Bands On The Run: Reviewing ‘Captain Marvel’ #2

Two minds are better than one, right? Hard to say when those minds are a superhero and a college student/thief. Probably doesn’t help to have a powerful mysterious new foe and the reanimated corpse of another superhero hot on your tail.

Newly connected Carol Danvers and Yuna Yang are tossed into the deep end in Captain Marvel #2 by Alyssa Wong, Jan Bazaldua, Bryan Valenza, and Ariana Maher.

This issue does a fantastic job of balancing more setup for the main characters while putting on a super-powered chase scene wrapped in a classic superhero throwdown. Wong gives us more of Yuna’s life, explores what this new situation is doing to Carol, makes their new foe (and her new helper) even more dangerous, and points towards more going on beyond them all.

Status quo changes are always tough when it comes to long-running characters. Fans become used to a certain flavor of story, or way of doing a character, so naturally it’s hard to change. Often, the best way to facilitate a creative shift is to do so in a way that feels like an extension of what came before, rather than a replacement. This is what Wong does so well here, and did in their short run on Deadpool too.

One can finish the last issue of the previous Kelly Thompson-penned Captain Marvel series and roll right into this title with nary a hiccup or speed bump. Sure, there are differences in how the writers present things (everyone has their own style), but this story very much feels like the next exciting chapter of Carol’s exciting life rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Or, for that matter, endeavor to be fully different for the sake of being different (or ego).

Everything that Bazaldua and Valenza put on the page screams superheroes.

There is a tangible fluidity to the pencil work, with plenty of great depth and expressiveness to boot. Bazaldua mixes the right levels of grounded reality with a flair of whimsical energy. Characters have weight and presence in the setting, and their existence and movement within that space feel so real. A keen eye for depth and scale helps, allowing the characters to fill the page when necessary or be pulled back in comparison.

Superheroes come with bright poppy colors and we get plenty of those here. At the same time, the surrounding is very much a more toned-down affair, as Valenza dips into both wells. This allows the more fantastical elements to feel that way while maintaining that world-outside-the-window aspect. But it is also something turned on its head when we see the Negative Zone version of the world Carol exists within. Colors flop around so that the more mundane elements are fantastical since this is a more out-there plane of existence.

Carol is a character that, for the most part, we’ve never heard (outside of movie or animation versions, of course). Yet, the way that Maher letters, we get a voice that just sounds so right for her and even for the characters we barely know. There are so many things that Maher does that make lettering do far more than just give us a visual of what characters are saying. We can feel the emotion, tone, volume, personality, and more behind every single word that appears on that page.

Essentially, these characters feel real on every single level when a creative team is going all in like this.

Captain Marvel #2 is now available from Marvel Comics.