Secret Avengers #37, by Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (artist), Matthew Wilson (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I wouldn't say that's one of Adams' stronger covers for this series. The panicked Machine Man in the background behind Val is a nice touch.Obviously Father's plan to infect everyone with the techno-virus failed. Hawkeye and Spidey got the Orb of Necromancy back, but Hawkeye can't pull the trigger to destroy it. Partly because the virus is rewriting him so that he agrees with Father (or it's "cold logic"), partly because Avengers don't kill. Clint is saved from the moral quandary by Jim Hammond. Captain Britain had helped him realize that change doesn't mean anything if it's forced on people. So the Torch destroys the Orb, and kills all his descendants, save one. Parvez still lives, which is nice. He's a kid, an innocent. Too bad his mom died. Maybe Natasha's going to look after him. Also, Valkyrie killed the O'Grady Ant-Man. I think. He vanished after he she stabbed him the chest, so maybe he just shrank.
OK, did Pym die? Last we see, Master Mold blasts him, and that's it. He isn't at the debriefing, he'd been turned into a Deathlok, did destroying the Orb kill him too? Lotta kind of vague stuff in this issue. People dead or maybe not. Was Father controlling people through the virus, or did they actually agree with him once it took emotion out of the equation? Scalera's art was it's usual solid work There was a nice two-panel sequence on pages 2 and 3 where Venom shot O'Grady and the path of the bullet went straight to Venom's word balloon in the next panel. There's also a page 6 conversation between Hammond and Braddock where the perspective rotates from over Hammond's shoulder as he has the upper hand, to behind Braddock by panel 3 as his words get through to Torch. Then there's a flashback to Hammond's past for a panel, and when we come back to the present, we're zoomed in on his eyes. Might work a little better if he had pupils, since all you can tell is he's angry. Or determined. Maybe both.
Hawkeye #7, by Matt Fraction (writer), Steve Lieber (artist pgs. 1-10, 20), Jesse Hamm (artist, pgs. 11-19), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - Using the red for the outer edge of the hurricane's a nice touch. Draws the eye, then guides it to the scattering letters of the title.It's a Hurricane Sandy issue. I'm a bit apprehensive about working these sorts of real world things into superhero comics, maybe because most of the examples I can remember were written by JMS. The nice thing about this book is it's already focusing on things at a personal level, and so the story can just be about the Hawkeye's experiencing the storm alongside other people. As it is, Clint drives Grills (the one who started calling him Hawkguy) out to Rockaway something to watch over Grills' dad, who is thoroughly unimpressed by the storm. Until it kicks in his front door. This does lead to family bonding, and Clint gets to prove how good he is at boats. The other story involves Kate attending an engagement party in Jersey. The power goes out, one of the guests doesn't have enough of her meds. Thus Kate must set out on an epic quest for. . . The Pharmacy! Which is being looted, because people are assholes. Where's that techno-virus? Kate loses a fight to a can of baked beans, but the locals apprehended the thieves and Kate got the meds. Then she crashed at Clint's place, and made him use the sofa. Which I don't care if you are a lady and a guest, it's my place, I paid for it, I sleep in the bed. Clint lacks my clarity of vision, though, and accedes to her demand. Or maybe he's smart enough not to waste time better spent sleeping on arguing.
At first, I thought Lieber's work was Aja's. I thought Aja had changed his style a bit, but his Clint looked similar enough, and he wasn't skimping on the panels. I eventually caught up, but it doesn't matter much. Lieber does a really good job. The look on Clint's face on page 3 as he carries the sandbag out, very bitter and resentful. Which is about the reaction I'd have to dealing with some crotchety, ungrateful geezer pain in the ass. The shocked horror on is face on the next page might be even better. I think it does a stronger job of conveying the horror of seeing a wall of water tearing down a street towards you than the next panel - which is a wall of water tearing down a street towards us - does. A person wouldn't look like that unless it was a bad scene, you know?
Maybe it's Hollingsworth's colors that are making the art look similar. Hamm's work reminded me of Pulido's in places. Not the facial expressions so much, Hamm exaggerates more, to great effect, Kate's furious glare and point a prime example. But the sequence where she's standing in front of the window watching the storm and getting bugged by Steve Buscemi's tiny grandpa (is that a Boardwalk Empire reference? I've never seen that show?), the shadow work reminded me of Pulido's two-issue story.
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