Russian Hero Darkstar Shines Bright Like Soviet Lightbulb in Winter Guard #1

Gather round, true believers, because it’s the publishing season we’ve all been waiting for: the time of year when Marvel preserves the trademark on its least lucrative or popular tie-in IP! This time, it’s everyone’s favorite Russian heroes like Guy in a Red Suit, Iron Man But Also Red, and, of course, Darkstar banding together for the glory of the MCU’s Black Widow. Winter Guard #1 defends the Mother Land courtesy of writer Ryan Cady, artists Jan Bazaldua and Djibril Morisette-Phan, color artist Federico Blee, and letterer Ariana Maher.

Zachary Jenkins: Black Widow was supposed to come out in May 2020. Marvel, doing what they always do, hoped to capitalize on their MCU synergy and announced a new Black Widow series, Taskmaster mini-series and Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova one-shot for April of that year. They couldn’t have anticipated a global pandemic that would throw all their publishing and multimedia projects out the window. Fair enough really. 

Now it’s August of 2021. Black Widow won an Eisner on the strength of Elena Casagrande’s phenomenal cartooning. Taskmaster ended to high praise and unassuming sales. We are told that Widowmakers came out, but the fan of Red Guardian could not be reached for comment. And the MCU Black Widow went to streaming on the same day as its theatrical release. Still, synergy stops for no one and Marvel had to find a way to have some Russian comics content on the shelves. The IP rivers must flow. Enter The Winter Guard #1.

Ryan Cady and Jan Bazaldua get the unenviable task of dealing with the latest Jason Aaron Avengers nonsense [Ed. note: It’s a mash up of She-Hulk, World War Hulk and The Winter Soldier and we can’t even be arsed to write a review dunking on it]. It has to tie into Aaron’s Avengers where, oops, he killed off Ursa Major, everyone’s favorite team member. It has to tie into Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande’s Black Widow and the work they are doing with Yelena. It’s got to have that Yelena and Red Guardian MCU synergy. It’s got to build up Aaron’s mysterious [Ed. note: read “boring”] Red Widow. To top it all off, it has to do all this with a team of all-stars like checks-notes Crimson Dynamo, Vostok, Perun, Vanguard, Chernobog, and Darkstar. There’s very literally one person in the world who likes Darkstar and she is by far the biggest name here.

Shelfdust’s Steve Morris: There is only one person in the world who likes Darkstar, because everybody else in the world ADORES Darkstar. “Like” is such a weak word for what Darkstar embodies for all of us, living in both our hearts and minds. 

Of course we all know who she is: Laynia Petrovna, a mutant born in Belarus (NOT Russia, although I’m told this isn’t a huge thing to brag about) with the power to channel and influence “the Darkforce”, an alternate dimension. There are other mutants who can use the Darkforce, like Vanisher, but he’s always been depicted as being thoroughly impotent in comparison. Darkstar is overpowered as flip and we adore it.

Living around the Soviet Empire with her mutant brother, Laynia was quickly brought into the Soviet Super-Soldiers, and did the Government’s work for a while. Then she found out about other countries like America, dropped out of the whole Soviet thing, and became a Champion, where she spent her time ignoring Iceman’s attempts to make her into his beard. Canonically she was better at everything than Black Widow, and that canon has never changed.

Anyway, she keeps skipping between working for the Russians and working for whoever-the-hell-else. She died once or twice but always comes back to life because, don’t forget, everybody adores her. The last time the Winter Guard (the current name for Russia’s main superhero team) were important, it was because of the miniseries Darkstar & The Winter Guard. Zachary Jenkins has listed a load of total nonsense above about “Marvel Cinematic Universes”, whatever the hell that is and: no, totally wrong. This new miniseries exists because people want more Darkstar comics.

Zachary: Oh, this is a Tox-y review? I thought it was solo… No that’s fine, I can keep going. I just didn’t expect a man who thinks what comics criticism needs is more Garfield to jump into my Google Doc. OK, where was I…

Perhaps in an attempt to tie this to continuity, or perhaps in an attempt to justify the inflated price tag, we open with 10 pages by Cady and Djbril Morissette-Phan. This is a flashy sequence with headlining names like Captain Marvel and Black Widow aiding their starpower ahead of the flashback that composes the main story.

Steve: Darkstar isn’t in this segment, although there are like twenty other blondes talking to each other. It’s very similar to WWE in 2002.

Zachary: This framing device almost feels tacked on, as a way to handwave to continuity the story is dancing through. The problem is that the Winter Guard are not The Avengers, they are not The Fantastic Four, they do not have a vibrant fanbase who are catologing their every appearance to ensure the sacred timeline is maintained. They are assumed to always be in Russia doing Russian things until some writer wanted to pretend international politics are as simple as a Cold War, America good, Russia bad, reduction. Trying to ground them in a specific moment only adds to the feeling that a reader is missing something. 

Steve: More pages with Darkstar in them. The main star of this issue is Yelena Belova, who is one of three Widows in this story – the others being Red and Black. You do have to wonder what’s going on with the whole ‘husband’ situation in the Federation. With the story having to tie into the current Avengers story, but also being set mostly before the current Avengers story, the creative team have a lot of messy stuff to unravel, which is famously what readers like when they pick up a comic about not-very-well known characters teaming up with Darkstar.

Zachary: I want to argue that Darkstar isn’t actually the focus here but heck she did headline the last Winter Guard mini didn’t she? Is she important? Is this just Steve doing a years long bit? I mean she is a mutant who I can’t care about, that’s got to mean she isn’t relevant IP right?

Regardless of Darkstar’s importance, Cady and Bazaldua’s main story where the team is forced to face off against old allies is much more effective. It’s clear Cady, and The Winter Guard themselves, understand that no matter how much they look like the Avengers with a Slavic coat of paint, they are far from Earth’s mightiest. Crimson Dynamo isn’t Iron Man, Vanguard isn’t Cap and Perun is far from Thor. When the team leans into their ineffectiveness, the book stands a bit straighter.

Steve: Darkstar doesn’t get as much to do as one would hope, as there are several pages she doesn’t appear in whatsoever. When there are panels without Darkstar in it, the reader is often left to think “where is Darkstar right now and what cool things is she doing off-panel?” With the two main characters being Yelena Belova and the former Red Guardian, it would make sense for Darkstar and Vanguard (the new Red Guardian) to be put in opposition to them, but that seems to be deeply lost in the mix here, as there are too many characters wandering around without apparent reason for their inclusion. 

It’s fair to say the comic would benefit from cutting out a few of the side-characters. And at the same time this series should probably be called “Darkstar”. And it should also be a Darkstar ongoing series, if we’re talking truth to power.

Zachary: There’s something here. Cady was one of the few standouts in Heroes Reborn and Bazaldua is a dependable and clean artist with a ton of upside. This book feels restricted in a way that only happens when corporate IP is treasured above all else. Maybe you’re right Steve, maybe Darkstar should be the star? Maybe we should let her stay the exact same character for over 50 years because people only remember Russia exists in Marvel once a decade.

Steve: If Darkstar isn’t used often enough by Marvel, you know John Carpenter’s people are going to try and claim her. It feels like a lot of this issue slows down to focus on the parts which don’t have the strongest or most interesting things to say: once we know there’s a traitor within the Winter Guard, the comic spends seven pages showing the Crimson Dynamo exploding, but when it comes to potentially interesting scenes like the two Red Guardians facing off, the comic cuts off quickly. Attention seems to be paid in the least attentive places.

Darkstar spends half the issue saying “wait, let’s just talk this over, because otherwise you’re going to fall back into the typical comics convention of fighting each other” which is followed by the comic happily falling back into that very convention. The interpersonal politics of these Russia-related characters should be fascinating to explore, but instead we get a robot blowing up in slow motion while characters fail to connect to each other. 
Zachary: It reminds me of a story Fabian Nicieza told once. In the 90s, when Marvel was being bought and sold, he had a plan for his book Nomad to deal with social issues by doing a story where the lead discovered he was HIV positive. Corporate bigwigs, not comics people, shot down the idea because the risk was too great that it would damage some of their precious IP. Nomad; Captain America’s fifth most popular partner. If a company isn’t willing to take risks with as inconsequential IP as The Winter Guard, all we are going to be left with is milquetoast comics.

Zachary Jenkins

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.

Steve Morris