The Good

Issue #26 kicks off the second season of Morning Glories, and we're treated to the return of the long-absent Casey. With this return, we get some answers -- she's alive, and she knows Abraham -- and we get even more new questions. What exactly is her relationship with Abraham? How much of what we've already seen has she influenced? How does Nick Spencer keep track of all of this in his brain?

And since it's a brand new season, there's a brand new layer of intrigue -- Casey goes brunette, and we see that she's been meddling with some situations (some of which line up with events we know to have taken place in the past) looking an awful lot like Miss Daramount.

Joe Eisma handles Casey's transformation into a Daramount doppelganger with ease; as surprising as the story twist might be, the visual shift is so seamless that it begs readers to flip through back issues looking for similarities between the two characters (they're there!).

The time-travel system that Spencer has set up for us gets yet another level of complexity when now-brunette Casey appears in the past-timeline of pre-MGA Casey and neither spontaneously combusts. "Primer" was name-dropped a few issues back, and it looks like we're dealing with an equally sophisticated web of timestreams. I'm on board with this; there's a dual payoff of surprise right now and a potentially awesome series of "aha!" moments when the series wraps and the full timeline is revealed.

The Bad

In the past, we've been guided through montage and flashback sequences with handy caption boxes to tell us how far from "now" things are. This issue throws us into the same level of confusion Hunter must feel about which timestream he's operating in; we don't know when things are happening or if they're in any sort of order. I'm hoping that -- now that Casey is back and we've seen some glimpses of what she's been up to -- we'll start to see when and where those things were happening.

The Verdict

Like a hydra, MORNING GLORIES sprouts two new questions for every answer that Spencer and Eisma deign to reveal. It's frustrating, but in a good way -- they're clearly playing the long game, and when the series comes to a close, finding out how all of the pieces fit together will be a very sweet payoff. In the meantime, it's a compelling puzzle, and Season Two is starting off with just as much intrigue as Season One.

Oh cool a new writer/reviewer for the site. That's cool, also I really need to get into Morning Glories. I wonder how much the trade costs on Amazon.

i love.....ed this series. its crazy i read up to issue 20 in like a week. and im stoked for the next issues. but oh my god its killing me im having a hard time following whats happening with these erratic releases its really hard to keep intrests up. im in it for the long haul though so lets see where this goes.

YES.

I am so going to get this I can't wait.......

Glad to see MG getting some love in the reviews. Season 2 looks to be great with Casey back after a few issue hiatus. Again, the art in this book has been consistently great 26 issues in. 74 issues left ya'll.

I'm so behind on this series!!! I need to buy the trades.

The 4th trade just came out today people!!! I picked it up and will be reading the 4th trade tonight.

I also have been thinking about jumping on this book. Seems like a pretty cool series.

Even reading most of this series in a short period of time, I am still so confused issue-to-issue that I have pretty much dropped it. I also love..d the series but around 16-20, there were so many loose ends and mysteries and time travel and double/triple/quadruple crosses with various motives that it wasn't fun or suspenseful for me anymore. I get kinda confused with Spencer's current Secret Avengers run too.. am I dumb or is he just not the writer for me or is it straight-up difficult to follow (as this review alluded to, somewhat)?

I've read this entire series in roughly two days. The sale on Comixology got my attention, first issue kept it, and first trade solidified it. I'm honestly blown away.

That said, this issue felt a little rushed, a little quick (probably due to the montage). I always have a lot of questions when it comes to time manipulation stories, but I suppose to some extent the whole "there's no such thing as past, present, future in a line" thing is going to be the fallback. Shame there was such urgency; it would've been nice for Jade to sit down and make some diagrams with twigs.

Anyway, I think watching Primer & Looper and playing FFXIII-2 & Bioshock Infinite, my mind's sort of ready for it, but I can see how some people are getting annoyed by the confusion, especially since the mystery was already intriguing and convoluted enough without having to worry about that angle.

MY GF thumbed through this issue in my comic shop and then immediately asked that they order the first set of trades for her. I'm not too big of a fan of it, but that she is getting into another comic is really awesome.

@kantrip: Sweet. That's a rather impressive turnaround from having just thumbed through.

Side note. I wouldn't normally do this, but...I started a thread last night with a question about Zoe, and no one answered. I bumped this morning and no one answered. Pretty sure I can't triple-post, so unless someone else looks at it, it's dead on arrival. So... I figured I'd mention it here since it's Morning Glories related and maybe people who care will see this, haha.

@akbogert That's the power of a strong comic. One Page, a few words, and it will hook fans. X-Factor did that for me. :)

@kantrip: And yet, intriguingly, it was strong for her but not for you :P

@jonny_anonymous said:

I'm torn. On the one hand my gut says "go get them right now and read them because this is amazing" but my brain says "There will probably be a Season One Omnibus with the first 25 issues, possibly worth waiting for."

I got to issues 18 before I started falling behind but I do love the book, I fell behind on loads of comics theses days to the point I'm pretty much not reading anything any more

@jonny_anonymous: I'd say it's worth catching up. The stuff that unfolds in the tail end of the "season" is sort of mind-blowing. And a whole new set of characters (who will pretty much be integral going forward) are introduced/fleshed-out over the issues you've not yet read.

Been loving this series since I started reading with issue 3 on a whim. Spencer's been one of my fav writers ever since and the book just keeps getting better and better. Anybody confused about the symbolism/ideas used/expressed within the series should check out Multiversity's Study Hall annotations (they really should be gathered in a deluxe edition of the series) they're really helpful and should increase your appreciation of the series.

At first I was clueless, but I'm guessing this is what you meant, and it looks awesome. Thanks for the tip.

I have to agree. When I first started reading this series, I REALLY liked it. But as it moved along, it became more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. It doesn't help that he has introduced so many characters and that the artists style makes them look so similar thats its very difficult to differentiate them. Its too bad, I really want to like this series, but the effort is being to be too much. I am going to go back and re-read them and see if this helps. Comics shouldn't be this hard to read!?! lol, I mean I have a Masters degree and majored in philosophy in undergraduate, tackling Nietsche and Sartre shouldn't be easier than a comic book.