A look at some of the most intriguing comic books of the week
Well hello there! J.J. here with a new, and dare I say the most important, ongoing feature here on SideQuesting. You’ve heard prattle on and on about comics on the Podcast. Probably a little TOO much at times. But now it’s time to use that energy for good instead of my usual evil and so I present to you The SideQuest Pull Box. Every week, I’ll be posting quick reviews from three pulls from the previous week, three pulls that I think might be the most exciting or interesting from the current week, and one throwback recommendation. So without further ado, let’s begin.
Comic Pull Box Reviews for the week of 8/18/21
Kang #1: You saw Loki. You know why Kang is getting an ongoing series right now. Kang has been a thorn in the side of the heroes of the Marvel Universe for decades now and has one of the absolute convoluted histories in the entire Marvel Universe and it’s many many earths. He has been a pharaoh, Iron Lad, Immortus and because he just jumps through time like a fool at any given time, his history can make knowing exactly who Kang really is incredibly difficult. This series sets out to show you who Nathaniel Richards of the 31s century really is. You are introduced to him as a young man tired of his life in the utopia of his society and in trying to find anything of importance in his life, he winds up leaving it all behind and taken under the wing of… himself. An older, battle hardened Kang who has seen a lot of defeat and the death of the woman he loves and wants to train his young self to never fall for anything of the things he sees as weakness, especially love. And as you can expect, things don’t exactly go smoothly. A great first issue that really seems to promise an interesting unravel on the next MCU villain ready to take over pop culture with a history impossible for any casual fan to fully comprehend.
Eat The Rich #1: With a title like this, you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into. Boom has been growing into something fierce lately and this is just another big hit on their hands. Joey is going with her boyfriend to his hometown to meet his family as they are fresh out of law school. As she learns after getting there, they are rich. VERY rich. But something is off. Her boyfriend is acting weird and being cagey, everybody is being weird. The hired help of the mansion are weird, and it’s not hard to predict where it’s going in this first issue but it’s still so well paced and well drawn that you can’t help but be taken in and want to see how this whole thing plays out. I’ll definitely be keeping up on this one. Horror/Thriller comics are coming back in a BIG way and I am here for it.
X-Men: Trial of Magneto #1: Wanda Maximoff, the main character of the huge hit TV series for Disney, is dead. She has been murdered in the mutant nation of Krakoa in the fallout of the Hellfire Gala storyline. So, if you haven’t been up to date on mutant lore, there is zero percent chance you’ll have any idea what’s going on here. See, the mutants now all live on a living island and only mutants can live there. They live in perfect harmony with the island and are able to cure any illness and with the help of cerbero….backups? They can revive any mutant that dies. Death no longer exists among the mutants. So Wanda has been murdered and they can revive anybody right? Welllllllll. You see. Wanda isn’t a mutant. She is a mutate and still considered one of mutantdoms top enemies because of the whole “No More Mutants” thing. She is invited to the Hellfire Gala by Magneto, who in a revelation years ago was proven not to be her father, in a half assed attempt to be like “we’re cool, right?” but as you can kind of surmise by the title, it didn’t really go all that well. Because Wanda and Pietro were able to deceive Cerebro at one point, their backup exists in an old state, but a vote must be made to decide if they use the Resurrection Magic Experience on a non-mutant and they decide “absolutely not” and things just keep kind of spiraling out of control from there. I do not want to spoil too much but man, stuff is intense here and I can’t wait to see more of it.
Comic Pull Box Hype Train for the Week of 8/25/21
Darkhawk #1: Remember Darkhawk? No? Well too bad because the edgy hero of the 90s is back with a new ongoing series. Inexplicably celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the character, Marvel is launching an all new take on the winged menace. A new character is taking up the Mantle of Darkhawk. Kyle Higgins is taking on the writing duties, who’s most recently known at Marvel for writing the stellar Ultraman series. Will it be a good series? I don’t know, but I’m definitely down to give Darkhawk a chance.
M.O.M. #2: I have no idea what the hell is happening in this comic book. Emilia Clarke is here as a writer, yes THAT Emilia Clarke, and is taking on the genre of satirical superhero comedy? I guess? It’s about as subtle as a golf club to the skull and very heavy on the dialog bubbles in a lot of scenes. The main characters power set is tied directly to her menstrual cycle and the hook being that she has no idea when or how the powers will manifest because, well, it’s a menstrual cycle. It’s absurd, and not even all that great of a first issue, but it’s got enough hooks to make me say “Yeah, I’ll get the next one.”
Superman ‘78 #1: DC had already released an exciting new series with the same concept in Batman ‘89 which goes back to the Burton-Verse and let’s you live out the unseen reality of Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent. Now we get to go back to a better time when Superman was a bright and colorful beacon of hope played by a man that mostly understood the character (Just don’t let him write for him) and is more than happy to be a complete and total boy scout. Now with 100% more Brainiac.
The Longbox Suggestion Of The Week
Avengers #200: Remember when I said that Kang’s thing was confusing and nobody really knows what is going on with his history at any given time? Well, this is another log on that fire, but that’s just the SMALLEST part of why this comic is one of the singular most insane things ever written at the House of M. Carol Danvers undergoes and FULL pregnancy in TWO DAYS. That’s weird enough as it is. But then the kid ages QUICKLY while the rest of the heroes are dealing with time displaced nonsense everywhere. While the kid turns into a toddler within hours, a T-Rex attacks the mansion. It all comes to light as the child turns into an adult that he is the son of Immortus. Immortus is the master of Limbo and saved a woman from a shipwreck and they had a kid. Marcus. This new kid is also Marcus. Confusing? Hell yeah. Just wait. The woman goes back to her time, Immortus was killed (but actually Kang was killed making Immortus impossible to exist and this comic absolutely ignores this) and so Marcus was left all alone in Limbo. Limbo is lonely and he can’t exist outside of it without absolutely destroying space and time. So, now here is the genius part, he plucks Carol out of her time, impregnates her, sends her back to her time, she gives birth to him and is trying to use a machine to stabilize himself and the timeline and live on outside of limbo. But Hawkeye blew up the machine. So now, he’s boned. So now it’s either be killed or just go back to limbo alone. But Carol decides to go with him to limbo to be with her son dad. She is gone from the Marvel Universe for an entire year from this and absolutely everybody hated this horrific milestone issue and Jim Shooter needs to be in jail forever.
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