Written by Natasha Alterici, Sophie Campbell,
Nadia Shammas, Elsa Sjunneson, Anne Toole
Art by Eleonora Carlini, Joanna Estep,
Naomi Franquiz, Maria Fröhlich, Kei Zama
Published by Marvel Comics
Elektra, Storm, Gamora, Valkyrie and Shuri all appear on the cover of Women of Marvel like some extra fierce version of the Spice Girls.
Yet Gamora is the only one who appears within the book. That’s kinda how the book itself goes.
I opened the pages, ready for something as sage, fiery and dynamic as the women on the cover. My eyes awaited a showcase of short stories that would showcase the panoply of female heroes, antiheroes and villains, yet nonetheless would play on some essential theme tying these women’s stories together.
Even more so when I read Louise the gawd Simonson’s stellar introduction.
Now imagine getting a bunch of one-joke sketches of observational humor regarding a bunch of different Marvel women.
What happens if Lady Deathstrike, known for those signature killer fingernails, walked into a nail salon? What does Medusa do on a bad hair day? (Here’s a clue: really, really big scrunchie.) Can Jean Grey use her telekinetic powers to raise a houseplant? What happens when a pair of mutants on Krakoa are roommates but don’t get along? How does Hela cure insomnia in the underworld?
Don’t get me wrong – those stories are fun all the same, even if they feel like the stuff of fan art you’d see as clickbait on a bunch of sundry comic book sites that aren’t this one. I just was expecting a different animal at first.
It’s also funny because these Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle blackout sketches are written by Mariko Tamaki. She likely was pleased as punch to do something light and not exploring the depths of trauma responses. (I still lament the end of her run on She-Hulk.)
That’s not all going on in these pages, though.
The larger stories are breezy, action-packed fun, too. “Operation Spyglass” by Elsa Sjunneson and Naomi Franquiz sets itself apart with a multiversal Peggy Carter who becomes Captain America. (I don’t know how a Brit is Cap, but it’s fine, just go with it.)
Cap mixes it up in a barroom brawl with Nazis alongside a resistance spy in Vichy France during World War II. The dialog is snappy, and Franquiz’s art is expressive and lends itself well to animation. While it’s not up to this able-bodied man to judge whether depicting a disabled character removing her prosthetic leg and beating Jerrys over the head with it is in poor taste or not, for me it was fun to read.
“Saturday Morning in Harlem” by Anne Toole and Kei Zama brings us a short and sweet story with Misty Knight. A street soldier capable of doing what her former partners in blue can’t, Misty tracks down a girl on the run and exemplifies the power of women banding together for each other.
Speaking of She-Hulk earlier, she appears in “Wild Rhino Chase” by Nadia Shammas and Skylar Partridge. It’s classic Marvel, with a famous New York location, a bad guy attempting a heist, modest property damage, and a real kicker of a joke.
And Gamora, the only one of our cover subjects to appear in this book, gets a caper with Rocket Raccoon in “Date Night” by Zorida Córdova and Maria Frölich. The story bumps awkwardly against the low page count, but they still fire off a good tale of our favorite do-right rogues.
So, yes, Women of Marvel is fun and fluffy and enjoyable.
That said, it’s still odd to read this showcase of talented women making Marvel comics, when I saw Storm and She-Hulk’s latest titles come and go. Or that the very good Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur wrapped after 47 issues in 2019. And soon we’ll have three – just three – female-led projects in the MCU when Black Widow finally drops.
Or when Chelsea Cain’s Mockingbird was canceled a few years back, and the company didn’t stand behind her amid online harassment from toxic, right-wing trolls. Or in the backpage Staff Spotlight of this very issue, Angélique Roché is the only apparent non-white creative interviewed.
Some of this is just the way comics and institutions go, though, with few employees and many freelancers.
Things are looking up in the next few pages. Roché shows off her favorite covers with female characters of color centered, and then a bunch of current books with female characters at the helm. (Even though it’s also telling that the current Captain Marvel series is the longest-living book at issue #28.)
Those weightier issues about the comics industry live outside Women of Marvel’s confines even though this showcase exists because of those same issues. That’s a logic pretzel for you.
But based on sheer talent and good storytelling, you’ll come away from Women of Marvel wanting more, in a good way.
