May 14, 2025

Today was a special one for new comic drops. A few new series dropped their first issues and fan favorites were continued – it really felt like companies wanted to capitalize on the hype that Free Comic Book Day generated.

There were two series that caught my eye for today’s drop. Between these, I can confidently say that one met my expectations and one exceeded my expectations… but not really in the way I thought. Here are my quick reviews of Invincible Universe Battle Beast #1 and Gwenpool (2025) #1!

Battle Beast #1

I was very excited for Battle Beast. A spinoff series about a character I enjoy from a franchise I love? And it’s written and illustrated by the original team (Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley respectively)? I was very hyped. Plus Image and Skybound were rolling out all the stops for this one – blind bags, intense marketing, and a slew of variant covers – they were confident this would do well.

And ultimately, I’m sure it will, both because Invincible is super popular right now, and because this comic is great! Not necessarily the best comic I’ve ever read or anything, but it’s very solid. It’s a great way to set the stage for an ongoing series and it’s massively elevated by the brilliant art by Ottley. It has full-page and dual-page spreads, interesting action, and unique character designs throughout that give this comic an awesome energy. Ottley has kinda already cemented himself as one of the best in his field, and this did not disappoint.

The story is very interesting, too. I kept pretty spoiler-free from this release to avoid it messing with my expectations (click here if you want to read my thoughts on the state of spoilers today), so I just kinda assumed that, since this is canon to Invincible, it’ll probably be a prequel series. Instead, this series goes an interesting route by starting at Battle Beast’s first appearance in the Invincible series (season 1 episode 5 in the show and issue #19 in the comics) which likely means that the series will end with his second appearance in Invincible. I really dig this framing device; it’s fun for big Invincible fans like myself without worrying too much over whether the reader knows the lore or not.

I’m not sure I loved all of the writing in this issue, but for the most part it lived up to my expectations. It’s a great first issue and I’d recommend it if you’re an Invincible fan. I will say, though, that it didn’t necessarily surpass my expectations. I know that Invincible also takes a little bit to really get going, so I’m not super concerned. It’s a solid issue, but it isn’t the best of the year. I’m still very excited to follow this series!

Gwenpool (2025) #1

A little bit of context here: I love Gwenpool. She’s one of my favorite characters of all time and her first run of comics (written by Christopher Hastings and illustrated by Gurihiru) is one of my all-time favorites. Everything from the story to the characters to the art just work so well together to tell a genuinely interesting and heartfelt story. For a little extra context: I also love Gwen Stacy. She’s another one of my favorite characters (specifically Spider-Gwen). For a final bit of context: I’ve never been a big Deadpool guy. There are some stories with him I enjoy (I genuinely love Night of the Living Deadpool and enjoy his appearances in stuff like Marvel vs. Capcom 3), but he’s never really been my thing.

So, when I heard that there was going to be a new Gwenpool series without the involvment of Hastings or Gurihiru that would feature Gwen Stacy as Gwenpool… I immediately lost hope. What makes Gwenpool so unique and engaging to me is that Hastings and Gurihiru took what was simply a variant cover gag and turned her into a genuine, inventive character. Many other people have brought this up online, but so many other writers and artists have worked on Gwenpool now (either in later series or crossovers), and they do a bit of a cop out. Instead of giving Gwenpool her own personality, other creatives basically just turned her into a second Deadpool.

Not only was it likely that we’d fall into those trappings again, but Marvel was resurrecting Gwen Stacy for some reason and making her Gwenpool? I was really not interested. However, a few days ago I looked at the variant cover list and saw that Gurihiru was actually doing a variant cover for it that featured the Gwen Stacy Gwenpool ripping up the original Gwenpool #1 comic. So, today I made an effort to pick up this cover just for the Gurihiru art (and yes, it’s also not lost on me that this is kinda just doing Evil/Dark Gwenpool again, I’m writing this as I look over at my figure of her on my desk).

Well, I got that cover and read Gwenpool (2025) #1 and… it exceeded my expectations! It isn’t slop! But I also don’t know how long it’ll keep my attention for. It turns out that there is a bit of a twist with how the Gwen Stacy Gwenpool is introduced and created, which I’m sure will be expanded on throughout this run. It was a cooler narrative choice than I thought they would go for, which made me interested to see how the rest of the issue would be.

And it was fine! Not good or great, but it isn’t bad. Gwen Poole Gwenpool is still the star, and she isn’t quite as Deadpool-ish as how she has been in the past. She doesn’t have the charm of the original, but it isn’t as bad as it could be. Overall, though, it was a fine read. I’m happy that it isn’t just horrible, but there’s still the possibility that they’ll fumble along the way.

(And not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I’m already a little wary with how the main cover of issue #2 has Gwen Poole Gwenpool’s butt right in the focus of the cover. I know that’s crass to say, but genuinely, there is a really strong correlation between artists that overly-sexualize her and bad Gwenpool writing. I’ll leave it at that for now.)