Sunday Splash Page #130

"People Who Want to Beat You," in Darkwing Duck (vol. 2) #1, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist), Andworld Design (letterers)

Five years after the previous volume ended, Darkwing got another series, this time written by the character's creator, Aaron Sparrow, with James Silvani still handling the artist duties.

The previous volume ended, in Brill's version, with Darkwing rescuing his girlfriend Morgana from some other dimension she wound up in while banishing Duckthulu, but also bringing Negaduck back in the process. Well, Negaduck's here, but Morgana's MIA, so I guess that was at least one of the differences in opinion Brill and Sparrow had.

This one starts off with the classic "face a gantlet of all your foes" story when Darkwing ends up trapped in the new high-security prison. Which is all part of some larger plan Negaduck has. A larger plan we never learned anything more about. After the first four issues, there was a one-off about fighting an immensely powerful gnat, what was basically a remastered version of a story from the old Disney Adventures magazine, and a two-parter about zombie vegetables. Then the series ended, and that was that. So it goes.

Random Back Issues #36 - Darkwing Duck #2

In his defense, there haven't been that many found footage superhero movies. Chronicle I guess, but yeah. And now they're four years further out of date as a reference than they were when this comic was published!

Negaduck's pulled the old bit where he gets all the villains out their cells and takes over the prison, with their archfoe locked inside with a bunch of people who want to kill him. Meaning Darkwing spends the issue working his way through one enemy after another.

Liquidator falls by getting a bunch of dish soap mixed in with himself. Darkwing goes from the laundry room to the garbage chute and runs into Muckduck, who I don't recall at all. He doesn't actually stop the giant, sentient pile of trash, but does use him to defeat at least one other enemy, the evil cleaning lady Ammonia Pine.

Three of the Beagle Boys get captured off-panel, and we learn you get 5 to 10 years in the pen in St. Canard for stealing candy from children. Darkwing beats the shapeshifter Camille Chameleon with a bunch of medicated heating pads (and an impressive amount of alliteration), but gets captured by a bunch of mind-controlled prison guards.

While Darkwing's busy fighting mostly small-time, one-off villains, Negaduck's trying to get Megavolt access to the power lines as part of his plan, but gets distracted by two kids. One is Mortimer, a cat who had a brief stint as a villain in a giant powered armor suit in the previous Darkwing Duck series, and claims he wants to learn to be bad. The other is Gosalyn, who is sneaking around, taking out any villains she can quietly. Not quietly enough to avoid being caught on camera, and Negaduck might miss his universe's version of his daughter, so why not take the one readily available?

I'm pretty sure Negaduck does end up successfully escaping by the end of this story, but we never see his larger plan, because the book got canceled at 8 issues.

{3rd longbox, 220th comic. Darkwing Duck (vol. 2) #2, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist), Andworld Design (lettering)}

What I Bought 3/15/2017

Four comics I wanted this week, and I've only managed to get one of them so far. On the upside, an issue of Darkwing Duck came out at some point recently, so I have that to add to the mix.

Ms. Marvel #16, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Takeshi Myazawa (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - And this is what happen when you use cheat codes so you can deflect annoying axes rather than dodge them like you're supposed to: The game gives the boss a tank to hunt you down with.

The virus, created by some imbecile game designer with delusions of grandeur (who will probably end up recruited by HYDRA Cap), wants Kamala to upload it into SHIELD's systems. Or it'll reveal her secret identity, and Zoe's crush on Nakia, which Kamala was blissfully unaware of. Kamala almost goes along with it, but ultimately refuses, warns Zoe, and calls Bruno for help. And she has a plan to win, which I assume will be exposing the virus to more positive influences so it's less of a dick.

It's a "set-up" issue, getting the pieces in place for the conclusion. It does bring the subplot about Zoe's crush on Nakia to a head, although we'll see what happens with it going forward. They're going to still be friends, but nothing romantic, that's fine, but I am curious if we'll see the awkwardness Kamala was so afraid of. Also if this is going to be the push for her to finally tell Nakia her secret identity, so it's on her terms. That feels like what this is building towards, though what's wrong with having a secret? Not everything has to be shared.

This issue did give Miyazawa a chance to draw expressions and postures he doesn't normally. Kamala's nervous, hair-grabbing stance as she frets about the awkwardness isn't something I've seen get used in the book. Or some of Zoe's more shocked and panicked reactions. Not responses characters have often in this book. Anger, yes, smiles, yes, sad, sure. But this kind of comically nervous or worried, not so much. But it was fun, nice to see.

Darkwing Duck #8, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Paul Little (colors), DC Hopkins (letters) - I'm not sure any of those are proper implements for dealing with vines.

The villain responsible for the zombie potatoes is the dean who drove Bushroot into becoming a plant/duck hybrid. He stole Bushroot's work, got some funding from various nefarious sources (including an old rival of Scrooge's), and found the secret to giant vegetables (that lack nutrition) by unearthing Bushroot's old vampire potato bride. Who is calling all the zombie spuds to her aid. Fortunately for our heroes, Gizmoduck shows up to help. I guess that's fortunate, depending on how you feel about him. It's ultimately Bushroot who defeats his would be potato bride.

The parts I was most interested in were all the future plots they set up. Quackerjack has something planned for the toy expo. Negaduck's got something planned for new resident of St. Canard prison, Splatter Phoenix. Steelbeak made off with the research on giant vegetables. Someone helped themselves to Quackwerks' Herobots. Morgana is still MIA. I don't know when Volume 2 will come out and possibly resolve any of those threads, though.

Darkwing admitting he's sustained a lot of cranial trauma as part of this job made me laugh, though. It was funny in context. Also, Gizmoduck using the power of shadow puppets to try and call Darkwing, and just winding up with determined haberdashers. But, Dean Tightbill as the villain is lacking. The idea of someone taking Bushroot's ideas and focusing solely on profit makes perfect sense, but it feels flat. Partly because he's obviously a patsy villain, being used by Steelbeak and others, and because so much of the story is still about Bushroot. Tightbill helped create Bushroot, taking a guy who wanted to make the world a better place for people, and making him love plants and hate people instead, but that doesn't necessarily make him an interesting character in of himself.

Also, Darkwing's distaste for and jealousy of Gizmoduck gets tiring, so I'm not particularly thrilled to see him. Which adds up to a two-part story that isn't the sum of its parts on the writing side. The art side of things is still solid. Silvani can sell the physical humor, and he can do the expression work to sell the dialogue jokes. The Quackerjack page is colored almost entirely in grey, except for the television screens. It gives a nice ominous feel considering the character in question is usually so brightly attired and gaudy. Creates that sense of him lurking, readying himself. And it's an odd contrast, wedged in between a page of a vampire potato using Darkwing to bludgeon Launchpad into the ground, and one of Gizmoduck fending off said vampire potato with buzzsaws. A different kinds of threat.

What I Bought 1/31/2017 - Part 2

It's not a new complaint, but I hate it when channels interrupt cool action scenes with commercial breaks. John Wick was on USA last week, and they went to commercial right in the middle of the cool night club shootout. Yeah, I have it on DVD, I can watch it whenever, but it's still nice when I come across something I like to watch on TV by good timing.

Darkwing Duck #7, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Andrew Dalhouse, Paul Little, and Matt Herms (colorists), Brandon DeStefano (letterer) - I don't know what's up with Darkwing or Gosalyn's eyes. Darkwing rarely does the "no pupil" look a lot of other masked adventures do, and Gosalyn looks like she's possessed by Duckthulu.

Zombie potatoes attack St. Canard on Halloween, leading to an extended series of Walking Dead, riffs, I think. I'm positive Herb Muddlefoot carving a bunch of the spuds up with a spatula wrapped in barbed wire while wearing a leather jacket was a reference to that Negan guy I see people talking about. Gosalyn wearing Darkwing's hat and having her hair over one eye makes her Carl, correct? Anyway, DW suspects Bushroot, who has escaped from prison, but was drawn here by the call of his one-time would-be vampire potato bride, Posey, who is being used in dastardly experiments by some character I can't place. Oh, and Gizmoduck's in town. Not looking forward to Darkwing getting snippy because he feels inferior to Gizmoduck.

Teaming the heroes up with Bushroot works better than I would have expected, since his reaction to all Darkwing's usual stuff is so different from Gosalyn or Launchpad's. And Bushroot's point that, 'You have a sidekick who's carrying around my disembodied head for. . .well I don't even know why. . . and you want to talk about normal?' cracked me up. On a different note, the scene where Gosalyn and Launchpad discuss how each of them thought they were going to be the one to take over as Darkwing some day was kind of cute.

Silvani really likes drawing Darkwing wielding two gas guns. It's been coming up a lot in this series so far, and I'm not sure why. I guess the response would be, why not, and I don't have a good answer. Also, I know black is supposed to be slimming, but somehow wearing that black jacket made Herb Muddlefoot's head shrink. It looks far too small for his admittedly large frame. But Gosalyn's Halloween costume is appropriately grotesque, so good work there. Silvani mostly works within a six-panel grid, but modifies as necessary. Mostly by going to a five panel setup, with one panel that covers a third of the page when he needs more room for impact. Either to give us a better look at something shocking, or to layout the setting of the next scene for us. On the opposite end, he opts for going to three panels across the page for a specific sequence. The Ratcatcher going amphibious. Gizmoduck taking care of a bunch of zombie spuds. Setting something up, basically.

Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat #14, by Kate Leth (writer), Brittney L. Williams (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Not a very good plan by Felicia, to control all these non-powered folks, and leave Patsy the Wolverine-trained vampire and the telekinetic.

Zoe tries to help Patsy and Ian get close to Felicia, who has swelled the ranks of her organization considerably by now. It doesn't seem to work, but it's really all a ruse to give Jubilee the chance to get the drop on Felicia. Which works for getting the magic claws away, but then Jubes loses her after Felicia headbutts her? Really, vampire strength and that works on you? But all the friends are saved, and Patsy has magic sneezes now.

The main current running through is Zoe possibly realizing how lousy she was to Ian, and that whatever fond memories she has of their relationship are not shared by him. Which is nice, and it was pleasant to see Ian stand up to her and lay it all out so she couldn't ignore it or bulldoze over what he was saying. The panel where we see Ian as he was, in a blank space with shadows stretching away in different directions was an effective attention-getter. Up to then, all these relatively sedate panels of two people in a living room, having an argument, and then here's a panel of someone feeling terribly lonely and divided.

I'm not sure if it was Williams or Rosenberg, but the art team seemed to be having some trouble with Felicia. Maybe it's just her costume. Drab grey is not really a visually arresting costume choice, and there were times it just didn't look great. But the art looked a little rushed in places. Not everywhere, but there were some places Williams was skimping on details, or shading. I did lie how tall she drew Felicia. Maybe it's just the perspective, where characters are being pushed down to loo up at her, but she seemed much bigger than the other women in the issue. Especially Jubilee. I had never pictured the Black Cat as being particularly tall (about the same as Spidey, and I think Peter is 5 foot 10 or 11), but then Jubilee is 5-5, something like that, so comparatively, Felicia would be big. And it lets her loom over people, which is a prerequisite if she's going to play a crime boss.

Overall, the weakest story so far for the book, but I'm hopeful things will pick up with Patsy's magical sniffles.

What I Bought 11/18/2016

My plan to pick up this week's books partially foundered on the rocks of not being able to find 3 out of 4 I was looking for. Minor consolation that I didn't even realize the latest Darkwing Duck was out, but I found a copy. That's two books.

Deadpool #22, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Matteo Lolli (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I know some people are a fan of Tradd Moore's work, but it's just a little off in ways that bother me. Like Deadpool's thighs are strangely proportioned compared to everything else.

I skipped the previous issue because it was another of those $10 ones, and most of that was "Deadpool doing Shakespeare", so I missed the first part of Wade vs. Madcap. Wade lost, and wakes up partway through his own autopsy. Makes his way back to his HQ, finds he's got bills to pay, goes and robs a racetrack while wearing a Spider-Man costume. But things are looking up, Ellie manages to invite him to dinner. Then things look down, because it turns out Madcap is using Wade as a carrier for some hemorrhagic disease and Wade's just infected his daughter and Preston's family.

So Wade got booted off the Avengers, but the "unity squad" is sticking together to stop the Red Skull? So just Wade, or Johnny and Rogue and the rest got the boot? And on whose authority? Hydra Steve Rogers? I hate that's a thing. Can not wait for it to be erased, along with a lot of things in the current Marvel Universe.

Lolli's artwork is solid, if not spectacular. I can't decide if I wish he had gone a little more gruesome with the autopsy scene. It feels like that should be horrifying, waking up to people dissecting you, but then again, for Wade it's probably not that unusual. Still, I feel like it would have provided a better contrast to his blase response if things were a little more visceral. On the positive side, I got to see Deadpool (dressed as Spidey in a suit with the tag still on it) smack a horse with a sack full of money. That was funny. Not quite "Punisher punches a polar bear," but not bad.

Darkwing Duck #6, Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Paul Little (colorists), Greyson Orlando (digital art on page 14), DC Hopkins (letterer) - I think it's because they did a black and white variant, but there's a white outline around Drake and Gosalyn, which makes them seem like they aren't part of the whole mess. Or like a sticker book. "What is Drake trying to keep from corrupting his daughter? A bazaar? The awful work conditions in Santa's workshop?"

The crew attend a comic-convention, in a bizarre universe where people revere comic creators as gods and they correspondingly make tons o' cash. Drake is horrified by all the people dressed as villains, and almost grateful when one of the artists (which I assume is Silvani in duck form) does a sketch with ink that turns out to be the angry artist, Splatter Phoenix. Which leads to Darkwing chasing her through a series of different comic books, giving Silvani a chance to draw in other styles (as well as scenes parodying various stuff). The fact that several of them last for one panel kind of mutes it, makes it feel like they did it out of some sense of obligation. "Better do a Batman v. Superman gag, I guess." I'd have preferred more of Silvani doing a sort of Frank Miller than the sort of Rob Liefeld.

That part was OK, you've undoubtedly seen other comics doing that same bit, so not much new there.  But the recurring gag about Darkwing being angry Launchpad cosplayed as Gizmoduck (and his distaste for Gizmoduck in general) worked for me, and forcing Darkwing to pair up with Honker (because Goslayn and Launchpad are busy trying to win the costume contest) was a nice change of pace. Honker is around a lot, but he's usually interacting with Gosalyn, who gets Darkwing to pay attention to whatever he's trying to say. And Darkwing is used to having a kid tagging along he has to hold back from getting involved, not one who can barely keep up and is trying to stay out of the fray.

All that said, the scene where we get to see who Gosalyn dressed up as was sweet. Sparrow and Silvani seem to be really emphasizing how important Gosalyn and Darkwing are to each other, as people who don't seem to have any family other than what they've cobbled together. Which makes me suspect there's something bad waiting for Gosalyn in the near future. And it's not a possible grounding for hiding one of Bushroot's plant raptors.

Some issues of Darkwing Duck are stronger than others, but every issue has at least a few genuinely funny or touching bits, and I appreciate they're mixing in some done-in-one issues with the larger arcs.

All that said,

What I Bought 10/12/2016 - Part 3

I kind of hate holidays which dominate all the channels that show movies. Halloween and Christmas are the two biggest offenders. Judging by some of the tumblr sites I see this may qualify as heresy, but I don't want to see nothing but scary movies all October.

Ms. Marvel #11, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa (artists), Ian Herring (colorist), Joe Caramanga (letterer) - So we've progressed from defacing posters to smashing, um, emblems. Durn disrespectful teen heroes.

So Hijinx makes a fake threat to blow up a salvage yard to draw out Becky, who Kamala fights until Danvers shows up. At which point Kamala tries to make her case for predictive justice being stupid bullshit, except a) she mentions Rhodey, and b) she invites Tony Stark. Because when you're trying to have a reasonable conversation, bringing condescending cocky asshole Tony Stark along is a perfect idea. So everyone goes away angry, but Bruno is awake, so surely there will be good news. No, Bruno is thoroughly pissed and planning to go to Wakanda, which is where the only engineering college left open to him is. So everything is awful.

Not that I'm sorry to see Becky in jail, but I question arresting her for impersonating an officer. She was part of an officially sanctioned team, and Danvers had no problem with her imprisoning people up until the moment after she fired her, sorry court-martialed her. Which seems like it should be under an entirely different jurisdiction from the police.

Danvers is mad at Kamala, Bruno is mad at her. I can't wait to see who reads her the riot act next, he said sarcastically. I feel I should have more to say, and once we see the remainder of the fallout I will hopefully have some sort of reaction, but I can't avoid feeling tired of this tie-in. Because Civil War II is stupid as hell. Wasn't rooting for a big event to come along and trash all the things I liked about this book. I do enjoy the Canadian ninjas, and their attack method of throwing random crap at people. No wonder the Maple Leafs can't win a Stanley Cup. Something I didn't notice until now: When Kamala rushes to the hospital at the end of the issue, she's wearing one rubber boot, and one red sneaker. I feel I should make some joke about that one Tom Hanks movie, but I don't know the movie well enough. Something something, Jim Belushi going crazy over vanishing corpses.

Darkwing Duck #5, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Paul Little (colorist), DC Hopkins (letterer) - I'm not going to question the cat holding an anvil on the basis of physical strength, but I do question it's ability to grip without thumbs.

Out of the case files, Darkwing tries to track down a missing cat from an experiment, the theft of which may be connected to many other mysterious thefts. As it turns out, the experiment made the cat, Fluffy, super-smart, and it's co-opted dozens of other cats into an army of thieves for it. Which Darkwing defeats by virtue of a passing street sweeper. Fluffy is the Hannibal Lecter-like criminal that was able to escape the prison with Mortimer's help in the first story arc, and the two are currently building themselves some sort of suit.

Reading this, I kept having a feeling of deja vu. Especially when Darkwing's attempt to disguise himself as a street vendor ended with some bulldog knocking his block off while calling him a, 'vicious and contemptible beast.' And again when he bursts into a hotel room to apprehend what he thinks are the foes behind the thefts, and finds a bunch of his arch-enemies all chipped in on pay-per-view for a beauty pageant. And then in the backmatter, it was explained this story originally appeared in the second issue of Disney Adventures magazine (though not presented as a flashback) in 1992. A magazine I happened to have (I think I got Disney Adventures for at least three or four years).

Can't quite tell if I feel ripped off or not. Isn't like the story was etched firmly into my memory prior to this. And Silvani had some fun with it, judging by the ridiculous face he gave Launchpad while he whispers, 'so cuuuute'. Or the glower DW gives him when he thinks Launchpad is messing with him. And there were a couple of gags in there that, if they weren't new, I'd completely forgotten, so that's a plus.

What I Bought 8/28/2016 - Part 2

Not a fan of Comic Book Resources' recent redesign of their website. I was only interested in the Comics Should Be Good blog, and it went poof! I'm not even sure what's the effective way to find anything there now.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #11, by Ryan North (writer), Jacob Chabot (guest artist), Erica Henderson (drew one panel), Rico Renzi (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - No Squirrel Girl, don't venture onto the Internet, it's a horrible place!

Squirrel Girl is attacked in her dreams by Nightmare, who keeps throwing versions of super-villains at her, which Doreen keeps defeating with computer science knowledge. She's helped by the fact she has no idea who Count Nefaria is, and therefore doesn't have any idea that his powers don't involve counting. I mean, he tries to pass himself off as some landed aristocrat, right? He probably didn't even get schooled in mathematics, just horse-riding and beating peasants.

That's pretty much it. The computer science stuff is largely lost on me, but that's OK. Kraven's one-panel appearance in Doreen's entirely reasonable approach to taking finals in a class she hasn't attended was good for a chuckle. Chabot's a good choice for a guest artist. His art definitely falls in that range I'm very fond of. Clean, expressive, a bit exaggerated but not overly so. Conveys all the important information even in the small panels, and includes some nice additional touches. Example: As Doreen works out how to escape the "finals she didn't study for" problem with Tippy, Chabot keeps Dream-Nancy visible in the panels, looking on somewhat flummoxed by Doreen's attitude. She doesn't really need to be there, but she had been previously established there and it's nice as a reminder the nightmares aren't going to fade away simply because Doreen knows that's what they are. She still has to deal with getting out of this final, and she still has to deal with Nightmare wearing the Venom symbiote.

Also, Doreen rocking the Dr. Strange fingers as she commands the squirrels to defeat Nightmare was a good visual.

Darkwing Duck #4, by Aaron Sparrow (writer), James Silvani (writer/artist), Andrew Dalhouse (colors), D.C. Hopkins (letters) - I originally figured the villian was Lilliput, the short guy Gosalyn defeated in one page in issue 2, because he wears a hat with the dangly things on it, but no.

In fact, the villain is a tiny, super-powerful bug calling itself Gnatmare, who repeatedly thrashes Darkwing until he borrows Megavolt from prison to make a giant bug zapper. In plot terms, it's very much how I remember someone describing (probably Scipio at the Absorbascon) Silver Age comics. First meeting between hero and villain, villain wins handily. Second meeting, hero does better, but still fails to catch bad guy. Third meeting, hero is prepared for villain, wins the day. Darkwing doesn't really get any closer to catching Gnatmare the second time than he did the first, but its otherwise accurate. Which is fine, as an occasional thing. It seems clear Sparrow and Silvani have longer term plots in mind (the weird ink the Phantom Blot was using in the Brill/Silvani volume comes back into play at the end of the issue), but a one-shot a nice change of pace.

I think my favorite page is the one of Darkwing, in his civilian identity trying to find Gosalyn and blowing off the Muddlefoots' offer to watch the "Pelican's Island" series finale. I don't know who does the dialogue, since Sparrow and Silvani are sharing writing credits, but the 'Er, you know, I would, Herb, but wouldn't you know it. . . That's on the night that I don't want to.' cracks me up. I think how Silvani draws Drake in the scene helps, where Drake is already trying to get the hell out of there, but still has a relatively friendly look on his face. That plus his look of complete disgust once he's got his back to them in the next panel, combined with the muttered, 'I hate the Muddlefoots.' Probably a nostalgia aspect to that, since he said it all the time on the cartoon, but it works.

Silvani doesn't do a lot with page layouts, which is something that was true in the previous volume, but he's still pretty good at telling the story and conveying emotion. He's good at knowing when to go really cartoony with their expressions or the figurework, and when to reign it in and keep things relatively realistic. In one panel, Gnatmare hits DW in the stomach hard enough to basically fold him over, and also the force makes his limbs appear longer, like he's stretching. It works because it's only used sparsely, when appropriate. That's an obvious thing, but it seems like an important one.

What I Bought 8/6/16 - Part 2

One of these books actually showed up yesterday, but whatever. There will be no crossovers in today's books, hooray!

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #10, by Ryan North (writer), Erica Henderson (penciler), Tom Fowler (inker), Rico Renzi (color artist), Kyle Starks (flashback artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Still makes me kind of sad fedoras now signify douchebags. At least they're always wearing narrow-brimmed fedoras, I liked the wider brimmed ones, like Indiana Jones' hat (although the fact it was Indy's hat was the driving factor in that).

People have opinions, mostly that Squirrel Girl should just go on a date with this guy she is not interested in at all. Because people are awful. At least she has Nancy on her side, which is good, because Doreen can't get near the Mole Man's hideout to talk things out because of all the media, so Nancy goes instead. Which doesn't actually work any better, and he tries to abduct her, so now is the time for punching. In the process of that, we learn the three-headed subterranean creature that's been near Mole Man is practically every panel loves him, and so Doreen throws the fight so Tricephalous and Moley can be together. Although he only seemed to grow interested in her because she won, so what happens the next time the FF - er, the All-New, All-Different Avengers show up and she loses the fight? Does he lose interest? I sure hope not.

I am entirely on board with 'Get fancy and watch Nancy' as a new phrase. I'm also OK with the joke at the bottom of the page about Nancy maybe learning necromancy, since it's about the only other word that rhymes. Could Nancy perhaps use forbidden computer science language to reanimate old, obsolete equipment, and use it against Doreen's foes?

Nice touch, in the silent panel of Mole Man looking at the "defeated" squirrel Girl, that Doreen's eyes are still open. She's not really beat, after all, just playing, and waiting to see if it works or not. As to that panel of Mole Man and Tricephalous swapping spit, I don't need to see that or think of it ever again.

Darkwing Duck #3, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani (storytellers), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist), D.C. Hopkins (letterer) - That confirms pretty closely to how I imagine rope-climbing in gym class.

Launchpad's failing completely to break into the prison, so DW and Gosalyn are on their own. They're captured eventually, but Negaduck offers Gosalyn a chance to become his protege, which she flatly refuses. She she gets hoisted up in front of the enormous railgun Negaduck is going to use to bust out of the prison. Fortunately, whatever the young cat Mortimer's designs of being a villain, he wasn't willing to see our heroes get killed, and helped them escape, and thwart Negaduck's plan. Or maybe not, since Negaduck is distinctly unconcerned about being imprisoned. Although given the blithering idiocy of the warden, that's understandable.

I was going to say things fell apart rather quickly for the villains, but given that there's clearly more going on that'll play out down the line, it doesn't bother me as much. The story handwaves, or I guess delays, explaining how Negaduck was able to return from being split into a bunch of microscopic particles in the previous volume. I'm guessing they'll address it eventually, and I wonder if the answer will play into his long-term plan, and whether his offer to make Gosalyn his heir is related somehow. I hope Sparrow and Silvani aren't going to overuse Derp Derfson, idiot TV reporter. Impressed as I am with his ability to mangle Launchpad's name in increasingly ludicrous ways, he could get old in a hurry. I did laugh when Darkwing made a final request to Suff-rage for her to give him the sword, and it almost worked. It's a classic, stupid gag, but it still works.

Silvani's art is still excellent. He draws a very good Negaduck, which maybe isn't a surprise since he's mostly a color-swapped Darkwing, plus pointy teeth. But the sort of constant, seething anger he gives him is well done. Even when he's not actively raging about something. He's still usually gritting his teeth, snarling, just generally looking foul, and yes, the pun is intended. I debated it, and left it in there. The panel of him in shadow, eyes red, while he contemplates unleashing all the villains at once, that was pretty good. It was such a different way of presenting him compared to the rest of the time, it made his menace seem like something very different from standard super-villainy. Which plays back into the question of how he came back, and what his long game is.

The book is nothing revolutionary, but it's an enjoyable superhero comic with a fair amount of humor. I'm fine with that.

What I Bought 6/21/2016 - Part 3

Long day on Monday, thus no post then. But here's a post now!

Darkwing Duck #1 and 2, by Aaron Sparrow (writer), James Silvani (writer/artist), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist), Deron Bennett and D.C. Hopkins (letterers) - Poor Launchpad, he got left off the first issue cover.

The way I understand it, this is picking up somewhere after the end of the second story arc of the Ian Brill/James Silvani volume BOOM! published 6 years ago. But it's ignoring the last arc, where the book crossed over with their Ducktales comic, for reasons I'm unclear on (I'm guessing some powers that be didn't like how that story went, but I don't know).

St. Canard is celebrating opening a new supermax prison for all their super-villains, the Mayor brings a bunch of schoolkids to the celebration, because he's an idiot. Darkwing crashes the party because he's incensed he wasn't invited, which works exactly as Negaduck planned, as he gets the prison to go into lockdown, trapping everyone inside as he releases the prisoners from their cells. Issue 2 is Darkwing trying to recapture the villains while they all try to kill him, as Negaduck watches. There's a few other possible subplots, including Mortimer, a classmate of Gosalyn's who was briefly a super-villain in the earlier volume, enlisting the help of a Hannibal Lecter-themed cat villain, but it's unclear if they're going to end up helping or harming. Probably one, then the other.

There are some decent one-liners, and the dialogue feels about right. Silvani was always good at the action sequences, but I think he's more willing to loosen up his style some. Really embrace the cartoon aspect of the series he's working with. I might be wrong, it's been a few years since I reread the earlier volume. Either way, he's still doing a good job with expressions and body language. There's something a little different about the colors, but I'm not quite sure what it is. The art has this slightly, greyed out looked to it, like things aren't quite as bright as they ought to be. I think the inking's different, a softer line being used, but again, not sure about that (or whether that would have anything to do with this). It's not awful by any stretch, it just feels more subdued. Maybe it's something about the printing process.

I'm not sure about starting the book by having Darkwing fight his entire rouge's gallery right off the bat (that always seems like it makes a hero's enemies look kind of incompetent), but that misgiving and whatever it is about the shading that's throwing me, I'm enjoying the book.