Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

Issue one just popped up in Marvel Unlimited recently.   This is a truly excellent read, although I know I'm missing something from the earlier Hawkeye series.   I also know what that is since my sister and I have spoken about what happened, and I'd read spoilers accidentally before I'd spoken to her.  

So I wasn't too lost.  I probably would have had a major WTF moment without knowing that, since it's a pretty big detail.   The main storyline - the one where Clint and Kate go on a mission for Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't have been too impacted by that, but I would have missed out on some truly beautiful and quiet moments if I hadn't known.   

And while there is a larger, heroic storyline here, the true appeal is in the characters and quiet moments.  It's in the way that Clint's past is interspersed with his present, and in the way the past impacts him now.   It's in the way Clint and Kate banter, and while they're smarasses to each other, they also clearly care so deeply for each other. 

There's a lot of push and pull to this.   Same artist, but different art styles, make this both seamlessly illustrated, and yet differentiates in a substantial way between the times in Clint's life   It makes the interplay between the two times all that more delicious, although none of this overshadows the excellent storytelling.   And again, it's in the small things and the characters that both the illustrations and the story shine. 

This is the best that comicdom has to offer: small and grand in scale, with equal talents at the helm.   Both the story and the art are simply the best that this form has to offer, and it's always best when they work on the same level.   When one is clearly superior, it takes the attention away from the inferior; you're mind focuses on the best it has to offer, instead of on the intentional interplay between words and art.   

I kept going back and forth between the two.  It's not that often that I go back and forth between panels, simply to get the full impact of how the art and the words play against each other, and with each other, and I did here.  I also took second and third and fourth looks simply to savor the art.  

I went back to the beginning at one point because it seemed that crucial at the time to me to see the first scene again. 

Highly recommended.