Billy and Teddy have married and drifted off into a blissful, peaceful life in space. Right? Right?? It’s never that easy. We figure that out courtesy of Tini Howard, Luciano Vecchio, Espen Grundetjern and VC’s Ariana Maher. This ones Spoiler Free!
Do we need more King In Black content?
This is the question I asked myself as I opened this copy of King In Black: Wiccan and Hulkling.
Perhaps not, I said as I opened the first page and saw the spider-like Knull banner in the corner of the book, an immense tiredness washing over me as if I’d eaten too much sugar early in the day and was now crashing.
It feels like we’ve been buried under goo for eternity now, the forever March we’ve been stuck in since last year reaching out past infinity and showing us only Knull. Maybe that’s the point of this whole event? To look into the void and see nothing but Knull. Hm. Maybe Donny Cates was onto something. But I digress.
Even if I don’t need anymore King In Black content, I always need more Billy (Wiccan) and Teddy (Hulkling) content and I especially always need more Tini Howard content. So I am glad that this issue, even if we have to dip into the gooey side of things, gives me more of that. KIB: Wiccan and Hulkling is a rather breezy one shot that both showcases Howard’s very well crafted voices for Billy and Teddy and gives us a snapshot of a day in the life of Emperor Hulkling.
This issue plays out rather like a Beach Episode of an Anime, except with a little more goo thrown in; such is the way of Knull. The issue is light, fun, and digs a few inches deeper into just exactly how Billy and Teddy feel about their new roles while still really just being superheroes deep down. This is one of the things that Howard does best; rooting characters in their origins without leaving them drowning in their past. It’s been almost 16 years since we first met Billy and Teddy in the pages of Young Avengers. They deserve to grow and change even if Marvel Time moves dreadfully slow for everyone, but that doesn’t mean their sensibilities have to. I always got the feeling that through it all, Billy and Teddy were and always will be just big comic nerds with their hearts in the right place. This issue nails that motif: what it means to grow up and take responsibility without sacrificing everything that brought you to where you are. Though, that’s not to say that this issue doesn’t have some very specific issues I would like to address.
Ever since Empyre, Billy and Teddy have been on a journey, one that moved to give them bigger roles in the 616 and move them past either random obscurity or the perpetual Young Adult limbo that they have been living in ever since they were first introduced. Marvel and the writers that have been handling them, Tini Howard included, have done a wonderful job grounding Billy and Teddy in their new reality. Even before they were married in the pages of Empyre, they had moved past their teenage sensibilities. They had problems, real problems. The kind of problems you get when you’ve been in love with someone most of your teenage life and finally realize that you’re an adult now. Billy and Teddy haven’t been treated like kids for ages. Which is why the art in this issue is just so jarring.
Luciano Vecchio is a great artist, and while I usually like his work on its own, something about his illustrations on this issue both undermine the adult leadership roles Marvel have given Billy and Teddy along with pulling down Howard’s writing. I love comics that are colorful and fun, but the art here takes it a bit too far. Billy and Teddy both look considerably aged down and given that this issue is supposed to act as both a look into their new roles and a honeymoon where several eyebrow wiggling innuendo’s are made…if left me feeling a bit puzzled. Am I supposed to think of these characters as teens who are no more than 15 or 16 at the oldest, or am I supposed to see them as adults who are stepping into leadership roles? The story is telling me one thing and the art is telling me another. There should be a happy medium, but the art in this issue just leaves me scratching my head a bit. All in all this issue is, like I said, fun and breezy, but art style clashing with the sensibilities of the writing leaves me a little colder on it than I would be otherwise.
Oh. And even the Venoms are too cute for their own good. If you’re into that (someone is) then take a peak.
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
