This week's comics

Comic reviews. Spoilers here.

Star Wars #1

The Destiny Path part 1

Charles Soule writes a great Lando. With the Star Wars comics moving up into the gap between Empire and Return one of the things I'm looking forwrad to the most is watching Lando going from the guy who betrayed everyone at Bespin to the guy the Rebellion trusts to lead the second Death Star run. But on to the actual issue at hand...

So, as promised, its just after the climatic events of Empire and the Millennium Falcon is heading for the rebel fleet: no one trusts Lando, no one knows hat they're going to do about Han, and Luke is being mopey as hell about the whole father thing.

Actually, I'm being a little unfair on that last one, both to Luke as a character and Soule as a writer. Obviously, the next time we see Luke on screen he's going to have a new lightsaber and a wardrobe that heavily suggests he might be on the verge of breaking bad and following his father into the family business of betrayal and recreational genocide. Soule takes that doubt and really runs with it, putting Luke in a position of questioning absolutely everything: Ben, Yoda, the Jedi path and his own destiny. Its a great angle.

Also, it seems Poe Dameron's parents are going to be a big part of this run which was unexpected but quite nice to see.

Thor #1

The Devourer King part one:

The Black Winter

I've not read much by Donny Cates. A couple of crossover issues of Venom and... that's it, I think. I must admit I didn't really warm to his work there.

I liked this, though. Its not a huge departure from Jason Aaron's just finished epic arc but it certainly has its own flavour. I like the idea of Lady Sif being the all-seeing guardian of the bifrost, for one, and Cates' Volstagg is brilliant.

Beyond that the issue is all set-up: Thor is sad because he's bored on his throne but then a new threat literally falls on top of his royal duties and we're off to the races. That leaves me with not much else to say about this issue. I enjoyed it but it'll take another issue to see if the story actually grabs me.

Daredevil #16

Through Hell VI

You know what I love about Elektra in this series? She talks. She talks a lot. She's not chatty and she's not transparent but she does talk. I get the character is meant to be mysterious but I've never really felt like I knew her under most writers. Hell, even Brian Michael Bendis who could write dialogue-filled pages in his sleep mainly had her as a silent, looming figure when she turned up in his Daredevil run.

And, of course, for the first time in a long time, we have an old fashioned scene of Daredevil and the Kingpin talking in a room. Love those things, its been too long.

X-Men #4

Global Economics

So we get to the big obvious thing that needed to happen: the mutant nation of Krakoa in a diplomatic environment. In this case Magneto, Xavier and Apocalypse at an economics conference. I have to say, I love how this main X-Men series is doing one off short stories exploring different aspects of the Krakoa concept whilst the other series are doing more cohesive, arc-based things.

So its all fun, small things: the delegations bodyguards being the two mutants who have to wear sunglasses anyway; Magneto lecturing the humans on how human society collapses every few thousand years; Xavier impressing on everyone that he still believes in co-existence but isn't fucking around anymore. Its delightful and, it has to be said, a lot more digestible than Hickman's Avengers run.