Cognitive dissonance is balls.
So, look. I love Kelly Sue DeConnick’s writing. I love Carol Danvers. In general, I am a huge fan of everything that is going down in this book. BUT THE ART WAS SO DISTRACTING AND I HATED IT.
The first two issues were okay. Dexter Soy continued his run from the first volume. And while I’m not a fan of his art, either, at least he manages to draw people that look like actual people. Starting at issue #9, Filipe Andrade takes over, and while there’s a certain beauty to his art, it is not the vehicle I would like my Carol Danvers delivered in. His people all look like alien fetuses. They have stick legs that bulge weird. And aside from looking like an alien fetus, his Carol also looks like a moonfaced idiot, with those giant eyes and long flowing hair and legs up to her eyeballs. Carol is a badass, not a flowy ethereal damsel.
Like, look. This panel should be awesome. She’s LITERALLY off to punch dinosaurs in the face right now, but that lady in that panel has a triangle for a head and it looks like she’s about to drown in her own eyes and then be snapped in half by a passing breeze. You could land a jetliner on her lips.
So yeah, it was like a war in my head, and I found it almost impossible to get around how much I hated the art enough to enjoy the story.
Which was pretty great.
The first two issues feature Carol meeting up with former Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, to fight an enormous robot in the ocean. It’s mostly just action, and I have no prior attachment or knowledge of Monica Rambeau, so I’m probably not the best judge of those two issues.
Starting with the weird alien art in issue #9, the main storyline picks up. Something is affecting Captain Marvel’s powers, and she’s ordered by her doctor to stop flying at all costs, or it could kill her. But there are dinosaurs to punch, and weird bird people to defeat, some guy is skulking around conspiring against her, her cat needs to go the vet, and some asshole in her building is trying to evict her. The book ends in a cliffhanger, so I’m really hoping once I track down a copy of Avengers: The Enemy Within, this storyline will get picked up and finished, because I’ve read the next Captain Marvel after this, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her brain or her powers by then, and the skulking guy is nowhere to be seen.
Also, I’m sure he’s a lovely guy, and in different circumstances I might very well like to look at his artistic workings with my eyeballs, but I really hope Filipe Andrade never draws Captain Marvel again.
