Marvel Comics blabbery

A slog?
A slog.
You're saying his work becomes a slog.
Yes, a slog. After six issues.
Six issues?
Six issues.
Why six?
Because it's more than five.
More than five?
More than five.
...A slog?

[Hellicarrier explodes.]

What was the first egregious resurrection/retcon that started this trend? Did it happen before Jean Grey/X-Factor?

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_x-men_65.shtml

Although Xavier's behavior is consistent with his explanation for why he was pretending to be dead all this time. It turns out an alien race called the Z'Nox are heading to Earth on their planet/spaceship.

Their MO is to fly close enough to a planet that they intend to invade and let their planets' gravitational pull do all the work.

Xavier became aware of the Z'Nox while "engaged in telepathic star-scanning" and was "desperately seeking a means of countering it" when the Changeling showed up. Changeling had been diagnosed with a sickness that gave him 6 months to live, and he wanted to make up for the bad things he'd done in his life.

Xavier had him mimic him and "divide[d] some of my powers between him and Jean".

Well, i guess that settles why Xavier had to fake his death, putting his poor students through all that heartache (and forcing Jean, who knew about it, to lie to her friends), right? No? You say that if he needed some time to prepare, Xavier could have just asked his students to give him some alone time? Hrmm. I guess he hadn't thought of that. Also not even a token explanation as to why he wouldn't have reached out to the Fantastic Four or Avengers for help (even though the Avengers were providing minor support to the X-Men during the time period that Xavier was thought dead, and even though the FF are shown in this issue).

Captain America returning in Avengers 4 seems like the start of this kind of thing, at least for Marvel (tho of course Cap hadn't actually died in the comics previously, just been cancelled - a fate worse than death for any comics character). Things like 'The Death of Superman' from 1961 also addressed the idea of superheroes being mortal; even tho it was an imaginary story, it clearly had a big effect on comic book readers of the time, and helped to establish the death/resurrection parallels between superheroes and Jesus.

And here it's confirmed that the intention was really to kill Xavier:

Per Roy Thomas in the intro to Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men vol. 4 (written in 2004):

"At the time, I believe it was our intention that he was really dead - as dead as Bucky Barnes, and that's dead, my friend - but I recall mentally leaving myself an "out" to bring him back, if we ever wanted to."

The "out" is using the Changeling, and that's what ultimately is used to bring Xavier back.

(xpost)

Captain America returning in Avengers 4 seems like the start of this kind of thing, at least for Marvel (tho of course Cap hadn't actually died in the comics previously, just been cancelled - a fate worse than death for any comics character).

I'm not sure if this really counts since, as you said, it hadn't been established earlier that he was dead, and the "death" was introduced as a retcon in the same story he was resurrected. Later on they even had to do another retcon to explain why Cap had been active in the '50s, if he died in WWII.

Possibly the Green Goblin?

Wasn't he revealed to be alive only in the mid-90s, i.e. a decade after the Jean Grey retcon?

I get confused about Harry Osborn. Didn't JM DeMatteis kill him off in the early 90s?

Yeah, he didn't come back until that Spidey super-retcon Brand New Day.

I'll have to have a flip through the old OHOTMU book of the dead to confirm, but my recollection is that not many major characters died before, like, the '80s, and when they did die (and it wasn't a one-issue feint or something) they generally stayed dead.

Uncle Ben, Bucky, Osborns Norman and Harry, Gwen Stacy, Captain Marvel, Kraven...most of those deaths were Big Deals (some with storylines/graphic novels specifically dedicated to the event), and most have stuck or at least weren't undone until much later.

Is that not just a factor of the fact that no-one was planning in the mid-term? And of course that no-one was planning, with those deaths, for their return at all.

(xp Tuomas completely OTM about Jean Gray prededeceasing Norman Osborne)

Preressurrecting, I assume you meant.

On the rare occasions I dip into Marvel continuity since I stopped reading comics in like 1988 or so*, it strengthens my resolve to discount anything that happened in comics since I stopped reading in like 1988 or so. In my head, Gwen is still dead, etc, and it's a better place to be.

* Loved the Morrison and Whedon runs on X-men tho. I am corny.

Isn't the "real" Gwen Stacy still dead tho? AFAIK Spider-Gwen is a parallel universe version of her or something?

I think Captain Marvel proved that the best way to kill a character and ensure he stays dead is to have him succumb to a real-life mortal illness. Because having someone come back from that would be considered bad taste, even if it makes no sense that Reed Richards or any of the other Marvel super-scientists haven't come up with a cure for cancer yet.

don't tempt millar

Deadpool has cancer, and his rogue super-healing factor keeps him from dying - in theory without the cancer his cells would keep growing and kill him.

And that, I've just found out, is why Normal Osborne found a cure for cancer, put it in a bullet, and fired it at Deadpool.

See, these are plots I would have rejected for being too ridiculous back when I was a six-year-old playing with action figures.

I... kind of like that idea for taking out Deadpool, particularly coming from Osborne.

help

http://i.imgur.com/AcsCubh.jpg

Sauron makes a valid point

all we are is rice paper puppies

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/comics/2010-09-01-onemonth-marvel01-ST_N.htm

okay I can't deal with that

it's on marvel unlimited! gonna read it real quick.

surprise! it's remender in hateful and weird mode! and the purple man shows up at the end of the first issue. I will be stopping now.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/sienkiewicz-calls-out-fox-over-x-men-apocalypse-dazzler-art-credit

Right now, my favorite Marvel book is Doctor Strange

― Very selfish, and very ironic (DJP), Wednesday, January 13, 2016 9:03 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just started on this (copped the "Timely Comics" three-issues-in-one deal for $1) and, WOW.

I think Aaron's easily the best staff writer at Marvel right now, but I find Strange kind of unreadable - maybe it's the art? Thor is a bit offgame too, compared to the 2012-5 stretch, but it's still fun.

I was a little chagrined about Aaron's move to Marvel because I wasn't crazy about some of his earlier stuff, but I have to admit he's really been knocking it out of the park.

Aaron's first year on Thor - it's one long story - is my fave comic of the past few years. Just this super fun, super-casual epic with no particular continuity. I kind of wish he'd go back to that style with the new Thor.

Was that the one with the Godkiller arc?

I'm a sucker for Chris Bachalo tho, especially having come up on his Shade the Changing Man.

Vision is _really_ good btw.

Keep hearing good things about it. Will it make sense if you have no idea of current marvel universe, or is it all avengers linked?

The issues I read were almost completely isolated from the rest of the Marvel U

they are and thank god. basically you can walk in knowing nothing and it's fine.

Just read the first twos use, they're really fun! Robots arguing about grammar. So far I kind of prefer fhe quotidian stuff to the action stuff, but book's gotta have a plot I guess.

I get why people were interested In him doing Batman now - this seems a lot better, though?

*two issues

batman curdled on the third issue for me tbh
10 issues into vision and 9 into sheriff of babylon and they're both just about the best comix coming out right now on a monthly basis for my money
tom king has a very specific style and i like it a lot.
his run on vision ends at issue 12
http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/sheriff-of-babylon-comic-book-iraq-war.html

imo Omega Men is the DC title written by Tom King to go by, not this Batman run that just started. Like Vision, it's divorced enough from continuity and editorial direction to be its own thing.

Omega Men felt a little compressed at the end - like editorial told him he had to wrap it up before Rebirth - but until the last few issues its the best thing DC has done since Dial H.

we're all omega men now

It was cancelled at 7 then given another 5 issues due to fan outcry.

man DC really has no clue what's good

I couldn't get into Omega Men but I keep hearing good things. Should I try again and persist? I also couldn't get into Dial H, despite wanting to...

I think Tom King was also involved in Grayson, which I enjoyed.

The Omega Men series had an issue #0 I missed on first reading. It sets the stage for the first act, which is otherwise a little muddled although it's doing the work of setting up the basis for the rest of the series. The main plot turn is when their abductee, Kyle Raynor, finally sees why the group is fighting together, despite their different origins.

The actual rebellion/battle would have probably gone on much longer had the series continued, and expanded on the denouement, which nevertheless ends up with the gray moral resolution that the series deserves