COMICS IN THE CAMPER: CAPTAIN MARVEL #5

I haven’t been much of a fan of Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy’s run on Captain Marvel. While I don’t think DeConnick’s writing is all that bad, I just don’t find it engaging enough for me to put this series on my pull list. But the writing is really the lesser of the two evils here. Frankly, I find Dexter Soy’s art off-putting to the Nth degree. Soy draws boxy figures that look to be inked with a magic marker. The movement of his characters and action is clumsy, awkward and not remotely fluid or organic. I think his style would be better suited to a character like Ghost Rider or Transformers. His art seems better suited for more non human, non organic characters.  Luckily, Captain Marvel #5 has the lovely, scrumptious artwork of Emma Rios.

  Rios did some terrific artwork for the recent Cloak and Dagger “Spider Island” mini series. She also worked on Patsy Walker: Hellcat a few years back. In Captain Marvel #5, Rios again shows that her talent continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Rios art is a wonderful mix of Gene Colan with dashes of Toulouse Lautrec. Rios gives us several scenes in an airforce bar that immediately made me think of such Lautrec paintings as “At The Moulin Rouge” and “Two Women Waltzing”. There is also a lovely scene of Carol flying with Helen in tow and a few night images that were evocative of Colan’s stylistic work on Tomb of Dracula.

Since I haven’t been reading this series I was just a bit lost on the plot. Apparently Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers has been zapped back in time to the 60’s where a pilot named Helen Cobb has sold an alien artifact in return for a chance to prove her stuff at a NASA flight training program for women. But now the training program has been canceled and an angry Helen, feeling cheated, intends to steal back the artifact. But unknown to Helen, the piece of alien technology is part of a Kree alien device that gave Carol Danvers her powers. It’s a fun story and the cliffhanger had me wondering if I could overcome my aversion to Dexter Soy long enough to find out what happens next issue. I’m hoping that Rios will stay on for a couple more issues.

The cover art by Terry and Rachel Dodson is terrific as is always the case with the Dodsons. The issue is not very “new reader” friendly which I found surprising given that this is a new series and we’re only on issue 5, and taking into account all the rumor mongering about Carol Danvers possibly turning up in one of the Avengers/Marvel Movieverse films. The opening page doesn’t give us any idea how Carol was sent back in time or why. A first time reader would also be a bit confused about who is exactly the star of this book for its first 2 thirds. I was far more engaged with Helen than I was with Carol and I’ve been a fan of Carol Danvers since her debut as Ms. Marvel nearly 35 years ago. So I think DeConnick still has much to do with regards to defining Carol. That said, I enjoyed this issue, the time travel elements and the scrumptious Rios art. Captain Marvel #5 is well worth purchasing.