Captain Marvel #2

[blackruzsa]

Where the art is nicer than you think and I'm getting WW2 flashbacks.

Kidding, kidding, but those Japanese soldier outfits were pretty much the scary monsters of the time.





The good news is, the faces are actually really good. It just gets scary when they get super intense. Like, really scary. And some of the coloring fails make her look like a monster. Otherwise, it's really good.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who likes her current costume? I mean the old one was iconic but this one really is interesting to me. Although the sash is still unusual, it's a nice, functioning, well-designed costume.
 

Comments

[abriel]

I like the costume. I wasn't too crazy about it at first but I think that was mostly because I had to get used to it. It's grown on me. It's just the hair I"m not crazy about.

I know she just has it slicked back to make it easier for the the mask to pop up but it really does look like she has a mullet. And why does she bother with a mask anymore anyway? Carol's identity has been public for years.

[blackruzsa]

I think it's just easier in general to fight with hair slicked back, and not getting in her face. Her new look is pretty much as practical as her old one was not. I like the hair, but sometimes it gets weird when the colorists forgets to make the sides of her head blond, and she ends up with that weird mohawk mullet combo Daken has.

[abriel]

You're saying butt floss isn't a practical outfit for fighting evil, particulary in battles where you might roll around/get thrown on the ground a lot risking chaffing and roadburn?



Shocker!

The hair isn't too bad I guess just as you say it's inconsistent. I suppose a lot of that is the artist's fault. But I suppose it's about as close to short as they're willing to get.

[darkknightjrk]

"You're saying butt floss isn't a practical outfit for fighting evil, particulary in battles where you might roll around/get thrown on the ground a lot risking chaffing and roadburn?"

Personally, I never have problems with thong costumes for THAT reason with characters like Carol, because their power-sets involve some degree of invulnerability. I have that problem more when it's street-level heroes with no powers at all (see Huntress, The).

In cases like her, I just don't prefer it because it's tacky. The current ongoing/costume shows perfectly that you don't need to have her wearing a g-string to properly show off her toned posterior.

[darkknightjrk]

"And why does she bother with a mask anymore anyway?"

From what we saw in the first issue, I assume that it's more of a rebreather or extra protection when she's in space or something like that.

[victory_or_death]

I mean, come on, she's not the goddamn Batman after all.

[darkknightjrk]

She could totally top him in an airplane race, though.

[sianmink]

ever try keeping your eyes open without eye protection when going over 60mph? You're gonna have a bad time.

[filthysize]

I absolutely love her new look. The redesign was what interested me in the first place. Severely underwhelmed by the first issue, though, and this preview doesn't look any better. Sigh. Too bad.

[blackruzsa]

Same. It seems interesting, but not "buy me" interesting ):

[kaileighblue]

I like the costume but I still can't figure out what's going on with her hair. Are they trying to bring back the mullet? Faux hawk? Long? short?

[blackruzsa]

It looks like my hair when I brush it back completely and it's still half-wet, so it takes on unusual forms.

It actually looks like normal hair when slicked back, but I have NO IDEA how it's staying that way. Like some kind of invisible force is making it act like half a ponytail.

[auggie18]

It seems to change a lot. I liked the design they first released, which just had short hair, but then they added that odd tail thing and it just feels perpetually stuck between a bunch of different styles.

[darkknightjrk]

"The good news is, the faces are actually really good. It just gets scary when they get super intense. Like, really scary."

Kelly Sue actually talked about this in Decompressed, a podcast that writer Kieron Gillen started up. She said this was one of the first projects where the two didn't exactly have the same visual language and had to work it out as they went--hence why the funny/lighter dialogue during the Absorbing Man fight turned into something more metal and dangerous in the art. I actually really like the art, but hopefully they got it a little more figured out that things are only intense when it needs to be.

"Meanwhile, am I the only one who likes her current costume?"

I'm kind-of under the impression that people who DON'T like the new costume is in the minority. The only thing people don't seem to like is the hair, which I honestly do--makes her stand out among the other super-heroines.

[mrstatham]

I don't mind the hair or the costume - I just think they both look far better when done by a different artist; Again, maybe this is something that will be worked out as Deconnick and her artist work together, I don't know. But at least it's visually unique in comparison to some Marvel books out there.

[blackruzsa]

Indeed. A lot of superheroines and the way their blond hair is drawn makes them look like the same person out of costume.

Her hair is unique and it works for the costume.

[darkknightjrk]

Besides, don't the Kree usually have a fin on the top of their head/helmets like that?

[randyripoff]

I think her costume is pretty good. The art isn't doing it for me at all though.

[blackruzsa]

Shame. I guess I'm just used to the style.

[espanolbot]

Insigna's wrong on the Imperial Japanese soldier's outfits, IF they are meant to be from the 1940s or so, I mean.

Weird that they seem to be turning up so often in comics lately, what with their occupation of China being a plotpoint in Garth Ennis' Shadow series, them being the ones experimenting with the paranormal for once in American Vampire, the DeathBuddhist robots in the Manhatten Projects etc. etc.

Are Imperial Japanese soldiers becoming the new Nazis in fiction?

[blackruzsa]

They were just as bad as the nazis in WW2 sans the camps, they just didn't get as much coverage.
We study a lot about Japanese occupations, it was pretty brutal.

[blackruzsa]

Which is a pretty damn shitty thing to do, considering what went on then.

One of the most memorable stories I heard from grandparents and written accounts were of Japanese soldiers throwing infants into the air and catching them with the sharp end of their bayonets.
Horror stories, but painfully true.
And the hundreds of old women who were comfort women during the war.
I still get tears thinking about them.

[espanolbot]

Oh, the bayonet thing wasn't the HALF of it. :(

[blackruzsa]

Not even, yeah ): Water torture was popular, but it was tame compared to a lot of stuff.

Local Asian films and literary works usually show a lot more of it than any American/Western portrayals. It's high time it got brought out. I mean, it's not a secret, but it's treated like it is.

[espanolbot]

I think that they were going to be make a movie about the attack on Nanking, but I don't think that it's been able to get funding thus far.

[blackruzsa]

There's a film I liked called Aishite Imasu 1941 but it focuses less on the Japanese and more on war traitors and mountain guerillas during the occupation. It was still pretty brutal though, and it was general consensus that the Japanese army was a monster made up of monsters who killed, plundered and raped for kicks (not the Japanese soldiers individually, but the army pretty much turned individuals into mindless, bloodthirsty things).

Nanking was the most graphic (I mean, it had to be bad for the good guy to be a Nazi--I'm kidding, but it's a fact that a Nazi provided sanctuary to Chinese innocents) and while I can't even think about it, it should be brought to light all the same.

[blackruzsa]

And I know I'm just going on and on about this, but I haven't had anyone outside of classes in high school to talk to this about anyways.

It's pretty close to my heart. My grandpa was in the Bataan death march, another Japanese atrocity where men were made to march miles and miles to prisoner camps, shot if they stopped and shot if they tried to escape. Had to drink rain and muddy, infected water, had to eat off the land if they could. He escaped midway when there was this whole ordeal with the Japanese soldiers shooting off and hid until he could find a relative and get home.

He was one of the lucky ones.

[espanolbot]

What went on wasn't really covered as much as the Nazi atrocities over here for some reason. According to one thing that I read, that have been a deliberate move by the British and Americans, as they didn't want a resurgance in Japanese Nationalism later on if they hammered them with reparations, fearing a repeat of what happened with Germany after WW1, as they needed it as a buffer against the USSR in the Pacific.

[blackruzsa]

Uh, yeah, reply above^

[valtyr]

The costume's definitely growing on me, but I still think it's a little too busy. Maybe if it didn't have the gold stripes, or if the yoke was the same dark blue/black as the rest. Her other costume was very sleek.

I'll be interested to compare the two issues, as artist and writer adjust to each other.

[blackruzsa]

You're right, the old costume was very sleek, which is why I liked it. I like this one better, but that's just me, and as for busy, I think it has to do with the buttons on the gloves and the sash. The sash bothers me but I think it's iconic (or something) and the buttons makes me think the costume is reminiscent of army formal wear.

[michael_ellis_day]

The costume would work better for me if they simplified some of the details and got rid of extraneous stripes and buttons etc. Ideally, I'd be happiest if her costume was what her original Ms. Marvel costume ought to have been, but wasn't: basically identical to Mar-vell's red and blue costume, without the silly bare legs, exposed midriff, and scarf. The current costume is the closest we've come to that. If they took it further in that direction it could be iconic; as it is, the effect is muddled by too much fussiness.

[icon_uk]

I'd be happiest if her costume was what her original Ms. Marvel costume ought to have been, but wasn't: basically identical to Mar-vell's red and blue costume, without the silly bare legs, exposed midriff, and scarf.

You mean, basically, the outfit worn by the Kree scientist Dr Minerva?

[michael_ellis_day]

Exactly that! But notice how much better it looks with contrasting skin and hair color than it does with blue skin and blue-black hair, which make the color palette too unbalanced. Also, Minerva had the scarf, which seems unnecessary. Imagine Carol with that outfit sans mask, plus a low-maintenance short hairstyle instead of something that looks like it requires constant trips to the stylist. Have the cowl that pops up for spaceflight be dark blue. Maybe add gold wristbands (could be Kree, could be Stark tech) and that outfit would be simpler yet more striking than the current one.

[terrykun]

I love the new costume, but nrrgh, that hair. Avenging Spider-Man gets the best of both worlds. (:

[blackruzsa]

Yes! The art there is pretty and her short hair looks stylish and gorgeous.

[terrykun]

And the author is totes shipping her and Pete. :D