Damage #10

Fragments Part Three: Links

Tom Joyner – Story
Bill Marimon – Pencils
Don Hillsman and Dave Bednar – Inks
Bob Pinaha – Letters
Buzz Setzer – Colors
Jim Spivey – Muckraker

This month's cover was produced by Bill Marimon, Tom McWeeney and Jason Armstrong, with colors by Danny Vozzo and Rob Schwager. Curtis King and John Wren bought everyone Nickelodeon "Gak." I had some Gak as a kid, at it was a lot of fun. Anyway, we have so many people working on this cover because it's a combination of the past three Damage covers. We have a puzzle piece from issues #8, #9 and #10, plus a teaser for the Iron Munro backup.

I guess I could have justified including Damage #9 in my list, but we don't technically see Impulse in it. But as Impulse says at the beginning of this issue, he was there, just unseen. In last issue, Damage battled Doctor Polaris and made quite a mess of things. This issue begins with the Titans arriving on the scene after Damage has left. And Arsenal is chewing out Impulse for not calling them before things got out of hand.

But Impulse says he was just following Arsenal's instructions exactly — to keep an eye on him and stay hidden. Impulse also managed to secretly help Damage a couple of times. As we saw in issue #8,  the mother box flying toward Damage was actually Impulse rushing it to him, while he vibrated to make himself invisible. And in issue #9, Impulse surreptitiously cushioned Damage's fall with a mini whirlwind.

Arsenal never told Impulse to stop Damage or call for help, so he didn't. And the prison warden vouches for Impulse, saying he wasn't able to stop Doctor Polaris from escaping because he was taking an injured guard to the hospital. Impulse then tells Arsenal he thinks Damage has returned to his home in Atlanta. And that's the last we see of Impulse here.

We then get into a complicated story with Damage being hunted by the evil green Gak-looking thing named Splatter. Apparently, he's mostly just a jealous beast, and he kills Damage's girlfriend before Damage kills him. Pretty heavy stuff, but it doesn't play a direct role in Impulse's main story. And even less related to Impulse is the Iron Munro backup.

The Phantom Imperative Part Three

By: Joyner • Armstrong • Pepoy • Pinaha • Setzer • and Spivey

All that happens in this short story is Iron Munro looking for the Phantom Lady in a mineshaft in Poland. Naturally, he doesn't find her. There's still two parts left of the story.

So this was actually a pretty monumental story for Damage, but not so much for Impulse. I am deeply saddened that Impulse made a guest appearance in Damage's book without actually interacting with Damage. But I did like the idea of Impulse secretly helping his friend the whole time. And of him following Arsenal's directions a little too literally.

The Damage Assessments letter page has no mention of Impulse, but there is the special continuity note, telling me this issue happens after New Titans #119, which still hasn't come out yet. Once again, I feel DC was being a little negligent by not putting this note at the beginning of the issue.

There are only two new ads in this issue:

The Spectre. Know his wrath! "Desecration" in issues #27–30. By the critically acclaimed team of John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake.

Douglas Adams. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. At last, will the ultimate question be found? A three-issue miniseries starting in January.

Next time, we begin March 1995 as Impulse makes a guest appearance (along with everyone else in the DC Universe) in Guy Gardner: Warrior #29.