Death of Captain Marvel

I am a big Jim Starlin fan and I read a lot of his work, but I never read THE graphic novel. I am not sure why...I do remember when it came out, or at least hearing about it coming out. It sold out pretty quick and a friend of mine (who was even a bigger Jim Starlin fan) got his sister's boy friend to drive him around San Jose until he found a copy. I remember being taken back when he told me that he bought a copy for himself but did not pick me up a copy...in any case I never got to spend my $6 to buy a copy.

Back than, comics did not get reprinted (unless a Conan story published in Savage Sword of Conan got colored and printed as a fill in the Conan The Barbarian comic), so I thought I pretty much missed my chance of getting it. But things were changing. The first Marvel graphic novel got a second (and a third and a fourth) printing pretty quickly but I never got around to buy them. Mostly because I started hearing that The Death of Captain Marvel was “not as good” as “his Warlock and Captain Marvel stuff”. Later I heard the same opinions about Jim Starlin’s “Dreadstar” and “Breed”. Just recently I hear that same opinion about “Death of the New Gods”…but I enjoyed all of those above mentioned books, so last week while shopping at Hijinx I took the plunge and got a copy of the reprint that was available in their stock.

This is a reprint of Captain Marvel 34, Marvel Spotlight 1 &2, and “The Death of Captain Marvel” graphic novel. The reprint is comic sized, so the pages have been shank down from the original magazine sized book and the reproduction is horrible. It looks like someone has scanned the printed pages of the graphic novel and there are all sorts of problems with zip-a-tone and color dropping out in certain spots. It’s a shame.

I read it.

I loved it.

The writing was wonderful, the storytelling was great, art was mature and well thought out. It was a great story. A true graphic novel.