MARCO SPEAKS SPIDEY- QUEEN IN BLACK: DEFENDERS OF LIGHT AND DARK #1

When the universe is being fought over by a newly crowned Queen in Black and a former god of darkness who has somehow reinvented himself as the God of Light, the sensible response is apparently to split Earth’s heroes into two teams, throw them into space, and hope Tony Stark’s statistics are better than the odds.That is the wonderfully comic-book logic powering Queen in Black: Defenders of Light and Dark #1. Al Ewing and Tom Waltz take a massive cosmic crisis and frame it almost like the most dangerous team-building exercise imaginable. One squad is sent against Hela’s dark forces, the other against Knull’s blinding army, and both immediately discover that “light” and “dark” are not necessarily the same as “good” and “evil.”PROSThe best idea in the issue is the deliberately odd roster. Team Dark brings together Iron Man, Agent Anti-Venom, Cable, Darkstar and Cloak, while Team Light features Beta Ray Bill, Photon, Sunfire and Dagger. It feels less like the Avengers assembling and more like someone hit “randomize” on a Marvel video game—and that is exactly why it works. Each group has enough power to look impressive, but enough clashing personalities and abilities to keep the missio...