Marvel Voices: Identity #1

I'm back again to talk about a book that covers an identity I am not a part of. Look, I read things and I want to talk about them. My hopes is that they will interest you in them too. With that being said, let me talk about "Marvel Voices: Identity #1". There has been a number of these kind of issues and there will be more. I will attempt to talk about each of them.

So this particular issue focuses on characters of Pacific-Asian-Islander descent. Let's not ignore the fact that Shang-Chi is out in theaters, so the time was ripe to do something like this. Understandably, he gets the opening story in this book.

There are other books I need to pick up in this Marvel Voices line, but at least with the Pride on and this one, I feel like they are getting better curated. My main complaint about the Pride issue was how many characters they packed in and how it felt like Marvel was going to pull a muscle in their shoulder from patting themselves on the back so much.

The entire package for this issue is so much better. In addition to the stories, there is an excerpt of an interview from the great Larry Hama (who wrote Wolverine for YEARS and was the writer when I got into comics) that is a great read. He's done many other things, but it is Wolverine that is near and dear to my heart. There are also an open question posed to a number of creators about "What does identity meant to you?" and you get to see a wide array of answers to this question. Finally, the start of the book has a heartfelt note from the cartoonist, Rina Ayuyang. All of this helps to really sell the idea behind this book.

Now I will say this, Marvel does not have a wide array of characters to choose from historically. The past few years have seen a large uptick in these characters, which is a welcome change. The problem posed for some old school fans like myself is this: If you have not been reading in the past ten years, you will not recognize any of these new characters.

What we have here though is very good. Good writing and great art. We get stories about Shang-Chi, Jubilee, Jimmy Woo, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Wave (newer character), Silhouette (Deep cut if you read the New Warriors in the 90's), Armor and Brawn/Silk. If you don't know any of these characters, don't worry. You get a little bit about them through each story.

I want to give a shout out that it is great to see Whilce Portacio (old school 90's artist) drawing a story here.

As you can see, I didn't have any bad things to say here. I think it is refreshing and I'm glad I could learn a little bit about some other characters I may get more interested in. I wholeheartedly recommend picking up this book and giving it a shot.