Gambit: Once A Thief, James Asmus, Clay Mann, Diogenes Neves

I vaguely remember Gambit from watching X-men cartoons as a kid, I think. But I don’t remember him well enough to just jump in like this and actually care about Gambit’s inconsequential adventures that’re his own damn fault for messing with stuff he doesn’t understand for the heck of stealing something. I mean, sure, if that’s Remy’s character, then… okay? But I know he has fans, and surely they’re for something more substantial than this? Right?

So yeah, not impressed with this. The art is great, but the stories are just… I had difficulty, honestly, remembering the names of the two dimensional characters he was running into.

Not one for me, I think.

Rating: 1/5

FF: vol. 1, Fantastic Faux, Matt Fraction, Mike Allred, Laura Allred

I think this one definitely requires more background. It might be volume #1 of the FF Marvel Now books, but it clearly follows an ongoing story involving the Fantastic Four and… possibly a lot of other people? I had no idea who a lot of these people were, other than Johnny Storm and Scott Lang. (Where does that fit with Young Avengers? Isn’t he Cassie’s dad, and isn’t he dead? Or did he come back amidst the timeline crossing?)

Anyway, there were fun aspects to this — the line “All of you pale before our hetero-normative cisgendered classification of family!” is a winning one, and there’s some other good one-liners. Which I’d kind of expect from Matt Fraction, really. There was a really nice bit where he fit in a trans* character, dealt with sensitively, yet in such a normal way — it barely caused a blink, and yet it worked well. I liked that bit a lot. Oh, and She-Hulk is great.

Overall, though, I don’t have enough context to really enjoy this. Too bad the library’s collection of comics is generally spotty.

Rating: 2/5

X-men: Storm, Warren Ellis, Terry Dodson

This Storm comic seems to rely on other events surrounding it, and certainly expects you to be up to speed on who everyone is — at least in the first issue. It actually gets a bit more explanatory later on in the volume, which confused and then began to ignore me.

Since my exposure to X-men previously has just been brief crossovers with other comics and a huge childhood obsession with an animated TV series, it’s fair to say I come into this pretty new. I liked the Storm portrayed here: struggling with past bad decisions, trying to feel her way into being a true leader, and not completely sanitised. She chooses not to kill at several points, but that’s because she knows what it’s like to use lethal force; it’s a real choice, not just idealism.

All in all, I can’t rate this that highly because there’s so little here, but I think there’s a current solo Storm comic, and I’m thinking of picking that up. There isn’t enough here to let Storm shine, and the comic seems pretty dated in the way it tells its story now, but it does hint at compelling and interesting aspects of Storm’s character.

Rating: 3/5

Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers, Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, Sara Pichelli

Hmm. I wanted more from this. I’m excited about the upcoming film, because it’s Marvel and they reliably entertain me (unpopular opinion: I kinda enjoyed Fantastic Four, even after everyone I know dissed it? Might have helped I watched it on my computer at 2x speed). But I’d never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy before the marketing for the film started, and I don’t know much about it.

In a way, this does feel like it tries to be an introductory volume, with little bits talking about some of the characters’ pasts and relationships, but mostly it feels fragmentary and weird. I think this is probably because I know so little about it. I felt like it was supposed to be a gateway drug, using Tony Stark as it does, but I didn’t really get that involved with it. I wasn’t sure how to contextualise it in terms of the other Marvel comics I read. Gotta admit, I would like to know what Peter Quill and Teddy Altman would have to say to each other, with some similar background behind them.

I do like the cast, and it may well be that I’d appreciate it more if I wasn’t totally new to it. I might look at it again after I’ve seen the film. Oh, and I appreciate the heck out of Freyja being the ruler of Asgard. She deserved more than the fridging she got in Thor 2.

Rating: 3/5