AXE Judgment Day
Over the last couple of days i started reading Kieron Gillen's work with The Eternals1. Finished the main series, which is continued in Avengers / X-Men / Eternals: Judgment Day2, which as you can guess, was a big event a few years ago, and of which i have so far read 1/3rd; i'm reading the Omnibus, which includes all the adjacent series.
Gillen is a writer that either hits me point blank in the heart, nuts and soul with one smooth punch, or misses me completely. Interestingly, it's mostly the works he's known and liked for that i don't like, and even his latest creator owned thing, The Power Fantasy, lost me after a while due to his archetypes becoming too strong -- i still read it, and found the cliffhanger of issue 15 intriguing.
His work on Eternals started shortly before the movie was released, and he adds to their mythology in interesting ways, which do stretch the limits of continuity and how the Marvel Universe is even able to operate, which doesn't matter because Comics, but it seems, Marvel didn't let him go the whole way. Sadly.
Judgment has the same troubles. It takes a while until the judging happens, and Gillen seems to have a good time with the small vignettes that set up the process and the verdict, and as we know now -- and was clear as well back when it was first released --, it didn't have any consequences. I guess my big problem with superhero comics from Marvel at the time is, that they still held on to publish illusions of change, instead of facilitating it. At least during and for a time after Secret Wars it seemed like we have front row seats to something completely new. Do mainstream comics still sell enough titles to justify this behavior? Or do they sell enough to keep the ecosystem/symbiosis of readers-comicshops-publishers alive? I didn't include the creatives and editors and assistants due to most of them seemingly getting the shit end of the stick most of the time.
Also Absolute Wonder Woman is the best title in the Absolute series; Batman and Superman are just addendums to the edgelord bible; Martian Manhunter is great as well, if i had to decide tough, i'd let it go as well.
Thank You for reading a rant about a hobby.
A review of Gillen's run on Eternals, that i mostly agree with.
‘Eternals by Kieron Gillen’ is a beautifully drawn, densely written epic // aiptcomics.com
The Eternals // wikipedia.org↩
A.X.E.: Judgement Day // wikipedia.org↩