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chuckroMs. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal - This is really good, y’all. Okay, the Jersey City Kamala lives in doesn’t quite match up to the reality—there’s no part of Grove Street that has houses like hers, for instance—but I think I can still have some hometown pride. I’m reminded of the original run of Jamie Reyes as Blue Beetle, or every some of the best Superboy and Spider-Man stories: It gives you everything you need to recognize the character as a person in a real place and culture (even if you don’t share it) and identify with them even when they aren’t doing impossibly cool things. I liked Wilson’s work on Air, but I think she really found her footing here.
Captain Marvel Volume 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More - I find it amusing that after all the years of back-and-forth, it was Carol Danvers that finally made DC give up and rename Billy Batson’s alter-ego “Shazam”. The first issue in this is a setup for the book’s change in setting / supporting cast from its previous incarnation (which I might also want to find), but then the actual arc is a well-set-up mystery that drops a lot of useful clues up front where you’ll never catch them. (Also, and this is probably a statement about the way female heroes are often written, it plays like a Wonder Woman story in that the ultimate resolution comes from clever politicking as much as it comes from punching stuff.)
Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon - A fast and fun read. This is much more a set of standalone stories than an arc, and the real winning moments are the throwaway gags (“Everything Awful Oh God Somebody Do Something”), but it does give you a good sense of how Hawkeye manages to keep up with a team that features Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. Like Batman, it’s a combination of preparedness, very good improvisation, dumb luck, good taste in sidekicks, and sheer blind determination.
And from the DC side…
Earth 2 Vol. 3: Battle Cry - I think the best thing about Earth-2 is that it doesn’t really cross over with anything, which means that it isn’t constrained by the limitations of a shared universe. Want to destroy half of Asia to show how close the villains came to really winning? Want to radically rewrite history and current politics? Want to introduce new characters and kill them off willy-nilly? Great, do your thing, the comic will be more exciting for it. I think I could stand to go a few issues without an origin story, mind you (there are SO MANY), but the impending demise of the New 52 universe and this book tell me that there will be a resolution, even if that resolution is “Everybody’s dead, Dave.”
I also got four volumes of Fables and two of The Unwritten to catch up on. I was getting the pamphlets kinda randomly for a while there, so I missed chunks of storylines starting somewhere around the “Super Team” arc.
Captain Marvel Volume 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More - I find it amusing that after all the years of back-and-forth, it was Carol Danvers that finally made DC give up and rename Billy Batson’s alter-ego “Shazam”. The first issue in this is a setup for the book’s change in setting / supporting cast from its previous incarnation (which I might also want to find), but then the actual arc is a well-set-up mystery that drops a lot of useful clues up front where you’ll never catch them. (Also, and this is probably a statement about the way female heroes are often written, it plays like a Wonder Woman story in that the ultimate resolution comes from clever politicking as much as it comes from punching stuff.)
Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon - A fast and fun read. This is much more a set of standalone stories than an arc, and the real winning moments are the throwaway gags (“Everything Awful Oh God Somebody Do Something”), but it does give you a good sense of how Hawkeye manages to keep up with a team that features Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. Like Batman, it’s a combination of preparedness, very good improvisation, dumb luck, good taste in sidekicks, and sheer blind determination.
And from the DC side…
Earth 2 Vol. 3: Battle Cry - I think the best thing about Earth-2 is that it doesn’t really cross over with anything, which means that it isn’t constrained by the limitations of a shared universe. Want to destroy half of Asia to show how close the villains came to really winning? Want to radically rewrite history and current politics? Want to introduce new characters and kill them off willy-nilly? Great, do your thing, the comic will be more exciting for it. I think I could stand to go a few issues without an origin story, mind you (there are SO MANY), but the impending demise of the New 52 universe and this book tell me that there will be a resolution, even if that resolution is “Everybody’s dead, Dave.”
I also got four volumes of Fables and two of The Unwritten to catch up on. I was getting the pamphlets kinda randomly for a while there, so I missed chunks of storylines starting somewhere around the “Super Team” arc.
