Captain Marvel #45: Oh, Here She Comes. She’s A Man-Eater.

It’s the third installment of Carol and her friend’s caper in deep Brood to save the missing X-Man, Rogue. The friends in question just happen to be a motley crew of X-Men, Spider-Woman, and Hazmat. This chapter is the last issue before Gerry Duggan’s X-Men crossover with this storyline next month, as the battle with rogue (snicker) factions of Brood are destroying entire civilizations throughout the universe. So let’s down to business, shall we? 

Our little tale begins in a utopian society, where everyone seems like they’re having the time of their lives at an interstellar gala, but not everything is what it seems. After realizing there’s something wrong, Gambit and Psylocke come up with a plan that frees Gambit from the psychic holding the Brood had on him. After freeing the rest of the group, the team attempts to free themselves, despite being infected with Brood embryos themselves. Whew. Kelly and Sergio are going 60 miles per hour with this issue, paying homage to a couple of Claremont’s classic runs, like the original Brood Saga (Uncanny X-Men 161-167), as well as the Skrull infiltration of the Shi’ar empire (Uncanny X-Men 273-277), which complimented the story being told here so well. 

Sergio Davila’s back for this arc, and his art has been fairly decent, to exceptional, with this issue he continues the trend. There were some wonky scenes, especially during the party haze, and the hair, but overall it was a pretty stellar issue. I especially enjoyed the way he draws the Brood. There’s a panel that looks like it was heavily inspired by the Cameron flick Aliens, which I found to be equally enjoyable.

I’m hoping that Davila becomes the new regular artist for the book, because the constant new artist for every arc has been something that’s annoyed me for quite awhile. 

Thompson and Davila really give us a very satisfying chapter of this latest Brood Saga, portraying the Brood as very cunning, and duplicitous, rather than some mindless alien bugs, even having the Brood using bio-organic weapons that dampened the powers of Carol, her crew, and the X-Men, while also keeping them in a psychic hallucination to keep them placated while implanting the Brood embryos inside the heroes. Thompson and Davila are playing this story out like it’s a horror story, and it’s a nice change of pace, giving Thompson a chance to stretch her writing chops, and it’s a nice change of pace for the series. I hope we can continue to see different storylines like this for the rest of Thompson’s run.