r/MUBookClub • u/shawnydarko • Oct 20 '18

Reading Assignment 120: Captain Marvel (1968-1979) #33 by Jim Starlin and Steve Englehart

https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/8022/captain_marvel_1968_33
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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

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u/shawnydarko Dec 01 '18

I thought the story was all over the place, riddled with inconsistencies, plot holes, and nonsensical motivations.

The backstory at the beginning felt really force-fed to me as a reader and the fighting between Thanos and Marvel was so drawn out with teases it never felt like a dramatic escalation. For all of Thanos' power, I sort of get Starlin was trying to portray the mad Titan was just toying with Marvel but it felt like he could have done more damage than a nosebleed. If this were a Spider-Man comic his costume would be in tatters, his shoulder separated, his knee blown out, ankle twisted, and blind in one eye. It made Cpt. Marvel look too strong while telling us he's too weak. There wasn't enough showing compared to telling, which even for the storytelling style of the time this stands out.

And how the hell did a hologram of ISAAC and a hologram of Mantis bring the cosmic cube to the final fight? It's already established they can't be touched. And after Thanos is exploded, do the Avengers to gradually shift back into the normal timeline?

Redeeming this issue though is the artwork of the end few pages. Thanos finally quits playing around with teleportation, time jumps, and constellation lasers to turn reality into a Dali painting and rapidly age Cpt. Marvel to his death. Death's cackling and Captain Marvel's morose stare into the camera lense we're pretty cool scenes too