WASP #1

Story: Al Ewing

Art: Kasia Nie

$3.99, 32 pages

Marvel Comics

Review: Kris Lorenzen

What It Is: The latest miniseries staring The Wasp, Janet Van Dyne, and her stepdaughter, Nadia, who also goes by The Wasp… Maybe they should have called this WASPS? Anyway, this coincides with the character’s 60th anniversary.

The Good: The story catches you up with where the Marvel universe—or at least the New York superheroes—is at currently, and what our titular heroines are up to. It thankfully forgoes the Marvel recap page in favor of accomplishing this through dialogue, voiceover, and flashback—more of an old school Jim Shooter-era “every comic is somebody’s first comic” approach, which is refreshing nowadays. The thrust of the series is established and there’s a teaser for what Big Bad they’ll face, and a nicely executed action scene to break up all the talking head panels.

With a striking cover and clean, engaging art with rock-solid storytelling chops, this will be somebody’s first comic, or at least their first WASP comic, so all of that is necessary and handled deftly.

And there came a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat a $3.99 cover price was filed under The Good section. Never thought I’d see it, but with Marvel’s tendency to price-gouge first issues, I’ll reluctantly give it to them.

The Bad: It’s an old concern, but will someone new to comics—perhaps brought in because of their love for the Ant-Man movies and Wasp in particular—understand the differences in the status quo with the characters? The script does its best to alleviate these concerns, and it’s not the job of a mid-level miniseries released during January to fix the disconnect problem between comic and movie properties, but still. It is a problem and it nags.

Miniseries are all the rage now as comic sales typically plummet by more than 50% after the first issue and continue downward exponentially, but there’s real a lack of confidence from the publisher with releasing a miniseries—they didn’t care, why should you?

These are industry-wide problems, so it seems unfair to saddle a satisfyingly funny book with them as most of this is firmly outside of its prevue. But, again, they are problems and they won’t just go away if fans stay silent and spend money.

The Score: 6 out of 10 capes

Further Reading: I don’t need to tell you to go back and read IMMORTAL HULK, right? Al Ewing’s definitive statement on another founding Avenger. Instead. watch out for more Kasia Nie books in the future. She’s a real, fully formed talent and we’ll see that name on some high-profile books soon.