SHE SLAY: "The Mighty Thor #5" by Aaron, Dauterman, and Wilson

They gonna get it on, cuz they don't get along!

A good friend of mine, one particularly interested in conspiracy theories, had a very specific idea about the purpose of Battleworld and Secret Wars last Spring before it dropped and scattered the greater Marvel universe. In short, he thought that it was a thinly-veiled opportunity for Marvel to sneak the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity into the books. It's not an unreasonable thing to believe; for many, the Captain America and Iron Man films redefined the characters for a new century (and in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, have raised them from obscurity into mainstream consciousness). As anyone who's been keeping up with the All-New, All-Different landscape can tell you, that isn't exactly true, unless the Tom Holland Spider-Man films will feature him filing TPS reports in Pyongyang.

A few series have leaned hard into the benefits of mainstream exposure, though. Daredevil sees Charles Soule working on his best Steven S. DeKnight impression, featuring ol' Hornhead fighting off supernatural ninjas in a mostly black costume, featuring only the shades of red that you would normally expect from the (definitive) Samnee costume. There's a fitfully amusing Hellcat (it works well if you're expecting a slow-food version of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) book on the shelves that barely capitalizes on Patsy popping up on Jessica Jones. And sadly, a young gentlesir could break his back carrying out all of the different comics featuring the word "Deadpool" on the cover. It's been a wise business move, considering that my LCS is literally across the street from the nicest movie theater in the state. Very few nerds could resist the temptation of seeing Deadpool on the big screen and then picking up a few books with his face on the cover. Unlike the House of M giving the X-Men universe at large the Legacy Virus treatment, they're capitalizing like Hell on the success of the Merc with a Mouth.

One can't help but fear, though, that the publishing side of things might be too influenced by the MCU. After all, the films need a certain amount of story fuel to keep being made, and (as teachers know), you can't pour from an empty container.

A great moment in an issue full of them.

Thank goodness that the barrels of mead in Asgard runneth over! The first arc of Jason Aaron's relaunched The Mighty Thor sees Jane Foster and company, for the most part, carrying on. Jane is still suffering from the cancer threatening to destroy her corporeal form, and she only deepens her problem by constantly transforming into the Goddess of Thunder. Jane Foster is, in the classic Peter Parker tradition, bound by her need to save the Nine Realms regardless of the threat to her body. It's every metaphor about superheroism made literal. Aaron's careful reintroduction of Jane Foster and, eventually the Odinson, shows the respect for pre-2015 Marvel that only the heaviest of heavyweight writers have gotten to exercise in the All-New, All-Different era.

The book around Foster, however, could easily be mistaken for the films. Heimdall, seen only through his helmet, bears a striking resemblance to Idris Elba, and the handsome, art-school dropout Loki practically wears a sign that says Hiddleston. The Rainbow Bridge, Frigga, and even the barren cliffs of Nifelheim look identical to their counterparts in the first two Thor films. It's striking (I personally love the visual language Kenneth Branagh and poor, poor Alan Taylor used in the Thunder God films) to see the comics match up so precisely to what has become common understanding of the setting and charactesr. It's to Russell Dauterman's credit that he's able to so closely replicate some of that visual language, while also striking out on his own. His action scenes, especially that depicting the titanic clash between Thor and Odin, are amazing in their use of minimalism in the face of realm-spanning fights.

Dauterman: Master of Scale.

The balance between the iconography of the films and the storytelling coming from Aaron's mind makes The Mighty Thor a delightfully exciting book to read month after month. Aaron has managed to take a joke of a character like Malekith and make him threatening again, while deeply humanizing the problems in Asgard. One can't help but read Odin's loss of self-control and his aggression against Thor as an allegory for dementia, and Thor's constant striving to save all of Asgard and Midgard, despite her failing body, remains one of the most compelling stories in Marvel lore. It truly feels, like the stories of fellow Avengers Sam Wilson and Miles Morales, like Jane Foster deserves to hold Mjolnir.

But I'm not sure for how long, exactly: my only misgiving about this fifth issue is the intimation at the end: the Odinson is closer than ever to picking up his hammer again. Of all the impending returns to the status quo, this one hurts the most: I'm still waiting at the phone for Bruce Banner to come back and Hulk it up, but I'm fine with Steve Rogers and the Odinson staying out of things for a while. I haven't been this fascinated by a Thor story in a long time, and I'm sure it wouldn't work without the power of Jane Foster's struggles underlying the story. Frost Giants, be on lookout for a hammer to the face.

BUY IT, WAIT FOR UNLIMITED, OR SKIP IT: Buy it!

Meme with a Mouth: Spider-Man/Deadpool #1 by Kelly, McGuinness, Morales & Keith

Like many fans, I suspect, who have returned to reading monthly superhero comics later on in their life, I went through a phase where I was convinced that this stuff, essentially modern myth (and on the Marvel side, bold and confrontational allegories for modern issues), was for children. My prime years of devouring Marvel books, sixth through tenth grade, went behind me when I started noticing swaying hips and my friends wanted to spend more time on video games than discussing Animal Man. 

The cover to Spider-Man/Deadpool #1.

Deadpool, as a character, is essentially born out of that impulse. Deadpool's characteristics, on the surface, are "kewl" enough to stop the heart of the most dedicated MLGito consumer. He's a ninja clad in red and black, wielding twin pistols and dual katana blades. He's a trained, cold-blooded killer with both. He's got a tragic backstory involving the Weapon X program and cancer. If you thought most of that was over the top, wait until Wade Wilson opens his mouth.

Deadpool is more than your typical snark-machine in a comic, doling out far more zingers and bon mots than Peter Parker and Johnny Storm combined. He frequently mocks whoever he's working alongside and whoever he's fighting. He's made gay jokes to ghosts of dead Presidents, and he's proven his 2016 bonafides by professing to be an open pansexual. The "Merc with a Mouth" breaks the fourth wall so much in any given comic (or film, or video game) that there basically isn't one. Reading one of his stories is akin to having Damon Lindelof over your shoulders as you watch The Leftovers telling you, "yeah, this shit is dumb." I suspect he's connected with, and helped the House of Ideas retain, many teenage boys specifically because reading Deadpool so often feels like being a teen in practice: you're cursing, you're fighting, you're trying hard to convince everyone that the world around you is fake while clawing desperately for substance, and you're talking about sex a lot while not having much of it. To read the adventures of Wade Wilson is to be actively encouraged to not care, but also urged to continue reading.

A character that abrasive and off-putting really only works if the one-liners come both fast and furiously. In certain runs, such as Brian Posehn's Marvel Now! run on Deadpool, the character and his interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D. veer so far into absurdity that you can't help but be charmed. In the 2013 video game, Deadpool went all Devil May Cry on villains while the game around him featured plenty of mixed genres and asides to the player. 3 days before release, Tim Miller's Deadpool features an 82% Fresh rating. All signs point to it working well as a low-stakes superhero farce from a studio that can't seem to do anything else right with Marvel properties (WHERE U @, JOSH TRANK). In other books, such as the abysmal 2015 miniseries Mrs. Deadpool & the Howling Commandos, and the relaunch low-point Uncanny Avengers, the character stands out as a dramatic dead end. The latter book, the undeniable sixth finger on Marvel's handful of Avengers-themed books at the moment, featured a debut issue with Spider-Man leaving the new team because of a rift with Deadpool. I wish Wade had taken the hint.

In the first issue of Spider-Man/Deadpool #1, the character doesn't work at all. For those unfamiliar, the ongoing dynamic with Spider-Man and Deadpool is that Spidey hates Deadpool, while Deadpool loves Spidey. Subtextually, this should work. There is no character more representative of "old Marvel" and the values associated with traditional superheroics than Spider-Man. There should be interesting friction between Mr. Responsibility and Mr. Dank Memes. However, everything between the two characters is entirely surface-level, Odd Couple stuff that doesn't quite fit. At this point, Peter Parker has teamed up with Squirrel Girl and Silk. Would he really be that annoyed by Deadpool?

Local men ruin everything.

It doesn't help that, in recent months, Spidey has been drained of everything that made him the perfect foil for Deadpool. In reframing Peter Parker as the Elon Musk of the Marvel Universe, he's not exactly the common man we're used to anymore. Why is he fighting Hydro-Man at the outset of this issue anyway? Deadpool dragging Spider-Man to Hell to face off with Dormammu confuses the adventures of both of these characters while also cheapening a villain that Marvel should be ramping up for the release of a certain film about the Sorcerer Supreme later this year.

The plot is serviceable, but because Deadpool pulls an already-struggling character into his vacuum of LOLZ, it ultimately services a tone-deficient machine. The art by Ed McGuinness is clear and crisp, but Dormammu is a little too abstract to be feared.

WHY WOULDN'T DORMAMMU JUST LEVITATE THEM?

Like the titular character's approach to joke-telling, Marvel is quickly putting out as many Deadpool books as they can print at this point, to gear up for his big screen resurgence. Unlike Deadpool's sexuality, however, I suggest you be a bit selective when it comes to books like Spider-Man/Deadpool.

BUY IT, WAIT FOR UNLIMITED, OR SKIP IT:  Skip it!