Sunday Splash Page #430

"A Fractured Mirror," in All-New Wolverine #1, by Tom Taylor (writer), David Lopez (penciler/inker), David Navarrot (inker), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Around 2016, Marvel killed Wolverine. Marvel, being Marvel, didn't let the concept lay fallow. They pumped out more Wolverine books than ever. Wolverines, about a bunch of characters that weren't that particular Logan, but liked to carve things up with claws, so close enough. Old Man Logan, because some dumbass thought we needed more of Mark Millar's bullshit in the Marvel Universe. And All-New Wolverine, which was about Laura Kinney trying to take on the legacy of her genetic donor. I hesitate to apply the label of "father" to Logan, given how bad he was at it.

Tom Taylor wrote the title, which ran for 35 issues, plus an Annual. It had a host of artists, because of course it did. Pretty much a different primary penciler for each arc. David Lopez on the first six issues, Marcio Takara and Ig Guara splitting the next six, Nik Virella and Djibril-Morissette-Phan on the third story, Leonard Kirk on the fourth arc, Juann Cabal on the fifth, and mostly Ramon Rosanas in the sixth arc, some "Old Woman Laura" thing I didn't keep, as should be self-explanatory given my comments in the previous paragraph.

Taylor's focus is on Laura trying to branch out and build a life, with friends and loved ones, while also moving beyond her past as a weapon. He starts by establishing Alchemax - this was when Alchemax was a thing in the present, rather than just in 2099 - cloned Laura. The clones were implanted with nanites to block their healing factors and lack claws - or so it seems - but the few survivors are trying to take out the ones responsible before they die. Of the four, only one appears to survive, the youngest, named Gabby (later Honey Badger or Scout.)

Gabby's the one constant presence throughout the run, despite Laura often trying to handle things alone to protect her new kid sister. Taylor writes Gabby as very quick to get excited about things and equally quick to judge. She's usually got some funny or clever remark ready, but a lot of Taylor's writing seems to revolve around that kind of quippy dialogue. It probably works here because Laura is mostly subdued. She's the quiet core all the more bubbly or outgoing characters orbit.

Besides Gabby, Maria Hill and Nick Fury (the one they put in the Marvel Universe that looks like Sam Jackson, 'cause Whitebread Nick Fury was/is busy being a Watcher) show up a few times, usually with something they want Laura's help with. Critically, Taylor makes these tasks Laura trying to rescue or help people, rather than kill. In the second arc, they need her to look for several missing SHIELD agents. In the fourth arc, it's a dying alien child who said Laura's name before keeling over of some engineered plague. People wanted her to kill, to take advantage of how much punishment the healing factor would let her take, but now she's using it to save lives.

To that end, Taylor uses the third arc to get rid of the "trigger scent" that sent Laura into berserker furies. As far as I know, nobody's undone that yet. Fittingly, that arc is the one that seems to delve most into previous Laura Kinney stories, as she's being hunted by Kimura, the woman who trained and/or tormented her in the Facility, and Gambit shows up for support, after being a big part of Laura's first ongoing series.

There's also the fifth arc, where a group of people who lost loved ones to various Wolverine-themed characters formed a support group to hunt down and kill them with bullets made of broken shards of the Muramasa Blade. Laura has to convince them she understands what they lost, because she lost part of herself being made into a killer, so she wants to help them by finding and punishing the ones who did that. Which is swell, but doesn't really address the fact she saved Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike or Daken, who don't have the excuse they were kids when they were slaughtering people, nor have they demonstrated much regret.

But regret never stopped Logan from killing people. Why should the knockoffs be any different?

At times, though, the book feels like Wolverine Team-Up, as every arc has some guest star. Dr. Strange and the Wasp both appear in "Four Sisters", as well as the time-traveling teen Angel, who at least has the excuse of being Laura's boyfriend. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl shows up in the story Marcio Takara drew, which is a fun little team-up about rescuing a squirrel that Laura's actions endangered, and then Old Man Logan and HYDRA-Cap show up in the obligatory Civil War II tie-in. You've got Gambit and Teen Jean Grey in the third arc, plus Tyger Tyger, Maria Hill and Nick Fury, then Laura travels to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy to find the source of the sick alien kid.

It's old hat for the new kid to meet up with established characters and get their stamp of approval. In the '90s, Spider-Man was a lock for a guest appearance by issue #3 in every new Marvel book. But it feels like Taylor spams that particular button. I guess the point is to use people who knew Logan to contrast Laura to her predecessor, but if the idea is her reinventing herself to be someone who protects, then maybe the focus could have been on non-super powered characters that were being saved by her?

I know, that's silly. All supporting cast members must be supers themselves now.

As far as the artists go, I'm always partial to Lopez's art. He's got that clean linework with expressive body language and faces I enjoy. It works with Taylor's tendency to do 3-panel sequences of "action-silent panel-reaction." Laura tells Angel not to hug her until her ribs heal. He pats her head instead. She asks if he did that, he freezes, then acknowledges the obvious. Or Taskmaster catches Laura's kick, talks shit, she extends the claw in her foot through his hand, he screams in pain.

Takara's work is a lot rougher, the characters more blocky, but the art captures Squirrel Girl's cheerful and earnest personality, as well as Gabby's excitement and Laura's resignation that she needs to make things right. Kirk, I think is like Rick Leonardi: He needs a strong inker or his figures get a little like a wax figure left in the sun. Things kind of stretch and elongate abnormally. There are four different inkers in that story, including Kirk himself, and sometimes the details start to slip, but mostly it works. The Guardians of the Galaxy look appropriately alien, if there's slippage, it's when Laura gets emaciated because her healing factor is overworked by the alien plague. Deadpool and Gabby hit it off and are all smiles with each other.

Cabal's work is a little stiff in the fights, but he's good with emotion and he's the only artist I've seen that leans even a little into the fact part of Laura's DNA comes from a stocky, burly man. Laura's traditionally drawn as sort of a waif. Partially (OK, mostly) because it's usually guys drawing the comics for guys and they want the girls to look the traditional sort of cute or hot. But also somewhat so she looks like this unsuspecting girl, who turns into a tornado of murder. It's not as though Cabal gives Laura body hair, or a square head, or hair swooped into little wings, but he does give her more musculature, especially in the shoulders and back, than I can recall most artists doing.

Logan came back eventually, somehow. Laura went back to being X-23. Then she was Wolverine again, at the same time as Logan. Now she's back to X-23, but still dressing like Wolverine? I don't think they've ever given her a brown-and-orange costume like Logan had. It's only ever the yellow-and-blue, or sometimes black-and-red when she's in X-Force mode. I'm not sure what that means, if anything. The artists want to use colors that are more sharply distinct? 

Continuing Logan's Tradition of Awkward Family Gatherings

I'm guessing Laura didn't mention this moment to Logan when he came back from being dead.

All-New Wolverine: The Four Sisters was the opening arc of Tom Taylor's series about Laura Kinney assuming the mantle of Wolverine during the stretch where Logan was dead, but there were somehow more books about him than ever. The overarching plot is about Laura tracking down a group of clones of herself Alchemax made with some of Laura's genetic material they got from the bunch that created her. David Lopez makes the older clones look very similar to Laura, while Gabby is a bit less so. All that might just be her tendency to smile a lot, something none of the others, including Laura, do often. Alchemax CEO Guy insists the clones are inhuman monsters who killed a bunch of people when they escaped. Alchemax CEO Guy is, of course, full of shit.

Also, it is weird to me to see a fictional company I associate with 2099 Marvel in present day Marvel. It's not 2099 yet!

Laura ultimately tries her best to protect the other girls - Gabby, Zelda, and Bellona - both from Alchemax, who wants to treat them as test subjects, and from themselves. From their urge to take bloody, murderous revenge on these people who took away their ability to feel pain and expected them to be obedient weapons. 

Those efforts lead to one issue of teaming up with Doctor Strange, and then another issue of teaming up with the Wasp. There's a little advancing of the plot in those issues, but in practice, they feel more devoted to using other characters to tell the audience how different Laura is from Logan. Mostly with regards to how she handles her anger. Strange remarks that she has all her father's rage, but she can control it, channel it. The Wasp is surprised that, once they encounter a nanobot, Laura hasn't just charged over there snarling and clawing it to pieces. Excuse me, have you not read Kitty Pryde and Wolverine? Logan can channel his berserker fury whenever he wants!

I'm joking. I know that even if someone has read it, they would never admit to it. I'm not entirely clear on why, but apparently it's a shameful act. The tattered remnants of the comicsblogowhatchamafloogle are a strange land even to its inhabitants. 

Taylor also does the bit where Strange looks at Laura's soul and is just stunned by her experiences, which, c'mon man. I didn't buy that move when Starlin tried it with Strange and Adam Warlock in Infinity Gauntlet, I'm not buying it here. He's Doctor fucking Strange, he's seen shit most other Marvel heroes couldn't comprehend. Don't try to hard sell me.

But Taylor does keep playing it where Laura holds back. She wounds - as one of the sisters points, she won't kill a guy, but she'll cut his fingers off - but she refrains from killing. Even when she thinks Taskmaster has killed the girls, she doesn't kill him. Nathan Fairbairn tends to color panels entirely in red during the moments when Laura's on the verge of cutting loose. 

It's an interesting character choice, given Laura's whole thing with the trigger scent (which Taylor addresses in the third arc). People have been able to send her into a killing frenzy whenever they wanted, so I can see her wanting to make the choice not to kill. And she does emphasize it's a choice, one she makes, and one she doesn't entirely hold others to. She lets Gabby have a moment alone with Alchemax CEO Guy, knowing how that could end.

Taylor's writing is a bit quippy at times, lends itself to snappy responses. Sometimes that's amusing, sometimes he starts to overdo it. The issue with Dr. Strange I think veered over that line with some of Gabby's comments about 'cabinets of horrors' and so on. But he does use the fact Laura's bones aren't coated with adamantium (other than the claws) so she tends to get broken a bit more and have to heal, and that's painful. The bits of her interacting with the time-traveling teen version of Angel, who is her boyfriend apparently, are sort of cute. It's a different slant on her questionable social skills, dealing with the largely sheltered rich boy who really doesn't understand her life, but is trying his best.

Relationship Therapy Via Violence

He's someone who understands nunchuks are cool, Bobbi.

New Avengers: The Reunion came out post-Secret Invasion. Mockingbird turned out to not have died sometime during the West Coast Avengers days, instead being replaced by a Skrull (who died). Bobbi is not dealing well with being back home after years spent as a fugitive on the Skrull world, and decides, rather than therapy, to throw herself into intelligence work. In this case, a biological weapon designed by AIM and intended to be unleashed at one of those symposiums for smart folks.

Complicating that plan of avoidance is Hawkeye, currently Ronin, who is both worried about Bobbi and trying to reconnect with her. In typical Clint Barton fashion, he is doing that by persistently trying to get in her business, so that she'll talk to him. Mockingbird eventually remembers that Clint doesn't give up, and grudgingly let him accompany her on the mission.

McCann adds a couple of interesting twists into the time Mockingbird spent as a prisoner. That she escaped confinement and was running loose on the Skrull world. That an imposter Hawkeye, meant to get information out her, hunted her relentlessly. You know, until she killed him. Hey, so that means all her hostility towards Clint about how badly he fucked up the - possibly retconned by Chelsea Cain a couple of years ago - Phantom Rider situation is done! There's also the timing of when, exactly, Mockingbird was replaced, and what that means regarding her and Clint's marriage.

Then Clint's left struggling with what he thought he knew, which turns out to be wrong. He's also dealing with the fact he still carried a lot of guilt over his mistakes and Bobbi's "death" And this time, instead of Mockingbird being drawn into his superheroic world, he's fumbling around in her world of spycraft. You know, where subtlety and controlling your emotions are critical. Yeah, not exactly Clint's strengths.

David Lopez gets to draw a lot of fight scenes, in a variety of settings and scenarios. Clint and Bobbi against a bunch of AIM guys in a hospital. Clint and Bobbi against each other in a storage unit. Clint and Bobbi against a bunch of AIM guys in a fancy dress party. Bobbi against AIM's Scientists Supreme and her teleportation belt. They make for a nice break from the two leads arguing and yelling at each other, Clint putting his foot in his mouth, or Bobbi staving off nervous breakdowns.

Sunday Splash Page #106

"Marvel's Straining for Big Event Premises," in Captain Marvel (vol. 8) #11, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), David Lopez (artist), Lee Loughridge (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

The previous volume of Captain Marvel (which as Kelvin noted in the comments last week, Marvel does count as volume 7) ended in late 2013, after 17 issues. Marvel, showing remarkable restraint by their standards, waited a whole five months before starting a new volume with the same writer. On the plus side, they actually gave DeConnick a consistent artist to pair with, in David Lopez. Having a consistent look helped immensely, as does the fact I like Lopez' work more than I did any of the artists on the previous volumes. He has the type of clean linework I like, and he can draw a good fight scene. There's a fun one in this issue with Carol fending off two crazy people who hate her while her powers are nullified and her hands are shackled.

Carol's still dealing with a loss of memories, although it doesn't get played up too much because this series sends her into space, as the Avengers representative in matters of galactic importance. Carol's mostly dealing with people and places she's never been before, so memory doesn't factor as much.

The first arc dealt with Carol helping a planet of refugees, who were being hassled by Star-Lord's imperialistic ass of a father. I don't think Carol getting crosswise of J'son ever came to anything, since someone else killed the guy shortly afterward. I still felt like 6 issues was more than the story needed, but after that DeConnick shifts back to shorter stories. Two issues about how Carol's cat is not a cat (so this is where that bit in the movie came from). An issue of Carol helping Lila Cheney (seen above panicking about Christmas) get out of an arranged marriage. Then returning to Earth to check in on a sick friend. And team-up with Santa Claus!

I bought the book for 11 issues. Don't know why the splash pages I like best are always in the last issue I bought. The next issue was going to start a tie-in to Black Vortex, some mini-event thing with the Guardians of the Galaxy and those time-lost teen versions of the original 5 X-Men. There's no device known to man that could detect the microscopic amount of fucks I gave about that.

What I Bought 1/26/2015 - Part 10

How long before Carol Danvers and her #1 fangirl team up? Battleworld would seem like a natural opportunity, but hopefully it'll be in a book I'm actually reading.

Captain Marvel #11, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), David Lopez (artist), Lee Loughridge (color art), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So when I was reviewing the previous two issues of Captain Marvel, I forgot that I'd ordered this one, since comic guy forgot to send it along. Whoops.

Back on Earth for a day, Carol goes to the hospital to visit her sick friend Tracy, falls asleep there, and wakes up a prisoner of Grace Alexander and June Convington, whoever the hell that is. Yes, I know Carol's internal narration box describes her as a geneticist, I'm just saying she doesn't ring a bell with me. They want to experiment on Carol and some poor mall Santa they abducted so they can figure out how to copy her powers for themselves. Oh, and Grace has some bombs hidden around, because why not, right? But even with her powers nullified and her wrists shackled, Carol Danvers is still a badass former intelligence agent, and that means she can whoop a couple nerd psychopaths. With a little assist from Mall Santa, who was also Real Santa, which in of itself raises some questions we should expand on to an absurd degree another day. Carol finds the bombs, saves the day, that's pretty much it.

So were Grace and June just sitting around the hospital waiting for Carol to show up? Grace says she was sure Carol would come back once she heard Grace was on the loose, but Carol wasn't looking for her. She was with Tracy for hours, she thought Grace was still in jail. So how'd they find Carol?

I like how apparently no one is excited when Carol Danvers says she has a plan. Even Jarvis can't conceal his concern at that statement, and he's the height of politeness (as an aside, how long before Edwin Jarvis in the comics gets replaced by the J.A.R.V.I.S. of the films?). I like the jacket/coat Lopez gave Carol for civilian garb. It reminds me as bit of the redesign Mockingbird's outfit got after Secret Invasion. Which makes sense, considering he drew her in Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Still wish that series had been better, short-lived as it was.

Ms. Marvel #10, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona (art), Ian Herring (color art), Joe Caramagna (lettering) - I like Anka's covers more than McKelvie's. They more closely resemble the interiors in how Kamala looks.

So all these teens are working as batteries for the Inventor voluntarily, because he's convinced them it's the only way they can be of any use. Kamala points out that's stupid crap, and after the Inventor abducts Lockjaw with another of his giant mechs, the teens all agree to throw in with her and fight crazy Bird Edison. Except the Inventor has still got his giant mech, and a bunch of other kids he's going to use as hostages, I guess. I mean, otherwise what's point of showing them floating in tubes to Kamala? When he asks what's she's going to do about them, what does he expect her to say, other than "Free them"?

Also, isn't it common knowledge that the whole Matrix idea of humans as an energy source doesn't work because it takes more energy to keep them alive than you get from them? Fine, maybe Bird Edison didn't see that movie, but he's a scientist, surely he'd understand that. Unless the Inventor isn't worrying about it and is just using them until they die. Certainly not something I would put past him, and he clearly thinks the older generations regard them as so useless they won't object, so maybe that is his plan. Never underestimate the ability of an adult to delude themselves into thinking it'll never affect them, it'll never be their kid that gets used.

I love the Inventor's mech. He gave it a little derby hat, and the fists are like giant Extend-o boxing gloves, with brass knuckles that deliver electric shocks. I don't know if that's all Alphona, or if he and Wilson collaborated on that design, but it's fantastic. A little homemade, little old-fashioned, a little crazy, but still effective. Also, it's nice that he is adapting and responding to the changing threat Kamala represents. She gets a teleporting dog, he figures out how to neutralize it. And I think he's figured out she isn't really about fighting, but about protecting people, and now he's going to use the other kids he's lured in as a lever against her. Still not clear how, but that seems like the plan.

What I Bought 1/26/2015 - Part 1

Did most of the Super Bowl commercials last night seem sad to you? The only one I saw that seemed kind of amusing was the one about avacados, where they were staging the first ever draft. The polar bear was wearing a sombrero, hoping to be drafted by Mexico, but they selected avacados instead? Horrible pick, by the way. Polar bears are much better.

Captain Marvel #9 and 10/100, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), David Lopez (artist, 9 & 10), Marcio Takara (artist, #10), Laura Braga (artist, #10), Lee Loughridge (color art, #9 & 10), Nick Filardi (color art, #10), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Nice touch, making the cover look slightly weathered. My comic guy even got in on it by beating up one of the corners somewhat. You say that wasn't part of the presentation? Oh. It's fine, I don't really worry about whether comics are in mint condition. I just need to be able to read them without them falling to pieces.

Carol and Tic are discussing hypotheticals, as friends do, while listening to Lila Cheney's latest album, and Lila teleports in, asking Carol to use her diplomatic status to get Lila out of a marriage that was arranged between her and the prince of Aladna, when Lila visited there as a child. Fortunately for Carol, the prince knows Lila doesn't really want to get hitched, and he doesn't want to force her. Problem being, he doesn't have the choice, no man on Aladna has a choice when it comes to marriages. So Carol - posing as Lila's mom - prepares to block the wedding by objecting, but another objection comes from a queen with designs on that throne and Carol gets to settle things in the diplomatic manner most comfortable to her - punching things. Then Tic solves the marriage issue by agreeing to marry the beefcake prince, so he can take the throne and let everyone in the populace have control over who they marry. And in the aftermath, Lila finds a letter she was given to deliver to Carol, from Kit back on Earth.

Seems Grace Alexander, who decided she wanted to destroy Carol at the end of the previous volume of her series, had escaped from prison and sent for a legion of remote controlled rats to destroy her home in the head of the Statue of Liberty, then snuck into her old apartment to lure in Rhodey so she could blow him up. Which didn't work, naturally, and she got arrested, but it makes Carol a little homesick (the part about how her old friend Tracy is barely hanging on didn't help, I'm sure), and Lila gives her a quick lift home, just in time for Christmas.

I feel sure issue 9, with the weird outfits, the talking in rhyme, and the melodramatic "GASP!"s, is homaging something. Judging by the title of the issue, it's a rock opera, which doesn't help me any, but maybe it means something to other readers. It just isn't a language I speak, really. Couch it in Westerns, I might get it, but not rock operas. It works fine as a story anyway, I'm just positive I'm missing some extra references. I do enjoy Carol trying to be diplomatic, especially when it involves something as awkward as rhyming everything, in part because Lopez does such a good job drawing people looking uncomfortable or awkward, smiling too big, or whatever. The first real time Carol tries to rhyme (with, 'I-Indeed! Why the. . .rush? Must they wed at first. . .blush?') Carol's making these goofy hand gestures, which fits. There's no reason for them, other than she's out of her depth, and trying to do something.

The other issue gives each part of the letter to a different artist, since each part was written by a different character (from Kit, to Spider-Woman, to Rhodey). Lopez for Kit, Takara for Jessica, Braga for Rhodes. All three of them are distinct, but similar enough each part of the story feels like it's taking place in the same universe as the others. We don't get a situation where Kit's is really cartoony and exaggerated, or Jess' has huge rats because she hates rats. I suppose, if the issue were meant to be funny, that could be a missed opportunity, but I don't think that was the goal really. Carol's meant to feel wistful, and be reminded that while she dashed off into space to find herself, all the people she cares about are still living their lives.

I find it a little hard to believe Grace was actually willing to be blown up alongside Rhodey just to mess with Carol. She strikes me as the sort of villain who considers herself much to valuable and important. It's everyone else who sucks and is expendable. So I guess she knew she gave Rhodey enough times to whoosh off into the upper atmosphere to protect innocent bystanders. Still not clear on why the bomb fell off. The cold I guess, or the velocity he was moving at. Curious to see how Carol's going to handle her trip back home. The solicitation described it as being like "A Christmas Carol", so she's going to spy on them, unobserved? Seems strange, but she did say no one had to know she was hopping back to Earth for a day, which would seem to preclude talking to any of them. Jess or Rhodes, for sure.