Destro #4 // Review

She invited her business associates to the big, splashy party. She’s paying for it all. She’s the most totally important person in the whole corporation, If she says that everyone is getting totally wasted, then everyone is getting totally wasted. Of course...when someone shows-up in a decidedly militaristic outfit and a bald chrome head shows-up, things are going to get more than a bit strange in Destro #4. Writer Dan Watters continues and in-depth exploration of the G.I. Joe villain in an issue brought to page and panel by artist Andrea Milana and colorist Adriano Lucas.

Destro’s there because he thinks that she wants him dead. She tells him that he’s not right about that. Her tech may be after him, but she isn’t. She doesn’t want him dead, but the system that she put in place does. It sees him and his organization as a threat and has decided to eliminate him. She’s going to have a hell of a time trying to convince him that that is the case. He’s come to confront him directly and he’s not exactly in a good mood what with it having been the case that there are some very deadly pieces of military tech that have been trying to do away with him.

Though the story remains interesting, Watters’ script for the third issue in the series feels a bit weaker than previous issues have managed to be over the course of the first couple of issues of the series. It’s been an interesting journey thus far, but as the story reaches its climax, the overall rhythm of the story seems to lack the kind of pulse needed to really bring the story to its big climax. The series is approaching its big moment at the end of the series. 

The drama of the series continues to dance across the page quite well. There’s some visual potential in a wealthy, young woman being confronted by one of the most dangerous men on the planet. There’s some stark visual potential in that that simply isn’t realized by Milana. Not that there isn’t decent drama making it to the page. It’s not quite on the level that it needs to be to really hit the page with the kind of potential it needs. And though there is a big reveal at issue’s end, it doesn’t quite manage to hit the page with the intensity 5that it would really need to feel as intense as it  could have felt.

Watters’ momentum going into the third issue was quite impressive. That momentum gets reduced a bit as Destro finds the woman he thinks is looking to have him killed. It really SHOULD be more of an intense showdown, but something gets lost between the script, the art and the issues that have led into the third. It doesn’t quite hit the potential that it really could have managed and so it feels like a brief moment of  gradual motion before the narrative settles-down into its big finale next month. 

Grade: B