Is Queen in Black good?
Nothing like a big relative question, eh? Obviously the idea of ‘good’ is quite subjective. I suppose that a more accurate question would be something like “Am I enjoying Queen in Black?” I’ll admit that I’ve struggled a bit at times. I’m not particularly keen on the Symbiote concept as it’s currently presented and, obviously, this event is steeped in it. I’ve mostly tried to set that inherent distaste aside because it doesn’t seem entirely fair to write about this event with the attitude that I’ll hate it no matter what. I’ve tried to view this as a chance to use my interest in the Thor/Asgardian stuff as a gateway into maybe finding something interesting or appealing about the Symbiotes. That this looks to be Ewing’s end on the Symbiotes makes that a bit of an odd time to try to work my way in; it just happens to be a big event that rubs up against the Asgardian part of Marvel – and that’s in addition to my general interest in event books.
That said, I found this week a bit of a struggle. Queen in Black #3 is the typical example of a midpoint event issue in that it feels like it’s both spinning its wheels and struggling to move from the setup of the event to the endgame. Things happen in the issue – and, more than that, they’re necessary things – and, yet, it doesn’t really feel like much is happening. This is the point where the event kind of turns from pushing outward and begins to draw everything to a singular point. One sign of this is that there are four different editor boxes referencing three tie-in issues/series. Events are all about expansion and contraction. They start with the first issue of the core series and, then, explode outward with tie-ins and, eventually, in the latter third or quarter of the event, begin to become much more linear in nature. Often the event presents a premise that’s easy to explore from numerous angles and, then, there’s a turning point where that’s no longer possible to such a large extent and there’s a need to focus. Queen in Black #3 is an issue kind of caught in the midst of that large expansive melange of the event. It’s somewhat of a drag albeit a necessary one.
The division of art duties between Iban Coello and Paco Medina indicate the problem with the issue to a certain degree. Like the second issue when Medina joined the art team, his pages are largely ‘flavour’ ones. In the second issue, for instance, he drew the battle between Wolverine and a Symbiote/alien that hurts others by causing them to experience alternate reality versions of themselves, warping the very nature of their existence around them in a subjective manner. It was largely a light/fluffy scene that’s meant to give a brief look at the fight against Hela’s invading forces around the world. In this issue, Medina draws a similar scene with Captain Marvel and Emma Frost leading the charge against some power Skrull Symbiotes that involves recruiting a trio of heroes that can grow to giant sizes. The tone is light and played somewhat for laughs while showing another example of the invasion around the world. You could pull it right out of this issue and toss it into a one-shot called something like Queen in Black: Symbiote Invasion and it would feel completely at home. It’s both important to communicate the scale of what’s happening and somewhat disposable. While reading it, I was a little put off, thinking that we were actually past this part of the story (at least in the main book) given how much we’d already seen the invasion in the first two issues – it seemed a bit like we should be moving onto Hela and Knull by this point and that hasn’t happened.
Coello, on the other hand, continues to draw the New York Symbiote heroes part of the story, which was all about freeing Dylan Brock from the Symbiote Intelligence – without revealing to Hela the knowledge of the Symbiote Codex and how to be a Chainbreaker (someone that can make any Symbiote follow their lead, basically, I think). It’s a lot of MacGuffin bullshit, honestly. It does bring Eddie Brock back into the story with a Symbiote (cat) named Sleeper. Once freed, the story is about moving Dylan from the streets to the Baxter Building. It’s quite literally taking a central character from one stage of the story (Hela’s invading Symbiotes) to another (efforts to attack/stop Hela and Knull directly). While done via character-based interaction, it comes off a bit tedious and perfunctory from a plot perspective. This is where we run into the problem of how events read as they come out and how this will read in the eventual collection. Now, it’s a low energy point; latter, it will be some good character-based scenes that move things along.
It’s not helped by Defenders of Light and Dark #2 largely being the same sort of wheels spinning issue where necessary-to-the-story things happen, yet it largely comes off as a stall to a certain degree. At the end of the first issue, Knull stabbed Cloak with a giant sword of concentrated light energy, which has not only endangered his life but Dagger’s as well due to their connection. Basically, the light energy is displacing the dark energy in Cloak into Dagger. They’re being poisoned/killed by the source of one another’s power. It’s a neat little idea where, from a certain perspective, they’re killing each other and their connection to one another – their relationship is the poison that will doom them both. Instead, with an audience before the In-Betweener, they show that it’s their relationship and connection that will save them as they’re both left more powerful than before, almost supercharged or forced to power up thanks to Knull’s seemingly fatal blow.
While all of that happens, we’re shown the efforts of the members of each group of Defenders to keep the two alive with flashbacks to Cable recruiting them interspersed. None of the recruitment scenes are particularly informative or essential, which only adds to the sense that they’re padding the issue out. What’s largely a Cloak and Dagger-focused issue makes the laudable effort to add in more character work and stakes for the other Defenders, and it all falls flat.
Part of the problem is that we know that the defeat of Hela and Knull will not happen in Defenders of Light and Dark, which means it has to be about the members of the team’s personal struggles a bit more to make the whole thing seem worthwhile. But, when the concept of the book is two groups of heroes with light- and darkness-based powers attack Hela and Knull, trying to infuse extra meaning is a bit of a fool’s errand. Giving Cloak and Dagger a larger struggle that relies on their relationship with one another to overcome is the smart strategy and largely works; everything surrounding it comes off as unnecessary.
There’s an almost unavoidable drag around the midpoint of events where you can see that the turn is happening and you just want things to begin to rush towards that inevitable conclusion. Queen in Black is in an odd spot of trying to get there but still being stuck on some cool ideas or giving all of the characters something to do. Part of that problem stems from the main series being regular-sized issues. With only 20 pages, Queen in Black #3 doesn’t have the space to give meaningless diversions without sacrificing space for the plot-that-actually-matters. The way that Al Ewing is telling this story reminds me a bit of Jim Starlin’s plots for Infinity War and Infinity Crusade where there was a core cast of characters whose actions actually drove the story forward, while the bulk of the heroes dealt with side quests that were entertaining but inconsequential. Except, Starlin was dealing with extra-sized issues that accommodated that approach.
“Am I enjoying Queen in Black?” Up until this week, I was. It had energy and forward momentum. The main series was clearly pushing forward with the tie-ins providing necessary extra character work and plots that all fed into the main series. This week, things stalled out to a certain degree and the forward momentum seems lost somewhat – and that seems like a problem with a release schedule of three successive weeks of a single tie-in comic coming up before we get the fourth issue of Queen in Black. If events need energy, this may be a long month of feeling stuck in place, unfortunately.
Next week, it’s just Queen in Black: Venom Unchained #2.
