Best of Marvel: Week of June 12th, 2019

Runner Up: The Immortal Hulk #19 – Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Paul Mounts, Rachelle Rosenberg and Cory Petit

I think I’m going to be sick. Sick with disgust, fear and absolute love for this amazing series and the levels it goes to push the envelope of horror storytelling in a superhero universe.

Beginning with an impressive analogy, foreshadowing the events of the book, a young Captain Fortean is trying to impress a young Betty Ross with the importance of spiders to the ecosystem as they watch a butterfly trapped in its web. He tells her that spiders keep the rest of the insect population in hand so that the world isn’t in chaos. As they drive away, the butterfly escapes from the web.

Continuing the events from the last issue, Hulk is in the middle of battle with RickBomination, who displays an ability to dissolve Hulk’s body parts with his acid. Truly it’s a gruesome display from the fluid splashing off of Hulk’s arms, to the acid dripping from both of Rick’s mouths, to the slop of flesh falling off of Hulk’s hand as it fails to regrow.

Elsewhere, a kill team utilized by Shadow Base is taking care of witnesses and kills one of the hotel staff. This act is witnessed by Jackie McGee, the reporter that’s been following the Hulk and his exploits for the entirety of the series and her new friend: a newly resurrected and terrifying Harpy, Betty Ross-Banner.

Betty’s new form is a thing of nightmares. In her original Harpy form, Betty was a green skinned beast, resembling a centaur/manticore like monster consisting of wings and feathered legs. She was also the Red She-Hulk, pretty much exactly what it sounds like. This new Red Harpy is…something else. With a jaw that seems very snake-ish, the talons of her hands and feet are razor sharp, capable of grappling, ripping and slicing through anything. Her display of violence against the kill team is brutal and horrific.

She rips off heads, tears bodies in half and just strikes fear into the hearts of the men. The expressions on their faces are not unlike any previously seen in the series, but they still carry with them the sheer terror of what they’re facing. Jackie tries her best to stop Betty’s rampage, but her voice is mousy, unheard as Betty goes absolutely mad.

Throughout the book, Betty narrates that everything about her is her own. Her rage, pain and violence is all hers. Her new Harpy form is hers and after years and years being defined by her relationship to Bruce, she has something all on her own again. She is not endlessly loving, she is not forgiving, she is no one’s friend or soulmate and that if she is seen as a monster, then this is the perfect world for her. The truly horrific bit is saved for the end and it is disgusting.

This issue had a big focus and did a great job of reintroducing Betty Ross-Banner in a meaningful way after her “death” at the hands of Bushwacker a few issues earlier. It also teases a release from her role as just Bruce Banner’s love interest and more into her own kind of beast, more ferocious than her Red She-Hulk past. I’m excited for what the future has in store for her and the rest of the Gamma Monsters.

Best of Marvel: Week of June 12th, 2019

Best of this Week: Silver Surfer: Black #1 – Donny Cates, Tradd Moore, Dave Stewart and Clayton Cowles

After a series of starts and stops with a random annual and appearances in a short Defenders mini-series, The Silver Surfer may have finally found his stride.

The Silver Surfer Annual of 2018 saw the Surfer facing an existential crisis about his role in the destruction of planets after being newly to his position as Herald of Galactus following the events of Infinity Countdown. There was a bit of hope as to what their relationship would be like after the Surfer gets angry about his lot in life and Galactus wipes his memory. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to stick as he appears to fully remember everything when helping out his former Defenders allies. He hasn’t really been seen since until Guardians of the Galaxy where he was thrust into a black hole by the Black Order.

Silver Surfer: Black opens with the Surfer reflecting on the distress that comes with being the harbinger of death for the Eater of Worlds, how he never forgets the cries of those that are sacrificed to sate Galactus’ hunger. It then cuts to the Surfer doing what he can to save a few of his allies, using Beta Ray Bill’s Stormbreaker to catapult the warrior and several others out of the vortex. He then uses his Power Cosmic to find the weak spots in the tear to free the rest in a glorious display of power.

These two scenes are absolute trips to read. Tradd Moore’s art style is perfect for capturing the effects of a black hole ripping bodies apart and stretching limbs as characters appear very long and wobbly. Backgrounds are wavy and can actually appear to be very disorienting and that’s actually good for how immersive this part of the story is, especially after the Surfer expends his energy to save everyone and slowly drifts into darkness.

The exhaustion on his face is very palpable and I have to take a yawn as he curls into a ball and begins to shrink into a small silver ball of nothing. His atoms tremble as he heals his body after falling for what he believes to be years and he spots a bit of light. He summons his board and seeks help only to be met by three guardians of some sort of gate who attack him soon after.

Even weakened, The Surfer is no slouch and holds his own against these powerful foes. The shots of this fight are very floaty, in that, while hits have some impact, it’s negated by how much the art just flows. Everything is pulled back to show the grand scale that the fight happens in as the Surfer appears tiny in relation to these enemies. After a brutal fight that nearly sees the Surfer defeated, he unleashes a surge of energy, creating a sun above the planet and turning his left hand black. The gate opens and the Surfer is set upon by a VERY UNEXPECTED, but very interesting enemy.

This book was amazing from start to finish. Cates scripts an excellent opening that’s taken to another level with Moore’s beautiful art. I forgot to mention Dave Stewart’s coloring which absolutely crushes everything. It’s amazingly smooth and gives the book the kind of shine that’s appropriate for the Surfer and a trippy vibe to set the tone for what’s in store for the book. Even in it’s later pages where things are awash in brown, the Surfer stands out with his Silver visage and looks very cool. I’m excited for the future of this book and definitely give this one a high recommend as a return to form for a cool character that’s in desperate need of revitalization.

Best of Marvel: Week of June 5th, 2019

Runner Up: The War of the Realms #5 – Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman, Matthew Wilson and Joe Sabino

There aren’t many other words to describe this issue other than EPIC.

The War of the Realms is in full swing and the forces of Midgard are mounting their comeback! Thanks to the work of Shuri, communications are restored, allowing the various heroes of Earth to coordinate their actions, allowing for everyone to be teleported to areas that need them the most.

This leads to various amazing shots drawn by Russell Dauterman. The visual of Black Panther on a winged horse as Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight off the Angels of Heven is the background is stunning, Captain Britain and Captain America fighting off Dark Elves to the shores of France is amazingly inspiring and watching Wolverine be welcomed into the Warriors Three by Hogun and Fandral as he tears through Muspelheim’s demons is brutal and hilarious.

Not only these moments, but the ones that are even longer look badass! Watching Volstagg return to his normal self as he dons the Destroyer Armor to fight Kurse is awesome because he shows that he’ll never give up, even while suffering from his injuries against The Mangog. Frank Castle leading the Light Elves of Alfheim, wielding GUNS to fight the dark elves is AMAZING. And watching Roz Solomon and Jane Foster team up to fight Dario Agger, giving him the comeuppance he deserves is so fulfilling.

While all of this war is going on, Thor is being ferried to the World Tree, Yggdrasil, by Daredevil. Surprisingly, it has been surviving on the surface of the sun as a seed of it was on Asgardia when it was being destroyed. To attain knowledge of how to win the war, Thor has Daredevil pin him to the tree in a fashion similar to when his father hung himself on the tree for seven years or so(?).

He returns in a series of shots, thunder rumbling as he crashes through the enemy forces, looking for Malekith. Hoping to mark the end of a rivalry that’s been years in the making.

Because of the vast nature of this book and its extra size, there’s so much to cover, but the main points are there. This is a Thor story, but it’s a Marvel Event. An initial criticism that I had was that it did not feature Thor enough, casting him away to fight Frost Giants in Jotunheim for most of it, but honestly that’s a good thing.

If Thor had remained, then we wouldn’t have gotten the struggles that all of these heroes had to face while going up against Thor’s magic nonsense. It’s been a wild ride seeing Daredevil as The God Without Fear, seeing him use powers and a newfound sight to fight the forces of evil. Watching Frank Castle’s profile raise CONSIDERABLY because of how integral to the War he has been is something else entirely. Most importantly, watching Black Panther coordinate everything alongside Lady Freyja cements him as a leader right on par with Steve Rogers.

When Malekith took Thor’s arm back in 2014, no one knew that the villain would grow into such a huge threat this many years later, except for Jason Aaron. The War of the Realms is the culmination of everything that he’s been building since 2012’s Thor: God of Thunder. It’s been a WILD and fun ride throughout and this penultimate issue has me salivating for the epic final confrontation between the Accursed and The Unworthy.

Best of Marvel: Week of June 5th, 2019

Best of this Week: Meet the Skrulls #5 – Robbie Thompson, Niko Henrichon, Laurent Grossat and Travis Lanham

Earth has a way of changing everyone.

Of all of the races in the Marvel Universe, the Skrulls absolutely blend in the best. They act like us, laugh like us and even have families like us, but what happens when that family becomes more important than the mission? That’s what Meet the Skrulls asks us as we reach the end of the harrowing series.

Mirroring the happy beginnings of their mission, the rest of the Warner family, mother, Gloria, and her daughters, Alice, Madison and a presumed dead Ivy return to their family home. All is not good as it is engulfed in flame, leading to Gloria driving the family to a safe house just outside their city limits. Alice turns into a butterfly to complete her part of the mission while Gloria and Madison are reunited with their father, Carl, who tells them that their handler, Moloth, has betrayed them.

Meanwhile, Alice infiltrates the home of one of her high school “friends” and tells her of her mission and that once she completes it, she will never show her face again. It’s distressing that things have gone so terribly that she’s willing to throw away her secret in a last ditch effort to salvage her mission, but that’s how the Skrulls are. They are focused on serving their home world and anything less than that is unacceptable in their eyes, especially for Alice who had been trying to become part of humanity for the entirety of the series.

At the same time, Carl begins to systematically incapacitate the rest of the family with stun guns, however Gloria catches on when he asks for a spot of tea from her that this is not her husband. She poisons the tea, but he detects it and they confront each other. Elsewhere, Iron Man arrives at a Stark Enterprises facility and questions how none of his staff knew that there was another floor/room that someone was using and how did a Skrull get in. Alice, posing as her friend’s mother, finds the body of her father, having been shot in the chest in the last issue. An unfortunate sacrifice to save his daughter, Ivy.

At the safehouse, Gloria and Moloth fight fiercely. Henrichon’s art reaches a new level of dynamic as limbs expand, twist and contort because of the Skrull’s shapeshifting abilities. Attacks and bodies look gross and everything is impactful because of the closed nature of the space they occupy. Not only that, but faces are expressive of the fury and betrayal that they all feel.

Moloth is disappointed in Skrull High Command and believe them to be weak and incompetent, choosing to betray them to another unknown benefactor and making the Warner’s take the fall for his actions. The Warners, Gloria and a recovered Madison are pissed and hurt that Moloth killed their father. Gloria rages and as she punches and kicks Moloth, it’s so very satisfying.

Moloth, however, gets the better of them and manages to hold them down with his limbs sort of taking the form of tree trunks, almost. He is dispatched when Alice returns, driving a car through the house and crushing him. He tells the family that the Skrull Homeworld will think that they’ve betrayed their home, that they can’t run, but Gloria tells him that that’s exactly what Moloth’s trained them for, turning her arm into a blade and killing him.The family then puts Carl’s body on a pyre and now have to live a life on the run while being pursued by Tony Stark and the Moloth’s unknown bosses.

I’ve been a fan of Meet the Skrulls since the first issue and I wish I had given it more love when it came to showing the books off because they are amazing. Robbie Thompson writes these characters in such a subtle way. The underlying love for each other is there, but it’s clouded by a cover of duty and a little bit of resentment in the first few issues due to the unexplained loss of Ivy sometime prior. Once it’s revealed that Ivy is alive and you think that the family may have happy ending, that feeling is immediately ripped away and replaced with grief.

These characters are soldiers in a never ending war, but they somehow managed to form a bond beyond the war. It’s even harder because they are an actual family, but adjusting to life on Earth and some semblance of freedom making them supposedly weaker humanizes them in a way that we haven’t seen from the Skrulls before.

Not to mention how beautiful Henrichon’s art is. Henrichon has done amazing art for Doctor Strange and New Mutants with lots of spectacle and style, but the way that he draws small moments… little moments of intimacy and smiles, sometimes panels with no dialogue whatsoever is spectacular. His faces are awesome and the feeling is palpable in each of them. The sorrow from Alice as her “friend” questions who she is, the shock as Madison and Gloria see “Carl” and the rage as previously mentioned.

Meet the Skrulls definitely deserves some acclaim. It’s a spy thriller, a family drama and an alien invasion story wrapped into one nice and neat package. The art is phenomenal and while it may not continue past this story, it’s definitely one worth reading. The characters are engaging, from the overbearing and mission focused Carl, to his loving wife who’s grown disillusioned to the mission, to the dutiful Madison and the wistful Alice who just wants to be as normal as the humans. It’s an emotional journey and the ending is as impactful as its beginning. High recommend.

Best of Marvel: Week of May 29th, 2019

Runner Up: Fantastic Four #10 (Legacy #655) War of the Realms Tie-In – Dan Slott, Paco Medina, Kevin Libranda, Jesus Aburtov and Joe Caramagna

Franklin and Valeria Richards are two of the most talented teenagers in the Marvel Universe. Franklin, at least before he started losing his powers, has the ability to create universes among other things. He’s also as headstrong as his Uncle Johnny and stronger than his Uncle Ben Grimm. Valeria has the intellect and engineering skills to match or go above those of Doctor Doom or her own father, Reed Richards.

They’ve spent most of their lives surrounded by other kids as special as they are, as smart as them or as powerful as them. They’re also used to the high life and adventure that being in the Fantastic Four brought them, so it’s no surprise that normal life is the biggest struggle facing either of them.

No longer living in the Baxter Building, missing the cute aquatic prince she met in another universe and not having an intellectual match near her age has left Valeria hopelessly bored. Franklin has become angry and introverted ever since he found out that his powers were depleting and he’s acting out because of it. Ben thinks he has just the right idea and makes Franklin help out at the local youth center.

It helps a little until some Yancy street kids try to bully Franklin, who does his best not to throttle them into the next reality. Alicia Masters, frequent friend of the FF and now Ben’s wife sees that the kids haven’t really had time to adjust and Ben then suggests hosting a Yancy Street block party!

Things go well with Reed and Sue finally meeting their neighbors, Valeria meeting an equal in “Moon Girl” Lunella Lafeyette and Franklin maybe developing a crush on Lunella’s older sister.

Things seem to go well enough until the War of the Realms reaches Yancy Street. The older FF does their best to save the people while Valeria and Lunella come up with a solution to get the Frost Giants away. When Franklin sees the regular people of the street fighting back, a fire is lit in his belly and he unloads on the Frost Giants even with his depleting power. Eventually Lunella and Valeria see that Valeria’s inter-dimensional cell tower is what’s attracting the monsters and Franklin destroys it.

Franklin gets over himself and tells his family that Yancy Street will be safe with his sister, Moon Girl and himself while they solve the larger problem.

The FF has always been about family and for Franklin and Valeria, being apart from the Future Foundation kids was equivalent to losing that family. And with the constant adventure hopping, they haven’t had a chance to establish a new family at home. Hopefully there will be more stories around these two in the future, especially with the upcoming Future Foundation book because they’re both great kids and it’ll be interesting to see how they continue to develop as characters.

Best of Marvel: Week of May 29th, 2019

Best of this Week: The Amazing Spider-Man #22 (Legacy #823) – Hunted pt. 6 – Nick Spencer, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Edgar Delgado, Erick Arciniega and Joe Caramagna

Only the Spider can kill Kraven, so says his curse.

In order to regain the peace he’s been craving since his return, Kraven has been pushing Spider-Man to his limits. He’s kidnapped Black Cat and Billy Connors, set hunters loose to kill the animal themed supervillains, poisoned Spidey to see visions of futures that could happen if he failed to do what was necessary. He thought the final step would be to force Spider-Man to make a hard choice.

Spider-Man does and Kraven sets him free, ready for their final confrontation. Kraven goads him into finishing him, lambasting the Spider for being the worst of the animal themed people because the spider is the worlds most horrifying predator, the one that humanity fears on instinct alone. But Spider-Man chooses heroics over everything, bright colors and goodness.

Spider-Man almost falls prey to Kravens words. He was afraid that in releasing Doctor Connors, he’d sacrificed Kravens guards to die, only to find that they were murdered by Kraven himself. After handedly beating the Hunter, Spider-Man makes him watch The Lizard attacks Kravens son and savagely beats him, but relents after seeing his son alive.

Spider-Mans entire message to Kraven is that people weren’t meant to hurt each other and even beasts like the Lizard can cut through their savagery and find the goodness in themselves. Kraven realizes that his mistake was actually becoming a beast himself and not something more as he had always claimed. He has a change of heart and vows to never hunt again, telling Arcade to shut everything down.

But the ending… as Kraven finally becomes a good guy, it almost makes me cry.

This story and all of the little tie-ins have been phenomenal. Not too many stories are worthy of being called sagas, but Hunted absolutely is. Not only does it mirror the first story in the Kraven/Spider-Man Saga, it makes it better by expanding on the idea of Kravens curse and ties a neat bow on his character while introducing a new and more savage threat for Spider-Man in the future.

Ramos absolutely smashes this final part with his art. Everything is beautiful, atmospheric and dark. Olzaba’s skills as an inner shines amazingly as Kravens inner darkness is realized as he dons his Hunter clothing to fight Spider-Man, appearing from the shadows. Delgado’s and Arciniega’s colors make Spider-Man appear a shining light even in the black suit and as day rises on this nightmare of a night, there’s a feeling of the jungle during an orange sunrise as pages are washed in an orange tint. Blows have weight and each tells a story of strength and sacrifice.

Nick Spencer was born to write Spider-Man and his run will no doubt go down in history as one of those Spectacular or Amazing stories in no small part to arcs like this one. I hope he goes on as long as Dan Slott did because he understands Spider-Man. The sacrifice, the humanity, the need to be a hero with the heart to match and never giving up even when things are bleak. This story is definitive of the hope that Spider-Man embodies.

Best of Marvel: Week of March 15th, 2019

Runner Up: The Amazing Spider-Man: Hunted pt. 5 #21 (Legacy #822) – Nick Spencer, Gerardo Sandoval, Victor Nava, Erick Arciniega and Joe Caramagna

Kraven has always seen Spider-Man as his greatest opponent.

The Spider has thwarted his greatest plots and schemes and proven himself to be the stronger man half of the time. The only time that Kraven has ever felt superior was when he “proved himself better at crime fighting” than Spider-Man in Kraven’s Last Hunt, killing himself soon after. He found peace in the dark only for it to be ripped away years later and surmises that the only way for him to achieve true death was for Spider-Man to kill him.

This Hunt that he set up with the animal themed villains served three purposes. To rid the world of these undeserving hunters, to kill off the more pathetic animal themed villains and to finally push Spider-Man over the edge.

Swarmed by clones of Vermin, Spider-Man monologues internally about how “this is it” and apologizes to Mary Jane, thinking that the Vermin are going to kill him only for Kraven to come to his rescue. He passes out and later wakes up, injuries healed and chained to the floor in a new Black Suit. (Not actually the Symbiote, just what Kraven considers Spider-Man’s most significant costume, unknown how many he’s made)

Doctor Curt Connors is also in there with him. He explains that the collar around Spider-Man’s neck is rigged to explode and that his inhibitor chip won’t let him rip the collar apart as it prevents him from hurting people. Kraven then shows a live feed of his son catching up to Black Cat and Billy Connors, almost certainly with a killing intent.

Dr. Connors says that the only way that he can save his son is by taking the chip off, but given that it’s attached to his spine, Spider-Man thinks it’ll kill him. In a great moment, Connors says that it’s a chance he’s willing to take and hearkens back to Peter’s power and responsibility speeches and that Spider-Man doesn’t know what real responsibility is because he doesn’t have kids yet.

It’s a good character driven moment that brings Connors full circle. When he didn’t have control of the Lizard, he actually killed Billy. After his resurrection, he wondered if his son remembered what happened, but was too fixed on just having his family back to ask. And now he has the chance to make up for his horrible actions by becoming a beast again? It’s good stuff.

Peter begrudgingly agrees to help, but this is what Kraven wanted. He needed to test Spider-Man to see if he could go the extra mile, to see if he was finally ready to face the Hunter. By removing the chip, he’s also removed a part of himself; the part that would have held back, the part that would have found another way, the part that wouldn’t rip Kraven apart.

Garardo Sandoval’s art absolutely smashes this issue. It’s visceral and makes everything look so much more serious while still maintaining an almost 90s look. The thick jagged lines give everything an edge, making you feel when Peter’s being attacked by Vermin. Kraven showing up in his iconic clothing has weight to it as he’s portrayed in ominous shadow and The Lizard looks absolutely horrifying.

This story is almost at its conclusion and I’m so excited. In story time, all of this couldn’t have been more than a few hours, but it will have aged Peter considerably. As much as any story has pushed him to the brink, everytime he has to deal with Kraven at his most dangerous, he loses something major in himself. Honestly at this point, I want to almost say that Kraven is absolutely one of Spider-Man’s arch enemies and Hunted is the cement of that.

Best of Marvel: Week of March 15th, 2019

Best of this Week: Daredevil #5 (Legacy #617) – Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Sunny Gho and Clayton Cowles

The “Man Without Fear” miniseries brought Matt Murdock low, but Chip Zdarsky managed to bring him even lower.

Beginning right after the end of the last issue, Matt goes after The Owl and his crime ring, hoping to put a stop to whatever big plans they have going on. Still wearing Punisher’s shirt, Daredevil takes on all comers. With expertly drawn art by Checchetto, he manages to take down a guy with Iron Man level armor using the momentum of a speeding truck and a hook, sending the truck careening into the air and letting the guns and drugs spill out. Soon after, Matt grabs one of the doors and storms through a hail of gunfire and begins tearing through Owl’s men before getting overwhelmed and being saved by the other Defenders; Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist.

He passes out and wakes up later in Danny’s apartment and breaks down, saying that he just wanted to do one last good thing as Daredevil before they take him in for accidentally killing a criminal. What I liked best about this is that they’re there for him. Jessica assures him that they’re not going to take him in and they’ve all been in the same position. Jessica’s likely killed people under Killgrave’s influence, Luke’s killed one or two of his villains and Danny’s entire Immortal Iron Fist run by Ed Brubaker and later Matt Fraction was dark. They know what it’s like to work through all of that pain and guilt.

Matt, however, struggles with the idea that they’ve all killed people and runs away from his friends because of it. One of the biggest themes of this run thus far is how Matt is coping with what he did and his religion on top of it. Murder is a cardinal sin to Catholics and Matt Murdock has more Catholic Guilt than any of them have ever had. He dresses as the devil for chrissakes and uses the mask to blind himself to the violence he commits out of his personal sense of justice.

When he returns home, he senses the presence of someone strong. Someone he says has immense power, but doesn’t know it. The best of them. Spider-Man then confronts him in his home, telling him that he can see that Daredevil’s not all there. He wouldn’t have been able to follow Daredevil home if he were and acknowledges everything that Matt’s done up to this point, calling his attack on the Owl a “suicide mission.” He tells Daredevil that he’s done and if anyone sees him out there, they will stop him.

All of this scene was a work of art. When we see Spider-Man he’s shrouded in shadow. Spidey is often considered one of the biggest beacons of light in the Marvel universe and having him stand in the dark drives home the message of how serious things are. Every close-up shot with Daredevil feels even more personal as the weight of his actions are drawn on his also heavily shadowed face. It feels personal, depressing and as he slumps back into his wheelchair – gut wrenching.

It breaks my heart to see Matt like this again. He’s tried so hard to pull himself out of the hole he’s been digging for long, but the whole time we’ve been reading, the hole’s just gotten bigger and bigger. Eventually just engulfing him in darkness as his mistakes catch up to him.

I don’t know where he goes from here. Back to the life of a lawyer? He’s been disgraced and was serving out of a broom closet the last time he tried. Another position in city office? Wilson Fisk would NEVER risk that again. Maybe a position in the church? I don’t know, but whatever the future holds, I know it’s going to be an amazing and somber one.