Friends and readers, we have a brand-new week of comics, and with that comes Marvel Minutiae—the column where our Marvel Files writers bring you some bite-sized thoughts on some of this week’s Marvel Releases. This week the boss steps down from his office as Zack Jenkins talks Black Cat and Savage Avengers (kind of). Plus, your pal and mine Rob Secundus has a very thoughtful take on Yondu— especially today’s issue—and resident Spider-Man correspondent Tony Thornley hits us with that wall-crawling content you crave.
Yondu #5
Robert Secundus: Yondu is one of the stranger Marvel series to see print in recent years, in large part because Yondu has wound up in one of the strangest positions of Marvel’s characters, and the series directly concerns that weirdness [Ed. Note: I mean, if comics weren’t weird, we probably wouldn’t read them].
The MCU has created a weird feedback loop. The comics reflect the movies which themselves reflect far older comics; The Guardians of the Galaxy is perhaps the property that has been most affected by this, as the movies pull elements from two extremely different series by that name, resulting in the dumping of elements from one comic series (Marvel Legion of Superheroes-esque far future adventures) into the other (Marvel Firefly). So, there are two Marvel Yondus, utterly irreconcilable as characters: a 31st century sage and a 21st century bastard. That fact had just been left as a weird quirk of the Marvel universe until now.
Yondu is Back to the Future meets No Country For Old Men in space. There are heists, shootouts, chaos-worshipping half-Skrull bounty hunters that wonderfully chew the scenery in Chigurhian fashion, and some excellent Marvel Comics Cosmic BS. It’s not perfect– there is a death in the second issue which could reasonably be described as fridging-adjacent, and there isn’t enough room to fully explore the spirituality that works in the background, driving the narrative. Overall, issues #1-4 are an extremely entertaining and visually glorious romp– John McCrea does great work throughout, but the true star of the entire series is Mike Spider’s colors, in which I could drown.
But I wanted to talk about this issue today because of the way our present-day Yondu’s story concludes. Throughout the series, Yondu reflects on the “capes” of the universe, the superheroes that are always going to be present at least on the margins of any Marvel character’s story. Yondu #5 begins with a consideration of various Origin Stories– the Reluctant Hero, the Guilty Man Who Feels the Call of Responsibility– and it rejects them [Ed. Note: Oh no, the Hero’s Journey!]. The Yondu of the future hoped to make the Yondu of the present a hero, but by the end of this issue, that has not yet happened. Instead, Yondu turns in its end to something less dramatic, far quieter. The issue reveals that we have been reading a story about trajectories over and across lifetimes, and it claims that the brief presence of a truly noble, virtuous man is weighty enough that it might shift the path of the reprehensible just a few degrees. Such a shift might be near imperceptible in the moment but significant enough to, eventually, across lightyears and decades, truly save and redeem a life.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #15
Tony Thornley: For the last year, Miles Morales has developed a J. Jonah Jameson antagonist of his own, in the form of Brooklyn Visions Vice Principal Dutcher. This issue we see exactly how much Dutcher is like JJJ when he discovers Miles’ secret in the midst of an attack by the Green Goblin of Earth-1610.
Now I was not a big fan of Spider-Men II, the completely pointless goodbye miniseries from Brian Michael Bendis. That series established who Earth-616’s Miles Morales was- a violent, scarred gangster and best friend of Wilson Fisk- but little else. However, Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron’s follow-up story has at least crafted an interesting gem out of the turd of that story. Though we still don’t know lots about what Miles (now calling himself Ultimatum after a who-knows-how long sojourn to Earth-1610) is doing or why, his presence has fueled some interesting conflict for the heroic young Miles.
The most interesting of that for Miles [Ed. Note: The younger] has been in his personal life. In classic Spider-Man tradition, his webbed life has been causing problems in his personal life, especially at Brooklyn Visions. It’s placed him on academic suspension, a decision made by Principal Dutcher. But when Ultimatum’s goons- in the form of the 1610 Goblin- end up on the doorstep of Brooklyn Visions just as Dutcher discover’s Miles’ identity (thanks to Miles’ misplaced journal), the Principal’s true colors are revealed.
Just like JJJ, Dutcher is clearly an honorable man. He protects Miles’ identity and provides him with the distraction he needs to change into his suit and save the day. Since the beginning of this volume, Miles’ personal journal has been a Chekov’s gun, full of Spidery secrets that were bound to go off and cause problems for Miles, and Dutcher’s dogged pursuit of the young hero has provided a great out-of-costume antagonist for him. Seeing those two plots collide and resolve themselves in such an unexpected way was a pleasant surprise.
There’s still a lot of ground to cover in this story. We need to know what Ultimatum is doing outside of dealing drugs. We need to know who or what this Goblin is. But this first act of the story has created a fascinating setup for where it will go, and delivered a great payoff. It wasn’t a perfect story, or one that was wholly satisfying, but it was fun, promising and improved significantly on Spider-Men II. We’ll see if Ahmed can deliver on that promise as the Outlawed storyline also looms on the horizon.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
Black Cat #9
Zachary Jenkins:
I am a simple man.
I like X-Men [Ed. Note: Big if true, boss].
I like Kris Anka.
So finding out that Wolverine would be appearing in Jed McKay’s Black Cat with Anka on art duties, I was sold. In part of her ongoing series of heists, Felicia Hardy travels to Madripoor in search of a painting last seen in the possession of the mysterious Patch. You know Patch is actually Wolverine, I know Patch is actually Wolverine, every character in this comic knows Patch is Wolverine, and McKay gets a ton of mileage out Felicia finding out the Marvel Universes’ worst kept secret. Key to this is Anka’s larger than life character acting which jumps off the page and embraces readers with playfulness.
And nearly everything about this comic is playful. It’s hard to imagine McKay didn’t write these pages with a smile on his face. There’s a flirty antagonism between Wolverine and Felicia, magnified by Anka framing his panels to highlight their height differential. The plot is light, but ties surprisingly close to the conflict currently going on in Marauders.
A comic relying on a Wolverine guest appearance shouldn’t be this delightful but Anka and McKay find a way. It’s a real treat that X-Fans will get a kick out of.
Savage Avengers #0
ZJ: For $5, you too can get a reprint of the Kulan Gath Saga from Uncanny X-Men #190-191, along with 8 really great new pages from Gerry Duggan and Greg Smallwood about Doctor Strange visiting Krakoa and chatting with Cable and Magik. The new pages, as beautiful as they are, are just a framing story so that Strange can recruit Magik. It’s impossible to recommend anyone purchase a pretty back-up story that’s more expensive than a full new issue.
Zachary Jenkins runs the Xavier Files Media Empire and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of X-Men.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
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.
