Captain Marvel: In Pursuit of Flight, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dexter Soy, Emma Rios
I think I’m completely new to Captain Marvel — I’ve heard bits about her, and about the original Mar-Vell, but I haven’t read a comic featuring Carol Danvers yet as far as I can remember. If I have, and I’ve forgotten, shame on me, but this makes for a great introduction: I fell right in love with the character. She’s unabashedly completely kickass, she’s gorgeous (the art is gorgeous, though I preferred Dexter Soy’s work to Emma Rios’), she cares, and I don’t think she knows how to give up.
I loved how jam-packed with amazing women this issue is. Some of this was obviously more difficult to get than others, since I didn’t really know Carol’s origin story or abilities, but I enjoyed her relationship with Tracy — the last couple of pages are awesome for that, funny and sweet at the same time — and with Helen Cobb, and there’s nothing difficult about the concept of the Banshee Squad (who practically deserve their own comic).
My main complaint?
Make it longer! I want more of Carol’s badassery.
I’ve adored this series. Shame that it’s ending this month, and not relaunching until March (with DeConnick and artist David Lopez). It’s had terrible sales all along, despite being a fantastic book. Carol wears the Captain Marvel name and uniform well. That is just a genuinely striking, well-design uniform, and it suits her better than any she’s ever had.
Much as I loved Soy’s art, Emma Rios is my absolute favourite artist ever. Her art is just so, so beautiful.
I’m looking forward to reading more of it. I’d like to say I don’t know why it sold badly, but… knowing my trends in the SF/F world, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because omg no it’s a female superhero. I really loved it too, and I think her costume design is great.
I think I might have to see more of Rios’ art — it could well grow on me…
I think there’s a number of reasons for its failure. For one, the art. While I loved it, it’s very much unconventional superhero comic art. That seemed to turn some people off, especially when Felipe Andrade came in. (I liked his stuff, too. It reminds me a lot of Rios’, just not as good, because she’s amazing.)
Second, the first arc was a weird time-traveling one with no real villain. Again, this is unconventional, and a lot of people didn’t like it.
Third, there’s a section of readers who are threatened by any change, and when Carol went from Ms. Marvel, wearing a black bathing suit and thigh-high boots, to Captain Marvel, wearing a blue-and-red uniform and a bit of a faux-hawk haircut, those people got all whiny and didn’t pick it up.
Fourth, books that haven’t been going for 50 years already just don’t seem to do well. It’s incredibly hard for solo titles to succeed, unless they star certain characters. At this point, unfortunately, none of Marvel’s female characters seem capable of sustaining a solo title for very long. They’re launching three more female solo titles (Black Widow, Elektra, She-Hulk) in the next few months, along with relaunching Captain Marvel with a new direction and a new artist, so we’ll see if any of them do well.
Also hurting it were the fact that it didn’t feel “important” – the stuff going on in her solo title had nothing to do with any other titles, until The Enemy Within crossover with Avengers Assemble, and the two recent Infinity tie-in issues.
If you like DeConnick’s writing, she also does Avengers Assemble, and is about to start an arc co-written with Warren Ellis. That should be amazing. Doesn’t look like Captain Marvel’s going to be there; instead, it’ll be about Spider-Girl teaming up with various Avengers, starting with Spider-Woman and the Hulk, who DeConnick has turned into an amazing pair. It’s the duo I never knew I needed.
DeConnick and Emma Rios also have a creator-owned book coming out, called Pretty Deadly. The first issue comes out this week. It’s going to be the second non-Marvel title I pick up, after the My Little Pony series. It might be worth giving a try; DeConnick and Rios work well together.
That makes a lot of sense, yeah. It’s really hard to try new things in comics like this, I think. It’s supposed to be an innovative medium, but with the fanbase a lot of comics have, in practice it’s hard to get anything new to sell. …Not that I’m particularly an expert in this, I’m just used to observing fandom: I haven’t been a reader of comics for that long.
I want to look into Avengers Assemble, but. *whimper* I already spend so much money on books. And Captain America is my current favourite, and I have so much stuff about him that I haven’t got yet.