Angry Politics
This cover's better than the previous one, but it's still not quite at the level of the first two covers. There's just too much red, and its not just overwhelming, but just bleeds together into a bland blob of pure red. I DO like the way Madman has basically stolen the red from the entire team, leaving them all in shades of gray, but overall this image is just too bland because of the background.
And as for Steve Dillon's interior art.... it's just so damn boring. He's barely more competent than Rob Liefeld at varying facial expressions, people are rarely shown from any view besides the waist up, and the action is just awful. Everything is just so freaking stiff and generic and just empty. The action is terrible in a series that relies almost entirely on being a big guns book. This series is incredibly flawed from the ground up.
There's very little development in this issue, mostly just Deadpool and Punisher fighting Madman, and Red Hulk trying to bring back Leader. And Venom trying to rescue Elektra. Other than that, most of this issue is crowded by a confusing series of flashbacks. Some of them try to clear up the backstory of Leader and Madman, but for the most part only make things more confusing and then it leaps into an explanation of the leader of Kata Jaya, who's existence I barely remember being established before now. This turns out to be the better part of this issue, as the callous politics of the US government manipulating the smaller foreign nation has an eerie sense of conspiratorial realism, There's an eerie sense of darkness to this side tale that would be more potent if I felt like the series had actually led into it whatsoever.
Danial Way just doesn't seem to be writing a story that is any kind of compelling, he slung all these epic characters into one book, but gives them the most bland plot and fails to write any of them well aside from Deadpool. Elektra and Rulk I know very little, but they and Venom all sort of bland together into boring generic characters; and Punisher is written like Way's never read The Punisher since the 90's. He's a terrible blob of angry brooding with no remorse; NONE of the development he had even recently.in Rucka's perfect run. And seriously, he strapped a freaking bomb to his chest!? It didn't hurt him AT ALL because he had kevlar or something but it hurt Madman WHO SHRUGGED OFF GAMMA LASERS!?
In Conclusion: 2/5
I actually kind of liked the political tragedy of the Kata Jaya leader, but the rest of this issue was just so bland and frustrating. Way can write well, his Deadpool run was really entertaining and VERY smartly plotted. What the hell is this crap?
