What I Bought 7/3/2014 - Part 4

And now the weather is behaving as it normally does in July. Blerg.

Ms. Marvel #5, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona (art), Ian Herring (color art), Joe Caramagna (lettering) - I noticed that on the credits page they screwed up and listed this as "Part Four Of Five". Getting so people can't even count to 5 anymore. Ah well, that's a nice cover, though. Quiet, reflective, pretty.

Kamala's initial rescue attempt fails miserably. She gets injured right off the bat, and only narrowly escapes. Then she falls asleep at her kitchen table surrounded by food (she's got to feed that metabolism if she's gonna heal), and gets caught by her mother, who is freaking out. Her dad steps in and calms things down, then turns the emotional thumbscrews. I'm sure it's not (totally) his intent, but I can't help reading those sort of touching parental confession moments as a bit of guilt tripping. I'm sure he's sincere, but it did make Kamala feel bad, so there you go. Anyway, she resolves that she has to be more prepared, so she and Bruno start testing her powers, and he's uses his experimental polymer to make her a stretchy costume. Hey, when you can't afford (or steal) unstable molecules, get super snot. Thus, her next attempt goes very well. She's shrinks down, rides in on one of the little robot things, gets it to zap Doyle, she grabs Vick, and they're out and gone. But Doyle's boss isn't happy, and Doyle's boss is. . . a Terrigen-evolved pigeon? Great, a giant rat with wings. I imagine that's going to produce a dumbfounded reaction when she meets him.

Nice touch by Caramagna altering the font size based on Kamala's size. I especially like the panel where the words get smaller as you go through the sentence because she's shrinking as she's talking. Alphona's still doing an lovely job on the artwork. I don't know if it's intentional, but when the Inventor leaves his message for her at the end of the issue, the way Kamala's holding her mouth mimics the way the mouth was drawn on the large stuffed version of her the Inventor left.  The range of expressions he gives Kamala and Bruno when she's convincing him to help on page 10. She's goes from this frustrated and determined look to being cheerful, to then sort of smugly pleased when Bruno agrees, and the whole time Bruno has this clearly pensive and uncertain look and posture. He really doesn't want to encourage her, but he cares about her, and his brother needs saving, so what can he do?

Three things about the writing. One, how long was the Inventor going to have Doyle watching Vick in that basement? Kamala and Bruno must have needed at least a couple of days to run all those tests on her powers and to make the costume. I guess the Inventor could just be very deliberate in his decision-making, though deliberation isn't a quality I tend to associate with pigeons. Two, I'm hoping Kamala and her mother get to have a reasonable discussion soon. So far, Kamala's only had those with her dad, while mom tends to freak out and start wailing about how her child is going astray. Maybe she's just like that, all histrionics and overreacting, but I hope to see another side soon. The other characters are getting more facets to them. Third, I like that when she manages the rescue, we see very little fighting. because Kamala isn't the sort to enjoy beating people up because she can, and she's there to rescue someone. Once she's got that someone, she's getting the heck out. She wants to help people, not necessarily beat up bad guys if she doesn't have to.

Nightcrawler #3, by Chris Claremont (writer), Todd Nauck (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I wonder sometimes if I'd want a tail like Kurt's. Given all the things he can do with it, it seems handy. But then I'd have to cut holes in the back of all my pants. Plus, it would throw off my posture, probably mess up my back.

So the robot attacks again, and we find out it's called Trimega because it can split into three, each which seems to control a different element. Kurt and his friends from the circus aren't doing so well until Margali steps in and banishes the baddies. Kurt convinces her and Amanda to return to the school with him, where Margali receives a very cold welcome from Storm, and I am missing some backstory here. I have no idea what atrocities Margali's committed, though I can't help wondering if she's killed more people than Wolverine (a thought I have often these days). Kurt's a little peeved and goes to the Danger Room to contemplate the fact that he turned his back on Heaven (and I got to say Kurt, my experience reading GrimJack suggests this was a bad idea). It falls to Logan to bring beer and talk with him about accepting that he made the decision, and needs to make the best of it. Which is good. It's always a little odd those two are such close friends, but they are and Logan would definitely not want to see his buddy so down.

Unfortunately, that's the last good thing that happens because, in order: Amanda drops Rachel like a sack of potatoes, Margali does something awful to Storm and Beast (turns them into photos, extracts one from each, and lets the rest collapse into a pile), and then a whole lot of those Trimegas attack the school. I'm not sure how Margali figures Kurt will continue his new in life in peace after what she just did to his friends. Geez, between her, Mystique, and Maddy Pryor, do any of the X-Men have moms that aren't completely demented? All of them seem to be "I'll slaughter village full of babies for my child", which is just messed up.

Well, I don't have any idea what the robots are up to, but I'm pretty sure this arc is going to end with Claremont putting a his own final end on anything between Amanda and Kurt. It's becoming more and more apparent Amanda's claims that she doesn't know what's happening are a load of garbage, meaning she's lied to Kurt and put his friends in danger. That revelation will go over well, I'm sure.

Rachelle Rosenberg's doing a good job on the colors. Every setting had its own sort of palette, and they remembered that if it was near dusk in Germany, it would be much earlier in the day back in New York. So the skies are going orange at the circus, but it's all bright blue skies back at the school. It's a little thing, but I appreciate that they paid attention to that detail. The rosy pinks of Kurt's recreation of Heaven, versus that metallic blue of the regular Danger Room and the interrogation rooms. The deep purple in the school hallways when the attack begins. It's a nicely ominous color, though I wonder if it's a coincidence that the light coming in through the windows is similar to the color they use for Kurt's teleportation cloud effect.