In a nice change of pace, this week’s edition of Comics Disassembled is both Marvel heavy and (mostly) positive. But there’s a lot more to it than that, so let’s dig into ten things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics, led by Hickman doing Hickman things.

Imperial, Now Revealed

You know how people say things like, “I’m of two minds about (insert thing here)?” That’s not good enough for my thoughts about the reveal of Imperial, Marvel’s upcoming space event from writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Federico Vicentini and Iban Coello. Two is not enough. I’m of four minds about this.

First, I’m into the idea of it. It’s a Hickman written comic that’s meant to reorient and recontextualize the space side of Marvel with art by Vicentini and Coello, one that features both all the space-bound folks and others who are more space-curious like Hulks and Black Panthers. It should be fantastic, as it’ll look good and pop in the way Hickman comics always pop, I imagine. It’s also a great idea in a section of Marvel that’s been malnourished for a while. What’s not to like about that?

Second is the thing that I don’t like about that. While I appreciate its larger aims, as we’ll get to, I find the flattening out of the structure of these stories frustrating. Ultimate Invasion? Four issues. Wolverine: Revenge? Four issues. Aliens vs. Avengers? Four issues. Imperial? Four issues. Will it be comprised of oversized issues? Probably. Will that mean it will come with some sort of exorbitant price point? Most definitely. But it just seems silly to me that all of these big ideas are being pigeonholed into such a compressed timeline. I’m not asking for the world, but why not six issues? Or five? Four is tiny, and space is a big place.

Third is the flip side to that. I love the fact that Marvel has seemingly learned from the micro line trend of the past couple years and is using this series to set up a new one in Marvel’s rather robust (and again, malnourished) space domain. The idea of Hickman creating the foundation for that side of the universe is very appealing. Now, as we learned with Ultimate, much of that depends on what follows, because Ultimate Invasion was fine and it took those other titles to make the new Ultimate Universe worth paying attention to. But I like the idea of this as the basis for what’s next at the very least.

Lastly, there’s the fourth mind. That’s that everyone was wrong about this. When the first teaser came out, we were all certain that it was either an Ultimate event (me) or that this was the fulfillment of the Imperial Guard story Hickman wanted to tell that starred Cannonball and Sunspot, or at least in part (almost everyone else). This doesn’t seem to be either of those things. At the very least, I appreciate that these teasers inspired speculation, even if said speculation proved we have no idea what we’re talking about.

Ultimately, I just want this to be good. It should be that. Hickman’s a great start. Vicentini and Coello have shown good things previously, and hopefully getting a real focus like this allows them to take a Pepe Larraz/RB Silva style leap here. But it also acts as a reminder of the narrow view Marvel has as to what’s possible. That’s of course a reflection of the market, and Marvel doing what it can to respond to what’s happening there. But in a moment where anything is possible and we’re being asked to dream bigger, four issues feels like a safe play on something that should be anything but that.

R.E. Burke, Now Free

In what is easily the most welcome news of the week, Welsh cartoonist R.E. “Becky” Burke is now home in the United Kingdom after being detained the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, for several weeks. To quickly recap, this happened as Burke was backpacking throughout North America, sometimes doing odds and ends in exchange for a place to stay while traveling — which is an extremely common thing! When crossing to Canada, she ran into a hiccup with Canadian border officials and was taken to a Tacoma, Washington detention center by ICE after her return to the U.S. prompted questions about her visa. There she stayed for several weeks. And now, she’s out, at least in part because of the publicity it earned and the push from folks to try and get Burke home.

Heidi MacDonald covered the story for The Beat, and highlighted how Burke is apparently already at work turning the experience into a comic or even comics, as she produced 78 pages worth while in detention. That is a silver lining on a pretty horrid situation, as is the visibility her experience brought to the generally terrible nature of ICE. As many have pointed out, there are still many others stuck in a similar (or worse) situation than Burke, as this kind of thing has proven to be increasingly, frustratingly common under the current regime. But good news is good news, and it’s wonderful to see resolution to this story in a timely-ish fashion.