marvel comics reviews
The Agents of SHIELD will get their mid-season break after “Maveth.” This is a very busy episode with a lot going on, some surprises, and a few twists I certainly didn’t see coming. At least one of the characters will quite literally never be the same. That gets said a lot, but it’s true this time out.
“Crush Syndrome,” the second part of Jessica Jones, starts off very soon after the first episode, in a very dark and grim place. She’s in a police interview room with Detective Clemmons. Clemmons is suspicious of her, and also starts asking a lot of questions about Luke Cage. Jessica is not happy that the NYPD was in her office without a warrant, but he points out that her office is part of the crime scene, so no warrant was needed.
“Many Heads, One Tale” is an eventful episode for the Agents of SHIELD, current and former. Ward, continuing his revamp Hydra/destroy SHIELD crusade, has a meeting with Gideon Malick.
After dealing with their own various stories, the heroes reunite for some serious chaos on Nal Hutta. After dealing with the bounty hunter Dengar, Han, Chewie, Leia, Threepio, and the ever-annoying Sana all link up to try and find Luke. The young would-be Jedi is a prisoner of Grakkus the Hutt, and is supposed to fight to the death in the arena. Grakkus’ collection of all things Jedi has brought him more attention than he wanted, and another group is crashing the party.
“The Ones We Leave Behind,” is a very tension-filled penultimate episode for Daredevil’s first season. There are a lot of developments and surprises that I did not see coming. As the rest of the series has been, it’s a wonderfully-well written, brutal instalment of the story.
Things are getting ugly for the Agents of SHIELD in “Chaos Theory.” The show opens with a scene from about six months ago, with May and Andrew in Tahiti, a magical place… err, Hawaii. They seem happy, and talk about new beginnings. You just know that’s not going to last, especially given what we learned last week. They do show Andrew’s secret origin, for lack of a better term.
This was a rare kind of issue, especially these days. With the Battleworld event coming, it really is the end of the world, and Kamala knows it. Most comics would have some kind of non-stop action-fest with maybe some self-pity thrown in. Instead, as her world ends, Kamala spends time with her friends and family, never even putting on her costume. It was a character-driven story that was very well written. Kamala’s heart is so clearly both in the right place and absolutely huge.
The chaos of the Secret Wars event seems to be over in most of the Marvel Universe, and the new status quo is being established. I don’t get a lot of Marvel titles, so I don’t quite know what’s going on in all of this. It would appear that the “main” Marvel Earth and that of the Ultimates merged, kind of like after the Crisis on Infinite Earths over in DC back in the 80’s. I don’t know why Peter Parker is head of a big company now, but that seems to be the case.
Ever have one of those days where you just can’t catch a break? That seems to be what Han Solo is going through the last few issues. He and Leia’s mission has gone horribly badly. They have been shot at by Imperials, barely made it to the surface of a virtually unknown world, and then been confronted by a bounty hunter. To make it worse for Han, the bounty hunter, Sana, is referring to herself as a Han’s wife. Han disagrees with this, but it’s definitely not improving his relationship with Leia. The relentless pursuit by the Imperials isn’t making anything any better, either.
The latest in a series of one-shots celebrating the 50th anniversary of SHIELD, The Cavalry features Agent Melinda May, one of the most popular characters from the Agents of SHIELD tv show. While other characters have problems reconciling their Marvel Comics and Cinematic Universe versions, May was created for the tv show, so she doesn’t have a long backstory to try and tiptoe around. She’s an amazing badass who is a lot of fun to watch, either onscreen or on the page.
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