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Is It Good? Captain Marvel #1 Review

Comic Books

Is It Good? Captain Marvel #1 Review

“Hero! Pilot! Avenger! Captain Marvel AKA Carol Danvers, Earth’s Mightiest Hero with death-defying powers and an attitude to match, is back and launching headfirst into a brand new series,” says the Marvel NOW! synopsis.

Captain Marvel #1 takes place after the events of her last series where she lost her memory (and which every title has sort of ignored but that’s beside the point). Where will this comic take us? What’s the new direction? Will it have a good consistent artist for once? Is it good?

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Captain Marvel #1 (Marvel Comics)


captain-marvel-1-cover

After a rather odd opening on an alien planet, we cut to six weeks earlier on Earth where we see Captain Marvel struggling after that bad case of amnesia from the last series. An alien pod has arrived on Earth from a race that lost its planet back in Infinity and it gets Iron Man thinking they should probably have an Avenger’s presence in space. You can already tell where this is going.

captain-marvel-1-iron-man
“Well at least I don’t think it is. I need to update my operating systems for bomb detection.”

To be perfectly honest: this doesn’t feel a new series. Sure, new direction, but not a new series. It’s more like the next story arc for the previous Captain Marvel series, which is good for the fans who were enjoying that story. However, it does not feel like a new number one honestly and people who are just now tuning into the comic might be lost about a lot of things going on in this story; such as “Who are all of these supporting characters?” “Why did Captain Marvel lose her memories?”, etc.

Kelly Sue DeConnick’s story here is alright but it never really gets going. The series appears as though it’ll be taking place in space for most of the time, but we spend most of the issue’s duration on Earth recapping how lost and unsure of her place in the cosmos and such Carol Danvers is. DeConnick establishes where Danvers is as a character and where the new direction will take her, but that’s pretty much it. It’s good and it’s setup — but it’s not very exciting.

captain-marvel-1-spartax-secret-police
For Secret Police, they stand out like a sore thumb amongst this crowd.

The dialogue is fine, with the occasional touch of humor here and there. The emotional beats are good, especially if one actually read the previous series (if not, you may be wondering how the heck that little girl is). The opening is genuinely interesting and engaging, while the rest of the book feels (as aforementioned) slow in comparison. It’s perfectly alright overall, but again, it doesn’t get you as into the book as other series have been doing. Perhaps I have been spoiled too much with many of these new, great series that have been coming out.

The artwork is done by David Lopez and in comparison to just about every artist who had previously worked on the original series, it looks amazing. The previous series suffered from artwork that looked over-stylized, often didn’t fit the tone, was way too distracting, or was poorly drawn to begin with (it also suffered from not being able to keep a single artist around for long as well). The line work is smooth looking, with well-drawn characters and easy to follow layouts. There isn’t much in the way of action and there isn’t anything too amazing looking here (the bit at the opening on the other planet looked decent though), but the artwork looks good even if there isn’t much to comment on.

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Quick! Tell me what emotion that kid is displaying on her face and… go!

Is It Good?

Captain Marvel #1 is a slow, but decent start to this “new” series. It feels like things have yet to truly get underway in it, but the potential seen in the opening for where the comic will ultimately be going appears to be promising. If you were a fan of the previous series, give this one a look when you can.

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