Marvel Fanfare 40: Chiaroscuro
Hi there, Merry Marvel Marchers!
This is buzzylittleb. I'm one of papajoemambo's lovely assistants. I thought we could all do with something pretty to look at.
This is from Marvel Fanfare 40. I love Marvel Fanfare with the fury of a thousand suns. The story is "Chiaroscuro" by Ann Nocenti and David Mazzucchelli. There is context, but I think I'm going to leave that until the end of this post.
Great, wasn't it? You want the context now? In Al's introduction, he says that the story is set in the [insert team here] Vs Mephisto miniseries; so that is really Angel and he's really falling out of the sky because X-Factor are losing the battle against Mephisto.
There is so much to love about this story. The art is beautiful. But what is really amazing, so thinks I, is the use of an unreliable narrator. We know that the "angel" is really Warren Worthington III; Josie doesn't, so she explains him in her own terms. We know otherwise because we have prior knowledge from a) Al Milgrom and his introduction and b) through being Marvelites. But what if we didn't know? The story still functions. We have a story about an elderly woman regaining her confidence and her faith through an angel crashing in her apple tree. Which is the real story? *grins* I really should have something smart to say here, and I could nit-pick and point out that gluing feathers on shouldn't help Warren to fly, or the likelihood of Josie leaving her needlework sketch around for years, but I can't find it in myself. I just sit back and enjoy. It's pretty great whatever way you take it, and let's face it, if it was written from Warren's point of view it just wouldn't work. We'd know too much and it would feel exploitative and uncomfortable.
I hope you've enjoyed this post.
This is buzzylittleb. I'm one of papajoemambo's lovely assistants. I thought we could all do with something pretty to look at.
This is from Marvel Fanfare 40. I love Marvel Fanfare with the fury of a thousand suns. The story is "Chiaroscuro" by Ann Nocenti and David Mazzucchelli. There is context, but I think I'm going to leave that until the end of this post.
Great, wasn't it? You want the context now? In Al's introduction, he says that the story is set in the [insert team here] Vs Mephisto miniseries; so that is really Angel and he's really falling out of the sky because X-Factor are losing the battle against Mephisto.
There is so much to love about this story. The art is beautiful. But what is really amazing, so thinks I, is the use of an unreliable narrator. We know that the "angel" is really Warren Worthington III; Josie doesn't, so she explains him in her own terms. We know otherwise because we have prior knowledge from a) Al Milgrom and his introduction and b) through being Marvelites. But what if we didn't know? The story still functions. We have a story about an elderly woman regaining her confidence and her faith through an angel crashing in her apple tree. Which is the real story? *grins* I really should have something smart to say here, and I could nit-pick and point out that gluing feathers on shouldn't help Warren to fly, or the likelihood of Josie leaving her needlework sketch around for years, but I can't find it in myself. I just sit back and enjoy. It's pretty great whatever way you take it, and let's face it, if it was written from Warren's point of view it just wouldn't work. We'd know too much and it would feel exploitative and uncomfortable.
I hope you've enjoyed this post.