It’s a bit of a quick column this week, as I read four Marvel books and they were really well done.
I’m continually singing the praises of Jed MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio’s current Moon Knight title, and me raving about #8 is just going to be more of the same. What I will suggest is that, if you’re not currently picking up the series, do yourself a favour and go back to issue one and indulge a little bit. While the series is too recent to have had an impact on the upcoming Disney+ series, it’s definitely going to be a good warm up to the show.
Devil’s Reign #4 continues the Wilson Finsk-centric storyline from Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto and is moving full steam ahead, with Fisk hoping to use the children of the Purple Man to increase his reelection campain and his ultimate desire to become president of the USA. This issue is really full of some excellent action, including a solid prison break led by Susan Storm. Zdarsky does a good job of giving multiple teams and characters their time, while still keeping the story moving.
Then there were two X-titles that came out. First is X Deaths of Wolverine #2, which is mainly focused on an on the run Moira MacTaggert, who is being chased by Mystique out of vengeance. Now, if you haven’t been following the X-books, including the recent Inferno mini-series, you probably won’t have a clue what’s happening here. As well, the main villain seems to be a Phalanx Wolverine, which to me is kind of not much of anything – I’ve never been a Phalanx fan. The art in this book is great, though, and the Moira moments are the highlights and what kept me reading.
Finally, there was The Secret X-Men, a great, space-faring book written by Tini Howard with art by Francesco Mobili and featuring a make-shift team of rejected mutants who didn’t make the X-Men back during the Hellfire Gala. Led by co-captains Sunspot and Cannonball, the team find themselves on a mission to rescue the Shi’ar Empress Xandra. The Secret X-Men was actually a lot of fun for me; I’m not usually a fan of Howard’s writing – it’s never bad, it’s just often not my style, but in this book it really is well done. Howard’s got a great team to play with, and I burned through The Secret X-Men quickly. For fans of the X-Men in space, you’re going to like this one.
