M.O.M.: Mother Of Madness #2 // Review
Maya’s powers are mood-based. She gets anxious, and she turns invisible. When she gets scared, she gets super-hearing. When she’s angry, she gets strong and fast. When she’s sad, she gets super-healing. She’s decided to use her powers to help people in M.O.M: Mother of Madness #2. The writing team of Emilia Clarke and Marguerite Bennett focus primarily on the interpersonal nature of being a hero in another issue drawn to the page by Leila Leiz. Color comes courtesy of Triona Farrell. The dramatic end of the issue is a nice focus, but Leiz isn’t quite able to harness the crazy energy of the story in a way that feels compelling enough to live up to the potential of the story.
Maya is getting her life together. She’s got a guru named Gandalf (“Alf” for short.) She’s learning to channel her mood-based superpowers. She’s fighting crime in a brightly-colored suit with a ski mask. (Okay...so maybe it’s a little garish, but everything seems to be going well.) Anyone who has read more than one issue of a superhero comic knows that this is the point at which things start to get really, really ugly. A sinister mega-wealthy woman is taking in orphans for some sinister scheme as Maya deals with the complexities of a double life.
Clarke and Bennett have quite a lot going on in the second issue. Some clever moments pass in between the panels of an issue that’s more focused on Maya and what she’s going through than they are on the actual acts of crime-fighting that she’s doing primarily between the panels. There’s real potential for action in a character with powers that activate like they do for Maya, but Clarke and Bennett prefer to look at the way life under the mask affects an otherwise earthbound woman.
The narrative jumps around a hell of a lot. This would be a challenge for any artist. Leiz manages her best with some real moments of genuine drama brought to the page. Farrell does a solid job of giving that drama life with exaggerated color and appealingly large Ben-Day dots that punch up the visuals a bit, but there isn’t a strong enough central focus to the action to move it across the page in a satisfying way. The script is too dense. Leiz and Farrell could do a hell of a lot more with a hell of a lot less if Clarke and Bennett wanted to focus on just a few elements of the story they’re trying to tell.
The crazy energy of M.O.M. could be harnessed in a way that would make for a more appealing mini-series. Still, the narrative feels like it’s scattered all over the place. From a misunderstanding about a crime to life as a minor celebrity under the mask. To establishing a hero’s life WHILE establishing a big villain to mirror her. If it were all framed more compellingly, it could really turn into something fascinating. The opening issue really felt like it WAS going to be THAT. The second issue feels like a bit of a mess.
