Simone Bianchi

A by and large good story that's let down by pretty bad art for the most part (Lee Garbett largely excepting), starting with that terrible outside art by Dale Keown and Jason Keith. I don't know what expression Angela is supposed to be making (somehow it's an emotionless grimace?), and she seems to be sort of just staring at her boobs for some reason? It's probably one of the worst drawings of that ridiculous costume, and there have been some really bad ones. Loki, who is more notable for his brains than his brawn, for some reason has bulging veins (???) on his bulging muscles, the former of which is more concerning, as well as the bulging veins around his neck, usually limited to Rob Leifeld and his copycats drawing the Hulk or Captain America or like... Thor. Not that it's fine on Thor, since the bulging veins thing doesn't work like that, even on body builders, but sure, whatever. And then there's Freyja's literal boobplate armor. Admittedly I don't think these guys came up with this outfit, but like Angela, this is probably one of the worst drawings of it.

A good portion of the book is drawn by Lee Garbett, and he does a mostly pretty good job (although he also has issues, like one particular panel with Angela which honestly is not solely down to her costume), like he did on the "Young Loki" books. Simone Biachi seems to be the major problem. Some of the action shots and spreads are fine, but the way he draws faces is just... ugh, except for maybe a couple panels? And a lot of the art could best be called vaguely colored shmears, which isn't a compliment.

Angela's second costume design is pathetic, and only slightly less bad than her original one. The costumes of the Angels are also quite terrible and I don't know how any of them aren't dead of stab wounds already.

There's a decent amount of humor and good character development, particularly with Angela and Loki/Angela. The Angel queen is pretty fun. Of course to get there you have to get past Thor being a sexist ignoramus, so.... that's.... fun? Much as I tend to like Jason Aaron, I have to wonder if that's him coming into this. He writes great scripts a lot but Thor being a lust-fueled jackass pops up plenty in his other works. Thor is no saint and I know lusting after women is a thing he does, but too many writers flip him back from "noble but still learning dude with parent issues" to "generic musclebound misogynist." For no reason. It's not good writing.

Overall, a neat addition to the Young Loki storyline. Wish the art was better. And the writing was more tweaked to be less... frustrating.… (mehr)