After last week's issue of AVENGING SPIDER-MAN gave us our first taste of what DeConnick was going to be doing with Carol, I had my reservations. I found a lot lacking in that issue. This issue...less so. But let's not ignore the elephant in the room: that's kind of a horrendous cover. Especially Carol's hair. She's "trying a thing", as she tells Spidey in the book, and in the book itself it's a "thing" that looks okay, though maybe not quite to my taste. But on the cover it's just ugly. Anyway. I think DeConnick's writing is much stronger here than in the Spidey book, perhaps because she focuses more on Carol and on a character story, rather than an action story. Not to say the action isn't okay: the book opens with Carol and Cap fighting the Absorbing Man, which is mildly humorous, though Marvel has writers that do humor better than DeConnick. In many ways the fundamental fact of Carol having a bit of an identity crisis reminds of the first issue of the last MS. MARVEL series, even if just about everything else is different. Carol has a lot of identity crises, apparently. Dexter Soy's art is an acquired taste, I think. I wasn't sure I'd like it much and there are definitely some times when his figures just aren't quite right, but I think I like it. There are artists at Marvel who could do this book better, but I can deal with Soy, and by the end of the book there were even times that I LIKED his stuff. Now. I have two reservations about this series. One: in two issues in as many weeks DeConnick has written one of the villains engaging in a lot of girl-bashing while Carol beats the crap out of them. On their own they aren't bad for it, but so far that's colored the writing in both of Carol's action scenes so far as Captain Marvel, and I hope that's not an indication that this is DeConnick's go-to schtick: that every single thug Carol tangles with underestimates her because she's a woman. Aside from being a bit trite, it becomes problematic for a book that is clearly (and rightly) trying to work its way out of the shadow of comic book characterizations, especially given Carol's past. Two, and this is unfortunately more of a problem, this seems like a series that will be better as a whole, over time, than in the individual issues, but that means Marvel would have to give it a chance. Knowing Marvel's propensity for killing everything that doesn't turn a profit immediately, I'd be astonished if they're still publishing CAPTAIN MARVEL this time next year.