Jun 5

Jun 5 Domino: Hotshots #4 // Review

Marvel Comics, Team Up, Female Lead, Action, Superheroes

Seven heroes of varying moral alignment, a handful of Iron Man drones, one artifact infecting people with a strange “virus,” and an infected scientist. Mix in distrust between team members and leadership disputes and get a recipe for chaos at best, and total disaster at worst. With the world is about to dissolve into chaos, maybe you need chaos to fight back. The issue has a great team behind it with Gail Simone as the writer, pencils, and inks by David Baldeón and Michael Shelfer, with assistance from Craig Yeung on inks, colors by Jim Charalampidis, and lettering by VC’s Clayton Cowles.

Domino and White Fox have been clashing since the formation of the Hotshots. White Fox wants the alien technology for herself, to secure the safety of the people she protects. Domino wants to get rid of the technology, so it won’t belong to any one nation and destroy the world. In issue 4, this conflict boils over, and the two finally fight it out.

When the virus takes control of you it gives you the power to make your deepest, darkest desires a reality, and if you can’t handle that or your wishes are destruction and more power, it will be disastrous. The fight between Domino and White Fox shows what both characters desire to do with absolute power. While Simone uses this to push character development, it would’ve been great if this character development had come earlier than the second-to-last issue.

This issue really struck a great balance of showing vs. telling on each page. There’s enough dialogue to explain what’s going on but not too much that it takes away from the action going on.

It’s unfortunate that it took four issues for the series to get to such a good place because of its limited run, but it’s better late than never. And in the future, if there’s another Domino series with the same creative team, then they should be ready to go right away.