current / archive / issues / faq / RSS feed / twitter /
Showtime!
| < previous | next > |
I know I slagged "Secret Wars" off (a lot), but at least it had its interesting moments, and there was sufficient weird stuff to keep it interesting. However, that's over now and we must turn our attention back to "Beauty And The Beast", which was honestly so bad that it was difficult to read.
Doctor Doom doesn't appear until the very last page where, just as last time, he's standing on his battlements receiving news from a lackey about his alleged son. This is news he definitely doesn't want to hear.
He's so uninterested that he orders his plane to be readied so he can fly directly to Hollywood to find out what's going on. "Doom, who cares for no man, suddenly seems to care about someone very very much" the wounded lackey muses to himself - how someone with that sort of attitude has lasted so long in Doom's employ is beyond me. Maybe Doom just likes a snappy dresser?
Although, hang on a minute, how is Doom in this story at all? With all the Secret War shenanigans going on at the same time as the first two issues I forgot that he's meant to be dead in the current timeline of the Marvel universe. I guess we can excuse it here as this is a limited series and so not necessarily set at precisely the same time as the ongoing ones, but it does seem weird that he keeps popping up without explanation or even a footnote telling us this takes place before "Secret Wars".
The rest of the issue is, as I say, pretty terrible from start to finish. It's another one with a really odd mix of schmaltzy romance, very old-fashioned art, and a stumbling attempt to join in with the current mode for "realism". For instance, once Dazzler and the Beast have spent a couple of pages being hopelessly in love on the beach they run into a bunch of disgusted passers-by as they wander home.
Relevant! Dazzler goes to work in the weird circus - a workplace that she was forced into against her will last time, and where there was totally a murder - and has a lovely time. After a hint that Doom's son is trying to take over the organisation, we see Dazzler relaxing with some pals, comparing scars in what appears to be the front end of a spaceship.
Beast has been moping around Heartbreak Hotel all afternoon, until the landlady tells him to get off his bum and go and see his girlfriend. He arrives to find her in her dressing room, looking "so... decadent!"
The phrase we would use nowadays of course is "massively culturally inappropriate", but either way Beast is simultaneously repelled and massively turned on, until he sees the new jagged scar on her neck which "disgusts" him.
He uses lipstick to draw "war paint" all over her face, and the whole thing is just awful. Are we meant to think that Beast is the good guy here? Or that Dazzler's self-pity, when she's a beautiful, blonde, white woman in a troupe where almost everybody else is disfigured and either green or purple, is somehow touching?
Beast discovers that Dazzler is being drugged - there's got to be some drugs in this somewhere because it's Adult and Relevant - and then is grabbed and drugged himself by the circus owner, who's trying to stop Doom's son from taking over and thinks this is a good way to go about it. Beast is driven mad and attacks Dazzler on stage, where she's handily dressed as a Princess to drive home a) the title of the series b) the way she stands out from all of the other cast members, and they have a Big Fight.
Beast snaps out of his drug-state just at the right moment to say "Daz!" (that's what he calls her throughout, rather than her actual name) "Remember... our ... love!" "What?" she replies, not unreasonably as their love has not been particularly memorable. Luckily for the Beast she stops the fight, which enrages the bloodthirsty crowd.
In order to sate their bloodlust Doom's son orders the circus members to murder their old boss, which they do happily, proclaiming Doom Jr as their new chief. And that's the point at which we head over to Latveria for the final page, and this who awful story grinds to a halt. There's one more issue to come, which we can only pray features a bit more Doctor Doom, but before then we've got a couple of issues of "Fantastic Four" to enjoy, featuring a whole new version of Doom. I can't wait!
link to information about this issue
posted 9/4/2021 by Mark Hibbett
| < previous | next > |
Comments: