Dumpster Diving: Deathblow #1-2

Welcome to the first installment of "Dumpster Diving". What is Dumpster Diving, you ask? Well, even if you aren't asking, I'll tell you anyway. This is when I go back through some comics I either haven't read yet, or I read them a LONG time ago and forgot about them.

I tend to have a memory that contains the most recent week's information, so I don't remember much.

We will grade these on 2 different scales. If I have read an entire story arc, we will do a simple 1-10 rating, with 10 being high. If I did not read the whole arc (as is the case with this entry), we will employ The Regret Scale.

The Regret Scale is similar to a 1-10 scale, with 1 meaning I saved myself from a hell so real and complete, that I want to take time out to smell the flowers, do charity work, hug my loved ones, and do all I can to improve the world around me. A 10 grading means that I want to walk off of a cliff because I did not continue on with the storyline.

Deathblow #1-2. The cover date is December of 2006 and January of 2007. Why did I sit on this for so long?? Our creative team features a story by Brian Azzarello and art by Carlos D'Anda. Let's give it up for them!

Azzarello wrote the Joker graphic novel, impressively, I might add.

These two issues find Mr. Blow being rescued by the U.S. military, as he was missing and presumed dead for 6 years. GREAT splash page with the helicopters.

Upon his return, I think I am supposed to walk away believing that he has been mentally re-programmed or some such nonsense. He is reunited with a family that he does not remember, talks to a talking dog (WTF), and seems to go apeshit by the end of issue #2.

I feel like the premise of the story was pretty good, and had I continued reading the story, it would have probably made more sense. As it stands, since I was not roped in right away, I will leave my Deathblow collection at #1 and #2.

Artwork: very solid. Some of it was pretty awesome, yet very dark, and I get it, it's a dark book.

The Regret Scale: 6. Take it or leave it. Had I read it when I was buying them, chances are high I would have continued.