The Neurospicy Bean

  This is another one I have honestly no feelings about. I found it chaotic and confusing to actually read, and the color palette made the images a bit difficult to follow. There was also very little characterization at all; all the story really did was follow the big cumulative battle against Knull. Admittedly, that’s probably partially because the prior comics did a lot of the character legwork, and I was just missing out on that. But regardless, I still sort of felt like the emotional core of this one was missing, and it was sort of a slog to get through. I found what I read of King in Black: Wiccan and Hulkling much more compelling.

       This book was so irritating on so many levels. I’m genuinely shocked that this was released (in its collected form) in 2021. First of all, there was nothing terribly compelling about the story in the first place. Second, I didn’t like the art at all. Someone please explain to me why Asgardian women are tall, skinny, and hypersexualized while the men have lumpy cubes with faces for heads? I didn’t find it at all appealing to look at, and while that could certainly be forgiven or even appreciated if it interacted with the story appropriately, but it didn’t. It was just there. But by far my biggest problem with the book is the way it dealt with Loki having a female form (note: I’m going to refer to Loki with he/him pronouns in this review due to him expressing continued identification with maleness, something I’ll discuss in a moment). I can’t really explain my problems with this without getting into spoilers, so: you’ve been warned, spoilers ahead.    ...

  I love the Runaways characters, and I particularly love how they’re conceptualized in this revamp. This volume does an awesome job covering how the characters are handling their respective traumas and emotions, how their lives have changed, and how they’re trying to cope. It brings the characters together in a way that feels natural and lays groundwork for future stories, not sacrificing characterization for flashy plot moments. That being said, it does mean that not a ton happens in this volume, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of the characters and the story as it progresses. Overall just a fun story that’s a bit different from a lot of the Marvel comics out there.

       So alas, I just could not get into this book. It might be because I read it over a really extended period of time – but part of the reason for that is because I just wasn’t compelled to pick it up. It was fine, there wasn’t anything actively wrong with it really, but there was also nothing special.      So basically it’s about Olive, a nurse who’s terrified of flying, and Stella, an airline pilot. On Olive’s first flight ever she ends up saving the life of a man who works at Disney World and goes viral. She ends up getting a ride from Stella to Disney World so that she can run their half marathon like she promised her brother, but then Stella disappears from her life – or so she thinks. Later, Stella turns up to ask Olive to be her fake girlfriend so that she can get the attention she needs to finally get the promotion she’s been working for. And then all of the classic fake relationship drama ensues. A couple of things were generally missing th...

  The premise of this is really really cool. Basically in an effort to stop an Eternal war (or genocide depending on how you slice it) against mutants, members of the Avengers work with people from both groups to create a new celestial god that will stop the Eternals. Only it fails spectacularly, and the new celestial decides its job is to judge humanity collectively, and if it finds the majority of people lacking it will destroy the world. Because of course. So then this group has to defeat the god they created. It’s very flashy, very dramatic, everything you’d expect from a comic hero event like this one. My favorite element was a series of panels throughout the book following a selection of random people from around the globe. Every segment or so we’d get an update on what was happening to these people, from their response to the war against mutants to their reaction to the impending apocalypse, and so on. Just generally really fun and a compelling read, if a bit hard to follow ...

       This is part of a really cool project that Marvel has been doing the last couple of years where they compile work by creators of a certain identity about characters of that identity – in this case, queer characters. It includes original segments, selections from comics dating back decades (including Northstar coming out as the first openly gay Marvel hero in 1992), and essays by queer Marvel creators. As anthologies tend to be it was a bit hit or miss for me, probably partially depending on the amount of context I had for each character. Interestingly, the two I found most compelling were the two pre-2000 segments included.      One is the Alpha Flight one mentioned above, in which Northstar comes out. It’s intensely emotional and in my opinion, shockingly compassionate for early gay representation. It deals with Northstar adopting a baby girl born with AIDS and then being confronted by a man who blames the media obsession with this so-called ‘i...

  I recently brought my girlfriend of over three years to a Renaissance park my aunt and uncle had invited me to. She’s great with kids (they have four and I’m half convinced the reason they invite me anywhere is to babysit), is only visiting for the summer, and had said she wanted to go to the park. Plus, you know, I like introducing the people I love to one another. So I thought, what’s the harm in bringing her along? Well, when I texted my uncle a heads up that we were running late but were on our way, he told me to have fun with my ‘friend’ and maybe we’d run into one another. I told him that although yes, my girlfriend was coming along because she wanted to check it out, I had planned on spending time with them all evening, and sent an additional text when we arrived. I received no response. We did end up running into them twice. Both encounters were painfully awkward and left my girlfriend and I with the impression that they didn’t really want to spend time with us. Now, ...