War Machine Versus Ninjas

In Invincible Iron Man 6, Brian Michael Bendis depicts Tony Stark's friend James Rhodes in his War Machine armor, investigating the Stark facility infiltrated by Madame Masque. There he is attacked by two beautiful, but deadly, ninjas. This time, they're ladies.

This photo of Mike Deodato and Frank Martin's artwork suffers a little from light reflection on the right hand side. But you can still compare how differently Dave Marquez and Justin Ponsor treated a similar scene in my earlier Ninja post. Take a look at the ladies' legs, for example. There's no detail in their musculature. You can barely see their feet.

There's much less depth and vibrancy than in the Ninja scenes by Marquez and Ponsor. The skin tones seem particularly flat by comparison. And there's so much black. Ordinarily, I would wonder if that was due to the Inker. But no one is listed as Inker for the issue, so it must be down to artist Mike Deodato or colorist Frank Martin.

I battled with light reflection while taking all my photos of Issue 6. Either that's got something to do with the change in art style, or I suddenly forgot how to use my camera.

Dragon Dave