I went to the comic stores Wednesday, hoping to get five books. More realistically four books, since Count Draco Knuckleduster was a real long shot. I only managed to get two. Bummer. Also, it's been hot as shit all week, which has really put a crimp in my vacation. Not that I wanted to actually go many places, but it's made it where I haven't wanted to do hardly anything. Oh well, I can use the sleep.
Strange gets a visit from the Masked Raider character Ewing created a few years back. Seems the guy was trying to stop some evil scientist, said scientist tried to escape with a magic spellbook, Raider shot the book, guy has landed somewhere in time, likely planning to alter history. Apparently you can change things if you time travel with magic, but not science. OK, sure, I'll roll with that.
Strange busts out the old Secret Defenders tarot deck to find some allies, but it's not a great draw. Every card is reversed, which I think is bad, and nobody seems terribly happy to be there. Not that the Suilver Surfer (restored to his classic look) is ever happy. Also, Strange drew Cloud, who is a sentient nebula now compressed into a house, so he's about to destroy the world. Oh, this is one of those stories about how trying to avoid destiny brings it about! Or not. Strange averts that disaster, but the team is thrown into the previous universe to Galactus' homeworld. I thought they were two universes on from that one after Hickman's Secret Wars? Didn't Ewing have an entire series about this, where it was a new universe, so Galactus could have a new role or something?
OK, so on the last couple of pages, when they're on Taa, Ewing does that thing people do when they homage or parody Jack Kirby. Where there are quotation marks around certain things they say? Example: 'So! "Space-time Hoboes," are you? Well, you "Made It," friends!!' I kind of hate that stuff. With Kirby, I suppose it felt like a genuine thing he thought he should do, whatever his reason, but when anyone else does it, it just feels like a kid trying on their parents' clothes. Throws me out of the story.
But maybe I should expect this thing to be extremely meta-textual. In the Raider's flashback, when the evil scientist is trying to use the spellbook, the three candles he has lit around him are cyan, magenta and yellow. The three true primary colors, the ones used in color printing. The smoke drifting up form them is the same colors, and so are the pages in the book. So Zota's going to mess with the text of the Marvel Universe? It's not as though he could mess things up worse than Bendis or Mark Millar.
So I'm not totally sold on the writing, but it's a lovely comic to look at. Petit and Bowen's color work is vivid and varied, able to go blindingly bright when needed, or tone it back to something more subdued when that's what is called for. Rodriguez' work is detailed without being fussy, and the colors mesh with it, making sure we don't lose any of his or Lopez' linework. The page that tells the story of Raider's mask through clouds of steam rising from Stephen's tea cup is excellent. The two pages of Strange trying to keep Cloud from destroying the world, where all the panels are converging on the location where their mass is about to form a star.
If nothing else, the comic will be well-illustrated.
The comic is ending, so all dangling plot threads must be at least sort of tied off, or at least brought to a place where there's some idea what to do next. So, in no particular order: Gert's parents appear in their time machine right in the middle of everything, muttering about instability, and Nico banishes them.
Karolina's people are actually here to help treat her injuries, since Xavin got her acquitted of whatever she did wrong previously. Or so they say, the last page showing Xavin (drawn by Kris Anka) is giving off strong "evil" vibes. I've never seen a fictional character that does the "hands clasped behind their back while someone calls them General" pose yet that wasn't bad.
But Karolina doesn't know that, so into space she goes, after some relationship drama with Nico that resolves mostly peacefully, and ends with Nico telling her to take the Staff of One away.
Future Gert convinces Present Gert and Molly they should help her abduct Chase to the future to keep him from becoming a Mad Max cosplayer. Well again, we see that's the future, but Future Gert doesn't actually tell them, which is odd when she says she made no promise to protect the timeline's integrity. Then fucking tell them what happened, you asshole! Either way, Future Gert and Chase both poof!
Alex is wearing that Doc Justice guy's costume and watching all this (in a page drawn by original Runaways series artist Adrian Alphona, whose are looks grainier than I remember from Ms. Marvel.) Molly may still be considering visiting Krakoa, but Clara (still happily living with her foster parents) is not interested. At least one character in this book isn't a moron.
And that's pretty much it. The crew for now is Present Gert, Molly, Victor, Doombot, Gib, and Nico minus her staff. Which leaves Nico and Doombot as the closest things to responsible adults. Wait, am I implying Chase was a responsible adult? That can't be right.
Of course, the next writer can handwave all that if they want to. Bring Karolina back, with or without Xavin. Bring Chase back, changed or not, never reference his time in the future if they wish. Do something with Alex or not. Do other people have old friends they no longer like who won't take the hint? Because for someone as smart as Alex is supposed to be, he sure hasn't caught on they want him to get lost.
I'd expect Doombot will get ejected into limbo by the next writer, much as Rowell (mostly) did with Clara. Gib, too, most likely. "Oh, he didn't receive sufficient sacrifices from the kitties, so he died and we never speak of him." I could be surprised, but I doubt it. It's a little frustrating, because we only saw hints of how things were going to play out. I was curious what the end result of the time shenanigans was going to be. The Xavin thing is less interesting to me, because I just sort of vaguely remember Xavin being around. I'm guessing a lot more happened with the character after BKV stopped writing the series, which is the point I stopped picking up used copies of the trades.
Genolet's art is really better suited to smaller panels. When the tried to go for the almost double-page splash of Future Chase squaring off with Future Molly, it's kind of blurry and lacking in his usual crispness. Like taking a small image and blowing it up a couple of times. Plus, there really wasn't much on the page that justified the need for that much space. Could have kept it to a single-page splash and been just fine. Other than that, this issue is Genolet's usual solid work, and it was 28 pages of it, which might explain last issue being short.
No comments:
Post a Comment