Blackbird: The Great Beast

by Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel (along with Paul Reinwald, Triona Farrell, Jodi Wynne, Dylan Todd, and Jim Gibbons)
collects Blackbird #1-6
volume one

Blackbird is a new take on the Magical Girl fantasy in the same wheelhouse as Bewitched, Buffy, Sailor Moon and Sabrina. It may have magical creatures, cute costumes and a talking black cat, but at the end of the day Blackbird is pretty to look at but an overall mess, not unlike a glitter cannon or the aftereffects of a child’s princess-themed birthday party.

Before we get to the magic, let’s first focus on the girl. Nina is a clear subversion of the squeaky clean Magical Girl type – she’s haunted by loss and trauma, as well as a mysterious almost-death experience; she’s jobless, sleeping on her sister’s couch, and addicted to pills. Not the most likable character but hey, Tony Stark and Jessica Jones started out that way too.

But Humphries seems to confuse trauma, conflict and angst with character. Nina has no nuance; her conscious thinking, displayed in square text boxes, is always the latter of show don’t tell. For her complicated and difficult past, her relationships and her psyche are anything but. Nina stumbles through her adventure without any redeeming qualities (aside from being less shitty than her family members, I suppose) and her likability, for me at least, doesn’t become apparent.

Nina’s pill addiction could be a sign that she is hallucinating, especially since witchcraft and paragons has been an obsession of hers. This could have added a dark and mature side to the story and seemed to heavily imply it, given the focus on her addiction in the opening chapters…not to mention the fact that family members disappear, reappear and come back to life in the context of magic. But the story never deviates from the reality of paragons and magical gems, nor does it suggest that Nina is an unreliable narrator. The magic can’t be an illusion, and Nina’s addiction doesn’t have any other medical or psychological side effects. It has no clear meaning in the context of the story and her character, and something as serious as addiction should always have meaning in storytelling.

Moving on to the magic: often in fantasy, one is introduced to a magical world (parallel with the newcomer protagonist, like Harry Potter, Sakura or Nina in this case) that always makes sense at every step, even when more magical elements, backstory and world building is introduced. How magic works in Blackbird is never clear – it’s a strange combination of spoken incantation and tiny gems that fit into bracelets, while paragons belong to different cabals that mirror LA’s neighborhoods (which seemed more funny than realistic to me).

While it’s always acceptable, and even necessary, to have unanswered questions in fantasy, the system was overly vague and confusing for too long. Carrying around tiny gems (in their pockets or something?) to fit into bracelets sounds like a logistical nightmare. As a system, it’s unclear if the gems resemble deck building (using a limited number of gems to enhance or add abilities), a “gotta catch em all” collection system like Pokemon or Cardcaptors, or if you just choose whatever gems best match your outfit. More on that in a second.

And the world building doesn’t feel natural either. During a fight between paragons Clint and Adrian, their dialogue is cringe worthy with exposition. Clint later says paragons are hunted and exiled by non-magical humans, but there’s no evidence of societal prejudice or discrimination. (On the contrary, Nina learns about magic through online forums, suggesting it has a fan base.) Clint goes on to say that magic belongs to everyone, which throws a wrench into the magical items and incantations that seem necessary to do said magic.

Along with the magic gems, Nina of course has a talking black cat, one of the most overdone fantasy girl tropes. But Humphries misses an opportunity to at least make Sharpie interesting, aside from one communication issue that got real old real fast. (Is it hard to write talking cats better than Marjorie Liu? It is impossible. But one should still try.)

Jen Bartel is a phenomenal artist and her pinup style art is simply glorious to look at. Her work along with Triona Farrell’s colors make for visually stunning work, along with eye catching covers that earned her a (well deserved) 2019 Eisner Award for Best Cover Artist. Bartel also clearly loves the costume design aspect of the genre, and fans who love cosplay will probably eat this right up.  However, her art sometimes feels too pretty and needlessly decorative, even for magical Los Angeles witches.

Nina is jobless, homeless, and addicted to painkillers, yet her makeup, blue dyed hair, and trendy outfits are impeccable. (Is her BFF another dislikable LA fashion icon with a penchant for crocodile tears?) Perhaps it’s just what comes with the genre, but at some point I found both the paragon and street outfits distracting rather than charming. Especially when it came to shoes, which made an otherwise regular outfit feel privileged and LA pretentious, rather than fashionable or endearing:

Bartel’s art is very pretty, and her attention to fashion is certainly a good match for this kind of story. However her art wasn’t very kinetic or intuitive for the reader, and at times it felt awkward following movement and perspective from panel to panel. I knew I was looking at beautiful art on every page, but I didn’t always feel like I was reading a comic book.

Blackbird is a problematic take on the Magical Girl genre, but it’s possible these issues can be ironed out in the second volume, for those willing to extend the patience for it. I barely made it through the sixth issue, so I’m not sure I will be.

 

Alex + Ada

by Sarah Vaughn & Jonathan Luna
Alex + Ada #1-15 [deluxe edition]

After rereading Alex + Ada volume one (which I read years ago before the blog was a regular thing), and then also inhaling volume two over the summer, I just had to get my hands on the third and final volume, via the complete deluxe edition – and by “deluxe,” it’s a gorgeous oversized hardcover, but unfortunately without any bonus content which I was looking forward to.

Alex + Ada is a romance / science fiction story brought to life by a powerhouse creative team. Sarah Vaughn is also the writer behind the beautiful romance tale Sleepless, while Jonathan Luna, one half of the Luna Brothers, is also co-creator of The Sword, one of my very first Image titles and the first non-superhero comic book I completely fell in love with on a road trip.

Like many great science fiction stories, Alex + Ada is truly about what it means to be real, and if sentience, emotions and love are only reserved for humans. One could call it a Romeo and Juliet retelling, except Juliet (Ada) is an advanced android whom Romeo (Alex) awakens during a time when sentient robots are considered a danger to humanity. (Android activists, private spaces for androids to connect and support each other, and other aspects clearly mirror other human rights movements as well.) As someone who grew up with characters like Data from Star Trek, whose own “humanity” is put on trial in one episode, this story was right up my alley.

Despite the fact that robot sentience has been done before, Vaughn and Luna bring new life into the genre by creating their own “not to distant future” that’s close enough to our own to feel realistic. Alex and Ada don’t have overbearing personalities, but enough to feel real – and of course we see Ada literally become a “person” over the course of the series. The supporting cast is likable enough (or unlikeable, if that’s their goal) but we don’t spend enough time with them to really feel invested, aside perhaps from the androids for whom we might already feel some additional empathy). Of all of them Franklin was the most interesting to me and I would have loved an issue that followed him, to take a break from Alex + Ada and also see more of the robot resistance world outside of them. That being said, 15 issues definitely felt like enough to tell Alex and Ada’s story.

I’m definitely biased when it comes to Luna’s artwork but his unique style brings an atmospheric feeling to the book. He uses clean, thin lines, minimal shading and a bright but neutral color palette – like Alex and Ada’s futuristic world, it feels very streamlined. Luna also likes to sequence duplicate panels on a single page which gives a more visceral sense of time passing, which was

While the story does have a few predictable turns (especially for anyone familiar with science fiction), and there may not be as much “action” as one might find in other sci-fi stories, there were still a few surprises. I may have cried. Maybe more than once.

Alex + Ada succeeds both as a romance and as a science fiction story, as well as a poignant commentary for those in our communities who are still marching and advocating to be taken seriously as humans. Not to mention the fact that the singularity is inevitable as technology and robotics continue to advance. But until then, I am proud to have Alex + Ada on my shelf.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Head of M.O.D.O.K.

by Christopher Hastings, Gurihiru, Irene Strychalski, and Rachelle Rosenberg
collects Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #5-10
original series: one | two | three | four | five [complete]
miniseries: Gwenpool Strikes Back

I’m already experiencing withdrawals from West Coast Avengers…so it’s time to catch up on Gwenpool!

Gwenpool is far more than a female Deadpool knockoff. She’s actually Gwen Poole, a member of our reality – and huge Marvel comics fan – who somehow plopped into the Marvel universe. Even though she’s also an amoral anti-hero vibe with more than her fair share of fourth-wall breaking, witty dialogue, her encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel universe is what sets her apart from DP – and what makes her self-aware humor all the more funny. Gwen takes shots at diluted storylines, censorship, and narrative tropes like ensuring characters don’t die by asking their names, therefore making them more important to the story.

The funny gets funnier when Gwenpool teams up with Miles Morales – there is nothing funnier than an exasperated Miles Morales. It’s fun to see Gwen completely fangirl over Miles (and his mom) and try to explain the Secret Wars storyline, much to Miles’ bewilderment. (When Gwen tells characters they’re in comic books, mentions publishers, etc, it’s not too dissimilar from the holodeck characters in TNG who can’t really process the information.)

The main story picks up soon after the first volume, as Gwenpool and her cadre of D-list villains (headed by Baltroc the Leaper, another great casting choice by Hastings) try to continue on the MODOK operation without MODOK himself. The narrative is pretty forgettable with sea creature aliens and a reformed Doombot (not even close to the greatness of his ‘cousin’ on Runaways); but not unlike Squirrel Girl and other comedy books, the fun is in Gwen’s shenanigans – including dressing a pig up in a Gwenpool costume to throw off the aliens – rather than the story itself.

Gwenpool might be a blond Marvel fangirl in a comedy title, but she’s not afraid to translate her amoral philosophy into gleeful and often reckless violence. Gwen justifies her ‘actions’ saying that because comic characters (regardless of how young or innocent they are) aren’t real, their “lives” don’t matter. It makes her an unpredictable wildcard, not to mention completely nihilistic in a universe generally about justice and optimism – especially because she (rightly) understands that as the star of her own book, she can’t die, and as a Marvel character, there are some lines she probably can’t cross even if she tries. It makes the whole thing even more absurd from a meta standpoint, and within the pages, makes you wonder what exactly Gwen was like back in our world (though Hastings has made a point to not reveal that at all). Not unlike Deadpool, Gwen is an infinitely more interesting character with a foil (Miles, Baltroc, Cedric) and it will be interesting to see who she meets next, given her circumstances at the end of the book.

Gurihiru’s art is simply delightful and their* anime style makes Gwen deceptively cute and innocent. However, penciller Sasaki draws hands super tiny which I’m sorry you won’t ever be able to unsee, but it’s true! I wish they had also drawn the first issue with the Miles team up, Strychalski’s style isn’t necessarily bad but it felt a little too “children’s story book” for that particular issue.

Gwenpool is a great breather in between different books, and I’m thrilled that she has a new solo title, called Gwenpool Strikes Back, post WCA.

*I recently learned that Gurihuru is the name of an artist duo rather than a proper name: pencils and inks by Sasaki and coloring by Kawano. I therefore changed the pronouns to gender neutral plural. My apologies for the error. See their website for more!

Long Lost, Book One

by Matthew Erman and Lisa Sterle
collects Long Lost #1-6
book one | two – complete

First of all, you need to know that I am a VERY HUGE WUSS when it comes to horror stuff. I’m going to go ahead and date myself: things that terrified me growing up included Are You Afraid of the Dark, Goosebumps and yes, even the Mummy movie with Brandon Frasier kept me up at night.

So when my local comic shop employee (after recommending a bunch of things I’ve already read and loved so I immediately trusted her) praised the crap out of this book, I flipped through the creepy, black and white pages and asked how scary it was. She said that it’s less horror and mostly creepy.

Well, this book was creepy as hell, and I loved every second of it.

Piper, the protagonist, is struggling to get through life and forget the demons in her past, adopting a puppy named Pockets and isolating herself from her family. But not only does her sister Frances return in her life, the two are visited by a mysterious being who kidnaps Pockets and bribes them to return to Hazel Patch, their rural hometown, and attend their mother’s birthday party. The two are forced to face their horrific and potentially traumatic memories, the surprising revelation that their mother is missing, and confront some very weird goings on in Hazel Patch.

Married team Matthew Erman and Lisa Sterle lay the groundwork for a gripping, tense, page turning story. The writing and art work together seamlessly which is a testament to this creative team – all the bigger of an accomplishment as spouses! The pacing is fantastic as the story slowly unfolds, including flashbacks to when Piper and Frances were children, flashes of traumatic memories, and thrilling horror scenes with slower, character building moments. There is plenty of mystery about the town, a cult with connections to Piper and Frances, and the volume’s ending cliffhanger promises a lot of big reveals to come.

Piper and Frances are fantastic characters who are clearly siblings but very different people who were shaped by their shared trauma – even though we don’t know yet exactly what they experienced at the hands of their parents. Even with the fantastical story they feel like very real characters which grounds the story and kept me invested the whole way through. I’ll be interested to see in the second (and final) volume how much of the story is a commentary on both sisterhood and overcoming childhood trauma.

Sterle’s artwork is just fantastic, especially since the style is not what you might expect in this genre. Piper, Frances and the other main characters have slightly anime and more expressive than what I usually see in horror comic (covers, I don’t actually read them are you kidding), but it really works for the story here. This contrasts with the gore elements as well as the monsters (and some of the Hazel Patch residents) who have less of a cartoony look, making them even more other worldly and terrifying. The colors are black and white gradients, which is very appropriate for horror and gives the book a strong atmosphere as well as a lot of opportunity to play with darkness, blood, and lots of creepy shit. This is probably my limit of creepy shit, but it was totally worth it.

I also have to say that I love a story with a predestined conclusion; no page is wasted and the book was clearly a labor of love by Erman and Sterle, who are masters at building tension and I was almost frantically turning the final pages with my heart racing.

Looking forward to profusely thanking my amazing LCS folks and picking up the second and final volume.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man 2

by Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, and David Marquez
collects Ultimate Spider-Man #6-10
volume one | two

Wow! The plot thickens with volume two of Miles Morales’ origin story and it’s just as much a breath of fresh air as the first. Miles has now accepted the mantle of Spider-Man (to the chagrin of Nick Fury, thrill of his best friend Ganke, and shock of Peter’s family), and now Miles has to contend with actually being a superhero and managing his family life, especially when the two converge with big consequences.

I really appreciate how Bendis keeps the focus clearly centered on Miles and his family, especially his uncle Aaron, instead of rushing into a big explosion-happy superhero story. Miles is just starting to understand the exhaustion and loneliness of being a superhero and the Avengers don’t bother with mentoring him (not unlike Kamala Khan, created after Miles but with a similar tone). The dialogue is excellent, not bogging down the story like so many of Bendis’ books, and Miles has a clear voice, even though he has the same quippy one-liners as Peter – which is necessary when I couldn’t care less about the villains he faced.

This was probably my biggest issue with the story. Spidey faces off against pretty minor characters (including a disc dude?) who were not only unnecessary to the story, but seemed too randomly fortuitous to happen as often as they did – especially in such a huge city as New York. I would have appreciated Bendis tying the two together so the battles have some meaning to the overall story (as he does in the final chapter between Miles and Aaron) instead of feeling like the action bits were superfluous.

I wonder if this below scene is where the filmmakers from Spider-Verse decided to make Miles’ father a cop, which is not in the original comics.

I want to say this with sensitivity: it strikes me as odd that Miles is half black, half Puerto Rican, and yet that doesn’t seem to really have much importance in this volume (we got a little bit of Miles’ social class as he gets into school via lottery). While of course Miles shouldn’t be defined by his race or ethnicity, it would have been nice to see it as a part of Miles’ family life, as just a part of Miles – this is done to perfection in G Willow Wilson’s Ms Marvel with Kamala Khan and I feel like it had a stronger presence in the Spider-Verse film as well.

As for the art, I was not as big a fan of Chris Samnee’s art as Sara Pichelli’s; the sketchy characters and thick borders were a clear departure from Pichelli’s glossier and more precise work and it felt a little flat to me. David Marquez takes over the last two issues and it’s much closer to Pichelli which I appreciated – he creates several exciting pages between Miles and Aaron building to the big finish.

Overall I’m enjoying this introduction to the Ultimate universe and looking forward to volume three.