Best Comic of the Week:
Daredevil #1 – Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto relaunch this book (which also features Rafael De Latorre on a backup story) while still continuing the longer story they started in the last Daredevil relaunch. In the wake of the Devil’s Reign event, Matt and Elektra are leaving New York to start working on shutting down the Hand forever. This issue has Matt saying goodbye to Spider-Man and Butch, the new Kingpin (in very different ways), and once again failing in his attempts to make anything in his personal life work. Zdarsky’s run is up there with the classic modern runs by people like Ed Brubaker and Brian Michael Bendis. He has a clear vision for this series, and I love the idea of Matt and Elektra taking over the Fist. Checchetto is incredible here, with some gorgeous splash pages and a great way of showing how Matt changes with time. I’m really glad to see this book back on the stands.
Quick Takes:
AXE: Eve of Judgment #1 – It definitely feels like this prelude to the upcoming Day of Judgment event, which will involve the X-Men, Eternals, and Avengers, was originally just going to be the next issue of the Eternals series, as it almost exclusively focuses on them. The Eternals are still reeling from the events of their own series, as they dealt with Thanos’s attempt to destroy the Earth, and with the knowledge they’ve gained about themselves, the Deviants, and in Druig’s case, about the mutants of Earth. While the more heroic Eternals try to start putting their lives back together, Druig conspires to kill all mutants, recognizing them as examples of ‘excessive deviation’. I’m more interested in this event than I usually would be, as it appears that Kieron Gillen is the only person writing the central comics. Since he’s both showrunner on the X-Books now (or shares that position with Gerry Duggan), and is the architect of this new approach to the Eternals, I trust that everything will be more consistent and coherent than the usual Marvel event book.
Dune: The Waters of Kanly #3 – Gurney Halleck and his crew attempt to steal the Harkonnen freighter full of water in this issue, and of course things don’t go completely as planned. This is an exciting issue, with more action and lot less narration (up until now this has felt much more like a novel adaptation than a comic, but in this issue, things felt right).
Immortal X-Men #4 – This issue is a bit of a grab-bag, told largely from Emma Frost’s perspective. We see her take on the Hellfire Gala (I maybe should have read that first), and how the council reacts to the fact that news of mutant immortality has been published in the Daily Bugle. We also see how Sinister reacts to learning the true identity of Doctor Stasis. I love the way Kieron Gillen writes this book, and really digs into the council member’s personalities, but am glad it’s not the only X-Book I’m reading, as this issue would have made no sense.
Marauders #4 – Steve Orlando is not doing a great job of holding my interest with this book. We finally learn the history of the Shi’ar and mutankind, and while it’s bad, I’m not sure that it makes sense to hold the actions of millennia ago against the descendants of those original bad actors. Sure, apologies and reparations might make sense, but the whole thing is so dependent on story elements that aren’t well argued. I do think the expansion of Tempo’s powers and personality are of note, but this book needs to pull itself together quickly.
Moon Knight #13 – Jed MacKay’s take on Moon Knight is really working for me. Now that he’s dealt with Zodiac, he’s going after the vampire pyramid scheme that transformed his friend. At the same time, the Tutor (the head vampire, who has a terrible name) tries to recruit Taskmaster to help him, with some unexpected results. This series is better than I expected it to be, and as it enters its second year, shows no sign of slowing down.
New Masters #5 – I’m a big fan of this title, by creators Shobo and Shoff. Each issue of their science fiction adventure introduces new ideas and concepts that show just how much backstory and world building exists for this series. This issue has Ola, our hero, at the Star Pilot Temple in Benin, where all the other characters converge. Will Ola sell the data she has from a stolen archive to the gangster who runs Lagos? Will she share it with the Star Pilots? Use it to ensure a better life for her family? Ola has been an interesting character, and as we’re still learning about her world, it’s hard to predict where she’s headed. This is a great series.
New Mutants #27 – I thought that last issue, when Illyana and her friends defeated S’ym, the whole Goblin Queen in Limbo thing would be wrapping up, but here we are with the same characters, plus Colossus, roped in to helping Illyana’s younger self survive an Alice in Wonderland themed threat. This arc is getting old. I think that like Marauders, New Mutants is an X-title that is struggling to make itself relevant.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #25 – Tonga and her crew are up against the Knights of Ren, and fighting for their lives, while Valance starts to find belonging in the Empire. This is an exciting issue, and Paolo Villanelli made the action sequences work remarkably well. I still don’t really care about most of these characters, but that’s starting to change.
Superman: Son of Kal-El #13 – This issue brings the character Dreamer, from the Supergirl TV show, into the DC Universe, as she turns up to help Jon and Jay in their fight against Bendix. I feel like her appearance kind of interrupts the flow of this story, as her dream sequence felt a little out of place. As a Legion fan from way back, I’m always happy to see a character connected with that property show up. It’s cool that the actor that plays her on the TV show helped script this issue with Tom Taylor. I think Clayton Henry is a good artist to have on this title as well.
Wolverine #23 – The resolution to the story with Danger and Deadpool feels like it comes way too easily for Logan, and without ever revealing what it was really all about. I really like Adam Kubert’s art on this book, but the story is not grabbing me.
X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 – This year’s Hellfire Gala resulted in a very thick one-off, with some very lovely art (Kris Anka, Russell Dauterman, Matteo Lolli, and CF Villa all provided art, although I’m not always sure who did which pages). While nothing happens on the scale of the terraforming of Mars, which happened at the last Gala, there is still plenty taking place here. The news of mutant resurrection was released just before the Gala, giving Emma cause to resent Scott, and giving everyone something to talk about at the party. Orchis makes a couple of moves, with Moira MacTaggert infiltrating the party by ‘wearing’ Mary Jane Watson, and attempting to mess with Proteus. I’m pretty sick of the extreme heel turn that Moira has taken in the last year. It doesn’t fit with the character, and generally feels a little overplayed. I thought it was curious that none of the crowd from Arakko, including Storm or Magneto, were invited to the party. Once again Marvel wedged in a few celebrity cameos that made me feel out of touch (I had to Google who Jon Hamm is), and once again, Doctor Doom got one of the best scenes. It’s curious that where last year’s Gala got to play out across a number of titles, this one doesn’t seem to be doing that the same way, so it feels much smaller. I also don’t like that the X-Men team’s lineup has shifted so much so quickly. I’d prefer we get more time with each lineup, as I think Gerry Duggan was just beginning to mine the possibilities of that team. Also, they only had a handful of adventures together. I’m interested in the new lineup, but I feel like that’s always going to be the case. My final thought on this book is that by making this an annual event, Marvel is pinning the events on Krakoa to a yearly calendar, and that doesn’t fit well with Marvel’s shifting timeline.
Comics I Would Have Bought if Comics Weren’t So Expensive:
Rogues #3
Undiscovered Country #19
The Week in Graphic Novels:
Junior Citizens – A few years ago, at one of the first Toronto Comics Art Festivals held in the Toronto Reference Library (this represented a huge scaling up of the show), I picked up a mini-comic with an attractive cover called Junior Citizens. It took them a few years, but creators Ian Herring and Daniel McIntyre collected the entire story into one nice volume. I was able to pick it up at TCAF this year, the first since the beginning of the pandemic, and it felt like a full circle moment of sorts. Junior Citizens is set in a retro future, where citizens are assigned jobs by a large, and often fallible, bureaucracy. Our hero is Citizen Natasha, a young woman who is assigned to engineering jobs that have a habit of ending poorly. Natasha keeps getting blamed, but the fault belongs to Citizen Bosley, a fool who keeps failing upwards, eventually taking over the Ministry of Defense. Most chapters are stand alones, but there is a larger story involving Titan, which is a large corporation that feels set on mutually assured destruction. The book can be read as commenting on the Cold War, displaying the failings of both communist and capitalist systems, but it’s also an amusing adventure. Herring’s art is simple, but nicely textured and warm. I’m glad I finally got the chance to read the rest of this story, and recommend it.
