Heroes For Hire vol 3 (Part 3)

Welcome back Anons. Last time, we saw Misty Knight get freed from the control of the Puppet Master, and then we saw them recruit Spider-Man to stop Batroc's supervillain vs. Dinosaur cage matches. Today, we're going to finish this series, with a tie-in to Fear Itself!

Good news, we already storytimed Fear Itself, so we don't have to do it twice.

>Paladin vs. Hammer empowered Ben Grimm

Yeah, Paladin should be a friggen smear on the ground right now.

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>Gargoyle

And in today's update in OP's reading, I finally got to New Defenders. Beast used to be great.

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Christ, look at this poor loser's teeth.

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Remember when the Shroud was a hero, instead of the villain Waid turned him into in Daredevil?

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>"I've got word that the Thunderbolts are moving in to help contain the break-out".

We've got three-four days of storytiming before we get to Parkerbolts. That SHOULD be only three-four days, but my new schedule means I may occasionally be too tired after work to post.

I can't believe Cyclops is fucking dead

Really Elektra? Couldn't take out the pyrokinetic first? I feel like he'd be the easiest to deal with by surprise.

>"Crazy witch!"

I guess they couldn't just censor the word bitch.

Oh good.

He's an X-Man, user. They die and live again more often than Jesus.
I mean that literally, by the way. Jesus only came back to life once.

Luckily, nothing else we're covering ties into Avengers vs. X-Men.

Man, that's an ugly damn thing.

Wow, Puppet Master is a scrawny little guy, huh?

>Purple Hand on his throat

oh i wonder who it could be

WHY WOULD YOU EVER LET THE PURPLE MAN TALK?! Bop him in the back of the head while he doesn't know you're there!

See, THIS is why you take him out before trying to get him to surrender.

So Anons, what have you read today?

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>Shadowland never ever

>"I think he's enjoying this."

I swear, sometimes it seems like Purple Man is only beaten because he's not fighting seriously.

I've got a plan, user! Believe me, I won't skip Shadowland.

>"You ninjas are trained to fight blind, right?"

Shroud, you're so lucky you're right about that.

>Purple Man whining on the sidelines that he can't see anything

> I won't skip Shadowland.

Why oh why must you punish us!

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>Colossus trying to give Juggernaught the old Man of Steel

I guess Gargoyle develops more magic than just draining life after Defenders?

I guess she's just letting Elektra and Shroud fend for themselves?

So i missed the issues but how accurate is the byrne quote (not the claremont woman part, that's half true and fantastic)

>As far back as when I was working with him on IRON FIST, Chris Claremont was known for "the Claremont Woman."No matter what her position or role in life, she was always smarter than, tougher than, and generally superior to any man within a hundred mile radius. I grew so tired of this that when IRON FIST morphed into POWER MAN & IRON FIST, and we were setting about to give Luke Cage a new girlfriend, I challenged him to write her as a total airhead. We would have Misty and Colleen .continuing in the series, so there would be no shortage of strong women. I came up with this ditzy fashion model .to whom Luke would find himself attracted even tho she was very much "not his type." Didn't last long after I left.

Partially because one user keeps asking about it, partially because one tie-in is the only time Colleen ever gets to be the lead in a series.

Man, Gargoyle is so jaded to being called a Monster, he just assumes everyone's talking about him.

>"I never meant to embrace darkness! I only did it to help others!"

If you're curious as to Gargoyle's backstory, he was a 70+ year old man who made a deal with a demon to help save his town, and was trapped in this form when the demons were beaten.

I'm sure retcons have been made sense to that backstory, of course.

God damn it, I liked Garyogle!

Well that came out of freaking nowhere!

He's referring to Harmony Young. She was indeed an airhead, and I may or may not have joked that Luke was only into Harmony for her body (the fact that she's a model would only give evidence to that claim).
As for being smarter/tougher than the hero? Well, Misty and Colleen were more street-smart than Danny, because he lived in a mystical extra-dimensional city for the last ten years. He was always stronger than the two of them though, but still capable.

Harmony stuck around for a while though, longer than Byrne had ever been involved with the series. She was a supporting character well into the Duffy run, and even the Busiek run. It was only the Priest (known as Jim Owlsey in those days) where Harmony vanished.

Welp, there goes Paladin.

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Why is he glowing at the top panel?

oh yeah the part about the women always being superior to men is Byrne projecting a bit imo.

Dun dun dun

Spoilers: Misty and Elektra are never on-panel at the same time in this issue.

>opening with a shot of Purple Man's lips instead of Misty's, for once

Unlike in the first arc of New Avengers, during Parkerbolts, for some reason they did something different, and rather than give Purple Man nano-somethings to neutralize his powers, they instead gave the staff nano-stuff to make them immune to his powers.

In any case, he's outright lying that she vanished once he left, especially since he was only around for the first few issues of Power Man and Iron Fist.

>"If you see him, he instantly becomes the thing you're secretly most afraid of."

So DnA were reading Harry Potter when they came up with this guy?

So basically he's what the Scarecrow would be if he figured just using the gas was too easy?

>"[Paladin] was a vigilante merc. He was afraid he's not realizing his potential."

And is what he thinks he COULD be?

Maybe it's because I read Harry Potter as a kid, but really, the whole "follow the person with two people at once" thing should be something they'd at least THINK to try.

Notice, Anons.
Misty is holding her gun in her normal hand. NOT the super strong bionic hand. That Captain Falcon cover will never NOT annoy me.

Wait, what?

As fun as it is, I feel like she should be able to take him out in a single panel.

>"But how did you..."
>"I held my breath."

A solution to dealing with the Purple Man that surprisingly rarely comes up. Or maybe some sort of breathing apparatus if you can't hold your breath long enough.

Okay Anons, I want you to try holding your breath right now, see how long you can last. I lasted 25 seconds before hiccuping. Now imagine doing that while fighting.

It's true that Claremont tended to have women powercreep and end up in situations where they have to get out of alone. I think that every single X-woman had a scene where she's being shown as a primal amazon letting loose and doing amazing force-of-nature feats with their powers, while maybe X-men are mostly shown as good leaders and power creeping to hypercompetence, but very seldom they do "absolute force of nature" stuff

Oh, god. That last panel is all kinds of unintentional hilarity.

Fucking really? He fell down a hole?

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If you've been following this series so far, you may have an idea what Misty's fear is.

Did you guess right?

And suddenly he realizes that his powerset sometimes isn't useful.

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>"We've got to help save this city."
>not mentioned anywhere else

And of course he freaking survived.

Last issue of this series, Anons!

>Moon Knight
>In LA

If memory serves, around this time Bendis started writing Moon Knight's series.

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Oh man, I've seen how Moon Knight interrogates people. This'll get rough.

So did Silver Sable have a series around now, to explain the random exposition in the first issue?

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Misty's weirdly flirty with Sable now, like she was with Colleen on some days.

Wait, bullets AND lasers from the barrel?

>"You're doing this for free? What, are you sweet on her? Oh, good god! You ARE sweet on her!"

After how much of a dick he was in the last series, this is WEIRD to see.

>that callback to Spider-Man

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>that random Jaws reference

And suddenly, Namor.

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So they deal with the drug problem... by telling Namor to do something about it?

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Wow, and that plan worked. What the hell, that's anti-climatic.

And that's the last heroes for Hire series, Anons!
However, this series gets a one-shot tie-in to the Spider-Island "event", and the Immortal Weapons (and Iron Fist) get involved in a mini, so we're going to have to do Spider-Island next!

See you next time, Anons!

Why did I remember this being longer?

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Maybe you're counting Villains For Hire?