Aldo reads Marvel NOW! (even though you are, and he clearly hasn't learned his lesson)

I'm not really feeling Deadpool; the jokes are there but the underlying menace isn't, and that juxtaposition was my favorite thing about Kelly's run and something I haven't really gotten from any of the other Deadpool runs I've read.

I am enjoying Uncanny Avengers in spite of myself? I had forgotten how much of a Havok fanboy I used to be before this series.

Did you read Havok in X-Factor? That was a fun little run.

haha of course I did! PAD + Havok = instant good times

as someone who has found Scott borderline irredeemable since the beginning of X-Factor, Alex quickly became "the good Summers brother" to me and it's always bummed me out that he never attained the status Scott did, so seeing him tapped to lead the flagship crossover team between the X-Men and Avengers is kind of a dream come true for me that is making me gloss over a lot of annoying storytelling quirks

Totally fair. I like Havok too, and thought the "X IN SPACE" (you have to say it like the Muppets Pigs in Space. Trust me) stories were well done. Scott's been a dick long before X-Factor; pretty much since he had to come back from retirement with Maddy.

... that was the beginning of X-Factor, wasn't it? Scott ditching his wife and son to run after his high school girlfriend? Or am I forgetting another piece of Scott Summers dickery? (I know there was some nonsense around the time when Storm took over leadership, where he basically acted like The X-Men would fall apart if he wasn't there to lead them and then Ororo handed him his ass without any powers, lol.)

Yeah, X-Factor #1 featured Cyclod running out on his wife and kid when he discovered Jean was alive.

I thought he was back before X-Factor, though that is when he finally threw off Madelyne; isn't the patronizing Storm bull before then? Though he came and went so often between Krakoa and X-Factor it's hard to keep straight.

But no matter how much of a dick he was back then, he wasn't as bad as Xavier when he got the ability to walk again. Scott basically turned into that guy in the intervening years.

VERY GOOD

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/12/16/marvel-digital-xomics-unlimited-comes-to-ipad-and-iphone

I wish I knew how to get in that beta.

I think if you subscribe they will email you with the beta address, so worth a punt for a month I guess

They haven't mailed me shit and I've been a subscriber for most of a year. Buggers.

This might work for a bit, sort of

I'll give it a go.

Got it working! A little slow, but single page view looks gorgeous on the ipad. This is a game changer.

Bah, my iPad 1 keeps crashing :/

sold

or rather i will be once it's live. Someone update here please?

Once I hear its out of beta I'll shout it from the rooftops.

I think John Cassaday's take on the Red Skull looks really cool. It's got kind of an EC comics thing going on, the eyes are totally crazy looking.

Marvel are making a big deal on "Now!" but really it is the same kind of reboot every 18-24 month thing they have had going on for a few years with new writers on some characters that haven't had a change out of teams for a long time.

I'd like to scatter the tumbleweed around here with some good news, but the Superior Spider-Man first issue is just awful. I was expecting at least a mild okay. It's actually DC-level witless.

Spider-Man is a character in desperate need of some downtime (a la Thor's vacation between Disassembled and the Straczynski book) and is also, unfortunately, the last Marvel character who'll ever get any kind of moritorium, however brief.

Superior Spider-Man seems pretty good to me. It's a kinda hokey situation, but it's done very well.

that All New X-Men plot actually sounds kinda fun to me, tbh

Hah I just came in here to say what a blast All-New X-Men is

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it as well. And ditto for Waid's new Hulk title, which is a little surprising to me.

I found out - but can't find the image right now to show you - that the point at which the old timeline is visited is actually what was going on in a specific X-issue. All-New enacts the same scene with a different layout, so you don't notice they're redoing Kirby/Lee, it's an awesome detail.

Young Avengers anyone? Nice art, but seems like power-pop in comic form (I.e. kids stuff for us oldsters)

It doesn't have the mature seriousness of Daredevil, true.

Affleck-chin.jpg.

I thought it was kind of cool knockabout fun, but I wouldn't put it on a pull list. Then again there aren't many comics I'd consider putting on a pull list these days.

I liked it! But it felt a little square -- NB. So am I -- and needed better jokes.

I thought it was too much "Super Phonogram" which definitely put me off. I liked Gillen on Journey Into Mystery and Uncanny X-Men (though Land makes me want to break his porn tracing hands), but his Iron Man is pretty dire so far and this is not off to a good start.

He's talked a lot about how this is superheroes as pop music, so it doesn't sound like this is necc. your thing (though Phonogram is more Afghan Whigs than Azaelia Banks).

I hate Phonogram with a passion, so any of it's taint sweeping into his super stuff is going to rankle. Shame, because I think he can do good cape stuff that doesn't feel so forcedly precious.

I've heard the Journey into Mystery stuff was great - worth a shot?

Phonogram did not work for me at all. It's like the 500 Days of Summer of comics. Ick.

I'm enjoying Journey Into Mystery quite a bit, but in a lot of the same ways as I enjoyed Young Avengers so YMMV. I didn't think Phonogram was that bad, but then I don't think I read past the first collection.

On balance DC may have better writers than Marvel at the moment, they're just doing a worse job.

His Journey Into Mystery run is a fun adventure with a horrible crossover with Fraction's Thor absolutely mutilates the overall series. Gillen ends it well, but the Fraction taint is strong.

Read a Wolverine and the X-Men graphic novel collection by Gillen and Chris Bachalo that I borrowed from the library - seemed a bit sub-Peter David tbh, but it wasn't terrible either.

Didn't realise Fraction was hated these day - iirc his Iron Man series used to be an ILC fave rave.

Gillen and Fraction seem to have an odd symbiotic relationship - Fraction taking on Thor after Gillen (and running it at the same time as JIM), Gillen following Fraction on Uncanny X-Men and Iron Man.

Fraction is hit or miss for me, though mostly the latter. And when he sucks he SUCKS. I liked his Iron Man for a while - the whole erase and reboot was a fun idea - but it was dead long before it was buried. His Thor was crap from the get go, and his Fantastic Four is quickly ruining all the hard work Hickman did to rescue the moribund foursome. If he ever tops the Iron Fist he did with Brubaker I'll be surprised.

Fraction's up and down, but Hawkeye's been great.

They're both oversusceptible to grating disco dad-isms, but Fraction's a much better joke writer.

xp - Is that the one where Wolverine is now headmaster at Xavier Academy? I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not written by Kieron Gillen.

(I'm not to be honest seeing where there's supposed to be jokes in Young Avengers, other than Hulkling's terrible Spiderman costume?)

Hawkeye seems to be trying too hard for me, and exhibits all the tics I don't like about Fraction's work. I don't find Fraction funnier, but he definitely thinks he's a better joke writer than he is. Gillen knows he's corny and undercuts himself.

You're right Andrew F, I'm getting my Gillen mixed up w/ my Aaron

Fraction's Thor is the first thing I read by him that I didn't like. (I only read the first issue of Hawkeye... it didn't grab me.)

Those first two issues of Hawkeye felt fun but decidedly affected, but issue three (and every issue since) has hit a sweet spot. The car chase in three = yowza.

Hawkeye is currently the best Marvel book I'm reading

New Avengers is the best Marvel book at the moment.

Having recommended Hawkeye, don't pick up the latest one, which was a "very special issue" and is pretty poor. But yeah, from the third issue on the affectations get a bit less annoying (or I just got used to them).

Yeah - those first two issues left me "impressed", if not so much enthralled.

Glad I got over my Miller/Mazzuchelli shock of the first ish and stuck with it. It's tremendous fun. Agreed the new one is pretty weak but it's an old-school comic PSA

Jeff Parker wrote a bunch of those alt-continuity, all-ages Marvel Adventures titles, where he basically got to do his own Ultimate Spider-Man under the radar.

<I>Like, Ostrander could do things with Suicide Squad that he never could've done if he was writing the Justice League, and the same applies to Kieron Gillen with Young Avengers, Christos Cage with Avengers: The Initiative/Avengers Academy, etc.</I>

Bearing in mind that at the same time he was writing Young Avengers, Gillen established that Tony Stark is adopted...

I have to say that the past few years have really made me into a big Remender/Hickman/Fraction fan. I really dig all of those dudes, ESPECIALLY Fraction.

Also in completely unsurprising news, Al Ewing has been killing every Marvel project he's touched. Kind of amazing/crazy/awesome that One Of Our Own is the hot new talent at one of the Big Two.

I think the Jeff Parker / Gabriel Hardman stuff was a few years ahead of it's time. Like, with the right kind of project they would fit right into All New Marvel Now along with Daredevil and Hawkeye and She-Hulk and Loki and Young Avengers and Ms Marvel. Agents of Atlas was really good, but at the time it was seen as too 'marginal'. Now She-Hulk spends an entire issue arguing about the inventions of Jonas Harrow...

Marvel really is on fire these days. Wonder how soon it will collapse.

What's interesting is that I don't think they've got anyone other than Bendis on an exclusive (okay, possibly a "Don't do DC", apart from She-hulk's writer) - all of them have some side gig or other going, many with Image.

Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing. The time travel stuff was probably my favorite Marvel storyline of the last several years.

oh THAT was Parker? yeah that was super fun, also TROLL!

xx-post: I think the fact that they allow their writers to do Image-stuff is quite important in them being able to get the best and brightest. Like, why not do 2½ Avengers-books and your own stuff at the same time?

Over on twitter I suggested to Parker a Thunderbolts spin-off called HYDE AND TROLL SEEK. He said he wished he could but it wasn't in the cards. :(

aw

"Parker's run on Thunderbolts was amazing."

Parker also made the Rulk readable and enjoyable. Definitely taking lemons and making lemonade as comics.

I'd love to Jeff Parker get the Fantastic Four. Probably won't happen, but I bet he could do some fun F4 comics.

Steve Gerber maybe not doing a run with one of the marquee titles may have just not happened as the whole Howard the Duck ownership thing derailed that relationship. I'd love to see what he would have done in a Fantastic Four or Avengers run.

Jeff Parker deserves some Marvel U. props for how he used Man-Thing and Satana in that run on T-Bolts. That was ace and really did well to tie-in to the old appearances in a way. I'd think he could do some cool stuff with The Defenders if they would only let them use Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Valkrie with Kev Walker. Walker is really good and if they hit with the right comic together, I think it could catch on.

Decent gossipy interview with Sean Howe:

https://www.nerdist.com/2014/02/nerdist-comics-panel-29-sean-howe/

Did you know that the first issue of Spider-Gwen sold more than 300.000 issues? And I think that's just direct market, Marvel keeps claiming that these types of series sell better digitally. That is kinda insane.

I heard lots of good things, and tried it, but as is so typical in modern superhero comics, despite being #1, it seems to be halfway through a story.