So after last week’s post that generated much more controversy than any bit of “this is why I’m not reading X” should1, I decided to use some of my fat credits and pick up a few recent Marvel books that were recommended to me by people that know my tastes. This week, I’ll talk about them. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
First up is the recent revamp of the Heroes for Hire concept, where Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray take time away from writing unneccessary rape scenes into Jonah Hex and instead introduce us to Misty Knight and Colleen Wing’s superhero startup using a familiar name. With the events of Civil War providing an impetus for the group’s reorganization as government contractors operating under the aegis of Tony Stark, the title takes a potentially-interesting new approach to the tried-and-true (if rarely long-lasting) series formula, using the current political climate of the Marvel Universe to inform the plot and provide a backdrop. At least that’s what they tried to do for the first trade, creatively titled Civil War: Heroes for Hire.
This idea of “realism” gets tossed to the side pretty quickly and it’s probably a good thing: the dialogue and forward momentum of these comics grind to a halt whenever Misty Knight and Tony Stark have a discussion about what’s happening around them and I didn’t need to see Luke Cage and Steve Rogers reiterating the same things they said in other comics yet again. Frankly, editorially-mandated guest appearances are one of those things that’s always rankled me, and this sort of material doesn’t help the case any. It’s a creative boondoggle for the writers from the start, tying their hands and narrowing their story paths significantly while forcing readers that may have been interested in a new title to know more backstory than they probably should.
What does work in the favor of the first trade (and much more in the second) is the gonzo sense of fuckedupedness that the usual big gun writers in the Marvel Universe aren’t quite sure how to handle: characters as goofy as Orka and Humbug are featured members of the cast and once the overly heavy proceedings of the first arc are out of the way, things are livened up significantly with female mob bosses getting jacked up on Skrull organ transplants at the end of the first trade with the return of the Headmen, a Doombot gone even more horribly wrong, and a mission to capture Moon Boy in the Savage Land (written by Zeb Wells) making up the second volume.
There’s a genuine sense of fun to these superhero stories that only rarely seems forced: the team’s personalities serve to liven up the action nicely and Gray and Palmiotti’s screenplay-influenced dialogue generally gets the job done nicely. While Billy Tucci’s facial expressions and body language in the first book are more than competent, his insistence on making almost every shot of a female character a cheesecake shot gets tiresome much more quickly than looking at pretty women should. I found myself actually enjoying Al Rio’s work for the first time ever in the second volume: he’s gone from being a third-rate J. Scott Campbell imitator into a decent-enough sequential artist in his own right.2
Overall, if I were rating this as some sort of superhero comics class project, I’d rate it a C+ or a B-3, depending on my mood that day. There’s some nice usage of pre-existing Marvel universe concepts and a few clever surprises, but nothing that will knock the socks off anyone.
1Seriously, some people need to separate what they read from their self-esteem. I had to delete a few comments, including some that crossed the line from “spirited commentary” to “out and out ranting dickery.” Guys (and yes, it was all males): it’s superhero comics. Geez.
2That is, as long as I don’t look a bit too long and notice what he’s biting from Bryan Hitch now.
3It should be noted that I’m deducting a few points for using the Black Cat again, as I have never much liked that character.
