Mockingbird #1 Review

Writer: Chelsea Cain / Artist: Kate Niemczyk / Marvel Comics I love my comic shop guy. Not only does he remember my name and pull my comics as soon as I come in the door, not only does he stock all the FunkoPops I really want for my office desk, but he also makes good suggestions. He knows I read A-Force and Ms. Marvel, so he handed me Mockingbird. I don’t know anything about her, but for $3.99, it was a low-risk trial. I looked her up. Mockingbird, street name Barbara “Bobbi” Morse, is most widely known as Hawkeye’s ex-wife.

She’s also a S.H.I.E.L.D agent on her own, Agent #19, who has been a member of a variety of mutant-management teams. She fits into the Black Widow mold of non-super-powered secret agent heroines with improbable proportions and a lot of blonde hair. This is her first solo title, written by Chelsea Cain, a first-time comic book writer (but a long-time novel writer), and penned by Kate Niemczyk, for whom it is also her first lead role. That’s a lot of new — new solo, new writer, new artist — which could translate into a new hot mess. It doesn’t. Instead it translates into a fresh, complex, eye-popping style and story in the Marvel line of women that was hella fun to read. This is a super spy story in a super-powered world, the plot of which is about exactly that: what happens in the seam when regular people become something else? The issue opens here:

Mockingbird has been given a dose of experimental drugs that may be producing side effects. Thus, she’s…