By: Marc Sumerak (writer), Dan Panosian (art), Antonio Fabela (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)
The Story: A bunch of neither God, nor mortal heroic types battle the forces of Chaos.
What’s Good: This is a comic you buy if you’re into a couple of the characters OR are buying the whole Chaos War event (like me). The story focuses on Daimon Hellstrom, Sersi, Silver Surfer & Venus. How’s that for an odd team? Probably most Marvel fans will be interested to read about one or two of those characters. For me, the highlights are the Surfer and Venus. Although Venus’ joke of signing some appropriate (yet oddly inapt) song to solve a problem is not a new joke, it really never gets old. It is one of those story devices where you can just tell that every Marvel writer has “the song” that they’re going to have Venus sing if they ever get to writer her. I love reading a comic that contains that sort of enthusiasm from the creators. Do you doubt that some Marvel writer has a plan to have Venus sing “Baby got back” someday?
In an oddly good moment for an event tie-in, this issue actually expands the Chaos War event a little bit by explaining why these four characters are important to defeating the Chaos King. Here’s a hint: The name “God Squad” is actually kinda a misnomer for them, but only “kinda”. This was a neat concept and I hope it is explored a little more in the Chaos War proper.
Panosian’s art is mostly excellent. There were pages in here where I said, “Ohhh. I like that. I wouldn’t mind having that framed on my wall.” That doesn’t happen in every comic. This issue also has a lot of cosmic vibe to it that allows Fabela’s colors to shine.
What’s Not So Good: Wakanda. Don’t like it. That’s just my personal preference, but I always hate it when stories I’m otherwise enjoying have to go including Wakanda. Your tastes may vary.
This issue also delves deeply into the Japanese pantheon of Gods. That makes sense given that the Chaos King hails from those parts, but I’m just not that familiar with the Japanese pantheon and there is nothing in this comic that makes we want to buy back issues or trades to explore this set of Gods.
The only quibble I have with the art is the heavy use of dot-overlay. I find that an acceptable style in some small-press comics where they are going for an offbeat look, but I don’t like it in my Marvel/DC comics where I’d rather see fine shading and crosshatching to indicate shade.
Finally, I wish that Marvel had a continuity cop would force all the writers on the other comics to acknowledge the Chaos War event. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but there should be a throwaway line of dialog in Captain America, Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, etc. indicating where those stories fall in relation to Chaos War (since those characters are all struck dumb by the power of the Chaos King for the duration of the event).
Conclusion: Fun for me, but I love the character of Venus. It also explores some interesting ground in the Chaos War itself making a rarely meaningful event tie-in. But it those good parts don’t outweigh the boringness brought on by Wakanda & pantheons of gods I don’t care about.
Grade: C+
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion