I'm really excited to talk about my comic pulls this week. Unlike last week, where I had five issues that were all #1's and mostly independent publishers, my picks are from just DC and Marvel.
What makes these picks particularly neat, however, is that they are almost all written by women! Kelly Thompson writes two issues, Captain Marvel #21 and Star #5, Leah Williams is on X-Factor #3, and Mariko Tamaki on Wonder Woman #762. That just leaves Scott Snyder with Death Metal: Trinity Crisis #1, another tie-in from the original Metal series' follow-up. There will be spoilers in these reviews, and I'll try to talk about what it was that made each one good, instead of just the summary of events. This includes art, which I consider a major factor in a making or breaking a comic. My favorite comics to discuss are the ones that I can pick through with a comb, pointing out the details of why its good, why the events mattered, and what it all means. In part, that's why I started this site! Continue Reading for my thoughts on this week's favorite comics!
JUMP TO:
Captain Marvel #21
As this issue is the final Empyre tie-in for the Captain Marvel series, DEFINITELY read this one BEFORE Empyre: Aftermath- Avengers, if you planned on doing so. There is also a major spoiler variant by Chris Bachalo out there, and I'll be spoiling it in the green text potion of this review. We pick up Captain Marvel #21 where we left off in the last issue, with Lauri-Ell is fighting Cotati aliens on Earth. I noticed right off, with this artistic team, that colorist Tamra Bonvillain seems to carry the art. Of course the line-work by Cory Smith, inked by Adriano DI Benedetto, is fantastic, and Smith draws one of my favorite versions of Carol in recent years. But the striking colors, vivid in the bright power blasts, yet subdued in the more subtle moments, are what makes the art of Captain Marvel shine for me. The invading creatures have taken a bunch of humans hostage, including Kit, Carol's young friend and biggest cheerleader. It's Lauri-Ell against the horde, until Carol and the Accusers show up to help, just in the nick of time. The battle was clearly a hefty effort, even for the Kree Laruie-Ell. Upon her arrival and joining the fight, Carol notes how attached she’s become to her sister in such a short amount of time. Mid fight, though, something happens with the Accuser All-Weapon, and all four of the heroes lose their Accuser abilities and connection. It sort of plays out to look like the strain was too much, even for Carol to handle. Lauri-Ell hears the master-less weapon calling to her, and, seeing the others start to struggle without that extra boost of power, makes the decision to picks it the hammer up herself. Immediately, Carol's half-sister transforms into the Kree Accuser armor. This scene was so obvious, in retrospect, that I can't believe I didn't see this coming. All the fans were wondering what the big spoiler in this issue would be, but it seems most were limiting ourselves to notions of life or death for various characters. In reality, the progression of the Accuser title from half-Kree Carol to her fully Kree sister is the most natural storytelling arc, and I can't get over how well it was played out. Artists Cory Smith, Adriano DI Benedetto, and Tamra Bonvillain made the transition from rogue Kree to Supreme Accuser in this scene stunning, somehow making Lauri-Ell look just like Ronan, the former Accuser. Its even noted by Carol, who is immediately impressed by her sister's transformation. Everyone in the group gets their moment to note how cool she looks, Spider-Woman continuing her fond obsession with the larger woman's enormous arms. At some point between this issue and the last, everyone gets their moment with Carol’s sister, getting to know her, and giving their seal of approval at her joining the family. One of the best visuals of the whole issue was the moment I realized all the heroes on the scene fight with "power fists", with the exclusion of Laurie-Ell. By this, I meant that Spider-Woman, War Machine, Captain Marvel, and Hazmat all have differently-colored powers that emerge from their hands, so when they line up in a fight, they look like a group Dazzler would love to join up with. With Laurie-Ell's addition of the Accuser All-Weapon, the panels of the five of them fighting are not only visually beautiful, but add more subtle humor for the attentive reader to catch. Once the battle is over, Carol delegates everyone their jobs for post-battle, including some very funny moments with the friends in the group. Jessica Drew is written as the cocky superhero she has long-since been established as, with Hazmat as the protege she and Carol mother over. Carol and Rhodey share a kiss, and I'm reminded how I love that their dynamic is very much two people who love each other, but they’re not out here texting heart emojis and going on dates. They’re both superheroes AND military figures, and they have other, more important things to be bothered with. But every now and then, when the wars are over and everyone can take a quick breather, they get to enjoy one another again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When it comes to Captain Marvel, Kelly Thompson does her best work in a group setting. Fellow Avengers, other heroes, best friends, teammates, family, anything. Any group of people Carol gets along with, she writes superbly, and this issue is not an exception. Weeks later, Lauri-Ell meets up with her sister in Carol’s underground bunker. Looking at her mother’s Kree warrior suit, she asks Carol for a favor. They go to Mari-Ell’s grave together, where Lauri speaks some solemn words to the mother she never knew. Its a beautiful moment between mother and daughter, one anyone who has ever suffered the loss of a parental figure can relate to. Carol, beside her, sheds a tear at what she says. Their family has had a massive loss, with her mother’s death. Now, the family has grown again, in ways they never could have imagined. The scene at the cemetery is one of the more subtle of the art team, but nonetheless does the job of portraying the deep meaningfulness of the moment. Between Carol's silent tears and Larui-Ell's quiet speech, their bond was clearly solidified by these final moments of the issue. I cant wait to see the future of Lauri-Ell in comics! As the Kree Accuser, I’m hoping she’ll stay relevant as long as the new Kree/Skrull empire is a thing. It also brings up the question of Carol’s brother, again. He seems to still live in their family home in Maine, but the fact that their mother is Kree doesn't seem to have affected him yet. Now, there is even another Danvers/Ell in the family, a fully Kree one. I wonder if anyone at Marvel is going to touch on the fact there’s another half-Kree living on earth, yet to discover his own powers. If Carol gained hers through them being triggered in a chaotic event, maybe his can, too...
Death Metal: Trinity Crisis
As someone who read the entirety of the original Metal event, this was one of the best issues of Death Metal so far, even if it was technically just a tie-in. Scott Snyder is the writer leading the entire event, just like the last one, and this week's issue has him teamed with illustrator Francis Manapul. Manapul is an amazing artist and writer in his own right, having both written and drawn the majority of the Rebirth Trinity series several years ago. With his expertise on the Trinity characters alongside Snyder's grasp of the entire event as a whole, this issue was always bound to be a winner. The issue starts with brief, over-arching explanations of the various DC Crises, what their role is in this whole event, and the way the heroes view them. Perpetua, mother of the multiverse, feeds off crisis energy, and Wonder Woman and the other heroes have to shut down the recurring, otherworldly events before she gets too powerful. The Crises may be massive, detrimental events, but the heroes decide to see them as victories-- as wins in their histories. Immediately, I'm reminded how much I miss Francis Manapul drawing the Justice League. He draws each of them with care, easily carrying over character designs and subtle features from panel to panel. Some artists will often cut back on the detail of a page for the sake of time, and try to focus the eyes to a particularly well-drawn spot. With Manapul, I can stare at each panel as long as I want, and still only see the upmost care and effort put into the art. When the team decides to invade Castle Bat, their first trial is getting past the countless landmines, booby-traps, and evil Bat-people spread across the castle grounds. With no other option in sight, the remaining world’s plants gather together for Swamp Thing to use, to get the heroes underground beneath Castle Bat, instead. It will be interesting to see if Poison Ivy gets pulled into the story after this is all over, when Alec will have to help rebuild the plant life of the whole world. She had a bit of a power-surge after her death and resurrection as part of the Green in Heroes in Crisis, so this would be the perfect time to bring her back in--last seen in Vita Ayala's fantastic Death Metal: Guidebook story (the best in that issue, by far). When the heroes get under the castle we get introduced to some new evil Bats, my favorite easily being Kull, the daughter of Bruce and Diana. It seems Bruce doesn’t notice her, he’s too busy dealing with Pearl, his evil Bat-mother. While it was a VERY brief interaction, I’d love for Kull to be discussed more, either by appearing more in the story or having Diana and Bruce talk about her existence. Her costume design is a lot like a black and gold themed Wonder Woman outfit, which makes a lot of sense. Colors for her father, garb for her mother, and the brilliant red hair of her Aunt, Kate Kane. The Trinity are the ones actually going into the Crises’ in an attempt to put an end to their cycle, with the rest staying behind to keep watch and make sure they can make it back safely. Harley Quinn and Jonah Hex spend much of their time on the team together, with Jonah offering her some of the best advice anyone could give. They bond quickly, both seeing bits of themselves in the other. This only makes it more tragic when Robin King shows up, solo, with a utility belt full of tricks. Robin King is young Bruce Wayne, if he had killed his parents himself. He ends up attacking Harley and the rest of the heroes who stayed behind, killing Jonah and severely wounding Swamp Thing. As Jonah left this plane of existence again, he reminds Harley of what he told her, that she's just as good as the rest of the heroes, inside and out. Unfortunately, the Trinity members don't fare much better, themselves. They make it into the three Crises, but of course it isn’t what they thought. It sort of seems like they should have been able to see this coming, but the three Crises have been twisted by Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs to where the heroes never won. Villains Darkseid, Anti-Monitor, and Superboy Prime have taken over those Crises entirely, and the Trinity fell right into their trap. I have to admit, though, its going to be thrilling watching how this plays out! I didn't think they would be actually going to the physical moments of the Crises, but its a super cool idea. I'm getting more and more on board with this event as it goes on, but I still have things I want to see happen. For one, the chainsaw of truth gets talked about an awful lot but not a whole lot of use. Even in this issue's battle with the evil Bat-Family, we don't actually see Diana using it in the fight. With all the hype, I'd love to see the chainsaw of truth used more, and Diana to take a bigger role in the story. With that being said, what drove this issue by far was Francis Manapul's art. He draws the Trinity like old friends, and gives the same amount of care to every character who appeared. The art of a comic can make or break a single issue or a whole series, and adding Manapul here saved the issue, likely driving my interest in Death Metal going forward. I was particularly enamored with his Diana and Clark. Clark with his grown-out locks, looks both exhausted and determined. Diana's multi-colored hair is garbed in a an almost terrifying golden crown. Manapul, steady and regular with the depictions of every other feature in the issue, drew the crown slightly different in almost every panel, which for me only added to how unsettling it is. Wonder Woman in a crown connotes dictatorship elements, and the way Manapul draws it makes it appear to almost move with her emotions. I can't say if this was done on purpose, but it added a slight element of fear and tension to an already tense comic. In all, I do think this issue wouldn't have struck so well without Francis Manapul on art. Death Metal continues in Dark Knights: Death Metal #4, which is still a month away, premiering October 14th. It seems this event keeps getting more and more drawn out, which is fine, but it contains a great deal of complex themes and arcs. I worry that with a month between this issue and the next, fans will forget what happened, or lose interest in waiting for the story to continue.
X-Factor #3
The X-Factor team is still investigating a mysterious mutant death on Mojo World, but there's a lot more than that going on in this third issue. My favorite thing about this issue, I have to admit, was the way Daken is drawn. The first issues made him physically appear to be a standard dark-haired white guy, when his mother is from Japan, and his father is Wolverine. This issue had the first panels of him looking VERY Asian, which I was super pleased to see! Artists David Baldeon and colorist Israel Silva have teamed up to make him the Asian representation I was hoping for from the start! Aurora and Daken, when we seen them at the Boneyard, kind of have a stay at home date night. It's a really cute scene, where the two of them get to know one another a little better, with both humor and genuine discussion. She even gets him to be serious for a few lines, but runs off when he asks about the date that ended up with her under resurrection protocols. That’s still a lot of story to expand on, so this series has plenty of meat to it! I have no doubt Aurora will continue to play a big role in the series, no matter her role on the team. The main portion of the team discovers that Mojo world is completely bonkers, obviously, something strange is going on under the surface. Everyone they know or knew on Mojo World has totally changed, inside and out. They’re now obsessed about views, viewer opinions, and rankings of their streams. Even Spiral is a total influencer, playing everything up for the audience and being completely focused on the stream. Rachel Grey has an interesting moment with Ginny, a mutant who works with Spiral on the stream. She says she can sense Gabby looking into her mind, wondering if she’d be welcome on Krakoa. When Rachel expresses any mutant is welcome, Gabby gets defensive, acting like she’d never go. This is the first of many moments where a character seems to act out of character defensively when their loyalty to Mojo World is questioned. X-Factor learns that the mutant who died was Wind Dancer, who came to be a streamer and allowed her fans to vote for her to die on stream, for the views. Again, another character acting manic out of apparent devotion to the Mojo streams. When Spiral sends the team to the top stream, they are reunited with Shatterstar! Former husband of Dazzler, Shatterstar hasn’t been around yet in Dawn of X, and now we get to see why. He’s completely stuck in the stream, acting like its the best thing ever, exactly what he wants in life, even though his stream is a battle royale where he always wins in a bloody knife fight. After some discussion, the team all agree he isn’t like himself, and Polaris asks if he is able to speak freely. His face becomes solemn for the shortest moment, and in Krakoan, he answers “No.” The only people able to speak Krakoan are mutant residents of the island, where knowledge of the language is telepathically added to their brains. By using this language to answer, Shatterstar is adding yet another example of mutants on Mojo World afraid to leave, or even speak their minds. He takes them to a cloning facility Mojo has set up, where he makes clones of victims for Shatterstar to fight over and over again. As we learn in a selection of transmission from Shatterstar on Mojo world at the end of the issue, he is actually completely disguised with everything happening on Mojo World. The killing, the violence, the viewers, the rabid fans, the cloning. It’s all wrong, and he knows it. He was the one who stopped Mojo from cloning Wind Dancer, the dead mutant, immediately after her death. He was the one who got X-Factor on the case, and when he takes them to where Mojo is keeping her body, he uses key words to tell Northstar to grab the body and go, before its too late. He does, and the issue ends. Aurora takes a stand with a letter in the back of the issue, noting that she’s not an employee not X-Factor, which is an interesting way to think about being on a super-team, but makes sense from their point of view. While the reader and humans of 616 think about it as a grand heroic deed, being on a hero team to other heroes is more likely seen as a full time job or career. The next issue of X-Factor is the second part of X of Swords, and will feature artists Carlos Gomez and Carlos Lopez on the interiors! Gomez is known for his work on Amazing Mary Jane, and will be drawing the upcoming America Chavez-starring series, as well. With the next issue focusing on resurrection team the Five, I cant wait to see what Gomez, Lopez and Willliams have in store!
Wonder Woman #762
After the events of the lat issue, Wonder Woman is stuck with a choice she never wanted to make. Diana agrees, against her better judgement, that she needs to team up with Maxwell Lord to stop the cases of chaos happening globally, now. Much of the issue what you might call a fun montage, with Diana and Max running around, taking out people under the influence of this mind control. It allows for a few moments of humor and genuine emotion, with Max and Diana able to lower their guard the tiniest bit. In one case, when stopping an active shooter in a diner, a man on the scene gets frightened of the heroes and pulls a gun on Lord. Instead of letting her enemy get taken out, Diana steps in the way, blocking his head with one of her gauntlets. Max's reaction s swift, snapping to the scared shooter, and using his powers to make him think he's a dog. As humorous as this moment was, Diana shuts him down, telling him to release the poor man. Max doesn’t give away if he knows WHO is causing the problem beforehand, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had an idea. After all, he was insisting Diana would need his help in the end. As we discover on the lat page, Liar Liar is Max’s daughter, which begs the question of who her mother is. Her powers are pretty similar to his, though they are displayed totally different with the lettering. His power appears more controlled, more certain. He states his mind-control statement in clear blue text bubbles, with no question as to their affect. His daughter's, on the other hand, looks more chaotic. When she uses her power, the text is surrounded in pale pink lightning crackles, comparable to Kylo Ren's lightsaber. Additionally, the eyes of her victims glow pink when they are under her influence. With all the time he's had to hone his skills, there’s no way she’s as skilled with the powers as her father is. There is some mention of Diana and Max’s terrible past in this issue, including his death and his attempts to “save the world” from her. Lord is one of the Lex Luthor types of villains, who uses illegal and often violent or extreme measures to try and prove their foe is really more evil than they are. All it is, really, is jealousy that the heroes can do it better than them, and handle situation better than them. In the case of Diana, she emasculates weak men by simply existing, because they aren't confident enough in their own masculinity to allow a woman to be more powerful than they are. While right now it doesn't look like he’s interested in being in the same team as his daughter, Max will definitely eventually stab Diana in the back. Whether that will have to do with Liar Liar or not, we’ll have to wait and see. I'm working on a review of this first story arc in Mariko Tamaki's Wonder Woman run, which will be posted after I read issue #763, which comes out September 29th. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of the art at all, which is sad because this is the best Wonder Woman writing in years. This art team switches out again after the next issue, so it'll be a new artist again on #764. I always try to give artists the best review I can, but there was too much weirdness for that this time. Diana not only looks like a totally different person, but the characters are often warped, for some reason.
Star #5
At last, the final issue of Star's first mini-series! The book picks up where the last left, with a portal being triggered in the battle between the Black Order, Star, and Captain Marvel. It turns out the device given to Star by Black Swan was a trap, sucking in Corvus Glave instead of Star. Black Swan gave it to her, meaning her to use it on herself, so the Order could capture her. Scarlet Witch shows up and saves them from Proxima Midnight's wrath with a bubble barrier, but the two seasoned heroes end up planning together, and speaking over Star. In a flashback, we learn that Ripley spent her whole life under the thumb of an abusive older female figure, who raised her to believe she was weak, helpless, and worthless. The scene is done with a different artist, in a way that lets the reader know this is how Ripley views herself without powers--lanky, skinny, weak, small, breakable. In seeing the two women ignore her, Ripley gets mad at them as she would the doubters through her entire life, and creates a hologram of herself to make a deal with the Black Order. She strikes a deal with them that she’ll give Black Swan her device back, with Corvus inside, and they in turn will agree to not bother her anymore, period. Ebony Maw argues that when Thanos eventually returns, he’ll no doubt discover they made a deal with an Infinity Gem holder that they’ll leave her alone. Proxima, desperate for the return of her mate, says she’ll handle that at that time, and they make their deal. Star hands over the device, and disappears. Wanda takes this betrayal hard. She sees so much of herself in Ripley that she wanted to save her from herself, as a way to make herself feel better about her own trauma. Wanda herself is a reality manipulator, who has struggled for decades to get a firm grasp on her own powers. It makes sense that in seeing Star in the same situation, she would see it as a somewhat therapeutic opportunity to guide a broken soul to the light. She and Carol speak on Ripley briefly, with Carol pointing out that broken and wounded people make good decisions every day, and Ripley didn’t, so she’s too far gone. While I do believe some people can change, Ripley has already had a multitude of chances, and chooses continually to let her fear guide her instead of her hope for a better future. In New York again, Ripley walks down the street as she rotates through the options for her new look. As the bearer of the Reality stone, she can look however she wants--a point Carol makes to Wanda when they agree finding Ripley will be near impossible. Star has decided to go through life doing whatever she wants, even if that means causing massive chaos, which is what she does as she struts down a sidewalk. The look she settles on, for the time being, is the same chopped, uneven haircut but in a vivid, scarlet red, paired with a minimalistic black and red version of her original outfit. In choosing these colors, she's almost certainly labeling herself permanently as a villain, at least in her initial intentions. Don’t get any of this confused. Thanos WILL return, that is a fact. He may be dead now, but death has never stopped him before. And when he does return, he will have strong opinions about Star and her reality gem. As powerful as Star is, and as quickly as she's been learning how to control her powers, something tells me she isn't going to be enough to stop the Mad Titan from attaining the final piece of his prize. Donny Cates has already teased Thanos' return in his Thor series, and he and Thompson have a history of sharing their creations in Marvel comics. With all this in mind, I'm itching for the meeting of Thanos and Ripley Ryan's Star!
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