The Unbelievable Gwenpool #16, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Are we far enough removed from roller skates for them to have become retro cool? or did we skip directly to roller blades being the thing out of style that's now popular again? I don't see many people using either, but I'm hardly in a cultural hub, even by Missouri's standards.Gwen's brother pulls her through a portal seemingly back to her world, before she came to the Marvel Universe. When she was lazing about the house, trying to avoid looking for work, talking about stories she had ideas for that just "weren't right yet", to her parents' increasing frustration. This leads to a big fight, which sends Gwen into the night to the once-per-week sleep study/information transference thing she does. Which seems to be how she got to the MU in the first place, and which her brother is keen to prevent. He succeeded, but it looks as though Gwen isn't really back in her world.
The things Hastings is working with here are the kind I'm interested in, so I'm pretty excited for this story. Putting yourself in a story, but finding the rules of stories can now govern your life? Gwen got nostalgic for home, and it turned into a whole thing where The Hero May Be Going Crazy, or has to question their sense of reality. You know, the kind of thing Moon Knight writers do every couple of years. I'm wondering if this was what I expected to happen a few months ago, that Gwen may recognize the tropes and patterns of superhero comics, but the longer she's in a superhero universe, the more she can be controlled by them. We'll see, now that she has a sense something is wrong, how she finds her way out.
There's a quartet of Fantastic Four statues in the background of Gwen's conversation with her comic guy, and I'd swear the Mr. Fantastic one is about to give his own butt a smack. That's Reed Richards for ya Not really, since Reed would only do that if it turned out to produce a subharmonic to would disrupt so other-dimensional incursion blah, blah, blah, whatever Stretcho, just lemme hit tha things!
At times, Gwen's brother has this upwards swoop to his hair in the back, that reminds me of Quicksilver. Which makes him seem kind of sinister. That's probably projecting based on the beginning and end of the book, where he's clearly working to keep Gwen in their world. Gotta say, the streets of New York look pretty empty. I was given to understand they were filled to the brim with loud, rude creatures called Mets' fans. Also, I notice even back in her world, Gwen has this band between her eyes which is colored darker than the rest of her face. The same place the slight pink tint is on her mask. I thought in this case it might be meant as a shadow caused by her hair, but maybe Gwen's unconscious through all this, and her mask is still on. Like the lack of people, it's a deliberate choice to signal Things Aren't Right?
I going to assume it was Clayton Cowles that did the voice balloon for Gwen's dad that is just some dark scribble thing, as shorthand for a grumble. I like it as a visual shorthand, more creative than just writing *grumble* in there, even if I can't stop trying to decide what it looks like. Some sort of airship? No, no, it's a cherry sundae in a glass with a very narrow stem! No. . .
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