Written by Emilia Clarke, Marguerite Bennett
Art by Leila Leiz
Published by Image Comics
In my review of the first issue, I cheered that M.O.M.: Mother of Madness is built on a great concept.
I stand by that. The concept is a powerful feminist argument turning the things about women’s bodies (and AFAB folks) that patriarchy derides into literal superpowers connected to the hero’s menstrual cycle.
Dope. Radical. Genius.
Issue #2 continues that story, as Maya becomes MOM, gains a support team, thwarts a bunch of crimes both street level and systemic to help women. She even takes a Native American artifact from a museum and returns it to the tribe!
Do we get to see those exploits of derring-do? Nope. That last adventure was in tiny type of a cellphone screen displaying a Neighborhood-style app.
And so that brings me back to my criticisms of the first issue. There’s a lot of telling, not a lot of showing.
This book, in many ways, is narration. It’s not a story I’m reading, but a story of someone telling me a story in the most nail-on-the-head, no-artifice way possible. Maya speaks to the fourth wall during flashbacks, she over-explains the concepts at work in the book, and many of the examples are cartoonish in their displays of misogyny, racism, sexism, capitalism, all of it.
Even the first bit of the story, a flashback to teenage Maya and her best friend Tiff, is a giant speech about the interlocking system of those oppressions. As Tiff goes into the speech, she holds up glamour photos of a male model shirtless in jeans with “buff” above his name and a female model licking a melting ice cream cone with “compliance” above hers. (It’s another scene in this book of a Black best friend telling the white female protagonist to snap out of it, too.)
I’m flipping open a comic book, and social justice Instagram and Twitter are immediately talking at me. It’s a lot of talking points, and I’d like more characters and plot.
Understand, I agree with these great many talking points, mostly the letter of them, definitely the spirit of them all. Yet I cannot confuse snapping my fingers along to every point to enjoying this as a story or saying it’s good.
It’s of a piece with a mood I’ve been in about many strains of progressive activism these days in which the phrasing and messaging too often are stand-ins for the virtues. That the insights are hardened into rules, and these calcified slogans become too easily manipulated and co-opted by bad actors.
Maybe I’m just cranky and out of touch, or maybe these are the musings of a 40-year-old cishet Black American man who has lived through three waves of mainstream (i.e. white) feminism and feels like many things have gotten better while many other things about “the discourse” have gotten worse since the internet left LiveJournal.
Maybe M.O.M. Mother of Madness as currently executed would work as absurdist theater, where the exaggerated artifice is the point. I don’t think that works for this comic book, though.
I like my messaging in the art I consume to be more artful, even if it’s in-your-face and over-the-top. I’m just not feeling that here. There’s so much real-world stuff that Clarke, Bennett and Laiz could mine as illustrations of these great many social problems, and instead we get a cartoonish parody of it when the real thing is already so absurd at this point.
And I still don’t care for the precocious kid, even if it’s because he has special needs and is a slice of Young Sheldon but way more woke. Or the declaring-it-loudly loyal platonic man friend who clearly is supposed to be more than friends. These are stock characters presented on cardboard.
All of this is before I get into M.O.M.’s costume, which I think is a missed opportunity.
Frankly, I think the costume is terrible.
I’m not saying the costume has to be all that fancy. Or that it has to look like the kind of superhero costumes we see on the majority of female characters in comics. It doesn’t need to be a body stocking, let alone the crap that is basically bikinis or with boob windows cut out. I already know that’s not the party going here.
M.O.M.’s costume has the DIY aesthetic reminiscent of Kick-Ass, with none of the style. When super-friend Buddy takes Maya to see his super-chic fashion designer friend Henrietta, a Black trans woman with a Manhattan boutique, you’re selling me that her own Edna Mode will create something absolutely badass.
I mean, Henrietta is in purple ombré hair and a one-shoulder, patent leather, asymmetrical piece of amazing with giant bangle bracelets and matching thigh-high boots with a heel.
In pretty much any other book, Henrietta looks like the superhero.
So I was expecting something with more pizzazz. It even being a jumpsuit with a ski mask is not the issue. Again, Kick-Ass did it. Or the Cameron Stewart/Babs Tarr redesign of the Batgirl costume is functional and stylish.
But this is a bedazzled ski mask and a jumpsuit with patches on it. A lot of patches up and down the arms related to MOM’s various hormone powers. Even an anti-costume needs some style.
I’m sorry. This one just isn’t working for me. I was hoping to see the story become a story here.
I love M.O.M. Mother of Madness conceptually rather than in its execution. If the concept intrigues you, and you can snap your fingers to the talking points, go for it and enjoy it! I’ll be happy for you!
