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snick_backupAvengers Assemble #9-13 - DeConnick, various
I don't seem to get along with DeConnick very often – I didn't like Captain Marvel much at all, and my feelings about Pretty Deadly are mixed – but this, I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the team dynamic (even though the Avengers aren't usually the side of the universe I'm interested), and I liked the humor. Definitely my favorite issues were 12-13, with Natasha's past and her red credits at the fore.
I really need to find out more about Spider-woman. She has pheromones? And some kind of laser light thingy? What?
X-23 #1-6 – Liu, Conrad
You know, I feel like I should love this book, because it has teenage powers!girl, but I don't. I read it, and it makes me feel icky. The treatment of Laura as traumatized, cripplingly unsocialized, and haunte by both her past actions and someone malevolent force in her dreams all combines to feel kind of fetishistic to me, as if a teenage girl in terrible, ongoing emotional anguish is inherently entertaining. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to read any more.
Aside from that, I'm also annoyed that Laura's mentor figures are all guys – Logan, Remy. I feel like she and Psylocke would have a lot to say to each other. Or nothing at all, maybe, but they've got a whole lot of struggles in common.
Meanwhile, I like the interior art fine, but wow are those cutesy manga-style covers are of a completely different tone than anything happening within. It's very jarring.
Morning Glories vol. 2-4 - Spencer, Eisma
I don't have a lot to say about this book. I'm finding it difficult to get too invested in any of the characters, because any one of them is likely to die off and/or turn out to be a villain at any moment. Also, the fourth volume had none of my beloved Casey.
I'm surprised by how much time and time travel has turned out to be a factor. I don't quite follow what all is happening with Abraham, but it's clearly time-related, and just as clearly Hunter is a key to calibrating one's time travel correctly.
Probably what I enjoyed most in the fourth volume (which I read much more recently than the others) was the expansion of the relationship between Miss Hodge and her sister, whose name I forget. All complicated and messy, there. Apparently their father designed and built the school underground. Fathers all around. Who knows.
I have the fifth volume from the library, so I'll be reading that soonish.
Dial H #1-6 – Mieville, Santolouco
One of my rare DC excursions, I read this solely because I will follow Mieville almost anywhere. This is a bizarre comic that seems as much about superhero stories as about superheroes themselves. Nelson, general bum, happens across a device that will temporarily turn him into a superhero – a different one every time, with persona and powers and costume and even personality to some extent.
I didn't really follow the plot, and I am indifferent to Nelson. However, I adore – ADORE – the partnert-in-preventing-crime he eventually attaches himself to, a more experienced device user who goes by Manteau. Manteau can do NO WRONG. It's worth reading this book for Manteau alone.
After the first plot arc, we get a tedious issue in which Manteau lectures Nelson a lot about not going out to fight crime in a persona that's an offensive stereotype. After that, though, we get a fabulous one-off issue about a woman in ancient somewhere or other – her name is Laodice, so I'm guessing Greek, maybe? Mediterranean somewhere – who uses a different device to save her people from a monster. The end of the issue has all sorts of suggestive background about how the devices WORK and where the powers/personas come from.
Overall, yes, it's a peculiar comic, maybe not as gonzo as you'd expect from Mieville, but interesting enough. The worldbuilding hinted at in the last volume is enough to get me to ILL the second (and last) volume.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. (
DW replies)
I don't seem to get along with DeConnick very often – I didn't like Captain Marvel much at all, and my feelings about Pretty Deadly are mixed – but this, I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the team dynamic (even though the Avengers aren't usually the side of the universe I'm interested), and I liked the humor. Definitely my favorite issues were 12-13, with Natasha's past and her red credits at the fore.
I really need to find out more about Spider-woman. She has pheromones? And some kind of laser light thingy? What?
X-23 #1-6 – Liu, Conrad
You know, I feel like I should love this book, because it has teenage powers!girl, but I don't. I read it, and it makes me feel icky. The treatment of Laura as traumatized, cripplingly unsocialized, and haunte by both her past actions and someone malevolent force in her dreams all combines to feel kind of fetishistic to me, as if a teenage girl in terrible, ongoing emotional anguish is inherently entertaining. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to read any more.
Aside from that, I'm also annoyed that Laura's mentor figures are all guys – Logan, Remy. I feel like she and Psylocke would have a lot to say to each other. Or nothing at all, maybe, but they've got a whole lot of struggles in common.
Meanwhile, I like the interior art fine, but wow are those cutesy manga-style covers are of a completely different tone than anything happening within. It's very jarring.
Morning Glories vol. 2-4 - Spencer, Eisma
I don't have a lot to say about this book. I'm finding it difficult to get too invested in any of the characters, because any one of them is likely to die off and/or turn out to be a villain at any moment. Also, the fourth volume had none of my beloved Casey.
I'm surprised by how much time and time travel has turned out to be a factor. I don't quite follow what all is happening with Abraham, but it's clearly time-related, and just as clearly Hunter is a key to calibrating one's time travel correctly.
Probably what I enjoyed most in the fourth volume (which I read much more recently than the others) was the expansion of the relationship between Miss Hodge and her sister, whose name I forget. All complicated and messy, there. Apparently their father designed and built the school underground. Fathers all around. Who knows.
I have the fifth volume from the library, so I'll be reading that soonish.
Dial H #1-6 – Mieville, Santolouco
One of my rare DC excursions, I read this solely because I will follow Mieville almost anywhere. This is a bizarre comic that seems as much about superhero stories as about superheroes themselves. Nelson, general bum, happens across a device that will temporarily turn him into a superhero – a different one every time, with persona and powers and costume and even personality to some extent.
I didn't really follow the plot, and I am indifferent to Nelson. However, I adore – ADORE – the partnert-in-preventing-crime he eventually attaches himself to, a more experienced device user who goes by Manteau. Manteau can do NO WRONG. It's worth reading this book for Manteau alone.
After the first plot arc, we get a tedious issue in which Manteau lectures Nelson a lot about not going out to fight crime in a persona that's an offensive stereotype. After that, though, we get a fabulous one-off issue about a woman in ancient somewhere or other – her name is Laodice, so I'm guessing Greek, maybe? Mediterranean somewhere – who uses a different device to save her people from a monster. The end of the issue has all sorts of suggestive background about how the devices WORK and where the powers/personas come from.
Overall, yes, it's a peculiar comic, maybe not as gonzo as you'd expect from Mieville, but interesting enough. The worldbuilding hinted at in the last volume is enough to get me to ILL the second (and last) volume.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. (
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 04:29 am (UTC)Yeah, usually they make women annoyed and men willing to do what she wants. And she can shoot venom-blasts, which Wikipedia told me were not actually related to venom but more like electricity.
Yeah, Liu's X-23 does start of kinda fetish-y, now that you mention it. Especially all the stuff with Claudine Renko. It does get better as time goes on, and eventually you start getting pretty Phil Noto interiors, but I never really liked X-23 as much as I wanted to. I mean, I like Laura and how she struggles to reconcile being basically a weapon with wanting to be a good person, but the stories never did that much for me.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 04:43 am (UTC)LOL what.
I'm glad it's not just me, feeling weird about X-23. And I forgot to even mention how she used to be a teenaged prostitute back when she was living with the homeless kids in NYC. The whole development of her character just feels... exploitative or something. IDK.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 04:52 am (UTC)Yeah. I've read the NYX miniseries and it is less exploitative and over-sexualized than it looks? I mean, Laura is def a prostitute and the parts that deal with that are not fun to read, but it's more serious and I don't know, sincere? than I expected it to be. It made me really really sad, though.
But yeah, Laura was raised in a lab to kill people AND was responsible for her mother's death AND worked as a fetish prostitute when she was underage AND the X-Men stuck her on a black ops team, so basically she's been saddled with every upsetting backstory element possible.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 07:42 pm (UTC)Fact. I always forget that reading every single issue, in order, is not required. :P