by Charlie Brooks, CMRO Contributing Writer
Heroes for Hire
Issue #12
Written by Fred van Lente, Art by Clay Mann & Jon Bosco
Published: September 2007
When we last left our Heroes for Hire, Humbug had gone insane, decapitated an alien child, and covered the group with goo in order to confuse the younglings’ smell-based sense of perception so they could sneak aboard the Hulk’s great stone ship. While it would be nice to get a more detailed description for new readers, I have to give a tip of the hat to the recap page, which simply reads, “Real quick: Humbug’s gone psycho, covered us in alien bug goo and wants us to go up to the Hulk’s stoneship. We’re totally #&@%ed.”
Thus begins Heroes for Hire #12, the second part of this title’s crossover with World War Hulk. As the group heads up to the Hulk’s ship, Humbug eats the alien he killed last issue, explaining to his shocked onlookers that it would be a shame to let the body go to waste and that, “it’s a bug thing.” In addition to my problems with Humbug killing a child (albeit an alien bug-child), this further raises the question of why the group is following him. Sure, there’s no turning back now that they’re aboard the ship, but would you have boarded an alien ship in the first place with a guy who is either morally reprehensible or totally insane? Perhaps our heroes feel obligated to protect their looney comrade. If that’s the case, it would be nice to see some sense of that on the page. All a new reader knows about the interpersonal relationships of the book is that Tarantula and Shang-Chi had sex a few issues back, and that isn’t even all that relevant to the story at hand.
Aboard the ship, Humbug informs the group as to why they’re here: there is a Brood queen aboard (one of the Hulk’s Warbound) who is about to give birth. The resulting nest, claims Humbug, could spell doom for the world – assuming, of course, that there is a world once the Hulk gets done smashing.
The “bathe yourself in the blood of your enemies” trick only works on the younglings of the hive, however. Once the Heroes for Hire are aboard the stoneship, they are quickly discovered by Miek, the leader of the bugs, and the rest of the Hulk’s Warbound. One has to admire the general spunk and tenacity of our titular group as they fight a losing battle against the Warbound but are ultimately defeated and captured. Humbug manages to sneak off on his own prior to the fight, and eventually confronts the Brood – only to kneel before her in subjugation as the Brood offers him a planet ruled by insects instead of humans. Thus ends part two of our crossover.
Meanwhile, in our backup story, Scorpion and Paladin continue facing off against one another. The fight takes place in a police storage facility loaded with old supervillain weaponry, which makes for some fun. We get an alchemy gun, one of Whiplash’s whips, and weaponry used by the Melter. This is a fun little story, especially when Paladin points out how ridiculous it was to use a gun that turns things to gold as a tool to rob banks. Scorpion gets the upper hand, but hesitates when she is ordered by SHIELD to kill Paladin. This gives Paladin a chance to grab her and point a gun at her. To be continued.
Heroes for Hire #12 is better than the previous issue. It’s still tough for new readers to get into these characters who seem only to have room for snarky one-liners (and not many at that), but there’s enough action to distract from the shallow characters here. The art is very good, although we still have the problem of the panels focusing on Misty Knight’s breasts when she speaks, sometimes cutting her head entirely out of the picture. Overall, the main story isn’t great, but it is an improvement from last issue. Meanwhile, the backup story is a lot of fun, with nods to some fairly obscure Marvel villains and some tongue-in-cheek jabs at how ridiculous comics sometimes get. All told, I’d rather have a weak story that gets better as it goes on than a strong story that peters out in the end, so this issue shows some promise as we head toward the conclusion of this crossover.
Recent Comments