Marvel Penguin Picks: May 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Eternals vol. 2: Hail Thanos
Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribic’s take on this particular Jack Kirby creation got off to a strong start with its first volume. Strong enough that it makes me hope that this is the first “Eternals” ongoing series to make it to the end of its planned storyline. A storyline which has already made significant changes to the Eternals’ mythos, with the biggest being the revelation that their resurrection tech comes with a price that comes at the expense of one unlucky human. As beings who have pledged themselves to defending life on Earth, this is unacceptable. To fix this, they have vowed to change – and who knows change better than their eternal rivals the Deviants. Vol. 2 promises to dig deeper into that, along with the relationships between the Eternals and their quasi-relative Thanos, and the Avengers. The latter is important since Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are going to be caught in between the Eternals and the X-Men in the upcoming crossover “Judgment Day,” which this volume will be leading into. You’d think that this would be a distraction to the storyline that Gillen has planned, but he’s shown us on his “Uncanny X-Men” run that he’s very good at getting quality storylines out of major event tie-ins.
Captain America: Symbol of Truth #1: Marvel has solved the dilemma of who should be Captain America, Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson, by deciding to make them both Captain America. Sam’s new ongoing series, from “Black Panther Legends” writer Tochi Onyebuchi and “Powers of X” artist R.B. Silva, comes out first and sees the character foiling a plot to hijack an empty train. As this is the Marvel Universe, it’s not really an empty train and not only does the plan have ties to a piece of Captain America’s history, but to Wakanda as well. I’m not familiar with Onyebuchi’s work so it’ll take some strong word of mouth to get me onboard with this (and this is just the first time you’ll see me say this in these solicitations). He does have a strong artistic collaborator in Silva, however, so the book is definitely going to look good.
Savage Avengers #1: The second Gerry Duggan series to get relaunched after “Marauders.” Taking over for him as writer is David Pepose (of the gritty, hard-boiled “Calvin & Hobbes” riff “Spencer & Locke”) while Carlos Magno handles the art. If you’re wondering what defines this “Avengers” spinoff title as “Savage,” the solicitation text indicates that it’s the presence of one Conan of Cimmeria. This time he’s on the run from Deathlok and has to team up with an even motlier group of heroes than he did in the previous volume. The cover lets us know that, in addition to Conan and the one good Deathlok that was reprogrammed, the new team will consist of Elektra, the Black Knight, Cloak, Dagger, Anti-Venom, and Weapon H. I’m not familiar with Pepose’s work, so it’ll take some strong word of mouth to get me onboard with this (told you that wasn’t the first time I’d be saying this in these solicitations).
I also want to mention that if you’re interested in reading Duggan’s “Savage Avengers” in print, you may want to keep an eye out for whatever omnibus edition Marvel may be offering in the future. This is because a couple of volumes (two and four) are already out of print and commanding some sky-high second-market prices on Amazon. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem because you could just go read them on Marvel Unlimited. EXCEPT YOU CAN’T! The series is currently unavailable on that platform, and there’s no explanation as to why. If I had to guess, I’d say that the group that owns the rights to Conan weren’t too keen on having the character’s comics available as part of a subscription series. You can, however, still purchase volumes and issues of “Savage Avengers” via ComiXology (now via Amazon…) if you want to read them digitally. I’ll be on the lookout for the omnibus as this looks to be an interesting case of forced physical scarcity of a title due to the fact that it involves a character that Marvel doesn’t own.
Thunderbolts #1 (of 5): The series that has traditionally been about villains pretending to be heroes, or working to better themselves as heroes, gets the miniseries treatment in the wake of the “Devil’s Reign” event. This time the hook looks to be that the heroes are being perceived as villains and still trying to do the best job they can, regardless. Former Thunderbolt leader Hawkeye is once again back in charge of a team that includes Spectrum, America Chavez, Power Man (not Luke Cage), Persuasion, and Gutsen Glory. This comes to us from writer Jim Zub, whose work I am familiar with and am able to say that his involvement is likely to mean that this series will be a good read, even before you consider the involvement of the very talented Sean Izaakse with the art.
Gambit #1 (of 5): Not a new Krakoa-era spinoff miniseries! This is the latest project from legendary “X-Men” writer Chris Claremont, teaming this time with artist Sid Kotian, for a story about the time the Ragin’ Cajun encountered a de-aged Storm prior to joining the X-Men. It’s the kind of story that I (and a lot of other X-fans) would’ve salivated over back in the 90’s. These days, I’m less inclined to believe that this is going to offer a fresh or interesting new perspective on Gambit’s history. Still, Claremont does command a dedicated audience for whatever “X-Men” project he does, and this strikes me as being for them more than anyone else.
On that note, these solicitations also see the release of a special issue of X-Men: Legends by writer Roy Thomas and artist Dave Wachter. This issue sees the creators chronicling the story of Wolverine from his first appearances in “Incredible Hulk” #’s 181 & 182 to joining the X-Men in “Giant-Size X-Men #1.” Everything I said about “Gambit” above applies to this as well.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi #1 (of 5): Kenobi reminisces about his life as a Jedi while he whiles away in the deserts of Tatooine. Just in time for his new series on Disney+ (which I’ll be watching, of course)! The miniseries looks to check in with the Jedi Master at key points in his life, which is a safe, anthology-esque approach for this series to take. Less safe, however, is its writer: Christopher Cantwell. In my opinion, he’s comics’ reigning King of Quirk after his work on titles like “She Could Fly,” “Everything,” “Doctor Doom,” and the current “Iron Man” series. His characters and plots are full of weird idiosyncrasies that, at their best, offer a skewed but compelling take on familiar situations, but can be eye-rollingly obnoxious at their worst. Will Cantwell’s impulses find a happy medium in “Star Wars” land, or be smothered by a need to bring the house style? My money’s on the latter rather than the former, but I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong here.
Miracleman Omnibus HC: Collecting all of the work on this groundbreaking superhero series from the 80’s by The Original Writer. Who is actually Alan Moore, as he didn’t want his name re-attached to this series he did on a work-for-hire basis. That being said, this series is a stunning reinvention of an old British comics character with a maturity of subject matter and, most importantly, execution that still holds up today. If you didn’t already buy the three volumes collecting Moore’s run that Marvel already published, then you should give serious consideration to adding this edition to your library.
Dark Ages: What happens when the power goes off in the Marvel Universe? That’s when the Apocalypse comes. At least according to writer Tom Taylor and artist Iban Coello. Taylor has done similar high-concept series like this for DC (see “DCeased” and “Dark Knights of Steel”) and this long-in-the-works miniseries is Marvel’s attempt to get in on that action. I’m all for that as I like the sound of both the general premise and have enjoyed the writer’s work in the past.
King Conan: “The Life and Death of Conan” team of writer Jason Aaron and artist Mahmud Asrar re-team for this miniseries about the title character growing restless on the throne as he settles into old age. What’s he going to do about it? He’s going to get off his ass and sail west towards new adventure, and possibly a final conflict with the sorcerer Thoth-Amon. That last bit offers a way to distinguish this tale from previous stories like this that were published by Dark Horse. I’m referring to “Conan and the Midnight God” by Joshua Dysart and Will Conrad, and “King Conan: Wolves Beyond the Border” by Tim Truman and Tomas Giorello. Those were pretty good stories and if you’re looking for a good “King Conan Grows Restless on His Throne” story, I’d recommend you check them out. As for this one, Aaron and Asrar’s twelve-issue run didn’t really get good until its last couple of issues. Here’s hoping that with only six issues to work with, they get to the good parts of their story sooner.
Thor by Donny Cates vol. 4: God of Hammers: You can just imagine Cates watching “Thor: Ragnarok,” getting to Odin’s, “Are you the God of Hammers?” bit, and thinking “There’s a story there…” We got the setup to this story in the previous volume as Mjolnir went missing. While the answer to the question of who has it now seems self-evident, we’re still left wondering who this person is and why they’re doing it. Cates’ run has been long on setup and short on payoff to this point. Now it’s time to see if he can start delivering on things with this next volume.
Star Wars: Crimson Reign, & Doctor Aphra vol. 4, & Darth Vader vol. 4: Charles Soule reintroduced Q’ira and the Crimson Dawn organization from “Solo: A Star Wars Movie” in a big way with the “War of the Bounty Hunters” event. Now he looks to follow it up with the “Crimson Reign” miniseries as Q’ira makes her move and the Empire and Rebellion react to it. It’s a story with big ambitions, but one that feels hard to get excited about for a couple reasons. First is the fact that Crimson Dawn doesn’t have anything to distinguish itself from other criminal organizations in the “Star Wars” universe. Second is that we really don’t know a whole lot about Q’ira and her ambitions towards running the organization. Soule is a ruthlessly competent writer, so I’m willing to bet he’s already aware of these issues. Will he address them in a way that’s genuinely surprising? That remains to be seen.
It should also be noted that the subtitles of the latest volumes of “Doctor Aphra” and “Darth Vader” are both “Crimson Reign.” So it’s a safe bet that we’ll be dealing with the fallout from the event depicted at the end of their previous volumes here. In terms of storytelling potential, this seems more beneficial for “Vader” than “Aphra” as seeing the Dark Lord root out the Dawn’s agents in the Empire sounds like the recipe for some good, nasty fun.