Coming into this book with the writing changing hands away from Kelly Sue DeConnick was a big hurdle to overcome, but I think that the story changes enough to set itself apart from what has come before, and even goes quite a long way to bring some newly revamped characters from the Marvel Universe into the fore. I think that this book should appeal to a wide range of readers, and could (hopefully) be yet another notch in Marvel’s belt in the realm of books geared towards younger and female readers.
This issue gives Captain Marvel a nice reboot from what came before- changing scenery, and giving Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) a new set of problems, team members and a big final page reveal that should mean a lot of questions will be answered in the course of this story. I have always liked the look of Captain Marvel- the red, gold and blue suit, and the short haircut really make for an imposing and almost severe look for someone to fly around and put the boots to the baddies.
I liked the inclusion of Carol into the “training” of Alpha Flight soldiers, and working with Abigail Brand, who I remember being apart of the SWORD strikeforce that teamed up with the Guardians of the Galaxy a while ago in a book that i mostly enjoyed for the artwork. SO I didn’t have a huge amount of background information on Abigail, but I like that she is a bit more gruff and no-nonsense in this issue, to the more carefree (and very Katee Sackoff-esque Starbuck analogue) Captain Marvel.
War Machine, aka- Colonel Rhodes, gives some good grounding to Carol Danvers and her connections to Earth, and helps to drive home the fact that she is leaving Earth for a long tour of duty in space, but because she can fly, she could return to Earth to visit easily. I liked that there was some camaraderie (or flirtation) between Rhodey and Carol, and that I hoped to see War Machine get a bigger role in this book in the future (especially with the big reveal at the end). I like that the charact