2 out of 5

I always feel like it’s somewhat unfair of me to rate modern day Big Two (e.g. Marvel, DC) titles, as I’m positive I’m not the intended audience.  If I find my way to a book, it’s almost certainly because of a writer – not a crossover or event, not a character – and I’ve definitely learned by now that even the best of the best generally are hobbled by whatever is required to dip into the you-don’t-own-this-character pool.  There are exceptions, of course, and I suppose that’s why I keep peeking back now and then.  To be fair, this first Captain Marvel arc – by Agent Carter writers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters – doesn’t exactly take a strong start / crap finish nosedive like a lot of these books, where a strong idea buoys a strong first issue and then other factors drag the comic back to reality, but it also doesn’t manage to properly define itself, and so sinks under its own weight bit by bit to become uneventful and lacking much impact.

This new volume of Cap sees Ms. Danvers taking over Alpha Flight up in the space, as, I’m supposing, some type of early warning spacey defense port or whatever.  F & B have a chummy writing style that sits well between comic exposition and the overly aware jibber jabber a lot of cross-media writers inevitably tend to use, but the duo do belie their television leanings in the third or fourth book when we start perspective hopping for no reason.  That we’re suddenly unglued from Carol and stuck, for a page or panel, to another character’s internal monologue unfortunately makes something more apparent: that the internal monologue is a needless distraction, and it’s almost always someone commenting rather pointlessly on what’s occurring as it occurs.  Once those threads start to loosen – whether as a related result or a wholly separate factor – the first arc’s plot is drawn into question, as it’s a variation on the ol’ “creating problems outta thin air” comic book syndrome: an attack on the space station occurs, and after some whodunnit, it’s clear that said infraction only took place because of Carol’s presence.  In other words: the hero is cause and effect.  The story exists in a vacuum.  This can have impact when rolled out down the road, when our investment in the character and their actions is high, but as our first tale, it’s all flash, no substance.

Kris Anka’s art and Matthew Wilson’s pleasantly solid colors do a good job of imbuing conversational scenes and intimate settings with personality, but the large scale sequences – the frequent space battles lack direction, either from the writers or artists, and so I found myself completely tuning out at those points and essentially just gleaning an understanding of what occurred via whatever people are saying about it during the scene.

These primary factors – the loose tone, the friendly art – make the book readable and, at times, enjoyable, until the offenses stack up too high and you start noticing the other offenses, and then I was just waiting for the arc to end.