Journey Into Mystery #638 Review
“Exiled” Part 4 continues a crossover between the New Mutants and Journey Into Mystery!
Journey Into Mystery #638
The Disir have been unleashed and they are destroying everything in their path. Loki, who was meant to reverse the spell that have trapped the Asgardians in mortal shells, turned out to just be a boy who pretended to be Loki for fun. After being jolted back into his true self, he sets out to get Leah and Hela back into their correct states of mind. When they snap out of the spell, they arm the New Mutants with the ability to defeat and capture the Disir. One of the cannibalistic monsters escapes and is about to feed on Sigurd when she’s captured, but she tells the true story behind how they came to be and how they can be finally be freed from the curse Bor placed on them eons ago.
At first, I wasn’t quite sure what the think of this book, which led to an uncharacteristically low score for a Kieron Gillen written comic. While his usual wit and charm has been present despite the writing assist from Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, the book heavily features the New Mutants. For many, that’s great, but I have virtually no experience with them. Thus, I was having a hard time in the earlier parts of this story connecting dots and fully understanding their characters. Now that we are four parts into this five part story, the story has grown on me a little bit.
It’s not the most original story from the point of view of the Asgardians. Whereas Gillen has excelled at telling truly new stories with kid Loki as the lead, this story falls back on the idea of the Asgardians turned human which was seen not too long ago. In some ways, this book does serve as a potential end to the saga of the Disir (a great set of characters that were used extremely well during Gillen’s entire run with the Thor characters). Based on what’s apparently to come in the final part, this is very likely the last we’ll see of the Disir for some time. A part of me is sad for that, but I hope they get a great send off if this is to be the end.
Where I run into problems with this story goes beyond the involvement of characters I don’t know all that well (and really not the fault of anyone associated with this book). It goes beyond art from Carmine Di Giandomenico that doesn’t exactly fit what I’m more likely to appreciate. There’s something intangible about this book that seems to be underlining the story Unfortunately, I’m not sure what it is. The story has grown on me and I’m liking this story now much more than I had before, but it is missing a punch that makes Journey Into Mystery one of my very favorite books from Marvel. Not reading New Mutants, I don’t know if the feel or attitude of the book better matches that series, but some of that great attitude of Gillen’s writing of Loki feels suppressed. Yeah, he ended up playing the New Mutants for fools in the previous part (in the New Mutants series). Sure, he figured out something he could do to beat back the Disir, but it wasn’t an overly clever conclusion he made as far as what to do. We’re used to Loki playing a chess game with the plot and the audience. It feels lacking here. I know he had to act during a time of stress, but it still felt a tad flimsy.
On the other hand, the twist in the Disir story was clever and made for an interesting play on legend and, on a larger scale, mythology and religion. We’re so used to hearing one story and letting that be the gospel, but every story has at least two perspectives. What if what we know about something had more than one side to it that greatly changes that original thing in a way that has us sympathizing with something that was always portrayed as a demon? Are you more likely to put your trust on that version that opens your eyes and seduces you with new ideas and thoughts on the topic? Can that end up being a ruse that will be the undoing of everything? That’s what we will likely ask ourselves in the final part of “Exiled” and we can get back to what we’ve come to expect from this series since its return.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Story is getting more interesting. Twist on the Disir that works and could change everything we know about them, or could just be a ruse for them to get their ultimate revenge. | Loki’s schemes, while understandably in a moment of great stress, feels lacking and ultimately missing. Art is still not really to my taste. |
| Rating |
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