Binary #2 // Review
Carol Danvers he is just trying to keep everyone safe. She's sectioned off her own portion of the country. That includes her hometown. And she's trying to protect it from the X Virus that seems to have taken over everything. And she's just trying to create stability. But anyone who's doing so who has great power is going to run the risk of coming across like some kind of a totalitarian jailer. This makes things particularly difficult in.Binary #2. Writer Stephanie Phillips continues her smart Age of Revelation event treatment of Phoenix with artist Giada Belviso and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg.
Carol Danvers was there when Jean Grey died. The Phoneix Force lived on in Carol Danvers. Jean Grey trusted her to save the world. ALl she managed to do was save her hometown. And now even THAT is creating instability with everyone living there. There’s an uprising that seems to be trying to lash out at her and it’s going to get dangerous for everyone involved. Carol isn’t going to have a whole lot of time to feel sorry for herself, though. There’s a restlessness within the peple who she’s trying to protect. That restlessness has found a bundle of dynamite and it intends on using explosive power against her.
Phillips taps into one of the more haunting, dramatic themes of the X-Men saga with the second issue of the series that's not just a matter of having power and the responsibility that goes along with it. It's a matter of living up to the memory of those who have come before. Those who have held power before. And not necessarily being able to do the right thing. Phillips is heading off in a direction that takes that dynamic in a completely new direction that feels like it could be really interesting as the series progresses. It might even be brilliant.
Belviso frames, cosmic power in a way that feels very powerful on the page. It's very difficult to show overwhelming power on a comic book page in a way that feels dynamic and shows the true intensity of this type of power. Every artist has a slightly different way of approaching it. Not every artist is terribly successful with bringing it to the page. Belviso find the right balance between huge panels of overwhelming power and tight close-ups on the human element of the drama as well. Belviso’s work is given life by sound particularly powerful luminescent effects brought to the page by Rosenberg
What Phillips and company are putting to the page isn't exactly going to be the easiest thing for most people to follow if they're not entirely familiar with the characters of Gene Gray, and Carol Danvers. Phillips has a pretty good job of. Speaking to the universals of the situation in a way that just about any reader could pick up, though. Wouldn't even necessarily need to be familiar with the first issue to be able to understand what's going on in this one. Phillips and Company have captured a very powerful dynamic. That has the page in a very clever way with a particularly powerful cliffhanger at issue’s end.
