Well, as I write this, I just got pissed and logged off Twitter; so I'm doubtless in a perfect mood for blogging. What's within arm's reach...how about Avengers Spotlight #34, featuring "Ashes" Written by Steve Gerber, pencils by Al Milgrom, inks by Don Heck; and "The Xenophobic Man: The Ends and the Means" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Dan Lawlis, inks by Keith Williams.
This was the penultimate chapter of the Hawkeye serial where he got an armored version of his costume, and we saw the conclusion some time back. Hawkeye, with Mockingbird tagging along, is more or less at war with street gang "the Stone Perfs," who are themselves also being hunted by unseen murder vigilante "the Terminizer." Unbeknownst to any of them, they have a third enemy, drug lord/femme fatale/empowered female entrepreneur Lotus, who has the Perfs' meeting firebombed! Hawkeye and Mockingbird are fine on his little skycycle, and Mockingbird manages to punch the bombers up to the point their helicopter crashes, killing the bombers. All wrapped up then, right? No, there's another chapter of this, since Lotus's boy toy lackey Prince Charming was instructed to tag the massacre with the Terminizer's mark, and Hawkeye still wants to figure out who that was.
Next, the conclusion of a USAgent serial, with John Walker versus the titular Xenophobic Man, who was really a border patrolman turned killer attacking illegal immigrants. And seems to be wearing a Dallas Cowboys helmet. Super. Maybe there's more nuance in the prior chapters, but this one does have USAgent literally carrying a cross; which I'm not entirely sure was meant as symbolic in any way and may have just been a set piece. Not a very good one, though: the Agent was more than strong enough to throw that cross into the next county if he wanted to. There's also the standoff traditional to so many action and thriller movies of the 90's, where the hero refuses to kill the beaten bad guy, who then goes for a gun or otherwise tries to kill him, then gets shot or otherwise killed. It's like the end of every movie Ashley Judd was in that decade, I swear.
That Xenophobic Man one is still very much relevant today, especially in today's current climate. Interesting that US Agent fights a guy who acted just like he used to when he started out as the Super-Patriot.
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