Marvel Comics blabbery

the inversion thing was pretty half-assed, I have the feeling it was pitched and a few projects (Iron Man, Carnage) were spun off, a few characters were conveniently changed for use in different titles (Sabretooth) and the rest of it was just kind of hand-wavey

I also thought it was incredibly poor timing to have the mantle of Captain America pass over to Sam Wilson just in time to turn him into an honorless, murdering bastard as part of a widely-hyped company-wide crossover.

very bad

I mean, between that and launching a limited series by Jeph Loeb titled "CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE" it was an amazing time for ill-advised editorial direction

I stared at that solicitation for so long, trying to convince myself it was a joke

Remender's X-FORCE was great but I can't believe you guys liked anything else he touched. Total blind squirrel finding a nut situation.

His Uncanny Avengers didn't end well but I enjoyed most of it. It was also MILES BETTER than the current incarnation, which appears to assume that everyone involved has had serious head trauma that has left them unable to not make the shittiest possible choice for any given situation.

Yeah, compared to the shit dribble of the current Avengers continuum its passable but that's a damn low bar.

Yeah, tried a few Remender issues of the Avengers (storyline involving the Red Skull?), and they weren't for me at all - thought they were badly written just in terms of the dialogue/captions, never mind the clunky plotting, and he didn't seem to have any real feel for the characters at all (but I'm a Bendis Avengers stan, which seems to put me v much in the minority here)

Btw who other than Al Ewing is doing this world building stuff at the moment?

The following, from the letters page of this month's All New Hawkeye, maybe sums up what a clusterfuck Marvel is just now.

So there you have it, the end of All New Hawkeye by Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez. I know what you're thinking: "What?! They can't go!! Those guys just got here!!" I know, I know... I had the same reaction at first. Chill. Though this is technically issue #6 of our series, it's really more like part 11 of an (almost) yearlong story that Jeff and aragon wanted to tell.

If you've been reading Hawkeye since Matt Fraction and David Aja's run...or if you've been reading since Jeff and Ramon's first issue... or if you've been reading since their second first issue... we thank you for joining us for this ride.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/10/103503/3744893-face+palm.png

Not sure you know, but that Loeb series fits in with other origin tales he has done with Tim Sale. The Hulk one is Green, the Spider-man is Blue and the Daredevil was Yellow (as in his original costume.). There was a first issue of that Cap series published like 5 years ago, so Sale must have finally finished the rest.

I guess there was a "preview issue" in 2008, but yeah, I think we're all aware it's a thematic thing

The fact they released the real series years later implies it's not really contingent on continuity and could be released at any time which actually kind of makes it _worse_ that they decided the right time to release it was when the titular Captain America was a black man

it just sat around for eight years, couldn't it wait another year or so?

Or been burned in a heap along with everything else Loeb ever wrote? Is that really too much to ask?

can we have an international ilx meetup to burn our copies of jeph loeb comics? i feel like it'd be theraputic for all of us

I might not have any, at least in print

I have at least the first three of his Challengers Of The Unknown miniseries, nothing since that

i can lend you some for the occasion, no problem

Cannot unsee Ultimatum

Burn my eyes

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

I feel like the comics he's best known for are mostly just origin retellings or by-the-numbers plots that drop in the most well-known allies/villains with the "this is character X who acts in this way and progresses the plot by doing what they always do, in a way that ties back to the main antagonist"

which is, to be fair, a lot of non-Loeb comics but it really highlights how quickly he goes off the rails when he doesn't retell stories

Old Lunch otm

I will reiterate the props I've formerly given to Loeb for Ultimate X, which was good (with beautiful Art Adams art) and which redeemed like .00001% of the soul he tarnished so thoroughly by writing Ultimatum.

(It was more than a little jarring to see Loeb briefly on the rails and realize that he can actually write competently if he wants to. But I guess trying is hard or something.)

turns out I've been Loeb-free for 25 years (had seen Teen Wolf previously)

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/05/11/comics-you-should-own-flashback-challengers-of-the-unknown-1-8/

those Baker and Hempel covers tho

Never forget that Loeb wrote Commando. Yes, the Schwarzenegger movie.

the musculature and body poses of both cap and falcon is absolutely kraken me up here
http://i.cdn.turner.com/tntla/images/portal/10108/37298/75244/2412122.jpg

like how deep is the spandex into the creases of those guys quads

Good ol' Bart Sears. I remember when he was the 'realistic' alternative in a sea of Liefeld-a-likes.

I wonder what caused Sam's muscles to start melting.

Justice League Europe was one of the first superhero comics I ever bought, so I'll always have time for Bart Sears, and his steroidal duck faces.

This guy is like the Todd Van Der Werff of awful comics writing:

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/captain-america-takedown-apology.html#

here's a pair of pages from Marvel's Planned Parenthood promotional comic from 1976, "The Amazing Spider Man vs The Prodigy".
Different times.
http://i.imgur.com/4XVl0mg.png

I just got a vivid image of Spidey swinging into a music venue and pulling the plug on a mind control device just before the Prodigy launched into their new hit single, 'Knock My Bitch Up'.

I scanned across that image for "twisted firestarter", didn't find it, closed tab

spidey discovers the contemporary pro life conservative agenda
http://i.imgur.com/IL7Moz0.png

Just read Millar's Civil War for the first time - the digital version was on sale. What an incredible piece of garbage! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But still -- baffled why anyone would choose to film it -- the story just turns all your faves into gigantic murdering arseholes. (I assume the movie is much better.)

This guy is like the Todd Van Der Werff of awful comics writing:

clicked through just long enough to check it was Abraham Riesman

tbf, he's an even worse television writer

Just read Millar's Civil War for the first time - the digital version was on sale. What an incredible piece of garbage! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But still -- baffled why anyone would choose to film it -- the story just turns all your faves into gigantic murdering arseholes. (I assume the movie is much better.)

― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, May 13, 2016 4:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's Millar's shtick all over, isn't it. Everyone's either a psychotic arsehole or a victim of needless cruelty.

The film is nothing like that, thankfully.

to be fair to millar, sometimes they're a psychotic arsehole AND a victim of needless cruelty

I think my perspective on Civil War is salvaged somewhat by having read the entire crossover, of which Millar's contribution was just a small piece.

It's a solid concept, and the art is pretty decent at humanising Millar's childish dialogue, but so much of it - Robot Thor killing Goliath, for example, is proper "what were they fucking thinking?!?" without the saving grace of being at least interestingly batshit.

ugh, I just remembered speedball's s&m makeover :(

that was actually the character Voldo from the SoulCalibur video game series

lol

It's kinda weird that they chose Millar to write the central book in a huge crossover, given that his contributions to the Marvel Universe proper at that point consisted of his Marvel Knights Spider-Man book and a brief run on Wolverine.

Ostrander had written nothing for DC before Legends, and Byrne had drawn one issue of a Batman miniseries in 1980. Mantlo had written nothing for DC, Sears had drawn nothing for DC, and McFarlane had done a few months on Infinity Inc before Invasion!. It works fine if the people are any good at what they do.

As further illustration of this principle, Brad Meltzer had written one six-month run on Green Arrow before Identity Crisis.

Yeah, but there's no accounting for the stuff those weirdos at DC do.