In Review: Marvel’s Voices: Legacy (2021) #1

Description: Marvel’s Voices: Legacy brings forth a collection of stories to help celebrate Black History Month. Marvel’s incredible legacy of black heroes gets the star treatment in this action-packed special! New and established creators take on their favorite heroes in a dizzying array of stories designed to inspire and uplift!

The Stories

This collection of stories comprises work from both established black writers as well as newcomers.

The book gets off to a really strong start with a Miles Morales Spider-man story by John Ridley called ‘Words Do Matter’. This first story further illustrates the power of words and how just changing one word can change the impact of a story and its meaning. A point well made with the opening page. The teaming of John Ridley with Oliver Coipel and Lara Martin makes for a killer combination. The story is impactful and very simple as we see Miles Moralis Spider-man doing his thing. I really enjoyed the changes of words throughout this story.

The second story ‘Decompression’ features  Ironheart, Ms. Marvel, and Princess Shuri. The story begins with battling an enemy. But is more about the bond that the three young women share as they decompress in a pretty swanky apartment. The story is worth a look for the banter between the three women as they gently tease each other. I loved the inclusion of Shuri who was my favorite character from Black Panther. Written by Mohale Mashigo with art from Chris Allen and colors from Rochelle Rosenberg. This was a fun little story with some fairly dynamic art.

Thirdly, we get a story called ‘Panic at The Supermarket’, which for some reason had my very random brain thinking about a music band called ‘Panic at the Disco’. The story, which is written by Stephanie Williams with art and colors from Natacha Bustos and Rochelle Rosenberg sees young Spectrum aka Monica Rambeau on a special trip to the supermarket with her mum, She-Hulk and Thor. The story focuses on their heroic efforts to get food and drink in for a special party for Monica’s father. However, as the trip comes to an end our heroes are called up for some avengers action. Again, I really enjoyed the playful banter between the characters in this story. But also enjoyed the brief moment between Spectrum and her mother before she headed off into danger. We also get some nice cultural references to popular African American food at the party.

The other stories in this book include ‘Good Luck Girl’ featuring Domino. ‘A Luta Continua’ featuring Venom. And finally, a cute Blade story called ‘Night Time Bodega Run’ features an awesome way to hurt vampires with some good old-fashioned cooking.

The Artwork

The artwork overall was a nice mixture of styles for the different stories. I loved the art in the opening story because the action on the pages had absolutely nothing to do with the words on the page. This was a really cool thing because it allowed me to be wowed by both the art as well as the impactful changes to words within the story. Things like “You’re Different” changing to “You are Distinct”

The fact the art styles changed for each story was a nice touch. The art in ‘Panic at The Supermarket’ took on a more cartoony style, but not so cartoony as to undermine the story.

Out of all the stories. The edgiest in terms of artwork has to be ‘Good Luck Girl’ in which we sit in on a poker game between Domino and a collection of nefarious villains.

Overall

Marvel’s Voices: Legacy does a great job of delivering the goods with six short-form stories that introduce new talent alongside established talent. The book features a wonderful introduction from Nic Stone who relates a really cute story about how she and her friend would run home to decide who got to be Storm during the X-Men cartoon. Which is a nice personal touch and a reminder that comic book fans of all stripes share that aspiration of wanting to be their favorite hero. It also further illustrates that no matter what ethnicity you are. Whether you are white, black, or Asian. There is actually more that connects us than divides us.

The stories within the book range from cute to rather dark. It truly has something for every reader. And is fun to read.

Closing out the comic is a great afterward written by Angélique Roché who sums up nicely the point of the book. That it is a celebration of the diversity of Black superheroes and the talented writers and artists that write them.

Overall. A really good read with some fun stories.

You can check out more of our comic reviews here.