"Master of the Ring, Part 3 and 4"
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Scott Kolins
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Plot: Daredevil's battle with the new, improved Stilt-Man comes to an abrupt end when Luke Cage arrives to lend a hand. However, as the two heroes play catch up, they happen to notice an explosion in the distance. Meanwhile, in another part of the city, the Sleepwalker entity encounters the Black Cat during one of its nightly patrols, but it's unable to bring her to justice when its attention is pulled away by a distant explosion.
Comments: I remember that even when I was a little fanboy whose entire comic buying decision was based upon whether the book featured Spider-Man on the cover, I would often wonder why none of the other Marvel heroes ever showed up to give Spider-Man a hand when the Rhino went on a tear through midtown Manhattan. Now this underlying idea behind this question has stuck with me for pretty much my entire comic reading life, and while I know the answer from a storytelling sense as guest-stars do serve to pull attention away from main star and as such it's a gimmick that have to be used sparingly, often time I find myself wishing writers displayed a little more imagination than the throwaway line about the Fantastic Four and Avengers being out of town. In any event, in a bid to pull this tangent back so that it has some relevance to the actual comic I'm supposed to be reviewing, I have to say I'm rather enjoying the format that Robert Kirkman has employed on this second arc, as the big explosion from the first chapter makes its presence felt on the adventures of various Marvel characters scattered around the city. Along the way, this set-up addresses the question of why other heroes don't come a running when a hard to ignore event occurs in the middle of the city. How can one not love Luke Cage as the harried expectant father? And the Sleepwalker's link to his host made for a cute little moment. This second arc also allows Robert Kirkman to adopt a more traditional approach to the Marvel Team-Up story, as this issue opens with the Daredevil battling a new, slightly improved Stilt-Man, with Luke Cage's intervention putting an abrupt end to the battle. Plus, the second story has some fun with the Sleepwalker, as it playfully pokes fun at the character's delightfully naive war on crime as I loved that the character actually had to ask the Black Cat whether she was committing a crime.
I loved the cover to this issue, as it's such a mundane image that one can't help but be intrigued about the story inside. I also have to give the interior art full marks for the success of the Titannus plot, as the opening and closing images of the issue amazingly sell the destruction that he's caused. As for the rest of the issue, the art conveys well the new gimmicks of Stilt-Man, as while the character has always been a more of a joke than a real threat (though he did hand She-Hulk her head), Scott Kolins does a nice job with the new additions so that that battle actually has a real sense of danger about it, with the scene where Daredevil has to make a desperate dive to keep the poor guy from falling to his death being the highlight of the battle. The art also does some nice work on the second story as the Sleepwalker's power gets a good showing during his brief encounter with the Black Cat, and the scene where he's pulled back into his host is nicely presented by the art.
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