#Al Ewing

[evilhorse]

You got cojones, elf.

(X-Men #35)

[avengerscompound]

Loki

Immortal Thor (2023) #6

[nickfuryagentofsword]

Immortal Thor 17 (2024) by Al Ewing & Jan Bazaldua

Cover: Davi Go (variant)

[vertigoartgore]

2019's Immortal Hulk Vol.1 #16 wraparound variant cover by artist Joe Bennett and inker Belardino Brabo. Source

A nice tribute to the work of the talented special make-up effects creator Rob Bottin (particularly on John Carpenter's The Thing).

[loki-core-the-variant]

Retro post from my Zucced fb page, Loki-Core: The Variant

[rei-ismyname]

Holy Shit, Magneto

I was going to title this post 'Don't fuck with Magneto' and make it a sequel of sorts to my 'Don't Fuck With Ororo' post from a while back, but people already know the Master of Magnetism is not to be fucked with. Or at least they should...

What do women call him?

However, as you might expect people keep fucking with Magneto to their detriment. Issue 4 of Resurrection of Magneto is one of my favourite examples of why this is a bad idea. He'd been, for lack of a better term, burning in hell. His good friend Storm convinced him that he deserved to live at great personal risk and he returned to life - renewed and questioning his relationship with violence.

Ahem, some ruminating on his old friend.

Immediately he, Storm and Blue Marvel raided an ORCHIS base to rescue the mutants within. As is so often the case, they had Magneto Protocols. These ones were particularly focused and cruel. This squad of shithead fascists deployed and goaded him into attacking them while shooting him with bullets. Usually a poor decision, but they'd set up a magnetic trap where if he used his powers on them it'd kill the several hundred hostages. The perfect trap, they thought. So did he at first, but then he realised that if he could neutralise the ORCHIS Magneto Squad at the speed of thought it wouldn't set the trap off and kill the mutant hostages.

He was right, and this is what it looked like for Magneto to annihilate them as quickly as possible.

Holy shit, Magneto

Five cruel fascists turned into floating spheres of blood and viscera, human bodies utterly eviscerated and dripping goo. I don't know about you but my jaw dropped when I first saw it. The particular cruelty of it is that he was resolved to treat life with more respect, to kill only if he had to. To protect life, not take it. That ORCHIS had this trap for him specifically, this forced decision to either die and allow his people to die or to kill these men. It was never a real decision - he was always going to kill these men, but only because they forced him to.

One also has to wonder how much he's been holding back all these years. Imagine if he did this to Logan instead of pulling out his adamantium skeleton.

[stevelieber]

Dang I love drawing this book.

The first issue of Al Ewing's and my Metamorpho series from DC Comics will be at your local comic book store around Christmas.

[dbot456]

It should be illegal for Al Ewing to be as good a writer as he is

[smashpages]

The Green Lantern Corps will join DC’s Absolute line in March of 2025, and writer Al Ewing will collaborate with artist Jahnoy Lindsay on Absolute Green Lantern featuring Jo Mullein and other members of the Green Lantern Corps.

Read more

[racefortheironthrone]

Who's a more powerful atmokinetic, Storm or Thor?

Hah! Great question, but one that better writers than me have answered before...

If we were to score it like a boxing match, I think this is one that would have to go to the judges and end up in a narrow split decision, largely depending on whose book the fight is happening.

Ever since the Asgardian Wars crossover in 1985, it's been established that Storm is Thor's peer - capable of taking up the mantle of the Goddess of Thunder and one of the few individuals worthy of wielding Mjolnir.

In later comics, people have explored the similarities and differences between Storm and Thor - and what they have generally settled is that Thor has something of an edge when it comes to his speciality of Thunder, Storm is more versatile and flexible because she can control all forms of weather.

In conclusion: power scaling is dumb and there's more interesting ways to think about the question that result in richer and more meaningful stories, and you should definitely read the Asgardian Wars and Al Ewing's Immortal Thor.

[evilhorse]

You are my rage—my justified anger in response to the monstrous crimes against me and mine.

(Resurrection of Magneto #3)

[avengerscompound]

Immortal Thor (2023) #6

[oroontheheels]

Daddy’s gonna be real honest with you kittens.

I’m disappointed with current Venom Run. Let me be real CLEAR here. I don’t hate it. I don’t have beef with its creator. So for a long period of time I was telling everyone “it’s a mess, but it’s better that Donnie Cates”.

But I think comparing them is not correct and let me explain why.

So Donnie Cates. Our boy. Extra edgy, made some terrifically BAD retcons, hated symbrock, tried to make Eddie Brock as trad as possible (giving him human son and all). Plus he ignored the fact that Sleeper was a child of Venom and Eddie. “nOt BioLoGiCalLy” Eddie’s but he called Eddie “father” and they both deeply cared about each other. So Donnie Cates couldn’t allow this either.

But! Donnie Cates while fighting the yaoi made the story ironically even more gayer. It was a train wreck but at the end of the day at least it was fun to laugh at this “closeted shipper” as I like to call him.

And most importantly? At the end they were still “Venom family”. All 4 of them. In Donnie Cates comics.

Now Al Ewing and Ram V… It was… ok. I like Dylan, I like Venom, I like Sleeper. I didn’t like that they “killed” Eddie right at the start of the story and sent him running solo trough time traveling shenanigans. I liked him interacting with Doctor Doom. I liked Meridus being gay with Kang and with that one old man.

But what I lacked is interactions between Venom and Eddie. They almost didn’t interact.

But like, okay. Let Eddie do his thing, let Venom singlemom it out. Also did I mention Ewing and V made Dylan Venom’s son? That was NICE. That’s I liked. A LOT.

And immideatly got my hops up.

Which was a mistake.

So the problem is where Donnie was closeted shipper, I’m starting to believe that Ewing and V don’t actually see Venom and Eddie as a romantic partnership. Or even all that important partnership.

If you check Spider Man Venom War comics, Venom talks A LOT about how much “Saint Peter”(Parker) means to him. It’s very gay very romantic very deep. But at the next pages it also downgraded Eddie role in Venoms life?? Venom is like “so yeah Peter taught me to save lives so I saved Eddie from offfing himself”. And that’s almost it. No emphasis on their bond, on Eddie’s feelings, of their bond. Almost nothing, really.

And now it’s Venom War and Venom says “wow Peter and I are sooo perfect, also it feels nice punching Eddie in the face”.

So what. Venom hates Eddie now? After all those years of forgiveness?? And it wasn’t elaborated in the slightest??

I would hate it but I WOULD understand if they wanted to make Parker new host for Venom for a while. But they don’t?? Apparently Al Ewing planing to give Venom new host (all of the candidates SUCK for the role btw). And if I understood one of his interviews correctly he want to send all the characters their separate ways.

Here’s the statement

Which annoyed me. A LOT. Like i understand that cis hetero males bring all the money to Marvel. We little faggots don’t bring so much cash. So our feelings and wants are not important. But isn’t there big ass FANDOM for symbrock? People who advertise comics for free with their art and activities?? Are we not important whatsoever? And on top of that wasn’t EVERYONE celebrating when Eddie got Venom back (in 2016)?? Don’t we all love homoerotic weird ass bond these two have??

And what does it even mean “yeah it’s been a while since Eddie and Venom have been together”. It wasn’t. Donnie Cates first made Venom into amnesiac DOG, then sent him into exile and then kept him and Eddie from having meaningful interaction until the very end of his run. Everyone who loves symbrock were STARVING.

And Al Ewing and Ram V story separated Eddie into his own story line.

And now Al Ewing tilling us “yeah it’s been too long, it’s time to move on”.

It’s like giving starving person a cup of water and saying “well now you are fed, let’s go on a 20km hike”.

“My work here is done” Tuxedo Mask meme

So like… yeah.

If they’ll make Sleeper a traitor this will be so bad. This will drop from 6/10 to 0/10 immediately.

Not looking forward to Venom future.

And the WORST part? I feel like they are pulling out “this relationship is toxic so it’s cancelled” card on symbrock. They never do that on hetero ships, but they happily destroy gay ships with that argument.

It sucks.

I hope I’m wrong. But like Venom gets new host this December. There’s not much room left to give us decent amount of Symbrock IF writers even want that.

[vertigoartgore]

Krakoa era's Storm (with her very cool X-Men: Red look designed by Russell Dauterman) by artist Dima Ivanov (2022).

[loki-core-the-variant]

Retro post from my Zucced fb page, Loki-Core: The Variant

[rei-ismyname]

Resurrection of Magneto Highlights 1

RoM is a book that loses something in the highlight format as the big moments are truly earned and impactful. There's an ongoing narration, dialogue or soliloquy running through each issue tying everything together and to truly give context I'd have to annotate it. Lucky for us, Al Ewing and Luciano Vecchio are masters and every panel serves as a coda for Storm or Magneto from SWORD and X-Men Red. This is easily my longest Highlights yet, there's just so much to say.

I wish I dreamt about Magneto

Ororo has a dream of a full page splash - Magneto, Max, saying 'I was wrong' surrounded by five of his iconic helmets. 3 red ones, bloody and facing towards the world. 1 black, 1 white upright behind his back. It's been quite a while since Uranos the Undying tore his heart out on Judgement Day but it's good to see Ororo has some measure of peace and love on Arakko with Craig of NASA.

She's the deuteragonist of RoM so she chooses to follow her dream and seek Max in the afterlife. Ororo shows up at Adam Brashear/The Blue Marvel's underwater base and asks for help with exactly that. He lampshades how bozos like Reed would deem it impossible and leads her to a portal. He's in the middle of explaining how dangerous it is and requires... we don't hear because Storm takes a running leap and YOLOs into it. Tarn the Uncaring and a who's who of Marvel cosmology are there to greet her. Tarn is insulted that Ororo has come for the guy who exploded his head, but as above, so below - he loves to talk and she outwits him.

Ashake is often obliquely referred to but very rarely directly, so it's lovely to see her magical ancestor here to help. As Ororo pets her black cat, Ashake confirms this is a place of magic. Symbols and metaphors are powerful here - something Mags could use help with in his current state. It's also connected to the Kabbalistic tree of life, but I'm not very knowledgeable about that.

Two redrawn and recoloured keystone moments of Max and Ororo's relationship down the bottom.

She resolved to see this through and her thought carries her towards the Sphere of Judgement. Unexpectedly a bunch of Dominions bar her path, though luckily the two mutants are too small to truly be of interest to them. Still, a single mortal arriving in Overspace is significant and they prompt her to ask questions. The face of Dominions are shown but it's still fairy tale rules. The most important thing she learns is about Enigma, though she doesn't know it at the time.

The Sphere of Judgement is hostile, everything is inverted. Lightning is red, the river is lava, clouds are black, everything is broken. She notices this spot from her dream and the charred frames of Max's five helmets still sit in blood. Magneto has been here for months by choice, bypassing the Waiting Room Wanda built but refusing to move on. He believes he deserves this.

Finally she reaches Magneto weeping blood in front of a wall of names. Everyone he ever killed and he's counting every one, remembering their name. He's judging himself, punishing, and doesn't think he deserves to leave.

He shares his greatest shames, his most recent cruelties. Worst, the ones he convinced himself was necessary. He's overwhelmed by the red in his ledger and in this place of judgement lashes out, flinging names off the wall at Ororo while naming the person. What snaps him out of it is the mention that something happened to Charles, heh.

'The no-place of his heart' 👌

Max turns the judgement on Ororo but she rejects it, calling him out for extending Charles the grace he won't extend to himself plus a little hypocrisy. Magneto has always been prone to drama and that tendency can hurt as much as it heals.

That really gets him going, but he's judging himself more constructively now. Love, friendship, accountability. The things that are keeping some part of tethered to the living world. He pulls one more name down to say the name aloud before he sends it at Ororo - it's his - Max Eisenhardt. Still, he cries 'it's out of our hands.' He truly wants to give up but I think a part of him knows his story isn't done.

Ororo disagrees. Displaying why she's the only person who could assist in the resurrection of Magneto, she covers his eyes and remembers the rules of this place. The wall of the dead becomes its opposite - the wall of the living. Not those he killed but those he saved. It's enough to pull him out of punishing himself. Neither group should be forgotten but he can choose to save life rather than take it - to change.

Torturing yourself in a personal hell might appease some of those dead, but accepting responsibility to the living should be what comes after judgement. Suffering helps no one, and as he says to Logan as he's about to kill Charles much later - 'no more martyrs.' Part of why I enjoyed Magneto identifying Logan Behavior is because he himself is the king of it. Charles too. All three are prone to martyrdom but dying is easy. It's living that's difficult and worthwhile. Secluding yourself from the world, whether it's in the Sphere of Judgement, a mega prison, or with a pack of wolves - is senseless and selfish. Living is better.

Next time - what does that actually mean for both of them and how do they get out of this place? It's not as simple as turning a key. Choosing to live is hard work. Metatextually, change and rebirth requires a tour of all that he is, all that he's done. What's the point of killing a character and then bringing them back the same as they were? Comic books do it all the time, but Magneto's long history is a study of opposites and extremes. He, the writer and the reader all need to deconstruct Magneto so he can be reconstructed as a better person. With the benefit of hindsight we know he succeeds, but what does that actually look like for him? 60 years of his oversized influence on the world is a lot and it only gets better from here.