Retcon Punch is on Summer Hours, which means we’re going to be writing fewer in-depth pieces for the month of August. But we’re addicts at this point, so we need a place for our thoughts on all those comics we can’t stop reading. Today, we’re discussing Ms. Marvel 17, Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows 3, Civil War 2, Infinity Gauntlet 3, Giant Sized Little Marvel AvX 3, and Red Skull 2

Ms. Marvel 17

Drew: I’ve never been a big fan of coming-of-age stories, mostly because the actual process of coming-of-age doesn’t lend itself to a tidy narrative. Though teen movies may have us believe otherwise, becoming an adult isn’t about getting into college or winning the big game or kissing the girl of our dreams, though those all may contribute, along with millions of other lessons and relationships that happen in late adolescence, as people start figuring out how they relate to the world. The attention to those other lessons, and perhaps simply the commitment to a serialized story about adolescence, has made Ms. Marvel a perennial standout, following Kamala Khan as she grows into the mantle of Ms. Marvel.

It makes sense, then, that issue 17, where Kamala is mentored by Carol Danvers — the original Ms. Marvel — would be so meaningful. Carol is the ideal teacher, assuring Kamala that she can do it on her own, but ready to step in whenever she needs support. She also has tons of important pieces of advice for Kamala, covering everything from the most effective ways to redirect looters to the importance of self-care. Perhaps most importantly, though, Carol is simply a person. Kamala is agog at meeting her idol, but Carol is constantly quipping to ease the tension. She even commiserates with Kamala about feeling under-qualified.

They might as well be talking about being a grown-up, because that feeling is oddly familiar to me. Actually, all of the lessons Carol imparts are pretty well applicable to real life, revealing the true value of Kamala Khan as an audience surrogate: she’s who reminds us that we’re all somebody’s hero. We may not realize it because we tend to lionize our own heroes, but Kamala is one of the few who can articulate those feelings that we all feel whenever we’re in over our heads. That’s some clever, theme-driven writing from G. Willow Wilson, but as usual, Adrian Alphona utterly steals the show, filling each page with expansive environments crawling with little jokes and wildly expressive characters.

My favorite touch, though, might belong to colorist Ian Herring, who totally desaturates Captain Marvel, turning her into a grey monolith in a world filled with color. Is this a reflection of her role in de-mystifying superheroing? Is it a choice made to direct the eye back towards Kamala? Does it imply that she isn’t actually there? Or is this simply a costume change that I haven’t gotten used to yet? I’m not sure, but I’d love to hear some theories in the comments.

Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows 3

Patrick: The first two issues did such a great job of redefining what Ben Parker could have meant with his “with great power comes great responsibility” speech, that I had almost forgotten why it’s original intent was so damn meaningful in the first place. In the world of Renew Your Vows, Peter ultimately decides that his responsibility is to the safety of his family, and effectively sacrifices everything else — from his own identity to the lives of his friends — in order to protect them. That was a development that, while surprising, actually feels pretty organic, especially in the context of a Battleworld story. It’s shitty that Spider-Man lets the Avengers dies, but maybe he wouldn’t have been able to stop Regent anyway, and it’s not like the Avengers didn’t know what they were getting themselves into when they signed up. Issue three of ASMRYV starts off by showing how effortlessly Spider-Man can take on Regent’s goons to protect himself and his family, but develops into an exploration of the necessary cost of protecting the innocent. When that alarm goes off and Peter (and Annie and MJ) all have to make the split second decision to help that poor your mutant, my heart danced – that’s some classic Peter Parker heroism, and in a setting as strange as Battleworld, it’s nice to see something so familiar.

Civil War 2

Michael: Though the Star Wars prequels are pretty damn bad, one idea that I always found to be arguably impressive was how Palpatine manufactured the Clone Wars as a means to rise to power while his enemies were distracted. The first issue of Civil War sort of subtly hinted that Cap and Iron Man’s teams were being played against each other; Civil War 2 has Tony outright saying as much. Following the murder of peacekeeping figurehead Miriam Sharpe, both The Red and The Blue are scrambling to mount a potential retaliation against one another. Cap’s team has engineered a device that will rob heroes/villains of their superpowers, and to continue to power this weapon Spidey takes a team into enemy territory. Likewise, Stark sends She-Hulk (in her Jennifer Walters form) to The Blue to follow up on his suspicion that everyone involved has been played by some unknown third party.

When it comes to Marvel’s “What Ifs” I have always enjoyed following the butterfly effect of changing events to see how things might have been. Charles Soule and Lenil Francis Yu give us another taste of Civil War’s revisionist history by literally having Tony (visually) recap the events of this years-long war. And while odd little Easter egg-ish tidbits like these are interesting in and of themselves, it’s equally rewarding that this moment is vital to plot progression. Tony and Jennifer stare at the digitized Civil War timeline with us and realize that something clearly went in the wrong direction at some point. The meta nut in me is hoping that Tony somehow realizes that Civil War was supposed to end differently and Charles Soule/Marvel has been behind all of their all along; but I’m not THAT stupid. (Maybe.) I think that Soule has done an excellent job of mirroring/extending the stakes of Mark Millar’s original Civil War. Soule continues to illustrate the theme of there being no good guys and bad guys in war by having both sides do some pretty messed up shit. Cap assigning Beast with the task of effectively neutering superheroes is just as dark as Tony using the Negative Zone as a prison of Registration lawbreakers in Millar’s Civil War.

Barring a few visual snafus from Lenil Francis Yu – there’s a panel where Cap’s fingers look like they are melding together – I am still very much on board with this series. I love the “Cold War heating up” nature of the book. These former friends are sending warning shots to one another that at one point in time would be considered playful but are now grave threats of conflict. Peter being Cap’s lieutenant still makes perfect sense to me: he’s always wanted a father figure so damn bad. Let’s just pray to Doom that he can get back to his wife and kids when the dust settles on this whole thing.

Infinity Gauntlet 3

Drew: Infinity Gauntlet opened with entirely new characters in a new situation in a new world. That’s standard fare for a first issue, but is unusual as part of Secret Wars, which has very much been about riffing on known characters and situations. As the series moves into its third issue, its connection to Marvel as we knew it is much clearer, but the situations are as alien as ever, pairing Thanos with a family of Novas and most of the Guardians of the Galaxy on a quest to find all of the Infinity Gems.

That sounds like a recipe for a standard wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing story, but Dustin Weaver and Gerry Duggan manage to find an angle other than dramatic irony by simply focusing on Thanos’ experience. Feigning weakness or even interest in others is a struggle for Thanos, which adds some humor to the tension hanging over this peculiar team-up. It also adds some characterization beyond “strong but absent mother,” “put-upon-father,” and “generic child” that this series was in desperate need of. It took Weaver and Duggan a while to establish the world of this series, but now that everything is clicking into place, it is actually starting to be a whole lot more fun than the post-apocalyptic setting would have ever implied.

Giant-Sized Little Marvel AvX 3

Drew: At my most cynical, it’s easy to dismiss Secret Wars as Marvel dismissing everything I like about comics in favor of “let’s you and him fight” for six months. I mean, even the name of the planet they’re on emphasizes how our heroes have to spend their time — if you want to help old ladies cross the street, you should move to “Helpingtheelderlyworld” or something. But nothing cuts through my cynicism quite like Skottie Young, who manages to find a decidedly non-warlike angle on Battleworld.

The kids of Marville are still at odds, but they’ve funneled that energy in trying to recruit the new kids into their respective folds. Both the X-Men and the Avengers put their known best-feet forward (along with the kind of gentle ribbing we’ve come to expect of Little Marvel), but leave recruits Zoe and Zachary relatively nonplussed. Indeed, the song and dance feels more about our heroes tooting their own horns than it is about what might actually appeal to Zoe and Zachary. That ultimately leaves Zoe and Zachary in the clutches of Galactus and Thanos, though the Guardians of the Galaxy seem ready to try to recruit just as hard as the other groups.

The result is as charming as ever, giving the heroes an excuse to just talk about what makes them fun and cool, but without losing a sense of what’s silly about them. That keeps the sense of humor about the characters without ever really making fun of them. The biggest laugh for me came when Tony was fretting about the caviar going bad — of course he spared no expense, even when appealing to children. It’s a fun little romp in a corner of the Marvel Universe I’ve really come to love.

Red Skull 2

Patrick: One of the really cool things about Secret Wars is that any of these… “series?” “mini-series?” — whatever you want to call them — any of these things can change their core principles on a dime. Case in point: Red Skull which at first looked like a mashup of Marvel Zombies and Suicide Squad, but in its second issue became a quiet character piece about Magneto and Red Skull. It turns out that Red Skull, in his competitive villainy, was exiled to the Deadlands for questioning Doom’s divinity, and it turns out that Magneto is also capable of asking that same question. Ideologically, that aligns the readers with our two anti-heroes right off the bat – we know Doom put together Battleworld, but we know full-well that he’s not “God” (whatever that means in this context). This ends up being a neat idea: in other contexts, Magneto and Red Skull are the evil-demi-gods of their own comic book crossover events (House of M and AXIS, respectively), but here are reduced to bit players in the greater drama. Writer Joshua Willaimson acknowledges just how weird this is in a couple of ways, but nothing is quite so potent as making these two titans of supervillainy have a down and dirty knife fight with each other.

Artist Luca Pizzari doesn’t dress this sequence up in the slightest – this is the least sexy fight you’re going to see in a superhero comic all week. Pizzari is excellent at burying little hints of both of these character’s greatness throughout the issue — such as when Red Skull dons Bucky’s shield — and then there’s such a satisfying release at the end when Magneto unlocks his powers and magnetically draws a full uniform to him. After holding out on bad-assery for 19 pages, those final panels are genuinely cheer-worthy. I’m not even totally clear on what power is glowing in Red Skull’s hand in that last panel, but I’m kinda too excited to care.

But perhaps even more exciting is the possibility that the next issue starts with another insane left turn. Maybe Red Skull kills Magneto and uses his powers against Doom – WHO KNOWS!? I’m sure that we’ll get resolution to the whole “Secret Wars” thing within Secret Wars proper, but it’s tempting to believe that Doom’s comeuppance is gonna come in this series.

Did you read some Secret Wars tie-ins that we didn’t? Sure you did! There are holes in our pull list. Holes that you’re encouraged to fill with your comments. Let’s keep talking about Secret Wars.