Issue(s): Damage Control #4
Cover Date: Feb 90
Title: "The agent of SHIELD affair"
Credits:
Dwayne McDuffie - Writer
Ernie Colon - Penciler
Stan Drake & Marie Severin- Inker
Lisa Trusiani - Assistant Editor
Sid Jacobson - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue concludes the second Damage Control miniseries. Even more so than previous issues, it's really a plot driven issue wrapping up the hostile takeover of the Damage Control company. That is done with some help from SHIELD, especially thanks to Alexander Goodwin Pierce and his luxurious hair accounting skills.

Alongside that, we see the resolution to Anne Hoag's subplot as a member of the Commission on Super-Human Activities. A new villain called the Dittomaster replaces Henry Gyrich...

...and tries to force Hoag into going along with the majority of the Commission's recommendation to support the Superpowers Registration Act. But she refuses.

It turns out she and Nick Fury have a history.

Meanwhile, Ray Lippert stops being such a jerk and starts helping the Damage Control employees against Mickey Souris. And they convince Lenny Ballinger to temporarily cease the worker's strike to get a building stable enough for Captain America and John Porter to rescue some people trapped inside. This allows Cap and Porter to work out their differences after their argument from issue #1. Eugene Strasser, arrested after his attack on She-Hulk last issue, is also released by SHIELD to help with the rescue. It turns out he's a former SHIELD agent.

In this issue we see Mickey Souris nervously talking to on the phone this issue about how his plans for Damage Control are going awry.

As Michael noted in the comments for Damage Control #2, Souris first appeared in Dwayne McDuffie's She-Hulk: Ceremony as an employee of Carlton Industries, the company that has taken over Damage Control here. And in that issue he seemed to be a sorcerer, summoning a demon to fight She-Hulk. It's a mystery who Souris is talking to at first, and it could have been Carlton and there may have been a secret mystical element to what was going on here, but it turns out there's nothing like that going on. Souris has taken out a loan from the Kingpin to buy Damage Control, and he's been unable to keep up with the payments.

Pretty mundane, and very weird for McDuffie to use Souris just for this generic role. But it allows Damage Control to force a buyback.

The issue also wraps up the Punisher plot by having him observe Robin Chapel as she goes to the Kingpin to tell him that he's not going to be involved in Damage Control any more. Kingpin is fine with that, since, according to him, he's made $700 million dollars thanks to Acts of Vengeance.

I'd love to know how! I guess by ramping up his crime activities off panel while all the heroes were busy fighting random villains, but it would have been nice to see that somewhere.

"Several weeks later", the Damage Control building is airlifted away and brought to a certain comic company that made a lot of money thanks to a recent summer blockbuster movie.

And then it's announced that Damage Control has cleaned up all the damage from Acts of Vengeance, and the final vote on the Superpowers Registration Act has ended in its failure.

Definitely less jokes - satirical, situational, or otherwise - in this issue than previous ones with McDuffie maybe starting to take these characters and their plots more seriously. It's to the detriment of the series, in my opinion. As it is, this issue is too serious to be funny but too goofy to be serious.

Here is one joke, though. Every time we watch a James Bond movie, my partner Min complains that he can't be a secret agent because everyone knows who he is. So she was pleased to see this panel.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Ends "several weeks" after Acts of Vengeance. In the final scene, Damage Control gets a phone call about some damage that Doctor Octopus has caused, but i haven't listed him as a character appearing.

References:

• An opening recap covers Damage Control #1, Damage Control #2, and last issue.

Crossover: Acts of Vengeance

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

In She-Hulk:Ceremony, Carlton's company still controlled Wyatt's tribe's land at the end of this story. But in every later story, Wyatt's tribe has their land back. I guess Nick made Souris give Wyatt's tribe their land back.

Might be a fun exercise to tally up the Batman: The Movie references over the year. It had an impact across the industry - from how comics were treated as cultural objects worthy of respect, to a major raising of the level of possibilities for comic-related IP - that is hard to even explain to people who didn't live through it.

Although it has never been confirmed (or denied), I have always suspected that Dittomaster is the same guy as Ditto from Dan Slott's SHE-HULK run. We know that law firm has given second chances to other former super-villains (Awesome Andy, for example), and the similar names and powers (including the melty play-doh visual effect while shape shifting) makes me wonder.