This week’s comics have made me grumpy.
Powers 6 is solid enough, but I’d love it if they could get a handle on the typos.
Supreme Power 13 arrives, and it still isn’t going anywhere fast. There’s also something about the way the hookers get played for laughs and cheesecake even as they’re being systematically murdered that creeps me out.
The current arc in Daredevil is supposed to be some big, thematic culmination, but it seems like more of the same to me. And the “chaos magic” gag in #67 is irritating and gratuitous.
I’m not quite sure where Natasha’s rant against gender-based double-standards of appearance came from in Black Widow 3. Her argument has merit in a general way, but she seems like an odd messenger. She’s routinely used her appearance to disarm and seduce opponents and informants (and in fact does so in this very comic), and she does nothing to articulate the contradiction. She takes advantage of the double-standard and uses it as a professional tool, and it might have been more interesting if she’d pointed that out. Honestly, I’m as unnerved by the “beauty industry” as anyone; I liked the recent Mystique arc that took a swipe at it. The discussion of it here just seemed like odd, underdeveloped boilerplate.
Remember John Byrne’s brief stint on one of the Spider-Man books where he revealed that Sandman, who had undergone a meticulous reformation process that played out over years in a variety of comics, was just faking the turn-around? Remember how much of on-line fandom hated that twist? I’ll be curious to see if there’s a similar reaction to the big reveal in Flash 216. I haven’t read a lot of the Wally West run, so I’ve missed many of the “Rogues gone good” stories this issue references, but I do remember Heat Wave’s turn from the pre-Crisis Barry Allen stories. It seemed like the only break Barry got at the time, and it was rather a nice change of pace.
Now, I’m going to go read the latest volume of Hot Gimmick to restore my mood. Man, Akane and Subaru are adorable.