Guardians of the Galaxy #12: This issue is how you end a story! I totally cried with Pete as the original Guardians sat at Raccoon's bedside and Pete told him the galaxy could wait while he got better. Cates sticks the landing so well here. As Rocket said, a raccoon doesn't defeat J'Son: an engineer does, as Rocket rewires the ship's polarity and frees the heroes. The gang makes short work of J'Son's Drax clones while Rocket reveals that he also programmed the ship to return to its original time. Lockjaw skedaddles the heroes off the ship as J'Son comes face to face with Thanos and Death at the End of Everything. Cates took the Guardians to a pretty dark place in this series, but he promises brighter horizons, particularly as we end not only with Pete and Gamora holding hands but also a resurrected Drax. "Guardians of the Galaxy" was one of the few superhero comics I'm keeping on my pull list, and this issue makes me very glad that I will.
The exciting part, for me, was the question of how Cap and the rest of the Invaders would deal with Namor once the threat passed. The answer? They just forgive everything because he was an Invader. Cap doesn't even try to excuse Namor's behavior with Machan, as Namor himself admits that Machan didn't do anything he wouldn't have done. Cap just says that he can't stay mad at Namor, no matter what we does, because they were Invaders. Really? Like, attempted genocide is totally fine if an Invader bro does it?
Given how grounded in psychology this series was, I was surprised to see Zdarsky take the easy route here instead of giving us a Cap truly wrestling with his responsibilities toward, and his comradeship with, Namor. Instead, he just shrugs his shoulders. (Actually, he just has another beer with Bucky and Jim, but you get the point.)
I feel like Zdarsky must've written himself into a corner here, like Claremont did with Phoenix when he revealed that she destroyed a planet. I wonder if the Powers That Be at Marvel decreed that Cap and Namor had to be buds, because it's the only reason I could see for Zdarsky swerving from the wall at the last minute.
King Thor #4: I don't know what to say here. This issue is a sprawling mess, which isn't necessarily bad but also isn't necessarily good.
The first ten pages unfold as expected, with Thor somehow finding the power he needs to defeat Gorr the Necroverse because, as Loki says, "Thor is Thor." Does that make any sense? Not really. It has something to do with Thor spending his whole life defining "worthy" as eliminating his demons, but instead he now realizes that it means embracing them and marshaling his rage and shame into "the storm." Sure, whatever. At this point, I'll give Aaron a pass because it's his last time at the trough.
Then, for lack of a better term, we drift into space. In the Halls of All-Knowing, Shadrak, "god of imbeciles and imbecility," angers the Librarian by knocking over some Thor tomes. Shadrak looks through them, and we discover that they detail Thor's exploits before he becomes King Thor. We're now "treated" to a truly bizarre sequence of pages, with Thor: as "God Cop," policing other gods; as a world ("Thor the Thunder World") spitting "rune moons made of solid uru;" as an amesiac Lord of the Ice Apes of Jotunheim, etc. Marvel can't pass the chance to get in some advertisements, as Balder becomes King of the Norns, Jane is shown as Valkyrie, and Sif takes over Heimdall's role. Then, we finally see our Thor sitting on his throne. At this point, though, Aaron's overwrought narration has me skimming. I know that Aaron wanted me to be immersed in this story at this point, and I wanted to be. I really did. But, I was mostly just bored and confused. This feeling of dissociation with the story that I thought Aaron was telling is made worse when we return to Shadrak, who tell us that he's looking forward to reading more Thor stories the next day. I'm glad he is.
We shift to the future (or present, at this point). We learn that Gorr survived his encounter with Thor, but he's now a simpleton with no trace of the Necrosword remaining in him. He lives in a garden on Indigarr, watched by loving gods. Lest we think that Gorr deserves worse, Aaron reminds us that it's unclear if this outcome is Heaven or Hell for Gorr. Meanwhile, we also learn that Loki has sacrificed himself to rekindle a dying sun, with Midgard seemingly the sole planet left in creation. Wrapping up the sacrifices, Thor hands over Mjolnir to the girls and then somehow becomes the new support system for the devastated Universe, the pillar on which creation will rise again. How? I don't know. I guess we'll never know.
In other words, man, I'm disappointed. It doesn't overshadow Aaron's accomplishments when it comes to this character, but it does make me wish he would've just ended with "War of the Realms." When I saw "King Thor" marketed, I was worried that it seemed self-indulgent, and it seems that way now. I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere.
The Last God #3: This issue is interesting, as with previous ones, more for the stories that we're not being told than the ones that we are.
We start the issue in the past with Try lying to Cyanthe that her father left the group because he seemed angry. Cyanthe is devastated, blaming herself for driving away her father after their argument the previous evening. Veikko knows better, accusing Tyr of murdering Cyanthe's father not because he had the Plague but because Tyr wanted Cyanthe to himself. As the trio travel, they discover dead Aelvan near the Pinnacle, which Veikko explains humanity made Aelvan slaves build on the ashes of their previous place of power. Veikko realizes that a beast called an ursulon killed the Aelves and has the trio flee. The ursulon later finds them, and Veikko assumes that they're goners until Cyanthe realizes why it's enraged: it's carrying its dead cub in its hand. Cyanthe uses her teymsong to quiet the beast, allowing them to share a moment of grief over their lost family members. It's a really touching moment, a rare show of emotion so far in a series that prides itself on how such feelings don't have any place in such a cruel world. Veikko watches in wonder, having previously asserted that only Aelvan prayers have power.
In the present, Cyanthe, Eyvindr, and Veikko make their way to the Pinnacle, where Eyvindr witnesses the meager conditions that the people in his hero's empire endure due to Tyr's negligence. Cyanthe announces Eyvindr will stay at the Pinnacle after she and Veikko recruit Skol and her Eldritch Knights to travel to the Black Stair; after they win, he'll return to the slave cradles "where [he] belong[s]." As the arrive at the Pinnacle, Eyvindr announce that he's leaving for the Stair on his own, tired of what he (correctly and incorrectly) sees as Cyanthe's lies. She seemingly lies again, telling him that he can't go to the Stair because Mol Uhltep told them that Eyvindr would be the one to bring about the end of the world. Cyanthe claims that it's because Eyvindr appeared in the arena in the yellow-tin crown reading all "[Tyr's] old lies" to him, a reference to the "true crown hidden by a false one of gold" prophecy. It seems pretty clear that Eyvindr is the true crown of the prophecy, with Tyr's being the false one, despite Cyanthe seemingly implying otherwise. Moreover, Cyanthe's spin doesn't explain the flashback that we saw in the first issue, of Tyr seemingly trying to kill an infant Eyvindr, since it's unclear how he knew Eyvindr would one day become the man in the arena. That said, Eyvindr still isn't having any more of Cyanthe's lies. He starts to leave, when Mol Uhltep appears to them in the form of a dead woman and her child sitting on the bridge. He sends the Plague after them and the issue ends with Eyvindr plunging off the bridge in the melee.
Star Wars: Empire Ascendant #1: This issue is sloppy, signified by the fact they accidentally switched two of the interstitial pages. The main story is treacly, its concluding page's dialogue reading like something a middle schooler would've written. The Vader story is fluff, not even attempting to tell a story that we've seen a thousand times already, about how ruthless Vader is, particularly when it comes to prizing victory over failure. The Beilert story is the best of the lot, as the Aphra story is hindered by heavy narration via holovid that doesn't even sound like Aphra. In the end, it feels like a money grab. It's a shame, too, because I feel like it was Marvel's chance to tell a few pre-"Empire Strikes Back" stories that it didn't get to showcase during the initial "Star Wars'" run. Instead, it's a forgettable issue that has me eager for the real story getting under way.
Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1: Soule has an unenviable task here, as he's forced to impose some form of coherence to both the Knights of Ren and Kylo Ren himself.
Rian Johnson famously axed the Knights of Ren in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," only for JJ Abrams to reinstate them as Ren's own Praetorian Guard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." Despite their appearances (or not, as the case may be), we never really got an explanation for who they were. In terms of Ren himself, he's constantly switching personalities, bouncing among confident, desperate, focused, and shattered. Soule not only has to try to forge a consistent vision of Ren but also needs to make us care despite the fact that we all know (spoiler alert if you haven't seen "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker") that he dies in the end.
This issue is at its best when Soule tries to address the Knights of Ren. Soule seems to imply that "ren" was the name of the Force "long ago," with the Knights dedicated to its service. Although it's clear that the Knights aren't good guys (they are, after all, trying to recruit a kid who brags about killing over 100 people), it isn't clear that they're formally aligned with the Sith either. The Knight's leader refers to a "friend" providing them names of Force-sensitive potential recruits, who I at first thought meant Snoke since I didn't initially realize that we were seeing a scene in the distant past. I'm assuming that it's a Sith, but I guess we'll see.
Soule struggles a little with Ren, but it really isn't his fault. Ren is as sniveling as Luke was in the first trilogy. When three of his cohort from Luke's temple return to find everyone -- including, they think, Luke -- dead, Ren is outraged that they don't believe him when he tells them that Luke tried to kill him. He's alternatively vicious and appalled as he fights them, never dealing a killing blow despite his at-times blood-thirsty rhetoric. He reads almost like Two-Face at times, more mentally ill than someone struggling to reconcile the life he thought he was living with the circumstances in front of him.
Overall, though, it's a good start. Soule has shown an ability in previous work to mine newfound insights to characters with muddled histories, so I'm optimistic that he can do the same with Ren here.
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