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doomfans2012-04-12 11:35 pm
nomadicwriter) wrote in doomfans2012-04-12 11:35 pm
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Winter Soldier #4 review
Another fun and satisfyingly Doom-filled issue.
The story begins with the pages from the preview; Bucky and Natasha have teamed up with Doom to stop him being framed, and he's able to pinpoint the location of the rogue Doombot. He considers the UN a disappointly obvious target and says, "But then, Lucia was never very impressive," which is an intriguing hint to some past history between them that we don't know about yet.
Meanwhile, the sleeper agent Arkady and the Doombot head into the UN building. There's a panel that I really rather love of the two of them walking towards the entrance in the rain - just a simple little mundane moment that, like the scene with Doom sitting with his mask off in issue three, is a reminder that he and even his robot substitutes still have to do perfectly ordinary human things in between bouts of being supervillainous.
The bot also makes a comment that no one will have the impudence to make him walk through a metal detector, which I like to imagine is a cute reference to Amazing Spider-Man #50. (Doom is forced to land his plane at a civilian airport, and the guy on the gate asks him to empty his pockets of anything metal before looking up...)
Doom and Bucky take off in Doom's dubiously illegal flying craft. Bucky tries to remind Doom that he's actually helping, but Doom says he's mistaken; Doom is merely allowing him to come along for the ride.
At the UN, Arkady and the bot have killed everybody in the Latverian Ambassador's office, but the bot senses something is wrong just before Doom lasers a giant hole in the wall and bursts in, leaping out of the vehicle declaring, "Prepare to meet your destruction, fools!" (To quote Bucky's inner monologue: "If Von Doom has a stealth mode, he doesn't show it. But I can't really complain...")
The poor confused Doombot has a bit of an existential crisis when it's attacked by its master, but fights back. Doom gets a chance to show off the strength of his armour's defences, which is good to see; Brubaker makes a point of showing in these issues that a non-powered hero like Bucky really is severely outclassed by his suit's capabilities, which is something that often gets downplayed.
Arkady escapes and Bucky chases after him, although he notes that, "Part of me wants to stay and watch the Doom-on-Doom action." (...I'm not sure you're implying quite what you think you're implying there, Bucky.) They duke it out, and Arkady gets the upper hand and manages to seize Bucky's gun. Unfortunately for him, having been in suspended animation for decades, he doesn't recognise that it has a palm print sensor that causes it to explode when he tries to shoot it.
Doom arrives as Arkady's dying, and says, "I see you've taken care of the minion". Heh. Arkady tells Bucky that he's too late: Lucia already got what she needed from the Doombot. Cut to the Latverian alps, where the bad guys have broken into a missile silo - and we learn that Lucia already has Doom's launch codes.
So, a good solid issue with plenty of Doom doing his thing. The art is mostly as good as ever, though there's some visible fill-in work from an extra inker and colourist that stands out quite strongly compared to the stylised look of the rest of the book. I guess time was tight this month for some reason.
Talking of time being tight, it seems like there's quite a lot of story to be wrapped up with just one issue left to go of this first arc. So while I suspect Doom will probably - sadly - exit the story after issue five, it's possible Lucia Von Bardas will escape capture and the Latverian connection might continue to be a part of the story. If time fast forwards to catch up with with Doom's current "death" in FF, we could potentially see her making another play to take over the country in his absence.
Looking forward to seeing what issue #5 brings, since it's hard to predict exactly where this might be going...
The story begins with the pages from the preview; Bucky and Natasha have teamed up with Doom to stop him being framed, and he's able to pinpoint the location of the rogue Doombot. He considers the UN a disappointly obvious target and says, "But then, Lucia was never very impressive," which is an intriguing hint to some past history between them that we don't know about yet.
Meanwhile, the sleeper agent Arkady and the Doombot head into the UN building. There's a panel that I really rather love of the two of them walking towards the entrance in the rain - just a simple little mundane moment that, like the scene with Doom sitting with his mask off in issue three, is a reminder that he and even his robot substitutes still have to do perfectly ordinary human things in between bouts of being supervillainous.
The bot also makes a comment that no one will have the impudence to make him walk through a metal detector, which I like to imagine is a cute reference to Amazing Spider-Man #50. (Doom is forced to land his plane at a civilian airport, and the guy on the gate asks him to empty his pockets of anything metal before looking up...)
Doom and Bucky take off in Doom's dubiously illegal flying craft. Bucky tries to remind Doom that he's actually helping, but Doom says he's mistaken; Doom is merely allowing him to come along for the ride.
At the UN, Arkady and the bot have killed everybody in the Latverian Ambassador's office, but the bot senses something is wrong just before Doom lasers a giant hole in the wall and bursts in, leaping out of the vehicle declaring, "Prepare to meet your destruction, fools!" (To quote Bucky's inner monologue: "If Von Doom has a stealth mode, he doesn't show it. But I can't really complain...")
The poor confused Doombot has a bit of an existential crisis when it's attacked by its master, but fights back. Doom gets a chance to show off the strength of his armour's defences, which is good to see; Brubaker makes a point of showing in these issues that a non-powered hero like Bucky really is severely outclassed by his suit's capabilities, which is something that often gets downplayed.
Arkady escapes and Bucky chases after him, although he notes that, "Part of me wants to stay and watch the Doom-on-Doom action." (...I'm not sure you're implying quite what you think you're implying there, Bucky.) They duke it out, and Arkady gets the upper hand and manages to seize Bucky's gun. Unfortunately for him, having been in suspended animation for decades, he doesn't recognise that it has a palm print sensor that causes it to explode when he tries to shoot it.
Doom arrives as Arkady's dying, and says, "I see you've taken care of the minion". Heh. Arkady tells Bucky that he's too late: Lucia already got what she needed from the Doombot. Cut to the Latverian alps, where the bad guys have broken into a missile silo - and we learn that Lucia already has Doom's launch codes.
So, a good solid issue with plenty of Doom doing his thing. The art is mostly as good as ever, though there's some visible fill-in work from an extra inker and colourist that stands out quite strongly compared to the stylised look of the rest of the book. I guess time was tight this month for some reason.
Talking of time being tight, it seems like there's quite a lot of story to be wrapped up with just one issue left to go of this first arc. So while I suspect Doom will probably - sadly - exit the story after issue five, it's possible Lucia Von Bardas will escape capture and the Latverian connection might continue to be a part of the story. If time fast forwards to catch up with with Doom's current "death" in FF, we could potentially see her making another play to take over the country in his absence.
Looking forward to seeing what issue #5 brings, since it's hard to predict exactly where this might be going...