Last month, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee gave us a beautiful opening to their Rocketeer miniseries. And though they nailed the world of the principle characters, we only barely got a hint of the titular cargo. Thankfully, they definitely brought the promised “doom” this time around.
Written by Mark Waid
Illustrated by Chris SamneeThe 30th anniversary of the Rocketeer continues! Cliff finds himself the target of a scheme to ‘liberate’ the jetpack from him as a pair villains plot to stop him from interfering with their nefarious plans. Meanwhile, Cliff’s secret identity, rather precarious at the best of times, is discovered by someone outside of his immediate circle.
When we last left Cliff Secord, he was stuck in something of a love triangle, struggling to certify his plane for flight, and getting a reputation as a hothead. As is often the case in superhero comics, the only escape – the only place he is excelling – is behind his superhero guise. It’s a common way for writers to create additional conflict on either side of the identity and drive comics beyond their good vs. evil battles. Stan Lee’s Spider-Man, for instance, was built around Peter Parker succeeding as Spidey, and dropping the ball in his personal life. Waid runs Cliff through this gauntlet without it calling attention to itself. It’s clear to us that nothing is really working out for Cliff for the time being, but Waid is very economical and lets Samnee’s art handle the body language and the emotions. Issue #2 deals with the fallout from Cliff’s disastrous run-in with a federal aeronautics inspector. A new fed is appointed for Cliff’s oversight, a character who appears to be one-dimensional at the start and ends up being a clever cog in reconciling Cliff with his alter ego.
If there was anything missing from the first issue of “Cargo of Doom”, it was any sense of a threat or a compelling villain. If anything, issue #2 overcompensates for this by creating the type of cackling bad guys that would be chewing the scenery in old Hollywood adventure serials. There’s not much to these baddies, psychologically or motivationally, but that seems to be appropriate for this story. These men are doing evil things, because they’re evil and that’s that. The swashbuckling tone of the project makes that fact a little less bothersome. Once the final couple pages reveal the contents of the “cargo of doom”, this series makes it clear that it wants us to just lay back and accept whatever crazy it wants to throw at us.
Chris Samnee’s art is as clean and reliable as ever. He has such a consistent strength in his line that it’s tough to imagine his work ever looking rushed or poorly conceived. He makes drawing a kinetic action sequence look easy, though it is most certainly not. A stiff punch to the mouth is handled with as much aplomb as a wide-screen aerial battle.
But the real key to his work on Rocketeer is the way he approaches the sequences Waid gives him, conceptually. In one example, the Rocketeer enters the unfamiliar and cautiously peers from the shadows. Samnee reveals a single, startled eye of Cliff which is usually shrouded by the iconic helmet. In creating a sense of “doom” to go along with the main threat, he knows just what to keep hidden in shadow and just how much to let into the light. Samnee’s best moment comes at the end of the book, where he draws fantastical versions of what the cargo could mean for the fate of the country, if the villains have their way. It’s insane and not the least bit apologetic about it.
“Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom” is keeping a delicate balancing act between the man in the flight suit and the hero that soars into danger at first blush. Though the story treads into unbelievable territory, it does so with the same gusto that our hero exhibits when launching himself into the sky. For that reason, and for another opportunity to see Samnee’s perfect fit, you shouldn’t miss this.
Final verdict: 8.5 – still a Buy
