January 25, 2023

Unexpected snow day.

I got a call early this morning saying that school was cancelled for the day and that opened up the opportunity to do my next Comic Catch-Up post. I hope to maybe get a second one done today later after I get the new comics (since Wednesday is new comics day!). Still, this gave me the chance to dive back into the pile of comics that I have been trying to whittle down.

Captain Marvel #43. I have not read much from Captain Marvel for quite a while and I have not yet gone back and found all of the past issues. That is a job for later. However, this is the new story arc called “Revenge of the Brood” and that sounds like a great place to jump back onboard. Written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Sergio Davila, Captain Marvel gets a message from Rogue indicating that she is in some kind of trouble. She goes to see the X-Men and a team of the mutants and some of Carol’s friends head off to see what they can discover. I liked the use of the X-Men here, including Gambit, Polaris, Wolverine (Lara) and Psylocke. It is also cool to see Hazmat, who I always enjoyed in the Avengers Academy run, back in the book. Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) is another fun addition to the team. This issue is pretty much of a set-up for what is going to be moving forward, but I was always a fan of the Brood from the X-Men books and I am looking forward to continuing this book. I have a few more parts of this storyline already just waiting for the proper time to read.

Captain America: Symbol of Truth #1. Diving really deep back for this issue, we get Sam Wilson back in the Captain America gear and he is teaming up with the new Falcon. Some of the story’s interactions with Sam and Misty Knight were personal favorites for me. The last couple of pages of this issue do set up the series with an interesting note as a character by the name of The White Wolf goes to see the imprisoned Crossbones. This issue was written by Tochi Onyebuchi with art by R.B, Silva.

Wakanda #1. Two stories inside this issue as I learned that T’Challa is on the run from his country of origin. Apparently things happening in Black Panther series that I’ll need to check in with soon. This first story featured Shuri doing battle with Rhino, titled “Shuri” written by Stephanie Williams and penciled by Paco Medina. The second story was “History of the Black Panthers Part One” written by Evan Narcisse and drawn by Natacha Bustos. Rhino here is one of the issues I have with Marvel. I love the continuity of Marvel Comics, but there have been recent comics where Rhino has been less evil and developed more as a character. That does not seem to be included in this story. Some times Marvel does this with their secondary villains where they take on a different personality depending on which book they are in. I’ve seen the same thing with Taskmaster or Juggernaut or Sandman. I want more consistency.

Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace #1. I picked this up just after the run of the great Peacemaker series on HBO Max. This was written by Garth Ennis with art by Garry Brown. The thing with this is it was nothing like the series. I’m not saying that the book was bad, because it was a very solid story, but it was not what I was expecting. It felt as if this should not have been a Peacemaker series, but, instead, the main character was someone different. Peacemaker was telling his story to a psychiatrist. It was compelling, but it just did not seem like John Cena to me and that was the Peacemaker that I loved.

Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1-4. I did not know that there would be five issues of this limited series otherwise I may have waited to read it until I got number five. I enjoyed this tremendously though. Written by Taboo & B. Earl and drawn by Juan Ferreyra, this had a throwback flavor to Bill Sienkiewicz’s work on New Mutants in the early days of that book. They tap into the Demon Bear again and this works really well. Unlike the new Kraven Spider-Man book, this falls into the actual continuity, which I like so much more. There is a distinct horror feel to the book and Spidey fits right in. I am excited to see how this wraps itself up.