What I Bought 9/5/2023 - Part 2

I took today off. I originally planned to run some errands and then rest up ahead of a lengthy funtimes driving trip. Instead I'm going to run errands and rest up ahead of a much shorter funtimes driving trip. In the meantime, the other two leftovers from last month, both from Marvel.

Fantastic Four #10, by Ryan North (writer), Leandro Fernandez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Looks like a story Skrull kids tell around the campfire.

The story feels a bit like the sci-fi suspense/horror stuff of the '50s and '60s. Mystery in Space and whatnot. You've got an alien craft with all its inhabitants in stasis save one, who maintains the ship until awakening and training their successor. Except one caretaker finds their ship has simply stopped in space, and all the stars are gone. But there are monsters roaming the ship.

Unlike the aliens, we recognize the Fantastic Four. Like the aliens, we don't know what the FF are doing. Why they seem to be trying to get in. Why they're blocking off sections off the ship. Why they're not doing anything as one caretaker after another loses their mind or dies trying to keep them out.

I don't know that it's an entirely effective approach. I think the reader can see it enough from the aliens' perspective to understand why it's terrifying them, but not so much that it really works that way on the reader. Fernandez helps by typically drawing the FF at a distance, or obscured, so their humanity is de-emphasized. That helps with the notion they're perceived as strange and terrifying by the aliens, though going further with it, like when one caretaker is trying to fend off a bunch of "worms" that are actually Reed's fingers, could have ramped it up even further.

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1, by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada (writers), Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Join the X-Men, learn to walk on air.

So, Kamala Khan's alive again. Good, fine. She's also apparently a mutant, but also an Inhuman. Seems like too many hats, and the comic itself starts with a dream Kamala's apparently had every night since her resurrection where all the hero factions want a piece of her and it's overwhelming. The connection to the Inhumans was one of the least interesting parts of her character under G. Willow Wilson and I don't see that being a mutant is going to be any different, but sure, fine, slap an "X" on her and let's go.

Anyway, Kamala was accepted into a summer program at a university science center. . .funded by ORCHIS. So it's an X-Men undercover mission thing and an educational opportunity! To be fair, Kamala asked to help, unwilling to run and hide from bigots, which is very on-point for her. She decides to go against Emma Frost's advice (always a good choice) and tell Bruno the truth about herself.

Glad to see Vellani and Pirzada aren't throwing Kamala's classic supporting cast away entirely in favor of X-Men. One positive about Ms. Marvel's supporting cast was so many of them weren't costumes. They were just other teenagers and relatives to be part of that side of her life. And the supporting cast still look mostly recognizable. I don't know whether that's Gomez or Gorham, because I think one drew the dream sequence at the start and the other drew the rest of the issue, but I don't know which did which.

The conversation with Bruno is partially interrupted by the arrival of something that looks halfway to being a Deathlok. Lotta tubes and wires, but not quite enough metal parts yet. She's tries to talk with it and gets a hint it's related to whatever ORCHIS is working on, but then it self-destructs and she has to protect a bunch of ungrateful college kids. Still, Kamala's more bothered by those dreams, and will stay up all night playing video games with Bruno to avoid sleep. Although the look on her face in the panel where she suggests the idea is kinda creepy. The wide eyes and smile are starting to veer into rictus grin range, if not quite, "dosed with Joker gas" territory.

We'll see how it goes from here.