Wiccan & Hulkling: Raid of Ultron #1 Review
You may not realise it, but Wiccan & Hulkling: Raid of Ultron is this year’s Marvel Pride special. In 2020, Marvel began publishing their Pride anthology one-shots, with DC Comics joining in the year after. For the first few years the format was pretty consistent, some C-listers would get dug up for their first story in years, a new queer character would debut, and probably not be seen again, and at least 2 Young Avengers would show up. You’d get a handful of stories on the writer’s queer experience through the lens of a character, many forgettable with the occasional gem thrown in.
But this year the pattern has been broken. While both Marvel and DC are still publishing Pride specials this year, you may notice they aren’t as clearly advertised as such. Marvel’s main cover only has “Celebrating Pride Month” in small text, while the Justice League Intergalactic Special doesn’t mention Pride at all, although the mini series it spawned does clearly title itself “A DC Pride Event”. It could just be me overthinking it, but in light of Disney’s admitted move away from progressive politics and DC under threat of takeover from Paramount, run by Donald Trump’s good buddy David Ellison, both companies making a conscious choice to move away from the overt “Pride Special” branding does catch my attention. While on DC’s side it’s arguably better to give two trans women writers a miniseries focused on their two trans women characters than yet another Pride special full of Harley/Ivy stories, Marvel turning their Pride special into a synergy special for an upcoming TV show makes it clear that no matter how much passion is involved, the Disney corporation is not your friend and just want your money.
Onto the issue itself, Wiccan & Hulkling: Raid of Ultron, instead of the usual anthology formatting, follows a single framing story from Pride regulars Stephen Byrne and Wyatt Kennedy, fresh off of the brilliant Wiccan: Witches Road and picking up exactly where it left off with Wiccan and Hulkling starting their new life on Earth in the former home of the Baba Yaga. We follow a (partial) family reunion of one of Marvel’s strangest family trees, featuring interdimensional siblings, robotic half-siblings, and cosmically reincarnated twins. You know, the standard stuff. But as with any family reunion, that one relative no one likes shows up, except instead of your racist uncle it’s a genocidal robot grandfather. As Ultron shows up, it splits our characters into pairs and into their own stories.
The first story “Mixed Signals” by Tegan Quin, one half of Canadian queer pop siblings Tegan and Sara, making her comic writing debut, with art by Luciano Vecchio and colours by Brittany Peer. Vecchio has been a regular at Marvel for a few years now, and I can’t think of a single artist who has shown so much growth in those years, and this issue is no exception, with Peers colours complementing him perfectly. The story itself is nothing substantial, Billy and Tommy fight an Ultron while bickering as siblings do and Tommy makes fun of Billy’s nice peaceful married life. It’s an absolute blast, and Quin nails the voices for everyone involved. While it, and most of the stories in this issue, lack the “clearer” meanings of the usual Pride anthologies, Quin still shines a nice light on the unique and contrasting attitudes to romance from Wiccan and Speed and the more “slice of life” approach is a nice change of pace.
The second story “En Garde” is by Zoe Tunnell and Rachael Stott, following the team-up of sort of siblings Hulkling and a version of Phyla-Vell from another dimension who has basically taken 616 Phyla’s place after her death, best known from Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Like the previous story, it takes a somewhat “slice of life” approach as Teddy worries that settling down away from their space empire is going to make them a boring couple. It’s a sweet story, and gives some great development to a very underdeveloped relationship against the backdrop of a very fun sword fight. Stott has long been a favourite of mine, and she does great work here making Phyla-Vell look like the coolest person ever.
The last of the stories, “Machine Learnings” by Josh Trujillo, Bradley Clayton and Fabi Marques follows Vision and his daughter Viv, once again battling an Ultron as the Visions discuss Viv not inviting her new girlfriend to the party. Again another fun slice of life story, the real star of which is clearly “Dad Ultron”, a bizarre iteration complete with a sweater and a bit of a dad bod. Clayton is probably the newest artist in the anthology, but his art really stands out as some of the best. It’s got a great dynamism to the action with some brilliant comedic sensibilities too, I hope this is just the start of their career at Marvel.
The issue is rounded out by an in-depth interview with Tegan and Sara, a brief look at the Wiccan/Hulkling family tree, and a somewhat underwhelming view of where to catch the characters next. While Marvel has often struggled to follow through with their queer characters beyond pride specials, this year’s limited cast makes it even more embarrassing when of the 3 books suggested, one is a trade, one is a guest role, and one (pending any surprise appearances) is an event that might feature their robot dad in some capacity.
Overall it’s easy to look past the cynicism of Marvel merging their Pride special with a TV show tie-in and just enjoy the fun of Wiccan & Hulkling: Raid of Ultron as the focus is shifts into smaller scale stories of the day-to-day aspects of queer relationships instead of the usual anthology approach. The mix of newer writing talent and largely more experienced artists produces some great stories and I only hope Marvel takes advantage of this talent and we see more of them all in the future.
Main Cover
Betsy Cola Cover
Javier Garron Cover
Luciano Vecchio Cover
WICCAN & HULKLING REUNITE WITH FAMILY…AND DANGER! Wiccan & Hulkling gather their known & beloved friends and family to celebrate their wedding anniversary – but everything goes awry when Ultron arrives to reclaim Vision and Viv! Join a group of exciting Marvel talent and rising stars for this year’s Marvel’s Voices: Pride, centering on Marvel’s fan-favorite gay couple and their amazing friends to help defeat the evil and re-center community in times of darkness!
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