I can't quite decide how I feel about Warbird after this week's issue. It's a combination of things: the decision to let Puppet Master kill himself, the decision to lie about the events, and just some other, general things.
As Fortress Keeper noted, it's a very Golden Age move for the hero to choose not to save the life of the imperiled villain, especially if said villains want to kill themselves. And if Puppet Master would rather blow himself up than die in a prison cell, well, I have no quibble with that, except for the part where he tried to take Carol with him. Of course, Carol noted she could have stopped him, but chose not to, apparently trusting that the regenerative effect she keeps exhibiting would save her again. I'm not sure I would put my life in the hands of some odd occurrence I don't wholly understand, but it was her call.
I guess the hang-up I have, such as it is, comes from not feeling it was necessary to be so cold. I know Carol has killed before; even if she hadn't said so, I read Busiek's "Kang War" story, and I saw her take a sword and run that one villain (The Master? Old Alpha Flight Enemy Guy?) through with it. But, that was a dire situation, as the Avengers wanted to use his technology to fight off Kang, but without naming him ruler of the world (which had been his price for assistance). He wouldn't surrender, and Carol was too worn down to simply beat him until he gave up, so death it was. I could understand that situation, and besides, Carol demanded the Avengers convene to decide whether she should be drummed out of the group for it herself. The others were inclined to let it go, but she felt it needed to be dealt with (it helps that the people handing down the decision were the ones who were telling her not to beat herself up over it, but still.)
Contrast that to her telling her strike team that she had no idea Puppet Master was going to blow himself up, and it caught her totally by surprise. Why hide the truth? It seems oddly inconsistent with someone who one panel before was reflecting on how she could do anything now. I'd more expect her to be saying, "Yeah, I knew the button was to trigger a bomb, and I knew I'd survive because of this weird regen effect, so I let him blow himself up. He was an evil, creepy bastard, so what of it?"
Maybe I'm just not sure what I want out of the title. I liked it when Carol went patrolling in the first issue, I thought that was being proactive, but that might be kind of hard when you're working for SHIELD. I wonder how many of those criminals that escaped the Raft in the early issues of New Avengers are still on the loose. Perhaps Carol could aim her strike team towards rounding them up, before they cause trouble. There have to be a few left. I know Count Nefaria escaped, go get him. I like the Carol/Arana relationship. I know a lot of people don't like Arana, but I've got nothing against her, and I think her enthusiasm is a good influence on Carol.
Mallet! suggested Carol is becoming the hero who makes the tough, possibly unheroic choices, because it seems right to her, regardless of how it makes the public view her. I can live with that. I think it was a tough choice for Carol to go against the law and reunite Julia Carpenter and her daughter, and I whole-heartedly support that. I'm just not sure letting Puppet Master blow himself to smithereens was a tough choice. The tougher choice would have been to capture him, even though you do really want to see him go BOOM! I suppose we'll see how it goes next issue, find out if Carol has to make any difficult decisions in her conflict with the blue alien.
6 comments:
Carol's subsequent cover-up is troubling. It's all well and good if she wants to go Golden Age on the Puppet Master's @$$, but at least own up to the fact.
However, I am drawn to this title despite the fact that Carol's an unlikable loser these days. One reason is fan loyalty (like they say, comic book fans are like sports fans and we never give up on our teams), but the other reason is that I've never seen a super-heroine portrayed quite this way.
It's almost liberating, in a way, to see a woman portrayed as a jerk and NOT be a super-villain - just like Guy Gardner or somethin' ...
What fortress keeper says; Carol should own her own choices. I'm not very het up about letting a bad guy take themselves out, even though I don't think it's ideal practice either, but lying about it is lame and pretty thoroughly unheroic. Much more so than the initial decision itself.
Thinking about it more, the comparison to Cap comes up. Steve Rogers has killed people, and depending on the writer he's ranged from massively conflicted to hard nosed soldier about it -- but I can't imagine him *lying* about it just to look better to people under his command. Or hell, to anyone.
You may be right that Reed is writing it to fit in with the nu-Marvel post-CW mentality -- trhat the real heroes are the people who do "whatever needs to be done" and the little people never need to know the truth, they aren't strong enough for it. But despite Marvel's protestations, that doesn't actually make you a hero; it makes you a self-important putz. If you truly think something has to be done, do it and take the consequences.
Carol's decision to let Puppet Master blow himself up strikes me as being a little on the selfish side. How sure could she be, that the enormous explosion of the house wouldn't cause collateral damage? What about the houses on either side? The Hospital a block away? The nuns and orphans driving in that bus out front? The orphaned kittens that lived under the front porch? Huh huh?
Oh, and Carol is a MUCH bigger jerk than Guy Gardner.
fortress keeper: I'm with you, I think Carol's an interesting character, so I can't quite bring myself to turn away. And she is portrayed a bit different than a lot of female characters seem to be. The closest comp I could think of was Maxima, during her Justice League days, but I didn't read much of that, so I'm not really sure of that.
tavella: Exactly. If she's willing to let him blow himself up, then she should be willing to admit she let him blow himself up. Given the way some of the movers and shakers at the Initiative are being portrayed these days, I'm sure it would be covered up anyway, but I'd at least be interested to see her friends' reactions to that statement.
sallyp: Well, it was a giant mansion on a secluded coastline, but there were a lot of captured women escaping, and I doubt Carol knew the exact amount of explosives, or about any geological instability in the area (though Puppet Master probably wouldn't have built near a fault line), so yeah, that was pretty short-sighted of her.
Unless she was trusting in her team to have everybody evacuated, but it's more likely she just didn't stop to think of it, which is kind of a bummer.
And, of course, that's exactly the sort of careless shit that the New Warriors are constantly dissed about by the proregs. Exactly what would have been the difference here, if some woman hadn't escaped yet, or some kid in a house down the block died in a fire this explosion started.
So Carol's being both hypocritical and dishonest.
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