Marvel Comics blabbery

Jesus william, do you own a comic shop or torrent or...?

In a world that’s never hated or feared mutants more, there is only one constant: BIGGER THREATS REQUIRE MORE THREATENING X-MEN

oh goody

I think what's so confusing about this relaunch is that there seems to be no 'main books' now. In the last decade or so it has been the main Avengers writer who said the tone, no matter how bad Bendis became - and boy was he a self parody towards the end of his launch - if anything weird happened in a good book you were reading, you could go to the Avengers books to figure it out. But it seems the playing field is a lot more level now, and I'm confused as to what is going on.

That said, I checked out both New Avengers and Ultimates, and really, the trick is to read anything by Al Ewing, right? Those books begin pretty good, and picks up a lot of pieces from Hickmans run.

The idea that there should be a main book leading the entire Marvel line hasn't existed since the Bendis rehaul of the 00s, has it? In previous decades (like in the 80s, when I first started reading this stuff), there were some people who read all comics across the line, but a lot of people just focused on their favourite corner of the Marvel universe, like the X-books or Spidey books or Avengers or whatever. Starting from Secret Wars here were some line-wide crossovers, but mostly these different sub-franchises still kept to themselves. Which was great for someone like me, who loved the X-Men but didn't much care for Spider-Man.

So if Marvel comics would actually return to this previous model, where one writer/comic/storyline doesn't dominate the entire franchise, that'd be great for casual readers like me. I don't have the time, the money, nor the interest to follow most Marvel books, but in last the 10+ years I have been been reading a handful of niche titles... And one of the worst things about the whole franchise being directed by Bendis was that books which could've/should've been mostly self-standing were constantly interrupted by various mega-crossovers. This undermined their own storylines and made them hard to follow for people like me, who weren't interested in what was going on in the Bendis Avengers books. Thankfully the Abnett/Lanning cosmic comics mostly took place outside Earth, which helped them stay out of these crossovers (though there still was a pointless Civil War tie-in in Nova), but books like Avengers Academy weren't as lucky.

While this sort of "everything is connected" approach maybe makes sense from a marketing point of view (to understand what's going on in your favourite comic book, you have to read 5 other books every month), it's also effective in driving away casual readers like me, who might be interested in one or two montly book, but can't be arsed to read 15 different titles. IMO this "for superfans only" attitude is one of the main reasons why Marvel comics haven't been able to get more new readers despite the popularity of the Marvel movies.

It's a balance, really. I like reading New Avengers and seeing plot-threads from Young Avengers being picked up and developed. I loved it then, I like it now. I like seeing Pod and Sunspot further developed from what Hickman did with them. But then of course they'll mention something that happened in a book that I don't care about, such as Inhumanity or Sam Wilson: Captain America and I'll go 'ugh, enough with the continuity noodling!'

The good thing about late Bendis was how his changes were so stupid and superficial that you could get almost everything of it through reading an interview. 'Oh, so Norman Osborn is in charge of the Marvel Universe. And it's because he shot the queen skrull? Ok, I do not need to know anything else about this, please don't tell me more.' And then you could read on.

It's not just that you in order to read Book A you needed to know what was going on in Book B, C, and D, it's that the crossover plots of Books B, C, and D kept interrupting the plot of Book A. I mention Avengers Academy again, because it's such a good example of this. The writer, Christos Cage, was clearly interested in building long arcs and mythos of its own for the book, but because it had the word "Avengers" in the title, at least once a year it had to include a multi-issue tie-in to various linewide crossovers, which diminished Cage's ability to give the book it's own, unique feel and arc.

I too like the idea that character backstories and old plot arcs are referenced, that's what gives the whole Marvel universe a lived-in feel: everything and everyone has a history. But these references should be integrated of the dialogue, or at most there could be a one or two page flashback to previous events. But there shouldn't be multi-issue detours into crossovers plots you don't care about, which you have to wade through to continue reading the plot that got you interested in the book to begin with.

I think there are currently more niche titles, and a more diverse range of niches, than I can remember in a long time. Maybe not niche title groups, per se, but the niches are there.

I was just thinking the other day that Milligan's []X-Force[] was such a weird outlier at the time it was coming out but now it seems to fit right in with a lot of the stuff Marvel has been publishing lately.

More and more I'm realizing that I am more interested in who the writer is than I am in following specific characters; as a result, I am interested in Al Ewing's and G. Willow Wilson's books more than anything else.

otm

Yeah, definitely otm.

Yeah, which is why DC is so frustrating - they have *great* characters and fuck all good writers

Geoff Johns is supposedly doing a Green Lantern book again. We need aldo to check out all the Rebirth books again. That thread was one of the best on this board.

It's interesting how things have reversed between DC and Marvel... DC used to be the company with great writers who attracted readers outside the regular fanbase too (Morrison, Moore, Ostrander, Milligan, Robinson, Gaiman, Ennis, etc) whereas Marvel was more about devoted fans reading anything with their favourite characters (the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises being prime examples). But now it's pretty much the other way around.

Obviously Marvel had great writers before the 00s too, but they were more in the category of "fan favourites": continuity-heavy plotters like Claremont or Busiek or Stern who were loved by those already into superhero comics, but didn't have the cross-audience appeal of Moore or Gaiman or Morrison.

It's mostly hit and miss? Marvel's cultivated writers more since 2000, which is the same point where Axel Alonso jumped ship from editing Vertigo titles to work there. I think editorial gets short shrift when it comes to attributing success, but in terms of which writers/artists are cultivated it's more painfully obvious when they're less competent.

DC went through years of Karen Berger transitioning out of her role as part of Vertigo and it seems like their line has become weaker every year.

This shift hugely attributable to editorial IMO

I honestly have no idea who is holding the reins at DC editorial but every title I've enjoyed seems to have succeeded despite the greater editorial direction, not because of it

Marvel's MO after the independent spinout of the early 90s (Image etc) seemed to be to pull in even tighter and have editorial dictate really mediocre story ideas while leaning on people who were willing to be their workhorses

x-men titles kind of had this soap opera-lite feel that was indebted to claremont (although with less expository dialogue) that had only occasional entertaining moments but a lot of issues

xxpost Last I knew, Bob Harras was running things (into the ground) at DC. Which, if you remember his stewardship of Marvel in the mid-'90s, lends some pretty heavy credence to your comments re: editorial.

good ol' Bob

oh is THAT how Lobdell got a DC gig?

what, you didn't notice the magic of Harras/Lobdell/Nicieza being at DC?

lol at wikipedia's list of "key people" at DC

Dan DiDio (Co-Publisher)
Jim Lee (Co-Publisher)
Bob Harras (Editor In Chief)
Geoff Johns (Chief Creative Officer)

same list also appears on wikipedia as an example of the peter principle

didio is garbage

marvel banished jeph loeb to marvel studios, but i am unsure which bad decisions there are his

i've always assumed loeb is behind any bad decisions marvel studios make

Thankfully, I don't think his is a creative role currently. Long may he remain exactly where he's at.

Not going to hugely disagree with the hits and misses people have mentioned above. I had really high hopes for Moon Girl but it's kind of meandering. I quite like the Parker Spidey book in Cuba/Latin America but I might be alone. ChoHulk is better than it deserves to be and the Patsy Walker book is at least as good as Squirrel Girl. Bizarrely, both the Venom and Carnage books are 100x as good as you'd expect. Illuminati is a frustrating read but is actually quite entertaining and Angela is imo superior in an awful lot of ways to LadyThor. Also Hercules not as much fun as when it was Hulk iykwim but worth a look. Oh, and Al's Contest of Champions thing is a throwaway delight.

Pleasant Hill is not actively bad. The Jim Starling cosmic thing is a giant pile of crap. And it's hard to work out which is the worst X-Men book but perhaps Greg Land saves Uncanny from that fate. Now THAT'S damning with faint praise.

Anyway, so Steve Rogers. Who didn't see that coming?

PS I could be tempted to do a Rebirth thread.

i'm always gonna be six months back with Marvel Unlimited... so the best things going six months back are the star wars books.

Aldo, please do a Rebirth thread.

ulysses is not far off the mark, the Star Wars books (Vader especially) are some of the better things Marvel has published recently.

Yeah the two main Star Wars books are really aceing it since the big crossover.

Also - a great Spidey comic from Tumblr (!)
http://hannahblumenreich.tumblr.com/post/141936003298/that-take-out-is-going-to-be-freezing-by-the-time

Aldo, please do rebirth!!!!!!!!!!

My god, do you want to actually kill the man?

Worth it

kudos to Al for this American Kaiju plot, I'm laughing

Coates's Black Panther selling huge number in some parts of the country (like 300 copies in a shop that normally sells 75 Amazing Spider-Mans per issue)l, I did okay but I'm not exactly shocked that TNC didn't generate a rush in the buckle of the Bible Belt.

it's... readable? Little flowery on the prose. It's a single issue, hardly fair to judge anyone based on that.

$5 for 23pp, Black Panther is for the people

It¨s good. It's not earthshaking or twist filled, or unusual like something like The Vision. But it's thoughtful, well plotted, and some of the artwork is pretty awesome. The scene with the two lovers in silhouette was beautiful.

Little flowery on the prose

Don McGregor tribute?

you tell me
http://i.imgur.com/jVUruU1.png

btw, on thread recommendation I read the first six issues of Tom King's The Vision... it's great!

lol "beautiful"

why can't the internet tell me if the Tom King in comics from 2016 is the Tom King in comics from the 90s

Why is that lol?

I mean, I doubt it, but I'd like to think DC finally caught on to the talent behind Snookums, That Loveable Transvestite

lol because the panel as posted by forks was unremarkable bigtwo drawing with block computer colouring (and clunky typing over the top, not that that's on Stelfreeze &/or whoever else, but it's still part of the panel)

It's not the most original drawing, no, and nothing in the scene is. But I still think it's beautiful. And it's not normally how the bigtwo draws black skin, I don't think, not to speak of how scenes with two half nude lesbians tend to be drawn.