by Gail Simone, David Baldeón, Michael Shelfer, and Jesus Aburtov
collects Domino #7-10 and Annual #1
volume one | two |three – complete
What a disappointing second volume. Instead of a witty, fun and explosions-happy friendship story with Domino and her partners Outlaw and Diamondback – what the first volume did best – this was all over the place with a completely ridiculous story and secondary characters I couldn’t care less about.
The first issue of this volume is Domino’s annual, and it was very meh. The opening story was cute – how our three mercenaries all met – but the rest were too short vignettes not written tightly enough to be meaningful (the Cable one isn’t even about Domino at all). Leading a support group with Nightcrawler for X-Men with physical differences, setting them apart from mutants who can pass, was a great idea, but it was full of words and zero impact. (Also, if anyone is grateful for voice to text messaging, it’s Kurt Wagner.)
The main arc was convoluted and confusing to the point that I struggled through the last few issues. Domino, Outlaw and Diamondback are hired by Shoon’kwa, an exiled Wakandan general, to find a box and bring it back; simple enough until they find Morbius (meh) inside and a vampire virus threat that barely makes sense, then they fight an underwater vampire king (huh?) and at some point Longshot (who?) shows up and everyone goes to the Mojoverse (what, and also why?)…all of this due to Shoon’kwa’s visions of potential futures, shaky logic at best (especially being this close to Dr Strange’s multiple futures logic in Infinity War/Endgame), plus it seemed very unlike our heroines to just go along with it.
Gail Simone’s usual talent for memorable secondary characters evaporates here too, as Shoon’kwa seemed cool but had zero personality. Diamondback and Outlaw had their usual quippy lines, but they were basically along for the ride. There was a missed opportunity to have some subplot or personal struggle that focused on one or both of them. The strongest part of volume one was their friendship with Domino and it was completely lost here.
Baldeón’s work continues to be a fantastic match with Domino. I love his cartoony style, particularly when characters are wide-eyed in shock or disgust – it’s the style of an animated series I would love to watch, along with Jesus Aburtov’s punchy colors. Things get less pleasant when Michael Shelfer joins in for issue nine, just as I was getting fed up with the story – and then a total of eight more artists, colorists and inkers join in the last issue. Eight! Like an annual squeezed into two issues but way worse. Instead of a smooth transition, characters change drastically and even start to look distorted. It was jarring for multiple styles to constantly shift back and forth, and the artist with clearly higher quality work was almost completely absent.
After a very strong start I wish I could say I enjoyed this more. Domino will be put on hold for the miniseries Hotshots, which will be a team book including our three merc ladies as well as Black Widow, Shoon’kwa, White Fox and others. (More info here – issues are out now, the trade will be released in September.) Seems that Domino’s fate depends on how well Hotshots does. We’ll see.
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