X-Lapsed, Episode 164 – Marvel’s Voices #1 (2020)
X-Lapsed, Episode One Hundred Sixty-Four
Marvel’s Voices #1 ( April, 2020)
“Race”
“A Diamond’s Worth”
“Death”
“Back to Madripoor”
Writers – Vita Ayala, Anthony Piper, Method Man, Daniel Dominiguez, David F. Walker, & Chuck Brown
Art – Bernard Chang, Anthony Piper, Alitha E. Martinez, & Sanford Greene
Colors – Marcelo Maiolo, Emilio Lopez, Anthony Piper, & Matt Herms
Letters – VC’s Travis Lanham
Special Thanks – Angelique Roche, Sana Amanat, Sarah Amos, Ron Richards, Steve Wacker, Jill Du Boff, Mr. Daniel, Jorge Estrada, & Percia Verlin
Design – Salena Mahina
Edits – Chris Robinson & C.B. Cebulski
Cover Price: $4.99
On-Sale: February 19, 2020
Stepping slightly off the beaten path today to take a look at a semi-recent Anthology special! To paraphrase that fella from Dragnet, it’s “Just the X, ma’am” as we take a look at four X-Relevant stories that appeared in 2020’s Marvel’s Voices #1
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@acecomics / @cosmictmill / weirdcomicshistory@gmail.com
I love the idea of this series of specials. It's great that many Marvel creators have expanded the profile of heroes but this is often done by Straight, White, Cis-gendered Men and for true diversity we need to expand the pool of creators. The possible downside is that it is very hard to write a great short story and therefore it's difficult for writers to turn their presence in these books into regular work. Marvel could use this project solely as a mask of progression whilst continuing to rotate their top books between the same small group of men.
On a completely unrelated note I write this comment the day after Marvel announced that Donny Cates is replacing Al Ewing on the Hulk which shows their commitment to diverse hiring.
Onto the actual comics I mainly enjoyed the Forge and Shuri story and the Wolverine one drawn by Sanford Green. It makes me feel hopeful for Children of the Atom and makes me want to pick up Bitter Root which has the same creative team as the Madripoor story. I've always loved Sanford Greene's art (I was the person who bought that Wonder Girl mini that he drew) and he's getting better.
My personal favourite was the Luciano Vecchio Pride march story which you didn't cover. I suppose the X-characters were in the background.
A good initiative but hopefully not the limit of Marvel's commitment to diversity.