X-Axis – w/c 29 May 2023
Another unusually quiet week. Well, next week’s busier. In the meantime…
BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #4. (Annotations here.) So we’ve reached the penultimate issue, and while there isn’t quite a mad scramble going on, it does feel like yet again we’ve jumped past a bunch of stuff and headed straight to the conclusion. The whole Fury-as-Captain-Britain thing gets brushed aside by having him get beaten up in a few pages by the Avengers, though admittedly he’s got a subplot with Brian to pick up next issue. Rachel’s Askani storyline suddenly leaps forward. Jamie does things to advance the plot… It is what it is, at this stage. And let’s be fair, between Excalibur, Knights of X and BB:CB, this storyline has managed 36 issues, which isn’t bad in the current market. But 35 issues down, I’m still not really very interested in Betsy as Captain Britain, and when the book is trying to be defiantly celebratory about her in the role, it far too often feels brittle and defensive. Let’s just wrap up the storylines and move on.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #89. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. The X-Men fight Nature Girl – sorry, Armageddon Girl – and of course she takes them apart singlehandedly. After all, it would be a pretty underwhelming story if a bunch of characters who hadn’t otherwise been involved just rocked up and sorted it a few panels. This issue comes across more as a swing back to the earlier X-Men Green vibe of “the planet is very angry and Nature Girl has a point”. There’s not a huge amount more to it than that, but it’s got a story beat to hit and it does it well.
DEADPOOL #7. By Alyssa Wong, Luigi Zagaria & Matt Milla. There’s a lot that I like about this run on Deadpool – the art and story have a nice upbeat feel, the Atelier characters feel well designed, Valentine works as a foil for Deadpool. The tone is right. My main issue with it is pacing – it does some really long action sequences which mean that not a huge amount happens in each issue. That’s the main thing holding it back right now, but it’s still quite good fun in its own way.
X-23: DEADLY REGENESIS #3. By Erica Schultz, Edgar Salazar & Carlos Lopez. You expect these flashback minis to play the hits, but up to about two thirds of the way through this issue, Deadly Regenesis feels a lot like it’s re-treading the hits. Eventually we get to the hook, which is Kimura trying to exploit X-23’s new heroic values to get her back under control by means of hostage taking, and deliberately finding the most random and unimportant people she can find (in her eyes, at least) so as to rub it in that Laura is doing this in service of some abstract notion of the importance of human life. I can kind of see that as an angle for a certain point in Laura’s development, and Salazar’s art makes Kimura seem suitably smug, but I’m far from convinced that this is really adding much.
Paul, would it be Kimura trying to exploit X-23’s values in the last item? Laura _is_ X-23, isn’t she?
Yes, correct – I’ve fixed that, thanks.
“After all, it would be a pretty underwhelming story if a bunch of characters who hadn’t otherwise been involved just rocked up and sorted it a few panels.”
Yeah, that would be like a multi-part Spider-Man story where a character who had only appeared on a couple of pages suddenly in the last issue wound up saving the day at the cost of her own life. Um, never mind.
Can someone explain to me what the limits to Nature Girl’s powers are? This issue she shuts down Firestar’s powers. Angelica’s powers are usually depicted as microwaves, not flames. Yes, microwaves are part of nature, but then what DOESN’T count as nature as far as Nature Girl’s powers are concerned? Could Nature Girl shut down a microwave oven? Could she shut down Spider-Man’s powers? He gets his powers from radioactivity and radioactivity is a part of nature. Could she control bullets? Lead is part of nature, too. Initially it seemed like she could just control non-human animals (and later, plants) but now it seems like she can control anything the writer decides counts as “nature”.
Kind of baffled that despite being in the mold of Marvel’s recent “old writer revists thing they wrote in that time period,” the X-23 mini-series isn’t written by Marjorie Liu but by someone who, as far as I can tell, hasn’t written Laura before now.
CB:BB “far too often feels brittle and defensive”
That’s captured the problem with the tone. It doesn’t read as ‘in world’ attacks on Captain Britain, more as speaking to the the readers.
@Michael
”
like a multi-part Spider-Man story where a character who had only appeared on a couple of pages suddenly in the last issue wound up saving the day at the cost of her own life. Um, never mind”
Goodness the Kamala Khan death has been so needless, so poorly delivered and so thoughtlessly done. I can’t believe they didn’t anticipate the blowback.
w/r/t Nature Girl’s powers I always thought they were based around nature in a biological sense, so she has limited control over creatures less intellectually advanced than humans and some plants. If she can control the electromagnetic spectrum that’s pretty OP…
“Goodness the Kamala Khan death has been so needless, so poorly delivered and so thoughtlessly done. I can’t believe they didn’t anticipate the blowback.”
I don’t understand how there’s blowback in an industry where these characters die and come back six months later all the time. Are we really doing 2016 Nazi Captain America again?
Will they go with something as simple as ‘Krakoa resurrects Kamala’?
I said right after the news broke, one reason to kill her was to remove her Inhuman status and revive her either as a mutant or something that mirrors her MCU origin (didn’t watch it).
I wss about to respond to Michale and liken Nature Girl’s apparent power creep to Magneto’s journey froma dude who lifts iron to a controller of one of the fundamental forces of the universe, but then Raoul pointed out that NG’s powers could even encompass that same force.
I haven’t had the chance yet to read the Unlimited comic, but I would assume what Nature Girl has control over is the X-Gene, rather than the power-type, of the various individuals involved. Sure, it’s a ratcheting up of her powers, but she’s clearly been changing throughout the X-Men Green stuff (the horns, the legs, etc.)
And the story will most likely end with Apocalypse Girl being removed from the board – dead, depowered or resurrected back to basic Nature Girl (but with an ambiguous close up on her eyes as she looks on a, I don’t know, choking dolphin or a sad monkey or something), so Orlando probably didn’t bother thinking through her power creep. She’s just doing flashy stuff for the finale, she won’t be able to do it ever again, no need to worry.
…is my guess.
As for Kamala – on the one hand it sucks she dies in a story where she’s been basically a cameo so far (the best thing she appeared in the past few years was probably the Dark Web: Ms Marvel mini). Obviously she doesn’t even have her own ongoing to die in at the moment. Obviously she’s going to come back – most likely with a new series.
And that’s the crux of the issue, I think – it’s so obvious, and since she wasn’t a part of the story in ASM, it’s hard to buy into the fiction.
I thought the actual death scene and how it comes about was pretty good, actually, but Kamala has no connection to these events. She drops in just to die.
…and on the other hand, the internet outrage machine has been going on for a month before the issue dropped, so the execution – pardon the pun – isn’t what’s being actually discussed, just the fact that it happened at all.
I like the explanation she’s controlling the X-Gene, that seems like more of a natural progression of her powers in a comicbook science-y way. Gives her limits too as she can only use her power on other mutants which adds to the direction her character’s going with her
rebelling against Krakoa by killing people. Could also make sense if she gained some kind of control over carbon as part of the organic aspect of her powers.
Josie: “I don’t understand how there’s blowback in an industry where these characters die and come back six months later all the time. Are we really doing 2016 Nazi Captain America again?”
Just as characters within the comics eternally die and return, so too do the flame wars about those comics die and return. As above, so below 🙂
@Josie: Have you been reading Zeb Wells’ ASM run? It really has not been very good at all for a variety of reasons: The lame, clueless mystery box tease; an ultra-bland, mystical antagonist with no discernible motivation; editorial obsession to constantly ensure the destruction of Peter and MJ’s relationship; and a stacked supporting cast that includes Kamala, MJ, Felicia Hardy, Norman Osborn and still somehow feels woefully misused. It’s arguable that Kamala even qualifies, considering she has had zero impact on the plot in 26 issues.
So when you take all that into consideration and you kill off one of Marvel’s most popular characters of the last decade not even in service of her own story in her own book but someone else’s, yeah, there’s going to be more than justifiable anger. This is just old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill fridging of yet another female character used to advance Peter’s arc–Kamala literally shows up for no other reason but to die.
It’s crazy to me that this is the same guy how consistently dazzled us in Hellions with his superb character work, and he couldn’t be fussed to feature freaking Ms. Marvel in more than, like, 15 throwaway panels in 26 issues leading up to this. Nothing Wells has done on this run has justified the underbaked mystery reveal, the time skip, or the jarring change in status quo. The manner of in which Kamala dies does not make for compelling story, and ASM and readers are poorer for it.
I wouldn’t say that I’m angry per se. More “Did you get drunk and have a competition to see who would come up with the crassest, most cynically obvious move that would do most to make the case that Marvel comics are at this point just a sterile exercise in going through the motions of IP exploitation, over and over again like rats in an experiment?”
We all know that Kamala will return, that much is obvious. It’s more the fact that she’s disposed so carelessly that is really riling people. Her appearances throughout this run have been scattered and far between, and it being teased as this whole big “Earth-shattering event” for Spider-Man with the obvious implication that it was Mary-Jane, only for it to be her instead (especially in a year where she’s set to star in a movie) was obviously going to lead to upset, and evidently, if Zeb Wells word is anything to go on this is something Marvel knew would happen (since apparently Nick Lowe told him to stay off social media).
Plus, having the teenage Muslim girl die in place of a white woman does come off a little insensitive-I’m not going to accuse Wells of being a racist because I think that’s a bit overblown of an accusation amongst fans online, but it does feel like something that someone should have gone “maybe we shouldn’t have done it this way” during production.
Nick Lowe’s reaction makes it sound as if this decision was editorially mandated. I’m sure it was so that Marvel can have a big return event for Kamala when the movie premieres, setting her up as similar to the MCU version (half Djinn, I believe. I don’t follow the MCU). Kamala Khan is one of the very, very few contemporarily created Marvel characters who actually proved to be popular, but his visibility level had dropped in recent years. It seemed like she was starting to be forgotten. What better way to get fans interested in the character again than randomly killing her off, so that attention will be on her again by the time of the movie and subsequent comic book return?
Sure, maybe having her die in a more well-intentioned manner would have gotten attention on the character again also, but she’s not important enough to bother with right now because the movie is later in the year.
The big reveal at the end of Ms. Marvel season 1 is that while her powers were triggered by putting on a Nega-Band and she’s part Djinn, she’s actually a mutant. And they play the opening riff of the 90s X-Men cartoon just so it’s clear. Her comics creators have said that they originally intended for her to be a mutant.
The only real question at this point is which X-team she’s going to be joining. Could be X-Men, to give the strongest push and due to her friendship with Cyclops. Then again, she’s a big enough name that they could build a New Mutants/New X-Men revival around her.
Well, we all know the x-books gobbled up a significant amount of previously unrelated characters, and I can see Ms Marvel being revealed to always having been a mutant (she just suffered a weird reaction to the Terrigen Mist due to a slight case of M-Pox before people knew there would be an M-Pox; makes perfect sense), but she’s too big to disappear in the x-crowd.
I think.
But if she’s resurrected as a mutant and then her next solo ongoing fails to sell well (well enough, according to Marvel, whatever that may be) – yeah, then I can see her wearing the X for a significant amount of time.
I’m betting that we’re getting a book called Uncanny Ms. Marvel to coincide with The Marvels’ release. Might be an ongoing, might be a 5-issue miniseries. Seems like a lot of effort for a miniseries, though.
I just also think they’ll also want to put her in a team book, too, so she can interact with the rest of the X-characters and integrate her into that world, whereas the solo will have her family, Bruno, Nakia, etc. Why bother turning her into a mutant if you don’t have her bouncing off Emma and Storm and so on? Ms. Marvel and Wolverine could be a fun miniseries.
I haven’t read the comic or followed the fan outrage, but is Ms Marvel dead-dead? I mean, the character death cliffhanger where it’s revealed as some kind of trick the next issue has been around for as long as serials. And if anyone is going to pull off the “aha I only looked dead” misdirection, it’s going to be a shape shifter.
They’re doing a “fallen friend” one-shot so I think she’s supposed to be dead “for real”.
If she isn’t in a team book now, does that mean they axed Champions at some point in the recent past?
Pretty sure it’s been gone for about a year and a half now.
Kamala is fatally wounded (run through with a magic sword) while shape-shifted into looking like Mary Jane, then reverts to her normal self, reveals her secret identity, and her last words are telling Spider-Man “Good is not a thing you are, it’s something you do” except she dies before she finishes it. So yeah, pretty definitively intended to be Actually Dead. (For the moment.)
Again, I think everyone or at least most people get that this is a stunt, and that Ms. Marvel will be back in probably under a year’s time. It’s the way Marvel went about it that people are taking issue with; she’s essentially being used as a prop in service of another character, one who she’s only ever had minor interactions with before and maybe one or two full on team ups before this run. Not to mention this isn’t even the first time she’s been killed off as part of a cynical stunt marketing thing. The anger is entirely understandable and I don’t think the “Nazi Captain America” comparison is entirely fair, especially given Marvel did themselves no favors in the way they promoted this to make it look like Mary Jane was going to die.
Maybe it will turn out it was actually Changeling.
“when you take all that into consideration and you kill off one of Marvel’s most popular characters of the last decade not even in service of her own story in her own book but someone else’s, yeah, there’s going to be more than justifiable anger.”
When I take all that into consideration, I don’t know why anyone’s been reading past the third issue. If it sucked from the outset, there’s no reason to get mad at it 26 issues in. You drop the book and move on.
“The big reveal at the end of Ms. Marvel season 1 is that while her powers were triggered by putting on a Nega-Band and she’s part Djinn, she’s actually a mutant.”
I didn’t get that at all, but to be fair I’d stopped paying attention around the fourth episode. The first couple episodes had so much ingenuity and cleverness to their presentation, and then the show nosedived into Marvel Franchise Territory and never recovered. Same with Moon Knight.
You openly expressed you didn’t understand why people were upset with Kamala’s death in a book you don’t read and I explained why. Hitting back at the fact that I haven’t dropped the book isn’t a compelling counter to your reductive take on Kamala’s death.
And just as you’re entitled to express your uninformed opinion about people’s reaction to a a book you don’t read, I’m entitled to read whatever I want for any reason I want.
Also this run was very good at the beginning. The street level stuff with Tombstone, the issue where Spidey takes out a building of goons (I’m being vague for reasons).
Up until Dark Web it was the best Spider-Man book since Zdarsky’s… whatever his ongoing was called.
Then Dark Web happened, and it was messy and rather disappointing on the Spider side (I still wonder how did the X-Men get the better part of that crossover – and that wasn’t that great anyway). And soon after DW the current arc started and it is overlong and chaotic as it jumps worlds and uses constant flashbacks and also everything hinges on a one-time villain from Wells’s Brand New Day issues of ASM which… honestly, that part amuses me.
But still, it makes an archvillain responsible for Peter’s current depressed low point out of a rando who appeared in three issues 15 years ago.
Anyway. I loved Wells’s New Mutants and Hellions, his issues of Brand
New Day are what I remember best from that era (he made Curt Connors eat his son, that’s hard to forget). And I liked his ASM run a lot. Until Dark Web.