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scans_dailyThe Purple Man, starting his second " ..for Hire " operation this week, knows this.
He can't get Villains the same way Misty Knight got Heroes, even though he's got as many contacts in the former as she does in the latter. He's only got what he can pay to trade on (he's running his operation anonymously, which means no freebees via pheromones).
Lucky for him, then, that he's got enough initial bank (even after Misty and friends put paid to his hero puppeting ambitions) to start with some of New York's better bads.
His target's a smaller system than the Heroes ever took on, though: a simple armored car route, almost nothing in comparison to demonic gunrunning and Atlantean drug rings.
It makes sense that he'd take a more timed approach in this case, since he's got to get what the car's got before it gets out of Manhattan.
He makes his first call, and an East Side power substation is overrun. The villain he's hired wonders if, perhaps, he couldn't take out a few extra power grids?
(In between Spider-Island and this, it's probably safe to say he's not ending up back on the reserve Thunderbolts roster any time soon.
Too bad he didn't get caught up in that title's current time-travel shenanigans, with all the era-appropriate variant outfits Satana's making them..)
That's one way of keeping a bar in the black, I guess.
Avalanche's quake fractures the bridge just right, and the car falls. Its drivers are screaming all the way down.. onto a garbage scow that isn't just crossing opportunely.
Killgrave makes a third call, to the barge's only other occupant.
" Hello, Villain? Are you for hire? "
(It's odd to hear him say that; he's not calling on them like Misty was, only sending them a go-ahead. It's just a weird little formality on his part, I guess.)
She answers.
(I like how she's kept the original's high collar and wide-brimmed hat, only swapping out the suit for one more fitting.. tight-fitting, even.)
Death-Stalker phases into the car and death-grips the unconscious guards (since it's a Daredevil foe's legacy she's assuming, I'm thinking it'd be a nice powerset to see in Waid and Martin's Daredevil), effectively securing its cargo.
She tries to take the barge upriver, into Killgrave's waiting hands, but.. someone's grounding her, with his bare hands and nothing else, in the middle of the East River.
It's freaky fishman Tiger Shark, here to foil them, and he hasn't come alone; a well placed explosive suddenly detonates on the Queensboro, courtesy of explosives expert and Death-Throws member Bombshell, sending Avalanche down into the drink.
Death-Stalker raises her hands, burning with fatality.. and drops clinically dead, by way of a headshot from former CIA spook and always Hawkeye foe Crossfire.
Killgrave goes to angry sputtering pieces as quickly as the operation has. Headhunter tries to put it back together, none too gently; she voices her opinion that for a man who would start yelling like this when everything went wrong, helming the operation would be a "dumb idea":
(He's trying to use his powers to not get yelled at? That's kind of sad.
And I suppose Headhunter's ability to tell he's trying to influence her comes from, ah, her own ability to influence.
Counting the Kingpin's Persuader, that makes two people who've worked finance in New York and had persuasive ability.. though she's the only one, of course, who looks like someone's idea of a genderswapped Matt Murdock.)
He vents by screaming his plan for anyone who's just coming in now, calming down as he wraps up:
I love how her body language's first placative, then maybe a little exasperated.
The call's put in to the new Scourge, who's more Nuke and less Of The Underworld. He fights Crossfire, but that's not enough; Bombshell's about to blow the car open.
As she sets the bomb, she takes cover.. very strangely.
It goes boom, revealing the car's contents of.. federal evidence boxes.
Which both sides want, it seems, according to criminal scientist Nightshade's bit of exposition as she comes in to play retrieval for Tiger Shark and friends's boss.
To be precise, there's one they want, which they snatch from under Killgrave's nose.
But as Bombshell watches Nightshade wind back, she wonders something: " Hey, wasn't that Death-Stalker witch.. you know.. dead? So where's her..? "
It's right in Nightshade's chopper, a hole in its head and none the worse: " Land this thing and hand over the load. "
" Unlikely. "
No, she's not a robot. That's just an LMD.
So when the chopper explodes, neither of them are dead.
One's boss is pissed, though, and starts making plans to try and hire this new crew out from under whoever sent them up against him.
The other, well.. she's the only one it could be, and she's playing the game against the Purple Man in the exact same way he did against her.. for the same end, too.
He can't get Villains the same way Misty Knight got Heroes, even though he's got as many contacts in the former as she does in the latter. He's only got what he can pay to trade on (he's running his operation anonymously, which means no freebees via pheromones).
Lucky for him, then, that he's got enough initial bank (even after Misty and friends put paid to his hero puppeting ambitions) to start with some of New York's better bads.
His target's a smaller system than the Heroes ever took on, though: a simple armored car route, almost nothing in comparison to demonic gunrunning and Atlantean drug rings.
It makes sense that he'd take a more timed approach in this case, since he's got to get what the car's got before it gets out of Manhattan.
He makes his first call, and an East Side power substation is overrun. The villain he's hired wonders if, perhaps, he couldn't take out a few extra power grids?
(In between Spider-Island and this, it's probably safe to say he's not ending up back on the reserve Thunderbolts roster any time soon.
Too bad he didn't get caught up in that title's current time-travel shenanigans, with all the era-appropriate variant outfits Satana's making them..)
That's one way of keeping a bar in the black, I guess.
Avalanche's quake fractures the bridge just right, and the car falls. Its drivers are screaming all the way down.. onto a garbage scow that isn't just crossing opportunely.
Killgrave makes a third call, to the barge's only other occupant.
" Hello, Villain? Are you for hire? "
(It's odd to hear him say that; he's not calling on them like Misty was, only sending them a go-ahead. It's just a weird little formality on his part, I guess.)
She answers.
(I like how she's kept the original's high collar and wide-brimmed hat, only swapping out the suit for one more fitting.. tight-fitting, even.)
Death-Stalker phases into the car and death-grips the unconscious guards (since it's a Daredevil foe's legacy she's assuming, I'm thinking it'd be a nice powerset to see in Waid and Martin's Daredevil), effectively securing its cargo.
She tries to take the barge upriver, into Killgrave's waiting hands, but.. someone's grounding her, with his bare hands and nothing else, in the middle of the East River.
It's freaky fishman Tiger Shark, here to foil them, and he hasn't come alone; a well placed explosive suddenly detonates on the Queensboro, courtesy of explosives expert and Death-Throws member Bombshell, sending Avalanche down into the drink.
Death-Stalker raises her hands, burning with fatality.. and drops clinically dead, by way of a headshot from former CIA spook and always Hawkeye foe Crossfire.
Killgrave goes to angry sputtering pieces as quickly as the operation has. Headhunter tries to put it back together, none too gently; she voices her opinion that for a man who would start yelling like this when everything went wrong, helming the operation would be a "dumb idea":
(He's trying to use his powers to not get yelled at? That's kind of sad.
And I suppose Headhunter's ability to tell he's trying to influence her comes from, ah, her own ability to influence.
Counting the Kingpin's Persuader, that makes two people who've worked finance in New York and had persuasive ability.. though she's the only one, of course, who looks like someone's idea of a genderswapped Matt Murdock.)
He vents by screaming his plan for anyone who's just coming in now, calming down as he wraps up:
I love how her body language's first placative, then maybe a little exasperated.
The call's put in to the new Scourge, who's more Nuke and less Of The Underworld. He fights Crossfire, but that's not enough; Bombshell's about to blow the car open.
As she sets the bomb, she takes cover.. very strangely.
It goes boom, revealing the car's contents of.. federal evidence boxes.
Which both sides want, it seems, according to criminal scientist Nightshade's bit of exposition as she comes in to play retrieval for Tiger Shark and friends's boss.
To be precise, there's one they want, which they snatch from under Killgrave's nose.
But as Bombshell watches Nightshade wind back, she wonders something: " Hey, wasn't that Death-Stalker witch.. you know.. dead? So where's her..? "
It's right in Nightshade's chopper, a hole in its head and none the worse: " Land this thing and hand over the load. "
" Unlikely. "
No, she's not a robot. That's just an LMD.
So when the chopper explodes, neither of them are dead.
One's boss is pissed, though, and starts making plans to try and hire this new crew out from under whoever sent them up against him.
The other, well.. she's the only one it could be, and she's playing the game against the Purple Man in the exact same way he did against her.. for the same end, too.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 06:22 am (UTC)It's funny because the other week when I was zoning out I just randomly thought about Purple Man and how much I hate him. And then I thought of the time Luke Cage headbutted his face in and I was happy.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 05:12 am (UTC)http://www.comicbookviolence.com/post/1020707361/purple-mans-face-is-now-purple-blue-and-black
aaaaaand here is a thread that has some other scans of him beating the crap out of Purple Man. Also, the whole thread is worth looking at if you want to see a lot of cool Luke Cage moments.
http://hudlinentertainment.com/smf/index.php?topic=4305.15
no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 12:20 am (UTC)Whence this 'run the east coast' stuff come from?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 12:56 am (UTC)The first time 'round, he'd applied it to heroes by having the Puppet Master essentially set Misty Knight up as a proxy dispatcher, feeding them information on threats to his fledgling empire.
(I guess he liked the idea of being the man behind the woman behind the curtain.)
But then she broke free of his control, taking the operation for her own, so now he's trying it again with villains and taking a more direct hand.