What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 3

It's an All-Captain reviews day! As Carol is the higher ranking of the two, and I don't see her as the sort of commanding officer who sits back at HQ, she gets to lead off.

Captain Marvel #9, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Filipe Andrade (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Should I be concerned about the frequent turnover in artists for this book? This is the third different primary artist in 9 issues (Soy and Emma Rios being the other two). That's Defenders or Resurrection Man instability right there.

It's a day in Carol's life, which based on this day, is terribly annoying. Tony Stark hacked into her phone and rearranged her calendar. And did not apologize, because Tony Stark is a domineering jackass (if you had forgotten that fact). Carol needs to take her grumpy cat to the vet, but is waylaid by dinosaurs. Then she has to send Jessica Drew to pick up Helen Cobb, and an eager grad student to pick up her cat, while Carol investigates an offer to help deliver food and medicine to disaster areas. That leads to beating up some goons who don't want people to help with that. I guess disaster relief is big business (what isn't?) Then everyone meets at the doctor's office, where Carol learns she has a lesion in her brain, so she can't fly. I'm not clear on whether that means at all, or just by using her powers. I'm guessing the former, but who knows.

I haven't received issue 8 yet, so maybe it came up there, but the headache thing was out of left field. Other than that, I like the writing. Carol's still confident, glib, and a bit snarky. She's perhaps not the best long-term planner, but she's good about delegating in a pinch, like convincing Roberto the taxi driver to take her cat to the vet as Avengers business. Can she get the Avengers to reimburse him for that? I'm sure Stark can find the money in the couch somewhere. Unless he's broke again. I can't keep track.

As for Andrade's art, it's a bit too exaggerated for my tastes. It has a bit of a Skottie Young vibe to it, but Andrade doesn't have the consistency in his figures Young has. Spider Woman's body in the top of page 11 keeps freaking me out. The distance her legs are apart, where the left leg seems to be coming from, how her hands are so tiny. It's distracting. There's definitely a lot of energy to it, the force of impact is conveyed well, and some of the faces have that knock of depicting a particular emotion with very few lines. There's some definite potential, but Andrade needs to I don't exert a little more control over anatomy.

Captain America #2, 3, by Rick Remender (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Klaus Janson (inker), Dean White with Lee Loughridge and Dan Brown (color art) - Kind of weird to see an inker. I feel like a lot of the artists I see these days are apparently doing that themselves. Aja, Soy, Isaacs, Samnee, Freddie Williams sometimes.

So no, I don't have issue 1 yet. Not hard to follow though. Cap was brought to some weird dimension by Arnim Zola, and escaped with a boy named Ian in tow. Now they're out in this weird place trying to stay alive. Which is pretty hard when seemingly everything perceives them as food. Zola's creations, the ones who fight Zola, the mindless animals that are native to this world. Steve and Ian are nearly executed by Zofjor, who leads the people trying to survive against Zola, but spared when it's pointed out Steve was fighting Zola's creations. He and Ian are taken in by Ksul and his family, and things are good. For about five minutes, until Steve mentions that Zofjor is a tyrant, at which point Zofjor kills Ksul, and tries to do the same to Steve. Doesn't go too well for Zofjor, but doesn't go too well for Steve either when a wound reveals he has a Zola TV-face in his chest. Zola also has a kid back at his compound with Omnisenses that I assume will be relevant later. Certainly be useful as a tracker.

I like the idea behind this story. Remender's taken Steve away from everything familiar to him, thrown him into an alien world that operates by its own rules. We get to see how Steve responds in such a situation, as a way of seeing who he is at his core. What we see is a guy whose first instinct is to protect a child, to strive to survive. Someone who tries to respond peacefully first, and fights when it's necessary. He doesn't believe in people ruling through fear, or placing themselves above others (which makes me wonder if this Steve Rogers would be part of a stupid Illuminati group). I really like this Steve Rogers. Can't say much about Ian yet, 'cause he hasn't done anything other than be there.

I know some people don't care for Romita Jr.'s artwork. I've been one of those people on particular runs (his work on Uncanny X-Men and Spider-Man in the mid-90s, primarily). It works here. The roughness is well-suited for a beat up Captain America, and Romita seems to be having fun drawing weird monsters and creatures. There's a familiarity to the landscapes, but things are different enough to make it noticeable and strange.He's well-suited for the book. I will say that the kids in the flashbacks to Steve's childhood seem to have enormous noses. The bridge of their nose seems unusually far ahead of their eyes. Other than that, I've got no complaints.