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

Okay, I just read about NOW2. Most of those look and sound dreadful. Phil Noto's Black Widow at least looks good.

Young Avengers just ended. Hawkeye rules. You have to get Mighty Avengers because of we support our own and it also happens to be great (plus it has Monica Rambeau in it). The X-Factor reboot was suprisingly fun but I like PAD on autopilot, so

I wondered what happened to her after Nextwave

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

― EZ Snappin, 9. januar 2014 03:17 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, with help from Nick Spencer (Superior Foes of Spider-Man). Hickman really makes people like Johns and Bendis look myopic with all their heroes-fighting-heroes stuff.

Last issue of Young Avengers was awesome.

Yeah, new x-factor was non-earth-shaking fun.

I really enjoyed the original Madrox detective show setup of X-Factor and lost interest when it drifted from that -- then read the last issue before the relaunch out of loyalty and was glad I skipped it. BUT what's the new one like?

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

I still think Daredevil is terrific if also auto-piloty (but folks here are ambivalent)

Speaking of loyalty, I read Justice League 3000 and it made me :(

It looks like PAD is exploring the X-Statix/Youngblood idea of a corporate hero team, only with PAD-humor rather than overwhelming cynicism.

I'm just glad he's well enough to write anything at all.

i dig new direction iron man

Mighty Avengers has such a lovely tone of voice and hangout vibe, it's already a keeper - actually kind of reminds me of PAD's original X-Factor run from the 90s.

Oo, I think I'm sold. i loved that too-short run he did then.

New She-Hulk was awesome. All lawyering, all the time. Loke #1 was great as well. Also, did people see that Ms Marvel #1 apparantly topped Marvel's digital sales chart? 2-7 was issues of Hawkeye...

Really liked She-Hulk, and Ms Marvel was very promising--didn't get far into the plot, but was really well done.

Is anyone else a Jeff Parker fan? He's more good-times fun writing than the cerebral Hickman end of the Marvel universe but I think his stuff is pretty clever

Jeff Parker is way better than alot of people ahead of him on the food chain.

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I can see Ostrander wanting to get a main DC title with his great Suicide Squad work - did Gerber want to pen X-Men/Spider-Man etc?

Any Jeff Parker recommendations that don't require knowing everything that's happened in the Marvel U for the last few years?

Reading forum posts talking about Ms Marvel #1 full of people complaining "why are all of the white people racists" is really the funniest fucking thing

Quite a few of the good writers over the years in super hero comics seem to oddly never get the main titles. Maybe it is because they can sell comics that many other writers couldn't get done. I guess I would be referring to guys like Steve Gerber or John Ostrander, guys that were really good writers and created stuff that lasted but never really got any real run with the top characters for various reasons. I figure Parker might end up in that kind of company in the super hero comic world.

I would assume that at least some of these writers preferred the more obscure titles because they were allowed more creative freedom there? 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.

Oy, I think Gage is pretty dreadful though.

Parker's Agents of Atlas stuff is mostly divorced from mainstream Marvel continuity. I've only read part of his X-Men: First Class runs but due to it being in that timeframe, it's also pretty divorced from current Marvel.

His Red She-Hulk run is a little more linked in, but he ended up doing something kind of neat with it (using some of the SHIELD-as-centuries-old stuff Hickman introduced) that gave it kind of the secret society feel that the Atlas series had.

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.