Stomping on a Box that I Thought was Empty 08 – Queen in Black #4 and Queen in Black: Defenders of Light and Dark #3

I’ve been pondering reading orders and the way that this event is playing out in real time. Most modern events eschew the old style crossover event where specific comics were given specific chapters/parts in the overall story, particularly if the event involves a core mini-series telling the story. If it’s just a straight up crossover between titles, you still get that linear experience. With events like Queen in Black, it’s nonlinear with most tie-ins orbiting the core series. My usual hierarchy is core series followed by tie-ins by the writer(s) of the core series followed by tie-ins featuring important characters in the core series followed by whatever is left. Queen in Black posses a weird challenge as 13 out of 17 comics making it up are written or co-written by Al Ewing, three star Eddie Brock and look to feed into the new status quo of Venom after this event, and that leaves a single tie-in that falls at the lowest rung – and it’s been referenced a bunch of times in other comics in the event. Queen in Black looks to be placing every comic on a somewhat equal plane but without the benefit of linear storytelling. It’s a strange sort of event and I’m struggling with that a little.

After three weeks of single tie-ins being released, the penultimate week of the event (with a week of nothingness in between) is actually fairly big. When discussing the third issue of Queen in Black, I lamented the way it seemed to drag and tread water; this pairing of issues felt like the opposite. While continuing to show the attack on Earth that, for whatever reason, I thought were mostly over after the second issue of the main series, events seem to speed up. One of the most important confrontations of the event – or, at least, what I think many of us assumed would be one of the most important confrontations of the event – is given precisely two panels in Queen in Black #4 and shown in its entirety in Defenders of Light and Dark #3. While the fight between Hela and Knull may be given some space in the finale of the event, reading these two comics together is a bit strange. There’s a sense of “They shunted that to a tie-in?” to the whole thing.

Queen in Black #4 largely focuses on Earth-bound events: fighting off Symbiote Firelord, fighting off other Symbiote invaders, and the expansion of Venom to take over those Symbiotes and, in fact, the entire world. Meanwhile, Defenders of Light and Dark #3 has the two groups of Defenders enact Plan B, which is kidnapping Knull and, through a series of teleportations/portals, take him to Hela’s ship and provoke a fight between the two. It’s actually kind of funny to see play out as it’s treated as a super dangerous, super serious series of tactics, all the while the team hoping to keep Knull contained and all I could think was “Doesn’t Knull want to fight Hela? They probably could have just told him that they were taking him there and he would have come along nicely.” It turns out, that was pretty much the case as Knull later reveals he played possum and let them take him to Hela. The fight between Knull and Hela seemingly goes Hela’s way until Knull bursts free from her (she ate him) and declares himself the King in All, ready to destroy the Earth, only to find that it’s now Venomworld. The plot finally progresses by pulling in various disparate threads and zooms ahead almost too quickly.

The Hela/Knull fight may be given space in Queen in Black #5, but that seems too late given that it all happened in a tie-in already. That may have not been the main conflict of the event, which was always meant to be the winner takes on Earth, the way it plays out shifts the perspective on the event. Despite the title, it’s not really a story about Hela. She barely factored into the event, appearing in tie-ins far more than the main series. Looking back, the main series seemed to be all about telling the story through the perspective of Earth and the heroes there. After that first issue that set up both Hela and Knull’s paths towards Earth (and one another), the main series rarely went off-planet for anything more than a quick cutaway. This odd focus kept throwing me as I tried to wrap my head around what the event is about exactly. The first issue made it seem like Hela was the big threat, but it was all her Symbiote army and never her. She showed up in the Thor tie-in one-shot in a fairly non-threatening way and battled a team of Defenders in Defenders of Light and Dark, but that’s about it. She was the MacGuffin threat, the one that we were meant to keep looking at and dreading, figuring that she would be the eventual ‘final boss’ for the heroes of Earth given the event is named after her... and, then, in two concurrent issues, her army is nullified and absorbed by Venom using Dylan Brock’s Chainbreaker ability, while she seemingly defeats Knull only to be absorbed by him (or her power is, at least).

I’m torn on this approach. To a certain extent, the surprise of Hela defeating Knull only to be killed by him pages later in a tie-in issue works on its own merits by catching you off guard. No one expected that entire resolution to happen in Defenders of Light and Dark #3, a title whose goal seemed to be to tell the story of the Defenders fighting the two powerhouses until that conflict returns to the main series and concludes there. And I suppose that is what happened; that the conflict shifts back to the main series after Knull has won goes further than expected. The surprise subverts expectations and that’s where I’m torn: is the surprise worth the subversion? And how much are expectations worthwhile?

Ideally, you want to dismiss expectations as the fault of the reader and place the blame for any failure there. After all, not delivering the work that they dreamt up in their head isn’t your fault. Nor is deviating from the usual structure of how events play out. That Queen in Black largely stays on Earth and focuses on that specific perspective isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s unexpected, sure – but is that the story that was implied by the first issue or the marketing for the event? Hell, the cover for Queen in Black #4 shows Hela and Knull in battle, her choking him, him impaling her... and there are two panels of their fight inside. It seems like, given the way that the story was progressing, if the final issue was always meant to be the winner of that fight comes after Earth, their fight should have taken up a large chunk of the fourth issue, not get pushed off to a tie-in book with the possibility of a brief replay in the final issue. Though surprising, the reaction that I had was a bit more of “Is that it?”

To a large extent, the fourth issue of Queen in Black is speedy to catch up to the ending of Venom #261 where the Symbiote began to expand and absorb everyone in Reed’s lab. This issue pushes past that and makes it clear that it’s not necessarily a bad thing – it may be the way to best defend Earth against Knull (or, from their perspective, Hela). It’s helpful, I guess, to stop and think about the sort of event this is: it’s a Symbiote event.

So, of course the focus is on Venom and the other Earth-bound Symbiotes. Of course the focus is on the invading Symbiote/alien army. Of course Knull would defeat Hela.

This was always a Venom event, not a Thor event.

My bad.

Next: the end.

“He’s a Doctor?” and Other Three-Word Heartbreaks on this Day of the Batman

[Originally published on Comics Should be Good in 2015.]

For whatever reason, seeing that it is “Batman Day” made me think of Brian Azzarello. Maybe it’s that, this year, he’s co-written (or will have work he’s co-written released) four different projects featuring Batman. He’s written a surprising amount of comics featuring Batman from Broken City to Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance to the Deathblow crossover to the Wednesday Comics story to First Wave to various shorts and guest appearances... I haven’t read every Azzarello Batman story (it’s pretty much a couple of shorts and that recent issue of Batman that he co-wrote that I didn’t know he co-wrote until the day after it came out), but I’ve read most of them and there are three that stand out to me today.

Azzarello has written numerous Batman comics that are straight up crime/superhero narratives. But, he’s also written a few that are downright cruel to the character, boiling him down to something almost pathetic, an emotionally and psychologically stunted child that we should pity rather than laud. I first noticed it in Broken City where Azzarello kept returning to that night when the Waynes were murdered, partly because a similar killing had happened, leaving another boy an orphan. In the final chapter of the story, Batman reflects on his parents and the day prior to their murder, of how precious his father’s time was, how rare it was for them to have a night together as a family, and of the final words Bruce spoke to his parents. To his credit, Azzarello never outright gives the three words that little Bruce screams in anger at his parents before running to his room in tears. But, it’s not hard to figure them out either. As an adult, Batman can’t even think the three words he said as a boy, that’s how much guilt and shame he carries around. But, Azzarello even goes a step further beyond that implication in Batman’s narration: “...SO HE WAS LEFT--ALONE-- / --WITH THE LAST WORDS HE SAID TO THEM. / MAYBE HE’LL SPEND HIS LIFE TRYING TO TAKE THOSE WORDS BACK... / ...OR MAYBE HE MEANT THEM.” It’s not that his final words to his parents were “I hate you,” it’s that he knows that, in that moment, he meant them. It’s the shame that he had those feelings that haunts him; even if he could take the words back, he could never take back the authenticity of his emotions in that moment of childish anger. And that he’s so haunted and driven by that shame is something that he recognises as sad, to a degree, going out of his way to try to help the orphaned boy in the story come to terms somehow with his parents’ deaths. There’s almost a moment of self-awareness where the character recognises that he shouldn’t be as fucked up over that as he is, that there was a failure to properly come to grips with his parents’ deaths and the final days he spent with them. There’s also the implication that he doesn’t fight crime to make sure no one loses loved ones like he did; he does it, so no one has to carry guilt like his. That’s an idea that deepens the character, makes him more sympathetic, and makes him more pitiable.

Knight of Vengeance is clever in how perfectly it inverts the Batman story, taking the orphan boy narrative and transforming it into a story about a couple whose child dies. Azzarello takes all of the internal emotions of that story and explodes them through the Batman mythos where the rage and pain at their child’s death pushes Thomas and Martha to extremes. They are both crazy and both walking embodiments of rage. Thomas takes his rage out on criminals, beginning with Joe Chill (who he opts to beat to death with his bare hands instead of giving him a drug overdose as planned); Martha takes her rage out on other parents by killing their kids. He hates the world that was responsible for his son’s death and seeks to eliminate that world completely; she hates everyone whose children didn’t get shot in an alley and seeks to bring them all down to her level, to know her rage and pain. I understand this story much better now than I did when it came out. But, the truly affecting part comes at the end where, Thomas (Batman) confronts Martha (the Joker) and poses the hypothetical raised by the Flash: the world they live in is wrong and there’s a chance to make it right. In the right world, their son lives and they die; does she think he should make that happen? She registers what he’s said and responds “PROMISE ME, THOMAS, YOU WILL.” The parents would, without hesitation, sacrifice their lives for that of their child. That is a key moment because of what comes next, where Martha asks about the Bruce of that world and Thomas says that “HE FOLLOWS IN HIS FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS.” She asks “HE’S A DOCTOR?” Thomas’s answer manages to drive a crazy woman made temporarily sane to such grief that she rushes to her death. She just made the decision to die so her son could live and learns that this second life she gives him is one spent as the Batman... and she reacts like he was shot again in Crime Alley.

In his Hellblazer run, Azzarello told a larger story that culminated in the final arc, “Ashes & Dust” where John Constantine finally gets revenge on the man who framed him for murder, S. W. Manor. Manor is a Bruce Wayne analogue that reads a bit like a big joke when you realise who he’s a stand-in for. Azzarello throws in lots of Batman references and it’s amusing (none more than the idea that Azzarello’s run culminates in Constantine/Batman slash fiction to a degree), but there’s also a moment of commentary on Batman that’s hard to ignore. Manor has spent much of his life trying to communicate with his dead parents and Constantine makes it happen. Manor tells a priest about the experience, hanging from his arms as Constantine whipped him to help create the state necessary to see and communicate with his parents. And it worked. “MY MOTHER AND FATHER. STANDING BEFORE THEIR ONLY SON. / GHOSTS. / I NEVER FELT SO ALIVE. / MY DEAR, SWEET MAN HAD GIVEN ME WHAT I WANTED MOST. / AND I WEPT. / AND HE LAUGHED. / LAUGHED AS THEY SPOKE. / IN WHISPERS OF CELLOPHANE AND TWINKLING ELECTRICITY, OF HOW THEY LOATHED THE MAN I’D BECOME. / HOW WRETCHED IT WAS TO SEE ME. / HOW WHAT AN UNFAIR WASTE OF LIFE I WAS. / HE LAUGHED. / AND HE WALKED AWAY, LEAVING ME THERE WITH MY PARENTS. / MY DEMONS.”

Looking back at the end of Broken City, that flash of self-awareness and his attempt to help the orphaned boy... does he know? That’s the true ambiguity that intrigues me. Azzarello presents a clear interpretation of Batman that is kind of amazing that DC published and what I love is not just that idea that Bruce’s parents would absolutely give their lives for his and that they would quite possibly hate what he’s done with it, but that, on some level, he knows it.

Happy Batman Day.

Stomping on a Box that I Thought was Empty 07 – Black Cat #14

It wouldn’t be an event without a proper tie-in. In that, Black Cat #14 is something of a unicorn in Queen in Black. The sole issue of an ongoing series that doesn’t have to be a part of the event. In the 17 issues that make up Queen in Black, 13 are (co-)written by Al Ewing, three are the Venom Unchained mini that seeks to bridge Charles Soule’s Carnage and Venom runs, and, then, there’s Black Cat #14, an issue of an ongoing series given over to this event. The only other ongoing series that ties into it is Venom, which is both written by Al Ewing and obviously a key book in this big Symbiotes invading Earth event. While Black Cat is related to Venom/Symbiotes via Spider-Man, you’ll note that there are no titles bearing his name in the lineup. Black Cat #14 being part of this event is nothing that seems like it should happen and, in fact, in the first version of Queen in Black’s checklist of titles, it wasn’t present. I imagine the motivation is some mixture of it seeming like a fun thing to do and efforts to get some more eyeballs on the book, a particular cocktail that Ewing has been known to indulge in himself.

(I was going to say that this also bears the distinction of the only comic in the event not edited by Jordan White, but the Hela and Thor one-shots were overseen by Will Moss, Ewing’s editor on Thor, if that gives a clue as to which side of things those issues fall.)

As a tie-in, I’ll admit that I was expecting more, particularly since this is an issue that’s been referenced no fewer than three times in the event thus far. As someone who rather likes Josemaria Casanovas’s painted cover, I’ll admit that I was a little let down that nothing approximating it occurs in the issue. We do get Felicia Hardy in a similar-ish spacesuit and on a mission to help strike a blow to Hela’s Symbiote army, but at no point does she actually come face to face with any Symbiotes. Instead, it’s your basic ‘get Black Cat to steal something’ issue, which makes sense – in this case, one of the seeds that grow into a Supreme Intelligence to help stop the Symbiote Intelligence. It is probably the most inessential issue in a rather tightly-orchestrated event, approximating one of those three-to-five page bits in the core series where some random heroes take out a unique Symbiote/alien combination, except expanded to a full issue.

That feeling that this issue was entirely skippable is normally a common one in big superhero events, except it’s a half-dozen to dozen issues like that. Here, it stands out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that G. Willow Wilson and Gleb Melnikov produced a poor comic by any means; I’m not entirely convinced that it’s the sort of comic that I’m particularly interested in, but I like to think I’ve developed enough sense to recognise the difference between ‘good and not for me’ and ‘bad,’ and this isn’t bad (even if it’s framed with my most hated cliché of “I bet you’re wondering how I got here” before a flashback explains how the character got there). It happens to be a comic that’s set up to look worse because of its unique position as the only inessential tie-in issue. Unless the Symbiote Intelligence being reverted to your regular Supreme Intelligence is a key element in the rest of the event, this is an issue that was referenced numerous times and had a plot that skirts around the edges of the event.

Which, normally, is fine. That’s what tie-in issues of mostly unrelated ongoing series are meant to be. Honest efforts by the creative team to find a hook that allows their book to tell a story that doesn’t seem like a complete departure from what the series is normally but also factors into the larger event enough to feel like it’s part of the bigger picture. That’s precisely what Black Cat #14 does and does fairly well. It’s light, it’s entertaining, there’s character and charm, and it addresses one of the threats introduced earlier in Queen in Black – and, like I said, unless something comes of this issue, if you skipped it, you wouldn’t really miss anything. I imagine when Queen in Black is finished, we won’t be wondering what happened to every specific Symbiote we saw. There will probably be some general explanation of the defeat of Hela and her army that will cover all of that. So, Black Cat #14 looks fairly skippable.

Except it’s the only tie-in of its kind in a really small, contained event. If there were even two or three other comics like it, it wouldn’t seem so strange. As it is, it stands out as something of an anomaly. From a structural standpoint, it doesn’t fit and that bothers me. I’m struggling to think of an event like this that has one single issue that doesn’t fit in the same way. And I’m completely overthinking it, because the logic behind this issue is that series are usually free to jump in on the event fun and it just happened that this was the only one to do so outside of Al Ewing’s little bubble of titles. It’s a bit fitting because you can almost see Felicia finding herself in a situation where she’s out there, all by herself, and should be self-conscious but walks proudly. In that way, this issue is entirely appropriate in the larger Queen in Black event.

Next week, it’s back to the core series with issue four of Queen in Black and the third (and final) issue of Defenders of Light and Dark.

Stomping on a Box that I Thought was Empty 06 – Venom #261

“What’s Queen in Black about?” was the question I began dancing around last week and this week’s installment points in a possible direction. Actually, when I stop and ponder Venom #261, Al Ewing does a pretty clever trick to obscure the eventual point of the issue that I can’t help but admire. Now, of course, I may be completely afield, absolutely out to lunch, and just altogether wrong in my assessment of what this issue means... But when has that stopped me before?

Carlos Gómez’s Venom #261 cover sets the tone: Reed Richards as the evil villain who traps the heroic Venom and tortures her/them with fire. A looming monster of flowing tendrils and a gapping maw... both familiar and not. It’s an evocative image that, for whatever reason, I associate with the Symbiote Intelligence trapping Dylan Brock, a sort of visual echo of Queen in Black #2’s cover except not exactly. It’s funny how near rhymes and allusions like that work. I look back at that cover or any of the images of Dylan trapped and they don’t really match up with the cover to this issue, yet the association remains. It seems particularly evil because it’s not Peter Parker in the Symbiote costume, seemingly at the mercy of an alien lifeform he wasn’t fully aware was there; nor is it even the Eddie Brock Venom with its own gaping maw, oozing tongue extended, sharp teeth bared; no, it’s heroic Mary Jane Watson molecularly merged with the Venom Symbiote seemingly screaming in pain, saved from Reed’s inferno only by the encasement that holds her captive.

That exact scene doesn’t appear in the issue. The case that Venom is trapped in on the cover is meant to mimic the initial case that Reed used to trap the Symbiote after forcing it off Peter; in the issue, it’s more your standard glass tube that Mary Jane finds herself in as Reed works to find a way to separate her from the Symbiote without killing them both. It evokes memories of tortures past for the Symbiote, who narrates the issue. It’s your typical ‘see events you thought you knew from the other side’ stories complete with recriminations and apologies all around from Reed and Peter both. Much of the issue is spent casting the Venom Symbiote in as sympathetic light as possible, both from its perspective and from the admitted guilt of those who wronged it without intending to do so. And therein lies the key to the issue.

The first five pages of the issue tell the story of Venom from its perspective. Of “before language” when “all I had was a host.” It’s five pages of briefly summarising the Symbiote’s relationship with Peter Parker, including the efforts to continue his crime fighting while he slept by piloting his body, before jumping to Reed’s efforts to separate the two. It’s all very sympathetically told, justified by a bit of “I’m just a smol boi” language to present the Symbiote of devoted yet somehow powerless in its relationship with Peter. Throughout the issue, different people apologise to the Symbiote for making assumptions or acting without its consent. Again, words meant to seemingly cast the supposed heroes in a somewhat negative light – but also pointing towards growth and enlightenment. Their past misdeeds aren’t erased and the memories of them help to guide future actions to avoid making the same mistakes.

But, not for Venom.

In all of the apologies, none come from Venom to Peter. Instead, Venom talks about Peter breaking its heart, never acknowledging that the Symbiote was the first to breach the idea of consent. It sought to bond with Peter without his knowledge or consent and shows seemingly no remorse. By the end of the issue, the idea that it can feel remorse is doubtful as it spreads from Mary Jane to Dylan and Peter, ever growing – the final page a giant sea of Venom’s face looming over Reed Richards, the Symbiote narrating “DON’T PANIC, DR. RICHARDS. / BUT IF YOU WANT TO... / ... YOU CAN PRAY.” The Symbiote does not feel remorse for its violation of Peter Parker because that’s its nature.

In all of the commotion of things with Hela, Knull, an army of invading Symbiotes bonded with dozens of alien races from across the galaxy... well, the common denominator of Symbiotes got lost. As did the idea that the supposed key to defeating the threats to the Earth is a group of Symbiote-bonded heroes. Are any of the baddies actually evil? Or are they following their natures, doing what’s in their own best interests? I’m quickly rambling down a rabbit hole of moral relativity, I’m aware, and I thought I had a point I was approaching, but... There’s the inescapable fact about the nature of the Symbiotes, that their very existence over the long term seemingly lies in bonding with another creature, willing or unwilling. To a certain extent, they will always be threats to Earth. From what I’ve gleaned about the larger story of Ewing’s Venom run, there’s been a lot of teases or possible futures with Eddie Brock King in Black as dictator and oppressor. With Symbiotes very much as the enemy – something that goes back as early as they’ve been part of Spider-Man comics. There’s a bit of ‘the enemy of my enemy..’ even though the enemies here are the ruler of the Symbiote race and their creator...

I don’t know... this event could easily turn into painting the Symbiotes as eternal enemies, I guess. It seems doubtful that that’s actually where Ewing is taking things. The solicitation for Venom #262, the conclusion of his run, teases ‘Venomworld’ with seemingly the entire planet bonded with Venom to face the winner of Hela/Knull... So, Venom’s terrifying expansion here will actually be a boon. A big ol’ win for Earth against its brethren... Part of me is a little disappointed because it was refreshing for the final two pages of this issue to reveal the real Venom. That same being that once forced itself onto an unaware Peter Parker and now plays the victim because everyone is sympathetic in their own story.

Next week: Black Cat #14.