Comic Review: Mockingbird Volume 1

So, one of the Gabbing Geeks recommended this book during an episode of the podcast.

Surprisingly, it was Ryan and not Jenny.

Bobbi “Don’t Call Her Barbara” Morse is a longtime Avenger, the ex-wife of Hawkeye, and a lot of other things as well.  She’s a scientist, gymnast,  feminist, and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.   What she hasn’t had too often if ever before is her own ongoing series.  True, this one didn’t last long, but Marvel gave her one not that long ago during a period where they tried tossing all kinds of characters off into their own solo series besides the usual Marvel heroes.  Going by the hero alias “Mockingbird,” Bobbi doesn’t really have any superpowers, but she was injected with a combination of the super solider serum and the infinity serum, so she needs to check into a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical base once a week for tests.  It doesn’t matter where she is or what she’s doing, she has to go there.  She may be manifesting superpowers of some kind, and there seem to be zombies in the basement, but that’s the first issue reprinted, and there’s more to it than that.

What follows could easily be both a series of single-issue stories from writer Chelsea Cain, but they all circle back to the events in the first issue as Bobbi fills in a bit of backstory while also having standard spy adventures dealing with the Hellfire Club, rescuing the men in her life, and contemplating both her place as a superhero and why she wanted to become one in the first place.  Cain does that with a lot of humor and some general acknowledgement of what the rest of the Marvel Universe looks like

This was just a fun book, which makes it something of a shame that Marvel discontinued it after eight issues.  Five plus a special issue are covered in this volume, so wait for me to get to the second at some point in the future, but in the meantime, let’s say nine out of ten simultaneous Howard the Duck and Miles Morales team-ups.