Captain Marvel #11 - A Review

It is a rare thing for bad artwork to spoil my enjoyment of a well-written comic book.  Yet Filipe Andrade has managed that feat and as a result I'm dropping Captain Marvel from my subscription.  Andrade's artwork is so awful I can't even bear to feature any more of it on my blog than I have to - hence the scan of this issue's far superior cover below.   


To my mind, this image is above is how Captain Marvel should be presented.  Strong.  Capable.  Tough.  At the very least, she should appear to be a human female and not evoke thoughts of the super-skinny aliens from the movie A.I. as Andrade's characters do.  To describe the figures he depicts as freakishly skinny would deny me the opportunity to use a number of ten-dollar words such as emaciated, malnourished and anorexic.    


I wish I could stay for the excellent writing of Kelly Sue DeConnick and Christopher Sabela.  There's a good story underneath all this about Carol Danvers coping with a medical problem that leaves her unable to fly and dependent on a SHIELD-issue flying motorcycle.  However, I fear it's not worth the aggravation of trying to interpret what I'm looking at on every page. 

Captain Marvel #10 - A Review

Much of what I have to say about Captain Marvel #10 I already said in my review of Captain Marvel #9.  Kelly Sue DeConnick (assisted, this month, by Christopher Sabela) still writes great, action-packed scripts that give us new insights into the character of Carol Danvers every issue.  The artwork, by Filipe Andrade, is still aesthetically displeasing to my eye and I still think it resembles a poor attempt to ape the style of Aeon Flux


Thankfully, there is still much to admire about this comic and some things I can speak about that I did not note last month.  For instance, I love how Captain Marvel - unlike so many comics of late - uses its' title page as a reference guide for those fans who may have missed an issue, new readers picking the book up for the first time or absent-minded critics who sometimes forget the story after reading 50 other comics in the past month.  Naturally, given the usual tone of this book, this recap page is as insightful in terms of characterization as the rest of the script.

Speaking of the script, Deconnick's plot in this issue has become "real".  Suffering from some strange symptoms, Carol's doctor has advised her that she needs to stop flying as the strain on her body seems to be slowly killing her.  Naturally Carol isn't taking the news well, as being a pilot AND a superhero with the power of flight... well, NOT flying is not an option to her.  The drama here is played out well but I hope the hints that this is a temporary, orchestrated condition ring true as I fear it will seem far too derivative to have this lead into a serious medical storyline ala The Death of Captain Marvel.


I must also note that while I'm not a fan of Filipe Andrade's art, upon reflection I don't think it's quite so bad as I said it was last month.  His action scenes are atrocious but his stylized characters with their elongated limbs and angular features are not quite so off-putting in the slower scenes that just feature characters talking.  Faint praise I know but it is praise none the less, which is far more than I was willing to give Andrade's last month when his art came close to driving me off this book.

I'm still here though.  And I'll be here for one more month, at least. 

Captain Marvel #9 - A Review

Never have I seen so great a disconnect between the quality of artwork and the quality of writing than Captain Marvel #9. The writing by Kelly Sue DeConnick is as fine as ever, of course.  The script for this issue, focusing on Carol Danvers trying to get through a typical day-in-the-life, presents a wonderful jumping-on point for those who have not yet begun reading this title.  The title page even gives us a basic summary of our hero and the book, satisfying the old Stan Lee dictum that every comic book should be built as if it were going to be someone's first comic ever, because it probably will be. 


Sadly, once we get past the title page and the recycled Dexter Soy artwork, the pencils and inks of Filie Andrade drag this comic into the abyss of mediocrity.  The kindest adjective I can apply to Filipe Andrade's artwork is "stylized".  Sadly, it is the style of someone who appears to be aping Aeon Flux after having a couple of stiff drinks. 

To call Andrade's figures disjointed would be putting it mildly.  As it is, I find this manner of artwork visually displeasing and it killed my enjoyment of this issue. I still recommend Captain Marvel as a series to all comic readers but I'd also suggest skipping this issue.  If you need an introduction to this series, start with Issue #7 instead.