Domino vol. 2: Soldier of Fortune

Alright, so that first volume of “Domino” left some room for improvement as it shifted between intense character drama and freewheeling action-comedy less-than-gracefully.  This volume is an improvement in that regard as it focuses more on the latter than the former and the experience is a lot more enjoyable for it.  It opens up with an annual that’s pretty much just filler, but at least has the decency to offer up three good stories (out of four) around the framework of Domino going about an average day.  The kind that involves dressing up as a clown and going scuba diving in a swamp. Then we get to the proper issues from the main series which cover two quasi-separate stories. I say “quasi-separate” because they’re about jobs that Domino, Outlaw, and Diamondback have undertook at the request of a young Wakandan royal named Shoon’Kwa.  The first job has them heading to Eastern Norway to retrieve a box, without looking inside. The second involves taking out Marvel’s other luck-based superhero before he winds up destroying all of humanity.

Writer Gail Simone does a good job of balancing Domino’s devil-may-care persona with strong morals.  Which means that she’s always going to do the right thing, even if her way of doing things looks a little weird or even crazy.  It’s how we have her following Morbius to take out the king of all vampires off the coast of Barcelona, and accompanying a somewhat disturbed Longshot back into the Mojoverse.  Simone provides the quality banter and intriguing moral dilemmas while artist David Baldeon gives us some nicely detailed action and appealingly emotive characters. Mostly, as he’s supplemented in the final two issues by one, and then three other artists.  Given that the series was abruptly cancelled with its tenth issue, it’s probably not surprising that there were some last-minute changes that warranted the extra artistic help. Still, the story doesn’t read badly for a “We gotta wrap this up now!” thing and it’s all the more surprising that it was cancelled given that it’s getting a miniseries reprieve with “Hotshots.”  Which is something I’ll be picking up too given how this volume was an improvement over its first.