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Marvel Reviews

Marvel Then! Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender

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2012 heralded an irrevocable change in comics and superhero fandom. The Avengers had just become the biggest movie of the year and one of the most spectacular movie successes of all time. To tie in and capitalize on this major movie, Marvel decided to make an end-all, be-all blockbuster comic event that could entice movie fans to check out the comics, as well as tie a bow on all the major plot threads going on in the comics at the time. The solution was Avengers vs X-Men: a climax to the era that had begun with the twin releases of Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers.

In AvX, the two biggest franchises owned by Marvel, The X-Men and The Avengers, went to war over the return of the Phoenix Force, with the fate of the world in the balance. In this conflict, one of the major tensions is the perceived lack of political action by other superheroes on behalf of mutantkind. After a series of major conflicts, Avengers vs X-Men climaxed with the murder of Professor X by a Dark-Phoenix possessed Cyclops and the restoration of the mutant gene by Hope Summers, the Scarlet Witch, and The Phoenix Force.

Out of the chaos of Avengers vs X-Men came Marvel Now!, an initiative that shuffled the creative teams of all the Marvel books in order to get fresh takes. As promoted by Marvel in the leading months, the flagship title of this initiative was Uncanny Avengers which featured a new team of the biggest names from both the X-Men and the Avengers primed to face the biggest threats concerning both teams. In universe, they were called the Avengers Unity Squad. [Read more…] about Marvel Then! Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender

DID in Moon Knight, Part 2: Popular Runs

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We are not going to give a full history of Moon Knight here – if you’re interested in a Moon Knight curriculum vita, I highly recommend the reading guide by Dave Buesing. Instead, what we’re going to do is touch on a couple of the most influential runs, and the relationship they have with his DID. This won’t provide you the complete history of his diagnosis. but will hopefully highlight some of the themes we find around his DID, themes other creators carry through their own runs.

Previously: DID in Moon Knight Part 1 [Read more…] about DID in Moon Knight, Part 2: Popular Runs

DID in Moon Knight, Part 1: An Overview

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I’ve had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) since my earliest memories, so when I saw the new Moon Knight show coming out, I immediately raised an eyebrow. Having DID, one’s expectation of media portrayal tends to be… let’s say fraught. But Moon Knight is an interesting mixed case on this subject. Moon Knight has at times portrayed some of the most problematic parts of typical DID media representation, but it’s also done some really interesting work experimenting with new lenses for grappling with what can be a pretty difficult disease to understand. Reading Moon Knight with compassion for mental illness, then, is challenging, but also rewarding in some very unique ways. [Read more…] about DID in Moon Knight, Part 1: An Overview

Marvel Then! Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

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Despite the Young Avengers being a fan-favorite title and team (especially amongst younger comics fans), they have had surprisingly few series to their name in the now 17 years since their creation, only two official volumes and one Avengers crossover series, each between 9 to 15 issues long, plus a handful of tie-ins to different late 2000s events. This scarcity has made each Young Avengers series feel like a small event in itself, and it’s all the more true for their Marvel NOW! revamp, as written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Jamie McKelvie (plus Kate Brown guesting on issue #6, and various guest artists in the last two issues), with Matt Wilson on colors and Clayton Cowles on letters.

Teenage heroes can be hard to deal with over time in the Marvel universe, as the sliding timescale often causes them to stay young forever; if Tony Stark, Carol Danvers and the other adult heroes have to stay in their thirties forever and never retire, that means the next generation of heroes can never fully grow up and take their place. Teams like the New Mutants, or more contemporary to the Young Avengers, the Runaways, have sometimes had trouble growing up alongside their audience. But in Young Avengers Vol.2, the kids that used to be 14 to 16 years old teenagers are now reaching young adulthood, with all the questions and anxieties that being at that age entails. [Read more…] about Marvel Then! Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

The Darkhold Mini-Event In Review!

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A person in a garment Description automatically generated with low confidence

[Chris Bachalo Darkhold Omega cover]

Do you feel like you’ve waited for decades for the Scarlet Witch to finally get her due, exacting a price against her erstwhile manipulator Doctor Doom (hello, Wanda’s curse and The Children’s Crusade) and Chthon too (Nights of Wundagore)? Then this book, or rather just one(!) of its issues, delivers.

[Read more…] about The Darkhold Mini-Event In Review!