What I Bought 1/12/2017 - Part 1

The beginning of the year has been pretty Marvel-heavy. I expect that'll change over the second half of the month.

Nova #2, by Jeff Loveness (writer), Ramon Perez (writer/artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Albert Deschesne (letterer) - Inside, it's more Sam rescuing Richard than what you see here.

Sam finds Rich under attack by the Cancerverse thing that came out of him last issue. The two drive it back into a tear, then Sam takes Rich to the Champions to confirm Rich is who he says he is. Although I'm at a loss as to where Sam got a sample of Rich for Amadeus to compare the live person to. That's pretty creepy, like Tony Stark keeping Thor's hair to make a cyborg clone creepy.

As usual, the heroes of Earth are morons who have no clue Richard saved the damn universe like 17 times while they were busy punching each other over legislation. He attends Sam's family get-together, which seems a little odd - 16-year old kid brings mid-20s(?) guy to family thing - but it seems to pass without comment, and they fly to Knowhere to visit Cosmo. Then Death's Head attacks them, along with two other guys I don't know.

I like how Richard and Sam play off each other (and putting them together neatly eliminates my complaint from last month about there not being enough Rich). Richard is the veteran, but he's been away, he's a little confused, a little unsteady, and Sam gets to be the stabilizing influence. Perez and Loveness are managing a nice balancing act there, so far. And we'll have to wait and see why Richard is unwilling to admit the creature came from him. I'm sure it's part of the reason he's alive again, why he saw the "tear" to drive it into and Sam didn't, but Rich ought to know hiding that stuff doesn't help anything.

OK, I know I said last month I liked Perez drawing Rich's shoulder things as being modular, and I do, but they're getting a bit large. As in, they're starting to reach Cable-level shoulder pad size, and that's not a good sign. The variety of aliens in the bar was nice. I especially like the gooey thing with the one eye in the center of the panel on page 17. And Sam;s body language in that panel where Cosmo tries to explain calling Rich his favorite Nova. But hey, Rich did kill Annihilus like a boss. And he was a New Warrior, and that's much cooler than being an Avenger. Those dorks let anyone join, including Sabretooth.

Ms. Marvel #14, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Well, gee, I'm not sure I'm rooting for Kamala after she made Richard sad in our last book.

Kamala's online RPGing takes a worrying turn when one of her guildmates says something that suggests he knows where she lives. She tries tracking the guy down, but the player claims his account was hacked. Soon, someone who can control machines is attacking her remotely with cars and construction equipment, and knows Kamala is Ms. Marvel.

Kamala is making the classic Batman mistake of distancing herself from her support network when she;s under stress. Granting that Bruno is gone, and Mike is in a bad way, she turns away from her family, and I guess going to Nakia or Zoe is out. At least as Ms. Marvel. She could have gone to her friends as Kamala, and asked for some help. Yeah, I don't know what they could do against this guy, but she barely even considers getting help, which is a bad sign. I'm also not sure she should have dismissed Maxwell as a suspect so quickly. It probably isn't him, but if this enemy is as good with technology as they appear, they could easily figure out she was trying to track them and pretend someone hacked them.

Interesting choice for her to ride the ferry in Embiggened form. Keeps people at a distance, but also makes her more visible, a more obvious target. Also, her deciding to deal with the car attack by getting bigger and meeting it head-on seems a little unlike her. The way there's a panel that focus on her arm and torn costume after she jumps out of the excavator doesn't seem like a coincidence, either. Overall, she isn't acting like herself, at the time all the things she thought she could rely on are crumbling beneath her. Around her? They're crumbling, regardless. She can't seem to fix any of it, can't patch things up with Bruno, help Mike, trust Tony Stark or Carol Danvers, she's angry, she's frustrated and impatient, and she's trying to deal with things directly that don't seem like they can be.