Elsewhere

This week, I wrote a pretty quick and positive review of Brain Boy #3 over at read/RANT. Also, my latest piece went up on PopMatters, looking at Ultimate Spider-Man's most recent arc. I quite liked how Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez handled the story of Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man again after a year-long hiatus, in that they split their focus pretty equally between that story and the introductions of some new characters. Namely Cloak and Dagger, who I love always, and was happy to see in a new setting.

Something I Failed to Mention
Although I mentioned the character of Luisa in passing in my Brain Boy review, I didn't talk about her in her position as romantic interest for Matt Price (the Brain Boy of the book's title). And partly, that's because I'm not too wild about her in that role yet, but at the same time, the comic and the character are both so new that I don't want to jump to any conclusions. I guess I just wish Luisa had been developed a bit more. While of course Matt was going to get most of the spotlight, I thought Fred Van Lente did a pretty good job at making supporting cast members like Faraday and Georgina memorable and full in a relatively short space. Luisa, though, leaves less of an impression. She's so angry when we first meet her because her father has been unfairly imprisoned, but over the course of this opening arc, Matt manages to save her dad and protect him from further harm. That calms Luisa down and cheers her up considerably, which makes sense, but I've seen so little of her in that mindset thus far it's hard to know how I feel about her. That in turn makes Matt's obvious attraction to her a little harder to understand or support. So I'm still hopeful she'll be good for him, and good for the comic, and so far she certainly hasn't been a bad or weak or unlikable cast member in any way. But right at this moment, there's also an underlying apprehension about her and Matt's budding romance.