Skip to main content

WEEK 13: SUPERHEROES RECONSIDERED

Image result for magnificent ms marvel"
For this week I read a bunch of “The Magnificent Ms. Marvel” series from Marvel. Overall, it was a pretty fun and quick read (I could only find 9 issues). Typically, I don’t go for this category, meaning I don’t really read or watch a lot of superhero comics/ films. I know that it is one of the biggest fandoms out there and with the current trends of DC and Marvel, I can’t see that fandom dying down anytime soon. I believe that it doesn’t really appeal to my taste because it feels very formulaic and repetitive in terms of story and character archetypes. I definitely appreciate the creativity of the designs and super powers, but after a while I find myself feeling kind of immune to the same situations and storylines. I did find Ms. Marvel to be interesting though, and I loved the specificity to the culture. Kamala could just say mom and dad, but calling them “abu and ammi” made her feel more genuine. I also enjoyed reading the little light-hearted moments, like the “flirting” between Kamala and Cheb Hura. I thought it was a nice change throughout the comic, that way it wasn’t too “heroic” or serious the whole time. That being said, however, I didn’t quite understand some of the time jumps in certain issues. It felt really sudden and it took me a few pages in to get what was going on. Especially with Bruno, it felt like we (the reader) hadn’t seen him in a few issues and then they kissed almost out of nowhere. To be fair, I haven’t read previous series of Ms. Marvel so there is a lot of her story that I am not aware of. But things like this feel more like a structural issue rather than missing contextual details in my opinion.

My favorite aspect of the comic was the art by far. Her design and the style of the comic were super appealing to me. The extreme foreshortening and straight edges mixed with curved lines made the characters stand out as I was reading, especially with Ms. Marvel whenever she stretched her limbs. A lot of the panels were nicely laid out to compliment the poses, having a wide variety in sizing so the reader wouldn’t get bored too quickly.
I guess I could say that though I had fun reading this series, I wouldn’t see myself following up with it or becoming a big fan. The artwork is probably the biggest reason why I would consider reading more in the future, not so much with the story. I still believe that Ms. Marvel is a pretty successful modern superhero comic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WEEK 2: UNDERSTANDING COMICS

This week I read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and it was quite an eye-opening experience. At first I thought the book would be more of a history lesson, going through famous comics through the years almost like a textbook. However, McCloud provided something much more insightful than that. He was able to explain the structure, iconography, style, pipeline, and so much more all in approximately 200 pages. I really enjoyed the structure of the book as well—teaching about the world of comics in the form of a comic. This visual approach really helped to carry his points across the page in a simple, fun way. The pacing of his lecture was well-written too, being informative but also captivating. I learned a lot of new terms and ideas from McCloud, but I really enjoyed reading about the different transitions used in comics. It is interesting to note that the vast majority of Western comics primarily use 3 out of 6 transitions (action, subject, and scene), with act...
Post a Comment
Read more

WEEK 5: GRAPHIC NOVELS

This week I had the pleasure of reading Will Eisner’s Contract with God and Craig Thompson’s Blankets . Both in the form of graphic novels, they tell very different stories in very different formats. Interestingly, they had some similar reoccurring themes. I’m going to be completely honest and say that although Eisner’s graphic novel was an interesting read, it had nothing on Blankets in my opinion. The first story in Contract with God was different because it was almost like a children’s book format, with word bubbles being replaced with third-person narrative on every page. The later three stories were more traditional comics, but the stories were not as compelling and personal as Blankets . The third person narrative definitely makes it harder to connect to Eisner’s work, whereas Blankets comes straight from the voice of the author. I think that the style of storytelling also varied drastically between the two. In Blankets , Thompson really knew how to captivate a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

WEEK 15: WIDE WORLD OF COMICS (REVISED FROM WEEK 9)

For my last blogpost, I decided to revise my week 9 blogpost where I discussed “Pyongyang.” After reading through it again, I thought that I didn’t give as much personal insight into it compared to my other blogposts. So, here we go again: “Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea” by Guy Delisle was the retelling of his experience living in North Korea for two months. Rather than being a journal or diary, the narrative style felt like a really long, traditional comic strip. The storytelling had similarities to “Maus” because of the non-fictional content. However, it was not as captivating and visually impactful as “Maus.” To be honest, I think I was expecting something more from this comic. I wanted to feel enlightened and moved, and walk away from this comic with a new perspective on this country. It was partially my fault for having these high expectations, but overall I did find this comic to be an interesting read. I probably wouldn’t remember it after a while, but I...
Post a Comment
Read more