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Marvel Pick Of The Week – April 6, 2016 [SPOILERS]

By Matt Conner

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Pick Of The Week:

The Vision 6, by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Each of the previous five issues of this book has been Pick of its Week, and this week continues that trend. Tom King has written a tightly-wound corkscrew of a story spinning one of the more popular Avengers into escalating dread. The Vision’s new synthetic wife has been connected to several deaths, and he has lied to the authorities to cover it up. In this issue, the synthezoid realizes his mistake but chooses to descend further into horror rather than face publicity. Meanwhile, a character from issue three is recruiting help to stop The Vision. And the family gets a new dog.

Walta’s art is again perfection, making a key blood spatter summon the classic Even An Android Can Cry image and showcasing a few horrific scenes of injury to animals without coming across as lurid or indulgent. A family of red-skinned mechanical people floats through walls instead of using doors, but Walta grounds them in the same realism that allows him to narrate seven panels from the point of view of the neighbor’s terrier. It’s sad that dogs are in trouble in this issue, but the artist thinks it’s sad, too, so the reader is supported and challenged. King obviously trusts his art team – the narrative captions never tell the reader what’s happening in the pictures. This is Comic Book in its purest form, letting the pictures and the words tell a full story by dancing alongside one another and never duplicating each other’s steps.

The writing is unlike anything Marvel has going right now. The narration explains a logic puzzle about using computer algorithms to solve problems, but it moves slowly enough to keep the reader attuned to both the puzzle and its application to the story unfolding beneath the captions. It’s a perfect way to say, from a  smart person, that The Vision is screwed beyond redemption right now, and he got there in the little steps we’ve seen over the past five issues. He got there by living in the world where human neighbors invent new xenophobic slurs to vandalize across his garage. He got there by building a family that makes tiny mistakes of their own. This title has been a masterpiece of subtle plotting, so when big events like the arrival of the family dog happen (and this dog lover can promise you the whole story about it is creepy as all Hell), our jaws drop but we get it. These characters have gone so far off of the plane of acceptable that it makes sense, and we can get a bit of dark humor in two android children playing with a wrong-wrong-wrong doggie.

And on the topic of subtlety, I’d like to direct attention to Mike Del Mundo’s phenomenal cover. In particular, look at the romance and passion of characters who need each other enough to melt into one another, and contrast that with the fiery death of their suburban dream in the background and the edges of racist vandalism on their garage door. Every cover of this issue has been suitable for framing, blending the sweet nobility of The Vision’s dreams with the eerie sinister atmosphere of Walta’s interior pencils and master colorist Jordie Bellaire’s uncanny ability to give a reader goosebumps.

Honorable Mentions:

Spider-Women Alpha, because Robbie Thompson is so obviously thrilled to bounce three of Marvel’s highest-profile women around. This dialogue zings.

Uncanny Avengers 8, because HELLO, alternate-reality Deadpool!

New Avengers 9, because the American Kaiju is Todd Zilla, the Marine who punched out the atheist professor in that idiotic Facebook story, only now he is a giant monster who has flags painted on him and can only speak by yelling “You!” “Ess!” “Ayyy!” and he is ALL I want for Christmas this year.

Scarlet Witch 5, because I love when a comic can make you actually say, “Don’t go in there!”

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Check out previous Picks here!

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