What I Bought 3/9/2012

I had other reasons I needed to go to town yesterday, so I took advantage of that to stop by the store and pick up this week's selection. Sadly, there isn't a standout comic in the bunch. It's mostly books that show promise, but I'll have to see where they end up going.

Defenders #4 - Strange sets to investigating the Concordance Engine. Since his books aren't helping, he tries focusing his mind on it. But his concentration is off, distracted by Molly, the grad student he slept with, and he accidentally causes a woman from his past named Molly to appear. Even though she's been dead for years. Which doesn't stop them from enjoying themselves. Their peaceful idyll is shattered by some irritated punk magician who gets wind of situation and tries to blackmail Strange with it. That goes as well as you might expect, and we learn that Strange knows how Molly feels only too well. Which doesn't excuse his actions, but it's likely the best we're going to get.

I do wonder why the idiot kid honestly thinks his scheme will work. At that point, Strange had already demonstrated he can hurt someone remote sensing, which the kid didn't even know was possible. Didn't he consider he might be a little out of his league? But he's young, arrogant, self-entitled, I suppose he figured he was the smartest guy ever. I'm not sure why Strange needed deception to deal with cops anyway. The guy was an Avenger, I thought that counted for something these days.

Michael Lark steps in for the Dodsons, and it works pretty well. Despite Strange's use of mystical zappy bolts, it's really a story about people who are hurting, and how they deal with that, and Lark handles that deftly.

Green Arrow #7 - Ollie starts out arguing with himself about whether to chuck being Oliver Queen entirely. Then he's attacked by three sisters who proclaim their love, and offer him weapons, if he'll accompany them. Ollie somewhat patronizingly agrees, then goes to work and says he's leaving, and won't be working from the office anymore. He has in-flight sex with all three sisters, but once they get where they're going, the girls quickly capture him, and we learn they're trying to please their dad so they can take over his empire. Why they're working together when it sounds like they're in competition, I'm not sure. Unless the sisters are a team, and there's another batch of siblings out there. Oh crap, is Ollie up against Vandal Savage? Also, they made his jet crash, and everyone thinks he's dead, which provides a fellow named Emerson with an opportunity to steal his company.

That was certainly interesting. It's going to take some time to get used to Nocenti's writing style again, because she's very different from anyone else I'm reading these days. Not bad; she makes sure you understand enough about what's going on, just different. Less fond of Harvey Tolibao's art. It's like the camera is zoomed in too close, where it's hard to see what's happening at times.

Villains for Hire #4 - It surprises and betrayals all over the place. Puppet Master uses the villains earpieces to take control of them, until Purple Man and Headhunter override his control, which only succeeds in giving each villain back control of themselves. At which point they all start fighting. Trying to get Kilgrave, trying to get Knight, trying to escape, trying to kill each other. Scourge in particular is trying to shoot everyone as they try to leave. A few get away, but Misty does capture the Purple Man, as it turns out Scourge is actually. . . Paladin! And they were working with Puppet Master the whole time. It was his idea, because he was pissed about being manipulated when he'd wanted to go straight. Which, OK, sure, why not?

I mentioned when I reviewed the previous issue that you could start to see how the mini-series being shortened took effect in how fast things started happening, and the trend continues here. On the one hand, it's kind of cool, because there are so many reversals and everything, it's nuts. On the other, because things are happening so quickly, there's no chance for anything to sink in. As soon as the reader absorbs the impact of one shift, things have already changed again. Blunts the impact. Renato Arlem's art still isn't helping me any. It's stiff and awkward, people are posed strangely during fights, and while there is a sense of confusion during the melees, it's not a good sense of confusion. There are ways to demonstrate that things have gotten out of control, and everyone's switching sides or jumping ship, but it didn't happen here. There's no sense of where anyone is in relation to anyone else. Final verdict on the mini-series: Loved the concept, loved the basic structure of the story, but the pacing, art, and general execution didn't pull it off.