Marvel Flipside

Captain America & Wolverine vs Ninjas

Friday Night Fights, 1990-STYLE!
Free-for-All Brawlin'!

All this reminiscence has got me diggin' into my back issues (well, kind of! But more on that when my retrospective gets to the 2000s or so.) I mentioned the then-star power of Jim Lee and the rocket-fire tragectory of X-Men popularity-- and this issue in particular...

Uncanny X-Men 286, featuring Captain America, Wolverine, and Black Widow "Together again, for the first time!" It was an amazing and (for the time) innovative use of continuity. Obviously, Wolverine would have known Captain America, and here was the opportunity for both of them to meet for the first time... in the 1940s! The twist here is the inclusion of a young woman who is now the hero Black Widow, which caused a bit of timeline-twisting as people had to reconcile how the femme fatale could still be so young and nimble in the here and now. (Turns out, it's a simple case of age-retarding  biotechnological and psycho-technological enhancements. Obviously.)

from Uncanny X-Men #268 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Glynis Oliver

Wanna join the rumble? Here's how it all goes down!

    * Take a look at all of Fights participants, hosted by spacebooger.com!
    * Before Sunday at 11PM (EST), cast your vote for the best Friday Night Fights by posting a comment on that site! Voting is encouraged and will be open to all visitors and participants.
    * The winner of the round will be posted on that site the following Tuesday, with the Pre-Fight Rules for next time!

Daredevil Doesn't Work

Art Critique

I'd like to try a new feature, "Art Critique," although I can't promise when the mood will strike. Often, the mood strikes but the trouble it takes to get a page image-d and online-d for preview often makes the mood fizzle out. Still, i've been wanting to do this for a while, and there's no time like the present to just jump in!

Sorry, Roberto de la Torre, but you're first. Here, in Daredevil #509, written by Andy Diggle/Anthony Johnson, with colors by Matt Hollingsworth, we seen Dakota North, private eye, being attacked by ninja. Right before this page, she warns the ninja about the exploding gas tank, and then we get this:

Here's what doesn't work. Check out the two panels in the center of the page. At first reading, I thought the ninja must have busted out the gun to fire at Dakota before she reached for her pistol. But then the last panel wouldn't make sense, not even after flipping the page. Oh! I see! On second read, flipping back, I realize that it's Dakota firing the gun.Do you see how the staging doesn't work? I understand the need to establish Dakota reaching for her gun, although in the days when "swoop lines" were appropriate you might have been able to draw this in one panel, but the focus on just the hand is too jarring to suddenly cut to a medium shot when she fires. Also, the pose where she obscures her face *showing only her eyes just like the ninja's own costumes* as she fires certainly doesn't help.

And what's with the ninja? In a violent explosion, the ninja is blown forward, but then wouldn't he have leaped next to, if not on top of or even OVER Dakota? That's a pretty large explosion for the ninja to be in the same spot he was in on the previous page, not to mention the fact that it didn't even budge Dakota from her own spot, which was in sword-swiping distance from the ninja anyway.

And where did the others come from? Two pages ago, the scene was blocked as Car - Dakota - Group of Ninja. Then some shots were fired, some shuriken were flung, and then the scene was blocked as Car - One Ninja - Dakota. After the explosion, she finds her gun and mows down three ninja in succession? What? Did they happen to enter the panel just as she was firing? Too early, Ninja-san!

For awkward staging plus  the added complication of muddied poses/colors, I have to conclude that this Daredevil Doesn't Work.