Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #25: Spider-Man doesnât really show up in this issue. And thatâs a great thing.
It continues to be impressive how Brian Michael Bendis makes it feel like superpowers are zapping across the page when the only thing happening is a bunch of people talking. The writer on many of Marvelâs biggest books has been doing the dialogue-heavy, talking-heads thing for, wow, more than a decade now and it still manages to surprise me how much more satisfying it can feel than an issue packed with fight scenes.
The emotional tug-of war inside this issueâset a year after the death of Miles Moralesâ momâfeels incredibly raw. On one end, you have Milesâs understandable desire to pull away from superhero life. Itâs whatâs on the other end thatâs surprising. The call back to a web-slinging destiny doesnât come from inside of Miles. Itâs his friends who try to remind him of the good he can do. And the conflicts ring true. Would anybody want to throw themselves back into a career where a loved one was lost? Even if it meant helping avert the suffering of others? With the personal nature of the threats heâs faced, Miles hasnât had a much of a carefree good time wearing the webs. David Marquezâ artwork shines in this issue, bringing to life the painful emotions and hard-won wisdom in the faces of the characters. Thereâs a stronger undercurrent of sadness in this incarnation of Spider-Man. Itâs probably not going away anytime soon.
Wonder Woman #22: Thereâs a vestigal reflex that makes you want to feel like seeing Jack Kirbyâs Fourth World characters in the hands of others is sacrilege. Resist it. This is mythology, after all, where stories get re-told and re-imagined all the time. Moreover, itâs mythology happening in comics, another plane whether constant reshaping happens. And the strength of this iteration of Wonder Woman comes from how Azzarello, Chiang and their co-creators manage to boil things down to a primal core.
Generations of godsâfrom different pantheons, different familiesâfighting amongst themselves. But not just that: drinking, laughing and loving, passing along all their dysfunctions and foibles down through the ages. And like the storytellers of old probably did, Azzarello and company make these characters their own. So, Orion adds a layer of douchebro attitude to his brutal/noble duality and Highfather comes across as more of autocrat than compassionate prophet. Different? Yeah. But still the same in ways that matter.
Fantastic Four #10: For a while now, itâs felt like thereâs been two Reed Richards in the mainline Marvel Universe. The kindly father figure leading his family into spacetime adventures has seemed at odds with the more mournful keeper of secrets sliding down a Machiavellian slope in New Avengers. In the latest issue, writer Matt Fraction does a really deft job of reconciling the two. We still get the more familiar Reed-as-genius-dad but also get a glimpse of the guy who sometimes makes a mess while saving the universe. Better still, we see his family react to the uneasy calculus of saving the day. Johnnyâs reaction to the seriesâ current subplot was particularly wrenching.
And anchoring this story to a historic moment of political compromise during the earliest days of the United States is a great, great thing. Mark Bagleyâs art juggles the rustic and the galactic with equal flair. In lesser hands, a time travel adventure with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would be trite or corny. But, as an exploration of family and of what makes the Fantastic Four work as a concept, this issue is a highlight in an already strong run.
