Tuesday 7 July 2015

Random One-shots and misc from Marvel Unlimited

While I had my month of being subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, I read a bunch of random comics, mostly one-offs, that didn't fit into their own blog post. This is the blog post for them!

Spider Island: I Love New York City
A short issue about Spider-Cat and a face-off with Vemon-Pidgeon. Amusing, but not much to it.

The Avenging Spider-Man #9-10
Cross-over issues with Captain Marvel from the very dawn of Carol Danvers' new title. A two-shot story written by Kelly Sue DeConnick in which Carol and Spider-Man, the former giving the latter a lift to Boston in her new plane, come across a strange girl with a jet-pack being shot at. Of course, they detour to help and things don't quite go as expected (as per usual). Fun read, nice banter.

Rescue
Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, this is a one-shot featuring Pepper Pots as Rescue, aka girlfriend of Tony Stark/Iron Man. This issue has Pepper on the lam during the dark time of the Green Goblin's control of the US. She hallucinates her dead husband (who I didn't know existed) and flashes back to rescuing some bystanders from a normal (non-villainous) accident and fire. It was OK but I felt like there was a lot of background missing for me on this one. Wouldn't mind reading more about Pepper though.

Captain America and the Secret Avengers
Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, this issue contains two stories, illustrated by two different artists. The first is Black Widow and Sharon Carter (aka Agent 13) going in to extract an agent who was put in a similar situation to Black Widow before she defected to the US. They walk into a trap (which they more or less knew was a trap) and through the power of awesomeness prevail. The second story is an unrelated short funny in which both Black Widow and Silver Sable both show up to apprehend the same criminal and sort of fight over who gets to take him in. Suffice to say it ends with them going for drinks.

Avengers (1963) #227
So I read this somewhat random issue because the Marvel Unlimited app suggested it as a comic containing Monica Rambeau as Captain Marvel (a brief stint, I gather). The first half of the comic was pretty good with plentiful girl power, including from She-Hulk and Jan/the Wasp. The second half of the comic, however, turned into a slightly boring recap of Dr Pym's life story and recent crimes against the Avengers. Yawn. The only upside was that it also included the Wasp's origin story, which did actually clear up a few things. Also the old school art style is much less pleasant to look at than any of the stuff I've read from this century.

Spider-Woman (2014) #1
This is the only issue of the new Spider-Woman on Marvel Unlimited, or I would've kept reading. It starts during the Spider-verse event (which I don't have much prior knowledge of other than it successfully generated a few spin-offs) with Jessica Drew and a 1930s Spider-Man protecting Silk who some spider-hero-eating bad guys want to eat. Why specifically her, I don't know (or care that much). It had good sassy dialogue with lovely inner-monologue sarcasm from Jess. Ended with a cameo from Spider-Gwen and Spider-Girl, so that's also cool. Definitely interested in reading more.

Edge of Spider-verse (2014) #2
This is the issue in which Spider-Gwen is first introduced before she got her own spin-off. As you can probably gather from the title, this is a comic event issue, but it completely stands alone and more or less tells us Gwen Stacy's origin as "Spider-Woman" (I assume it changes to Spider-Gwen later since that title belongs to Jessica Drew). It has a bit of post-high school existential angst, Gwen's band (the Mary-Janes) and Peter Parker turning into a giant lizard. Also, I quite like Spider-Gwen's costume. An enjoyable issue. I look forward to more Spider-Gwen in my future.

Sif (2010) #1
Another one-shot written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, which is at least half the reason I read it. The other major reason being that Sif is a female character I don't know much about beyond what's in the movies. Can't say that I feel like I know much more about her now. It wasn't a bad story — someone needs a hero, Sif steps up in Thor's absence — but I felt like I was missing a lot of context, even with the back story blurb/prologue at the start. I suspect I would have gotten more out of it if I had read more related, contemporaneous comics. Oh well/

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