Damage Control (Series 2) #1 of 4

This volume of Damage Control begins during the ‘Acts of Vengeance’ storyline where all of the Marvel Universe villains have teamed up and laid waste to the Big Apple and those costumed heroes who protect it. The Mayor of New York is clamoring for Damage Control to begin immediate repairs. However, with a shift in upper management comes a new owner of Damage Control- one of which looks to trim the fat from what they deem ‘unnecessary expenses.’ So unless the crew of Damage Control can justify spending millions and millions of dollars on man hours, construction materials, and heavy machinery, Manhattan will have to lie in rubble.

Meanwhile, as Gotham burns, John Porter and a crew of security experts have been called to the Cage, a maximum security prison designed to keep the worst of the worst super villains off the streets. Thanks to a prison riot during  the Acts of Vengeance, the Cage is far from secure. Now with the Damage Control repair crew trapped with the riff-raff the prison is designed to keep out of society, only Captain America can be spared in hopes of quelling the riot and bringing our construction crew heroes out safely.

So there are essentially 2 stories in this issue- the shakeup at Damage Control and the prison riot. I liked the prison riot part of this issue. It captured the fun, the thrills, and the off-the-wall laughs of the first series. The buy-out of Damage Control was something I felt like I could do without. I am of the maxim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Yes, that rule of thumb makes me hate change, but I really felt like Damage Control was perfect as it is. Hopefully life for the employees will return to normal by the end of this series. I would hate for this new boss to be on staff permanently.

Thus, this makes for an uneven tale. I liked the great sketchy art of Ernie Colon and the prison scenes prove that writer Dwayne McDuffie still has it. Maybe this first issue was like a pilot on TV. It’s going to get better, you just have to work the introductions and kinks in the plot out before it becomes an instant classic. God, I hope so!

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.