This Week on Marvel Unlimited: 08/24/2020

Starting every Monday, I’m going to run down the new books on Marvel Unlimited and the top books from the previous week. Marvel Unlimited is Marvel’s subscription app where they release new issues, at least new in the fact they were released in print 6 months ago. They’ll also upload older books that haven’t made it to the platform yet.

New This Week (In Print 02/19/2020)

2020 Machine Man #1
The Amazing Mary Jane #5
Atlantis Attacks #2
Captain America #19
Captain Marvel #15
Daredevil #18
Deadpool #3
Fantastic Four #19
Ghost-Spider #7
Guardians of the Galaxy #2
Marauders #8
Marvel’s Black Widow Prelude #2
Marvel’s Voices #1
New Mutants #7
Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider #3
Runaways #30
Valkyrie: Jane Foster #8
Wolverine #1

Notes: Marvel’s Black Widow Prelude is the story setting up the Black Widow film that we might get to see this year…Marvel’s Voices is a one-shot comes from their podcast around diverse creators, where the creators get to play with the Marvel toys; this was released on the app a few months ago, so they might just have put it back here with the other books it came out with…Wolverine is the first in wave 2 of Dawn of X books; it’s a giant-sized book that has multiple stories…

The Best of Last Week

Just for the record, I’ve gotten into the habit of reading all the #1 issues to see if the series is worth reading. I’ve also been reading all of the X-Men books and Star Wars series that I’m caught up on (which is pretty much limited to mini-series and one-shots right now).

Excalibur #7: This probably shouldn’t be included in the best of, but I still read it. There is so much potential with Apocalypse, Rictor, Rogue, and Jubilee, but the story is kind of bland. This is moving into the second arc and is probably one of the weakest DOX titles.

Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #3: My hopes were high this title. While I complain about Disney using other mediums to explain story points of the movies, I have generally enjoyed the stories. This one had the potential to tell a very intriguing story and it’s been pretty flat. You get bits of what happened at the Jedi temple, but it’s more about the period right after Ben left and was followed by 3 Jedi-In-Training. You get a little of the Knights of Ren.

X-Force #7: Domino continues to get a lot of focus in this book, and her story is pretty entertaining; she’s losing her luck due to events of previous issues. She’s also dealing with some PTSD, as is Colossus after his resurrection. It brings up an interesting idea on Krakoa – how do mutants that have died deal with it after the fact? I hope it’s something they continue to look at.

X-Men #6: This was easily the Book of the Week, as it dealt with Mystique. She’s doing some of the dirty work for the Quiet Council, but what is her motive? There is a lot of flashbacks to her and Destiny that will set the course for Mystique going forward. Also, did they determine in the past that Mystique and Destiny were married? I don’t remember this story point, so it could be new. I think I’m enjoying this book because it’s more of an old-school, one and done series; while there are some over-arching themes in the book, each issue has pretty much been self-contained. It’s a nice balance from most other books on the market.

Retro Read

I went back recently and read The Death of Captain Marvel on the app (and purchased it as a result). It’s been one of those books I’ve wanted to read but never pulled the trigger on; I regret not reading it sooner. Captain Marvel reveals that he’s dying of cancer to Mentor and Eros. They vow to find a cure. They reach out to allies and foes of Marvel to see if anyone can help cure the hero. The heroes of Earth travel to Titan to assist, but the determine that Cancer doesn’t currently have a cure anywhere in the galaxy and that is sucks. Marvel’s death is both well written and heart-breaking, although a lot of the dialogue in the issue is very dated; I’m finding that writing in the ’80s and ’90s does not hold up very well. The art is very fitting of the time period; it’s simple and unoffensive.

Even with the dialogue and art being noticeably from the ’80s, I can’t recommend this book enough. It’ll pull at the heart strings and the story itself is still relevant.