Killmonger #2 (of 5): Anger Like an Old Gun

Anger and arrogance are a potent mixture, but in Erik Killmonger’s formative years, they’re all he has to cling to. This story is essentially the tale of how he came to focus those two traits into making him the only man to defeat Black Panther in combat, and although this chapter feels less potent than issue one, it is nonetheless entertaining if you don’t think about the plot too hard, rendered with near-perfection by Juan Ferreyra. Take, for example, Killmonger and company’s assault on their targets. It’s beautifully rendered over the span of three double-page spreads, kinetic, suspenseful, and tautly choreographed:

The art feels fully-realized and completely confident. That comes, I believe, from Ferreyra both coloring and inking his own pencils. He’s an artist who’s poised to do some great things. Watch him. Here’s another glorious panel:

The complications in this issue’s execution arise from a blurriness of motivation. The way writer Bryan Hill writes King, he certainly doesn’t come across as a man who takes unreasonable chances; yet he’s willing to risk not only his livelihood but his life on Killmonger, a man whom he knows nothing about except that he’s angry and capable. In King’s own words, Killmonger’s anger can’t be the only thing he lives for and will someday get him killed – yet, he trusts him nonetheless because he wants to orchestrate the massive hit that will curry favor with the Kingpin. That short-sightedness belies everything we’ve learned so far about the character.

There’s also a problem with storytelling logistics. King states there has to be four of them because there are four targets, which indicates a one-for-one killing scenario. Yet when the foursome rush in and are attacked by a small army, it’s not treated like an aberration, which infers it was expected. Why, then, did it have to be four? Especially when one of the group, Risk, has a healing factor to help even the odds, and Killmonger is such an unknown quality? In an earlier scene, King makes it clear he doesn’t necessarily trust Killmonger to be anything other than angry, and in fact has no plan of his own until his young protege concocts one himself, which seems incongruous at best with the competent, wise manner in which King has been presented thus far. It honestly seems like the scenario was written the way it was because Hill needed to have a reason for Killmonger to get indirectly involved with the Kingpin, which is in and of itself far-fetched anyway. That doesn’t detract from the bravura technical aspects Ferreyra put into the art, but it does give me pause to wonder just how much thought Hill put into his plot.

King remains something of an unintentional enigma throughout. He immediately takes Erik under his wing, doling out advice and life lessons like some assassinating father figure. Erik doesn’t really seem to listen to anything this old man has to say, and isn’t shy about the fact that he’s using the group to get set up to kill Klaw (yet in the previous issue, he had no trouble finding Klaw on his own, so why does he need the group at all?). This should all be pretty obvious, yet it doesn’t deter King from trusting Killmonger with his life. There’s also a matter of Knight pitching woo toward a disinterested Killmonger, but since we know next to nothing about Knight just yet, it’s really just a plot point that doesn’t amount to anything. To be continued.