What I Bought 2/15/2019 - Part 2

One book is wrapping up, only to reappear next month with a new first issue and creative team. The other has a guest artist for a one-off issue.

Ms. Marvel #38, by G. Willow Wilson, Devin Grayson, Eve L. Ewing, Jim Zub, Saladin Ahmed (writers), Nico Leon, Takeshi Miyazawa, Joey Vazquez, Kevin Librana, Minkyu Jung and Juan Vlasco (artists), Ian Herring (color artist/artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I have no idea why they decided to bring in a bunch of other writers and artists to do a jam issue for Wilson and Leon's last issue on the book.

Kamala's in a bad mood, then she and all her friends in the convenience store get sucked into a weird video game simulation thing, where Kamala has to help them confront their various fears to help them remember who they are. Sort of. That's what she does with Zoe and Bruno, but with Nakia, it's more like Kamala needs to address the problem in their friendship that she kept the fact she was Ms. Marvel a secret from her for so long.

Which is perhaps the problem of having 5 different people write this issue. It's like not everybody was on the same page, or a game of Telephone. The message got turned around at some point.  For example, Bruno's brother is working at the Circle Q and appears to get sucked in along with the others. When Kamala, Nakia, Zoe, and Bruno have escaped at the end, he's nowhere to be seen. He didn't show up as a NPC during any of the video game levels, either, even though Gabe and Mike, who weren't there to be drawn in, did. Is that supposed to be the set-up for the starting point to Saladin Ahmed's run? Bruno's brother is missing, and aliens have something to do with all this? Considering no one notices, I'm doubtful.

It's fine if they felt he wasn't close enough to Kamala to be involved in the series of epiphanies. It's true, since he hasn't been around much since she rescued him in the very first story arc she had. But in that case, don't include him in the story, or make sure Leon doesn't draw him as one of the ones getting sucked in.

Of the three one-offs that have wrapped up this volume of the book, I liked this one better than the one about how Kamala might have gotten Inhuman genetics in her family line. But that's mostly because the video game reference stuff works better for me than stuff involving the Inhumans. Last month's issue was still a lot better. Not so much blunt force trying to drive some sort of message through.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #41, by Ryan North (writer), Naomi Franquiz (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist/trading card artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I would never have guessed that was Peter Parker tied up with Nancy if the cover didn't say so. I feel like I've seen that jacket on someone else, but I can't recall who. Maybe that parody of grown-up Johnny Quest on Venture Brothers? Action Johnny?

Nancy and Peter are trapped in a net in a room filling with water. This is when Peter was split into himself and Spider-Man a few months back in Amazing Spider-Man. I would have just guessed "clone" if Ryan North didn't explain that in the issue. Squirrel Girl, Thor, and (She-)Hulk get stuck trying to outsmart the Ms. Quizzler to free them. Unfortunately, they're bad a trivia quizzes. Fortunately, Tippy had rallied all the squirrels to form a search party and already rescued the hostages. Wait, the squirrels gnawed through a glass skylight. Can they do that? Would there be anything for their teeth to gain purchase against?

I don't know. My class schedules never lined up where I could take Mammalogy. Squirrel Girl advises the Ms. Quizzler to prove she's the smartest person alive by designing things that would help the world, rather than taking hostages to force people to pit their intellect against hers. Which is a solid plan, since Reed Richards clearly isn't going to get off his ass and do anything.

I kind of like the Ms. Quizzler's design. It took me a bit to realize the dots on the vest/onesie/thing are meant to be blanks like you fill in on a multiple choice test. Which explains the four balls with letters on her head, too. I feel like 4 is too many. Maybe she could just do 2, one "true" and one "false"? North didn't opt to introduce a villain obsessed with quizzes because his artist has the word "quiz" in her last name did he? Marvel has a dearth of those kinds of villains, don't they? The puzzles and trivia obsessed types. None are leaping to mind at the moment. So there's a niche Ms. Quizzler could fill! If she wasn't going to go straight, I mean.

Franquiz's style reminds me more of Erica Henderson's than Charm's. Her Doreen in particular, since she's back to having more of a round face and messy hair, where Charm smoothed things out a lot. I notice when Tippy is sitting on Doreen's shoulder, she matches Doreen's gestures and reactions. If Doreen makes a smug look and holds up one hand, so does Tippy. If she's startled and indignant, same thing. Which is not any approach I can remember the other artists taking, but isn't bad.

The bit where Nancy becomes convinced Peter is Spider-Man, then Peter becomes convinced Nancy is Squirrel Girl was amusing. I'd say Peter should be smarter than that, but if I remember right, when he got split into two people, the side that got the powers also got all the smarts. The Peter side only got the sense of responsibility. The inclusion of Thor and Hulk - I don't really like making Jen kind of a less articulate Hulk - was basically pointless. Unless this is a stealth warm-up tie-in to War of Realms. Thor does mention that he doesn't hold the fact Loki likes Nancy against her. I should hope not. Even Loki can get something right once in a while.