Comic Reviews

This week Batman's first day as an engaged man ends in massive bisexual orgy (for someone else); Gwen Stacy finally gets to experience the sort of grimdark reinvention she missed out on in the Eighties by being dead; Thor provides some fanservice for French readers; Cable indulges in some unexpectedly appreciated artistic nostalgia; and, Iron Man undergoes a merger.

Batman #33

Rules of Engagement part 1

For serious, though, the colourist could remember to give Talia dark skin but not Damian? For real this is a thing that happened. On another note, the art does a terrible job of distinguishing the Robins, relying on you remembering who is wearing what colour shirt rather than making any real distinction of hair, height or facial structure.

Like, for instance, that one of the Robins is of Arab descent.

Anyway, this is another of those issues that shows how well Tom King writes for the serial format. The issue has two threads: Batman and Catwoman travelling across the desert in search of something with the Tiger King of Kandahar and Alfred gathering the Robins and Duke to tell them of this utterly insane thing Bruce has done (and also that he's in the desert). Aside from the aforementioned problems of keeping track of which Robin is which the b-plot is a good showcase for the family dynamic including a rare chance to see Duke in the group without Bruce. The desert plot is a whole lot of walking and talking and people being mysterious at each other which is great and atmospheric (including the decision to just skip an entire fight scene) but really needed the Wayne Manor stuff to keep the attention.

And it all ends with the revelation that what Talia has been doing since we last saw her is enjoying a comfortable retirement with her harem of twenty or thirty men and women and a very large bed. Nice work if you can get it.

Spider-Gwen #25

Gwenom part 1

I admit to finding it slightly odd that this got a Legacy storyline. I know Gwen herself has existed for half a century but Spider-Gwen is such a different (read: superior) character to the original I tend to forget that. Anyway, so now she has the Venom symbiote and never has Robbi Rodriguez's art been a better fit for an idea. His jagged lines and flowing shapes are perfect for this, its amazing.

Otherwise its exactly the story you'd expect it to be with Gwen hunting down the man who put her father in a coma and laying out a more savage than usual beating to the man. This might sound like a bad thing, predictability usually is, but it works and taking only a single issue to get Gwen to the place she is at the end of this one likely means the plot will go to more innovative places very soon.

The Mighty Thor #700

The Death of the Mighty Thor part 1

I'm not usually one to equate horrific permadeath with a good story, in fact I find the idea that the only good closure for a character is ruthlessly slaughtering them for shock value to be incredibly immature, but if they brought back Throg only to satisfy the “[a] Thor will die” promise of this arc I will be pissed.

Otherwise, this issue was a big tour of various Thors who have existed over the years including the young and old versions Jason Aaron introduced earlier in his run. The Throg bit is really fun, actually, and I hope we get to see more of the little fellow somewhere. The only downside really is that since Jane is only one Thor among many she gets rather the short end of the stick storywise. The Odinson gets to fight Malekith's army for the fate of the Norns; his past and future selves have nice little mini-adventures; Loki has a short side story with his biological (?) father Laufey; whilst Jane is left fighting Jennifer Walters in full-on PTSD episode Hulk mode. As even the narration notes, that's a story that''s been told again and again just with a different Thor and Hulk this time and not much more to say about it than that.

I'm not stupid, Jane's on her way out as Thor whether she survives her cancer or not, that's just what this whole Legacy business is about, I just don't like seeing her sidelined like this even for an anniversary that's about the larger concept of Thor than just her incarnation.

Cable #150

The Newer Mutants chapter 1

It worries me how much nostalgia Jon Malin's art inspires in me. I grew up during the bad times of comics, aka the last time they were a profitable industry, and so the Rob Leifeld house style was basically the look of comics to me for oh too many years. I've not read anything of Malin's before so I don't know if he's consciously aping the style for this one gig or if this is how he normally works but it definitely scratches an itch of nostalgia I'm almost guilty to admit exists.

(I'm not sure why Blink and X-23 look as stoned as they do on the cover, though.)

Anyway, the issue goes all-out on the Leifeld nostalgia with Cable reuniting with Shatterstar to investigate the mysterious death of Candra, one of the immortal Externals, in the distant past of 2004. Longshot and Doop are also there with others promised by the cover down the line. Like a lot of the nostalgia the Legacy imprint is trading on how well it connects with the reader is 100% tied to whether it was a thing for you first time round. I was never big on X-Force in the Leifeld era (the local newsagent didn't carry it) and I only know Candra from one random Gambit-centric X-Men arc. I seem to recall Cannonball was an External or might have been one or was one and then it got retconned or something... oh, the continuity! Anyway, the long and the short of it is that James Robinson is off the title now, there's a new writer and a plot I don't care for particularly so this series has one more issue to prove itself interesting enough to keep or its culled off the list.

Invincible Iron Man #593

The Search for Tony Stark part 1

First of all, I had forgotten how cool the classic Iron Man logo is. I adore the rivets. Painting Warhammer 40,000 miniatures you tend to hate rivets but when they're a design element you don't have to pick out in Boltgun Metal they actually look really, really cool.

Moving on...

From here on out it seems that Invincible and Infamous Iron Man are merging into one series complete with the Doom and The Thing part of this issue keeping the art style from Infamous. Its jarring, to say the least. Still, there is one upside to Infamous Iron Man ending (if it is ending) because that means there might be an opportunity for an Ironheart ongoing once Tony Stark is again fully installed as the straight white cisgender male Iron Man that fanboy retailers have been humping their pillows at night hoping to see return (along with every other straight white cisgender male protagonist who took some time off recently).

Because I'm resigned to losing Jane as Thor, let's not lose Riri as well, Marvel. 

Comic Reviews

Its basically all Marvel all the time this week since DC hates five week months with a fiery passion matched only by their hatred of having the same continuity for more than two years. Okay, there was The Lazarus Contract conclusion and an issue of The Flash this week but neither particularly inspired me to write anything about them. Plus, Doctor Strange fell off the pull list for a bit because Nazis so this genuinely is most of my pulls for the week and not just me being lazy, honest.

Cable #1

Right, these post-IvX series have so far made me care about the Inhumans so let's see if lightning can strike twice and they can make me care about Cable, patron saint of 90s Second Amendment comics. It is James Robinson on writing duties, which is almost always a good sign.

Anyway, Robinson takes the time travel aspect of Cable and runs with it. As a first impression he has Cable swaggering into a Wild West saloon and Cable as old fashioned gunslinger is certainly a good take on the character. I mean, the whole look of him is basically old-style masculinity boiled down and distilled into a single character. Anyway, Cable is on the trail of some sort of time travelling arms dealers, first going after Wild West outlaws and then a bunch of sixteenth century ronin with lightsabers. Either of these would make a good single issue story but, sadly, they make a pretty a rather spare single issue that's long on atmosphere but rather short on story. Still, that's not a million miles from my previous experiences with Robinson (his Superman run in particular) and I know he's a writer I can afford a degree of patience to.

Hulk #6

I know an ongoing theme of these reviews lately has been me getting a bit tired of the decompressed storytelling style of Brian Michael Bendis and the like but this series absolutely lobbies for the right of that style to exist.

Its been six issues and only now do we get substantial time with Jen as the now neutrally gendered Hulk. We've had snippets of it here and there, other scenes where its implied but Jen spends most of this issue in her new grey skin and green scars form. We also get final confirmation of how this version of her Hulk form differs from her previous one and its entirely based on the idea of psychological triggers.

Mariko Tamaki's take on this character has been so good for the way it takes the decades long canard of the Hulk as mental health metaphor and actually used it to explore themes of mental health. I know that discussion of mental health is, in a lot of ways, something we're only getting good at now but the idea has been around for decades and its only truly being exploited now. Obviously, its no how to guide on how to handle depression and anxiety, few of us have the chance to beat up supernatural horrors as occupational therapy, but the underlying emotions Tamaki writes ring very true to me as someone who has some experience dealing with such feelings in others.

I am very much looking forward to seeing where the next arc takes this series.

Generation X #2

Thus concludes a short and sweet introductory arc. Only two issues in and we have a good sense of the cast, a mission statement for the series and even a good bit of information on how the new Xavier's works in practice (which, sadly, we haven't managed to get from X-Men Gold, the main series set there).

Throughout it all, Christina Strain writes Jubilee as the veteran she damn well should have been since the original Generation X folded. Now, nothing will diminish my love for her as written in Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat but she was the POV character in the 90s cartoon and so I have a lot of affection for her. Plus, the idea of training mutants for something other than superheroics, training them to survive in the outside world and maybe to act as ambassadors for mutantkind is an interesting hook.

Plus, Strain has a great eye for where to slot in a cameo with the likes of Gentle, Broo and Graymalkin getting walk-ons during the fight with the Purifiers. Oh, yes, and seeing Jubilee's palpable rage when she confronts one of the Purifiers was great, whether it was a conscious callback to Skin's death or not.

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #7

There are two big takeaways from this issue. The first is how amazingly bad the Star Wars movie characters are at existing in Aphra's world. There's a moment when Triple Zero confronts Leia with how she “uses” Han and Luke as assets and Leia is horrified by the idea. One of the big themes of her character in Empire and Return is pulling back from how the war has dehumanised her and this marks as good a starting point as any for that journey.

The other takeaway is how conflicted a character Aphra herself is. Her shock when Luke refers to her as a friend is brilliant, as is her every reaction she has to presence of Sana. Boy, do I want to see an arc with them working together. Aphra has always had a certain “female Han” vibe to her so maybe an arc or two with “her” Lando would be cool. And I mean that comparison in more terms than just Sana being black: the two of them have old grudges and an older friendship, even if its more implied than anything else at this point.

And, yes, in this formulation Vader is Aphra's Luke.