9 Reasons You Should Be Reading Marvel’s MOCKINGBIRD

Promotional Image via Marvel Comics

The Puzzle Box

Mockingbird has released seven issues so far this year, and the first five issues work together as one unit in a fascinating way. These issues can be read in any order, and they all inform one another. You’ll see the first issue differently once you’re read the third, and the fourth will be a difference experience to read when you’re finished with the fifth. This is because of embedded clues that reflect back on each.

As writer Chelsea Cain explains in the Q&A at the back of issue one, “This first issue makes no sense. It’s not really supposed to, thought it certainly plants a lot of fun clues. Each of the next three issues will fill in what happened between [Bobbi’s medical appointments in the first issue] and then the fifth issue will pick up where this one leaves off.” For those of you jonesing for a rich and unique comic experience, reading and rereading these issues is worth your time, not to mention your money. “Mockingbird is written to be read multiple times—so you get your $3.99 worth,” Cain writes as the puzzle box concludes (closes?) in the fifth issue. “You can see a different joke. You can catch a new reference.”