When Beta Ray Bill’s quest brings him and his friends — Skurge the Executioner and Pip the Troll — to the fiery realm of Muspelheim, they are quickly attacked by horrible monsters and dark beings. To save his friends, Bill must journey through a maze of his own memories. Saddle up for Beta Ray Bill #4, written, drawn and lettered by Daniel Warren Johnson, colored by Mike Spicer and co-lettered by Joe Sabino.
Licensed psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson is currently on the run from the U.S. government and inhabiting the body of former Alpha Flight member Sasquatch. You can read his adventures in the pages of Marvel’s Gamma Flight.
I bring that up because our hero, the swole orange horse daddy Beta Ray Bill, needs genuine mental health counseling. However, no one accompanying him on his current quest is equipped to give it to him.
From WebMD: “A common source of insecurity is body image. Many people feel insecure about the way they look and question whether they measure up to an imposed ideal. There is no necessary connection between actual body health or appearance and body insecurity. People of all body types can experience this type of insecurity.”
Bill’s feelings of inadequacy despite his near godlike physical strength are the true monster at the heart of Daniel Warren Johnson’s latest dopeass-monster-fight comic — and that’s saying something given Bill’s about to fight Surtur.
As a giant purple tentacle creature attempts to devour his ship, Bill and his gynoid AI partner, Skuttlebutt, race through a series of memories/nightmares showing Bill at his lowest — watching himself transform into his horse form, the doctors performing surgery on him to turn him into their perfect savior, seeing himself in the mirror for the first time, saying goodbye to his mother. It’s clear from all this that Bill sees himself as a Thing-like character, irredeemably monstrous in spite of his many heroic deeds and that one time he suplexed Thor.
But where Ben Grimm was a handsome if rough-around-the-edges human pre-transformation, the Korbinites aren’t exactly presented as conventionally attractive. Someone without Bill’s lived experiences may wonder why he doesn’t revel in his current form. But that speaks to the nature of insecurity and the fact that Bill needs to talk to a professional more than he needs a cool sword.
As help goes, Skuttlebutt isn’t going to cut it. It’s clear from their shared memories and her obvious feelings for Bill that their relationship, at least from her perspective, is one of co-dependence. Her heart breaks for him even as he drives his crew deeper and deeper into mortal peril. We’re still treading dangerously close to horse-on-harddrive lovin’, and if that’s not another reason to give Bill some time on a therapist’s couch, I don’t know what is.
But in a five-issue miniseries sold on the art, an extended homage to X-Factor’s “X-Aminations” issues won’t cut it. Johnson has too much Cool Shit to draw, and draw it he does. In this issue, in no particular order, we’re treated to a closeup of Surtur cracking his knuckles, the aforementioned tentacle monster, Bill transforming from Korbinite to horse daddy in a nightmarish bit of body horror, Bill suplexing Thor in a flashback worthy of an episode of AEW Dynamite and a double-page spread of Surtur’s forces destroying a Korbinite armada.
The big villain fight is coming. Bill will eke some kind of victory at some kind of cost and hopefully learn something about himself in the process. This is a hero’s journey, after all. But maybe, just maybe, when this is all said and done, he and Doc Sasquatch can hit the gym and unpack Bill’s feelings of inadequacy while they pound out squats together. That sounds nice.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
