Patrick McDonnell’s THE SUPER HERO’S JOURNEY is a unique take on Marvel Comics

The Super Hero’s Journey

Writer and Artist: Patrick McDonnell
Letters: Todd Klein
Colors: Robert McDonnell 
Designer: Matt Kindt, David Rubín
Publisher: Abrams ComedianArts

Last yr, Alex Ross launched the MarvelArts line at Abrams ComedianArts together with his graphic novel, Fantastic Four: Full Circle. Marvel is notorious for its lack of evergreen graphic novels; tales which might be reprinted continually, don’t require information of canon, and stand utterly on their very own as somebody’s first comedian. Ross’ Full Circle tried to be simply that: a quintessential Fantastic Four story, fantastically drawn and printed in an outsized format that enables the medium to shine to its fullest potential. Even folks like me, who don’t learn a lot of Fantastic Four comics, have been utterly taken in by the artistry and presentation that we simply frankly don’t typically see with Marvel trades. 

This yr, Patrick McDonnell follows up Alex Ross with the most recent entry within the Marvel Arts line, The Super Hero’s Journey. Told via each authentic artwork by McDonnell, and repurposing of traditional pages from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and Vince Colletta, this graphic novel follows a assortment of Marvel heroes who’re confronted with the ability of overwhelming negativity. McDonnell attracts a connection between non secular ritual and superhero comics on the spinner rack, telling a framing story the place he reminisces on household church journeys that have been adopted by visits to the native Pharmacy, full with Soda Fountain and a comedian ebook rack. Images of the church are juxtaposed with the picture of Lee and Ditko’s Eternity, in the meantime the comics are known as McDonnell’s “alter.” The traditional Marvel bullpen right here turn out to be disciples, spreading the phrase of alternate realities and battles over the destiny of the universe.

The story sweeps us away early on with reverence for comics, and particularly the attraction and surprise of a Marvel comics cowl. And then it presents the well-known Marvel trope that captured childhood creativeness: grownup issues. Marvel’s 1960’s revolution in comics was centered on heroes with actual issues, those who noticed their powers as a curse or unwillingly traded away parts of their humanity. That angst is reworked into the story’s metanarrative, a artistic option to make these heroes depressed is was a plan by Dr. Doom to unfold negativity and battle. McDonnell has no scarcity of fabric to work with right here, as Thing and Johnny Storm combat, Iron Man broods, and the Hulk is unable to seek out peace all within the pages of authentic Marvel artwork.

McDonnell shifts between his personal artwork fashion and traditional artwork with transition pages that really feel like they offer life to this existential angst. Detailed drawings are reworked piece by piece till the emotional core is laid naked, and we’re left to ask the essential questions of who these characters are and what they need.

The option to shift backwards and forwards between these two kinds helps to encapsulate the inherent rigidity between a youngster’s perspective on the superhero world and the extra mature nature of the tales being instructed. McDonnell feels as if he’s calling consideration to how the customarily difficult frustrations of a typical Marvel hero can typically be remedied by the simplified ideas of fine and evil that a youngster brings into existence. If the spinner rack is certainly the alter, then these are the tales of Gods and Devils which appropriately finish in clear ethical classes. 

The most attention-grabbing alternative within the comedian is using quotes from a number of comics creators, philosophers, and non secular figures uttered from the angle of the Watcher. McDonnell cites everybody from Henry David Thoreau to Carl Jung and Eckhart Tolle. Tolle particularly is maybe the origin of lots of the non secular allusions within the story, mixing existential questions with a divine sense of goal and ethical readability. McDonnell is in a position to seamlessly transfer between 60s superhero dialogue and new age proverbs in a manner that once more straddles the road between maturity and childhood.

In posing these questions and quotes to a youngster’s heroes, McDonnell is attempting to articulate what precisely the morals, character and expectations of superheroes are, and the way a youngster may perceive their feelings and conflicts. The story by no means feels prefer it’s talking all the way down to its viewers, nor is it over indulging in mental jargon. Rather, there is a loving method right here of attempting to convey out the essence of what the life and dying battles of the universe in a Marvel comedian may imply in a extra human manner. If Galactus makes us really feel just like the world is ending, what is that feeling in service too? 

Dr. Doom and Reed Richards appropriately take middle stage right here. While the Watcher is our information, he serves extra because the viewers’s standpoint. Reed and Doom, on the opposite hand, progress via the comedian ebook studying expertise and use the information of the reader to tell their decisions. Reed in the end involves phrases together with his personal guilt over the accident that created the Fantastic Four within the first place, and Doom is pressured to reconcile with the insecurities that drive him. The two characters operate because the embodiment of each our information and energy in service to negativity and positivity. They are two sides of the identical coin.

The confrontations between Reed and Doom permit for some enjoyable interactions. Reed is allowed to journey the comics universe and expertise all the pieces from Romance Comics covers to a traditional Marvel No-Prize. In these travels, there is an air of nostalgia for the way studying Marvel comics used to really feel, with cautious consideration to the main points of comics adverts and the customarily overly heavy Stan Lee-style narration. There is each humor and a touching illustration of how our humanity is performed out between aliens, superheroes and cosmic entities. 

McDonnell’s The Super Hero’s Journey is one other win for the MarvelArts line. It takes a unique inventive method to softly information us via the expertise of being a comedian ebook fan, whereas on the similar time pushing the characters to confront the human flaws and aspirations that created them within the first place. The repurposing and mixing of traditional artwork with McDonnell’s personal fashion makes for a number of the most unique artwork in a Marvel comedian, and the philosophical underpinning of the story and the Watcher’s perspective drive house the bigger than life questions that drive us to create heroes and villains within the first place.

Verdict: BUY

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