Villanelli delivers some beautifully detailed and visually immersive art in the issue. I love the look of the characters and the style has some great energy to it that kept me engaged. Read Full Review

While the end result is slightly cluttered, Paolo Villanelli's art has some inspired moments, and the narrative is solid enough to pique my curiosity going forward. Read Full Review

This one is good enough if you enjoy the character especially getting to see her solving problems without using her powers. Maybe wait an issue or two before the story starts going properly. Read Full Review

With all that being said Dark Tempest #1 is just fine? Thats kind of the unfortunate thing here. Its not bad, but Im not really sure what to make of this story based on one issue. Knowing Thompsons long run just ended and Wongs promising take on the character is arriving soon, it places Dark Tempest in an awkward spot wherein it cant do anything too radical with the character, but should also probably feel substantial in some form. These sorts of interstitial limited series are actually quite common throughout Marvels yearly slate and share similar issues, so Im willing to cut Nocenti a little bit of slack in that regard. Artist Paolo Villanelli does great work with the material, however, and the cosmic trapping of this story should offer him a lot to do in the coming issues. I just wish there was a little more there there in this one. Read Full Review

I don't want to cast too much judgment on issue #1 so perhaps issue #2 and the rest of the series will be more gripping. Read Full Review

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #1 brings in a lot of characters and a lot of moving pieces, all of which are lacking in some way or another, plus some truly annoying characterizations makes this one a hard read. Read Full Review

This was a tough read. It was so dense, and involved so much protracted scene setting that it was a bit of a slog. Still, by the end, the story does finally prove to be promising.

It’s nice that there seemed to be something of a unifying theme regarding the dangers of tech but it felt repetitive and frankly not that believable. Why would someone with new tech that effectively delegates mundane tasks be presenting it to at-risks teens? How would that help that demographic? Surely the target audience would be billionaires?

Similarly when talking to Walt, who openly admits his knowledge is limited, Carol allows him to persuade her that she witnessed an optical illusion. It makes little sense.

However, I think the writer has a flair for writing Carol, and that could be the saving grace for this book, especially as the story only really kicks in at the end.

Sadly the writing for Spider-Woman is on a par for how Marvel have been treating her of late. She was an adept Spy, trained fighter, and a Private Investigator. Nowadays she’s little more than a whiny, petulant, Americanised woman-child who makes gratingly bad jokes, and is contractually obliged to allude to her absentee son so that we don’t forget she’s living the dream that “All Moms are Superheroes.” How the mighty have fallen. I expected better from Nocenti considering her previous work on Jessica’s initial run, so I am inclined to think this is an editorial choice.

I might give it another issue to see if it gains momentum, because there is a small core of promise here, but can’t see me staying on board if I keep getting thrown out of the story by the stuff that rankles.
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Between the perfect conclusion to Kelly Thompson’s historic run, the announcement of a new ongoing series debuting this Fall, and a successful launch leading the new Avengers team, Captain Marvel is having a moment. Then came CAPTAIN MARVEL DARK TEMPEST #1.

Did you know that Captain Marvel is strong? Or that she’s a woman? That’s part of what the first handful of pages of this debut issue of Ann Nocenti’s 5-part limited series spends time emphasizing. The tone of the book never felt right, from the aforementioned early commentary on Captain Marvel’s strength to the dialogue between Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman when they team up to deal with the main conflict introduced in the issue. I also didn’t quite understand why an anti-technology mindset was chosen as the villains’ main motivations. Perhaps it’s commentary on the current buzz around AI and what it could mean for humanity? But I couldn’t help but think of all the villains AND heroes who have used technology to achieve their goals. It all just felt overly contrived and hard to follow or relate to, unless you’re used to donning a tinfoil hat.

Paolo Villanelli’s linework was decent enough throughout the book, though I didn’t care for Carol’s design in her “normal” clothes during the scenes in Maine. No matter which outfit she was wearing, the facial designs didn’t always look like Carol aside from her blonde hair. Java Tartaglia’s colorings were a bright spot though, with interesting color palettes throughout the book.

Between this week’s title and the past two issues of the current STORM limited series, I’m not sure what is happening with Nocenti’s writing. For someone who wrote some of the first truly feminist character arcs in comics history, these two titles feel like major steps backwards. I understand that she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place writing self-contained limited series between these characters other major storylines, but these are just additional poor entries into the long list of underwhelming stories for Ororo & Carol. I wouldn’t be shocked to find these two titles at the bottom of Marvel’s sales lists for 2023 and for good reason. They haven’t added any depth to the characters (I’d argue they’ve negated some recent retribution both characters have received in recent runs) nor have they been particularly entertaining. At this point, I could have done without them.

Rating: 3/10 more

The only reason I rated it this high is because the artwork was decent. This is everything wrong with comics today. Ann Nocenti pushing her politics and activism into almost every page. It's a preach comic, through and through. The Storm book was so bad I could barely get through the first issue and the same here. She needs to stop writing comics. Go write some articles for some activism sites. In this space, where readers are paying $5.00 per issue, we don't want to be preached at. In the words of Critical Drinker, "Go away now!"