Saturday, June 26, 2010

Comics Review: DISNEY'S HERO SQUAD #6 (Boom! Kids, June 2010)

The mindless, Ultramachine-powered, giganticized edition of Eega Beeva is now busily laying waste to Duckburg, and the Ultraheroes and Sinister 7 have been forced to join forces in an effort to stop... him or it, it's hard to tell, especially when it comes to Eega. That pretty much tells the whole tale of HS #6, though there are a couple of bright moments, particularly (and most refreshingly, given this title's usual approach) in the area of good characterization. Mickey, whose comparative insignificance vis-a-vis the caped and cloaked ones has now entered "in-joke" mode -- witness the trouble he encounters just trying to track the heroes and villains through Duckburg -- employs a classic bit of superhero-comic reasoning when he argues that The Sinister 7 ought to aid the Ultraheroes because "if [Eega] destroys everything, there won't be anything left for you bad guys to take over." Better still, in the midst of a sequence of efforts to halt Eega's progress, "Red Bat" Fethry takes the odd, yet somehow fitting, approach of "[following] my mom's advice and just [ignoring Eega] in hopes that he'd go away." Um, Fethry, I think that she was referring to you with that comment. The chapter ends with the gang taking a tattered page from Floyd Gottfredson's playbook and attempting to control "Eegzilla" with mothballs, Eega's favorite food. All of these bits point in the right direction, but the serial is still lagging in certain key areas. We still don't know why Cloverleaf/Gladstone behaved the way he did, while Scrooge -- who's back on Killmotor Hill with his Money Bin trying to pick up the pieces -- seems stuck on either "rant" or "penny-pinch" mode, with no in-between. Since the noshing Eega is heading straight for the Bin, Scrooge's attitude isn't likely to get better any time soon. This continues to be a frustrating read.

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