I've been reading some comics written by Jeph Loeb and there's been some "interesting" patterns in how he cast his heroes and set-up the action scenes.
Firstly it seems like he'll set up an overall arc where, say BlueMan is at a crime scene. He is with his Scooby Gang, each namedropped in a box to remind us who they are. Then they got confronted by some group called Yahoos. Scoobies and Yahoos for no apparent reason. After that, BlueMan goes at it alone, and then every issue, he confronts each of his archenemies. Then turns out, Rush is responsible, BlueMan clashes with a few more gauntlet of heroes & villains, each in every issue. If it's a group of either, they have another cool boxed namedropping. Meanwhile, Jeph teases us that maybe Rush isn't who BlueMan thinks he is or is he? No time to argue, more gauntlet of heroes and villains to fight, more namedropping, until finally, BlueMan and Rush finally fights. And in every issue, Jeph tries to outwank Stan Lee by putting a black backgrounded splash page that recaps WTF moments in the previous issue, each panel is subbed with some variation of "Holy Shit! Did Rush do that?" (I'm talking to you, Red Hulk punching Uatu recap panel!)
It's the set up I've seen in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, which later repeated itself in Hush, and again in Red Hulk.
It's too obvious in S/B:PE when Supes & Bats got ambushed by and fought with a bunch of villains who got together in some plaza somewhere, each got kewl namedrops, then the other heroes interfere, namedrops ensues, villains flee, Supes/Bats fight with heroes. On the same goddamned plaza.
He does it again in an arc where Red Hulk hunts down Domino. Bonus points to where not only the X-Force are namedropped but also their abilities as well, along with where they're hiding, and which of the Red Team each mutant gets to fight with.
Granted, there are some moments worth reading, like in Hush, Batman & Catwoman gets to kiss.
What do you think?
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