#this is the first issue after Ed Brubaker's long run writing Bucky ended

[daydreamerdrew]

Winter Soldier (2012) #15

[daydreamerdrew]

Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

Winter Soldier (2012) #15-19

These issues were published across February 2013 to June 2013, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Jason Latour and drawn by Nic Klein.

I was a bit wary going into these issues. I didn’t have high expectations after the end of Ed Brubaker’s long run writing Bucky, both because Brubaker practically reinvented the character and I really got invested in Bucky through his particular portrayal of him and because I didn’t actually fully enjoy how Brubaker’s run ended off. But these issues written by Jason Latour required multiple readthroughs for me to understand the story and characterizations and I was motivated to go through that whole process because I was really compelled.

Captain America and Black Widow (2012) #636-640

These issues were published across September 2012 to December 2012, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Francesco Francavilla.

I really enjoyed these issues even though the execution of the concept didn’t quite work for me exactly. The villain of the story is the many versions of Kashmir Vennema, who make of a multidimensional criminal organization of just Kashmir Vennemas that steal weapons, which are oftentimes people, to sell to other people in other dimensions. In issue #637 Steve and Natasha bust a sale taking place on their world and, upon realizing that the merchandise was people, Natasha goes to free them right away, but Steve stops her, saying, “We don’t know what… who… we’re dealing with. For all we know, they could try to kill us.” Natasha tells him that he doesn’t understand, that, “You don’t know what it’s like… having everything that makes you who you are strip-mined so you can be… a good little slave.” I wasn’t quite convinced of this characterization. I wasn’t convinced that Natasha would be so incautious as to want to just set brainwashed versions of people like Wolverine and Bruce Banner free or of the positioning of Steve as improperly sympathetic to their plight.

Then in issue #638 there’s an argument between Natasha and another version of herself that’s been hunting and killing Kashmir Vennemas. Our Natasha says, “You remind me of someone who didn’t think for herself. A puppet. A marionette dancing at the pull of a string.” And the alternate Natasha says, “Nonsense. The Cold War is over… for both of us. Only… one of us grew fat and lazy during peacetime… and the other stayed sharp.” It does turn out in the end that the person this other Natasha was working for, a version of Kashmir Vennema that was supposedly against all of the others but really just wanted to be the Kashmir Vennema on top, was playing the alternate Natasha. However, that’s not revealed until the very end of this story, so at that time of that first argument I felt that that criticism of the alternate Natasha was unsubstantiated and was more based on personality than anything else.

Then in issue #640 the alternate Natasha kills a bunch of Kashmir Vennemas, which our Natasha was against. The alternate Natasha says, “I only did what you would have done in the same situation. I finished this,” and, “These women were murderers and slave traders. They used people… People like me. Like you!” And our Natasha says, “I understand you’ve been mistreated. Enslaved. But you’re still letting yourself be used. Either by your own rage. Or by some other puppet master.” At this point neither Natasha knows that the resistance Kashmir Vennema has self-serving motives, so this criticism again feels unsubstantiated. Particularly considering that in the end, after being told that the alternate Natasha is imprisoned and will stay imprisoned for a long time, our Natasha says, “She said those women… the inner council… deserved to die for what they did. And… I try to convince myself that I’m nothing like that woman… That my background has made me a different person… A better person… But I agreed with her. I’m glad they’re dead.” So it wasn’t even truly a disagreement about tactics in the end and I feel sorry for the alternate Natasha that she got imprisoned. Even though by killing Kashmir Vennemas she was leaving a power vacuum for the resistance Kashmir Vennema to take over, I’m not convinced that the alternative Natasha was necessarily going down the wrong path as the narrative is trying to frame it, because killing the Kashmir Vennemas completely aligns with her own goals and morals, it’s just that there’s one more Kashmir Vennema that she didn’t realize she needs to kill.

Also, the way that the various Kashmir Vennemas are portrayed is that in personality they were all just a little bit different and the first time they appear there’s additional narration to the scene which explains their upbringing, which were all completely unique. Conceptually and in execution this worked really well for me, and I also like this being paired with the conflict between the two Natashas about how their comparable, possibly identical, upbringings shaped them, even though their lives diverged into something completely different at a certain point.

Captain America and the First Thirteen (2011) #1

This issue was published in March 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. It was written by Kathryn Immonen and drawn by Ramón Pérez.

I read this issue because I was genuinely interested in Steve and Peggy Carter’s wartime romance, but unfortunately the portrayal of how they interacted with each other wasn’t very interesting. Sharon Carter said, about their relationship in Captain America (2005) #25, “And briefly, they had fallen in love… the only way you can when there are bombs falling all around… with wild abandon.” I was surprised to learn just how brief that relationship was. Peggy never even knew Steve’s name or his face before he got frozen. In the beginning of the story she says, “In my heart I know there could be no disguising his bravery, his courage, his intelligence. And one of these days, we will meet without the mask, quite by accident, probably. And we will know each other face-to-face. And then there will be no disguising ourselves or our feelings.” But at the end of the story she says, “And then it was over. And I never saw him again. Not that I know of,” while Peggy is shown passing Steve as a regular serviceman, while herself in disguise as part of her work in the French resistance, and not recognizing him. And before that there’s a scene where Peggy asks Steve if he remembers their first meeting and he says it was “a beautiful sunny day,” referring to the first meeting of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, and she corrects him and says, “It was pouring rain and you know it,” referring to her later meeting of Captain America. I also thought it was unfortunate that Bucky happens to be elsewhere during this story because it would have been nice to see his dynamic with Peggy.

What was of the most interest to me in this issue is how casually Steve interacted with another female spy, a friend of Peggy’s named Anna, regarding her tactics. She’s introduced when Steve gets distracted by the sight of her while talking to Peggy. Anna then applies her lipstick while looking at herself in the reflection on Steve’s shield and Steve jokingly asks, “So… Is that the famous knockout lipstick me and the boys have heard so much about?” Anna says that it could be and offers him a demonstration, which makes Steve a little bit flustered, and then he turns to Peggy and asks what she thinks. Peggy says to go ahead, Steve and Anna lean in to kiss, and then Steve learns that the “knockout lipstick” is really just a knife or a gun pressed against the stomach while the soldier is distracted. Later, Steve and Anna are chatting and Anna takes something out of her bag and Steve teases her by asking if it’s water-activated poison, a radio transmitter, or a garrote holder. Anna admits that it is a garrote holder, but that it’s primarily just rouge, while Steve grins. I would have thought that Steve would be less smooth around women and in particular that in the 1940s he’d be less comfortable around seduction-based female spies.

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (2014) #1-5

These issues were published across February 2014 to July 2014, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Rick Remember and drawn by Roland Boschi.

The first issue of this miniseries, which takes place in 1966, did not give me high expectations for the rest of it. It seemed like a generic spy story with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Ran Shen as the protagonist and the Winter Soldier as the mysterious villain. What brings everyone together is that various competing agencies have given their operatives the same orders, to capture two Nazi scientists, a couple, so that they can work for their agency or, if that proves impossible, to kill them so that they can’t work for someone else. In this first issue Shen treats the mission somewhat flippantly, making bets with Nick Fury about who’s strategy is better and splitting up. The first hint of something interesting was in issue #2 when Bucky is shocked with electricity by Shen and subsequently has a flashback of Captain America telling him to never shoot someone that’s running away, which messes him up in his pursuit of Shen. Meanwhile, Shen is becoming enamored with Mila Hitzig, one of the scientists, who isn’t the Nazi her husband is and is more of a dedicated communist that went down the wrong path, which didn’t really impress me. And then in issue #3, after experiencing yet another electricity attack, Bucky has a flashback of Steve telling him that they don’t kill foes that are already defeated and can’t fight back, which prevents him from killing Shen in a vulnerable moment.

Then Bucky has to fight Lord Drain, a vampire-like Hydra operative with the ability to drain people of their will to live and convince them to kill themself. There’s some really great lines during this fight. Lord Drain says, “Oh to see what they did to you. It would break your poor captain’s heart,” and then makes Bucky see a hallucination of Steve, who shames him for what happened to him, saying, “My partner, what have you let them do to you? A bloodthirsty pawn of the Soviets, a faded memory who was better off dead- You shouldn’t be here, sullying your legacy,” and then tells Bucky to “set things right” by killing himself. And in issue #4 Lord Drain says, “I’m telling you what your heart knows is true- he’d want you dead! Captain America would want this distortion ended,” and, “If only to preserve his legacy- kill yourself!” But Bucky recognizes that this isn’t true and the memories of all of the lessons that Steve taught him coming back to him gives him the strength to resist Lord Drain. Later Bucky saves Mila and Shen from Lord Drain and has a parallel moment to Steve having told him, “No matter what- we always stand up,” when he tells Shen to stand up after Shen has lost his will to live because of Lord Drain.

In issue #5 Bucky, Mila, and Shen are all united. I was by this point still not compelled by Mila and Shen’s relationship. However, the ending of this series landed incredibly well. Bucky tells Shen that he was a brainwashed American soldier, but not specifically that he’s Bucky, Captain America’s long-thought-dead partner. They end up working out a deal where Bucky will come in after he gets revenge on the people who brainwashed him, which Shen is apprehensive about because he feels that if Bucky gets recaptured and rebrainwashed then everything he does for the Soviets from then on out will be his fault. Mila doesn’t want to go to the Soviets or to S.H.I.E.L.D. so Shen agrees to get her away from everyone and then they’ll be together, but the only way to get her out alive is to have Bucky take her away in the Soviet’s helicopter while pretending to still be working for them while Shen keeps the Soviet soldiers on the ground occupied. There’s a moment where Shen is injured and dying, and, while he’s sad that he won’t get to live the life he wanted to with Mila, he’s watching the helicopter fly away satisfied that he traded his life for hers. And then, tragically, Nick Fury shows up and saves Shen and, following their original orders to capture or kill the scientists, he shoots down the helicopter while Shen is still too injured to stop him. Despite not caring for this character prior to this, the close-up on Shen’s horrified eyes as he helplessly watches this got to me. This action from Nick Fury kills Mila and dooms Bucky to being recaptured and rebrainwashed. Later, Shen is told that he performed admirably on the mission, and is given a new assignment that requires him to act as though he hates the U.S. and is a committed communist, which he accepts with an angry look in his eyes as it is now actually true. Meanwhile, Bucky is being rebrainwashed in a way as to ensure that the way his programming was broken in this story won’t happen again.

Timely Publications:

the Jimmy Jupiter stories in Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #36-39

In this batch of Jimmy Jupiter stories I went from October 1942 to January 1943, according to the issue cover dates. All were signed as by Eddie Robbins, and according to his Who’s Who page he was only the artist for these stories. All of the stories were 7 pages.

The stories in issues #36-37 break the traditional Jimmy Jupiter mold as in neither of these does Jimmy end the story believing that his adventure was real, as he does with all his prior adventures. In the story in issue #36 Jimmy is sent to go to the dentist by his mother, but he gets scared in the waiting room and tries to run away and knocks himself out in the process. He initially believes that he just gets up from the fall down the stairs, and is then chased by the maniacal dentist, who is assisted by his mother at the end of the dream. Jimmy’s mother “administers the anasthesia,” which means hitting him on the head with a hammer, and the dentist pulls out Jimmy’s tooth, and then that scene dissolves into the real world as Jimmy wakes up at the bottom of the stairs. When Jimmy is told what happened, he says, “Gee whiz!… I suppose I’ll have to go back up and get that tooth out now!” But then he learns that the fall down the stairs knocked out the offending tooth and he’s in the clear. I liked the ending narration to this story, which reads: “The only thing that’ll keep Jimmy away from more sweets is sugar rationing!”

And in the story in issue #37 Jimmy is told to spend Halloween night at the cemetery to learn whether or not he can see ghosts. He does and he falls asleep, though he doesn’t realize that initially, and meets ghosts in his dream that turn out to be harmless. After his adventure Jimmy sits back down under the tree that he did at the beginning, and then he’s woken up and asked if he met any ghosts. Jimmy says, “I don’t know! Maybe I was just dreaming after all! But, anyway- even if I wasn’t- I sure will never be afraid of ghosts again!” This is also, unfortunately, the first Jimmy Jupiter story to contain racist caricatures.

The adventure that’s begun in the story in issue #38 is more like the traditional Jimmy Jupiter story. At the beginning Jimmy is once again sitting under a tree when he’s approached by a fairy to come with her to the land of fairies. Along the way they’re attacked by an evil wizard, who imprisons Jimmy in a cell with an animate marionette doll named Knobby. This reminded me of the Jimmy Jupiter story in issue #29, which began with Jimmy lying in a field and being whisked off by a bee, and then had him get captured by witches and imprisoned with a talking rabbit. In that story Jimmy defeats the witches by stabbing one with a hatpin, causing her to deflate and the other two to run away in fear. In this story Jimmy and Knobby are able to run away while the evil wizard is having a coughing fit, which was caused by Jimmy kicking salt into his face, but Jimmy feels bad leaving him like that so he goes back splashes water on his face to help him, which actually causes the wizard to shrink and lose his magic powers.

In the story in issue #39 Jimmy and Knobby are still trying to get to the palace of the king of fairies, which is where Jimmy was supposed to be going in the first place. Along the way they have to cross a steep river and, in a play on “The Scorpion and the Frog” fairy tale, they are offered a ride by a crocodile, who tries to eat them when they are halfway across. Jimmy defeats the crocodile by telling him to eat them in pieces and then feeding him Knobby’s leg at an angle where the crocodile can’t close his mouth, forcing the crocodile to take them to the other side of the river so that Jimmy will remove the wooden leg so that the crocodile won’t starve to death.

Then Jimmy and Knobby are interrupted in their traveling by three witches, who are a play on the Graeae from Greek mythology, three sisters who had to share one eye and one tooth between them. The witches all have terrible eyesight and only one pair of glasses, and they use their magic to freeze Jimmy and Knobby in place and intend to hold them for ransom to the king to get more glasses, but Jimmy is able to snatch the glasses out of one of their hands in the moment of trading, leaving all of them blind. Jimmy tells them they undo the spell that’s keeping him and Knobby frozen and they say they can’t without the glasses, which makes Jimmy realize that the magic is in the glasses themselves and he uses them to free himself and Knobby. In the end Jimmy keeps the glasses, but he tells the witches that once he reaches the king he’ll have him send them three pairs of glasses with no evil power.

DC Comics:

Superman (2023) #1-7 and Annual #1

These issues were published across February 2023 to October 2023. All were written by Joshua Williamson. Issues #1-3 and #5 were drawn by Jamal Campbell, while issue #4 was drawn by Jamal Campbell and Nick Dragotta. Issue #6 was drawn by Glen Melnikov. The Annual was 40 pages and was drawn by Mahmud Asrar, Edwin Galmon, Caitlin Yarsky, Max Raynor, and Jack Herbert. And issue #7 was a 40-page anniversary special and was drawn by Gleb Melnikov, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, and Edwin Galmon.

I enjoyed these issues well enough. I’m not really a Superman fan, and I’ve got nothing against how Superman or Lex Luthor were characterized in these issues, I just personally wasn’t particularly compelled by their portrayals either. I read these issues because of the surprise appearance of Lena Luthor, specifically the version that’s Lex Luthor’s daughter, in issue #7. I got invested in this character back in 2021. She appeared in the later half of the 90s and the very beginning of the 2000s, and then Lex Luthor’s backstory was changed so that rather than having a foster sibling named Lena that he fell in love with and that died and that he named his daughter after, he had a biological sister named Lena who was still alive, and before this series “Lena Luthor II” hadn’t been seen since. I haven’t read the comics with Lena Luthor, Lex’s sister, from the 2000s yet and what I have read with her from the 2010s didn’t appeal to me.

In the 90s Lena was a baby that other characters talked at, but I was able to get invested in her through the fact that what she brought out in Lex was so interesting to me. Then in the early 2000s, after having been traded to Brainiac 13 by her father, she reappeared as Brainiac 13’s right hand and was in a conflict with her father that I found interesting. In Superman #7 she’s a teenager with scars from Brainiac circles having been removed from her forehead, showing that some version of events of her having been taken by a Brainiac still occurred in this new modern continuity. She’s introduced when Lex’s mother comes to visit Lex at the hospital and Lena waits in the hall, which Leticia Luthor refers to as her being a “typical overdramatic teenager.” Lex complains, “I told you she could never come back here. It’s too dangerous. No one can know about her…” And then Lena says, “Thanks, Dad. You really know how to make a girl feel welcome.” She’s looking down at her phone, and is also wearing ripped-up jeans and a t-shirt for the band The Black Canaries. Apparently, this version of Lena had been half raised by/half imprisoned with her grandmother on a private island up until Lex gave his company to Superman when he was sent to prison.

During the 90s Lex had Lena’s mother, the Contessa Erica Alexandra Del Portenza, placed in a medically-induced coma as soon as Lena was born so that he wouldn’t have to compete with her for Lena’s love. The Contessa herself was an interesting character, a mostly immortal being who ultimately decided to allow Lex to keep Lena with the intention of just waiting him out, planning on destroying Lex’s company after Lena inherited it and then coming into her daughter’s life as her savior after Lex died, not foreseeing him trading their daughter away to an alien. Lex was obsessed with his baby and repeatedly stated how important it was to him that his child not suffer as he did in his early life and that everything he did was for her future benefit, which made it all the more shocking when he lost everything except Lena and then traded her to get back on top in Action Comics (1938) #763. In that interaction Brainiac 13 told Lex, “I will make you a god… in exchange for this bit of meat.” In Lena’s later appearances that dismissal of humans is present in Lena referring to herself as becoming something superior to humans or that she’s trying to overcome her human heritage, but she ultimately betrays Brainiac 13 for her father and says, in Action Comics (1938) #782, “You’d be s-surprised what meat is capable of… when the heart is involved.”

I am concerned that Lena’s portrayal in the upcoming issues of Superman (2023) will just be as a generic angsty teenager. I hope that the specifics of her previous portrayal that I listed here- her father’s obsession with her and then betrayal of her and the idea of humans being just meat, which she overcame- influences the writing. I don’t expect the Contessa to be a character in this story, but I hope that it’s not revealed that this version of Lena has another mother. Also, at the end of Superman #7 Brainiac is shown to be creating a woman and he says, “For centuries I have destroyed and hoarded. But soon… I will have the power to create life.” I hope that wherever this is going is directly connected to Lena.

the Dr. Fate stories in More Fun Comics (1935) #62-69

In this batch of Dr. Fate stories I went from December 1940 to July 1941, according to the issue cover dates. All were written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Howard Sherman. The stories in issues #62-67 were 6 pages and the stories in issues #68-69 were 10 pages.

In the story in issue #64 Inza is placed under the spell of “the sleep of evil dreams.” The villain tells Dr. Fate, “I control you- because if you fight me- Inza dies!” Dr. Fate’s response is, “Then die she must- to save the world!” The villain is surprised by this and get scared and tries to surrender, but Dr. Fate refuses him because, “You shall always be evil- and so you must die!” After defeating the villain, Dr. Fate is able to wake Inza up. Apparently, because the villain had been imprisoned for thousands of years, his magic had weakened, which Dr. Fate knew all along.

In the story in issue #66 Inza attempts to contact Dr. Fate to ask him to help a friend of hers, but nothing happens, which makes her say, “It’s no use! I can’t summon him! Perhaps my mind isn’t attuned to his yet-” But then Inza is attacked, and she cries out to Dr. Fate for help, and that he hears from his tower in Salem and says, “I seem to hear Inza calling me from a great distance! She is in danger!” The standard opening to the Dr. Fate stories up to this point has been Inza being attacked by something weird and Dr. Fate hearing her cry for help from his tower.

At the end of the story in issue #66 Inza remarks, “Young love! I wish-” to which Dr. Fate responds, “You wish you knew someone besides and eerie old sorcerer like me, eh? Well take a look,” and removes his helmet in her presence for the first time, which is also the first time the readers have seen his face. Inza is shocked, and the unmasked Dr. Fate tells her, “It’s a long story, how I became what I am. Someday I’ll tell it to you! Meanwhile, I’m a human with remarkable powers!” The reveal of Dr. Fate’s origin story ends up being the beginning of the story in issue #67, and then that story depicts Inza and Kent Nelson spending time together casually for the first time before the start of the adventure that requires him to take on the role of Dr. Fate. Following this, the Dr. Fate stories begin with Inza and Kent Nelson already being together when the weird thing that requires Dr. Fate happens.

Since Dr. Fate’s powers and background hadn’t been explained yet before the story in issue #67, the narration was doing the heavy lifting of explaining the character. For example, in the story in issue #65 another character says, “Wonder who he really is? And where he gets that awful power from?” The next panel is just narration and reads, “An answer to the officer’s query- Doctor Fate is a man possessing the knowledge of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and those races that dwelt before our written history begins- Atlantis the lost- Mu the sunken- magic and the lost arts, the secrets of nature and the universe are his! He uses them to combat secret evils abroad in the world!”

Also, I believe that the story in issue #68 is the first time Dr. Fate was been shown to be able to hypnotize people.

Fawcett Comics:

the Captain Marvel stories in Whiz Comics (1940) #81 and Captain Marvel Adventures (1941) #68 and The Marvel Family (1945) #7

In this batch of 7 stories I read through the Captain Marvel appearances in December 1946, according to the issue cover dates. These stories ranged from 7 to 11 pages.

The story “Captain Marvel and the Ghostly Ghostwriter” (written by Bill Woolfolk; possibly drawn by Pete Constanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #68 has Billy assigned to take over Station Whiz’s popular “Ghost Tales” program because the previous writer was hired by another station and “Billy’s programs are always popular!” But Billy, coming from a news background, struggles to write the ghost stories. Captain Marvel investigates various supposed haunted houses in order to find inspiration for Billy, but they all turn out to be phonies. In the end Station Whiz is able to rehire the old writer, who turns out to actually be a real ghost, which is why his ghost stories were all so great.

The story “Captain Marvel and the Missing Red Suit” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Constanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #68 had a similar premise to the story “Captain Marvel’s Most Embarrassing Moment” (writer unknown; drawn by C.C. Beck) in Whiz Comics #50. In that story Captain Marvel’s suit is stolen while he was skinny-dipping and Billy Batson, unable to get clothes in an adult man’s size, has to run around trying to get it back while only transforming when there’s something available for Captain Marvel to cover himself with. For example, jumping into a bush before transforming. In this story Billy has to get Captain Marvel’s suit dry-cleaned after a crook throws a bottle of ink at him, but the dry-cleaning place accidentally sends him someone else’s masquerade costume instead. Captain Marvel has to wear the costume because he has nothing else to wear, and meanwhile the man who was supposed to get the masquerade costume and got the Captain Marvel suit instead looks remarkably like Captain Marvel and is able to impersonate him. Nobody takes Captain Marvel seriously when he’s in the silly costume.

The story “The Marvel Family Reaches Eternity” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Constanza) in The Marvel Family #7 featured the first appearance of the Three Faces of Evil. In this story they escape from the Rock of Eternity and each of the three main Marvels is needed to recapture them. Later, in “The Captain Marvel of 7,000 B.C.” (written by E. Nelson Bridwell; penciled by Don Newton; inked by Dave Hunt) in World’s Finest Comics (1941) #262, which was published by DC Comics in 1980, it is revealed that the Wizard Shazam created the Rock of Eternity to imprison the Three Faces of Evil back when he was the champion Vlarem. This was maintained in the Post-Crisis continuity as this same backstory of the creation of the Rock of Eternity was portrayed in a flashback in The Power of Shazam! (1995) #10 (written by Jerry Ordway; penciled by Peter Krause; inked by Mike Manley), which was published by DC Comics in 1995, though the event occurs differently.