NB of the Week

Heroes for Hire #2
Even though Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are semi-leaving the cosmic scene for Marvel, they still get their chances at bad-ass writing. Last month, after the fallout of Shadowland, they relaunched the book Heroes for Hire, taking the "street-level" heroes from it and forming another version of Power Man and Iron Fist's legacy, but with another twist, this one working much more in it's favor.
Misty Knight is Control, calling out to any hero who is for hire whenever she needs then. Issue one saw her call on the help of Falcon, Moon Knight and Elektra and it ended with the "huge surprise" of the Puppet Master being their financial backing. Awesome issue, lame ending. Until this issue.
Turns out Misty has Paladin following around the heroes, keeping an eye on them and cleaning up any messes left behind. What he finds is that the men she had Elektra kill last issue aren't who they appear to be. Not entirely. They have been using Demonica. Guns called Soulcutters that pull the spirits outta their victims and eventually feed the life outta their shooter as well. Sadly, Misty has already hired in Silver Sable to go after the head honcho, not knowing about the guns. To help get her out she also hires Ghost Rider to stop it all and take out cheesy, old-school baddie Baron Brimstone. Rider gets her out, saves the day, yadda yadda yadda. It was all cool but then we get to the end where Paladin, in talking to Misty, trails back to her Control Room where he finds nothing but dust-covered computers, even though she says she has been there for four months. Turns out the Puppet Master has her in his control, making every choice for her.
I was a little let down when the first issue showed that Master was the money man. Not much going there and a villain secretly being the leader has been done plenty of times before. However, throwing in Paladin and making the discovery so soon, show a lot of promise. That maybe this won't be the long, drawn-out plot that the first issue lead me to believe it would be. Paladin has been a bad-ass and he's only done anything in this one issue. DnA are making him into their Rorschach or their Question from JL Unlimited. He knows shit is going down and he's not gonna stop until he get his answers.
It's been a great start to a new book that I'm sure more people should be reading then actually are. Not that any of you will, but give it a shot. It's worth it.