It's March 7th as I publish this post, which is now nine days late. Following this one, which took a while to put together, I am publishing a bunch of quick and simple posts in order to catch up.
If you ever have visited my blog before, you know that I read a lot of comic books. With is post, I am featuring just a few of the comics I recently read that I liked. Most are found at this Comic Book Roundup page:
https://comicbookroundup.com/comic-books/release-dates/2023-01-04
There is a door that appears only to those who need it most, who have no one else in the world to turn to. On the other side of this door is the witchcraft shop. Friend or foe, human or otherwise-if your need is great and your hope is gone, there you will meet the SCARLET WITCH! Wanda Maximoff is familiar with hitting rock bottom-and now that she's finally found peace, she's pledged all her power to help others who are languishing at their lowest. But when a woman falls through Wanda's door with a terrifying story of a town gone mad, the Scarlet Witch will have to muster her wits and chaos magic to deal with an insidious threat! Comic powerhouses Steve Orlando (MARAUDERS; Midnighter) and Sara Pichelli (ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN; SPIDER-MEN) join forces to open a groundbreaking new chapter in the Scarlet Witch's history!
https://www.comicon.com/2023/01/10/shell-solve-the-problems-no-one-else-can-reviewing-scarlet-witch-1/
Crafting a first issue is tough because it often has to hit a lot of particular checkboxes in a sense, but also just has to have the right energy to grip the reader from the word go and not let go. I’m happy to say that Scarlet Witch #1 has all that energy and manages to tick off the right number of first-issue boxes to be a delightful read. I’ve made no secret in previous reviews, namely the columns we did about The Trial of Magneto, that I’m a big Wanda fan and have not been happy with much of her use/treatment in a lot of the 2000s. For too long her sins were allowed to hang around her neck and make her a pariah in the universe at times, while many male characters that knowingly did far worse things were welcomed into the fold time and time again.
I mean come on, we start things off right away with her dispatching the pulled right out of the pages of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe forgotten antagonist called Doctor Hydro and the giant amphibious being known as Caceleon. That’s some big-time hero stuff right there, and she does it all without breaking a sweat. Right away, Steve Orlando sets up Wanda as the hero and then quickly paints her new life goal with her magic shop, and even gets us some great sibling banter/conversation as Quicksilver pops in to check on his sibling. Their voices sound quite natural and the amount of character stuff that Orlando manages to stuff in here without the book ever feeling too packed is almost unbelievable.
In service of Wanda moving forward, she’s not on some team here or looking to be part of avenging or any of that sort of stuff. In fact, the premise here is pretty simple and easy, people that need help will suddenly find themselves walking through The Last Door which brings them to Wanda so she can help. A premise like this opens the door, sorry I had to do it, to so many possible stories and reminds me very much of the type of premise one might get from some classic television where people went from city to city to help. Wanda is an A-Team of one, well not fully one since Darcy (making her comic book debut from the MCU) is there to assist (and has a secret of her own). No doubt Pietro will be around to help out now and then, like in this issue.
Doctor Hydro is a pretty deep dive, but the overall villain of this piece is less so but still kind of is in a sense. There was a time when a lot of villains were regularly used in Marvel Comics before things sort of narrowed and particular villains, those with a recognized cache, began to be used far more often (the same can be said over at the distinguished competition). Basically, your Ultrons, Dooms, Magnetos, and the like that began to feature in stories back to back, with writers wanting to give their take on them. It would have been easy to do that here, but instead, Orlando turns to Jackson Day, the Corruptor, for this story.
It works so well because of course a villain like that doing something like taking over a small town would go mostly unnoticed by the big hero groups, making it easy for there to be a way for Wanda to step in to save the day. There is also the nature of his powers, which gives us a fantastic Wanda moment that I love so much. As I noted above trauma has been around Wanda for so long, and Corruptor tries to weigh her down with it all again, but she just brushes it off and does the hero thing. Orlando easily could have avoided even referencing what Wanda has been through, but instead uses it as a good way to bolster this series’ mission statement for her as a hero.
While Orlando does Wanda justice on the writing side of things, it falls to Sara Pichelli, Elisabetta D’Amico, and Matthew Wilson to do so with the overall visuals of the issue. They knock it out of the park. Pichelli is just a fantastic artist in anything she has ever done, giving this series such a distinct, detailed, gorgeous look that is enhanced with the inks that D’Amico brings to the work. Any issue that has Quicksilver within it, even briefly, needs to have a particular energy of motion to the artwork and Pichelli has that in spades. Everything here just flows and feels real with a true weight to it, characters actually move through the world within panels and from panel to panel.
Those panels shift and change shape and size as needed, allowing Pichelli to perfectly capture the emotions and body language of every single character. We don’t need to be told how anyone is feeling because we can very much see and even feel it ourselves as we let our eyes move through the pages. No character, no matter their prevalence in the issue, feels like an empty space or is just there to take up space. This is a world that feels full and lived within, as Wanda moves through it in order to do what she can to make the world a better place.
When we do see Wanda’s abilities put into effect, they are big and bold, and magical in many cases. Chief among them is a great panel where Wanda turns a truck into water saving the driver before he can hit the ground or crashes into her. As I mentioned about other elements this is another that feels like it’s in movement, the way that the water is shown going in so many directions including already being splashed on the ground all is logical and creates a showcase for what Wanda can do.
Wilson brings a lot of that weight and depth through the colors that are added to this world, finding that beautiful mix of vivid and toned-down. Many of the elements around them such as buildings and many of the people moving through their everyday lives are very grounded toned-down colors that fit what we might see in our normal everyday life. It creates that image of this being a town that could be anywhere in Italy or the rest of the world because it feels real. Most of the more vivid pops of color are saved for the more magical and superhero elements such as Wanda and Pietro’s costumes, Corruptor, and the opening scenes.
This makes it so that those fantastical elements stand out far more from everything else, as they naturally would. If these superheroes were parading down our streets right now in the costumes as they are usually depicted on comic pages, it would be so bright and you’d notice them right away. I mean you would anyway because of their nature, but that color would surely catch the eye of even those that are engrossed in whatever their daily routine might be.
Emotions and tone are captured so well by the art and colors that Pichelli and Wilson bring to the page and are enhanced even more with the lettering that Cory Petit provides. One of the best ways to help convey those things is to set up a sort of baseline appearance to the lettering so that we instantly know what a normal level of conversation or thought might look like. Petit does that easily while making sure that those bubbles then move around the page in the most efficient and easy-to-follow way so that as we’re reading, we’re still taking in everything else connected to the words in a complete package way. It’s taking things beyond that baseline that moves lettering to the next level.
We can see on a face if someone is scared or angry or worried in some way in most cases, but we all know in real life that with our emotions our voice often changes too. To achieve that Petit drops in plenty of bolds to add emphasis to certain words, but chiefly makes sure to modulate the volume of any given bit of dialogue by expanding or shrinking the font used. Just spotting the font suddenly being smaller can tell our mind that the words are being said at a softer/quieter level than the rest of them, so we can ‘hear’ the character whispering.
Love love love when words that are powerful or important get exploded to a large colorful level in a bubble to give them that even bigger punch. We see The Last Door get a slightly bigger red namedrop on one page and then a few pages later as it actually is put to use that namedrop is huge and red and so comic booky, just as I like it. The same goes for all the big bold SFX dropping into the mix, making sure that we can perfectly envision the sound that something makes. Even if that sound isn’t something we can intrinsically recognize we still hear it in a sense.
Scarlet Witch #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.
Recap
Batman was defeated by his own creation, the malevolent Failsafe! Now, he's... where?
Let's do the multiverse timewarp again!
Matt Meyer
Review
After the absolutely bonkers previous issue, Batman #131 was bound to be something of a letdown by comparison. I mean, Batman literally survived freefalling to Earth from outer space. And then he… lost against Failsafe. Wait, Batman lost?! Batman doesn’t lose! It’s his schtick! It doesn’t get bigger, more widescreen, more over the top than that.
Chip Zdarsky, though, is wise enough to know that he should pivot instead of try to top himself. And so in chapter one of “The Bat-Man of Gotham” (love the clever Golden Age tip of the hat), Bruce Wayne finds himself in yet another of DC’s myriad multiverse worlds. What distinguishes this one is that he’s crash-landed into a Gotham that never had a Batman, which is a great idea that could go in a plethora of different directions. Really, Zdarsky has opened himself up a buffet of options to play with here.
But instead of going all-in with the crazy, Zdarsky instead keeps things relatively street-level, as Batman puts his detective skills to work and puzzles out where he might be. After “Bat-god” being Bruce’s default mode for a tad too long, it’s refreshing to see him off-balance, out of his element, and having to rely on nothing but himself to remind readers why he’s the world’s greatest detective. No beautiful toys, no gimmicks, no JLA Watchtower or superfriends to help him out. No Robin or Bat-Family. Just the man himself, stripped down to his essence, fighting to not only survive in a world where he doesn’t automatically know every inch of it; but to also fight his way home as well.
Sound a bit familiar? Well, it should, because it’s a variation on the plot to Grant Morrison’s Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, in which each issue found the Dark Knight Detective flung into a different era of the past, trying to piece together how to get home while also trapped in the various vicissitudes of each era. Zdarsky doesn’t take things that far here; Bruce is still Bruce, but watching him struggle to acclimate to a world not his own, where the usual rules don’t apply, means readers are treated to a Batman they usually aren’t privy to: one that doesn’t automatically have all the answers. It’s a real treat.
Of course, playing around in the multiverse again mere weeks after Dark Crisis beat readers over the head with it might feel a bit played-out to some readers. For others, this brave new world might feel a bit too tame; some still may feel that various supporting characters such as Harvey Dent and Catwoman fulfill their given new roles a bit too easily. Such complaints are valid, but given the certifiable win streak Zdarsky is on with Batman so far, I’d say the man’s more than earned the benefit of the doubt. And with that in mind, the far more grounded backup story featuring Tim Drake and Dick Grayson having a brotherly disagreement over how best to proceed in their father figure’s absence should sweep aside any nagging doubts that Zdarsky knows to always, always keep the characters at the heart of his story, no matter how high the stakes may be. That’s the mark of a confident writer.
Artistically, Batman #131 is in phenomenal hands. I honestly mistook Mike Hawthorne’s pencils for Andy Kubert’s for a hot second; that’s no small compliment. Hawthorne has been flying under the radar for far too long, waiting for a A-list project to boost him to the Majors. With Adriano Di Benedetto’s lush inks, here’s hoping that his work on “Bat-Man of Gotham” gets him the praise and opportunities he deserves. Meanwhile, Tomeu Morey’s darker-hued color palette suits the story’s tone very well indeed, rendering a world that, while not drenched in the shadows we’ve typically come to think of ruling Gotham City, at least creates a sense of foreboding around every corner. Together, the trio really does harken back to the artistic creative team on the aforementioned Return of Bruce Wayne, which was perhaps the intention all along. After all, Zdarsky hasn’t been shy about dipping his toes into Morrison’s pool thus far in this run, so perhaps that deliberation extends to the art team, as well.
As for the back-up story, Miguel Mendonca and colorist Roman Stevens choose an alternate route. Together, the bring a brighter, more Jokeriffic color scheme to “our” Gotham, creating a sense that it’s wilder in general and on the verge of spinning out of control with its protector missing in action. Mendonca draws a great Tim Drake; I’d absolutely kill to see him take over the art duties on Tim’s own book. Despite their relative closeness in age, Mendonca is able to draw noticeable physical distinctions between Nightwing and Robin, and not just the latter be a smaller mirror image of the former. There’s a sense of hurt in Tim’s movements, a vulnerability that isn’t present in Dick. And that make sense, given that Tim was the last person to see Bruce alive, and possibly witnessed his death. Of course, Tim’s a good enough detective to know that he almost certainly didn’t see what he thinks he did – and that’s a good thing, because there’s a surprise villain from Superman’s rogues gallery (who seems a natural fit in Gotham) waiting in the wings.
Final Thoughts
Batman #131 very smartly pivots direction from the high-stakes bombast of the previous issue (and arc). Character-driven and far more personal in scale (despite being a "trapped in the multiverse" story), Chip Zdarsky is proving he has what it takes to move the needle on what makes Batman Batman and redefine that for the next generation of readers in a way that honors the past yet yet recontextualizes it in bold new ways. Bravo.
Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #8
Writers: Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colorist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
This story keeps rolling along nicely and I am still on board.
Captain America has woken up in the middle of Kansas with no memory of the last five days. He finds a local store and gets up to speed on how AIM has taken over lower Manhattan, complete with a bubble shield. He calls in help from Aaron Fischer of the Captains Network and rounds up his team in an abandoned rail yard. They’ve all got similar memory gaps, so Cap calls in a favor from Emma Frost to figure out what they lost. She dives into their minds and finds out they were attacked by MODOC, a new MODOK designed for mental stuff. With that all sorted out, Cap names his squad the Invaders so that they can invade Manhattan.
Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that Emma’s guest appearance was so short. Captain America and Emma Frost are two characters who never get to interact, and Marvel found a really special spark between them at the Hellfire Gala. Lanzing and Kelly take that spark and turn it into a freakin’ bonfire this issue, and it’s delightful! Cap is so nervous about contacting Emma, especially with his girlfriend right there. It’s adorable! And a really fun new look at Steve Rogers, who isn’t always some Boy Scout. Then Emma shows up and is written wonderfully. The whole sequence is a neat crossover and I hugely support having such fun in a comic like this one.
And Emma is only the biggest and best guest appearance. We also get Aaron Fischer, the Captain of the Railways. I didn’t read that recent Captain America comic where they introduced the Captains Network, but I skimmed it and know the gist. And the idea that Cap has some allies out there to quickly call in a pinch is fun! I’m all in. That he then uses these allies to prepare for an invasion of Manhattan to stop AIM is just great. I love where this story is going and absolutely love how all these characters are handled and juggled. This is a creative team in full command of their story and cast, knowing exactly what they’re doing and delivering good work issue after issue.
I just wish Emma hung around a bit more. She’s fun!
TL;DR: A couple guest appearances make this issue especially fun, building on a very solid foundation of escalation in the ongoing story.
DAREDEVIL #7
The promise of Matthew's vision for the island is realized complete with the flaws inherent in any system throughout Daredevil #7 in an issue that speaks to the entire run's radical reimagining of its hero's mission. That comes complete with Daredevil leading supervillains to attack police and landlords in a deeply cathartic sequence for lefties that's bound to leave everyone cheering for one of Marvel's most mocked supervillains. Both in action and conversation, the issue delivers striking poses and panel compositions with excellent silhouettes and wonderfully composed scenes of suspense. The overall emotional effect of seeing so much potential being achieved frames the inevitable reversal wonderfully in a showdown that earns its seemingly hyperbolic degree of presentation with two armies of good and evil preparing to enter the field. Daredevil delivers a riveting morality play of modern social movements set against an epic fantasy backdrop with some of Marvel Comics' greatest characters; it's a truly astounding superhero comic. -- Chase Magnett
Rating: 5 out of 5
DAREDEVIL #7 REVIEW – “THE RED FIST SAGA”
Things have certainly escalated in the world around Daredevil. In particular for Elektra Natchios as her latest mission to try to stop The Hand went sideways. And it could’ve have gone more wrong than Elektra being caught looking as though as she was responsible for killing the President of the United States. With the video shared around the world what does this mean for the status quo of not just Elektra but Matt Murdock in the Marvel Universe? Let’s find out with Daredevil #7.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Rafael De Latorre and Marco Checchetto
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
SYNOPSIS
With Elektra Natchios caught on video appearing to have murdered the President of the United States, and high tension between them, it’s decided Matt Murdock will go with a team alone as Daredevil on their latest mission.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, Daredevil leads Bullet, Speed Demon, and Stilt-Man in stopping Castlemax’s hired police from forcibly evicting apartment residents and trying to blame those residents for Castlemax-planted bombs going off.
After stopping this Daredevil confronts Castlemax’s CEO Clive Markuson to stop these forced evictions under false allegations or face the wrath of The Fist.
Before heading back to The Fist mountain base Daredevil lets Bullet go see his son.
Returning home Elektra takes Matt to Stick to talk about the Book of the Fist revealing that Punisher is headed to Yusuhara. Bullet suddenly makes contact while fighting The Hand ninja to blame Daredevil for his son being kidnapped before being completely overwhelmed and taken by The Hand.
Matt and Elektra quickly assemble all the members of The Fist to take the war straight to Punisher, Aka, and The Hand.
Elsewhere Punisher orders Aka to protect Bullet’s son as he gets ready to face off against Daredevil and The Fist. End of issue.
REVIEW
Chip Zdarksy, Rafael De Latorre, and Marco Checchetto sure aren’t making life easy for our two Daredevils in Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios. With Daredevil #7 the honeymoon period for the newlyweds is officially over. We see that tensions rising as both Matt and Elektra are still figuring out the best way to lead The Fist against The Hand while protecting the world.
As with the previous issue, Daredevil #7 shows that taking on a leadership role is not just something easy, no matter how much experience the individual has. Because for sure, Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios have as much fighting and superhero experience as anyone in the Marvel Universe. But for all that experience both are coming into leading The Fist having worked largely as individuals. They aren’t experienced leaders like Captain America and Cyclops are.
We see how these last two issues of Daredevil that it is in having been working as solo acts are impacting the results Matt and Elektra are getting right now. With Elektra, there were errors made with how she walked into The Hand’s trap of being seen as if she was responsible for murdering the US President. Now with Matt in Daredevil #7 by just thinking that after saving the day things will settle down for a bit he opened the door for The Hand to strike hard and fast without expecting it.
These results made the opening scene between Matt and Elektra so interesting. Because we are seeing how the tension between the two co-leads and the newly married couple can’t be hidden. Even as they appear to be on the same page at the end of the issue as they head to face off against Punisher and Aka these apparent problems won’t help them. This all leads to creating more layers into Matt and Elektra’s relationship that now after being firmly established is being tested with how strong it is. That creates some more personal drama that all works into the greater story of The Fist vs The Hand war in a natural way.
On Matt’s own personal journey, we did see much more of his side of things with Daredevil #7. His mission in North Carolina put over the direction he wishes to take The Fist on. He sees them all as an extension of his belief in what superheroes should be. Having his strike team made up of ex-villains he has brought on to reform with The Fist further exemplifies what Matt is trying to do.
Now what will be something to look out for is how all of these developments will clash with how Punisher and The Hand have developed. Daredevil #7 did a much better job integrating Punisher into the story without making it feel as though you have to read his solo story. Zdarsky framed Punisher in a way that gives us enough details is doing and if you want to read more about it you can pick up his series but not required. Now that The Fist vs The Hand war will fully kick off it’ll be interesting to see how Zdarsky uses all of Punisher’s developments without making it feel like we are left out in a large portion of the narrative.
Not enough can be said about how great the artwork from Rafael De Latorre and Marco Checchetto was throughout Daredevil #7. Latorre and Checchetto have nailed down working together after collaborating at various points that the story just rolls smoothly. They capture the intense, personal moments between Matt and Elektra incredibly well. Then there is the action scene in the apartment that has a lot of great choreography. All of it makes you look forward to how crazy things will get in the war between The Fist and The Hand.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Daredevil #7 does an excellent job setting the stage for the big clash between The Fist and The Hand. Building off the previous issue, Chip Zdarksy, Rafael De Latorre, and Marco Checchetto continue to test Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios in fascinating ways. The direction things went does provide a lot of intrigue into how the Daredevil pair will deal with Punisher and Aka when facing off against The Hand.
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
GHOST RIDER #10
Though this finale is rushed, Ghost Rider #10 adequately puts a cap on everything Percy and Smith have told to date. Every loose end comes together and it comes together quickly without so much as a second to breathe, all leading to one of the biggest Ghost Rider reveals in recent memory. As with previous entries in the series, this comic is just as moody and dark as the rest and this creative team is at the top of their game throughout. If one thing's for certain, it's that they're just getting started. -- Adam Barnhardt
Rating: 4 out of 5
I kind of think the review stats are a bit high with a 7.9 critic rating and a 7.7 user rating.
Here's a review maybe a little lower than I would rate the comic, but I agree with the sentiment.
https://comicbook.com/comics/news/new-comic-reviews-dc-marvel-image-january-11-2023/#1
LAZARUS PLANET: ALPHA #1
[READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE]
The bottom line for Lazarus Planet: Alpha is that this is what it looks like when what might be an interesting idea isn't given the proper space to develop. Instead of something with strong connections to narratives that readers already know, understand, and have some investment in, they get a batch of wild ideas, a hope it is heading somewhere, a mildly-interesting premise, and great art — and the artwork is really what's worth writing home about. -- Nicole Drum
Rating: 2 out of 5
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2302.26 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2795 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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