Here’s all the stuff I’ve been reading during these last couple of weeks. What a stressful, draining and crazy time. Hope you are all taking care and staying safe.
All books read digitally on Marvel Unlimited and ComiXology.
Thor: God of Thunder, Volume 1: The God Butcher
Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic
Collects Thor: God of Thunder #1-5
Jason Aaron’s Thor run deserves the hype it’s received for many years, and I regret just getting to it now. Thor’s mission to stop Gorr the God Butcher from slaughtering the universe’s gods is epic, cosmic storytelling at its best. For MCU fans who haven’t read much Thor (like myself) but know and like the Chris Hemsworth version (who doesn’t?), it’s easy to jump in. Esad Ribic’s gorgeous artwork is also very accessible, and his atmospheric painted style does a splendid job with facial expressions, Thor over three time periods, the creepy villain and grotesque violence, and different worlds and aliens/gods.
We get a brief cameo from another Avenger, but otherwise this is all Thor all the time – if you were looking forward to seeing Siff, Loki, or the Warriors Three, you’ll be disappointed. Which I was, just a little bit – Thor(s) still carries the story but it would be a little bit more interesting with more of a supporting cast.
The first five issues is clearly not a standalone and is more of a pause before heading into more story. The ending wasn’t necessarily disappointing, but didn’t really have a firm conclusion, and gives the reader a moment to pause and decide whether or not they want to continue. I’m still not sold on the time travel aspect and I think the next volume will prove how effective that device will be – clearly Aaron has a bigger story to tell.
Fables vol 1: Legends in Exile
Bill Willingham, Lan Medina & Mark Buckingham
collects Fables #1-5
This is my third (at least!) time rereading the first Fables volume. Just like the previous reads, I really enjoy this adult retelling of children’s fables and fairytale characters, as they all must negotiate living in a tight-knit, secret community among the “mundies” aka human world, after their exile from their homelands.
We get to know the main players through a murder mystery, which was a smart way to frame the story, and there are several surprises as readers piece together how fable characters have been updated or turned on their heads. Even though there’s some awkward exposition at the beginning, I think it was necessary to start world building, and several couple elements, like glamours and the farm, become important later (from what I remember). Buckingham’s art is wonderful and I like the expressive characters as well as the gold frames around the flashback panels.
This reread, I really appreciated how Willingham reinvents Snow White as the protagonist. From what I understand, there isn’t much character in the original fable and the Grimm retelling. But here, she’s no nonsense and high powered, essentially running Fabletown on her own. She has no patience for her philandering ex, Prince Charming (I love how he’s the same prince across fairy tales), and shows some emotion when her estranged sister is presumably murdered. (Also: Snow and Bigsby are big Leia/Han energy.) That being said, I wanted to see more from the other female characters – though I won’t fault Willingham for the inevitably sexist source material. Still, there’s a lot of lower-lip pulling from many of them and I hope Beauty and Cinderella get the same treatment as Rose Red (though we don’t see much of her this volume) and Snow White. (I believe they do, but I don’t remember the 1-2 later volumes I’ve read.)
(also, Willingham and Buckingham. LOL.)
New X-Men, volume 1: E is for Extinction
Grant Morrison & Frank Quietly
collects New X-Men #114-117
This is at least my second reread and the more I think about E is for Extinction, and read others’ reviews, the more meh I am about it. The pacing is way off. Cassandra Nova is set up as a villain in the first issue and commits genocide in the second. Fast, high stakes pacing isn’t bad on its own- but then almost immediately, Genosha becomes a footnote as we race through even more plot that balloons exponentially. Genosha is mentioned, characters *say* they’ve barely had time to grieve, but any actual trauma isn’t there. Also, Beast keeps mentioning everyone has the flu, and they all seem fine? Kudos to Morrison for shaking things up, but it feels very hollow when life changing events aren’t anchored in any real character development. Instead, Morrison – true to other stuff of his I’ve read – seems to think “as many complicated things happening at once” equals “good storytelling.” It does not.
Frank Quietly….man, I don’t really know how I feel about his art either. I appreciate how stylized it is but sometimes characters just looked weird. Why is Scott’s chin half of his face? Why does Jean look Asian? Can we have one non-white person on the team? Nope? Fine. I do like Beast’s new look though.
To be honest, I’m only reading this because I want to go through the big modern Marvel events, and what happens in Morrison’s X-Men will be referenced for the next two decades. I just hope reading more is worth it. (Spoiler alert: it is not.)
New X-Men, volume 2: Imperial (DNF)
Grant Morrison, Frank Quietly, Ethan Van Sciver and Igor Kordey
collects New X-Men #118-126 – read through #124
I’m not finishing this, because comics should be FUN, dammit. Instead, this is an exhausting, overly complicated (and often downright confusing) slog with absolutely awful art by Ethan Van Sciver and Igor Kordey – truly some of the worst I’ve seen. These two are all over the place to the point that characters (Wolverine especially) are sloppy and distorted. Morrison continues inflating the plot with no emotional anchor, just more and more things that happen. I love my X-Men but I don’t have time for this, even if it is important to X-Men canon; if I don’t understand a footnote in future X-Men stories, so be it. I’m off to watch some X-Men Animated Series to make my eyes stop burning.
Spider-Man: Blue
by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
collects Spider-Man: Blue #1-6
What a disappointment – if I wasn’t reading this for book club I wouldn’t have finished. Peter uses Uncle Ben’s old tape recorder to tell his forgotten love story with Gwen Stacy… but Gwen is barely in this. We learn nothing about her, and what does Peter know about her, exactly? She’s a blonde who “likes it fast” (motorcycles, folks…motorcycles), and takes an interest in him? That she dances at parties and can read Huck Finn? Yeesh. They only become a couple in the closing pages – we don’t even see their relationship at all. Of course Gwen’s death is tragic, but she’s not really a person in this book – like the fate of many women, she only exists as a device for Peter’s growth, not as her own person. (Remember Women in Refrigerators? Yep. Guess who’s on that list?)
Instead, the closing pages make the story far more about MJ and Peter’s relationship. MJ is more insufferable than Gwen (she tells Peter she “won the jackpot,” and asks if he “likes what he sees”), but she also has the meaningful experience with Peter, tagging along as Peter “takes photos” of Rhino. But other than that scene, MJ and Gwen mostly just try to seduce Peter with sultry eyes and an impossible amount of mascara, thanks to Tim Sale. And that’s paired by Peter’s excuse of stringing them both along – you know how boys get with those hormones! Even if they’re superheroes who can save the city multiple times over, they’re a slave to those hormones.
The rest of the book, which is most of it, is just the early days of Spider-Man – Green Goblin, Rhino, and Peter’s grief of losing out on his personal life. There’s nothing new, and it’s a huge missed opportunity to actually dig into Gwen Stacy as a person, so the reader can also mourn her loss like Peter does.
And I’m also not a fan of Sale’s work here, aside from the action scenes. Faces look wooden and awkward, there are some weird proportion issues (especially when Peter visits Harry and Norman in the hospital), and by god Sale doesn’t know how to draw women. He seems hellbent on making sure MJ and Gwen look as catty as possible – or, frail and decrepit like Aunt May. Harry also looks like he’s approaching his midlife crisis rather than his senior year of high school.
This has been your angry feminist rant about Spider-Man: Blue!
Reading Art 