I enjoyed the third season of
Jessica Jones, although it reached a point where everything Patsy Walker did was wrong or went wrong, to keep the drama going. She gets off a little easier today, but maybe not for long: from 2016,
Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! #5, written by Kate Leth, art by Brittney L. Williams.
Civil War II wouldn't do it any favors; but this book was trying to carve a fun little niche out for itself, as Patsy worked to set up a temp agency for people with super-powers who weren't necessarily the superhero type. Much of this issue was wrapping up an old foe and a new competitor: Casiolena. Who we've actually seen on the blog before, although I thought it was spelled with
two S's! She both described as and taunted as a "third-rate Enchantress," which admittedly has to grate after a while; her trying to go extra-bad is almost understandable. Even her lackey turned on her, and with the help of Valkyrie and She-Hulk, Casiolena and her supervillain app are wrapped up.
Patsy still has problems, though: her old rival Hedy Wolfe got the rights to the
Archie-like comics Patsy's mom made about her, and was republishing them to Patsy's embarrassment. (I first learned about Patsy's history in the
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, but my understanding is: Patsy was kind of like if Betty had married Archie, who went into the army and became an abusive dickhole, then got herself superpowers. Hedy was basically a meaner Veronica?) Hedy may have something more in mind, though, as she hires Jessica Jones to dig up any dirt on Patsy. Williams uses a softer style than usual for Marvel, so this does feel like some of the edges get sanded down on Jessica: she has a huge name plate, and a drink, in a glass, with ice! Fancy, somebody's making an effort today. (I tease, but yeah.)
You're probably right about that too unless it's in a big event. The current Devil's Reign might've been a good choice since I'm assuming Patsy still lives in NYC along with She-Hulk and Jessica Jones. Jones already shows up in the 1st issue leading to Luke announcing he's going to run for mayor since he'll be a much better candidate with less public baggage and skeletons in his closet than Tony who was going to originally run first. Point to Luke there. I'm guessing Luke wins in the end, with Fisk being rolled back to his old role as the one & official Kingpin again. Or maybe he's freed up to run for president so that Marvel can copy DC again. We'll see.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit more like Patsy's Archie and Hedy's Reggie. And then Archie's mom (or dad, if we're continuing the gender swap) tried to sell his soul to the devil and he ended marrying the devil's daughter (son for Patsy), until they both had psychotic breakdowns and divorced.
ReplyDeleteThis is another of those post-Kamala Khan/Squirrel Girl Marvel books that were pretty good but I guess there just wasn't enough room in the market for all of them. I think either you or one of the other blogs I read did an issue from another one of those books relatively recently (I feel like it was Gwenpool, but not sure). Probably would have helped sales if they'd consolidated everything into a separate imprint. Then again, that might have been a bit too like how they used to group all the 'girl comics' together back in the times of Patsy's original series.
Honestly an All girls comics imprint might not be a bad idea for enticing more new or lapsed female comic readers. Main continuity can still be recognized by the books, but they wouldn't necessarily be constricted by them either. Good definitely work depending on the marketing and creative teams.
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