Sunday Splash Page #381

"King of Space," in New Avengers (vol. 4) #3, by Al Ewing (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (artist), Dono Sanchez-Almara (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

New Avengers. At times, there's been precious little "new" about the books that carry that title. Ewing's version, starting post-Hickman's Secret Wars, at least had a different concept. Sunspot, through some mechanism I don't know, came into possession of at least part of AIM, which he turned into a radical science international peacekeeping force. Complete with its own island, pocket dimensions to house secondary bases, giant robots, and sleeper agents within SHIELD.

The team is a hodgepodge. Besides Sunspot and the 2 Young Avengers up there, you've got Squirrel Girl, the Power Man Fred van Lente created in the 2000s, a White Tiger, Clint Barton Hawkeye (although this is the era where Marvel was trying really hard via caption boxes to convince us Kate Bishop was cooler than Clint Barton), Songbird and a couple of other characters I think were new, including the daughter of Dr. Yinsen (the guy who saved Stark's life in that cave), herself a genius scientist.

Though the Master (the Reed Richards of the Ultimate Universe, now crazy and evil and somehow spread across the new multiverse) is the overarching bad guy, the team spends as much time dealing with attacks by SHIELD. Once, because Rick Jones exposed one of Maria Hill's stupid plans and Sunspot gave him asylum, and after that, because they acted on U.S. soil, and that was apparently something Sunspot promised not to do.

The book manages 5 different pencilers in 18 issues. Gerardo Sandoval draws the first arc, involving Hulking learning he's some pre-destined child meant to unite the Kree and Skrulls. Sandoval's stuff is sharp and angular as always, but the heavy blacks he favors work well once Wiccan starts showing outward signs of being possessed.

Marcus To draws the 3 issues tying in to Avengers: Standoff  (the story where it turns out Maria Hill was sending super-villains to some fake community and messing with their heads so they thought they were just regular people), except this books' issue involve a patriotic kaiju and Songbird turning on Hawkeye when he tries to defend Rick Jones from SHIELD agents. To's work is solid superhero stuff. He draws a decent giant robot/giant lizard fight.

Paco Medina handles the final arc, when the Master unleashes his group of weirdos (set up as sort of a twisted reflection of Sunspot's bunch) at the same time SHIELD attacks again. Medina's art is, also, pretty standard superhero-style art. Faces are rounded and softer than in To's work, physiques a bit more exaggerated. But, in general, all the artists do a solid job conveying emotion and action as needed.

Ewing comes up with a lot of neat ideas - threats from an earlier cosmos, a U.S. project to turn a hyper-patriotic soldier into a Godzilla - but I stumble at his portrayal of Sunspot as this brilliant mastermind, always 10 steps ahead of everybody. SHIELD asks Sunspot to let Hawkeye be on the team, acknowledging he's there to leak info to SHIELD. Hawkeye sells it by introducing himself as being there to spy on them.

In reality, Songbird's the real double-agent, except Da Costa anticipated that, so she's actually working for him by pretending to work for SHIELD. He fakes his death to draw out the heads of rival AIM factions, who he's certain will use a device to freeze time during his funeral to confirm his death, and lining the coffin with secondary adamantium will block the device they'll definitely use, so he's totally prepared.

Now, this is mostly an issue with me. I don't buy "I perfectly anticipated your every move," in stories. Not in movies where regular human serial killers stalk other regular people, and certainly not in a world with as much weird shit as the Marvel Universe. Not when Tony Stark says he's a futurist and so the heroes need to embrace fascism, with him as Chief Muck-a-Muck. Not when Reed Richards says he made psychohistory a reality, and MATH told him Negative Zone prisons were the best way to go. Hell, the Mad Thinker's whole shtick was thinking he'd perfectly mapped out all the variables, then getting tripped up by something he couldn't measure or account for.

If I can't buy it with them, I certainly can't buy it with Sunspot. Might as well tell me Speedball or Molly Hayes are masters of intrigue and counter-espionage. Especially when Ewing keeps going to the well of "things look bad, but actually is going perfectly according to Sunspot's plan." The first arc is probably the best precisely because Ewing doesn't try that. The team thinks they've dealt with the problem of a powerful sorcerer from a previous iteration of the multiverse, but he's actually hidden away inside Wiccan, who has to pull out victory at the last second on his own.

Sunday Splash Page #223

 

"Variation on a Theme," in Guardians 3000 #2, by Dan Abnett (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (artist), Edgar Delgado (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

In 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy was the surprise smash box office hit, as it turned out people like cheesy music, gun-toting raccoons and idiot man-child protagonists. Marvel did what they always do when something is unexpectedly popular: They flooded the stands with books that could be tied to the hot thing of the moment. In addition to Guardians of the Galaxy (still being written by Bendis), there was a Guardians of Knowhere mini-series, Asgardians of the Galaxy (groan), and Skottie Young's Rocket Raccoon book, there was this.

Dan Abnett sets the book in 3014, with the Guardians - Vance, Charlie, Yondu, Martinex and Starhawk - fighting the Badoon. Except these Badoon are enough of a threat to be on the verge of conquering the entire universe. And the Guardians have a new teammate, an Earthling named Geena Drake, who is the only one able to notice that the timeline keeps slipping and things keep changing.

Abnett has some fun mixing and matching concepts. Gladiator of the Sh'iar is somehow still alive. A Star-Lord, complete with Ship, is around, along with the last Nova. Abnett repurposes the Stark, and Gerardo Sandoval gives them all a giant eyeball look that reminds me of a creature from Doom. Galactus is still kicking, naturally, although now he's "The Old Hunger". Shades of that Walt Simonson FF story where Galactus keeps growing until he's like a black hole devouring the entire universe.

The story shifts to the 21st Century, so that this crew of Guardians can meet that version (which includes Venom at this point in time), and confront the threat the Guardians of the Galaxy usually face when they come back in time. I'll give you a hint: sometimes he's half machine, the other times he's a glowy pink guy with incredible power. Nico Leon draws those last three issues. I think he's better suited for the banter and confusion the two teams face when they run into each other. He has a knack for the kind of expressive art you need to carry that kind of thing, so it isn't just talking heads. 

Gerardo Sandoval drew the first five issues. His work has bit of Joe Mad-inspired look to it, especially in the musculature and whatnot. The amount of teeth and the jaws that seem able to unhinge at will. The 31st Century must have very advanced orthodontics. Those issues are spent with the team on the run and badly confused while they try to figure out what Deena is talking about, or why some of them don't remember being teammates. Everyone is tired and on edge, and Sandoval's art makes them all look kinda nuts, so it works.

The book got canceled at eight issues because of Hickman's Secret Wars, but Abnett managed to work that into the conclusion, so it could have been worse.

What I Bought 1/30/2021 - Part 1

January is over, but there's still comics from January to discuss, so let's do that. Today we've got the last issue of one book, and a first issue that's really more of a teaser for a collection to be released later.

Deadpool #10, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler/inker), Victor Nava (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I assume it's a coincidence that Deadpool does a cover of Wade sitting on a throne all casual, while Excalibur came out the same week with Betsy sitting on the throne, the very picture of regal dignity.

OK, series finale and King in Black tie-in. Even gave Thompson and Sandoval an extra 10 pages to work with. Which I'm not sure they needed, since they did two pages for a "getting the team together" gag, then did two separate full-page splashes for the team doing slow badass walks that were interrupted by late arrivals.

Wade's plan to stab and shoot symbiote dragons blows, and gets Jeffrey the Land Shark infected. Wade also gets infected, but just cuts his arm off. Then Jelby, the big purple mutant gummi person shows up and makes himself really big so Wade and the others can kind of pilot him like a mech in battle against the symbiote dragon, who Jelby eventually contains within himself. Wade frees Jeff through the power of Wu-Tang (Staten island residents!) and that's pretty much it. Until the next Deadpool ongoing, I guess.

What to say now that it's over? I'd actually like the "king of Monster Island" status quo to stick. That was by far the best part of this book, with the most potential. For all that he is seemingly entirely unsuited to any kind of responsibility, Deadpool can be surprisingly considerate and responsible sometimes. And he's been the one kicked around and used enough to not necessarily default to treating his subjects like garbage. It's just a matter of his having terrible judgment.

 

But other than that, which really didn't get enough play, things felt rushed even before this. The romantic subplot with Elsa Bloodstone, wasting four issues on the idea Deadpool has anything to fear from Kraven the Hunter. Give me a fucking break. Bachalo's curious choices with regards to page layouts and how to frame things within panels making the book hard to decipher, and Sandoval's art just being kind of too much in some ways. It doesn't really work for the moments that need to be quieter or more subtle, rare though they are. And whoever is calling for all these splash pages, whether it's Thompson or Sandoval, needed to ease the hell off. This is not some Geoff Johns Lantern War book.

Maybe it's every other Deadpool series I buy that ends up being a disappointment, instead of just every other Deadpool series?

Sweet Downfall #1, by Stefano Cardoselli (writer/artist), Panta Rea (colorist), Bram Meehan (letterer) - He got his heart in 1971? Is it Richard Nixon's? That's a joke, everyone knows Nixon had no heart to begin with. Or was that no soul?

Scout Comics is going to release the entirety of this comic as a GN soon, and this is to try and whet your appetite enough to want to buy it. Jonny there on the cover is an old crash test dummy that's become a hitman. He kills a couple of guys who stole from a mob boss with an unfortunate skin condition, but didn't return the money. Instead heading to the half-sunken ship he calls home off the coast of Santa Clara, to ponder the mysteries of humanity and whale watch. The mob boss sends a couple guys out there, Jonny immediately kills one, and we're left wondering if he'll kill the other.

So, is my appetite whetted? Eh, maybe? I'm curious to be sure, but I also remember feeling pretty let down by Cardoselli's Live Die Reload. Not sure I'd want to splurge on the entire story. On the other hand, the more science fiction setting of this story might make it work a little better for me than that did (LDR was more of a noir crossed with a revenge tale). 

I think having color helps, too, where Cardoselli can show off some more detailed work a little easier, instead of it all being lost in high contrast black-and-white art that drowns in heavy inks. His Santa Clara is this strange mixture of Blade Runner/Fifth Element style hi-rise buildings and narrow alleys, and this crumbling, patchwork infrastructure holding it all up that looks more suited to something post-apocalyptic like Road Warrior or Waterworld. 

 

And there are these little purple fish with big eyes and a lower jaw full of sharp teeth that show up everywhere. The Don has some in a fish tank, they hang out in the sea near Jonny's home. They're even painted as a logo on the side of his ship. I feel like they're supposed to be like piranhas, and they're going to be significant somehow, but maybe it's just a background detail.

What I Bought 12/18/2020 - Part 2

I will never understand sports fans bemoaning their team winning because it hurts their draft position. In this case, Jets' fans being angry they actually won a game. If your team is so incompetent they can't win a single game, why would you have any hope a high draft pick is going to improve anything? The idiots that built the shitty team are still there, so either they'll pick the wrong player, or coach, or fail to put good players around him. I never root for my team to lose. Take any win you can get.

Deadpool #9, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler), Victor Nava (inker), Chris Sotomayor (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Well, it's not Wade's first relationship with someone who sucks the life out of him.

Wade's fighting the Bone creatures with the added power of the Bloodstone. But the infection in it is killing him, and it lets the Queen read his mind. You'd think that would be enough to incapacitate her right there, but no. Elsa's getting the kids and Jeff (who loves getting to carry a knife in his mouth and stab things, apparently) to safety, but can't quite bring herself to abandon Wade, who has let the Queen eat him. Then he blows himself up from the inside. And because he's dead, the Queen's infection is somehow burned out of the Bloodstone? So Elsa can put it back in her hand and fry the Queen. 

Despite being just a head, Wade is not dead, and says he still wants an apology from her. When Elsa points out her forgave her already, Wade counters she was dying at that time, of course he said that. Now that she's not, and he blew himself up to save her, he wants another apology. Instead, Elsa threatens to leave him there, but ultimately carries him in a baby bjorn. Which means he gets to rest next to her chest. I'd say getting to second base is as good an apology as he's likely to get.

And unfortunately, we don't get to see monster softball next issue because they have to do King in Black tie-ins. Or as the preview of next issue's cover describes it, 'Venom Nonsense.' Boo, boooooooooo.

 

So, that happened. It was OK. It makes me wonder if Elsa couldn't simply have pried the Bloodstone out of her hand and let it sit for a while to get rid of the infection. If the infection was in the stone, and using it infects the person, but taking it away removes the infection, like it did with Elsa, then that would seem like the obvious answer. I guess you could argue Elsa is too attached to it to surrender it willingly, since it's part of her legacy, and I'm not sure what Elsa's got in her life if she isn't killing monsters with the power of an ancient rock.

I'm really more interested by Deadpool trying to run a nation. Hard to see when we're going to get much of that, unless we see him rallying his people to fight symbiotes. Not that I want a lot of minutiae on bureaucracy, but just watching him try to be a leader. He's probably bad at it, but he can care deeply about people, and he'll go to the wall for them, which aren't the worst qualities to have. Certainly better than most of the elected officials here in the United States. 

(Really, could Deadpool be any worse at diplomacy than Trump? I guess if you consider killing foreign dictators bad, then yes, possibly.)

Taskmaster #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Vitti (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - It's fine, I'm sure Taskmaster has copied how to do the superhero landing if Hyperion lets go.

Taskmaster goes to Coulson's favorite comic shop to copy his kinesics, but is uncovered by his love for Alpha Flight. He tries to bail, but Hyperion shows up, and Taskmaster trying to fight him goes about as well as you'd expect. Fortunately, Fury had himself some Krypto- sorry, Argonite, and Tasky attached it to a Boomerang arrow for the win. Kind of disappointed he didn't go ahead and slit Hyperion's throat. There's like 47 of them running around. Instead of the Captain Britain Corps, the Hyperion Corps. Anyway, that's one of the three down, but Black Widow found Fury's hidey-hole, so she knows who they're after. Oh no, that'd be really concerning if I wasn't still convinced this was all a trick to get Taskmaster to do their dirty work.

Fury and Taskmaster keep calling Coulson "Cheese". Like "Phil"ly Cheese slices? I don't know. Nobody explains it, and honestly, it doesn't matter, it was just weird. I was just grateful Taskmaster is apparently the one person who doesn't like Phil Coulson, and was happy to punch him in the face a couple of times. I knew there had to be someone. (Yeah, Deadpool killed Coulson, but that wasn't personal, he just figured Captain America had good reasons.)

 

I still think Vitti's artwork is a little too busy, too overdone. Too many little lines, everybody's way too muscular. Like, even Coulson looks kind of jacked, and Taskmaster's practically got Thor arms, which is a little much. I guess since this is supposed to be a sneaky spy thing, so people need to look squinty and weathered, but I feel like maybe don't apply that to Hyperion, who is probably supposed to act like your stereotypical superhero. If he wasn't, he'd had just punched Tasky's head off with the first swing, instead of holding back enough he still hadn't knocked him out after multiple punches. So let him look different.

So, did I like this enough to get issue 3? I don't know. I'm kind of debating skipping Deadpool's King in Black tie-ins at the moment, let alone whether I care enough to watch Taskmaster fight the White Fox. If either book had an artist I liked better, it would be an easier decision, but they don't.

What I Bought 11/6/2020 - Part 1

Between last week's books and one leftover book from October, I had four books to look for last weekend. Found three of them. Spy Island is still apparently very popular in central Missouri. Weird how that works sometimes.

Deadpool #8, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler/inker), Victor Nava (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - And they say on that random November Wednesday, Deadpool's heart shrank three sizes. And collapsed into a neutron star, killing hundreds.

Wade, Elsa, and Jeff were captured. Great rescue attempt. 0 out of 10. Would not hire them to rescue me from monsters in another dimension. Elsa admits she was allowed to escape last time to return with another host for the Bone Beast Queen. The Bone Beasts underestimated how many weapons Wade carries, so he gets them loose, arms the children, and they try to escape. But Elsa's infection catches up with her, so Wade turns back and in an attempt to halt the infection, pulls out her Bloodstone and puts it in himself. Well, I guess his healing factor will compensate. it better, because now that she hasn't got the Bloodstone, Elsa is just food to the Queen. So Wade's got to hold the line.

I'm not really excited about the Bloodstone having an infection with it. I know this is the Marvel Universe, and everything is always shit, but wasn't being drawn into an endless war against the monsters curse enough? 

The pacing on this is. . . not great. There are two double-page splashes, one for Wade freeing everyone, and another for him trying to defend Elsa. But Sandoval doesn't really do anything with the pages that requires them to be double-page splashes. Could have done either one in a single page or less, and had more, you know, actual story progression.

I am curious to learn more about this Deo Monstri Cult that is possibly roaming the woods of Staten Island. So the sooner we can wrap this story up, the better. At this point, it's a book where I think Thompson nails the small character bits and some of the humor, and I like the "Monster King" as a starting point, but the larger plots aren't working. Not really loving Sandoval as an artist, either.

Runaways #32, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Natacha Bustos (artist), Dee Cunniffe (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Except for the freezing cold and the lack of oxygen, that would be a pretty awesome view.

So the group's latest attempt in trusting adults went horribly. I've only bought the first trade, so I'm about 20 issues away from fully grasping that. You know, the book says they should know to never trust adults in spandex, but Spider-Man did right by them. He bought Chase and Gert dinner, and then Nico just attacked him. And it wasn't Cloak and Dagger's fault they got mind-wiped by the Pride.

Anyway, they're feeling a bit adrift. No one is talking. A fantastically dressed Doombot is moving in because of their poor judgment. Gert wants to go to actual high school. Vic wants to go with her, and so does Gib, who can make himself into an extremely large, generally Caucasian-looking dude. So he's immediately popular with the football coach. Molly is looking at websites for Krakoa on her phone. Don't do it, Molly! You're too young for creepy sex cults, and even with two dead former team members, your survival rate is still a lot higher than the X-Men!

That's pretty much the issue. An issue for the characters to deal with the immediate fallout and set the next direction of the book. Whatever that's going to be. I like Bustos' art. It's expressive without being too exaggerated. I don't necessarily mind exaggerated, but it doesn't seem like it would fit in an issue that's got such a subdued tone. The body language is excellent, Gert's nervous, hunched over look in school, Gib's constantly straight-backed stance. He's just at ease, no reason to be defensive or aggressive.

I don't know if this is necessarily a great issue to jump on with, but it isn't a terrible issue, and I want to see where it goes.

What I Bought 10/7/2020 - Part 1

The only good thing Columbus ever did was trick people into giving me a paid holiday in his name. It's really helped this go-around. Having an extra day meant I felt nice and relaxed yesterday afternoon, instead of being frustrated about all the things I hadn't gotten done yet.

And one of those things was this post, which I did eventually get written.

Deadpool #7, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler/inker), Victor Nava (inker), Chris Sotomayor (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Kind of a weird (and late) Valentine's Day gift, but I think Wade would appreciate it.

Deadpool accompanies Elsa to Greenland to find a way into the realm of the Bone Beasts which have infected her. Their realm is also the weird place Elsa's magic bullet teleported Wade briefly back when Kraven was trying to kill him. Elsa says all they gotta do is kill the Queen and the other creatures (which look like inky voids with multiple jaws) die. Except, oops, she actually made a deal with the Queen to offer up Deadpool as a host body in exchange for being cured of the infection.

Hmm, for some reason, I thought the idea was Deadpool was going to be an endless food supply, since he can just regenerate whatever bones they eat, but no. That would have at least made a certain amount of sense. Gross and extremely shitty, backstabbing behavior, but logical. Elsa's in the lead for Deadpool's worst love interest ever, and considering Shiklah declared war on the surface world, and Cable is Cyclops' kid, that's saying something.

That's pretty much the issue. Elsa gets two pages to explain how she got to this point, before Wade interrupts her because this is his book. Sotomayor goes for a more simplified, bright color scheme on the flashback than in the rest of the book, and I think Sandoval inks himself less heavily than he does most of the time. Unless those are the pages Nava is inking. Overall, it looks like someone doing a kind of half-assed attempt at looking more like a '60s book. Like if someone in a '90s comic tried to do a flashback to the '60s and ape the coloring style and whatnot. 

Honestly, when I think of an art style for Elsa Bloodstone, I think of Immonen doing the Mignola impression for that alternate reality of hers in NextWave. Might be out of Sandoval's wheelhouse, though.

Locke and Key: In Pale Battalions Go #2, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (storytellers), Jay Fotos (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer) - That one German looks really excited about attacking a lady and her daughter. Best not to consider the implications of that!

So Jack Locke's been using the keys and other assorted tools to wreak havoc on the Germans. A pair of brothers have been investigating his attacks, and concluded the soldiers are hallucinating from drinking cheap hooch. Until they get caught in an attack. One dies, Jack lets the other run, presumably to spread fear among the Boche. Things turns when the Germans unleash chlorine gas on the enemy trenches and storm the lines. Jack's wounded and tries using the Anywhere Key to run home. Except he doesn't take it out of the door so the Germans follow him through and his mother gets bayoneted.

Great hustle, you dumbass kid. It was all fun and games when you had the Germans running in terror from your shadow wolves

I wonder how accurate the depiction of the effects of the chlorine gas is. The inflamed areas around the eyes, the vomiting, the veins bulging in the forehead. Although that last bit might just be a side effect of the vomiting. But you could tell me this is actually toned down from reality and I wouldn't be surprised. Mostly because I don't feel like the get-ups the German soldiers are using - goggles and cloths wrapped across their mouths and noses - would actually do the trick.

The landscapes are this depressing swath of disgusting orangish mud and rock, where it's difficult to tell what they're walking over. During the attack, everything except the gas is grey and dingy. It makes that green gas drifting over everything stand out that much more, and it's like it killed everything in its path, not just soldiers, and the Germans are right on its heels. The trees are gnarled and mostly lifeless.

What I Bought 6/12/2020

Cape-Con got pushed back to the second weekend in July, and I'm debating whether it would be a massively stupid idea to go or not. I want to, but I don't exactly want to get sick in the process, you know? I found two of the three comics I was looking for from last week. None of the stores in the area still had Amethyst #3 by the time I swung by.

Black Cat #11, by Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - That's pretty tame, as J. Scott Campbell covers go.

The Randall Gate is built, they know where the vault is they're going to steal from, they just need a way to pick the lock. Making a key requires breaking into Tony Stark's company to use a nanoforge. Which involves Felicia passing herself off as a researcher into engineering critical of Stark, then Tony getting distracted by an attack from the guy who kicked his ass back during the original Armor Wars. Firepower doesn't last quite long enough, as Felicia had to stop to knock out Bethany Cabe along the way, so Iron Man's waiting for Felicia when she tries to leave. He's not ready for her to be rocking her own suit of armor, though. I have to question the wisdom of trying to beat Iron Man in a "powered armor suit" battle.

My favorite part of this was Felicia and her crew discussing the different strategies they could use to hoodwink Stark. Mostly just for the unexplained items they mentioned needing to make them work. The Wagering Vicar requires a badger. The Seventeen Stepbrothers means you gotta have a triplane. Maybe she could look up Turner D. Century for that? It's hard for me to picture any of them being less work than having Dr. Korpse write up a bunch of phony articles for this scientists calling Stark a coward. But maybe Korpse doesn't consider that work. Might just be a perk to shittalk Stark. Eh, Tony can always stand to have his ego dinged.

C.F. Villa's artwork has a bit of manga influence, and then reminds me of Oliver Coipel's at times. Certain things about the shading, some of the facial expressions. When characters get surprised, or otherwise exaggerated, the art seems to loosen up a bit. Villa's version of Firepower reminds me more than a little of the Asgardian Destroyer armor, but I haven't seen the character since Mark Bright created him for Armor Wars, so maybe that's how he's looked for a while. The art works, there's nothing incredibly flashy about it, but it tells you what you need to know, and it looks pretty.

Deadpool #5, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (penciler/inker), Victor Nova (inker), Chris Sotomayor (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - All kaiju are secretly weak against rocks to the top of the skull. That's why they're so tall, so nothing can attack them there.

Jeff the Land Shark is playing with Smash Smash, the adolescent monster on the cover. Except Smash Squared decides to cross over to Manhattan and wreak havoc. Wade and Elsa (who won't stop hanging around and annoying Wade) chase after him. Wade keeps trying to reason with the monster, while Elsa keeps advising him how to kill it. They fight it briefly when it temporarily eats Jeff, but Wade makes one last attempt to talk it out. Two civilians die by nuclear/electric fire, and so Wade has to kill him.

It's funny to me Wade is worried his subjects aren't going to trust him as King if he kills one of them that's rampaging through the nearby city, but neither he nor Elsa think there's going to be any pushback against the legendary Monster Hunter hanging out with their king all the time. I'm pretty sure Elsa's killed more monsters than Kraven did. Oh well, not like Wade's judgment is ever worth a damn. From Elsa's perspective, if things do go wrong, she's on the scene to make them kick-splode, or whatever the appropriate Nextwaveism is.

Gerardo Sandoval takes a much more straightforward approach to panel layouts than Chris Bachalo. Mostly 4-7 panels per page, lot of short, wide panels that take up the width of the page. Easier to follow, if less unique. His Deadpool is more conventional also. Bachalo's Wade seemed kind of small in comparison to the people around, and his clothes seemed kind of loose-fitting, a little lumpy. Might have contributed to him seeming small, since it makes him look like he's wearing his dad's clothes. Sandoval's not drawing Wade as a giant, but he's got the conventional skintight spandex look going, and the usual broad-shouldered physique. If we left legibility out of the equation, I'd take Bachalo each time, but being able to tell what the hell is actually happening is kind of crucial to my enjoyment of comics.

What I Bought 4/25/2014 - Part 1

I had some errands to run in town last week, so I swung by and got books. It's almost too bad, I'm pretty sure he would have mailed them this week, and the first issue of the next Atomic Robo mini-series is due this week.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man #10 & 11, by James Ausmus (writer #10), Tom Peyer & Elliot Kalan (writers, #11), Carmen Canero, Gerardo Sandoval, Nuno Plati, Siya Oum, Pepe Larraz, Wil Sliney (artists), Terry Pallot (inker), Chris Sotomayor, John Rauch, Andres Mossa (colorists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I am not going to the trouble of listing who worked on what issues. There's a lot overlap, anyway. Leave it to Octavius Spidey to have crooked, uneven web designs on his costume. That's the lack of attention to order I'd expect from a villain playing hero. Not to mention a guy who wore a green-and-orange spandex outfit that made him look like a billiard ball.

I figured since I made mention on Friday of these issues being disappointing, I might as well start here. Just in case one of you had been thinking about picking this title up based on my glowing reviews of the previous 4 issues. I have, I will admit, softened somewhat since Friday, but not much. Both issues are a bunch of vignettes. Issue 10 is the 3 remaining members of the Sinister Six swapping stories about their greatest victories. It's as sad as you might expect. The Beetle claims victory over Daredevil because she beat Matt Murdock in court once. By hiring the Looter to attack the courthouse so Murdock would bail on the trial and go save the day as Daredevil. Issue 11 was about a super-villain support group we were introduced to earlier in the series. It doesn't involve the main characters at all, as it's more about how the Grizzly and the Looter have both been traumatized by the new, "superior" Spider-Man.

Look, any appearance of that Spider-Man is going to bring a frown to my face, so that issue was swimming upstream from the start. The annoyance here was that issue 9 ended on a really good cliffhanger, and I wanted to find out what had happened. These issues did not tell me that. They were filler, and issue 10 wasn't even full-size filler. 18 pages. That's right, 18 pages for a $4 book. And while we learned some stuff about the cast in #10, it wasn't anything we couldn't have learned in the course of actual, plot-relevant developments.

I mean, yes, Overdrive is probably a bigger coward than Shocker, and is his own biggest hurdle to success, just due to the limits he places on his powers. Yes, Speed Demon is an idiot with the same attention span as Impulse. And yes, Beetle is the only one with any brains, but she's probably too aware of all the pitfalls of super-villainy to be good at it. She's trying so hard not to get tripped up on something like a parole violation, she only keeps weapons available when she thinks she needs them. Which ignores the fact she's in costume, so she's probably always going to need them. Because you don't know when Hercules is going to strolling into the bar you're robbing/patronizing.

Let's discuss a positive. The idea of Grizzly being reduced to robbing drunks for pizza money, and using kid's music to lure them in, is hilarious, even if he's doing it because he's too scared of Spidey to try anything more high-profile. Nuno Plati's artwork is nice. He goes heavy on the black, but it works for him, especially on the Looter's story of woe. The way the Looter returns to New York, and leaps off a ledge to start his daring heist, fully illuminated. Then you turn the page and here's Asshole Spider-Octavius, showing up to not only shatter his bones, but his sense of self-worth. The panels get shorter, closing in, crushing Looter, and the shadows close in as well, bringing all focus on his humiliating defeat.

I'm a little sad to see Will o' Wisp among the villains Looter approached about working for him. I recall when Spider-Man had convinced him to be a good guy, like he did for Sandman, Rocket Racer, and the Prowler. I think Prowler might be the only one of those guys still doing the hero thing, though I haven't seen him since Carol Danvers beat him up and threw him in jail while she was busy being Stark's Pro-Registration lackey.

If you were thinking about picking up Superior Foes, well, honestly there's only 4 issues left, so maybe buy the trade of the first 6 issues, and wait for the next trade to come out once the series wraps up. But if you, like me, are too impatient for that, go ahead and give these issues a pass. I guess there's always a chance the Six' flight from Hercules will be relevant, but right now, it doesn't seem like these were essential issues.