al Ghul steals Batman's top-secret "defeat the Justice League" plans and uses them to try and clear the way for his latest plot to improve the planet by killing a bunch of humans.

The League, of course, survives and saves the world, then votes Batman out. Or more accurately, Batman leaves before Superman can cast the deciding vote in favor of giving Bats the boot. So at least it makes sense where Damien got his "you can't fire me, I quit" mindset. 

If I remember right, Superman's main issue is that he was the only one who knew Batman had a plan to take him down, just in case, and that it's just one more example of Batman not being a team player by keeping secrets. I'm not sure it would make a difference if the League knew, since they wouldn't know the specifics of the plans or that Ra's was using them unless Batman told them. And Bats was distracted by Ra's stealing his parents' corpses (done for precisely that reason, solid strategy).

The thing that struck me, isn't that Batman had these plans, but how cruel they seemed to be. Like, it's not enough to just kill them, he's got to hurt them. Aquaman gets dosed with fear gas so he's afraid to go in the water, and will eventually die of dehydration. He plans to blind Green Lantern*. Flash gets hit with a bullet that causes him to basically seizure while vibrating at near-lightspeed. Plastic Man gets frozen and shattered (which Joe Kelly's Obsidian Age story suggests wouldn't have killed him, but would leave him aware of what's happening for however long he remained frozen).

I suppose Batman could argue they weren't intended to kill, only to thoroughly incapacitate until the Justice Leaguer in question could be helped or imprisoned. But man, having nanites infect the Martian Manhunter so his entire body is on fire when he's in contact with oxygen, would seem a little much. How are you going to help him if he's on fire? Plus, I'm pretty sure the captions in one issue mention the nanites and that layer of skin eventually burn off and fall away, but the plan didn't call for J'onn to still be alive by then.

It all just seems excessive for a vigilante whose normal shtick is to scare criminals by making them think he'll do stuff he'd never do. Like how we know he's not going to let that crook he dropped off the roof go splat, but the crook clearly thinks otherwise. There are lines, but apparently not when it comes to his teammates.

* I feel as though Kalinara and Ragnell both pointed out Kyle's used his ring while asleep before, so being blind really shouldn't have slowed him down that much. Maybe it was a leftover Hal Jordan plan, although you'd think that would just be the plan Zemo used on Hercules in the "Under Siege" story. Send a leggy blonde at him and get him too drunk to function.

Sunday Splash Page #128

"Matt's More In the Dark than Usual", in Daredevil (vol. 4), #15, by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (storytellers), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

When Waid and Samnee's previous volume of Daredevil concluded, Matt was disbarred in New York for admitting he really was Daredevil, meaning he committed perjury all those times in the past he insisted he wasn't. But, he used to practice law in California, so they moved the new series out there.

Naturally, because this is Marvel we're talking about, they started the new series the very next month after the old one ended, and bumped up the price a dollar. Definitely a wise and sustainable strategy!

This volume started up during the second wave of Marvel NOW! I think it was "All-New Marvel NOW!", but hell if I'm going back to check. It started the month after G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona's Ms. Marvel and the Charles Soule/Javier Pulido She-Hulk book, to mention two things that came out during that stretch I also bought. It ran until Marvel canceled their entire line as part of Jonathan Hickman's lousy (also horribly-paced and constantly behind schedule) Secret Wars event.

After - or actually before, because again, poorly paced and behind schedule - Secret Wars ended, Waid and Samnee moved on to the Black Widow book we looked at for Sunday Splash Page #90. So Marvel didn't entirely dismiss the notion of giving specific creative teams their own titles and just letting them run with it, but it felt like it lost some momentum with the complete disruption of their entire publishing line for several months because of an event which didn't do anything so extreme it couldn't have been done without the aforementioned complete disruption of the entire publishing line.

The main theme of this 18-issue run seems to be "information". Or maybe "secrets", but that's information. What the value of information is, and to who. The vulnerabilities it creates, the ways it can be twisted, either with intent, or unconsciously. Waid and Samnee bring in the Owl, a man obsessed with knowing as much as possible, as a recurring threat. This is intermixed with the Shroud, who doesn't exactly fare well under Waid's pen as a broken man obsessed with trying to get back some sense of happiness. There's one particular piece of information he thinks will give him that back, and he pursues it relentlessly.

There's also Kirsten's father offering Matt a lot of money for Daredevil's life story, which will be Matt trying to figure out what he's comfortable revealing about himself. He gradually tries to lean into the fact that now everyone knows he's Daredevil, which makes him a celebrity. Starts wearing a flashy red suit (as seen above) both when he fights crime and in the courtroom. (If that page where he presents himself as "Daredevil for the defense, your honor!" with his cane leaned over his shoulder had been a splash page, I absolutely would have used it.)

Even that is just a form of him trying to control how that information is perceived, in the same way he tries to include a highly jaundiced account of his first meeting with Hawkeye in the book, only to have Foggy call him on it hilariously. It's Matt trying to act as if this isn't a huge weak spot for him. But Samnee does draw the hell out of Matt in that suit, along with a lot of good fight scenes. He tones down the Owl's weird, Wolverine-style spiked up hair look, but emphasizes his tendency to lurk above you and stare ominously. Even though I have a hard time taking the character seriously, it's not for lack of effort on the creative team's part.

Sunday Splash Page #127

"Where Do You Even Begin?" in Daredevil (vol. 3) #20, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

As Martin and Rivera were moving off the book, there's a brief lull punctuated by some random crossovers (with Amazing Spider-Man, and the a 3-part crossover with Greg Rucka's Punisher book and Avenging Spider-Man), plus a couple of issues drawn by Khoi Pham, before the book lands Chris Samnee as the regular artist. Samnee would remain the artist for most of the last 23 issues, minus roughly four covered by Mike Allred, Javier Rodriguez, and Chris Copland.

During Samnee's time as artist, Matt faces the repercussions of stealing an enormously valuable data drive from the five groups seen in last week's selection, and has his perceptions and grasp of the world around him called into doubt. The latter leads to a brief falling out between Matt and Foggy, who has been harboring suspicions Matt is faking being cheerful and well-adjusted a little too much.

At around the two-year mark, Daredevil confronts the old foe behind all the challenges he'd faced up to the point, which included an evil version of himself in a knockdown drag-out fight issue Samnee and Rodriguez illustrate beautifully. One that turned on a surprise revelation that worked as an excellent "oh shit!" moment.

After that, the creative team shift gears to a few intertwining narratives. Matt realizes the justice system is rife with members of the racist hate group the Sons of the Serpent at all levels, and tries to root them out through avenues both legal and supernatural. There's also Matt trying to help Foggy cope with his illness, and Matt and former Assistant D.A. Kirsten McDuffie trying to figure out what they want to be to each other.

(While I think McDuffie downplays the danger inherent in dating Matt Murdock, I do appreciate her desire to maintain distance so her life isn't entirely swallowed up by his life.)

I've seen Samnee's work get compared to Alex Toth's frequently, and while I'm not expert of Toth's work, from what I've seen it's not a bad comparison. Samnee has a good handle on all the necessary aspects of being a comic artist. Conveying whatever information is needed, drawing fight scenes, emotional scenes, just cool or weird shit. He incorporates sound effects into his layouts in clever ways. The shadows in his story are much deeper, heavier than either Rivera or Martin's, but he also takes over as artist at the point when Matt's attempts to remain positive run up against a series of difficult challenges. Remaining upbeat is harder when your best friend thinks you've gone nuts and you're starting to wonder yourself.

Sunday Splash Page #126

"Secret Empire to the Left of Me, HYDRA to the Right," in Daredevil (vol. 3) #6, by Mark Waid (writer), Marcos Martin (artist), Muntsa Vicente (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

So, after Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis, and Ed Brubaker spent years dragging Matt Murdock through an unending of misery, woe, ninjas, and girlfriends either killed or driven insane, Matt got himself possessed by a demon and used the Hand to take over Hell's Kitchen. And then after that bullshit, Mark Waid took over writer chores, and teamed up with Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin to try and break the character out of his rut.

They had Matt regain a little of his old swashbuckling spirit, making with the banter, flirting, being a bit of a ham, both in the courtroom and in the costume. And, because that might seem an odd turn after everything he'd experienced recently, they made it a conscious decision on the character's part. Matt was going to essentially force himself to be positive, to fight his depression. This becomes more of an issue later, which we'll look at next week, but suffice it to say like isn't going to make it easy for Daredevil.

From the writing standpoint, what I enjoy is the approach to everything. Matt being kind of cocky is funny. There's one moment in issue 5 where a team of guys charge into his client's apartment. Matt thinks to himself, "Oh no, six armed mercs wearing night vision goggles! What will I do?" Then he flips on the lights and blinds them. Matt has to return to coaching clients to represent himself, but not because he's been disbarred. Even though he denies it, everyone thinks/knows he's Daredevil and this gets turned against him in the courtroom. Different problem, but there's still that avenue available.

Beyond that, they bring in some different villains. Just in the 10 issues or so Martin and Rivera draw, Daredevil tangles with the Spot, Klaw, all the assorted organization in the picture above, and the Mole Man. Each of them in ways that fit with Daredevil. Mole Man doesn't try to attack the surface world, he steals all the bodies from the graveyard where Matt's father is buried. The Spot is a hired gun trying to kidnap a mob boss' daughter as part of an internal struggle in the organization.

The art is, fantastic, even if Martin and Rivera aren't on the book very long (Martin draws about 4 issues, Rivera 6). Martin seems like he's having a lot of fun with portraying how Matt perceives things through his senses. The way sound effects are written as part of a wall to show how they rebound off it. Sound effects originating in one panel, traveling into Daredevil's ear in the next panel, then carrying the eye back to the original panel because the source is moving. I just love the creativity of that kind of design.

Rivera doesn't go that route, but he opts for a neat depiction of the radar sense. Historically, it gets represented as a bunch of concentric circles originating at Matt's head, and you see a black outline of something. Rivera and Javier Rodriguez as the color artist go with more of a contour map view, where there's a lot of pink lines against black backgrounds showing you the shape of what he's "seeing". Which can be an especially cool visual with someone like the Spot, where the holes on him don't register as anything to the radar sense (presumably whatever Matt's brain is generating is simply swallowed up by them).

I think this is the book that convinced (reminded?) Marvel they could have successful titles if they paired talented writers and artists and just let them do their thing for the most part. Books that might not top the single issue sales charts like the big events, but would sell consistently well, and probably have a decent lifespan in the trade paperback market. Even if Martin and Rivera didn't stay past the first year. Fortunately, Marvel pretty quickly landed on another good artist for the book, who stuck around the rest of the way, and that's next week.

Random Back Issues #28 - Daredevil #23

Come on Foggy, Stilt-Man was last month's villain. Except not really, since that issue involved a team-up with Octavius running around in Spider-Man's body. I cannot believe they let that status quo exist for two years.

The early part of the issue is spent with someone trying to recreate the circumstances that created Daredevil. Right down to making people push a blind man out of the way of a truck hauling toxic waste. And Murdock can say what he wants about that company's poor environmental safety protocols, but we got four heroes in a half-shell out of that accident.

Meanwhile, DD is showing Foggy around town via the rooftop route. Foggy might have cancer, and is trying to learn how to confront such terrible news with courage from his friend who routinely throws himself into danger. They pause for a bit to discuss recent developments, how DD thinks all the random foes he's faced since Mark Waid took over as writer might not be so random. Especially since the last one, a guy calling himself Coyote and using the Spot's powers, pretty much told him he's in the crosshairs. Which is when Foggy jokingly suggests Stilt-Man.

Everyone enjoys a good laugh, until Matt hears trouble and runs to investigate. He finds a bunch of odd people trashing a fancy party and behaving erratically. These would be all the attempts to recreate him that actually survived exposure. But as they're new to their heightened senses, they're basically out of their minds from sensory overload.

Daredevil spends hours hunting them across town and subduing them. It's hard in some ways, since they have the same senses as him - there's a point he tries to punch a guy in the back of the head while the guy's snacking on some melon, and the dude just ducks while Matt crashes into the produce stand - but pretty easy in others since they aren't used to dealing with these senses and knowing how to block things out. He stops a bunch of them by just hitting them on the wrists and shins with his billy club, although I imagine I wouldn't want to move if Daredevil cracked me in the leg with that thing, either. Love the echo effect being centered on the guy's ear.

Matt does make it to the hospital in time to be there with Foggy when he gets his results. He picks up a rapid heartbeat, which he initially mistakes for Foggy's, but is actually the doctor. Sorry, Foggy. I was sure it would be heart disease that got you (the previous issue Matt buys him a Limburger and bacon cheesecake as a peace offering, which clogs my arteries to even contemplate).

Two issues from now, Daredevil will confront the pinnacle of the mystery bad guy's plan to strike at him. It's a really fun fight-filled issue. Foggy survives cancer, but they fake his death eventually when Matt drops any pretense of maintaining that he isn't Daredevil. Which I think gets him disbarred, and results in his moving to San Francisco when this volume is canceled, then immediately restarted the very next month with a new first issue, but the same creative team, and costing a dollar more. Marvel Comics, everyone!

{3rd longbox, 171st comic. Daredevil (vol. 3) #23, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #97

"No, Quack is a Fowl Noise," in Brave and the Bold (vol. 3) #7, by Mark Waid and George Perez (storytellers), Bob Wiacek (inker), Tom Smith (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer)

The third volume of Brave and the Bold started up some point after 52 wrapped, with Waid and Perez as the creative team. The first year of the book had an overarching story, something about someone named Megistus who was after some MacGuffin or another. Sometimes the stories were set up so that one of the heroes from one issue carried over into the next. Like when Batman teamed up with the Blue Beetle, then was in the future with the Legion of Super-Heroes the next month.

Waid knows how to play characters off each other (although he writes Power Girl as hyper-aggressive in this issue, even by her standards), and works some humor in some issues. Bruce Wayne being stunned at Hal Jordan's success gambling. Brainiac being kind of pissed when Batman uses an ordinary old smoke bomb against them, and it works. Perez' style would be considered more old-school even by 2007, I assume, but it works for me, and I think it fits the tone of the book, which is a very old-school team-up book.

Perez left after issue 10, with Jerry Ordway taking over the art chores for three issues. Waid left after issue 16, and the book rotated through a series of creative teams, each doing a story or two, until it landed in the hands of J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz for the last 9 issues. The only other issue I own besides this one is the very last issue, a Legion of Substitute Heroes/Inferior Five team-up, which occurs in and around the Legion of Super-Heroes/Doom Patrol team-up the month before. 

It's actually not bad, works as a funny issue, which makes it the high point of JMS' run on the book. Low praise, considering this was when he wrote that story where Zatanna has a premonition of Barbara Gordon's fate in The Killing Joke, and when she confides in Wonder Woman, they. . . take Barbara out for a fun night on the town rather than, you know, do anything to stop it. I guess because Wonder Woman figures it's fate, and you can't interefere. Then why did Zatanna have the fucking premonition then?

Sunday Splash Page #90

"Fire and Mud", in Black Widow (vol. 3) #1, by Chris Samnee (writer/artist), Mark Waid (writer), Matthew Wilson (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

After the conclusion of last week's series, Natasha got a second ongoing in 2014 that ran for 20 issues, mostly by Nathan Edmundson and Phil Noto. I skipped that one, because Edmundson's writing hadn't impressed me in the past, and I'm not a huge fan of Noto as a sequential artist. Great individual images, but for telling a story, conveying action, not so much.

That series got wiped out in the mass cancelations brought on by Secret Wars. You'd think Marvel would have learned something from DC and the New 52 about ending all of your series, but apparently not. After that whole mess was over, we got another Black Widow ongoing, this time by the Daredevil creative team of Chris Samnee, Mark Waid, and Matthew Wilson. I figured if anyone could make a Black Widow series I'd enjoy, it was only the second creative team to really make me enjoy Daredevil.

I dropped the book after six issues. I only kept two, this issue and #6, although reading through it, I can't figure out why I kept the latter. Maybe I meant to keep one of the earlier issues with more fighting.

It was a very stylishly done book, the first issue is just one big chase scene of Natasha fleeing the Helicarrier and then a bunch of SHIELD agents who chase her through the city and into the hinterlands. Samnee and Wilson do some great work, especially Wilson. He did some stuff with red and black that worked so well for me. There was one issue, #4, where they did some great stuff with her infiltrating the new Red Room. That was probably the issue I intended to keep. 

But at the end of the day, it's a story where all the good guys wonder if they can trust Natasha while she encounters problems from her past (in this case the Red Room) in the form of characters I'm not certain we'd ever heard of before. Gee, why does that sound extraordinarily familiar?

Sunday Splash Page #53

"Beach Blanket Monster Fightin'" in Avengers: Four #2, by Mark Waid (writer), Barry Kitson (penciler), Mark Farmer (inker), Jordan Boyd (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)

Something fairly recent this week, as this mini-series only came out two years ago. It wasn't presented exactly as a mini-series at the time, since Marvel did that stupid decimal point numbering system they use periodically to show this was tied in with the Mark Waid/Michael del Mundo Avengers. 

Which was what, two or three Avengers' books ago? I'm sure there's been an Avengers title in between this one and the current one by Jason Aaron. And I'm just talking about books with the title "Avengers". I know there have been tons of other books with some adjective slapped in front of that word.

The main book was doing something about Kang trying the old bit where you kill your enemies as children so they never present themselves as threats bit. I wasn't reading it, that's just what I vaguely remember. This story, though, was a modified version of the early days of Cap's Kooky Quartet, which is my favorite Avengers roster, so here we are. I'm guessing the character introduced in this mini-series played some major role in whatever the main book story was.

And since that character had the ability to boost the abilities of the Avengers, compensating for the roster's lack of raw power, it kind of took away from one of the major things I always enjoyed about the Quartet, that they did seem to be operating at such a disadvantage compared to most Avengers' lineups. This story focuses more on them trying to get the public to believe in them, and to believe in each other.

Which is fun enough. Hawkeye's pissing Captain America and Quicksilver off constantly, even torments Jarvis for a time (Jarvis gets revenge). Although Clint hits on Wanda less than I expected he would. Pietro acts like an impatient dick a lot, which is normal, but Waid uses it to good effect. A page or two after the image above, as someone in the crowd once again unfavorably compares them to Thor, Pietro dashes by and shouts, 'Will you people shut up about Thor?!' 

Kitson's work is solid, and mostly clean and easy to follow. He and Farmer do a good job of evoking an older feel, mostly. The problem is that the further into this story we get, the more the art team expands. Before it's all said and done, there are three other pencilers besides Kitson (all those on the last issue), five other inkers, and two more colorists. It doesn't help the flow of the story at all to be switching between styles so much. But otherwise, it's pretty fun.

What I Bought 4/4 and 4/7/2017

Couple more books from last week. One is wrapping up a mini-series of sorts, and the other was me giving the second issue of an ongoing a chance.

Avengers #5.1, by Mark Waid (writer), Barry Kitson, Mark Bagley, Sean Izaakse, and Ro Stein (pencilers), Mark Farmer, Scott Hanna, Mike Perkins, Ted Brandt, Sean Izaakse, and Drew Hennessy (inkers), Jordan Boyd, Matt Tackey and Wil Quintana (colorists), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - After last issue I wondered how many people they'd need for the next issue, but I didn't envision it would get this bad. 4 pencilers, 6 inkers, and 3 colorists. For one 20 page comic. Jesus Christ.

As it turns out, the Kooky Quartet was only mostly dead, but the remaining Original Four helped them fake their funeral as a trap so they could take down Cressida themselves. Easier said than done since she's copied their powers for a bit, but she makes the number 1 mistake Avengers' foes make: She dismissed Hawkeye. Exhausted and disoriented, she runs, straight into the remainder of the Frightful Four, who take a little vengeance. I assume this all ties in with the story Waid and Michael del Mundo are doing in Avengers Whole Numbers with Kang, but I have no idea how. So from my perspective it's a fun but inessential little story, which is fine.

But the art is a mess. The coloring shifts wildly from one page to the next. The sequence starting with the funeral up to the point the battle moves into the mansion is in this color scheme dominated by blues where all the characters faces are extremely pale. Then you turn a page and the colors have shifted to something much brighter. But it also signals a change in artist, and the faces take on a distinctly unfinished look. And the shifts continue like that throughout. At least everyone has a sufficiently distinct design there aren't any problems telling who's who, but it definitely disrupts the flow of things. Not exactly sticking the landing there.

Iron Fist #2, by Ed Brisson (writer), Mike Perkins (artist), Andy Troy (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Here we see Danny entering the section of town known as "Artist is Running Behind and Hasn't Drawn It Yet". It's very quaint in how old-fashioned it is, nothing there, just like in the moments before the universe came into existence. Can't get more old-fashioned than that.

The island of Liu-Shi has several Masters, and Danny is being set against them one at a time. A mysterious Master Wolf waits at the end, though Danny doesn't look as though he'll get past the Master Rat at this rate. Also, his chi is being reignited by the fact he's somehow absorbing the chi of the masters he defeats. Which is creepy and really should have triggered the warning bells, but this Danny seems like a junkie, jonesing for his power back. This is all part of Liu-Shi's plan to take K'un-Lun's place as the 7th City of the Heavens. Will it start only connecting to Earth every 7 years if it manages that?

Danny losing his chi isn't unusual. Davos seems to steal it away every six months, which forces Danny to get it back simply so Davos doesn't kill people with it. But Danny's rarely shown as someone desperate to get it back. It's a burden on him, that he'd just a soon be free of. Instead of having the expectations of his parents, he has the expectations of this entire, strange city weighing on him, while still regarding him as an outsider. The fact Danny frankly sucks as a protector doesn't help. His first opponent called him a fraud, and he's got some points. Danny's the first Iron Fist not to win the Tournament of the Heavens and he lost in the first round, the first match. K'un-Lun's been destroyed how many times on his watch?

So having a Danny rushing into this to get the power back, with no issues about what might be happening to the fighters whose chi he absorbs (didn't Davos nearly kill him doing that once?), it's not a great look for him. And doesn't he draw his chi from somewhere? It's not a supply within him, it's a vast ocean that's he's connected to and can pull from. Drawing from these guys shouldn't be doing anything to undo whatever is blocking him from that.

Artwise, Perkins and Andy Troy are doing a couple of interesting things. When Danny enters the village to fight the Rat Master, the final panel on one page the border is red, and the red extends into the panel to fill the outlines of the rats that are coming at Danny from both sides. On the next page, as Danny gets tossed around, the Master's hand is in the panel, but as an outline with no color or detail. A white void. I won't say I understand the significance of it, since his hands are colored in for the panels before and after that one, so maybe it's just a mistake, but it's distinctive. A presence announced by absence, something not right or out of place.  Beyond that, a lot of shadows, heavy use of black in most scenes, a dark book. Fits with the story.

The fight with the first Master varied in pacing a bit. The early stage, when Danny's mostly getting trounced, had more of that interrupted, here are a series of moments feel, and as the fight goes on it gets more into one panel leading to the next and then the next. I wouldn't call it great fight choreography, but there's not much back and forth. The Master kicks Danny's ass until Danny dodges one punch, then unleashes his own barrage that wins the day.

As usual, my curiosity about where things might go is grappling with my feeling that I'm not really digging it enough right now over whether to stick around to find out.

What I Bought 2/28/2017

No new comics came out for me this week, so here's two books from last week. Both nearing the end of the line.

Avengers #4.1, by Mark Waid (writer), Barry Kitson (penciler), Mark farmer with Rafael Fonteriz and Drew Hennessy (inkers), Jodan Boyd with Matt Yackey and Wil Quintana (colorists), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - Christ, how many people does it take just to do this one issue?

Cressida's attempts to shatter the team almost pay off. Pietro sulks in bed and lashes out at Wanda, Cressida has the Acrobat frame Hawkeye for theft, leading to a blow-up between he and Cap. But Steve pulls his head from his butt in the nick of time, and the team tries to right the ship by challenging the Frightful Four to a rematch, minus Quicksilver. They're doing OK until Cressida boosts Sandman's power, but Hawkeye is able to get Pietro back in the fight, and Cap confronts Cressida. Who appears to instantly kill the team. I'm assuming this all has something to do with whatever Kang is up to in this book's main storyline. Trying to unmake the Avengers in early days or something.

Waid writes a very good early Hawkeye. Always running his yap, always trying to spur people on with jibes and negative reinforcement. Always able to take a heated situation and throw some gasoline on the fire. Overall, Waid seems to get most of the characters, although I've gone back and forth on Jarvis getting back at Hawkeye with itching powder in the costume. It's a good gag, but seems too overt for Jarvis.

Kitson's artwork continues to remain clear and expressive, although you can see the influences of the different inkers (not that I can tell which is which). At the point when the team leaps into battle, Captain America's head is rounder than it was two pages earlier as they left the mansion. The shadows make the chin more pronounced, the "A" on the forehead looks wider. Just little variations. I like the outfit Kitson gave Cressida when she secretly hires the Acrobat. It's strange, the hood and cape combined with wrapping her face in bandages with almost a couple of robot eye things poking out. But it's fairly simple, and kind of cool, which is enough for me.

Great Lakes Avengers #5, by Zac Gorman (writer), Will Robson (aritst), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Little surprised there's no "After MacFarlane" on the cover like you see sometimes with these homages. Still a solid cover.

The team has agreed to keep quiet about what happened to Snerd, but Good and her brother are leaving town. Alive, which, as she points out to Flatman, is a leg up on what Mr. Immortal typically managed. Beyond that, Bertha reluctantly agrees to take a modeling gig as both the before and after for some weight loss drug. But it turns out to be a trap - one her agent is in on - to copy her power.

Seems Gorman has dropped whatever he might have been starting with Doorman's boss, Oblivion, being displeased with his work recently. Or even the stuff about Doorman having been away so long, and in such a strange place, he's kind of lost touch. Basically, it feels like once Mr. Immortal was back in the fray, there weren't enough pages for the team.

It is a recurring theme with most of the team that no one believes in them. I'm sure Bertha's agent is going to make her betrayal somehow Bertha's fault, for deciding to go a different direction with her career. Flatman can't get anyone to buy into him as a leader, or even as a hero. Oblivion clearly isn't impressed with Doorman, though the guy is slacking on whatever his job is supposed to be. But none of the GLA really stick to their guns. Mr. Immortal said to bury him alive for a year, and then changed his mind. Bertha had misgivings about taking the gig, but said to hell with it once offered 20 grand. Flatman is decidedly not rallying the team around him. They're all covering up what happened to Snerd, although I don't want to see Good jailed for it, so I don't mind that. They want to be Avengers, without acting like Avengers are supposed to (though hardly alone in that sense these days). I would say the one genuinely good thing they did was sticking up for Good, but even she realizes it's a smart time to get out of here, before her luck runs out.

I'm very surprised that Bertha falling on her agent's legs after they toppled out of at least a fourth or fifth story window didn't, you know, smash said legs into goo. The page where the photographer is encouraging Bertha (in her bigger form) to look as sad as possible ('Frown with your eyes. Perfect!') was some of Robson's better work on the title. The photographer's expressions, from dismay, confusion, irritation were good, too. Robson is capable of doing more understated stuff, but he keeps giving characters that extremely pissed off look, teeth-clenchingly angry, even when they shouldn't be that angry.