DC Comics reviews for 6/20/18

Damage #6

Damage vs. Gorilla Grodd is one of those ideas that instantly sounds good, but this presumed dream match didn’t meet expectations.

A lot of that had to do with unusually underwhelming art. Diogenes Neves, working off of Larry Hama breakdowns here, is a solid artist, but is unable to pay off this colossal conflict. Grodd looks far too slight and Damage seems less imposing than normal. Tony Daniel made Damage look more than a grey Hulk and other artists have struggled to fully capture that impressive stature. Of the six issues so far this easily featured the weakest artwork.

Writer Robert Venditti has been diligent about keeping the Damage stories tight without a lot of multi-part stories. In this instance, Grodd battling Damage and then Ethan having to worry how to stop him the other 23 hours had a lot of potential. And teaming Grodd and Poison Ivy was a pairing worthy of exploring more than a couple of pages.

The cameo from Swamp Thing also felt out of nowhere and seemed more like a gimmick to throw yet another character into the mix instead of focusing on Ethan. I’m losing confidence in DC’s faith in the character as he’s barely gone an issue without having an assortment of cameos. At some point, Damage is going to have to stand on his own without guest spots. Hopefully that’s coming sooner than later.

Rating: 4 out of 10