Hey, Kids! Comics!
A lot of junk this time out and one jewel.
BLOOD HUNTERS #3, 4 (Marvel)
It’s no secret that I like Yelena Belova and Elsa Bloodstone. I fell for the onetime blonde Black Widow back when she was first introduced. Some dire things were done with the character in the intervening years, but her presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have put paid to all that nonsense as now she’s an independent spy/merc/badass who calls herself “White Widow”, drawn to resemble Florence Pugh (some artists are better at this than others). Elsa Bloodstone, a Brit who impressed me as the caustic, smart-mouthed, short tempered monster hunter that somehow got tied up with the maybe canon-maybe not Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. where she was hilarious and bad-assed in equal measure. She also appeared in the MCU but in an unrecognizable representation in the Disney + only Werewolf By Night, but that ensures her continued featuring in the Marvel Comicmatic Universe. Of course, none of the writers who’ve done her since (that I’ve read) have done her justice like Warren Ellis did. Anyway, in the aftermath of Marvel’s big company-wide “Blood Hunt” thing, which was vampires vs. super-people with the Sun magically blocked out so the vamps could have free rein, a random group of Marvel comics B & C-listers decided to work together as a team to defeat whatever vampires were left or something like that. In addition to Elsa and Yelena (is there a super-team they haven’t stuck her in I don’t know), there’s also the Miles Morales Spider-Man, now a vampire himself, Dagger sans Cloak, a new to me character called “Hallows Eve”, and a vampire cat. Marvel has, quite under the radar, given us some pretty cool animal characters such as Doc Stranges ghost basset hound “Bones”, and “Moggy” here is a charmer, lapping up blood in a saucer on this issue’s cover. The story, what there is anyway, is pretty much a poorly drawn fight scenes between the leftover lieutenants of the Vampires, who call themselves “The Blood Coven”, and if there was ever a more 90s sounding and looking bunch I have yet to see them. I can’t recommend this, it’s really junk, but if you like Elsa and Yelena like I do and are a completist, well, here you go..
DC COMICS ALL IN #1 (DC)
All in what, I wonder? The aftermath of the past year’s company-wide crossover event “Absolute Power”, and apparently another excuse to give us a new Batman (with a really ugly chest emblem) and Superman and who knows what else. Having dispatched of Amanda Waller and her threat, the happy and grateful super people decide to renew the purpose of the Justice League, as well as reach out to the normal human community, to try to win back the trust and good will that Waller took away (I really hate how they made Waller a Big Bad but that’s a subject for another time) so a new Watchtower is built, invitations are issued, and the super-community assembles for the congratulatory event, and of course everything goes smoothly. Yeah. No. Darkseid, who has subsumed the Spectre and his powers into his own, crashes the party and everybody brawls until they finally figure out how to get them separated again. Then, Darksy disappears, and everybody wants to know where the hell he went. Seems he went back in time and poor luckless time traveler Booster Gold, who touchingly got reinvited to join the JLA pre-assembly, volunteers to go back and try to find out what happened. Lest you think I’m going to describe the entire issue to you, I’ll stop now and just say that complications ensue. It’s nice to know that Grant Morrison’s style is not lost, though he’s no longerr around; Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson, a couple of pretty good writers, do the honors here. Art is fine, nothing to write home about; it looks like every other creator(s) doing mainstream comics these days. They must grow them from spore cultures in a lab or something. Anyway, I didn’t hate but if you’re sick of superheroics, steer clear.
MULTIVERSUS - COLLISION DETECTED #3 (DC)
The latest licensing perpetuation release- DC seems to want to keep the rights to the Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, and Warners Animation characters so we get this, a dumb yet interesting in spite of itself tale in which characters like Bugs Bunny, Scooby & Shaggy, Garnet and Steven Universe, Finn and Jake, and others are popping up on Earth and as always there’s some kind of galaxy-threatening thing at its base. OK, fair enough, but fellas, please don’t tease me Rick Sanchez vs. the Justice League and renege on that promise.
BARDA (GN, DC)
BARDA, by someone named Ngozi Ukazu, is a remarkable reading experience, especially if you’re old enough to have experienced the Kirby Fourth World first-hand. I had been putting it off for some reason, though I was intrigued by this manga-esque take on the venerable Jack Kirby Fourth World characters. I'm sorry I did; this was excellent. It’s said that the Big Barda character was inspired by Kirby’s own wife Roz; they were quite a couple and Barda showed how much Kirby loved her, when he made her a strong, confident, capable female.
Among the multitudes of fascinating characters Kirby created for that run of comics were the Female Furies in the pages of the Mister Miracle comic. It would take a lot longer than I want to spend to describe all the scenarios and characters in play there, but basically, it's the story of Mister Miracle, aka Scott Free, who escaped in dramatic fashion from Darkseid's Apokolips and hid out on Earth. Sent to bring him back by 'Seid's right hand person Granny Goodness was our "Big" Barda, who was the leader of a group of "Female Furies", each with different abilities. Barda ended up staying with Scott, and they fell in love and married, and have remained so for most of the intervening 50 years. This GN is an expanded take on Mister Miracle 9, which told how Scott met Barda and made his escape with the help of a Fagin type named "Himon". Ukazu fleshes out this basic story, providing insight, adding details that provided context that Kirby often just didn't have the page count available to do himself, and I have to admire Ukazu for daring to elaborate on the Sacred Kirby Texts, creating a drama, a romance, and action thriller all rolled into one.
It's often amusing- as you'll see if you check out the scans I've posted, she is excellent with body and facial expressions (she does remind me some of Lea Seidman here and there), and there are some genuinely moving parts, particularly the fate of poor Auralie, the square peg in the Furies' round hole pegboard, and Barda's reaction to same is heartbreaking. Kirby didn’t really go into a lot of detail about her; she was there for plot motivation, as well as to reinforce what a hellscape Apokolips was. I always wondered why they kept Auralie in the Furies; Uzaki here shows us why- even though she would rather dance and create than fight and horse around, she is quick and deadly when ordered to be, even Granny says so. We know her better, and her relationship with Barda, which really brings this home.
I always liked the Female Furies, and always thought it was too bad that Kirby wasn't able to do more with them. Uzaki makes good on the promise they always had; all of them are true to Kirby personality-wise, and all delightful, especially demented Mad Harriet, easily the most striking in appearance of the group, and the standoffish, highly intelligent Bernadeth (sister of Desaad, you know him, right?). Uzaki does very well with pretty much every 4th World character- the New Genesis guys Orion, Lightray (he gets in a tussle with Harriet and it's hilarious), even Forager gets a few panels. I liked her take on Scott Free aka Mister Miracle, too. While Scott has usually been portrayed as a reserved yet confident fella, Ukazu’s Scott (he appears several years younger than her) is still confident, but she gives him some cockiness and a mischievous glint in his eye; although their early meetings are very fraught (Barda has been ordered to “break” Scott, a prisoner of Darkseid in the “X-Pit” (like my Kirby Kwotation Marks?), and she tries, but her heart isn’t in it and when they do fall for each other, it works…
So anyway, I liked this one a lot. Once in a while, something comes out of the blue and makes an impact, and this for me is one of those times.