Marvel Comics blabbery

Nothing is directly tied to the Council of Reeds that he did back in FF, but there's definitely a line of continuity from those days to now

the only prepping i've done is Hickman's New Avengers + Avengers runs and i feel totally prepared. overprepared even.

The Avengers' insane plottiness makes it seem like Hickman is constituionally incapable of doing character work or jokes, but there's a lot of sweet-natured character stuff in his Fantastic Four. I wonder why he seems to have intentionally subsumed that aspect this time 'round (not that I don't enjoy the insane plottiness). I need an Anhillus on the crapper moment.

Started the Hickman Avengers - it's really nice art but the fight scenes are all completely incoherent. Totes impressed they could sell this to people issue by issue when half are just introducing a new character so far (through 8-9).

One of my Secret Wars solicitations this month is "Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos." Basically rolling dice on ordering that.

do it, what the hell

I don't know if this is a useful metric but, while I probably would not usually have purchased a comic called Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos, I will be purchasing (and I guess I technically have already purchased) a comic called Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos because it will also have the words "Secret" and "Wars" on the cover.

So, Iceman's gay then.

On the Deadpool thing, he's been married to Shiklah Queen of the Undead for about a year.

um, this seems counter to iceman's long term storyline?

Remember when he kept trying to date Opal, and his dad was furious because she was Japanese? And then, she kind of dumped him because he was never interested in her unless she was in trouble.

iceman has successfully dated zero women, iirc

An interesting post about that.

having read two pages and not the entire issue where this is a plot beat, yes, it does seem really token and dismissive

really this is about establishing his sexuality as canon before this summer where we get an adult gay Iceman who has never been interested in women being the only multiversal survivor post-Battleworld

that's weird and interesting reading AF, i'm at a loss at the suggestion that skirt-chasing bobby was just dealing with being in the closet for the past sixtyfive years but hey, whatever.

I'm a superhero comics infant, now about halfway through Infinity in the Hickman Avengers/New Avengers run and it's kind of off-putting how they'll spend five issues laying out plot and then BAM kind of incoherent resolution in the sixth issue just in time for the TPB collection.

Are the majors usually better about pacing, or is that par for the course?

I do like that Spider-Man is a bit of a dick.

Yeah, the Mrs. Deadpool thing happened a while back (tbh, I measure big events/comic time in the ridiculous high-dollar variants I was able to sell on Ebay).

At least with most of the Secret Wars titles there's something I can connect to, but is Mrs. Deadpool going to sell the same as Deadpool? Nah. I wound up just matching that title to my lowest Secret Wars titles.

Reading the Hickman comics does give me hope that Secret Wars is going to be much less of a disaster than Convergence, but that doesn't take much.

"Are the majors usually better about pacing, or is that par for the course?"

I don't know that there are any super hero comics going now that really excellent examples of the genre. Pacing has been pretty screwed up on current comics stretching for the trade.

While there are some really good super hero comics made in the last decade or so, I do somewhat agree with the idea that the high water mark was in the 80s.

As Ed B told me once, "the writing was so much worse but the STORIES WERE SO MUCH BETTER"

Yeah, that's true. Code comics were just different, they were more like the best Saturday morning cartoons you never saw.

You don't need to fret on the logic of why the Masters of Evil were busting into the Avengers mansion to beat the crap out of them, it was just what they did and it was cool. You get too serious and it all just breaks down.

I dispute that! I mean, I read comics in a different way now to how I did when I was 12, obviously. But I still qualitatively enjoy them a lot, when they're good, and it feels like the last decade of comics was certainly better than the decade that preceded it - both of which I (just about) experienced as an adult (in purchasing power if not maturity).

Jesus fucking christ. I count 57 Secret Wars crossover issues in July's solicitations. 57.

Yup. It's a nightmare on the retail side.

At least DC, with Convergence, made the main series returnable, offered decent discount incentives on the miniseries and all the new series launching have returnability. That made ordering easy - I met my return quota and I'll be able to adjust orders for future issues after I see how those #1s do.

Marvel doesn't give a damn. Even the number to get popular variants (like the Skottie Young covers) is high, much less to hit the few discount numbers they're offering.

tbh you can charge an arm and leg for those, that is why they figure you'll buy all the issues and pump up their numbers

otoh, I had to look up who Skottie Young is because I just read the damn things and only really get into artists over a period of issues

I really think some retailers just take the number of issues to get an incentive cover, multiply it by the per-issue wholesale cost, and then throw the incentive cover on eBay at that price.

What's the appeal of those Skottie Young covers? They are like hella ugly Margaret Keane chintz

The Young covers just go for retail - it's a different kind of incentive, you have to meet or exceed the number on a prior comic.

tbh i love the skottie young covers bcz they are adorable

I don't like all the teeth. But you know, potato potato

And the 1% retailer incentive audience say potàäæÂâåto.

Finished Avengers/New Avengers past Infinity but I'm pretty burned out on it.

What's some Marvel Unlimited classic stuff I should try?

Added Simonson/Thor and the first Runaways series

Someone on the John Buscema Facebook page shared this great anecdote about Buscema's art tuition class:

So there we were, in Buscema's Workshop for Comic Book Art, at the Commodore Hotel - one day close to Christmas. Big John decided to hand out pages of original art as a gift to each of us. As he reached my seat, he was surprised to find this splash page in the stack! "I could get $50. for this one!" he exclaimed as he tried to shuffle it back to the bottom of the stack and hand me the next page down - but the next one had been heavily corrected & pieced together... Buscema paused for a moment, looked at this longingly, then shoved it at me... "What the Hell! Merry Christmas, kid!"

And this is the page:

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/t31.0-8/s960x960/11406607_10207496983886091_7641302544163860037_o.jpg

wow. hell of a piece of art too!

I never had much of an appreciation for Buscema (John, anyway...I was wild about Sal back in the day) until I started reading some of his old Conan stuff and wondering how the hell I'd overlooked him before.

FYI, still doing the pre-Secret Wars catch-up and started reading Remender's Captain America more out of a sense of completionism than real interest, but it's actually really good! The first arc, anyway, which is some Planet Hulk-level Big Action gamechangery.

i caught up on remender's cap recently too and really enjoyed it. cap's relationship with ian was surprisingly touching!

Yeah, he really pulled off the hat trick that's eluded Marvel so much of late in creating a big and bombastic action story that also has legitimate emotional beats and characters the reader cares about and is invested in.

Steve Rogers as a dad is really something that makes a lot of sense.

It's good! I think the run kind of falls apart after that story, sadly, although the big blowout finish is worth slogging through to get to. But then the Falcon stuff back to being super generic.

Just noticed that Jeff Lemire is the X-men writer, which is a hot snooze.

Stoked for:
Captain Marvel
Daredeveil
Dr. Strange
Iron Man
Thor
Sam Wilson, Capt. America
Vision
Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

Will give a chance for a few issues:
A-Force
All New All Different Avengers
Ant-Man
Hawkeye
New Avengers
Scarlet Witch
Squadron Supreme
Ultimates
Old Man Logan
Spider-Woman
Karnak
Uncanny Inhumans
Illuminati

Little or no interest:
Agents of SHIELD
Angela
Nova
Hulk
Uncanny Avengers
Wolverine
All New X-Men
Deadpool
Extraordinary X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
Amazing Spider-Man
Carnage
Silk
Spider-Gwen
Spider-Man 2099
Venom: Spaceknight
Web Warriors
Ms. Marvel
Guardians of the Galaxy (might check it for 1 or 2 issues)
Drax
Star-Lord
Gamora
Contest of Champions
Howard the Duck
Howling Commandos of SHIELD

They're on issue three (I think) of Lemire's All-New Hawkeye and it's pretty good, Hawkeye #22 hasn't come out and they're already announcing a #1 for a new Hawkeye series. Yeeesh.

a new hawkeye *other* than all-new hawkeye??

All-New-Hawkeyeeye

Nothing by Hickman or Gillen, and Daredevil and Loki are finishing, so this is a net loss for me - especially Daredevil, which should've just carried on permanently like a Dick Tracy strip or something.

But still, some interesting-looking stuff. Al E has three titles, which is super, including a Mighty Avengers reboot. Jason Aaron on Doc Strange seems like a good match. Thor will probably carry on being great.

Still curious why Charles Soule and Jeff Lemire getting so much work, both kinda unexceptional.

What are the other two Al E titles?

Ulitmates (!) and New Avengers (!!)

Actually I guess Ultimates is kind of the reboot (as it has Monica Rambeau and Blue Marvel, along with Black Panther, America Chavez, Captain Marvel and, er, Galactus). Contest of Champions, a video game adaptation, is his third.

Gillen has been coy and non-bridge-burning about it, but since The Wicked & the Divine has blown up, he's been describing his Battleworld work as his farewell (for now, depending on circumstances, etc) to Marvel - of course he's still writing Darth Vader.

I personally prefer his hackwork to his indie work, but really hard to begrudge that decision. Kind of hated his work until I finally read Journey into Mystery; he's really grown on me since.

Still haven't quite synced up with Gillen. On the other hand, I wasn't that into Jason Aaron based on what I'd read of his in the past but having just read his first year on Thor I may be changing my tune. Really good stuff, and I'm glad to see he's sticking with it.