Return of the Valkyries #1

Return of the Valkyries #1

Marvel Comics 2021

Written by Jason Aaron & Torunn Grønbekk

Illustrated by Nina Vakueva

Coloured by Tamra Bonvillain

Lettered by VC’s Joe Sabino

JANE FOSTER RETURNS!

Once there was an entire army of Valkyries, but now Jane Foster is the only one. When the King in Black comes to Midgard, Jane must rebuild the Valkyries to help stop him -- starting with Hildegarde, a warrior from Asgard’s own hallowed halls, and X-Man Dani Moonstar, a former Valkyrie herself. But what Jane doesn’t know…is that she never was the only Valkyrie after all. Who is the fourth warrior?

Not gonna lie, I wasn’t going to read this because of the whole King In Black mishegas but when you add Dani Moonstar to the mix well that’s all it took to reel me right on in. Dani has been so many things and the part of her that became a Valkyrie in one of the most amazing X-Men stories ever to be told has always resonated with and stayed with her when she lost her mutant powers. Plus she is one of my favourite Marvel characters and by golly I cannot wait for her to show up.

So I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The opening with The Sentry is something I am not sure of, if he’s truly dead then i’m all for it if not then what a waste of an opening. The character development is interesting, Jane is way oversaturated in the Marvel Universe so to see where she’s going to go is going to be tough. What I am looking forward to is the return of the others and how we see their personalities. The pacing here is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story we find ourselves zipping right through the issue.

How we see this book being structured and how the layers within the story are beginning to emerge show a solid understanding of how effective storytelling can work. Also it’s nice to see how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow. If there are going to be only four Valkyries for now then hopefully Jane isn’t going to lead them because in all honesty her name is only thing that stands out about her and there are others who can do a much better job of it.

The interiors here are interesting. There is a very unique style to the way we see the linework throughout this book. Faces for example are very simple and then the rest seems to have a different approach so that the contrast creates something different and interesting. In space they cannot hear you scream, though talking is easy enough, but i would like to see more of the illusion of space continued throughout all the panels instead of that “flat” colour background. That first page of the bar is what i’d love to see throughout because not only does that really create the ambiance we want to see but it enhances the moments beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a nice eye for storytelling. The colour work is well rendered throughout as well. I like how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work.

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Marvel has this very predictable and BAD habit of oversaturating characters who seem to be hot. Conan for example is everywhere and shouldn’t be. So Jane while a great character is simply overused in my opinion. This is a chance to have the Valkyries back and with Dani a part of that I’m actually excited to see what’s coming. So if we can keep Jane’s role not as prominent to the book then I have a feeling this is going to be a great limited series.