Face front, True Believers! It is time for this week’s rousing Marvel Rundown. Let me tell you we have a doozy this week as Ms. Marvel gets flung back in time with Giant-Size X-men #1. What does the future hold if the past isn’t guaranteed? Meanwhile in the Rapid Rundown, we check in ol’ Matt Murdock in Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #2, visit the reborn Ultimate Universe with Ultimate Spider-Man #17, and take a peak at everyone’s favorite symbiote with Venom: Original Sin #1. Fasten those seatbelts, readers! As the Marvel Rundown begins now!
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Giant-Size X-men #1
Writer: Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly
Artist: Adam Kubert
Color Artist: Laura Martin
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert and Laura Martin
It’s the 50th anniversary of Giant-Size X-Men #1 and to celebrate Marvel has launched a series of One-shots featuring Ms. Marvel going through to key moments in X-Men history. This week Marvel kicks off the celebration with Giant-Size X-men #1 (2025).
Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s Giant-Size X-men is a good faith send up to the original (unlike Deadly Genesis) but it isn’t perfect. The plot itself is fine, if a little by the numbers. The main antagonist turns out to be a David-less Legion, while a bit different, it has still been done before. Look, if I had a nickel every time Legion has messed with the timeline, I would have at least three nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s still weird I have three of them. Ultimately, the purpose of the comic is what I have issues with it. I am talking not just purpose publishing wise, but what does this do to advance Kamala Khan both creatively and in-universe. The plot has her getting sent back in time by Legion, somehow, and now she is trying to get back home. To be honest, her motivations aren’t really clear, and she is just going through the motions of time-travel shenanigans.
The issue feels aimless, much like Marvel’s direction for Ms. Marvel. In the past few years, Kamala has been removed from her developed supporting cast and now in this issue she doesn’t even have the NYX folks. She doesn’t have much to surround her and provide support and help define her beyond Ms. Marvel.
Let’s be clear, I do appreciate what Lanzing and Kelly are doing in this issue with Ms. Marvel. They are emphasizing Kamala’s tenuous relationship with her mutant-side. It does feel like this series of Giant-size one-shots will affirm her status with mutants, but that is me projecting and that’s not fair to the comic as it is written. That said, I am finding myself looking for a purpose for this storyline beyond celebrating 50 years of one comic and the fact they don’t have an ongoing title for Ms. Marvel.
This book is further challenged by the inherent difficulty of referencing classic stories that you are going to remind the audience of those classics and in the process make your work feel inferior. I do think Lanzing and Kelly do make the best of it by throwing continuity nods around while moving the story forward, albeit slowly.
However, because so much time is spent on these nods and playing out the events of the original Giant-Sized X-Men #1, not much actual plot development happens. Yes, we are resolving the original plot but not much time is given to why Legion has gone evil. I understand that it is still too early to tell, and that can become clear in future stories. I find myself not wanting to read to learn more about what happened but instead burden by the chore of the mystery. It feels like an after thought on this idea because this “Ms. Marvel through the ages” story needed a framing device.
The art by Adam Kubert is great stuff, as always. While he isn’t Cockrum, Kubert is an X-Men Legend for a good reason. The figure work is great, and the expressions are dynamic and pop. Character body language is evocative of the bronze age melodrama that Wein and Cockrum used. Honestly my problem with art comes from the overuse of vertical spreads. I know I praised their use in Godzilla vs X-Men a while back, the novelty is worn out here. I know Kubert has used the vertical double page spread a lot in his career. Just read an X-men book in the 90’s from him. They can make use of the near infinite canvas that is the comics medium. Yet, it just doesn’t work practically when it is done three times. It actively makes the comic hard to follow. There are multiple conversations on the page I had to re-read a couple times. On top of that, following up with a vertical spread with a horizontal spread just left me rotating my iPad in circles. It disrupts the immersion and pacing of the comic.
The backup by Al Ewing, Sara Pichelli, and Fedrico Blee is an interesting journey to Italy as Xavier fails to recruit a mutant. It gave me Deadly Genesis flashbacks, which is mixed to say the least. This backup isn’t bad though. The art is fantastic, as one would expect. I think the mutant it introduces is interesting if not overpowered, but I am curious to see what comes of her.
Final Verdict: PASS
Rapid Rundown
- Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #2
- The final page of issue 1 of Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell saw a fist pumping visual. An elderly Matt Murdock was back in his old costume swinging high above Hell’s Kitchen, his super human sense returned. Issue 2 gives that moment of triumph a twist. This is a temporary condition and those super sense? They’re already fading. Given that there have been countless riffs on superheroes returning for one last fight, the story Charles Soule and Steve McNiven create here feels fresh for imposing that deadline on the hero. So many of these kinds of stories tackle aging but a hero in a process of decline as he tries to be heroic? That creates stakes for a hero on top of an already aged body. It should be reiterated that this is some of the best work of McNiven’s career. His portrayal of Matt Murdock’s physicality is all limbs in motion but he stands with the guilt of his lifetime on his shoulders. More so than last issue, he visually quotes Elektra’s Lives Again from Daredevil’s fight against thugs to the entrance of yes, Elektra. The way he captures movement is impressive but it’s how he depicts the sensory experience of Matt Murdock brings a unique approach here. So many artists have copied Wally Wood and Frank Miller’s visual language for Daredevil’s supersenses over the last sixty years. McNiven, with Dean White’s colors, instead comes up with his own ideas and uses the unique properties of the comics medium to represent how he sees the world especially with his fading senses. This also allows letterer Clayton Clowes to have some fun with typography. White takes over from McNiven on colors this issue. He doesn’t mimic the acrylic colors of Lynn Varley on Elektra Lives Again, but the yellow, green, and red color palette brings to life a world that seems trapped in a toxic winter. This comic is truly a collaborative effort. Each issue seems like each artist wanting to push what they can do on each page. Again, it’s been an age since superhero comics looked this expressive.- D. Morris.
- Ultimate Spider-Man #17
- Ultimate Spider-Man #17 by Jonathan Hickman, with art by David Messina and colors by Matthew Wilson, continues the surprise of Harry being alive and Gwen being part of the mysterious and malevolent Mysterio cult. As far as issues go, this is just a setup for future content. Not to say it’s boring, but it lacks something to make this issue stand out or feel like it was worth reading immediately rather than waiting for the next month’s release to grab them both at the same time. Harry and Gwen are great characters and can hold an issue’s focus, but fans of the Parker family dynamic will also miss them, as the issue focuses heavily on the Osborn and Gwen pairing. The characterization of Gwen and Harry is interesting, especially Gwen, whose reveal of Mysterio remains an exciting aspect of her character. She nails Mysterio’s powers in her fight scene, even if it’s against a bunch of faceless goons. She feels like a competent character, and I’m excited to see if the series will ever knock her from her pedestal or challenge her allegiance to Mysterio. Harry returns to his classic dad-drama, which is always fun to engage with, but the best part comes from a disagreement between Gwen and Harry on dealing with a situation that allows some needed conflict between the two. Besides these interesting characterizations, nothing of much interest happens in the issue that isn’t building up for a future one. And while David Messina’s art is fantastic as usual, the panels lack creativity and feel like there was a lot of copying and pasting involved, probably because most of the issue consists of two characters talking to each other. Hopefully, next week’s issue will bring more action to the run and make this setup worth it.- LM
- Venom Original Sin #1
- I can’t say what possessed me to read a Venom story, I have not kept up with the Venom series over the last few months but I thought a one-shot reprint of an app-first Infinity Comic would be an easy on-ramp back into the Venomverse. Before I get to reactions, I want to be clear I like a lot of the offbeat, under the radar work Steve Orlando has been doing at Marvel —his Scarlet Witch was my pick for best Marvel comic of 2024. Venom Original Sin, though? It is barely coherent. Orlando invents new backstory and throws readers into the deep end of the strange cosmic time and space shenanigans of Eddie Brock, and never takes a moment to orient readers about why this moment, that Eddie is so desperate to change, means so much to him. The death of a few innocent bystanders is brought up here for the first time but we are meant to take on faith it is a defining moment in Brock’s life. It doesn’t work at all. Then there’s the nature of this being a collection of a digital vertical scroll weekly release. The book stops to recap everything that you’ve just read every few pages. Artists change every few pages. Matt Horak and Scott Koblish are fine enough standard superhero comic art but the transition between them is jarring. This is 56 pages, which could almost justify its $7 price tag if it did any of the basics of storytelling right. But nothing here is compelling and the disjointed reading experience makes the thin story feel barren. I can’t imagine paying that cover price and opening the comic to read this strange book.- TR
That’s it this week’s Marvel Rundown. Join us next week for a round-table of Jonathan Hickman’s cosmic epic Imperial.
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