Where Yah Going With This, Spenser?
I've been really excited about this series; it had a lot of potential, and promised writing similar to that of Hawkeye, which was exciting for me. Hawkeye had begun to lose it's comedic elements for a more serious narrative, and I missed what made the series so endearing originally. However, this book seems to have fallen into the opposite trap, trying too hard to create scenarios or elements to make the series more funny.
Boomerang, admittedly, is a pretty solid main character, as he has some interesting insights on the world he lives in. However, a lot of that is fairly specific to him, making his supposed generalized perspectives rather limited. He continues to be the best character in this series though, as everyone else has been degraded to something of a stereotype, as presented in the first issue. However, when most of those stereotypes involve them being jerks, there's something of a lack of diversity in the characters themselves. But that may be because almost no one else has been characterized as of yet. Yes, we saw our fair share of Speed Demon and Shocker last time, but we see even less of everyone else this issue around.
Also, there's more of this Chameleon stuff, which is a pretty poor excuse for a plot in the first place, but also undermines much of what is going on in the middle of the story in a rather uncharacteristic way.
Spenser has never been an author I have particularly enjoyed, but it's such a shame that a series like this has to crash and burn. However, considering the direction it's going in, I'm not sure I see any other result on the horizon.
