Hello friends and readers, and welcome to the lightest week in comics this entire year. Okay scratch that, we’ve had months with nothing. But, this was a fairly small week for colorful characters in capes but, Marvel Files has you covered. Zack Jenkins has closing thoughts on Hawkeye: Freefall (and the world we live in) while Robert Secundus decides to get poetic about Ravencroft #5.
Hawkeye: Freefall #6
Hawkeye: Freefall was always meant to end. Writer Matthew Rosenberg pitched this as a short story, though he could have never imagined it ending like this. While it may have been envisioned as a six issue mini, Marvel has had the habit recently of extending the runs of minis that have legs, as they recently did with Amazing Mary Jane. It’s disappointing, then, to see this ending, an ending that leaves a ton of room for new stories, and think of what might have been.
This isn’t the first time Rosenberg has ended a story with a hook for the next one. Some might call it a cliffhanger, but what he does is more elegant than that. When so many comics are pitched as “back to basics” or some sort of “rebirth”, it’s refreshing to see an ending that dares whoever writes the character next to try something new. In many ways it echoes the old DC Challenge, where one writer would end an issue on a wild plot point as a gift, or curse, to the writer of the next issue. It’s a fun middleground between putting all the toys back in the toybox just the way they were and breaking them.
Unfortunately, time has shown that this isn’t always the most successful plan. Rosenberg talked about how his time on the X-Books was characterized by the fits and starts of his different titles, and how he threaded those into one flowing narrative. His superb New Mutants: Dead Souls ended in a similar way, but when he had to wrap up that plot point in Uncanny X-Men, it left many readers unsatisfied. That’s the risk of not leaving things with a nice, neat bow on them, you don’t get to control what outside forces influence what happens next.
No one could have known in January 2020 what life would be like in June. No one has any idea what the comics industry will look like this time next year. If there was a planned follow-up to this series, it is likely in the air. Life has been in freefall this year for all of us, Hawkeye included, here’s to hoping we all land on our feet.
Ravencroft #5
I. I must ask of Ravencroft, who is this for? Eight issues now, (three of Ruins), of this, Marvel’s Arkham-meets-Carnage reading chore; Made of words and pictures and an abyss Of meaning. Is this for the AdvoCates? Would they want this? Only a hint of Knull, And no Catesian bombast? Readers, grit Your teeth and prepare for something dull. Is this for fans of Marvel horror books? Consider the monsters; Consider Bud; Their cartoonish, Scooby Doo villain looks Most certainly fall short of chilling the blood. Tell me if this is for, Frank Tieri, Those fans of obscure continuity?
II. Those fans of obscure continuity: Do they care for Clone Saga-era places, Care for a hospital’s secret history, It’s founder’s legacy; care for pages Filled with Ashley Kafka, one Mister Hyde, And J. Jonah Jameson’s Astronaut son? I love Man-Wolf; what I cannot abide: A story that doesn’t know why he’s fun. HE IS A WEREWOLF FUCKING ASTRONAUT. Man-Wolf here is a brooding bureaucrat, Who spends this final issue strung up, caught Until he just decides, enough of that. One Norman Osborn gets under his skin, He changes, the end, it just sort of happens.
III. “He changes, the end, it just sort of happens.” Is this fair? There’s other stuff; some action, Misty Knight and Punisher, Mayor Kingpin Plotlines, “JANUS”; all worthy of the bin. God, this writing; Frank Castle, mid-fight says, In a line Tieri thinks is clever: “Always in the market for better ways to, you know, punish.” Right now it occurs To me the criticism I’ve here brought Might earn Tieri’s ire; Frank may wish me ill, Demand a fight in Food Lion’s parking lot. I’ll go, but I won’t fight; simply I will Shout, lit by the neon lights of that store:“I must ask of Ravencroft, WHO IS THIS FOR?”
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
