Major Distractions: Captain Marvel #9 Review

I generally read superhero comics for a momentary escape from the horrific tedium of work and errands and appointments and the horror – the absolute savage and crippling fucking horror – of having to talk to people. After a day of interacting with humans in unpleasant scenarios, there’s nothing more fun than watching people with otherworldly powers stomp the living shit out of super villains, giant monsters, and during summer crossover event season, each other.

I’ve always found it relaxing and empowering, after a long day, to turn off the phone, turn off the brain with some strong drink, and imagine that I could be one of those people in costume, flying around and kicking ass – no one else wishes this of me, due to how my bloated, middle-aged ass would look in one of those costumes, but to hell with them – because generally those superheroes don’t have to slog through the same repetitive, boring shit that the rest of us do.

Unless you’re Captain Marvel. Who spends a surprising amount of Captain Marvel #9 having to put up with exactly the kind of rotten, irritating, day-to-day shit that we do, only with some distractions thrown in… provided you consider an unexpected dinosaur attack to be distracting. I probably wouldn’t, thanks to my previously-mentioned propensity for strong drink, but that’s not the point. The point is that we spend a lot of Captain Marvel #9 watching Carol Danvers keeping appointments… and yet it is actually a fairly compelling and entertaining book to read.

Not to look at, but we’ll get to that.

Tony Stark is a dick. The kind of dick who hacks your phone and adds appointments to it. Which he did to Carol on a particularly busy day – involving dropping off her cat at the vet, meeting Spider Woman for coffee, and going to her own doctor – adding in a meeting for a pilot’s gig for some non-profit startup. And that’s how we spend the issue: watching her go from appointment to appointment. You know, with the usual obstacles in the way. Like the aforementioned dinosaur attack. And a holdup at the non-profit’s office. And a few… unfortunate pieces of news at a doctor’s office.

I want to make sure you understand before spending your money that this comic does have giant monsters and angry gunmen, but make no mistake: the antagonist is the clock and Marvel’s To Do list, versus her senses of responsibility as a person and an Avenger. And to call that kind of story “compelling”, in a book about someone with super strength who can fly, is a little strange, because it’s that kind of crap that many of us read comics to escape. Yeah, it sounds like it should be boring, because God knows a comic about, say, me wandering around keeping obligations would drive people to take up arms (“The toilet is running! Will Rob rise from his drugged stupor to overcome the problem using his awesome power to jiggle the handle? Or will he remain mesmerized by his mortal enemies – TruTV and Racer 5! – until he needs to take another leak?”).

However, the effect instead accomplishes something that is sorely missing in a lot of comic books: it humanizes the superhero at its core. It’s hard to relate to billionaire genius Tony Stark regardless of his charm, and it’s difficult to feel sympatico with driven, angry Bruce Wayne… hell, these days you can’t even see eye-to-eye with Spider-Man, due to his job as a high-tech scientist when he isn’t busy being dead and replaced by a supervillain. But everyone can relate to someone rushing from obligation to obligation, getting sidetracked along the way, and feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day. So writer Kelly Sue DeConnick has delivered a story about a person, who happens to be a superhero. It sucks you in despite, or maybe because of, the mundanity at its core.

But make no mistake: this isn’t just a story about someone wandering around and crossing shit off her list. There is a reasonable amount of action here, including the giant dinosaur battle with Spider-Woman, that comes from nowhere but gives each character the chance to kick some ass and engage in some pretty sparkling dialogue. And the sequence with the gunmen, while being a little pedestrian for a cosmically-powered superhero, is entertaining if only because of how DeConnick shows Marvel simply asking about the details of the pilot’s job, while the gunmen go from arrogant, to confused, to unconscious. So lest you think this is a boring character study in adventure comic book form, there is enough action here for you to look at…

…not that you’ll want to look at it. I won’t mince words here: I did not like Filipe Andrade’s art in this issue. He works in a very European, Metal Hurlant kinda style, in the sense that his figures are not realistic, with pointy, out-of-proportion limbs and weird angles on everyone. His faces, while generally expressive enough to tell what people are thinking, are asymmetric and heavily stylized – Marvel generally looks like she has two breathe-holes drilled into her face rather than a nose. It is highly stylized stuff, which will tickle the part of your brain that remembers the Aeon Flux cartoon on MTV, but it’s even more sketched and abstract. However, on the positive side, Andrade’s visual storytelling is impeccable; because I was so turned off by his style, I forced myself to look at the book without reading any words, and I was able to easily follow the general story without any problems at all. His action sequences are also extremely well choreographed, with even the moves of the dinosaurs making sense within the scope of the space… although that was probably aided somewhat by the fact that Andrade rarely draws panel backgrounds beyond a vague sketch. Look: if you are a fan of European-style comics art, you might find yourself drooling over the visuals here, but they just didn’t work for me at all.

I’m not gonna lie to you: Captain Marvel #9 is probably the first issue of this comic book that I have been able to completely and unabashedly get caught up in. The earliest arc about Danvers meeting her idols, who were trying to be taken seriously as female soldiers and pilots, didn’t really speak to me as a guy, but that’s okay: not every book needs to be about me. But I can’t be the only guy who felt that way and maybe checked out of the book, and all I can say is that I’m glad I hung in, because this issue is a great jumping on point for damn near anyone. The guts of this story are relatable to pretty much anyone in the civilized world, and they make Carol into a regular person for the reader, in a good way. It’s not a beautiful-looking book, but it’s compelling, and that’s more than enough. Give it a try.