From Marvel Comics, Ed Brubaker, Patch Zircher.

This review is going to be spoiler heavy friends.  So the break is up, this is the spoiler warning and if you go any further its your own fault.  Deal?

Alright, one last chance.

The only reason I picked up this title was thanks to the Weekly Longbox podcast.  The hosts were talking about the big twist at the end of the issue, but refusing to reveal it.  No complaints there, its rare to not have knowledge of a major twist in a comic before reading it.  The mystery of the issue is the identity of the new Scourge.  If the Scourge was gay we would all know who he is, what he had for lunch, and there would be an alternate cover full of foil for it.

That’s not this book though.

So the Scourge is revealed to be overall joke and D-list character (pun intended) D-Man.  He’s a joke, he smells, he’s a (dis)honorable Avenger, his costume looks a little too much like Wolverine’s brown outfit.  D-Man has been a joke for his entire existence.  Yet here he is, taking out bad guys left and right and putting the boots to those often used threats, the Serpent Society.

Sure, Cap  and Dum Dum have their own action in this issue, but its the secondary story.  D-Man is being manipulated, so he’s already set up to be redeemed.  Its that set up that hurts the story.  This should be a dramatic character turn.  One that feels like it will stick for a large amount of time.  Its comics, there is no guarantee that anything will stick forever, but cant it stick for years?  This turn screams graphic novel redemption.

Hal Jordan turned for years.  Sinestro was a good Green Lantern and then evil for decades.  D-Man will definitely snap out of this mind control, destroy his puppet masters, and redeem himself within a year of this issue.  Then what?  Then he becomes just another character off to the side that no one’s using.

Its a well drawn issue.  Its an easy comic.  But in the end its another “dramatic” turn that falls short of being anything of the sort.