Monica Rambeau: Photon #5 - Marvel Comics

MONICA RAMBEAU: PHOTON No. 5, June 2023

Simply consisting of one long, dialogue heavy conversation between the titular character and “the emotion-manipulating prince of desire, Starfox”, it’s highly unlikely many bibliophiles perusing Eve L. Ewing’s conclusion to this five-issue mini-series were particularly impressed with its storytelling. In fact, it's arguably quite clear early on in this twenty-page periodical that the American sociologist quickly ran out of plot and thus had to heavily rely upon artist Luca Maresca to pad the comic’s contents out to the required length with numerous wordless panels and splash-sized sketches.

Leading a disappointingly long list of concerns is that frustratingly none of what transpires within this sedentary tome debatably explains any of the title’s previously printed senseless shenanigans. All the audience are told is that one of the former Captain Marvel’s unreconciled aspirations has caused the galaxy to quite literally unfold before her eyes and only by accepting that she has already “done enough” as a super-hero will the Avenger mysteriously manage to right all the fractured multi-verses her apparent lack of focus created in the first place; “Everything appears frozen as it was at the moment just before you had your epiphany.”

Just why any of these problems occurred in the first place, or how they were supposedly connected to both the American author’s dislikeable “new incarnation of the Beyonder” and seemingly forgotten Stone of Hala, is entirely avoided. Indeed, considering that Ewing bemusing skips the scene where Rambeau explains the situation to Eros of Titan with an unsatisfying “few tense minutes later…” text box, some within this book’s audience will probably be thinking that the writer didn’t quite know the finer details of her own narrative herself.

Sadly, the aforementioned contribution by Italian illustrator Maresca doesn’t add that much extra to "Monica Rambeau: Photon" either - albeit the Graphics and Advertising Photography graduate’s pencilling is perfectly proficient. Foremost of these faults is the disconcerting redesign of the Beyonder and Starfox, which look absolutely nothing like their much more recognisable classic counterparts. Of course, some case can be made for these redesigns as they’ve been specifically caused by Photon’s ill-fated influence upon the cosmos. But the gaunt, vampiric Eternal genuinely appears more likely to drink Monica’s blood than help her save anything and coupled with this comic’s other problems just adds to the overall sense of dissatisfying disorder.

The regular cover art of "MONICA RAMBEAU" #5 by Lucas Werneck